Daniel Webster Jackson & The Wrongway Railroad

by Robert Walker

  The little niece stuck her tongue out at Daniel. He dared not return the gesture. Instead, he bowed and backed from the room. Returning to the kitchen, he found Daisy and Sissy had been joined by a thin, white-haired old man with a tuft of a white mustache over his lip and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles before his eyes. He, like Daisy and Sissy, was dressed in his best clothes—a black vest with no buttons, a beige linen shirt with a red handkerchief in its pocket, and cotton pants as green as grass. The old man was lean, stoop-shouldered, perhaps seventy years old. Yet his step and movements were spry. He paced back and forth, worrying some problem out in his head.

  Daisy was asking, "You gonna tell us what all this whoop- de-la with that major man in there is all about Ichabod, or not?"

  The old man, not wanting to answer, pointed to Daniel instead and asked, "Who's boy is this'un? I must be getting old. Can't put him with a name."

  "You knows very well who Effram is!" yelled Daisy. "Effram, the boy just bought by massa and told to hoof it here from St. Louis!"

  "St. Louis? Just now bought? Walked all this way?"

  "Never you mind about Effram. He's here now, and I got him under my apron, so you just tell us about this major man in there." She pointed to the dining room door.

  "I don't know what's come over Massa Blainy and the missus," replied Ichabod, shaking his white head. "Done got mean. I reckon. Ain't the same man no more. Acts like we all a big burden. Money coming short since the night that steamer went down with all hands and his cargo aboard. All them crop bundles, a year's worth of picking. And now he goes off and buys this boy, Effram? Just when he's talking ’bout selling everything."

  "Sell? Everything?" replied Daisy as Sissy clutched at her apron.

  "Selling? We be sold again?" asked Sissy, looking faint.

  Ichabod slowly nodded.

  "All of us?" asked Daisy.

  "I only just found out for sure, Daisy," he said. "I couldn't believe it, 'cause this here major, he's from... from..."

  "Deep South, Louisiana," finished Daisy, sitting down heavily now, her face falling, her hands flat on the table.

  Ichabod put a hand on her shoulder, saying, "That's the hardest part to believe, that Mr. Blainy would sell us downriver.

  Sissy added, "But Mr. Blainy always give his word he wouldn't do that."

  Daisy added, "I even heard him bragging to other white folks that no matter what comes, he ain't never going to sell his black people down the river. Up, maybe, but never down!"

  Daniel watched a tear come into the old man's eye as the man heaved a sigh. "Mr. Blainy's hit hard times for sure. Lost all his money on the market. Already sold almost all his livestock, 'cept us, and you know how he feels about that prize sheep that won blue ribbon last year."

  "Hoof and mouth, come take those sheep out," cursed Daisy.

  Sissy added to the curse, saying, "After we're gone, come and take this home!"

  Ichabod protested. "Stop that kinda talk now, you hear? Man's crops are under the Mississippi. What else he gonna do?"

  "You listen to yourself, Ichabod! Making excuses for the massa selling us South. There ain't no excuse big enough."

  "Daisy," he began, "you and me, we been together so many years. I was with you in Mississippi when your man died of the cholera, and I was sold with you and that lot down to the lower Arkansas country where you lost your boy, George."

  Daisy wiped her tears. "Have you told the others?" Daniel thought her the strongest woman he had ever met.

  "No," he replied softly. "Wanted to tell you first, old woman."

  "Don't know if I like being told this kind of news first."

  Ichabod closed the door noiselessly when he left, but Daisy jumped to her feet and trailed after him. On the porch, she hugged the old man tightly against her and asked, "When?"

  "Tonight, tomorrow. I can't say. Depends on his deal with the major."

  Ichabod walked off toward the slave quarters, bent, looking beaten. Daisy, Sissy and Daniel watched him until he disappeared. Daniel also looked toward the woods for any escape route; at the same time, he wanted to tell Daisy and Sissy, they couldn't be better off, that the major was really Sheriff Brisbane, and that they would be boarding the Underground Railroad. But Daniel couldn't give up the truth without giving himself away.

  Just then, Daisy wrapped her arms around him. "Don't you worry none, Effram. You poor child. Just got traded twice in one breath, and your feet ain't hardly touched Blainy soil. But I'm here to protect you, honeypot."

