He snorted and laughed. “We are all watched, Hiram.”
“If you were watching,” I said, “why you ain’t stop them before they socked me and dragged me out the city?”
Bland shook his head. “The men, the ones who grabbed you, they’ve operated in Philadelphia for some time now. They prey off the free coloreds. Children are especially prized. We can’t really stop them. But sometimes we get a chance to send a message as to just how dangerous the man-catching business can truly be.”
“So you planned it all?” I asked.
“No. But you asked why we didn’t stop them. And this is why—to send a message, a warning. To make their cohort understand the perils of their trade. We could not send such a message in the confines of the city. But out here in the open country, with no one to tell…”
“Murder,” I said.
“Murder? Do you know what they were going to do to you?”
“Yeah, I do know,” I said. And at that moment I was back at that terrible night, chained to the fence, with Sophia at my side. And I was recalling how badly I wanted to give in to it all, to die right there, and how she held me up, and spoke to me without speaking, how strong she was when I needed her most, and how foolish I had been when she needed me. And now she was gone, and they, Ryland, the hounds, had done God knows what with her.
I said, “You only got half the story about me. You know about the girl—Sophia—the one I ran with. But you don’t really know the feeling I had for her, and how much it aches me that they have her now while I am up here, breathing the free air. All I can tell you is she was better than me. Fact is, sometimes I think you got the wrong one for an agent. Shoulda been her.”
I began to weep. Softly and quietly, but enough that I had to stop and collect myself.
“She saw so much in me,” I said. “But I fell. And Sophia fell with me. And here I am, up here, in the North, and she is…I don’t even know where she is. What I know is she deserved better than me. She deserved more than a man who would lead her right into the jaws of Ryland.”
And at this there was no control. I was weeping openly. It was all out there now. I had led a woman I loved right into the maw. And the weight that this put upon me was now open and known. Bland made no effort to conciliate. He kept his eyes on the road. And when I had stopped weeping, he spoke.
“You know that feeling you had for this woman Sophia?” he asked. “You know how it rips you to pieces wondering what became of her? You know all the moments you’ve lost wondering how you might have done things different? And you know all the nights you’ve sat up wondering if she were even alive? Hiram, that is the feeling that marks an entire nation held down. A whole country looking up wondering for their fathers and sons, for their mothers and daughters, cousins, nephews, friends, lovers.
“You say I murdered those men back there. But I say to you that I saved the lives of so many unknowable others. Those who would murder you—strip you away from all your family and friends—and remember nothing of it. They cannot live, not without some fear, some specter, and if murder is what you must name it, then I gladly accept the claim.”
We rode in silence for a moment.
“Thank you,” I said. “That should have been the first thing I said. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me, Hiram. This work, this war, it gives my own life meaning. I don’t know what I’d be without it. And I must say that I think if you gave it a chance, you might well find meaning…”
Bland was still talking, but the headache overpowered everything, and soon, to my great relief, the world faded away and I slipped out of consciousness.
* * *
—
Late that next day, I awoke with a dull ache all over my body. I dressed, walked downstairs, and found Raymond, Otha, and Bland all in conference. They summoned me over and I sat down before them. Scanning their faces, I had the sense that they