“A penny for your thoughts,” Mr. Miller said over his shoulder.
“None worth mentioning, sir.”
“Would you like to learn to drive the mules?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I’ll teach you when we’re a little farther along the road.” He twisted a little farther in his seat. “John, how are you faring?”
“Fine, sir.” John seemed to be contemplating the trees as well. His face was peaceful. Will did not know how a man could be hunted like a beast and forced to masquerade as a captive, yet still preserve such calm in his soul. Clara sat with equal composure at his side, looking rested, her eyes alert. Her bound hand was clasped in one of John’s bigger hands.
“We will stop in Lancaster tonight,” Mr. Miller said to them. “It’s a town on my circuit, and I know the people well. We can depend on one of the brothers there to shelter us and help us with provisions.”
“Is he an abolitionist?” John asked.
“We all are,” Mr. Miller said.
That intrigued Will. He leaned forward. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, who’s ‘we’?”
“The United Brethren.”
“A church?”
“Yes. Well—a group of like-minded people. I suppose you could call us a church, though most of us don’t meet in church buildings.”
“And they pay you to preach to them?”
“‘Pay’ is a strong word.” Mr. Miller smiled. “But I started riding the circuit unpaid, and so anything they choose to give me is a gift beyond my expectations.”
“Is that why you aren’t a full-time preacher?” Will’s parents had been Methodists; he knew the Methodists had full-time circuit riders. He vaguely recalled a circuit preacher who used to visit his family in Beallsville.
“The United Brethren are an upstart group—we only formed a few decades ago. So all our circuit preachers ride out of sheer love of spreading the gospel. We must support our families with other work. Most are farmers.”
“How do they choose them? The preachers, I mean.”
“We choose ourselves. Thus the quality of preaching varies widely.” Mr. Miller chuckled.
“I never heard of these United Brethren before we ran away,” Clara said. “But now we’ve met a few, on the road with Mr. Washington. And what foreign talk are they saying to each other, Mr. Samuel? I heard them in the kitchen when we were at one house.”
Mr. Miller swiveled around. “German.” He turned his attention back to the mules. “They started as a German-speaking group, but now they’re beginning to prefer English. That’s easier for me, as my German is not what it once was.”
“You speak German?” Will said in wonder.
“Ja voll.” Mr. Miller gave Will a humorous glance with a raised eyebrow. “My family name was not Miller, originally. When my grandfather first came to Pennsylvania, we were the Muellers.”
Will knew a handful of words in German, because Pennsylvania was full of German emigrants who said wilkommen and ja. But he had never even suspected Mr. Miller might be German. Will’s own grandparents had been English, and faced with an English name like Miller, well, he had drawn the wrong conclusion.
“That’s how I learned my craft,” Mr. Miller said. “Germans have always made good saddles. My father taught me as his father before him.”
“Was your father one of the United Brethren?” Will asked.
“No, he was Reformed.”
Will did not know what that meant, but he did not want to stop Mr. Miller’s story.
“I heard a man named William Otterbein preach when I was a young man. He spoke of a personal faith, an indwelling of the Lord in one’s life. I had not known that idea before. That day, it seemed to me that I had found true faith. Faith with the power to transform.” Mr. Miller’s eyes clouded as if he saw something Will did not, leaving Will as awed as he had been when he first saw that gaze in Master Good’s barn.
Indwelling. Will thought of the strange presence he had felt in the cabin the night before last as he stared into the fire. Yes, I believe that.
A flicker of motion in the distance drew Will’s attention to the road ahead. Mr. Miller watched too, falling silent.
“Well,” the saddler said at last, as the moving dots on the road ahead resolved into a couple of mounted men. “It seems our first encounter is imminent. Act as naturally as you can. Let’s talk of farming for a space, until they pass.”
“Perhaps you can tell me how you plow and what you will be planting this spring.”
“Excellent. To begin with, we’ll allow the farthest field to lie fallow.” Mr. Miller went on in more detail, though Will had difficulty keeping his mind on the conversation. He forced himself to pay attention so he could respond.
