'Fitzhoward? I don't —'
'No, not Fitzhoward, blast it. Wait, though — Arnold — oh, God, no!' My mind was swimming. 'No — Comber! Lieutenant Comber — you must remember me?'
He took a pace back in bewilderment. 'Comber? The English officer — how in the world — ?'
'That's a slave girl,' I gasped out. 'I — I rescued her — from down South — the slave-catchers found us — chased us across river — still coming after us.' And praise be to providence I had the sense to hit the right note. 'Don't let them take her back! Save her, for God's sake!'
It must have sounded well, at least to the others, for I heard a gasp of dismay and pity, and one of the women, a little ugly battleship of a creature, bustles over to Cassy to take her hands.
'But — but, here, sir!' The stout chap was all agog. 'What, a runaway girl? Septy, shut that door this minute — what's that? My God, more scarecrows! What the devil is this? Who are — ?'
I looked to the door, and my heart went down to my boots. The old nigger was clinging to the handle as though to support himself, his eyes rolling, the people of the house were rustling back to the doorways off the hall, the stout man — who I guessed was Judge Payne — had fallen silent. Buck stood in the doorway, panting hard, his clothes sodden and mud-spattered, with his gun cradled in his left arm, and behind him were the bearded faces of his fellows. Buck was grinning, though, with his loose lower lip stuck out, and now he raised his free hand and pointed at Cassy.
'That's a runaway slave there, mister — an' I'm a warranted slave-catcher! That scoundrel at the stair there's the thievin' skunk that stole her!' He took a pace forward into the hall. 'I'm gonna take both of 'em back where they belong!'
Payne seemed to swell up. 'Good God!' says he. 'What — what? This is intolerable! First these two, and now — is my house supposed to be a slave market, or what?'
'I want 'em both,' Buck was beginning, and then he must have realised where he was. 'Kindly sorry for intrudin' on you, mister, but this is where they run to, an' this is where I gotta follow. So — jus' you roust 'em out here to me, an' we won't be troublin' you or your ladies no further.'
For a moment you could have heard a pin drop. Then Buck added defiantly:
'That's the law. I got the law on my side.'
I felt Lincoln stiffen beside me. 'For God's sake,' I whispered. 'Don't let them take us!'
He moved forward a pace, beside Judge Payne, and I heard one of the ladies begin to sob gently — the first sobs before hysterics. Then Lincoln says, very quietly:
'There's a law against forcing an entry into a private house.'
'Indeed there is!' cries the judge. 'Take yourself off, sir — this instant, and your bandits with you!'
Buck glared at him. 'Ain't forcin' nuthin'. I'm recapturin' a slave, like I'm legally entitled to. Anyone gits in my way, is harbourin' runaways, an' that's a crime! I know the law, mister, an' I tell you, either you put them out o' doors for us, or stand aside — because if they ain't comin' out, we're comin' in!'
Judge Payne fell back at that, and the other people shrank away, some of the women bolting back to the drawing room. But not the ugly little woman who bad her arm round Cassy's shoulders.
'Don't you move another step!' she cries out. 'Nathan — don't permit him. They don't touch a hair of this poor creature's head in this house. Stand back, you bully!'
'But, my dear!' cries Payne in distress. 'If what they say is true, we have no choice, I fear —'
'Who says it's true? There now, child, be still; they shan't harm you.'
'Look, missus.' Buck swaggered forward, limbering his rifle, and stood four-square, with his pals at his back. 'You best 'tend to what your ol' man says. We got the law behind us.' He glanced at Lincoln, who hadn't moved and was right in his path. 'Step aside.'
Lincoln still didn't move. He stood very easy and his drawl was steady as ever.
'On the subject of the law,' says he, 'you say she's a runaway, and that this man stole her. We don't know the truth about that, though, do we? Perhaps they tell a different tale. I know a little law myself, friend, and I would suggest that if you have a claim on these two persons, you should pursue it in the proper fashion, which is through a court. An Ohio court,' he added. 'And I'd further advise you, as a legal man, not to prejudice your case by armed house-breaking. Or, for that matter, by dirtying this good lady's carpet. If you have a just claim, go and enter it, in the proper place.' He paused. 'Good night, sir.'
