Allegheny Road

Chapter One

Scott Patton’s Life

Two blocks shy of the courthouse, the way ahead became impassable. Hordes of people filled the street, marching back and forth in angry outcry over something that was not immediately self-evident. The driver stood to see farther ahead and seemed not to like what he saw. He spat into the street, cursed, then turned around to address his passenger.

Sir, I’m afraid you’ll have to hoof it the rest of the way from here. There’s still a police roadblock up ahead, and this mob makes it impossible just to reach anywhere near the courthouse. Sorry, but this is the best I can do for you.

Scott rose from his seat and leaned forward, over the driver’s shoulder, taking in the view from the higher vantage point.

When did this start? You must’ve been in and out of town several times today. How long has it been like this?

Couple of hours, Sir.

Over what? What’s the unrest about?

"I ‘spect it’s over them abolitionists caught running the Railroad yesterday. All the talk was of transferring them out of town today, and then big trouble of some sort. Some want them lynched, some want them free, and it’s been like this the last two trips I’ve made in and out.

Hard to say what it’ll come to. But there it is, isn’t it?

Transferred, you say? No, they weren’t supposed to take them anywhere until after the trial, Scott said. That’s why I’m here, to see them first. I’ve got to get in there! Here, keep it all.

Scott tossed the driver a gold coin far in excess of the fare and jumped down from the hack, hauling his bag out of the footwell and wading into the crowd, which had pressed itself into a dense mass up against a makeshift barrier at the southwestern corner of the courthouse square, which also housed the jail.

Moving in, Scott could see through gaps in the crowd that police stood at irregular intervals, eyed darkly by the masses. Mutterings rippled through the mob, to the general effect that the coppers were implicated and ought to be arresting each other, but the cause of this anger was unclear.

What’s going on, what’s this all about? Scott asked of those around him.

Couple of people got shot, right out from under the cops’ noses. They let the killers get clear away and now they’re trying to make a clean face of it, like they’re doing their duty investigating or something. Corrupt bastards.

One of the officers patrolling the line caught the man’s words and reached for his pistol but Scott took that opportunity to barge in, diverting the cop’s attention from the agitator. The policeman grabbed Scott by the collar before he could slip under the rope.

Just what do you think you’re doing, Mister?

I have business in the jail, I need to get through. I’m here to see two defendants. I have a right to get in there. Do your duty, Sir, let me in.

It’s impossible, man, it’s all locked down, all tied up as the scene of a crime. No one in or out until it’s been dealt with. But no worry, whoever you’re here to see ain’t going anywhere meantime.

How much longer? Just let me go in and see two prisoners, it has nothing to do with your crime.

Maybe it does. The two deceased were prisoners. That’s the thing of it, so unless you’re next of kin—

Prisoners, deceased. Wait a minute. What are their names?

What is yours, Sir?

Scott Patton—

Oh lord help us....

A cold hand throttled Scott around the heart. No!

Scott threw himself forward again and the beefy officer bore him to the ground, drawing his gun, holding it butt-first, ready to brain Scott if he didn’t submit.

You be good, boy. Understand? Be calm. Now get up, I’ll take you inside if you behave.

Yes, let’s go.

The officer helped Scott rise and pulled the rope out of the way, gesturing the crowd aside with his firearm. He walked Scott down along the high rock wall that surrounded the limestone-faced jail, to the front entrance on Sycamore.

Scott could barely breathe now, and as he caught sight of two canvas covered mounds lying in the street, his legs weakened and he started to wobble. The only thing that kept him up was an odd sense of unreality, that this couldn’t be true, that it was a mistake and he would find Susannah and his father safe in a cell on the inside.

He seems to know them, his escort told a detective standing by the bodies making notes on a pad.

Yeah? So what’s your name? he asked Scott. Hearing the answer, he muttered to himself and jotted something else down.

Well, Sir, I’m afraid I must inform you—

No! Now Scott’s legs did fail him and he sank to his knees, and the world turned gray around him. The detective bent over him, touching his shoulder.

Be brave, now, Sir. You’d better come with me. He offered Scott a hand up and led him through the gate into the jail offices, on the way bellowing for the chaplain, who rushed out and took up a position on Scott’s other side.

Come this way and sit down, son, the chaplain told him. The two men guided Scott to a bench seat and he held hard to both their hands, still not yet believing the enormity of what had befallen him.

