by Deborah Heal
“When were you born, Ned?” Charlotte said.
“Round about 1834, then my brother Nelson. Then come Nancy Jane, Maybelle, and Lizzie. When the indenture almost done, they was kidnapped, the whole fambly ’cept me and Nelson. That be my mama and pap’s story. And Nancy Jane, Maybelle, and Lizzie. For your book, Miz McGuire.”
When Charlotte finished getting that down, she looked up from her journal. “What about you and your brother?”
“Granger put Nelson to working at Half Moon.”
“Did you work there, too?”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t never work in the salt mine.”
“What happened then?”
“Me and Nelson knew Granger was the one that done kidnapped the fambly. Nelson’s friend Joseph brung his shotgun and the three of us waited for Granger to come along down the road. Joseph made him stop his buggy and told him to tell what happened. Somehow his gun went off, and Granger drove off all mad. That night the sheriff come and took Nelson away.”
When he didn’t say more, Charlotte asked, “What about you and Joseph?”
“He a white boy, so nothing happen to him.” Ned stated it with no bitterness. It was just a fact of life. “Sheriff hit me over the head with his club.”
He rose from the step and glanced briefly into the kitchen where she sat. “That’s all. You write that in your book, Miz McGuire.”
“Wait,” Charlotte said. “I want to write your story too.”
He stood on the porch looking at the sky. “Not fittin’ for you to hear, ma’am.”
“Did you go to prison?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ned, you can tell me. I’ve already heard so many sad stories.”
“Not fittin’ for you,” he said again.
“But we need to hear, no matter how distressing. Most of the soldiers who come through here on the train have no idea what they’re fighting against. When this war’s over and they come home wounded and scarred they’ll need to remember what it was all about.”
Ned sat back down on the step. He rested his forearms on his knees and hung his head. “You axed me if I been in prison? Well, I sure enough was. Granger chained me in his attic. Said I was a strong young buck, big for my age and he had a new job for me to do. Easy job. But my head hurt where the sheriff busted it, and my eyes wasn’t working right. I couldn’t tell at first what they was talking about.”
Ned stopped and the only sounds were the crickets and Charlotte’s pen scratching on the page. “There’s the North star, Miz McGuire,” he said, pointing to the sky. “I didn’t see it for so long.”
“Can you go on, Ned?”
He took a shuddering breath and let it out. “Lil say I have to make babies, lots of babies for Master Granger on account of he can’t get enough slaves to keep the salt mine working. She say she have five children and if she get ten more babies Mr. Granger let her go free.”
Charlotte felt a sudden wave of nausea and put her pen down. She swallowed until she was sure she wouldn’t vomit.
“I hadn’t never been with a gal before, but that Lil, she be all over me that night. My head didn’t want to do it, but my body…it did it anyway. Then Granger brought more gals. He say if I make two hundred babies, he let me go north. He chained the gals in the attic with me til they take. Then he send them back to the farm and bring more gals. Some gals he brought were like Lil. Other gals…”
He stopped talking and Charlotte kept her eyes glued to the journal. “How did you feel about…your new job?”
She heard Ned moving and glanced up to find him looking at her. He turned away again and lifted the back of his shirt. “Here’s how I felt about it, ma’am.”
Light from the lantern picked out dozens of intersecting ridges of scar tissue on the black terrain of his back. She gasped and closed her eyes to block out the sight. Then, taking a deep breath, she picked up her pen again.
“What about the other girls?”
“Them other gals… be young and untried. They cry in my ear and fight me. I tell Master Granger I’m not making babies on those gals.”
“So you ran away?” Charlotte prompted.
“I be going now, Miz McGuire.” Ned rose wearily and stood there looking at the floor.
She got up from her chair and took the food out to him. He nodded his head and stepped down from the porch.
“Wait. Please tell me. You ran away so you wouldn’t have to hurt the girls, right?”
“When them gals don’t take, Mr. Granger, he say niggers is always dying in the salt mine and maybe Nelson like to go back to working the fields.”
Ned limped across the yard, stopping at the tree line to turn and look back at Charlotte. “I made the babies, Miz McGuire. Two hundred babies I made.” And then he faded away among the trees.
Charlotte realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t know which were for the poor girls and which were for the boy who’d spent thirteen years of soulless existence chained in the attic with them.
“God bless and keep you, Ned Greenfield,” she called softly into the night.
The screen went black and Abby snapped into the present. Merri had fallen asleep, and her head landed against the monitor’s power button.
“Merri! We’ve got to lock onto Ned.”
Merri lifted her head and squinted at her. “Whaaa?”
Abby turned the monitor back on and rewound until Ned re-appeared. Sighing with relief, she paused the action and then allowed herself to process what she’d just seen.
“That poor, poor man.”
“I never thought I’d sympathize with a rapist,” Kate said. “Do you think he ever got over it?”
“You have to wonder,” John said. “But I don’t think I can bear to watch more right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Roberts,” Ryan said. “We are finally getting somewhere and you want to go to beddy bye?”
“Look around you, Rye. Everyone’s exhausted.”
