Jacob's Ladder (26 page)

“You won't be the first man to adopt that course.” The soldier relaxed. “You don't run and I don't shoot you. Sound all right?”

“We been walkin' long time to get here. . . .”

“Yeah. I'm from Minnesota myself. Railroad to Baltimore and railroad to here and on my feet ever since. Suppose I'm lucky. Least I ain't been killed.”

The soldier led them past silent trains. Grafton Station was a square marble structure with an Italianate tower beside the somewhat larger and equally ornate Grafton Hotel. Every hotel bedroom was crammed with stranded passengers, lobby couches and settees were reserved for women and children, and when Jesse and Rufus passed through the station waiting room, they stepped over sleeping men's feet.

“Ain't been no train in three days,” their escort explained. “Trains keep gettin' here from the west, but they can't go ahead on account of Stonewall Jackson.”

In his smoky office, the telegrapher hunched over his brass instrument evaluating clicks and pauses, head cocked skeptically. “That's not Lewis's hand,” the telegrapher said. “I'd swear to it. Whoever it is says Jackson has loaded three trains with troops and sent them west to Grafton, says J.E.B. Stuart is coming up the Tygart to take us from the rear, but it's not Lewis's hand. He says he's Lewis, but he ain't.”

The Federal captain was young, prematurely bald, sweating. “Oh God, we can't fight Jackson.” He looked at Rufus. “Where you come from?”

“We come from Stratford Plantation, biggest plantation on the Jackson River.”

“We were below Philippi yesterday,” Jesse said.

“Have you seen Confederates? Troops? Cavalry?”

“No, Master.”

“I'm not your master. I'm from Vermont. We don't keep slaves.”

Rufus grinned. “Then you just the master for me.”

The officer hurried right past Rufus's joke. “Have you seen cavalry in the Tygart Valley?”

“Nary a one. Seen plenty farmers, plenty burned-out farms, but nary a Confederate.”

“He's telling you the truth, Master,” Jesse said.

The captain calmed. To the telegrapher: “Send a message that five Federal brigades are expected in Grafton within the hour.”

“Master,” Rufus said, “we're hungry. We work for a meal, sweep up, polish your boots, clean your saddle, anything.”

When the telegrapher's fingers quit, the officer leaned forward into the silence. “There. That's given the lying bastards something to think about.” He motioned to a pasty-faced sergeant. “Bennett, get these men some rations. They've done a service for us tonight.”

“Begging your pardon, Captain. These niggers ain't told us anything we don't already know.”

Rufus said, “I'm a farrier. I'll bet you gentlemens don't care to be shoein' your own horses. Any of you bettin' men, I can do racing shoes so neat and small, horse don't think he wearin' anythin'.”

The captain's attention was riveted to the silent telegraph. “Uh- huh . . .” he said vaguely. “Get them fed.”

“You brung 'em,” the sergeant said to the sentry. “You feed 'em.”

Rufus “Thank you, Master'd” all the way to the rations shed, where the sentry gave them hardtack and salt beef.

“You got any shoes in there?” Jesse asked. “Think you could let me have a pair of shoes?”

“Naw. Sergeant Bennett'd skin me alive. Track goes east and west. West is Ohio. East is Washington.”

“Be fightin' to the east,” Rufus said.

“McClellan and Lee are lined up for a hell of a fight. Old Bobby Lee will whip Mac again and he'll retreat and lick his wounds.”

“What if Gen'r'l McClellan wins?”

“Well, then, this war is over and we can all go home.”

Jesse said, “Ain't got no home.” He started down the track, and Rufus hurried after.

“Why we goin' this way?” Rufus asked.

“We go ask Master Lincoln what to do.”

Rufus walked for half an hour thoughtfully. “What if he won't talk to us?”

On the gray gravel right-of-way, they walked through that night and into the next day, the rails stretching ahead, two rusty promises that joined at the horizon. The telegraph line which paralleled the track might have been carrying encyclopedias of talk but they never heard one word. The gravel abraded Jesse's feet and by noon he was limping. After they rested and ate, Rufus took off his shoes and passed them over.

When the rails divided they knew they were nearing a town and swung wide, taking to the rough country to pass.

