Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railroad

by Robert Walker

  At one time it must surely have looked as fine as anything in the Deep South. Still, nowadays, Daniel knew it showed a good deal better in the soft, green darkness of an evening. In daylight, the big house needed paint in the worst way, the porch and balcony needed mending, and the windows could use a good washing. Each large white pillar showed cracks and wear. The rooftop, visible from this distance, looked in need of repair work, too. Weeds and wildflower bushes threatened to eat the place whole.

  "Some mansion," muttered George, unimpressed.

  "It's old," apologized Daniel.

  "How old is old?"

  "Don't know. Maybe fifty years."

  "Oh, really? That old, huh?" George fought down another laugh.

  "But Colonel Halverston's only been owning it for maybe seven years."

  "Then nobody around these parts knows much about this here colonel of yours, huh?"

  "Not hardly much, no. He stays pretty much to himself. Lives here with his wife—Miss Amanda—Billy calls her, and they farm enough to get by."

  "Aside from Old Billy, how many slaves does the man work?"

  "They ain't like most slaves I know."

  "How many?"

  "They smile a lot, and they like the colonel and Miss Amanda."

  "How many?"

  "Nine, maybe ten, counting Old Billy."

  George snickered and shook his head, saying, "Is that all? Ain't hardly enough to call a plantation." George then crouched in the brush and pointed to the slave quarters, a row of log houses. "Quarters look better than any I ever seen."

  "Fresh paint," commented Daniel, kneeling beside the catcher.

  "Each with its own chimney for cooking and warmth in winter. These slaves got it easy. Looks like your colonel spends his money on something other than his horses and Miss Amanda's evening gowns."

  "He's running for judge of these here parts."

  "Judge? But you all have a judge already."

  "Judge Hatcher's worried the colonel might win the next election."

  "Aha! So...that's why he's got me bobcatting out here. Suspects the colonel's hiding something. Why else a man would want the judge's job? And I'm not surprised by the look of this place how your colonel come under suspicion."

  "Whataya mean?'

  "He ain't no plantation man. just getting by on crops." George set to thinking, squinting up at the colonel's house. "Just what's this colonel a colonel of?"

  Daniel blew out air, exasperated with all the questions. He then told George what he had overheard at the courthouse about how Halverston had resigned his commission at West Point and about the colonel's involvement in the Mexican War.

  "Mysterious man, this colonel." George rubbed his chin. "Maybe he might win the election on being mysterious. The way Missouri elects officials, I wouldn't wonder. Might explain how your Judge Hatcher ever got elected."

  While George laughed at his own joke, Daniel defended the judge, saying, "Judge Hatcher's a nice man."

  "Maybe he is, maybe he ain't, but either way, he's a little dumb, but he did save me from one mean lawman."

  "Sheriff Brisbane?"

  "He was going to beat me again while two others held me down, and if I didn't talk, he threatened to sell me to slavers."

  "Sell you?"

  "And he was talking Deep South. He made that plain clear enough."

  Daniel waved this off, saying, "Sheriff Brisbane's always full of threats."

  "Sounded as if he meant to run me to St. Louis himself, put me on the auction block there. Said he knew a dealer there could get five hundred for a healthy, young black buck like me."

  "Sheriff said that, just like that? You being truthful with me?"

  "Truthful as that tree yonder," he replied, pointing to the exact tree where Old Billy and Colonel Halverston had hidden two of the Coleson County runaways. George stood now and marched directly for the slave quarters, saying, "Let's meet your friend the storyteller, now!"

  Daniel tried to keep pace while Sam, the dog, leapt ahead of them. "What'd you say to Sheriff Brisbane to change his mind?"

  "Didn't change his mind. Changed the judge's mind when I showed him my foot."

  "Your foot?"

  "Took off my boot and showed the two of them my clubfoot."

  "What clubfoot?" Daniel hadn't seen the man so much as favor either foot or limp once.

