“I bought and sold many slaves for the Barnwells. You can’t expect me to remember each and every one.”
“Then why’d you come to see Mr. Augustin the other day?” shouted Maggie, scrambling to her feet. “Why’d you leave off that there slave notice?”
“Silence,” said the judge. “I’ll not warn you again.” He squinted at Maggie. “I’ve heard enough.” He addressed Elymas: “You, boy, are free.”
A gasp of relief passed through the court. Maggie sank to the bench behind Elymas and laid her forehead against his shoulder. Helen grabbed Imari’s hand. They sat together, praying.
“If Mr. Galway would like to compensate the Barnwells for their original investment, then we shall be done with you.”
“I will pay them the seventy-five dollars,” said Augustin.
“Judge,” said Hickox, “this is outrageous. There is no legal basis for your decision. Besides that, for thirty years that man has eaten and been clothed by the good charity of the Barnwell family.”
“You’re all wrong about what’s right!” shouted Maggie, sitting up and pointing at Hickox.
“I told you to stay quiet, woman,” said Hayden. “Now, step outside or I swear I will send all of these people away.”
Helen watched Maggie start to speak, but it was as if the fight had suddenly left her. After patting Elymas and kissing Imari’s head, the cook moved slowly to the entranceway. Doyle lifted the bar. After taking one more look at Elymas and Imari, she left and closed the door.
“Now,” said Hayden. “for the woman …”
“Your Honor,” Stewart cut in, “now that you’ve made your decision, Mr. Hickox should remove this free man’s chains.”
“Mr. Stewart,” said the judge, “do not interrupt my train of thought for a mere comfort. A few more minutes won’t matter. Where was I?”
“The status of the woman,” said Stewart, his face reddening.
“Oh, yes. Is there a question of her origins?”
“No, Your Honor,” said Hickox. “Born a slave, of a slave.”
The words hammered into Helen. They took away all hope. Born a slave, of a slave. Perpetual—unending. How could heaven allow it?
“But she is the mother of the baby who was born in New York State,” said Stewart, “where no one has been born a slave since the enactment of the Gradual Emancipation Act.”
Imari brought her hand up to her heart and tapped it three times.
“Not so quick, Mr. Stewart,” said Hayden. “A slave who arrives in New York with her master will remain a slave for nine months, if they stay. Before that time, if they go back to their home, then that slave is still a slave. As for runaways, their residence, no matter how long, never becomes legal because they are considered stolen property. So the mother is still a slave.”
Both Imari and Helen cried out, “No!”
“I will have order,” said Hayden sternly. “On to the baby. My understanding is that if a pregnant slave is in New York State with her legal master, then the fetus is considered a slave.”
“Her daddy be free,” insisted Imari, “so she be free.”
“That does not follow the law,” said Hayden. “There is no way to know if this man is indeed her father.” Imari started to object, but Hayden cut her off: “Do not give me oaths about parentage because it is of no consequence. You are considered to be a possession of the Barnwell Plantation. You have stolen yourself and that baby is considered stolen property as well. My decision is that you and she are the property of Mr. Hickox, who has presented proper and lawful proof of your sale.”
Imari’s head dropped, her cheek touching little Margaret.
“Judge, mercy,” pleaded Helen. “Don’t send Mr. Galway’s granddaughter into slavery.”
“I’ll buy them,” said Augustin, his voice choked. “Name your price.”
Judge Hayden looked at Hickox, his eyes sharp. “Do you still want the infant now? Or are you willing to sell?”
“One thousand dollars for her,” Hickox squinted, a smile on his lips, “and another thousand for the missing boy. I sell both, or neither.”
“Agreed,” said Augustin, swabbing the sweat from his face. “We can go to the bank after the proceedings. How much for the woman?”
Hickox glared at Imari. “No sale. She is wanted in the state of New Jersey for the murder of my partner, Mr. Colby. She will pay for her crime when she hangs.”
Imari turned to Helen, her eyes wide with fear.
Helen, illness rising to her throat, put her arm around the woman’s shoulders.
