Steal Away Home Read online

  Contents

  Epigraph

  1 Tear Down the Wall

  2 No Names

  3 Identity: Unknown

  4 The Wakarusa War

  5 Night of the Living Bones

  6 The Free-State Hotel

  7 No Nancy Drews

  8 You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!

  9 Edmund Wolcott’s Castle

  10 Thirty Cannonballs

  11 The Sack of Lawrence

  12 Follow the Drinking Gourd

  13 The Conductor

  14 Three First Names

  15 Uncle Mose

  16 They Never Looked Back

  17 The View from Lizbet’s Cot

  18 Like a Real Son

  19 Plumb Crazy

  20 Tornado!

  21 Wild Indigo

  22 Hush Puppies

  23 Will’s Quest

  24 I’m Melting, I’m Melting!

  25 All Alone

  26 Hog Slaughter

  27 The Funeral

  28 The Return of Marshal Fain

  29 Up to the Tower

  30 Amen

  31 Written in Stone

  Soon Be Free Excerpt

  About Lois Ruby

  For Tom, who gets me where I need to be and is always there with me

  How will we know it’s us without our past?

  —John Steinbeck

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tear Down the Wall

  If you’d asked that morning what Dana’s chances were of finding a dead body before the day was out, she’d have said, “Well, it’s never happened once in twelve and a half years, but you can always hope.”

  The hot wind was blowing cottonwood puffs through the open window. As Dana peeled red-and-white flock off the wall, she sucked a cotton puff into her nose and sneezed all over the wallpaper. Ripping away a damp strip, she found more of those awful orange roosters.

  “Ohhh,” she groaned, sinking back on her heels. How many more layers of ugly paper were there under this wall? Inches’ worth, no doubt, for the 135 years the house had sat here on Tennessee Street.

  The job was definitely worth more than seventy-five cents an hour, even if that’s the best she could expect to make on a Saturday afternoon. Well, she’d go on strike. She’d demand a raise, or a cushier job. But first she’d positively throw up at the sight of one more room full of roosters.

  “Dana?” It was her mom’s voice, in that frantic way she had of calling as though Dana had suddenly fallen into a well, or a robber were standing in the kitchen with panty hose over his head. “Dana! Where are you?”

  “Here, Mom.” She heard her mother’s Birkenstock sandals flapping up the stairs.

  More roosters. No chickens were pretty, but Dana hated these specimens most of all because of their color. Rusty orange, like her own hair, like her freckles. Everyone made fun of redheads, except for grandmothers, of course, who said the hair was gorgeous, who said the freckles were adorable. Well, there was nothing gorgeous or adorable about them, and nothing gorgeous or adorable about roosters, either.

  And under the roosters, she’d probably turn up snapdragons, brown and gray, of course, because no one who’d lived in the nineteenth century had any eye for color.

  “Dana Shannon, where in this huge barn are you?”

  “Second floor, Mom, in the ugliest room in the house.” It had a bristly maroon carpet, and odd angles that gave the room a Seven Dwarfs sort of look, and dim lights that made it seem like a murky puddle.

  Her mom filled the door, her thin piano legs supporting her round body. She was like a bowling pin, turned upside down. A floppy shirt came to her knees, and sticking out of her sandals were padded feet with bright red nails. “Aren’t we having fun? Or do blonds have more fun?”

  “Redheads sure don’t. Look at the wall.”

  “Oh Dana, tell me it’s not more of them.” She pulled away a swatch of red and white. “Oh no, roosters. I call fowl play.” It’s true, they’d found roosters behind nearly every wall’s top layer, all over the house. There must have been a huge closeout on rooster paper, back when most people just had unfinished wood walls, and wallpaper was a rich man’s luxury.

  “Why did we ever buy this place, Mom, really?”

  “Oh, your father’s a romantic. He says it has historical importance, one of the first houses here in Lawrence, and all that. It’s going to turn into the most terrific bed-and-breakfast in Kansas. Someday,” she added, with a sigh. She ripped a strip of paper clear down the wall. It started out fat, then thinned like a stream of syrup. “I suppose I’ll have to break down and rent a steamer.”