  Only an hour later. Daniel stood in the pitiful one-room slave house where Daisy lived. The place reminded him of the cave that he and Joe Grier played in back in Hannibal. Daisy slept on a straw-tick bed, beneath walls of unpainted mortar and rough-hewn logs. The earth the cabin had been built over served as its floor. The place smelled of damp earth and cooking odors, stale and trapped air. "We've had it too easy for too long here," Daisy was saying. "Going to be spoiled for real work down South."

  Daniel now felt sick with worry over staying too long, attempting escape, and possibly being sold into slavery to the Deep South as Effram. His only relief came when he reminded himself that Sheriff Brisbane was in the business of helping slaves get free to the north, so the situation wasn't as hopeless as everyone thought. He only wished he could tell Daisy what he knew, but he feared it would spoil the sheriff's carefully prepared plans for the others.

  To pass the time, Daniel asked Daisy about her son, George, remarking that he had only known one George in all his life, and he turned out to be a lowdown bounty hunter.

  Daisy sat now on her bed and stared through the single small window at the night sky. "My George, when he was first sold North, from Arkansas, where we all come from, my boy just upped and run off to Illinois. I thought sure he'd be caught—most runaways are."

  "Not if they get on the Underground Railroad."

  "You get that notion right outta your head, Effram! George always talked about the road, too, and Lord knows what come of him. One man from our farm made free, name of Henry, but he wasn't smart. Stopped short of Canada."

  "Is your boy in Canada?"

  "Don't know, but he got to be. I haven't heard from him in near ten years now."

  "How'd this here fella, Henry, get caught?'

  "Foolish is all. Stopped over to Springfield just the other side of the river in Illinois. There he let himself be horn-swaggled by one of his own people there!"

  "I know a man who runs down his own kind, using a hound and a long gun," said Daniel.

  As if not hearing him, she went on, saying, "Henry feared every white man's eye, feared he'd be found and dragged back. Massa paid top dollar for a returned slave, and Henry had seen himself described in a bill someone had thrown away. He took his trembling fears to a relative who give him bad advice, telling him to see a black woman who could tell his fortune. The fortune-teller learned everything there was to learn about Henry from Henry. After casting a protective spell over the boy, she sent him home, telling him not to worry no more."

  "I reckon the spell didn't work, huh?'

  "No, but the fortune-teller and her husband did. They sent a letter to Massa Penrose—he be our master down to Arkansas. Meaner than a Blainy by four quarter mile. Anyway, the madam fortune-teller told Penrose the exact spot where Henry could be found, and they collected a reward on him."

  "Where's Henry now?"

  "Next cabin, two down. Lucky he didn't get sold downriver, but Master Penrose sold the lot of us to Blainy that year, and he threw Henry in, knowing him to be trouble. He tries to run off from here every other Christmas."

  Sissy stood now in the open doorway and said. "That Henry story ain't near as good as the one about your boy, Daisy."

  "That boy shamed me. Sissy."

  "Ain't no shame in making free!"

  "Is, if you got the trust of the massa, and you got the run of the place and the whole county. Is, if you're given special freedoms and you abuse 'em!" Daisy glared at Sissy, feeling t
he anger of right on her side. She then turned and explained to Daniel, "George was born a throw-back, a sickly runt, and with his awkward self, all he did was get in the way, in the kitchen, in the barn, in the henhouse...just hobbling and stumbling over everything. The boy was...worthless, but I loved him just the same."

  "Worthless? That ain't no way to talk about your only son, Daisy." Sissy now sat alongside her older friend. The soft light of the candle played over her thin features, and she looked kinder and prettier here than in the kitchen.

  "Truth is truth," declared Daisy. "Massa couldn't get a dime for that hanger-on. that castoff. Shoulda culled him at birth like the bad apple he was. Should've seen he was a bad seed."

  "She's just talking," Sissy told Daniel. "Angry 'cause George didn't tell her what he was planning. He just upped and did it."

  "I become so proud of that boy by then," muttered Daisy, fending off tears. "He'd just begun to make something of himself. The boy begun to learn from that kindly old man, a Yankee come down from Connecticut to work for Mr. Penrose, and he teached George until there weren't no more to teach the boy. Massa Penrose took notice and begun to brag on the boy, and he hired him out to all the surrounding farms."