  "Told them that even with my special-made boot, I couldn't work no sugarcane field for no more'n an hour at a time. Foot gets so bad, I can't bear it. Told 'em I wasn't worth not even fifty dollars, let alone five hundred. Told 'em my boots cost more than I was worth. Judge Hatcher told me to quit talking money and start talking smarts."

  "Is that all true."

  "Every word."

  "I mean about your foot."

  "Showed 'em my foot, yeah."

  "But we've been walking all morning long."

  George shrugged. "The boot works wonders, and I have my good days."

  "I'd have never known. I still don't know which foot it is," said Daniel, staring at George's feet.

  "And you won't ever know. I take the pain like a man."

  Someone yelled from behind them, shouting, "Daniel? Who you got there?"

  Daniel and George turned to see several children surrounding the legs of a white-haired black man. Old Billy, where he stood atop a rise, looking sternly down on the two intruders. "What brings you here this time-a-day?"

  Daniel sat for over an hour outside the cabin where Old Billy and George Penny talked, unable to hear a word, with Sam resting over his feet and some of the black children playing around him. He scoured the area with his eyes, plotted out a hundred escape routes and imagined fifty attempts. Going on dusk now, he realized that George had simply taken it for granted that Sam would keep Daniel in check. Still, he thought George was uncommonly careless with his white runaway.

  Inside the old cabin. Billy continued to talk, and the men often burst out in laughter. The runaway catcher couldn't possibly have told Billy his true identity, Daniel guessed. Now Daniel snatched his feet from under the snoring dog, stood and walked around in larger circles, testing just how far from the cabin and the dog he might get before someone discovered him. Not ten feet off, Sam roused himself, stretched, yawned and then glared at Daniel. Suddenly, Old Billy's cabin door opened and out stepped George, followed by Billy, who was in turn followed by two large, black men. Strangers to Daniel, these men glared meanly at him. The four grownups marched right for Daniel, and for the first time ever, Daniel felt afraid of Old Billy.

  Billy rushed to step between Daniel and the others, saying, "Young Daniel, we been all talking with Mr. Penny here, the man you brought to us, and we want to ask you to please go with him and do as he says."

  "Go where?"

  "Will you take your orders from him, Daniel?" asked Billy. "Will you trust me? Put yourself in Mr. Penny's hands for now. It's important, Daniel."

  "But...but George said I could go once we found you."

  "Please, Daniel. These men here, you know they's the Coleson County runaways, and they're for —"

  "I don't know that; don't want to know that."

  Old Billy took him aside and whispered, "They want to kill you, boy; hide your carcass over in them woods yonder, Dan. Now do as I tells you." Billy's face showed his fright.

  George joined them, saying, "Allow me a word with my young associate, gentlemen. Daniel, you didn't want to spy for the judge, not on your friend, Billy. We all have to respect you for that. I like Old Billy, and I like these boys from Coleson."

  "So...so do I," managed Daniel.

  "Now hear me out. These boys've given over their souls to the Devil to make free, and you led me right to 'em, son. You can understand why they're worried you might do the same for the judge! Now, here's what Old Billy and I propose. There's a man over at Rantul County, name of Blainy, and you know the way to his farmhouse. You take me there and help me get what I want, and I'll let Billy and these runaways go on about their business.
I won't take you back to Hannibal, either."

  Old Billy, George and the others waited for an answer. George finally said, "Rantul's a far place from here, Billy tells me."

  "Why do you want to see this man, Blainy?"

  "That don't concern you. He ain't no relation to you, is he?"

  Daniel thought longer. Old Billy pleaded, "Do it, Daniel, please. These men'11 be sold to Deep South if'n they're caught."

  "I'll do it if you show me how you did it," said Daniel. "You show me how you made them disappear way over there and come again in that tree there, and I'll do it."

  All of the men conferred with some arguing. Finally, Old Billy said, "We've gotta give it up anyway. The law's getting too near. They're going to sniff it out. Come on!"