“Judge Hayden,” said Stewart, “what proof do we have besides his word?”
“Here,” said Hickox, handing several pages to the judge. “This is a copy of the arrest warrant and a signed affidavit by the town’s sheriff, who witnessed the murder. He was in the woods at the time because of an armed rebellion by the Negroes of Hightstown.”
Hayden looked over the paper. “This is properly done. I have no choice but to release her to your custody, Mr. Hickox.” He addressed Imari: “You will be taken to New Jersey to stand trial for murder.”
Helen closed her eyes, unable to believe what had transpired.
Hickox leaned toward her. “Look upon this murderess for the last time.”
“You’re a beast,” said Helen, voice trembling.
Imari evened out her breathing. She sat erect, the infant in her arms.
“The law always has the final say,” said the judge, and banged his gavel on the desk.
“You be a good girl and grow up strong, like your daddy,” Imari murmured to Margaret. Then, looking at Helen, she held the baby out to her. Helen shook her head, but Imari pushed the infant into her arms. “Take her.” She held Helen’s eyes. “Keep her safe.”
Helen nodded, trying to hold back her tears.
Just then the street door burst open and another authority took charge.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
WHEN MAGGIE STEPPED OUT of the courtroom and into the street, she looked around, recognizing nothing.
Joe, Horace, and Schoolmaster Freeman approached her on the sidewalk.
Lingering nearby on busy Genesee Street were four wagons harnessed to four different horses. The schoolmaster’s wife and two black couples stood on the sidewalk. All three women appeared to be holding a swaddled baby. Freeman’s boy was brushing down one of the horses, trying to look like this was a regular task. A nervous energy animated their faces.
“Where Momma and Poppa?” asked Joe, pulling on Maggie’s arm.
“Your daddy’s gonna be free.” Maggie looked up to Horace and Freeman. “I don’t know about the others, or Joe neither. We gotta get them outta there ’cause that devil still wants to take ’em to hell.” Maggie took a step toward the men, but she suddenly felt weak and stumbled.
Horace grabbed her in his arms. “You about to drop,” he said.
“Just let me sit a minute,” said Maggie, and both men helped her to the corner of a water trough.
Horace sat beside her. “You got shot. You ain’t got no sleep,” he said, speaking softly and putting his arm around her. “You best stay out here.”
“No,” she said, studying him closely. “They’s my family in there.”
“Family?” said Horace. “Real and true family?”
Maggie nodded. Horace returned her gesture.
“What that mean?” asked Joe.
“Elymas is my son. That makes you my one true grandson, that’s what.”
“Miss Maggie, I knew you were like me,” said Joe with vindication.
Maggie touched his cheek. “Call me Grandma.”
Horace looked at Freeman. “This gonna work?” His knee bounced nervously.
“It’s gonna work,” said Maggie, stilling his leg, “’cause it’s gotta work.”
“Come on, Grandma,” said the boy, running toward the door.
Maggie and Horace picked themselves up and followed him.
When the court doors burst open Helen swun
g around in time to see Joe, Horace, and Maggie rush in. In confusion, she pulled the infant to her chest and backed away from the commotion.
“You can’t come in here,” cried the clerk, running from his desk to meet Horace, who pushed him to the floor.
“Stay still, Mr. Doyle,” said Horace. “It don’t gotta go bad for you.”
Swift jumped up, already pulling out his whip. He snapped his wrist and the knot on the end of the long leather strap crackled through the air until it bit into Maggie’s shoulder. She cried out in pain.
Augustin, forgetting about his broken leg, rose and lurched toward Maggie. His scream of agony was cut short when he collapsed into a heap.
Stewart shouted, “Mr. Galway!” and rushed to the stricken man’s side. Maggie, despite the blood streaming from her shoulder, quickly came to Augustin’s aid. Together they flipped him onto his back.
Elymas turned to Helen. “Get the baby outta here!”
Hickox jerked the chain that connected Imari and Elymas. The both fell toward him. Imari clawed at the manacle around her neck.
Judge Hayden shouted for order, but his words disappeared into the chaos.
