Her mother said each sound blended together to form a cacophony of music only a city lover could appreciate. But Annie didn’t believe that was true. She adored both the country and the city, welcoming the variety each had to offer.
Except she wasn’t sure she liked catching the attention of the bold young man on the sidewalk. She’d much prefer an honest country boy over a pompous, well-to-do city dweller’s attention. Especially after her time spent in the company of Henry Pennington, a banker who proved he was no gentleman after pledging his undying love to both her and another on the very same day.
“Annie!”
Snapping out of her reverie, she took her brother’s hand and stepped up to sit in the middle of the wagon’s bench seat beside Louisa. A moment later Will joined them, and taking the reins, he turned their team of horses toward the stream of other horse-drawn buggies and wagons heading north past the train terminal.
“Why are we going this way?” Annie asked, her shoulder bouncing against her brother’s as they drove over the bumpy roadway.
Will shrugged. “Daniel Walker says the sheriff and his posse are searching for a group of runaway slaves over on Paulus Point. I figure it’s best if we don’t get in their way.”
Louisa leaned forward to look over at him. “You spoke with Daniel? When?”
Will smirked. “While you two were off trying on hats.”
“Oh! I would have liked to have seen him,” Louisa said, her tone wistful. Then, breaking into a huge smile, she looked at Annie and confided, “Yesterday, he proposed.”
“He did?” Annie grabbed hold of her friend’s hand and exclaimed, “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I thought to wait until we could both surprise you with the news, but I simply cannot wait any longer,” Louisa gushed, her face aglow. “He asked permission from Father first, of course. I suspected as much when I saw Daniel approach him after the morning sermon. Poor Daniel held his hat crushed in his hands, and his face was as red as my mama’s raspberry jam.”
Annie laughed. “I suppose it would take nerve for anyone to ask Reverend Thomas Alexander Strong permission to marry his daughter. He said yes, of course?”
Louisa’s green eyes danced with excitement. “He did. And so did I. We’re to be married on the twenty-fourth of April.”
Annie caught her breath. “Why, that only gives you six and a half months to plan.”
“It only gives us six and a half months to plan. You will help Mother and I make the arrangements, won’t you? And stand up with me as my maid of honor?”
“Whoa! Hold tight!” Will interrupted, his voice tense. “Runaway wagon!”
Annie turned her head just in time to see a frenzied pair of horses pulling a careening cart, and indeed—there was no driver. William jerked the reins of their own team to the left, then to the right, in what Annie supposed was an attempt to avoid a direct collision.
Too late. Another passing wagon forced the spooked runaways to weave once more into the path before them. One of their horses reared, and the wagon carrying Annie, Louisa, and Will turned over on its side.
Louisa screamed as Annie fell over on top of her. Their skirts were tangled and likely soiled, but as they scrambled onto their hands and knees along the steep embankment, it was the ominous whistle of the oncoming train that curdled the blood in Annie’s veins.
For there, on the tracks below, lay her brother. And it didn’t look like he was getting up.
“William!” The shout that left her lips sounded far away, almost as if it had come from another person. And yet he lifted his head.
Twisting out of Louisa’s grasp, Annie lunged forward, but this time it was her friend who pulled her back.
“Annie, no! There’s no time!”
Glancing at the inbound train, Annie’s heart screeched to a dead stop.
Was there no hope?
Then from out of the trench on the opposite side of the tracks, a black man, covered in filth, reached out a hand and pulled her brother toward him. Annie sucked in her breath and craned her neck, straining to see if her brother was all right, but couldn’t, for the massive steam engine blocked her view as it sped between them.
Annie glanced back at Louisa, who sat with her hands clasped together and her head bent over in prayer. Annie hadn’t thought to pray. It had all happened so fast, there hadn’t been time. But in the next few seconds, during which she waited for the train to pass, she decided she should pray also. She only hoped God remembered her name. For she hadn’t prayed as she ought for a while now. Not since He allowed Henry Pennington to break her heart.
Scrambling down the embankment, Annie and Louisa crossed the tracks in search of Will. They found him in the trench from which the black man had come.
“Will, thank God,” Annie exclaimed, peering down at him. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” her brother replied, shaking his mussed, sandy-haired head, then nodded to the bleeding wound on the foot of the man in filthy overalls beside him. “But he is.”
The man Will referred to looked up and held her gaze, the whites of his eyes emphasizing his dark pupils and even darker hair and skin.
“Are you one of the fugitives the sheriff’s men are after?” Louisa asked, keeping her voice low.
The black man didn’t answer, but Will stood up and said, “We have to help him.”
“Will, we—we can’t,” Annie whispered. “You know what the townspeople think of the abolitionists.” Shooting Louisa an apologetic look, she said, “Papa doesn’t want us to get involved.”
“Louisa’s family can hide him with the others in the church basement,” Will insisted.
“We haven’t any more room,” Louisa exclaimed, giving them each a desperate look. “You’ll have to hide him at your place.”
“Take him home with us?” Annie’s stomach tightened. “It’s illegal to lend aid to a slave’s escape. Papa would never approve.”