  Old Billy led them to the next rise and down into a cleft valley. He directed them toward a clump of trees, standing in a foreboding dark circle. As they walked along, George stared in every direction about the ground until his dog sniffed out one spot in particular. Daniel then saw George go for a large rock and lift it. He feared they had tricked him, that George would hit him over the head with the rock any second now. Instead, George pulled a buckskin pouch from under the stone and stuffed it under his shirt.

  "Something I lost here the other night," he confided in everyone, and Daniel felt relief, seeing that George had dropped the stone.

  It had come on darkness when Old Billy said, "Now all of you just take off running and hollering, right toward those trees and hills yonder! Go!"

  With that Daniel let go with a war-whoop and all of them ran, yelling and whooping like Indians on the warpath. When they reached the area, Daniel heard a screeching noise and saw a light coming from out of a gaping hole amid the shadows. Someone stood there, a lantern in his hand, motioning them onward and shouting, "Come on! This way, hurry!"

  Daniel and George stared at one another, amazed. The two runaways had been here before, and this time they went in unafraid. George and Daniel held back until Daniel saw that the man holding the lantern proved to be Colonel Halverston himself. Halverston stared out at Old Billy, and he had a look in his eye that would melt ice.

  "Who's this white boy, Billy? What's he doing here?"

  "Daniel's all right, colonel. He won't make no trouble for us."

  "Trouble's already come for you. colonel," George said to Halverston. "The judge and sheriff re getting too close to the operation. You have to close this station down, and fast."

  "Who're you to tell me what to do?"

  "Colonel—" began Billy.

  "Shut up. Billy," the colonel angrily replied, then turned to George. "I asked you, mister, just who are you?"

  "Name's George Penny. I'm a free black man. I was sent to snoop around these parts by Judge Hatcher, and I'm due back to report to him anytime now."

  "Why're you telling me all this then?" The colonel stood tall and firm, holding his lantern to George's features, studying him.

  "Colonel, we should get inside and talk," said Billy. "It won't do for someone to see us all out here."

  The colonel nodded, saying, "Follow me."

  The opening was only large enough for one man to enter at a time. The entrance proved pitch black, the cavern cold and silent except for the light trickle of an underground stream. It all gave Daniel the shivers, but once inside, the colonel raised the wick on his lantern and held it closer to the entrance. Daniel saw that a stone slab, perhaps five by four feet, moved by two pulleys and was worked within a guiding wood frame that hugged the cave walls. One of the colonel's house servants grinned at Daniel from where he stood at the cranking pulley.

  "I learned a little engineering in my army days," said the colonel. "Come along."

  In a matter of minutes, the group was passing through one of the most beautiful underground caverns Daniel had ever seen. The walls sparkled blue with silver flashes wherever the colonel's light fell. Here and there, Daniel spied a shiny wet wall of orange where clay sediment accumulated, the water trickling over it to form a stream at their feet. Big gray, salt-like rocks hung from the ceiling, each looking to Daniel like an upside down dunce cap. Wherever the colonel's light failed to penetrate, this place was in total darkness.

  "No wonder there's so many tales about this place," Daniel said aloud, his words echoing through the cavern. "Looks like the inside of the world."

  "Only the bravest come through when they see the earth open its mouth to take them in," replied the colonel from the front of the line. Then the colonel and Old Billy resumed whispering.

  They now passed from one open area to the next, through narrow passageways, connected in places by mere holes where they crawled through on their stomachs, getting their shirts wet with red clay and wet dirt. At times, Daniel felt like a lizard as they descended into the earth. As they went deeper, it became colder, until the walls were icy. George and the house servant followed Daniel, urging him onward.

  Eventually, the angle of the floor carried them upwards rather than down. They continued up for a long time, and suddenly they approached ladder rungs. They passed stone masonry walls now, and Daniel recognized the walls as the foundation and supports of oak beams, split four inches square, framing the entry into a root cellar. Daniel looked around when everyone had come through the trap door. The cellar walls shone thick with the cut of stone blocks, their surface ragged here, smooth there. The wood shelves around held flour, vegetables, jars, preserves, wines, and meals. Corn tied in large bundles dangled neatly from the ceiling. Flour sacks sat alongside bushel baskets full with tomatoes, potatoes, squash, onions and beets. Another set of stairs was illuminated from the light of the house, where a door stood open to another trap door. Daniel now realized the root cellar sat below the house, not outside or back of the house.

