stepped inside. And saw Mary fully—a small woman with a righteous rage all over her. She really did know Robert, even if she did not directly know which way he was now heading. She looked me over again and said, “Jacob, huh? How bout I march over to the Jennings place and ask about you.”
“We ain’t doing that,” I said.
“Ain’t no ‘we.’ I do it by my lonesome, right now.”
“No. I can’t let you.”
“Really. So you saying you gonna stop me?”
“My ambition, ma’am,” I said, “is that you will stop yourself.”
Mary shot me an incredulous look. I had to move fast.
“You right,” I said. “Ain’t no Jacob around here. But should you act as you now claiming to would bring pain upon you and everyone you love in a kind of way that go far beyond finding Robert sneaking around with a girl.”
Behind me I heard Robert moan and say, “Baby…”
“Mrs. Mary,” I said. “It is apparent to me that you have not been given the full shape of things. You are right. Robert is stealing away. Robert got to steal away, and there ain’t a thing you should want to do about it.”
“Damn if I shouldn’t,” she said.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I really don’t think you should. I know he ain’t been straight with you, but I will tell you directly. Broadus bout to put this man on the block. And when he do, you will have a better chance of walking on water than seeing your husband in this life again.”
“He been running that business for a year now,” she said, “and Broadus ain’t done nothing. Robert work too hard for them to move.”
“Robert working hard is the first reason to move him. Strapping man like that fetch a good price. And what nigger ever been saved on account of working hard? You got that much faith in these people? I been giving this place a good survey. It is teetering. I done seen many a farm like it before. They selling folks off ’cause they got to. I seen it before. And I am telling you now, telling you straight, that your Robert got two choices—the auction block with Broadus, or to run with me.”
If there was an official rulebook for the Underground, I was in violation of its most primary articles. Agents worked hard to be seen only by those they were conducting. And they never identified their true business, preferring any number of other stories. But I had given it all up, in hopes, with time against us, of swaying Mary to let us go.
“The Underground offers the chance at reunion,” I said. “I hate to divide you. I know what it is, I tell you, I do. I am divided myself—got a gal down in Virginia who I think of every minute of every hour of every day. I was forced from her. But better to be forced north by the Underground than be forced deeper into the coffin. This is the only way, I am telling you.
“I have heard the two of you are new with child, and I know what must weigh on you. I was an orphan, Mrs. Mary. My momma was sold away and my daddy wasn’t worth spit. I know you must be fearing that child coming up without a daddy, and I have a feeling for that stronger than you can know.
“But you have got to get this, ma’am. Your Robert will be taken—either by us or by them, but he will be taken. You know who we are. You know what we do. And you know our sign. We are people of honor, ma’am. And I tell you, upon my word, we will not rest until you and your Robert are brought into reunion.”
She stood there dazed and fell back a step. She moaned, “No, no,” and shook her head. And I remembered, in that moment, Sophia moaning when the hounds closed in. But just as swiftly I remembered something else—back in Virginia, at Bryceton, before we were to leave to rescue Parnel Johns. I remembered how much I distrusted it all, and how Isaiah Fields became Micajah Bland, and how his trust in me gave me trust in all the everything that followed. That was the spirit I summoned up just then.
“My name,” I said. “My name is Hiram, ma’am. Your Robert Ross is my passenger and I am his conductor. On my life, ma’am, he shall not be lost. And nor shall you.”