“I’m three or four cars on up ahead,” Jardine said. “I’ll check on you later. Sweet dreams, Caleb.”
Caleb just grunted. When Jardine left, he tried to make himself comfortable on a bench that sloped too much for comfort whether he sat up or lay down.
Caleb finally lay down on the bench and, wrapping himself around his bag and using his arm for a pillow, managed to drop off into a light sleep. Sometime later he sensed, without really waking, that the train had stopped, but he clung tenaciously to sleep. Then he felt a cool breeze as the boxcar door was thrown open with a crash. He tried to ignore it until he was shocked fully awake by a hard blow to the back.
“Get up, you,” shouted a harsh voice. Half a dozen white men were walking up and down the car, shoving and kicking the sleepers into consciousness. One of them swung an oil lantern. A frightened child cried out, and her mother hushed her. The black passengers fearfully forced themselves fully awake and waited for what was to happen next.
The invaders had separated and were questioning the passengers in the car. One, a big man with a full black beard and a flat-topped hat, pushed Caleb roughly. “You, who are you?”
“Caleb, suh.” Caleb thought immediately of the freedom paper and money in the belt deep under his clothes. He couldn’t show one without revealing the other.
“From where?”
“Three Rivers, suh, Kershaw County.”
“What are you doing so far from home?”
“Travelin’, suh. With my master.”
“Oh, yeah?”
The bearded man shouted over his shoulder, “I think we’ve got one, Jim.” He asked Caleb gruffly, “You got papers?”
“No, suh. Massa—”
By then the man called Jim was also looking down at Caleb. He snatched the floppy hat from Caleb’s head and, grabbing a handful of hair, yanked his head back. “Let’s get a look at you.”
Caleb tried to look terrified. It wasn’t hard.
“Look at that scar, Morgan,” Jim said. “Didn’t one of those runaways have a scar on his face?”
“Damned if he didn’t,” said Morgan. “Get up, boy!”
“But, suh—”
Morgan kicked Caleb hard in the leg. “Get up, damn you,” he exclaimed. “I’m not here to argue with niggers. You’re getting off this train.”
He reached down to pull Caleb to his feet, but Caleb let his weight go dead. Morgan pulled his arm back to take a swing at him, when a voice came from the open boxcar door.
“Is my nigger giving you trouble, gentlemen?” asked Jardine. He climbed into the boxcar.
“This your slave?” demanded Morgan.
“Sure is,” Jardine said lightly.
“Can you prove it?”
“Do I have to?” Jardine asked him. “How are you doin’, Caleb?”
“All right, Master,” Caleb said. “So far.”
“We’ve got warrants,” blustered Morgan. “Looking for runaways.” He moved aside to let one of his companions by with a scared-looking black boy who was very much under his control. But Jardine stepped in their path.
“May I see those papers?” Jardine asked and hitched back his coat to reveal the butt of his revolver sticking out of the waistband of his trousers.
“Who are you?” asked Morgan, who seemed to be the boss.
“Boyd Jardine of Three Rivers Plantation, Kershaw County,” Jardine said. “At your service. You seem to have mistaken my slave for one of your runaways. You could be making the same mistake with this boy. Now may I see those warrants?” The man with the black boy in tow made as if to push past him, but Jardine said softly, “I wouldn’t if I was you.” The man looked at Morgan.
“Now, those warrants,” said Jardine.
Angrily, Morgan reached into an inner pocket of his coat and shoved a small sheaf of papers into Jardine’s hands. Jardine peered at them in the semidarkness. “Could I have that lamp over here, please?” he asked. Grudgingly, Morgan snatched the lamp from the man holding it and held it overhead. Jardine shuffled through the papers unhurriedly.
“This train don’t stop here long, Mister,” Morgan protested.
“Won’t be long now,” Jardine said soothingly. “Which one of these are you claiming this boy is?”
Morgan grabbed one of the papers out of Jardine’s hand and growled, “This one.”
