Merri was sitting in the dark on her porch petting Kit Kat when they finally got back to Miles Station. She jumped up and came down the sidewalk to hug Abby.
“You should be in bed, Merri Christmas,” John said, ruffling her hair on his way past. “It’s after one.”
“Are you kidding? After you called, I tried it and it’s working again. Come on, I’ve got it all set up.”
“Okay, kiddo,” Abby said. “Show us what you found.”
“Everyone be quiet on the stairs, okay? Mom went to bed with one of her headaches.”
“And, Lord, please bring Mr. Bartlett to us soon, and protect those under this roof from those who would do them harm. And, dear Lord, give me the strength—and time enough—to get everything done that needs doing. Amen.”
Charlotte rose from her knees by her bed and hurried from the room. It was too cold to dawdle. In the kitchen she stoked the stove and then made a trip out to the smoke house for a slab of salt pork. She sliced it and then mixed up a batch of cornbread batter in her blue bowl. She put the cornbread on to bake in one iron skillet and the salt pork on to fry in another.
Someone knocked on the back door and then opened it before Charlotte could finish wiping her hands on her apron.
“Lucinda Brown, what are you doing here so early in the morning?” At twenty-five, Lucinda was four years older than Charlotte but her dearest, best friend.
“Early, late, and middle of the day. I’m here, Charlotte, to lend my assistance if you’re going to be foolish enough to continue conducting passengers on the Underground Railroad while also tending to the passengers of the Chicago & Alton.”
“Well, I expect I’ve got railroading in my blood.” Charlotte peeked into the oven and saw that the cornbread was coming along nicely. “As if you and your father don’t do the same thing in Brighton. And how is Doctor Brown?”
“He’s well, thank you. And besides him I’ve got a sister and two brothers to help with the cause. You have no one.”
“Don’t let Joshua hear you say that.”
“Well, yes, of course, dear Joshua.” Lucinda took her bonnet off and hung it on a peg by the back door. “Where is the boy? He can bring my case in.”
“You’re serious about staying?” Charlotte said.
“You know me. I’m always serious.”
Charlotte hugged her friend in relief. “That’s wonderful, Lucinda. So would you keep watch down here while I take breakfast up?”
“Certainly. I aim to please.”
“If anyone should happen to stop by—”
“Don’t worry, Lottie, I know what to do.”
They loaded the food in a basket and Charlotte took it up to the attic. The morning sun shining through the small windows painted stripes on her guests, making them look all the more like the prisoners they were.
Sally and her boys Solomon and Little Frank smiled and thanked her when she set the cornbread and salt pork down for them.
Charlotte had plenty of work waiting for her downstairs, but she knew it was pure agony for them to be confined there with nothing to do but wait another whole day, hoping that Mr. Bartlett would come for them.
“How would you boys like a story while you have your breakfast?”
Eyes sparkling, they nodded excitedly.
“Once upon a time, there were three little pigs,” Charlotte said. “The first little pig …”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Ryan said. “Skip past the fairy tales and get to the guy you say is Ned Greenfield.”
Merri glared at him. “I’m trying, Ryan. Besides, I happen to like watching Charlotte.”
“She’s right,” Abby said. “You ought to know by now how easy it is to go too far forward or backward.”
Ryan sniffed. “Just try to skim past all the unimportant stuff. If you know how.”
“He’s there. Just be patient,” Merri said.
“I am in earnest,’” Charlotte read from The Liberator. “I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.” She rose from her seat on the wooden trunk and folded the newspaper. “There now. What do you think about that?”
“That be fine talking,” Sally said, nodding her head wisely.
“Did you understand what Mr. Garrison means?”
Sally looked down and patted her sons’ heads as they lay drowsing next to her. “Not rightly, ma’am.”
Charlotte had not expected that Sally would understand much of it. But she had known somehow that the man in the corner would. She couldn’t make out his face in the shadows, but she saw that he sat leaning against the wall, alert.
“When Mr. Garrison says popular but ‘pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition,’ he’s arguing that slavery should be done away with right now. Not gradually like many people want.”
Charlotte returned the newspaper to the trunk. “I’ve got to go downstairs for a while, but it’s getting dark. If Mr. Bartlett’s coming tonight, he’ll be here soon. You won’t have long to wait now.”
