The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [245]
"Thank you very much. My name is Miss Jane Horn, and this is my girl, Ila, and I really don’t want to let her out of my sight, I must say, because there’s no telling what mess she’ll get into!"
"Delilah can take her into the kitchen and find her a bite—"
"Please, ma’am! I’ve lost everything now, and I do fear—" I summoned a tear or two.
"My dear! Very well, we can sit in the kitchen with them! But how can we help you? What in the world has happened?"
And so we sat together in the kitchen, myself, Lorna, Delilah, and Mrs. May Thornton, drinking milk and eating biscuits from their breakfast, and I spun out my abandonment story, then nobly refused all aid but said we only wanted to be on our way to Kansas City, so that we could make our boat, the Kansas Star, which we knew was leaving at evening. From time to time, Lorna put her hand to her cheek and rubbed it and gave me a petulant glance, but she kept quiet. Mr. Thornton came in and went out, only saying, "Now, May, the horses are working on the farm today; don’t ask me!"
Profuse thanks managed to get us away just after noon. When we were well out into the road, I apologized to Lorna for hitting her so hard. She said, "Missies always hit hard. Massas don’ hit so hard." I took that as approval.
We were more careful now and didn’t chat at all. Lorna stayed two or three paces behind me and, as always, kept her head down. But she was tremendously strong, and the sound of her steps on the road behind me were firm and even, always pushing me onward, always reminding me that it was a long way between here and Ohio, and it wouldn’t be easy to get there. It was tempting for me to think of this escape as an adventure—no one had truly been hanged in Kansas or Missouri for slave stealing that I knew of, though getting shot was certainly a possibility, but as a woman, and an unarmed one at that, I might not get shot in the end. But we had been gone more than twenty-four hours from Day’s End Plantation, and so far, our escape seemed more like a success than a failure.
We came into Kansas City late in the afternoon. It was now almost three weeks since I had left the town, and once again it was entirely different, and different, as well, from Independence, for Kansas City was in a full state of war, with troops of men in all varieties of uniform gathered together, marching, drilling, riding madly to and fro. The sound of weapons firing, always a feature of Kansas City life, was now almost constant. I saw that we had to get to the river as quickly as possible, get on a boat, and hide out there. A year earlier, this wouldn’t have been difficult at all, as all there was to Kansas City was the levee and the bluff above it. Now the town spread out in all directions, and I couldn’t tell where the river was. Lorna and I couldn’t help being daunted by the activity and the noise. As much as we knew we had to move deliberately forward, appearing confident and even at ease with our situation, it was nearly impossible not to stop and gape, not to startle, not to glance furtively around. Any number of shouts could be directed at us, could they not? And any of those could be just a warning to get out of the way (everyone on foot was in the way), but any of them could likewise be the Recognition. Lorna had lived at Papa’s all her life, some thirty years, as I guessed. There was no telling how many guests had passed through there, gotten to know her, knew now of her escape. Nevertheless, here in Kansas City, the balance of my fears had shifted, and I was now more afraid of getting caught up in an all-out war than I was of capture. Indeed, the newspapers pasted up here and there, on fences and walls, as well as those tossed in the street, all declared, "WAR! WAR!" in giant letters. Shannon had fled, and others were fleeing. I began to wonder whether we could get on a boat, and if