Jardine studied the paper carefully. “What’s your name, boy?” he asked.
“Marcus, Massa. Marcus Beauclerk,” the boy said shakily.
“How tall are you?” Jardine asked him.
“Don’t rightly know,” the boy said. “Tall enough, I guess.”
Jardine told the boy, “Turn your head, Marcus, so I can see your right ear.”
Reluctantly, the boy did so. Jardine could see that the top portion of the boy’s right ear was missing.
“Looks like you’re a long ways from home, Marcus,” Jardine said, after looking at the rest of the details on the warrant.
“Yessir,” Marcus said, dejectedly.
“They’re probably missing you,” Jardine added.
Up ahead the train whistle hooted.
“This train’s leaving,” said Morgan. “We’ve got to get off.”
“I won’t stand in your way,” Jardine said. “Seems to me that you have the right man here.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Morgan said. He signaled to the man holding Marcus, who firmed up his grip on the boy’s collar.
“Damn you,” he snarled at Jardine, snatching the papers from his hand. “Nobody minds their own business these days. Come on, boys!” The one with Marcus in hand followed the others to the door of the boxcar and jumped out. Morgan followed them. At the door, he stopped and looked balefully at Jardine. “We might meet again someday, Mister,” he said.
“My pleasure,” said Jardine, following him to the door. “If you are ever in the neighborhood of Three Rivers, feel free to drop in. I’m sure that Caleb will be glad to renew your acquaintance. Won’t you, Caleb?” Caleb didn’t say anything.
Morgan jumped down from the car with an oath, and Jardine, making sure that they were leaving, followed. He called to the men as they walked away, “Do you think you could help me close the door?” But they didn’t answer, and Caleb and another man were already closing it from the inside.
Jardine walked forward to his car and stood on the step until, with another blast of the whistle, the train began moving. Then he stepped up into a passenger car with a genial wave at the men who were disappearing up the track with their quarry.
When the train stopped at Charlotte, Jardine collected Caleb from the boxcar.
“Did you get any sleep?” Jardine asked.
“Yes,” said Caleb.
Jardine looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Ain’t no use going all surly and sullen on me, Caleb,” he said. “I suppose you think I should have taken the boy off of those slave catchers and toted him up north.”
“I guess not,” said Caleb.
“You know not,” Jardine said. “That boy was the bona fide property of some folks who had every right to have him back. That’s the law. You know that.”
“Suppose so,” said Caleb.
“You ought to be grateful that I came along when I did. Otherwise, you’d be chained to that Marcus and headed south in even less comfort than you’re traveling north. Those catchers aren’t too particular. They wouldn’t give a damn about that piece of paper I gave you.”
“I know,” Caleb said finally. “And I am grateful. I just—”
“I know, and I’d probably feel the same way in your position,” said Jardine. “But you have to look out for yourself, Caleb. We’re not there yet. Now, let’s find some food. My innards are starting to eat themselves.” He gave Caleb a dollar and turned away to make sure that he knew that he wasn’t going to get any more.
Jardine disappeared into the station hotel, and Caleb searched for something to eat. He saw a black boy sitting on a steamer trunk and gnawing on a chicken leg.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Round back of the station,” the boy said, still chewing. “Old woman called Mary got a whole basket of it.”
“Any good?”
“Sure is,” said the boy. “Better than starving to death. A lot better.”
Caleb found Mary, an old woman with one glazed-over eye, and bought fifty cents’ worth of chicken wrapped up in newspaper. He was walking back to the front of the station and eating when he encountered Jardine, who looked very disgruntled.
“You wouldn’t believe what they’re trying to pass off as food in there. I’d rather starve to death.” He looked closely at the bundle in Caleb’s hand. “What have you got there?”
“Fried chicken,” Caleb said.
“Any good?”
“Not bad,” said Caleb, still eating. “Friend of mine called Mary cooked it.”
“Oh, you’ve got a friend here, have you?” Jardine asked. “How much have you got?”
