The Good Lord Bird (30 page)

I nodded.

“Pass word to the Old Man thusly: There's hundreds of coloreds in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., itching for a chance to fight slavery. But they got no telegraph and gets no letters.”

“So?”

“So how would you pass word fast to thousands of folks who got no telegraph and gets no letters? What's the fastest way from point A to point B?”

“I don't know.”

“The railroad, child. That gets you to the city. But then you got to get to the colored. And I know just how to do it. Listen. I knows a few in Baltimore runs a numbers game. They collect numbers every day from both those in bondage and those that's free. They pays out to the winner no matter what. Hundreds plays it every single day. I plays it myself. If you can get the Old Man to give me some money to grease them feller's palms, the numbers men will spread the word fast. It'll go everywhere within a day or two, for them types don't fear the law. And if there's a penny in it for them, that's all they care 'bout.”

“How much money?”

“'Bout two hundred and fifty oughta do it. That's twenty-five apiece. Some for them in Washington and some for the men in Baltimore. There's ten of 'em I can think of.”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars! The Old Man ain't got five dollars.”

“Well, that's what he got to work with. Get me that money and I'll spread it around in Baltimore and D.C. And if he throws in another two hundred fifty, I'll have a set of wagons and horses to throw at it, so them fellers that wants to join him—I expect it'll be women, too, lots of 'em—they'll ride here. Ain't but a day's ride from here.”

“How many wagons?”

“Five oughta do it.”

“Where they gonna come from?”

“They'll follow the tracks. Tracks cut a pretty straight path here from Baltimore. A dirt trail follows it along. There's a couple of bad patches of trail—I'll school the Negroes on it—but the trail is all right. The train don't travel but twenty or thirty miles an hour. It stops every fifteen minutes to pick up passengers or water. They'll be able to keep up all right. They won't fall far behind.”

He paused a moment, staring out at the water, nodding, thinking, hatching it in his head as he spoke it. “I'll ride in here on the train. It comes in at one twenty-five a.m. every night, the B&O out of Baltimore. Remember that. One twenty-five in the a.m. The B&O. I'll be on it. When you and the Old Man's army give me the signal, I'll signal the fellers in the wagons on the road that it's time to move in.”

“That sounds a little thin to me, Mr. Rail Man.”

“You got a better plan?”

“No.”

“That's it, then. Tell the Captain he's got to stop the train at one twenty-five, just before it crosses the B&O Bridge. I'll get you the rest of what to do later. I got to git. Tell the Old Man to send me five hundred dollars. I'll be back in two days on the next run. One twenty-five a.m. sharp. Meet me right here at that time. After that, don't never speak to me again.”

He turned and left. I ran up to Cook, who stood at the top of the bank. Cook watched him leave.

“Well?”

“He says we'll need five hundred dollars to hive the bees.”

“Five hundred dollars? Ungrateful wretches. Suppose he takes off with it. We coming to unslave them. How do you like that? The Old Man'll never pay it.”

But when he found out, the Old Man did pay it, and a lot more. Too bad he did, too, for it cost him big-time, and by then the whole thing was blowed wide open and there weren't no way of sending it backward, which I wish he could have, on account of a few mistakes I made, which cost everybody, including the Rail Man, pretty heavy.

Annie

C
ook wrote the Old Man directly with the Rail Man's request, and within a week, a colored man from Chambersburg rolled up to the house in a wagon, knocked on the door, and handed Cook a box labeled Mining Tools. He left without a word. Inside the box was a few tools, supplies, five hundred dollars in a sack, and a letter from the Old Man tellin' him the army was arriving within a week. The Old Man wrote that his army would sprinkle in, by twos and threes, at night, so as not to attract suspicion.

Cook throwed the money sack into a lunch pail with some vittles and gived it to me, and I slung out to the Ferry to wait for the B&O train out of Baltimore at one twenty-five a.m. The Rail Man was the last to come off the train after the passengers and crew left out. I hailed him and gived him the lunch pail, tellin' him out loud that it was lunch for the journey back to Baltimore—just in case anyone was within hearing. He took it without a word and moved on.

