“I s’pose d’at mus’ be so,” Mo said. “But we can help your cook maybe. If’n you gots so many mines and the like, d’ey needs feedin’ and such, she can cook and serve good as any.”
Jack asked, “And what about you?”
“I’ll dig in the mines, sir, or pick in the orchards—?”
“That’s very good of you,” Hannah said, “very decent, very courageous. What my husband failed to point out, of course, is that not only would we all be in greater danger, you would be, too. Freedom in Canada is just a few more weeks away, Mo. You don’t want to stop now, when you’re so close. And honestly, if you stay, it’s possible you’ll spend the rest of your lives here. And that might not be altogether that long.”
“Won’t be ten minutes if we send you down to the mines,” Jack said. “We got Chinese digging those holes, they won’t have … one of your kind in their midst. You think your people are superstitious? They’re from a whole other planet!”
Belle looked at her father, at the increasing desperation in his face. He’d been helpless for so long, unable to kill a white man or to escape one unaided. Belle knew even at her young age that her pappy saw this as his destiny, as his chance to do more than merely escape, merely survive, but to be a man worthy of life, worthy of freedom, in his own eyes as much as in anyone else’s.
Hannah seemed to see that too, and her patient smile appeared almost radiant in its love. “Thank you for offering, Mo. But we’re trying to help you and others like you. Please let us do it the way we see fit. The best you could do for us in the way of service would be to go in peace and perhaps, in your new lives, you might remember us fondly and, if possible, send up the occasional prayer.”
Jack added, “Lord knows we’re gonna need it.”
Another white man, one Belle didn’t recognize, stepped through the basement door and down the stairs, carrying a piece of paper and handing it to Hannah. “Just came in off the wire, the boy rode it up from town.”
Hannah took the paper and unfolded it, she and Jack reading it at the same time. Jack shook his head and turned. “Damnit!”
Don asked, “What is it, what’s wrong?”
Hannah explained, “The Michigan City office of our shipping company has been destroyed, burned to the ground apparently. Sheriffs up there are looking into it.”
“Looking into it,” Jack said, “they’re in on it! And they raided the place first, Hannah, guaranteed! Any paperwork we had, records, this could be bad, Hannah, this could be it!”
“Don’t jump out of your saddlebags, Jack. Milton wasn’t to keep any records of our special cargo, you know that.”
“And your political connections were to keep the local law out of our hair up there, you know that!”
“Watch your tone, Husband.” Jack Kincaid backed up a step, head down, tongue falling silent. Hannah looked back at the message. “This was sent by the local sheriff up there, Milton’s name isn’t anywhere on it.”
“Maybe they got to him,” Jack said, “flipped him.”
“Eugene Milton? No chance, he’s with us to the end.”
But Jack said, “You mean, we’re with him. He was involved in all this before we were. He could still be involved with certain people … and things … that we don’t know. And for sure he knows a lot more about us than we do about him.”
“Yes, yes,” Hannah said impatiently, “but where is he now? Why didn’t he send the telegram himself? Even if he was working with confederate people up there, he’d have sent the telegram just to cover his own hide.”
“Unless they killed him,” Jack said. “Whether he was with them or not, it seems likely … ”
Hannah thought about it, eyes sinking to shrewd slits, focused on some imagined distance. “I need to think this through, figure out our next move.”
“Amen to that.” Jack glared at Belle and her family. “Doesn’t look like there’ll be any convoys heading north anytime soon. You four pack up and head out soon as it’s dark. We’ll have Betsy pack some foods, put some shoes on your feet—”
“No, Jack, we won’t.”
This surprised Belle as much as it seemed to surprise Jack. He said to his wife, “Well, it’s the least we can do—”
“The very least,” she said. “But we’re not sending them out there, not now.”
“But Hannah, everything we just said! It’s too dangerous—”
“They barely made it here as it is, Jack. If we send them out on foot now they’ll never make it.”
“Why not, if they made it this far? The Chippewa are still under your spell, what slave hunters are going to make it past them?”
“They have spies between here and the border, you know that. It’s as dangerous up there as it was down south, even more.”
Jack sighed, his hands dropping to his sides. “But you know Slaughter’ll be back, Lord knows when!”
“We’ll have to make some plans for that. You’re the architect, can’t you rig something, a hidden room?”
Jack scratched his chin, lips in a permanent snarl. “I suppose I can—”
“Then do it.”
“And what about them, are they going to spend the whole season down here in the basement?”
“Not if we can get our shipping offices back up and running. Let’s put that at the top of our list, see if we can manage before the winter hits.” She looked around Jack at her chubby assistant. “Don, you ride out, tell the Chippewa not to send any more stragglers our way, we’re out of business for the time being.”
“Yes, Mrs. Kincaid.”
“And tell them the She Bear is pleased with their offerings, but she’s hungry for more. Tell them the snows will be merciful.”
The fat Don nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Kincaid, whatever you say.”
