by Deborah Heal
“Early, late, and middle of the day. I’m here, Lottie, to lend my assistance if you’re going to be foolish enough to continue conducting passengers on the Underground Railroad while also tending to the passengers of the Chicago & Alton.”
“Well, I expect I’ve got railroading in my blood. You’re one to talk, Lucinda. As if you and your father don’t do the same thing in Brighton. And how is Doctor Brown?”
“He’s well, thank you. And besides him, I’ve got a sister and two brothers to help with the cause. You’ve got no one.”
“Don’t let Joshua hear you say that.”
“Well, yes, of course, dear Joshua.” Lucinda took her bonnet off and hung it on a peg by the back door. “Where is the boy? He can bring my case in.”
“You’re serious about staying?”
“You know me. I’m always serious.”
Charlotte hugged her friend in relief. “That’s wonderful, Lucinda. So would you keep watch down here while I take breakfast up?”
“Certainly. I aim to please.”
“If anyone should happen to stop by—”
“Don’t worry, Lottie, I know what to do.”
Charlotte stood on the porch between Joshua and Lucinda, praying Sally and the boys on their way down the dark road.
“It’s always difficult to see them go,” Lucinda said.
“Every time,” Charlotte said, brushing a tear from her cheek. “There’s never time for proper goodbyes.”
The sound of the cart’s wheels was barely out of hearing when Joshua whispered, “Listen!”
Someone was singing softly in the woods behind the house. Charlotte listened carefully for a moment and then smiled. The song was Amazing Grace, one of the signals area conductors had agreed upon.
“Indeed, how sweet the sound,” she said.
“It’s Jemmy,” Lucinda said. “I’d know his off-key singing anywhere.”
They hurried through the front door and on to the kitchen. Joshua went out onto the back porch while Charlotte lowered the wick on her worktable lantern until the room was as dim as she could make it. Jemmy and Joshua came in leading three men. They varied in age and physical condition, but all wore the same expression she had come to recognize as a combination of hunger, exhaustion, and wariness.
“That makes two times in one week, Jemmy,” Charlotte said. “Your poor legs must be tired.”
Jemmy tipped his cap. “Only nine miles to Shake Rag Corner, Miss Charlotte.”
“You and Joshua take the men up, Charlotte,” Lucinda said. “I’ll bring up the leftover cornbread and bacon directly.”
Lucinda was smiling at Jemmy in a way Charlotte had never noticed before. He stood awkwardly near the back door, his hat in his hand. Even in the dim light it was obvious that he was blushing. So that’s the way the wind blew. Charlotte smiled broadly at Lucinda, who was suddenly fidgeting and frowning. And not looking at Jemmy.
Joshua must have picked up on it too because he grinned. “I’ll go finish the chores in the barn,” he said on his way out the back door.
“All right,” Charlotte said. “Bring up the food when you’re ready.”
She led the men to the pantry and opened the door to the stairway. “It’s steep. Mind your step.”
They climbed the stairs after her, weariness obvious in their shuffling steps. She opened the door at the top, and they went into her dark bedroom. She turned with her lantern and saw that the men’s eyes had gone wild. They had been trained from birth, she knew, to keep their eyes averted from a white woman’s face. Forgetting that rule could mean fifty lashes. How much worse would the punishment be for entering her bedroom? She hated to frighten them so, but she also knew that if anyone came snooping around looking for runaways, they’d never imagine in a thousand years that she’d allow Negro men into her room.
“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” She went across the room to the door that led to the attic. “Up this way.”
The stairs were even steeper, and she kept one hand on the rail. When she got to the top, she covered her lantern to keep the light as low as possible. It wouldn’t do for anyone outside to begin wondering what she was doing in the attic in the middle of the night.
Even so, there was enough light to see the big man in the corner turn away on his pallet as he did every time she came to the attic. There hadn’t been room for him on the cart with Sally and the boys, and besides, his feet were still too ravaged from his barefoot trip half-way across the state to Miles Station.
She showed them the cornhusk pallets in the corner that Sally and the boys had used. The three men eyed the man in the corner cautiously and then settled onto the pallets.
When Lucinda brought the food, Charlotte distributed it the newcomers, and they began wolfing it down. As always, she was distressed to see that degree of hunger.
While the men ate, she went to her wooden trunk to retrieve her journal and pen. She sat down on the trunk and studied her guests.
“I have stories in this book,” she said. “Stories about the people who come through here. Would anyone like to tell me his story?”
The three men stole nervous but curious glances at her.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about me being here.”
That only seemed to remind them of the peril of looking at her, and they turned away again.
“Someday, I’ll have all the stories published, and people—white people—will know what you went through. Why you went North. Who wants to tell me first?”
The men rustled on their pallets but said nothing.
“Won’t you help me?”
The smallest of them, a wiry man of about thirty years of age, braved a glance at her.
“That’s right,” she said. “It’s quite all right to look at me. What’s your name?”
“Lucky, ma’am. Just Lucky.”
“Good.” She dipped her pen and wrote the name in her journal. “Where are you from, Lucky?”
