by Deborah Heal
He stepped into the room, and behind him, Nelson balked in the doorway as if he had had the same thought. Joseph, the young man with them, was fifteen and Nelson’s true friend, even though he was white as flour. He smiled his encouragement and said, “It’s all right. Go on in.”
“Sit down, boys,” Mr. Phillips said.
Nelson looked at Ned as if to ask if it was safe to sit in the presence of God. But Ned reminded himself that Mr. Phillips was only a man, although a white one. Too bad. They needed a miracle. Mr. Phillips told them to sit, and so he did.
Nelson and Joseph sat down beside him and the preacher sat across from them. Deacon Hayes closed the door and stood in front of it as if he planned to protect them single-handedly from anyone who might try to enter.
Joseph smiled again at Nelson. “We’ll get them back. I promise.”
Mr. Phillips didn’t look as sure. “We’ll try.” He sounded sad. Or maybe mad. Ned couldn’t tell for sure.
Joseph fidgeted. “But you’re a lawyer, ain’t you, Mr. Phillips? You’ll tell the judge what happened and he’ll make them—”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a case to take to court, Joseph. No witnesses. Truth is, even if these boys caught the kidnappers red-handed carrying away their family they can’t testify in a court of law against a white man.”
In spite of the ache in his heart, Ned almost smiled at the look on Joseph’s face. First, surprise that he had lived there his whole life and not known this law, and then anger that there was such unfairness in the world.
Mr. Phillips coughed into his handkerchief. “No, our best hope is to offer a reward and see what turns up. Do you have the money yet, Reverend Edmunds?”
“Almost,” he answered. “With this morning’s contributions we have over ninety-six dollars.”
“It will take the full one hundred for the reward, Eli,” Mr. Phillips said.
Deacon Hayes dug into his pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. “Here, this should do it.” He placed a golden half-eagle on the table in front of Mr. Phillips and chuckled softly. “With one dollar left over for your legal services, Mr. Phillips.”
Ned had been amazed at the generosity of the congregation, but now his eyes widened in astonishment at Deacon Hayes’ gift. Five whole dollars. And judging by his shabby suit, he wasn’t a rich man. Ned wanted to say how grateful he and Nelson were. He wanted to ask why they’d do something like that, and what it was about these people that made them so different from other white folk. But a lump had formed in his throat and the words wouldn’t come out.
“Then we’re all set.” Mr. Phillips was grinning. For a minute he didn’t look so god-like, but then his expression turned somber and he directed his piercing gray eyes toward Ned and Nelson. He rested his hands on the vest covering his belly, then leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. “Tell me what happened.”
Ned swallowed the lump away and pushed down the hopelessness that threatened to spill over every time he thought about what had happened. “Me and Nelson got in from the field same as always and—”
“That was the night of October 23?”
“It be last week, sir,” Ned said. “I don’t know—”
“That’s right, Mr. Phillips,” Joseph said. “Nelson came straight away and told me what happened.”
“Go on,” Mr. Phillips said without opening his eyes.
“They was gone, all of ‘em.” Ned closed his own eyes and saw in his head what they’d found. “They was mush cookin’ on the fire like always. But Mama done let it scorch. Pap’s blacksmith apron be hanging on the peg, but he weren’t there.”
Nelson wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “We call and call. And look all over the place. Nancy Jane, Maybelle, and Lizzie. They be stole too.”
Mr. Phillips sat up in his chair and wrote something on the paper in front of him. “Maybe they ran, took a trip on the Railroad.”
Nelson’s eyes went wide, like he was just now thinking that thought and not liking it much. “But they wouldn’t leave me and Ned behind.” He turned to stare at Ned. “Would they?”
He wanted to reassure Nelson, but he couldn’t get the answer out before Mr. Phillips started in with more questions. He looked fierce, like he thought they were lying to him.
“Your family lives up in the yard, right? Not down in the quarters with the others?”
“Yes, sir. No, sir.”
