The Last Runaway

Water

THERE WAS ALWAYS going to be one last runaway.

It was the last day of the Eighth Month, hot and still, though the heat was chased by the threat of autumn. The sun was just off-center, the leaves dusty rather than vibrant green, an undertone of yellow creeping through them. Honor hurried through a landscape that seemed to be waiting for something to happen, a thunderstorm or the razing of a field or a fire sweeping through. She was late.

The Haymakers were bringing in the hay. It had been a wet summer, and this was only the second crop-a disappointment, as it meant they would be unlikely to add another cow to the herd as planned. Jack, Judith and Dorcas, as well as other Faithwell neighbors, were in the field to the north of Wieland Woods. They would not let Honor help them, however, and she was glad. She had awoken that morning with an uneasy feeling in her belly. Though the baby was not due for another month, it felt large and low, pressing on her bladder so that she had been up several times during the night to use the chamber pot. She sensed its desire to escape from the confines of her womb, and knew it would come early rather than cling inside as so many first babies did.

Judith muttered something about Honor missing this year’s harvest as well as last year’s, implying she had deliberately timed her pregnancy to do so. Her words did not bother Honor. Now that she did not have to answer back, nothing Judith said bothered her.

She finished milking alone so that Jack and Dorcas and Judith could eat and make a start at the hay with the others. Then she cleared the breakfast things and prepared the meat pies Judith had instructed her to make to take out to the field for dinner. It was a relief to work alone, and she thought of little except when the baby became insistent and she had to sit down. Twice Jack and Dorcas and a neighbor came back with the wagon piled high with hay they transferred to the barn. Honor did not go out to them, and they did not come inside, but drank from the well and refilled a jug for the others.

She even had a little time to spare, and sat out on the porch with a lapful of hexagons she had begun making into rosettes for a grandmother’s garden quilt. She had started with green and brown shapes she’d found half-made in her work basket, then gone on to add other colors: yellow and red and green. She had been sewing them for a month now, since finishing Dorcas’s final quilt. She had got out the special pieces she’d saved-Grace’s dress, Belle’s yellow and tan silks, the rust diamonds of Mrs. Reed’s daughter’s wedding dress-but found no inspiration in them. She wondered if she ever would. But she did not like to have idle hands and so had worked on the hexagons. She now had over a hundred rosettes made, without any idea what she would do with them.

Because she was not working toward a specific quilt, Honor was less focused on her work; the heat too was enervating, and soon she had closed her eyes. It was Digger who woke her. Made to remain behind with her, at midday he stood by her and growled. Honor jumped: she was late to take dinner to the others. Putting the pies, some bread and cheese, a bowl of tomatoes and a jug of milk into a basket, she then hurried up a track along the edge of the woods to the field, the heavy basket bumping against her legs.

They were still working when she arrived; they would have been waiting for her to appear before they stopped. The alfalfa had been cut a few days before and left to dry, then raked up the day before, ready to be brought to the barn. The wagon had been pulled up to one of the many haystacks dotting the field. As Honor set down her basket, Jack and Judith began to dig their pitchforks into the stack.

Suddenly there came a shriek that made Honor’s stomach lurch. She froze as a black woman burst from the stack, shielding her eyes from the sun. Before anyone could respond, she ran. Bounding like a deer startled into panicked flight, she headed straight toward Honor, veering away at the last moment. Honor glimpsed wild eyes and lips clamped tight. Then she was gone, crashing into Wieland Woods.

Honor stared after her, catching flashes of arms, a billowing brown skirt, a red kerchief on her head. Eventually she disappeared, though her crackling and crunching in the thicket went on for some time. Finally even that stopped. When Honor turned back, all the Quakers in the field were looking at her.

No, Honor thought. This is not to do with me.

But, apart from Caleb Wilson, who gazed at her with sympathy, she could see in their faces that they were already linking the appearance of the runaway with Honor’s arrival. Even if she broke her silence to protest that it was a coincidence, they would not believe her. Judith had already set her mouth in the familiar cold half-smile. She said nothing, but walked over and took the basket of food from Honor.

I cannot bear this any longer, Honor thought. Nothing I say will make any difference to what people think. My words mean nothing to them. It was as if something broke in her head. She could not wait, even for Judith to unpack the food, but turned and walked back along the track toward the farm, ignoring Jack’s calls. On one side of her was Wieland Woods: all was still now. Wherever the runaway woman was, she was keeping quiet.

