Part 30 (1/2)
”Twenty-two for you and eighteen for yer gal, here.”
I allowed myself a little smile.
”And you have room?”
”Got two rooms left, two pa.s.sengers to each room. Cain't tell who you're gonna be with, though.”
”That's fine. When do you leave?” With so little room left, I fully expected him to say tonight, or tomorrow morning, but he said, ”Two, three days.”
”Oh! Why so long?”
”Waitin' for a repair to the wheel. Can't get a workman here to save your life! They all got their guns and are headed for Lawrence. Fool's errand, if you ask me.” My spirits, which had lifted, dropped into my shoes. He said, ”You want the room?”
”Maybe.”
”Pay me now, then.”
”But we need to leave sooner than that. I want to try the last boat.”
”Can't hold it for you. Last two.”
”Can't I just try the last boat? Maybe she's going down sooner!”
He shrugged. ”Maybe. You got five, ten dollars?”
I neither nodded nor shook my head.
”I kin hold it for you for that.”
”That would seriously compromise my funds....” I looked around, not daring to consult Lorna but not receiving any sense of what she wanted to do, terrified of being stuck in Kansas City for three days, but more terrified of being stuck there even longer. The sense of desperation I felt was new even for me and perhaps partly owing to my fear of this man. I shrank from putting us into his hands, and I tried to discern what it was about him that roused my suspicions so. It was impossible to tell-he was a plain-looking man. I looked at him, then looked down toward the levee, undecided. There below, staring up at me, was David B. Graves, the original David B. Graves. He looked at me, looked at Lorna, who was right beside me, then tipped his hat to me and walked away. I nearly fell down and, in fact, sank against Lorna, who bore me up with a look of surprise on her face. The captain of the Jack Smith said, ”Are you ill, ma'am?”
”We've walked a considerable distance.”
After a long, heavy moment, he said, ”You and your gal kin go into the lounge for ten minutes. That's all, though, jes' ten minutes. It's over there.”
Down on the levee, David B. Graves was making his way through the crowd, and he wasn't strolling or ambling, he was striding. I said to the captain, ”Thank you for your kindness, sir. Perhaps if I sit down, I can gather my thoughts.” I let Lorna bear me up just a bit. When the door closed behind us, we hurried to a corner and sat down with our heads together. I whispered, ”Lorna! You have to walk away from me as soon as we leave here!”
”Why's dat?”
”A man recognized me who knows me.”
”You done said you don' know n.o.body round heah.”
”I don't, but this man turned up. He keeps turning up, and he's been good to me, but he's terrifically sound on the goose question, and I took some money from him. It's too involved a story to-”
”I cain' go apart from you! Dey'll stop me fo' sure!”
”Make out to be shopping for me or something, or looking for a doctor. I can be taken with something, a fit or a bad head. But you have to get away. He can't see us together, because he knows me well enough to know I would never have a gal! We have to get away from the river and try to find a place to hide.” Now the Jack Smith's departure three days thence presented itself in a different light. I would pay our pa.s.sage, then we would secrete ourselves somewhere-with Nehemiah at the livery stable, perhaps? or out in the country?-and then make our way back at the last moment. I wasn't thinking very clearly, but I felt a rush of desperate strength that made me think we could try anything and possibly succeed. Lorna looked hesitant and even afraid, and I remembered my first sight of her face on the front lawn of Day's End Plantation, and how I could tell by looking at her that she would know what to do with me. And she had known. I took her hands in mine and squeezed them. I whispered, ”We'll pay our money to the captain, then you help me down the plank and across the levee. I'll wave good-bye to you and sit down somewhere, and you go off with your bundle, and if anyone asks you, you say your missy is Jane Horn and you are looking for a doctor, but then, if they direct you to a doctor, wander around without finding him, and soon it will be dark! Don't get too far away, and when it's dark, I'll find you. I think I know a place to hide.” I hoped I could talk Nehemiah into something.
Lorna nodded, and we stood up. She helped me out the door of the lounge. I saw at once that right there, at the top of the plank, the captain was having an altercation with three men. One of them was David B. Graves, and he saw me before I could step back into the saloon. Lorna was holding me up, and he and she exchanged a glance, too. He said, in a hard voice, ”There they are. Harmon, you grab the n.i.g.g.ah!”