  Well yes, because it would take two lifetimes to get this paper off, and what for? Just for redheaded male chickens.

  So Dana was devising a scheme to cut down on the work, even with a steamer, or else the spring and summer would fly by like a flock of hummingbirds, and she’d be left with the droppings. It was already about ninety degrees, with two more weeks till school let out. “I’ve got an idea, Mom. Why can’t I take some sharp pointy thing and stab through eighty layers of this stuff? Then we can yank it off in chunks.”

  “Has its merits.” Mom was on her hands and knees ripping up a corner of the carpet that looked like one big wine stain. “Look at this gorgeous hardwood floor. Why would they cover it up? Oh, it’s going to be a horrendously awful job refinishing this floor.” Mom blew hair off her forehead. “First thing in the morning, I’m going to Bermuda.”

  “It’s hot there, too.”

  “Anchorage, then.”

  Dana chipped away at a circle of the wallpaper with a carpet cutter, until the wall grew less spongy. The knife clunked against something hard. She turned the knife like a screwdriver and bored a little hole through the layers of paper. She worked it around and around, making the circle even wider, until she’d ground out a peephole the size of a walnut.

  There behind the flock, the roosters, the snapdragons, and probably a few layers of zinnias and fleur-de-lis, was a wall of hard wood that absorbed the stab of her knife. And behind that, darkness.

  Dana cut a wider hole. Now it was wide enough for a mouse, now for a squirrel. Pretty soon a good-sized cocker spaniel could have lodged himself in this cavity, like in a tree trunk. Dana peered into the hole. The darkness back there was impenetrable. She stuck her hand into the hole and pushed on the cool wood to get some idea how thick it was.

  Suddenly it gave, it swung back. She poked her head into the cavern and smelled something old, musty. “Mom, the flashlight, quick!”

  Mom scooted across the floor with the flashlight. Behind the wall was a small room, and in the eerie shadows thrown by the thin light of the Eveready was a small crock, two cots, and on one of them—

  A full skeleton.

  CHAPTER TWO

  No Names

  April 1856

  If he put his mind to it, he’d hear coyotes, but who wanted to? James whittled a stick into nothing but a fine thin point, the shavings growing into a billowy pile at his feet.

  “James, pick up thy wood curb and wash up for dinner, son.” His mother’s long skirt swished as she spun around from her cookstove. “It’s rabbit stew, lots of potatoes and carrots.”

  “When’s Pa due back?” Dinnertime was always jollier when Pa was at the table. James noticed a slight hesitation before Ma spoke.

  “Government business, as usual, James. Thy father’s in Topeka with Dr. Robinson. He’ll be back just before First Day, to be sure.”

  James went outside to wash his hands in a tub behind the house. He’d lived the first twelve years of his life in Boston, but he’d be having his next birthday cake here in Kansas, in this shaky frame house, four city blocks distance from the nearest neighbor. There were terrors out here on the prai
rie. He was afraid of so many things that he wouldn’t even tell his father about. Sometimes he told his sister, Rebecca, about how jittery he got when the wind whistled through the cracks in the roof, but then she got scared and cried, and he felt like a bully.

  The wash water was gray and cold. He wiped his hands on a rag that hung above the washtub. It was as dark as pitch, barely a star in view. And where was the moon? Four blocks off he saw the pinpoint of light from a lantern in Macons’ house. Jeremy Macon was probably doing his sums by that light. Jeremy Macon always had the right answer. Jeremy Macon was the kind who always got the girl. Not that James was interested in girls. Much.

  The coyotes were hungry, howling like the wind in the trees. No telling what they’d eat if they got hungry enough. Jeremy and them, they hunted coyotes, and squirrels, too, and wild turkeys—anything that ran so fast that it was game enough to shoot. But James’s father didn’t keep a gun. He’d said, “Remember, my boy, we Quakers don’t kill for sport. In fact, we don’t kill any living things.”

  Lawrence was so blamed quiet, after the hustle and bustle of Boston. You couldn’t hear a thing, except for the coyotes and the rustling brush. And then James thought he heard the grinding of wagon wheels in the dry dirt, over on the other side of the hill. Maybe not. Maybe it was the prairie wind playing tricks on him again.