Back at the farm, Honor cleared away the hexagons she had left out on the kitchen table and put them in her work basket. Then she climbed the stairs, pulling herself and the weight of the baby up with the handrail. She stood in the bedroom doorway and looked at the quilt she had smoothed out on their bed earlier. It was the Star of Bethlehem quilt from home-Biddy’s quilt, as she always thought of it now. She still felt guilty about having to ask for it back. The signature quilt from Bridport was folded at the bottom of the bed. She could take neither with her.

Honor picked up a shawl, a penknife and a little money she had left from her passage to Ohio, which Jack had never asked for. Then she changed her daily bonnet for the gray and yellow one; if she left it, Judith was likely to give it away out of spite. Back in the kitchen she took a round of hard cheese, a loaf of bread, some beef tack and a sack of plums. She had never packed for such a journey, and had no idea if she was taking the right things. She tried to think what the runaways she had met had with them. Nothing, usually. Often even their feet were bare. Honor changed the light summer slippers she wore for sturdier boots, and added two candles and some matches to the small store, which she tied up in a dishcloth.

She could not take the rosettes, or her grandmother’s sewing box, and that almost stopped her. Then she opened the box and took out the porcelain thimble, the needle case and the enameled scissors, as well as the pieces of special cloth she had been saving-the memories in them were irreplaceable.

Digger was lying across the open doorway, catching what little breeze he could. As Honor stepped over him, he did not growl as he would normally have done with her. He knows, she thought. He knows, and is glad.

Crossing the orchard-the apples on the trees reddening, the plums past their best and covered with yellow jackets-Honor entered Wieland Woods and picked her way steadily through maples and beeches, through brambles loaded with blackberries she could not stop for. The trees were thick with leaves in suspension between the ripeness of summer and the decline of autumn. While the oak leaves were still green, the maples’ were veined with red, ready to flush.

There was no sign or sound of the Negro. At one point Honor strayed close to the edge bordering the field where the Haymakers were working, and heard their voices, though not what they said. After that she went deep into the middle of the woods, where the woman must be hiding. As she walked she was followed by the song of the bobwhite, named for its distinctive call. Jack had teased her once when she asked what it was, refusing to believe such a common bird did not exist in England. On the road with Thomas over a year ago, she had not even recognized the cardinals and blue jays. There was so much to learn about America, not all of it good.

Eventually, beyond the bobwhite, Honor picked up the chattering of a squirrel, clucking and scolding as if annoyed at a child, or an intruder. Following the sound, she did not try to hide her own presence, but allowed her skirt to brush against the undergrowth and her boots to snap dead branches in the hope that the woman would look out and see who it was, and trust her.

The runaway was perched on the branch of a beech tree six feet above the ground, the squirrel protesting high above her. Honor stepped onto one of the tree’s roots, looked up and held out a plum. The woman looked at her. She did not take the plum, but after a moment she climbed down. Taller than Honor, she had long limbs and a yellowish cast to her skin. Indeed, the woman’s face was familiar, though it took a moment for Honor to place her. She was the first runaway, who had hidden by the well and left a tin mug of water by her bed-the mug that was now buried with the dead man nearby. Honor remembered that Donovan had caught her; she must have been taken back and was running away again. She looked healthier now: she had filled out somewhat, her skin was clear of pimples, her eyes whiter, and her dress looked newer, if dirty. She was wearing a pair of men’s shoes, and carried a bundle similar to Honor’s own.

The first time Honor had met the woman she’d held out bread to her. Now she pocketed the plum and untied her bundle to offer some bread and cheese. The runaway shook her head. “She done fed me up at the last place. Don’t need nothin’ for now. She said to say hello if I saw you-though she told me to go on through to the next stop if I could, an’ not to be botherin’ you, what with that an’ all.” She gestured at Honor’s belly. “I wouldn’t of been in that hay at all but for that slave catcher drivin’ me off course. Same one as last time. Caught me in these woods. He persistent, ain’t he? Don’t think he even knows who I am, but chase me anyway.”

