William Henry is a Fine Name

by Cathy Gohlke

  I stepped back into the shadows, because I knew that time was gone. Grandfather would never back down. I’d made my choice, and Jeremiah’s life rested in my hands. There was no turning back. I could only pray that one day they would all understand that I had to do this, for Jeremiah, for William Henry, for me. I was bringing disgrace to my family just when there was the possibility of uniting us all. “Give me liberty or give me death.” Did the choice have to be so hard?

  THE MEMORY OF PA’S FACE and Ma’s unbridled joy haunted me with Stargazer’s every hoofbeat. I pushed the sadness and longing behind me and set my jaw for the job ahead.

  Now that we’d ridden beyond the church, we knew that most people were either sitting in the congregation or at home for the night, keeping out of the cold and snow. We took courage and lit the lantern. Jeremiah held it behind me, and we made better time with its light.

  Snow fell faster and harder. After nearly an hour the road forked. We’d started down the right fork when Stargazer shied. Jeremiah spoke in my ear, “Look! A light ahead!” Sure enough, a lantern bobbed toward us. “We got to get off this road!” Jeremiah shuttered our lantern and I reined Stargazer off the road, into some trees. We waited till the rider passed. “Think that a pattyroller?”

  “I don’t know, but we can’t risk it. We’d best stay off the road.” So we slid down the bank and hugged the river as best we could. Slowed to a walk, we turned the lantern shutter low, knowing that homes might be anywhere along the river.

  “How far Granny Sara say this Mount Pleasant be?”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t! Did you come this way before?”

  “Not this way.” Two long hours must have passed as we picked our way along the bank. We shivered through our wet and heavy layers of clothing. I shielded my face and eyes as best I could against the piercing sleet. Crusted snow inched upward from the ground and showed no sign of stopping. “Do you think we missed it?” Jeremiah voiced my own fear.

  I shook my head and whispered, “I hope not. Dear God, please show us the way to take.” We walked on for another mile or so—it was hard to tell how far in the dark and storm. Cold settled in my chest. My feet had long since gone numb, and I feared frostbite. What made me think we could do this alone? We’d gone only a few miles, and fewer hours. How could we run hundreds of miles and not get caught, or lost, or—?

  That is when I heard the church bell, chiming somewhere in the night. At first I thought my mind had conjured it. But it came again and again, ringing the midnight, ringing in Christmas morning!

  “Lawd A’mighty!” Jeremiah whispered it like a prayer, and I knew those were the perfect words for this perfect gift. We stumbled toward the bells, thanking God. Even Stargazer’s spirits seemed to lift, and he stepped along more lively. When the tolling of the bells was directly above us and to our right, we climbed the hills and entered some woods. We stopped at the edge of the pines surrounding the church, peering through the dark, trying to see if anyone was there. The church was well lit, so we stepped back into the trees and waited.

  After a time the doors burst open and carolers tumbled out into the night, their lanterns bright, their voices raised in “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King!” My heart beat faster inside my chest. I had to pull back the reins on Stargazer and whisper into his neck. Even he wanted to trot up and join the happy scene. One by one the buggies and sleighs filled, rugs tucked around the travelers. The horses wore bells on their harnesses, stamping joy. Off they trotted into the night, the carolers singing and clapping in time to the music they made. The church bells rang themselves out. The last shining lantern slid through the door, carried by a tall man, wrapped so against the cold that I couldn’t see his face. But he held his lantern up to the night and peered into the trees. Stargazer snorted. I muzzled him with my hands. We stepped back.

  The man hesitated, then turned the church corner into the cemetery, and held his lantern high again. “Anybody there?” He swung his lantern twice. “I say, anybody there?” I wondered if this was a signal for us to come, or if he’d seen something in the trees and grown suspicious. Jeremiah must have wondered, too, because he crouched closer to me. We couldn’t take a chance. We’d been told to wait in the bell tower. What if he wasn’t the person we were supposed to meet? But what if he was, and we were missing our chance for help? The man walked among the stones for a time, then turned and took a path through the woods. We waited until we no longer heard the crunch of his boots in the snow, until no light bobbed through the trees.