It was so cool and measured and unanswerable that I could have wept with relief to hear him — but I didn't know much about slave-catchers. Buck just grunted and sneered at him.
'Oh, yeah, I know about the courts! I guess I do — I bin to court before —'
'I'll believe that,' says Lincoln.
'Yeah? You're a mighty fancy goddam legal beanpole, ain't you though? Well, I'll tell you suthin', mister — I know about courts an' writs an' all, an' there ain't one o' them worth a lick in hell to me! I'm here — them dam' runaways is here — an' if I take 'em away nice an' quiet, we don' have to trouble with no courts nor nuthin'. An' afterwards — well, I reckon I'll answer right smart for any incon-venience caused here tonight. But I ain't bein' fobbed by smart talk — they're comin' with me!'
And he pushed the barrel of his piece forward just a trifle.
'You'll just take them,' says Lincoln. 'By force. Is that so?'
'You bet it's so! I reckon the courts won't worry me none, neither! We'll have done justice, see?'
I quailed to listen to him. God, I thought, we're finished; he had the force behind him. If he wanted to march in and drag us out bodily, the law would support him in the end. There would be protests, no doubt, and some local public outcry, but what good would that be to us, once they had us south of the river again? I heard Cassy moan, and I sank down, done up and despairing, beside the newell. And then Lincoln laughed, shaking his head.
'So that's your case is it, Mr — ?'
'Buck Robinson's my —'
'Buck will do. That's your style, is it, Buck? Brute force and talk about it afterwards. Well, it has its logic, I suppose — but, d'ye know, Buck, I don't like it. No, sir. That's not how we do things where I come from —'
'I don't give a damn how you do things where you come from, Mr Smart,' Buck spat out. 'Get out of my way.'
'I see,' says Lincoln, not moving. 'Well, I've put my case to you, in fair terms, and you've answered it — admirably, after your own lights. And since you won't listen to reason, and believe that might is right — well, I'll just have to talk in your terms, won't I? So —'
'You hold your gab and stand aside, mister,' shouts Buck. 'Now, I'm warnin' you fair!'
'And I'm warning you, Buck!' Lincoln's voice was suddenly sharp. 'Oh, I know you, I reckon. You're a real hard-barked Kentucky boy, own brother to the small-pox, weaned on snake juice and grizzly hide, aren't you? You've killed more niggers than the dysentery, and your grandma can lick any white man in Tennessee. You talk big, step high, and do what you please, and if any 'legal beanpole' in a store suit gets in your way you'll cut him right down to size, won't you just? He's not a
Buck was mouthing at him, red-faced and furious, but Lincoln went on in the same hard voice.
'So am I, Buck. And more — for the benefit of any shirt-tail chawbacon with a big mouth, I'm a who's-yar boy from Indiana myself, and I've put down better men than you just by spitting teeth at them.40 If you doubt it, come ahead! You want these people-you're going to take them?' He gestured towards Cassy. 'All right, Buck — you try it. Just — try it.'
The rest of the world decided that Abraham Lincoln was a great orator after his speech at Gettysburg. I realised it much earlier, when I heard him laying it over that gun-carrying bearded ruffian who was breathing brimstone at him. I couldn't see Lincoln's face, but I'll never forget that big gangling body in the long coat that didn't quite fit, towering in the centre of the hall, with the big hands motionless at his sides. God knows how he had the nerve, with six armed men in front of him. But when I think back to it, and hear that hard, rasping drawl sounding in my memory, and remember the force in those eyes, I wonder how Buck had the nerve to stand up in front of him, either. He did, though, for about half a minute, glaring from Lincoln to Cassy to me and back to Lincoln again. Twice he was going to speak, and twice thought better of it; he was a brawny, violent man with a gun in his hands, but speaking objectively at a safe distance now, he has my sympathy. As a fellow bully and coward, I can say that Buck bebayed precisely as I should have done in his place. He glared and breathed hard, but that was his limit. And then through the open door came the distant sound of raised voices, and a hurrying of many feet on the road.