“Annie,” her brother implored. “He saved my life.”
“Well, then let’s just thank him and be on our way,” she suggested.
Will’s eyes widened as he glanced at the man beside him, who tried to stand. “He hurt his ankle saving me and is unable to walk. I can’t just leave him.”
“If the sheriff’s men find him, they could shoot on sight,” Louisa agreed.
“Misses, I ratha’ die than let them ship me back,” the man vowed.
Annie opened her mouth to protest, but Will gave her a look that brooked no further argument.
“He saved my life,” William repeated, his voice firm. “Papa will understand.”
Maybe he would. But that didn’t ease the tension flowing through every one of her nerves.
What if they were caught?
Isaiah Hawkins made sure to keep his profile hidden within the shadows of the darkened threshold of the livery stable as he watched Louisa Strong unlatch the hidden compartment beneath the bench seat of her family’s wagon. He’d long suspected the Strongs were active in the Underground Railroad, the secret network of people who helped Southern fugitives escape north, but he hadn’t believed—until now—that William and Annie Morrison were abolitionists as well. The Morrisons had always so unerringly presented a neutral standing on the topic of slavery whenever publicly questioned.
Yet there they were, glancing about as if to make sure no one was watching and then helping the man climb into the wagon’s secret hiding place.
Except that “cargo” wasn’t meant for them.
Isaiah had planned to be at the train station early, but got waylaid by the clothier in the men’s shop who, suspecting he held opposing views, refused to sell him the garments he wished to purchase. Isaiah had hoped the elegant threads might help the man transition more believably into Northern society. But only by donning the attire himself, and forking over an exorbitant amount of coin, was he finally allowed to walk out the door.
Except the victory was short lived. For although the state of New Jersey had outlawed slave
ry, slave catchers, motivated by huge rewards, were often afoot trying to retrieve what Southern plantation owners claimed as their property. And today they’d enticed the sheriff to help them hunt down the group arriving on the morning train.
Which had made retrieving his intended cargo quite difficult. Isaiah had taken a quick scan of the tracks and seen the sheriff and his posse chase down three of the black men. But the fourth still had not been found. The one with the dark imprint of a horseshoe branded into his side. The one he’d been meant to transport. Not Louisa Strong or the Morrisons.
Now—he had to devise a way to get him back.
Chapter 2
Isaiah retreated further inside the livery stable and found his brother arguing with a short, red-faced man, who claimed the team of horses he’d hired took off without him.
“Lucky for you, Mr. Felding,” Tom grumbled, “my men were able to catch Mitsi and Pike before they reached the end of the street.” He jerked his head toward the two chestnut geldings who now stood in their stalls, bathed in sweat. “What did you do to spook them?”
“It wasn’t me,” the indignant man replied. “It was those dark-skinned varmints running about the place.”
Taking a step closer, Isaiah narrowed his gaze. “Varmints?”
“Those pesky Southern slaves who think they can hitch a ride north. I saw three of them jump from the train and scurry across the road. I wouldn’t have worried so much about hitting them, but the sheriff’s deputies were in pursuit and would have been run over if I hadn’t—”
“Jerked back on the reins?” Tom demanded. “Mr. Felding, you said you had experience driving a team of horses, but apparently you do not know what it’s like to have your mouth tugged back far enough to swallow your tailbone, do you?”
Mr. Felding scowled. “You weren’t there.”
“I was,” Isaiah said, his distaste for the man souring each passing second. He looked his brother in the eye and added, “This fellow yanked so hard that Mitsi and Pike had no choice but to rear. And when he fell out of the wagon and the team realized they were free, they ran as fast as they could to get away from him. Several other wagons had to swerve out of the way. One turned over.”
Tom sucked in his breath. “Anyone hurt?”
“No,” Isaiah said, and clenched his jaw. “But the diversion did cause me to lose my cargo.”
Tom shot him a look of alarm then glanced back at the short, huffy man and pointed toward the door. “Our business here is done.”
Mr. Felding’s eyes widened. “No refund?”
“You will owe me if I find out you’ve damaged the horses or my wagon in any way,” Tom warned.
“Owe you?” Mr. Felding glanced around the building and stomped his foot. “Be careful you don’t keep any of those varmints around here,” he retorted, “or I’ll shut you down.”
Isaiah reached behind a wooden bin, pulled out two rats, and held them up by their tails. “You mean these guys? They won’t hurt anyone.”
Mr. Felding shot him a condescending look, letting him know that wasn’t what he’d meant, then turned and walked away without another word.
“Good riddance,” Tom growled.
Isaiah set the wriggling upside-down critters back on their feet and watched them run through an opening in the side wall. “Looks like we’ve made ourselves an enemy.”
“I’m afraid we have bigger concerns than Mr. Felding,” Tom whispered. “You lost your cargo?”
“Couldn’t get to him in time.” Suppressing a pang of guilt, Isaiah quickly explained what had happened with the Morrisons and asked, “Do you think they’ll hand Kitch over to the sheriff?”
“Not if Louisa Strong was with them. Only problem is, they don’t know that Kitch is supposed to be on the eight o’clock ferry.”