“Mariah was John Granger’s cook, and Charles was his blacksmith—a very good blacksmith,” Preacher Edmunds said. “They’ve got a snug cabin in the yard. They were treated fairly well. Less reason to run than for most.”
“Mama wouldn’t leave without her necklace,” Ned said. He leaned back in his chair and dug it out of his pocket, then held it out for everyone to see. Light from the window winked at the copper lady on it.
“No, sir,” Nelson said. “Mama wouldn’t leave without her necklace.”
“May I see that?” Mr. Phillips asked.
Ned wanted to hide it away in his pocket again, but after a moment he handed it over to him.
“It’s an 1843 penny.”
“That be Lady Liberty, sir,” Ned said.
“Your mama has kept her well-polished, I see.” A smile flickered over Mr. Phillips’ face. “I suppose your pap made the leather cord?”
“Yes, sir. Master give it to Mama when they was celebrating up at the big house on account of Illinois bein’ twenty-five years old. Mama said they was fireworks and a fine dinner. Lots of ladies and gentlemen from round about. Mama served champagne under the shade trees. Master tole my mama that he let her go when Pap’s ’denture be up. She ax him how much longer. He say when Illinois be thirty-two, they go free.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Phillips returned the necklace to Ned, and he put it safely back into his pocket. When he looked up, Mr. Phillips was looking strangely at Reverend Edmunds and Deacon Hayes.
“Why, that’s next year,” Deacon Hayes said.
“They wouldn’t have any call to run,” Reverend Edmunds said.
“No, they wouldn’t, would they?” Mr. Phillips let out a grunt that wasn’t very gentleman-like.
Joseph pounded on the table and Nelson jumped in surprise. “He did it! Why, he kidnapped them himself and—”
“Now, Joseph,” Reverend Edmunds said. “We don’t know that. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Mr. Phillips snorted and then dipped his pen in the inkbottle. “I need a detailed description of your family, Ned. The more information I get for the advertisement, the more likely we are to have success.”
Ned frowned and tried to think of what to say. Joseph leaned over and whispered in his ear. “He means for you to tell what they look like. How old they are. Like that.”
Ned nodded his thanks. “Lizzie be the baby. She six years old.” He rose from his chair and held his hand to just above his waist. “She this tall.”
“I would estimate that to be four feet tall.” Mr. Phillips scratched words on the paper. “Go on. What about her complexion?”
Ned sat back down, and Joseph whispered in his ear again.
“She darker than me. ’Bout like a hickory nut.”
“Any distinguishing marks?”
Joseph leaned in again.
“She have a mole on her head,” Ned said, pointing to his own above his right eyebrow. He exhaled and looked down again. “And whip marks on her back.”
Voices in the hall—Pastor Greenfield’s, Kate’s, and maybe Sister Retha’s—sank in. Abby jolted out of 1849 and shuddered to present day awareness. Her breath seemed to be locked inside her lungs.
“They whipped her? A six-year-old girl?” John was nearly sputtering with indignation.
“John! Snap out of it,” she said, trying to take control of the mouse. “Someone’s coming.”
The door flew open and Sister Retha reached in and flipped on the light switch. Pastor Greenfield came in after her, and then Ryan was there, Kate looking over his shoulder in dismay
. Out of the corner of her eye, Abby saw that John had already shut the laptop.
“What’s goin’ on in here?” Pastor Greenfield asked. “Why are you here in the dark?”
Abby felt her face flaming and willed herself to look innocent. Judging by the expressions on everyone’s faces, she wasn’t succeeding.
John, failing completely, looked guilty of some vile crime. “We were just—”
“Gosh, you guys,” Ryan said, “don’t you have any respect for a church?”
“Oh, my,” Sister Retha said. “Were you two—?”
“Please go on back in the hall, Sister Retha,” Pastor Greenfield said and then turned back to them. “And I think it’s time for y’all to leave.”
Abby wanted to cry at the look of disappointment on his face, to protest that they hadn’t been skipping church to make out in his Sunday School room. But the look John shot her warned her to be quiet, and so she let them think she was a defiler of churches.
