Richard Zimler - Hunting Midnight

So alert of mind did she prove on this and other occasions that I often shook my head in amazement at her being only fifteen years old. In my talks with her over the next few days about River Bend, I began to think of her as a friend — and truly her father’s daughter. Her presence, more than anything else, gave me back my true smile and voice, and I was pleased that when she looked at me now it was with affection.

We talked quite a few times about what she wanted to do with her life. I favored finding her a private tutor in history, philosophy, music, and other essential subjects, with the end goal of preparing her for a university education. But she believed I was getting far ahead of myself. She said she wished for something simple: to earn her keep. She’d always enjoyed embroidering, and together we thought of the possibility of her making clothing on consignment, as Francisca had.

I saw in her eyes that that would not have pleased her much. Thinking like Midnight, I said, “Just walk around the city. See what there is to see and it will come to you. I know it.”

Then, while I had her fond attention, I risked yet one more tumble with my heart and told her that I was hoping to adopt her. As she might have agreed to this simply to thank me for helping her escape from River Bend, I took both her hands in my one, squeezed them tight, and said, “It would ease my mind to know I have followed your father’s instructions. As I think you know by now, I am not only greatly fond of you, but I admire you as well. But, Morri, you must not say yes unless it is truly what you want, even if your father would have desired it. I hasten to add that I shall never try to replace him in your heart — never. Think on it and tell me what you’ve decided in … let us say, a month.”

Morri agreed, but in her eyes was the despair I’d provoked by speaking of her father as in his grave. I knew, however, that he himself had given me no other choice.

There still remained the question, of course, of who had committed the murders at River Bend. Separately, Morri and I came to the same conclusion: Crow.

It had become clear to me over the course of my few days at River Bend that his spirit was not truly broken but hidden at most times deep inside him. After the slaves had escaped from River Bend, Crow must have taken his revenge.

Yet the doors to the bedrooms of Big and Little Master Henry had been found locked after they’d had knives plunged into their necks. Without the key, how had Crow entered?

Neither Morri nor I could answer that at first. But then I remembered the impressions of shells in clay he had shown me. I began to believe that he must have taken the bedroom keys from Big Master Henry or from Mistress Holly just long enough to make impressions in his molds, then had them fired by his blacksmith brother at Comingtee. Without my pressing him for information, Crow had told me that he’d also made impressions of silver dollars. I think he wanted me to guess the truth, so that those of us who escaped would know he had avenged himself.

After murdering Master Edward and the others, Crow had probably put a pistol into Mr. Johnson’s hand in order to fool the white authorities. It seemed equally possible that he had left the bodies bound and bloody, just where he had murdered them. Whoever was in charge of the investigation might have concocted the version of events that had been printed in the newspaper to prevent fear on the part of the white citizenry, just as Morri had said. In that case, Crow would be hanged, and most likely in secret.

But if he had planted all the clues and convinced Lily and the other slaves to say nothing, then the police might have believed him innocent. He might even have comforted Mistress Kitty in her grief.

Puzzling over the article and the events at River Bend with Morri did wonders for my sense of having some choices in life — and of having the strength to plan for my future.

Violeta’s downturned glances in my presence gave me to understand, however, that she feared my newfound vigor. That she, too, might have preferred our relationship to take a friendlier and more honest course — that she was at the mercy of emotions she did not well understand — never occurred to me.

Despite the evidence from my previous visit, I failed completely to understand that Violeta simply did not speak her mind. If I’d reflected carefully on our days together as children, I’d have seen this as consistent with her character. Likely, the desire to unburden herself to others had been beaten out of her, first at her home in Porto, and later in England.

The need to secure productive labor for the River Bend refugees soon eclipsed my personal concerns. To be of help to them, I gathered my courage to leave my room for more than a few hours at a time at the beginning of our fourth week of freedom. It immediately became plain to me that most of them were in need of a routine. Parker in particular had taken to drink and often came home cursing. Morri took me aside on my first day downstairs and told me how once, after an evening at a raucous tavern, he’d clouted Christmas-Eve right across her face, blackening his wife’s eye. I realized that I had to act swiftly and that to help them find work it would be necessary to show my empty coat-sleeve in public. That Morri and the others had — in some vague but determined way — been waiting for me to come down and offer my help from the very start became only too obvious to me. I gained considerable respect for their patience and tact with me.

I passed the next days taking our River Bend guests around to shops and warehouses, endeavoring to find them steady work. Nearly always we received the same false smiles and swift refusals. I remember in particular the owner of a dry-goods store on Wall Street whom I tried to convince to offer work to Hopper-Anne, whose English was exceedingly good and clear. Not only did he stare at my missing arm, but he also had the cheek to say, “My customers do not expect to be waited on by a Negress, no matter how fair her skin might be or how nearly white she can talk.”

For better or for worse, losing an arm had diminished none of my Highland temper, and I roundly lambasted him for his hypocrisy.

After a time, it became only too apparent to me that my finding all the former slaves honest work was going to prove impossible. Fortunately, they understood this sooner than I did and took matters into their own hands.

Through the friendships that Hopper-Anne, Lucy, and Christmas-Eve made at St. Philip’s Protestant Episcopal Church, they were soon able to find work for Parker, Randolph, and Backbend, as stevedores for Harkness & Co., a private shipping concern on South Street. Hopper-Anne was contracted soon afterward at a black-owned bakery on Chambers Street, and Christmas-Eve and Lucy started as scullery maids at Spear Tavern on Broadway.

Violeta offered invaluable assistance to the rest. She sat at her desk in her sitting room and composed a moving letter soliciting advice from Francis Lemoyne, the eldest son of the old man she had cared for. Though he harbored a lingering resentment over her inheritance of the house we were encamped in at present, he nevertheless contacted some Quaker farmers he knew and succeeded in obtaining offers of work for all the former slaves of River Bend who wished for a life in a rural setting.

In the end, all but Morri and Randolph seized this opportunity. Randolph decided to remain as a stevedore in New York with his children, and we were soon able to find them a suitable flat on Bowling Green.

“No way I’m ever going back to a life of field work,” Morri told me. “You know, John, life doesn’t get much better than getting away with saying no.”