Sycamore Promises Read online

  Thirty minutes later, Caleb paused. Moonlight filtered through the trees overhead, dancing on the surface of the water. He looked up and slowly let his eyes wander to the west bank and the tree lined shadows beyond.

  “How’s you at tree climbin’?”

  “Tree climbin’? I ain’t done much since I grew into my womanhood. What you got on your mind?”

  “See that limb up there?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “If I was to boost you up there, could you shinny across there, get around the trunk and get to the end of that far limb yonder?”

  “I ’spect so, but why?”

  “That way we leave the creek without leavin’ no tracks and no scent where we do. Even if that catcher man figures out we come this way, he’ll still have a hard time pickin’ up our trail.”

  “Boost away.”

  Minutes later Caleb dropped out of the tree west of the stream beside Miriam.

  “Now let’s get us to Kansas.”

  Kansas

  Caleb scrambled down from a tree the following evening in the gathering blue shadows.

  “Somebody’s comin’. Maybe a mile or so back. They ain’t comin’ fast, but they’s comin’.”

  “You think it might be him?”

  “Might be.”

  “But ain’t we in Kansas now?”

  “We are. Them fugitive slave laws lets ’em hunt us all the same. We need to find a place to hide.”

  “I’m cold and hungry.”

  “Cain’t help for either of them right now. We gotta keep goin’.”

  “Goin’ where?”

  “Goin’ there.” He pointed to a thin wisp of smoke rising above the trees to the northwest. “They’s folks there. Good Lord willin’ maybe they help us.”

  “You gonna just walk in like Sunday company?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “It ain’t Sunday.”

  “Best we can do. Come on.”

  “Micah.” Clare stood at the wagon gate, preparing to dish up supper. She lifted her chin down the tree line edging the wagon road.

  Micah eased away from the table, watching them come as he moved to his wife’s side, or more particularly to the Colt dragoon holstered at the bedside in back of the wagon. A large black man and a woman came out of the trees, walking toward them in thickening evening shadows. The man smiled, showing even white teeth.

  “Evenin’, folks. My name’s Caleb. This here’s Miriam. We could use a little help.”

  Micah eased off the Colt. “Come on in. My name’s Micah Mason. This is my wife, Clare. What can we do for you folks?”

  Caleb glanced around. “We bein’ followed.”

  “You runaways?”

  He nodded. “We be in Kansas now, but that don’t mean nothin’ to them slave catchers.”

  “It does to me. Are they close?”

  “A mile, maybe a little less by now.”

  “Clare, give me some of that jerky and finish setting our supper table.”

  She nodded.

  “Follow me.” Micah took a candle and turned toward the river. He led the way beneath the shadow of the old tree, picking their way down the trodden path to the sod house.

  “It ain’t home yet, but you can hide safe enough here.” He handed the man the candle, a couple of matches, and the jerky. “I wouldn’t use the candle until we know it’s safe. I’ll come for you when they’ve gone, and we’ll fix you a proper meal.”

  “We’s much obliged for your kindness. It’s more than we could hope for.”

  “No kindness. It’s the right thing to do. Now get on in there and stay out of sight until I come for you.”

  Supper finished, they sat sipping coffee in the halo of lamplight. Micah turned to the sound of an approaching horse. His hand edged closer to the dragoon tucked in his waistband. The shadowed rider spoke.

  “Evenin’, folks. Mind if I step down?”

  Micah rose, the pistol now visible by light of the lamp.

  The rider dismounted. A tall, powerfully built man, he wore a heavy coat, his features hidden by a bushy beard and the wide brim of a slouch hat. “I hope you’ll excuse my stopping by unannounced. Name’s Jacob Herd. I’m on the trail of runaway slaves, a man and a woman. Might you have seen them come this way?”

  Micah shook his head. “If they come this way, likely they’re headed for Lawrence. Lots of abolition sympathy there to take them in.”

