Steal Away Home

by Lois Ruby

  “What a sight she must have been!” Ma said.

  “And William, he went with her as her manservant.” Miz Lizbet laughed, took up her sewing again. “First time it wasn’t the other way around, wife being the servant to the husband.”

  James asked, “Are you married, Miz Lizbet?”

  “Was.” The subject was clearly closed, and no one said anything for the longest time, which gave James some hope. Then she started in again. “Four days they traveled from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina to Virginia to Washington to Baltimore, and finally to Philadelphia. How many boats and trains would you guess, Mr. James Weaver?”

  He had no idea. “More than six?”

  “Three boats and five trains. And mind, neither one of them could read a sign, a ticket, a word of any language. Didn’t dare ask anyone, either. It’s a miracle they found their way.”

  “I guess they followed the drinking gourd,” James said, slamming his book shut. “So, what happened?”

  “Before the popping eyes of those white men in Philadelphia, Miz Ellen Craft transformed herself from a sickly Southern gentleman into a beautiful, strong woman. A preacher married them proper, and they went to Boston to give lectures. Got to be pretty famous.”

  “Why yes” Ma said, “I do believe I remember hearing about them.”

  “Amen?” James said.

  “Not quite. Some president, his name was Millard Fillmore, he sent 600 soldiers to Boston to capture Ellen and William Craft. Imagine, 600 soldiers after two free black souls.”

  Amazing. Miss Malone never told them about this. “And then what happened?”

  “Sailed for England very fast. A fugitive is safe there, not like here.”

  James was surprised to hear Ma ask, “Has thee a child?”

  “No child, Miz Weaver. I lost my Matthew Luke Charles before we were blessed with a child. That’s assuming getting born into slavery’s a blessing.”

  “Tell us about Matthew Luke,” James said.

  “Mr. Charles, to thee, son.”

  “He had three first names,” Miz Lizbet said with a chuckle.

  “How did he die?” asked James.

  “Well!” Miz Lizbet said indignantly. “You think I’m going to tell you how he died before I say how he lived?”

  “Then how did he live, Miz Lizbet?”

  “Very, very well,” she replied, puffing up with pride. “Rich for a while, signing papers, meeting with all manner of businessmen.”

  “Mr. Charles, then, he wasn’t an African?” James asked.

  “Of course he was an African!”

  Ma said, “A free man, no doubt.”

  “No, Miz Weaver, not a free man. He was the son of a slave, and he was the son of a slave master. Ouch!” yelled Miz Lizbet. “This needle came right up and stuck me.” She popped her finger into her mouth.

  “And so?” Ma gently prodded.

  “I’m sewing as fast as I can, what with my finger bleeding.”

  “I mean, tell us more about thy husband.”

  Miz Lizbet peered at them over the finger she was sucking. “Time’s not right.”

  “But, Miz Lizbet,” James protested.

  “Amen and selah,” she said, and her lips were sealed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Uncle Mose

  “Hey, Jeep, you coming?” two of his church friends asked. They looked at Dana curiously, as people hurried by from store to store in the mall.

  “In a minute. Go on.”

  “Yeah. We’ll meet you over in the arcade.” It was the first Monday of summer vacation, and the kids had about thirty things planned for the day. They seemed annoyed that Jeep was sitting on this bench with some redheaded girl, reading a stupid black book.

  Dana read over his shoulder, although she hated when people did that to her.

  July 5, 1856—We heard Caleb’s wagon and hastened Lizbet up the stairs. I gave her a basket of food, her primer and copybook, and a chamber pot. She avidly promised she’d stay hidden while Mr. Weaver was in the house. Rebecca, bless her sweet young heart, thinks it’s a jolly adventure, but James does not approve.

  Jeep asked, “Who’s James?”

  “Her son. About our age.”

  … but James does not approve. He’s grown sullen. I miss the boy he was only a season ago.

  Lizbet enchants us with such wondrous tales. One slave, Bog by name, feigned a seizure on the auction block. He fooled the doctor who examined him and was taken to a jail cell while the slave sellers considered what to do about him. Lord, Thou opened a door for the man. Bog escaped and is now living free in Canada.

