Maps of Fate

by Reid Lance Rosenthal

  Zeb leapt at him from across the wagon, leading with his knee. He tripped on the corner of a trunk and lost his balance, but not before smashing his fist into Jacob’s evil smile fullforce as he fell, splitting the man’s lip with a splatter of blood. The women scrambled to the top of the trunks, Rebecca helping Sarah and Inga to safety, their heads grazing the top of the wagon as they crouched.

  With Zeb off-balance, the Irishman struggled to one knee and the two of them, with barely room to maneuver, locked in silent combat. Enraged, Zeb pulled one long arm free and with his hand against Jacob’s forehead, pummeled his head against a canvas top brace. They battled to their feet.

  Horrified, Inga watched as Jacob’s powerful bulk coiled, then exploded, shoving Zeb and forcing him to take a half-step back. He tripped over a crate, sprawling rearward. Jacob swiftly bent and in one smooth motion, drew up a trouser leg, the flash of his boot-knife suddenly appearing in his thick hand. Zeb’s hand reached behind his back and curled around the hilt of his own knife.

  There was no mistaking the hammer’s half-cock of Reuben’s Colt. Zeb stopped mid-action. Jacob froze, the pistol pointed at his head, four feet from the muzzle, the barrel steady, not a millimeter of shake in Reuben’s hand. The young Prussian’s face was deathly, his voice low, cold, and matter-of-fact.

  “Out.”

  Wide-eyed, Jacob managed a blustery sneer. “Farmer boy, no need to get yourself in a tizzy. I wasn’t talking about your woman,” his eyes shifted to Rebecca, and then immediately back to Reuben. “Though as fine a creature as she is, I suppose she has secrets, too.”

  Reuben pulled back the hammer of the Colt to full cock.

  Jacob dropped the knife and raised his hands. “I’m unarmed, farmer boy. This would be cold-blooded murder.”

  “The worst of it, Irishman would be that more of your blood would be in our wagon. How about I lay down this Colt, you try and reach me with your blade, and we’ll see what happens.”

  Jacob’s eyes flickered. No doubt, Reuben really would pull the trigger.

  Through clenched teeth, Reuben repeated, “Out!”

  Jacob stood up. Reuben rose with him, the Colt now at his hip pointed at Jacob’s chest. Inga watched, unable to breathe, Johannes, still staring at her with impassive eyes. What was he thinking? What had he surmised? Would he believe Jacob?

  “Untie the flaps and let the tailgate down,” Reuben motioned with the pistol barrel.

  Blood flowed from Jacob’s lip, staining his shirt. He shrugged with a false bravado, but obeyed the commands. As he bent down to lower the tailgate, Reuben took one step and kicked him hard between the legs. Jacob grunted, doubled over, and sagged down on the open tailgate. Reuben put the sole of his boot to Jacob’s back and pushed the groaning Irishman into the snow, where he landed on his side with a whoof, his hands between his legs, his face contorted with pain, the snow around his mouth turning pink.

  Inga watched as Reuben, standing on the tailgate, twirled his gun twice, then smoothly slipped it back in the holster. Zeb stood, sheathed his knife, and took a half-step to the tailgate. His hand brushed his moustache and his voice was firm when he said, “Thanks,” before falling silent again, staring down at Jacob’s writhing figure. Reuben glanced at Zeb. Then, ignoring Jacob, he turned back to Inga and the rest of the group.

  A grey dawn was breaking, and the wind had died to occasional gusty whispers. Perhaps a foot of snow had fallen, Inga thought, drifting in deep, finely sculpted shapes and hollows that rose up behind every obstruction.

  “Looks like the storm has broken,” Reuben said. “Let’s dig ourselves out, though I doubt we will be moving today or tomorrow.”

  His eyes came to rest on Johannes, and then Inga, with a sad, anxious look. She turned her head slowly toward Johannes who had not averted his gaze, even during most of the altercation. His pale blue eyes were wider than normal, his usual smile absent, an incredulous, pain-filled expression on his face that chilled Inga to the bone.

