Stealing Freedom (22 page)

“I want you to lock the door,” she told Ann. “I'll be up later with your turkey and plum pudding, and to see how you're faring.”

But Ann had her eye on the desk. “I'd like to write to my family,” she said.

Mrs. Tappan stared at her a moment, surprised. Then she went to the desk, opened the inkwell, and pulled out several sheets of blank paper. “Of course you may, dear. But please— don't mention the name of anyone who has helped you get here, and do keep the letters well hidden until you reach Canada. It would not be safe to post them before you cross the border.”

Ann promised she would.

Mrs. Tappan left to tend to her guests, who were already beginning to fill the parlor downstairs, and Ann locked the door securely. She sat down at the desk and ran her fingers over
the smooth cherry wood. She picked up the quill pen. It felt strange in her hand. She had only ever formed letters on a slate with a crude piece of chalk. She dipped the pen in the ink and moved it toward the paper. A dollop of ink dripped onto the page, making an ugly dark blotch. She sighed. She dipped the pen again, then tapped it lightly on the edge of the inkwell. This time it didn't drip.

“Dear…”
She drew the pen over the paper, printing her letters the way young Miss Sarah had taught her. Her writing wasn't beautiful, like the graceful cursive she'd seen Mr. Bigelow use, but she could print out the words the way she remembered them from newspapers and books. She smiled, bit her lip, and continued slowly:
“…Mother, Father, Catharine, and John Junyor. I miss you all more then I can say.”

She dipped and wrote, and felt in the movement of her hand that she was touching her family. It was not a solid touch, like an embrace or a kiss, but a caress, like feathers or wind. She saw her thoughts appear on the page, and hoped that when her family read her words, they would feel that she was close rather than so far away.
“They will take my dagerotype befor I leve, and send it to you. I do hope that it will not be the last time you see my face befor we meet in Heven. I send all my love. Yours, Ann Maria.”

She wiped the tears quickly off her cheeks, so they wouldn't splash down on the page and ruin the ink. As she wrote, she felt another strong tug on her heart. She pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began:

“Dear Alfred. I never ment to leve you without a word….”

The next morning Ann scarcely had time to eat breakfast before members of the New York Vigilance Committee began arriving. They praised her for her courage and pressed gifts into her arms: girl's clothes to change into once she was safe in Canada—a warm cape and bonnet, knitted brown mittens and scarf, a dress made of deep green wool, bloomers, stockings, a slip, and a small leather suitcase in which to pack it all. “You'll need everything you can carry to keep warm in Canada,” said a round, pale woman in a widow's black dress.

Ann's stomach had begun to do little flips with each mention of Canada. In a very short time the Reverend Freeman would come to get her and start the journey.

“And don't you let that suitcase out of your sight,” said the widow, her gray eyes narrowing, “Or someone is liable to step off the train with all your possessions.”

Ann's stomach did a tremendous flip. The
train?
In Philadelphia she'd watched a train rumble wildly along its
tracks, spewing black smoke like an angry monster. And Laura had told her about the gory accidents, when at night folks didn't see the engine's lamp, didn't hear the warning whistle, and got torn to pieces by the monster. She didn't want to get near a train, let alone get on one.

Sarah Tappan interrupted her thoughts. “Ann Maria, the man is here to take your daguerreotype.”

Ann found herself being hurried over to a chair. Lewis Tap-pan brought her cap and placed it carefully on her head. Sarah Tappan smoothed her lapels and straightened her tie. “We want you to look like a boy, but a nice neat boy,” she said.

A lanky white man stood next to a large black contraption on stilts. He told her to sit very still: then he disappeared behind the contraption. Ann smelled something that reminded her of the orange iodine Mistress Carol used on Miss Sarah's knees when she skinned them. After a few minutes, the man told her she was free to move. As he tinkered with a thin copper plate, the air filled with the odor of rotten eggs.

“We'll send the plates to your parents as soon as they're developed,” said Mr. Tappan.

A loud knock sounded at the door, and Mrs. Tappan hurried to answer it. A tall, thin-shouldered gentleman entered. He had a long face and a straight nose that made him look as if he had Indian blood in his veins along with the African blood. Everyone from the Vigilance Committee seemed to know him, and there was hand-shaking all around. When he came to Ann, he said, “You must be the guest of honor. I'm Reverend Freeman. I understand we'll be traveling to Canada together.”