“I belonged to Master Rawlings at Cedar Grove.”
“Is that in Missouri?”
He looked confused and averted his eyes again.
“That’s all right. Tell me your story. And, Lucky? You don’t ever have to call that man Master again.”
“He a mean man, Master Rawlings—that man. I got my share of beatings just like everyone, but when he start in on my Ceely…well, I couldn’t let him do that. I hear her screaming from clear out in the cornfield where I was chopping weeds. When I got up to the yard that man was whipping her—whipping her hard. He say she lazy and useless. Say she ruin his good shirts. I saw she must a forgot to stir the wash kettle. That man, he done flung the shirts on the ground. They be ruined sure—with black scorch marks and dirt. And Ceely’s blood splattered all over ‘em.”
“What did you do, Lucky?”
He ran his hands over his eyes as if to erase the memory in his head.
“She was on the ground screaming so. The whip had done cut through her dress. And I saw I still had the hoe in my hand…and I hit Mas—that man.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No, but I hurt him bad. Then Ceely, she laid there looking all wide-eyed at me. She say I have to run or he kill me.” Lucky hung his head. “I didn’t want to leave her. She say she can’t run but I can. So I did.”
Charlotte watched a teardrop fall from his chin onto his knee. Hearing their stories never seemed to get any easier, but she steeled herself not to begin crying too. She could help best by keeping her emotions in check—at least until she recorded the story.
“Lucky, I’ll say a prayer for your wife Ceely. I’ll ask God to help her. Maybe she’ll join you one day.”
“Ma’am, Ceely ain’t my wife. She my child. She be six.”
Charlotte closed her journal and sat hugging it to her chest while she cried and cried.
Merrideth held her hand to her mouth. “I feel sick. Why are you showing me this?”
“Just one more story. This on
e’s not as bad.”
Chapter 19
Charlotte blew her nose and went back to the trunk to sit. Taking up her journal and pen again, she looked at the men.
The youngest of them, the one named Wilson, returned her gaze. When she saw the pity in his eyes—pity for her—she nearly started crying again. “Would you like to go next?”
“Yes, ma’am. Only please don’t cry any more, ma’am. I haven’t been whipped in all my life. Thank you, ma’am for writing the book. Can you write in it about the cold and hunger? The children are only given coarse shirts to wear, even in winter, and there’s never enough food.
“I was seven when I got my first trousers, and that was only so I could go up to the big house and work the pulley on the fans to keep the flies away while the family ate. I couldn’t stop looking at all the food on the table, especially the ginger cakes they ate for dessert.”
He closed his eyes and took in a huge breath as if he could still see and smell the cakes.
For a while the only sound was the scratching of Charlotte’s pen as she wrote Wilson’s account in the journal. At last she finished and looked up. “Forgive me, Wilson, but you sound different.”
“My mistress was kind, ma’am. She taught me to read and write. Master Reeves got so angry when he found out. I heard him tell her that once a man knew how to read he was forever unfit to be a slave.” Wilson chuckled softly. “I knew then that he had just given away the secret of how white men keep black men enslaved. Mistress was forbidden to teach me anymore. But she made sure I had books, whenever she could sneak them to me. And she kept badgering her husband until, at last, he set me free.”
He dug into his tattered coat and pulled out a folded paper, which he opened carefully and held out for her to see. At the top of the document in large letters was the title Certificate of Freedom.
Wilson didn’t offer to let her hold it. She wouldn’t have let it out of her hands either. He refolded the document and tucked it safely back in his pocket.
“But, Wilson, why did you leave? With your certificate, you could live free anywhere. And you certainly don’t have to hide in my attic.”
He smiled sadly at her, almost as if he pitied her again. “I stayed there for a while. But it’s not safe, ma’am, even with the freedom papers. Not until I get farther north. I want to go to Chicago. I hear the abolitionists there are doing good work. Perhaps I can lend them assistance.”
“There’s a man there named Dwight Moody. You should try to find him if you can.”
She turned to Andrew. “Are you ready to tell your story?”
“We’ll stop here,” Abby said. “I watched and listened for another hour as the last man told his story. It was even worse than the others, and I don’t want you to hear it.”
Merrideth put her head down on the table. “What does any of this prove, Abby? That life is horrible and then you die? I already figured that out. And if you’re trying to show me that Charlotte’s life wasn’t so bad compared to theirs, well, okay. I admit it wasn’t. But still…”
Merrideth’s voice was muffled, and Abby couldn’t tell if she was crying or not. “I know, kiddo. People do horrible things. Bad things happen. I don’t want to upset you by showing you this, but….”
“Maybe I should force myself to watch all the stories,” Merrideth mumbled. “They all wanted Charlotte to write them down so people would know. But it makes me sick.”
“I know. Think how discouraging it must have been for the abolitionists living back then. Progress must have seemed so slow. Like no one was listening. And when Lovejoy was assassinated—in Illinois, a free state— it must have seemed hopeless. Charlotte and the others had to get discouraged during those dark days. But it was all part of God’s plan.”
