by Kaki Warner
They stopped by the dry goods store first, where they picked out a coat, mittens, a soft woolen scarf, and a sturdy pair of shoes for Lillie. Thomas paid for it: apparently Ash had paid him very well. They gave Lillie those purchases in the store—much to her squealing delight—but Pru also purchased warm stockings, a new dress, and a thick sweater to give the child on Christmas Day.
They exited the store thirty minutes later, Lillie clinging to their hands and skipping along between them, beaming with pride. “I never gots no new store-bought clothes before. Not of my very own.”
“I never received any store-bought clothes,” Pru gently corrected.
Lillie grinned up at her. “Don’t worry. Daddy get you some. Maybe a new Christmas dress, right, Daddy?”
“Maybe.” Thomas’s dark gaze met Pru’s over Lillie’s bobbing head. His smile told her he was remembering last night when he had watched her undress for him. “Something without so many buttons and laces.”
Heat rushed over her. Hiking her chin, she looked away to hide her blush. The man could do the most amazing things to her without lifting a finger.
When they reached the bookstore, Pru stopped and turned to Thomas. With elaborate gestures and mouthed words, so Lillie wouldn’t hear, she suggested that Thomas take Lillie on to the candy shop several stores down and get her a peppermint while Pru looked through the bookstore for a Braille book.
He waited calmly until she finished, then told Lillie to cover her ears. “Use words, Eho’nehevehohtse. You are not that good at sign.”
Pru repeated her instructions.
“You will not leave the bookstore until I return,” he ordered, and, taking Lillie’s hand, went down the street.
Pru was delighted to find a primer in Braille for Lillie, and for Thomas, a book about the Corps of Discovery Expedition by Lewis and Clark. She had just paid for her purchases and was heading toward the door when a figure moved up behind her. With a start, she turned to find a man looming over her—Chester Hogan, a black man she had met through Levi Coffin, a staunch activist and supporter of the Underground Railroad.
“Sorry I scare you, Miss Lincoln.” He looked furtively around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “It time,” he went on in a low voice. “You meet with us at the old machine works behind the depot?”
“When?”
“Tonight. We knows you helping at the gospel meetings in the big tent down a ways. Machine shop not far from it. Just past the depot, in the ’bandoned rail yard. Maybe come during the meeting? Say, seven thirty?”
“I’ll be there.”
Pru walked with him to the door. “Is it the man you told me about? The one from New Jersey?”
“Mose Solomon. He a good man, Miss Lincoln. Didn’t hardly do nothing, but they needs someone to blame for them Patenburg railroad riots, and he easy pickin’s. Been hiding out, but gots to get moving soon.” He opened the door.
“Then let’s do what we can.” Pru stepped outside, then lurched back as a figure lunged past her. Before she could catch her breath, Thomas had Chester pinned against the wall, a forearm across his throat.
“Why do you follow us?”
Chester gagged and clutched at the arm pressing against his neck.
“Stop!” Pru tried to pull Thomas back.
He didn’t budge. “Did he hurt you, Eho’nehevehohtse?”
“No! He’s a friend.”
Thomas looked at her, savagery still showing in his eyes. “A friend?”
“Yes. He came to give me a message, that’s all. Let him go.”
Reluctantly, Thomas lowered his arm and stepped back.
Chester sagged, gasping and coughing and rubbing his throat.
“He dyin’?” Lillie asked, white showing around her blank eyes.
“Of course not.” Pru patted the injured man’s back as he struggled to catch his breath. “Are you all right, Chester?”
Slowly the man straightened, his frightened gaze locked on Thomas. “Who he? Why he do that?”
“He protectin’ us, that why,” Lillie burst out. “He a Cheyenne Dog Soldier and he my daddy. You come after us, he come after you, and kill you dead like a mangy three-legged hound dog. Ain’t that right, Daddy?”
“Lillie, please be quiet.” Pru put on a strained smile to reassure the passersby gawking at them. “Chester, this is my . . . friend, Thomas Redstone, from Colorado.”