  What if a coyote came close? He balled his fists over his eyes. If only Pa would get back by dark every night.

  They didn’t kill living things, no, but they sure ate dead ones, and inside there was a tangy hot stew waiting for James, and inside there were no coyotes.

  Ma and Rebecca were already at the table, their heads bowed. He slid onto the bench and tried to pray. Silence filled every crack of the dining room. Rebecca looked up at him and rolled her eyes. He’d burst out laughing! No! Ma would glare at him, and there’d be no gooseberry pie on his plate, come dessert time.

  Finally, in some mysterious way, Ma knew it was time to stop praying. “James, thee dawdled outside. Was there something that caught thy eye?”

  “My ear. I think someone’s coming.”

  “Company!” Rebecca shrieked. She was five and loved when people came, because they usually brought her some sort of jimcrack or a string toy, or at least wild berry muffins for the whole family.

  “Did thee see anyone?” Ma asked. She’d stopped eating and had scraped her stew back into the serving bowl.

  “Grass is too tall,” James said. Well, he’d eat his share and hers. And then it was unmistakable, the sound of wagon wheels. Ma’s face got tight, and after a deep breath, a sort of peace came over it. “I expect we’ll have guests for the night,” she said. “Rebecca, finish thy meal quickly and go up and take thy pillow and feather quilt into thy brother’s room.”

  “Aw, Ma. He stinks so bad.”

  “Do as I say, child.”

  The clattering of the wagon stopped out back of the house. There was a faint tapping at the window, and Ma lifted the corner of the curtain. “James, open the door, son, and be hospitable.”

  On the porch stood the shabbiest man James had ever seen, as if he’d ridden over dusty roads for days and weeks without a wash. His eyes were ringed with black, his face leathery. He had a finger missing, and James wondered where, how? Ma was right behind James now, craning to see beyond the driver.

  “Evening, ma’am. Saw yer flag down out front. I’ve got cargo.”

  “Yes. Thee’s welcome. James, give the man a hand.”

  James scrambled onto the wagon, wondering what the cargo was. The wonderful smell of smoke-cured ham made him swoon. He picked up the ham, wrapped loosely in rags, and pulled it to his face. Ohhh! Maybe the man was bringing them a winter’s worth of fine Boston foods—meats that weren’t like boot leather, or stringy as prairie chicken, or gamey as jackrabbit. “Smell’s mighty good,” James said.

  “To cut the scent,” the man muttered.

  “Of what?”

  “Negroes.”

  He’d heard of them, but had never seen one right up close. He and the driver pawed through layers of dishes, pots and pans, tools, and straw, until they came to a buffalo-hide blanket. The driver pulled that back, and James jumped. There on the floor of the wagon lay three of the blackest people on earth: A man, a woman, and a small boy with huge eyes, mostly whites.

  “Y’all can come out,” the driver said. “This here’s Weavers’ place.”

  The black man rose stiffly to his knees and pulled the woman up with both hands. The boy clung to his mother’s thin dress as she stumbled to her feet. They were stiff as rakes. Lord knows how long they’d been lying on that bed of the wagon, flat as trampled prairie grass.

  “Yep, this is Lawrence, Kansas, free soil. Y’all be safe here. Mind if I water my horse before I set out?”

  He was already leading the mangy horse to the trough. Looked like it needed a night in a barn. But as soon as the horse lifted its head, the driver pulled it around toward the road again. “Well, I’m on my way.” Where? James wondered. Where’d he come from, where was he going?

  Now the Negro family huddled together, getting their land legs. They hadn’t said a word. And what was James to do? Did they even speak English? He led them around the house to the front door. The wagon was already clattering back toward the hill.

  “Ma!” Ma came to the door, Rebecca hiding behind her.

