Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railroad

by Robert Walker

  "Whew!" whistled Daniel, "I aint't never heard about nobody that dishonest before."

  The stranger laughed.

  "You sure laugh a lot for a runaway catcher," Daniel said.

  "Oh, I was laughin' before 'cause of that name, Daniel Webster Jackson! Sounds so dandified, you know, and now I'm laughing at how foolish you sound. There's plenty who'd paint you black and sell you in St. Louis, boy!"

  "What's so bad about Daniel Webster Jackson? Sounds like a fine name to me, respectable!"

  He just laughed more. "I'm glad it's your name and not mine," he finally said.

  "But it ain't my name," Daniel protested. "My name's Effram, just like I told you, Effram Meriweather, and I come from St. Louis."

  The stranger lifted the long gun which had lain so neatly along his long leg that Daniel hadn't notice it until now. He pointed it directly between Daniel's eyes. "Let's don't have no more tales, all right, Daniel?"

  "If you want me to be this here Daniel Webster fellow, I guess I can be," said Daniel, raising his hands as if under arrest. "You want me to put my hands behind my back?"

  "No, not at all," said the runaway catcher. "I want you to help me find them runaways. When we do, maybe you can be on your way. Judge Hatcher's got some idea you know where they may be. I want you to take me to this here Colonel Halverston's place. You're going to work the inside while I work the outside."

  Daniel didn't answer. The stranger smiled. "I want to know particular about this fellow over there they calls Billy, Old Billy. How old you think he is?"

  Daniel didn't answer quickly enough to suit the man who raised his gun again and said, "Like I told you, boy, I can get half reward on your dead carcass."

  The bounty hunter came nearer, sizing up the silent boy. "Good, Daniel, now we can work together like old friends, can't we? It'll be just like the judge planned all along. He's going to be so happy."

  Daniel frowned as the bounty hunter's smile grew wider.

  FIVE

  DOORWAY TO THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

  The slave catcher laughed as he hurried Sam and Daniel from the cave and down the hill. He seemed in an awful hurry, and he could hardly walk straight for laughing. Over and over, he repeated Daniel's full name and asked, "Where'd you come by such a name?"

  While Daniel didn't care to have his name laughed at, he knew he could do nothing about it, not just now. The slave runner kept Daniel well ahead of him in easy sight, and the dog bounded well ahead of them both. As they followed the course of the river, Daniel watched the water sparkle and reflect the morning sun. A passing keelboat looked painted on the water. Purple patches of shadow remained in the woods. A breeze played through the leaves.

  On the opposite shore, Daniel saw a large, white house out on a ledge nestled among the trees. Someone placed a light in the window there every night. White folks said the light, acting as a beacon, helped guide steamers and other river traffic at night. Black folks believed it was there to guide runaway slaves over to the Illinois side during fog and storm. Old Billy said a fugitive slave would be welcomed there if he could scale the rugged cliff, and from there the runaway would be rushed to a safer place. Old Billy said that the runaway who made it up the cliff, soon found himself passed from hand to hand as human cargo on the Underground Railroad—passed along by the abolitionists clear to Canada, a country where slavery was forbidden by law.

  Unsure if the story about the house on the hill was true or one of Billy's tall tales, Daniel had also heard that whenever any black person looked at the house, his look became a peculiar stare. And now, when Daniel realized that the black runaway catcher had fallen behind, he turned to find the man staring strangely up at the old house.

  The man, realizing that Daniel stood staring at him, yelled to Daniel, and pointed to the house saying, "Right smart-looking place to build a home."

  "They call it the doorway to the Underground Railroad," Daniel fired back, hoping to catch the man's reaction. This stranger seems to know these parts better than he lets on, Daniel thought.

  "Who calls it that? Your friend. Old Billy?"

  "Some black folks I heard talking once is all, Mr. Runaway Catcher."

  "My name's Penny, son, Mr. George Penny."

  "Okay, Mr. Penny."

  "Just the same, you call me George so's to arouse no suspicions, and I'll call you Effram when we're around others." He had caught up to Daniel and shook on it. "Come on. Let's get down off this hill."

