Belle and Joseph were both silent throughout dinner that night. Hannah and Jack kept glaring at them over the course of their dinner, Jack’s brows flexing. “I said I liked you quiet,” he said to the kids, “but I’d like to know you’re both still with us!”
The kids offered up a little chuckle, but it only did so much to lighten the mood or to loosen their lips. Belle looked down and kept eating.
Hannah asked them, “You two feel the tremor today?” This got the kids’ attention, exchanging a nervous glance before both shook their heads. Hannah said, with a light and teasing tone, “Maybe the minors made some progress today?”
Jack said to her, “You’re not filling their heads with that nonsense are you?”
“What’s wrong with a bit of whimsy? In their lives they could use all they can get.”
“As long as they don’t take it seriously. Those mines are dangerous.”
“That one’s been closed for years.”
Jack shrugged and returned his attention to his dinner, but Belle and Joseph looked at each other in silent secrecy, swearing never to tell the Kincaids how close they came to danger, how excitingly and terrifyingly near to the ghosts they had come.
Jack said, “If any miners are causing those tremors, I think it’s the Chinese on the other side of the mountains.”
“We used the best mining company to construct those mines.” After a doubting moment, Hannah asked, “We did use the best—?”
“They were your connections! But I vetted them and they proved out, but … maybe we’re digging too deep? We’re running out of coal, but you keep them going and going—”
“We’ll keep going until I say we’re finished, Jack,” Hannah said curtly, and even Belle knew she didn’t want to say anymore about it.
And she wasn't about to.
Jack asked her, “What about that railway, and the shipping business up north? As the coal runs out and the carts lose their purpose, maybe it’s time we think about closing all that business down.”
“What about the slaves, the Underground Railroad?”
“Hannah, we’ve done all we can! We haven’t been able to take any in and we really can’t send any out. Unless you wanted to put them on the actual railroad up to Lake Michigan? But without the coal, even that won’t work. We’d need to handle dozens of slaves at once to make that strategy pay off.”
“Suppose we do,” Hannah said, more a statement than a question. “We can build shelters for them here, there’s plenty of land. They can hide out in the abandoned mine shafts while they’re waiting.”
Jack took a closer look at his wife, pieces coming together in his head. “Is that why you wanted the railroad in the first place?”
“It will serve any number of purposes, Jack.”
He shook his head. “Sure, any number of them. But digging more shafts will only create housing for more slaves, and a railroad to transport them. I must say, Mrs. Kincaid, you have a way of staying one step ahead of your husband … one maddening step.”
Hannah enjoyed a little smile, sharing it with Belle along with a little nod.
Hannah asked Jack, “How long until the railway’s ready?”
Jack could only shrug. “Barring any further … accidents, I’d say three months. We’ll need more labor, but we can pull the Chinese out of the mines—”
“No,” Hannah said, “bring in fresh labor. We’ll pay and house them, of course.”
“But … the mines are almost spent, and there’ll be plenty of room to house dozens, maybe hundreds of fugitives. It’s the traffic coming in we’ll have to worry about. Those signs on the trees’ll be nothing, there’ll be a road trod right through the plains and straight to our door!”
But Hannah seemed neither interested nor intimidated. “Get me more labor and finish that railway, Jack, so I can send out word that the den of the She Bear is back in business.”
Hannah turned to Belle and Joseph and raised her hand, four fingers up, thumb tucked into her palm. Smiling, the kids returned the sign of the She Bear.
*
The next week passed with increasing activity among the adults, meetings behind closed doors. Belle was intrigued by it all, having been personally invited into a meeting or two herself, though she knew it was only by rare invitation. Neither Belle nor Joseph had done anything to have earned a right to be at such a meeting and could contribute nothing. Still, Belle had been there and she knew somehow that she’d be at one again, perhaps many others over the course of her life.
