Runaway (choose your own adventure

chapter four - a lying rider

A slave would be able to find a station or depot, by searching for a lantern lit in a window, usually next to a quilt that was hung behind it. Station masters, the people who ran them, often had to be careful with hiding them, thanks to the Fugitive Slave Acts, watchmen and slave hunters could search homes without a warrant, and if you were found helping a slave or stoping arrest, then you would be sent to jail for committing a crime. An estimate of  30,000 slaves were caught on the underground railroad.

While trying to make up my mind, I noticed a pair of shackles that were hidden under the seat of the wagon where the man was sitting. That was when the decision was made for me. I quickly turned towards the woods and ran for my life. I using the forest as protection knowing that he wouldn't be able to bring the wagon through the thick trees. 

I didn't stop for what felt like hours. It brought me back to when I had first escaped. My legs of fire, and my breath cold ice plaguing my throat. I didn't dare look back, knowing that if I was being followed, I would be caught by paralyzation. In the dark, it was almost imposable to see at the speed I was going. As I passed trees, the melted into green and brown blurs, against the dark the seemed like the formed into the net of darkness itself following me in tight pursuit, ready to catch me in the cold abyss of fear. I didn't know where I was going, but it was better than going backward.

I didn't succumb to my fatigue this time. I kept running and running. I kept going, ignoring all signs that I should probably stop, but then I saw something so beautiful I didn't think I would live long enough to see it. I went through the forest and found a dirt road that I had so I started trailing it just off in the dark where I, hopefully, wouldn't be seen inside the thick bushes and vines. To a normal white person, it would just be another private home out in the woods, and nothing else. But they, hopefully, and probably, didn't know about the Railroad. A lantern was lit the window making a quilt hanging just inside look like it was glowing. I took a look around to check for watchmen or another slave catcher. After finding none. I quickly walked up to the door and knocked.