The next thing Helen knew, Pryce was by her side. She said, “We must get Margaret out of here,” forcing herself to move. They stumbled toward the door. Swift loomed up in front of them. Pryce shoved the man, but the brute’s strong legs kept him stable. Swift punched Pryce in the jaw, dropping him to his knees. The slaver readied himself to use his whip again when Pryce sprang up and drove his shoulder into the man’s stomach, doubling him over and shoving him to the floor with a thud.
Sylvanus dashed around the benches and threw himself onto Swift’s back.
“You have to go!” shouted Pryce at Helen.
“Help my husband,” she said to him. They locked eyes for a moment. She saw his determination. She turned and rushed out of the court.
“Swift,” called Hickox, “get up, you fool.” But the other slave catcher was immobile.
Hickox climbed onto the judge’s desk, gripping Imari’s chain.
“This is for Colby!” he shouted, and hoisted her up. She hung, shuddering, hands at her neck, legs kicking.
Elymas tried to shoulder Hickox off the desk, but his arms remained pinned behind his back. Horace charged forward and, with a few deft slashes of his gutting knife, cut away the ropes that restrained Elymas.
Arms finally free, Elymas lunged forward and hauled the slaver down. Imari’s body dropped to the floor, motionless. Joe crawled to her and lifted her head. “Momma,” he cried. But she did not move.
Elymas stood over Hickox. His arm rose and the chain that the slaver had been holding like a leash whistled through the air, smashing into Hickox’s face. He grunted and raised his arms. Blood flowed from a deep gash. Elymas swung again and again; each stroke bit into flesh. Tears and spit and streaks of the slaver’s blood ran down Elymas’s face as he wielded the chain.
It was not until Joe screamed “Poppa!” that he stopped. Shaking himself, he scooped up his wife’s body.
“This way,” said Horace, pulling on Elymas’s arm and running toward the door.
Outside, Helen stammered, “I think the others are coming,” to the bespectacled black man who rushed to her.
Freeman guided Helen and the baby to the bed of a wagon and helped her get under its cover. “One of the ladies brought some cow’s milk for the baby,” he said, pointing to a small bowl covered with a white cloth. “Stay hidden.”
Helen felt the baby squirming and pulled back the knitted shawl. Margaret cried in fear. How had she not heard the infant’s distress? Imari’s eyes had been so pleading, the message clear—make certain that this child lives free. Helen lay on her side and circled herself around the infant. A lullaby of her mother’s came to her and she started singing quietly into Margaret’s ear. She wet her finger with milk and brought it to the child’s lips. The baby started to suckle. Helen felt the intensity of the infant’s hunger and her fierce will to live.
Shouts moved in the direction of the shrouded wagon. It seemed as if the fight had spilled into the street. The wagon’s tarp was heaved up. Elymas and Horace held Imari’s limp body. The two men placed the woman into the wagon, the awful chains still around her neck and hands. Horace boosted Elymas inside.
Helen heard someone shout “Now!” and Horace ran to the front of the wagon, hopping onto the seat and slapping the reins, jerking the cart into motion.
An out-of-breath voice came from the driver’s seat: “Go to Oriskany. I know a man.” And she understood that Sylvanus was there to help guide them to safety.
“Where’s Joe?” Helen called to the front. She saw a hand grasp at the tailboard. Joe pulled himself inside.
“We got four horses. Each going in a different direction,” the boy said. His excitement faded as he looked at his mother’s body. “She dead?” he asked, his voice quavering.
Elymas had his wife’s hand in his. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Take the baby,” Helen said to Joe. She crawled over to the still form and brought her ear to the woman’s mouth, but there was no sound. “Imari,” she said. She remembered that she had a small mirror and dug into her pocket. She held it next to Imari’s lips. The tiniest circle of fog appeared on the shiny surface. “She’s alive.”
Joe bent low, put his face into his sister’s wrapping, and sobbed. Relief swept across Elymas’s face.
Helen lowered herself to Imari’s ear. “Stay with us,” she begged. “You’re safe.”
