snowdrifts once more burned my throat. But it felt free, fierce, downright glorious. No matter that the cold sliced so deep into my bones as to be painful. Our hacksman had long since saved himself and his horse, so we hastened up Walnut Street toward Grand, where if we were blessed by sublime luck, another desperate cabman might be trying to snatch the last of the fares before the sleighs had been turned out. We hadn’t gone a block before I heard a very familiar sound from behind me.
“Why are you laughing
now
?” I demanded of my brother.
“You were going to steal that sick son of a bitch’s revolver.” When I glanced back at him, he was shaking with mirth and wincing as if he’d been shot.
“I was not,” I retorted. My heart wasn’t in it, though. He’d just thrown me his scarf and then yanked his fur collar up around his ears.
“You were,” he gasped. “What we just did is bollocks-out illegal, and
then
, young Tim, you wanted to leg it with a bit of fast swag. I knew you had it in you.”
“Had what, Captain?” Mr. Piest asked, beginning to chuckle.
“A taste for mayhem, buried deep down. Eh, Timothy?”
Mr. Piest gave a muffled snort.
“Were you keener to pawn it or keep it? You, my Tim, are one shady palmer of illicit goods,” Val concluded with wicked delight.
“It isn’t funny.” I wrapped the extra scarf round my neck, grinning reluctantly.
“No,” Valentine agreed. And then he laughed all the harder.
six
Had New-York, been but free from coloured people, how peaceful would she be! what a saving to her people in expense of a police! Had Philadelphia—ditto! But New-York, not being so overstocked as Charleston and New Orleans, leaves some difference to her credit. Still she is quite lamentably stocked, and hence her violent reputation throughout our Union.
—JOHN JACOBUS FLOURNOY,
AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGINS, HABITS, &C. OF THE AFRICAN RACE: INCIDENTAL TO THE PROPRIETY OF HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH NEGROES,
1835
A
t the Ward
Eight station house,
I knocked, pushed open the door to Val’s office, and sent Delia and Jonas inside. Trembling and wet but undisputedly free. Lucy Adams released a cry without any sound to it. As her family flew toward her, a smile broke over her face that could have lit the Astor House for a year.
The knot just at the base of my own throat went slack far too quickly, unspooling at a reckless speed. After handing over the station house’s medical kit for Delia’s wrists, I shut the door behind me and slumped against it.
Mercy,
I thought,
would have been proud of that night’s work.
I pictured her as she’d looked when gliding into rank rookeries and cellar hells. Madly fearless and half-smiling, passing out bread and salt and soap with no regard for the skin shade of the recipient in question. Poor and well-off alike thought her as deranged as she was generous, and she’d terrified me on behalf of her own health. And I’d adored her for it.
Sucking in a breath, I headed back down the hall.
“I owe you one,” I said to Valentine, who’d pulled up his tall chair behind the front counter. Setting my hat on the wood, I rubbed at my ruined temple. Of course the instant I’d stopped tensing my right eye in mute worry, half my head throbbed in dull revenge.
My brother and I were alone by that time. En route to Grand Street, Mr. Piest had peeled off in the direction of his own night circuit—stalwart as ever, though bleary about the eye. The three Committee men had recognized quicker than I’d done that no cab would take all of us and few enough would take the three of them in any case. To my stifled but cinderlike embarrassment. So they’d made the gentlemanly offer of parting ways, after I’d vowed to see the family to a temporary haven in the absence of Charles Adams. And thus the two living New York Wildes—one jelly-spined in relief and the other jelly-spined for self-inflicted reasons—had whisked Delia and Jonas away in an indecently
“Why are you laughing
now
?” I demanded of my brother.
“You were going to steal that sick son of a bitch’s revolver.” When I glanced back at him, he was shaking with mirth and wincing as if he’d been shot.
“I was not,” I retorted. My heart wasn’t in it, though. He’d just thrown me his scarf and then yanked his fur collar up around his ears.
“You were,” he gasped. “What we just did is bollocks-out illegal, and
then
, young Tim, you wanted to leg it with a bit of fast swag. I knew you had it in you.”
“Had what, Captain?” Mr. Piest asked, beginning to chuckle.
“A taste for mayhem, buried deep down. Eh, Timothy?”
Mr. Piest gave a muffled snort.
“Were you keener to pawn it or keep it? You, my Tim, are one shady palmer of illicit goods,” Val concluded with wicked delight.
“It isn’t funny.” I wrapped the extra scarf round my neck, grinning reluctantly.
“No,” Valentine agreed. And then he laughed all the harder.
six
Had New-York, been but free from coloured people, how peaceful would she be! what a saving to her people in expense of a police! Had Philadelphia—ditto! But New-York, not being so overstocked as Charleston and New Orleans, leaves some difference to her credit. Still she is quite lamentably stocked, and hence her violent reputation throughout our Union.
—JOHN JACOBUS FLOURNOY,
AN ESSAY ON THE ORIGINS, HABITS, &C. OF THE AFRICAN RACE: INCIDENTAL TO THE PROPRIETY OF HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH NEGROES,
1835
A
t the Ward
Eight station house,
I knocked, pushed open the door to Val’s office, and sent Delia and Jonas inside. Trembling and wet but undisputedly free. Lucy Adams released a cry without any sound to it. As her family flew toward her, a smile broke over her face that could have lit the Astor House for a year.
The knot just at the base of my own throat went slack far too quickly, unspooling at a reckless speed. After handing over the station house’s medical kit for Delia’s wrists, I shut the door behind me and slumped against it.
Mercy,
I thought,
would have been proud of that night’s work.
I pictured her as she’d looked when gliding into rank rookeries and cellar hells. Madly fearless and half-smiling, passing out bread and salt and soap with no regard for the skin shade of the recipient in question. Poor and well-off alike thought her as deranged as she was generous, and she’d terrified me on behalf of her own health. And I’d adored her for it.
Sucking in a breath, I headed back down the hall.
“I owe you one,” I said to Valentine, who’d pulled up his tall chair behind the front counter. Setting my hat on the wood, I rubbed at my ruined temple. Of course the instant I’d stopped tensing my right eye in mute worry, half my head throbbed in dull revenge.
My brother and I were alone by that time. En route to Grand Street, Mr. Piest had peeled off in the direction of his own night circuit—stalwart as ever, though bleary about the eye. The three Committee men had recognized quicker than I’d done that no cab would take all of us and few enough would take the three of them in any case. To my stifled but cinderlike embarrassment. So they’d made the gentlemanly offer of parting ways, after I’d vowed to see the family to a temporary haven in the absence of Charles Adams. And thus the two living New York Wildes—one jelly-spined in relief and the other jelly-spined for self-inflicted reasons—had whisked Delia and Jonas away in an indecently
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