Two weeks later, the Old Man arrived alone, gruff and stern as usual. He fluffed 'bout the farm for a few minutes, checking the supplies and the roads and other matters thereabout, before he sat down and let Cook give him the lay of the land.

“I take it you has been shy of speaking our business,” he said to Cook.

“Quiet as a mouse,” Cook said.

“Good, for my army is coming soon.”

Later that day, the first of them arrived—and she was quite a surprise.

She was a girl, a white girl, sixteen, with dark hair and steady brown eyes that seemed to hold lots of surprises and a ready laugh behind them. She wore her hair pinned back in a bun, a yellow ribbon 'round her neck, and a simple farm-girl dress. Her name was Annie, and she was one of the Old Man's older daughters. The Old Man had twelve living children altogether, but I reckon Annie had to be the best of the female lot. She was pretty as the day was long, quiet in nature, modest, obedient, and pious as the Old Man was. That took her out of my world, course, being that if a woman weren't a low-down dirty stinker who drank rotgut and smoked cigars and throwed poker cards, there weren't nothing she could do to mash my button, but Annie was easy on the eyes and a welcome surprise. She arrived in quiet fashion with Martha, sixteen, who was the wife of his son Oliver, who came trickling in to join us with the rest of the Old Man's army from Iowa.

The Old Man introduced me to the girls and announced, “I knows you is not partial to housework, Onion, being more of a soldier than a home cooker. But it is time you learn the ways of women as well. These two is to help you put the house in shape. You three can tend to the men's needs and make the farm look normal to the neighbors.”

It was a fine notion, for the Old Man knowed my girl limits and that I couldn't cook for a pinch of snuff, but when he announced the sleeping arrangements, my feathers fell. We three girls was to sleep downstairs in the house, while the men slept upstairs. I agreed course, but the minute he hopped upstairs, Annie moved to the kitchen, drawed water for a bath, throwed her clothes off, and hopped into the tub, which caused me to scat from the kitchen and slam the door shut behind me, standing in the drawing room with my back to the door.

“Oh, you is a shy thing,” she said from behind the door.

“Yes I is, Annie,” I said from the other side, “and I appreciate your understanding. For I is ashamed to undress around white folks, being colored and all, and having my mind on the upcoming freeing of my people. I don't yet know the ways of white people, having lived around the colored so long.”

“But Father says you was a friend to my dear brother Frederick!” Annie shouted from the tub behind the door. “And you has lived on with Father and his men for the better part of three years.”

“Yes, I has, but that was on the trail,” I shouted back from my side. “I needs time to ready myself for indoors living and being free, for my people don't know how yet to live civilized, being slaved and all. Therefore, I am glad you is here, to show me the ways of righteousness behind God's doings in my life as a free person.”

Oh, I was a scoundrel, for she bit the whole thing off. “Oh, that is so sweet of you,” she said. I heard her splashing and scrubbing and finally getting out the tub. “I will be glad to do it. We can read the Bible together and rejoice in learning and sharing the Lord's word and knowledge, and all His ways of encouragement and doings.”

It was all a lie course, for I weren't no more interested in the Bible than a hog knows a holiday. I decided to keep out the house, knowing them arrangements just wouldn't do, for while she was a bit dowdy compared to the swinging lowlifes I lusted after out west—in fact right dusty-looking in bonnet and hat when she come in, from days of riding from the family's home in upstate New York—I glimpsed a good part of the inner package when she throwed herself in that tub, and there was enough there, by God, ripe and plump, to build as much of a fire 'round as I could imagine. I couldn't stand it, for I was then fourteen, near as I can tell it, and had yet to experience nature's ways, and what I knowed of it filled me with dread and wanting and confusion, thanks to Pie. I had to fill my mind with other doings lest my true nature show itself. I didn't have a decent bone in my body, God seed it, so I resolved to keep off from her and out the house “hiving the bees” as much as possible.

