Normal breathing returned. They all knew what a junction was even if Eli didn’t, and more crucially, where it was: in the busy and always occupied rail yard near the docks. William Tillman said grimly: “We go now. Immediately.”
“Are we ready?” The unnamed man asked.
“I obtained all the necessary provisions on my promise to pay,” William said. He looked at Ezra. “If you will kindly leave Mr. Cortlandt’s check here with me?”
Ezra withdrew the check from his pocket and gave it to Tillman. “I fully expect to return,” he said quietly.
“And I fully expect that you will, Mr. MacKaye,” William replied and placed the check in the pocket that held his gold watch.
Genie touched the unnamed man’s arm and told him that if the messenger and his horse were still at the rail car, it was his duty to do “whatever is necessary” to make sure the horseback rider was not a problem for them. Then she looked at Arthur and smiled and asked if he had the “end of the world” ready for the inhabitants of the rail car. Arthur returned the smile and promised that “they’ll come runnin’ outta there like the devil his own self is after ’em!”
Then Genie looked at Ezra. “Whenever and however Edward Cortlandt emerges from that rail car, he is your responsibility. You’ll have chloroform to subdue him—everyone will have chloroform, as our objective is to empty that car and move it to a location of our choosing without any loss of life. If possible. However, the only life that we are committed to preserving is that of young Cortlandt.”
Ezra knew that he was looking at and listening to Eugenia Oliver but he could barely believe it. True, she was dressed in her Eugene clothes and the butt end of a revolver was visible in the waistband of her pants, but he had just heard her order the deaths of at least three men in a flat, cold voice that he did not recognize. Then, in a completely different tone, she said, “We do not know how many Mrs. Tubman is bringing to freedom this time, or how many of them are women and children. We have heard that there is a bounty on her head though we do not know if this is true. But true or not, we will do all in our power to ensure that that rail car is empty and parked where she expects it to be when she arrives. That is what is expected of us and that is what we will provide.”
“Then with God as our guide, let us go,” Tillman said. “Everyone saddle a horse. Eli, you take a fresh one and lead the way.” Then he gave the boy a scrutinizing look. “After you eat a few biscuits and bacon,” he said, and muttered under his breath, “Not much point in a bath, I don’t imagine.”
If Eli heard the bath comment he paid it no notice; he was too focused on biscuits and bacon. Arthur removed the saddle from the horse Eli had ridden in on and placed it on a fresh mount, and he gave each rider a bag of provisions which contained food for those who were waiting in the woods for them. The horses were superior—some of the best Ezra had ever seen—and he was certain that some of Arthur Cortlandt’s money was paying for them, as well as for the chloroform they all possessed and which Ezra hoped they would use to subdue their quarry instead of the alternative. They exited the stable through the back and into a dirty, litter-strewn alley. The stench of the nearby docks rose up to greet them as strong as if it were the middle of summer instead of close on winter. The early hour and the dismal location meant the five people on horseback were not noticed because only the most drunken derelicts were found here, and those few who weren’t drunken derelicts had no interest in the lives of others. Eli led them slowly to the railroad tracks adjacent to the docks where there were more people, but working people, too busy to notice or care who was riding by so early in the morning. They rode slowly, single file, beside the tracks until they reached the wood, then Eli spurred his horse to a gallop. They followed a well-worn path beside the tracks, deeper into the wood, when Eli stopped suddenly and dismounted. He put his finger to his lips and motioned them all to the ground. Then he knelt and touched the tracks and looked at Genie. She followed suit, and the look of horror on her face told them all what was happening though they all touched the tracks and felt the vibration: The rail car was moving. Slowly, but it was moving.
Unnamed Man ran forward without a word and before anyone could stop him, so they waited in silence for his return. Ezra, standing beside Genie, leaned down and whispered to her, “Who is he?”
She hesitated only briefly before whispering the answer: “Job Mayes.”
