O.P. and Stevens gathered themselves on the quick. O.P. wore a look on his face that said he weren’t sorry to leave, and neither was I. I had a bad feeling ’bout things, for I knowed then that the Old Man was losing his buttons. I weren’t in the mood to say good-bye to him then, even though I hadn’t fully confessed to him ’bout the Rail Man being shot dead. It didn’t seem to matter then, for the thing was winging out of control in a worse way than even I imagined, and my arse was on the line, and while it’s a small arse and was covered with a dress and petticoat for the better part of three years up to that point, it did cover my backside, and thus I was always fond of it. I was used to the Old Man losing touch and getting holy once the shooting started. That weren’t the problem. The problem was: ’Bout a hundred armed white fellers screaming outside the gate, tanked, seeing double, and the mob growing by the second. I might mention here that for the first time in my life, the feeling of holy sanctimony begun creeping into my spirit. I felt myself reaching to the Lord a little. It might’a been ’cause I had the urge to piss and no place to do it without giving myself away, for that was always a problem in them days—that, and always having to dress like I was going hunting every night when I gone to bed. But I think it was a little more. The Old Man tried to press sanctification on me many a day, but I ignored him in the years previous. It weren’t nothing to me but words. But, watching that crowd outside muster up, I growed chickenhearted from that affair, scared right down to my little dangling rascal and his twin little giddies. I found myself muttering, “Lord, ’scuse me a minute. I has not had a high tolerance for the Word before but ...” Kagi heard me and scowled a minute, for he was a strong man, a man of courage, but even a strong man can have his courage moved and overtested. I seen real concern in his normally cool face this time, and heard his voice crack when he said it. He gived it to the Old Man straight: “Get out now before it’s too late, Captain.” But the Old Man ignored him, for he’d heard me call out God’s name, and that tickled him. He said, “Precious Jesus! Onion has discovered Thee! Success is at hand!” He turned to Kagi, calm as a bowl of turtle soup, and said, “G’wan back to the armory. Reinforcements is coming.”
Kagi done like he said while O.P. and Stevens grabbed a couple of extra balls and cartridges for their rifles, throwed them in their pockets, and moved to the back window. I followed. The window faced the back wall of the armory. They busted a few shots out the window, which sent a couple of Virginians who’d wandered back there scrambling, and we three crawled through it and out. We made for the back wall, which led to the bottom of the river at the B&O Bridge. We was over that wall in no time. We runned through an open lot and sprinted across the bridge and made it across only ’cause Oliver and Taylor was giving fits to a small group of the enemy who was trying to drive them off it. We made it with bullets pinging everywhere, and within seconds crossed the bridge to the Maryland side. From there we hustled past two more of the Old Man’s men, crossed the road, and in seconds was climbing through thick thickets up the mountain toward the Kennedy farm—in the clear.
We stopped at a clearing ’bout a half mile up. We could see from our vantage point the crowds and militia growing outside the armory, groups of men now, charging into the armory in fours and fives, firing into the engine house, then backpedaling as the Old Man and his men answered ’em—dropping one or two Virginians each time. The wounded lay in the clear in the armory yard, moaning, just feet from their fellow fighters, some of whom had quit breathing altogether, and the rest of their brothers who stood crowded at the entranceway on Shenandoah Street, cursing angrily, afraid to come in and get them. Oh, it was a hot mess.
We watched, terrified. I knowed I weren’t going back over to the Ferry. The crowd outside the armory had growed to nearly two hundred now and more coming, most of ’em holding bottles of gut sauce in one hand and rifles in the other. Behind them, in the town itself and at Bolivar Heights above it, dozens of folk could be seen fleeing up the hills and out of Harpers Ferry, most of ’em colored, and a good deal of white folk, too.
Stevens kept going up the hill while O.P. and I stood for a moment together, watching.
“You going back there?” I asked O.P.
“If I do,” he muttered, “I’m walking on my hands.”
“What we gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ Himself was down there.”
I silently agreed. We turned and climbed up the mountain, following Stevens, making our way up toward the farmhouse fast as we could go.
