Sweeter than Birdsong

by Rosslyn Elliott

  “How you gonna prove it?” the stranger’s voice said. “You’re a runaway these twenty years, and it’s back to Massa for both of you! I’m sure he’ll greet you with open arms,” he said. “Unless, of course, you want to tell us where the others went. We know they came here.”

  “They wasn’t here.” Horace’s voice was firm and defiant.

  The slap of a hand against a face made Kate wince. But the old man continued to speak to his abuser. “You ain’t a federal officer any more than I am. You don’t got no right—”

  The man broke in, “But you let us in your house, and that’s what counts! You’re a runaway! You’re the one who don’t got no rights!”

  The little girl asked again, “Grandpa?”

  A faint wail went up from the bedroom below. Kate’s breath caught. The baby . . .

  Frank crawled toward that window. In a flash, Ben pulled the pistol from his underarm holster. He pointed it at Frank and cocked it. “No,” Ben mouthed, though his eyes were anguished.

  Running feet thudded back to the bedroom. The slave-catchers yelled in victory as they found Nelly under the bed. The baby wailed in earnest.

  “Hey, mama!” one of the men crowed. “And a little baby too. Well, ain’t that sweet.”

  Frank’s fists balled up against the shingles. Ben’s brow was creased and sweat cast a sheen on his tortured face, but he kept the pistol trained on Frank.

  After more taunts, the slave-catchers went down the stairs. The cries of the baby grew fainter as they left the house. Mrs. Hanby’s head bowed toward the shingles, her eyes closed and her lips moving in silent prayer. Frank dropped his head into his hands. Kate was afraid he might throw himself off the roof rather than go on without his wife.

  “Frank,” Ben whispered. “There are too many of them. They will kill you, right in front of her. We must wait—we’ll have to buy her freedom, and the baby’s, when they go to auction.”

  “They’ll sell her down the river.” The muscles in Frank’s face worked.

  “That’s how you’ll be able to buy her free,” Ben said, hushed and intense. “John has friends who watch the markets. And the abolitionists will help you find money. Trust me. It’s the only way.”

  Frank stared at Ben with hatred for a moment. Slowly, the rage ebbed from his eyes. It left an agony terrible to behold, as if someone had torn his face in half and pieced it back together with jagged edges. Kate had to look away. It could not be happening. Mrs. Hanby had her hand over her mouth.

  The lantern of the slave-catchers bobbed down the dark road and their voices faded away. Ben holstered the pistol and motioned for Frank to go down the roof to the window. The other man complied, swinging himself over the edge and dropping out of sight. Ben helped Mrs. Hanby back down, and then handed Kate over the edge to Frank’s waiting grasp at the window below. In her daze, she hardly cared that she was dangling in the air, and went limp when Frank pulled her inside.

  The old man and his daughter stood in the bedroom, awaiting their descent. Horace held the little girl in the circle of his arm, where she clung to him with a tear-stained face, her eyes huge as she watched Ben lower himself from the window ledge.

  When they had all made their way downstairs, Horace tried to reassure them. “Ain’t none of the slavers coming back soon. They have to take the woman and baby across the river first.” He glanced at Frank. The bereft man sat by the fire and turned his face toward it, his hand shading his eyes. Horace sighed and shuffled to the stove. He puttered around it for a few minutes, heating a kettle. The little girl maintained a tight grasp on one of his hands, but he did not chide her or even ask her to let go.

  “Come here, sweet girl,” Mrs. Hanby said from where she sat on a crude bench against one wall, her face haggard. “What’s your name?”

  The little girl’s pretty dark eyes were reddened from weeping. “Rondie.” She took a hesitant step toward her.

  “Do you want me to fix your hair, Rondie?” Mrs. Hanby asked. “I’ve done it before for other little girls who visited my house.”

  Rondie’s eyes brightened. “My mama used to do that, before she went to heaven.” She scurried over and sat down, and Mrs. Hanby unfastened her hair from the knot on top of her head.

  Kate addressed Ben in a low voice. “What about Horace and Rondie? Those men might come back for them.”

