Two Wings to Fly Away

by Penny Mickelbury

  Table of Contents

  TITLEPAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT BYWATER

  This book is dedicated to:

  Eugenia Cooper-Newton.

  What a marvelous friendship we’ve enjoyed, Genie, across years and miles.

  And, like the TV bunny, we just keep going and going . . .

  And also to:

  Brave women everywhere.

  Then and now—we stand on your shoulders.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Slave catcher!”

  The hissed word hung in the air, freezing Eugenia Oliver’s insides colder than the damp November evening air chilled her skin. Though Eli’s bare feet made no sound on the worn cobblestones and his two brief words were whispered, Genie’s body reverberated as if a cannon had been fired next to her. She was headed home. She was almost there. Almost safe and warm. But she changed direction and walked toward Main Street. The fast, loud pounding of her heart and her suddenly dry mouth were her fear manifested. If a slave catcher really was prowling in the Quarter and Genie really was walking toward him instead of running away . . .

  Dressed as Eugene Oliver as she often was, because even a Black man was safer than a Black woman alone, she moved with purpose toward the danger coming her way. The white man slowed his gait from a trot to a long-legged stride as he entered Thatcher Lane. Definitely looking for someone. His head swiveled from side to side. His eyes searched but found nothing but shuttered windows and barred doors. Genie was annoyed with herself. She should have heard the danger in the silence. It was supper time in Thatcher Lane. There should have been the clamor of children and women, the clatter of horses and wagons. There should have been the call of the lamplighter. Instead there was the silence of fear that only the presence of a white man could bring. And the anger. That was more dangerous than the fear.

  Genie took a deep breath and caressed the derringer pistol in her pocket. She and the white man were close together now. She knew her neighbors could see her as clearly as the stranger. She also knew that inside half a dozen of the barred and shuttered houses were pistols and shotguns aimed at the white man. If he were foolish enough or arrogant enough to come alone into their Lane looking for runaway slaves, he would die foolish and arrogant. And then they all would die worse than that because even in Philadelphia, the killing of a white person was the most unforgivable of transgressions. They would die and their homes would be burned to ashes. Genie shivered, and November was not to blame.

  This man, however, was no slave catcher. Genie was certain of that though she could not imagine who he was and certainly not what he wanted. Not in this area of Philadelphia, inhabited solely by Blacks, free and otherwise. The man removed his hat as Genie approached, nodded a greeting, and spoke before she could speak. “Good evening, sir.”

  Genie returned the greeting, adding a question. “Have you lost your way?”

  “I’ve lost a boy I was chasing.”

  “Is the boy a thief?”

  “Why, no, not that I’m aware . . . ah! If not a thief, why was I chasing him? A good question and I’ve a good answer.”

  The man spoke confidently. “He has information I need but he ran when I approached him. I chased him and saw him turn into this lane. Perhaps you saw him?” And the man described Eli as if he possessed an artist’s etching of the boy.

  Genie studied the stranger: His clothes were well made and of good quality, though not the clothes of a wealthy man. But confidence aside, he seemed too worldly to be naive enough to follow—to chase—a Black man into his own residential quarter, given the unrest of recent times, not to mention the encroaching darkness. “Do you know where you are, sir?”

  “I am lost, to tell the truth . . . ” He allowed his words to trail off as he looked very closely at the Black man to find the deeper meaning of his question. “I know I’m in the Black quarter if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “The boy you were chasing thinks you’re a slave catcher.”

  “Good God!” Genie watched the surprise spread across the man’s chiseled features, and then the revulsion, and finally the denial. “I am nothing of the sort! It is a heinous and cruel occupation, worthy of . . . I can think of no worthy punishment.”