  Finally, we stepped from the shelter of the pines. Sleet picked our faces. I was afraid to leave Stargazer alone in the woods, unsure of where we could tether him that he wouldn’t be seen. So we led him up the plank steps and into the church. The vestibule was still warm from the fire that had burned in the stove; we were glad to shed our wet clothes and huddle near its banked embers.

  “It don’t seem right, bringing a horse into church,” Jeremiah said.

  “We can’t leave him outside. Somebody might see him. Anyhow, if the baby Jesus was born in a stable with animals, then it’s all right to bring the animals into the church,” I reasoned. Jeremiah wasn’t sure. “Wish we could start up this fire. The cold’s seeping in fast.”

  “Somebody might see the smoke and come to check,” Jeremiah argued. “Too risky.”

  “I guess. Nanny Sara said to wait in the bell tower, but that’s no good with Stargazer in here. And it’ll be colder up there.”

  “When this sleet stops, every step in the snow will be clear as a banner, pointin’ our way.” Jeremiah hedged, then said, “Maybe Stargazer ought to wait in the woods. I could tie him to a pine and go check in the morning. Sleet’s not so bad there, and he’d be sheltered from the wind.”

  I knew Jeremiah was right. I just hated to take the risk of him being seen, and it felt good to have Stargazer near me. But if anybody came into the church we couldn’t hide in the bell tower with a horse in the vestibule. “I’ll take him. No sense getting your prints out there, too. Just let him get warm through.” After a time I wrapped up again and clumped out into the crusted snow. The sleet had nearly stopped. Four, maybe five inches covered the ground. I found a tight little den among the pines for Stargazer, and tied him to a tree. “I’ll be back early for you. I love you, Stargazer. I’m glad you’re here.” I nuzzled his neck and left him with handfuls of oats taken from our bag, then crunched backward into my footprints toward the church, as best I could, with no light. Jeremiah and I huddled by the stove until the cast iron lost its last bit of heat.

  “Maybe we ought to go to the tower, now. Somebody’s bound to come.” I said it, but wasn’t so sure. Why would anybody come out on a night like this if they didn’t know for certain they needed to? We pulled the hemp rope set in the paneling against the wall. A narrow door swung out on rusted hinges. The smell of cedar filled our nostrils and we climbed up and around, up and around, our hands braced against the roughly hewn timbers. We pushed open the top door and, in the darkness, felt our way into the small slave gallery.

  The bell tower sat between two sets of backless plank benches. I knew this was as close as slaves could sit to the white churchgoers or their preacher. In summer this gallery would be stifling. In winter it was freezing. Two small windows peered into the night. The snow and sleet must have stopped; we heard no “ping, ping” against the glass. Once inside the tower we pulled the door closed behind us and climbed the narrow ladder toward the bell. We could sit on either side of the ladder top’s boxed platform, but the wind blew through the slats of the tower.

  “We can’t stay here long, Robert. We’ll freeze to death.” Jeremiah shivered so I could barely understand him.

  “Maybe someone will come soon.”

  “We been saying that for an hour or more. Know what I’m thinking? I reckon that man with the lantern, the bell ringer, must have been the one looking for us. And since he thinks nobody here, he won’t come again.”

  I shivered,
too. This was harder than I thought it would be. “Let’s go sleep on those plank pews. At least we can roll up in our blankets and stretch out, and eat some of that lunch Nanny Sara packed. If nobody comes soon, maybe we’d best go on.”

  So down we trudged to the gallery, huddling close in our clothes and blankets, shivering till I thought my bones might crack. I tried praying, but I couldn’t keep my mind in one place. I kept thinking about Pa being there at the church, dancing with Ma at Mitchell House, and coming to Ashland for the first time since he and Ma had eloped. And how I wouldn’t be there. What would he think? And then I remembered the note, how I’d said I was going home to Pa. I pulled my fingers through my hair, wishing I could turn back time and know all this before we ran. But even if Pa had come sooner I didn’t see how he would have been able to help Jeremiah. I didn’t see how we could have done anything else but run.

