Freeman (10 page)

If the white couple noticed either of them, they gave no sign.

Prudence sat at the window of the rail car, her eyes closed and her face pinched against the warm soot that flowed across her, soft as baby’s hands. She was hoping against hope to snatch a breath of cool air from the river of foul smoke.

They had been traveling for two days. She shuddered to think how many depots they had seen, how many trains they had changed. Boston up to Rutland, Vermont, down to Schenectady, New York, crossing into Canada north of Niagara Falls, through the province of Ontario back into the United States at Detroit. Now the farmlands of Indiana rushed by in a blur. Somewhere ahead, Chicago awaited. From there to St. Louis and then by steamship down to Memphis.

Prudence had never traveled across the country before and it was, she found, a perfectly awful experience. Hard seats, overflowing spittoons, dirty boys in and out of the car hawking newspapers, quack medicines, sandwiches, and mushy apples, passengers forced to crowd on and off the train for meal stops that lasted barely 20 minutes. A perfect cacophony.

Or at least, so it had been yesterday.

Today, the president was dead. The news had reached them in Detroit. Lincoln had been shot the night before. He had expired that very morning.

The news had turned the entire train inward. The conductor’s stride was softer and less imperial, the dirty boys were sullen, the passengers gazed about with eyes that did not seem to quite see.

She remembered how exasperated Jamie and her father had been with Lincoln when the new president was inaugurated for the first time. His abhorrence of slavery, they agreed, was real enough, but at the same time, he seemed unwilling or unable to act on it. John Cafferty had read the text of Lincoln’s inauguration address with his face congealed in a frown before passing the newspaper on to Jamie.

“The man is a ditherer,” he complained, “begging the Southern states to turn from this foolish course they have set themselves on, plying them with promises to leave slavery alone if they would just consent to remain with the Union. The time for pleading with those people is over. Why not simply blockade their harbors, lay siege to their cities, stand up for right and do the Lord’s work without fear or compromise?”

“He is not much,” Jamie had agreed, “but he is all we have.”

Like Jamie, her father had not lived to see the end of the war. But he had seen enough. And through years of horrifying headlines, years of watching young men ground up and spat out by the thousands in places like Chickamauga, Antietam, Cold Harbor and, of course, Gettysburg, her father’s opinion of the president had changed, skepticism yielding to a grudging respect. “I cannot begin to imagine the pressures on that man,” she had heard him say once over dinner the day casualty reports came in from a battle in a place called Shiloh. “Twenty-three thousand men,” he said. “My God.”

The man across from him, a shipbuilder, had barked a laugh of surprise. “Well, that is a change,” he had said. “Words of sympathy for Lincoln? From you? It wasn’t so long ago, John, you were complaining that the president was a timid mouse frightened of his own shadow. You said he lacked the necessary resolve.”

Father had fixed his friend with a grave expression. “I have learned better,” he said simply. “The president does move slowly and in his own time. But when he moves, by God he moves.”

And now he was gone. That poor, homely man, she thought. What would the country do without him?

“You’re thinking about Lincoln,” said Bonnie, reading her thoughts. Somehow, she had always been able to do that.

Prudence nodded. “Yes,” she said.

Bonnie closed her eyes and began to recite in a soft voice. “‘Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’’”

Bonnie’s eyes came open. “When he spoke those words at the inaugural last month, I wonder if he could have known some of that blood would be his.”

Prudence was about to reply when she became aware of a woman across the aisle staring in open-mouthed fascination. Caught, the woman colored, touched her chest and began to stammer. “I do apologize,” she said, speaking up to be heard over the clatter of the rails, “but your girl is so bright. I don’t know many
white
people who could memorize and recite so well.”

Automatically, Prudence stiffened in anger. “She is not—”

She stopped when Bonnie grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly enough to hurt. “Miss Prudence,” she said sweetly, very sweetly, “we talked about this.”

And so they had. Bonnie had vowed to catch the first train back to Boston if Prudence did not curb her sharp tongue. Bonnie had insisted that while they traveled, she would present herself as Prudence’s handmaiden. Her “girl.” It was, she had said, the only way to travel together unmolested. So Prudence gritted her teeth and tried to pass it off as a smile. “Yes,” she said, “my girl is very bright.”

The woman’s nod was dubious. The moment she turned away, Prudence snatched her hand back and massaged it angrily. “I suppose I should be grateful you did not break a bone in my hand,” she said.

“No, you should be grateful if I don’t break a bone in your
neck
,” hissed Bonnie. “I told you how it would be, did I not? I warned you, did I not? We are not even in the South yet, and already you forget.”

Prudence’s only response was a grudging sigh.

“If this mission is to have any chance of success, Miss Prudence, you must learn to hold that temper of yours in check. We are a very long way from Beacon Hill. Nobody out here knows you, they do not know who your father was. And they will not tolerate your…eccentricities.”

“But Miss Bonnie—”

“No.” Bonnie shook her head and her voice was firm. “I am just Bonnie.”

Prudence folded her arms. “Fine, then,” she said.

A silence intervened between them. In it, people read their papers, a boy walked through hawking an elixir guaranteed to cure miasmas and low spirits, and a girl three seats behind them yelped as a cinder found her neck. Prudence felt a touch on her arm and looked over.

