Point of No Return (19 page)

“Run, child,” Clarence shouted. “Don't let 'em take you.
Run!
”

Matt was now behind the tree and at the ropes holding Clarence. He peered around and saw Eveline shuffle anxiously. She was stricken by her indecision. Boss took a step toward her. “Come on, girl.”

In the darkness of the woods, Matt had a hard time seeing the ropes. He felt around for the knots and, with a sinking heart, realized they weren't there. They must be on the other side, with Clarence.

“Don't listen to him, Eveline,” Clarence commanded his daughter. “You run now, you hear? Don't let him get any closer! Run!”

The words somehow got through, and with a last, despairing look, she tore away just as Boss dove for her. Gazellelike, she bounded into the dark woods.

“Get her!” Boss yelled. The three men disappeared into the darkness after her.

Matt's mind reeled as he tried to think. How could he get Clarence untied? Peeking around to make sure everyone had gone, he circled the tree to Clarence.

“What are you doing here?” Clarence asked him, amazed. “Are you crazy?”

“We're here to rescue you!” Matt announced.

“Rescue me! Oh, son, you
are
crazy.”

“How can I get you free?” Matt asked as he tugged at the ropes.

Clarence looked around frantically. “You'll never get these knots undone. A knife. Look around the wagon for a knife.”

Matt ran to the wagon and searched through the bedrolls, saddlebags, and a crate filled with ropes, tools, and tarp. No knife. In a harsh whisper he called back to Clarence, “I can't find it. Are you sure there's a knife here?”

“Watch out!” Clarence shouted, looking beyond Matt.

Matt heard a low chuckle behind him and turned.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“M
AN ALIVE, THIS BEATS
the dutch!” Hank wheezed happily as he secured the ropes on Matt's and Eveline's wrists. “Good thing you came along, Wylie.”

“I guess it was,” Wylie replied. Matt stared at him with all the hatred he could muster. He recognized Wylie as the black man who had arrived in the tunnel right after Matt and Jack. Clarence had accused him of pretending to be a slave in order to catch runaways. Clarence was right.

“You're gonna get it for tying me up like this,” Matt fumed.

“Shut up,” Hank hissed in Matt's ear.

“I figure you can add this boy to what you owe me. You have
three
to take back with you now,” Wylie said with a smile.

“That wasn't part of the deal,” Boss said.

“Neither was you going so far out. We were supposed to meet in Gower's Field, you'll recall. All this riding hurts my hind parts,” Wylie complained. “So just add a few dollars to what you owe me.”

Boss looked as if he might argue, then changed his mind. “I swear, I've never known a darky to haggle the way you do. But you do good work and I won't begrudge you that.” Boss marched over to his saddlebag and pulled out a small pouch. Coins clinked as he poured them into his palm, counting carefully as he did. When he was satisfied with the amount, he held out his hand to Wylie. “What we agreed and then some.”

Wylie took the money. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“You oughtta be ashamed of yourself,” Clarence growled at Wylie. “Betraying your own people for 30 pieces of silver. You're a
Judas
! You sold yourself to the devil.”

Wylie chuckled in response. “I'll be thinking about you when I have a hot bath and good meal in Connellsville tonight.” He tipped his hat to the three slave hunters. “Good hunting, my friends. You know where to find me if you need me again!” He bowed, then made his way into the woods.

“I never liked him and never liked doing business with him,” Sonny said. “I hope you didn't give him much. Do you think this boy'll fetch a good price?”

Boss grunted. “We'll get what we expected for the buck and his girl, but this one's scrawny.” He nudged Matt with the edge of his boot.

“You do anything to me and you'll be in
big
trouble,” Matt challenged.

Hank and Sonny laughed at the boy's spirit. Boss didn't. He squinted at Matt thoughtfully. “Strange. He doesn't act like a slave.”

“I'm
not
a slave!” Matt shouted.

“Then I reckon you better explain yourself,” Boss said. “Where're you from and what're you doing here?”

Matt sat up proudly. “I'm from Odyssey.”

