Evening December 1, 1858
Macon, Georgia
Will tried to draw Ellie closer to him in bed, but she pulled away from his embrace. “What’s the matter, Ellie?” he whispered. “Something bothering you?”
Ellie lay with her back to him, her hands covering her eyes. She did not want him to know she was crying, and she was not ready to discuss the reason.
“I’m a coward. I hate myself,” she said. “I don’t know why in the world you married me.”
“You? A coward? You are like an iron rod in a storm, Ellie. Nothing bends you,” Will answered.
“I hate it when people think I’m white. Why in the world was I born to look like that trollop, Miss Deb? What a curse!” Ellie said emphatically.
Will looked lovingly at the curves of her body lit by the moonlight through the bedroom window. “You are beautiful. I certainly know that I’m not in bed with Debra Collins, God forbid. People who know see a family resemblance, but that’s just ignorance. Anyone who looks deep knows you are twice the woman your half sister is. And Miss Deb looks like a horse, anyway, and you do not.”
“But I’m pale as a mushroom!” she said. “I hate being so white. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
“Sugar, in the dark everyone’s a Negro.”
Ellie snickered despite herself. “Maybe I should have married a blind man,” she said.
“Praise God I’m not blind. You are the greatest gift of my life.” William was silent a moment and then added, “You can hate your so-called father for what he did to your mother, Ellie, but don’t hate how you look or the color of your skin. Hating a color makes no sense. It’s like hating a fish because it swims or hating a house for being made of wood. Black or white, you’re the same person and there’s not a lick of sense being all twisted up about it.” He gently stroked her cheek and felt the moistness of the tears that still silently rolled down her face.
“Ellie,” he said, surprised, “you’re crying.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. Will was an angel of God to her, a protector who would never let her go. As his arms tightened around her chest, she warmed with desire. Afterwards, sweetly melded to his body, she felt she rested in a state of grace.
Will breathed more deeply, falling asleep, but Ellie lay wide awake.
She remembered the day Will rescued her from Cassius. She tossed heavily in bed and Will opened his eyes. Seeing that she disturbed his sleep, Ellie stroked one of his long-fingered hands. “God knows I love you. But I’m so afraid, Will. Perhaps your master needs money and will sell you tomorrow or next week or next year, and I’ll never see you again. It could happen, and I couldn’t live if it did.” She sensed that her words cut him deeply.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” he said, drowsily and sadly. “What you say is what we live with by day. But at night, it’s just me and you. Don’t let such thoughts make us sad when we’re together.”
She shook her head, rubbing her face into his chest. “I love you too much, Will, too much.”
He stroked her hair. “You are a wonder, Ellie. How can you love me too much? Are you afraid you’ll crush me with the weight of it? I swear I’m strong enough to take all the love you’ve got to give and more.”
“It’s me who’ll be crushed,” she said. “I love you so much that I married you after I’d sworn I’d never marry at all. I want so much to have your children, but won’t do that because our children will be slaves and belong to someone else, our children. How can it be on God’s earth that we can’t lay claim to each other and to our own children?”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Ellie,” he smiled.
“William Craft, you’ve been sold twice already. I mean, for the love of Jesus I was somebody’s wedding present, no different from a set of china plates.”
She fell quiet a moment, and then said, “Or what if your owner moves away? You’ll have to go. It happens all the time, Will. Before I met you I didn’t have hope. But you gave me hope for the future and now I’m more afraid than I was before. If I lose you I’ll die.”
Will sat up with his back against the headboard continuing to stroke her hair in the dark. “Ellie,” he said, “we’ve looked at this a hundred different ways. Things could be worse for us. We’re not field hands, at least, getting worked to an early grave. We’re not lashed like so many.”
“Don’t say that, Will,” she said with vehemence. “A bird in a golden cage is still a captive, the same as any chicken on some dry scrabble dirt farm. The owner can chop the head off that bird whenever he chooses. So don’t tell me it could be worse, because there’s nothing worse than losing the only thing in the world worth living for. I’d rather be free in a cave and eat roots and tree bark than live as a slave in a palace.”
She heard him sigh. “I swear, girl, when you get to feeling blue there’s no comforting you.”
She kissed his chest. “Yes there is,” she said. “We can share the hope we’ll be free.”