The woman stopped. The squirrel had doubled its voice with two women to complain about, but now it went silent, and they could hear a horse in the distance, coming along the track to the south of them, with its uneven hoofbeats. It was the first time Donovan had come out this way since the runaway’s death. He did not know about Honor’s silence.

And now she was breaking her silence-a sensible, undramatic end to it. “I will go with thee.” Honor’s first words in over three months came out as a cracked whisper.

“Thankee, but I know where I’m goin’.”

Honor cleared her throat to ease the words from it. “We must leave these woods. He will come looking here.” As would Jack: in a few hours Dorcas and Judith would go back to the farm for the evening milking, find that Honor was not there, and raise the alarm.

They listened. They could not go north into the hayfield, where even now Honor could hear the distant voices of her family, the jingles of the horses’ bridles, the creak of the wagon. Donovan was blocking their escape east along the track past the farm and Faithwell. Honor did not want to go west: the track through Wieland Woods petered out halfway through, and besides would lead them into unknown territory, away from the main road and Oberlin. If they could get close to the main road between Oberlin and Wellington, they could then follow it, keeping in the fields on either side.

“If we cross the track that way”-Honor pointed south-“there is a cornfield that has not yet been cut. We can hide there till dark, then make our way east to the main road.”

The other woman nodded. “First I got to drink.” She led the way to the creek that bisected the woods, where Honor had rolled Dorcas in the mud to soothe her bee stings. There was little water in it other than a couple of standing puddles scummed over, insects hovering above. The women picked their way along it till they found a small trickle over a rock. The runaway placed her mouth there to suck up the water. After drinking, she stood up and gestured to Honor, who tried to crouch, then went on her hands and knees in an awkward position to accommodate the baby. She hesitated for a moment when she realized she would be putting her mouth where the Negro’s had been. But that thought was a mere flicker, and she lowered her mouth to the rock. The water tasted wonderful.

Afterward the woman helped her to her feet, then led the way south toward the track, clearly in charge. Honor did not mind. It was enough for her to be out walking in the woods on a late summer afternoon with a Negro, going… she did not know where she was going. She was running away.

The black woman moved through the woods silently, her feet sure, aware of her body in a way that kept her from brushing against branches or crackling leaves. Honor could not imitate her silence: she rustled through the undergrowth and got herself caught in brambles. She was also slowed by the weight she carried, and the pains along her groin and inner thighs. The woman did not slow down, though, and was soon little more than a movement among the trees. At one point Honor stopped and wiped her brow, and listened. She could not hear Donovan’s horse. He was probably searching the barn and other farm buildings. Behind her she could hear the wagon with its load of hay bumping down the track that led from the hayfield along the edge of Wieland Woods to the pasture and barn. If Jack came upon Donovan at the barn, what would they say to each other? Would Donovan ask if he’d seen the runaway? Would Jack tell him, or lie? Honor shivered, and hurried to catch up with her companion.

She was leaning against a maple at the wood’s edge, the track before them little more than a trickle of crusted mud spreading east and west. Diagonally across it, next to the woods, was the bright green shimmer of the Haymakers’ extensive cornfield. Tall and healthy and ripe, it would be left to stand until autumn when the ears had dried in their husks. Seeing it reminded Honor of first lying with Jack Haymaker in a cornfield. She flushed at the memory; only a little over a year ago, yet it felt as far away as England.

“You can go back now,” the runaway said. “I be all right from here. I jes’ wait in the corn till dark, then go on when no one can see me.”

Honor shook her head. “I will go with thee.”

The woman glanced at Honor’s belly. “You sure you want to go like that?”

“The baby’s not due until next month. I’ll be fine.”

The runaway shrugged and turned to look up and down the track, listening. “Come on, then.” She stepped out of the woods. Honor followed, the sunlight blinding her so that she ran without seeing where she was going. In a moment she was crashing into the corn.

“Shh!”

Honor stopped, the stalks banging together around her.

“Go slow or it makes noise,” the woman whispered. “And we got to go through without breaking the stalks, so no one know we been here. Get to the middle and wait. Follow me, now.”

They stepped carefully along a row, trying not to rattle or break the stalks. Honor kept her eyes on the woman’s back, where a patch of sweat was blooming through her brown dress. Several feet in, the woman turned and cut across rows, zigzagging and pushing carefully through the thick corn. Eventually she turned into a row and walked along it, on and on, for far longer than Honor would ever have gone on her own. “Please,” she almost said. “Please stop.”