Thomas gave her an odd look.
“He watches over Lillie and me,” she quickly added, but knew that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, either. But how could she explain her relationship with Thomas when she wasn’t sure herself what it was?
Chester didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He just wanted to get away. Which he did, as quickly as he could.
Thomas watched him scurry off, speculation in his gaze. “If he is a friend, why did he track us like a hungry wolf?”
“He didn’t want to be seen speaking with me.”
“He was ashamed?”
“No, it’s not that. But it’s all rather complicated.” She glanced meaningfully down at Lillie, who stood at his side, rubbing her new mittens against her cheeks. “We’ll discuss it later.”
“Yes, Eho’nehevehohtse. We will.”
They were able to avoid Marsh for the rest of the afternoon, and when they went into the tearoom for an early supper, Pru was grateful that only the reverend was there. As they walked over to join him, Pru warned Lillie not to mention the scene outside the bookstore.
“We don’t want him to think badly of Thomas, do we?”
“He only protectin’ us.”
“Nonetheless, you’re not to bring it up. Understood?”
“I a mouse in the cupboard.” Leaning toward Thomas, she added, “They talk less than you, Daddy.”
“Good evening, Brother,” Pru said, stopping beside the reverend’s table. “May we join you?”
“By all means.”
After they had ordered and were waiting for their food to arrive, Lillie prattled on about her new coat and gloves and scarf. She would have worn them throughout the meal if Pru hadn’t insisted she remove them when the server brought their plates. It was heartwarming—and a little sad—that the girl was so ecstatic over something as mundane as a new winter coat.
“Will you be coming to the meeting tonight?” Brother Sampson asked, his smile including Thomas.
“We look forward to it,” Pru said when Thomas didn’t answer.
“I hope you gots singin’,” Lillie said through a mouthful of carrots.
Pru gently reminded her not to speak with her mouth full.
“I jist loves gospel singin’. I good at it, too. Ev’rybody say so.”
“The Friends don’t sing much, do they?” Brother Sampson asked her in a gentle voice.
“No, but I ’member songs my other mama used to sing.”
“Other mama?”
“The one gone to Jesus. Now I huntin’ a new one.” She waved her spoon at her dark mane of untamed hair. “Daddies not so good at making braids.”
Pru could see the reverend was confused. “Lillian has decided that Thomas is her father.”
“My first one sold off long time ago.” Using her left hand to corral peas on her plate, Lillie pushed them onto her spoon, then carefully lifted the spoon to her mouth. Pru was pleased to see only a few escaped to roll across the floor. “Maybe you him. You gots chilrin, Reverend Brother Sampson?”
A wistful smile crossed the black man’s face. “I’m sorry to say I don’t. But if I did, I think I’d like one very much like you.”
Lillie grinned, peas showing in the gaps in her teeth.
The meal was a short one. As soon as Brother Sampson cleaned his plate, he excused himself to prepare for the tent meeting that evening. Pru insisted Lillie rest, too, and when they finished ea
ting, she and Thomas took her upstairs.
“Will you go with us to the meeting?” Pru asked as they moved down the hall toward their rooms.
“Yes. I do not want you to walk there alone.”
Pru didn’t argue. She didn’t want him out of her sight, either. No telling what mischief he might get himself into.
When they reached 211, Thomas announced that from now on Lillian would sleep here, in Prudence Lincoln’s room.
Pru knew he was right. It was inappropriate for him to share a room with a young girl not of his family. Yet knowing he was not usually one to bother with the rules of deportment, she wondered if there might be another reason for his decision. Was he putting distance between them to make a later parting easier? Or did he plan to disappear on a scouting foray—perhaps to confront Marsh?
The idea pressed like a hand against her throat.
“You not want me no more?” Lillie asked him, her face crumpling.
