He remembered there was a secret stair, seldom used, accessed by a paneled door in the back wall of the second-floor landing. If worse came to worst, he could hide them there. How did Ellie’s family do such clandestine work? With so much at stake? Though sound reason told him to despise the risks they took, he felt a surge of admiration instead.
Looking toward the window again, he contemplated a threat far worse than Mrs. Malarkey. Maybe he should shut River Hill’s gate, though doing so seemed like a signpost advertising guilt.
He whirled at the sound of hoofbeats, a high whinny. Dr. Brunot? He was expected this afternoon, and it was nearing one o’clock. Jack hoped the couple and their newborn could go with him in his carriage yet sensed the young mother was still too weak to move. While they remained at River Hill, he felt an impending sense of doom. His trepidation deepened when he heard Chloe call out a name in confirmation.
Wade.
He’d sooner deal with bounty hunters.
He left his study and tried to strike an indifferent pose as he stepped onto the veranda. Chloe waited on the steps, eyeing him ominously as Wade tied his horse to the hitching post a stone’s throw away. He swallowed down an admonishment for her to say nothing, nearly choking on the dust Wade had raised. If Dr. Brunot rode up next, what would he say? Sweat trickled down his back, more from his own turmoil than the heat, turning him cross as a bear.
“You look like Ma on a bad day,” Wade quipped when Jack gave no greeting, stepping round him and entering the foyer. “The least you could do is offer me a drink.”
“There’s plenty of water west of the house.”
Chuckling humorlessly, Wade began walking down the hall toward the study. “River water isn’t what I’m after.” Stopping at the liquor chest, he bent down and extracted the cologne Chloe had tried to ply Jack with. “Number Six? Isn’t that what the dandies at the gentleman’s club wear?” Clearly disgusted, he traded it for a bottle and glass.
Jack followed him into the study, shutting the door a bit too forcefully. “What do you want?”
“A drink first.” He downed the liquid in two gulps before facing Jack across the cluttered expanse of desk. “Pa and I have a plan.”
Jack felt a clutch of concern. The words, all too familiar, usually heralded some nefarious scheme, and he had no wish to become embroiled in any more than he was.
“But first a bit of good news.” Taking a seat, Wade propped his boots on a low table. “We finally shipped two hundred barrels of Turlock whiskey, disguised as molasses, on a Ballantyne steamer all the way to Louisville. All with Peyton Ballantyne’s approval. Before his daddy came home.”
The smugness of Wade’s expression rubbed Jack raw. “You’ll not get away with such now that Silas is back.”
Wade shrugged and refilled his glass. “The whiskey hardly matters, Jack. It’s more the dent in the Ballantyne armor. Peyton was most obliging, given he pocketed a hefty sum.”
Jack hid his surprise. “So what’s the plan?”
“Pa’s thinking of blending whiskey—”
“Rectifying?”
“Call it what you like. All that’s required is combining small amounts of genuine rye with large quantities of cull spirits and labeling it as premium grade for a hefty profit. How does that sound?”
“Like thievery.”
“Exactly. We’re also considering using new instead of aged barrels for some of our own rye. The sutlers and Indians in Missouri territory won’t know the difference. Besides, you’ll have a hard time finding a cooper to turn out charred oak once you go west.”
Jack furrowed his brow, knowing that to argue would prolong Wade’s visit, and every minute he tarried spelled disaster. “Are you on your way to Broad Oak or town?”
“Town.”
“Then stop and see Benedick Kimber at the warehouse and put in an order for bottles. He needs notice today.”
“You aren’t coming?” Surprise washed Wade’s face, and his tone turned accusatory. “Janey told me you’ve not been at Teague’s for weeks.”
“So?”
“Blast, Jack! You’re rarely pleasant, but today you’re about as cordial as a river snake.”
Jack moved toward the door to hasten him out, then felt his color drain by degrees at the high-pitched wail of a newborn. Clear as crystal. Why hadn’t he thought to shut the window?
Wade lifted the bottle and made a show of pouring another shot. “One more swallow and I’ll be on my way.” He took Jack in over the edge of the glass. “You look in need of a drink yourself.” He passed him the whiskey bottle, a clear challenge in his gaze.
