by Daren Wang
The men had gone back to their food, acting as if she’d just read them a review of an Elisha Kane book. The harvest was done soon after, and she’d loaded them in the wagon and taken them back across the border. They’d nodded their heads, hats clutched in front of them when she thanked them for the work they’d done, and asked them all to come back.
Not all did come back in the spring. Chauncey and his family had taken their little savings and headed west to claim a farm in Kansas. Lonnie had gotten work at the commercial slip in downtown Buffalo.
Malcolm, Palmer, and the others, though, they seemed happy to be back on the farm, but it wasn’t like the year before.
Palmer still came to her each evening, but now it was to tell her of his plans.
“We’ll plow the west field tomorrow,” he’d say. “You want alfalfa there, right?”
She’d nod, and not have to worry herself about the west field again.
The men talked more at the table. And laughed more.
They told their stories, too. Malcolm told of how his sister had been taken from his mother’s arms, and how she’d been sold down the river, and how he’d been beaten to an inch of his life for the fighting of it. Mary watched Katia as she listened, her fork held still over her plate, her mouth agape. When the kitchen girl brought out plates of cobbler for dessert, Malcolm’s bowl was piled impossibly high.
But the biggest difference was for the families.
When the men came to Town Line, the families crossed back over the border with them, moving into rooms downtown. The women took in piecework and laundry, and early in the day each Saturday the men would pile into the wagon and drive down to the church on Michigan Street where their families would be waiting. There’d be long Saturday-night meals and then Sunday-morning services, a picnic, and then the ride back to Town Line for work the next morning.
One evening after Mary read them news of a battle down South, Palmer spoke up.
“I want my little Abbey to be able to read,” he said. “They’re teaching her a little at the church, but they don’t have a real school. If I learn here, I can help when I see her on Sundays.”
Mary tried to help at first. As the men gathered for lunch one day, she brought out the primers she and Leander had used when they were little. The men all nodded their heads and listened close as she tried to teach them, but they did not ask any questions. They all thanked her solemnly and went back to the fields. That night, Joe came to the house and asked for the books. She gave them to him, and after a few minutes, followed him to the fire pit and watched from the shadows as the men joked with him while he sounded out the words, asking him to repeat the harder ones.
For all the tragedy that she had heard in their stories, there was a part of her that was jealous of them. She listened to their voices and the loud peals of laughter and she’d wonder how they could be so at home there while she felt like a stranger in the house where she’d been born.
She longed to be welcomed in such a circle. She knew if she went back to the fire, Joe would make a place for her to sit next to him and Malcolm would find a clean glass and pour her some rum, and Palmer would offer her some of the corn he loved to pop. There’d be kindness, but the only laughter would be the polite kind, not the loud, rude cackling she so often heard from a distance.
She was grateful to them, not only for the work they did, but also for bringing the farm back to life.
And it had never produced so well. There’d been plenty of rain after the seed was in the ground, and June and July had brought long days of high blue skies punctuated by brief, soaking showers. The apples and pears in the orchard were swollen and plentiful and the fields waved emerald green in the summer sun. Joe was working his way through their acres of forest, culling trees here and there to supply the army’s constant demands.
The men were happiest as they cleaned themselves up and piled into the wagon on Saturday mornings. They knew they had done good work, and they knew the pay they would deliver downtown was making things better for their families there.
Joe would go with them sometimes, and he would scour the city for newly arrived refugees, asking after Alaura. Once, he heard tell of a girl with different-colored eyes over in St. Catharines, and went over the border, but he came back four days later, forlorn.
On those weeks when he stayed on the farm, the others always asked after her, and the wives were even more diligent during the week.
Mary asked him once why he didn’t go with them, and he said that seeing all the other families made him too lonely.
After the wagon rolled out of the yard, he would disappear into the woods.
Mary told him that he was welcome at the table for dinner as always, but he never came.
She would wonder about him through the rest of the evening and into the next day, but when she asked, he’d only shrug. After much of the summer had passed, she gave in to her curiosity. She pulled on the old pair of her father’s trousers she wore to hike the woods, packed a lunch, and followed him into the woods.
She seldom went into the forest anymore, but the stillness of dappled green light and the rich smell of the humus underfoot brought her back to long days she had spent with her mother gathering blackberries. Though she knew the land far too well to ever be truly lost there, she meandered among the ancient trees as if she were.
The day was stretching into afternoon, and a bank of clouds had intruded into the blue sky when she found Joe in Leander’s clearing next to the spring pond.
He was sitting on a log stump, trimming roof shakes with a hatchet.
The building that stood in the clearing had little in common with the ramshackle wreck her brother had left. The walls had been trued, and the beginnings of a roof were in place.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said when he saw her. “Someone tried to build something, but it was just a pile of scrap when I found it. I decided to make it right.”
“This is where you come?”
He nodded. “When I saw this place I thought of the book, and I wanted to make a place like that,” he said.
