Pain shot through the joint.
He pushed himself up and heard riders approaching the lower path.
He dropped into the water and followed the bank beneath the overhanging branches.
Cold soaked his clothes.
His knee throbbed.
He kept moving.
Ahead a small light flashed once from the far bank.
Jonah’s signal.
Daniel climbed through the reeds and found Isaiah waiting beside the second wagon.
The blacksmith caught him by the shoulders.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not enough to stop.”
Behind them another shot sounded.
Jonah urged the horses forward.
The wagon crossed the shallow ford and disappeared into the trees.
Daniel looked back at the dark plantation.
He had spent thirty-one years there.
Every familiar roof carried memories of people who had been told they belonged to someone else.
He knew leaving did not release those still inside.
He also knew remaining would not free them by itself.
The wagon turned north, and Blackwood House vanished behind the trees.
Daniel sat beside Samuel, who reached for his hand without speaking.
The boy’s fingers were warm.
Daniel held them until the first light appeared above the hills.
Chapter 24: The Road Beyond the Border
For several days the travelers moved between farm roads, wooded paths, and houses where strangers offered food without asking for a full account of their past.
Sarah Price’s network supplied instructions that changed as conditions changed.
At one house a farmer warned them about a patrol on the main bridge.
At another a woman exchanged their exhausted horses for a fresh team.
They slept in barns when necessary and inside kitchens when it was safe.
Daniel learned the difference between a place that offered concealment and a place that offered genuine welcome.
He had expected fear to disappear the moment he left Blackwood land.
Instead it traveled with him.
Every rider approaching from behind made him sit straighter.
Every innkeeper who studied the wagon seemed to see more than an ordinary traveler.
His knee remained swollen, and the cold nights made it ache.
Hannah insisted he rest whenever they stopped.
“Samuel thinks you can fix anything,” she told him.
“I’d hate for him to discover you can’t fix your own leg.”
Daniel almost smiled.
The joke reminded him of Isaiah before the danger became constant.
At a small town near the state line they received news from Avery.
Richard had reported them as fugitives and offered a reward.
Silas claimed Daniel had assaulted him at the forge.
