Thus we were not prepared for the re-appearance, one hot August afternoon, of Marshal Saunders at the farm in North Elba. He arrived on horseback in the company of a pair of sober-visaged deputies, bearing testimony from Mr. Wilkinson of the Tahawus mining camp, who the marshal claimed had accused Father and me and two unnamed Negroes presently residing in the vicinity of North Elba of having aided and abetted the escape of the indicted murderers James and Emma Cannon, of Richmond, Virginia.
The officers came up on us shortly after we had returned from a two-night run to Port Kent with four Maryland Negroes — an elderly man, his daughter, and her two nearly grown sons. Our wagon was empty, and Father and I, fortunately, were alone, as Lyman had accompanied Mr. Fleete back to Timbuctoo, there to rest and afterwards to do some much needed blacksmithing among the Negro farmers.
We were standing outside the house by the water trough, stripped to our waists, washing ourselves. The boys and the women, including Lyman’s wife, Susan, were cutting the first crop of hay in the front field. Father looked up at the three men, who sat relaxed and open-faced on their horses as if they meant us no harm. Introductions were not necessary, and Marshal Saunders got straight to the point of this his second visit to our farm. When he had told us of Mr. Wilkinson’s betrayal, he said, “Mister Brown, I’ve not come here to charge you and your son with anything. I’m here peaceable. But I do need to know the names of the two colored men who helped you carry the Cannons through here. It wasn’t but a month ago,” he said, with a slow smile. “You no doubt recall their names.”
Father dried himself deliberately and said nothing. He looked at me, and I saw his boiling rage. Then he passed the drying cloth to me.
“If we helped anyone named Cannon, and I don’t recall that we did, but if we did, then my son and I did it alone,” Father said. “Wilkinson is a liar.”
Marshal Saunders said that he was looking for a slim, dark Negro man in his twenties and a heavy-set mulatto man in his fifties with a full beard. “I’m going to assume, Mister Brown, that you and your son here didn’t have no notion that the coloreds from Virginia was murderers, all right? And you thought you was only helping a couple of escaped slaves scoot through to Canada, that’s all. Just as was the case with Mister Wilkinson down there at Tahawus. And I don’t consider him a liar, sir. I realize that you all were only doing what you thought was your Christian duty. Your Negro associates, however, probably knew better. They have their little secrets that they keep from us,” he said sourly. He believed that they probably knew where the Cannons were hiding. His aim was to cut a deal with our friends. The same deal, he said, that he was cutting with us. If they could give him some small help in locating the Cannons, then he wouldn’t press charges against anyone up here in North Elba. “They’re free niggers, far as I’m concerned, and that’s how I’ll treat them, so long’s they do the same as you and give me a bit of help in performing my duties as a federal officer of the law. You understand what I’m telling you, Mister Brown?”
Father stared up at the man in silence. The horses shifted their weight, sweating under the sun. “Certainly I understand,” he finally said. “But I will not help you, sir. My son and I, if indeed we did help some poor Negro slaves escape from the evil clutches of some Southern slavemaster — a man who may well have deserved to die anyhow, since well-treated slaves rarely risk the rigors of flight — then we did so on our own.” The burden of proof lay with the marshal, Father pointed out, and he believed that giving a stranger in a strange land a ride in your wagon was not yet illegal in the state of New York.
Well, yes, the marshal agreed. It was a gray area of the law, a person might say. Father would benefit everyone concerned, however, himself included, if he saw fit to aid the law. The marshal rolled his head slowly on his shoulders, as if his neck were stiff and this were a casual conversation. The two deputies kept their right hands open and close to the handles of their revolvers.
Father said, “You don’t know who you’re looking for, except on Mister Wilkinson’s perjured say-so. And I can’t help you, and if I could, I’ll tell you frankly, sir, I wouldn’t. Find your Negroes on your own,” he snapped, and he turned and walked towards the house.
“It could all unravel on you, Brown!” the marshal called after. “I might bring Wilkinson himself up here, so’s he can identify the two niggers for me, and when it comes to saving their own dusky skins, who knows what them fellows’ll say then?”
Father wheeled and glared at him. “Do as you wish! Bring Satan up from hell, if you Like, and have him pick a pair of Negroes from the crowd for you. I’ll not help with work like this!”
The three turned their horses abruptly then and rode out of the yard, and without looking back, they galloped down the road towards the settlement. A moment later, when I went inside the house, I found Father already seated, still shirtless, at his writing table, furiously scratching out a letter.
“Who are you writing to?” I asked him.
“John and Jason.”
“In Springfield? And Ohio?”
“Yes, of course!”
“They may not be there now!’ I said. “They might’ve already left for here.” Barely a week before, a letter from John had arrived, saying, among other cheering things, that he and Jason intended soon to come up to North Elba for a short visit, to see the place and the family and to settle a few business matters with Father that could best be discussed in person.
“All the better. But in case they haven’t, this will bring them promptly.” He blotted the letter and passed it over to me to read.
Come hither at once, boys, and come armed, for we need to snatch a few poor creatures from out of the mouth of Satan before he devours them! A proper show of Christian force and clear intent to rain fire down upon the heads of these local malefactors and hypocrites ought to clarify matters here, leastways enough so that we can continue doing the Lord’s work and help bring about the downfall of slavery by making it too costly to maintain against the combined wills of white Christians and of the desperate, courageous slaves themselves. Come hither to North Elba now, my sons! Come and stand with us as true, courageous, righteous Soldiers of the Lord! Your loving father,
John Brown
I pointed out that it might be ten days or two weeks before they received his summons, and the whole affair could well have blown over by then. “And besides,”I said, “they might’ve already left Springfield to come here anyhow. Why bother writing this at all?”
Father looked up at me with an expression that flowed from puzzlement to slight disgust. “Owen, sometimes I think…,” he said, then began again. “Owen, I sometimes believe that you must become a hotter man than you are.” And with a little wave of dismissal, he returned to his letter, signed it, and placed it into an envelope and sealed it for mailing.
I stood by the window for a moment and, peering out at the mountains, saw that it was clouding up in the west to rain. I felt weary, almost dizzy, from two sleepless nights and ached in my bones for rest and wanted nothing more than to sleep for a day and a night. But I knew I could not do that yet. I pulled on a shirt and trudged from the house, across the yard towards the field, to help the family bring in the hay. Scythe in hand, I crossed the road, and as I neared the others, I heard rapid hoofbeats behind me and, turning, saw Father ride out. He was headed towards the village to get his letter into the afternoon post to Westport, whence it would make its slow way south to Massachusetts, and the sight of the man, wrapped in haste and single-mindedness and rage, fatigued me now beyond all imagining. It nearly repelled me.