be done.”
Chapter Seven
The next morning Olivia sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, while
Mourning banged on the oven door. She silently admired the way he worked, his
movements quick and sure. The only thing he might not be good at was shooting
a gun, but Uncle Scruggs had made sure Olivia knew how to do that. She had only taken aim at empty milk tins, but unfailingly blasted them from fifty paces.
Sometimes even a hundred. She had also gone hunting with her uncle. Though
she had never actually shot at an animal, she had helped follow a blood trail and
so felt sure she’d be able to put meat on the table. And did it really matter if she
couldn’t? Mourning must know how to fish and she could keep chickens in the
yard .
Mrs. Hardaway had gone out the back door with her shopping basket, leaving
Olivia and Mourning alone in the house. Olivia said to Mourning’s back, “You
know there are over a hundred Negroes out there in Detroit, Michigan. I can show you where it says so, right in a book. And there’s a town called
Backwoods, not so far from Fae’s Landing, with a whole lot too.” The last
statement was a stretch of the truth. The book did mention the existence of a Negro community in Backwoods, but didn’t say of how many.
Mourning ignored her and grunted, clanging his tools.
“You should have heard Uncle Scruggs talk about how beautiful it is out
there. And Fae’s Landing is only about forty miles from Detroit, where they
have markets and railroads and boats on the river. So it would be easy to sell whatever you grow.” She paused and waited for him to respond, but he
continued banging on the oven door.
She took a breath and continued. “You know, people who want to get ahead in
life have to move with the times. And the ones who get farthest ahead are the ones who stay a step ahead of the rest. Now’s the time to go. With that Erie Canal open, ten steamboats are docking in Detroit every day, full of people
looking to buy land. Pretty soon there won’t be any left. It says right here,” she
said, pointing at the almanac on the table in front of her, “that in 1830 there were
only about 30,000 people in all of Michigan. How many do you think they
counted last year?” She paused before answering her own question. “Over
213,000.” She repeated the number, emphasizing each syllable.
He stood up and turned to face her. “I told you why I can’t go.”
“Why would some old slave-catcher come poking around my uncle’s farm?
They don’t even have slavery in Michigan. Outlawed it four years ago.”
“Maybe they ain’t got slavery, but they got plenty a runaway slaves. Probably
even more than Pennsylvania. That underground railroad go right through Michigan on the way to Canada. So they be plenty a slave-catchers chasin’ after
’em.” He set the hammer down, rose from squatting in front of the stove, and took a seat across the table from her.
She got up to pour him a cup of coffee and set it in front of him. “Well, if the
underground railroad goes through Michigan, that means there are plenty of
white people out there willing to stand up for a black man. You’ll have Mr.
Carmichael’s paper, you’ll have me, and you’ll have all those abolitionists.
Before we leave you can ask Mr. Carmichael to make another copy of that paper.
I’ll hold on to one of them for you, just in case you ever lose yours. Once we’re