Sensing Wade wouldn’t leave till he complied, Jack took a short swig. The pit of his stomach caught fire when he swallowed. Tannin and vanilla lingered on his tongue, and he could taste the char of oak. The baby’s cries trilled higher. Did Wade not hear?
Dear God . . . silence the child.
The wailing stopped. Relief raced over him like rain. Setting the bottle down, he took a slow breath as he and Wade left the study.
On the veranda, Wade hesitated, his gaze restless, roaming. “Is it true what I heard about the youngest Ballantyne daughter? Some trouble on the back road between here and New Hope?”
The very mention turned Jack chill. The McTavishes had denied any wrongdoing, claiming the bounty was null and void. Only Jack didn’t believe them. He could only imagine what Wade would do if he knew the Ballantynes were sheltering Broad Oak’s slaves. “What about it?”
“Is Elinor Ballantyne the reason you nailed McTavish to a wall in town? And pulled a pistol on me?”
Jack swallowed hard. “No woman should be a part of this.”
Wade turned the full force of his gaze on Jack. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”
“I don’t know,” Jack replied, turning away. “But I intend to find out.”
Shaken by Wade’s unexpected visit, Jack crossed the cobblestones, bypassing the stables to reach River Row. The one cottage he sought, the last of a dozen, had once been whitewashed, the trim a pleasing green. Now the roof and a corner of the porch were crumbling and choked with ivy, something he’d have to remedy prior to posting the sale. He’d hired a carpenter to mend the summer kitchen and springhouse, both storm damaged, and work was under way. River Row would be next.
The garden he could do little about. It was a green, weedy mess, all but the west corner where Ellie and Chloe had readied to plant. Shrugging off the hollowness he felt when he looked at it, he stepped onto the rickety porch and knocked on a worn door.
Silence.
Realizing a runaway wouldn’t answer, Jack cracked it open to find anxious eyes staring back at him. He started to say something to put the man at ease, then realized he didn’t even know his name. On a bed in the far corner lay the woman and baby, asleep. The rest of the runaways had been moved by Brunot, taken to yet another hiding place.
Letting himself in, Jack took a crude chair by the door. The whine of mosquitoes rose in the heat, and he batted one away before it landed. “Dr. Brunot should be here soon.” Though his throat felt dry as sand, he inclined his head toward the bed and asked, “How is she?”
“Some better, master—”
“You don’t have to call me that.”
The man nodded but still seemed wary. “I forget myself. Trouble is . . .” He darted a glance about the small room as if trying to get his bearings. “I don’t even know where we be.”
“You’re in Pennsylvania, a supposedly free state. I don’t own slaves. I simply lease land to tenants.”
“I saw another black man here, and a boy.”
“The old man, Solomon, was my grandfather’s valet years ago. But he’s now free. The boy belongs to someone downriver.” Warmth crept into his face. He was reluctant to say it was his own family who owned Ben, shame gaining the upper hand. “Care to tell me your name?”
The man’s gaze fell to his bare feet. “My name—my master in Maryland, he called me Jarm.”
“
Well, Jarm. You’re safe for the moment. But we have to think about getting you moved.”
He nodded obligingly, eyes returning to the woman on the bed. “We didn’t mean to come here. We be searchin’ for another place. Heard about a true-hearted man by the name of Ballantyne.”
Jack felt buffeted by yet another confirmation that Ellie’s family was so deeply involved. “The Ballantynes are farther downriver.” The words came slowly as he struggled to remember all that the doctor had told him about the transfer. “When you’re able, Dr. Brunot wants you to travel north in a market wagon some fifteen miles or so to a Quaker settlement like your friends did. It’s safer there.”
Though he spoke calmly, Jack felt his own heart trip at the task. For a lone man on the run, the prospect of freedom was daunting. To flee with a wife and child in tow was madness—or a sort of harrowing heroism the likes of which Jack had never seen. These people, he realized with fresh angst, had little but the rags on their backs.
