The Night Angel (20 page)
A pair of farm dogs approached. Falconer took them for a mother and an almost-weaned pup. The mother held back, but the pup was a curious sort. Falconer offered the last bit of meat from his plate and watched as the pup licked his fingers. He stroked the soft puppy fur and smiled as the pup nuzzled his palm. The mother came over and gave Falconer’s other hand a good sniff. He dipped his fingers in the remaining sauce on his plate and let her lick that away. As he did, the towheaded lad who had dropped his pail peeked around the side of the barn, watching.
Falconer kept his voice low so as not to frighten the lad. “Are these your dogs?”
“Just the little one, sir. The mother belongs to Uncle Joshua. This here is my uncle’s farm.”
“And a lovely place it is too. Where do you live, then?”
“In town, sir.”
“The one I see in the distance there?”
“Aye, sir.” Gradually the lad emerged into view.
“As pretty a town as ever I’ve seen.” The adults clustered on the yard’s opposite end watched cautiously but did not order the boy away. “What is it called?”
“Salem, sir.”
“You’re a polite and well-brought-up lad. And when I saw you this morning, you were helping your uncle with chores. Your parents must be very proud.”
“My pa’s in heaven, sir.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Falconer lifted the pup and settled it into his lap. The mother whined softly but made no move against him. “I lost my own father when I was very young. I can’t really remember him.”
“I remember Pa.” The boy walked over and settled into the dirt beside Falconer. He stroked the mother dog with one hand and the pup with the other. “I fear I might forget him. But my ma says he will stay with me all my life long.”
“Your mother sounds like a very wise woman.”
Up close the lad smelled of soap and the animals. He was dressed in a child’s version of the adults’ clothing—collarless shirt, dark trousers, suspenders. Only his head and feet were bare. Falconer saw that all the buttons on his pants and shirt were cloth.
“I like working the farm,” the boy said. “My uncle says I was born to the land.”
The gray-bearded man called softly, “Matt. Come over here, lad.”
The boy rose, such that he stood at almost eye level to Falconer. His eyes held a green translucence, like sunlight seen through an emerald. “The men fear you are a highwayman, sir. Is that so?”
“Matt!”
“Best do as your uncle says, lad.”
Matt grinned, as fearless as he was handsome. “My aunt says you are a danger to none, no matter what scar you carry. I think she is right.”
Falconer watched the lad run off. Though he had little experience with young boys, he reckoned that one to be very fine.
He was alerted to coming change by how the lad cried out and pointed at the road. Falconer searched and saw a small dot where the road emerged from the village. Matt declared it was his mother, and Falconer nodded his approval of eyes as sharp as a bird of prey. The uncle and his mates turned to watch the arrival. Falconer rose to his feet, aware that his boots were scarred and muddy. His pants were ripped and filthy. His shirt was little more than a rag. Mammy slept upon his coat.
The speck became a horse and two-wheeled rig. The rider became a woman in a dove-gray dress and small white bonnet. She handled horse and cart very well. The horse cantered into the yard and halted at a single sharp tug on the reins. Two of the younger farmers walked over to help her down. Falconer could well understand their eagerness, for she was lovely indeed.
The lad took hold of the horse’s bridle, and the horse swung him off his feet with a simple shake of its head. The child laughed delightedly, in the manner of one long accustomed to this play. The woman smiled and spoke softly. Falconer heard the music in her tone, and the love.
Then she turned Falconer’s way and all levity vanished.
The gray-bearded man gave her a solemn welcome and spoke too softly for Falconer to follow. Joseph rose to his feet and came over to stand beside Falconer. “I done heard of these people,” he said, his voice low.
Falconer turned to the squinting man. “What did you hear?”
“The gray lady. I thought mebbe it was a legend. ’Bout how a gray lady waits at the end of the trail.” Joseph nodded once. “Reckon this one tale is true, sure enough.”
The woman walked over, accompanied by Matt and three of the men. Up close she was even more lovely. Her hair was almost too dark to be called auburn, save for the copper tint where the sun touched. Her eyes held the same emerald illumination as her son’s. “What do they call you, sir?”
“John Falconer, ma’am. I apologize for my appearance—”
“God’s greetings to you, John Falconer. I have seen before what the trail can do to a man.” She turned to Joseph. “And you, sir. Your name, if you please.”
