Any Known Blood

by Lawrence Hill

  I read the document twice, fingering the dry paper.

  Mill came up from behind me. “Find anything new?”

  I mentioned that this was the first time I had seen the name of the Quaker who had adopted Langston the Second. Mill offered to take me to the A.M.E. Church library.

  “How come you’re suddenly cooperating?” I asked.

  “I been letting you eat, drink, sleep, and read all day and half the night in my house for two months, and you call this suddenly cooperating?”

  “But you’re taking the initiative now. You’re actually proposing a course of action.”

  “Well, the sooner you quit chasing your tail, the sooner you can take me up to Canada to see that brother of mine and meet that mother of yours.”

  “And see Aberdeen?” Mill smiled and sat back. “And see Aberdeen.”

  Baltimore settled into a heat wave. The temperature rose to 110 degrees. The humidity made it feel like 122. Rain kept threatening, but never delivered. A number of old people died in their homes. Thousands of chickens perished on Maryland farms. Restaurants raised the price of meals with chicken.

  I spent most days sifting through family photographs and records at Mill’s place, which had air conditioning. Annette dropped by one Saturday afternoon, and asked if I could help her. She was going to visit some church elders in their homes. I tagged along and tried to make myself useful. Most of the old folks just wanted someone to talk to. I kept looking at Annette. She had braided her hair and applied red lipstick. She wore loose cotton pants that invited me to try to glimpse her long, brown legs.

  “Is he your husband?” one woman asked, while I washed dishes.

  “No. He’s my friend.” “Is he black?” “Sure is.”

  “Bit faded, I’d say. I hear him doing dishes out there. He seems like a good man. Good men are hard to find. I married a willy lump lump. That husband of mine had gristle in his brains and stones in his heart. But your man seems decent. Why don’t you marry him?”

  “Mrs. Winters, people don’t just up and marry like that any more. It’s more complicated. It takes time. People have to get to know each other.”

  “Well, then, git to know him.”

  Mrs. Winters got up and poked my shoulder. “Young man, do you like this woman?” “She’s a fine person,” I said.

  “I can tell by the way you talk respectful that you come from a good family. You don’t have another woman, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And you never been married?” “Actually, I have.”

  “You look too young to be divorced.”

  “Sometimes these things happen, no matter how hard you try.”

  “I married a fool,” she said, “and I never divorced him. I just waited till he died. I figured he’d kick off early and give me a good long time on my own, and he did just that, thank the Lord.”

  Annette laughed. She made sure Mrs. Winters didn’t need anything else, and then let her know that we had to go. She meant to make three more home visits that day.

  Yoyo had been saving money. He was cleaning two houses a day, six days a week. He would have worked Sundays, too, but Mill’s church friends wouldn’t let him. During the heat wave, Yoyo packed sandwiches and fruit and carrots and celery and ate in the women’s homes, after his work was done. Some suggested that he stick around for an hour or two afterward, until the heat subsided. Yoyo generally agreed, if they would leave him alone to do some reading and writing. He could write anywhere, now that he had purchased a portable computer with sixteen megabytes of internal memory, a three-hundred megabyte hard drive, its own software, fax/modem, and printer. Writing had never been easier. The computer purchase left Yoyo with three thousand dollars cash, plus the two hundred dollars that Hélène had sent him for the trip. Yoyo planned to return the two hundred dollars to Hélène. He appreciated the gift. But he felt Hélène would respect him more if he paid his own way.

  The letter came without a return address, as if the sender were over confident that the missive would indeed land in my mailbox, or, alternatively, as if she didn’t really care. The note itself was hardly better. It was chatty without saying anything of substance, and ended with: “Will be in touch. Ellen.”

  In other words, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” I tried to put the letter out of my mind. The old relationship was holding me back. Perhaps the best thing that could happen to me would be to never see or hear from Ellen again. I ripped up the letter and threw it out.