“Thoreau,” she said, putting the basket of food down and sitting next to him.
“When they had me in that cell, I used to keep myself sane by planning each little part of the cabin I would build,” he said.
He laughed, keeping his eyes on his work.
“The way he describes it, being alone out in the woods,” he said. “It made me think that maybe there could be a place for me somewhere.”
He waved at the half-finished building.
“This is your father’s land, I know it could never be mine,” he said. “But I wanted to know what it was like to build something. Maybe someday I could do it for myself.”
“The deed might say it’s my father’s,” she said. “But you’ve made it yours.”
He held a shake up, checking it for cracks.
“That’s the way with me,” he said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “Free, but not.”
“You’re free,” she said. “Even the president says so.”
“Not really,” he said. “Walnut Grove is in West Virginia. That’s a border state. He freed the slaves just about everywhere else, but not there. Alaura is still there. Alaura is still a slave.”
He swung his dark eyes over to her.
“In the book he had visitors that would come,” he said. “I thought maybe you would come visit me.”
“I remember,” she said. “They’d bring him food.”
She lifted the basket she’d carried all morning.
“And here I am,” she said, smiling.
A raindrop fell onto the still, mirror-gray surface of the pond and Joe held his hand out into the air.
“We should get back,” he said.
“It’s just a summer sprinkle,” she said. “Let’s stay.”
The sky opened all at once, pouring buckets in a flash. Joe grabbed the basket and together they ran into the cabin for cover.
Most of th
e roof was open, but one corner was solid enough and they crowded under it, laughing at the futility of the effort. The downpour lasted only a few minutes, but they were soaked through.
The rain stopped as quickly as it started, but fat drops fell from the leaves all around them, so Mary stepped back into the clearing under quickly moving clouds. Steam rose around her as she squeezed water from her hair.
Joe dashed past her, faster than she would have believed he could on one leg, and dove into the pond. When he surfaced, he was smiling from ear to ear.
“It is warm and glorious,” he said, motioning for her to follow.
“I can’t.” She giggled, even as she pulled off her shoes and followed him headfirst into the little pond.
The surface was sun-warmed, but the spring below fed ice-cold water up from the bottom, and the thrill of the shifting temperature on her legs gave her goose bumps. She dove to the bottom and her bare feet broke the surface for an instant before slipping again into the dappled water.
She ran her finger along the sole of his foot and laughed a storm of bubbles as he yelled in surprise.
The pond was shallow and calm, but the tug of the water on her clothes reminded her of her time in the creek long before, and brought her chills.
The rain had churned the water murky and she couldn’t even see her hands a few inches below the surface. She reached down and pulled the trousers from her legs and slung them onto the shore.
Joe looked at her wide-eyed.
“Don’t tell,” she said and splashed water in his face.
As the sky cleared above them, they swam together until her hunger got the best of her and she said they should spread the picnic on the bank of the pond.
She made him go into the cabin and turn his back before she climbed out of the water and pulled the wet, heavy trousers on again.
He brought the basket out and she put some dishes on a blanket. They lay themselves side by side on the grass to dry in the sun.
“The book,” he said, staring into the shifting clouds and chewing on a grape. “The part I got caught up in first was as a place to escape to. But that’s not the best part of it, really. The part that I love is how he sees every little thing, the ways the leaves change and the different sounds the birds make.”
“He went to jail, too,” she said. “Though just a single night, and as much by choice as anything.”
He was quiet for a while.
“I can’t imagine anyone that could live in a place like this going into a cell like that by choice,” Joe said.
They lay that way for a long time, dozing in the afternoon sun as dragonflies flitted over the still pond.
The western sky was turning orange and the bats had come out and were chittering over the treetops when they walked back into the barnyard. The men had returned and were gathering at the table under the elm while Katia brought out dinner.
It was Palmer who shared the news.
“They found that marshal dead,” he said. “Down in the pool under Niagara Falls. At least they think it was him. The star was on his coat, but he was a mess.”
Mary shivered, her left hand unconsciously rubbing the scar where Kidder’s shackle had cut into her. She looked at Joe, expecting to see relief in his face, but instead there was fear.
“It was Yates Bell,” he said. “He’s here.”
“How can you say that?” she scoffed. “That marshal had enemies everywhere he went.”
“He’s come for me,” he said. “He’s down there somewhere.”
ERIE
As Yates Bell left the clutch of nigger hovels at St. Catharines, his mind kept circling back to the old priest. Something in his eyes had flashed when he had mentioned Joe.
He was sure Joe wasn’t there, but that old priest didn’t look right.
Even back at Walnut Grove he’d always known when a darkie had something to hide.
He’d perfected the art of ransacking the encampments. He liked to surprise them. He’d sneak in when they had all gathered for dinner. He’d circle around, looking for a woman on the edge, or even better, one of the countless brats underfoot. He’d grab it, put his pistol to the squaller’s head, and swear that he was ready to pull the trigger. The whole village would come to heel.