“Ellie, it’s a thousand miles from here to a free state. A slave’s got to have a written pass signed by his owner to buy a ticket on any train or boat and we can’t walk it, that’s certain. The slave hunters will be on our tails with their hounds to track us down within a day, two at the most. Even if you have a pass, patrols will stop and hold you until they know the pass is real. They’ll beat us, torture us, maybe even kill or maim one of us as a lesson to other slaves. And we’ll be sold to cruel masters who will know what we did, and they’ll make sure that you and I never see one another again. And that’s just the least of what they’ll do.”
“I’m quite sure that we can’t escape by foot,” Ellie said. “But maybe there is another way.”
“Don’t do this, Ellie,” Will sighed. “Why do we keep torturing ourselves?”
“Do you really mean that? You once told me we would find a way. You promised.”
“Ellie, I have to accept our situation like a man and deal with it. What else can we do?”
“I know what it’s like to be without hope, and I’m not ready to give it up just because our situation is difficult. A life without hope isn’t any life at all. No one knows that better than me. God meant for us to be free, Will, as free as any white man. If a white man can go where he wants, then that’s our right, too. We are all equals before God.”
William was quiet so long Ellie thought perhaps he had again drifted off to sleep, when suddenly he whispered. “Sugar, I want to have hope but what are we to do? Saying we should have rights doesn’t give them to us. Unless you’ve learned how to fly like bird, how on God’s earth are we going to get from here to Philadelphia?”
Ellie propped herself up on an elbow and looked up at him in the dark. Now she was ready to reveal a plan she had been considering for weeks, but afraid to say a word about until she was confident in her own mind it could work. She felt her pulse quicken as she said, “Will, I have a new idea. Like I said, a white man can go wherever he wants. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, but neither of us is a white man so what’s your point? Even a white woman can’t go wherever she wants, especially not in the company of a black man, even if she owns him. We’ve thought of this before, Ellie, and it won’t work.”
“So what if I was a white man? A white man can take a slave with him and nobody thinks anything of it. Anywhere at all, even up North. I could cut my hair and dress up like a fine Southern gentleman with a proper waist coat and britches. My chest and hips don’t have much curve, and I’m as tall as many smaller men. I’ve looked at this every way I can for the last two weeks and I believe it can work, William. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure in my own mind, but now I am. What do you think?”
Will pulled her face to his as if seeing her for the first time. After a moment of thought, he fumbled for the matches on the night stand and lit the oil lamp. Kneeling in front of her, his face damp with perspiration despite the winter chill in the room, Ellie reached out and stroked his face soothingly, his skin warm to the touch, the stubble prickly on his cheek.
Will laughed with delight. “It’s a crazy idea, Ellie. It’s more than crazy, it’s bug eyed howl at the moon crazy. But by God, I think it just could work and I can’t understand why we didn’t think of it before. You’re clever enough to imitate a man, and you have the right body for it. I never much cared for women with over ample bosoms and hips, thank the Lord. I don’t think we’ll even need to bind up your breasts. I can’t believe I’m saying this Ellie, but this could work!”
“I will work,” said Ellie with vehemence. “We’ll just have to plan carefully.”
Will sat back, one hand covering his mouth, his brow furrowed in thought. “We’ll have to get permission to be away a few days at Christmas. I’m sure they’ll let us go visit your mother. She hasn’t met me and it’s been years since they let you see her. Then we leave, only we dress you like a man and I’ll be your slave. A white man can go wherever he wants, just like you said, and take his slave with him. We could go by train from here to Savannah. From there, I think we can catch a boat for the North, but I’m not sure about that. We’d have to see where the boats go.”
Ellie had never seen him so excited. “It might not even be difficult. You’re already as stubborn as any man I know. And when you get your back up there’s nobody who can stand in your way.” He was so giddy Ellie feared he might pick her up, dance around the room and rouse the whole house.
“It’s still terrifying,” said Ellie. “I’ve spent night after night thinking about it, but now that I’ve spoken my mind, I’m frightened. It’s like standing on a knife’s edge. It’s possible we could live free, but if we fail it will be worse than death. It all depends on whether I can convince everyone I meet traveling across a thousand miles of slave country that I’m a white Southern planter. A man.” She felt a chill down her spine.