  “Come in, friends,” Ma said. “Thee’s safe here. I’ve a hot supper for thee, and thee and thy child shall steep in my daughter’s bed tonight. After supper, my son will fetch water in our kettles, and we’ll fill a hot tub for thee. Thee looks like a bath might be welcome.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I’m Isaac—”

  “Hush! No names.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Tomorrow night just at dark, we’ll send thee on. If I don’t know thy names, why, I can’t say for sure thee’d been here, anyone comes asking.” She put ladles of stew on the tin plates and dark bread already thick with melted butter. The gooseberry pie would have to go a lot further, James thought mournfully.

  But what he didn’t know was that these were the first of many runaway slaves that would arrive in the dead of night. Ma would harbor them for a day of rest and hearty food, before she passed the fugitives on along the Underground Railroad—which wasn’t a railroad at all.

  And Ma told him that when this family of no-names got across the border into Canada, like so many others that went before them and that followed them, they’d sing:

  Oh, go an’ carry de news,

  One more soul got safe!

  But the runaways would only come to James’s house when his pa was away on government business.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Identity: Unknown

  “A what?” Dana’s mom cried. “Let me have a look.” Dana held the flashlight for her. “Oh my God, it is a skeleton. Dana, call 911.”

  “Me? You’re the adult here.”

  Her mother backed away. “Well, it’s not going anywhere, I suppose. I mean, there’s time to do this civilly. Come on. We’ll go downstairs to the phone. We’ll dial 911, and we’ll calmly tell them that there’s a complete skeleton in a secret compartment of our upstairs parlor. Smiling broadly. Empty eye sockets just staring right at us. Oh Dana, they’ll send the men in the white coats for us, with big butterfly nets.”

  Dana’s mom talked too fast when she was nervous, and her fingers flew like buzzing bees. Dana was just the opposite. She clamped shut, like an oyster shell, rolling all the scary things around in her head.

  The police came quickly, maybe because Mrs. Shannon’s call had been a little different from the usual run of intruders and domestic spats. A skeleton, indeed!

  A guy who looked more like an accountant than a policeman introduced himself as Officer Burney. “This is my partner, Officer Wyles,” he said, and both flashed IDs. Wyles was the first woman police officer Dana had ever talked to. She seemed so small and delicate. Dana couldn’t imagine her pulling a revolver on
a thug, or throwing a robber over her shoulder in a swift karate maneuver. But Wyles had intense eyes. Maybe she stopped crooks with her laser vision.

  Each of the police officers peered into the secret chamber behind the wall and didn’t seem at all startled, as if they found perfect anatomy-class specimens every day. But Officer Burney called down to headquarters for help. Before long, a photographer was there, and fingerprinters, and a work crew to tear down the wall.

  “One way to get the work done quick,” Dana said. “Maybe we can get them to rip up the carpet, too.”

  Then, here came Dr. Baxi, who was the county coroner.

  “Oh Punir, I’m so glad to see you!” Dana’s mom nearly crushed the little man in her enthusiasm. “This is a B-grade movie. Unbelievable. Something out of the annals of Scotland Yard.”

  Dr. Baxi gave her his shy smile, but was all business. “Don’t move the remains,” he said, in his clipped Indian way, as two policemen were trying to figure out how to haul the body away. He showed the photographer which angles to shoot from, had him standing up on the cot, straddling the skeletal feet. As he jiggled the cot, Dana noticed that the bones were where they should be, but not all of them were attached, as though someone had found them and arranged them just so.

  “How come he’s not connected, Dr. Baxi?” asked Dana.

  He pointed here, and here. “See, some ligaments still connect the bones.”

  “This is sick,” her mother said, and she sank into a rocking chair. Officer Wyles had to step back and forth over her feet.

  With rubber gloves, Dr. Baxi picked up scraps of faded fabric and dropped them tenderly into plastic bags, each one with a note describing where he’d found it. “Cotton,” he said. “Very old.”

  “Val? Dana?” Her dad was running up the stairs. “Is everybody okay?” He paused at the door of the parlor. “Geez, it looks like a tornado hit.” He elbowed his way through the crowd in the parlor and flung his arms around Dana and her mom, while he stared at the gaping hole in the wall. “Thank God you’re okay. Now would somebody tell me what’s going on here?”

  “You won’t believe this, Dad.”