by Jack Ford
Satisfied that Sam Maddox had apparently abandoned the chase, and that Kitty and the children were safe and happy living with Amon and Rachel Jones, Mary decided that it was time for her to return home to Virginia. One afternoon she rode up Bear Mountain to tell Kitty of her plans. When she arrived, Kitty was folding laundry in the front yard, near the stone well, while the children played nearby. As she climbed out of the carriage, the children rushed to her side, squealing in delight. Mary bent and hugged each of them, patting the girls on the head and tickling little Arthur. Kitty grinned at the scene from her laundry post at the well.
“Well,” said Kitty as the children ran off to continue their games, “they’re certainly glad to see you today.”
“As I am to see them,” Mary said, a broad smile lighting up her face.
“They’re going to miss you,” Kitty said after a moment.
Mary looked surprised. “How did you know? That I was leaving,” she asked.
Kitty shrugged. “Figured you had to be leavin’ sometime soon,” said Kitty. “We’re all settled here. Kids are happy. Miss Rachel’s nice to us. And Mr. Amon . . .” She shrugged again. “Well, Mr. Amon could be a lot worse, I guess.”
“Is he unkind to you?” Mary snapped, a look of concern whisking away her smile. “Or to the children?”
Kitty shook her head. “No, no,” she said quickly. “Just don’t think he’s very kindly to anyone. ’Specially to Miss Rachel.”
“If you think we should find you another home . . . ,” Mary began anxiously.
Kitty shook her head again. “We’re fine. No need to be worryin’ ’bout us,” she said calmly. “Only plan on stayin’ here for a while, anyway. Then we’ll go lookin’ for some work and our own place.” She shot Mary a big grin. “Free now. Can come and go as I please.”
“If you’re sure,” Mary said uncertainly.
“We’re fine,” Kitty said. “Now, let’s talk about your plans.”
“Thought I’d be headin’ back to Virginia in the next day or two,” Mary said. “Need to get back and decide what I’m goin’ to do with the farm. Figured it’d be a bit easier travelin’ during daylight this time—hopefully, without a band of ruffians chasin’ after me.”
They shared a knowing smile. After a moment, Kitty spoke.
“They’ll be very sad when you leave,” Kitty said.
Mary cocked her head, her eyebrows raised questioningly. “The children,” Kitty responded. “You’ve become their grandma, you know. That’s how they think of you. Never had one before, but they do now.”
Mary said nothing, only gnawed at the corner of her lip to hold back the tears welling up in her eyes.
“We’ll all miss you,” said Kitty.
CHAPTER 42
AMON JONES TETHERED HIS MULE TO A HITCHING POST ALONG THE main street of Bendersville. He unstrapped a bent and twisted cast-iron plow blade from the mule’s back and wrestled it onto his shoulder. Earlier that day he had been plowing a patch behind his cabin, hoping to prepare the ground for planting, when he struck a large rock buried beneath the surface. The impact bent the plow blade, and he had been unable to straighten it. Now he was hoping the town blacksmith could repair the damage. And that the few coins in his pocket would be enough money to pay for that repair.
As he walked toward the blacksmith’s forge, stumbling slightly under the bulky weight of the iron blade, he noticed a small group gathered in front of the feed and grain store. As he passed by, he saw two men standing in the center of the assembly, vigorously gesturing with their hands, voices rising and falling as they addressed the cluster around them. Both of the speakers were large, rough-looking men, and one of them held a sheet of paper in his hand, which he intermittently waved before the listeners.
As Jones wended his way around the gathering, one of the listeners broke away from the pack and strode toward him.
“What all that ’bout?” asked Jones as the man neared him.
“Couple of slave catchers,” the man answered.
“Who they lookin’ for?” asked Jones.
“Nigger woman and some children. Said they ran away from Virginia. Been chasin’ after ’em for a couple weeks now,” the man said. “Offerin’ a lot a money to anybody helps catch ’em.”
