“You plan on riding with us?” I asked.
“Not hardly. The Captain said he had but a few things to do and then we’s gone to freedom.”
“He’s riding against Captain Pate’s Sharpshooters.”
That floored Bob. “Shit. When?”
“Whenever he finds ’em.”
“Count me out. There’s two hundred in Pate’s army. Probably more. Pate got so many rebels wanting to join you’d think he was selling Calpurnia’s flapjacks. He’s turning ’em away. I thought Old Brown was working the freedom train. Riding north. Ain’t that what you said last fall?”
“I don’t know what I said then. I don’t remember.”
“That’s what you said. Said he was riding for freedom. Gosh darnit. What other surprises is around here? What’s his plan?”
“I don’t know. He don’t tell me. Whyn’t you ask him?”
“He favors you. You ought to ask.”
“I ain’t gonna ask him them things,” I said.
“Ain’t you angling on freedom? What you routin’ ’round here for then?”
I didn’t know. Up till then, escaping back to Dutch’s was in my plans. Once that changed, it was day-to-day living. I never was one to look too far past angling meat and gravy and biscuits down my throat. Bob, on the other hand, mostly had a family to consider, I reckon, and he had his mind on the freedom line, which weren’t my problem. I growed used to the Old Man and his sons. “I reckon being practiced on a sword and a pistol is what I been learning ’round here,” I said. “And reading the Bible. They do lots of that, too.”
“I ain’t come here to read nobody’s Bible and fight nobody’s slavery,” Bob said. “I come to get myself out from under it.” He looked at me and frowned. “I guess you don’t have to worry about it, the way you playing it, being a girl and all.”
“You the one that told me to do it.”
“I ain’t tell you to get me kilt!”
“You come here ’cause of me?”
“I come here ’cause you said the word ‘freedom.’ Sheesh!” He was mad. “My wife and children’s still in bondage. How I’m gonna plan on earning money to buy them if he’s monkeying ’round, fighting the Missourians?”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“There weren’t no asking,” Bob said. “My marse and I was rolling to town. I heard a noise. Next thing I know, he stepped out the woods holding a rifle in marse’s face. He said, ‘I’m taking your wagon and freeing your colored man.’ He didn’t ask me if I wanted to be free. Course I come along ’cause I had to. But I thought he was gonna free me to the north. Nobody said nothing about fighting nobody.”
That was the thing. The Old Man done the same to me. He reckoned every colored wanted to fight for his freedom. It never occurred to him that they would feel any other way.
Bob stood there, fuming. He was hot. “I done gone from the frying pan to the fire. Captain Pate’s rebels is gonna burn us up!”
“Maybe the Captain’ll find somebody else to fight. He ain’t the only abolitionist ’round these parts.”
“He’s the only one that counts. Cousin Herbert said there’s two companies of U.S. dragoons combing this country, looking for this outfit. That’s U.S. Army, I’m talking. From back east. That ain’t no posse. They gonna blame us for whatever he does when he’s caught, you can bet on it.”
“What we done wrong?”
“We here, ain’t we? If we’s caught, you can bet whatever they do to him, they’ll double the potion on the niggers. We’ll be in deep grease. You never thunk that, did you?”
“You didn’t sing that song when you told me to run with him.”
“You didn’t ask it,” Bob said. He got up, looking toward the campfire, where the smell of food beckoned. “Fight for freedom,” he said, sucking his teeth. “Sheesh.” He turned and spotted the bevy of stolen horses tied to the outer barrier, where several scouts stood. Looked to be at least twenty horses there and a couple of wagons to boot.
He looked at them and back to me. “Whose horses is those?”
“He always got a bunch of stolen horses around.”
“I aim to take one of them and get gone. You can come if you want.”
“Where to?”
“Jump across the Missouri, then find Tabor, Iowa. They say there’s a gospel train there. Underground Railroad. That’ll run you north to Canada. Distant country.”
“You can’t run a horse that far.”
“We’ll take two, then. The Old Man won’t mind one or two missing.”
“I wouldn’t snatch a horse from him.”
“He ain’t gonna live long, child. He’s crazy. He thinks the nigger’s equal to the white man. He showed that on the way here. Calling the coloreds in the wagon ‘mister’ and ‘missus’ and so forth.”
“So what? He does that all the time.”
“They gonna kill him for being so dumb. He ain’t right in his mind. Ain’t you seen that?”