“I’ll do what I can to help you and . . .” Jack cast a look at the bed.
“Cherry’s my wife. We ain’t decided what to call the baby yet.”
Jack hoped the overwhelming futility he felt didn’t show on his face. Concern for others, risk for their welfare, took his thoughts places he didn’t want to go.
“I’m obliged to you, Mister . . .”
“Jack.”
He tried to think of something reassuring to say, but expressing sympathy was like a foreign language to him. He’d been raised with slaves, had thought little of their plight. Most of the white men he rubbed shoulders with had prejudices as deep as his family’s own. There were those who appeared sympathetic to slaves but were anti-abolitionists in disguise, and they crawled all over Pittsburgh like river rats.
“Why—” Jack swallowed, seeing an upraised scar along Jarm’s thin neck just below the jawline. “What made you leave Maryland?”
The woman on the bed turned over, and the baby gave a little cry. Jarm’s eyes grew damp. “The master—he was going to sell Cherry.”
Sell a woman. Sell a soul.
Jarm’s grief was palpable. It wasn’t his own mistreatment that had made him run, but hers. Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Who had told him slaves couldn’t think? Couldn’t feel?
His father.
The silence turned thick with undisguised misery. Jack looked at his own boots and drew in a lungful of hot, sweat-stained air. When Jarm was about to lose what he’d cared about most, he’d run. Jack couldn’t fathom it till his mind filled with Ellie. It was the only comparison he could muster. He’d been livid when she’d been accosted along the road. He’d wanted to kill the man who’d simply bruised her chin.
What if he never again caught sight of Ellie, head bent over a book? Never felt the warmth of her smile? Never resolved the unspoken questions in her eyes, that half-hopeful, half-wistful way she always seemed to regard him?
“I understand,” Jack said, pulling himself to his feet and going out.
Dr. Brunot came again at dusk. Though only a few days had passed since the runaways’ arrival, Jack was becoming increasingly uneasy with Jarm and Cherry’s presence. Chloe and Ben looked continually toward River Row, clearly intrigued, though Jarm was careful to come out of the cottage only at night. Luckily, Mrs. Malarkey seemed to forget all about them, though Sol had raided the kitchen oft enough to bring the fugitives food and drink and raise her suspicions.
Jack had warned Chloe and Ben more than once to say nothing, yet his sister had always been glib as a spring freshet. He could hardly wait to extricate himself from the whole affair and quietly return to his crops and ledgers. Always near at hand, Sol had readied a wagon for the fugitives’ departure, the bed filled with grain sacks. All that remained was for Brunot to provide the details.
Finally, in the humid, firefly-ridden twilight, plans were laid for Jarm and Cherry’s leave-taking. Seated inside the cottage, Jarm sat hunch-shouldered between Jack and the doctor around a crude table, all alert to the slightest sound. The baying of hounds. The nickering of horses. Any sudden commotion.
Brunot’s aging features held a wariness and weariness that troubled Jack, though the doctor smoked his pipe nonchalantly as he examined the map spread before them, the rich-smelling smoke spiraling round their bent heads. “You’ll leave before first light along the old Warrior’s Trace.” He spoke slowly, as if careful not to overwhelm the understandably skittish Jarm. “It’s best to take a market wagon, as Cherry is still too weak to walk the distance. If you’re stopped, produce the pass I gave you and say as little as possible. You’re simply moving grain to the Quakers at Harmony Grove.”
Jarm nodded. “We’re to keep north, follow the North Star.”
Dr. Brunot leaned nearer the map. “You have sturdy shoes, clothes, and pocket money. Enough food to see you there. The Quaker you’re looking for is John Hogue. The miller who provided you with the grain is Abel Simons.”
“John Hogue,” Jarm repeated, his voice sounding undeniably haggard, as if the journey was fifteen hundred miles instead of fifteen. “And Abel Simons.”
Sensing his fear, Jack removed a small pistol from his belt and placed it on the table. “Hide this under the wagon seat. It’s primed and loaded.”
