Indigo (37 page)

Hester's plans for a fair were quickly set aside the next morning when Bea brought over terrible news. A band of Shoe's men had kidnapped Bea's neighbor, Samuel Creighton, and his son, Peter. There'd been no writ, and no hearing before Sheriff Lawson. The kidnappers simply overran the small farm in the middle of the night and took them away.

The Creightons had only recently moved to Whittaker after living the past three years in Canada. They'd fled there along with tens of thousands of other members of the race to escape the potential kidnapping made legal by the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. From what little Hester knew of them, Mr. Creighton was a carpenter, his son Peter, only twelve.

"Was his wife Emma harmed?"

"She was beaten very badly, but not taken south."

Hester could well imagine Emma's fear for her husband and son and her heart ached for the woman. "Did anyone go after them?"

"Branton and a few others, but Shoe's men are at least four or five hours ahead. I doubt they'll be able to bring them back."

Bea had tears in her aging eyes as she raged, "This has to stop, we shouldn't have to live this way. No one is safe, Hester, no one."

She went over and placed her arms around the older woman. "We must stay strong, Bea. We must stay strong."

Later that evening, Hester, along with a large portion of the community, kept vigil at the church in hopes that Branton and his men would be successful. It was not to be. The men returned tired and disheartened. They'd been ambushed outside of Monroe by locals employed by the slave hunter Porter Greer, undoubtedly to slow their progress. In the ensuing gun battle, Branton Hubble had received a wound to the chest and hadn't survived.

Hester ran from the church, her heart screaming. She did not want it to be true. She stood out in the silent night, shaking, filled with grief. All Branton wanted was to be free. He spent his whole life pursuing freedom, only to be cut down by brigands already destined for hell. The tears ran freely down her cheeks. She stood there crying silently for what seemed an eternity. Renaud eventually found her, eased her to the coach, and took her home.

The community went into mourning. Women wore black, men wore black, and many of the businesses in Whittaker and Ypsilanti draped their storefronts with black wreaths. Branton Hubble had touched many people in the area and everyone grieved at his passing. The funeral scheduled for two days hence was planned by Hester and the women of her circle because Branton had no other family in the North.

The day before the funeral, Hester had Renaud escort her over to her old home so she could retrieve some platters needed to hold food for the after-burial dinner. While she went on inside, Renaud and the driver took a slow walk around the grounds to make certain things were in order. Everything appeared fine except for the two male runaways hiding in the loft of the barn.

When Renaud came into the kitchen and related his find, Hester stared a moment, then quickly went to see.

Sure enough, there were two men in the loft. One of them asked, "Are you Hester Wyatt?"

She nodded. "And you are?"

"William Madison. This is my cousin, Claude St. Clair."

"How long have you been here?"

"Almost five days. A friend in Ann Arbor said you would help us."

Hester looked the men over. There had been cases of Blacks being in cahoots with slave hunters. They'd often times pass themselves off as fugitives in order to gain the confidence of the residents of the community. Hester didn't believe these men were out to dupe her; she had a strong sense that they were who they claimed. "I apologize for not being available when you arrived, but I've recently married and now reside elsewhere. Have you eaten?"

"Not for a few days."

They both looked tired, but they appeared healthy. The conversation was abruptly interrupted by the coach driver running into the barn. "Shoe and his devils are coming up the road."

Hester didn't waste a breath. "William, you and Claude back up under the bales. Quickly! Slave hunters!"

The men hustled to hide themselves once more. Hester and Renaud ran behind the barn and pretended to be observing the progress of the fruit that would soon appear on the apple trees in her father's wild orchard. When Shoe rode up, he tipped his hat. "Howdy, gal. Sorry to hear about Hubble. Guess he's learned his lesson about poking around in the business of his betters."

Seeing his glee, Hester's anger rose, but she held her tongue.

He turned his evil grin on Renaud and gave him a slow look over. "You one of them Creoles from that fancy house up on the point?"

Renaud nodded faintly.

"You got papers, boy?"

Renaud replied blandly, "I don't need papers. I'm a French citizen. In France we don't pedigree and paper the populace as if they were horses or dogs."

"You're pretty uppity."

"Thank you," Renaud said with a bow. He then asked coolly, "Now, what business do you have here?"

One of Shoe's riders spat. "Mighty uppity."

Renaud inclined his head at the man.

Shoe ignored them, continuing to hold Hester's stare. He said smoothly, "I just want her to know I've heard some real interesting things about her. Real interesting."

Hester's eyes were cold. "Such as?"

"You're free, but you wasn't born in the North."

"No, I was not. Last I knew that was not against the law."

"Maybe not, but then again, one never knows. I got somebody looking into it though."

Renaud asked frostily, "Looking into what?"

"Just how free that gal really is."

Hester felt the hair rise up on her neck. Shoe leaned down and said, "I can always smell a runaway, and you stink to high heaven, missy."

Hester didn't flinch. "Is there anything else?"

"Nope. At least not now. Just remember me and the boys got our eyes on you."

With a black-toothed grin and a mocking tip of his sweat-stained hat, Shoe wheeled his animal around, then he and his men rode off down the road.

Hester let out her breath. "I say we move William and Claude now, while Shoe's moving in the opposite direction."

"I agree. So much for his celebrated nose."

Hester quipped, "The only way he could smell a fugitive would be if the fugitive handed him soap and water beforehand."

While Claude and William made their way down from the loft, Hester questioned the coachman about the number of men in Shoe's party when he first spotted them coming up the road. She wanted to make certain Shoe had not left a scout amongst the trees to spy upon them. By the coachman's count he had not; Shoe had ridden up with six men and ridden away with the same number.