“How much?” asked Jones.
“Hundred dollars,” said the man, obviously impressed by the amount. “Cash money,” he added before he hurried away.
Jones stood in the street for a moment, gazing in the direction of the assembled men. Finally, he turned, crossed the street, and entered the open front of the blacksmith’s forge area. Grasping a heavy hammer, a man was pounding a red-hot horseshoe back into shape, a slow, steady, rhythmic drumbeat as sparks flew from the glowing iron. The blacksmith, an immense, heavily sweating man wearing a thick leather apron over his clothes, his sleeves rolled up to reveal massive forearms, looked up when Jones entered, and stepped back from the scarred broad anvil that held the horseshoe.
“Help you?” the blacksmith asked.
Amon Jones pointed to the disfigured plow blade. “Hit a rock,” Jones grumbled. “You fix it?”
The blacksmith grabbed the blade from Jones, then spun it around effortlessly in his big hands as if it were a child’s toy. “Think so,” the big man said. “Can’t get to it right away, though. Prob’ly in a day or so.”
“How much?” asked Jones uncertainly.
The blacksmith shrugged. “Mebbe two dollars,” he said. “Depends.”
“On what?” asked Jones.
The blacksmith shrugged again. “How workable the iron is. How bad the damage is. But,” he said, examining the damaged blade once more, “prob’ly not more’n two dollars.”
Jones jingled the handful of coins in his pocket, knowing that he didn’t have that much. “Can I leave it with you?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” the blacksmith said, shrugging again. “Get to it when I can.”
Jones nodded his thanks and left the forge. As he looked across the street, he saw that the group was breaking up, the men wandering off in different directions. The two slave catchers, however, remained. Jones gazed intently at the two men for a minute, then looked back toward the blacksmith and finally back at the slave catchers. He took a deep breath, exhaled—and walked toward the two men.
“Heard you be lookin’ for someone,” Jones said.
“Sure are,” said one of the men, a tall, broad, ruggedly good-looking fellow. He offered Jones an engaging smile. “And we’re willin’ to pay good money for information helps us catch ’em.”
“How much?” asked Jones.
“Well, that sorta depends on what you got to tell us,” answered the man, still smiling, but his hard eyes narrowing as he scrutinized Jones. “There’s information that ain’t especially helpful . . . and then there’s information that helps us find who we’re lookin’ for.” He paused a moment. “Which kind of information you got?”
Jones considered the question and then shook his head slowly. “Have to do some thinkin’ ’bout that,” he said as he turned to walk away.
“Hold on a second,” the man said agreeably, reaching out and grabbing Jones’s arm. “Don’t go leavin’ just yet. Let’s talk a bit. Name’s Sam Maddox. From Virginia. This here’s Tom Finnegan,” he added, gesturing toward the man standing next to him. “From Maryland. Best damn slave catcher in the South.”
Finnegan gave Jones a hard stare and a barely perceptible dip of his head in acknowledgment.
When Jones said nothing in response, Maddox continued.
“Your name?” Maddox asked.
“Jones,” muttered Amon Jones.
“You a free man?” asked Maddox, his tone amiable on the surface but a subtle threat laced through his words.
Jones simply nodded.
“For now,” said Finnegan in a low, menacing voice.
Maddox raised his hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Pay no attention to my friend here,” he said, inclining his head toward Finnegan. “
Gets a bit carried away sometimes. So, let’s get back to that information you got for us. And how much money we got for you.”
“Not sure,” Jones responded. “Like I said . . . got to think on it.”
As Jones turned and began to walk away, Maddox reached out and grabbed his arm once again, this time more forcefully.
“Afraid we ain’t got time for you to be doin’ any thinkin’,” Maddox said, all pretense of friendliness now gone, replaced by a steely tone of intimidation. “You know somethin’ ’bout who we lookin’ for, you best be tellin’ us now. We’re ’bout outta patience, searchin’ round these parts. And we damn sure ain’t leavin’ here empty handed. Can’t find the people we’re lookin’ for, might as well just grab somebody else to take back with us and sell. One niggra’s just as good as the next on the auction block.” He paused and then added ominously, “If you know what I mean.”