  "George learnt to fix anything, and when that old Yank died, the massa give George his job," added Sissy.

  "Was alone too much," said Daisy. "Too much time alone gets a man to thinking too much; can't be good for nobody."

  Sissy continued, saying, "Next thing you know, Massa Penrose give George a horse and wagon, had him going all over the county, sometimes into the next county. George could fix anything for anybody at the lowest price. Mr. Penrose turned him out for profit."

  "Smartest boy anyone ever seen," muttered Daisy, a prideful look flashing across her face.

  "Always with that tool box of his, always working on some busted thing or other," added Sissy. "Always coming home with his pockets full with money for Massa Penrose."

  Daisy smiled openly now and said, "He was going down to all the river towns, making boats and canoes for people."

  "Tell Effram how he come and go all the time, anytime," urged Sissy. "How he was more free than any of us."

  "He surely had the least reason of any of us to run off!"

  "But he did have reason; we all got reason."

  "Escape was so easy for him; he might've done it any time, and might've give me some warning. He learnt ciphering from that Yankee man, learnt how to tell time, to read and write some. He was my smart boy by then."

  "Took sand for him to run off. I'm glad he made free. Glad for any black person who finds freedom any way he or she can."

  "You going to make some man happy some day, Sissy." Daisy turned to Daniel and explained further, saying, "My George, he didn't get on with the other Blacks when he was a child, 'cause he couldn't work the fields like the others, and so he got easy kitchen and barn work. Other black boys hated him for it, felt jealous. All the special treatment coming from the mechanic and then with Massa Penrose hiring George out, relations between him and the other boys only got worse."

  "Poor fella even slept alone in the barn nights to keep from getting into fights down at the quarters," added Sissy. "Time he turned fifteen, he become the most valuable slave on the place, maybe in the county."

  "How'd he make free?" asked Daniel.

  "Don't you go getting no ideas, Effram!" warned Daisy.

  Sissy blurted out. "Darned if he didn't make a canoe for a man who lived along the river, and then and there he decided to use it for his own self, for his own escape. No one ever heard from him again."

  "I like that style," said Daniel, grinning.

  "After that, Massa Penrose never put trust in another black soul again. He never let none of his slaves learn to cipher, read, write or use a tool. 'Fraid my George left us worse off than we were."

  Sissy shouted, "He couldn't just ask massa for permission, now could he? And when did massa teach any of us anything, including George? It was that Yankee mechanic taught George nights in the barn. Daisy, you got to be proud of that boy of yours."

  Daisy glared now into Sissy's eyes. "I might be, girl, if I knew he was...he was safe and alive and free. We don't hear nothing; we don't know nothing. For all we know, the Devil done took that boy."

  Sissy's triumphant look faded. She pushed herself into Daisy's arms, hugging the big woman. Daniel took the opportunity to inch toward the open door, and in a moment he stood outside on the plank walk, breathing in the cool night air. a little shaken but anxious now to take his leave from the Blainy plantation and life as Effram. A look at the woods told him to run.

  ELEVEN

  THE NIGHT MARCH

  Daniel took a step toward the woods, toward escape, when a fifty-foot bonfire exploded into life ten or eleven feet out, in front of Mr. Blainy's house. The fire lit up Mr. and Mrs. Blainy, Major Splitshot—and several armed white men, strangers to Daniel until his eyes fell on Lem. They appeared to be men recruited from the posse that Daniel had seen. The sheriff was running out his game, a serious, unlawful but humane game. As an agent for the Underground Railroad, he could be hanged for swindling Mr. Blainy into surrendering his slaves to "Major Splitshot."

  "Come on, Effram," said Ichabod, taking Daniel by the arm. "Massa wants every one of us up to the big house for his farewell speechifying."

  "But I just been sold here just two days ago, Mr. Ichabod."

  "No matter, boy. We've all been sold for this here major's check."

  Ichabod held firm to Daniel until he turned Effram over to Daisy's big arms. The sound of the bonfire roar had by now alerted everyone in creation, Daniel imagined. He saw the three faces of the Blainy children laughing and pointing from the upstairs windows.