  “That thought crossed my mind, though the last sign I had seemed like they was swingin’ wider west. You sure you didn’t see or hear anything?”

  “No, sir. The wife and I been havin’ a quiet supper since sundown. Not nary a soul come by until you come along. That wagon road there’ll take you on into Lawrence.”

  The slave catcher fixed his gaze in thought. “I might a’ misread that sign. It was gettin’ dark.”

  “Lawrence will have more comforts to offer. All we got here is hard ground.”

  “You homesteadin’?”

  “Staked our claim two months ago.”

  He glanced around. “Best get started on some more permanent shelter than that wagon. You wouldn’t want to be caught out here with winter coming on.”

  “That’s my plan and sound advice, too.”

  “You see any sign of them two, you hold ’em. There’s a reward on both of ’em.”

  Micah patted the pistol butt. “Sure will.”

  Herd mounted and wheeled away down the road.

  “You think he believed us?” Clare said.

  Micah took his seat at the table. “Let’s have some more coffee until we’re sure he’s gone.”

  Miriam and Caleb huddled in the pitch-dark dugout. They’d eaten the jerky in silence. It took the edge off their hunger. They heard faint voices and held each other’s eyes in the dark.

  “You think them white folks truly will hide us?” Miriam whispered.

  “Got to.”

  “They ain’t got to. That’s the point.”

  “Uh-uh, I got to think they’s goin’ to. Why’d they do this much for us if they wasn’t gonna hide us?”

  “They puts rewards on runaways.”

  “They do. These folks seems God-fearin’. I don’t see ’em bein’ takin’ for thirty pieces of silver.”

  “You got all that from him puttin’ us up in this hole?”

  “No. I got it from him sayin’ bein’ in Kansas means somethin’ to him.”

  “I hopes you’re right.”

  Time passed. Someone climbed down the ridge. A man and a woman appeared at the dugout entrance.

  “He’s gone. You can light that candle now.”

  A match flared acrid sulfur smoke to candle glow.

  Micah and Clare each carried a plate of food. Micah had a blanket tucked under one arm. They sat around the candle, shadows dancing on the dugout walls as Caleb and Miriam ate.

  “We sure are much obliged to you folks,” Caleb said.

  “Where you headed?” Micah asked.

  “Kansas.”

  Micah chuckled. “You’re in Kansas. Now where?”

  Caleb shrugged. “Far away from that man as we can get.”

  “Well, you’ll be safe enough here for the night. You can figure the rest of it out in the morning.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  A chill blanket of mist hung over the river, gray in first morning light. She stretched her limbs to the chill breeze as though embracing the coming of a new season. Change began with the coming of the young folk, preparing to dwell in the hillside above the river. This morning something more had come to the promise. They came in the night. She sensed fear. She sensed hope. The coming seasons would play out to new purpose, marked out in the boundaries now raised on her land.

  Micah and Clare rolled out of the wagon bed. Clare stirred the fire to light and set the coffee to boil. Spectral figures emerged from the mist carrying a folded blanket and the stub of a candle.

  “Mornin’,” Micah
said.

  “Mornin’,” they said.

  “Coffee will be ready presently.”

  “We best be on our way,” Caleb said. “You folks been too kind, and we been way too much trouble to you already.”

  “Nonsense,” Clare said. “I’ll not hear of you leaving until you’ve had a proper breakfast. Micah, fetch that guest bench out of the wagon and put it beside the table.”

  In a matter of minutes Clare laid out bacon, eggs, fresh bread, and strawberry preserves. They sat down to eat.

  “Where will you go?” Micah asked.

  Caleb shrugged.

  “You’ll need a place to winter before long.”

  “I reckon so.”

  Micah looked at Clare. She nodded. “You know,” he said, “I could use a little help around here. I can’t afford to pay until we bring in a crop next year; but at least you’d have a place to stay and food for the winter.”

  “We couldn’t impose.”