“Then let me try.”
“Please, Ryan,” Kate said, taking his hand. “No telling how long it will take to follow Ned all the way to Chicago. We can start again first thing in the morning. But let’s grab a couple hours of rest.”
John scooted over in front of the monitor. “There’s no need to follow him from here. Now that we know where he’s going.”
“Moody,” Abby said. “The Bible Institute that he founded is not far from Ambassador College. You know, Kate, over on La Salle Street.”
John entered D.L. Moody into the search engine and then clicked on a website that gave the history of his ministry. “According to this, he started out preaching on the North Side among the poorest of the poor. Guess what? He bought an old tavern called the White Swan, and it grew into Illinois Street Church.”
“I wonder if it’s still there,” Abby said.
“So, John, could you lend—?”
“No, I’m sorry, Kate.”
“Please. I promise we’ll be careful with it.”
John grinned. “Are you serious? I’m going with you.”
“If it’s all right with Merri’s mom, we’ll all go. But we’ll have to leave early so we can get back in one day.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Kate said.
Merri’s eyes popped open, and she and tumbled out of her chair. “We’re going home?”
“At last,” Ryan said.
Chapter 26
When Abby came out of the bathroom after her shower early the next morning she heard a startled cry from downstairs. Sort of a yelp. She hurried to find out who had made it.
The scene in the living room was odd. John stood staring grimly at Kate’s distinctive pink phone. Next to him, Merri was holding Kit Kat and hopping, trying to see whatever held his attention on the phone. Kit Kat did not look pleased. Neither did Kate. She slouched in a puddle of depression on what had been Ryan’s bed on the couch.
Abby wasn’t sure if the yelp had come from Kit Kat or Kate, bu
t she sat down next to her friend and put an arm around her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Kate looked up, her face all wobbly, but didn’t answer.
John handed Abby Kate’s phone. “Ryno scarpered off with my laptop. That’s what’s wrong. See for yourself.”
“Let me see, too,” Merri said.
Abby read the text message and then handed the phone to Merri.
“When did he leave?”
“I don’t know,” Kate answered miserably.
“I vaguely remember hearing something around five o’clock,” John said. “I figured the Ryno was getting up to go to the bathroom.”
“I’m so sorry, guys. I don’t know what came over him,” Kate said. “He won’t answer his phone, but I’ll text him back and talk some sense into him. I promise.”
Merri handed Kate her phone and sat down next to her.
John began pacing the room. “I can’t believe the idiot thinks he can sell it out from under us.”
“I know. Ryan shouldn’t have done that,” Kate said. “But like he says, this thing is bigger than any of us. Think of the benefits to mankind.”
John snorted. “I’m sure Ryan is thinking of the benefits to Ryan.”
“He said it wasn’t about the money,” Kate said, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself. She composed a short message and sent it to Ryan, frowning the whole time.
“But we talked about this, Kate,” Abby said. “It’s so dangerous.”
“He’s just thinking of all the good it will do, you know?”
John snorted again. Abby shot a warning look at him. “But, Kate, what if the people he sells it to are unethical?”
“Who knows what kind of a shyster he’s found,” John said. “And how did he find a buyer so soon anyway?”
“He has lots of contacts in Chicago.”
“But how did he make a deal without us knowing?” Abby asked.
“I noticed him making several phone calls yesterday, all secretive,” Kate said. “I thought he was planning a surprise for me. He does that a lot.”
Kate’s phone chirped and she grabbed it, her face a mixture of hope and worry. “All he says is that he’s sorry he had to leave without talking to us. The buyer wants it right away.” The phone chirped again and she looked down at it. “And that my car is at the Amtrak station.”
“That’s good,” John said. “If he took the train, we have a chance of catching up with him. You know how many stops they make.”
“But he’ll never tell us where he is,” Abby said.
“It’s got to be Chicago,” Kate said. “But that would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“That’s all right,” John said, taking out his own phone. “This baby will tell us where he is.”
“What do you mean?” Abby asked.
“Timmy Tech put a tracer app on my phone. In case my laptop ever got stolen.” After a moment, he smiled sourly and held his phone for Abby and the others to see. “And there’s Rye. Come on. We’re going to Chicago.”
Ryan hadn’t lied about Kate’s car being at the Amtrak Station. They took it and left John’s Mustang there, having decided that he, Abby, and Merri would take the train back when they finished in Chicago.
John offered to drive and Kate, still an emotional bowl of Jello, let him. Merri kept him company in the front seat, and Abby and Kate sat in the back where they could talk. Not that Abby felt like talking.
It was only a little after eight o’clock when they left Alton. But even if they drove non-stop, Abby calculated it would be one o’clock before they reached the outskirts of the city. There was no way to know whether it would be soon enough to prevent Ryan from selling Beautiful Houses.
The tracer app Tim had installed on John’s phone was working fine, and they were able to watch Ryan’s movements, or rather those of the laptop, in nearly real time. The app was another example of Tim’s technical brilliance, but it wasn’t by any means up to Mission Impossible standards. It didn’t give them Ryan’s current address, only a rough idea of where he was in relation to where John’s phone was.