The horses drew nearer: forty yards, thirty. The two men wore buckskin and weathered hats, their long beards ropy like the manes of wild horses.
“Hullo!” Mr. Miller called, lifting a hand.
They lifted their hands in return. Friendly enough, thus far.
Will lowered his elbow so it touched the butt of the pistol at his belt. They had four pistols now, including the ones the bounty hunter had left behind. Mr. Miller wore one at his waist and one under his coat. John had the fourth hidden in the hay beneath him.
The men were abreast of them. Will’s palms were clammy. He tried to appear casual as Mr. Miller pulled the wagon to a stop. “On your way east, brothers?”
“Yes, indeedy,” the taller of the two said. His voice sounded cheerful, but he did not smile. The shorter man stared at them hard. Will thought his eyes lingered on the visible pistols.
“We’re headed to the city to take these slaves down to the river.” Mr. Miller said it jovially. It shocked Will to hear him speak that way.
“Runaways?” The taller one peered at them.
“The worst kind,” Mr. Miller said. “Dumb enough to do it twice.” His bark of laughter was mirthless, its strangeness making Will’s skin crawl.
“Ugly as sin too.” The short man guffawed.
Will strove to keep his face blank.
“Well, we’d best be getting on,” the tall man said. He spurred his horse forward; it tossed its head and the whites of its eyes flashed. The short man followed.
“So the corn will go in around mid-May . . .” Mr. Miller continued loudly just where he had left off. He clucked to the mules and the wagon lurched forward again.
“Ever planted corn, son?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, you’ll learn. It doesn’t take a great deal of know-how. The plowing, on the other hand, takes a bit of practice. If you plow too quickly . . .” Mr. Miller went on for a good ten minutes, though Will did not absorb a word of what he was saying. Eventually, the men topped the hill on the horizon behind them and disappeared.
Will exchanged relieved glances with John and Clara. He saw John take Clara’s hand again. He must have released it when the men rode by. Probably wise.
Will turned back to Mr. Miller. “They’re gone, sir.”
Mr. Miller stopped his monologue. “Then I no longer have to weary your ears.” He smiled. “Farming is best learned on the farm, not on the road. But it provides a great deal of fodder for conversation, when necessary.”
“They didn’t question the story.”
“Most men we meet probably won’t, if I play the ignorant villain well enough.” A look of disgust passed over the saddler’s face. “And they’ll leave us alone if we have pistols in plain sight. Robbers prefer to attack unarmed fools, or men riding alone.”
“Do you think those men were robbers, Mr. Samuel?” Clara asked.
“We’ll never know. And that’s the way we should keep it.”
“Amen,” John said.
The wagon rolled onward.
Birds flitted through the still-transparent treetops. As the sun rose higher in the sky, Will spied numerous squirrels, even some wild turkeys through the tree trunks a few yards from the road. A hedgehog trundled along
in the tall grass of the brake; Will remembered the one he had kept as a pet, at the Quaker farmer’s house long ago. He had liked its quivering nose and the metallic feel of its thick mat of spines.
More travelers approached and passed by them: a few other wagons, a coach, riders. The worst were the men on horseback who overtook them from behind, usually at a canter. Will kept his fingers poised near the handle of the pistol whenever he heard the tattoo of hoofbeats.
They had to pause every so often to give the mules some water.
“Not too much,” Mr. Miller warned. “Or they’ll colic.”
Will took his turn driving and learned “Gee” and “Haw,” though Mr. Miller said those commands were more useful for plowing than for ordinary driving.
By around noon the woods thinned out and fields appeared. Farm houses squatted in the middle of stubbly rectangles of earth.
“Almost there.” Mr. Miller turned around in his seat. “Just keep up our charade until I give the word. We have friends ahead, but there’s no telling who else might be watching.”