”This is my boat!” thundered the captain.
”You an't gonna be a party to n.i.g.g.e.r-stealin', are ya?” shouted one of the men, and Lorna and I stepped back into the saloon and slammed the door.
”I ain' nevah seen dose men!” exclaimed Lorna. ”How dey know?”
”It's me! It's me, Lorna!”
And she gave me one anguished look, only one. In the next moment, I saw her inure herself, draw away, begin to take this in. I grabbed her hand and ran across the room to the largest window. As the men entered the door, I kicked at the window and pounded at it until, as they rushed over to us, it broke. I stepped through and tried to pull Lorna with me, but the pieces of gla.s.s still in the frame slowed us, and the men grabbed us. Mr. Graves was the one who grabbed me, and when he did, I slapped him. And when I slapped him, I covered his face with my blood. The other two men grabbed Lorna by the shoulders and the feet, and while the captain held the door, the three of them dragged us out onto the deck and threw us down. Perhaps we had fought them hard. They were breathing heavily. I don't know. All I remember is how frenzied it made me to know that it was through me that Lorna had been betrayed.
There was quite a crowd of men on the deck, and a few women, too, and all their mouths hung open. Mr. Graves, his face and s.h.i.+rt red and glistening, exclaimed, ”Gentlemen! We have foiled a n.i.g.g.e.r-stealing right in our midst! Night has fallen! Some of us are bloodied! But you may all rest a.s.sured that a man's property will be restored to him! And that the thief, a young lady though she is, shall be punished!” The a.s.sembled Missourians gave out a clamorous cheer, and the two men who had hold of Lorna dragged her off. She was quiet, neither protesting nor crying. It was me that was screaming ”No! No! No!” until I could no longer see her and no longer manage to utter a word.
The crowd dispersed. The captain said, ”Git 'er off my boat!” and Mr. Graves gripped me by the arm and half pushed, half pulled me down the plank. When we got to the bottom, he said, ”Mrs. Newton, I regret any elegiac sentiments I might have expressed toward you on an earlier occasion. I will say no more.”
CHAPTER 27.
I Backtrack [image]... it must be borne in mind, that the estimate of evils and privations depends, not so much on their positive nature, as on the characterand habits of the person who meets them. -p. 39 IT TOOK THE CATCHERS, I later learned, about two days to find Papa and match up his runaway with Lorna. That boy had been right: there were catchers everywhere, and every one of the lot was busy scaring up trade. For his part, Papa had wasted no time putting together an advertis.e.m.e.nt in Independence in which both Lorna and I were described. My height was against me; I was said to be ”a plain tall woman in a nankeen dress and green bonnet with short hair and large hands”-unmistakable. Lorna was described as ”a serviceable slave-girl, solidly built, of a discontented disposition, with a vertical scar on the left side of her neck, just under the ear, an inch and a half long.” I, her friend, hadn't noticed the scar. Papa, her enemy, had.
Mr. Graves took me to the jailhouse for safekeeping, but the sheriff and his wife didn't make me stay in the jail; they put me upstairs in one of the rooms, with the door locked. The sheriff himself didn't seem to want to have much to do with me, and his wife, Mrs. Hopewell, said, ”We an't never had a lady in the jail before. I told my Frederick that I just can't do that, at least till they decide what to do with you.”
”Are they going to hang me?”
”They hate n.i.g.g.e.r-stealin'. No tellin' what they will do. My Frederick says he don't know what it will be like, findin' a judge and a jury in these days. He says they should of shot you at the time and been done with it, instead of involving the law. I know that sounds hard, but he an't really a hard man, for a sheriff. I reckon it will depend upon Mr. Day and his views in the matter. I don't expect they will tar and feather you, though. That's what they generally like to do, but I don't suppose they'll do it to a lady.”
She gave me a Bible to read, with the remark, ”They had slaves in Bible days, didn't they, now?”
”What did they do with Lorna?”
”Oh, the catchers do something, I expect. I don't like to think about it myself.” She shook her head violently, as if shaking off the whole subject.
