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Silas rested his forehead against the cellar’s wooden beams, listening for the shuffle of boots overhead. Thunder rolled in the distance. An edge of lightning lit the cracks in the planks, and for an instant, the flicker revealed the tattered scrap of paper he kept tucked inside his shirt. That single page—taken from a nameless, coverless book found on a lynched runaway—showed a faint drawing of a shepherd leading sheep through a valley, and Silas’s fingers curled around it like a secret promise.
He had never quite fit the flock. Born light-skinned, he was mocked by the overseers, sneered at by his own kin. He wondered if, perhaps, he had been misplaced from birth. If a shepherd truly existed, Silas reasoned, maybe this so-called “black sheep” was worth saving after all.
Outside, the late-summer night roiled with an approaching storm. The taste of metal in the wind signalled danger. From his cramped hiding place, Silas recalled the old preacher’s sermon from the week before, when the withered man had spread his arms on the makeshift stage and declared:
“God makes all in His fold. Why strain against the fences when the Shepherd has provided safe pastures?”
That day, the slaves had lined up for their paltry rations under an overseer’s glare. In their faces, Silas saw neither relief nor safety, only the raw ache of confinement.
Yet something in the preacher’s eyes—some flicker of guilt—told Silas that even a sermon could ring false when carried by the wrong shepherd. There was a heaviness there, an unspoken apology behind the man’s words.
Above him, a door slammed. Voices spoke in tense, hushed tones. “He can’t have gone far,” said one. Another voice snorted, “He’s too pale to hide in the dark.” The laugh that followed held no warmth. Silas pressed back against the damp wall, his heart hammering. They were searching for him—he who dared to pick up bits of learning he should never have touched.
From the damp cellar, he closed his eyes and remembered the day he found the runaway’s body, stiff and cold at the base of a hanging tree. Forced to dig the grave, Silas had spotted a scrap of parchment sticking from the corpse’s pocket and snatched it at the last second. The faint words about a Shepherd saving lost sheep haunted him ever since.
Lightning sliced across the sky, and he felt in that crackling moment the spark of resolve. He couldn’t wait in the cellar forever. He needed to risk everything for a chance at freedom.
Rain hammered the roof as Silas emerged into the open. He kept low and darted behind the barn. His cloak, frayed and waterlogged, clung to him like a curse. A flash illuminated the swaying cotton fields, each white boll gleaming like wool. How many had he picked, stooped under that merciless sun? The older slaves sometimes called themselves “sheared sheep,” their dignity stripped away one harsh season at a time.
Somewhere in the yard, voices rumbled. He froze, crouching behind stacked crates. He recognized one as the black foreman, a man whose crooked rifle and cunning had earned him a grim respect among the whites. A bullet fired by that rifle, Silas knew, would be unstoppable at close range.
A memory surfaced—an overheard conversation about ballistics, distance, speed, time. The preacher had once mentioned Isaac Newton’s laws to the white children, while the black slaves were told to keep working. Silas, half-hidden behind a door, had listened and tried to piece together truths from scraps. He learned enough to fear how quickly lead flew from a barrel.
Raindrops stung his face, but he inched on, ignoring the faint shouts that echoed across the fields.
A soft hiss behind him made him spin, fists clenched. Bartholomew stepped out of the shadows, breath ragged. “Silas,” he whispered, “they know about that page you found. They think it will stir trouble. They’re sending the foreman after you.”
Lightning revealed the raw panic in Bartholomew’s eyes. A day ago, the two had shared a moment of whispered hope in the field: the rumour of a northbound train that might stop tonight. Now, that hope was all Silas had.
He gestured to the clearing beyond the barn. “If God truly sees me,” Silas said, “maybe He’ll guide me across that field, straight to the train.”
Bartholomew nodded, lips pressed thin. “Then you run,” he said simply. “Don’t look back.”
Silas nodded in return, rain-soaked cloak weighing him down like a lead blanket. But his spirit felt sharper with every breath. He dashed into the night, Bartholomew’s parting words echoing behind him, “Godspeed,” though they were swallowed by rolling thunder.
