“You sit a bit,” Elymas said to Imari.
“We gotta stick together,” she said.
Elymas tried to calm himself. Sometimes it felt like she wouldn’t let him protect her. Besides, she’d been moving very slowly the last few hours.
“Look,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “there gotta be someplace right around here where we can bed down for a few hours. Me and Joe will find it out. We gonna be all right.”
He grabbed her hand and helped her sink to the ground. He could see the irritation on her face.
“You watch yourselves,” she said.
He nodded, realizing she might be mad at herself for being at the end of her strength. Who wouldn’t be tired? he thought.
He and the boy moved away, their feet stirring fallen leaves. “Gonna have to be outside today,” said Elymas.
“Again?” moaned Joe.
Elymas felt himself getting angry. Wasn’t all this running and hiding for Joe’s own future? He’s most a why we left. He oughta know at least that much. Imari ain’t the only one who’s tired, he thought. My own cot in the back of the blacksmith shop would feel pretty good about now. But here we are, seeking safety in the land a tricks. That Joe had let himself be trapped by Master Arnold—he shoulda been smarter than that, shoulda listened to me more, obeyed, not let himself be fooled. Running was the only way out. Master Arnold made sure a that. Elymas clamped his jaw shut, teeth pressed together. So what did the boy have to complain about? The rhythm of Joe’s steps, about one and a half strides for each of his own, reminded him that his son was just too young to understand. Living on a plantation was normal for the boy. But he should know that they were running to a free life. A place where a man might feel like a man and where a woman was your own, not subject to a master’s desires. Besides, all the boy’s training in the blacksmith shop was going to be put to use soon. When we settle in Canada, I’ll find a job and start saving and open up my own place. Me and Joe will work side by side and we’ll be getting more than the leavings off Master’s table. It’ll be for us.
He was just about to reach out and cuff Joe’s shoulder for complaining when, arms flailing, he tumbled into a divot in the land. Unhurt, he realized that the depression was just deep enough to shield them from view.
“You all right, Poppa?” asked Joe, alarmed.
“Yeah. Kick a bunch a them leaves in here while I get your momma. We gonna make us a nice bed and get some sleep.”
Elymas soon returned with Imari. After a few disappointed glances, she allowed herself to be helped to the ground. Elymas covered her and Joe with leaves. Satisfied, he sat, pulling the leaves over himself until he could stretch out.
The sun rose and warmed them under their leafy blanket. Elymas drifted off to sleep, only to be woken when someone kicked his leg. He bolted upright and got on his feet fast. Looking at him was an angular black boy dressed in layers of torn clothing.
“My daddy watching for you,” said the boy. “So’s you best come with me.”
“You?” Elymas said.
“Who told you to look for us?” asked Imari, sitting up.
“My daddy.”
“Who told him?” she said.
Elymas pulled Imari to her feet. “You think this all right?”
“Why he out looking?” she whispered.
“My daddy say you was suppose to get here last night. Had a lantern in the barn over yonder and everything. So, just come on.”
Joe was now up, looking tired and rubbing his eyes.
Imari’s wariness infected Elymas with a tightness in his stomach. They’d been lost before, or had taken extra time to get to their next contact, but nobody ever came out searching. He leaned close to his wife’s ear. “What choice we got?”
“Daddy say you gotta get hid away. He ain’t gonna be there all day.”
Imari looked at him. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s go,” said Elymas, deciding.
“I guess so,” said Imari, and they followed as the child led them to a falling-down barn that they had not noticed before. The back quarter of the building was scorched from a fire and the wall had collapsed onto itself. The smell of burned wood filled the air. Inside they saw a good-sized wagon hooked up to a mule whose flanks were striped by its protruding ribs. Two block-and-tackle systems hung from the ceiling with barrels dangling from them. Elymas figured that the father, an older man with white hair, a long face, and long fingers, must do some sort of work out of the place.
“I got me a hidey-hole in this here wagon,” the man bragged. “I’m gonna ride you to Hightstown.”
