Looking back, I reckon cannon fuses blowed out all the time. But that cannon not firing only gived the Old Man more reason to believe in divine intrusions, beliefs of which he weren’t never short. He watched the fuse fizzle out and said, “Good Lord. God’s blessing is eternal and everlasting, and now I sees yet another sign that His ideas which has come to me lately is on the dot and that He is speaking to me directly.”
He turned to Owen and said, “I don’t want to run behind Jim Lane no more. I come this far only to gather up Little Onion, who is a good-luck charm to me and this army and also a reminder of our dear Frederick, who lies sleeping in this territory. Now that I has got what I come for, our Redeemer has sprung forth yet another rain bucket of ideas for me to lead the way to freedom for the multitudes of His children, like Little Onion here. I have been making some hatchings of various sundry plans, with God’s help, and after we help ourselves to some of God’s gifts from the hardware and dry-goods stores of these heathen slave owners, we will gather our bees for hiving to a greater purpose. Kansas Territory don’t need me no more. We have great work. To the east, men! Onward!”
And with that the Old Man plopped me on his horse, and we sped down that alley, right past that cannon, out of Pikesville, and into legend.
A blizzard set on top of us as we moved out of Pikesville with three men on horses and the rest on wagons. Snow fell for a straight day and covered the trail. It left snow nearly a foot high in every direction. A warm snap followed for a day, melting some of the snow, then a deep freeze came. Ice on trees was two inches thick. Water froze in canteens by morning. We lay out under canvases wrapped in roll blankets, with snow blowing over our faces and wolves howling nearby. The Old Man had a new army, a bigger one, and each man took turns keeping the fires going, though they didn’t help much. The outdoors never bothered the Old Man, of course. He could sense a change in the weather like an old farmer, walk through the dead of night through a dark woods without nary a light, and step through a thunderstorm like it weren’t there. But I was hitting the trail after two years of smooth, dry, easy living and shoving rotgut ale down my throat. The second day I come down with a bad case of the ague. Lucky for me, the Old Man fell ill with the ague, too, so he announced, during the middle of the third day when yet another snowstorm fell, “Men, I has word from on high that there is a slave or two that needs freeing here in Missouri. We is heading to Vernon County.”
There weren’t no arguing with him in that weather. He had changed considerably since I seen him two years hence. He was a fearsome sight. His face was wrinkled like a raisin. His gnarled old hands looked like leather claws. His face was stern as a rock. His eyes were like gray granite. His speech changed some, too. He declared he had moved to the woods alone to study the works of some feller named Cromwell, and I reckon it moved him mightily, for he sprinkled his talk with more “thees” and “thous” and “thithers” than ever. Sitting atop his horse with snow falling off his flecked wool coat, sticking to his beard, he looked even more like Moses of old. “I ought to be a general,” he remarked one morning as we trudged through the freezing woods of Vernon County, “but our Redeemer of Trinity Who controlleth the weather and is Commander of all stations deems it fit to keep me at His feet. I was enjoined with nature for nearly a year, Onion, living in the woods on my own, studying my battle plans and commingling with our great King of Kings, I come away with the understanding that I serves His will as a Captain, Onion, that is the title He has charged me with. Nothing higher.”
“Why don’t God’s Captain take us to warm shelter,” Owen grumbled.
The Old Man snorted. “God protects us in winter, Owen. No Pro Slavers will be seen in this country till the grass grows green again. That allows us to do our work.”
He was right about that, for no creature with a brain would venture out into that snow. We trudged along through southwest Missouri territory for four days that way, freezing, not finding no slaves to free, till finally the Old Man declared, “Slavery in Vernon County is vanquished. We will march east to Iowa by land.”
“Whyn’t we take the ferry?” Owen asked. “That’s the fastest way east.”
The Captain smirked. “The ferries are run by Pro Slavers, son. They don’t take Yanks.”
Owen brandished his sword and pistols, nodding at the men behind us, three on horses and the rest on wagons, all armed. “They’ll take us.”
