No Good Deed 34

Miss Winona Shepherd, complexion coloured a most fetching scarlet, covered her mouth with a dainty hand. The Reverend's mouth slid sharply closed as though not operated by the hinge of a jaw at all.

'Silver?'

There was no point in using a dozen words where a solitary one would suffice, after all.

'Of course! The Underground Railroad does not run on fresh air, you dolt!'

The preacher said, spittle spotting his own black shirt-front.

The gleam in his eye indicated that, most likely, he himself was a large part of the Railroad's expenses. There was nothing, I believed, to provide greater opportunity for a man of intelligence to turn a profit than the greed of others. With this in mind, I asked,

'What silver?'

It was a mistake.

'Don't you know?' The Reverend, as noted before, seemed a particularly muscular Christian and I doubted I could best him in a brawl. Furthermore, it would indeed have been a breach of good manners to knife or shoot him in his own church, I felt. Therefore, when he took a threatening step toward me, I took a prudent step backward.

'How should I know, Sir? Are there not eager ears to overhear the most clandestine plans? My trip here has been both a dry run and a most necessary rendezvous, has it not?'

It sounded most plausible to my own ears.

The angry Christian remained unconvinced, as his clenched fists betokened. Clearly he thought me some black spy, employed by his real or imagined adversaries. Miss Winona Shepherd interposed,

'It is natural, suppose he had been in possession of the plan? They are not above torture!'

Again, some distress or excitement caused her to warble a little. The identity of the mysterious 'they' held my interest rather more than Miss Shepherd's emotional whirlygig.

Erastus Newberry let out a loud, “Harrumph!", whose 'r' he rolled like a Grand Union navvy. Then he shouted to the Negroes, 'Stay here, we'll be back before long,' before we departed the church. Newberry made sure to lock the door behind us with a shining brass key.

The Reverend escorted us to yet another clap-board building, this time several genuine storeys high. He turned to Winona Shepherd and despatched her on some errand whispered into her ear with an intimacy un-befitting a clergyman. The woman skipped daintily off in the direction of a building marked with the sign 'Clemens General Store', before going in. I made a mental note to avoid visiting this emporium myself, if at all possible.

The building before which the clergyman and I stood looked like a poor quality bawdy-house; the windows were heavily curtained though it was yet daylight, the door was more imposing than the building itself and the only thing of real note about it was the large painted sign stationed centrally above the entrance bearing the letters, 'Y.M.C.A.' . A scruffily painted banner was draped lop-sidedly below: it read 'New Opinned, Orl Welcum.'