Out in the hall, they said their thank yous and goodbyes to the Fraileys, who mercifully didn’t seem to be aware of the incident. Sister Retha knew, but if Pastor Greenfield had done a good job of teaching that Scripture about not gossiping, maybe they never would.
“Thank you, Patty Ann, for everything,” Abby said, squeezing the girl’s arm. “I’m so glad we got to meet the Salt Queen.”
“Y’all come again anytime you’re down this way.”
On the way out to the car, Kate pulled Abby aside. “I tried to keep them out. But Sister Retha was bound and determined to get her flannelgraph board from that room.”
“Thanks for trying,” Abby said. “I hate to imagine what they’re thinking.”
“Your faces were pretty red and you were breathing hard like—”
“I know, I know,” Abby said. “But that’s because Ned was talking about the whip marks on his little sister’s back.”
“What? You saw Ned Greenfield?”
“Yes. Not your Ned Greenfield, of course, but there is a connection to Hickory Hill, because apparently they were indentured servants for John Granger.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, they signed on to work so many years, seven I think, and then—”
“Not that, silly. Why wasn’t it my Ned Greenfield?”
“He was black. But come on. We’ll talk later. When we’re alone.”
When they got in the car Ryan entered the address for the Shawnee Chief Motel on Kate’s GPS system, and she pulled out of Liberty Baptist’s parking lot.
“Are you sure we still have our rooms, Ryan?” Kate asked.
“I’m sure.”
Abby was amused by the voices Kate had programmed on the GPS. They alternated between Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger—until Ryan took it upon himself to reset the voice to the factory default one.
“But I love Eeyore,” Kate said plaintively.
“This is easier to understand, Kathryn.”
Abby wished Kate would reach over and smack him, but she didn’t, and the boring, robotic voice steered them faultlessly through the winding country roads onto Route One.
“I’ve been thinking,” Abby said. “There has to be a road to get to Hickory Hill, doesn’t there?”
“She’s right,” John said. “Why don’t you try entering that, Turner?”
Kate slowed the car and pulled into a driveway. “I’ll do it.”
Abby unfastened her seatbelt and leaned over Kate’s shoulder to watch as she cancelled the trip and then entered Hickory Hill.
The map adjusted, and then Hickory Hill Lane popped up on the screen. And it didn’t look very far away. Kate squealed and turned to smile at her. “You’re a genius, Abby.”
Ryan sniffed. “It’s probably nothing, Kathryn, but I guess we have to check it out.”
As she pulled back onto the highway, the GPS advised her to be ready to “turn. left. in. five. hun. dred. yards.”
The highway was completely dark except for the occasional car coming toward them. “I can’t see it,” Kate said. “Help me look.”
“There.” John directed her attention to the left.
Kate put her turn signal on and waited for an approaching car to go by. As soon as she turned into Hickory Hill Lane her headlights picked up a metal gate across the road. A chain secured it to massive wooden posts. Thick trees on either side guaranteed no vehicle was going down Hickory Hill Lane.
“Obviously, it’s a private lane,” Ryan said.
It was more than obvious, Abby thought, giving in to the urge to roll her eyes. The large sign read Private Property.
“What does it say?” John asked.
“What? Are you blind? It says Private Property. Ryan said with a long-suffering sigh.
John exhaled loudly and Abby wondered if he were counting to ten. “I mean below that,” he said patiently as he opened his door.
Abby got out, too. The gravel on the road was nearly boulder-sized and she focused on not tripping. They stood to the side so Kate’s headlights would shine on the sign—Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. Abby turned to go back to the car. When she realized John wasn’t behind her, she spun around in time to see him ease past the fence post.
“John!” she called. “Are you insane? You can’t go up there.”
“Wait in the car,” he said softly. “I just want to take a peek, see what’s there.” He started down Hickory Hill Lane.