  At the second trap door, a face appeared and a woman shouted down, "Is all well, dear?"

  She was the colonel's wife. The colonel looked up and answered, "Don't worry, Amanda. It was just a drill. The cargo has arrived a second time. They just had a round-trip ticket and wanted to cash it in."

  Daniel wondered what the colonel meant by calling them all cargo, and what he meant by "ticket" and "cashing in." George had called this place a station. Then he realized since this was part of the infamous underground railroad, of course they called it a station, and the cargo was the Coleson County men, and they had a ticket to ride on the train.

  "Come," said Colonel Halverston, taking a bottle from one of the slots on the wine rack. "We'll talk upstairs in comfort, Mr. Penny."

  SEVEN

  DANIEL'S ESCAPE

  "How'd you get started doing the work of the Underground Railroad? Who do you pass your cargo on to, once the cargo leaves your hands?" asked George, holding his wine glass as if he didn't know what to do with it. They sat in the colonel's beautiful den, the walls lined with what Daniel believed must be every book ever written. "I mean, I thought I knew all about the road along the Mississppi, every station. But I never heard tell of you before, and you do it so neatly, I know there's got to be talk."

  The colonel replied, "Talk is what kills people, you know. A slip of the lip, all that."

  "But not if you turn the talk into just that—talk—the ghost story, the fanciful tale of some poor idiot storyteller," added Mrs. Halverston.

  "Like Old Billy?" asked George.

  Old Billy wasn't there to hear himself called names. He'd taken the runaways to a safer place, Daniel guessed. "Mr. Billy ain't no idiot," Daniel protested. "He's smart, really, he is."

  The colonel lifted his glass and toasted Daniel's statement, saying, "That he is and a fine man! He could go North, make free anytime on my line." boasted the colonel.

  "But he'd rather stay and help the others out. He has people who are loyal to him," Mrs. Halverston added.

  "We don't take on a new person unless we're certain of him," said Halverston, sipping at his wine. "Even some black men have an attitude, drilled into them by society, that running away is not only illegal, th
at it's immoral, religiously wrong."

  "They get it with their food, their wash, their board and their preachers," said Mrs. Halverston.

  "We can't be too careful here," added the colonel.

  "You're not being careful at all, colonel, taking to this man!" Daniel bravely stepped forward and declared. "He's a runaway catcher himself, a bounty hunter!"

  "That may be, Daniel," replied Halverston, "but he seems a man of his word, and from what Billy tells me, I think we can trust him to keep our secret. He's made a deal with Old Billy—your help for the runaways."

  "But I ain't worth nothing, and when he finds out, he'll be coming right back here with Sheriff Brisbane and Judge Hatcher."

  The colonel and George looked at one another and smiled. The colonel, chuckling, said, "You go on out to the kitchen to find something to eat, son. You must be hungry."

  "Yes, go ahead, Daniel. We'll just chat a while longer," said George.

  Daniel's frown and raised shoulders displayed his exasperation, but he only walked off. He closed the door as the colonel answered another of George's questions, saying, "I quit when the military completely let me down. I had been a military lawyer, and was given a case to defend having to do with a young private charged with cowardice and hung as an example when his entire platoon had run from the scene of a battle."

  Mrs. Halverston said, "The young man was chosen and condemned on one fact alone. He was a Negro. He wasn't even carrying a gun into battle. He was hardly more than Daniel's age. He was the bugler and carried the flag."

  "And they convicted him over my objections and any reason, and all I could do was watch them murder him in the grandest of military fashion," said Halverston, swallowing hard, as if it had happened only yesterday.

  Old Billy stood in the hall as Daniel closed the door. "The colonel don't want to give up the station, not for a day, that's plain. If he could win that election, we could go into a whole new operation. He's worried plenty he won't win. Lots on his mind," Billy finished.