their heads clean off with swords. Any nigger that mentions his name’ll be shipped outta this territory in pieces. So git away from me. And send that girl home and run on home to your wife.”
“She belongs to the Captain.”
That changed things, and Herbert’s hands stopped a moment as he considered it, still looking down at the dirt, then he started digging again. “What that got to do with me?” Herbert said.
“She’s Captain’s property. He’s running her out this country, outta bondage.”
The old man stopped his work for a minute, glancing at me. “Well, she can suck her thumb at his funeral, then. Git. Both of y’all.”
“That’s a hell of a way to treat your third cousin.”
“Fourth cousin.”
“Third, Herbert.”
“How’s that?”
“My Aunt Stella and your Uncle Beall shared a second cousin named Melly, remember? She was Jamie’s daughter, second cousin to Odgin. That was Uncle Beall’s nephew by his first marriage to your Mom’s sister Stella, who got sold last year. Stella was my cousin Melly’s second cousin. So that makes Melly your third cousin, which puts your Uncle Jim in the back behind my uncles Fergus, Cook, and Doris, but before Lucas and Kurt, who was your first cousin. That means Uncle Beall and Aunt Stella was first cousins, which makes me and you third cousins. You would treat your third cousin this way?”
“I don’t care if you is Jesus Christ and my son together,” Herbert snapped. “I don’t know nothing ’bout no Captain. ’Specially in front of her,” he said, nodding at me.
“What you gettin’ in a knot over her for? She’s just a child.”
“That’s just it,” Herbert said. “I ain’t gonna eat tar and feathers over that high-yellow thing there who I don’t even know. She don’t look nothing like the Old Man, whatever he do look like.”
“I didn’t say she was his kin.”
“Whatever she is, she don’t belong with you, a married man.”
“You ought to check yourself, cousin.”
He turned to me. “Is you colored or white, miss, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“What difference do it make?” Bob snapped. “We got to find the Captain. This little girl is rolling with him.”
“Is she colored or not?”
“Course she’s colored. Can’t you see?”
The old man stopped his digging to stare at me a moment, then started digging again, and snorted, “If I didn’t know no better, I’d say she was kin to old Gus Shackleford, who they say got his spark blowed out on account of talking to John Brown in Dutch’s Tavern four days past, bless his soul. But Gus had a boy, that trifling Henry. He worried Gus to devilment, that one. Acting white and all. He needs a good spanking. I ever catch that little gamecock nigger outside Dutch’s I’ll warm his little buns with a switch so hard, he’ll crow like a rooster. I expect his devilment is what sent his Pa to his rewards, for he was as lazy as the devil. Children these days is just going to hell, Bob. Can’t tell ’em nothing.”
“Is you done?” Bob said.
“Done what?”
“Fluffling your feathers and wasting time,” Bob snapped. “Where’s the Captain? Do you know or not?”
“Well, Bob. A jar of peaches’ll go far in this kind of weather.”
“I ain’t got no peaches, Herbert.”
Herbert straightened. “You work your mouth awful good for a feller who never gived his cousin a penny in this world. Driving ’round in your high-siddity wagon with your high master. My marse is a poor man, like me. Go find yourself a bigger fool.”
He turned away and dug more dirt into his flower bed.
“If you won’t tell it, cousin,” Bob said, “I’ll go inside and ask your marse. He’s a Free Stater, ain’t he?”
The old man glanced back at the cabin. “I don’t know what he is,” he said dryly. “He come out to this country Free State, but them rebels is changing these white folks’ mind fast.”
“I’ll tell you this, cousin. This here girl do belong to John Brown. And he’s looking for her. And if he
That done it. The old man grimaced a bit, glanced up at the woods beyond the cabin behind him, then returned to digging his flowers. He talked with his face to the ground. “Circle ’round the cabin and move straight back into the woods, past the second birch tree beyond the corn field yonder,” he said. “You’ll find an old whiskey bottle stuck between two low branches on that tree. Follow the mouth of that bottle due north two miles, just the way the mouth is pointed. Keep the sun on your left shoulder. You’ll run into an old rock wall somebody built and left behind. Follow that wall to a camp. Make some noise ’fore you roll in there, though. The Old Man’s got lookouts. They’ll pull the trigger and tell the hammer to hurry.”
“You all right, cousin.”
“Git outta here ’fore you get me kilt. Old Brown ain’t fooling. They say he roasted the skulls of the ones he kilt. That’s the Wilkersons, the Fords, the Doyles, and several folks on the Missouri side. Ate their eyeballs like they was grapes. Fried the brains like chitlins. Used the scalps for wick lamps. He’s the devil. I ain’t never seen white folks so scared,” he said.
That’s the thing about the Old Man back in them days. If he done a thing, it got whipped up into a heap of lies five minutes past breakfast.
Herbert covered his mouth and chortled, licking his lips. “I want my jar of peaches, cousin. Don’t forget me.”
“You’ll git ’em.”
We bid leave of him and headed toward the woods. When we reached them, Bob stopped. “Little brother,” he said, “I got to cut you loose here. I’d like to go, but I’m getting shaky. Being that Old John Brown has chopped off eyeballs and heads and all, I don’t think I can make it. I’m fond of my head, since it do cover the top of my body. Plus, I got a family and can’t leave ’em just yet, not unless they has safe passage. Good luck, for you is going to need it. Stay a girl and go with it till the Old Man’s dead. Don’t worry ’bout old Nigger Bob here. I’ll catch up to you later.”
Well, I couldn’t assure him of nothing about whether or not the Old Man would take his head or be deadened, but there weren’t nothing to do but take my leave of him. I followed old Herbert’s directions, walking through the tall pines and thickets. A short while later, I recognized a piece of the rock wall—that was the same wall the Old Man had leaned on to follow the map when he first kidnapped me, but the camp was gone. I followed that wall along till I seen smoke from a fire. I went behind the wall, on the far side, intending to go behind the Old Man and holler at him and his men so they’d recognize me. I made a wide circle, snaking through trees and thickets, and after I was sure I was far back off ’em, I rose up, stepped behind a wide oak, and sat down to gather myself. I didn’t know what kind of excuse I would cook up for ’em and needed time to think of one. Before I knew it, I fell asleep, for all that trekking and running around in the woods got me exhausted.
When I woke, the first thing I saw was a pair of worn boots with several toes sticking out of them. I knowed them toes, for just two days previous, I’d seen Fred throw a needle and thread at them things as we set by the fire salting peanuts. From where I lay, them toes was looking none too friendly.
I looked up into the barrel of two seven-shooters, and behind Frederick was Owen and several more of the Old Man’s army, and none was looking too happy.
“Where’s Pa’s horse?” Fred asked.
Well, they brung me to the Old Man and it was like I hadn’t gone no place. The Old Man greeted me like I had just come back from an errand to the general store. He didn’t mention the missing horse, me running off, or none of them things. Old Brown never cared about the details of his army. I seen fellers walk off from his army one day, stay away a year, and a year later walk back into his camp and set down by the fire and eat like they had just come back from hunting that morning, and the Old Man wouldn’t say a word. His abolitionist Pottawatomie Rifles was all volunteers. They came and went just as they pleased. In fact, the Old Man never gave orders unless