  I spent four hours with Mill in the A.M.E. Church library. We found some old photos of Langston Cane the Second. He was a tall, dark man. Round, full face. Minister’s tunic tight around his neck. A level, unflinching stare. A look of confidence, and of serenity. A man with no doubt about his mission in life. There was a photo from the country home where the Cane family summered in northern Maryland. Langston Cane the Second stood there in his black minister’s garment, holding his son — my grandfather — close to his side. My great-grandfather, in that photo, looked like a stern sonofabitch. Fool with me and I’ll pop your head off.

  I found something exciting in the church library — a personal memoir that my great-grandfather had written. It was entitled “Langston Cane: A brief, personal recollection, for the purposes of historical clarity. NOT for publication.” It was six handwritten pages. I devoured that memoir, and spent the next three days at the Maryland Historical Society, going over records of mid-nineteenth century Quakers in Baltimore. I found the papers of various Shoemakers, including Nathan Shoemaker, who was born in 1826. That would put him at about the right age to adopt my great-grandfather in 1866. I paid a genealogist to help me. She discovered that Shoemaker had kept a diary, and she found it in the Hall of Records in Annapolis. I drove there with Mill, and we hit gold. Shoemaker had written several pages about my great-grandfather.

  I told Mill that I wanted to go to Harpers Ferry. She wanted to come along, too. I told her I would need to spend several nights there. Good, Mill said, because that would leave us time to check out the records at Storer College, where my great-grandfather had studied.

  “Is it still open?”

  “It shut down long ago, but the records may still be there.” “Why do you say that?”

  “That’s what colored people do, son. They shut down a building and leave all the papers alone, instead of throwing them out. That way, if some fool like you wants to come along once every hundred years and waste three good days digging through it, he’s welcome to do so.” Mill said we should stay at the Hilltop Hotel in Harpers Ferry. “It has a view of the Shenandoah and the Potomac rivers. It used to be a summer resort for colored folks.”

  “So you know about this place?” I asked.

  Mill smacked me with a magazine. “I have every right to know a thing or two and not have some overeducated, pampered, love-struck, mixed up, half-black child from Oakville underestimating me.”

  “All right, Mill. You win.” I called the hotel and booked two rooms.

  When Yoyo heard about the trip, he asked to come along. Annette sounded interested, too. I urged her to join us.

  Mill said her car couldn’t be trusted in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so the four of us traveled in my Jetta. Yoyo took along his new computer. It had taken him only a few days to get the hang of it, to have a phone installed, and to learn how to use the modem. He had already figured out how to surf the Internet, and how to send his newspaper articles by electronic mail to Hélène Savoie at the Toronto Times. On the drive south, Yoyo was already talking about sending another story to the Times.

  We parked at the Hilltop Hotel and walked to the edge of the property to admire the plunging valley. It dove down to the Potomac River and, on the other side, back up the hills of Maryland. Down river, the Potomac merged with the Shenandoah. Harpers Ferry was nestled into the V where the two rivers met. Trees covered the valley. A breeze lifted up to reach us. Annette was standing beside me. Our shoulders touched. We turned to look at the creaky, wooden two-story Hil
ltop with the long verandah in front.

  Inside, Mill thrust a credit card across the counter.

  “I’m staying here with my children,” she said. “We reserved two rooms. For three nights. Under the name of Millicent Cane.”

  The clerk looked at her. The clerk looked at us. There was Yoyo, who was as dark as dark got, and a good deal darker than Mill. There was Annette, who was of a medium complexion, and then there was me — Zebra Incorporated.

  “Mrs. Cane, your rooms are ready. Here are the keys. Do you need help with your bags?”

  “No. We don’t have many bags.”

  “Are there jacks in the bedrooms?” Yoyo asked.

  “No, but if you need to hook up a computer, you can do it in our boardroom,” the clerk said.

  “Stupendous,” Yoyo said.

  The clerk gave Mill two keys.