The gnarled, ebony hands picked up the gun hesitantly, making Jack realize Jarm had never used one. Jarm set it down as if bitten when Dr. Brunot said, “Giving a Negro a gun is a crime, Jack. You could be jailed, even executed, if found out.”
“So be it.” Jack reached for the pistol and fitted it to Jarm’s hand, showing him how to aim and pull the trigger and reload, then passed him a small bullet bag when he was able to handle the gun with more ease. “Use it only as a last resort.”
Brown eyes met gray, and for once Jarm didn’t look away.
“That’s right,” Jack reiterated firmly. “Be bold. Act free. Look people in the eye. Give them no reason to suspect you’re anything but your own man.”
“Wise advice,” Dr. Brunot murmured, leaning over to dump the ashes from his pipe into the cold hearth. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to return home. After a stillbirth and a catarrh, it’s been a long day.”
There was a brief pause as Cherry rose from the bed to thank them, tears in her eyes. Jack felt his throat knot at the sight of her, rail thin, clutching her newborn, a smile on her lips though her ordeal was far from over.
Dr. Brunot motioned them all nearer. “I never part with anyone till the journey is covered in prayer.” Putting his pipe in his breast pocket, he clamped a firm hand on Jarm’s shoulder and gently took Cherry’s elbow. Never having prayed, nor been with people who did, Jack kept his eyes open, though he did lower his head as the doctor began.
“Almighty Father, you created all men equal, and for that liberty we give you heartfelt thanks. Jarm’s and Cherry’s lives—and that of their child—are in Your faithful hands. Guide them safely to Harmony Grove and on to freedom. For this we plead Your everlasting mercy.”
Their combined “Amens” assured Jack that he was the only spiritual imposter in the group. He stepped onto the porch into welcome darkness with an embarrassment he’d not felt since boyhood.
Dr. Brunot’s tone lightened as he drew the door shut. “Did you hear that, Jack? They’ve named the baby after you. It’s a boy, if you didn’t know.”
“They’d have been better off naming him after you.”
“What? Theophilus?” Brunot chuckled. “I’ve often thanked the Lord it was shortened to Theo. I still don’t know what my dear mother had in mind.”
Jack managed a smile. “It’s no shame to be named after a Roman official. Or a New Testament saint.”
Brunot’s eyebrows peaked. “Your grandfather the judge schooled you well.”
“He tried.” The pride he felt in Hugh O’Hara was overshadowed by the memory of his paternal grandfather, who had been killed in a brawl. Though Jack had only been a boy at the time, the scandal had rocked Allegheny County, the memory st
ill vivid. No doubt the doctor remembered it too.
“Besides,” Brunot said, unhitching his horse, “you’re Jarm and Cherry’s first taste of freedom. They’ll not soon forget it.”
Jack checked a sigh, kicking at a stone near the toe of his boot as the doctor rode off into the night. So the baby was to be called Jack. The honor brought more regret than pleasure.
What was in a name? What did it matter?
Depending on whether you were a Ballantyne or a Turlock . . . everything.
19
Love and a cough cannot be hid.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Spending days in the garden with Mama, peaceful and joyous though they were, reminded Ellie of Chloe and their shared anticipation of turning a corner of River Hill’s garden glorious again. Sadly, Ellie tucked that wish away. At her parents’ prompting, she’d written notes to her students, telling them she’d not be teaching for a fortnight. What transpired next remained to be seen, but she prayed she could continue, even if it meant being escorted everywhere, almost under guard. She’d not use the back road again. Its shady lane had assumed nightmarish proportions.
“Your students will understand, Ellie,” Mama reassured her. “We’ve just returned from a long trip. There are things to be done . . . planned.”
The last word was not lost on Ellie. She contemplated her mother, who was busy snipping dozens of tiny rosebuds with small pruners and filling a willow basket dangling from one arm. In years past they’d spent countless hours together in just this way, making sachet and rose soap and lavender water for the household.
“Your birthday will soon be here.” Looking over her shoulder, Mama regarded Ellie with a mix of wonder and affection. “I well recall the day you were born, every detail. Your father planted this climbing rose that very morning, sure you’d be a girl. It’s hard to believe both you and these blossoms are of age.”