Ann's hands went clammy. “Yes,” she said softly. All the
way to Canada. Today. On a train. She did not feel the least bit ready, but knew there was nothing she could do but follow her journey to its end.

The final good-byes from the members of the Vigilance Committee, the drive through the gathering dusk in the Tap-pans’ carriage to the train station, her first close-up view of a monster train sitting idle, spitting steam—it all felt like part of a dream. She could just as well have been watching it as living it.

Ann climbed up the steep steps into the train car. She figured it was better to be inside a train rather than outside, near the dangerous tracks. She took her seat next to the Reverend Freeman in the car reserved for colored passengers. As she looked out at the night, the train lurched, hissed, and started its slow chugging. The motion quickened and gathered speed, until they were flying through the darkness with the wide black Hudson River on their left and short jagged cliffs and forest on their right. The train jostled her, shoving her back and forth relentlessly. She felt the miles fly past with more speed than she'd ever experienced, and felt the distance growing between her and everything she had ever known. And as the rhythm of the train vibrated her bones, it meshed with an old familiar rhythm inside her, a rhythm that spoke. As she listened, it said, “Goodbye, good-bye, good-bye…”

The train rumbled through the night. The conductor came through the car from time to time, calling out towns—Albany, Utica, Syracuse—like the names of long-lost sons. When Ann got up to find the privy, she found it difficult to walk, the car jostled so. She wondered if there were any other fugitives on board. The car was almost full, with either passengers or piles of luggage taking up every seat. A few children lay sprawled across their mothers’ laps, both child and mother asleep. One young mother slept, her head tilted back, with a baby nursing at her breast. There were men in fine suits and men in torn, threadbare coats, all of them bumping from side to side with the motion of the train.

Sometimes Ann slept, then awoke with her neck stiff and her back aching. Reverend Freeman sat next to her, sometimes dozing, sometimes looking out the window into the darkness. She'd hardly spoken to him, but he seemed to understand her silence, and remained a comforting, quiet presence.

It was still dark when the train stopped at yet another town, and the commotion of passengers leaving and getting on awakened both Ann and the Reverend. He caught her eye and smiled.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

Ann rubbed her sore neck. “I'm all right,” she said. “Are we close to Canada yet?”

“Getting there,” he answered. Then he pointed out the window. “Look at the mills.”

The massive brick buildings stood silent, their rows of tall, dark windows staring into the night like hollow eye sockets.

“Sixty years ago,” said the Reverend, “slavery was dying out. It looked as if folks were about to come to their senses and end the whole thing. But then the cotton gin came along, and folks up North here realized they could use lots of raw cotton for the mills. The only place to get raw cotton is the South, and the only way to grow it cheaply is with slave labor. Slaves growing cotton in the South meant that mill workers in the North would keep their jobs, so both Northerners and Southerners decided maybe slavery wasn't such a bad thing after all. We got a hundred new mills and thousands of new slaves.”

The train started up again and carried them past the town and its mills, into the countryside. In the east the sky began to turn pink, and the snow took on a rosy glow.

“Is it time for breakfast?” Reverend Freeman asked.

“It must be,” said Ann.

He opened the bundle Sarah Tappan had packed for them: slices of cold bacon between thick chunks of bread, apples, and a flask of water. They ate as the sun rose, small and white-yellow.

Ann had fallen asleep again by the time the conductor marched through their car and called, “Next stop, Buffalo!” She rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter.

The Reverend leaned close to Ann. “After Buffalo is Niagara Falls,” he said quietly. “Many of the trains don't go across the suspension bridge to Canada, so we may need to get off this one and wait for one that does.”

It sounded simple enough.

“The suspension bridge is the most likely place for slave catchers to be waiting,” Reverend Freeman said.

Ann's stomach tensed.

“This will be our plan,” said the Reverend. His voice was calm and reassuring. “We will act as if you are very ill. I will support you as if you barely have the strength to stand. Even a slave hunter will be afraid of catching a bad case of cholera or consumption. Lord willing, we'll be left alone and a train will come soon to take us over the bridge.”

