The Last Runaway (19 page)

Honor said nothing. Already she regretted asking the question.

Mrs. Reed snorted. “You an abolitionist? Lots of Quakers is.” She glanced around the empty shop, and seemed to reach a decision. “Abolitionists got lots o’ theories, but I’m livin’ with realities. Why would I want to go to Africa? I was born in Virginia. So was my parents and my grandparents and their parents. I’m American. I don’t hold with sending us all off to a place most of us never seen. If white folks jes’ want to get rid of us, pack us off on ships so they don’t have to deal with us, well, I’m
here
. This is my home, and I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Suddenly Adam was at Honor’s side. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Reed?”

“No, sir, no problem.” Mrs. Reed held out her hand to take the change, then nodded at him. “Good day to you.” She left without looking at Honor.

“Honor, thee must never discuss politics with customers,” Adam said in a low voice. “They will bring them up—Americans often do—but thee must remain neutral.”

Honor nodded, holding back tears. She felt as if she had been slapped twice.

* * *

A few days later Honor and Dorcas went to pick the last of the season’s blackberries at the brambles on the edge of Wieland Woods. Though it was still hot when the sun was overhead, the heat had had its back broken, and evenings were becoming cooler.

Honor’s sister-in-law was almost as tricky to get along with as Abigail had been. She mimicked Honor’s accent, took offense at offers of help, and did not attempt to include Honor in conversation. Honor tried to feel sorry for her. It must be hard to have a stranger in her home who brought disruption and difference, particularly since she had been expecting her own friend to take that place. As Honor expected, Caroline had recently announced she was going west. And a week before, Honor had moved from the sick room back to the bedroom she shared with Jack. It was next to Dorcas’s room, and she must be aware of what went on there. Although they were quiet, the rhythmic movements of their coupling shook the bed and wall, and Jack sometimes groaned softly. Honor was getting over the shock of the demands made on her body, and beginning to enjoy what they did together.

On her own, however, without anyone else to make a point to or her mother to perform for, Dorcas was friendlier. As they bent over the brambles, she chattered on about picking enough blackberries to make pies for an upcoming frolic, the last they would have before the push to harvest the corn and put up produce from the kitchen garden and the orchard. Blackberry-picking for a frolic was a frivolity they would soon have no time for.

Ohio blackberries were subtly different from what Honor knew: larger than English berries, and sweeter, but not as tasty, the sweetness masking their unique fruitiness. Honor was hoping to surprise the Haymakers with blackberry junket, a sieving of the berries to turn them into a thick paste that concentrated the nutty flavor. She began to suspect, however, that these berries would be better for jelly or cordial.

As she worked, Honor had been only half listening to Dorcas, but a pause made her look up. Her sister-in-law was standing motionless, arms held out stiff from her sides, her fingers splayed. A swarm of yellow jackets hovered around her. As Honor watched, frozen, the wasps seemed to reach a collective decision, and swooped. “Ow!” Dorcas yelped, then began to scream, her face swelling. “Get them off me! Honor, help!” she cried, swatting at her skirt.

In Dorset, tamed by centuries of settlement, the worst that had happened to Honor when she went for a walk was a nettle sting. The American landscape was much wilder, with more dangers and sudden crises. People responded to them methodically, digging storm cellars for tornadoes, shooting bears, lighting fires to smoke out caterpillars. Belle had shot the copperhead in her yard as if it were an everyday event, like swatting a fly or chasing rabbits from a vegetable patch. Honor knew she should do something equally competent. But, while she had been stung once or twice as a child, she had never had to cope with so many wasps, and had no idea what to do. When there was a pause in the yellow jackets’ attack, she had the presence of mind to take Dorcas’s arm and lead her away from the nest she had stepped on. A few of the yellow jackets briefly followed, one of them stinging Honor’s arm.

As she hesitated, a low voice spoke behind her. “Take her to the crick, strip her an’ roll her in the water. Then put mud on them stings.”

Honor turned around. A young black man was crouching by the brambles, his eyes flicking between Honor and Dorcas, whose face was now so swollen she could not see. He was sweating with nerves as much as heat, it seemed, and looked poised to run.

“Crick?” Honor whispered.

