Furmidable Foes Page 9

  “My secret.” Martin leaned back in the chair. “In my business I meet many people.”

  “Guess you do.” Arch wiped his eyes.

  “Don’t drink too much. Your legs will lock up on you,” Shank informed him.

  “One draw will keep me.” Arch moved his booted feet closer to the small but vigorous fire. “Three young ones, worn out and hungry, I can tell you that much. They got here, counted out their money. I didn’t say nothin’. Didn’t have enough for all three.

  “Fellow came down with a stubborn horse. Couldn’t get the animal moving and wanted to take horse and cart across the river. The shorter fellow turned out to be good with a horse. He crawled under the cart, saw the wheel was froze up, something in it, I think. He asked the woman for a thick stick. She found one and the tall, thin fellow tipped up the cart while the other one underneath dislodged it. The man, never saw him before or again, paid their way. Whatever he had in the cart he wanted to get over to Maryland. Didn’t seem like produce. The cart wasn’t too heavy for the tall fellow to tip so I figured it was something light, wool maybe. Lot of people got sheep, cattle. I’m not for anything I have to feed.” He laughed.

  “So you’d say at least the shorter one could handle a horse?” Shank asked.

  “Seemed like a good hand. Runaways?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t ask.” Arch shrugged. “If they can pay the fare, I take them.”

  “I would, too,” Martin agreed.

  “You know people over there?” Shank relaxed in the warmth.

  “Couple I do. Couple of big farms. The farmhands might come down for an errand but mostly I stay to myself. Got a few regulars who cross once a month, but the people I see usually, I only seen them crossing once or twice.”

  “What about back at the crossroads? Dry goods store. Think any of those folks are moving people through?” Martin saw the golden rays on the water outside the small window.

  The sun was setting.

  “No. Not any money in it,” Arch replied. “Be dark pretty fast now. If you go back, not but a mile, a small inn is there. Like I said, not many people traveling. You won’t have trouble getting rooms. Food’s good. Good stew.”

  The two stood up, as did Arch. Martin shook his hand. “Thanks. If we do find those three, there will be a little something for you. Keep your eyes open, Arch.”

  Arch felt a coin cool in his hand. “I will, I surely will.”

  When Martin and Shank left, closing the door, Arch looked at the silver. “One dollar. Those three must be important.” He doused the fire, spread the ashes around with a fireplace rake, stepped outside, pulled up his collar, and headed for home. Only half a mile from the river on a small rise, he was glad to see it: Light shone from the front window. The wind was raw.

  He opened the door. His wife, a well-padded woman, was stirring something in the pot over the fire. He walked up, taking off his worn coat, kissed her on the cheek, then held out his hand. The silver dollar shone among the coins.

  “Arch.”

  He smiled and sat down. Running a ferry proved hard labor and Arch wasn’t getting any younger.

  “Two fellows, known them some, looking for runaways.”

  “And they gave you a silver dollar?”

  “And I’m going to get you that shawl you want.”

  “Now, Arch, honey, it’s going to be a long, hard winter. All the signs are there. Wait until spring.”

  “I want to see your pretty face against that color. What do you call that color?”

  “Sapphire blue.”

  He shook his head. “You’ll look”—he thought—“like the girl I married.”

  She turned from her pot, laughing. “I will not.”

  “You don’t have one wrinkle.”

  Now she truly laughed. “Because I’m getting fat!”

  They laughed together. Two people who didn’t have much but they had each other.

  15

  December 2, 1787

  Sunday

  Mr. Finney’s impressive carriage rolled down the long drive of Royal Oak as he and his lady were going to mass.

  Ralston, in the mare barn, watched. As few Catholics lived in Albemarle County, Virginia, he found the ritual fascinating. Not that he had ever attended a service, but Ard told him about the candles, the votives, the big baptismal font, all the statues.

  Each breath Ralston and the mare he was grooming took came out in puffs of smoke. Ralston knew it wasn’t smoke but that’s what it looked like. He finished the careful grooming, slid on the mare’s blanket, and moved to the next stall.