“Quite a bit,” Caleb said. Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him, he asked, “Would you like some?”
Jardine looked shiftily around the station. “Not here,” he said, “but just slow down on that eating and follow me.” Jardine led Caleb down the platform to an area where cargo was stacked high. Pressed between bales of cotton and boxes of machinery, he grabbed the package from Caleb’s hand, reached into it, and began chewing hungrily on a chicken breast.
“I’ll bet,” he said through a mouth full of chicken, “you weren’t even going to give me any. You’re a selfish bastard, Rivers.”
Caleb just kept eating. But when they’d finished the chicken, he asked Jardine, “I don’t suppose you could get us a couple of bottles of beer from that hotel.”
“You don’t want much,” Jardine said, but he returned with the beer just as their train was called.
The rest of Caleb and Jardine’s trip north passed without incident, but it wasn’t easy. At one point in southern Virginia, there was a forty-mile break in the railway line, and they had to switch to a stagecoach. The coach driver was against carrying Caleb at all. “People don’t like traveling with niggers,” he said. But Jardine slipped him an extra dollar, and Caleb was granted the privilege of clinging to the trunk at the back of the coach while Jardine rode inside with a very nice-looking young lady returning to her home in Richmond. This was not so bad until it started raining. Then it was hell. When they got to where the railway line recommenced, Caleb was shaking with cold, and his arms—frozen in their death grip on the trunk—would not straighten out for half an hour.
When Jardine came out of a nearby inn where he’d shared dinner and a bottle of wine with the young lady, he found Caleb huddled around a campfire, trying to thaw out by drinking some nasty-tasting moonshine. “Nothing like freedom, eh, Caleb?” he said. Caleb did not answer.
“Slaves aren’t what they used to be,” Jardine remarked to the young lady. “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.”
Finally, when their final train pulled into New York City, Jardine collected Caleb from yet another boxcar, and they stood on the deserted platform in the grayness of early morning.
“Well, Mr. Rivers,” said Jardine, “I guess this is it. I’m going to get me a hotel room and catch up on some sleep before I see a few of the sights and then head back. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Caleb said. “Find some work, I guess.”
“Think you might go back up to Boston?”
“I could,” Caleb said, “but after six years I don’t hardly know anybody up there. I think I’ll hang around here and see what I can do. Might be some opportunities.”
“Might be,” Jardine said. “But if you get tired of the delights of this place”—he looked around at the cold, dirty, and misty railway platform—“there’s always a job for you at Three Rivers. We’ll just forget about that piece of paper I gave you.”
“And my five hundred and fifty dollars?” Caleb asked.
“Oh,” said Jardine, “we could sort that out if the time comes.”
“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Jardine,” Caleb said, “but these are early days. I want to find out what there is in this being free.”
“You do that,” Jardine said. “I’ll leave you now, but before I do, I’ve got a little present for you.” He reached inside his coat and pressed his small pistol into Caleb’s hand. “Slip that in your pocket,” he said, “and don’t wave it about. You never know when it might come in handy. Just don’t go shooting everybody who might happen to offend you, Mr. Rivers. Keep it in reserve.”
“I will, Mr. Jardine,” Caleb said, putting it into his waistband and feeling the small but solid bulk of the pistol against his hip.
“We can’t just stand here,” Jardine said. “Might get arrested. So I’ll say good-bye. We’ve come a long way since that morning at Lynche’s Landing, haven’t we?”
“Sure have,” Caleb said.
“I can honestly say, Mr. Rivers, that it’s been a pleasure. You take care of yourself.”
“You, too, Mr. Jardine,” he said, “and thank you for seeing me up here. You were right. I’d never have made it without you.”
“My pleasure,” Jardine said. When Jardine didn’t start to move away, Caleb waited. After a long silence, Jardine finally spoke.
“Since we’re unlikely to meet again this side of the grave,” Jardine said, “there’s something you ought to know. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time, but somehow, as your master, I couldn’t find a way to do it.” Again, Caleb waited.