  Miriam cut her eyes to her husband. “He didn’t say impose, Caleb. He said we could earn our keep. We knows how to do that.”

  “That’s it,” Clare said. “We generally need to talk sense to these men.”

  “What needs doin’?” Caleb asked.

  “We need to finish the dugout house. We need a split-rail corral for them mules to call home. I suspect with the two of us workin’ at it, we could dig a second dugout, too.”

  “Three of us workin’,” Miriam said. She turned to Clare. “I can help. You shouldn’t be doin’ no heavy work in your condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “You in a family way, ain’t you?”

  “Why, yes; but how did you know?”

  “Miriam know things. You be needin’ some help birthin’ that baby come spring.”

  “I s’pose I will.”

  “Then it sounds like it’s settled,” Micah said.

  Caleb looked from one to the next and nodded. “Looks like you got a couple of hands, Mr. Mason.”

  “Good. And it’s Micah, Caleb.” He held out his hand.

  November, 1854

  Dear Ma and Pa,

  We hope this letter finds you and all the Mason clan in good spirits and health. We are doing well as we continue to settle our new home. We have made considerable progress in the short weeks since our arrival. Much of that is owed to a couple who have joined us in our endeavor. Caleb and Miriam arrived from Missouri not long after we did. They came to us one night in fear, pursued by an agent of their former masters. We did our Christian duty and hid them. We persuaded them to stay with us even though we can only pay them in a share of the fruits of our labors. They tell us a share is more than ever their labors have earned. We are grateful for their help.

  Kansas shines a free beacon to those held in bondage in Missouri. Freedom stands in stark contrast to the dark practice that casts its shadow over our border. We heard Brother Brown preach against the evil in Hudson. We thought we understood it. We could not fully appreciate the barbarity. We saw it firsthand the night Caleb and Miriam arrived. The slavery dispute runs deep here. Beliefs strongly opposed on both sides. Let us pray the divisions can be healed peaceably.

  Caleb and Miriam escaped Missouri in the hope of beginning a new life. It is a beginning we build together, starting with simple dugout dwellings to shelter us for the winter. I take comfort from having Miriam to assist me when it is time to bring forth the new life growing within me. With Caleb’s help we should have full use of our fields in the shortest possible time. I cannot help but feel the Lord smiled on us by their coming.

  Clare

  Washington City

  February 1855

  Cold late afternoon light colored the office dull gray. Senator Douglas closed the war department report and laid it on his desk. He shook his head, removed his spectacles, and rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. The report didn’t help. He chided himself for not seeing this coming; he should have expected it. The question now: what to do about it?

  He rose from his desk and crossed the office to the window. Hands clasped behind his back, he looked out over brown lawn and gusty, wind-blown cobbled streets toward the Potomac and a rumpled felt sky. The war department had completed its survey of rail routes to the Pacific. Secretary of War Davis put forward his recommendation of the southern route. It stuck in Douglas’s craw in several places. The recommendation clearly reflected transparent regional bias. Republican interests in the north would have nothing to do with it. Even by popular sovereignty such a routing favored formation of slave states. They could expect fierce opposition in both houses. Then there was the matter of his own preference for a central route favoring Chicago. Winning that prize for his beloved home state motivated his purpose from the start. The secretary’s recommendation now stood foursquare in the face of his ambition.

  That the secretary should have chosen to favor his own regional allegiances should not have come as a surprise. The question now was how to oppose a fellow Democrat without alienating the southern caucus whose votes he would need to move the Pacific railroad forward. There’d be no difficulty in mounting an opposition. He could hear Senator Sumner from here. Hell, he could probably write the senator’s speech for him. That would afford him the luxury of keeping his own opposition behind the scenes, hopefully conserving his credibility with southern Democrats. That much he could see. The unknown remained forging a coalition of sufficient strength to move the railroad forward and to do so on a central routing.

