“Thank you for telling me your stories.”
“Thank you, ma’am, for writing the book,” Samuel said. Andrew and Lucky mumbled shy thank-yous as well and then settled onto their pallets to wait.
The silent man in the corner blended into the darkness, but Charlotte saw that he was watching her. “How about you?” she said. “Can you tell me your story? I’d love to include it in the book.”
Charlotte didn’t hear what he mumbled but got the answer to her question when he lay back down facing the wall. She put her things away and went to the stairway. “Then I’ll see you all later.”
After the woman left, he lay there thinking for a while about the stories the other men had told. On the other side of the room they already snored, resting easy with their pasts. He thought of his and tried to remember how to pray.
“Well, is that Ned Greenfield, or not?” Ryan asked, looking at his watch.
“I don’t know,” Abby said. “I couldn’t see him well enough.”
John let out a huge yawn and stood to stretch. “Maybe we should pause it here and wait until morning. I can hardly see the screen anymore.”
His yawn was contagious. When Kate finished hers she said, “Let’s watch him a little longer. See him in daylight.”
“Yes, why stop now?” Ryan said. “We’re finally making progress.”
Merri smothered a yawn. “Because it’s two-thirty in the morning?”
“Okay,” John said. “A little longer. But don’t go too fast, Merri. He surely didn’t stay in Charlotte’s attic too long. If we miss his departure, it will just take more time to go back and find the right spot.”
“Well, then stop talking so she can do it,” Ryan said.
Stifling another yawn, Merri began fast-forwarding again.
“Stop,” John said. “Go back. Just a little.”
“You’re right. He’s on the move,” Kate said.
“Finally,” Ryan muttered.
The huge man had gone to the trunk where Charlotte kept her writing things. He took out the journal and walked soundlessly past the sleeping men to the stairs.
“See, Ryno, this is why we have to wade through all this. He’s leaving and we would have missed it if we hadn’t been watching so closely.”
“Okay,” Abby said. “I’m going to lock onto him and go virtual again. Everyone ready?”
“Keep your fingers crossed that it’s Ned,” Kate said.
“And that he’s on his way to Chicago,” Abby said.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he tapped on the door and whispered, “Miz McGuire?” He tapped again, a little louder. Then someone grabbed him from behind and he fell onto the steps with a loud grunt, taking his attacker with him.
“We got him, Miz McGuire. Don’t worry.”
Pulling on her dressing gown, Charlotte unlatched the door and opened it. In the scant moonlight from her window, the tangle of arms and legs on the steps looked like a nest of corn snakes.
“Samuel? Is that you?”
“Yes, Miz McGuire.
“And Lucky,” another voice mumbled.
“And me, Andrew. Don’t be afraid. We got him.”
“What on earth? Let him up this instant.” Charlotte went to her bedside table and lit the lantern there. Her four guests sorted themselves out and stood at the attic doorway looking anywhere but at her.
“He was stealing your book, ma’am,” Samuel whispered angrily.
“I seen him get it out of your trunk, Miz McGuire,” Andrew said.
Lucky glared at the man, who remained silent, his head hanging low. “Weren’t right for him to steal the stories. Here, Miz McGuire,” he said, handing her the journal with a sideways glance.
Charlotte craned her neck to look up into the face of the man who towered over her. As always, his eyes never met hers, but seemed focused on something just over her left shoulder.
“I weren’t stealing it, ma’am,” he said at last. “I be bringing it to you so’s you could…”
“You want me to write your story after all,” Charlotte said. “That’s good. In the morning—”
“I’ll be gone in the morning, Miz McGuire. I can’t stay in that attic no more.”
“But your feet.”
He didn’t answer, but his face said he was determined to leave.
“All right,” she said turning toward her bedroom. “Let me get a pen.”
“I brung it,” he said, taking her pen and ink bottle from his pants pocket.
She took them from him and turned to the others. “The rest of you go on back upstairs and get some sleep.”
“You sure?” Samuel said. “We can stay right here in case he gives you any trouble.”
“I’ll be fine, Samuel. Go on.”
After several dubious backward glances they clomped back up the stairs. Charlotte prayed Joshua wouldn’t hear them and come running. His presence would probably send the man running before he told his story.
Charlotte led him to the kitchen and set the journal on the table. She indicated for him to sit there. But he ignored that and went to the back door. Opening it part way, he stuck his head out and looked into the night. Satisfied no one was out there, he stepped out onto the porch and sat on the step. It was a clear night and moonlight silvered his head and broad shoulders. He turned his gaze to the sky and breathed in great gulps of the brisk air as if he were savoring his release from the attic.
“You should wait for Mr. Bartlett, you know. He’ll have something to get that collar off.”
He didn’t comment.
“You remember what I told the others. If you get to Chicago, look for Mr. Moody. At the White Swan.”
He mumbled something that led her to believe he understood.
Charlotte wrapped her dressing gown closer against the cold draft coming in the open door and busied herself finding food to send with him. There was a chunk of cheese and half a loaf of bread, which she wrapped in brown paper and set on the table. She went and sat down and opened her journal.
“Will you come in now and tell me your story?”
He didn’t answer, just sat looking out into the blackness of her back yard. After a long moment, he said in a low and rusty voice, “My name is Ned Greenfield.”
Kate squealed. “It’s him!”
Merri smiled smugly. “I told you so.”
“He sure looks older,” John said.
“Oh, I’m so glad he escaped,” Kate said.
“At least he made it this far,” Abby said. “The question is, Kate, did he make it to Chicago and tie in with your relatives?”
“Let’s get this over with and go to bed. I’m tired.”
“You don’t have to watch, Ryno,” John said.
Ryan sighed deeply. “Just run the program.”
Charlotte dipped the pen in the ink and wrote his name on a fresh page in the journal. “Good. Go on, please.”
“I was born in Equality, Illinois. At Hickory Hill. My mama and pap was owned by John Granger, and so he owned me too.”
“In Illinois?” Charlotte looked up. “But, that’s not possible. Slavery’s illegal in Illinois. The state Constitution clearly says so.”
“That piece of paper don’t mean much down in Equality, ma’am. Least ways, not at Half Moon.”
“What’s Half Moon?”
“That the salt mine, ma’am. Master Granger owns it.”
Charlotte huffed. “I wonder if my father and husband know about this. Go on, Mr. Greenfield. Tell me.”
He seemed taken aback by her use of his rightful title. After a pause, he said, “My pap was a blacksmith—a good one he was too—for Master Granger. Mama was his cook. I don’t mean for Half Moon. I mean she his cook at Hickory Hill. Master Granger—”
“You don’t have to call him master, Ned. Never again.”
He took in another deep breath. “No, ma’am. I don’t. Anyway, Granger told my mama he goin’ to free her alongside my pap when his indenture up in 1850. They was real happy about that.”
“What are their names?”
“My mama was Mariah. My pap was Charles. They didn’t have no last name. When I was born my mama gave me the name of Greenfield on account of Granger promised her that her children wouldn’t never have to work at Half Moon like the other slaves. Didn’t neither. Worked in his fields.”
“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.