“And there’s another problem, Will,” she said. “I can’t read nor write and neither can you. I won’t be able to read the train and boat schedules, and I can’t sign a hotel register. What if I have to write a note of permission for your travel? I can’t do it.”
“We can make it happen,” Will protested, taking her hands and squeezing them. “It will happen. God wants us free, Ellie. I believe that with all of my heart. He’ll help us. He’ll find a way. All your life you’ve been around these people in their homes. You’re no field hand. You know how they talk and how they walk, and you know their manners. You know them ten times better even than me.”
Ellie shrugged. “That’s true and I know I could pretend to be the wife of a planter. I’m sure I could do that.”
Will shook his head vehemently. “No white woman, not even a planter’s wife, can travel the country accompanied only by a black male slave. We’ve thought on this before. You’re right that you’ve got to be a white man, Ellie, it’s the only way this can work.”
“But what about reading and writing?”
William bowed his head for a moment and Ellie saw doubt cross his face. He sat thinking, and then looked down at Ellie and smiled. “Now I have an idea. Maybe there is a way.”
She looked back at him eagerly. “What is it, Will?”
“You could pretend to be in poor health, with a severe case of arthritis particularly sharp in your right hand. I will put your arm in a sling and wrap it in a poultice. That way, you’ll have an excuse for not being able to write. Being in poor health, you’d also have an excuse to rest often and avoid too much conversation.”
“That’s brilliant!” Ellie said so loud in her excitement she slapped her hand over her mouth, listening to see if she had roused anyone in the house. “That could be the whole reason for me traveling,” she whispered. “I’m ill, I’m going to see a doctor in Philadelphia and I need my slave to help because I don’t have all my strength.”
Will hugged her. “We’re brilliant, sugar. It’ll work. Like Moses and his people escaping bondage in Egypt, we’ll cross a thousand miles of desert to the land of plenty. Praise God, Ellie, praise God, I know we can do this.”
Ellie pressed her lips together. “Maybe, William. But let’s not make a decision tonight.”
William reluctantly nodded. “Let’s both take the time to think. But Ellie, it will work. I want to leave tomorrow! This is what we’ve dreamed of and now we’ve found a way.”
Ellie smiled. “We’re different, William. You get an idea and you go charging off like a ball shot from a cannon. You’re full of energy and enthusiasm and you always find a way to make things work. You had to be like that to win my love. But we’ve got to think this through carefully. It’s a big risk, and you know what they’ll do if we’re caught.”
“But we won’t be,” he said hotly.
“Nobody can see the future. I just need time to think it over, sweet Will. I’m scared and I need to think, to see if there’s something we’re missing and to see if I can really do what we’re planning. It’s me who’s got to pretend to be a man. Your part we both know all too well. I’ve got to think on this.”
William nodded. “You think on it, but don’t take long. I know you. You’ve got to fret on every little thing until you’ve plumb worn it out. This is your idea to begin with, after all. You’ve got to tell me you’ll do this or I’ll go wild inside.”
Ellie nodded. “Why don’t you go to sleep? I can’t sleep and I’ve got to think.”
“I’m never going to sleep again until we get to Philadelphia,” Will grumbled. But he leaned over to blow out the oil lamp.
She smiled when, a few minutes later, she heard him softly snoring despite his protestations. William could always sleep, and she envied him that.
They would need money, she thought. They had a few hundred dollars they managed to save between them. Yes, she considered, that would be enough.
In her mind she went over every detail of how they would need to prepare. Then she thought about the trip and tried to imagine every possible circumstance they might encounter and how she might handle it. As she studied it, she considered it might be helpful to wear glasses. They would partially cover her face and give her a scholarly appearance. No one would suspect that someone wearing glasses could not read.
The next morning William awoke to find Ellie sitting exactly where she was when he went to sleep, staring at him.
“William,” she said, “I don’t know how good a chance we have. But, notwithstanding the dangers, with the help of God I think we might succeed. Therefore, if you will purchase the disguise I will do my best to try this escape, and we will trust our lives to the infinite protection and mercy of Almighty God.”
“You look determined, like a warrior,” Will said, smiling at her. “With God’s help, we will succeed.”