Pru could see Thomas was unsure how to respond, so she answered for him. “It’s lonely in here all by myself. I would feel better if you were with me. And I can braid better than Mr. Redstone.”
Lillie gave that some thought. “You won’t sneak off and leave me?” she said to Thomas’s belt.
Pru almost snorted.
“I do not sneak, Katse’e. If I must leave, I will tell you.”
“Can I still have you knife?”
“No. You will not need it with Prudence Lincoln there.” His gaze flicked up to meet Pru’s. A smile teased his mouth. “When I was hurt, she watched over me and kept me safe. And warm. She will do the same for you.”
“But I—”
“Katse’e.” He put his hand on Lillie’s shoulder. “Have you forgotten your promise to me? Did you not say that you would do what I tell you?”
A dramatic sigh. “All right. But you better not run off, Daddy.”
This time, Pru gave him a knowing look. The child knew him too well.
“I will not. Now take your nap, while I talk to Prudence Lincoln about the man who followed us.”
“Nap?” Lillie huffed indignantly. “I not a baby. I ’most ’leven, you know.”
“You’re ten,” Pru reminded her. “But she’s right, Thomas. I think it’s important that she’s aware of what’s going on so she won’t be confused or frightened. And she’ll be discreet. Won’t you, Lillie?”
“What that mean?”
“It means you won’t repeat what we say.”
“Make her promise,” Thomas muttered.
“I promise,” the girl said. “But first I gots to go to the necessary room.” Turning, she whispered to Thomas’s arm, “That mean I gots to pee, Daddy. Miss Pru make me say I goin’ to the necessary room instead. Do Indians do they business in necessary rooms?”
“Lillie!” Pru scolded.
“Indians do everything everybody else does, Katse’e. But better. Now go with Prudence Lincoln.”
* * *
Thomas stood at the single window, waiting for them to return, his face lifted to the sunlight streaming through the dust-streaked panes. Even two floors above the busy street, the sound of so many people and wagons seeped through the glass. The constant noise buzzed in his head like angry bees, adding to his restlessness. He felt trapped in a rabbit warren and wondered how people—white or black—could live this way.
The need for quiet solitude rose in him, but he forced it back down. Soon he would be back in his mountains. He would find harmony there, and this sense of being off-balance would leave him.
Several minutes later, the two females returned. Prudence settled on the edge of the bed and told Lillian to sit on the floor between her feet so she could braid her hair. Thomas continued to stand at the window, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for Eho’nehevehohtse to explain about the man at the bookstore.
“Have you ever heard of the Underground Railroad?” she finally asked.
Thomas shook his head.
“I has,” Lillian said. “The Friends bring us to freedom lan’ on it. But it not a real railroad.”
“No, it’s not,” Prudence agreed. “Nor is it underground, but more of a network of secret pathways Negroes used to escape slavery and travel to places where they could be free. Like Indiana.”
“If it is not a railroad, why do they call it that?” Thomas asked.
“Because it was all very secret, and to avoid suspicion, the people who ran it used railroad terms as code names for different aspects of the organization.”
“White people complicate everything,” Thomas muttered.
“Perhaps. But many blacks helped on the railroad as well. Harriet Tubman, an ex-slave, was famous for it. Do you remember the stories you learned at school about Harriet?” she asked Lillie.
“The one who change her name from Minty?”
“Araminta Ross. Yes, that’s the one. I’m proud you remembered.” In addition to her work with the Underground Railroad, Harriet had also aided the abolitionist John Brown before his disastrous raid at Harper’s Ferry. Even now, Mrs. Tubman continued to further the Negro cause, and though they had never met, Pru felt a strong connection to the courageous black woman.
“Anyway,” Pru went on, “‘stations’ or ‘depots’ were safe resting places along the secret routes, and ‘conductors’ were people who helped move the runaways from place to place. I’ve heard that over a hundred thousand slaves escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad, many through Indiana. But that was before the War of the Rebellion.”