“Are you?” Boss said skeptically. “You sure don't dress like anybody I've ever seen in Odyssey. Where'd you get those funny-looking clothes?” He tugged at Matt's jacket and sweatshirt.

“Well, I'm not from the Odyssey you know but from a different Odyssey…one in the future.”

The slave hunters looked at each other, bewildered. “What in blazes are you talking about?” Boss asked.

“See, Jack and I went through the tunnel to the workroom in Whit's End, and that's where we found the Imagination Station.”

“Whit's End?” Boss shook his head.

“Crazy as a loon,” Sonny mumbled.

Matt protested, “I'm serious! We got into the Imagination Station and the next thing we knew, we were in the tunnel again, but it wasn't the tunnel leading to Whit's End, but to the church where we saw Reverend Andrew—”

“What a yarn,” Hank said with a chuckle.

“I'm telling the truth!” Matt shouted.

Boss nudged him harder with the toe of his boot. “Listen, boy. I wasn't born in the woods to be scared by an owl—or to have a little urchin cut shines with me.”

“Huh?”

“Do you have papers? I need to see some proof that you're free,” Boss demanded.

“We don't need papers where I come from!” Matt said.

“I reckon that's too bad for you,” Boss said. He turned to his companions. “Looks like he goes with us.”

Matt squirmed. “I don't know who you guys think you are, but you're going to be arrested for kidnapping if you don't let us go
right now!
I mean it. Mr. Whittaker is going to show up any minute, and the police are going to lock you up and throw away the key!”

“Shut up, boy,” Boss said.

“No, I
won't
shut up! You have no right to tie us up and—”

Matt didn't get to finish his sentence. Boss suddenly backhanded him across the face. “I said to
shut up
and that's what I meant!”

Matt was so startled that he didn't notice the pain in the side of his face like a bee sting, or the tear that slid down his cheek without permission.

“All right, boys, let's get some shut-eye. Tomorrow we take to the river,” Boss said. “You're on the first watch, Sonny.”

“Me!” Sonny complained.

“Yeah, you. Then me. Then Hank.”

After the slave hunters were settled down for the night, Eveline leaned over to Matt. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

Matt swallowed back his tears and nodded.

“Don't you fret,” Eveline said soothingly. “You'll get used to it. That's how they treat us.”

Matt thought,
No, I won't. I'll never get used to it
.

CHAPTER TWELVE

R
EVEREND
A
NDREW LIVED
in a modest two-bedroom apartment in the Odyssey Hotel. To Jack, it looked the way rooms did in Western movies. Andrew had assembled a makeshift study on one side of the room, with a rolltop desk, shelves overburdened with books, a small sofa and reading chair, and an end table with a kerosene lamp. All of it sat atop a large, patterned throw rug that covered most of the wooden flooring. Small, painted pictures of country hills hung at odd angles on the walls.

At the moment, Jack and Andrew were sitting on the opposite side of the room at the dining table. Since he didn't have a stove on which to cook, Andrew had brought up a meal of beef and potatoes from the hotel restaurant.

“No doubt you're wondering why I'm living in the hotel,” Andrew said as he chomped on a particularly chewy piece of beef. “The apartment was given to me by some of our parishioners after slave hunters burned down my house several years ago.”

“They burned down your
house
?” Jack asked, vaguely remembering that the boys on the street had mentioned the fact. That conversation seemed like a long time ago.

“It was the rectory not far from the church. Perhaps you saw what's left of it today,” Andrew said.

Jack nodded as he remembered the shell of the house near the woods. “But why did they burn down your house?”

Reverend Andrew shook his head. “It's a long story. They didn't appreciate the way I helped a family of runaways. The house caught fire when the fools decided to smoke the family out of the tunnel. That incident secured my place in the abolitionist movement. If I doubted the importance of the Underground before, I didn't afterward. I've dedicated all I have to helping where I can to stop this abomination before God.”

Jack frowned. “I don't understand how people can treat other people that way…just because of the color of their skin.”