  Genie could think of several worthy punishments but she dared not speak them. After all, the stranger was a white man, even if not a slave catcher. “Will you walk with me out to the main street, sir, so the lamplighter can begin his duties and the people resume theirs?” Genie turned and walked slowly out of the dark lane. She had turned her back to a white man. A stranger. She hoped he would follow. The stranger turned a scrutinizing gaze on his location. Houses lined both sides of the narrow street, and even in the swiftly falling dusk he could see they were well-tended, as were the tiny gardens that fronted them. He noticed slight movement at several curtained windows and the dark roundness of at least two long gun barrels aimed at him. Smoke rose from practically every chimney yet no lamp light was visible in any of the more than two dozen houses of various shapes and sizes that fronted the street. Dark within and without as the lamplighter stood silent and watchful—and fearful. And he himself was the cause—of the darkness and the fear. He hurried to catch up to Genie.

  “Boston and New York have gas lights in the streets,” he muttered, as much to have something to say as to cover the shame he felt at causing so much unnecessary discomfort.

  “As does Philadelphia,” Genie answered in a reasonable if subdued tone. “Just a bit west and south of here.”

  The stranger grunted acknowledgment of that truth and an understanding of the reason for it. He and Genie stood at the intersection of the lane and the main road where the already lit oil lamps were smoking and sputtering. They cast a golden glow on the carriages and carts, shops and stores of the wide avenue that ran perpendicular to Thatcher Lane. It was a mostly commercial avenue though there were a few houses, all of which appeared to be owned by a Colored person. Not only was this avenue unfamiliar to him, it was foreign to him. It was a fully functional commercial street and before this moment he had not known it existed. “I am Ezra MacKaye,” he said, extending his hand. “I apologize to you and to your neighbors. I meant you no harm.”

  “Eugene Oliver is my name and your apology is accepted,” Genie replied, returning the firm grip. “And if I can help you, Mr. MacKaye, talk to that boy for you, I will. Unless you intend to bring harm to him.”

  “And then you’ll not help?”

  “I will not.”

  They regarded each other. The issue of whether or not the boy in question was indeed a runaway slave hung like a vapor in the night air between them, but that no longer was Ezra’s main concern. He kept his attention on the matter at hand: Eugene Oliver was not a tall man or a large one—he stood five foot seven or eight, was lithe and wiry, and his clothes hung loosely on him as if too large. Ezra thought perhaps they’d once belonged to a larger man and Eugene had received them as hand-me-downs, as was often the case for poor people no matter their color or gender. Ezra MacKaye towered over Eugene Oliver as if he were but a youth. He could no doubt overpower and subdue the smaller man if necessary—but he’d have his work cut out for him: Eugene Oliver held himself as if ready to spring, all his senses on alert. The white man, too, was alert, though he felt no need for a defensive posture. Fin
ally, Ezra spoke. “I am a private enquiry agent, Mr. Oliver.”

  “Pinkerton’s?” Genie asked, eyes widening with interest.

  MacKaye’s left eyebrow lifted slightly, as did the right corner of his mouth. “You know of Pinkerton’s?”

  “Everyone knows of Pinkerton’s,” Genie said.

  “I was, when I lived in Chicago,” MacKaye said. “I was sent here to do a job for Pinkerton’s and I found that I preferred Philadelphia to Chicago. So, now I am a private agent.”

  Genie nodded but did not speak, and Ezra told his story: The son of one of Philadelphia’s wealthy and powerful men had incurred a gambling debt he could not pay. The young man could not ask his father for money as it was not the first time he’d incurred such debt, so he stole several pieces of his mother’s jewelry to pawn and blamed the maid. However, the maid had been in service to the young man’s family for more years than he had been on earth. She also was deemed more trustworthy. Caught between his parents’ wrath and his bookmaker’s vengeance, the young man had scarpered. His parents wanted him—and the jewelry—returned, without involving the police. They hired Ezra for the job.

  “The boy I chased into your lane—and I expect you know his name and where he lives—shines shoes and runs errands for the guests of the gambling parlor where the young man in question incurred his debt.”

  “That would be Dandy McDaniel’s place at the end of Essex Street, near the water.” Genie made it a statement and not a question. Ezra’s eyes narrowed and he nodded. “And the young man in question would be Edward Cortlandt,” Genie said, “son of Arthur, the banker.”