Midfield, mud sucked at Silas’s boots as the sky unleashed fury. Sheets of rain blurred his vision. Shadows merged with the flicker of lanterns swaying in the distance. A rifle’s shot cracked the air. He dropped, heart pounding. A voice cursed in frustration—he couldn’t tell if it was the foreman or someone else.
Crawling along the fence, he steadied himself against a collapsed cart, a broken wheel half-buried in the muck. Another lightning strike caught the glint of metal: the foreman’s rifle, raised, searching. Silas tried to still the panic in his chest.
He closed his eyes, and in the swirl of danger, he saw the page from the dead man’s book: a lone sheep pinned against craggy cliffs, the Shepherd standing resolute. Even the black sheep, it said, might be lifted and carried to safety.
Clutching that image, Silas lunged forward, rolling over slick grass. Another bullet whizzed overhead, splintering a fence rail. His cloak dragged, waterlogged, nearly tripping him. But he dared not remove it. Not yet. Its dark folds hid him from the lantern light.
A lull in the shooting let him scuttle past the final row of posts. Ahead stretched a small slope leading to the tracks. He thought he heard the rumble of a train, or perhaps it was thunder. A childlike hope tugged at his heart—he wanted to believe it was the locomotive, pulling in just for him.
He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the damp scrap of paper inside. The Shepherd sees me, he told himself, half in prayer, half in desperation.
Shouts broke out behind him. He peeked around a half-toppled wooden crate and saw the foreman, joined by another figure: Ephraim. Silas’s stomach twisted. He remembered Ephraim’s sneer from days gone by: “Think that pale skin gives you an advantage? You’re neither here nor there. A black sheep to us all.”
Ephraim was the one who rose in influence among the slaves, parlaying tiny privileges from the overseers, becoming a warden among the oppressed. Lightning lit his stern face, revealing a mix of anger and wounded pride. The chase was personal.
Their voices swirled in the storm. “Keep him from the train,” Ephraim hissed. “If he escapes, it’ll stir the others.”
The foreman nodded, raising his rifle once more. Silas swallowed hard, feeling the old terror rise in his throat.
A momentary quiet settled as the storm shifted. Silas climbed onto the clearing that separated him from the train. There it was at last, the faint outline of a locomotive, its engine spitting white-hot steam. The tracks gleamed under sporadic flashes. If he could just board. If he could vanish into the north.
But Ephraim and the foreman were close. A jagged bolt tore the sky, and Silas saw them in stark relief, coming around from the left. He had mere seconds.
The cloak dragged heavily, soaked through. He remembered something from the battered page: The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. A quiet, urgent thought filled him: he had to cast off whatever weight slowed him, or risk being pinned down by it forever.
He unfastened the cloak. It pooled around his feet, its soaked fabric clinging to the mud. Rain struck his bare arms and chest in a shocking burst of cold. He felt exposed, painfully vulnerable. Yet a spark of exhilaration flared in him.
Gunshots barked. Silas sprinted, lungs burning. The foreman shouted curses. Ephraim snarled, “Don’t let him get away!”
Each footfall seemed to echo in the storm’s roar. Silas felt time stretch. The bullet whipped past, ripping through the air. Another shot cracked. That one struck a wooden beam a yard from him, showering him with splinters.
The train began to chug forward, an inexorable beast. Its tailgate ladder rattled against the cargo car, jolting as the locomotive picked up speed. Silas focused every ounce of will on reaching that ladder before it pulled out of reach.
He pushed harder. Another shot thundered, this one shriller, more desperate. The bullet tore through the night. He felt a whistle of hot air buzz by his ear, almost grazing him—then a harsh clang. Sparks arced from the train’s undercarriage as the bullet struck the ladder’s fastening. In an instant, the metal fixture sheared free, swinging down like a loose pendulum.