  I tried praying again. I didn’t feel the power that I’d felt on my knees beside Rev. Goforth. I was grateful Rev. Goforth wouldn’t know about me until he got back from Rev. Cleary’s. By then they’d all know I’d gone, they’d all have read my note, and they’d know that Jeremiah had run. I wondered what he’d think about it all. I wondered if he and Pa would take to each other. Sleep must have beat out my wonderings because the next thing I knew, bright sunlight streamed through the gallery’s windows and danced in patches across my face.

  “Wake up, Mr. Robert! It’s full daylight! Wake up!” Jeremiah shook me till my teeth rattled. I tried to push him off, but I was so cold nothing worked right.

  “Quit!” I finally blurted. “I’m awake! And quit calling me Mister!”

  “We got to get out of here. It’s Christmas Day and somebody’s like to come by the church for sure.”

  “Okay. Okay, but we don’t know where to go.”

  “Anyplace but here. I’m gettin’ the willies settin’ here. We shoulda made tracks before daylight.” We rolled our blankets and were about to pull on our shoes.

  “I hope Stargazer’s—” The latch clicked downstairs. We froze.

  “Hello?” A voice called from below. We didn’t move, but motioned each other toward the bell tower. The heavy church door closed. “Anybody here?” Silence. We picked up our bags and crawled backward toward the tower. “Hello? Anybody leave a horse outside?” My heart caught, and I knew in that moment that whatever happened I’d lost Stargazer. Jeremiah jerked my sleeve. We pulled open the tower door, praying it couldn’t be heard below. Jeremiah crawled in first. We heard feet stomping the snow off boots below us, then footsteps shuffling toward the front of the church. We pulled the door behind us and held the latch, afraid to set it into place. “Don’t look like anybody’s here.” We couldn’t tell if the voice was talking to itself or to someone else.

  The footsteps came back on themselves. We dared hope they would leave the church. But they stopped too soon. The downstairs door to the slave gallery swung open on its rusted hinges. “Hello?” Jeremiah flew silently up the ladder in his bare feet and pulled up the saddlebags. I couldn’t be so quiet but tried to match my steps on the ladder to the steps on the stairs below. As the upstairs door to the gallery opened, Jeremiah and I curled ourselves tightly into the eaves on either side of the bell’s platform.

  The footsteps searched the slave gallery, and then the tower door swung outward. “Anybody up there?” The ladder creaked and I knew we were done. I closed my eyes. One rung, two, three, four, five. Suddenly a voice spoke right next to me. “Why didn’t y’all answer me?” My eyes popped open and a boy, not more than eleven, stared in my face, exasperated. I tried to make my tongue work, but it felt tangled inside my mouth. “Are you all deaf that you didn’t hear me calling?”

  “We was scared.” Jeremiah found his voice first.

  The boy grinned. “Well, there ain’t nothing scary about me. Come on down. We’ve got to git.”

  “We thought it was a grown man that was supposed to come,” I said.

  “That’d be Pa. He did come, last night, but you wasn’t here. Y’all sure look white for runaways. Well, ya never know. Come on. Time’s wasting.” We scrambled down the ladder, and down the gallery steps, pulling on coats and shoes. Stargazer pawed the snow beside the hitching post.

  Jeremiah and I looked at each other, chagrined that Stargazer had been so easy to find. “Nobody came last night. We’ve been here ever since the service let out at midnight.”

  The boy placed his hands on his hips. “Pa looked for you, but didn’t see nobody. So he came on home. Trouble is, he fell in a gopher hole in the woods and broke his leg. He’ll be laid up a while.”

  “Maybe that was the man with the lantern last night.”

  “Pa said he searched the cemetery—thought he’d heard a horse, but didn’t see nobody, and nobody come forward.”

  “We saw him,” I said, “but we weren’t sure if he was the person we were supposed to meet. We’d been told to wait in the bell tower.”

  The boy looked fit to be tied. “Well, did you see him raise his lantern and swing it twice?”

  “Yes.”

  The boy shook his head. “That’s the sign! You could have been on your way last night! It’s riskier now. But you can’t stay over. Too many folks comin’ and goin’ at our house Christmas week.”

  “We didn’t know.” My heart sank.

  “You two sure are green at this.”

