“How?” Noma’s question took in the encircling woods, the bay. How could this boy escape? Sandy shook his head.
“He no go now. This one time, he go back.”
The woman waited.
“I hear ’bout this boy—how he read and write. He smart with white man’s learning.”
“Ah!” said the woman, beginning to understand.
“Tonight I give him the knowing of black men. I call out the strength in his bones—the bones his mother made for him.”
Sandy lay silent looking up through the tall trees at the stars. He spoke softly.
“I see in him great strength. Now he must know—and each day he will add to it. When time ripe—he go. That time he not go alone.”
And the woman nodded her head.