Silas leapt, arms outstretched, fingers scrabbling at the ladder. His grasp caught. The sudden momentum wrenched him off his feet. Rain battered his face, the train’s momentum threatening to fling him onto the tracks. He clung for dear life, every muscle screaming.
He heard one last furious shout from Ephraim, drowned by the train’s thunderous wheels. Then the figures receded, swallowed by gloom.
Wind whistled past Silas’s ears, carrying stinging droplets of rain. He pressed his face to the cold metal rungs, chest heaving. Another bullet snapped overhead, but it sailed off into the darkness. The storm’s fury gave way to distance as the locomotive found its rhythm.
Bare-chested and trembling, Silas realized he’d left behind the cloak that had defined him to others: that half-forgotten symbol of where he belonged or didn’t belong. Without it, he felt stripped of all labels. The swirl of wind reminded him that, for the first time, he was free to shape his own future.
Thunder rumbled a farewell in the sky. Down by the tracks, the cloak lay abandoned in the mud, a testament to the burdens he once bore. If anyone found it, they might discover the final torn page of that nameless book—a faint reminder of a Shepherd who noticed even the outcast.
Lightning shimmered on the horizon, illuminating Silas’s new path. He hoisted himself higher on the ladder, found a small foothold, and peered at the long stretch of rails ahead. Water dripped down his brow, into his eyes, and he blinked it away.
The train whistle cut through the air, a sharp and thrilling note. Silas closed his eyes, picturing fields of cotton left behind and remembering nights spent hunched in a corner, decoding strange symbols in old pamphlets he’d scavenged. He thought of Bartholomew’s urgent plea, of the older slaves who had once told him, in hushed confessions, that life must be more than endless labour.
His muscles ached. Rain slid in rivulets down his arms. Yet in the steady thunder of the wheels, he heard a promise of dawn somewhere up ahead.
At last, the engine roared with purposeful speed. Silas shifted his grip, bracing his feet as the train curved away from the plantation grounds. The storm clouds broke slightly, letting a crack of moonlight spill across the tracks. He inhaled deeply, tasting damp metal and the faint tang of coal smoke.
In that breath, he felt it: a subtle change, like an uncoiled tension in his ribs. The despair that had gripped him so tightly began to loosen, replaced by something raw and bright. He had dared to run, to abandon everything, and the world had not swallowed him whole.
He imagined the Shepherd from that faded page, the one who gathered strays and castaways into gentle arms. I might be the black sheep, Silas thought, but I have a place in His flock after all.
Behind him, the last vestiges of the station lights melted into the darkness. The rails sparkled with raindrops, stretching onward into the unknown.
No longer shielded by any cloak, Silas let the wind embrace him. Each gust felt like a quiet benediction, urging him forward. He had not escaped alone—there were others like him, some still bound, some too afraid to cast off their burdens. Perhaps this single act of defiance would become a spark, igniting hope in hearts that had all but given up.
As the train sped north, each rattling clank of the wheels felt like a drumbeat for a new tomorrow. Silas clung to the ladder, breath trembling, unsure of what awaited him beyond the plantation borders. But he understood one thing: his journey was bigger than one scrap of a lost book, bigger than a borrowed sermon. He was more than an outcast.
He was the black sheep who had dared to slip away, to run in the face of bullets and storms and the lie of submission. And if there truly was a Shepherd who cared for even the least, Silas thought, then he would keep his own quiet vigil under the open sky until he found that promised pasture.
Below the freight car, sparks still danced where the bullet had sheared the ladder’s hinge. They shimmered in the darkness like tiny fireworks, an accidental gift from a weapon intended for his death.
Silas’s gaze lifted to the faint glimmer of dawn that peered through thinning clouds. With one last look into the night, he felt the distant thunder recede as if it were the echo of a world he had finally left behind.
And so, with the roar of the train carrying him northward, Silas breathed in the charged air. He knew, in the quiet hush of his heart, that he had been lost—yet found.
There, in that rush of liberation, the black sheep discovered the first taste of true freedom, borne on the wings of a distant thunder.
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