She was about to reach out and touch the woman when the runaway did stop, and Honor almost stumbled into her. She was dizzy and the baby was pressing on her bladder.

The woman sat. “Let’s wait here.”

Honor went a little farther along to squat. It was so hot that the urine dried up just moments after she finished. She came back to sit near the runaway and opened her bundle. This time the woman took one of the plums. Honor savored the fleshy pulp, and sucked for a long time on the stone.

The woman was looking at her sideways. “I like that bonnet,” she said. “You think it’s jes’ gray, then there’s that little flash of yellow to give it spice.”

“A friend made it for me.” Honor felt a pang, thinking of Belle Mills. She had never replied to her letter, and now she would not see her again.

It was uncomfortable sitting in the cornfield. The sun beat down on them, for the stalks did not provide much shade. The leaves caught at her, their surfaces a rough softness. The ears bulged from their husks, but this was feed corn, its kernels too tough for human teeth, and the taste less delicate than the sweet corn Honor had come to love and crave. There was nothing substantial like a tree to lean against, and the corn grew close enough together that it was difficult to find space to lie out. She was exhausted from the sun and the physical exertion, however, and managed to nod off, jerking herself awake.

“You sleep a bit,” the runaway said. “I’ll keep watch. We’ll take turns.”

Honor did not argue. She laid her head on her bundle, curled around the baby and, despite the hot sun, the flies and the dull ache in her belly, soon slept.

She woke with a dry mouth, the plum stone tucked in her cheek. The sun was arcing down toward the horizon. Honor had slept a long time. She could hear a horse in the distance, clopping steadily along the track, and sat up, startled. The black woman was sitting on her heels.

“Thee should have woken me,” Honor said.

The woman shrugged. “You needed the sleep.” Her eyes grazed over Honor’s belly. “I remember wantin’ to sleep all the time toward the end.”

“Thee has children?” Honor glanced around, as if somehow she could conjure up children in the cornfield.

“Course. That’s why I’m here.”

Honor shook her head to clear her thoughts. Then she froze: it was Donovan’s horse. He rode fast, then slowed, then stopped, then rode slowly again, then turned around and galloped away.

Honor gulped, but the woman seemed unconcerned. She even chuckled. “He been doin’ that a while now,” she said. “Knows we here somewhere but don’t know where.”

“Will he come into the corn?”

“I reckon not. They’s lots of woods an’ fields to search. He gon’ wait till we make a move.”

Honor did not ask when that would be.

“Remember, he don’t know where we are, but we know where he is. We got the advantage.”

Honor wished she shared the woman’s optimism. Unfortunately, Donovan had the advantage of the law on his side, and a horse, and a gun.

At dusk they heard another horse along the track. As he called her name, Honor recognized Jack’s voice. He must have cut short the harvest to look for her: it was good weather and she knew the Haymakers had been planning to work as late as they could to get the hay in before rain came. She could hear anger and impatience in his voice, and winced.

The black woman stared at her. “That your husband?” she whispered when Jack had turned back. “What he callin’ you for? Don’t he know you out here with me?”

Honor didn’t answer.

Then the woman understood. “You runnin’ away?” she cried, her voice for the first time that day rising above a muffled tone. “What in hell you doin’ that for? With a baby comin’ an’ all? What you got to run away from?”

With each question, Honor shrank further into herself, taking refuge in silence.

When it was clear she would not-or could not-respond, the woman clicked her tongue. “Fool,” she muttered.

As it was growing dark, they heard horses again, and Jack and Adam Cox calling this time. The woman reached for her bundle and scrambled to her feet.

Honor grabbed her sleeve. “What is thee doing?”

“I gon’ tell them you here.”

“Please don’t!”

But it was Donovan’s voice joining the others’-sarcastic, amused-that stopped the runaway. “Honor Bright, I’m a little surprised you’re hidin’ out there, after all your promises not to help niggers. Guess I can’t trust even a Quaker these days. Time to come out now, darlin’-you’re scarin’ your husband.”

The women remained still, listening to the men shifting about on their horses and talking in low voices. Honor shuddered and took a deep breath.

Then she heard the barking.

“Oh Lord, they got a dog,” the black woman whispered. “Oh Lord.”

“That’s Digger.”