For a long minute no one spoke, Maddox’s threat hanging heavily in the air. Then Jones turned and faced the two men.
“Hunerd dollars,” Jones said.
Maddox shook his head. “Twenty now . . . the rest when we get our hands on who we lookin’ for,” Maddox answered.
Jones stared hard at the two men, his eyes flickering back and forth between them, as he considered the offer. The men stepped closer, towering over him, their aura of malevolence enveloping him as he grappled with his dilemma. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, resigned to his fate.
“Deal,” Jones said.
CHAPTER 43
KITTY HAD DISCOVERED VERY SOON AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL THAT THE Amon Jones homestead was not a happy place. The farm was struggling to produce enough to sustain all the mouths it had to feed. The land at the top of the mountain was harsh and rocky, and attempting to discover fertile patches for food cultivation through primitive plowing was like trying to find deeply hidden underground water with a divining rod made of a withered tree limb. In addition to the poor soil quality, the region had been engulfed in a period of severe drought for more than a year, further exacerbating the agricultural predicament.
Amon Jones had never been a happy man in the best of times, Kitty suspected. And these were most certainly not the best of times. He rarely spoke—not to Kitty and the children, not even to his wife, Rachel. When he did speak, he was brusque and demanding. He spent most of the daylight hours either working on the farm or offering his meager butcher skills in the surrounding villages. At night, he ate dinner silently and most often by himself, slumped stoop-shouldered over his food, and then retreated to bed, usually without uttering a word to anyone.
Early on, the children had instinctively learned to avoid Amon Jones and his dark moods whenever possible. Kitty also tried to circumvent him as much as their crowded confines would allow.
Kitty was fairly certain that Jones had received a sum of money from those helping them on the Underground Railroad as an inducement to take them in. Since their arrival, Kitty and the children had been helping with all the chores, but she wondered how long it would be before Amon decided that, despite the payment he had received, he could no longer provide for them and it was then time for them to leave. Although, she had to admit to herself that she was looking forward to locating enough work so that they could afford to find their own living space sometime soon.
Rachel, however, was a different story. She seemed to revel in their presence, especially the children’s. Childless herself, she embraced the opportunity to mother them, cooking and baking, sewing new clothes, even volunteering to put them to bed at night in the cramped, windowless back room where Kitty and the children all slept.
In addition to the tensions and uncertainty of the Amon Jones household, Kitty found, somewhat to her surprise, that she missed Mary, who had been gone a month now, more than she would ever have imagined. Mary had stayed for two more days after their discussion about returning home. When it had come time for her to begin the journey, the departure was very emotional, especially for the children. They had, indeed, taken to viewing her as the grandmother they never knew, and when she had come to the farm to bid them all farewell, the three children were beside themselves with sadness over her leaving. Eliza Jane and Mary had wrapped themselves around Mary’s legs, refusing to release their grip, while little Arthur had simply sat on the ground and wept uncontrollably, his nose running as tears spilled down his cheeks.
After Kitty had pried the girls away and they had collapsed into a sobbing puddle next to Arthur, she walked with Mary to the waiting carriage. They stood facing each other, uncomfortable, unsure, and silent. Finally, Mary spoke.
“I’ll be sure to visit again soon. And you be sure to let me know if y’all need anything,” she said softly, a catch in her voice.
Kitty shook her head twice, gnawing at the corner of her lower lip.
“And make sure the girls keep up with their reading and writing,” Mary added. “Maybe they could send me some letters. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Thank you,” Kitty managed to say, her voice strangled with emotion. “For everything. Me and the children,” she continued, “we’ll never forget what you did to help us. Never.”
