"I'll believe that," says Lincoln.
"Yeah? You're a mighty fancy goddam legal beanpole, ain't you though? Well, I'll tell you suthin', mister — I know about courts an' writs an' all, an' there ain't one o' them worth a lick in hell to me! I'm here — them dam' runaways is here — an' if I take 'em away nice an' quiet, we don' have to trouble with no courts nor nuthin'. An' afterwards — well, I reckon I'll answer right smart for any incon-venience caused here tonight. But I ain't bein' fobbed by smart talk — they're comin' with me!"
And he pushed the barrel of his piece forward just a trifle.
"You'll just take them," says Lincoln. "By force. Is that so?"
"You bet it's so! I reckon the courts won't worry me none, neither! We'll have done justice, see?"
I quailed to listen to him. God, I thought, we're finished; he had the force behind him. If he wanted to march in and drag us out bodily, the law would support him in the end. There would be protests, no doubt, and some local public outcry, but what good would that be to us, once they had us south of the river again? I heard Cassy moan, and I sank down, done up and despairing, beside the newell. And then Lincoln laughed, shaking his head.
"So that's your case is it, Mr — ?"
"Buck Robinson's my —"
"Buck will do. That's your style, is it, Buck? Brute force and talk about it afterwards. Well, it has its logic, I suppose — but, d'ye know, Buck, I don't like it. No, sir. That's not how we do things where I come from —"
"I don't give a damn how you do things where you come from, Mr Smart," Buck spat out. "Get out of my way."
"I see," says Lincoln, not moving. "Well, I've put my case to you, in fair terms, and you've answered it — admirably, after your own lights. And since you won't listen to reason, and believe that might is right — well, I'll just have to talk in your terms, won't I? So —"
"You hold your gab and stand aside, mister," shouts Buck. "Now, I'm warnin' you fair!"
"And I'm warning you, Buck!" Lincoln's voice was suddenly sharp. "Oh, I know you, I reckon. You're a real hard-barked Kentucky boy, own brother to the small-pox, weaned on snake juice and grizzly hide, aren't you? You've killed more niggers than the dysentery, and your grandma can lick any white man in Tennessee. You talk big, step high, and do what you please, and if any 'legal beanpole' in a store suit gets in your way you'll cut him right down to size, won't you just? He's not a practical man, is he? But you are, Buck — when you've got your gang at your back! Yes, sir, you're a practical man, all right."
Buck was mouthing at him, red-faced and furious, but Lincoln went on in the same hard voice.
"So am I, Buck. And more — for the benefit of any shirt-tail chawbacon with a big mouth, I'm a who's-yar boy from Indiana myself, and I've put down better men than you just by spitting teeth at them.40 If you doubt it, come ahead! You want these people-you're going to take them?" He gestured towards Cassy. "All right, Buck — you try it. Just — try it."
The rest of the world decided that Abraham Lincoln was a great orator after his speech at Gettysburg. I realised it much earlier, when I heard him laying it over that gun-carrying bearded ruffian who was breathing brimstone at him. I couldn't see Lincoln's face, but I'll never forget that big gangling body in the long coat that didn't quite fit, towering in the centre of the hall, with the big hands motionless at his sides. God knows how he had the nerve, with six armed men in front of him. But when I think back to it, and hear that hard, rasping drawl sounding in my memory, and remember the force in those eyes, I wonder how Buck had the nerve to stand up in front of him, either. He did, though, for about half a minute, glaring from Lincoln to Cassy to me and back to Lincoln again. Twice he was going to speak, and twice thought better of it; he was a brawny, violent man with a gun in his hands, but speaking objectively at a safe distance now, he has my sympathy. As a fellow bully and coward, I can say that Buck bebayed precisely as I should have done in his place. He glared and breathed hard, but that was his limit. And then through the open door came the distant sound of raised voices, and a hurrying of many feet on the road.
"I doubt if that's the Kentucky militia," says Lincoln. "Better be going, Buck."
Buck stood livid, still hesitating; then with a curse he swung about and stumped to the door. He turned again there, dark with passion, and pointed a shaking finger.
"I'll be back!" says he. "Don't you doubt it, mister — I'll be back, an' I'll have the law with me! We'll see about this, by thunder! I'll get the law!"
They clattered down the steps, Buck swearing at the others, and as the door closed and the exclamations started flying, Lincoln turned and looked down at me. His forehead was just a little damp.
"The ancients, in their wisdom, made a great study of rhetoric," says he. "But I wonder did they ever envisage Buck Robinson? Yes, they probably did." He pursed his lips. "He's a big fellow, though — likely big fellow, he is. I — I think I'd sooner see Cicero square up to him behind the barn than me. Yes, I rather think I would." He adjusted his coat and cracked his knuckles. "And now, Mr Comber — ?"
13
I've been wounded several times, all of them damned painful, but you may take my word for it that a ball in the bum is the worst. By the time that ham-fisted sawbones had hauled it out I was weak and weeping, and my immediate recuperation wasn't eased by the fact that Judge Payne and Lincoln agreed that Cassy and I must be spirited out of the house without delay, in case Buck and his friends returned with an officer and a warrant. With two men to support me and my buttocks in a sling I was helped about half a mile to another establishment, where I gathered the folk were red-hot abolitionists, and put to bed face down.
Of course I had already given a rough account of what had happened, in answer to the questions they fired at me after Buck had gone. The Judge wasn't concerned with anything but the events of the last few hours, and was full of praise for my daring and endurance, while his wife, the ugly little woman, and the other females made much of Cassy, and called her a poor dear, and clucked over her cuts and bruises. They were all stout antislavers, of course, as I'd guessed they would he, and would you believe it, while that blasted doctor was probing and muttering over my bottom, the women downstairs actually sang "Now Israel may say and that truly", with harmonium accompaniment. This to celebrate what Judge Payne called our deliverance, and the others cried "Amen", and were furious in their wrath against these vile slave-traffickers who hounded poor innocents with dogs and guns — "and she such a sweet and refined young thing — oh, my land, the pity of her poor bruised limbs." You ought to see her with a knife sometime, thinks I, or stripping for the buyers. And for me they had nothing but blessings and commiseration for my torn arse, which the Judge called an honourable scar, taken in the defence of liberty. Lincoln stood in the background, watching under his brows.
But when they had taken us to the new house, and I had been tucked up in bed, he came along, very patient, and begged our hosts for a little time alone with me.
"I'm afraid the good people of Portsmouth will have to do without me this evening," says he. "They might find my presence in public somewhat embarrassing. Anyway, one successful speech in a day is quite enough." So they left us, and he sat down beside the bed, with his tall hat between his feet.
"Now, sir," says he, pointing that formidable head of his at me, "may I hear from you at some length? I last parted from a respectable British naval officer in Washington; tonight I meet a wounded fugitive running an escaped slave across the Ohio. I'm not only curious, you understand — I'm also a legislator of my country,41 a maker and guardian of its laws which, on your behalf, I suspect I have broken fairly comprehensively this night. I feel I'm entitled to an explanation. Pray begin, Mr Comber."