  In a moment, with Daisy's hand clutching onto Daniel's, all the slaves stood with their backs to the bonfire. Each black man's shadow cast a dancing, jagged figure up the porch steps, touching the feet of the white men standing there. Mr. Blainy ushered his tearful wife inside. The slaves had huddled in one group, perhaps twenty-five in all. The sheriff, still in his best Southern-plantation-looking clothes, stood with his head slightly bowed, but his eyes ran over the crowd.

  His voice so weak, Mr. Blainy could hardly form words. Daniel guessed that his heart was not in the business at hand. He kept his eyes on the slaves, until they met Ichabod's. That's when he lowered his eyes. He talked for some time about how difficult life in general was, then about the state of the nation, about the state of Missouri, and finally about his personal income. He said he wanted nothing more than to keep his family together. "Seeing some of you go—seeing all of you go—tears my heart out. There's no other way to say goodbye than to say it right out. I only hope that you all will find it in your hearts to understand that this sale of goods is for your best, and not mine. At least, this way, you will all remain together."

  Daniel could tell that Mr. Blainy wanted Ichabod or one of the others to say something kindly, like, "Thank you for selling us together" or "We know it ain't what you want, Mr. Blainy," but no one spoke up.

  The slaves only stood in stark silence as the major's men lit their torches from the bonfire. The fire sent cinders up into the black sky like so many lightning bugs.

  "We'll march in columns of two!" shouted Major Splitshot. "Straight for the river. My men are posted at your side, and in the rear, with orders to shoot down anyone trying an escape! So don't even get out of line! Two abreast, now! Line up!"

  Daisy and all the slaves had collected their belongings, which didn't amount to much. A great deal of confusion came when they tried to pair off into twos. Several women had bawling children on each arm.

  Daniel had somehow gotten free of Daisy who shouted above the others for him, calling out, "Efrram! Effram!"

  Daniel stood within two feet of the bushes when one of the guards stepped in front of him, nudging him with his long gun. "Where you off to, boy?"

  "My dog done got away. I thought I saw him in there," he replied, pointing to the
underbrush.

  "You just leave the dog, boy. Major didn't pay for no dogs, and neither will the auctioneer."

  "Auctioneer?"

  But Lem didn't answer. He grabbed Daniel by the collar and tugged him back to the crowd, where Daisy glared at Lem so meanly that Daniel thought the gun would melt under her stare.

  "Where'd you get off to, Effram?" she asked. "You gave me a fright."

  Daniel felt Sam, nibbling now at this leg, wagging his tail. "There's your dog," Lem said and stepped away.

  Soon Daniel found himself on a forced march with the whole population of plantation slaves. Daisy held tightly to him. The grass reached to Daniel's waist in places. He saw several men looking about as if they might drop into the dense grass, drop out of the march and wait for the procession to go on. Daniel saw one tall man go down, think better of it, get up and run to catch his partner. The white men carrying guns stood all around the sad parade, occasionally pointing their guns while saying not a word. Still in his major's disguise, the sheriff led the way, a torch lighting half his features.

  The group moved quietly except for the thrashing of the high grass as they passed and the hoot of an occasional owl. The torchlights held by the white men gave the world an eerie glow. As the band approached the river, they stepped into a dense fog. Daisy, to break the chill of the silence and the sorrowful march, began to hum and then sing a song as they moved along, and the other slaves joined

  The sheriff rushed back from his place at the front, shouting, "Quiet down! Quiet, I say!"

  The singing abruptly stopped. The sheriff now cocked his head to one side, listening. The woods swelled with fog.

  Daisy began to speak to Daniel, "Why, you're just a little lost lamb, Effram, but you ain't to worry. No matter what comes, I'll see you stay with me. You keep your little honeypot mouth shut, and ain't nobody going to know you ain't my rightful son, so's we can stay together forever and ever."

  Daniel didn't like the idea of taking up room on Sheriff Brisbane's Underground Railroad as extra baggage. He wanted in the worst way to tell Daisy, Ichabod, Sissy and the others that they were on the freedom trail, that they were heading north toward Canada and not south to Louisiana. He wanted to come clean, tired of the lies and his own disguise as Effram.