“Yes indeed. A trained expert under Garibaldi himself. We has a true military trainer, Onion. Now, finally, I am ready to go to war.”
Forbes reached the end of the alley, turned to the Old Man, tipped his cap, bowed, and walked away into the night.
The Old Man never saw him again.
We sat in a flophouse in Chester, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, for two weeks while the Old Man wrote letters, studied maps, and waited for word of the military trainer, Mr. Forbes, arriving in Iowa. When he got a letter from Mr. Kagi saying he hadn’t arrived, he knowed the jig was up. He didn’t mope ’bout it, but rather seen it as a positive sign. “We been had by a wicked snare, Onion. The devil is busy. But the Lord reckons we don’t need training to fight our war. Being on the righteous side of His word is training enough. Besides,” he announced, “my greater plan is ’bout to be unleashed. It is time to hive the queen bees. We is going to Canada.”
“Why, Captain?”
“Is it the white man upon whom the Negro can depend to fight his war, Little Onion? No. It is the Negro himself. We are ’bout to unleash the true gladiators in this hellion against the infernal wickedness. The leaders of the Negro people themselves. Onward.”
I weren’t against it. Being that me and the Old Man traveled as man and consort, the mistress at the flophouse where we stayed made me sleep in the maids’ quarters, a rat-infested sop of a room that reminded me of Kansas. I had gotten spoiled by them Yanks crying over me being a slave and filling me with hasty pudding, smoked turkey, venison, boiled pigeon, lamb, dainty fish, and pumpkin bread every chance they got. The mistress of that tavern weren’t one of those. She didn’t have two cents’ worth of sympathy for no abolitionist, mostly ’cause she was basically a slave herself. She served sour biscuits and gravy, which was fine for herself and the Old Man, for he didn’t have no taste for anything cooked, but my own tastes growed to pumpkin bread, fresh blackberries, turkey, venison, boiled pigeon, lamb, dainty fish, pumpkin bread, and butchered ham with real German sauerkraut like I had up in Boston every time I dropped word on being a slave. I was all for staking out new territory. Besides, Canada was free country. I could stay there and be done with him before he got deadened, which was my thoughts.
We took the train to Detroit, and from there met up with the Old Man’s army, which had growed from nine to twelve. Included in that group was four of the Old Man’s sons: Owen, of course, Salmon, plus two younger ones, Watson and Oliver. Jason and John had quit. A. D. Stevens was still there, grousing, dangerous Yankee that he was. Kagi had commanded them as the Old Man had ordered, and there was some new roughnecks: Charles Tidd, a hot-tempered feller who had served as a soldier with the federals. John Cook was still there, now carrying two six-shooters on his hips, and several others including the Old Man’s sons-in-law, the Thompson boys, and the Coppoc brothers—them last two being shooting Quakers. That was the main ones. With the exception of Cook, who could talk the horns off the devil’s head, they was mostly quiet, serious fellers, men of letters, so to speak. They read newspapers and books, and while they was mellow in polite company, they’d loose their business on you with a muzzle loader and blow a hole in your face in a minute. Them fellers was dangerous, but for the simple reason they had a cause. Ain’t no worse thing in the world than fronting up against one of those, for a man with a cause, right or wrong, has got plenty to prove, and will make you suck sorrow if you get in the way of ’em wrongly.
We wagoneered up to Chatham, Ontario, the men in the back while the Old Man and I rode up front. He was cheerful all the way, allowing that we was heading to a special meeting. “It’s the first of its type,” he announced. “A convention with Negroes from all over America and Canada is hiving to make a resolution against slavery. The war begins in earnest, Onion. We will have numbers. We will have resolution. We will have