  Mill charged out of the stairwell and said, “Come on, Annette, our room is down this way. You men are over to the right.”

  We had lunch in the hotel dining room. Our window overlooked the Potomac River. Yoyo had a number of questions about the menu. Grits. Hog maws. Corn fritters. Creamed beef. Mill answered the first four questions, and then told him to hush up and order.

  After lunch, I said I wanted to get to Storer College right away. Mill said she’d come with me. Yoyo preferred to do some writing. Annette planned to take a walk.

  “Why don’t you come with Langston and me?” Mill asked her.

  “I want to be on my own for a few hours,” Annette said.

  “Woman of your looks ain’t likely to be left alone,” Mill mumbled.

  I walked out with Annette to admire the valley again. “Your aunt drives me crazy. Why didn’t you tell her we’d take a separate room?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to do that.”

  “Of course I do. Why are you so afraid of standing up to your aunt?”

  “I’m not afraid of her.”

  “All you do is kowtow to her. She’s got family information and you want it, so you suck up to her.”

  “I indulge her, but I hardly think I suck up to her. I like her.”

  “She’s aggressive and bossy.”

  “She’s a fascinating person, and I’m fond of her.”

  “Well, have a terrific time with her this afternoon.”

  “Why are you being so bitchy all of the sudden?”

  “It’s not worth a fight. Not worth our first fight, anyway,” she said. And she smiled. “I just don’t think I can last three nights with your aunt.”

  “I’ll talk to her about it.”

  “You don’t need her permission. We get another room, stay in it, and pay for it. It’s that simple.”

  Mill walked up to us. “There you are. Let’s go, Langston. Sure you don’t want to come, Annette?”

  “No, thank you, Mill. Lang, I’ll take care of what we were just discussing.”

  “Fine. Catch you later.”

  I turned. Annette said my name. I looked back. She stepped up and kissed me twice on the mouth. Mill acted as if she saw nothing. We drove to Storer College.

  The college had closed decades earlier. The facilities, located on several acres of green, sloping grounds, had been converted into government buildings. We knocked on doors until we found a janitor.

  I told him we were looking for Storer College records. “The college closed years ago,” the janitor said. He was a short, lean man, close to retirement. “I know that, but —”

  Mill placed her hand on my arm. “What’s your name, anyway?” “Ron.”

  “Ron what?” “Ron Alleyne.”

  “You part of the Alleyne family used to go, twenty or thirty years back, to the Bethel A.M.E. in Baltimore?” “I might be. Who’s asking?”

  “I’m Millicent Cane. I been going to that church since I was a girl. My pappy — and this boy’s grandpappy — used to be the minister there. I knew of a William Alleyne, used to go there, used to know my father well.”

  “William Alleyne was my father.”

  “Ain’t that something? I bet we could find lots of other people in common.” My aunt slipped the man a twenty-dollar bill. Alleyne told us to follow him inside. He led us to an old classroom.

  “You’ve been working here a while, haven’t you?” Mill said.

  “Since before the college closed down. Pity it closed. Did a good job educating our people. Did you get yourself to school, son?” the man asked.

  I told him that I did.

  “He had too much schooling, you ask me,” Mill said. “But he does know how to think. When he starts thinking, watch out. You need a rocket ship to keep up with him.” Alleyne chuckled. Mill went on. “He’s writing a book. It’s so complicated it would make your head spin. And he needs some information about his great-grandfather—my grandfather—who studied at this here college. We figure that information could be in your records.”

  “I don’t think I could help with that.”

  “My nephew here came all the way from Canada.”

  “You don’t say. I always wanted to see Canada. I’m sorry, but those records are in a locked room. You need permission from the college administrator.”

  “Where’s he?”

  “Dead and gone,” Alleyne said.

  “My nephew here drives a funny Canadian car called a Jetta. It’s a diesel. I’m telling you, the motor sounds like a bomb going off. And he drove down here all that way.” Mill slipped the man another twenty. “There’s no more where that came from,” she said.

