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By Root 1784 0

I saw that my successes the day before were surely attributable to good luck more than anything else. If my masquerade had the day before been something like sliding down a snowy hill on a child’s sled, it seemed that today it would be like scrabbling back up that slippery hill. Such are the effects of mood, and my mood today, clearheaded and fully aware, was far more daunted by my project than it had been in weeks. But I had to go on with it, if only to gain access to the seething gossip of the newspaper office and the benefits of a horse to ride. I also knew, with utter conviction, that I was doing just the sort of thing now that Thomas would disapprove of. Thomas was a conservative man, thoughtful about the proprieties, loath to offend, eager, even in his abolitionist convictions, that righteousness and justice be made palatable to all, including those who were to be force-fed. Square and aboveboard was his habit and his ideal. And inside his clothes I was planning a tangle of deceptions that, I fervently hoped, would end in a killing or two.

But it was painful to think of Thomas and best not to be daunted by paradoxes, and so I made my way back to the newspaper office and managed fairly quickly to get an audience with Mr. Morton, who looked as if he’d been up for hours. He was brisk. Had I seen the horse? Was I ready to take on this assignment? Was I armed? I needed to be if I was going out into the countryside. (To this I nodded, telling the truth with the sense of telling a lie.) Well, then...

I whispered, "How do I find one of these bands?"

"Well, let me see, now. Two days ago, some boys rode up to the Welch place, three or so miles out on the Westport road, and asked for something to eat. You could start there. That’s what got me thinking about this."

I nodded.

"Now, here’s five dollars. You don’t have to be livin’ off the country the way these boys are. You identify yourself as one of my reporters, and you pay for what you get." I nodded, taking the money. "But," he said with a laugh, "that don’t mean you shouldn’t drive a hard bargain!"

I nodded, and Mr. Morton turned away. There was nothing else for me to do but return to the stable and get on my way. An hour later, I was astride old Athens, clopping through the bustle of Kansas City, looking for the Westport road. The southerners had stolen so many New England weapons from waylaid shipments that about one in five of the rifles I saw on the streets around me was similar to my old carbine. I was able to reflect on this with a surprising want of rage. I had envisioned my passage through the world of my enemies to be a wrathful one, with every evidence of the southerners’ stupidity and evil driving me to an even sharper pitch of fury, but things weren’t turning out that way. What seemed to be happening was that Lawrence and everything Lawrence meant was turning into a dream of a sort compared to the pressing reality of my new life as a man. Or perhaps it was that now that I was wearing Thomas’s clothing, I was becoming more judicious, like him.

After a bit, I left the town behind, though the road was busy enough, and it was nearly a full-time job to touch the brim of my slouchy hat to every passerby, especially, I tried to remember, to the few ladies in wagons and buggies. All the same, it was pleasurable to be riding Athens. He hadn’t much go, but his ears were forward, and he seemed content to amble along, taking in the passing scene. I saw a farmer fixing his fence, and I said, in a croaky voice, "This the Welch farm?"

"Nah. A half mile up that way." He shaded his eyes against the sun to look at me, then went right back to his work. It was eternally surprising to me the way no one questioned my masculinity.

There were two farms a half mile up, a prosperous one on the right, with a two-story house, one of those funny western houses you used to see, with a passage right through the bottom that was enclosed across the top, called a "trotway." This farm had plenty of outbuildings, was well fenced, and I could see the wife feeding chickens, the husband going