  CHAPTER 25

  ON THE EVE OF APRIL 25, 1855

  INTO THE NIGHT

  The old leather hinges squeaked in protest as Lucy swung open the door of the shack. Israel barely looked at her. He was bent over the table, spectacles and nose inches from a dirty paper on which he scratched laboriously with a pencil he raised to his mouth and licked after each word or two.

  “Israel…”

  Israel held up his left hand and, without looking up, mumbled into his writing sheet, “Hold on, one minute. Let me finish this thought. I have to redo the sharp in this pencil soon, anyway.”

  Lucy heard herself sigh. She walked over to the table and gently set down a small, worn canvas sack with two potatoes and half a cabbage Mistress Tara had smuggled to her from the root cellar at the main house. The sound of Israel’s pencil was halting, but clearly audible in the silence of the small, confined shack, making a noise somewhere between the scratch of chalk on a blackboard, and the raspy complaint her stiff cleaning brush made when she was scrubbing pots after serving dinner at the main house.

  She went over and stood by the wood burning cook stove. She could hear the gentle whoosh of warm air rising up the haphazard flue pipe, and there was the occasional crackle from the log pieces as they turned into embers in the stove’s belly. Standing with her back to its radiating warmth, palms facing back toward the heated iron, she looked around the one room they called home, narrowing her eyes at two canvas gunny sacks, partially bulging with some unknown contents. They weren’t here when I left! “Israel…”

  “Hold on just a damn minute, Lucy, be done in seconds.”

  Israel leaned back in the chair, which groaned with his weight. He fumbled in his pants pocket, one leg extended to get his hand in, and withdrew a small pen-knife with which he proceeded to sharpen the pencil stub. He looked up at her and smiled. “Just making a list.”

  Lucy felt a wave of trepidation. “A list for what? And why are these two sacks over here in the corner? Them bags look like they come from the harvest barn, just about brand spanking new. Who said you could have them?”

  Israel stayed focused on sharpening the pencil. Then, still not answering, he held up the writing tool to the window, twirling it in his fingers, checking the point. He laid it on the table and peeled the spectacles away from his ears. “I’m making a list for when we light outta here. You know—me, you, north, and then west to those big mountains I’ve been readin’ to you about.” He nodded at the two sacks, “and them is our packs.”

  Lucy felt queasy. She walked over to the table and sat down on the only other chair. It squeaked as she adjusted her weight. “Israel, what fool talk is that? You said we be going this summer when the weather’s warm,” she paused, “and that was the final decision the two of us made.”

  “Things have changed, wife. We are headed to freedom tomorrow night,” he grinned, “and praise the Lord.”

  “You know what they would do to us if they found those sacks?” she questioned, as angry as she was fearful, “and Lord knows what you have in them! Ain’t no way we can deny you took them when they be right here in our shanty!” Israel laughed, and reached his hand across the table to take hers, but she withdrew it and glowered at him.

  “Wife, neither them sacks nor us gonna be here long ’nough for anybody to find ’em. And, once we is runaway slaves, don’t think it’s going to matter much that we borrowed a couple pieces of canvas from the harvest barn, do you? I kinda regard it as our first pay as free people.”

  Lucy felt a dull stab of pain in her right knee and began to rub it. “What’s the all-fired hurry, Israel? You said the traveling is easier when it’s warm, after spring weather. You do remember what spring weather can be like in these parts, don’t you, husband? Or are you getting so old, that black, nappy head of yours is getting forgetful?”

  Israel chuckled. “No, no, but spring weather can be our ally, too.

  Some snow will make it more difficult for the dogs, so long as new snow covers our tracks.
If that don’t take care of it, that pepper I’ve been having you bring back from the main house bit by bit, is almost a pound. Ever seen a hound on track breathe in a nose full of pepper?” He started to laugh, “Let me tell you, when that happens, last thing those dogs will be thinking ’bout is our scent. And, over the last two weeks I caught and cooked ten horned toads, then burned ’em to ashes. We can rub that in with some water on the bottom of our shoes, and there ain’t no beast that can follow us.”

  Seeing she had not dented his mood, Lucy decided it was time to put her foot down. “Israel, I think we should wait for summer like we originally talked.”

