As the wagon emptied out and the baskets could not be reached from the ground, one man climbed up and started moving them closer to the back. But when he set one of the baskets down he had the misfortune of setting it too close to the edge of the wagon bed and it fell to the ground, spilling the contents everywhere. Surprisingly agile, the farmer jumped down from the boardwalk in a flash and grabbed the man, tearing his already tattered shirt. The slave was shoved to the ground hard, landing on his back in the street. The farmer stood over the poor wretch, cursing and threatening all sorts of physical punishment. James thought for an instant that he was going to burn the man with his cigar. After a few swift kicks the farmer stepped away, promising a whipping when they got to the farm. Then he ordered his victim to get the mess picked up.
For a moment, as he lay there in the dirt, the slave looked up and locked eyes with James. The look of despair and humiliation on his face filled James with pity. He turned away and headed back to his house with a resolution forming in his head. “By tomorrow,” he said to himself, “old Mr. Turner is going to be missing a couple of slaves.”
When he got to the house he put his packages on the table and then went back outside. Star was still tied to the hitching post. Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible he kept an eye on the wagon down the street, and when the farmer and his slaves climbed into it, James mounted his horse. He was not an expert at tailing someone without being noticed, but he let the wagon get some distance ahead, then he followed along at a slow, steady pace.
By and by, he could see a farmhouse along the right side of the road with a barn and a few smaller buildings. When the wagon turned in at the little farm, James turned Star around and rode back to town.
Before going back to the house he stopped at the livery to do a little business. He made arrangements to board his own horse, and then he rented a wagon and a good stout mare to pull it. After procuring the rig, he drove up the street, turned left between two buildings, and parked it behind the house. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
James sat at the table and began writing the letter that he would send to his family when he reached South Carolina. It surprised him at how easily the words came as he explained how his plans to join the cavalry had changed. In about an hour, the letter was finished and the only thing left to do was to wait for darkness. James was ready to get some sleep in preparation for a long night.
FIVE
Point of No Return
When James awakened he was confused by his surroundings. Then, as his mind caught up with his eyesight, he remembered where he was and why he was there. He got out of bed and went over to the table where he’d left his pocket watch. It was just after ten p.m.
As he sat at the table going over a mental list of everything he would need to take along, he was beginning to feel the tension seeping into his body. The fingers of his right hand quietly drummed the top of the table as he mulled over the problems that could arise.
It would be difficult to ascertain the safest hour when he might catch everyone sleeping. However, country people worked hard and usually went to bed early. But some of the larger plantations, like his father’s, patrolled the grounds at night to prevent escapes; not to mention the threat of dogs, which even a small farmer like Mr. Turner was likely to own.
James got up and began to pace the floor. Once or twice he stopped to look out the window. Irritated by the feeling of restlessness, he sat down again and started cleaning his revolver. His mind was racing.
He realized, of course, he had no idea how the slaves themselves might react to his presence and his purpose. He could not take it for granted that they would just quietly go along with him. James knew that, in spite of the situation, some slaves became very loyal to their masters. Others might be afraid to attempt escape; still others might just think that he was crazy.
James understood that he could never, ever, fail to keep in mind how the slave owners, and southern people in general, would feel about what he was doing. Without question, it was a serious undertaking. Still, it would be important not to dwell on the danger. He must not lose his respect for the risks but he must lose his fear of them.
It was eleven o’clock at night; time to go. James extinguished the table light and left the house carrying a sack of food, two canteens of water, and the manacles he’d purchased at the dry goods store. In his pockets he had a knife, a compass, his watch, and extra ammunition for the revolver he had stuck in his waistband. He climbed into the wagon and stored his provisions down by his feet. Then he drove out to the street and headed north.
The town appeared to be fast asleep. There was no sound and not a single light was visible from any window. When he reached the edge of town, he glanced over at the last house on the right. He could not help but think about Polly and her mother asleep inside. What a lovely girl she was. James promised himself that he would try to see her when he got back to Dry Branch.
As with the town, the countryside was dark and quiet except for some thousands of lightning bugs and the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the road. Approaching the Turner farm, he slowed the horse to a walk so that he could get a good look as he passed. The house was peaceful and so were the two small cabins that sat out away from the left side of it. To the left of the cabins was a field of tall grass. He drove past the farm then stopped the wagon on the road about fifty yards away.
After hobbling the horse so she would stay put, he picked up some small stones from the road and put them in his pocket. Bending slightly at the waist, he started off through the tall grass towards the nearest cabin. When he reached the edge of the field, he was only about ten feet from the crude little dwelling. He had hoped that there would be a window on that side, and as luck would have it, there was. He reached into his pocket, extracted the stones he’d picked up, and tossed them at the window one by one.
