Legacies by Janet Dailey Page B

Master Blade."
    "Loyalty has got nothing to do with being a slave. It's something you give freely because it's been earned—not because you'll feel the lash of a whip otherwise. Slave or free, I would feel the same toward Miss Eliza. And every slave in this world has his dreams of freedom, Ike, and don't you ever think otherwise. But a slave has only got two ways to get his freedom—he can either earn enough money to buy it, Or serve his master the best he can and hope that he will be rewarded with his freedom. Running away isn't being free. It's just running, trading one life of fear for another."
    Ike lowered his head. "What about this war everybody is talking about, Uncle Shad? Do you think they will really send armies into the South to free all the slaves?"
    "That's what everybody says, and I think it might happen."
    Ike heard the hesitancy in his uncle's voice as if he, too, was uncertain whether he should believe freedom could come to them. Somewhere nearby a lark sang. Ike gazed at the plantation, the manor house, the orchards, the distant slave cabins, and the fields of tall corn and cotton. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be free. This was the only life he had known. Every morning he had awoken to the sound of the horn blowing, summoning the slaves to work. Every day, he had done what he was told to do. He had never owned anything in his life, not even the clothes on his back.
    "If you were free, Uncle Shad, what would you do?" he wondered.
    "I would teach." The answer came quick and strong. Surprised, Ike glanced at the slender wisp of a man who was his uncle. There had never been any size to him. And Ike had never thought of him as being strong. His mind was quick— and filled with many stories and much knowledge, but strong? No, Ike had never thought of him that way. Now he saw his uncle's strength—there, in his face as he dreamed. "I would build a schoolhouse and I would teach as many children as the building would hold. I would free them from ignorance because it enslaves."
    Ike said nothing. Instead he let his uncle's words ring in the summer air, quietly spoken yet no less fervent. Dreams. There had to be more than dreams.
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    Lije stood with the others on the shaded front veranda that served as an impromptu grandstand for the afternoon's match race. The irregular course followed a narrow dirt lane that swung away from the house, curved between two fields, and circled back to the front of it, with the iron ring post serving as the finish line.
    "Can you see them yet? Can you see them?" Sorrel bounced up and down with excitement, straining to catch a glimpse of the racers.
    "Not yet." Lije scanned the dirt track between the fields. "They should be making the turn at the fields about now. We should see them any minute."
    Too impatient to wait, Sorrel dashed off the steps and into the center of the temporary race course. Temple took a step off the veranda. "Sorrel, you come back here this instant."
    "I will, Mama. I will." But she continued to peer down the road. Just as Temple started after her, Sorrel turned, all excited. "Here they come! Here they come!" she cried, running back to the veranda.
    The sound of drumming hooves reached Lije first; then he saw the two horses racing toward the house, both riders bent low. The sleek black filly was in the lead, stretched out flat and driving effortlessly. On her heels pounded a bright red chestnut. The chestnut surged forward in a burst of speed.
    "He's catching her," Will murmured, intent on the racing pair. "He's catching her."
    "Come on, Firestorm," Eliza urged, her earlier objections to the race forgotten in the excitement of it. "Come on, boy."
    "Run, Shooting Star. Run!" Sorrel shouted in counterpoint.
    Off to the side, Alex muttered directions to the jockey. "Stop holding her back. Let her have her head. Let her run."
    As the two horses thundered closer, the black filly seemed to flatten out a bit more