  Israel’s smile faded and his head shook adamantly. “Lucy, I overheard talk today while I was shoein’ some mules down at the barn. Was measuring out the shoes back in the stalls. Wasn’t using no tools so there was no noise. Two of the bosses was talking. They intend to ship half of us darkies south on April 28. You and me is two of them. They seemed right nervous about where this anti-slavery line may wind up, and they figure this place is way too near what could be the union boundary if war breaks out.”

  He laughed bitterly. “They said they don’t want to lose none of their property. How do you feel about being somebody’s property, Lucy?”

  “Israel, I don’t care what they think.”

  Israel leaned forward across the table and his eyes bored into hers. She noticed the whites around the brown irises were no longer bright, their dull hue streaked here and there with red veins, and there was a thin light ring around the brown of each iris.

  “I don’t give a damn what they think either, wife. But I do give a big damn about what I think, and you think. And, we ain’t no one’s property. We own us—no one else.”

  He leaned back in the chair and tapped the non-sharpened end of the pencil on the paper.

  “There’s another thing, too. Looks like maybe a storm comin’ tomorrow night out of the west and north. Since we’re talking freedom, I took the liberty of getting us two gutta-percha rain ponchos out of the supply shed, so we’s got some protection against the wind and the wet. And them sacks is painted canvas. That will keep things from getting too soaked. I have already packed my clothes, and I got most of the things on this list in my bag. You need to pack yours. Make sure you bring all your sewing things you have, and especially those awls of yours. I got us twenty fishhooks I’ve collected over the years, and I got paid for them last two saddles I stitched up in town, so we got $9.75 for emergencies.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I can’t be ready in that short a time, Israel.” She knew her voice sounded pleading.

  Israel sat forward. “Yes, you can. I’ll take care of the list. All you have to worry about is your clothes, shoes, see if you can’t grab a couple extra potatoes tomorrow, and that sewing gear. We ain’t going to have money to buy clothes, so we have to keep what we’s got in the best repair we can. I plan on you and I heading out maybe an hour right after dark tomorrow, after you get back from feeding them up at main house. We’ll head north. The ground is pretty dry that route, and not too hilly. The main thing we got to do is get across that Kansas line. Then we are in free territory.”

  He shook his head grimly, “Not that that’s gonna stop ’em from pursuing us. That’s where a little bit of snow, a whole lot pepper, and a dash of horned toad ashes will come in. I cut four good limbs today. Stripped them about a foot on the ends. One is a walking stick and one for our bags,” he started to laugh, “I mean our luggage— so we carry them over our shoulders. If we travel with those bags at the end of arms, our shoulders will fall off.”

  Then what? Lucy felt resigned. She knew that finality in Israel’s voice, and there was no swaying him once he set his mind and got all worked up. “So then we will be in free territory, the middle of nowhere, with a couple of potatoes, the hounds of hell and a whole mess of angry white folks after us, in country where we don’t know nobody, in the center of a snowstorm.”

  Israel slapped the table and chortled, “Don’t go gettin’ bogged down in all those details, woman, we will do just fine. We’ll find ourselves shelter from the storms. Mistress Tara is going to try and delay them figurin’ out we is gone for as long as she can…”

  Lucy felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. “You told Mistress Tara?”

  “Damn right. You think she would turn us in after teachin’ me to read and write and smuggling me papers? You saved her life when she was born. If she’s said to me once, she’s told me one hundred times how her mama told her the story. They would both be dead without that mid-wifing of yours. She’s not keen on slavery, but more than that she feels she owes us. I think she’s doing it as much for her own peace of mind, as she is for us and her beliefs.”

  He reached into his pocket. “She got us this,” he held out his hand and the brass rim of a compass glowed in the flicker of the tallow candle Israel had been writing by. “No matter if it’s dark, no matter the weather, no matter if we can’t find the North Star, we’ll know exactly where we’re going, and where we’re going first is toward Lawrence, Kansas.