  “All right! One brother made it.”

  “Read the next one, Jeep.”

  In Iowa Point, Kansas, a man called Uncle Mose stood before a greedy mob on the auction block. Men came up to feel his muscles, check his teeth, look him up and down, as if he were a common beast of burden. This man was sold for a meager $200. Such a paltry sum as the measure of a man.

  “Jesus,” Jeep said.

  “I’m sorry. Do you want to stop reading?” But Jeep had turned the page.

  Whilst on the auction block, Uncle Mose saw a pack of some twenty-five men riding horses down the ravine. He feared they meant to swarm him and kill him, but it proved that these men were Free-Soilers bent on breaking up the auction. They fell into a violent brawl with the slave buyers, and in the confusion of flying punches, one of the Free-Soilers shouted to Uncle Mose, “The moment your feet touched Kansas soil, you were a free man!” Then he directed Uncle Mose to climb on the back of a riderless horse, and Uncle Mose rode off to freedom.

  Jeep’s eyes were somewhere else now, maybe seeing Uncle Mose ride through the ravine, north and west by way of Oskaloosa, where he’d be easily passed north to Nebraska. Maybe he saw Uncle Mose with a wife and family living in a log cabin in Canada and working as a blacksmith or a lumberjack for real wages. Maybe he saw Uncle Mose as his own great-great-grandfather.

  Dana left Jeep to his dreaming and read the next passage.

  July 9, 1856—I’m collecting these stories here in my journal. One day soon I’ll share them with Caleb, and he’ll accept why I harbor and feed these people; why I disguise them in Quaker dresses and bonnets and veils and send them on their way; why I hide Lizbet from Caleb; why James is so sullen and quick to anger. Please Lord, assure me that one day Caleb will understand why I am sacrificing my own dear family as if they themselves were on the auction block.

  Jeep was on his feet, his hands jammed into his jeans pockets. “What happened to Elvira?” he said sharply. “I guess her name’s really Lizbet. You think she was murdered by this Caleb guy?”

  Dana shook her head. “Other places in the journal, it shows how Caleb makes a big case of being nonviolent. It would be like Martin Luther King aiming a gun at a guy.”

  “Listen, I’m going over to find my friends.”

  “Okay. Call me when you want to read some more.” But he made no move to go. So she asked, “Jeep, what would you have done if you’d been alive then?”

  “How do I know? What a dumb question.” He jogged in place, on the balls of his feet. Dana waited. “I don’t think I’d have been any Martin Luther King, though, if you get my message.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They Never Looked Back

  July 1856

  Ma fixed a picnic. “There’s a generous breeze today, for July. Let’s have a family day out-of-doors.” But James knew the real reason Ma was getting them out: Miz Lizbet had been holed up in that little room a day and a half, and it had no window for air or light. Once they were in the wagon, Miz Lizbet could come out, have a bath, grab armfuls of fresh air, and be gone again to Missouri to fetch another group of fugitives.

  At Quail Feather Creek, Pa sprawled on a blanket, Rebecca joggling on his belly. Ma bustled around packing up the chicken bones and dirty plates and cups, shaking out crumbs, folding the tablecloth.

  The sun rose to its highest overhead peak, so brigh
t orange that James couldn’t look too long.

  “It’s almost too hot to be out here,” Pa said, so Ma fanned him with the hem of her skirt. “Watch thee doesn’t show too much of thy bloomers,” Pa teased.

  “Honestly, Caleb! Thee’s incorrigible.”

  James listened to them as he flopped onto his belly, with a slack line lazily hanging into the creek. Maybe something would bite—besides mosquitos—and maybe it wouldn’t.

  “Sit a minute, Millicent, thee’s buzzing like a queen bee. Ouch! Rebecca, thee musn’t bounce so hard. I’m not a feather bed or a stack of hay. Go jump on thy brother’s back.”

  “Pa!”

  “Stay where thee is, little kitten, but purr soft awhile.”

  Rebecca feigned a purr that sounded like the roar of a steamboat.