“He know you? Well, when he find us least he won’t tear you apart. Get ready to run.”

“He hates me.”

“Your own dog hate you? Oh Lord.”

Honor could hear stirring among the corn, and then made out Digger’s shadowy form trotting up the row. He did not bark, though, but came to stand at Honor’s feet. He gazed up at her, ignoring the runaway, and growled low. Then he turned and ran back down the way he had come. The women stared after him.

“That’s him lettin’ you go,” the black woman murmured. “Good thing he hate you. Thankee, Digger.”

“There he is,” they heard Jack say. “What has thee found, Digger? Nothing?”

“Thought he was after somethin’ there,” Donovan said. “Damn dog. That’s why I don’t like to use ’em-noisy and unreliable. I trust my own senses more than a dog’s.”

Eventually the men rode away again, and the women began threading their way east across the rows of corn. Honor’s legs ached from inactivity, and she shook and stretched them. She could see two stars in the sky. More would soon appear.

At the end of the cornfield they passed through a wood, taking them south of Faithwell. As it grew black Honor kept her eyes on the woman’s back again, finally reaching out to touch her so that she could be guided through the dark.

Eventually they reached the familiar main road between Oberlin and Wellington. It was quiet, but Honor suspected Donovan and possibly Jack were somewhere along it, waiting for them.

“We’ll go into that corn,” the woman said, gesturing across the road. “Stay off the road, but near it so we know where we at, and where the hunter at too. Always better to know that, so you don’t get surprised.” She spoke with the confidence of someone who had done this often. She hurried across the road, which was a pale river even without a moon. As Honor followed she thought of being in this very spot a few months back, looking for Donovan in the night. Now she was hiding from him. The darkness brought with it the same metallic taste of fear. Honor swallowed but the taste remained, though muted, for this time she was not alone.

In the cornfield the woman turned south. When Honor did not follow, she stopped. “You comin’ or what?”

“We should be going that way.” Honor pointed at the pole star. “Toward Oberlin.”

The woman shook her head. “I jes’ come from Oberlin. From the woman in the red house-make one fiery stew. Who said to stay away from you. Now I start to understand why,” she added. “Don’t you understand? I’m goin’ south, not north. Already been in the north.” She crossed back to Honor. “You don’t remember me, do you? I expect we all look alike to you.” She clicked her tongue. “Well, I tell you somethin’: white folks look the same to us too.”

“I do remember thee,” Honor whispered. “Thee left water by my bed when I was ill.”

The woman’s face softened. “I did.”

“But I don’t understand-why is thee going south?”

“My children. See, after I got caught I ran away again first chance I got. I even stopped at your farm one day, got the victuals you left under the crate. This time I made it to Canada. But once I was there, I couldn’t stop thinkin’ ’bout my girls, and worryin’ ’bout them. It felt good up there, the freedom. Ain’t nobody tellin’ you what to do. You make your own decisions, where you live, what you do, how you spend the money you earn. You earn money! And livin’ with other black folk, it’s-well, it’s like you livin’ with your Quaker kind. It feel right. I want my children to feel that too. So I’m goin’ back for them.”

“Where are they?”

“Virginia.”

“But that is far! What if thee is caught?”

“If I is caught I’ll jes’ wait till I can run again. That the thing about slavery. They needs you to work, they can’t always be lockin’ you up. You wait long enough, you always find a time to run. That’s why I don’t worry if I get caught. They take me back to Virginia, and I’ll run again, with my children this time. I done tasted freedom now. I always gon’ be wantin’ that taste again.”

Honor felt as she had done when playing a game with her brothers and sister, where they blindfolded her and spun her round, and when she removed the blindfold, she discovered she was facing a completely different direction from what she thought. It was as if she were standing in the corn, and it had turned around her 180 degrees, so that north was south and south north. She had been expecting to walk to Mrs. Reed’s in Oberlin, then make her way northwest to Sandusky, a town on Lake Erie where she could get a boat across to Canada. That was what fugitive slaves did. Now, though, she would have to go the opposite way, or go north without a guide.

“So where you goin’?” the black woman asked.

“I…” Honor had no idea where she was going. She had only considered what she was running from, not what she was running to. Those were usually two different directions. It was not really a question of her going north or south; she was not a black slave escaping from unjust laws. Hers was more of an east-west decision: known or unknown territory. “I will go with thee to Wellington. From there I will decide.” She preferred a companion going south to a night in the woods alone, tasting metal.