After a long, awkward moment Mary proffered a small, sad smile and then turned and climbed up into the carriage. As Mary seized the reins, Kitty reached up and touched the hem of Mary’s dress, smiling as a single tear coursed down her face. And then Mary was gone.
Now, as Kitty thought back on their farewells, she wished that Mary had stayed on longer. After all that they had experienced on their escape north, she now found that there was a void in her life, an absence of someone whom she could talk with, someone with whom she could share her uncertainties and fears. Despite their troubled history together, and against all odds, that someone had surprisingly become Mary.
The day had been exhausting, and Kitty looked forward to crawling under her quilt and finding some refuge from the day’s labors in sleep. She and Rachel had spent the afternoon attempting to clear a carpet of large stones from a postage stamp–sized clearing near the edge of the mountain, hoping that the virgin land there, despite the rockiness, might provide a more fertile growing area. They had struggled with the task until dusk, loading an old, rickety wheelbarrow, which they then wrangled to the edge of the field and dumped, creating a mound of debris that looked like some ancient stone monument. The girls had helped also, making a game of who could carry more rocks from the field, while little Arthur had amused himself by tossing smaller stones onto the growing pile.
That night, Kitty, Rachel, and the children had dinner together, a surprisingly tasty stew that Rachel had miraculously cobbled together from the scraggly vegetables remaining in the garden. Amon Jones had not yet returned from a visit to town, and Rachel had begun to worry. Finally, as Kitty and Rachel were cleaning the last of the dinner dishes, the front door swung open on its creaking hinges and Jones entered, head down, shoulders slouched, and quite clearly unhappy. When Rachel tried to engage him in a conversation about his day, he merely grunted, deposited himself in his chair, and pointed to the table, wordlessly demanding his food.
Sensing that Amon Jones was in an even murkier mood than usual, Kitty offered a kindly good night to Rachel, gathered up the children, and shepherded them toward their room. As they passed Jones, Kitty mumbled a good night to him, as well. Jones raised his head slightly and peered at her, an odd look in his eyes. It seemed, for an instant, as if he was about to say something to her, but then a dark, painful expression settled on his face and he dropped his gaze away from her.
Once in their own room, Kitty quickly prepared the children and herself for bed. Eliza Jane and Mary slept together on one pallet, and Kitty slept on another. Little Arthur, depending upon his mood and inclination, shuttled between the two pallets, always finding room to snuggle in next to his sisters or his mother. Tonight he chose to climb in with the girls. Kitty tucked them under their down quilts and kissed them each good night. Then she blew out the single candle and rolled
underneath her own quilt.
Despite her fatigue, sleep eluded her. She couldn’t get comfortable, tossing and turning, her thoughts tumbling, troubled by Jones’s demeanor lately and the strange look in his eyes that night. Finally, she made a decision.
“Time for us to leave here,” she whispered to herself.
And, after reaching that verdict, she wrapped her quilt tightly around her shoulders and promptly fell asleep.
CHAPTER 44
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE HORSEMEN ARRIVED AT THE ROADSIDE tavern outside Bendersville. A sleepy Charley Myers, awakened by the pounding on his front door, pulled on his trousers and boots, lit a candle, and shuffled from the living quarters in the rear of the tavern to the front of the building. After lifting the locking bar and swinging the heavy wooden door open, he found four horsemen outside, the mounts tossing their heads, snorting, and breathing heavily, together with a wagon and four extra, unsaddled horses.
One of the horsemen had dismounted and was standing in the doorway. Myers’s gaze quickly took in each member of the group, and his assessment did not make him particularly comfortable, especially at this time of night. The men all appeared to be hard and rough, with hats pulled down low on their foreheads and shading heavily bearded faces, and saddle holsters bristling with guns. And the man standing before him appeared particularly villainous, with deep-set, dark, cold eyes, a scowl on his face, and a gun strapped to each hip. Certainly not just tired travelers looking for a warm place to sleep, he thought.
“Help you, gentlemen?” Myers asked, trying to mask the suspicion he felt.