“Where you want us to sleep?” asked Imari, looking around.
“You ain’t sleeping, we going now,” the man said.
“In the daylight?” asked Elymas.
“They’s never looking on a bright day,” said the man with pride. “You goes creeping around at night? Well, then the questions come. But daylight? Smooth as horsehide.”
“But your boy here said we gotta get hid,” said Elymas. “And them church ladies in Bordentown told us go right on past Hightstown, they say it ain’t too safe around those parts on account a that big farm working a lot a hands, free and slave. They say to see the lady who runs the Cranbury Inn, next town over.”
“Them old ladies don’t know how things is over this way,” said the man. “Look, we gonna hide you right here.” He pointed to the wagon.
Again, Imari and Elymas pulled together to talk.
“I’m so tired, I can’t think. Feeling every step today,” she said, easing herself down on the back of the wagon and leaning into his chest.
He plucked a piece of dry oak leaf out of her hair and looked at its shiny brown side. He thought about the plantation and all the thousands of tobacco leaves that Momma Abby had tended and nurtured and dried with care, losing days of sleep at curing time. Had the Barnwells ever thanked her for that? No use getting mad now. Leave all them folks to the devil.
The long-faced man hopped into the wagon and raised a panel over the hidey-hole. “Alls you gots to do is lay back and I put this plank over you. Nice as nice. I covers you over with that there hay,” he said, pointing to a pile near the door. “Maybe you even gets some sleep. Leave it to me.” He smiled, but his face seemed unaccustomed to the gesture, barely allowing warmth into it. “Outside ain’t safe,” he said sternly. “Go this way or go that way.” He indicated the door. “I ain’t got time for no argument.”
Elymas looked at Imari and thought of all the miles they’d come. He decided and brought his face down to Imari’s belly. “We riding,” he said to the baby.
Imari giggled, “Yeah, riding.”
They lay down in the bed of the wagon, Joe between them. Just as the man was about to put the board down, Imari yelled for him to stop.
“Keep your woman quiet,” said the man, the long indent between his nose and his lip deepening as he lowered the hidey-hole door.
Elymas heard the squeak of the pulleys, and through a crack he saw a barrel flying down, settling on top of them. He pounded on the wood yelling, “That ain’t no hay!” He pushed the cover. It wouldn’t budge. The second barrel also dropped on top. “Let us out!”
“Shut up,” hissed the man. “You want us all to get caught?”
Elymas got quiet. He draped his arm over Joe, the odd angle twisting his elbow, and found Imari’s hand.
The wagon started to move, bouncing up and down as it cleared the barn’s threshold. There was no way to tell exactly where they were heading. Inside the hidey-hole, it got hot and Elymas felt himself falling asleep. He woke to a mournful bellow, like an unmilked cow stuck out in the field. Off to the left, there came another long tone. It was a horn, sharper than the first. They were joined by a third that brought to mind Gabriel’s horn marking Judgment Day.
Elymas heard the man’s son ask, “What that?”
“Trouble,” the old man said. He must have slapped the reins on the mule because the cart sped up.
> Elymas squeezed Imari’s hand. “We best be ready to run,” he said, as the road got rougher and they bounced in their hidey-hole.
The wagon turned hard to the left and Joe was thrown to his side. One of the barrels tipped and rolled off the wagon, thudding when it hit the ground. Elymas helped Joe flip onto his stomach and told him to push the panel up with his back. Even with his father’s help it would not budge. The wagon tilted in what must have been a rut and all three tried to throw off the cover. The remaining barrel swayed. Another bump sent it rolling off the wagon. Elymas tossed off the hidey-hole door.
The boy yelled, “Poppa, they’s getting out!”
The man pulled out his musket, but before he could fire, Elymas sprang forward, grabbed the gun, and threw him off the wagon. The boy jumped and Elymas and Joe took over the driver’s seat while Imari clung to the side.