Both of them? he said.

Yes, they were apparently targeted specifically, the detective told him.

How? With police all around, how?

We can’t talk about that now, it’s being investigated.

You just let somebody walk up and kill them?

Well, you see, it wasn’t quite that way, the policeman answered. But you’re in no condition to speak of this now.

As if from the depths of a great well, Scott heard his voice asking who had committed the heinous deed.

So far, they’ve gotten away, and they were masked, no way to identify them, and it all happened so fast, you see, the police officer said.

Then let me give you a name. Nathan Sommervell. The message I received said it was he who set them up for arrest. But he was involved in the same thing, he moves the slaves across the river for them. I want him brought in!

I don’t know anything about this, but we’ll look into it.

Sommervell, Sommervell, the chaplain said. Wasn’t there a man by that name in earlier, inquiring about whether they would be released on bail? Perhaps he should be brought in—

No, Father! You don’t know what you’re talking about. You stay out of this, hear me? The detective seized the priest by the shoulder and escorted him away, leaving Scott alone on the bench, where he slowly slumped over, sobbing, shuddering, wishing he were the one who lay in the street under a tarpaulin.

Susannah was dead. His life was over...this was a blow that Scott didn’t know how to survive. He couldn’t live, he couldn’t make it another hour without her in his life. He had always imagined that if he lost her somehow, he would kill himself, but never believed it would come to that.

Well it had come to it, and all he wanted was the blessed relief of oblivion. Had the jail been located by the river, he would have flown out the door and dashed himself to his death on the rocks below the wharf so he wouldn’t have to suffer another second. Truly, the thought of grabbing the gun from the next cop happening by and blowing his brains out began to appeal, and he was trying to formulate the moves it would take to do it when the policeman who had fetched him inside returned and unceremoniously pulled him to his feet.

Listen, pal, you’re needed back here.

The officer propelled Scott to a room behind the front offices, where he discovered his mother, newly arrived from their home, still absorbing the same unbearable news.

The chaplain was with her now and he whispered to Scott, She hasn’t said a word, nothing. She needs you, son.

Scott clutched his mother to him and together they sobbed to the point of exhaustion.

From that time on, despite his own anguish, Scott devoted himself to his mother’s needs, the doing of which was perhaps the only thing that kept him in one piece. In another hour, Susannah’s brother and sister arrived to help, and to mourn. Later came an aunt and uncle, who gently took charge of Scott and his mother, driving them home, sedating them with potions provided by the family doctor, and then putting them to bed.

The last thing Scott remembered as consciousness waned was Susannah’s sister Jennifer, her face streaked with tears, pulling up a chair beside his bed and squeezing his hand.

Chapter Two

The sedation wore off some time in the evening and Scott sat up in bed, not immediately remembering the horror his life had become. For a moment, he thought he must still be in the hotel in Columbus, until he noticed his sister-in-law Jennifer next to him in a chair, bent over, sleeping awkwardly against the bedside table.

And then it hit him. Susie.

Scott let out a wail and Jennifer was instantly awake, holding him, whispering, I know, I know, over and over.

For awhile, she rocked him in her arms, but now she was also crying, moaning, "Why, why? Of all people, why them? I don’t understand it.

All Susie did, all she stood for, was helping people. Even if it broke the law to help runaways, why did someone have to murder her?

I don’t know but I’ll find out. He realized as he said it that he meant it.

It was masked men, she said, "those awful vigilantes who did it, you know. They didn’t murder the Negroes, they caught them so they could be returned for bounty, but why did they have to kill her? And your father?

Why?

Jennifer broke down completely now, sobbing so pitifully that even in Scott’s own state of sorrow, her anguish ripped at him as much as his mother’s earlier in the day and he held Jennifer as hard as she had held him earlier.

He was caressing her cheek, trying to calm her down, when someone knocked on the edge of the open door.

Yes? Oh, Billy. Come in, what is it?

Somethin’ big, Sir. You need to come, it’s ‘portant.

No, ask someone else, I’m in no condition to help you, can’t you see?

"Yes Sir, but you must. It’s about the...the trouble. Something downstairs, you understand? You must see, no one else can do it."

Downstairs?

Yes Sir. Please.

Scott let go of Jennifer and knelt before her, taking her hands in his, holding them gently before him.

This is something I think I must go attend to. Come with me, Jenny, I don’t want you to have to be alone right now. Come along.