Jack glared at Belle and her family and he sighed, seeming to know there was no point in fighting his wife’s iron will. At her insistence, Belle and the Robinsons would be staying with Hannah Kincaid, the Daughter of the She Bear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It was a quiet few days on the Kincaid estate, the sheriff not returning, Belle and her family able to step out of the basement and even the house to enjoy the early autumn air, stretch their legs, even a bit of running around for the children. Belle’s legs stretched out under her, at last running but not toward anything or from anyone, simply running and jumping for the sheer joy of stretching her muscles, blood humming in her veins.
Joseph began smiling, croaking with bursts of laughter, though he still said not a single word. Belle and her parents had always assumed it had been his upbringing, surrounded as he was by so much fear and terror. Most of the slave children learned to live with it, as Belle had. But Joseph was special, Belle and her parents always knew it. The whites mistook him for a dimwit, which made him even more valuable to them. But Belle knew her kid brother was simply overly sensitive, more intelligent than others and certainly not less, able to see things others could not or would not. It had always explained his silence and his sorrow, the truth of their oppression so clear to him, the tragedy of their lives and their fates and their places in the white world, that he couldn’t possibly smile or laugh or play the way the other slave children sometimes could in those tender years before they were put to hard labor somewhere in the fields, the stables, wherever the master deemed.
But there were no chores for the children, and little enough for their parents. It was as close to a life of leisure as Belle could ever have imagined for herself or her family. She was almost ready to anticipate the fancy meal and splendid china and clothes which came back to her again and again to soothe her in the most challenging moments of her young life.
Belle and Joseph were trying to get used to an activity that seemed almost alien to them, as distant as the tales of the dark continent of their ancestors. Belle and Joseph were simply playing, expending energy to no purpose, laughing for no reason. A big yellow butterfly came in and fluttered around them, Belle and Joseph chasing it with no re
al intent and no real chance of catching it and were glad of it.
Alice started working with Betsy in the kitchen, teaching the East-Coast trained cook a recipe or two and learning some in return. They struck up a friendship, though Belle rarely saw them together. But Alice mentioned her more and more during their nights in the big bedroom of the smithy house for their extended stay.
One night the Robinsons were gathered in the big bedroom upstairs, a little oil lamp keeping a flickering light alive under the glass. After a few songs and prayers, Mo said, “Sure do seem a miracle, how we alls wound up so safe and warm likes we is.”
“And wound up nothin’ and nowheres,” Alice said. “We ain’t livin’ here, Mo. Won’t be long ‘fore d’a Kincaids got their business settled and we’re headin’ up north ‘way.”
Mo nodded. “Can’t stop thinkin’ on d’at story she don’ tol’ d’at sheriff d’at time.”
Alice asked, “What story d’at?”
“‘Bout d’a spirits, Wife, an’ a diamond mine ‘round d’ese here parts.”
“An’ at’s all it was, a story. You know what foolishness even she said it was, jus’ a fool lie to keep than mangy sheriff off’n our tails, is all‘at was.”
Mo waved her off. “Wife, you d’a one done said ain’t no white folks g’wine help no black folk, help no slaves gone rabbit. But look where we is, Alice! Look how good’n’kind is Mrs. Kincaid—”
“Not that mean ol’ man she got—”
“But he don’t say boo about no mine!”
Alice glared at Mo, Belle’s eyes shooting from one parent to the other. “You jus’ keep quiet on yo’ fool stories, Mo Robinson. I won’t hear no more about it no how. We’s g’wine stay quiet, do as we tol’, and go when d’ey says go and ‘at’s all ‘ere is t’it!”
Belle watched her pappy lean back against the wall. But she’d heard the same things he had, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t imagining the same things she was; caverns filled with glittering gems and diamonds. Belle knew her pappy was clinging to the notion of being a hero, of finding some way to bring honor to his name and meaning to his gratitude, purpose to his journey, and some shine to his destiny.
She didn’t imagine that he would, but she loved him for wanting it, for dreaming it. She felt the same way. She knew the temptation of hope, the sweet taste that never seemed to last. It wasn’t lasting this time for her pappy or for her. But that was one thing about hope, there was always just a little bit left.
*
Two days later Belle and Joseph were gathered together by their mamma, Alice, and brought into the big manse in the center of the property. Belle couldn’t help be struck by how it reminded her of the Robinson plantation house. The fixtures were all fine bronze, the wood paneling shiny and well-polished, a stark contrast to the rotting wooden walls of her childhood. The carpets looked like they’d been sewn by ancient Chinese hands, the furniture carved from masters of another country, perhaps even another time.
Don led them all through the house and up the stairs. Belle couldn't fight memories of her days spent with Chrissy and Missy Robinson in their upstairs bedroom. She couldn’t help but remember that day they watched Samuel’s whuppin’ from that second-story balcony, next to Mr. Robinson’s own private balcony extending from his master’s suite.
As they climbed those steps, Mo and Alice and Joseph looking around in happy awe to be welcomed to such a place, Belle’s stomach turned to stone. She had to remember the end of that Robinson mansion, how it was burned, the countless souls who were trapped and met the ends of hell itself. Belle never came to know what happened to the Robinson twins or to their father, and her imagination kept taking her to that upstairs bedroom where the girls had giggled and preened and posed and teased and relished the lavish lifestyle their father had granted them. But the glee of their salad days was interrupted in Belle’s memory by flashes of her imagination; the girls locked behind the doors and fearful of the pounding on the other end even as the smoke got thicker, their eyes burning. How long was it before they started screaming and pounding on the door themselves, Belle could not know and didn’t want to know. Which one was the first to be devoured by the flames, those frilly pink dresses disappearing in a whoosh of spark and fire, Belle tried not to picture it.