Ezra couldn’t prevent his surprised intake of breath. He would have wagered a small fortune that Job Mayes was a mythical figure created by enslaved Blacks to give themselves hope, for no ordinary man could have done the things attributed to this man: A runaway slave who had killed half a dozen people in retaliation for the sale of his wife and children, and half a dozen more during his escape from the Virginia plantation where he was enslaved and en route to his freedom. There was a bounty of several thousand dollars on his head but there was no image of him. No one knew what he looked like, and if asked to describe him, Ezra could give no better description than a thin, dark-skinned Colored man with short hair. Who ran like the wind. No wonder he had successfully escaped. And suddenly he was back with them, having made no sound. They gathered around him.
“Two men on horseback are pulling the car with leather straps attached to the hitch. Moving very slowly.”
“How many?” Genie asked.
“The two pulling the car and two riding behind but I could not see inside the car. Three of our men are following behind on foot, in the woods, and the other two are bringing the cart,” Mayes said.
Genie thought deeply for only a few seconds. “Throw firecracker sticks to the front and back of the car at the same time. Take the riders when the horses throw them. Eli, go behind and help our men make certain no one escapes from the car.” To Mayes she said, “You and Arthur take the two in the front. Ezra, watch the rail car and take Cortlandt. And as we see, best to be prepared for surprises. Move. Now.” And this time Genie led them along the tracks into the wood, Mayes close behind, whispering directions.
They stopped and dismounted at Genie’s raised hand. Arthur unpacked small packages of fire sticks and tin boxes of matches and gave them to Mayes and Eli who ran forward, followed by everyone else except Arthur, who secured their horses so they wouldn’t bolt at the sound of the exploding fire sticks. He would bring their horses forward when the noise abated, which didn’t happen for quite a few minutes after the explosions. Yelling, screaming, shouting, cursing—and the screeches of birds startled by so much human noise so early on such a cold morning—filled the air, followed by two gunshots. Those galvanized Ezra, who grabbed his horse and galloped forward, his own gun in his hand. He could not get this close and lose Edward Cortlandt!
“There’s that damn nigger lover! Pull him down off’n that horse!”
Ezra saw and heard them a moment too late. Algie and Jack were upon him before he could aim and fire the pistol he’d taken from them weeks earlier. Jack grabbed his arm and simultaneously kicked his already nervous horse and Ezra went flying. His arm was snatched out of its joint. He hit the ground on the same shoulder, and the pain was so intense he could only lie there writhing.
“Not such a big shot now, are you, boyo?” Algie snarled, delivering two hard kicks to his right side before spitting at him. Ezra found he wasn’t too wounded to evade the filth but rolling over cost him dearly. That regret vanished quickly as Jack galloped back. Dismounting before the horse halted, he ran toward Ezra, aiming a kick toward his groin. Ezra drew his knees into his chest and, reaching with his good arm, grabbed Jack’s foot and used the man’s own forward motion to lift and throw him. Because he was drunk Jack had no hope of keeping his balance. He hit the ground hard. His head hit something even harder. Both Ezra and Algie heard the crack.
“Jack! Jack, boy!” Algie called out as he ran toward the immobile Jack. “Get up from there! We got to go meet Tom so we can grab that old mammy and collect the bounty on her head!” But Jack didn’t move so Algie stomped over to Ezra and deliv
ered two hard kicks to the kidneys. “You bastard,” he yelled as he aimed another kick. But he was drunk, too, and instead of another kidney shot, this kick landed on Ezra’s right buttock. Hard. The pain shot through his entire body.
Ezra groaned and Algie gave a satisfied grunt. He came around to face Ezra and leaned over him. The weak early morning sunlight showed the clearly etched hatred in the man’s puffy face, along with the dirt. “You got my pistol on you?” he snarled as he forced Ezra’s knees down and his coat open. He gut-kicked him twice then grabbed the weapon and cracked Ezra across the face with it. Blood spurted and Ezra lost consciousness.
Then there was another crack and Algie dropped to the ground on his knees. His eyes closed as if he were praying. Another crack and he fell sideways, unconscious.
“Mr. MacKaye, you got to get up, suh.” At the sound of the voice in his ear, Ezra forced himself up to semi-consciousness.
