Flight to Freedom by Ray Anselmo

Author:Ray Anselmo
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Million Dreams Press
Published: 2020-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

Calder had noticed he hadn’t seen Vespasian since that first morning he came to town, so after dinner and the dishes he left Rose reading Little Dorrit and walked over to Annabelle Lawson’s boarding house to see how he was doing. That wasn’t his only reason for going – he wanted to think about what Rose had told her about her life, and that was easier to do when she wasn’t in the same room.

Yes, he’d been through some terrible times – after all, he’d been a slave from birth, and wasn’t free until he was almost 28. But it was one thing to never know anything better, and another to be born free and then be forced into a kind of slavery. For that matter, while he’d had to work hard in bondage, he’d never had to give the mistress of the house his body. He shuddered at the very thought.

It bothered him that she’d been with so many men, including the Bauers and Gavin, but … well, that was the past. That was the only law in Redemption Bluff, if you could call it a law: you didn’t hold someone’s past against them. That was the only way a town of outlaws and renegades and orphans and widows and prostitutes and slaves could stay together – you let go of your own past, and everyone else’s too. You forgave, you forgot and you moved on.

Although no one in town knew everything about his past. One event, he’d kept to himself for fear of a noose if he didn’t. It was easier to sweep Rose’s history aside than his own.

He arrived at the boarding house to find Vespasian sitting in the parlor by the fire, a blanket across his lap. “Hey, brother,” Vespasian said heartily. “Good timing – I think I’m finally in shape to receive a visitor.”

Calder sat on the love seat opposite him. “In shape? What happened?”

“Caught a cold from being out in the rain,” Vespasian replied, then laughed, a big booming laugh. “Serves me right, being in such a hurry that I was traveling on a night like that. Haste makes waste, the old man says.”

“I’m sorry you were sick. Where were you heading that you had to get there so fast?”

“Back to Texas, to find another ranch to hire on at. I’m a cowboy, don’t you know?”

“I didn’t know that. You come up north with a cattle drive?”

“Sure did – from the K-Bar-O Ranch near Fort Worth all the way up to the railhead in Ellsworth. Twenty-four hundred head. And half of us cowboys colored boys.”

“That many?” Calder had heard a lot of Negroes had found jobs as ranch hands, but not the extent. “And you all got along with the whites?”

“Most of the time. Sometimes not – which is why I was going back alone to look for work. You know Ellsworth can get a little wild. Well, the second night after we arrived, all of us were visiting various establishments, and two crackers

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