In a few minutes James saw a light flickering from inside, then the front door opened and a black man came out carrying a lantern. He walked around the corner to the window, and after finding nothing, turned toward the field. He held the lantern out in front of him, then in a worried whisper he said, “Who’s dare?”
James stood up with his hands in the air, trying to show that he meant no harm. He could hear the fear in the man’s voice when he asked, “Who is you? What is you wantin here?”
James didn’t know any other way to answer except to whisper, “Who I am is not important. Do you wish to be free?”
“Free?” the man whispered back.
“Yes,” said James.
For a moment the man stood as if frozen. No doubt, he was completely stunned. James could certainly understand that, but there just wasn’t time to stand around. “I know you must find this hard to believe,” James told him. “But I will help you escape to freedom if you want to go. I will take the other black man who lives here, too.” As unbelievable as it must have seemed, the man seemed to begin to accept the idea. He blew out the lantern; a light was unsafe. Then he said, “Me and Buck will go wit you but I gots me a wife. Buck gots one, too.”
“Then they must go with us. Wake Buck and tell him to bring his wife and as many belongings as they can get together in about two minutes. Then wake your wife and you do the same. Go out through the field. I have a wagon just up the road. I’ll be waiting there. Be careful, but hurry. If you wake the farmer your chance will be lost. I will leave the second I hear signs of trouble.”
“I gets your meanin, sir. We be there quick.”
James turned and headed for the wagon. When he got there he removed the hobbles and stood still, watching, listening. He pulled out his revolver; it made him feel a little safer.
It seemed like an eternity until he saw movement coming through the tall grass. Sure enough, the two men and their wives came out into the open about twenty feet behind the wagon. “Hurry,” James whispered. “Climb in.”
The two men carried a few possessions wrapped in blankets. They hurled their bundles into the back, helped t
he women up, and then climbed in beside them. James stirred up the horse and started off at a slow trot. After they were a mile down the road he sped up a bit. He knew that they must cover as much distance as possible before morning, but it was important to pace the horse to get the most from her endurance. Getting the slaves away from the farm seemed easy. He knew he’d been lucky. But there were hundreds of miles between them and their ultimate destination and he was sure that they would not all pass as smoothly.
He was now a criminal and his passengers were fugitives. He could only imagine the fury of the farmer, Mr. Turner, when he discovered that his slaves were gone. The law would be notified and that could put trouble on their trail. At all cost, James meant to stay as far ahead of any pursuit as possible, and the most precious time was now—before the discovery. One thing was certain; he was past the point of no return.
After driving for about two hours and covering perhaps forty miles, James pulled to the side of the road to rest the horse. It was one forty-five a.m. He calculated that he had maybe a little over four hours before Mr. Turner would be wise. By then, they could be more than a hundred miles from the farm. He hoped it would be difficult for the law to catch up to them with such a good head start. The only thing that any would-be pursuers could count on was that the slaves would head north. That would still leave a lot of territory to search. The chances were good that they would assume the runaways were on foot.
Back at the farm, James had parked the horse and wagon on the road for a reason. There would be no tracks leaving the road and then returning to it. If the law did assume the slaves were on foot and tried to track them with dogs, they would never catch up. Most likely, the biggest threat would be the telegraph line. A description of the slaves would surely be sent to points ahead of them and the telegraph was something they could not outrun. Hopefully, James could offset that disadvantage. If he was stopped and questioned by anyone, he hoped to bluff his way through by explaining that he had picked up the information, captured the fugitives, and was returning them himself. After all, he was posing as a slave catcher. He needed to learn to act like one.
While the horse rested, James turned to his passengers and said, “Are you folks all right back there?” The man he had first awakened at the farm looked up and replied, “We is fine, mister.”
“My name is William,” James told them. “Call me Bill.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Bill.”
“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. We have to get as far away as we can before Mr. Turner knows you’re gone.”
“We understands, Mr. Bill. Ole Turner will most have hiself a real bad angry when he find out. He will surely come a runnin with his whip.”
“Well, I will do all I can to make sure that you never see that whip again. I have to ask you to do something now that I really don’t care for, but I think it’s a good idea.”
“What is dat, Mr. Bill?”
James handed him two sets of manacles and said, “Put these on. If anyone stops us I want them to think that you are in my custody.”
“Cusadee?”
“Yes. That means that I caught you.”
“Oh, I understands, and you is right, sir.”
“Cuff yourself to your wife and have the other man do the same. We have to get started again.” James steered the horse back onto the road and got her moving at a quick but steady pace. After another four hours of traveling, and one more stop to water the animal and let her graze by the road’s edge, the sun was on its way up. James was hungry and his eyelids had become very heavy. They were passing through an area with woods on both sides of the road.
