Rose warned Daniel that a plan built entirely on a stranger’s decency would fail unless they found an additional route.

She introduced him to Aunt Lottie, a cook who had served at Red Creek since before Pike inherited the land.

Lottie knew which carts left the estate without being inspected because she prepared supplies for their journeys.

A wagon carrying flour to the mission house left every second Thursday.

The driver, a quiet man named Abram Sloane, sometimes accepted extra parcels without recording them.

Thomas suspected Abram had helped other people, but he refused to ask directly while guards were nearby.

They decided to test him with a letter containing no dangerous names.

Daniel wrote a note asking whether a midwife named Hannah Vale could be found near Harper’s Ford.

He struggled with the pen because he had learned to write as a child but rarely had paper to practice on.

Rose corrected his spelling without treating the mistakes as evidence of ignorance.

She folded the note into the lining of a flour sack and asked Abram to deliver it if an opportunity arose.

The driver examined the sack, then looked toward the yard where guards were arguing about a missing harness.

He took it without asking questions.

It was the first step in a plan that might bring news rather than punishment.

While they waited for Abram, Daniel learned more about Red Creek’s bookkeeping.

Pike’s steward, Albert Finch, maintained a ledger showing the purchase and sale of every enslaved person under his employer’s control.

Daniel had seen ledgers before, but Finch’s book included unusual marks in the margins.

A small triangle meant that a buyer had imposed an undisclosed condition.

A circle meant that a person was to be held temporarily rather than sold outright.

Daniel’s entry carried both symbols.

He discovered this during repairs to the steward’s office door.

Finch left the ledger open on the desk while he went outside to speak to a rider.

Daniel did not move the book.

He simply read the lines visible from the doorway and memorized them as quickly as he could.

His name appeared beside a payment from Catherine’s household account, not Richard’s business office.

Under special instructions Finch had written that the purchaser must keep Daniel available for retrieval and must not permit his name to appear in ordinary resale notices.

Daniel understood why Catherine had arranged the transfer.

She had not allowed her husband to dispose of him permanently.