  She should have kept those thoughts for later, as Rondie looked terrified. Mrs. Hanby patted the girl on the back and started braiding. “Don’t you worry, Rondie. We aren’t going to let that happen.” She gave Ben a worried look.

  “We’ll have to take them with us,” Ben said. “They can’t stay here now. If the slave-hunters threatened to take them, it’s only a matter of time. Horace and Rondie must go with Frank to Canada.” Ben was mustering his composure from sheer force of will, from what Kate could see. “And when John finds Nelly, we will bring her too.”

  The little girl settled back against Mrs. Hanby’s knees as the older woman bowed her head, her fingers still holding the braids. After a pause she looked up and continued her work.

  Horace shuffled over and handed Kate a worn mug, fragrant with the sharp smell of wild raspberries. The tea rolled bitter on her tongue.

  Mrs. Hanby had told her that once they made it to Westerville, another conductor would take over and bring the fugitives farther north. But now it would not be Frank and his family—only Frank, Horace, and Rondie.

  A chill passed over her, even with the warm mug in her hands. It did not seem possible that John could find Nelly and her baby. She did not have the luxury anymore to wonder if God could hear. She had to believe it. Help them, help them. God, please. Protect them, help John find them. She thought about the bird and its song, and tears slipped down her cheeks.

  Nineteen

  EVERY BUMP AND JAR OF THE WAGON BROUGHT THEM closer to Westerville. Ben guided the mules with his long driving reins from the box seat, restraining the mule on the right as he eyed the flowering greenery at the side of the road—white hemlock. A few bites of that, and the mule would lose its taste for weeds for good.

  Ben’s spirits sank lower with each mile. He had not saved Nelly—instead, he might have sent her to a worse fate without her family. He could hardly breathe when he thought of it. Fresh guilt stabbed in his chest. His father would be so downcast. And to compound the situation, all the Otterbein students would now expect to resume rehearsals for the musicale. Ben had never felt less like making music. But he had to go on and hold fast to the hope that John would find Nelly and the baby.

  Around them, the houses of Blendon Corners lay scattered like jumbled wooden dice. Blendon was the oldest settlement around, and still roughened at the edges from its former frontier life. The tavern rang with rowdy shouts and laughter, even in the afternoon.

  The mules tossed their heads and one shied away from the noisy saloon. Only a little more than a mile now to go. Thank the Lord for Horace’s wagon, which had saved them days of travel. Ben drove on, his mother quiet next to him, as she had been ever since Washington, while Kate sat in the back with Rondie. The little girl was garbed in bonnet and cheap dress like any house servant. There was no reason for anyone to stop and question them, but perspiration dampened his brow. He didn’t want to lose Frank or the others. If the marshal or bounty hunters caught Frank, chances were that he and Nelly would never see one another again. Just like Joseph and Nelly.

  The tavern receded behind them, though the road stayed wide and the trees did not loom close as they had in the deeper woods.

  Ben stopped the wagon and twisted in his seat to address the little girl. “Rondie, remember how I told you there was a time you’d have to get down underneath the floor with your grandpa and Frank?”

  Wide-eyed, the girl nodded her small face framed by her new braids.

  “Now’s the time. It won’t be too long. Miss Winter, will you help?” He handed her the iron file from the floorboard under his feet.

  They had barely spoken since Wa
shington. He sensed the same weight pressing down on both of them—the absence of Nelly and the baby girl, Frank’s slumped posture, his unseeing eyes. It was both horrible and sacred to see grief tearing through a man and exposing his every nerve. He had seen Kate wiping her eyes more than once. Ben had prayed until he ran out of words, and could only say to himself, The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

  Kate pushed piles of hay off the wagon bed, clearing a bare space close to the back. She inserted the file into the crack at the edge of the floor and pried until a two-foot-square section of floor shifted upward. She grabbed the edge and heaved it aside.

  Ben climbed over the seat, walked back, and beckoned to Rondie, who traipsed down the wagon to the opening. The square framed the faces of Horace and Frank. They took deep breaths of the fresh burst of air.