Just then, two musket blasts thundered outside and one tore a hole into the wagon’s tarp. Horace shouted and slapped the reins against the horse’s flanks. As they moved faster, Elymas tumbled onto the wagon’s bed, blood staining his white shirt.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, Utica awoke to a swirl of rumors, accusations, and denunciations. Some facts were undeniable: the abolition meeting had been disrupted, the conventioneers dispersed.
The Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church had been left in a shambles, causing the poor Reverend Hopkins to almost regret his decision to allow the abolitionists access.
Armed men protecting Alvan Stewart’s home had driven off a group of torch-carrying rioters.
The furniture and printing equipment of the abolitionist newspaper, the Standard and Democrat, had been thrown out the second-story window onto Whitesboro Street, only slightly delaying the paper’s ability to report on the convention.
Dr. Corliss McCooke had been found murdered on the towpath. Some thought, after he had been seen at midday partaking in the free grog at King’s Victualing House and getting his flask filled from the proprietor’s special stock, that perhaps the good doctor might have been inebriated and gotten himself into a drunken brawl with a ruffian working on the canal. Others whispered that perhaps an aggrieved husband might have finally given the doctor his due.
Tongues wagged about a violent group of runaway slaves that, aided by inhabitants of Post Street, had apparently escaped from Virginian law officers. One of the officers clung to his life after a horrible beating. Judge Chester Hayden’s office had been torn apart in the struggle. Hayden’s longtime clerk had been manhandled and the judge himself was said to be in bed recovering from the attack.
More details spread around Post Street, as those who participated in the rescue described the desperate struggle in the judge’s office. Some who had seen the fugitives forced through the streets advocated finding the slavers and turning the lash on them. Schoolmaster Freeman planned to use this opportunity to organize the community into a vigilance committee—one that would be ready to aid runaways—like the one that Mr. Ruggles of New York City had proposed to him before the convention had been disrupted.
By far the most shocking development was that the well-known financier Augustin Galway had suffered some kind of seizure, perhaps a heart problem, and had died suddenly. Many could not understand what he had been doing in Judge Hayden’s office with the
runaways. People speculated that it must have had something to do with the Colonization Society and the Committee of 25, but the judge would not elaborate. Most curious was that the entire matter did not seem to be undergoing much official examination.
Maggie sat on her bed as morning light peeked over the sloping eastern hills. No fire warmed the kitchen. Instead of breakfast smells, the sulfurous odor of burned black powder lingered. Her injured pinkie throbbed. The stained rags she had used to tie up her gunshot wound still lay about. Under clean bandages, the whip mark on her shoulder stung. Mr. Pryce had helped her pick out the threads of her tattered dress that had embedded themselves in the cut. In return, she had inspected his injured jaw, pronouncing it unbroken, but badly bruised. Now, to even try to lift her arms to draw water for coffee was impossible.
She had been going over the string of events that had led her to gain and lose a family, all within a few days. The vision of Elymas removing Imari’s lifeless body from the courthouse circled about in her brain and intensified the ache in her chest. And poor Augustin. By the time she had gotten to his side and helped turn him onto his back, his eyes were wild with fear. As the battle to free Imari and Elymas swirled around them, Maggie had covered him with her body, her head above his face. His lips moved. She brought her ear to them. He mumbled “shadow” and “smoke” and “failed.”
“You done good,” she told him. “In the end, you done what you had to.”
“Too late,” he said.
“Never too late to do the right thing.” She gently kissed the side of his face.
Augustin squeezed her hand, then suddenly went slack. She saw his eyes roll back and go still.
At Judge Hayden’s office there had been nothing to do but let Mr. Pryce summon Mr. Hollister of Williams & Hollister Grocers to provide a casket and to bring Augustin home, where Maggie could help the men wash and dress him for the last time. After they had finished, they arranged Augustin’s body in the coffin. The men carried him into the front parlor so that the city might be able to come and look upon him before his burial. Once the grocer and the young man left, Maggie retreated to her room and wept.
The Third Mrs. Galway Page 33