“The crick, yonder.” The man waved a hand deeper into Wieland Woods. “Cold water and mud’ll bring them stings down.” His eyes held Honor’s for a moment, his look bright and serious and fearful all in one. “Can you tell me which way to go? I get lost during the day without the northern star to follow.”

Honor hesitated, thinking of what Jack counseled her to do, and then pointed. “Oberlin, three miles that way. Ask any Negro for Mrs. Reed. She will help thee.” She was making this up, but she had to assume that Mrs. Reed would not turn the young man away.

He nodded. Then he smiled, a sudden flash of teeth that made their being out in the woods seem as if it were a game of Hide and Seek. It surprised Honor so much that she smiled back. She watched the man run off through the trees north toward Oberlin and freedom, and wished she had been able to give him some food for his journey.

She took a deep breath, then plunged into the forest, pulling Dorcas along in the direction the man had indicated. She had not gone into any woods since the trip between Hudson and Wellington with Thomas. She strode through the undergrowth, stepping on soft wet ground, nettles and brambles scratching at her. The woods turned out to be less frightening—and less thick—once you were in them, and had a destination.

They passed through a clump of beeches, with their smooth bark and the clear forest floor beneath them, and reached a stream. “Thee must take thy clothes off. Here, I will help thee.” Honor began unbuttoning Dorcas’s dress, and helped her out of her petticoat, yellow jackets falling out from the layers of clothes, some crushed, others attacking again as Honor swatted them away. Without her clothes Dorcas looked skinny and vulnerable, her hip bones knobby, her shoulder blades like chicken wings, her head incongruously large. She reminded Honor of a cow standing in a field, bereft of its herd and scrawny after a winter in a barn without fresh grass. Over her arms and legs and torso red welts from the stings were scattered.

“Come, thee must get in the water,” Honor instructed.

“It’s cold!” Dorcas shrieked as she rolled in the shallow pool. Honor knelt, scooped up some mud and plastered it on Dorcas’s back and arms. Dorcas began to cry again, this time from shame rather than pain. “I want to go home,” she moaned.

“Soon. Hold still.” Honor smeared mud on Dorcas’s face, and had to hide a smile. She resembled etchings Honor had seen of native tribesmen in Australia.

The water and mud helped to bring down the swelling, as the man had said. After a few minutes Dorcas climbed out of the water, and Honor helped her to dress, though they both hesitated about putting clothes on over mud. It couldn’t be helped, though—Dorcas could not walk back with flesh bared.

They did not speak as they trudged through the woods. Honor collected the pails of blackberries they had abandoned on the edge of the trees, yellow jackets still circling above. There was no sign of the man. Dorcas had said nothing about him, and Honor hoped she had been too distraught to notice him.

Upon reaching the farm, Dorcas began to cry again as her mother caught sight of them and hurried over. Judith had her daughter sit in a cold bath, then applied a paste of baking soda and water to the stings—nineteen of them, Dorcas announced to Jack when he returned that evening, and to anyone who came for milk over the next few days. Forgotten were the tears and pain and embarrassment as she recounted her battle with the yellow jackets. Honor too was cut from the story, and Dorcas seemed to have retreated from her friendliness. Honor did not mind, as long as Dorcas did not mention the black man.

* * *

When Honor next met Mrs. Reed, it seemed the older woman had been waiting for her. Honor had come to town with the Haymakers, who were buying more jars for putting up the last vegetables from their kitchen garden. Honor went first to visit Cox’s Dry Goods, then for a walk through the college square before rejoining her in-laws. Under the shade of the elms planted in the park, their leaves now edged with yellow, she heard a low voice beside her. “That was just foolishness, sending him to me like that. And usin’ my name! You one foolish child. I see I got my work cut out for me.”

Honor turned. The first thing she noticed was bright yellow buttons and fern-like leaves wrapped around the brim of a straw hat. She recognized the flowers: tansy, which her mother used to gather for a tea to brew when any of them had a sore throat. The distinctive spicy odor surrounded her; Mrs. Reed must have picked them just a few minutes before.

She was pursing her wrinkled mouth. “Keep walkin’,” she commanded. “Don’t want no one to wonder why you actin’ like a dumb mule. Come on.” Mrs. Reed stepped rapidly along the wooden walkway, nodding to black passersby and the odd white one. Honor followed, holding up her skirt so that it would not get snagged on the loose nails. She hoped the Haymakers were still busy with their jars, for she was not sure what they would think if they saw her with Mrs. Reed.