He also knew that it was never a good idea to go back. They’d all be angry and alert.
But that priest knew something.
He turned, looking back west toward the village, took his pistol from its holster, and started walking. He was nearly at the church steps when something came down on the back of his head.
He woke up in the back of a donkey cart, his feet and hands bound, his head throbbing. He was relieved to look up and see a white man driving.
“Let me lose, goddammit,” Yates shouted. “Where are you taking me?”
“Shut the hell up, or I’ll gag you,” the man said.
Yates glowered, but kept quiet.
It wasn’t long before the cart pulled onto a dock, and the driver climbed down and pulled Yates out of the back. He motioned, and two men took his arms and dragged him across the planks toward a sleek-hulled steamer with the name Abigail painted in gold on its bow.
“Mr. Compson is doing you a favor,” the driver said as Yates struggled. “There’s no one that will give a damn if these men kill you, so you best not give them reason.”
They carried him into a dark-paneled cabin with a round table in the middle and a heavy wooden desk to the side. The first well-groomed man he had seen in nearly a year sat behind the desk and motioned for Yates to be put in the chair across from him.
“More of the same,” the driver said, dropping Yates’s pistol and holster on the desk.
“Untie Mr. Bell,” the man behind the desk drawled.
He waited for the men to finish and leave before continuing.
“At least you weren’t fool enough to wear a Confederate uniform,” he said. “Other than that, I can’t imagine you making a bigger mess of yourself.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Jacob Compson,” the man replied.
“You’re from Richmond, aren’t you?” Yates said. “I heard your name a few times.”
“I’m from Oxford, Mississippi, to tell the truth,” he said. “But I’ve spent a good amount of time around Richmond.”
“What are you doing up here?”
“I’m running the Confederate Secret Service.”
Yates flexed his arms, loosening his joints after being bound.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said.
“The middle word is ‘secret,’” Compson said. “It has a very clear meaning, and you’d make my life easier if you learned it. The better part of valor is discretion.”
“What do you want with me?” Yates asked.
“This is not the Old Dominion. You can’t just terrorize the niggers without consequences,” Compson said. “Your effort to find this slave of yours is causing difficulties for the local authorities and they’ve asked me to deal with you.”
Compson pulled his sleeves and adjusted his silk tie.
“You have a choice. I can take you to the quaint little jail they have here or I can take you to the Riley Hotel. At the jail, you’ll serve a month or two for this latest adventure. After that, if you have another run-in and my friends on Her Majesty’s government ask what should be done with you, I will suggest hanging. The Confederacy’s relationship with Canada, the queen, and England are delicate and vital to the cause. Do you understand?”
Yates grunted.
“I expect better manners from you,” Compson said. “I knew your father, and I know you were raised better than that. Sit up, son.”
Yates found himself straightening in his seat without thinking.
“And what if you take me to the hotel?” he asked.
“The hotel is a simple place. Perhaps not up to the standards of the Bells of Walnut Grove, but it is discrete. Many of our countrymen are there. Some have escaped the prisons of
the North and are on their way back to the good fight. The others are my operatives. We have opened a stealth front on the Yankees’ northern border. It is a quiet thing, as it must be to accommodate our British friends. You would be part of that.”
“How?”
“You are a clumsy fool, but your name carries weight in Richmond,” he said.
Yates stirred at the insult.
“Calm down,” Compson said. “Yes, you are a fool. One does not stomp around Canada pillaging nigger villages. One does not murder Union marshals who have gone around asking after your fugitive.”
“He had it coming,” Yates said.
“… and one does not murder Confederate scouts.”
“You’re lying,” Yates barked.
“Do you deny it?” Compson asked. “I have it all, you know. A nice file on you. Richmond told me you would be my problem. Mr. Philips, your lawyer back in Harpers Ferry, sent a note that you would be coming this way when you didn’t report to camp. He told me you’d be looking for Marshal Kidder, as well. It doesn’t take much to connect you to him. And the scout. How foolish a man are you? You murder a man after he writes your name in his journal? And you leave it laying next to his moldering corpse? I could survey all the generals in the Yankee army, and I still couldn’t find a fool as big as you.”
“Philips, that bastard. He betrayed me,” Yates hissed.
“You betrayed yourself,” Compson said. “You betrayed your country. You shot a good man, left him laying out in the open for the vultures.”
Compson was standing over him now, looking down.
“But as I was saying, we value bloodlines down South,” he said. “Richmond will be happy to know that along with the fodder we use for this or that task, there’s a Bell of Walnut Grove up here. It will reassure them, make them more likely to open the purse strings.”
“What would you have me do while you raise funds off my name?” Yates asked.
Compson looked at him across the desk.
“Be a leader of men,” he said. “I am finalizing plans for several … operations that would be well suited for you. Situations where having the name Captain John Yates Bell attached to the venture might be helpful.”