  Ezra erupted. “Confound it, man! How do you know that? This is a matter of utmost secrecy and delicacy! You can’t just bandy that name about!”

  “But I haven’t bandied it about,” Genie replied gravely. “I spoke it only to you and you already knew it.”

  Ezra calmed himself and met the Black man’s steady gaze, as much of it as he could see beneath the bowler hat he wore low on his forehead. Ezra thought the man might be trying to hide his eyes. What he could see of them remained steady and focused on him. Eyes that Ezra felt would see inside him.

  Philadelphia was home to many Blacks. More, Ezra had heard it said, than anywhere outside the South. Some were former slaves while others were born free. More than a few, however, were, in fact, runaways, which would account for the reaction of the boy he was chasing. Was it possible that the boy was a runaway slave? Of course, it was possible, Ezra thought to himself, and he saw the sliver of eyes beneath the low-hanging bowler narrow. Eugene Oliver was watching him think.

  Many of Philadelphia’s Blacks were educated and a few of them were even wealthy, relatively speaking—the existence of the avenue where they stood and the lane that ran into it was proof of that—but Ezra had personal dealings only with Black servants: cooks, maids, shoe-shine boys, valets, livery attendants. Gene Oliver was proving to be a different experience. Here was a Black man who, even thinking that Ezra might have been a slave catcher, strode forward to meet him without a trace of fear. His right hand, though, was buried deep within his pocket. Now it was Ezra who felt a prickle of fear as a truth belatedly dawned: Oliver almost certainly had a weapon—a gun or a knife—and he would not hesitate to protect himself if necessary!

  More and more lately, the Blacks were forced to protect themselves against impoverished and itinerant European immigrants, especially the Irish. They seemed to arrive in America with a hard hatred for the Blacks, as if the Colored people were responsible for the troubles in Ireland that had caused them to flee their homeland. They brought with them a determination to challenge the Blacks for a place in the established order. The passage six years previously of the Fugitive Slave Act seemed to legitimize their hatred of a people they didn’t know and knew nothing about. Ezra, aware of how closely Oliver was watching him, extracted a narrow white card from his waistcoat pocket. “If the boy tells you anything that could be of use to me, Mr. Oliver, I’d appreciate it if you would let me know.”

  Genie accepted the card. “If young Master Cortlandt is still in Philadelphia, Mr. MacKaye, I will tell you where to find him.” Ezra’s stare told them how unlikely he found the Colored man’s claim. Genie held the stare briefly before glancing down at the embossed card she held. “Do you know your way back to Flegler Street?” That query answered the question of whether Ezra’s companion could read, and Genie gave directions before he could respond. “A pleasant evening to you, Mr. MacKaye.” Genie touched her hat, nodded at Ezra, and turned toward Thatcher Lane and home. She walked slowly, listening for MacKaye’s footsteps. After a brief hesitation she heard the white man’s long-legged stride take him away, toward his own part of town. Genie inhaled deeply, with relief and to fill her lungs with enough air for the low, three-tone whistle that signaled all clear in the lane. She heard it picked up and carried until it sounded like a tune in harmony. She felt the fear she’d held since Eli’s warning finally drain away. She ran her fingers over the raised letters of Ezra’s card before putting it in her pocket, and she watched Thatcher Lane return to life. Doors and windows eased open a bit and cooking smells wafted out onto the night air. Genie’s stomach rumbled. She was tired and hungry as well as cold, but before she could warm and feed herself she needed to talk to Eli.