“I am not ungrateful,” Bonnie said, “and I apologize if that is the way I sound. I
am
grateful to you, to your father, even to that old Negro furniture maker. Without him, your life—and thus, my life—would have been dramatically different. But what I am trying to remind you is that most of the country does not feel as you do. If this mission of ours is to have any hope of success, you must understand that. And you must take care that you do not underestimate the amount of bitterness and anger we will encounter where we are going.”

“You need have no fear on that score,” said Prudence.

Bonnie studied her. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” said Prudence.

“And you agree with me that we must do nothing to unduly antagonize the people we encounter.”

“Yes,” said Prudence. And when Bonnie didn’t turn immediately away, she repeated it. “Yes,” she said. “I assure you, I understand.”

Bonnie watched her a moment more, saying nothing. At length, she leaned back upon the seat and closed her eyes.

They reached Chicago that afternoon. The city was wreathed in black bunting and American flags and its people all bore the same expressions of heartbreak and disbelief. The next train wasn’t until morning. Prudence hired a wagon to transport them and their bags to a nearby hotel. She secured a room for the two of them, but when they came down for dinner, the hotel manager insisted Bonnie would have to eat in the servants’ quarters.

“She will do no such thing,” said Prudence. “She will eat with me in the dining room.”

“Madam, we have our policies,” said the manager, smiling, hands pressed together, bowing slightly.

“Devil take your policies,” said Prudence.

The words made Bonnie lower her head, unseen by Prudence or the manager. It was as if their conversation this very day had never happened, as if she had not explained to Prudence patiently and lovingly why she must govern her temper and hold her impulsive nature in check, as if Prudence had never nodded and said she understood. “
I assure you
,” she had said.

But then, thought Bonnie, although temper and impulse loomed large in her best friend’s character, they were not the only traits that defined her.

No, when you got down to it, Prudence Cafferty Kent was simply stubborn, the most mulish, headstrong person Bonnie had ever known. When her dander was up, everything else was forgotten and she became the immovable object daring the irresistible force to budge her. Obstinacy had served her well for a lifetime in Boston. Of course, everyone in Boston knew her or knew her father and it had become something of a joke, in her circle at least, for people to indulge the willful young woman with the eccentric behavior.

But what Prudence didn’t understand, or
refused
to understand, was that they were no longer in her circle, no longer in Boston. They were in a far place with many miles yet to go.

The manager straightened and his smile went away. “I beg your pardon?” he said, regarding Prudence balefully.

They were still arguing when Bonnie walked away. She was halfway across the room when she heard Prudence call her name. She didn’t stop.

“Bonnie!” called Prudence, louder this time. “Where are you going?”

And now she did stop, half turning toward an expression she knew all too well—lightning flashing in Prudence’s eyes, righteousness tightening the line of her mouth, caught right in the middle of her favorite pastime, scolding someone who had been foolish enough to make her angry. Bonnie felt her shoulders slump. She was miserably aware that the room had gone still, that forks were paused in midflight, that waiters had frozen with plates halfway to tables, that every eye in the dining room was upon her and Prudence and the bizarre tableau now unfolding.

“I told you, didn’t I,” she said. “Did I not tell you?”

“Bonnie, this is only a trifle. This man just needs—”

“Just leave me alone, please,” Bonnie heard herself say.

The face softened. “Bonnie.” It was an entreaty, all the weight of all their years together behind that single word.

“
Please
,” repeated Bonnie and that, too, was an entreaty. “Just leave me be.”

“But where will you go? What will you do?”

Bonnie didn’t answer. She walked away, listening for Prudence’s steps behind her as she did. But to Bonnie’s relief, Prudence did not follow. Bonnie walked out of the hotel alone and into the unknown streets.

For a time, she moved through the city without knowing herself, without seeing where she was going—the going itself being the entire point. Carriages and streetcars clattered past, chattering crowds parted around her, paperboys yelled of Mr. Lincoln’s death.

Time passed. She did not know how much. But eventually, she found herself standing at the entrance to the train depot, hands clasped before her, gazing up at the sign over the door, trying to decide. So focused was she upon her own thoughts that it was a moment before Bonnie realized she was being watched. He was a small, gray-haired colored man in a porter’s uniform and he leaned against the wall, smoking a pipe and regarding her with frank curiosity. She approached him on impulse. “I beg your pardon,” she said, and she almost had to yell to make herself heard above the clatter of a train pulling into the yard on the other side of the building. “Would you kindly tell me when the next train might depart for Boston?”

“You got to connect through Detroit,” he yelled back in a thin, tart voice. “But won’t be no train out for Detroit til tomorrow.”

“I see,” she said. She thought for a moment, then said, “Well, can you tell me where a colored woman might go for a meal and perhaps a bed to sleep in?”

The face turned kindly. “Ain’t too many of us here, tell you the truth. But I know a widow lady, a Negro, never turn a hungry traveler away. Come on with me. I’m goin’ that way myself.”

By the time Prudence lay down in the bed and pulled the covers up, her anger had burned itself down to simple sorrow. Bonnie was her closest friend. The thought of losing her was too much to bear. Prudence had no idea how she would go on without her. She feared being so truly alone in the alien place she was going to.

Why was Bonnie so stubborn? Why had she made such a scene over a trifling matter that could be swiftly resolved?