Dec 30, 2013 6 min read

? Chapter SEVENTEEN

THE STORY SO FAR: The Widow Hopkins, who owns slaves, has offered the Damron children a comfortable home and an education. Jesse and Moses must decide whether to stay or go on to their grandmother’s.

July 19-25, 1828. East to the Blue Lick, Kentucky.

Before we can answer the widow, Solomon and Louisa run toward us, chasing the puppy. Sandy scrambles up the porch steps, and Solomon and Louisa squeal as they try to catch him. “Calm down,” the widow says, but she smiles and beckons them over. Solomon and Louisa bounce on their tiptoes beside her, panting for breath. Their cheeks are pink, and Louisa even has some flesh on her bones. They never looked this well, even with Mama and Papa’s care. Is it right to make them leave?

The widow puts one hand on Louisa’s shoulder, the other on Solomon’s. “I was just asking your brother and sister if the four of you could stay here for good. Would you like that?”

Louisa’s face lights up like sunshine sparkling on water. “Can we?” she asks, but then her shoulders slump. “Would we be bound out?”

The widow shakes her head. “Of course not. You’d be just like my own children.”

Solomon wiggles away from the widow. He wraps one arm around my leg, his thumb in his mouth. “I want Mama,” he whispers.

I feel myself leaning one way, then the other, like prairie grass in a changing wind. Mama might tell us to stay here. She’d say it was better for us to be fed well and to have some book learning. But Papa would never stand for us to live where they keep slaves. And he told us to go home to Grandma, no matter what.

I glance at Moses. He holds his head high. I notice a dark line of hair above his lip. His eyes are steady on mine, and I know what we have to do.

“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am,” I tell the widow, “but we must keep traveling to our grandmother.”

Moses clears his throat. “We promised our father, on his deathbed – ” His voice breaks, then deepens, until he almost sounds like Papa. “We swore on the Bible that we’d go home,” he says.

The Widow Hopkins stands. She’s almost as tall as Moses, and her eyes flash. Louisa shies like a colt and skitters over next to us. I stroke Solomon’s curls to calm the shaking inside me.

“You children are foolish and ungrateful,” the widow says. “Moses’s foot may never heal if you keep traveling, and the roads are dangerous. Think how sick you were when we found you. And what about the little ones? Shouldn’t they have a good home?”

Now she’s making me mad. My face and neck feel hot. “They will have a good home,” I tell her, although we don’t even know if Grandma is still alive. “And we’ll give everything back.” I bend over to unlace my boots.

Louisa starts to cry. “Can’t I keep my new doll?”

The widow puts out her hand. “Don’t be so proud, Jesse. Keep your gifts. They’re useless to me.” She stalks out of the room.

“Whew.” Moses lets out his breath with a sigh. “We sure made her angry.”

“I don’t care.” I look up into his dark eyes, so much like Papa’s. “You could have left us here and gone west. Did you think of that?”

He looks a little ashamed. “Only for a minute. We’re still a family, Jess.” He reaches out his arms and pulls us all into a tight circle. “Even without Mama and Papa.”

The next morning we’re headed out again. Louisa and Solomon settle in the wagonbed with Sandy. The wagon is loaded with jugs of fresh water and enough cornmeal, beans, and pork rind to last us another week.

But the Widow Hopkins won’t come out to see us off. Only Emmy is there to say goodbye. I whisper in her ear. “I’ll come back for you, when I’m grown.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Then I hope your grandma gives you a passel of money,” she says. “Or else you’d better show up on something faster than your pokey mule.”

“I’ll be riding a horse faster than Moses’s Pearl,” I say. We’re both dreaming, but I can’t help it. I wave to her until the widow’s brick house disappears beyond the crest of the hill.

“Someday I’ll buy Emmy’s freedom,” I tell Moses.

I expect him to scoff at me, but instead he nods. “I’ll help you if I can,” he says. “I still feel bad we couldn’t bring George with us.” We lean close together, our shoulders almost touching, for a long time.

We follow the Licking River down to the Blue Lick. The mule’s tongue rubs back and forth over the salt. Animal tracks – deer, fox, and bear – cover the lick. We follow the buffalo trace over the mountains. The trail is steep, so sometimes Louisa and I walk beside the wagon. The air is cooler up high, and the tight hills and shadowy hollows remind me we’re almost home.

Emmy’s uncle gave us good directions, and as we come closer to the Big Sandy River, we stop worrying about getting bound out. We tell strangers our grandma is right down the road, and no one bothers us.

One hot afternoon we come over the top of a ridge. The birds are still, and the leaves of the sycamore trees hang heavy. Down below, a pale brown river – the color of our puppy – twists through a narrow valley. We climb down from the wagon and stand there, looking.

Finally Solomon whispers, “Is that it?” When Moses nods, Solomon whoops. “Look, Sandy! Your very own river.” Sandy howls like a real coondog. Louisa laughs and tugs at his ears.

I smile, but Moses bites his lower lip. I can guess what he’s thinking: What if we’ve come all this way – and Grandma isn’t there to welcome us?

• NEXT WEEK: “Where’s My Grandma?”