“I’s called Joseph, missus.”
“I am Ada Hart.” She looked over the other folk, then turned her gaze back to Joseph. “Sir, I ask you to give me one good reason why you would trust this white man’s word.”
“He bought me, took me into the forest, and wrote I was free on the papers they give him.”
“Do you have those documents?”
“I do,” Falconer said. “In my satchel.”
“Fetch them, if you please.” As Falconer stepped to his almost-empty sack, she asked Joseph, “What makes you believe this man will do as he says?”
“He’s used up every cent he carries to buy us. Tha’s my family over there. My two boys, they was takin’ them away.”
“Who was? Slavers?”
“Yes’m. This man, he bought the whole line. I watched his face, missus. It tore him up to see these people in chains. Tore him up somethin’ awful.”
“Thank you, Joseph.” She watched Falconer approach with a sheaf of papers in his hands. “What are those?”
“The bills of sale for all those you see gathered here.”
“You are just giving them to me?”
“I hope and pray for your trust, and that of the people here,” Falconer replied. “How could I offer you anything less in return?”
She gave the pages careful inspection. By the time she finished, all the farmers were gathered around her, including two young women and a lad just old enough to have a bit of fluff on his chin. “Just exactly who are you, John Falconer?” Ada Hart asked.
“My story is perhaps not one for these young folks to hear, ma’am.”
She held him with a gaze both steady and timeless. “They may as well hear of the world’s woes while sheltered within our clan. Speak.”
He took a very hard breath. “I am a seafaring man. I worked mostly on merchant ships. But one journey I skippered a slaver.”
A quiet moan flitted through the gathering, a sound of sorrow on what was otherwise a pristine day. Falconer forged ahead. “The evil I did stained me, true enough. It also brought me to my knees. I stand here today saved by the blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
“Amen,” said one of the other farming women, and it was echoed by several others in the group.
Ada Hart, however, continued to watch him carefully. “Please continue, John Falconer.”
So he told them all of it. Or nearly all. How he had most recently been hired by a cautious Venetian merchant prince to determine whether a gold mine truly existed. And given four purses of gold, supposedly to pay for his travel and his safety. The farmers grew round-eyed at Falconer’s account. Their children crept in close, as if they were hearing fanciful tales by an evening fire. The tow-headed boy held onto his mother’s skirt, so entranced by Falconer’s tale he ignored the pup toying with his dusty feet.
Ada Hart, however, was made of sterner stuff. She heard him out in watchful silence, then observed, “You have made no mention of why you chose to buy and free these slaves.”
This breath was harder still. “I feel that God has spoken to me, ma’am.”
“He has called you to buy slaves and free them?”
“The slave ship I skippered held a manifest for four hundred and nineteen poor souls. They are lost to me. But I seek to free at least that number of their brethren.”
Even Ada was stunned, and the group murmured among themselves. “Four hundred and nineteen slaves will cost you a king’s ransom, John Falconer,” she said. “You had best hope your mine proves of enormous value.”
“I will spend what I have, Mrs. Hart. I can do no more.”
The gray-bearded farmer said softly, “Ada.”
She turned from her inspection of the man before her. “Yes, Brother Joshua?”
“Enough.” The man spoke with gentle authority. “It is too long, this questioning.”
“There is still more I wish to know.”
“As do I. We can speak further when he is bathed and properly rested. The man speaks truthfully and shares our cause.”
“You are persuaded of this, Brother Joshua?”
“Standing here in the sun any longer is not proper. The man is exhausted, along with his little band. More questions will not bring us any closer to certainty. That I do know.”
Ada pursed her lips in deep indecision. She gave Falconer a final inspection. Then she nodded cautiously. “Very well. But your charges must leave you here, John Falconer. You cannot know where they go. Nor can you ask.”
“I deliver them into your care,” Falconer solemnly agreed. “Were I in your position, I would require exactly the same.”
Yet his words seemed to do nothing to erase the anxiety creasing Ada Hart’s features. Approaching footsteps turned them both about. Joseph shuffled over, nervous at drawing near yet determined. “Y’all is gonna put us on the ghost train to freedom?”
Ada’s gaze shifted away from Falconer. “Your name is Joseph, is that not correct?”