Abby didn’t want to trespass. But then again she didn’t want to be a wimp and wait in the car while John went alone. She edged around the fence post and saw his light-colored shirt ahead in the dark. It was already getting harder to see it. She’d have to go fast to catch up with him.
A car’s tires crunched the gravel, and Abby had the panicky thought that Kate was leaving them there. But when she looked back she saw that a car had pulled in behind the PT Cruiser. Its headlights blinded her, and she put her hand up to shade her eyes. Then red and blue lights joined in and her heart leaped up into her throat. Forget deer in the headlights. She felt like a convict caught in a prison guard’s spotlight.
The car door opened and a man got out. “What’s goin’ on here?”
Abby stepped back onto the road. “Officer Logan.”
Before she could think of anything to add to that, John came up beside her and took her hand, as if to say, “Leave this to me.”
“Sorry, Chief,” he said, grinning. “I had to use the facilities, if you know what I mean.”
“Right.” He shone his police-issue flashlight into Kate’s car and then turned it back on them. “I suppose it was just a coincidence you decided to take a leak on the Granger property.” Abby couldn’t make out his face, but he didn’t sound like Andy Griffith any longer. “There’s nothing for you to see up there. You two just get in your car and move it on down the road.”
“Yes, sir,” Abby and John said in unison. They made record time getting back in the car.
“Whew!” Kate said. “I didn’t know what he was going to do.”
“Could this trip get any worse?” Ryan moaned.
“But did you see anything?” Kate asked.
“No,” John said. “Just trees.” He turned to Abby. “And just so you know, I didn’t lie to Chief Logan. You know…about using the facilities.”
Abby grinned. “I didn’t doubt you for a minute.”
Chief Logan backed his car onto the shoulder and when Kate pulled back onto Highway 1, he fell in behind them. And stayed there. All the way to the Shawneetown city limits. Finally, with a flash of his brights and a bleat of his horn, he made a U-turn and headed back toward Equality.
Chapter 12
It would have been difficult to miss the Shawnee Chief Motel even without the robot’s instructions. The sign in front proclaimed it in vintage neon. Yellow tracer lights outlined a red Indian chief in full headdress. Apparently, the owners weren’t into political correctness. Kate pulled off the highway and parked.
John and Ryan went to talk to the night clerk while Ab
by and Kate stood in the small lobby next to their luggage. When the guys turned away from the counter, Ryan held two large brass keys. He said something to John and handed one of the keys to him. John frowned as he took it, and then without answering came and handed the key to Abby.
“Here, you girls can have lucky room thirteen,” he said. “Rye and I will be next door in fourteen.”
Ryan frowned and, grabbing his and Kate’s biggest bags, stalked off down the hall, Kate carrying the smaller one and scurrying to keep up.
“What’s with him?” Abby asked.
“He’s just cranky because he didn’t get his nap today,” John said.
“No, really, what’s wrong?”
John took Abby’s bag from her and started down the hall after them. “Well, it seems Rye had his heart set on coed room assignments.”
Abby frowned at Ryan’s retreating back. “What made him think we’d agree to that?”
“Apparently, our sleuthing has given him the wrong idea about how we’ve been spending our time.”
Shaking her head, Abby picked up her cosmetic case and started down the hall. “I can’t believe Kate’s fallen for such a loser.”
The room was clean, although it smelled of cigarettes. Paintings of matadors on black velvet hung over the beds. Indian chiefs on black velvet would have possibly been even more disturbing but at least have made sense theme-wise.
About midnight Abby and Kate heard noises coming from the room next to them that they’d just as soon not. It went on and on—so long that they started giggling, Kate so hard she snorted. Eventually, things quieted down, but Abby still couldn’t get to sleep.
“Kate?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re friends, right?”
“Of course we are, Abbicus.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Did you and Ryan…you know…do it?”
“If you expect me to describe it, I won’t. It was a sacred moment and—”
“Well, of course it is. Which is why…well, we had a pact. We promised we would wait for marriage before we, you know…”