  Working abated some of the cold. The notion that Sunday was a day of rest applied more to the humans than the animals, who needed food and water. Ralston was happy to oblige. If he took on the three barns, caring for all the horses, somewhere along the line he would call in the time he did this for the two other fellows, each assigned a barn. They took off on Sundays.

  Fortunately, William had not been put in charge of a barn. Ard used him more for riding but also for odd jobs, which allowed Ard to keep an eye on William.

  He wasn’t keeping his eye on the young man this Sunday morning; old Dipsy Runckle was. Hammer in one hand, kneeling down, Dipsy tapped the large wooden wheel of a newly built work cart.

  William, on the other side of the cart, kneeling by the wheel, held his hand on the center of the wheel, the inside of which held the axle.

  “Anything?” Dipsy asked.

  “No.”

  Dipsy tapped again harder. “Now?”

  “No.”

  “Switch with me,” Dipsy commanded, so the two men changed places and Dipsy now tapped the wheel center where William had been. “Anything?”

  “No. Dipsy, what good does tapping do? This axle is solid, the wheel well full of grease. Spokes solid.”

  “I got my ways and you don’t know shit.” Dipsy found most young people tedious and stupid.

  William fumed but he shut up. Dipsy stood up, having performed the same ritual for the front axle and wheels, and he climbed into the cart. An eight-foot bed, while not overlong, could fool an inexperienced driver. Getting around any corner can be difficult depending on the road surface, and most roads were mud. The longer and heavier the vehicle, the more difficult the task.

  Built for light hauling, this deep blue cart would see a great deal of use. On any farm much of the hauling involved lighter items: a few square bales, maybe a barrel or two of oats or wooden boxes of corn for the cook. Light wagons and carts worked every day on most farms, so a breakdown could be costly. Better to have a few smaller ones than one huge one.

  Dipsy walked front to back, then again. Stopping in the middle, he jumped up and down. As his knees were shot, this was not a high jump but still his weight pounded the weakest part of the bed at the center.

  “Solid.” The old man smiled.

  William, leaning over the side of the cart, observed, “Should be, the time spent building it.”

  “You can do something in a hurry or you can do it right.” Dipsy knelt down, running his ungloved fingers over the top of the sides. He moved up to sit in the driver’s seat, a butt-width plank with a backrest. Running his fingers over the top surfaces, he grunted. Ran them in the other direction, then leaned back against the backrest.

  “Looks good.” William passed an opinion, which carried no weight with Dipsy.

  “A fresh coat of paint makes anything look good. This will get used and used hard. No point making someone’s job harder by filling their fingers full of splinters. The one thing I can’t do is fashion an axle as good as the one in the Studebaker carts Mr. Finney bought.”

  “Those people must have a big forge,” William remarked.

  “Bet they do. It’s their business but we can come close.”

  “Guess so.”


  Dipsy continued sitting on the driver’s seat, pulling his gloves back on. “Mr. Studebaker figured out no one could use the number of carts Mr. Finney was buying.” He smiled. “Mr. Finney’s smart. He was buying carts to resell for more money. They put a stop to that. Mr. Finney was doing them a favor by my lights. I don’t know, I’m not a moneyman.”

  “Why?”

  “People bought a top cart, heard the Studebaker name. They stamped it on the undercarriage. Word gets out. People would go to the source. Anyway, Mr. Finney decided he could build carts, too, so this is our first. It will last.”

  “Who’s bought it?”

  “Rosemont.”

  This was a farm three miles east of Royal Oak. Owned by Edward McBain, young, ambitious, he was expanding. McBain wanted everything that Mr. Finney had.

  “Lots of cattle,” William laconically remarked.

  “Mr. Finney will want this delivered tomorrow or next day. Weather might turn.” He slapped his hands on his thighs, no real slap due to his fingers. “It’s a good strong cart. Bet Mr. Finney gets more orders.”