  Alleyne took us down a dusty hall, and into what used to be the Storer College library. The books were gone, but the shelves remained. And on the shelves, and on some tables, and on about half the floor, lay boxes. Boxes of Storer College records. There were about forty of them.

  “We’ll need Annette and Yoyo to help us dig through all this,” I mumbled.

  “Hush, boy,” Mill said. “Mr. Alleyne, we appreciate this. We do. Now we’re going to need some time. We’re gonna need to be in here today, tomorrow, and maybe the next day.”

  “I don’t know if that is possible,” he said.

  Mill stood, suddenly. She was a good two hundred and fifty pounds, and five ten or so. In other words, she was four inches taller and about a hundred pounds more imposing than Alleyne. “Now listen here. I just parted with forty dollars, and if you start greasing me for more I’ll tell anybody who’ll listen you were taking bribes, and I’ll keep saying it till you get fired and you lose your pension. We been polite to you, but don’t push us. We’re good people, Mr. Alleyne. We ain’t gonna take nothing, or ruin nothing, or hurt nothing. We’re just looking for some information about our family. I’m gonna ask once more politely and I’m not going to ask again. Will you let us sit here quietly for the rest of the afternoon and let us back in at nine on the dot tomorrow morning?”

  Alleyne nodded. “Don’t tell nobody I let you-all in here.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon opening boxes with Mill’s pocket knife and filtering through the contents. We found report cards, disciplinary proceedings, yearbooks, and news clippings — but all from the twentieth century. We’d been through ten boxes by the time four-thirty came along.

  On the drive back to the hotel, I said that Annette and I were going to take a separate room. I expected an outburst.

  “You’re a grown man, and Annette is a grown woman,” she said.

  “I’ll move Annette’s bag when we get back.”

  “She’s probably already moved it. That young woman knows her mind. Langston. Listen up. Do you realize that girl has designs on you?”

  “I’m not sure what designs she has. She hasn’t said anything.”

  “She’s not that dumb. But she has designs on you. I never went to university, but I know applied heat when I see it.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “She likes you. So you should act honorably. Don’t take advantage of her.”

  “I’m not taking advantage of anybody
. I enjoy her company. I like being with her.”

  “You’re thirty-eight years old and you oughta know by now that you can’t just enjoy a woman and then walk out of her life.”

  “I know that, Mill.”

  “As soon as you’ve finished all this family research nonsense, I want you to stop thinking so much and go out and do something with your life.”

  I wanted to say that she sounded like my father, but I held my tongue.

  Yoyo didn’t show up for dinner. Mill ate quickly and got up from the table. “It’s been a long day. I’m not used to all this gallivanting around. We got a long day tomorrow. See you at breakfast at eight.”

  “Good night, Mill,” Annette said. “Good night, Mill,” I said.

  We were heading outside when we bumped into Yoyo. He had been writing, and unable to make it to dinner. He showed us the story he was about to file to the Toronto Times.

  Imagine that you were living 136 years ago. Remember that although slavery had been abolished for nearly 30 years in Canada, it was still thriving in the American South.

  Put yourself in Canada West in 1859. Let’s say you are working in a farming community. And let’s say that, one day, a tall, gaunt, devoutly Christian man named John Brown enters your home and tells you that he intends to put together a band of 20 men to attack a United States weapons arsenal and armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After overtaking Harpers Ferry, Brown plans to free local slaves and escape to the hills of Virginia. He says he will attract untold thousands of slaves, who will join him in guerrilla warfare on the institution of slavery. Together, they will form a new provisional government of the United States, which, among other things, will enshrine the principle of equality for all human beings.

  Would you help John Brown with money or shelter? Would you join his raiders? Or would you declare him a madman and alert the nearest authorities? It is easy to say that Brown was doomed to fail. But it is just as easy to reply that only violence could overthrow slavery.