He led her out to where more distant relatives from both sides were putting together a buffet dinner for all who could stand to eat, while speaking of plans for the funerals. Scott delivered Jenny into the arms of an aunt, then returned to Billy.

Okay, show me.

Billy and Gloria were husband and wife, former slaves who had been brought north and freed years ago. The Pattons, Thaddeus and his wife Agnes, had taken them into their home, given them a room and provided for them as if they were part of the family. But more than that, to Scott, despite the fact that they had never lost the habit of calling him Sir, they were almost surrogate grandparents. The pair did not have to work in the house but they insisted upon it, taking up the role of domestic servants, and only with reluctance had they first accepted pay for their work, although by now, they were comfortable with the arrangement.

Gloria was hovering around now, wringing her hands, while Billy tried to hasten Scott to the secret trap panel leading down into the cellar.

Gloria, if anybody comes, slam the door hard, to signal us, Billy told his wife, then preceded Scott down the steep flight of steps. Here, below ground level, the house was not equipped with gas lights, so the old man lit the way with a lantern, taking Scott to the hiding places in the bowels of the house.

To fool anyone who wandered this far, if they did not already know the secret purposes of the cellar, it was outfitted to appear as a storage room for preserved fruit. Billy tugged aside a row of bins filled with empty bottles, part of the false image, and Scott helped him lever open another false panel. Soon as he had room, Scott accepted the lantern and wormed his way in.

Coming, Bill?

Yes Sir.

Scott reached back and offered the old man assistance through the crack.

The odors of human habitation, the evidence of occupants pent up too long in this place assailed Scott’s senses immediately.

Billy, what is going on, what are you showing me?

"Sir, the polices, they come to the door up theah, they bang around, they catch Miss Susannah and find the tunnel, but they didn’t make it to the ‘partments.

"Sir, they wasn’t seven runaways, they was nine, and just now when I heard it was seven caught, I knew that mean two more might still be here, and they is. Miss Susannah must’ve got them hid in time before they cotched her.

The polices didn’t know how many, they believed seven, so they didn’t think to come look. Now that they’s all gone, I could come and find them. You need to know, something must be done for them before they die in theah.

"My God, now I understand, Billy. Let’s get at them before they do die. Come on.

Show me.

Scott had designed all this and built much of it, working with his father and Jennifer’s brother Tom. They had not dared trust anyone outside the family to know about this layout, so they had to make it themselves. Three separate chambers, actually tiny apartments, had been outfitted around the common room in which Scott stood now, each hidden by false walls, quarters enough to comfortably house twelve adults. In the center, a panel opened into the tunnel leading through the hill, down which the passengers normally loaded into wagons out in a grove of trees behind the house. Now that the secret was out, no more operations could ever be run from here again.

The fugitives might be in any of the other three apartments, and Billy indicated the one on the left. Scott applied the crowbar the old man handed him, until the hidden door creaked open....

The woman shielded her face from the light and the child in her arms whimpered. Clearly they had been enduring in here for days in the dark. And food and water were running out.

Good lord, Scott said. "Dear lady, come out, you and your child, we can’t leave you in here this way. It’s safe, I’m one of the conductors. Cover your baby’s eyes or she’ll have pain from the light.

Is she well, are you well?

Yes Suh, Massa, we well.

At her manner of address, Scott shook his head. "No, Ma’am, you don’t call me Massa, I’m a friend. Come, come, sit down a minute in this bigger room, let’s talk.

Were you all alone on the escape? Anybody else in your family with you?

No Suh. My man, he stay behind fo’ us, he still theah. We miss him terrible, but he wanted us free. We was with seven other friends, now they...gone on ahead.

"No, Ma’am, I’m sorry, they’re not gone, they were caught. You’re the only ones of that group who remain free. So we have to find a way to get you on to Canada.

Will you tell me your name, and your child’s?

I be’s Thelma, this be Lucy.

Where did you come from, where is your man left behind?

Virginny, Shenandoah. Near Lexington, plantation named Marthaland. Terrible Massa, we’re so afraid for Daddy.

I understand that, Thelma, and believe me, I know about losing someone you love. Let us hold to the hope that he’s still alive. And let’s keep the two of you that way, too. My wife...if she were here, she would do anything to get you away safe, and I promise to do the same. But for right now, you’ll have to wait, it will be awhile before I can take you out.