That didn't look to be easy, for we was charged to look after the Old Man's army, which begun arriving in twos and threes right after the girls did. Luckily the Old Man needed me to consort and help him with his maps and papers, for that afternoon he rescued me from the kitchen by calling me to the drawing room directly to assist him in his drawings and plans. As Annie and Martha scampered 'bout the kitchen, preparing it for big work, he pulled several large canvas scrolls out his box and said, “We has finally raised the ante. The war begins in earnest. Help me spread these maps on the floor, Onion.”

His maps, papers, and letters had sprouted some in size. The small packet of papers, news clippings, bills, letters, and maps he once crammed into his saddlebags back in Kansas had growed to piles of papers thick as the Bible. His maps was scrolled on large canvas paper, unfurled to nearly as tall as me. I helped him spread them on the floor and sharpened his pencils and fed him cups of tea as he set on his hands and knees poring over them, scribbling and planning, while the girls fed us both. The Old Man never ate much. Usually he gobbled down a raw onion, which he bit into like an apple and washed down with black coffee, a conglomeration which made his breath ripe enough to draw the wrinkles out a shirt and starch it clean. Sometimes he throwed a little hominy down his gizzards just for variation, but whatever he didn't eat, I polished off for him, for food was always scarce around him. And with more men arriving by the day, I knowed by then to furnish my innards as much as possible for the day when there wouldn't be no furnishings to line it, which I expected wouldn't be far off.

We worked like that for a day or two till one afternoon, poring over his map, he said to me, “Has Mr. Cook held his tongue whilst you was here?”

I couldn't lie. But I didn't want to discourage him, so I said, “More or less, Captain. But not to the limit.”

Staring at his map on all fours, the Old Man nodded. “As I figured. It doesn't matter. Our army will be here in full within a week. Once they're here, we will gather the pikes and go to arms. I goes as Isaac Smith in public 'round here, Onion, don't forget it. If anyone asks, I'm a miner, which is true, for I mines the souls of men, the conscience of a nation, the gold of the insane institution! Now, give me my report on the colored, which you and Cook has no doubt been hoeing and cultivating and hiving.”

I gived him the clean side of it, that I had found the Rail Man. I left out the part 'bout the Coachman's wife and her maybe spilling the beans. “You has done a good job, Onion,” he said. “Hiving the bees is the most important part of our strategy. They will come, no doubt, by the thousands, and we must be ready for them. Now, in lieu of cooking and cleaning for our army, I suggest you continue your work. Hive on, my child. Spread the word among your people. You are majestic!”

He weren't nothing but enthusiastic, and I didn't have the heart to blurt out to him that the coloreds wasn't sharing his enthusiasm one bit. The Rail Man hadn't said a word to me since I gived him that money to spread the word among numbers runners in Baltimore and Washington. The Coachman avoided me. I saw Becky in town one afternoon, and she damn near fell off the wooden sidewalk scrambling to get out my way. I reckon I was bad luck to them. Somehow the word had gotten out on me, and the colored in town runned the other way every time they seen me coming. I had my hands full at home, too, running from Annie, who seen me as needing her religious training and liked to go naked every couple of days while the men were out, plopping into the tub anytime she pleased, causing me to scamper out the room on one pretense or another. At one point she announced it was time for me to wash my hair, which had gotten scandalous nappy and frizzy. I normally kept it tucked under a rag or a bonnet for weeks, but she got an eyeful of it one afternoon and insisted. When I refused, she allowed she'd find a wig for me, and one evening ventured to the Ferry and returned with a book she brought forth from the town library called
London Curls
. She read off a list of wigs that would work for me: “The brigadier, the spencer, the giddy feather top, the cauliflower. The staircase. Which is best for you?” she asked.

“The Onion,” I allowed.