Ahead, Hickox and Colby stood with their long guns ready. Elymas pulled the mule half off the road. This gave them cover as they ran back and helped Imari off the wagon.
“Joe, grab that musket,” said Elymas. “Follow me.” The three started to run as the balls of shot whistled over their heads. Just then the horns started up again. All three came from close by. Elymas bent and picked up Imari and ran toward the sound. Joe followed.
The slave catchers took off after them. Before they could get too close, several black men appeared with pistols and muskets. They waved the fugitives past before crouching behind some trees, weapons drawn. A volley of shot was followed by shouts. The family ran until they spotted a gray house in a clearing. At an upper window, Elymas saw a bone-thin woman beckoning them. Shots boomed again and they rushed into the house. Once inside, they saw weapons secreted near each window. The occupants were ready for a siege.
A sweet-faced girl, with cheeks dotted by dark freckles, asked if they had been with the long-faced man. “We suspect him of betraying runaways, but we ain’t been sure till now,” she said.
Three of the armed men ran into the house and barred the door with a rough-split log. “We didn’t hit nobody,” said one. “But that shooting gonna draw more white folks—and they guns.”
Elymas believed Hickox couldn’t want them dead. What good would that do him? No money unless he had some flesh to sell. He chanced a look outside and saw the slaver, a dozen yards off, gathering with several white men.
The bone-thin gal called down the stairs, “Send up Sandy.”
From the corner, a wrinkled woman rose from a chair. She bore the marks of extreme age: thin hair, raisiny skin, and a jaw no longer holding teeth. Her back curled like a shepherd’s hook. She climbed the stairs with determined and deliberate steps. Elymas heard her voice crack as she called to the whites gathered at the fringes of the clearing.
“Who’s out there?” she demanded. “Why you sneaking around my house?” She kept talking and talking, never giving them a chance to answer. “If you come near, I’m gonna shoot you.” She sent one musket blast into the air to show that she was serious.
“Come on, Sandy!” yelled one of the whites. “We don’t want trouble, but you got some bad folks in there!”
A man whispered to Elymas that the whites all knew her because she’d been mammy to many of them, so they might not shoot her.
Out the window, the old woman denied that anyone was in the house, but declared that they must stay out too.
Elymas, Imari, and Joe joined the others to make plans for escape. The group had been preparing and had dug a tunnel leading from the basement to the woods. Some of their friends who were still outside waited for a signal to start making noise and draw the whites away. Anybody who was a slave on the run would get out and move in the opposite direction. In total, five people waited in the cellar for the signal. A bell clanged and the group was told go, so they went. The tunnel, rough and uneven, wasn’t tall enough to stand upright. You had to crawl if you were tall, but Imari and Joe, still carrying the musket, moved through it bent over. Elymas scampered on all fours like a spider, following the sounds of the two men ahead of him. When they reached the far end, the three men pushed open the trapdoor and emerged just beyond the edge of the woods. Once outside, Elymas turned and saw smoke coming from the road. He guessed that their defenders must have set the long-faced man’s wagon on fire.
The white locals dashed toward the smoke. But Hickox and Colby spotted the ruse and instead ran toward Elymas and his family.
The other fugitives took off fast. Elymas grabbed Imari’s hand and started to run, but he could see that she wouldn’t be able to keep up. To carry her meant that they both might get caught. With only a quick look at his wife’s worried face, he dropped her hand and reversed course, and ran in Hickox’s direction. Imari screamed at him to stop. Hickox charged toward Elymas, who changed his path again. He thought that he was outrunning the slaver, when something grabbed his legs, pitching him to the ground and knocking the air straight out of his body. Around his ankles was a set of weighted ropes. As he clawed at them, the slave catcher pounced, crushing him into the dirt.
When he strained and looked over his back, he saw Imari struggling with Colby, the long-faced man’s musket between them. Joe slammed the white man from behind. Imari had the gun and swung it by the barrel. The solid hardwood handle proved as good a weapon as gunpowder. Colby went down. That his wife and son hesitated and had not run immediately brought panic to Elymas’s breast. He was still shouting “Run!” when Hickox kicked him hard in the side. A dark cloud of pain blinded him.