But every footstep up that staircase brought back the visions, clearer than ever, her legs becoming numb as they approached the second floor.
But to Belle’s relief, there were no flames, there was no smoke, just the quiet calm of normalcy, life the way the white people were meant to lead it, without relying upon the brawn and blood of the black.
Don led the Robinson family to a pair of closed double doors and knocked, three times in quick succession. A muffled voice called for them to enter. Don opened the door and stood back to let them step into the large office in once corner of the floor, windows on both the eastern and southern walls.
Hannah and Jack Kincaid stood when Mo led Belle and the family into the office, and the unknown white man with them did the same, tan hair barely clinging to his balding head. But he was well dressed, like Hannah and Jack, and seemed no less kindhearted and patient, at least by his smile and courteous nod.
Hannah said, “Mo, Alice, Belle, and Joseph Robinson, I present Eugene Milton.”
Eugene said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” What struck Belle most was how soft his tone was, how sincere he sounded. Belle had learned to trust the whites because of Hannah and her husband and her mission. So to meet another only confirmed what Belle was already wanting to believe.
Hope was at last winning out over disappointment, sweetness lingering on her tongue without that awful, bitter aftertaste.
Hannah said, “I wanted you to know who you’d be meeting on the other side, before getting on the boat at Lake Michigan.”
“If we can get things up and running before the winter,” Eugene said, holding up one hand to caution against any excess hopefulness.
The bitter taste returned to Belle’s tongue, but she tried to ignore it. Instead, Belle looked at Hannah and her husband and remembered the lyrics to the old, treasured tune. The river ended at two hills, with another river beyond, so the song told. And Belle could now envision those two hills as Hannah and Jack, pillars of white stone, strong and protective. And beyond them lay the greater river the song foretold, this Lake Michigan and the boat that would carry the Robinsons to freedom.
The drinking gourd was indeed leading them, Belle knew, even if they were not at the moment going forward. Every day alive was another day of progress, another few steps down the road to salvation.
And Hannah and Jack Kincaid were the way, God himself had seemed to deem it such, and that was one master Belle would gleefully obey and from Whom she would never run: Toward Him, yes; but away from Him, never.
“You’ll find another office,” Hannah said. “And I’ll contact some of my friends, make sure whoever was behind this doesn’t try it again.”
“That won’t stop them,” Milton said. “I’m pretty sure the local law was involved, and that means connections that go around the government, perhaps even over it.”
Jack winced, as he often did when presented with troubling news. “How do you mean that, Eugene?”
“There’s talk of war, Jack, a war between the states! That means there won’t be one government, but two, and that’s if the North survives at all.”
But Hannah was quick to say, “I’ve heard all this talk. And what of it? It’s about time we settled this issue once and for all, I say. I’ve half a mind to put a blade beneath my teeth, mount up and ride down south, put the whole matter to rest myself!”
But Jack said, “Take it easy, Daughter of the She Bear. You can’t take on the whole of Dixie!”
“But who’s to say the North won’t prevail? Of course it would! We’ve got right on our side, we’ve got God’s blessings—”
Jack added, “We’ve got the banks and the money. But they’ve got the goods, the
cotton and the tobacco. Where’s all that Northern money going to come from without the trade to sustain it? The economy will be doomed, were it even to survive such a thing as a civil war.”
“Preferable or practical or otherwise,” the man Eugene Milton said, “it seems more than likely.”
“But it won’t happen now,” Hannah said, “and it won’t strike in Michigan City.”
“But the same men behind the entirety of the effort to create a new country, Hannah, they’re the most powerful men in that part of the States. They have as much power and money and influence up north as you or I or anyone we may know. They’re the ones who torched our offices, they’re the ones who undoubtedly scoured it for records—”
“I told you,” Jack snapped at Hannah, turning quickly to Milton. “Tell me you weren’t keeping records.”
“Of course not, Jack. I was doing this before you two stepped in, you’ll recall.”
Jack, half-jokingly, said, “Oh really? Never occurred to me.”
“If we re-establish the office, it’ll likely get hit again. Or one of our ships will be. Either way, we’ve got to do something other than merely replacing one office with the next. That’s a losing battle.”
They all considered, Belle and her family watching as the three mulled it over, only half-recalling that they were still in the room at all. It made Belle feel good, that she was trusted and included, at least not cast out like some mangy dog.
“It has to come down to a single threat,” Hannah said. “All that power, there’s little reason to think it would just fall upon us naturally.”
“It’s Chisholm,” Jack said. “He wants this land back, not to mention all the wealth we’re pulling from it. We’ve done better here than his family did since they first improved the lot! He’s been biding his time, and this is how he’s coming at us. I told you this Underground Railroad was slow suicide! Now the reaper’s come to claim his good and proper.”
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