Just as she was about to descend the stairs the man in the shadows spoke at last. His voice was still croaky, but a bit stronger.
“For Mr. Bartlett—or for freedom?”
Charlotte smiled sadly. “For both, I pray.”
Just before she shut the door at the bottom of the stairs, she heard Sally softly singing a mournful song about being a poor wayfaring stranger.
She had hoped that Mr. Bartlett would come take them on to their next stop the evening before. Something must have made him nervous. It didn’t pay for a conductor to get careless. But he’d come when it was safe.
Joshua would have gladly taken them on, but her father and husband had made him swear an oath on the Bible that he would never leave Charlotte alone. They hadn’t thought to tell her not to take in runaway slaves and would be upset to know the risks she took. But knowing what Proverbs said, how could she look the other way? She had memorized the passage and recited it softly to herself:
If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his works?
When she and Joshua brought the evening meal, the attic was completely dark. But her guests didn’t complain. They knew it was too dangerous to have a lantern.
“It won’t be long now,” Charlotte said into the darkness. She wished she could see their faces one more time. “Solomon, do you still remember John 3:16 like I taught you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Say it for us then, please. One more time.”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlastin’ life.”
“And you and Little Frank will remember that verse means everyone, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they whispered together.
“And, Sally, do you remember where you’re to go? If you can?”
“Chicago. Mr. Moody’s there at the White Swan.”
“That’s right. He’ll help you.”
There was a noise outside, and Charlotte hurried to the stairs. “It’s surely Mr. Bartlett,” she told them, “but everyone keep quiet while I find out.”
When she got to the parlor, she saw that Joshua had cracked the front door and was looking out. He moved aside so she could see. A pony cart was coming down the lane.
“I don’t recognize him, do you?”
Joshua picked up the shotgun he had leaned against the wall. “Not the pony, the cart, nor the man driving it.”
But as he got closer, Charlotte realized the driver was whistling Amazing Grace, one of the code songs she and the other conductors in the area had decided upon.
“Indeed,” she said, “how sweet the sound.” She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, Joshua beside her, his gun cradled in his arms.
“Hello,” she called cautiously.
“You must be Miss Miles?” the man said.
“I’m Charlotte Miles McGuire.”
“I’m Joseph. Mr. Bartlett sent me.”
Charlotte let out a deep breath. “Then welcome, sir.”
The man got down from the cart and tied the pony’s reins to the hitching post. When he lifted his hat, the moonlight revealed that he was not a full-grown man after all, but a young lad about Joshua’s age.
“Mr. Bartlett said to tell you he was sorry he couldn’t come,” he said, wringing his hat. “I’m to take the passengers on.”
“You’re doing a brave thing, Joseph.”
“Mr. Bartlett said to tell you they’re usin’ his wagon for the harvest, but he found this old pony cart.”
“I don’t think all my passengers will fit.”
Lucinda came out onto the porch. “It’ll work, Lottie. The big man isn’t ready to travel yet anyway. Those feet of his…”
Joshua led Sally, Solomon, and Little Frank down from the attic and Charlotte hugged each one as they got in the pony cart. “Don’t forget what I told you.”
“We won’t never forget, ma’am,” Sally said.
Joshua secured the canvas over them, and then Joseph clucked, and the pony cart started down the lane. Charlotte stood on the porch between Joshua and Lucinda praying them on their way.
“Obviously, we have to get back into the attic,” Ryan said. “if we’re ever going to find Ned Greenfield.”
“Obviously, Ryan. That’s what I’m trying to do,” Merri said. She fast-forwarded a bit more and they watched as Charlotte went back up into the attic.
“Stop there, Merri,” Abby said. “This is where three new men arrived. Merri and I saw them and heard their stories earlier this summer. One man named Lucky,” she said, using air quotes, “struck his master with a hoe when he found him whipping his six-year-old daughter. She hadn’t washed his shirts to suit him. Lucky had to leave her behind and flee to save his own life.”
“Some of the stories they told weren’t as bad as that one,” Merri said. “The second man Wilson said he’d never been whipped his whole life. And the master’s wife taught him how to read and made her husband let him go.”
“It’s the third man I’m interested in,” Abby said. “He might be our Ned.”
“He’s large enough,” John said, studying the monitor. “But he doesn’t look much like him. Besides he’s not wearing a slave collar.