At one time, Belle had dared to imagine herself eating a fine meal, the finest, with the finest company, from the finest china and linen. And she’d done that many times, made more than welcome at such a table. By Hannah’s example, Belle began to dream even bigger, envisioning herself taking the kinds of meetings that Hannah was taking, wielding that kind of wealth and power. Why not, she had to wonder, if’n a white woman, why not a black man, or a black woman? It ain’t so … isn’t so far off, the future; s’practically here.
But Belle could only enjoy her daydreams for so long. She knew that those meetings didn’t have any happy meaning for her or anyone on the property. These meetings were meant to deal with dangerous subjects, dangerous men with deadly intent. Belle knew of such men, firsthand, and she knew Hannah did too. She knew Hannah would be as formidable a foe to them as anyone, but even the Daughter of the She Bear could not face that white tide all on her own, even with her meager band and tribal allies.
And on the day the news came in, Belle could sense another such meeting in the very near future.
Belle and Joseph were sitting in their chairs, hands on their laps, backs straight and shoulders back.
Hannah stood in front of a chalkboard sitting on an easel, on which she’d written a sentence reading, President Lincoln is a very great man.
Hannah said, “Belle, what is the verb of this sentence?”
Belle looked at the sentence. She could read it, and she knew what it meant. But that didn’t seem to be enough for reasons Belle couldn’t quite figure. She knew it wasn’t President Lincoln, or the other part.
Belle said, “Is … a … ? Is a.”
Hannah nodded. “Right … sort of. Is is the verb, a conjugation of the verb to be.”
“But … you said is, not be … not be a very good man, is a very good man.”
Hannah chuckled a bit. “Right, no, that’s … that’s right, Belle. Is is the right word, but it’s a version of be, in this case the proper version.” Hannah turned to Joseph. “Joseph, do you know who President Lincoln is?” Joseph nodded. “Do you know his first name?”
Joseph looked at Belle and Belle looked back, anxious and hopeful that he’d finally speak. She always knew he could and harbored a hope that he someday would; someday when they’d finally found a home, someday when they were finally free.
“Do you know what it is?”
Joseph shook his head, and Belle said, “I done … ” But glancing at Hannah, Belle corrected herself to say, “I told you his name before, Joseph.”
“Very good, Belle. But if Joseph doesn’t want to answer, it’s okay. Let’s not force him.”
Belle thought about it and had to nod. “It ain’t … isn’t right to force folks, is it?”
Hannah didn't have to think about that for long. Belle had heard what Hannah and her family had been forced to do, and were currently being forced to do. She reached out and gently stroked Belle’s cheek.
“No, Belle, it’s not, not ever.”
Jack came into the room with a grim expression and heavy foot, Hannah reading his urgency and standing up to step away from the kids and their lessons. Mo followed Jack in, giving his children a sad little nod as he stood behind his boss, following all professional protocol.
“What is it, Jack?”
“They hit our laborers, coming in from the East.”
The horror and shock in Hannah’s voice sent a chill up Belle’s spine. “All of them?”
Jack nodd
ed. “All three carts of men, almost a hundred, two carts of materials, plus every guard. Scattered or killed the horses, the whole caravan was wiped out.”
Hannah went even paler and slowly melted into the chair nearest her as she thought about it, and Belle couldn’t help but share her sense of horror as it came alive in her imagination. She could almost smell the gunpowder in the air, hear the screams of the men as they ran from the abandoned carts, shot in the back or cut down by marauding horsemen, the carts burned, terrified horses running wild, others cut down in the frenzy of the ambush.
Over a hundred men dead. Even with the horrors that Belle had seen, she found it almost impossible to imagine.
Almost.
Jack said to Hannah, “We won’t be able to get any more workers here now, not of any stripe or color, no way.”
“If’n I may, sir.”
Jack turned. “Of course, Mo, speak your piece.”
“I … I reckon any number of rabbit slaves’d be ready ’n’ able to do whatever work y’all need, sir. ‘At’s sho’ ‘nuff ‘da troof.”
Belle had to fight the urge to correct her father, at least until they were alone.
Hannah turned to Jack even as she answered Mo, in fact answering to both. “Why yes, I suppose they would.”