She washed my hands and bound the cuts. They throbbed for a day or two. Since I couldn't write, she had me dictate a letter to my sisters. What I dictated was a few dry sentences. What she wrote was the following. It read: To my dear sisters in the east- I am sure you will be surprised and dismayed to learn that I am put in jail in Kansas City for n.i.g.g.ah-stealing, which I did even though the man I stole the n.i.g.g.ah from was good to me and gave me the hospitality of his house for two or three weeks before I run off with the gal. There is no telling what they are going to do with me, they might hang me but they haven't hanged a female in Missouri, at least around these parts, for a long time, as long as the sheriff can remember. Maybe I will be lucky and not be hanged. If I am hanged, then this is my last words to you. I am heartily sorry for what I have done, and for the shame I have brought upon my dear family. I trust in the Lord to do what he thinks best with me after I have pa.s.sed into his loving hands. If I am not hung, then you need to send me some money so that I can leave this place and come back home to you, as the sheriff and his wife can do nothing for me, even though they are G.o.d-fearing and charitable people, and the state makes no provision for n.i.g.g.ah-stealers. If you do not send me means, then surely I will get into trouble again. Forty dollars will be enough.
Your dear sister, LYDIA HARKNESS NEWTON.
Mrs. Hopewell had her heart set upon sending this letter, as she was very proud of it, and so I let her. She told me that it would probably take two weeks for the money to arrive, and that if they didn't hang me, she would charge me ten dollars for two weeks' room and board, ”And let me tell you, you can't get it no cheaper in Kansas City in these days!”
Now I came into a state of being talked to and done to. While the sheriff was too embarra.s.sed to come in, Mr. Graves, who had an interview with me the day this letter was written, seemed entirely in his confidence. He entered the room, had the door locked behind him, and started booming at once. I was sitting in a chair by the window, looking out, but I hadn't seen him coming down the street. He exclaimed, ”Mrs. Newton! Was I staggered when I saw you and that gal up there on that boat deck? Indeed I was! Staggered, and then, very shortly afterwards, in a matter of an eye blink, I was dismayed. Ma'am, I was hurt for you! You have got no business with this n.i.g.g.e.r-stealing, which is a very low thing to do, and now look where you have landed! The sheriff of this town, I don't mind telling you, is a man of rigorous moral views, and he said to me, 'David B. Graves, I find myself in a dilemma. This isn't a plain killin' or one man cheating another or even a horse-thievin', which we've got plenty of in these parts and is always clear-cut. This is all bound up in other things. You may say that this is a clear-cut crime, but as a sheriff, I say that this crime is defiled by opinion! A sheriff hates to see that.' Mrs. Newton, if you had just gotten on the Missouri Rose the way you pretended to do, well, ma'am, you wouldn't have fallen so low as this! That's what I deplore, myself. This whole matter just sullies my esteem for you, and, indeed, for your late husband-”
”What happened to Lorna?”
”I am not going to get into personalities here. Maybe that is your difficulty, ma'am, but I won't do it! I look at the principle involved, and I see a transgression, and I look no farther!”
”You knew we were abolitionists the first time you met us. You were kind to us.”
”Now, ma'am, we've got some sophistry here. Everybody in the world knows that views are different from acts. I do verily believe that as citizens of this great republic, we may proclaim our views far and wide, from the highest mountain, if need be, and let no man stop us, and I do believe a woman may do so, as well, and in that I am what you might call progressive, but I do believe it! That is why we have made our home on this continent and away from the sinks of Europe, if I may so term them. Should the day come that the inst.i.tution of servitude and bondage that we have in this state pa.s.s on, then I say, so be it, that is the will of G.o.d and His people, and David B. Graves says, so be it. But I see all around me far less judicious men than myself, who descend from views to acts, and what has come of it but sorrow, horror, and conflict, as you yourself can testify, Mrs. Newton? What do these acts do but inflame others? What is their result but war? I, I am a commercial man! Do I wish to put my commerce at the service of one side or the other? I do not! My principle is to serve both sides, to have no sides, indeed, but to serve all! What will become of me? What will become of us all?”