The Return of the Freedom Thief

by Mikki Sadil

  The two young women stopped, looked at each other, and unfurled their parasols. One of them said, “What do you want, young master? How do you want us to help you?”

  Ben almost laughed. He knew they were ready to defend themselves if necessary with the parasols. He stepped back a bit until he was touching Traveler, hoping they would see he was not a threat. “I’m new to this town, and I am completely lost. Can you direct me to Woodhall Street? I would very much be in your debt.”

  The two girls giggled a bit, before one of them said, “Yes, we can tell you that. You are on Luther Street now. You have to go back three blocks from here, back that way…” She pointed in the direction Ben had just come from. “When you get to Juniper street, go right. Then keep riding until you come to Woodall Street. It’s about…” She looked over at the younger girl. “Sissy, how far down Juniper will Woodhall be? A mile or so?”

  Sissy looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, Maybeth. Might be a few miles, not just one.”

  Maybeth shook her head. “You’re no help.” She turned back to Ben. “Well, young master, I just know that you ride a far ways down Juniper, and then Woodhall will be to the north, or to your right.” She stopped, as Ben turned to mount Traveler.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Thanks for the help. I’ll find it, I’m sure. Do you ladies need an escort home?”

  The girls giggled again, and Sissy, said with a dimpled smile, “No, thank you, sir. I believe we can make it home all on our own. But you’re welcome to ride along, and perhaps stay to tea?” She cast a sideways glance at her sister, who covered her mouth with her hand.

  Ben blushed. He had never before been invited to a young lady’s house for tea, or anything else. He laughed a bit nervously. “Uh, I, uh, I think I best get along on my journey, but thanks for the invitation. And thanks again for your help.”

  He tipped his cap, turned Traveler back the way he had come, smiling as he did so. The girls were cute and perky, but right now he didn’t have time for the playfulness of young ladies, no matter how cute they were.

  He slowed Traveler down to a trot, and within a minute or so, he saw the street sign for Juniper. He turned the horse into the street and urged him into a canter again.

  The street named Juniper quickly became nothing more than a rough dirt road leading out into a dismally populated area. The homes were small and run down, a far cry from the few he had seen on the streets of the city of Lexington. Ben didn’t see a single carriage as he rode down the road— only weathered farmers’ wagons that looked as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. Just about the time he felt this was a dead-end, the scenery began to subtly change. First, there were a few smaller houses in good repair, with front lawns, horses grazing on pasture land behind the houses, and even a few carriages parked neatly by the side of the houses.

  A little further on, another change as pristine white fences enclosed acre after acre of green pasture land, on which grazed both horses and cattle. The houses that belonged to those pastures were large and stately, with tall columns on wide front porches, and brick fireplaces reaching from the ground up through the roofs atop three and four stories of each private home.

  Another couple of minutes, and Ben came to the crossroads he was looking for: Woodhall Road cut across Juniper, and seemed to stretch for miles towards the north. He pulled Traveler up to check on the directions in the note Grammy had given him. Nodding to himself, he put the note back in his pocket, turned Traveler towards the north, and pushed him into a gallop. He was anxious to meet this lady his grandmother had told him about.

  * * *

  The sun was relentless, and beat down on horse and rider without so much as a smidgeon of a breeze to dispel the heat. By the time Ben saw the street sign for Mercy Road, Traveler was covered in sweat, and Ben was swatting ineffectively at the drops of sweat racing down his cheeks.

  From what Grammy had said in her note, he should continue on Woodhall until he came to the big white house with an iron gate, and a horse head in the center. Surprisingly, there were no more big houses along this part of Woodhall—just wide open fields green with grass hay and alfalfa. Beyond those fields, horses grazed and chased each other in enclosed pastures.

  Before long, Ben saw a long, curving drive of crushed rock going from the road up to a very large, imposing white house. The drive was lined from the road all the way up to the house on both sides with red and yellow roses, whose aroma was strong enough to tweak his nose. What he could see of the house showed high, majestic columns sitting on a very wide front porch. The black iron gate was marked, just as Grammy had said, with two Northern pines on the left side, and one on the right side. In the center, where the two sides of the elaborately carved gate met, was a horse’s head.