The wagon rolled up another small hill, the mules blowing harder as they leaned into their yoke, their ears twitching back at the sound of their master’s chirrup of encouragement.
As the wagon crested the hill, a red brick building came into view.
In its two-story facade, eight large windows framed a white door recessed in the brick. A large yellow sign hung above the portico, swinging in the spring breeze. It read “Shupp’s Tavern” in black thick-painted letters. A double chimney towered at each end of the oak-shingled roof.
Instead of driving up to the front door, Mr. Miller laid the reins across the mules’ backs, calling “Gee!” The wagon veered right down the gravel path beside the inn.
Will sat alert, trying to see in every direction at once. But the stable yard they entered was empty, and the inn was quiet.
Mr. Miller pulled up the wagon; the mules snorted and lowered their heads.
The back door of the inn opened and a big man ambled out, one hand raised in greeting. Dark hair sprang over his brow; his face was ruddy and full.
“Mueller! Welcome, brother.” His deep voice carried across to them like a battlefield drum. “I was not expecting you, but my heart is glad to see you!” The man’s speech had a foreign rhythm, musical to Will’s ears.
“I have some prisoners with me,” Mr. Miller said. “Do you have guests at the tavern?”
The big man stopped in mid-stride and took in the scarred faces of the Simons. “Not yet. They will come at twilight.”
“Good.” Mr. Miller handed the reins of the wagon to Will, who climbed up in the driver’s seat as Mr. Miller jumped down and shook the big man’s hand.
Will heard them exchanging a few low words in German. Then Mr. Miller walked to the back of the wagon, bringing his friend with him and addressing Will and the Simons together. “This is Mr. Friedrich Shupp. Friedrich, I must introduce you to my friends, John and Clara Simon. You may remove your bonds now.” As John wriggled his hands out of the loose ropes and helped Clara with hers, Mr. Miller raised a hand in Will’s direction. “This is my apprentice, Will.”
Mr. Shupp gave Will an appraising look, then walked over and shook John’s newly freed hand. He steadied Clara as she climbed shakily out of the wagon. “You are unwell, sister?”
“Yes, sir, but I’m getting better.”
“Come in and have a cup of tea with my wife.” He waved in the direction of the inn.
John and Clara walked toward the house hand in hand. Mr. Shupp clapped Mr. Miller on the shoulder.
“Let’s go in and talk,” he said in a low voice. “Are you headed for Blendon Township?”
How did the man know? Had Mr. Miller made this journey before?
“We are,” Mr. Miller said.
“Then I must tell you some news.” The man raised his voice again. “But I am the rudest of hosts! Come along, Wilhelm!” He chuckled as he turned to Will. “A good German name. Now come inside and let’s get some food into you before any nosy strangers arrive.”
“I must put away the mules,” Mr. Miller said.
“I’ll do it, sir,” Will said.
Mr. Shupp spoke up. “No, let my boy do it. He needs the practice. Fritz!”
A rawboned youth shambled out of the dim stable entrance. “Ja, Father?” He was tall like Mr. Shupp, but gangly as if he had not yet learned to direct his long limbs properly. “Shall I unhitch them?”
“Yes, son. But keep their straps on, in case our guests should need to leave in a hurry.”
Will imagined why that might happen and fervently hoped it would not. The young man led the mules away, bringing the wagon out of sight behind the barn.
When Will followed the older men in through the back door of the inn, he found John and Clara already seated at a long table. A middle-aged woman as dark-haired and fat-cheeked as Mr. Shupp smiled as she bustled over to Mr. Miller. “So good to see you, Brother Samuel!” Her speech was more heavily accented than her husband’s. She took Mr. Miller’s hat and coat.
“And you, Greta. This is my apprentice, Will. Will, Mrs. Shupp.”
“Good afternoon, Will.” She helped him out of his coat. He did not think anyone had done that for him since he last saw his mother. He saw her face in his mind, as she had knelt before him helping him pull his arms from his small sleeves. He ducked his head, hoping Mrs. Shupp would not notice his sudden emotion.