“Yes’m.”
“Joseph, there are some things of which it is best never to speak. Do you understand me?”
“Yes’m.” Though the man’s face remained tense and deeply lined, he held his ground. “Reason I’m askin’, missus, I wants to stay with Mistuh John here.”
Falconer saw Geraldine rise to her feet. He quietly protested, “But your family, Joseph.”
“They’s gonna be safe on account of you and what you’s done, suh. I knows that for a fact.”
“We will do our best to bring you to freedom,” Ada said.
“Ain’t nobody never done nothin’ for me before this man.” He managed a single glance straight into Falconer’s eyes. “And when he reads to us from the Book, missus, I hear my heart singin’. Ain’t never heard that before. Not my whole life long.”
Geraldine came over to stand beside her man. She gripped her husband’s arm and looked Falconer full in the face. “They’s gonna be a new tale told now. Folks who ain’t got nothing, too scared to dream, they’s gonna hear about this. ’Bout a man who travels hard roads for the King. Big man with an angel’s heart. Strong man. Ain’t afraid of the night or nothing else.” Her head moved up and down slowly. “They’s gonna hear. They’s gonna hope.”
The gray-bearded farmer settled a hand upon Ada Hart’s shoulder and spoke more firmly this time. “We have heard enough, Ada.”
His name was Cody Saunders and he was Jeb’s younger brother. The Saunders brothers had a reputation that stretched from Fredericksburg all the way to Atlanta. Cody Saunders took pride in being who he was and the fear people showed when they heard his name.
He was grinning with pleasure now as the tavern keeper at Burroughs Crossing reached inside the doorway for his musket. Cody said, “Get your hands out where I can see ’em, old man.”
“I know who you are, Cody Saunders.” The man drew his hand back into view. Along with it came the musket, which he cocked and brought to his shoulder. “And I’d as soon plug you with lead as offer the time of day.”
“And I’m telling you to lay down your piece.” Cody Saunders twisted in the saddle, causing the leather to creak. He was no more concerned about the merchant than he was the drovers who clustered by the first corral. “You take aim at me again, my brother’ll burn your place to the ground. But not before he hangs your whole family from the rafters. And you know I’m talking truth.”
“What do you want?”
The saddle creaked once more as Cody Saunders worked the knot from his shoulders. It had been a long hard slog through rain and muck, and he was tired. “I ain’t telling you again, old man.”
Reluctantly old man Burroughs set the musket down by the doorstep. “I asked you a simple question.”
“Now that we’re jawing polite, I’ll tell you. I’m after information. Give me what I want and I’ll ride on.” He pointed his leather quirt at the drovers. “Y’all stop playin’ all restless with them pistols. Else somebody’s gonna be breathing their last.”
“Do as he says,” the merchant ordered. When one of the drovers started to make a move, Burroughs raised his voice. “Don’t you know nothin’? This here’s Cody Saunders. Only man I’d worse like to squabble with is his brother Jeb.”
When the drover let his mates pull him back, old man Burroughs said, “What information might that be?”
“You owned a gray mare? White-maned with leggings on its forefeet?”
A voice piped up from within the inn, “They’s talking about my mare, Pa!”
“You just pipe down and let me handle this. And stay back there like I told you.” The merchant squinted at the dirty rider. “I mighta had a horse like that. What’s it to ya?”
“What can you tell me ’bout the man what bought it from you?”
“Not a solitary thing. Don’t even know his name.”
“He just waltzed in here outta nowhere?”
“Pretty much. Walked down that road there, plunked down good gold coin, bought supplies and my horse, then headed south.”
“And Joseph, Pa,” the lad cried. “You forgot Joseph.”
“I ain’t tellin’ you again, boy.” He turned to glare into the dark room behind him.
Cody Saunders slipped from his horse. “Who’s this Joseph, now?”
“Slave I bought me a while back. There’s too much work needed doing round this place for me and my clan.”
“So this feller John comes up outta nowhere. He plunks down waxed gold coin, buys a horse and supplies and a slave. And heads south without a by-your-leave.”
The merchant was eyeing him tightly. “I didn’t say nothing about them coins of his being waxed.”
Cody bit down on his retort. This was why he hated dealing with the outside world without his brother by his side. “I knowed it anyway.”