Eli. The boy was almost as filthy as Algie. But not quite, and Algie smelled much worse. “I don’t think I can, Eli. I don’t think I can move at all.”
“Where ’bouts is you hurt?”
“Feels like everywhere, but for sure my left arm is no good.” So, Eli grabbed his right hand and elbow and pulled him up, but his entire right side hurt. The gash on his face ran a river of blood and the pain made him dizzy again. He held on to Eli until he felt steady. Then he recalled what Algie had said about collecting the bounty on a mammy’s head and his knees buckled. Eli steadied him again. “I’ve got to get to Genie.” Then, another thought: “And young Cortlandt! Did you see him, Eli?”
“Yes, suh. That’s where Miss Eugenie went—after him. One of them kidnappers grabbed the boy up on his horse and rode off with him. Miss Eugenie and Mr. Job, they followed. Seemed like they knowed all about what we was doin’.”
“They know everything, Eli: They know about Mrs. Tubman, too.”
Eli started and jerked Ezra so hard he cried out. “I’m sorry, Mr. MacKaye but we got to go catch up with them! Can you ride?”
“If you help me up, Eli, I think I can stay up,” Ezra said, without real conviction, and with Eli’s help he mounted the horse. He had to force words from a mouth clenched tight to stifle groans. “Tie those two up Eli, please,” he said, gesturing toward Jack and Algie. “Tight, so they can’t get free, and hide them so they won’t be found for a good while. And get my pistol!” He tried to turn his horse to follow Genie but he needed his one good arm to hold on, so he had to wait for Eli to finish binding Jack and Algie and mount his own horse, then take the reins to Ezra’s horse and lead them forward. Since every equine step sent pain cascading through his body it was a good thing that Genie and Mayes had not got too far ahead. The two kidnappers had Edward Cortlandt on the ground and were wrestling with him, trying to punch him into submission while the young man cursed them with all his drugged and drunken strength. They hadn’t seen Genie and Mays approach. Genie fired a shot into the air and the kidnappers jumped to their feet, whirled around, and met two pistols aimed directly at them.
“Lie down on the ground, face in the dirt,” Mayes commanded, and when they obeyed Genie chloroformed them, then bound them both hand and foot. Then she turned to young Cortlandt but before she could speak he snarled at her.
“Who in blazes are you?”
“Hired by your father to bring you home,” Genie said.
“Liar. My father hired an ex-Pinkerton Scotsman named MacKaye to bring me home. You’re not ex-Pinkerton and you’re certainly not a Scotsman.”
“Right on both counts,” Genie said.
Cortlandt’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard about niggers like you. Free-born and educated. But I tell you this: Touch me and I’ll see you hang.” And I’ve heard that you were much like your father, Genie thought, as she uncapped the chloroform and poured some into a cloth. Cortlandt knew what was coming and he cursed and wriggled but he was already impaired. Genie had the cloth over his nose and mouth and seconds later the young man was limp. And blessedly quiet. Genie dragged him toward the wagon. One of her men jumped down off his horse and helped deposit him in the wagon with his captors.
“Somebody’s comin,’” one of Genie’s men hissed, and it sounded like a shout. “Two riders on horseback.”
Genie drew her pistol and aimed it toward the approaching riders as Mayes dropped to the ground behind the wagon, pistol in hand, ready to ambush if necessary. “It’s your white man and the boy.” The whisper was directly into Genie’s ear, and she jumped a foot. The soft chuckle and pat on the back told her she wasn’t the only one on edge.
Eli led Ezra’s horse into the clearing and every Colored man gasped at the sight of him. He all but fell off his horse into their arms, and they led him to the back of the wagon and helped him up. The three bodies already there made for a crowd, but Ezra was too glad to be able to recline to care.
“What happened?” Genie asked, and Ezra told her, including the rescue by Eli.
“I owe that boy my life. And maybe I’m not the only one.”
“What does that mean?” Genie asked.
Ezra whimpered in pain as he lifted himself upright and pulled Genie in close with his good arm. “They know about . . . they said they were after collecting a bounty on a mammy’s head. And if they know, perhaps others do, too.”