The morning of the second day out of Grafton, the railroad tracks disappeared into a hole.

“You think there's railroad wagons in there?” Rufus asked.

“No tellin' what's in there.” Jesse slowed his pace. “We ain't seen no trains since Grafton.”

There was enough light in the hole they could see to walk.

“How come this hole twice as wide as the track?” Rufus asked.

“Might be they puttin' in another track later.”

“Two tracks? Can't be enough trains in the world to keep two tracks busy.”

It was cool in the tunnel and damp. Seeps darkened the rockface and trickled toward iron grates set in the floor. The spot of light at the far end swelled into a circle and redefined itself as a half-oval; the tunnel floor was the base. The tracks leapt out into space.

The trestle arced away from the tunnel, clinging to the bare rock cliff before hurling itself over a roaring river. The river was vigorous and murky, smashing into great boulders, throwing spume into the air.

“I can't . . .” Rufus said.

Jesse, who'd stepped on to the crossties, paused. “You want to wear the shoes?”

“Come back for a minute, let me catch my breath. I can't bear it, you standin' over the air.”

“You sick? You look awful pale.”

“What happens a train come along while we out there?”

“I suppose we'd grab one of these upright timbers and swing out until the train passes.”

“What if the bridge fall down?”

“If it'll hold a whole railroad train it won't have trouble carryin' two niggers. Rufus, we can't stick here. There's nothin' for us here.”

White-faced, a step at a time, with never a downward glance, Rufus followed Jesse across the six-hundred-yard trestle until they entered the tunnel on the far side, where he crumpled, his trembling back and hands pressed against the stone.

“Jesse,” Rufus gasped. “Maybe the masters right. Maybe whites ain't the same as us. What nigger could've built that thing?”

Jesse walked back out on the trestle and set his hands on his hips. “Me,” he said out loud.

Two days later, outside Cumberland, when the tracks made a loud random click it startled both of them. Dark smoke pillars rolled at them from the east, and they lay down in the bushes.

Two trains, one on the heels of the other—furred with soldiers: soldiers in the cars, on the roofs of the cars, on the platforms between cars. There were soldiers on the coal car and lying in rows on flatcars. Many were bandaged, some were shirtless, most didn't have hats. Jesse lifted his hand in silent greeting. A knapsack toppled off a flatcar, maybe intentionally.

“They look like they been in a fight,” Jesse said.

The knapsack held a spare shirt, two days' rations, and a packet of ground coffee. Rufus hefted the empty knapsack and grinned. “This just the thing for my horseshoeing tools. Just the thing.”

That night, on the banks of the Cumberland, they boiled coffee in their metal cup. Holding the cup with a bit of rag, Rufus said, “If I knew this was goin' to be so fine, I'd've run last year.”

“We ain't there yet.”

“What you gonna do when we get north?” Rufus asked.

“I been studyin' on that. I don't know as how I want this war to pass me by.”

“Hell, Jesse. They ain't no colored soldiers.”

“Maybe not. But I can tote for the soldiers and bring their firewood and drag 'em off the field when they're shot. I can do some good.”

“You still hate the master for sellin' Maggie?”

“I don't think I ever did. He didn't have no more choice than I do. For a master, he wasn't so bad.”

“Then why we runnin'?”

“When God told Moses to bring His people out of Egypt, you don't think some of the Israelites didn't have good jobs under the pharaohs? Good many were drivers, some overseers too. But they all packed up and left, just like Moses said. Probably some of 'em were married to Egyptians. Probably some had Egyptian children, but that didn't matter. Sometimes you don't have any choice. When it's your day to run, you run.”

Through wild country that day, the track clung to the river, but finally it veered south again.

Jesse consulted his map. “We'll be near Martinsburg by night. Next day, Harpers Ferry. That's where John Brown tried to set us free.”

“Was he crazy like they say?”

They were in flat country and it was near dark when they spotted the horsemen, a dozen of them, silhouetted on the horizon. “Step like you got no care in the world,” Jesse said. “We belong to Master Williams in Martinsburg.”

The riders trotted along beside the tracks and onto the railbed. Some wore homespun jackets and cavalry boots, others horsemen's dusters. One man had a black silk stovepipe set square on his head.