  He returned to his desk and sat heavily, drumming his fingers on a blank page, awaiting his thoughts. Popular sovereignty had to be made acceptable to both sides. It worked once before; it would have to again. The southerners must be made to see their regional bias. Northerners must be made to see their regional bias. Northern regional bias . . . he paused. Hmm. That may be it. He needed a little northern regional bias to pit against the secretary’s recommendation. If that might be inspired, then perhaps a compromise could be forged around a central route with the slavery issue determined by previously agreed provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It was worth a try. He dipped his pen in the ink pot and put pen to paper.

  Senator Sumner,

  Might I have a moment to discuss the war department report recommending a rail route to the Pacific?

  Capitol Hill

  March 1855

  An invitation to dine with a Democrat rested uneasily on his mind. In the case of Senator Douglas, Sumner knew the business would involve the political equivalent of horse trading. The unknown was whose horse was to be traded and for what? The carriage rocked up Fourteenth Street to the soft clop, clop of a tall bay. The driver drew a halt in front of a Victorian brownstone known for fine dining, discreet rendezvous, and upper floors of dubious—though tasteful—repute. The cabby climbed down and opened the carriage door. Sumner stepped down, paid the man, and climbed the steps to an elegant front entry. There he was greeted by polished hardwood and an equally polished proprietress.

  “Good evening, Senator.”

  A black man in starched white livery took his top hat and cloak.

  “Senator Douglas is expecting you. If you’ll follow me, please.”

  He was only too pleased to follow. She was stunning really. A light scent of lilac trailed an ample figure, matured by her years but fulsome with feminine promise none-the-less. She showed him to a private dining room appointed in more polished wood, red velvet, white linen, candlelit crystal, and silver. Douglas rose to full measure of his diminutive self.

  “Charles, thank you for coming.”

  A familiar Democrat at that. He extended his hand. “Good evening, Senator. One could hardly refuse so kindly an offer.”

  “We’re here to break bread. Please call me Stephen.”

  They took their seats.

  “Would you care for a glass of claret, Senator? Or perhaps something of a stronger spirit?” the woman asked.

  Deep green eyes . . . he imagined they came w
ith a stronger spirit. “Claret will do.”

  She poured from a cut-crystal decanter and withdrew.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering steaks,” Douglas said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I would have done so for myself. Thank you. Now, Stephen, what’s on that fertile mind of yours this evening?”

  “Ever the pragmatic New Englander, Charles—straight to the point. It’s the Pacific railroad survey, as I mentioned in my note. More particularly, Secretary Davis’s recommendation of the southern route.”

  “Yes, that. Totally unacceptable you must know. Breathtaking regional bias. A non-starter with my colleagues.”

  “I understand. Still you and I agree the railroad must be built. We’ve done business on that before.”

  “Your Kansas-Nebraska Act again. That bit of business has yet to be proven.”

  “Which is why you need to come out in support of the northern route.”

  “You’d have me take a position every bit as partisan as Davis’s?”

  “Of course. How else shall we draw the boundaries for a bargain?”

  “Your central route.”

  Douglas smiled.

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear me. Your popular sovereignty compromise has yet to prove itself. Until it does, I hope you will forgive me; I remain somewhat the skeptic.”

  A waiter arrived with a platter of raw oysters.

  “Fresh from the tidewater,” Douglas said. He paused for the waiter to withdraw.

  “Now, Charles, let us put our political differences aside for the moment to discuss a matter of personal interest on which we both can agree. Inevitably the railroad will be built. When it is, investors prudently positioned in the railroad line favored by government contract will be handsomely rewarded.”

  Sumner hunched forward, eyebrow lifted with interest, a forkful of blue-point poised at his chin. “Handsomely? Bloody fortune is more like it.”

  “There. You see. My point exactly—we do agree. And that is precisely why we should work to compromise on the central route.”

  “You have the advantage over me, Stephen. Is there something you know that I don’t?”