“He could of asked the wrong person about me, then what kind o’ trouble I would of been in,” Mrs. Reed continued. “Course they’s mostly sympathizers here, but not so many as you might think, and you can’t always tell ’em apart. Best to be cautious. Next time, tell ’em to look for a candle in the rear window of the red house on Mill Street. Then they’ll know it’s safe to come. If that signal change I’ll let you know.” Mrs. Reed increased her stride, and Honor hurried to keep up.

“Usually springtime’s when you get the most runaways—winter too cold, summer they busy in the fields and their masters lookin’ after ’em. But they’s gonna be a flood of passengers this fall now it look like the Fugitive Slave Law comin’ in. People who thought they was safe up here now thinkin’ twice and headin’ for Canada. Even coloreds in Oberlin lookin’ over they shoulder. Not me, though. I’m stayin’ put. My running days behind me.”

Donovan had mentioned the Fugitive Slave Law to Jack, but at the time Honor had been too feverish to ask what he meant. She wanted to ask Mrs. Reed now, and why there would be more runaways, and who else was helping. But Mrs. Reed was not someone of whom you asked too many questions. “What more can I do?” she said instead.

Mrs. Reed gave Honor a sideways look and rolled her tongue over her teeth. “Get you a crate and put it upside down behind your henhouse. Put a rock on it to weight it down so animals can’t get at it. Put you some victuals there—anything you got. Bread’s best, and dried meat. Apples when they come in. Y’all make peach leather?”

Honor nodded, remembering the hot peach pulp that scalded her arms as she stirred it, drying into tough strips that softened in her mouth into tangy sweetness.

“That kind o’ thing. Food that’ll travel. Even dried corn better than nothin’. I’ll get word to the people sending runaways your way so they know what to look for. Don’t ever talk to me about it, though.”

They were getting curious looks—not hostile, as Honor suspected would be the case in other towns, but nonetheless an acknowledgment of the rarity of a white woman and a black woman talking together in public. By now they had reached the First Church, a large brick building on the northeast corner of the square. Mrs. Reed shook her head as if to say, “I’m done with you,” and hurried up the steps. Honor dropped back, for Quakers did not go inside what they called steeple houses. Mrs. Reed probably knew that.

“Was thy daughter pleased with her wedding dress?” she called as the black woman was about to disappear inside.

A wide smile cracked open Mrs. Reed’s sober face. “She looked good, oh yes she did. That was a success.”

* * *

The next time a runaway came to the farm, Honor was more prepared. One evening when she and the Haymakers were sitting on the front porch to catch the last of the daylight, Donovan rode by. Jack lowered the newspaper he had been reading, Dorcas stopped sewing a tear in her skirt, and Honor paused, her needle half in and half out of the red appliqué she was working on for the new quilt. Only Judith Haymaker continued to rock back and forth in her chair as if there had been no interruption. Donovan raised his hat and grinned at Honor but did not stop, disappearing down the track into Wieland Woods.

“Must be a runaway somewhere nearby,” Jack said. “There is no reason for him to be over this way otherwise.” He glanced at Honor as if to reassure himself.

“They were saying at the store that a Greenwich family who had been helping runaways has stopped because of the Fugitive Slave Law,” Dorcas remarked. “Now that part of the Railroad is disrupted, some of them are ending up over this way rather than going through Norwalk.”

“That Greenwich family has sense,” Judith Haymaker declared, “though doubtless another will take their place.”

“What—what is the law?” Honor asked.

“It means a man like that”—Judith jerked her head at Donovan’s back—“can demand we help him capture a runaway or be fined a thousand dollars and imprisoned. We would lose the farm.”

“Congress is on the verge of passing it,” Jack added. “Caleb Wilson led a discussion of the law at a Meeting for Business during thy illness, Honor, so thee did not hear. It was decided that each individual must follow his own conscience when it comes to helping fugitives or obeying the law.”

Honor looped the thread through itself, pulled tight, and bit off the end.

* * *

The next morning when she went to collect eggs, there were two fewer than usual, and the chickens—normally laying like clockwork—seemed upset. Honor told her mother-in-law she had stepped on the eggs and broken them, though she hated lying, and suspected Judith did not believe her anyway.