“There’s guns here,” I said. “That’s why he’s coming. He wants the guns from the armory to arm the colored.”
“Please. These niggers ’round here wouldn’t know a rifle from a load of greens. They can’t handle nobody’s rifle. They won’t let a nigger near them guns.”
“He got pikes. And swords. A lot of ’em. Thousands of ’em.”
The Rail Man snorted bitterly. “It ain’t gonna matter. First shot he fires, these white folks is gonna burn him.”
“You ain’t seen him when he’s battlin’.”
“Don’t matter. They’ll pull his head off his body and when they’re done, they’ll air out every colored within a hundred miles just to make ’em forget we ever saw Old John in these parts. They hate that man. If he’s living. Which I don’t think he is.”
“Go on, then. I’m tired of fending and proving. When he comes, you’ll see. I seen his planning. He got maps full of colors and drawings where the coloreds is gonna come from. He says they’ll come from everywhere: New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. He got it all planned out. It’s a surprise attack.”
The Rail Man waved his hand, disgusted. “It ain’t no surprise here,” he snorted.
“You knowed he was coming?”
“I never liked the idea from first I heard it. Never thought he’d be stupid enough to try it, either.”
That’s the first time I ever heard anyone outside the Old Man’s circle mention the plan. “Where’d you hear it from?”
“The General. That’s why I’m here.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Is she coming?”
“I hope not. She’ll get her head blowed off.”
“How you know so much?”
For the first time, he turned to me. He sucked his teeth. “Your Captain, God bless him, he’s gonna go home in threes when they done with him here. And whatever colored is stupid enough to follow him’s gonna get shot to pieces, God damn him.”
“Why you so mad? He ain’t done nothing to you.”
“I got a wife and three children in bondage here,” he snapped. “These white folks is gonna donate every bullet they got to elephant-hunt the Negro once they kill Old John Brown. They’ll be right raw for years. And whatever coloreds they don’t stick in a death wedge in the ground they’ll send off. They’ll sell every soul in bondage ’round here who even looks colored. Right down the river to New Orleans they’ll go, God damn him. I ain’t saved up enough to buy my children yet. I only got enough for one. I got to decide now. Today. If he comes—”
He shut up. That ate at him. Just tore at him and he looked away. I seen he was troubled, so I said, “You ain’t got to worry. I seen plenty more Negroes who promised to come. Up at a big meeting in Canada. They speeched ’bout it all day. They was angry. Lots of ’em. These were big-time fellers. Reading men. Men of letters. They promised to come—”
“Oh, hogwash!” he snorted. “Them uppity, long-breathed niggers ain’t got enough sand in the lot of ’em to fill a God-damned thimble!”
He fumed, looking away, then pointed to the train on the trestle above us. “That train there,” he said, “that’s the B&O line. It rolls outta Washington, D.C., and Baltimore every day. Rolls north a bit and connects up with the train out of Philadelphia and New York City twice a week. I seen every single colored that’s ever been on that train for the last nine years. And I can tell you, half of them Negro leaders of your’n can’t afford a ticket on that train that would take ’em more’n ten yards. And them that could, they’d blow their wives’ head off with a pistol for a single glass of the white man’s milk.”
He sighed angrily, blowing through his nose now. “Oh, they talk a good game, writing stories for the abolitionist papers and such. But writing stories in the paper and making speeches ain’t the same as being out here doing the job. On the line. On the front line. The freedom line. They talk a whole heap, them stuffed-shirt, tidy-looking, tea-drinking, gizzard lickers, running around New England in their fine silk shirts, letting white folks wipe their tears and all. Box Car Brown. Frederick Douglass. Shit! I know a colored feller in Chambersburg worth twenty of them blowhards.”
“Henry Watson?”
“Forget names. You ask too many questions and know too God-damned much now.”
“You ought not to use God’s name in vain. Not when the Captain comes.”
“I ain’t studying him. I been working the gospel train for years. I know his doings. Been hearing of ’em for as long as I been doing this. I like the Captain. I love him. Many a night I prayed for him. And now he ...” He groused and cursed some more. “He’s deader than yesterday’s dinner, is what it is. How many’s in his army?”
“Well, last count there was ... sixteen or so.”
The Rail Man laughed. “That ain’t hardly enough for dice. The Old Man’s lost his buttons. At least I ain’t the only one that’s crazy.” He sat down at the water’s edge now, then tossed a rock in the water. It made a tiny splash. The moon shone down on him brightly. He looked terrifically sad. “Gimme the rest,” he said.
“Of what?”
“The plan.”