“And bring down every law man, slave hunter, and confederate down on us like a swarm! Hannah—”
“Jack—”
“No, Hannah, this time you listen to me! We’ve done things your way so far, and I’m happy, proud, glad, and grateful to have done it. But this time, you’d be putting us square in their sites.”
“I don’ wan’ ‘dat,” Mo said, “‘at’s not how I meant it, no sir —”
Ignoring Mo, Jack went on to Hannah. “And in the meantime, every negro who shows up to work those rails is going to face death every minute, and it’ll find them, each to a man, Hannah!” Hannah had no answer, and Belle could see that Mo’s offer would be to no avail.
He’d have to find some other way to help Hannah and her godly mission of justice and freedom. And so too, it seemed, would the Daughter of the She Bear herself. Because without the railway, she would have no way to ship out the fugitives she wanted to take in. And having nowhere else to send them, she couldn’t keep taking them in without bringing doom and death to them all, helping no one and even benefiting the inhuman and inhumane cause of the traitorous South.
Her enemies seemed to have had the clan of the She Bear trapped, and it seemed only a matter of time before they’d close in for the kill.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mo shook his head as they crouched down low, sneaking toward the foothills of the Mine Mountains along the north ridge of Hannah’s estate. He carried a whale-oil lamp and a shovel, Belle with her bible and Joseph with his compass.
“I can’t feature how you young’ns done talk me up into comin’ out n’here no how.”
Belle said, “We got’sta … we got … we have to find those diamonds!”
“My my, ain’t you talkin’ fine. And I’m right proud, but ‘dis ain’t ‘da time fo’ but one lesson, and ‘dats stay home!”
“Joseph found it,” Belle said, you know how he is. I think maybe mamma done bring him up here.”
“Don’ choo thank no such’n thang, chil’. You mamma up with God and Jesus, an’ at’s all.”
“But God be … God is everywhere, Papa. Down here, up there … so if she’s with God, and he’s everywhere, she can be everywhere, too. Right?”
Mo couldn’t contradict her, as much as he obviously wanted to. “I reckon ‘at sounds about as perdy as anythin’ I ever heard’n no sermon.”
They approached the opening of the old mine shaft, and something caught Joseph’s attention. He scampered over, climbing a few of the fallen rocks to point out another pile of freshly fallen rocks, no doubt brought down by the recent tremors. And behind where they used to stand was a new stretch of mine shaft, wider and stronger and more welcoming in every regard than the other.
Belle and Joseph turned to Mo, and he looked around with round, frightened eyes. He took a deep breath, muttered a prayer, and struck a match against a wall to light the oil lamp. Once glowing, he held it up and said, “You jus’ let me go first is all.”
Belle and Joseph nodded and stepped back with excited smiles. The mountain was just a bit more familiar to them, their fear just a little less than it had been the first time, which they thought would be the last time.
They crept into the cave, a soft, golden loom around them from the glowing lamp. It smelled of dirt and rotting roots, dead animals and musty clusters of mushrooms filling the crags in the darkened earth.
Belle and Joseph clung close to their father, his own bent posture seemed to urge him backward, like invisible arms around his waist pulling him back. But he pushed on, fed by his dreams and those of his children, and by the unwillingness to live lives without any dreams at all.
The ground was slippery beneath their feet, the rotting beams above them creaking as the mountain seemed to shift just the slightest bit. The three stopped, each looking at the others in a wordless conference, silently deciding to go on. There was too much at stake for them all to simply abandon the chance to save the family that had saved them, to do what God had certainly intended for them to do, to fulfill the purpose which they were put upon the earth to fulfill. It wasn’t to serve the white man, Belle always knew that. And it wasn’t to run from him either. Belle felt certain in that moment of dark and quiet progress deeper into the abandoned mine shaft, that her journey had led her here, that her destiny would be found in the mountain.
But as the wood creaked again, Belle was reminded that her destiny may be found there, but not for good, much more likely for tragic ill.