  “Well, Traveler, I guess this must be the place. Whoa, now, you rest a bit and let me ring this pull. We’ll see what happens then.”

  Ben sidestepped the horse over to the gate, leaned down, and rang the pull three times. He waited a few seconds, and rang it again three times. Another few seconds, and the gate opened. He was marveling at the fact that the gate had seemingly opened all by itself, when Traveler snorted, and he realized that a small black boy was standing in the way of his moving forward.

  “Hey, mister, what for you come here? You got business with the Master and Mistress? That big ole’ horse ain’t gonna step one more step inside of ‘dis gate ‘til I hears what you got to say.”

  The little boy stood his ground, his arms folded over a thin chest, and his face set in a very determined scowl.

  Ben almost laughed, as the child was comical in his stance. Traveler could have almost stepped over him without touching him. But Ben swallowed his laugh, leaned over Traveler’s shoulder, and said solemnly, “Yes sir. I am Ben McKenna, and I have business with Mistress Fenaway. Would you be so kind as to tell your Mistress that I am here?”

  The boy looked him up and down. He replied, “Yes, I’se been told you was coming. But I jus’ make sure so no bodies what don’t belong here comes in dis here gate.” He paused, looked up at Ben, and said with dignity, “Mistress Fenaway ain’t my mistress. I’s a free boy. You can come in, now.” He stepped aside, and waited until Traveler had cleared the gate, then shoved it closed. It was heavy, and took him several tries to get both sides together and shut tight, but he managed it. Ben started to offer to help, but it was obvious the young boy would not take any help for a job he was supposed to do all on his own.

  Ben turned away, and nudged Traveler forward. The ‘drive’ was little more than a carriage path, and the crushed rocks were hard on Traveler’s hooves. The house itself sat much further back than it first had appeared to Ben. After what seemed to be long minutes, he finally arrived at the front porch. As he swung out of the saddle, another young black boy, older than the gatekeeper, appeared and silently took the reins from Ben. He nodded towards the house, and said, “Master McKenna, go right in. My mama will direct you to Mistress Fenaway.”

  The boy patted Traveler on the nose, and spoke quietly to him. “Hey, old Traveler, mighty good to see you again. Come on, I’se give you some oats an’ get this here saddle offen’ you. Master McKenna, you want I should bring you this here knapsack? I don’t ‘spose you be riding Traveler anymore.”

  “Sure, you can bring it in for me. What’s your name?”

  He looked up at Ben with a frown. “You wants me birthin’ name, or what Mistress Fenaway named me?”

  Ben smiled. “Well, you can tell me whichever name you want to.”

  “Huh. My birthin’ name be Pergatory, but the Mistress calls me Peter. My little brother, the one what let you in the gate, his birthin’ name be Damnation, but the Mistress calls him Danny.”

  “Well, I’d rather call you Peter, and your brother Danny. You take good care of Traveler, and I’ll see you later.”

  Peter nodded, and walked off silently with the horse.

  * * *

  Moments later, Ben was inside the house, staring in
awe. Grammy’s plantation was large and beautiful inside, especially with the long, curving staircase in the open entry hall. But this place put to shame any home he had ever been in. The spacious entry had large marble tiles for the flooring, and the huge staircase had more curves than he thought possible for a house to have. Polished maple floors spun off from the marbled entry into such an abundance of rooms he could not have begun to figure out what they were used for. Heavy velvet curtains hung on the sides of windows clean and sparkling from the sun.

  As he was standing in the middle of all this luxury, a woman about his mother’s age came towards him from one of the rooms off the entry. She was dressed in a genteel bodice of pale blue velvet, and her deeper blue velvet skirts tumbled on their hoops around her black boot-clad feet. Her dark brown hair hung in the ringlets most women wore, covered by a pale blue silk bonnet. Her blue eyes lit up with the same smile as the one on her face as she approached him.

