Chapter Ten
Sarah waited in the cold shade of a cypress tree for Jessica to appear from the woods on her roan filly, Jingle Bell. Jessica had sent word to her by way of Lettie to meet her “at our usual spot.”
“Good gracious,” Lettie had said, appearing a little hurt at being excluded. “You two sound like conspirators. What are you up to?”
Sarah had rolled her eyes mischievously. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Understanding, Lettie’s cheeks had turned pink. “Oh, now, you all don’t go planning anything for me, you hear? There will be enough gifts and prenuptial parties as it is. Truly, you honor me enough by being in my wedding.”
“We’ll try to keep that in mind,” Sarah said, giving her friend a patronizing pat on the shoulder.
Lettie assumed their “usual spot” was a tearoom tucked between a bookstore and ice cream parlor where the three women often met after school had dismissed. Sarah had few social distractions from her mission and enjoyed their gatherings. She looked forward to the lively conversation and hot tea and crusty scones before going home to a cold supper and the dangerous tasks that might await her, her homesickness as weighing as the gloom in the corners of her bleak little house. The Sedgewicks offered the diversion of a Wednesday night meal at their house followed by a game of cards, and Jessica was always after her to join her family for supper—“I’ll send the carriage to pick you up”—but those invitations Sarah declined. Michael would be sure to offer his services for the drive, and she could not have abided the proximity of him to her in the close quarters of the carriage. She saw the Wyndhams only if the Sedgewicks were invited and she could go and return with them.
It was in the tearoom that Jessica had slipped her a note during one of the group’s first get-togethers. Meet me tomorrow afternoon at the water mill by Lawson Creek, it read. That occasion had been in October, shortly after Sarah had come to Willow Grove. The spot referred to in the note was secluded but easily accessible by foot and on the route where Jessica took her afternoon rides aboard her filly. At that meeting, the girl had dismounted with a pleased, self-satisfied smile, relieving Sarah’s fears that the purpose of their rendezvous was grave. Her hackles had risen. If the girl thought her involvement with the Underground something to play at, Sarah would disenchant her of the notion before she could wipe that grin off her face.
“I hope you’ll forgive the mysteriousness of my note,” Jessica apologized immediately, apparently realizing the reason for Sarah’s scowl, “but I thought it best to establish a secret place to meet in case a situation calls for it. I see you found the spot easily enough.”
There was wisdom in her reasoning, and twice they’d met at the water mill by Lawson Creek. Jessica was not a member of the Underground—she’d vowed she had no hand in Timothy’s disappearance—but she passed on information vital to the safety of slaves trying to make it to freedom and the security of Sarah’s part of the network. Carson Wyndham had put Tippy to work in the afternoons weaving horse blankets at the looming cabin in the Yard—“no more lollygagging with my daughter all day”—and the maid learned things she told Jessica, who shared them with Sarah. Also, pro-slave factions met in the great paneled library of the Wyndham manor house—politicians, other plantation owners, slave-traders, federal marshals, bounty hunters, and the ubiquitous Night Riders, of which Michael was the leader.
When they gathered, Jessica’s ear was at the door. Who knew how many runaways had her to thank for avoiding a snare set by the Night Riders? The group had learned that lanterns or candles burning in windows of rural homesteads were a signal that the home was friendly to escaping slaves on their way to station houses, usually a distance of twenty miles apart. Attics, lofts, barns, even underground tunnels were used to hide the fugitives until it was safe for them to leave. Michael and his henchmen enlisted the aid of a farmer to place such signals in his windows to lure unsuspecting runaways into a trap. Jessica got word to Sarah, who rode out to the homestead on Jimsonweed and left large, mischievous markings on the fence post to alert the fugitives, believing the farmer would think them the prank of a child. Runaway slaves knew to look beyond the trusted signals for anything awry that could be a message warning of a trap.
Another time, Jessica had alerted Sarah of a bank teller planted to get evidence against another employee suspected of being an active opponent to slavery.
No information was ever passed in writing among those involved with the Railroad. For the safety of the network, it was absolutely essential to communicate by word of mouth, prearranged signals, codes, or symbols whose meaning could be deciphered only by the intended receivers. Jessica had been kept ignorant of them, the reason they must meet face-to-face in secret.
Sarah rubbed at her arms in her woolen cloak for warmth. Here in the coastal area of the Atlantic winters were mild, with temperatures rarely dipping below sixty degrees during the day, but a lasting cold front had brought the first true feel of winter and, for Sarah, a longing for her parents’ fireside, soon to be satisfied. School had adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and in three days’ time, Jessica would come by to pick her up in the carriage to take her to Charleston to catch a boat to Cambridge, where she would reunite with her family until classes resumed in January. She had especially missed her seven-year-old nephew, Paul, son of her older brother. Her sister-in-law had written that Paul had asked over and over, “When is Auntie Sarah coming home?”