But she was too busy to see, and she whirled away to hang their coats on the end of a long row of hooks on the wall. Then she whisked her portly apron-covered form over to the roughhewn table, where a breadbox sat along with some cutlery and a salt shaker. Will and Mr. Miller sat down with the Simons. In a trice, she had served them all thick slices of bread, plunking down a small crock of sweet butter between them. John ate with relish, Clara with the impaired appetite of the convalescent. Soon the kettle steamed on the hearth, and Mrs. Shupp brought over a mug for each of them. “Spicewood tea.” She said it with pleasure as she set them on the long, beveled planks of the tabletop.
Aptly named, Will discovered, as an herbal smell rose warm in his face. The tea was sweet, with a bracing tart aftertaste like rhubarb.
As they ate, Mrs. Shupp kept the conversation light, about the weather and their journey.
“And where are Frieda and Maria? And Paul?” Mr. Miller asked.
“They are all at their uncle’s house for the afternoon. They have instructions to be back by dusk for their chores,” Mrs. Shupp said.
“And Mr. and Mrs. Kruse?”
“She is still a little under the weather, but I know she would love to see you if you can spare the time.”
“Perhaps on the return trip.”
While they exchanged more news about folk whom Will assumed must be members of the church, Mr. Shupp turned away and squeezed his big shoulders through the door that led to the public parlor. After he disappeared around the corner, Will could see a fire banked low on the hearth and a number of large chairs pulled round. The furniture was as immaculate and new as the inn. The Shupps must host a large number of travelers from Zane’s Trace, with all the westward travel these days.
Mr. Shupp came back into the kitchen, a roll of ivory paper in one hand. He seated himself heavily in the chair at the head of the table next to Will.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings,” he said. “But you may have more difficulty passing through to Blendon than you might have expected.”
“Oh?” Mr. Miller’s head lifted and he set down the tea he had been nursing.
“Yes.” Mr. Shupp’s wide mouth went flat. “You see, I recognized you, Mr. John and Ms. Clara.”
He separated one of the pieces of paper from his roll and unfurled it flat upon the table, turning it toward them. Unease stirred in Will as he scanned the crude drawing and read the text:
Stop the Runaway.
RANAWAY from Mrs. Philip Holmes of Nashville,
Tennessee, a negro man nam
ed
JOHN,
Formerly owned by the late Mr. Holmes. He is around forty years old, of a dark-brown complexion. He is marked with a cross-and-circle brand on the forehead; he is well built and is about five feet eight inches in height. He may be traveling in the company of a slave woman with an identical brand whom he claims as his wife. Anyone taking up this negro and lodging him in jail or delivering him to his rightful owner shall be well compensated.
The drawing was a ridiculous caricature with huge lips and white eyes, but the brand stood out on the cartoonish forehead.
“How did you get this?” Mr. Miller’s voice had an edge, though Will knew it was not directed at Mr. Shupp.
“You know the bounty hunters are always after me to look at these fugitive notices and tell them if I have spotted any of them. I take them on the excuse that I will watch for runaways, but I keep the notices hidden in my desk.” Mr. Shupp set his elbows on the table and interlaced his fingers in concentration. “A man came by with this one about a week ago.”
“Did he wear a beaver hat?” Mr. Miller asked.
John, Clara, and Will were all quiet. No one moved.
“I do not recall,” Mr. Shupp said. “Greta had taken his hat by the time I met him, and he was gone early in the morning.”
Mrs. Shupp paused by the stove. “I cannot remember either. I’m sorry.”
Mr. Miller addressed John. “Let us hope it was Rumkin, as we can be fairly sure he will be incapacitated for a few days.”
“I think so, Mr. Samuel.” John’s eyes were worried. “But it still means someone might recognize our brands.”
“Then we will cover them. Your hat will be pulled so low as to invite suspicion, perhaps, but better that than instant discovery by someone who has seen the drawing.”
Fairer than Morning Page 23