“Come on, then, if you really comin’.” The woman began crossing the field, weaving through the rows of corn. A breeze had sprung up, rattling the stalks naturally so that the fugitives did not have to worry so much about the noise they made. Still they went slowly, Honor stumbling in the dark.

At the edge of the corn they dropped into a ditch and lay there for a time. Honor was not sure why, and asked. “Waitin’ till it feel right,” was all the woman would say.

Eventually Donovan rode by, on his own this time, seeming to taunt them by slowing down on the road near to where they lay, then speeding up again.

“He know we ’round here somewhere,” the woman said. “He can feel it. But he’s confused, ’cause he don’t know I-we-headin’ south. Thinks it should be north, even though his sense tellin’ him otherwise. We jes’ got to wait him out.”

Donovan returned a few minutes later. Stopping his horse, he called out, “Listen here, Honor Bright. I know you’re out there with that nigger. I tell you what, I’ll strike a bargain with you. Give yourself up and I’ll let you go wherever it is you’re goin’. Your husband asked me to find you-even said he’d pay good money-but I don’t care ’bout him or his money. You wanna run away from him, I ain’t gonna stop you. I always knew you wouldn’t take to the Haymakers. He told me you ain’t spoken since that nigger died. Well, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. Just throw a rock at me so I’ll know you’re out there, and I’ll find you.”

The runaway watched Honor, the whites of her eyes flashing in the dark. Honor shook her head to reassure her.

After a minute, Donovan began to laugh. “Listen to me, sittin’ out here on my horse talkin’ to myself. Guess you’ve made me crazy, Honor Bright.”

He turned and rode north. Honor wondered how many other fields he would stand next to and repeat his offer.

The black woman was glaring at her. “What’s with that slave catcher? You friends with him? You leavin’ your husband for him?”

“No! No. I’m leaving because-because I don’t share the same views as my husband’s family.”

The woman snorted. “That ridiculous. You don’t have to agree ’bout everything with the people you live with.”

“They forbade me to help runaways.”

“Oh.” The woman clicked her tongue.

They remained in the ditch for a long time. The sky was filling with stars.

“All right. We go now,” the woman said. “He lookin’ for us toward Oberlin, makin’ his little speech to you ever’ now and then.” She chuckled, and led the way into the woods. With every step Honor expected to feel a hand on her shoulder or a shout from behind. But he did not come.

It was much cooler now; not cold, but dew was falling, and Honor pulled her shawl around her. They tramped through the woods, Honor tripping at times, the woman steady and quiet.

The other side of the woods was bounded by a field shorn of its oats. They could not cross it, for they would be easily visible, even without a moon. Instead they went further east, away from the road, to another wood, where they turned south again. Now that they were away from the road and from Donovan, Honor thought they might be able to relax. But the woman hurried on, fearful of cropped fields that could easily be ridden across. “He’ll be crisscrossin’ every field to the north,” she said, “till he realize we not there. Then he’ll come this way.”

“He may go west,” Honor reasoned. “North and west are where runaways go-not south and east.”

“Them slave hunters got a sense makes ’em good at guessin’ where a runaway is. Otherwise they be out of a job. He’ll turn up again tonight-I can guarantee it. But I gots a sense too.”

“How does thee do this every night? And all alone?” Honor shivered, thinking of the cold metallic pressure of the night.

“You get used to it. Better to be alone. This”-the woman waved her hand at the woods around them-“this is safety. Nature ain’t out to enslave me. Might kill me, with the cold or illness or bears, but that ain’t likely. No, it’s that”-she pointed toward the road-“that’s the danger. People’s the danger.”

“Bears?” Honor looked around.

The woman chuckled. “Most bears scared o’ you. They ain’t gon’ bother you, ’less you get ’tween them and they children. ’Sides, ain’t no bears round here. Got ’em in the mountains, where I’m goin’. Got to scare me some bears to get to my children. All right now, we can go.” The woman seemed to be obeying some silent signal only she could sense.

They crept and stopped, crept and stopped. At one point they came upon water-the Black River, Honor suspected. The runaway did not hesitate but waded in, holding her bundle above her. Honor had no choice but to follow, emerging cold and sodden on the other side. “You’ll dry off soon,” the woman said.