She burst into laughter and let it go. She had a laugh that made a feller's heart jump, and that for me was dangerous, for I growed to liking her company a bit, so I took to making myself even scarcer. I made it a point to sleep next to the stove at night, away from her and Martha, and always made sure to be the last soul on the first floor to go to sleep at night and the first out the door in the morning.

I kept myself on the go that way, hiving the bees without much success. The colored of Harpers Ferry lived on the far side of the Potomac railroad tracks. I hung around them for days, looking for coloreds to talk to. Course they avoided me like the plague. Word had gotten around to them 'bout the Old Man's plot by then. I never did figure out how, but the colored wanted no parts of it nor me, and when they seen me, moved off quick. I was especially moved to discouragement one morning when the Old Man sent me on an errand to the lumber mill. I couldn't find it, and when I rolled up to a colored woman on the road to ask for directions, before I could open my mouth, she said, “Scatter thee, varmint. I ain't got nothing to do with you and your kind! You gonna get us all murdered!” and off she went.

That moved me to discouragement badly. But it weren't all bad news. After Kagi arrived, he met up on his own with the Rail Man, and I reckon his cool manner calmed the Rail Man some, for Kagi reported they'd gone over various plans to get the colored to the Ferry from points east and thereabouts, and the Rail Man seemed to have it worked out right and promised to deliver. That pleased the Old Man no end. He announced to the others, “Luckily for us, the Onion has been diligent in her work, hiving.”

I cannot say I agreed with him there, for I hadn't done nothing but fumble 'bout. It didn't matter to me what he said then, to be truthful, for I had my own problems. As the days passed, Annie became a powerful force in my heart. I didn't want it to happen, course, never seen it coming, which is how these things work, but even in all my running around outside, it couldn't help but that the three of us, Annie, Martha, and myself, was kept busy as bees in the house once the Old Man's army rolled in. There weren't no time to make a clean break with all that scrambling around, and my idea of running off to Philadelphia, which was always my plan, got lost in all that busywork. There just weren't no time. The men come pouring in, a trickle at first, in the dead of the night, by twos and threes, then more steadily and in bigger numbers. The old players came first: Kagi, Stevens, Tidd, O. P. Anderson. Then some new ones—Francis Merriam—a wild-eyed feller a bit off his rocker. Stewart Taylor, a bad-tempered soul, and the rest, the Thompson brothers and the Coppocs, the two shooting Quaker brothers. Lastly, two Negroes arrived, Lewis Leary and John Copeland, two stalwart, strong-willed, handsome fellers who hailed from Oberlin, Ohio. Their arrival perked the Old Man's ears toward the colored again, for them two was college fellers and arrived out of nowhere, having heard the fight for freedom was coming through the colored grapevine. He got much encouragement from seeing them pop into place, and one evening he looked up from his map and asked me how the hiving 'bout the Ferry was going.

“Going fine, Captain. They hiving hard.”

What else was there to say to him? He was a lunatic by then. Hardly eating, not sleeping, poring over maps and census numbers and papers and scribbling letters and getting more letters in the mail than seemed possible for one man to get. Some of them letters was full of money, which he gived to the girls to buy food and provisions. Others was urging him to leave Virginia. My mind was so confused in them days, I didn't know whether I was coming or going. There weren't no room to think. The tiny house was like a train station and armed camp put together: There was guns to ready, ammo to figure, troop strength to discuss. They dispatched me all over, to the Ferry and back, here and there in the valley and all around it to get supplies, count men, spy on the rifle works, tell how many windows was in the engine house at the Ferry, fetch newspapers from the local general store, and count the number of people in it and the like. The Old Man and Kagi begun several late-night runs back and forth to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 'bout fifteen miles, to collect other arms by wagon, which he had shipped to secret addresses in Chambersburg. It was just too much work. Annie and Martha was a cooking and washing service and entertainment sensations, for the men had to stay cooped upstairs in the house all day playing checkers and reading books, and them two kept them amused and entertained, in addition to the three of us scurrying 'bout downstairs preparing food.