  “Can we get out?” Horace asked. Inky bruises splotched even the small visible area of his chest and arm from the constant rattling of flesh against wood. Frank wore the same bruises the last time the men climbed out of the wagon, in the deep woods.

  “Not yet,” Ben said. “But we’re almost there. Now Rondie has to get down there too. People in town will know she’s not a servant in our household.” He hauled himself up into the wagon to help.

  “Come on, girl,” Frank said. He shifted sideways and disappeared. Horace held out his arms to receive his granddaughter and Ben laid her inside, careful not to bump her. He had to force himself to lower the board back over her trusting, solemn eyes. He thrust the image of a coffin lid out of his head and pushed a light covering of hay back over the hiding place.

  He turned back and met Kate’s bright blue gaze. She had seated herself, her brown skirt pooling around her in the hay. Her eyes remained steady on his as if she knew his thoughts. Then a flicker of self-consciousness crossed her pale countenance and she looked down. He could not imagine how they would ever again speak to one another in small Otterbein pleasantries.

  The wagon jostled on as the mules’ harnesses jingled. State Street was not crowded, sleepy in the rising heat. Good, the fewer eyes to see, the better, particularly with their road-worn appearance. And his mother and Miss Winter were not in their usual attire, with their deflated skirts, but it would not be noticeable from a distance.

  Ben opened the left rein out and laid the right one across the mules’ backs to round the corner onto the college avenue. They were passing the recitation hall, white and familiar.

  “Ben,” a voice called. Frederick waved from the top of the steps and ran down them. “You’ve returned! I hope your journey hasn’t proven too difficult. You gave us quite a turn with your mysterious disappearance.”

  “We took a tour through the country, as you can see.” Ben tried to sound jovial, like a young man out for a lark in a borrowed farmer’s wagon.

  “It has been quite pleasant,” his mother said, but he felt her stiffen on the seat beside him.

  Frederick’s eyes fastened on their garb and widened before he turned back to Ben, flustered. “A very unusual form of entertainment, I daresay.”

  “Not so, my friend. Just a pastoral interlude after the delights of the city.” He must distract Frederick. “Are you ready for our musicale? Have you been rehearsing diligently in my absence?”

  Frederick chuckled with a note of unease. “I am ready.”

  “Then I will see you tomorrow, here at the building at noon. You should tell any others you see.” He strove to keep his tone even. And Frank, Horace, and Rondie must make no sound or all would be discovered. “And now we must be going, as the ladies have had enough of the country.”

  “A delight to have you back, Mrs. Hanby, Miss Winter.” Frederick tipped his hat and stepped back, and Ben clucked to the mules. Their feet clicked in a quick four-count past Frederick. Ben’s pulse pounded to the same rhythm and would not settle. It was only Frederick, his good friend, but his mother was so nervous next to him that it wreaked havoc with Ben’s own state of mind.

  Grove Street and the Hanby home came into view. Next to him, his mother exhaled the smallest of sighs. Ben neither slackened nor hastened the walk of the mules, but drove straight for the barn.

  The barn doors were open and a man’s shape stood shadowy in the back. Ben chirruped to the mules, who walked all the way into the dimness beneath the rafters. The man moved forward to catch their reins, and Ben’s eyes adjusted to the welcome sight of his father.

  “Thank the Lord,” his father said. “Where on earth have you been?” He reached up and laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder as if to reassure himself that his family was indeed returned. His eyes rested on his wife.

  “Will you please close the barn doors?” Ben said.

  His father’s strong face lit with comprehension and he walked back to swing the doors closed and bar them with the long wooden rail.

  They had made it, with their ragtag and incomplete company of fugitives. At least now there would still be a chance for Nelly.

  Kate would have to face her mother in only half an hour.

  Mr. Hanby walked up beside the wagon along the wall of the barn, holding up his hands to lift his wife down. Their gazes met with such mutual love as he set her in front of him, his hands on her waist, that Kate looked away so as not to intrude. She had never seen such a look between married persons. Perhaps it was only the Hanbys who loved one another so. More marriages must be like her own parents’, she was sure. One could not hope for such a rare bond as the Hanbys shared. A pain lanced her throat.

