Free Louis L'Amour by The Warrior's Path Page B

minute, and then she said, “It will be the same, I think. Perhaps worse. If it were not for my father, I would walk away one day and never look back.”
    â€œWhy don’t you …” I caught myself, not wishing her to misunderstand, “and your father come south to Shooting Creek? You would like it there, I believe, and there is a place. One of our farmers was killed by Indians, and his cabin is a strong one. It is empty.”
    â€œThank you.”
    She gave no sign that she thought it a good suggestion or not, so I said nothing further. After a moment we started on, walking steadily into the night. Yance carried Carrie for more than a mile, and we stopped again.
    Henry was impatient. “It is foolish. We cannot escape. They will surely find us.”
    â€œWould you leave them?” I asked.
    He threw me a disdainful glance. “Of course not, but we will all be taken.” He paused a minute. “You do not know them. They are vicious, and they are cruel.”
    â€œWhose slave were you?”
    â€œA ship’s captain. He has been much along this coast, and he has made swift attacks on Indian villages and carried some of them off for slaves. I was his servant.”
    He turned his head toward me. “To lie in the hold of a ship was not good, and there was no chance for escape. So I let them hear me speaking English and tellinganother slave that I was once servant to an Englishman. It was not true, but it worked as I hoped it would, and the captain sent for me. I became his servant and henceforth was upon deck. Then I taught him to trust me.”
    â€œAnd how did you get ashore?”
    â€œLashan needed a man, and there was no other, so for this one time they left me ashore to help him. It was what I had been waiting for.”
    â€œIf we get through this, you will return to Africa?”
    He was silent, thinking about it. “I know not,” he grumbled. “I have seen much since then. Perhaps there is a better life here.”
    â€œThere are slaves here, too.”
    â€œThere are slaves everywhere. Many are slaves, one way or another, who do not realize they are, but I shall not be a slave. There is opportunity here even among white men.”
    â€œYou are not worried about your color being a handicap?”
    â€œWorried, no. In some ways it will work against me, and in others it will work for me. You wonder why I speak English as I do? I learned it from an Englishman who was a slave in my country. He was captured when a party came ashore from a ship. He began as the lowest of slaves, but it was discovered that he knew something of treating illnesses, although he was not a medical man. Then he became my teacher, also. Soon he was my father’s adviser and confidant. When my father died, he returned to his country and returned with gold and diamonds my father had given him.
    â€œHe stood upon the shore with me before his ship sailed, and he said to me what I should remember, that any man can be a slave, and a few men, if they will it, can become kings. He put his hand upon my shoulder and told me that in the world were two kinds of people, those who wish and those who will, and the world and its goods will always belong to those who will.
    â€œÂ â€˜When I came to your land, I was a slave, but I shouldered whatever burden was given me. I looked for other burdens, and for those who will shoulder a burdenthere will always be many burdens to carry. Finally I helped your father, whose burdens were growning too heavy for him, and your father rewarded me, first with freedom and second with wealth.’ ”
    Well, it seemed to me it was time to move along, so I got up. “Henry,” I said, “it looks to me like you had a good teacher.”
    â€œYes, it is so, although it took me much time to learn it. What he taught was good, but what his life showed me was even better.”
    The day had not yet come when we stopped in a hidden place