We’re scared.

"I understand, Dear. There’s no use my telling you not to be, but you must have been through a lot already to get here safe. That means you’re brave and strong. Be that way a little longer, all right? Just a little longer, a little more and we’ll get you into Canada.

Tell me, what’s your man’s name?

Josiah. Josiah Ward.

"I see.

Billy, will you stay with them for awhile, keep them company while I go look into things?

Yes Sir, ‘course, Sir.

Scott squeezed the old man’s arm and returned through the secret ways back upstairs. Knowing now that because of this discovery, he would no longer be taking to his bed, or doing himself some final harm, any time soon, Scott wandered instead out onto the porch that gazed out toward the grove of stately old oak trees, on the lower slope of the hill under which the tunnel ran.

He cleared his mind as much as he could and mentally composed a letter.

Dear Lettie, he planned to write,

I’m sending you two friends of mine, the last of Susie’s children, as you will

understand. My wonderful Susie has been murdered and I am in tatters, but I must

finish her work, of which these two precious souls are part. Please help them all you

can and think of Susie and me when you do. I cannot say what will become of my life now, but Susie’s death as nearly undone me.

I have a mission now, however. The father of these two is left behind in Virginia

and I intend to go bring him out as well.

I love you still and always shall, and hope you are happy and well.

He closed his eyes, and brought Leticia’s face before him, as it was when he saw her last, more than seven years ago. Susannah had never met Leticia, but Scott had put the two women in touch through correspondence, and of course had written Lettie, himself, and had received many letters in return, enough to know she was alive and well. She had taken up the job of receiving and housing fellow escaped slaves over the border in Canada beyond Michigan. All those that Susannah, Scott, and his father had transported away from here before this disaster had eventually gone to Leticia.

Seated there, the idea that had popped into his head—traveling down to Virginia and rescuing Josiah Ward—began to take complete hold inside of him. Why not? What was there to lose?

Yes! This was the thing he would do, the very cap to Susannah’s work, and if it killed him in the doing of it, well as long as the father made free, Scott did not at that moment care. It was something to live for, a monument to Susannah, and yes, to his first love, Leticia, even if it was also something worthy of dying for.

He jumped to his feet and tracked down pen and paper, writing the letter just as he had composed it. Then he set to work to make it all reality.

The most direct route to the next Underground Railroad Station was a major pike from Cincinnati to Columbus that paralleled the tracks of the other railroad, the one of iron. Vigilantes patrolled the pike from Cincinnati to Columbus, but most of the UGRR stations were not located on the main road.

To reach the next station where Scott would deliver Thelma and Lucy, he would follow a series of farm roads that zigged and zagged across the countryside, and although their indirectness would add miles to the journey, bounty hunters and others looking to intercept runaway deliveries made no attempt to cover all these routes.

In the horrific time between learning he had lost Susannah and his father, and now, the question had not entered Scott’s head of why he had not also been arrested as part of the gang that had operated the station at his family’s home in the northern part of Cincinnati. It would have been reasonable for the police to surmise that if the father and the wife were engaged in freeing runaway slaves, the husband—that is, Scott—would have likely also been participating, or at least acting as an accomplice.

Only one of two answers made sense: either the police had assumed Scott was not aware of his wife’s and father’s perfidy, or the arrests for aiding fugitives slaves was only an excuse, the real reason for bringing in Susannah and his father being some other cause entirely. Scott already had a suspicion of what that other cause could be.

Nathan Sommervell, his father’s partner in the shipping business had also participated directly in the operations of the Patton family in transporting slaves from Kentucky to Canada. Living across the river in Covington, Kentucky, he had received incoming runaways and moved them over the Ohio into Cincinnati, after which Scott’s father took over, relaying them to the Patton home, where Susannah had hidden them in the cellar, until Scott could drive them to the next station. Despite being directly involved in the operation, Sommervell had turned Susannah and Scott’s father in to the authorities. That suggested that his motive had nothing to do with issues of escaping slaves or he could have acted long ago, and would have never participated, himself.

A ready-made motive existed for Sommervell to want Thaddeus Patton out of the picture. The death of Thaddeus Patton would open up the company to buyout of his half by Sommervell. That was something he had desired for a long time and Thaddeus had refused. A simmering feud had begun to grow between them and it seemed clear now how it had ended.