This sounded like a good plan. Why shouldn't it work? She'd come too far to be caught now, she decided. She watched the early-afternoon sun make the snow glitter with multicolored points of light.

At Buffalo more passengers got off than got on. Ann guessed that not many people went to the small town of Niagara Falls, and even fewer were going across to Canada.

“Next stop, Niagara Falls!”

She gripped the arm of her seat and waited. As the train pulled into the station, passengers gathered their food baskets, coats, and luggage. Reverend Freeman checked the latches on his suitcase. Ann held hers in her lap and hugged it. Outside on
the platform passengers waited, their bags at their feet, their breath freezing in the cold air. Many people wore hats and coats made of fur instead of wool.

A white man in an official-looking uniform stepped onto their car. “Papers. I need to see your papers,” he said.

The passengers rummaged in sacks and pockets, pulling out their documents. One man even ripped the lining out of his coat in order to retrieve his. The Reverend took his freedman's papers from his suitcase, and Ann reached inside her shirt to get hers. The uniformed man read each document carefully, checking to make sure the printed description matched the person. As he read Ann's, he looked from the paper to her, and back to the paper again. She knew he was reading a description very similar to the one in her runaway notice: thick hair, light skin, slender build, freckles. And she knew that the description, combined with the girl's clothes in her suitcase, could easily betray her. She hugged her suitcase more tightly. Then she relaxed her grip as the man handed her documents back to her and moved on to the next passenger.

After the man left the car, the train still showed no signs of moving, and no conductor came to announce the next stop. Reverend Freeman rose and began to gather their belongings. “Looks like we'll have to change trains,” he said. He fixed his eyes on Ann. “We'll do just as we said.”

Ann picked up their bundle of food and hoisted her suitcase, but the Reverend reached for it. “I'll take that,” he said. “Remember, you're too weak to carry it.”

She was ready to stumble off the train looking as sickly as she could manage. The fact that her papers had passed inspection
gave her confidence, and she'd begun to think that acting ill might be rather interesting. Then she heard the dogs.

It was the sound of bloodhounds on a hunt—of “nigger dogs” in hot pursuit of a runaway. The sound froze them both, and out of the train window they saw a well-dressed man being led away in shackles. Ann's breath caught in her throat. He had made it this far—almost to Canada! And now he would be sent back. She shut her eyes and her mind against what would happen to the man once he was returned to his master.

A conductor moved through the car, asking for tickets. When he looked at theirs he said, “Clear through to Canada, eh?”

Reverend Freeman nodded.

“Sit down, then. This car goes across.”

Ann sat down, trembling, and greatly relieved. The bloodhounds used one of two things to find a runaway: the scent from an item of their clothing, left behind, or the scent of fear. Dogs were not fooled by well-forged papers or elaborate disguises. Ann felt quite certain that if she'd had to walk by those hounds, they would have smelled her terror.

Ann willed the train to start and get her out of this land where innocent people could be beaten and maimed for simply wanting their freedom. Outside her window she saw the man who had checked her papers talking with the two men holding the hounds. The dogs were restless, pacing to the end of their straps, straining, being yanked back, and pacing again. Almost without thinking, Ann reached into the food bundle and pulled out a chunk of bread and bacon. She remembered, what seemed like a lifetime ago, running up a hill in the moonlight to feed Master Charles's hounds. It was one of those important
things her parents had taught her, like remembering to say “sir” when speaking to one's master, or remembering to keep one's skirt away from the flames in the hearth.
Remember to have food in your hand when the hounds are near.
She pressed her fingers around the bread and bacon and rested her forehead against the window, wishing those men would leave, or the train would start, or both.

She glanced at Reverend Freeman in his seat next to her. He sat silently, his eyes closed and his head bowed. She saw his lips move in prayer. Suddenly it struck her that he was in more danger than she, and her chest went cold. If they were caught, she, at least, would be sent back alive. Would the Reverend Freeman receive his trial and sentence and punishment right here on the cliffs overlooking the Niagara River? She shuddered, and touched his hand lightly. As he opened his eyes to look at her, a dog's yowl startled them both. The sound did not come from outside on the platform. It came from behind them, at the end of their car. Ann jumped up to kneel on her seat to see. The three men she'd seen talking together, and the two hounds, had just entered their car.