“Let’s go!”
The dogs were getting closer.
Portia and Joe splashed down the stream, running with the current. They moved as quickly as they could. “Don’t let your feet touch the bank on either side,” warned Portia. The temptation to get out was strong. The water sucked at their heels with each step, making their run twice as strenuous as it would be on dry land. Yet the barking propelled them forward. Each yap was like the prick of a spur.
Jeremiah was still with them, but they knew he would not be for long. “Get in the water,” he had yelled when they first heard the dogs. Portia had lost all track of time. Had their run started five minutes ago-or half an hour ago? She wasn’t sure and didn’t care. All she wanted was to get away from the dogs. The little brook seemed their single hope-the only thing that might cover their scent and keep them free just a little bit longer.
They could not tell how much ground lay between them and their pursuers. The trees and rocks played tricks with the sound and made it impossible to know. For a time, Portia had thought they might actually get away. The barking remained faint. Then it erupted. Then it stopped completely. For a while they heard nothing. The slaves even stopped racing at one point to listen, and the only sound they heard came from the trickling water of the creek. Portia’s hopes rose, only to crash minutes later when the barking started again-and grew steadily louder. “They must’ve paused at our hideout,” panted Joe.
When they reached a small meadow perhaps half a mile later, Jeremiah halted them. “This is where we gotta split up,” he said. “You gotta go your way, and I gotta go mine. There’s nothin’ more I can do for you.”
“You gotta promise not to say nothing about us,” said Portia.
“I ain’t gonna do that. If I did, everybody would know I helped you. I’m gonna say that I ain’t never seen you.”
“OK, and we won’t say nothin’ about you if we’re caught.”
“Here’s what you gotta do: keep runnin’ down the stream. After a while, get out and rush away as fast as you can. Don’t leave no footprints in the mud. If we’re lucky, the dogs can’t smell us now-they’re runnin’ along the banks trying to pick up a trail they’ve lost. You gotta hope they miss you and keep on going. Then you can get back on the road tonight.”
Somewhere behind them, the barking continued.
Jeremiah looked over his shoulder. “No more time for talk,” he said. “Good-bye.” He leaped out of the water onto a log. He walked its length away from the creek and took a big jump into the woods. Then he was gone. Portia looked intently but could see no physical evidence of Jeremiah having left the creek.
“I guess that’s how it’s done,” said Joe.
The two slaves resumed their flight. For a while, the dogs did not seem to gain on them. Then the barking became noticeably louder. Suddenly Portia stopped. Joe nearly collided into her.
“We gotta do something,” she gasped.
“They’re gonna be at least a few minutes behind us. We should keep runnin’. No time for restin’.”
“If we keep runnin’, they’re gonna catch us. We gotta get away from the river. We gotta make a move.”
Joe saw Portia looking at a tree that had fallen into the streambed. Once it had stood tall, and now it lay long. The trunk had cracked near its base, but somehow the tree remained alive. Several young branches reached upward.
“OK, we’ll do it here,” said Joe. “Jeremiah left on a log. That’s what we’ll do.”
Portia put a foot on the tree and was about to lift herself up when Joe stopped her.
“There’s one thing I gotta ask you, and I’m only gonna do it once,” he said. “Those dogs are bad news if they’re set loose. I don’t wanna see you hurt by one of them. We can still give ourselves up and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“No way, Joe. They’re gonna have to catch us.”
“All right then,” he said, helping her onto the trunk.
A moment later, they were both out of the water and darting through the woods.
Rook and Springfield sprinted out of Center Market and to the Winder Building. Ten blocks later, they arrived short of breath. “I hope this is worth it,” huffed Rook as they waited for a private to retrieve their horses. “If their shipment isn’t coming by rail, river, or road, then it must be coming by that canal.”
“The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.”
“That’s right. Washington gets almost all of its coal from barges on the C amp;O, plus lots of grain and lumber.”
“What if Davis and Stephens are just picking up a few sacks of coal?” asked Springfield.
“I can’t believe that’s what they’re doing. It must be something else. Maybe they have a shipment of guns coming in. The canal goes right by Harper’s Ferry and the federal armory there.”
“Didn’t I hear something about Harper’s Ferry?”
“Virginia troops seized control of it yesterday. Davis and Stephens would have needed some kind of collaborator up there a couple of days before that, assuming they are in fact carrying weapons down from Harper’s Ferry.”
“It would certainly explain why they’re being so secretive. Maybe they’re trying to arm rebels in the city, thinking they can pitch in if Virginia marches on Washington next.”
The private emerged from the rear of the building, leading both horses over to Rook and Springfield.
“The only thing it doesn’t explain is their ‘scouting mission’ of the Capitol,” said Rook as he and Springfield mounted. “If Davis and Stephens were trying to arm an underground militia, why would they roam around the Capitol and ask about where to make food deliveries?”
“They could be planning an assault and wanted to become familiar with the building’s layout and see where the soldiers were staying. They might have been counting soldiers too. The questions about food may have been their excuse for being there.”
“I think there’s more to it. I just don’t know what.”
Borne by their horses, they started north on Seventeenth Street, turned left on the Avenue, and took it to M Street. There they crossed the bridge over Rock Creek. Georgetown was on the other side. The busy thoroughfare of Bridge Street lay before them. As they passed an omnibus heading in the opposite direction, Rook slowed his horse and signaled Springfield to do the same.
“Let’s not call attention to ourselves,” said the colonel, speaking over the sound of hooves as they clattered against the hard surface of the bridge. “How far do you figure we’re behind them?”
“Fifteen minutes or so.”
The two soldiers rode a couple of blocks into Georgetown, dismounted, and tied their mounts to a post beside a store. Then they walked south on one of the streets intersecting Bridge. In a minute, they reached the end of the C amp;O Canal, the terminal point of a commercial waterway that began almost two hundred miles upstream.
At least a dozen wooden boats rested there, all of them remarkably similar in appearance. They were long, low, and narrow-more barge than boat. They did not move by mast or paddle but by mules that pulled on ropes from a towpath. At the stern of each boat was a rudder and small cabin, with steps leading down to a galley. On the opposite end, a shed housed the off-duty mules. In the middle, flat boards covered the hatch and took up most of the length of the boat.
Rook and Springfield studied the canal boats from the side of a building where they had a full view of the area but remained mostly out of sight. They saw every degree of activity, from boats where eight or nine men hurried to unload a cargo to a few that appeared empty. On one boat, children wore chain tethers as they pranced on top of the hatch covers. On another, a woman removed laundry pinned to a line stretching from one end of the boat to the other.
“There’s one of them,” said Rook. “It’s Stephens.”
About a hundred feet away, the wiry little man paced back and forth. He could not have been more than an inch or two above five feet tall. In the cabin of the boat behind him, Davis waved his arms and yelled something, as if he were in a bitter argument. Rook could hear his voice but was not able to make out the words except to sense they were full of anger. There were two other men in the cabin, but neither of them seemed to be the target of Davis’s fury.