else around me, the entire party Harriet had brought, Otha and Kessiah, everyone, was hugging and sobbing too.
We went in shifts, by horse and buggy, to the Ninth Street office, so as not to arouse undue attention. We were all there assembled by sunrise. Everything was timed perfectly. Raymond poured coffee and served rye muffins, brown bread, and apple tarts from Mars’s bakery. We were, all of us, famished, and while doing our best to maintain manners, we fed ourselves to our hearts’ content.
“So this is what it is, huh?” Robert said. He was standing off in the corner of the parlor, by the window, watching the others as they ate.
“This and more,” I said. “Some good. Some bad.”
“But on the whole, better than being held, huh?”
“On the whole, yeah,” I said. “Still. There are parts of life that can’t be gotten out of, and I have had to learn, here, that we are all, at the end, held somehow. Just that up here you get to choose by who and by what.”
“Thinking I could work that,” Robert said. “And I must say that I am even thinking that I must be held again by my Mary.”
“Gotta love who love you,” I said.
“So it seems.”
“You talk to Harriet?”
“I have not. Don’t know how to ask…”
“I’ll ask. Was I who made the promise.”
* * *
—
Raymond took in each of the passengers for interview. I took notes. It lasted the whole day. At night everyone was dispatched to a different home in the city or out in Camden. They were advised to stick to indoors, for by now their escape would be known, and Harriet would be the prime suspect. By the end of the week, Philadelphia would be prowling with Ryland, but too, by then, they would themselves be headed farther north. That evening I sat down in the parlor. Harriet was upstairs in my room, fast asleep, as she had been since our arrival at the Ninth Street office.
Raymond was about to walk out with Jane and Henry to secure them in their lodging. But just before he left, he said, “I thought this might wait until your return.” Then he handed me a letter and said, “Hiram, I want you to understand that you don’t owe anyone anything anymore. Not me. Not Corrine.”
I sat in the parlor holding the letter. I saw that it bore the mark of the Virginia station and thus knew what it said before even opening it. I was being recalled to the muck. I appreciated Raymond’s words, but there was no way I was not going back. By then, I felt myself to truly be on the Underground. It was who I was and I had no idea what I would make of my life without it. And there was a promise I had made only a year ago, though it felt like ten years, a promise to bring Sophia out. And even with Bland gone, I was starting to see a way to do it.
An hour or so after Raymond left, Harriet ambled down the stairs holding her walking stick. She sat on the sofa and inhaled deeply.
“So that’s about the whole of it?” I asked.
“Yep,” she said. “That’s about it.”
“Well, not all of it.”
“What you mean?”
“I ain’t tell you, but to get your brother Robert out, I had to make a promise. It’s Mary. She wasn’t letting him go. I told her everything.”
“Everything?”
“I know. It was not smart.”
“Nope. Not really,” Harriet said. Then she cut her eyes away from me and let out a deep breath. We sat there in silence for a moment.
“But, I will say that I was not there. I told you what was to be done. How you got it done was how you got it done. And I thank you for it. This what Robert want?”
“Yes.”
“That boy is a caution.”
“And there’s something else too.”
“What you want now? Whole state conducted?”
I laughed. And then I said, “No. I want you to know that I am leaving. Harriet, I’m going home.”
“Huh. Yes, I figured as much. Especially now that you done seen the power.”
“It ain’t that. And I still don’t have it all.”
“You have enough. Enough for me to tell you this. I want you to remember that I revealed this to you and only you. And I did this because you are the bearer, no one else. Don’t forget that. Once you get that train on the track, and you will, there will be folks