Merrideth’s head popped up from the table and she glared at her. “What kind of a plan was that? How could he let people be so mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Merrideth snorted. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You’ve got to know. You’re a Christian, aren’t you?”
Abby smiled at her indignation. “No, kiddo, I don’t know. Anyone who tells you they have it figured out is lying—or maybe delusional. “But I do know this: ‘All things work together for good for them that love God.’”
“But—”
“Sometimes, we have to hang onto that verse by our fingernails when times are hard.”
“Some people say God is in charge of the good things that happen, and the Devil is in charge of the bad things,” Merrideth said. “If that’s true…well, God’s losing. So I guess he’s not very powerful after all.”
“If that were true,” Abby said, “he wouldn’t really be God, would he? But on the other hand, God isn’t some power-hungry sadist who gets a thrill out of pulling our puppet strings, as you called them. That’s saying God is evil, and that’s just wrong. The Bible says God is love.”
Thunder rumbled, low and menacing, and the curtain flapped even more wildly. Abby got up and went to tug the window shut.
“We’ll have to hurry, before it storms, but I want to take you back to something we saw before.” She sat back down and quickly set the dial for fast reverse with an automatic stop on June 13, 1856. The images on the screen flew past in a blur. She stopped the action when she got to the right place.
“I found out why the trellis was removed.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Merrideth rolled her eyes and put her face back on the table.
“Everything, actually.”
Though it was nearly the middle of June, the night was cool and the air clear. With no moon present and the last light in the house extinguished, the sky was black velvet, and the stars were showing off their brilliance for any who cared to look. A man came stealthily around the corner of the house and stood in the deep shadow of the front porch.
Though he looked up, it wasn’t to admire the night sky. After checking again to see that no one was around, he stuck his hand among the roses clinging to the trellis, found a foothold, and began to climb. The thorns tore at his clothes, but it would be worth it.
When he reached the top rung, he eased his body onto the porch roof and lay there for a while, letting his heart calm. Finally, when he was sure the unavoidable sounds of his movement had not alerted anyone to his presence, he shimmied his way toward Charlotte’s window.
When a light appeared in her room, he smiled in anticipation and prepared to inch forward for a better view. Unfortunately for him, Charlotte did appreciate the night sky and appeared at her bedroom window to gaze at the stars. This gave him a moment’s fear, and he thought about making a quick retreat off the porch roof. He knew that if she looked hard enough, she would see him there, though he always wore black for these little expeditions. But she stared only at the sky while she slowly and carefully brushed her long hair.
At last, Charlotte put her brush down and began to pray in a soft voice. “Dear God, bless us. Help me to be more patient and kind. Please keep us safe. I know Mother is in heaven with you, so please tell her I’m doing fine. Amen.”
Charlotte yawned. It had been a long day, and she could barely keep her eyes open as she unfastened the buttons that ran down the front of her dress. When she had drawn it over her head and laid it aside, she began to untie the ribbons that fastened her shift.
The view was better than Billy had even imagined. The trouble was, his breathing was getting so loud he was afraid she would hear it. All too soon, Charlotte blew her lantern out, and the show was over.
He remained still as a statue for a minute more. Finally, he began to slither back across the roof and down the trellis. Just as he stretched one leg to the ground, two hands reached out and rather roughly helped him the rest of the way down.
“What the devil are you doing, you slimy little creep?” Jonathan Miles said in a low but furious voice.
“Nothin’, Mr. Miles, nothin’”
He held the younger man’s shirtfront in his fists. “Yo
u listen to me, Reynolds. If I ever find out you’ve been hanging around my property again, I’ll personally lock you up and lose the key. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Miles. I was just funnin’. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.”
Jonathan Miles pulled him to the edge of the front yard. “Don’t bother to lie to me, Reynolds.” He gave him a shove that nearly sent him to the ground. “You keep your eyeballs in your head and don’t ever come around here again.”
“Yes, Mr. Miles, sir.” Billy slunk away into the night.
Abby and Merrideth sat staring at the screen. A gust of damp evening air slapped at the curtains and brushed against them.
“The next day is when we first met Charlotte, all mad at her father because she couldn’t go to the fair with Billy Reynolds.”
“Okay. He’s a creep. But why are you showing me this now?”
“Let me take you back to Charlotte’s accident.”
The afternoon sun was playing tag with the leaves, and Charlotte thought about how nice it would be to just sit and enjoy the peace and quiet with no thought of her responsibilities. Taking a deep breath, she lifted the gun and began to systematically train her eyes over each branch. After a while, she knew the only thing moving were the leaves, so she decided to walk a little farther down the gully.
Stealthily she put her right foot forward and then her left. When her right foot touched the ground the second time…
“Stop that!” Merrideth covered the screen with her hands as if that alone would prevent Charlotte from being injured. “I don’t want to see that again.”
Abby stopped the action. “You won’t.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. I just want to show you what I found when I changed the perspective.”
Abby adjusted the view settings and turned to look at Merrideth. “This is the same place. Same moment in time. But, watch. This time I’m focusing on the house instead of Charlotte.”