The fast and terrific flap of what seemed like a living cloud exploded in the shaft in front of them, Belle’s legs freezing under her. Mo bent hard over his children to protect them as the cloud overwhelmed them, black and leathery and scuttling and dodging through the air, into Belle’s hair and out as they flew past.
The endless tide of bats swarmed past them in a panic, Belle’s body trembling with fear, eyes clamping shut, hands clasping her brother and father and hanging on.
Her scream tore through the chatter of the countless flying little beasts, their rolling squeaks and clicks intermingling with her own blood-curdling wail to fill the cavern to the point of bursting.
The last of the bats flew off down the shaft behind the Robinsons, back toward the entrance. The shaft rumbled, the mountain stirring with greater definition, impossible to mistake or ignore.
“‘At’s it,” Mo said, ushering the kids back toward the exit, “no mo’ o’ ‘dis no’ now, sho’ nu —”
But that’s all Belle heard before the ground gave way beneath her. Her stomach flew up into the bottom of her ribs, arms reaching up as she fell through the ground and into a steep tunnel dug almost straight down, with only the slightest angle.
Belle slid in and finally landed hard on her feet, sinking into the mud, her feet planting deep, mud rising up halfway to her knees. She screamed again, looking up at the only light to pierce the pitch darkness around her.
Mo and Joseph looked down the pit from above, Mo holding the lamp down to cast some light on Belle’s immediate surroundings. It was only a few feet wide around her, it wasn’t mud or earth that she felt around her, but a collection of jagged sticks or hardened roots.
But one look at the death stare of the worm encrusted skull embedded in the pit wall in front of her told Belle that they weren’t sticks or roots, but bones; the bones of dead miners, slaves like her, trapped for eternity.
She screamed again, scrambling with all her strength to climb out of that hole. But the more she climbed the more tangled her arms and legs became, scraping against their shattered rib cages and arm bones, skeleton fingers seeming to wrap around her ankles to pull her down.
Belle almost imagined them unwilling to release her, pleading with her to sta
y and dig with them, to join them in their endless toil, to succumb to the fate of all slaves everywhere, to die in bondage and horror and misery.
But Mo’s strong hands reached down and grabbed Belle, one hand under each arm. With a long, strong pull, Mo lifted Belle up and freed her from the clinging grip of her hellish captors. Lifting her to the ledge and then farther into the shaft, Belle was free again, for however brief a time.
Mo grabbed her hand and she took Joseph’s, Mo lighting the way as they ran. But Belle’s first step was agony, pain shooting up her leg. She was certain she’d broken her leg, and a second step only proved it.
She bent down and Mo knelt to her, taking a look at her leg. “Don’ look broke,” he said, tracing the line of her shoe. “Take it off,” he said, and Belle was quick to unbuckle the fancy shoes Hannah had bought for her. When she slid the shoe off, a nasty, sharp rock fell out onto the muddy dirt, but it had a bright glisten beneath it, like a cluster of salt in the earth where no salt should be.
Mo pushed the mud away to reveal the diamond, jagged and misshapen. But the crystals were impossible to mistake against the light of the oil lamp.
But there was one way to know for sure. Mo handed Belle the oil lamp, which she held by the base. Joseph looked on as Mo carefully pressed one hand behind the glass over the burning wick, then raised the rock to the upper rim of the glass on his end, the front of the glass. He traced a line onto the glass, dipping down and then back up to the lip.
Belle and Joseph watched, breathless in the glowing light, as Mo handed the rock back to Belle and, with that free hand, lightly flicked the cut section of the glass. It flew off the rest and pinged into the darkness leaving a fine, sharp edge.
Only one thing could have cut so perfectly through glass like that, straight from the earth.
Diamonds!
Belle was overtaken by the rush of joy and she could see by the wide smiles and raised brows of her brother and father that they were feeling it, too. They’d done it, found proof that Hannah was in fact sitting on a diamond mine of untold riches, enough to overpower her enemies, to be beyond the reach of any mortal man.
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