“The cause, the gospel train, she ain’t with it. Don’t know nothing ’bout it. Don’t wanna know. Can’t know. Can’t be trusted to know, you get my drift?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout.”
“G’wan down the road, then, with your foolish self.”
He climbed up on his wagon and readied up to har up his horses.
“I got news. Important news!”
“Big head, big wit. Little head, not a bit. That’s you, child. You got a condition.” He lifted his traces to har up his horses. “Good day.”
“Old John Brown’s coming,” I blurted out.
That got him. Stopped him dead. There weren’t a colored person east of the Mississippi who hadn’t heard of John Brown. Why, he was just a saint. Magic to the colored.
He stared down at me, holding his reins still in his hands. “I ought to whip you something scandalous just for standing there and lying like you is. Spouting dangerous lies, too.”
“I swear ’fore God, he’s coming.”
The Coachman glanced at the house. He swung the wagon ’round and faced it so that the far side of the coach door was blocked from the view of the house. “Git in there and lay down low on the floor. If you pop your head up before I tell you to, I’mma ride you straight to the deputy and say you was a stowaway and let him have you.”
I done as he said. He harred up them horses, and we rode.
Ten minutes later the wagon halted, and the Coachman climbed down. “Git out,” he said. He said it before the door was halfway open. He was done with me. I climbed out. We was on a mountain road in thick woods, high above Harpers Ferry, on a deserted stretch of trail.
He climbed up on the wagon and pointed behind him. “This here is the road to Chambersburg,” he said. “It’s ’bout twenty miles yonder. Go up there and see Henry Watson. He’s a barber. Tell ’em the Coachman sent you. He’ll tell you what to do next. Stay off the road and in the thickets.”
“But I ain’t a runaway.”
“I don’t know who you is, child, but git gone,” the Coachman said. “You sporting trouble, popping up out of nowhere and running your talking hole full steam ’bout Old John Brown and knowing your letters and all. Old Brown’s dead. One of the greatest helpers to the Negro in the world, deader than yesterday’s love. You ain’t worthy to speak his name, child.”
“He ain’t dead!”
“Dead in Kansas Territory,” the Coachman said. He seemed certain. “We got a man here who reads. I was in the church the day he read that newspaper to us. I heard it myself. Old Brown was out west and had militia chasing him and the U.S. Cavalry hot on his tail and everybody and his brother, for there was a reward on him. They say he outshot ’em all, he did, but they caught him after a while and drowned him. God bless him. My master hates him. Now git.”
“I can prove he ain’t dead.”
“How so?”
“’Cause I seen him. I knows him. I’ll take you to him when he comes.”
The Coachman smirked, grabbing his reins. “Why, if I was your Pa, I’d put my boot so far up your arse you’d cough out my big toe, standing there lyin’! What the devil is wrong with you, to stand there and lie like that in God’s hearing? What’s the great John Brown want with a little nigger sissy like you? Now put your foot in the road ’fore I warm your two little brown buns! And don’t tell nobody you know me. I’m ’bout filled up with that damn gospel train today! And tell the Blacksmith if you see him, don’t send me no more packages.”
“Packages?”
“Packages,” he said. “Yes! No more packages.”
“What kind of packages?”
“Is you thick, child? Git along.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking ’bout.”
He glared down at me. “Is you on the underground or not?” he said.
“What underground?”
I was confused, and he stared down at me, hot. “Git on up the road to Chambersburg ’fore I kick you up there!”
“I can’t go there. I’m staying at the Kennedy farm.”
“See!” the Coachman snorted. “Caught you in another lie. Old man Kennedy drawed his last breath last year ’bout this time.”
“One of Brown’s men rented the house from his widow. I come to this country with him.”
That cooled him some. “You mean that new chatty white feller running ’round town? The one sporting ’round with fat Miss Mary, the blond maid who lives up the road from there?”
“Him.”
“He’s with Old John Brown?”
“Yes sir.”
“Why’s he running ’round with her then? That silly nag’s been boarded more than the B&O railroad.”
“I don’t know.”
The Coachman frowned. “My brother told me to quit fooling with runaways,” he grumbled. “You can’t tell the straight truth from a crooked lie with ’em.” He sighed. “I reckon if I was sleeping in the cold under the sky I’d be talking cockeyed too.” He groused some more, then fished in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of coins. “How much you need? All’s I got is eight cents.” He held it out. “Take this and git. G’wan now. Off with you. G’wan to Chambersburg.”