That afternoon, after Elymas had been secured in leg chains, the slaver padlocked him to a buckboard next to the shrouded body of Colby. The wrappings on the corpse were stained brown at the head. On the road, he watched Colby bounce with each jolt. More than once he had to push the dead man away with his feet. Late that night, they arrived in Philadelphia by the post road. The slaver told him that a letter had been dispatched summoning Master Arnold to Baltimore.
The next day, Elymas and his captor got to Maryland. He spent two nights in the dingy cellar of the Admiral Fell Inn, shackled to the wall. A terrified white maid brought his meals, placing the plate on the dirt floor and pushing it within his reach with a long stick kept near the stairs for that purpose. At night, the rats came foraging and he feared he might become their meal. His entreaties to the girl for even a bit of kindling to fight them off went unheeded. He was alone in the gloom with time to contemplate all that had gone wrong. Hickox must have been on their heels and anticipated their route. Money most likely bought the betrayal by the long-faced man and his skinny son. He and Imari had put aside their misgivings, but even if they had rejected the man’s help, the outcome might have been the same. At least neither his wife nor son were here in the dampness with him. They still got a chance, he thought. He turned his mind to survival and to him that meant running again.
Before the third night, Master Arnold had arrived and was brought by the slave catcher to the basement to inspect the captive.
Barnwell looked at him like he had never seen him before. “How could you?” he asked Elymas. “My father was good to you. Gave you the best job on the plantation. Wasn’t that enough for you?”
At first Elymas tried to tamp down the fury that burned up his throat. He knew he should agree and hope that the man might be less guarded, but some hint of fear quavered in his master’s eye. Without warning, he imagined this man taking everything—wife, son, the life he wanted to build—and destroying it. This little man had power, and had used it. The thought disgusted him. Master Arnold wasn’t smart or strong. More like a turd to be scraped off the bottom of your shoe.
“You laid with my wife,” said Elymas, the rage suddenly uncontrollable. “I still be a man.”
Barnwell flinched. Hickox jammed the butt of his gun against the edge of Elymas’s mouth, tearing open his lip.
“Now we need not bother with any more of his complaints,” said Hickox, as the captive writhed in pain. “I know you want him to go back to work, but he didn’t simply run
off one night. A good deal of planning was involved.”
“I have lost too much time and money hiring out his work,” said Barnwell. “We need him at least through the harvest.”
“I recommend that he be sold right here in Baltimore. I know a man, Woolfolk. He’ll get you the highest price. Buy yourself a new man. One who is grateful for the trust placed in him.” He put his hand on Barnwell’s shoulder. “Now, about the female and boy.”
“What about them?”
“So far, great expense has been incurred recovering them. Mr. Colby, of course, paid the ultimate price. As I indicated in my letter, it was the bitch who delivered the fatal strike. Cut your losses. Sell her and the boy to me and be done with it.”
Elymas, mute after the blow, shot to his feet and strained against the limit of his chains. Hickox pulled Barnwell away and came at Elymas from the side, whipping him with his riding crop, delivering five stinging blows. Elymas dropped to one knee. He breathed hard, distracting himself from the explosive pain by vowing to remember this moment and find some way to pay the slaver back.
Hickox turned on Barnwell. “She is a murderer now. She isn’t fit for anything but hanging. Keep the reward money, sign them over to me, and they shall never trouble you again.”
The deal was struck. Barnwell paid Hickox’s expenses, including the price for Colby’s body to be returned to his mother.
Throughout the journey back to the plantation, Elymas kept his mind on one thing—that if Hickox made Barnwell an offer, Imari and Joe were still alive and running. That fact filled his heart with a fluttery lightness, until a vision of Imari in Hickox’s clutches invaded his mind. The slaver seemed angry enough to hang her himself. Elymas began to finalize his plan.
The Third Mrs. Galway Page 24