  “Caleb,” Ma said, and James feared something serious was coming to break the spell of the carefree afternoon. He glanced back and saw her take Pa’s hand in her lap. “About the Negroes—” Pa put his finger on Ma’s lips.

  Ma wisely changed the subject. “I’ve brought along a peach shortcake to take to the Olneys. Maybe we should start out for their place.”

  • • •

  Dr. Olney had just brought his family out from Boston, because all the warring and burning had left so many people injured. James couldn’t remember meeting the Olneys in Boston. He would have remembered a bald elf like Dr. Olney, and his wife whose chins ruffled on her chest.

  As soon as Ma turned over the peach shortcake—would they offer some before the afternoon was out?—Rebecca asked, “Does thee have any little girls to play with?”

  “Not as big as thee, or as pretty,” Mrs. Olney said. “But we have a pink round baby girl. Come, I’ll show her to you.” Rebecca and the women went inside gleefully. Ma called from the porch, “James, does thee want to see Olneys’ baby?”

  “Maybe later, Ma.” Now, if it had been a rattler, or a thirty-pound tomato, or a two-headed calf that Mrs. Olney was showing off, he’d have gone to have a look. But a baby wasn’t worth trudging through the house for. James stayed outside with the men, who didn’t seem to notice that he was there at all.

  Thunder had been unhitched from the wagon and was being watered by a man whose skin glistened with sweat like the horse’s hide. In fact, he and the horse were nearly the same golden brown color. “Thank thee for looking after the horse, Solomon,” said Dr. Olney. “She could use a bit of cool water on her back, I suspect.”

  James drew a castle in the dirt while the men talked about the orchestra in Boston and about a senator named Stephen Douglas who was still stirring up a nest of vipers with his talk about that Kansas-Nebraska compromise. A pile of wood lay nearby, with an axe sticking out of its flesh. James longed to sling that axe and split the logs—anything for some action while the men’s voices droned in talk, talk, talk.

  Here came a man on horseback, and Thunder didn’t like him a bit. She started dancing nervously, and slapping the ground with her shoe. The Negro man Solomon looked up, and all at once it seemed the still, sluggish afternoon had turned to raging waters.

  The man dismounted and seemed as tall as his horse. On his head slouched a sweat-ringed hat with a toothless feather stuck in it, and a bowie knife showed out the top of his boot. His carbine was slung over the ribs of the scrawny horse. His voice dusty and dry, he asked, “You the slave Deacon Barclay, master’s Edwin Barclay of Macon, Georgia?”

  “No sir. I’m a free man. Got papers to prove it.”

  “Thee is on my property, friend.” Dr. Olney stood right up to the man, though he was about half the tyrant’s size.

  “Does thee have a warrant for the arrest of this man?” Pa asked.

  “I don’t need no warrant.” He took a paper out of his saddlebag and snapped it in Solomon’s face. “This here gives me all the authority I need to take Deacon back to Georgia.”

  “Friend,” Dr. Olney said, “this man is Solomon Jefferson, and he came with my family from Boston. He’s been free since he was a boy.”

  “Paper says otherwise.”

  Pa pulled out his spectacles. “May I see it?”

  “No sir, I ain’t falling for no tricks like y’all tearing it up or tossing it in the horse’s trough.” His horse drank greedily from that trough now.

  James looked at Solomon to gauge how much fight was in him. He followed Solomon’s eyes to the axe in the woodpile. The handle faced Solomon … so close … so easy.

  The slave trader said, “Got me something else in my saddlebag.” He yanked it out of his bag. “Brand-new-forged Smith & Wesson.” James lurched forward as the man put the gun to Pa’s head.

  “All I want’s the nigger. I can get me $500 for him. The rest of you’s not worth a bucket of spit.”

  “Stay clear, James,” Pa said, his voice strung tight.

  James stared at the gun aimed at Pa’s face and saw Pa ease into prayer, imagined him saying, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me… .” That’s when he realized what he could do. He stepped between the slave catcher and Solomon just long enough to let Solomon snatch up that axe, then James jumped out of the way.

  Solomon’s mighty arm raised that axe into the air. It could have come down on the man’s head, could have split him right in two like a thick log. But Solomon had lived among Quakers too long. “Dr. Olney,” he cried out, “shall I let the axe fall?”