  Finding level ground and open sky, they heard the first cry of black birds cawing and chasing after one another. George's keen eyes followed the clamoring birds in flight. He shaded his eyes with a large forearm. In the daylight, Daniel guessed him to be perhaps twenty-five years old.

  George Penny watched the birds until they floated earthward and dropped from sight. He has Indian ways, Daniel thought—watching fool birds fly around.

  "Settled aways off yonder," he said, pointing his long gun. "How'd you like some good eatin' breakfast, Daniel?"

  Daniel gulped hard. "Ain't never tasted crow meat before; ain't sure I'd fancy it."

  George broke into an uproar of laughter. "You don't eat the crows, son, you eat the corn they lead you to."

  Daniel's stomach answered with a hollow growl.

  Halfway across a clearing, they found the stand of dry, aged corn stalks that invited them in to pick their fill. As they watched, the dog inch forward. Daniel felt as if they were the only three living creatures on earth, save the twittering bugs. Daniel heard the early wind rustle the dried corn stalks when suddenly Sam frightened the black birds at their breakfast. Some twenty lifted with an awful caw and were gone in an instant. The noise scared George into raising his gun to fire. When he realized it was only the crows he, for once, laughed at himself.

  "Corn'll be old and dry this time of year, but they always leave some good ones behind, Daniel," George said, lifting the slim leaves, knocking over weak stalks and yanking at a fat ear here and there. "We can roast these over a fire. Soften 'em up."

  In little time, George had roasted several ears of corn. He sliced off kernels from the cob for Sam to eat, but the hound didn't seem to care for corn too much. "Well then, go get us a rabbit!" George told his dog.

  "This is good," said Daniel, chewing on his blackened corn, the juices spilling over his lips.

  "I cook it right," replied George. "It's got to be good."

  They fell silent for a time, just listening to the woods. "You got some worry on your mind, don't you, Daniel?"

  "Oh, no! Ain't nothing to worry me, Mr. Penny."

  "You must be awful worried about something to run away from the judge just when he give you that fine job of spying. He sent me after you...to see you do your duty, son, to make him proud! And if'n I can help, I'm sure going to, but I can't help if you don't trust me. Now, what's troubling you?"

  "I don't think there's anything unusual going on out to Colonel Halverston's place. Nothing Billy or the colonel would do. They wouldn’t go against the law! And I ain't never seen the ground open up to take anybody inside it, like they say."

  "Well I did," George said, surprising Daniel. "First night Sam and me met you, but I'm new to these parts, and the posse come after me, so I run off in the wrong direction and found you, remember?"

  "That was you holding that knife to my throat?"

  "Me and Sam, yeah."

  "Well, I only heard about the ground opening up and swallowing runaways."

  "And I seen it once, near Halverston's. Who told you about it, Daniel?"

  "Old Billy, but it was just one of his stories."

  "I know you like Old Billy, Daniel. He tells you young'uns stories and whittles you boats and pretend swords out of piney wood, but if he and the colonel are stealing slaves, then he's breaking the law of the Missouri Compromise."

  "Billy wouldn't have no truck with breaking the law."

  "But if he is an outlaw, son, and you're helping keep his secrets...."

  "I tell yo
u he ain't outside the law."

  "Just the other night, I was hot on finding the Coleson County runaways—Sam and me—when zingo! They disappeared right in front of us. All mighty peculiar."

  Daniel felt George's eyes on him, but he didn't reply.

  "That's when the posse come, and all they had left to run was me and Sam. The rest you know."

  Daniel's mind returned to that night at the slave quarters. Could Billy be guilty of slave snatching? The colonel? Would a fine-dresssing, upstanding man like him do that to make the judge look bad? Daniel felt unsure, and he wasn't sure he liked seeing runaway slaves caught by a man like George Penny, for a bounty, to be returned to men who mistreated their slaves as the colonel had said. He wasn't even sure if there ought to be slaves—there just always was! Daniel often wondered why black men born just across the river in Illinois were free, while men born in Missouri were not. No one, not even Judge Hatcher, knew the answer to that one.