“The fact is,” Jardine said haltingly, “I know what really happened the night that Miss—that Nancy died. Old Doc Hollander didn’t mean to let it out—I know he didn’t—but finally, without naming names, he told someone, who told someone, who told me. At first I was angry at being deceived, but then I realized I had no right to be. What I ought to have been—and what I am—is grateful to you.”
Jardine held out his hand. “I want to thank you, Caleb, for saving my son’s life. Nancy wanted that baby more than anything. I can’t think of anyone who would have—could have—done what you did that night, and I owe you thanks.”
Caleb took his hand, and they shook for a long time without speaking. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. Then, letting go of Caleb’s hand, Jardine turned away. He walked down the platform toward the carriage ranks.
Caleb stood and watched him go without an idea of what to do next.
45
When a policeman came wandering down the platform with his eyes on him, Caleb knew it was time to move on. At the exit of the station, a small boy, shouting incoherently, waved a newspaper in his face. Digging into his pocket for the remains of his food money, Caleb bought a paper. Spotting a coffee stall, he slipped onto a stool and looked at the newspaper. The headline screamed: “IT’S WAR! SHOTS FIRED: Rebels Capture Fort Sumter, War Cabinet Meets Urgently.”
There wasn’t really much more than that in the extra edition, but Caleb had a feeling that Jardine would not be hanging around New York City very long, not once he saw the papers and the details that would surely follow.
“May I have a cup of coffee?” Caleb asked the stall proprietor, a fat man wearing a dingy white apron. The man looked at him unblinkingly. Caleb repeated, “May I have a cup of coffee?”
“I don’t serve niggers,” the man finally said without expression.
Caleb thought of the pistol in his coat pocket and wondered how the man would react if he found it pointed between his eyes. But then he remembered Jardine’s words. “Thank you kindly,” he said and got down off the stool. As he turned to walk away, Caleb caught sight of his reflection in a window. There stood the
most ragtag creature Caleb had ever seen: filthy outsized clothes that had obviously been slept in for days, a bedraggled hat that you wouldn’t put on a dying mule, and four days’ growth of beard. A man like that, Caleb thought, ought to be arrested on general principles. No wonder the stall keeper wouldn’t serve him.
Outside the train station among the rushing people, Caleb wondered what to do next. He could wait for a cup of coffee, but if he was going to survive for the next twenty-four hours, he needed to find a place to sleep, eat, bathe, and get decent. But where?
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Caleb said to a kindly looking woman carrying bundles of flowers, “can you tell me—” but she looked straight through him and kept walking. Then Caleb spotted a black face over the way. It belonged to a slim mulatto in a tight plaid suit, a bowler hat, and yellow patent-leather shoes. Caleb didn’t like the looks of him or his clothes, but he had to start somewhere.
“Excuse me,” Caleb said, “can you tell me where I can find a room? And a bath?”
The mulatto turned his pale brown eyes on Caleb in a combination of amusement and calculation. “Well, hello, cousin,” he said. “You just hit town?”
“Yes,” said Caleb, “and I’m looking for a place to stay for a few days. Is there a hotel here that takes blacks?”
“You got money?”
“Yeah,” Caleb said, “I got money, but you’re not going to get any of it. I may have just got off a train looking like a goddamned fool in this outfit, but there’s no straw in my hair. Do you know where I can get a room or not?”
“Sure, sure,” said the mulatto in a different tone of voice. “Go down to that corner. Turn left and walk north about five blocks, then turn right and just keep walking until you start seeing black faces. Ask anybody for the Rosemont Arms. They’ve got what you need. Tell the man at the desk Roy sent you. If he’s got a squinty eye, that’ll be Elmore. And don’t let him charge you more than two dollars a night. Some tricky people in this city.”
“Thanks, Roy,” Caleb said. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He held out his hand. “I’m Caleb.” Though a bit surprised, Roy shook it.
Caleb Page 20
