Okay, so we've finally gotten to where we left off! And we're finally getting out of Ohio!

OHIO

Circe's Island

(Part 3)

Jim Pierson looked pale when Ben turned the books over to him at the end of the next day's shift and he didn't think it could all be attributed to yesterday's illness. He felt a little wan himself after his double shift and was glad to hand things over to the other man. As he was signing off, he noticed the furtive glances Jim kept shooting him.

Finally Jim burst out, "I'm sorry - I - understand you had a - little - excitement last night because of me."

Ben checked his work once more and signed his name. "I have no idea what you're talking about." He shuffled the papers together into a neat stack.

Jim scrunched his face apprehensively. "Last night. I'm sorry if you were - inconvenienced - in any way…?"

Ben shrugged. "Staying awake for two shifts is inconvenient, of course, but the money is good. Don't even think about it." He held out the papers.

Jim looked at them, hesitating. "Cartwright - Ben - " he swallowed hard. "I don't know what you - intend to do about…"

Ben looked directly at him this time. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Pierson," he said slowly and deliberately. "But your indisposition certainly seems to have turned you into an infernal chatterbox." He gestured again for him to take the papers.

Jim took them this time, his face still creased with trouble. "I - I wouldn't blame you none," he sputtered earnestly. "There's folks who'd pay a packet for that kind of information and - well - you've got your boy to think about."

Ben let his eyes drift to the corner where Adam was busily making some drawings with chalk on an old piece of slate and singing to himself. He watched him for a moment.

"It's my boy that I am thinking about," he said quietly at last. "I have no memory of anything out of the way last night."

Jim dropped his face, bunching the papers in his hands. "I - I thank you."

"For what, I have no idea." Ben gathered up Adam's blanket and pillow and walked over to where he was playing. "Adam - " he held out a hand to him. "Pick up your things. It's time to go home."

Adam neatly gathered his things together and handed them to his father. Ben smiled and reached down to rub away a smear of chalk from across the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, and Jim - " he was halfway to the door before he turned again, as if it was an afterthought. "If you ever need someone to take the night shift for you again - well. I just wanted to let you know that I'd be interested. As you say, I can use the money."

Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise, studying his face to be sure he got his meaning. "I - I'd be glad to. Be glad of the help, I mean."

Ben nodded briskly. "Well, then. I'll wait to hear from you. Adam - what do you say we get some dinner?"

Looking back it was odd to see how easily and almost unconsciously it had begun, without any real thought or conviction - only a sudden, deep empathy that drove him on. Even today, Ben had trouble thinking of himself as a member of the Underground Railroad - he remembered himself instead as another father, driven to help fathers like himself keep their families together and strike out for a new life.

It had ended as he would have seen it had to end, if he'd taken the time to think about it - a light rapping on his door late one night in late spring. He crept out of bed, wondering who could want him so early and glancing down at Adam's cot as he passed to be sure the sound hadn't disturbed him. The man outside the door was one he distantly recognized as an member of Lyman Beecher's church - a safe house they often used in feeding the escaping slaves before sending them on their way north to Canada. He raised his eyebrows at him silently.

The man - a boy, really - was shifting from one foot to the other anxiously. "Jim Pierson sent me," he whispered, glancing anxiously down the hall as though pursued. "He's says you been ratted out - you and him - to the Harbor Master and that you'd better get goin' whiles the goin' is good."

Ben frowned at him, still shrugging off the remnants of sleep and trying to understand. "Now?" he said vaguely.

The boy nodded. "Right now. There'll be a keelboat awaiting 'bout half a mile down the river'll give ya a lift ta Indiany if ya leave within the hour. Jim says don't wait - the Harbor Master will have ta have ya arrested if ya stay, but probably won't bother ta pursue ya. Likes ya, Jim says."

Ben scratched the back of his neck, wincing. That meant abandoning his pay, and he had been counting on that for this next leg of the journey. Well, it couldn't be helped. "I'll be at the keelboat, " he answered automatically. "I thank you for coming out to me in the middle of the night. I know you took a chance."

The boy bobbed his head. "Pleasure. Now, hurry!"

Ben closed the door slowly on his retreating back, taking only a second to glance about the room. He and Adam had been happy here - it had been a pleasant bit of their journey. Efficiently, he began stuffing clothing and belongings into a couple of carpetbags, laying out warm clothes for himself and Adam and leaving waking Adam for the last. He needn't have bothered. When he looked up from closing the last bag, he saw that Adam's eyes were open and watching him.

"What're you doing?" he asked sleepily.

Ben tried to smile naturally. "Packing, sleepyhead. We're moving on to Indiana."

Adam stirred, blinking at the barely-lit room. "It's night," he pointed out.

"Yes, well - " Ben picked up the clothes he'd lain out for Adam and sat him up as he spoke, "That's as good a time to leave as any, don't you think? There's a keelboatman who's going to give us a lift." Adam scrubbed his fists in his eyes and looked at him but didn't ask any questions, which told Ben that he knew perfectly well that something was wrong. He pushed the small boots on his feet and stuffed his arms into his jacket, pulling an old quilt around him. "Now, you can just sleep all the way and when you wake up, we'll be in Indiana." Ben reached down to pick him up, but Adam resisted.

"I can walk."