Thomas watched Eho’nehevehohtse’s long, slim fingers work the braid and remembered those same fingers sliding through the gaps in his shirt the previous night. She liked to touch him. He liked it, as well. And it pleased him that beneath her shy smile was a ferocious passion awakened only by him.
“Hold this, dear.” Prudence put Lillian’s fingers on the end of the braid so she could tie a ribbon around it.
Thomas noted the girl’s hair was not as smooth and shiny as Eho’nehevehohtse’s, and it took many small braids to tame it. Like Katse’e, it seemed to have a mind of its own.
“For several years after the war ended,” Prudence went on as she started another braid, “there wasn’t much need for escape routes. But lately, with increasing unrest because of Reconstruction, many Negroes feel their only hope of a better life is to escape into Canada . . . although I’ve been hearing things can be difficult up there, too.”
“If there is no more slavery, why do they not go there on their own?” Thomas asked. “Why do they need the secret railroad?”
“Because there are those who have gotten into trouble and need help.”
“Lawbreakers.”
“Some. But not all laws are just. Or enforced equally.”
“You do not need to tell a Cheyenne that.” Moving from the window, he sprawled in the worn chair beside the bed. “The man today is a lawbreaker who needs your help?” Thomas would not have thought the frightened black man had the courage to break laws.
“Chester Hogan? No. He’s more of a ‘conductor.’ There, Lillie. All finished. You look quite grand.”
Thomas thought she still looked like she had sprouted raven feathers.
Grinning, the girl climbed back onto the bed and began humming to herself as she wrapped her new scarf around her thin neck.
“Chester’s not in trouble,” Prudence explained. “But he’s helping someone who is.”
“And he needs you to do this?”
“I’m just a step along the way.”
Thomas did not like this. Many of the white man’s laws might be foolish, but their lawmen were quick to punish those who broke them. When he was Declan Brodie’s deputy in Heartbreak Creek, he had locked several men away for breaking the rules. He had even been in jail himself. Once in Heartbreak Creek, and for a short time in a faraway place named
Liverpool. “Is this why Marsh threatened you? He does not want you to do this?”
A look of disdain marred the beauty of her face. “He’s afraid if we’re caught it might cause a scandal and ruin his chances of getting to Washington. The man’s evil and corrupt. He puts his own wants and ambitions above those in need.”
“As you put those in need above your own wants.” Thomas did not want Prudence Lincoln to be trapped by the white man’s laws. He did not want her to know the fear of being caged in a jail like an animal. “You will not help him, Eho’nehevehohtse.”
Her chin came up.
On the bed, Lillian quit twisting her scarf and listened intently.
Ho. It seemed he would have battle on two fronts. “If Chester Hogan needs help, Prudence,” he said calmly, “I will do it. I do not want you in danger. You will tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
“I don’t know yet what Chester wants me to do,” she said with impatience. “When I see him during the tent meeting tonight I’ll find out.”
“I will meet with him instead.”
“After you almost choked him to death today? He’s liable to run as soon as he sees you. I need to go.”
“Then you can come with me.”
“Me, too,” Lillian said. “I ain’t staying here by myself.”
Thomas looked at her. “No, Katse’e, you will not be by yourself. The reverend will need you to help him with the singing.”
A grin replaced the scowl. “Fo’ true?”
“For true.”
Prudence narrowed her eyes at him.
He pretended not to notice. He had made his point and had no more to say.
“I jist loves to sing. Wanna hear?”
Thomas winced, imagining what noise would come out of that mouth.
Prudence gave him a look. “Save it for the meeting, why don’t you, Lillie dear? Then it will be a grand surprise for everybody. Now put on your coat and gloves. It’s late, and we don’t want the meeting to start without us.”
Thomas rose from the chair and straightened the knife under his coat. He wondered if he should change his clothing. He could move more quietly in his moccasins, and the war shirt didn’t pull across his shoulders the way this coat did. But after thinking it through, he decided against it. Chester Hogan had been frightened enough for one day.