Just ahead on the left, James could see a rutted trail leading into the trees. Hoping that it did not lead to a dwelling, he left the road and started slowly down the trail. It led a few hundred yards to an open field enclosed by woods on all four sides. He turned right along the edge of the trees and stopped a short distance from the trail. Turning around in his seat, he got a good look at all of the slaves for the first time. The two men, James learned, were called Buck and Darnell. The two women, Tisha, Buck’s wife, and Emmy, Darnell’s wife, looked to be in their thirties. Both were thin and calloused, no doubt from years of hard work and neglect. They stared at James as wide eyed as children. He suspected that they were as frightened as they were amazed to find themselves runaways in the company of some strange white man. “We’ll stay here for part of the day,” said James. “I didn’t bring a lot to eat; I planned to pick up supplies along the way as we need them. I have some dried beef and coffee.”
“Don’t worry bout dat, Mr. Bill,” said Darnell. “Vittles is mostly what we done brought along. We gots bread and pone; we gots dried peas, some salt pork, and some little bitty cakes Emmy done made. We be glad to share.”
“Sure would,” said Buck.
“That sounds fine,” James replied. “Can you get a fire started while I tend to the mare and we’ll have some breakfast?”
“We gonna get it all ready,” Darnell assured him.
James removed the manacles, then unhitched the horse and tied her so that she could reach plenty of grass. He got a bucket from the wagon and filled it with water from a partially dry creek that ran through the woods.
By the time he had the horse taken care of, the coffee was hot and there was food on the tin plates that Buck and Tisha brought with them. From time to time, James could hear traffic on the road, but their camp could not be seen from that far away. Of course, he didn’t know who owned the property they were on; he just hoped that the owners would have no reason to come there until they could rest and move on.
As they ate their meal, James could not help noticing that Emmy was staring at him. Finally she spoke her mind. “Mr. Bill, when I thinks about bein a slave and when I thinks about goin to a place where I can live free, I feel like my heart might bust right outta my chest. I hopes you knows how much we is obliged. But I prays you won’t hold nuthin agin me if I ax you, why is you doin this for us?” Emmy’s comments touched James very deeply.
“I can understand how you feel, Emmy. It is simple and yet difficult at the same time. It is simple to tell you why, but difficult for you to believe. My family owns a large plantation near Macon. I grew up believing that the Negroes that worked there did so as any white man would; by their own choice and under the same conditions. I believed it because my father convinced me that it was so. When I found out they were slaves and were treated as such; when I found out they were mistreated even when they did what was expected of them, sometimes beaten or even killed because they wanted to be free, I could not accept it. It was hard enough to see how other whites treated their slaves. When I saw with my own eyes that it was no different on my family’s plantation, I made up my mind that I was going to do something about it. You may not have ever heard of the United States Constitution, but it is a document written by the people who started this country. It is a document by which we live, and the Constitution says that all men are created equal and that freedom is for all men. I guess you could say that I intend to hold the Constitution to its promise. No man or woman should be a slave, and God willing, someday no man or woman will be.”
“May God bless you, Mr. Bill. Even ifn we don’t make it, God bless you.”
“We’ll make it, Emmy. Well, let’s clean this up now and get some rest.”
“We all did some sleepin in da wagon, Mr. Bill,” said Darnell. “When we is in da wagon we sleep some more. Now it be your turn. You sleep and we keep watch for trouble.”
“All right, that is a good plan. When the sun is straight up over our heads, you wake me.”
“I promise dat,” said Darnell. James crawled into the back of the wagon, made himself as comfortable as possible, and quickly fell asleep.
It seemed like just a short time later that Darnell was waking him, but checking his watch, he saw that he had slept for more than six hours. They wasted no time hitching up the wagon and clearing the campsite so that no one could tell they’d been th
ere. When all was ready, James cuffed the couples together again and they started through the woods to the main road.
They hadn’t gone far before James saw a horse and rider approaching. When the rider got closer, James stopped the wagon and raised his left hand into the air. The stranger complied with the signal and reined in beside them. “Afternoon,” said the man as he touched a finger to the brim of his hat. “Where are you heading?”
“I’m heading to Virginia,” James replied.
“Virginia? Damn, but you got a long way to go.”
“You bet,” said James. “But the money is good and we all need money.”
“No question about it, young fellow. But if you want to sell those niggers, you don’t have to go the whole way to Virginia.”
“I’m not selling them, I’m delivering them. They ran off from their owner and they managed to get a fair piece away. The only trouble was they ran in the wrong direction. I caught up with them hiding out near Atlanta.” James thought the man would fall off his horse from laughing so hard.
“I do believe that’s the funniest thing I ever heard. Is it any wonder that they’re slaves? Anything that stupid couldn’t be nothing else. So they ran the wrong way.” Then he broke into a hardy laugh again, which was beginning to get on James’s nerves.
“How far is it to the South Carolina line?”
“Not so far,” said the stranger. “Maybe fifteen miles or so. Barnesville is just up the road a piece if you’re looking for a town.”
A Deeper Sense of Loyalty Page 5