  “Right.” Evidencing scant interest, William, work finished, left, walking back to his cabin.

  When Ard hired William, Ralston, and Sulli, William lied, claiming Sulli as his wife. Ralston was moved to the single men’s bunkhouse. Mr. Finney believed marriage a great benefit to a man. Husband and wife deserved privacy. However, if they ate with the other workers they paid six dollars a month instead of three dollars. As Sulli worked in the communal kitchen for Miss Frances, they paid five dollars, a bit of a discount for wonderful food.

  Mr. Finney believed a well-fed worker was a better worker. The Irishman, fair to a fault, expected a good day’s work. He got it.

  As William walked over the frozen ground, Martin and Shank, now on the Maryland side, observed everything. If the three runaways remained in Maryland, they would find them through questioning, observation, and studying the roads. The bounty hunters figured the three stayed on foot. If they intended to reach Philadelphia, they would need to pick up jobs, perhaps staying for months, especially in winter.

  Enticing as Philadelphia was, so was a good job. Marylanders owned slaves, as did many people in the Original Thirteen, save Vermont. Pennsylvania, thanks to its Quaker roots, never encouraged the practice. But if a resident of the large state chose to own slaves, they were legally permitted. If shipowners carried slaves, they were also permitted.

  Confident that the runaways had passed through this area, Martin and Shank felt they would soon pick up the trail. If the slaves had passed themselves off as freedmen, who would care unless a large reward was offered for their return?

  The two threw wide their net. Little by little they would tighten it, then close it to strike like rattlesnakes.

  Often a search would consume months. Every now and then the pursued would fall into their hands.

  Finding simple lodging at a small inn in Doubs, they once again began their search.

  Both Martin and Shank excelled at picking up and sifting bits of information, at finding a lead or hearing of an offhand comment. Greasing palms aided the process. They’d seen people turn on one another for two dollars.

  Neither man held a high opinion of the human race.

  16

  June 3, 2019

  Monday

  “Took longer than I thought.” Harry dropped into a chair.

  “Did.” Janice sat next to her in the women’s building of St. Luke’s.

  “It was a huge success thanks to you, Harry. You had the idea and convinced the rest of us.” Pamela smiled.

  The Dorcas Guild had returned at 10:30 A.M. to double-check, pick up anything they missed yesterday, and enjoy a “girls’ lunch” of the leftover food. Why does food always taste better the second day?

  Sitting around one rectangle table, the workhorses of the Guild chatted, compared notes.

  “We actually surprised the Rev.” Mags laughed.

  A scratch at the door made Harry rise to open it. “Beggars.”

  “Smells good,” Elocution declared as Lucy Fur and Cazenovia marched in.

  Susan laughed as she picked up three paper plates, piling chicken and ribs on each one. “Well, girls, they helped yesterday. I consider them members of the Dorcas Guild.”

  Tazio, Renie, and Libby, young members, listened more than talking themselves. Tazio cut some of her fried chicken for the Reverend’s cats.

  “Weren’t the necklace and those earrings spectacular? I have never seen anything like that short of royal displays in European museums.” Mags thought the food delicious, especially since she didn’t have to cook.

  “Funny you should say that.” Harry cut open a baked potato she had put in the microwave.

  Given that Harry worked off every calorie, she could eat whatever she wanted. Not one Dorcas member joined her in a baked potato but they all watched her pile butter, sour cream, and bacon bits on it.

  “That’s got to be one thousand calories,” Janice exclaimed.

  Harry looked at her. “So what?”

  “I can’t believe you eat like that,” Janice replied.

  “I’m a farm girl. What can I say? Back to royalty. Fashions in jewelry change like clothing. Think of Tiffany’s designer, Jean Michel Schlumberger. And you can always pick out Cartier’s design from the 1930s.”

  “Maybe you can. I can’t,” Renie, bright red hair, confessed.