The blinking dot on the phone’s screen stopped periodically, and every time it did they wondered if Ryan was making the deal with his buyer. But then the dot would start moving and they would resume breathing.
Meanwhile, Kate continued texting Ryan. His replies were all about the good things the program would accomplish, the creative ways it could be used to help people.
“But Ryan’s forgetting one important thing,” Abby said. “The program only works with old houses.”
“So far,” Merri said. “But who knows what it will decide to do.”
In between texting Ryan, Kate regaled Abby with nauseating stories of his all-around wonderfulness. She was about to list all the imaginary stars he had earned on her imaginary “Marriage Material Chart when Abby shushed her so John wouldn’t hear and start wondering if he had a similar chart.
And then a text came in from Ryan that had Kate yelping again. She shoved her phone into Abby’s hands. “Please don’t say I told you so.”
“I promise,” she said as she turned to read Ryan’s text.
Kathryn, if you won’t consider all the ways it will help mankind, just think of the money the program will bring us. We can get a house like that one we liked in Hawaii. And travel anywhere we want. When we want, since we won’t have children to worry about.
“But, I thought you wanted to have children.”
“That’s just it. I do. And he does too. Why is he talking about not having children?”
Kate took her phone back and texted Ryan again. When his response came in, she read it without comment, put her phone back into her purse, and turned toward the window as if the flat, flat farmland they drove through was the most interesting landscape she’d ever seen.
“What did he say?” Abby asked.
Kate turned back, her face pure misery, and put her head on Abby’s shoulder. “He said… obviously we wouldn’t want… to have children because…” She broke off and sobbed broken-heartedly. It was a while before she could continue. “Because…what if they turned out to be…kinky-haired throw backs.”
The car swerved and John frowned murderously in the rearview mirror. “I should have punched him when I had the chance. I knew I should have.”
“I’m so sorry,” Abby said, patting her arm. “Oh, Kate, don’t cry.” She wondered if it would help to tell her that none of them had liked Ryan from the first moment. Probably not.
“Let’s call the cops,” Merri said. “After all, he did steal your laptop, John.”
“No,” he said. “If we call in the police the laptop would be held as evidence for who knows how long, and news of the program would be bound to leak out.
Ignoring their discussion, Kate lifted her head from Abby’s shoulder and resumed staring at the cornfields outside her window. “I know it’s wrong. We’re supposed to forgive those who hurt us. And I will try to.” She sniffed. “Eventually. But right now….”
“Hey, here’s an idea,” Abby said. “We’ll get John to hold him—after he has a turn at him—and then you, Merri, and I can kick him. We’ll wear our pointiest shoes.”
“No, cut off his precious hair,” John said.
“Oh, no,” Abby said. “Don’t cut it all off. Just give him a really bad haircut.”
“A mullet,” John said.
“A permed mullet,” Abby added.
“And a tattoo that says I am a jerk,” Merri said.
“And another one that says Obviously.” Kate snorted a laugh, which quickly turned into another sob. “How could I have been such a fool?”
Abby tried to think of a kind answer and came up blank.
After what seemed like a century, they exited the freeway and pulled into a Casey’s to refuel and grab what food they could find to eat in the car. Kate wore sunglasses to cover her swollen, red eyes. They were back on the road by twelve-fifteen. John said it beat his all-time re
cord for shortest pit stop by thirteen seconds.
“What’s Ryan doing now?” Abby asked.
“He’s still stopped,” Merri said, studying John’s phone. “We’re getting pretty close to him.”
“Can I see that a minute?” Kate asked.
“Sure.” Merri handed the phone back to her.
The screen on John’s phone was tiny, and Abby couldn’t make out much detail on the map. But after a moment, Kate looked up. “I think he’s at his parents’ home in Oak Park. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“So you think he set up a meeting with a buyer there?” John asked.
“But he would know you’d come looking for him there, wouldn’t he?” Abby asked. “And even Ryan isn’t such a jerk that he would involve his parents in some shady deal. Is he?”
Kate studied the phone again. “Which explains why he’s moving again.”
“Here, let me see,” John said.
Kate handed his phone to him. He glanced down at it and then gave it back to Merri. “Hold it where I can see it, kiddo.”
“Sure thing,” Merri said. “Does this mean I’m the navigator?”
“That’s right. Let me know if he changes directions.”
“He just did. Right is east, right?”
“Huh?” John looked down at his phone. “Right you are, navigator. He’s moving east, Kate. Any guesses where he could be heading?”
“Straight downtown to the Loop.”
“What’s his parents’ address, do you know?”
Kate told him and John entered it into the GPS. When the map came up, he grunted in satisfaction. “Show them my phone, Merri. Compare the map on it to the GPS map.”
“He’s on Eisenhower Expressway. I’d bet on it,” Kate said. “Take I-90, John, and we’ll intersect with him.”
“We’re close. Really close,” he said. And then when he exited onto Interstate 90 north they realized they were in front of Ryan.