Lettie had been alarmed at the thought that Sarah would be so glad to be back in Cambridge she might not return. “You must come back to us, Sarah! What would the students do without you? How can I get married without you? Don’t you let that little nephew of yours convince you to stay.”
There would be no chance of that, Sarah thought, much as she loved and missed the little mutt. Sometimes Sarah felt that her effort to put an end to slavery was like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, but she must do her part. She believed that with faith and perseverance, people seeking to right a wrong would eventually prevail, no matter the odds against them.
She heard the sound of a horse’s hooves on the forest path, but not the usual gentle jingle of bells and casual clip-clopping that announced Jessica’s appearance. Jingle Bell burst out of the woods at a gallop, flowing mane threaded with ribbons in seasonal colors, and Jessica was out of the saddle before she’d reined the filly to a full stop.
Sarah ran to her. “Good Lord, Jessica, what’s the matter?”
Jessica almost fell into her friend’s arms. Her fair skin was blazing red from the ride and cold air, and she could not catch her breath. “You’ve got to help us, Sarah,” she gasped. “Willie May’s found a runaway at Willowshire.”
Casting a look over her shoulder, Sarah led her to a tree trunk to shield them from eyes and ears that might be prying from the woods. “Sssh,” she said softly. “You must lower your voice, Jessica. Calmly, now, tell me what happened.”
Jessica inhaled a deep breath of cold air and expelled it in the flow of her narrative. About ten days ago, at midnight, she told Sarah, their housekeeper had found a runaway in the barn—“not yet grown to a man,” she repeated Willie May’s description. He wouldn’t tell Willie May his name or where he was from or where he hid in the day. Two hams had been discovered missing from the smokehouse, and her father was now aware a thief was about. He’d dispatched their head overseer to investigate and find him. They didn’t think the thief belonged to Willowshire but was somebody hiding along the lake or in the woods. Jessica agreed with Willie May that it would be only a matter of time before the overseer and his men flushed the boy out, and then—Jessica closed her eyes as if experiencing sudden pain—“my father will send him back to his master to be flogged. Willie May says it wouldn’t take but a few lashes to whip the flesh right off his bones, the boy is so skinny…and young.”
“Why did Willie May go to you?” Sarah asked.
Jessica met her direct look with a defiant one of her own. “She knows my heart, Sarah. How can I keep it a secret?”
Sarah shook her head. “I fear for you, Jessica. What do you want me to do?”
“I’m going to get the boy out of there as soon as possible. Scooter, our blacksmith, is willing to help. He’ll hide the boy in the wagon when he comes into town to pick up a new wheel. He’ll let him out in the church cemetery, and the boy can stay with you until I come by to take you in the carriage to the dock in Charleston. By then, you’ll have made arrangements for his escape with those seamen you know—”
Jessica stopped at the look on Sarah’s face and pressed her hands to her wind-reddened cheeks. “Oh, my goodness, Sarah, have I presumed? Are you worried that Scooter will connect you to the reason he’s to drop the boy off near your house? I assure you, he won’t. Cemeteries are preferred hiding places for slaves.”
“No, of course you haven’t presumed.…” Sarah said. She sank back against the tree, gripped by a premonition that this time luck would be against them. There was a second’s flash of her nephew’s impish face in her mental vision. Perhaps her sense of doom was due to her reluctance to take on a mission so close to her departure for home.
“All right,” she said. “I can hide the boy until then. The Sedgewicks have gone to be houseguests of the Tolivers for a few days, a boon for us. When can I expect the delivery? I’ll need time to make contact with my source.”
“Sometime this afternoon. The boy is hiding in a shed in the gazebo, and we have to make sure it’s safe to spirit the boy into the wagon. Will that give you enough time to do…whatever it is that you do?”
“I believe so,” Sarah said. She would leave a light in her back window to alert her contact across the creek of a cargo to be delivered. He or she in turn would signal back that her message had been received. She would then be notified, again by code, that arrangements had been made at the dock in Charleston for pickup by personnel of steam ships willing to grant assistance. She never had to wait long for her message to be received and answered. Her instructions would be simple. She was to drop her passenger off at a prearranged spot at the dock and leave. The day she’d deposited Timothy, she had barely turned Jimsonweed toward home and cast a look behind her to see that he’d disappeared. It worried her that “the person across the creek,” as Sarah came to call the agent, knew her identity. She could only hope whoever it was would never be discovered, and they could both remain safe to meet the needs other tomorrows would bring.
“I’ll make arrangements and be on the lookout for him,” Sarah said.
Jessica threw her arms around her. “Oh, thank you, Sarah. Christmas will have more meaning to me this year, knowing we saved the boy.”
“We haven’t saved him yet, Jessica. In this business, there’s always a chance of the train being derailed, and you can’t rest easy until conductor and passenger have made it safely to their destination.”