“Obviously I agree,” Reverend Andrew said. “The Scriptures are clear about the dignity of all those for whom the Son of God died— regardless of their color. Slavery makes a sham of our humanity, a lie of our place as a Christian nation. The love of Christ cannot be spoken of with our mouths while our hands whip the backs of our brothers and shackle their arms and legs. God must weep in heaven. He must!”

Jack sat up, captivated by the power of Andrew's words.

But Andrew didn't continue. He simply sighed. “In many ways it's worse now than it ever was. The debates have certainly stirred things up.”

“Debates?”

“You don't know? Where have you been, lad? I thought everyone knew about the Douglas-Lincoln debates.”

Jack thought of the snippet of conversation he'd heard in the hotel lobby that afternoon. “Oh, yeah. But why is everyone so upset about a debate between Abraham Lincoln and that other guy? Or is it because Lincoln is president and—”

“
President
Lincoln!” Reverend Andrew bellowed. “I hardly think he's likely to ever become president. Not now. Not after taking such a hard stand on slavery. I'm all for him, of course, but I can't imagine the majority of other people are. Douglas will probably win because of his confounded stand on states' rights.”

Jack shook his head. None of it made sense to him, and he said so.

Reverend Andrew leaned back and spoke patiently. “Senator Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln recently conducted a series of debates about the issue of slavery. It is Lincoln's intention to be the next Republican senator from Illinois. You see, he caused quite a stir earlier in the year when he made a speech at the Republican convention. He said that a ‘house divided against itself cannot stand…. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.' I'll never forget those words—an echo of the very sentiments of Christ.” He paused for a moment in reverent silence.

Jack took another bite of his beef. It was tough and stringy.

Reverend Andrew continued. “Douglas, a Democrat, argued that democracy itself was at stake if states—and the new territories in the West—aren't allowed to decide the issue of slavery for themselves. He was quite eloquent. So was Lincoln. And by the end of the debates, Lincoln laid his cards on the table. He turned the subject of slavery from a political issue to a
moral
one. He has appealed to the whole nation to reject slavery as an institution.”

“And he's right!” Jack said.

“He is indeed,” Andrew said soberly. “And though the nation may not accept his message,
I
certainly do. Which is why I won't let those slave hunters get away with taking Clarence, Eveline, and your friend. I've never lost a runaway. I'm not about to lose any now.”

Jack bit into a potato. He was surprised by how plain it tasted but didn't want to offend Andrew by saying so. “But how will we get them back?”

“Ah! I have a very clever plan, if I may say so myself,” the reverend said with a smile.

“What are we going to do?”

Andrew frowned. “We? I'm sorry, lad, but it's a bit too risky for you to help out.”

“But Matt is
my
friend. I
have to
be allowed to help!” Jack exclaimed, nearly spilling his glass of water.

Reverend Andrew rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “An assistant would be helpful. But I need you to tell me who your parents are so I can speak to them about it.”

Jack grimaced. “I can tell you who my parents are, but you won't be able to find them.”

“Won't I?”

“No, sir.” Jack poked at the last of the potato with his fork as he tried to decide how to tell Reverend Andrew the truth. He realized that he couldn't. The truth sounded ridiculous, even to his own mind. Who would believe that he had been transported from the future by a machine called the Imagination Station that some inventor named Whit had created? Jack sure wouldn't.

“Are you an orphan?” the reverend asked gently.

Jack mused on the question. In a way, he and Matt
were
orphans since, technically speaking, their parents hadn't even been born yet. “Something like that,” Jack replied noncommittally.

“Then I'll assume you have nowhere to stay tonight.”

“No, sir. I don't.”

“You do now. I have a guest room for just such occasions. It has a feather bed—not straw. I believe you'll find it comfortable. I'll put some fresh water in your washbasin so you can clean up before you go to sleep.” The reverend stood up as a signal that it was time to call it a night.

“But…what about the plan?” Jack asked as he also stood up.

“In due course, lad,” Andrew said. “We'll have plenty of time on the train journey to Huntsville to talk it through.”