“But if you is in bondage, why is you hanging ’bout the railroad down at the Ferry all the time, trying to roust the niggers up? That’s the talk ’round town ’bout you,” she said.
That stumped me. “I done no such thing,” I lied.
“Is you lying, nigger?”
Well, I was stumped. And Annie sat there, calm, with a straight face, but I could see the blood rushing to her cheeks, and see the cheerfulness back out of her face, and the angry calm lock itself into place instead—like it did with all them Browns. Once them Browns got to whirring up, once they got their blood to boiling, they got quiet and calm. And dangerous.
“Now, Mrs. Huffmaster,” she said. “Henrietta is my dear friend. And part of my family. And I don’t appreciate you speaking to her in such an unkind manner.”
Mrs. Huffmaster shrugged. “You can talk to your niggers however you like. But you better get your story straight. My husband was at the tavern at the Ferry, and he overheard Mr. Cook say that your Pa ain’t a miner or slave owner at all, but an abolitionist. And that the darkies is planning something big. Now your nigger here is saying y’all
“I reckon you is not privy to how we live. For it is none of your business,” Annie said.
“You got a smart mouth for someone so young.”
Well, that woman weren’t of the notion that she was talking to a Brown. Man or woman, them Browns didn’t knuck to nobody once they got on their hind legs ’bout something. Annie was a young thing, but she flew hot and stood up in a snap, her eyes a-blazing, and for a minute you seen her true nature, cool as ice on the outer part, but a firm, crazy wildness inside there somewhere; that’s what drove them Browns. They was strange creatures. Pure outdoor people. They didn’t think like normal folks. They thunk more like animals, driven by ideas of purity. I reckon that’s why they thought the colored man was equal to the white man. That was her Pa’s nature, surely, jumping ’round inside her.
“I’ll thank you to step off my porch now,” she said. “And make it quick, or I’ll help you to it.”
Well, she throwed down the gauntlet, and I reckon it was coming anyway. That woman left in a huff.
We watched her go, and when she crossed the muddy road out of sight, Annie blurted out, “Father will be angry with me,” and burst into tears.
It was all I could do to keep myself from hugging her then, for my feelings for her was deep, way down deep. She was strong and courageous, a true woman, so kind and decent in her thinking, just like the Old Man. But I couldn’t bring myself to it. For if I’d a pressed up against her and held her in my arms, she’d’a knowed my true nature. She’d’a felt my heart banging, she’d’a felt the love busting outta me, and she’d’a knowed I was a man.
26.
The Things Heaven Sent
Not a week after Annie put her foot in Mrs. Huffmaster’s duff, the Captain upped and laid down the date. “We move on October twenty-third,” he announced. That was a date he’d already called out, and written letters ’bout, and told loudmouth Cook and anybody else he reckoned would need to know it, so it weren’t no great secret. But I reckoned it made him feel better to announce it to the men lest they forget or wanted to hightail out of it before the whole deal begun in earnest.
October twenty-third. Remember that date. At the time, that was two Sundays distant.
The men was happy, for while the girls slept downstairs and was right comfortable, yours truly included, the men was packed like rats in the upstairs attic. There was fifteen up there in that tiny space sleeping on mattresses, playing chess, exercising, reading books and newspapers. They was squeezed tighter than Dick’s hatband, and had to keep quiet all day lest the neighbors or Mrs. Huffmaster hear them. During thunderstorms they jumped up and down and hollered at the top of their lungs to get their feelings out. At night a few even roamed the yard, but they couldn’t venture far or go to the village, and they had gotten so they couldn’t stand it. They took to squabbling, especially Stevens, who was disagreeable anyway, and throwed up his fists at any slight. The Old Man brung ’em in too early, is what it was, but he had no place to store ’em. He hadn’t planned on keeping ’em cooped up there that long. They come in September. By October it’d been a month. When he announced they was ready to make their charge on October twenty-third, that was three more weeks. Seven weeks total. That’s a long time.
Kagi mentioned this to him, but the Old Man said, “They’ve soldiered this far. They can stand another couple of weeks.” He weren’t studying them. He had become fixated on the colored.
Everything depended on their coming, and while he tried not to show he was concerned, he was wound up tight on it—and ought to have been. He had written to all his colored friends from Canada who promised to high heaven they was gonna come. Not too many had written back. He set still through the summer and into September, waiting on them. In early October, he got thunderstruck with an idea and announced he and Kagi was gonna ride to Chambersburg to see his old friend, Mr. Douglass. He decided to take me along as well. “Mr. Douglass is fond of you, Onion. He has asked about you in his letters, and you will make a good attraction for him to come join us.”
Now, the Old Man knowed nothing ’bout Mr. Douglass’s drinking and fresh ways, chasing me ’round his study and all as he done, and he weren’t gonna know, for one thing you learns when you is a girl is that most women’s hearts is full of secrets. And this one was gonna stay with me. But I liked the idea of going to Chambersburg, for I had never been there. Plus, anything to get me out the house and away from my true love was a welcome change, for I was heartbroken on the matter of Annie and was happy to get away from her anytime.
We rode up to Chambersburg in evening, early October, in a horse-drawn, open-backed wagon. We got there in a jiffy. It weren’t but fourteen miles. First the Captain called on some colored friends up there, Henry Watson, and a doctor named Martin Delany. Mr. Delany had helped ship arms through to the Ferry, apparently at much danger to himself. And I had a feeling that Mr. Watson was the feller the Rail Man had referred to when he said, “I know a feller in Chambersburg who’s worth twenty of them blowhards,” for he was a cool customer. He was an average-size man, dark skinned, slender, and smart. He was cutting hair in his barbershop on the colored edge of town when we come up on him. When he seen the Old Man, he shooed the colored out his shop, closed it down, brung us to his house in the back of it, and produced food, drink, and twelve pistols in a bag marked Dry Goods, which he handed the Old Man without a word. Then he handed the Old Man fifty dollars. “This is from the Freemasons,” he said tersely. His missus was standing behind him as he done all this, closed up his shop and so forth, and she piped out, “And their wives.”
“Oh, yes. And their wives.”
He explained to the Old Man that he’d set up the meeting with Mr. Douglass in a rock quarry at the south edge of town. Frederick Douglass was big doings in them days. He couldn’t just walk into town without nobody knowing. He was like the colored president.
Mr. Watson gived the Old Man directions on how to get there. The Old Man took ’em, then Watson said, “I am troubled that the colored may not come.” He seemed worried.
The Old Man smiled and patted Mr. Watson on the shoulder. “They will roust, surely, Mr. Watson. Don’t fret on it. I will mention your worries to our fearless leader.”
Watson smirked. “I don’t know ’bout him. He gived me a mouthful ’bout finding a safe place. Seems he’s slanting every which way on the question of your purpose.”
“I will speak to him. Calm his doubts.”
Mrs. Watson was standing behind them as they talked, and she blurted out to the Old Man, “We got five men for your purpose. Five we can trust. Young. Without children or wives.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“One of them,” she managed to choke out, “one of them’s our eldest son.”
The Old Man patted her on the back. Just patted her on the back for courage as she cried a little bit. “The Lord will not forsake us. He is behind our charge,” he said. “Take courage.” He gathered up the guns and money they gived him, shook their hands, and left.
