Daniel admitted the danger.
He said Catherine had spent months teaching him that he had no choices.
The reply did not make him free, but writing it allowed him to state what he would not do.
Abram accepted the message and departed before sunrise.
Finch summoned Daniel to the office two days later.
He claimed the mill repairs had cost more than expected and accused Daniel of wasting timber.
Daniel brought the damaged boards to prove that the original supports were rotten.
Finch glanced at them without interest.
He told Daniel that a messenger from Virginia had offered enough money to settle Pike’s debts if Daniel was transferred at once.
Finch had already prepared the papers.
On the desk lay the same ledger Daniel had seen before.
This time the special mark beside his name had changed from a triangle to a cross.
Daniel asked what the mark meant.
Finch snapped the book shut and told him it was none of his concern.
Later Rose overheard a clerk explain the symbol.
A cross meant that the transfer was urgent and the buyer had assumed the risk of injury during transport.
Daniel understood that the Colonel’s men were preparing to move him whether he agreed or not.
Thomas wanted to escape that night.
Rose insisted they needed a route that could carry more than one person.
Several children at Red Creek had disappeared into other sales over the previous year, and their families had begun asking Thomas for help.
Daniel knew it would be dangerous to turn a rescue of one man into an escape for many.
He also knew that every person faced their own risks and deserved to choose rather than be drafted into somebody else’s plan.
They spoke individually to those who had expressed interest and did not tell anyone more than necessary.
Among them was Josephine, a mother whose husband had been sent to a railroad construction camp.
She wanted to leave with her two boys, but she feared one child could not walk through the woods after an old foot injury.
Thomas promised they would not abandon the child on the road.
Rose began gathering strips of cloth that could pad a wagon floor.
Daniel inspected the storage cart’s axle and discovered it could carry the extra weight if they replaced a cracked pin.
The practical work made the plan real enough to frighten him.
They were no longer imagining freedom as a distant country.