That man had plump dirty cheeks and a twinkling expression in his tiny eyes. “Where you boys headed?”

Jesse jerked his head. “Martinsburg, Master. We been to visit our gals and now we goin' home to Master Williams, just where we belongs.”

“Baxter, you lived in these parts. Anybody named Williams in Martinsburg?”

“Three or four of them, Cap'n.”

“Which Williams you goin' to, boy?”

“Master Jack Williams, Master. He be expectin' us before dark. He don't like his servants out after dark, no sir.”

The man who drew up beside their interrogator was as thin as the first was plump. His hat boasted a turkey feather.

“You be Master Stuart?” Jesse asked tremulously.

The thin man was startled but recovered with a grin. “You think I'm Stuart?”

“If you not Master J.E.B. Stuart, you his spittin' image,” Jesse said. “Lord, you have made some rides!”

The thin man produced a flask from his saddlebag, sucked it, and tossed it to another. “Come on, Cap'n,” he said. “I don't like to come into the picket lines at night.”

“Just rest yourself, Ollie,” the twinkling man said. “Don't make overmuch difference if we come in today or tomorrow in the full glare of daylight. If Gen'r'l Lee wants the services of Cap'n Stump's Partisan Rangers, by God he'll sign us on. If he don't we keep on going it alone. Plenty of Federals for everybody.”

“I was thinkin' pickets might pick us off, we come in at night,” the thin man drawled.

Fiercely hot, abruptly: “Well, there's two can play at that game.”

Thin man laughed like the cawing of a crow. “Ain't you the one. Cap'n Stump. Ain't you the one.”

There wasn't a blade of cover for five hundred yards, and Jesse's knees were trembling. He hoped his pantlegs weren't quivering. “Master Jack Williams, he waitin' on us, Master Stump.”

“If we hold you up we'll inconvenience him. That right?”

“No, Master. Nothin' you do incon . . . veyance anybody.” Deliberately mispronouncing a word he could spell, goddamn spell, so a man who probably signed his name with an X could be comfortable in his superiority.

Suddenly bored. “Don't lie to me, boy. Look at yourself. You been on the road as long as we have, and there ain't no Master Williams in Martinsburg, not that we'd give a damn.”

A couple riders dismounted and led their horses to the creek to water them.

“Oh, Master Williams, he's a hard master, but he fair, he . . .”

“Oh, shut the hell up, boy. Don't matter if he's real or not. Not now.” A smile dawned on his face. “You mean you ain't heard? Hell, I thought nigger telegraph would have give everybody the news. By Jesus, you really don't know?”

Jesse was tired but he wasn't foolish, and the first word out of his mouth was, “Master . . . heard what, Master?”

“Why you're free, boy. That Black Republican Abraham Lincoln has e-man-ci-pated your black ass. You just as free as me and Ollie here. You want my horse?”

“Master?”

“I mean, hell, it ain't like it belongs to anybody. Courier who used to ride it won't be needin' it no more. Belongs to any free man who can take it.” He extended the reins to Jesse.

“Master . . .”

“So, we free men,” Rufus said. “And that a free horse, no strings to it.”

“Nope.”

“Old Master, he used to ride a horse like that. Great big damn horse. Wouldn't want to go messin' with Master's horse, no sir.” Hands clasped behind his back, Rufus walked around the horse inspecting it. “This here horse branded ‘US.' I don't read so good but I'd venture that how they mark them Federal horses. And I see this saddle blanket is spankin' new and blue and gold. And I see here down the bottom of the saddle a stain in the leather turnin' red-brown here at that girth strap. Master, I don't believe this horse always a Confederate. Horse be a convert, praise the Lord.”

A couple riders grinned and Cap'n Stump showed his teeth, but Ollie's brow wrinkled in irritation. “I always did enjoy a smartass nigger,” he drawled, slow as he could.

The grin dropped off Rufus's face and fell to the sharp gravel.

“You free now,” Cap'n Stump continued. “Ain't there anything you want to do?”

His sidekick lifted himself in his stirrups. “Cap'n, we better get a move on.”

“Hush. I'm learnin' what a man wants when he's free.”