“He strayed from Greenwich. I did not intend to get involved, but he is hurt and needs a doctor.”
Donovan snorted. “You think I’m gonna take him to a doctor?”
She did not reply. They sat on the horse, Donovan letting it take delicate side steps as it waited for its rider’s signal.
“Honor, you know I’ll turn him in. That’s what I do.”
Honor sighed. “I know. But he will die otherwise. It is better that he lives, even in slavery.”
“Why you askin’ me, anyway?”
She said nothing.
“You live in a town full o’ Quakers and you go to me for help? You got yourself a problem there, darlin’.”
“There is nothing wrong with Friends here. Many would do what they can to help. It is just… the Haymakers have had their principles compromised by circumstances. And they are influential in the community.” Without meaning to, Honor was leaning against him, the small hard bump of her belly pressing into his back. Donovan felt it and stiffened, then leaned forward so that they were not so close.
“Right,” he said at last. “Hold on.” He pulled the reins around, clicked his teeth, and set out back up the road.
He was not moving when they found him, but lay propped against a bur oak, his legs stretched out in front of him, the tin mug beside him. Donovan made Honor wait several trees away while he held his lantern briefly to the face with its rictal grimace. Honor closed her eyes but could still see the imprint of the lantern and the man’s teeth flashing in the dark.
Donovan came back to Honor and studied her stricken face. When she stepped into his arms, he said nothing, but held her and let her sob into his chest. This time he did not flinch when he felt the baby pressed against him. Honor clung to him long after she had stopped crying. Pressing her cheek against his chest, she breathed in the sharp woodfire smell of him. There was something hard there: the key to her trunk. Donovan was still wearing it around his neck.
If he asked me now, I would go west with him, she thought. For his spirit is with me.
But he did not ask. “Honor, it’s getting light,” he said at last. “You should get on home before they find out you’re gone.”
She nodded. Though it hurt to, she let go of him, wiping her face on her sleeve so that she did not have to look at him.
“You want me to bury him?”
“No. Let them see what they have done. What we have done.”
“You know he probably would have died anyway, even if you got him to a doctor. Smells of gangrene.”
Honor’s eyes flared. “We should have helped him. At least then he would not have died alone in the dark in the woods.”
Donovan said nothing more, but walked her to the edge of the orchard where the apple trees began. He touched her arm briefly, then disappeared back into the trees to circle around the village to his horse.
When Honor emerged from the orchard, Jack and Dorcas were crossing the yard toward the barn, carrying pails for milking. They looked confused. “Where has thee been?” Jack called, taking in her face smeared with dirt and tears, her disheveled cap, the mud on her boots and the meaty smell of horse that lingered on her. “We thought thee was in the outhouse.”
Honor ignored him. “Digger!” she called.
The dog came running from the barn, drawn by the novelty of Honor commanding him. “Go.” She pointed to the woods. “Find him.” Digger followed her finger, sniffed the air, then shot off like a fish snagged on a hook.
“Honor, what is it?”
Honor did not answer. She could not find the words to say it. Instead she turned and headed for the haymow. Little hay was left from the previous year; in a few weeks the first harvest would replenish the much-diminished stacks. There was some straw, however. Though it smelled flat and dull, Honor climbed into the pile, curled up around her belly and slept.
When she woke, her sister-in-law was sitting nearby, plaiting strands of straw. Honor looked at her but did not sit up. Of the three Haymakers, she was glad it was Dorcas who had come to find her: Jack would have upset her and Judith would have made her angry. Over the months Honor had lived at the farm, Dorcas had become more of a benign irritation.
She seemed to understand that now. Setting down the braid, she hugged her knees. “They found him. Some men have come to help bury him.” After a pause, she continued. “I do not hate thee, Honor, whatever thee may think of me. Last summer when thee helped me with the yellow jackets, I heard thee speak to the colored man, and I never told Mother or Jack, though I should have.” She stopped again. Honor did not speak.
“I want to help thee to understand the Haymakers. There is something we did not tell thee about what happened in North Carolina. I thought we ought to,” Dorcas added, for a moment lapsing into her habitual self-defense. “Jack did too, but Mother felt it was old family business that would not be important to thee. But it is important, for it may explain some things.” She fiddled with the straw plait. “I have not told Mother I am telling thee.”
Now Honor did sit up, and brushed the straw from her cap. She still did not speak. Something seemed to have closed her throat.
“Thee knows of the door at the side of the barn, put there in case of fire.”
Honor nodded.
“Jack took great care to have it put in.” She paused. “Mother told thee that we were fined for helping a runaway slave in North Carolina. But she did not tell thee of a far greater punishment. When Father-when he-” Dorcas pressed her lips together. “I was ten years old, Jack fifteen. Father had helped a few runaways already. One morning one appeared, and Father hid the slave in our barn. When the owner and his men came looking for him, Father said there was no one in the barn. Yes, he lied, but for the greater good. So-so the owner grabbed Father, and had his men set fire to the barn, to see what Father would do. He admitted then that the slave was hidden there. They told him to go and get the slave while they put out the fire. But when he went inside they-they pulled the bolt on the barn door so that neither Father nor the slave could get out that way.” Tears were trickling from Dorcas’s pale eyes. Honor took up one of her cold hands.
“They would not let us near the barn. Jack even fought them, which thee knows we don’t do. We thought Father and the slave might be able to get out through the trapdoor where the hay and straw are dropped down to the animals, but the smoke must have been too thick. We heard-we-we…”
Honor squeezed her hand so that Dorcas would not continue.
“The slave owner was not even charged with murder, since Father went willingly into the burning barn,” Dorcas began again when she had wiped away her tears. “Instead we were forced to pay a fine for the ‘destruction of property’-the death of the slave. Losing Father and the barn and the money was too much, and we came north. So thee can understand now why we do not want to become involved with runaways again.”
They sat for a time in silence. For the first time since marrying Jack, Honor felt some warmth toward her sister-in-law; she was just sorry the feeling had to come out of the telling of such a story.
Dorcas left her in the straw, to find her way back when she was ready. Honor did not know if she would ever be ready.
She had begun with a clear principle born of a lifetime of sitting in silent expectation: that all people are equal in God’s eyes, and so should not be enslaved to one another. Any system of slavery must be abolished. It had seemed simple in England; yet in Ohio that principle was chipped away at, by economic arguments, by personal circumstances, by deep-seated prejudice that Honor sensed even in Quakers. It was easy for her to picture the Negro pew at the Philadelphia Meeting House and grow indignant; but would she herself feel completely comfortable sitting next to a black person? She helped them, but she did not know them as people. Only Mrs. Reed, a little: the flowers she wore in her hat; the stew so full of onions and chilies; the improvised quilt she had made. These daily details were the things that fleshed out a person.