  Able to return to her true self, she walked slowly down the lane then abruptly turned sideways, flattened her shoulders, and sidled into a narrow space between two houses. She smiled at the thought of Ezra MacKaye, or any white man, looking for Eli here. Nobody who didn’t live in the lane would or could know that behind the buildings on the east side of the street was an alley of smaller houses, some no more substantial than sheds and lean-tos, where the poorest Blacks—and the runaway slaves—lived. She stepped carefully into the Back Street and waited for her eyes to adjust. The meager glow of the street lamps did not penetrate this darkness, and those who lived here did not leave their doors and windows open except in the worst of summer’s heat. She walked slowly, letting people see her in the darkness, letting them recognize her as one of them, letting them see that they were safe. She stopped in front of the shack that Eli shared with three other parentless boys but it was dark and felt empty.

  She raised a hand to knock, then thought better of it. What could she say? If you boys are runaways, go away before you jeopardize us all? For it was not Eli’s presence that constituted their jeopardy. The color of their skin and the fact of their existence was what jeopardized them all. She had no justification to accuse them.

  Genie Oliver turned away from Eli’s door and toward home, a mere four dozen steps back the other direction, to what probably was the most substantial structure in the Back Street: A real, if small, house with a brick foundation, a front porch, a chimney, and a peaked roof instead of a flat one. A swift but all-seeing glance into the surrounding darkness confirmed that no other person was present. Genie Oliver stepped up onto the porch, lifted the latch on the door, and stepped into the home where, with a relieved sigh, she returned to the self that didn’t require the safety of camouflage. Miss Eugenia Oliver hastily removed the bowler that hung low on her head to obscure the woman’s eyes of her face, and the scarf that contained the thick, heavy hair and gave the bowler its tight fit. She had watched Ezra MacKaye scrutinize her, had watched him think that she was small for a man, one who could easily be overcome in a fight. She also realized that while most women immediately saw through her disguise, no man ever had and probably never would. She quickly lit the wood that she’d laid in the fireplace that morning, and also in the stove. By the time she removed the layers of clothes she wore to give the appearance of more bulk than her slender body possessed, her little cottage would be warm, too.

  Firelight illuminated most of the well-furnished room but Genie lit two kerosene lamps and the brightness permeated her spirit as well. She looked around and felt what she always felt when she surveyed her surroundings: No matter what happened in the outside world, in here she was
clean and safe and comfortable and—free. No, Ezra MacKaye was not a slave catcher, but one day one of them would recognize her and she’d either have to kill him or be caught. True, Eugene Oliver was an effective disguise. People saw what they expected to see and Genie Oliver dressed like a man, therefore he was a man. Besides, Eugenia Oliver did not exist until a young woman escaped bondage in Maryland and gave herself that name en route to freedom in Philadelphia. Now, wrapped tightly and warmly in a heavy robe, her feet snug within fur-lined animal skin slippers, Genie Oliver banished all thoughts of slavery and went into the kitchen, hoping that the stew was warm enough to eat and that the water in the coffee pot was hot enough to brew a strong cup of her favorite beverage.

  She was returning the kerosene lantern to the mantel when a soft knock on the door almost caused her to drop it. She wrapped her hand around the derringer, transferred out of habit from street clothes to the pocket of the robe. She stood silently beside the door, listening. The whispered words she heard relaxed her and she opened the door. “Come in, William.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Eugenia,” William Tillman said as he entered, appreciating as he always did the simple beauty of the small house.

  “You’re never a bother, William. Come in and warm yourself.”

  He thanked her and stood as close as was safe to the now roaring fire in the grate. The scent of her stew made his stomach rumble, and he knew that to delay her meal further would be rude. “You know how much we appreciate your bravery, Genie, but I do wish you wouldn’t put yourself at risk that way.”

  She smiled at him. Using her name meant that he wasn’t really angry though certainly he was concerned, as well he might be: What she’d done was dangerous, but not as dangerous as permitting a white man to wander their streets at will. Besides, William had been protecting her since her arrival in Philadelphia and she was used to it. “It is always my intention to be careful, William, as much as it is to help secure our safety.” She still caressed the derringer in her pocket. Now she withdrew it and placed it on the mantel, and he laughed, then sobered as she recounted her conversation with Ezra MacKaye. He listened, waiting until she finished talking before asking a question that really was more of a statement.