  George reached out and shook Daniel from his thoughts, scaring him, saying, "Daniel! You want them slaves caught and sold South by someone who don't even own them? Someone who won't return them to Mr. Grimes, who’s their rightful owner?"

  "No."

  "Then help me. I can't find that exact spot again. I stumbled on it in the first place. So take me to see this here Billy."

  "No."

  "You ever hear about how it is in the Deep South for a slave, Daniel?"

  Daniel stared at George's angry eyes. The usual smile and laughter in his face had been replaced by set teeth and a serious glare. Daniel's stomach felt heavy now with the roast corn.

  Daniel timidly said, "Folks have told me it's warmer in the South, and there's lots of cool night breezes and fruit trees and lots to recommend the place."

  "Lots of death, lots of filth," said George, "in the sugarcane fields."

  "I read some where's that the trees are green all year almost, and the flowers grow on trees like the stars in the sky. Flowers are all over, and the sky is lower to the ground and bluer everywhere you look. Big weeping willow trees. There's lots of clear water lakes and streams filled with ducks and all kind of birds and—"

  George held up a hand, interrupting, saying, "Sure 'nough, and all the houses are big mansions, all white as heaven, as close to heaven-looking as anything in this world, except for the slave houses, of course."

  "But they said in that book I read that their slave houses in Deep South beats our Missouri ones," said Daniel. "They's all painted up better, you know, whitewashed!"

  George broke into a laugh again. Daniel had never seen a man before who could laugh and get so serious all so quickly, except maybe Old Billy whenever he was telling a story.

  Daniel defended himself, saying, "Well, it must be so! I read it in that book! I hear tell it don't even storm down there either, never even a hint of a storm."

  George grimly asked, "You ever see any black men, any black women or children on their way downriver?" His voice came now like the sudden anger and growl his dog had shown in the cave.

  "Sure, I seen some in St. Louis," Daniel smugly replied.

  "They stop over at Hannibal sometimes, too," said George. "I saw a man there just a day ago. He was being sold South for the second time. Name was Samson, and you ain't never seen a bigger, stronger man in your life. Bigger than me he was."

  "Bigger than you?"

  "But he cried like a babe when I spoke to him. He looked so sad I thought he was going to make a wild break for it right there on the dock in broad daylight!"

  "Really?"

  "He'd have been killed by some white man if he'd tried to jump from that slave boat. He truly didn't want no truck with the Deep South. He didn't want to see the heaven your books talk about, Daniel, 'cause he'd already seen it. He told me he'd rather I shot him down dead where he stood."

  Daniel shook his head in disbelief. "How do I know you ain't just making all this up?"

  "Daniel, Samson had been sold downriver first time when he was a boy your age. Then he got traded upriver, and now he's traded back again. He felt sore afraid to be going back—said he thought he had become a free man when he hit Missouri. Said he found life here so easy, though he still be some man's slave."

  Daniel began thinking of the sight of nine black people, chained one to another, asleep between bails of cotton on a flatboat he'd watched inch into the landing at Hannibal one day. Daniel thought it ironic that the first free black man he had ever met turned out to be so low-down, mean and thoughtless to his own kind as George Penny must be, a man catching runaways for reward money. Nothing but a bounty hunter is what George amounted to, Daniel told himself. Yet, he talks so kindly toward Sampson and the other people he hunted. Why? Daniel wondered.

  "I know the law says that running down runaway slaves is all right, but don't you find it hard? I mean, don't it bother you any?" Daniel asked.

  "Bothers you white folk more than me," Penny answered, his sly smile returning.

  Daniel again shook his head, wondering if this man cared about anyone or anything. Then George began talking as if to himself. "When John Law says a man is a legal slave, there ain't no use in his running away, Daniel. Just causes more problems for everybody concerned, and it's money in the bank for me. Even if a slave gets caught way up to Ohio, Michigan, or Minnesota, he's fair game for the likes of me. I catches him and brings him back."

  "You can bring 'em back from them faraway places?"

  "That's what the Missouri Compromise law is all about. A fugitive slave ain't safe from capture and return from anywhere in any of these so-called free states, and who am I to question the law, let alone break it? May's well help it and help myself, I say."