  “It’s my first time,” I admitted. Jeremiah looked away.

  “Well, don’t worry none. I done it lots. You boys get on your horse so we don’t have no more footprints than mine, and I’ll lead. What’s his name?”

  “Stargazer.”

  “Does he pull sleigh?”

  “I don’t know. I never tried him. Where are we going?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to trust this boy.

  “Going home. Ma’ll whip you up some breakfast, and then we’ll go on. Would have been better to go by dark, but there’s a way. It’s Christmas Day so folks won’t be surprised to see folks visiting one another.”

  We followed the boy through the woods, taking the same path we’d seen the man walk last night. Stargazer crunched through the frozen snow, maybe a half mile. As we neared the farmhouse, I drew images in my brain of a warm kitchen, a hearty breakfast, and a soft bed. But we never even made it to the back door.

  “Y’all wait in the barn. I’ll bring your breakfast out, and we’ll get you on your way.”

  “Right away?” I said, smelling the wood smoke pour from the chimney.

  The boy rolled his eyes at us. “They’ll be out looking for you in no time if they ain’t already. You’re lucky the snow covered your early tracks.”

  “How did you know we were coming?” I asked.

  “Didn’t know who,” the boy said. “Just got word to expect some Christmas packages from nearby. Christmas week’s a good time to run, if you got to run in winter.” The boy pulled open the barn door and slapped Stargazer on the rump. “Feed’s in the sack. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks. Say, what’s your name?” I asked.

  “No names,” the boy snapped, and closed the barn door.

  “Well, we off to a grand start,” Jeremiah said.

  Tired as I was, I loved brushing Stargazer. The long brush strokes eased me as much as they soothed him. Jeremiah waited in the loft. It was one thing to explain a strange white boy in your barn, but a runaway slave was something else. It wasn’t that Jeremiah was black that made him noticeable—he was as white as the boy that had led us into the barn. It was the fearful cast in his eyes and the way he shied from the eyes of most whites that made him stand out, looked like he had something to hide. I wondered how it was possible to disguise such a thing.

  Before I’d finished brushing Stargazer the boy brought back tin plates heaped with sausages, grits, stewed apples, and fried eggs. Maybe coming on Christmas Day was a good thing. We wolfed it down, every bite. The lady of the house even wrapped up lunches of bacon, apples, and a loaf of bread.

  “Best not eat all
that today,” the boy cautioned. “Sometimes it’s got to last a week. Just depends on how free you can travel or how long you got to wait till the next stop can take you on your way.”

  “Won’t they give us food?” I asked.

  Jeremiah knew more than I did. “Sometimes they don’t got it to give, and sometimes they don’t want to do no more than they’re doing. Sometimes, it ain’t safe to stop. Then, we on our own. We got to expect to be on our own, and just be glad if anybody helps.” I had a lot to learn.

  The boy harnessed his sleigh to Stargazer while we ate, then pointed to Jeremiah. “You’ll have to ride on the floor. We’ll cover you with bearskin.” He pointed to me. “You ride with me, and if anybody stops us or asks, you’re my cousin, Harlem, visiting from Rowan County. We’re on our way to pay our Christmas respects to Aunt Matilda in Greensboro.”

  “I don’t like making Jeremiah ride on the floor.”

  Jeremiah cut me off. “No. It’s a good plan.”

  The boy sighed, like I was stupid. “Two white boys out joyriding on Christmas Day in a sleigh is one thing. Two white boys joyriding with a near white colored is something worth noticing.”

  I looked away. “What about Stargazer?”

  “We’ll black that star on his forehead and add a white patch on his rump. Then we’ll see what they say at the next station. He can’t stay here. Somebody must know where you got this horse.”

  “He’s my—”

  “I don’t want to know!” The boy cut me off. “A body can’t be made to tell what he don’t know.”

  Jeremiah tugged me toward the sleigh. We made a pillow of our saddlebags, then Jeremiah curled tight on the sleigh floor. We tucked a bearskin rug over him, and tight around our legs. The sleigh made a smoother ride than a wagon, but I didn’t envy him. The boy and I hunched our knees to keep them from smashing Jeremiah’s face.