  “Ben! It’s so nice to finally meet you. I am Lucy Fenaway, a long-time friend of your grandmother’s. Elizabeth has told me so much about you. Your grandmother is very proud of you, I hope you know that.”

  He took the hand she held out to him, bowed over it, and said, “Thank you, Mistress Fenaway. I am happy to meet you.”

  “Ah, you are as much a gentleman as your grandmother has said. Come with me. Let’s go into the parlor and talk.”

  In the lavishly appointed parlor, she pointed to a chair, and sat down on the adjacent settee, covered in a pale blue damask, and complemented by the rich pecan wood back carving. Ben hesitated, knowing his clothes were worn and tempered with the dust of the road. He brushed at the seat of his pants, which did little except spread the dust around.

  “Ben, do sit down! Your clothes aren’t going to hurt anything. Now, first of all, tell me about your grandmother. I haven’t seen her in an age and a half. How is she?”

  For the next quarter hour or so, Ben and Mistress Fenaway talked about inconsequential things, until finally, Ben said, “Mistress Fenaway, I don’t mean to be rude. But I’m on my way to hiring myself out as a newsboy, and Grammy seemed to think you could help me. Is that true?”

  She smiled. “I think I will be able to help you in more than just that, my young friend. The message I received just last night from your grandmother was that you were, indeed, intending to hire out as a newsboy, and could I help you. I’m assuming that as a newsboy, you intend to transfer information about the Confederates to the Federals. Is that true?”

  Ben’s stomach did a flip-flop. Wait a minute. Why would she assume that? I know Grammy wouldn’t have told her that, especially in a written message. Being a newsboy doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to be a spy.

  When Ben didn’t answer, Lucy Fenaway smiled again. “Ah, Ben, you are right to be dubious. Come, follow me, I think I can show you some things that will explain everything, and answer your questions about me. Those unspoken questions, that is.”

  She led him out of the parlor and across the broad entry way. From there, she opened a door into another beautifully appointed room, much like the parlor. This one had the same heavy damask chairs and sofas, but these walls were lined with floor to ceiling book cases, made of polished dark maple wood. They were filled with more books than Ben had ever seen. She closed the door, and turned the key in the embossed lock. With a smile at Ben’s look of surprise, she walked across the room to one of the book cases. She turned to Ben. “Of course, you are not going to ask questions, are you? That is very wise of you. Fine, just watch and wait.”

  Mistress Fenaway placed one hand against the wood of the book case, ran the fingers of her other hand down a short way. Ben heard a tiny click, and with a little push from Mistress Fenaway, the case swung open to reveal—a blank wall. She raised her hand to almost the top of the wall, pressed, and it opened into a large, dark room. She stepped inside, and motioned for Ben to follow her. When he was standing beside her, the wall closed.

  She struck a match and lighted a lantern hanging from a hook on the wall. She walked around lighting the gas lamps, until the room was bright with light.

  Ben saw desks sitting around with large maps pinned to the walls. When he walked closer, he saw that Confederate camps and forces as well as Union were pinpointed on the map in different colors. Roads leading from the Ohio River on both the Kentucky and Ohio sides were marked as “well-traveled”, “used only by Confederates” or “only by Union”. What appeared to be copies of messages sent from one place to another, sometimes Confederate to Confederate, sometimes Confederate to Union, were all over the walls.

  He stopped and turned to Mistress Fenaway. She was smiling at him. “Yes, Ben, this is where I work. Where the people who are with me in this venture work. I run an espionage service for the Union Army. I’ve been doing so for a little more than three years. Your grandmother sent you to me so that you could join my service, if you want to. I think you’ll be safer working with me than you will be roaming around the country as a newsboy. So—what do you say?”

  Ben cleared his throat. “I don’t rightly know how to answer that, Mistress Fenaway. I had set my mind on being a newsboy, and I still think that is the right way for me to go. I don’t reckon I would be of much use, sealed up in a room like this. What do you do here, anyway?”