  Daniel had heard of the law, and he knew runaway slaves knew about it, too. This was why the aim of every runaway slave was to make it to Canada. But many did stop in friendly Quaker towns or in settlements of free Northern black people and friendly abolitionist ministers. There they'd be caught, sometimes after ten years or more, and returned South. Daniel had heard stories about runaways who'd started new lives in the North, raised families, and then were captured and returned to slavery.

  "I just don't see how a black man can hunt down other black men!" Daniel finally shouted.

  "White men hunt other white men who break the law," George snapped back. "Besides, I'm not just a black man. I'm a free black man—protected by freeman's own laws —the white man's laws, which tell me I can earn a trade at hunting runaways the same as any white man! I got freedom papers signed by the Governor of Illinois. I got myself free, and I got papers."

  "You got free? How'd you do it? Did your master turn you free? Did you buy up yourself with wages, or did you run away yourself?"

  "Everybody's running away from something," the catcher smiled in answer.

  "You sure laugh a lot for a man in such a serious business."

  "Guess I do."

  "Well, did you or didn't you?"

  "Did I what?"

  "Runaway yourself?"

  He leaned in toward Daniel. "See this?" he said, pushing back his shirt collar to reveal an awful scar. He pulled up his shirt sleeves, revealing old scars circling his wrists. He didn't have to say any more. He'd been a slave at one time or another.

  "How then can you run others who escape?" Daniel pleaded. "How do you sleep nights with yourself?"

  "I don't. I sleep with Samuel!" he said with the smile Daniel had tired of. "Look here, your judge and your sheriff down at Hannibal know they can catch more rabbits if they get a fox who looks like a rabbit in among the rabbits!" He slapped his knee and laughed again. "And so long as there's slavery, there'll be rabbits running and men like your sheriff who'll chase 'em. At least I'm not going to shoot no rabbits, gut them, hang them or cut off their feet."

  Frowning, Daniel recalled seeing handbills people left on the landing down at the Hannibal pier—handbills offering money for runaway slaves. One offered a hundred dollars for a slave named May. She could be returned to a Mr. Flotsam,
ten miles west of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

  The wanted poster described the girl as seventeen, eighteen or possibly twenty years old. She stood five foot four. She had all except four of her teeth, was light complexioned with a sharp nose, looked Cajun, could pass for white and liked to disguise herself as white. But she was given to the fits, and when in a fit, she'd curse and bite herself uncontrollably. The bill said she was comely for a black girl, and uncommon smart.

  "You want me to go down to Hannibal and pick up some wanted posters on any runaways that I can find?" Daniel meanly asked.

  "You just do like you're told and we'll get on, you and me. I'll let you go off any ways you want—back to the judge or the territory West, whatever suits you—once you take me back to where the colonel's house stands. Once I've had a chance to talk to this old man Billy, you can go free."

  "I'll hold you to that."

  "All you gots to do is show me the countryside hereabouts. That don't make you a spy, if'n you don't want to be one, and it don't mean you are catching any runaways, if n you don't like it. But try to trick me—just once—and I'll drown you in the river and return your carcass for the bounty the judge put out on you."

  "What guarantee I got you won't go back on your word and take me back to Hannibal anyway?"

  "None of us got any guarantees in this life, Daniel." George stood up and kicked dirt over the campfire, lifting his long gun as he did so. "Looks good for a black man to be traveling with a white boy. Like as if I was carrying your gun for you, young Massa' Daniel. I mean, Effram. If anyone spots us, that's how we're going to play it, you understand, Effram?"

  "Why?"

  "Saves time in jailhouses and time talking." "All right," Daniel agreed, getting up. "Now, take me to see your friend Billy."

  SIX

  THE INSIDE OF THE WORLD

  As Daniel and George Penny approached Colonel Halverston's plantation by day, Daniel realized just how old the structure was. Fences needed mending. Outhouses, the livery and the tack house, along with the smoke house were all crumbling. Even the great house stood in disrepair, although at one time it must have looked grand with its four stories, its large columns, bay windows, wraparound porch, and balcony. There was nothing else like it in all of Hannibal County.