  Ben secured the reins. Kate climbed around the wagon seat and began the process of opening the compartment. Mr. and Mrs. Hanby spoke to one another in low voices. From the corner of her eye, she saw their two forms meld into a tight embrace, Mrs. Hanby’s head resting on her husband’s chest, his bowed over hers as if in gratitude. Kate’s cheeks warmed and she worked harder to remove the panel.

  Rondie scrambled out of the hole, while Frank and Horace repressed groans as they dragged their longer limbs out.

  “This is Frank,” Mrs. Hanby said, leading her husband to meet the fugitives. “And this is Mr. Horace Abraham and his granddaughter. This is my husband, Mr. William Hanby.”

  “Good afternoon, sir,” Horace said.

  “Delighted.” When Mr. Hanby said it, he looked as if he meant it. He did not ask any questions, but shook the men’s hands. “If you would like to come into the harness room in back, we will arrange it for as much comfort as possible, and I will bring food and blankets. Our daughter Amanda is cooking tonight. I’m only sorry we can’t have you at our table and offer you our beds, but we must be cautious.”

  “Of course, sir,” Horace said.

  As Mr. Hanby took the small party to the back, Frank’s step was slow and heavy, unlike the lighter pace of the old man and his granddaughter. The burden descended on Kate like a pile of logs. How terrible it must be for Frank to see freedom, but without his family.

  “Kate,” Mrs. Hanby said. “We must take you home. But first you’ll need to borrow a crinoline from Amanda, and I’ll repair you to perfect gentility for your mother’s inspection.”

  When Kate was washed, her hair pulled up in a neater chignon, her borrowed crinoline in place, and the dust sponged from her dress, Mrs. Hanby walked with her all the way home to Northwest Street. The iron gate was the same as ever, but something in Kate’s world had shifted. It made her want to retire to her room undisturbed and rearrange the underpinnings of her mind.

  She had promised Mrs. Hanby she would tell her mother the truth about their mission. That would not be a happy conversation. She should probably wait until Ben’s mother was gone.

  It would not do to walk in unannounced, considering Mrs. Hanby was with her. She rapped with the doorknocker.

  Tessie came to the door in her white apron and gray dress. Her mouth opened, then she smiled. “Miss Winter, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Welcome.” She curtsied and held the door wide.

  “Mrs. Hanby, do come in,” Kate said.
r />   “Thank you, I will for just a moment.”

  It was as if they spoke a completely different language under the set script of formal exchange.

  Don’t leave me.

  I am here.

  They sat together in the parlor, skirts perfectly arranged as if they had not been wading through mud and brambles last week. Thank goodness the light in her father’s study was out. He might be carousing in Columbus, or even in the tavern at Blendon if he were shameless.

  A light tread on the stairs and a whisper of fine fabric announced the arrival that was turning her stomach inside out. Her mother descended with measured steps, coming into view bell-shaped skirt first, then belted waist, unbending midnight-blue bodice, and finally that eerily youthful face with its elaborate coiffure.

  As she swiveled toward them, blank-faced, an awful hush descended. Mrs. Hanby and Kate stood to greet her. The bruising on her mother’s face was gone. At least her father had not repeated his assault.

  Kate’s mother broke into a social smile. “Mrs. Hanby! Such a delight to see you again. And thank you for bringing my daughter home safely.” She seated herself across from them. “We have missed her, of course, but Mrs. Lawrence assured us it was a good cause. And if Ida vouches for it, I have full confidence. She has been a dear to keep me company in your absence, Kate. And Miss Lawrence is a jewel as well.”

  So this was the way of it. Mrs. Lawrence had placated Kate’s mother with visits at teatime, the status and approval she craved.

  Mrs. Hanby folded her hands in her lap. “Mrs. Winter, your daughter has shown rare compassion and fortitude in our travels. I have been blessed with her assistance and with the opportunity to get to know her better.”

  “That is so kind of you.”

  The conversation bounced back and forth, Mrs. Hanby sincere but formal, Kate’s mother smiling so broadly her face might crack.