Ben tried not to sound impatient. "I know you can, son, but it will be faster if I carry you and the keelboat leaves in only an hour. Come on, now." He lifted Adam, still wrapped in the quilt, into his arms, picking up the carpetbags with the other hand and creeping out into the darkened hall and then into the quiet street.

He had engaged rooms near the river, so it wasn't a long walk to the where the keelboat was waiting, moored along a quiet bank a half mile down from the harbor. Adam hadn't made another sound and he wanted to believe that that meant he'd gone back to sleep, but the tiny fist that clung tightly to his shirtfront told him otherwise. The keelboat steersman took his money without comment and he found a place to sit on a large, tied down crate on the aft deck. As the steersman pushed away from the bank, he watched the misty lights of Cincinnati draw away and into the distance.

The keelboatman let him off on a bank somewhere in a wooded section of Indiana about the time dawn was turning the sky rosy. He disembarked carefully because it seemed as though Adam had finally gone back to sleep and he was loathe to wake him. He gave the boatman a nod of thanks - the whole transaction and journey had been conducted in silence, giving it a surreal quality - and stepped onto the shores of a brand new state.

He found a clean, dry spot on the ground by a fallen tree to lay Adam down and collected enough wood to start a small fire and boil some coffee for himself while he picked through their meager collection of provisions to put together a makeshift breakfast. The coffee had just reached a boil when he saw Adam stir and rub his eyes and blink about him.

"Where are we?" he asked in a small voice.

"Indiana," Ben answered with a slight smile. "Don't you remember I told you?"
"Uh-huh." Adam sat up so he could look around better. "Pa?" He frowned at the trees

surrounding them. "Can we stay in the next place longer?"

Ben hesitated. "Well, Adam - we're on our way to California, remember. We won't be staying anyplace very long until we get there."

"Oh." Adam lay down again and snuggled under the quilt. "What's in California?"

"Our home. Well, not right away, of course - we'll have to build it - but eventually."

"Evenchoo…even…"

Ben chuckled. "Eventually. That means 'by and by'."

"Oh," Adam sniffed. "What's there?"

Ben sipped his coffee. "California? Well, I've never been there myself, of course, but they tell me big trees and big mountains and big sky…"

"Oh." Adam was quiet for a moment, as though trying to make his mind up about something. "Pa?" he ventured, a little timidly.

"Yes, Adam?"

"I miss the water."

Ben sighed. "I see. Well, in California I hear there's lots of water."

"There is?"

"That's right. The ocean and rivers and lakes - I'll tell you what - we'll find some really good water and we'll live right next to it - how'll that be?"

"Promise?" Adam was sounding sleepy again.

Ben reached over to tuck the quilt around him. "Yes, Adam - I promise."

"Pa?"

Ben chuckled a little. He was sounding more like himself again, that was for sure, one question after another. "Yes, Adam?"

"I liked that singing."

"Yes, that was nice, wasn't it?"

"How come you never sing, Pa?"

"Oh, I don't know, Adam - don't know many songs, I guess - except maybe old sea chanteys, and those aren't good songs for little boys."

"I'm three," even from under the blanket Adam sounded indignant.

"Ah. Yes. Of course you are. But I'm not sure sea chanteys are good songs even for grown up boys of, say, four or five. Why don't you get a little more sleep now."

"Pa?"

"Yes, Adam?"

"When I grow up? I'm gonna know lots of songs. I'm gonna sing them all."

"Well, that's nice. Then maybe you can sing for me."

Adam yawned. "Okay."

"No, no - now it's your turn to promise."

He smiled at Adam's drowsy giggle. "Promise."

Ben sat back against the fallen trunk to watch the fire. How many promises had he made now? Promises Adam didn't even know about - promises to make up for every missed meal, for every cold and uncertain bed, every pet he couldn't have, every friend he had to leave. Promises about where they'd live and how, and things that would never happen to them again - how many times had he mortgaged his soul to a promise to give Adam the illusion of security?

He swallowed his cooling coffee, slipping his free hand downward to rest it on the silky head at his side. However many he'd made, he'd better start keeping track - better make sure he remembered. Because one thing was for certain - whether he remembered or not, Adam certainly would.

Ben stirred his coffee slowly, giving Mrs. Chambers an apologetic shrug. He gathered the nerve to glance up and meet her eyes and shook his head ruefully at what he saw there. "Don't go thinking that," he said lightly. "There was nothing heroic about it. It was simply a matter of common human decency."

Mrs. Chambers added a touch of cream to her tea. "To be frank, I can't think of anything more heroic or less common than human decency."

Ben laughed abruptly. "Well, I'm glad I haven't offended you, but you mustn't think it was anything great."

Mrs. Chambers raised her brows. "I'm afraid I think it was, Ben - you'll just have to live with that. I'm very pleased to have made your acquaintance."

Ben looked at her in sudden surprise, his heart unexpectedly warmed. He opened his mouth to reply, but heard the tinkling of the bell in the doorway announcing an arrival and saw her eyes brighten.

"Lyle!" she rose to her feet and went to greet her husband. "You're here! Well, I hope your meeting was worthwhile, because Mr. Cartwright gave me the most wonderful tour - you have no idea what you're missing."

Ben watched Lyle Chambers stoop to kiss her cheek and thought about the pleasant morning they had shared and her kind, unflagging attention.

No, he thought, watching them. No, Mr. Chambers - you really have no idea what you're missing.

TBC