  She pulled out two chairs from desks next to one another. “Sit down, and I’ll explain. I have both men and women working for me. The women are two young sisters and one of their cousins. They are pretty, have good manners, and are wonderful in the art of conversation. Most specifically, in the art of conversation with men who wear the Confederate uniform. They…”

  “Mistress Fenaway,” Ben interrupted. “I don’t understand. We are not yet at war, and maybe we won’t ever be. Kentucky will be neutral, no matter what. So what is the need for this espionage service you have? Are you so certain a real war is going to break out?”

  “Ben, there have been spies for almost as long as there have been humans. A need to know what the other person knows, thinks, and is doing or is going to do, is always of value. Especially if that other person has political ideas and ambitions that are not harmonious with yours. The Confederacy has had spies living and working in Washington for as long as Washington has been the home of the Union. “

  Ben interrupted her. “What? I didn’t know that. So this espionage thing is not something that just came up because there might be a war?” He couldn’t contain his surprise.

  “No, Ben, not at all. Spying is a way of life, and for whatever reason, the Confederacy has had a large and successful espionage ring going for years. Now we, those of us who support the freeing of slaves, have spies of our own. The Unionists want to break the Southern States Constitution, and bring all the states together again under Federal rule. There are many people in the Confederacy who support that, and we are among them. Lincoln is now in office, and he is the one person, the only person, who can decide if bringing the Southern states together into the Union once and for all, is important enough to begin a war between North and South. And everything we have learned since he’s been in office suggests that yes, this is that important. There will be a war, Ben. It is inevitable, and Kentucky cannot remain neutral.”

  Ben walked around the room, peering at the maps and reading some of the messages. He realized that some of them were encrypted in some kind of code. He stopped in front of her. “I have information about an attack on Manassas, Virginia. It concerns a General McDowell, and it is supposed to happen sometime next week. Is this vital information?”

  She spoke carefully. “Well, General McDowell is in charge of a regiment of Union soldiers. So I guess it depends upon what kind of information you have whether it is vital or not. What is it, Ben?”

  He fidgeted a little, still unsure if he could trust her completely. “It’s about an attack on Manassas that the Union Army is planning. But the Confederates have learned about that attack. They are getting reinforcements so they can hit the Federals hard.”
>
  Mistress Fenway was smiling. “My dear boy, than kind of news is extremely vital. The General will be delighted to get this news. He will be able to position his forces to a greater advantage, and overtake the Confederates in their own camp. Now tell me, how did you come by this bit of news?”

  He shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell her his secrets. “It doesn’t matter how I got it. I reckon if it is of some importance, I need to get on my way and see to its being delivered properly.”

  She stared at him. “You don’t trust me?” she asked incredulously. “Your grandmother sent you to me. Surely you don’t think she would have done that if I were not trustworthy?”

  “It’s not that,” Ben replied stubbornly. “I have my own plans for what I want to do in this war. If it really comes to a full-out war. I’m not going to be shut up in some room deciphering messages, or marking up maps. I’m sorry, Mistress Fenaway, but I need to go now.”

  “Ben, let’s go back into the parlor, and let me explain some things to you. Then you may go on your way. And should you not know exactly what ‘way’ that is—to get to the general, I mean—I can help you with that, also.”

  She went to the wall, where, from this room, it seemed like they had just walked through it, pressed a spot, and it slid open. They walked through it back into the library. She pressed the same place on the bookcase, and it closed silently. She led the way back into the parlor.

  “Ben, this is the way I see it. We do very important and necessary work here, but not all of my secret agents work in that room. This is the home base, so to speak, for everyone in my service. Some come and go at will, carrying messages, sometimes helping another agent to head out in the right direction, doing whatever is necessary. If you want to hire out as a newsboy, that’s fine, but you would still use this house as your home base. There is a lot of crucial information out there that even as a newsboy, you would not know about. You can come here, collect that information, and deliver it, as a newsboy, to where it should go. You would have the advantage of a safe place to stay, if you are willing to join my agency.”