The Good Lord Bird

The Old Man didn’t hear me, though. He was busy conjuring up ideas, for the men in the room had dropped away from the walls and windows to surround him, as he backed off from his window and wiped his beard thoughtfully. “We has them where we wants them,” he announced cheerfully. He turned to Stevens and said, “Take Watson out with a prisoner and tell them we will begin exchanging our men for Negroes. By now Cook and the others has hived some more bees at the schoolhouse and the farm. On our signal, they will begin their attack from the rear with the Negroes, thus provoking our escape. It is time to move into the mountains.”

Stevens didn’t want to do it. “The time to move into the mountains was about noon,” he said. “Yesterday.”

“Have faith, Lieutenant. The game is not up yet.”

Stevens grumbled and roughly grabbed a hostage and nodded at young Watson, who dutifully followed. The engine house door was actually three double doors, and they had roped them all shut. They unwrapped the rope from the center door, slowly pushed it open, and walked out.

The Old Man put his face to the window. “We is negotiating hostages in exchange for safe passage of my Negro army,” he shouted. Then he added, “In good faith.”

He was answered by a blast of grape that drove him back from the window and knocked him clear onto the floor. The Frederick the Great sword which he’d stuck in his belt, the one we’d captured from Colonel Washington, clattered away.

The Old Man weren’t badly wounded nor dead, but by the time he dusted himself off and got his sword back in his belt and went back to look out the window, Stevens lay on the ground outside badly wounded, and Watson was gut shot, banging desperately on the door of the engine house with a death wound.

The men opened the door for Watson, who came tumbling in there, spilling blood and guts. He lay on the floor, and the Old Man went over to him. He looked at his son, gut shot and moaning, just stood over him. It hurt him. You could see it. He shook his head.

“They just don’t understand,” he said.

He knelt over his son and felt his head, then his neck pulse. Watson’s eyes was shut, but he was still breathing.

“You done your duty well, son.”

“Thank you, Father,” Watson said.

“Die like a man,” he said.

“Yes, Father.”

It would take Watson ten hours, but he done just as his Father asked him to.

32. Getting Gone

Night came. The militia had retreated again, this time with their wounded and with Stevens, who was still living. They lit lanterns outside and it got deathly quiet. All the shouts and hollering outside was pushed across the street and gone. The mob was moved away from the armory gates. Some kind of new order had come over out there. Something else was going on. The Old Man ordered the Emperor to climb up to the hole in the roof blowed out by the fallen timber to take a look, which he done.

He came back down and said, “The federals is out there, from Washington, D.C. I seen their flag and their uniforms.” The Old Man shrugged.

They sent over a man, who walked over to one of those wooden doors that was lashed shut. He stuck his eye in a chink hole in the door and knocked. He called out, “I want Mr. Smith.” That was the name the Old Man used at the Kennedy farm when he went around in disguise at the Ferry.

The Old Man came to the door but didn’t open it. “What is it?”

The big eye peered inside. “I am Lieutenant Jeb Stuart of the United States Cavalry. I have orders here from my commander, Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee. Colonel Lee is outside the gates and demands your surrender.”

“I demands freedom for the Negro race of people that is living in bondage in this land.”

Stuart might as well have been singing to a dead hog. “What is it you want at this direct moment, sir, in addition to that demand?” he asked.

“Nothing else. If you can cede that immediately, we will withdraw. But I don’t think it’s in your power to do so.”

“Who am I speaking with? Can you show your face?”

The wood door had a panel in it for seeing. The Old Man slid it back. Stuart blinked a moment in surprise, then stood back and scratched his head. “Why, ain’t you Old Osawatomie Brown? Who gived us so much trouble in Kansas Territory?”

“I am.”

“You are surrounded by twelve hundred federal troops. You have to surrender.”

“I will not. I will exchange the prisoners I have in return for the safe passage of me and my men across the B&O Bridge. That is a possibility.”

“That cannot be arranged,” Stuart said.

“Then our business is done.”

Stuart stood there a moment, disbelieving.

“Well, go on, then,” the Old Man said. “Our business is finished, unless you yourself can free the Negro from bondage.” He slammed the porthole shut.