  Susan, consoling, focused on Renie. “Harry goes on research jags. Never go into any library with her or sit next to her when she turns on her computer.”

  “Oh, Susan.”

  “Harry, it’s a function of your notorious nosiness.” Her best friend giggled.

  “I am not nosy. I am curious.”

  “Yeah. Agreed.” Susan put down her fish. “But you were going to force us to listen to your idea about jewelry fashions. Here we are, a captive audience.”

  “You know, some cats wear jeweled collars,” Elocution, between mouthfuls, announced.

  “Why would any cat wear a collar? It’s awful.” Cazenovia flipped her longhaired calico tail.

  “No one wants to, of course.” Lucy Fur jumped in. “It’s so their humans can show off.”

  “Why don’t the humans wear a jeweled collar? Why put one on us?” Elocution demanded.

  “Because they have no sense. Maybe the rich lady puts a collar on her cat identical to her own choker.” Lucy Fur, like Elocution, thought the whole thing absurd.

  Harry, not understanding the cat conversation, food dripping out of their mouths as they talked, answered Susan. “If you put up pictures of Mrs. Vanderbilt, Alva Belmont, those grand society madams near the end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth, look at the jewelry.”

  “Okay.” Janice was interested. “I remember one photo of Alva Belmont with a pearl necklace, three strands of pearls, hanging below her waist.”

  “If you go before photography there are drawings of queens in full regalia. The jewelry for Queen Isabella II, wife of Edward I, is different from what Elizabeth I wore. English royalty. Factor in other countries and there is a lot of variety. Different stones, colors meant something; the jewelry was a statement.”

  “But isn’t jewelry always a statement?” Mags interjected.

  “Yes,” Pamela simply said.

  “What I’m getting at is that our nameless woman’s jewelry is a bit more complicated than what an American woman at the time would normally wear.” Harry pushed on.

  “Like Martha Washington?” Janice wondered.

  “The first First Lady possessed good, understated taste. Abigail Adams, of course, would find such display frivolous. Dolley Madison liked color and display but she, too, was careful not to display too much wealth. It wasn’t considered American.”

  Everyone was
thinking.

  “Do you really think we were that self-aware?” Tazio asked.

  “I do. The last thing we wanted was to look or act like royalty or aristocrats. Think of what our leaders wrote about before we fought, while we fought, and after we fought.” Harry finished her delicious potato, picking up the skin and eating it. “Sorry, I should have cut the skin.”

  “It’s easier that way.” Libby, with a cute round face, smiled. “I was a history major at Chapel Hill. You know we never studied or discussed fashion.”

  “No one does.” Susan shook her head. “How stupid. The fastest road into the past is through sports, the arts, fashion. Just think of whalebone corsets.”

  “Dear God. It’s a wonder our foremothers could breathe.” Pamela laughed.

  Susan, wise to Harry’s ways, said, “What are you driving at?”

  “Well.” A pause followed this. “I don’t think the owner of that necklace and earrings was an American.”

  “Really?” Mags was now completely fascinated.

  “Too ornate. Too flashy. All those diamonds and pearls. Way too flashy.”

  “In other words, Mrs. Washington would not have worn them.” Pamela cut a small square of cherry cobbler, passing the plate.

  “Nor would any other woman whose husband had political designs?” Tazio questioned.

  “That would be rubbing people’s noses in it.” Harry continued. “Even a successful businessman, hoping to parade his wealth through his wife, had best be careful, even after the Revolutionary War. The vulgarity came in the last half of the nineteenth century.”

  “You know, Harry, you just might be on to something.” Janice rested her chin in the cup of her hand. “Like maybe those bones belong to a diplomat’s wife?”

  “Or the mistress of someone from Spain, say, or France, or Spain’s colonies,” Mags added.

  “But then if she disappeared, wouldn’t someone have noticed?” Pamela wisely noted.

  “You’d certainly think so,” Janice replied.

  “Well, Harry, what do we do with what we’ve got?” Tazio wondered.