In the pre-dawn darkness they reached the edge of Wellington. This would be the hardest part, Honor thought: getting to Belle Mills’s in the middle of town without anyone seeing them. Already she could hear dogs barking at farms around them.

The runaway seemed less worried. “You know where the lady’s shop is?” she said.

Honor patted her bonnet. “She made this for me.”

The woman nodded. “Thought so. Good. All you got to do is go up to her door and knock. You a free woman-can’t nobody snatch you off the street. Even that slave hunter can’t do that.”

“What about thee?”

“I ain’t comin’ with you.” At Honor’s panic, the woman gazed at her, holding her eyes. “It’s too dangerous right in town with the alarm up. He’d catch me here; I can feel it. Don’t you worry now; I got you close enough you don’t have to be scared no more. You can walk right on up the road-don’t have to hide in the woods with the bears. See, it ain’t so dark now.”

Honor looked around. There was a dimness in the east that made the darkness less heavy. Soon she would be able to see to walk more easily. “But where will thee go?”

“I’ll hide myself away. Ain’t gon’ tell you. Better you don’t know so the slave hunter can’t get it out of you. You go on now, ’fore some o’ these dogs come out an’ find us. Got to get me to some water-break the trail so they don’t come after me.”

Honor knew she was right. “Wait.” She opened her bundle and handed over all of her food, the penknife, and most of the money. Then she took off her gray and yellow bonnet and held it out.

“Oh.” The woman touched the yellow lining. “This too nice for me.”

“Please. I would like thee to have it.”

“All right.” She started to put it on over her red kerchief.

“Wait-thee should have my cap too. Let me have thy kerchief.” I will use it for the quilt, she thought.

With the cap on and the bonnet tied tight under her chin, the woman looked from the side like a white woman. “Thankee,” she said. “Now, you best go.”

Honor hesitated. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Go on, find your way.”

“God go with thee.”

“And thee.” The woman smiled. “Look at me, wearin’ a bonnet an’ talkin’ like a Quaker.” She turned and walked into the woods, the darkness taking her away.

He was waiting for her outside Belle Mills’s shop, leaning so still against the corner of the building that Honor didn’t notice him until she had raised her hand to knock on the door.

“What you doin’ with your head uncovered, Honor Bright? And where’s that nigger?”

“I do not know,” Honor could honestly respond when she recovered from her fright.

“Why are you wet? You been wadin’ in the river? She showed you all her nigger tricks, did she?”

Honor glanced down at her skirt in the dawn light. She thought it had dried, but saw now that it was once again sopping.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh.”

Belle Mills’s Millinery

Main St.

Wellington, Ohio

September 4, 1851

My dear parents,

Do not be alarmed by a stranger’s hand: Belle Mills is writing this letter for me, as I am too weak to sit up for long. I wanted you to know immediately that you are grandparents now, to Comfort Grace Haymaker. She was born three days ago with Belle and an able Wellington doctor in attendance. She is beautiful. I am tired but joyful.

For the moment it is best to write to me in Wellington.

Your loving daughter,

Honor

This part I write from myself, though Honor don’t know it because she and the baby are asleep now. I don’t know if she’s written to tell you she’s broken with her family. First she gave them the silent treatment, which I guess is the kind of punishment a Quaker would come up with. Then she ran away and is staying with me.

She can be silent all day long like no one else I ever met. I’ll tell you one thing, though: birthing that baby made her yell loud as any other woman, so loud her throat is sore now. Even Dr. Johns was surprised, and he’s heard some yelling in his time. But it was good to hear her voice loud, even if it came from pain.

You’re her family, so maybe you can talk sense to her. She needs to figure out what to do. She can stay with me for a time, but I’m dying. Liver. It’s slow but it’s happening. She don’t know that, and don’t need to. She’s got enough on her plate. Eventually, though, I’ll be gone and this store will be turned over to my brother, and you don’t want her staying here then. That would be a disaster.

I’ll tell you another thing for free: Honor won’t do no better than Jack Haymaker-not in Ohio, anyway. She wants the perfect man she’s going to have to go back to England to find him. Maybe he’s not even there.

Baby’s crying-time for me to stop.

Yours ever faithful,

Belle Mills