“HOLD ON, BOY!” A harsh voice called to him from the dim light on Brattle Street.
He held himself in and managed to sound calm when he asked, “What do you want of me?”
“They say a boy broke into the jewelry store,” the man said, and walked nearer. “About twenty hours ago it was that a boy took a valuable piece of silver. And you look like the same boy.”
“I never stole in my life!” he exclaimed. He knew he couldn’t have been the one. He was no boy. But something inside him cautioned, Steal away to Jesus! “I haven’t ever stole,” he said evenly.
“Let’s just see about it, m’boy,” the man said. “Let’s just walk down to the Court House.”
He panicked and started to run. Men came out of the shadows to surround him. He bolted, but they caught him and lifted him off his feet. They carried him like a corpse at the height of their shoulders. He did next what he knew how to do: He closed his eyes and went far inside himself. Gripped tightly by these strangers up on their shoulders, he stayed stiffly in their hands.
There seemed to be a leader and maybe six others. He thought, They are like pallbearers—am I a dead man? They’ve caught me, but I’m not a thief. They say I stole. I know I have stole nothing in my life!
He was innocent. That was why he had resisted and run. He’d been on the corner of Brattle and Court Streets, coming from his work at Mr. Pitts’ clothing store. In view was Faneuil Hall, the old market building. It had been built with money earned from selling West Indian slaves. Now it was used by Christian abolitionists who in the present year, 1854, prayed and preached against slavery. So he had been told by his employer and friend, the freeman Coffin Pitts.
The men who had caught him continued to carry him on their shoulders to Boston Court Square and the Court House.
They’ve mixed me up with some poor soul, he was thinking. It’s all a mistake. Keep yourself quiet, make no resistance, he told himself. He didn’t move a muscle.
Breathing heavily, perspiring, the men took a moment’s rest when they arrived at the Court House. Once inside, they stood him on his feet. He opened his eyes and looked at them hard just for a moment. They looked rough to him, like the lowest types; so did the leader.
They lifted him up again and carried him to a jury room on the third floor. There, with some relief, they set him down again.
He brushed and straightened his clothing to proper order and looked around for the jewelry store owner; instead, he saw the door closing, shutting him in. There were iron bars set in the door. The windows, too, had iron bars over them. And the men who had carried him now stood silently to either side of the barred door.
Suddenly he felt like a caged animal. Fear chilled his neck. What was this all about? But he kept his expression aloof. He’d show them he wasn’t afraid.
Never let a buckra—never let a man who is white—know what you are thinking.
This was the axiom that he and all of his kind had learned to live by.
The barred door of the room swung open suddenly. The men came smartly to attention, their hands resting lightly on the guns in their belts.
Men with guns. How came so many buckras upon him? Now entered three more. One was a stranger to him. But the other two he recognized at once. The sight of them shocked him, stunned him, and made his heart thud violently.
“Go in, go in,” he told himself. “Go inside where they will not follow. Go! The Lord and his light alone can reach you.”
Charles F. Suttle of Virginia entered the jury room with his agent, William Brent. He came over to the prisoner, Anthony Burns. Mockingly, Colonel Suttle bowed low to him. “How do you do, Mistah Burns!” he said. “Why did you run away from me! Haven’t I always treated you well?” His north-country-Virginia accent was as thick and sweet as molasses.
Anthony Burns heard the Colonel’s words from a great distance. His spirit drew away, as water will seep into the ground and disappear. Buried memories rose from Anthony Burns’s depths as he heard Mars Charles Suttle’s voice. Mars Charles Suttle was the only son of he Mars John Suttle, who had owned Anthony as a boy. Mars Charles Suttle had inherited Anthony from Missy Suttle.
“I … I … fell asleep on board of the vessel where I worked,” Anthony murmured finally, “and before I woke up she set sail and carried me off.”
Colonel Suttle and Brent watched Anthony closely. They saw his eyes cloud and grow dim and his mouth draw down in despair. He was going within himself, to a place where no one could reach him, least of all Mars Charles.
Seeing this, Charles Suttle snickered, “Don’t run away from me, Tony. He will do that, you know, Marshal Freeman,” he told the man with the sword, “just like he’s addle-brained.” He turned again to Anthony. “Tony, haven’t I always given you money when you needed it?”
Mars Suttle’s distant voice made Anthony feel like a helpless child. And like a child, he responded, “You have always given me … twelve and a half cents … at Christmas—once a year!”
Mars Suttle smiled, and Anthony knew he had admitted too much. But what did it matter now? He was all alone. And he went far away within, as far back as the first memories he had of knowing what it meant to be Anthony Burns and somebody else’s property.
“Well, now, that’s the one, is it?” asked Marshal Freeman—a thin man whose face was pitted with smallpox scars. He was the United States Marshal, and the armed guards around Anthony had been hired by him.
“Yes, suh, it’s my property, certainly,” Colonel Suttle answered proudly. Then, without another glance at Anthony, he walked out of the jury room, followed by the Marshal and Brent.
Anthony was not aware Suttle had gone anywhere, for he had left first and gone deep inside himself, to his childhood. There days seemed endless, perfect. There mornings and waking up were the times he could hardly wait for, he loved them so …