Genie said nothing for several seconds. Then she beckoned to Mayes and whispered with him for several seconds, after which he grabbed Ezra’s horse and galloped off. Genie returned to the wagon where four men now lay—three of them drugged unconscious and one wishing that he were. Ezra watched her closely through the one eye that still functioned properly. “I’ve done my job,” she said wearily. “There are others whose job it is to worry if and how we are compromised. Come, let’s get you and these fellows back to town.” She peered closely at him. “And you to a doctor.”
But she first held a whispered conversation with four of her men—they were to clean the rail car and move it back up the tracks to its original position, and they galloped away immediately. Then she called Eli in close.
“You did a fine job this morning, Eli, and I’m very proud of you and very grateful to you.” He responded like the boy he was instead of like the man he’d been forced to become: He ducked his head and mumbled something Genie couldn’t hear but which she fully understood. “And I have more work for you, Eli, if you will accept it.”
“Yes, Miss Eugenie, anything you want.”
“Mr. MacKaye is very badly injured and he will need much care. Will you act as his manservant until he heals?”
Eli looked at her as if she’d asked him to walk on his hands. “You want me to live in that house with him?”
Genie nodded. “You’ll be safe, Eli, Mrs. Juniper will see to that. You remember who she is?”
Eli nodded. He thought that Maggie Juniper reminded him of his mother, or what he thought he remembered of his mother, but that was mostly wishful thinking because, in truth, he remembered nothing. The miles and years between him and his mother dimmed her image in his memory. He wasn’t even sure of her name. “I’ll do my best, Miss Eugenie.”
“That I know for certain, Eli,” she said, and told him to go immediately to William or Adelaide—whomever he could find—and get himself cleaned up for service in a great house. “Tell them to cut your hair and get you new clothes and shoes.”
Eli’s eyes grew large and shone with excitement, all traces of fear gone. “Then what do I do, Miss Eugenie?”
“Meet me at the scullery door at Mistress Read’s. I’m going now with Mr. MacKaye to deliver the Cortlandt boy to his father and to hope that the man will send for a doctor.” Genie gave the boy a quick, fierce hug. “Go now, Eli—but carefully!” The woods would shelter him for a while but then he’d have to take the road by the docks. It was a short run to William’s smithy shop from there but Eli could not run. Dare not run and call unwelcome attention to himself. She knew that he knew how to be careful. She had to trust that he would.
Genie was climbing up to the wagon bench when Ezra called to her. “Is there more chloroform?”
She returned to the rear of the wagon, bottle in one hand, handkerchief in the other. “Not too much.”
“Why not?” Ezra groaned.
“You must be awake to meet Mr. Cortlandt.”
Ezra groaned again, then inhaled deeply as Genie’s kerchief covered his nose and mouth. He’d be grateful for any length of time inured to the pain that wracked his body. And it was good that he was numb because Genie pushed the wagon harder and faster than she ever would have before. She wanted to get off this road. If the police caught her—caught Eugene Oliver, a Colored man, with four unconscious white men in his wagon, three of them bound, she’d be hung before sundown . . . or worse: She’d be sold South. And if the hooligans who beat Ezra knew about Mrs. Tubman’s presence in Philadelphia that coming night, Ezra was right in thinking others might know, too, which would surely put coppers, constables and the sheriff on the road. She clicked the reins and the wagon’s speed increased. Her horseback-riding companions easily kept pace.
Genie stopped when the docks came into view. The place was teeming with activity and commerce. She looked into the back of the wagon and all four men were stirring. “Where are you meeting Cortlandt?” she asked Ezra.
“At the end of Essex Street.”
Genie rolled forward a few feet and immediately spied the rich man’s brougham, as out of place at the docks as the man himself. “I see him. Sit up now, so he sees you.” She rolled the wagon forward several feet more, then halted when an armed man emerged from the back of the carriage. “Mr. MacKaye is here with a delivery for Mr. Cortlandt!” Genie called out in her strongest Eugene voice, and the armed man and his two companions froze in place.
“Are you there, Ezra?”
Two Wings to Fly Away Page 8