Satisfied, Hester and Renaud hustled the barn's fugitives into the coach for the ride back to the Folly.

She turned the two men over to Maxi who fed them, showed them where to wash up, and put them to bed. In the meantime she and Hester rounded up clothes they thought would fit. The fugitives slept until late evening, after which they sat with Hester and Andre to discuss where they wished to go next.

"Canada," they said in unison. Both men had family and friends already in residence there. They'd escaped Tennessee with a forged pass saying they were needed in Chicago by their master, who'd suddenly become ill. The pass indicated the men were to escort the sick master back to his family in Nashville.

William, the taller of the two, explained, "We wrote the pass ourselves. The part about Master Day being in Chicago is true. When he departed, so did we."

Hester smiled at their cleverness.

Claude added, "I'm certain the news that we've run will ruin his trip. He was counting on us to keep his tables going."

Andre's face mirrored his confusion. "Tables?"

"Master Day owns a bordello in Nashville. William and I run the faro tables. We also keep the books. When we walked away, we took a week's worth of take, purchased two train tickets, and left his business in the hands of his wastrel brother-in-law, whose passion for drink far outpaces his business sense. If Master Day isn't in the poor house by now, he will be very soon."

Everyone laughed.

That night as she lay in Galen's large bed, Hester mulled over how best to aid William and Claude in going to Canada. She knew many people would be attending tomorrow's funeral and decided it would be the perfect opportunity for the men to move on. She doubted Branton would mind if a few fugitives were added to his funeral procession; in fact she was certain he would be honored to help move freight this one last time.

However, she'd no intentions of bringing anyone outside the house in on the plan. Shoe had frightened her this afternoon with his talk of looking into her past. He'd said someone had given him information on her and she hadn't an inkling as to who it might be. She wondered if this could be tied to Galen's mysterious traitor? As Galen had pointed out, the traitor could be anyone, so the fewer who knew of William and Claude's true identity, the safer the men would be.

She thought about Shoe then and his ugly face resurfaced in her mind. He'd reeked of confidence today and that added to her wariness. How much did he actually know about her journey north? She hoped the fates would not be so unkind as to fling her back into the hated arms of slavery, not after all this time. She hoped...but in times like these she knew nothing was certain.

The day of the funeral it poured rain. There were so many people the little church could not hold the crowd, so the Reverend Adams moved everything outside. The fugitives William and Claude were hidden amongst the mourners from a church group in Sarnia. Once the service ended and everyone made the silent walk to the cemetery, William and Claude would depart with the group.

Throughout the solemn event, Andre Renaud held an umbrella above her head to keep her from being drenched, but it offered no protection from the grief and pain she felt inside. Branton Hubble had been a good, decent man. When she first came north, he'd been one of the many people who'd helped her with her lessons. She remembered with fondness how patient he'd always been with her. With his death the circle of those who'd helped her cross the bridge from slavery to freedom tightened, as did her heart. Burying Branton also brought back the memories of burying her aunt Katherine. Hester hoped now that the two, no longer bound by earthly ties, would find peace together.

The walk to the cemetery was a tradition, and Hester had made the trek in the rains of spring, the heat of summer, and the blowing snow and cold of late fall. Never had she witnessed a downpour such as this one today, but not a soul complained. They'd come to pay last respects to a man whose life had been devoted to freedom; no one in the cortege would be so disrespectful as to grumble about mud-covered shoes or sodden clothing.

They buried Branton with his Bible and a copy of Francis E. Watkins's famous poem, "Bury Me in a Free Land."

As the bearers solemnly shoveled the dirt down onto the simple wooden casket, Hester, standing in the rain, surrounded by the crowd, read the poem aloud in a steady, clear voice.

 

"Make me a grave where'er you will,

In a lowly plain or lofty hill;

Make it among earth's humble graves,

But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest, if around my grave

I heard the steps of a trembling slave;

His shadow above my silent tomb

Would make it a place of fearful gloom
..."

 

By the time Hester reached the eighth and final stanza, her voice was choked with tears.

 

"I ask no monument, proud and high, To arrest the gaze of the passers by. All that my yearning spirit craves Is
—
Bury me not in a land of slaves!
..."

 

In the days that followed, Shoe and his kidnappers struck again and again, from Ypsilanti to Detroit to Monroe, where he teamed up with Porter Greer and his band of thugs. Alone they were menacing, together they invoked terror.

All over the county people were afraid to leave their homes. Women hung quilts on their wash lines to signal fugitives that the area was unsafe. Men sat up at night, shotguns at the ready in case it became necessary to defend their homes and their families. Sheriff Lawson was doing his best to enforce the Michigan law that forbade forced kidnapping, but Shoe continued to elude Lawson's very undermanned posse. Hester had Renaud take her back over to the Wyatt house so she could transfer the small arsenal in her kitchen to Galen's stores. Hester still had an aversion to weapons, but she'd employ one if it became necessary.

As in the case of the Blackburns and the Creighton men, Shoe's kidnappings all involved lesser-known folks, people who were not connected in any way to the Road except for their fugitive status, people who stayed close to home and were rarely seen.

"It's as if someone is sacrificing lambs to Shoe," Hester told Renaud and Abigail Grayson over breakfast that morning. Gail had returned from Niles last night. She'd been very distressed by all the terrible happenings. Shoe's treacherous activities had even overshadowed the surprising news of Hester's marriage to Galen Vachon.