“And if we don’t get him across the river in time,” Isaiah muttered, “the crew will change and we might not have another opportunity to ship him to New York for another week.”
Tom shook his head. “It’s too dangerous for Kitch to hang around Jersey City for that long. I’ll go over to the church and see if Louisa’s family is hiding him there.”
“And then what? Tell them you’re an abolitionist? What if we’re wrong about the Strongs and they’re more sympathetic toward the South than we thought? I thought we decided to trust no one, to work only with those we already know have our backs.”
“What other choice is there?”
Isaiah met his gaze, and for a moment he could hear the gunshot that took out their father echo through his head all over again. What if a similar gunshot took out one of them? Despite his misgivings, he knew one thing for certain. Their father wouldn’t have wanted either of them to live a life of fear. He’d say, “Stand up for what you believe in and help your fellow man, no matter the cost.”
Straightening his shoulders, Isaiah nodded. “I’ll ride out to the Morrisons’.”
After Annie and Will drove Louisa back to her house, around the block from the First Presbyterian Church where her father pastored, she climbed down from the wagon and told them to go straight home without stopping to speak to anyone.
“I’ll bring you instructions in the morning,” Louisa promised.
Annie nodded toward the secret compartment beneath the front seat where they’d hidden the man. “What should we do with him overnight?”
“Hide him in your root cellar.”
“But our cellar is not very large…and certainly not as dry as it should be this time of year.”
“I don’t think he cares about the conditions,” Louisa assured her. “A little discomfort is nothing when running toward freedom.”
Annie didn’t believe she’d ever want to spend a cold November night inside the bottom of their root cellar. The one on her family’s small homestead was nothing but a hand-dug hole in the ground with a wooden hatch her father had built to lay over the opening. Most of the fresh vegetables from summer that they had stored inside had already been eaten, except for some of the hardier root vegetables, like the potatoes, carrots, and turnips. And with the excessive moisture from recent rain, even some of them had begun to rot, giving the cellar a pungent stench that was most unpleasant.
However, before they could hide the runaway anywhere, Annie and Will’s parents came outside, and they had no choice but to show them who they’d brought home.
“We couldn’t just leave him,” Will explained, taking the injured slave’s arm and helping him hobble to his feet. “Not after he risked his life to save mine.”
For a moment both of their parents stared at the black man before them, not uttering a word. Then after a quick glance at one another, their father finally broke the silence and said, “No, of course not.”
From the wary expression on her mother’s face, Annie wasn’t sure if her mother agreed, but there was no taking back what had already been done.
“I’ll get some bandages to wrap that ankle.” Her mother gave their guest a slight nod before picking up her skirts and heading into the house.
“Don’ mean to cause you’s any trouble,” the man said, his voice low. “I’s be on my way soon as I’s can.”
“What’s your name?” Will asked.
“They’s call me Kitch.”
“That’s an unusual name,” Annie commented.
The man glanced at her and shrugged. “They’s had me work in the kitchens, so’s I guess that’s why they’s call me Kitch.”
Annie smiled. “My mother and I cook.”
Kitch shook his head. “I’s chop and bring in wood for the stoves.”
“Oh.” Annie frowned, not knowing what else to say. She’d been named after her grandmother on her father’s side. She’d never heard of someone being named after the location where they worked. Somehow it didn’t seem very respectful. Didn’t he have a real name given to him at birth?
“What made you run, Kitch?” Annie’s father asked, leaning on the cane that helped support his own injured leg as he and Will helped t
he man sit down.
“I’s runs so I’s can be free.”
Annie stared at the newcomer, waiting for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, her curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, “Why do you want to be free?”
His dark brown eyes flickered with an intensity she had never seen. “I’s runs,” Kitch told her, “so I’s free to decide what I’s wants to do, ’stead of doin’ what my massa says I’s has to do. I’s runs so I’s free to help others run. I’s runs so I’s not whipped for singin’ praises to my Lord.”
Annie gasped. “You were whipped?”
“An’ branded.” Kitch lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a dark scar in the shape of a horseshoe on the lower left side of his abdomen, just above his hip. Then in his broken Southern accent, he went on to explain how his master marked everyone he considered his property, slaves and animals alike.
Was that why this man had said he’d rather die than return to his master in the South? If someone had dared to whip her…and brand her with a horseshoe…she’d be tempted to run away too. She loved to sing. She couldn’t imagine being whipped for singing, especially for singing songs of praise. Surely God could not condone such harsh treatment either.
Annie tore her gaze off the man’s scar to glance at Will, then her father, who both looked just as bothered by the imprint as she was.
Louisa had whispered about some of the horrors that supposedly happened in the South, but Annie had thought some of the stories may have been exaggerated. And she’d never really thought about the freedoms she and her family enjoyed, such as the freedom to make their own decisions, the freedom to help their fellow man, and the freedom to sing and worship God. How could she blame Kitch for also wanting such basic rights?
The Underground Railroad Brides Collection: 9 Couples Navigate the Road to Freedom Before the Civil War Page 47