  “No!” Dr. Olney and Pa shouted it together.

  And Solomon the free man dropped the axe to the ground and was a slave once more.

  Now Solomon’s hands were tied in front of him, with a rope that was also wound around his neck. The slave catcher had a good hold on the end of the rope. James was embarrassed to look at Solomon; he thought he’d be as dispirited as Thunder was when they first broke her. But instead James read something else in the man’s dark face: Triumph.

  “Thee goes with God.”

  “I believe so, Dr. Olney. God bless.”

  Pa said, “I’ll do everything I can to get thee out again. Thee has my word, friend.”

  The man yanked on the rope, and Solomon stumbled.

  “Thee means for him to walk?” Dr. Olney asked.

  The slave catcher’s laugh was dry and coarse. “Only got the one horse. I ain’t walking, and I sure ain’t riding cheek to jowl with no nigger.”

  “Wait.” Pa led Thunder back, and Dr. Olney fetched a saddle. The two of them gently lifted Solomon to the horse, so as not to pull the ropes too tight. Thunder was used to pulling a wagon and she looked surprised when the weight of the man fell upon her back, but she trotted on behind the other horse. Neither Thunder nor Solomon ever looked back.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The View from Lizbet’s Cot

  Jeep wanted to sit in the room, feel it from the inside out. He told Dana and Ahn, “Last summer I was in Chicago, and we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. They got everything there, but what blew me away was walking my little brothers right through a heart. It was all blue and red and see-through. Sound effects, too. You could hear it pumping.”

  “Would I like that?” Ahn asked.

  “I don’t know, but what I’m saying is, I want to sit in Lizbet’s room and feel it pumping.” So he slid under the off-limits strips while Dana and Ahn crouched at the door of the little room, trying to make sense of Jeep’s movements.

  He knocked on the wall every few inches. Was he looking for a hollow board something was hidden behind? He backed onto Lizbet’s cot and carefully lay on the straw, staring at the ceiling, arms folded under his head.

  “What are you thinking?” Dana asked.

  “Nothing. I’m lying here trying to guess what she was thinking. Hey, go downstairs and come in the front door. I want to see if I can hear that from up here.”

  Dana and Ahn ran downstairs and tried to come in as quietly as possible, crept up the stairs like cats, and burst into the parlor. “Well?”

  �
��I didn’t hear a thing,” Jeep said gravely. “They could have come home and trapped her.” He rolled off the cot and flipped the mattress, running his hand over every inch of it like a doctor feeling for lumps. He took apart the crudely made frame of the cot, which was just unfinished boards notched into the crotches of other rough boards. He put it all back together.

  Ahn whispered, “What does he think he’s going to find that the police didn’t?”

  “Where was the diary?” Jeep asked.

  “Between her bed and the wall.”

  Jeep crawled under the other cot. His hollow voice echoed from underneath: “She wasn’t any bigger than me?”

  “But she’d already had her growth spurt,” Dana teased. Jeep was always griping about being so short and was living for his fourteenth birthday when he was sure he’d sprout eight inches.

  He slid out like a mechanic rolling out from under a Chevy, crouched on the worn split logs, and didn’t say anything for the longest time. Then: “She died in this room.”

  Ahn asked, “How can you be sure?”

  “I just know it.”

  “I’ve read the whole journal, and there are no more clues. It just stops all of a sudden,” Dana explained.

  Jeep asked, “What’s the last thing that happened?”

  “Mrs. Weaver gets called to Boston because her father’s dying. One day she writes that she’s going, and the next twenty pages are totally blank.”

  “That’s it,” Jeep cried. “I know what happened to Miz Lizbet Charles, but what I don’t know is just how it happened. Not yet.”

  “Tell us!” Ahn begged.

  But Jeep shook his head. “I’ve got to work it around a little more and spend some time in the library.” On his feet now, he suddenly bolted past them to the door. “I have to get home to baby-sit my little brothers so my mom can go to work.”

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Dana poured a glass of milk for Ahn. She trailed a cookie through her own milk.