  “I been reading on it. There’s something in almost every paper, even if they is two months old. They all says you get to Lawrence, you’re as good as free. It’s the center of that Underground Railroad Liberty Line. I already know a couple places we can hole up. Mostly just a collection of people’s homes and outbuildings owned by folks that believe in freedom, and that we are all equal. We’ll go find one of them folks. They are all members of the Emigrant Aid Society. They is why Kansas is a Free Territory. There’s a Dr. John Doorway, a Major James B. Abbott, and Reverend John Stewart, and others. They don’t ask no questions, and they ain’t scared of that Fugitive Slave Act. We will probably be sleeping outside a good bit of time before we make contact. Then we can hide out in places along the way, Darrell, Topeka, Holten, Hortun and Albany and then Nebraska. Not too many of us come up from the South. This all got established mostly cause of darkies from Missouri. These folks runnin’ this trail, they believe in the highest law, God’s law.”

  “Though,” he reached out both hands, covered hers and squeezed, “I won’t soft-talk you, woman. Once we get to the Nebraska Territory we will be pretty much on our own. Most of our kind head north to Canada, not many to the Rockies. What I been reading says the Indians figure we are just as bad as the whites, so we won’t get much help there. And once we are west of Kansas, there’s no way to stop every white man that comes along and ask if they is a Jayhawker or a Bushwhacker. We’ll be alone. It will be hard, and we mights not make it—but we just gots to try, Lucy, we gots to try. We owe it to God, each other, and to us.”

  Listening to her husband, Lucy found her anger at the shocking move-up in the date gone. She was still frightened, but it was hard not to catch his zeal, his determination. Maybe it could work after all. She raised one of his hands to her mouth and kissed it softly.

  “I will get my belongin’s together now, Israel, and you tell me anything else on that list I needs to bring. I don’t know if we will make it or not—most likely we won’t—but there’s worse things than dying with the man I love.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling of the shanty, “We shall place our trust in Him. His will shall be done.”

  Israel smiled softly, and returned the squeeze of her hand. “Amen.”

  Israel took a last look around the hovel that had been their only home for many years, and turned to Lucy, “Ready?”

  Her hands tightened on his arm. The whites of her eyes were wide in the faint glow of the candle. Her voice was tremulous, “Oh Lordy…Yes.”

  There was a faint howl of wind through the exposed rafter tails on the exterior of the shack, and the night was opaque beyond the solitary window. Israel turned to the door.

  “Wait, Israel!”

  “What? What is it?”

  “Let me blow out the candle.”

  Israel first felt incredulity at her worry over this detail, then he began to laugh. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.
“Leave it burning, wife. We rarely snuff it out ’til about a few hours after dark. By the time that short piece of wax burns down it would be ’bout time to blow it out anyways. If we snuff it now, people’s might wonder if somethin’s wrong, and we don’t wanna do nothing out of the ordinary…”

  “‘Cept become runaways,” Lucy said almost inaudibly, her lower lip trembling.

  Israel pulled her to him and hugged her. “We are runaways where we stand in this dirty shack they let us use.” He pointed at the door, “Soon as we walk out that door and take one step, we be free men runnin’ for our lives.”

  Israel pulled open the door a crack, then partially shut it, and turned back to her. “It’s startin’ to snow. Put on that gutta-percha. The good Lord is giving us perfect conditions.”

  He helped her on with the rain poncho. “Now grab your luggage,” Israel grinned and pointed to the stick to which he had tied her canvas bag, “and that walkin’ stick. I figure we can make Thompson’s barn tonight. It’s a ways off from the main house, and sits in the creek bottom. We need to be moving up that creek ’fore daylight and hope it’s still snowin’!”

  He looked Lucy up and down and then fixed his eyes on hers, “I feel like I’m fifteen again, wife. I want you to know one thing.”

  “Yes, Israel?”

  “I love you as much now, as I did then.” Israel opened the door and together, holding hands, they stepped out into the night.

  CHAPTER 26

  APRIL 25, 1855

  HIDE OF TATANKA

  Eagle Talon squinted into the rising sun as he surveyed the long, straggling line of women, children, dogs, horses, and mounted braves. The grasses and earth were still wet from the melt of the wild snowstorm that had gnawed the tribe with sharp winter teeth just two suns prior on the banks of Lodge Pole Creek, yet the endless undulations of the prairie already showed hints of spring green as the thirsty roots, soaked up the unexpected windfall of moisture.