To carry out the coup by way of murder, Sommervell had almost certainly insulated himself by hiring gunmen who disguised their actions as an attack on abolitionists. The suspicious reaction of the police to the name Sommervell and the accusations of the crowd suggested the police had made sure the assassinations were carried out even with the prisoners in their control. How those among the police who cooperated fit into Sommervell’s scheme was not certain, but it probably involved a cash payoff.

In any case, before he left to find Josiah Ward, Scott would make sure he blocked any possibility of Sommervell taking over the company by exercising his own rights, shared with his father and his mother. Failing to catch Scott in his net had been Sommervell’s big mistake.

The danger still existed that the police would be watching the exit through which the first seven runaways had left the house and had been caught. Despite the fact that they ad not arrested Scott, the police might yet be waiting to catch him in the act. What stood in Scott’s favor was that they apparently believed they had apprehended the entire latest load of escapees, so there might be a short window in which they would not be looking for Scott to make another run so soon.

With that in mind, before he set to work, in evening light, Scott made a survey all around the area where he must load Thelma and Lucy aboard, assuring himself the police were not watching. While he would not be able to see if police moved in after dark, neither would they be able to see him, the wagon, or the two escapees. It would be difficult to carry out the operation in total darkness, but Scott had conducted such business in the same conditions many times and knew virtually by feel where he would be going for the first couple of miles, leading the horses on foot, until he reached the first road he needed heading north, after which he could dare to put up lights.

The mission was totally successful; while he had only moved Thelma and Lucy fifteen miles closer to the border, they were landed for a while in a well-appointed station in the Railroad, and could be sent on when the conductors felt safe to do so.

Once they had been settled into their temporary quarters, Scott hugged Thelma one last time.

I hardly know you, but I’m very sad to say goodbye. Believe me, I’m going to miss you and Lucy, he whispered. I wish you all the luck in the world.

He kissed her cheek and the baby’s one more time.

Thank you so much, Mister. You’re a good soul.

I’d like for you to remember me to Lucy when she’s old enough to know, Scott told Thelma and she avidly promised.

That was it, reluctantly he turned away, back to the wagon. He was in tears when he climbed aboard and pulled back down the lane.

Scott openly drove into the nearest town now, relieved that he carried nothing which could lead to his arrest if he were investigated. Close to the railway station, an inn beckoned to him and he took a room, exhausted from being up all night, as well as from some of the hangover left by the sleeping potion he had swallowed before he learned of Thelma and Lucy. Though it was well into morning now, he flopped into bed and sank into merciful sleep within seconds.

In the dream, Susannah smiled upon him, blessing his mission of the night before, convincing him as nothing else could have done that he must finish the job he had proposed, going to the Shenandoah Valley and rescuing Josiah Ward.

For Scott Patton, this mission was a saving grace; without it, without a dangerous and daring job to do now, he knew he could still very easily slide into a morass of depression over Susannah and his father. Certainly, without his beloved, he would never be happy again, he knew that, and he still had no interest in living any longer than it took to carry out his mission. But at least that mission gave him purpose in the meantime, although it would keep him alive and suffering longer than he really wanted to.

On the other hand, carrying it out would require weeks or months and Scott doubted he had the emotional stamina to suffer over Susannah that long. Clearly, then, he needed more than just the quest for Josiah Ward to keep him alive. It would require anger, anger at the murderers and anyone who abetted them, to provide the added impulse he required to contend with the constant aching. But that, the anger, he did possess in abundance.

With that understood, he must go to work on the secondary mission first: he would not rest until he solved the murders and exacted his price on all those in any way involved.

Chapter Three

The same day he returned to Cincinnati, Scott reported straight to the offices of Ed Smithson, the family lawyer.

Laying down the facts he had developed, Scott received in turn some shocking bits of information from Smithson.

Almost the moment Thaddeus was declared dead, Sommervell moved to buy out your father’s part in the business. The money to do so came from a railroad line. And what line, you ask. The very line over which, until a few days before the murder, George B. McClellan was president.

No, now wait a minute. You’re aware that it was McClellan I was visiting in Columbus. He’s assuming command of the Ohio militia.

Yes, I knew that.

Scott sat back in the plush chair and sighed.

"Are you saying this is all connected? McClellan bankrolls Sommervell to buy my father out, while Dad is still alive, resigns the presidency and goes to