A green measuring worm is sent by the devil to measure someone for their coffin.

“We gots to get movin,” the fat man said. “Now load that girl onto your wagon, but put her up front on the seat and tie her feet good. Don’t let it show that you got her tied. We’re nearin an ordinary where there’s bound to be travelers. Further down the road a piece there’s a town. This part of the road will have more folks travelin it.”

“Where’s the rest of my catch?” Shag asked. “I got my list here for keepin track of ones I caught.”

Shag pulled a folded paper out of his pocket and read aloud:

“ ‘Armour Washington. Black. One eye missin, scarred on back.’ ”

“ ‘Enoch Smith, about twenty years old. Light brown. Branded on right cheek with owner’s CW initials.’ ”

“ ‘Zenobia, fourteen years old. Dark brown, amber eyes. Scarred on wrists and back.’ ”

“ ‘Better Smith, about seventeen years old. Mulatto, blue eyes. Whip marks on her legs and back, three fingers missing.’ ”

“ ‘Brightwell, tall, black. Scarred on back and face. Long scar under arm to waist.’ ”

“ ‘Theodate Hague. Abolitionist wanted for aiding fugitive slaves. Five feet tall. Sixty years old. White hair. Blue eyes. Private reward.’ ”

The slaves rose as they heard their names called—exceptin for Brightwell and Auntie.

“Brightwell,” Shag called, “Brightwell.”

Micajah walked over to Shag, spoke to him, and stood there watchin me.

Shag shook his head and said, “Oh, that were the one,” and kept on talkin to the man.

I looked around for Brightwell, but he were nowhere to be seen. Auntie laid on the ground at the foot of a broad walnut tree, her eyes closed, her knees drawed up to her chest.

Shag herded the silent men and girls into the wagon and tied them to the sideboards. Nobody said a word. Zenobia looked over at me, her face wiped clean of feelin. Afore Shag jumped back down, I heard a sound, metal on metal. He had snapped fetters around the left ankle of the branded man, Enoch, and to the right ankle of the one-eyed man called Armour.

“Pick up your bag,” Shag said. “Get movin.” He thumbed toward the wagon.

I stopped walkin and pointed to Auntie. “Don’t leave that old woman out there. That’s a waste of a reward.”

“She’ll be dead in a day. Might as well leave her out with the other,” one of the men said, noddin toward the meadow. “We cain’t get no reward for catchin her if she don’t make it back.”

“Put that old woman in the wagon with us, and I’ll get her fit,” I said, “and you’ll get your reward. I just need some food, water, and a few herbs.”

The men talked together, then nodded in agreement.

Shag yelled to me to set my travelin bag below the seat. I walked over and slid it underneath. Afore I turned back, I felt inside the hidin place for my knife. When my hands wrapped around the long wooden handle my grandpa had carved, I felt like I were startin to set things to rights. I slid the knife down between the seat and the side of the wagon.

Shag and two other men carried Auntie over and throwed her into the back like a load of firewood. I shuddered when I heard the thud of her hittin the floor.

Auntie never moved—never opened her eyes—never made a sound. I watched Zenobia. A fat horsefly lit on her face. She didn’t blink.

All the men walked to their wagons and climbed in. The horses stirred and lifted their heads as though already feelin the road home under their hooves. One by one the wagons turned and headed south.

“Afore you tie me up, I want to see if that out there is my parents’ boy Brightwell.” I nodded toward the meadow.

“See fer yerself,” Shag said.

Mama, I thought, give me strength. I reached into my pocket and rubbed my thumb against the buckeye.

I walked through the meadow toward them bald-headed buzzards. They saw me comin, fixed me with their dead, dead eyes, hissed, grunted, and barely moved away from whatever they surrounded. It didn’t take me but a blink to know that it were Brightwell.

“Oh, Brightwell,” I cried. “Oh, oh, Brightwell.” He’d helped me, but there weren’t nobody by his side when he needed help. Now all the help in the world would come too late for him. My heart felt like it were broke into so many little pieces that nothin could ever make it come back together again. How had all the good slipped so far away?

I pushed the tears off my cheeks and turned back toward the wagon. Somehow I’d get even with Shag Honeybone, somehow and soon. I didn’t want to meet Zenobia’s eyes. She’d surely see that my hope were lyin back there in the meadow and give over to that death band of buzzards.

Shag spent some time tyin my feet to the buckboard. Then he covered them with my travelin sack. Nobody lookin would ever know that I were a prisoner too. I spread my feet as far apart as they would move and struggled to set them loose, but the knots held. Now I knowed how Zenobia and Brightwell and all them others felt when they was all chained and tied up and treated worst than animals.

Shag circled the wagon and bent to look at a rear wheel. Afore he come alongside to climb in, I looked back at Zenobia. She lifted her head and stared at me.

“Don’t worry,” I mouthed. “Don’t worry.”

Each hoof fall led us further south—and further from free soil. We were at the tip of the devil’s tail, the last wagon in the line. The old road were so rutted and dry that the wagons ahead of us disappeared in a rollin cloud of dust so thick that we couldn’t see nothin in front of us or on either side.

Shag slowed the horses and drawed back till we was out of the dust and far enough behind so’s we could breathe pure air again. He dipped his dirty fingers into a small tin of snuff and stuffed it into his bulging cheek.

The sun beat down; I thought I would die from my achin head and the heat and thirst. I looked back at the others; all but Zenobia set stock-straight, never movin or showin any feelins. The sweat run down Zenobia’s neck and her clothes stuck to her. She leant forward, her shadow shelterin Auntie from the sun.

“When are we stoppin for food and water?” I asked Shag, who never bothered to look my way.

“When I say it’s time,” he answered.

That man were meaner than a snappin turtle with bear teeth.

“If you want me to save that old Quaker woman so’s you can get a reward, you’re goin to have to find a stoppin place and let me tend to her.”

“When I say it’s time,” he repeated.

“I needs a drink and some food, and I needs to tend to some other things too.”

Shag looked over at me, turned his head, and spit an arc of tobacca over the side of the wagon.

“You’re nothin but trouble. I should’ve left you out in the field with the dead slave boy,” he said.

Dead slave boy. Dead slave boy. Please, Lord, take Brightwell to your heart. Why did the last thing he knew on this earth have to be more hate and more pain?

“Miss Abigail,” Zenobia called. “Miss Abigail, this old woman need some help.”

I looked over my shoulder. Auntie shifted beneath Zenobia’s shadow.

“Shag Honeybone, this will all be worth your while when you collect the money for the runaway slaves and her,” I said, pointin back to Auntie. “You best stop soon.”

“Whoa, whoooaaa,” he called as he pulled back on the reins and headed the horses toward the shade of trees.

We were so far behind the other wagons now that we couldn’t even see their dust.

“You stay put,” he said to me. “I got to go tend to myself now.”

He pulled back on the reins, the horses stopped, and Shag jumped over the side.

When he disappeared into the woods, I turned in the seat and said, “Zenobia, I gots my knife here.”

Zenobia and the others looked up at me. She nodded, then pointed toward the front of the wagon.

Shag walked toward us and said, “There’s a house over to the east. Woman workin out in a garden. We’re goin there to see what she can spare for us—don’t matter if she can spare it,” he said, “we’ll jus hep ourselfs.”

“Well, I cain’t go nowhere so long as I’m tied to this seat.”

He walked over to my side of the wagon and leant in to untie my feet. A green measurin worm had dropped from the tree and onto him. It humped up, stretched out, humped up again, and walked along between his shoulder blades, measurin him for his coffin.

I reached down, grabbed the handle of Grandpa’s knife good and tight, and lifted it above his back.