“They were trying to get it off him,” Abby said. “Maybe they finally did.”
“Write in the book that the Lord done delivered me from bondage in plain daylight, Ms. Charlotte. I walked out of Kentucky and no one told me no. Just like when the chains fell off Saint Peter and he walked out of jail. Write that in the book.”
“How did you manage that?” Charlotte asked.
“Well, see, when the gentlemens go about in they carriages, they always make a nigger run along behind so he can help him with the carriage steps. Brush the road dust off his coat and such like.”
Samuel and Lucky sat there calmly listening to the story as if this were an occurrence they were familiar with as well. Charlotte frowned but continued to write in her journal. “Go on.”
“So one day, I got it in my head to trot on down the road just like I’s followin’ Master Lewis’ carriage. I got a long way down the road before anyone thought to ask me my business. When the man say, ‘Where you goin,’ boy?’ I say, ‘Have you seen Master Lewis’ carriage go by?’ He say ‘no’ and I say ‘I gots to hurry on.’”
Charlotte chuckled. “That was quite clever of you.”
He hung his head. “But I done tole a lie, Miz Charlotte.”
She thought about it. Sin was sin, even if the slave owners’ sin far outweighed this man’s lie to survive. “The Lord will forgive you if you ask.”
“Oh, I did. I did.”
“So what happened after that?”
“Well, I just kept on a-goin’. I had to ask the Lord’s pardon four more times afore I got to the Ohio River and the ferryman rowed me over to Illinois.”
“How did it feel to know you were in a free state at last?”
“I fall down on my knees and thank the Lord right on that muddy bank just like it be the River Jordan. Then I go on a little ways. I slept in an old horse trough that night. I didn’t care. No ma’am. But the next mornin’…that be when things got troublesome.
“I start on down the road, and before long an old man, standing in his cabin door, tole me to stop. And then he started in throwing rocks at me. I seen from the look on his face that he weren’t much interested in my story, so I just lit out runnin’. He call out, and then other fellas come and chase me fierce.”
“What did you do next?” Wilson asked.
“Yeah, how you get away?” Lucky asked.
“Well, the Lord done hid me in the cleft of the rock. Write that in the book, Miz Charlotte. See, there be this holler with a crick runnin’ through it. I clumb down and hid under a big rock that stuck outta the bank. Them fellas kept on a-looking for me. And I kept on a-hiding under that rock.”
“It must have been terribly frightening,” Charlotte said.
“Well, Miz Charlotte, while I waited for them to go on, I had time to ponder things under that ole rock. I tole myself the Lord done led me that far, and he was sure to keep at it until he led me out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. And another thing come to me under that rock: Illinois sure ain’t no Promised Land. No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken,” Charlotte said, grinning.
“After they gone, I got back on that road. I heard it be called the Goshen Road, and I knew I be a-goin’ the right way. Then Mr. Jemmy found me and took me along—”
“Okay, okay,” Ryan said impatiently. “He’s obviously not Ned Greenfield. And we can’t sit here listening to every story she writes in her book.”
“Well, maybe we should,” John said. “They went through so much. Isn’t listening the least we can do?”
“So read about it in a book or something. On your dime.”
“The book!” Merri said. “We could look in the book.”
“What book?” John asked.
“Charlotte’s book,” Merri said. “She had the stories published.”
“I thought about it, Merri,” Abby said. “But there’s no index, and it takes forever to turn the pages.”
“Maybe for you,” Ryan said. “Where is it?”
“We don’t have an actual copy, Ryan. But I downloaded it from the State Archive website.”
“So do we wait for more slaves passing through?” Kate asked.
“He’s there already,” Merri said, taking the mouse. “We just need to fast forward a bit more to see him.”
“Are you talking about the man in the corner who never talks?” Abby said. “Because, kiddo, he’s too old to be Ned Greenfield.”
“I never got a clear look at him,” John said.
“I did,” Merri said, taking the mouse. “He’s wearing a slave collar. And I’m sure Charlotte called him Ned.”
“Then why did you just waste our time on all that other stuff?” Ryan asked angrily.
Merri continued fast forwarding, unfazed by his attitude. At last she paused the action. “Sorry I wasted five minutes of your life, Ryan. Anyway, here he is.”