“How are you, Timothy?”
I smiled despite the gravity of the setting. When we’d worked together at Nick’s Oyster Cellar in Stone Street, which seemed millennia ago, Julius shelled upward of a thousand gleaming oysters a night. He’s quick and contemplative, with a calm, round face and deep-set eyes under inquisitive brows. My friend wore the clean but loose-fitting clothing of a carpenter after work hours, and he’d fragrant tea leaves braided into the rows of his hair. If it was a shock to see him, at least it was a pleasurable one. We’d worked together for so long, I think the pair of us could still serve a hundred stock jobbers blindfolded and never break a sweat. We’re sympathetic that way. In tune.
“Julius, what in hell are you doing here?” I gripped him by the arm. “And what have you been doing with my reputation?”
“Nothing it didn’t deserve, I calculate. Everyone, this is Timothy Wilde, Ward Six copper star. Meet the Reverend Richard Brown and George Higgins, of the New York Committee of Vigilance. And the third member would be me.”
City dwellers are inordinately fond of committees. Committees for temperance and against it, organizations supporting everything from the expulsion of the Irish to all-vegetable diets to secret fraternities. But I’d never heard of this one. “You’re part of a club?” I asked.
“No, a cause. We do what we can to keep free blacks alive and well and in the North, where they belong,” Julius explained. “People of color run the risk of capture every time they step outside. We do what we can to reduce the danger. It’s all run on a volunteer system, and any donations go toward keeping the streets safe. Mainly organizing patrols and night watches in colored neighborhoods, providing legal advice to blacks who find themselves in hot water with slave agents, that sort of thing. We try to take care of our own.”
“You’re an unofficial watchman?”
I shouldn’t have marveled, for Julius is square as they come, but the thought took a moment to settle. Smiling gravely, he tapped his forefinger against his chin, a wonderfully familiar little gesture he employs whenever I am surprised for no good reason.
“But for how long?”
“Nigh about three years by this time, I’d figure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Julius shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t want it getting around. You remember Nick—fair enough as bosses go and always paid us on time, but he liked me better the less he saw of me.” My old friend brushed his palms down his shirtfront. “Sit down, everyone. There isn’t much in the way of time.”
We seated ourselves—Julius and I in a set of matched armchairs with our backs to the fire, and Mrs. Adams, Reverend Brown, and Mr. Higgins spanning the settee. Richard Brown was thin and scholarly, with the bulge of a miniature book straining his waistcoat pocket, though I didn’t need the tiny Bible or Julius’s introduction to set him down as a minister from eighty yards. His face was worried but strangely peaceful—as if he’d accepted that the outcomes of his trials were in hands other than his.
George Higgins was much more intriguing a fellow. Taller and thicker built, with a kingly jaw and a very dark, almost blue-black complexion. He wore a carefully trimmed beard, a silver watch chain, and a green silk cravat, though his hand was calloused where it dangled from one crossed knee. The calluses could have meant anything—local blacks tend to average three jobs at minimum. But this Mr. Higgins was wealthy. Had the watch chain possibly been an inheritance, I wouldn’t have leapt to such a conclusion, but it was fashionably long and slender. Anyhow, silk cravats are capable of surviving a single New York month at best, and his gleamed sumptuously at me. He’d widely spaced, clear brown eyes with something flintlike gleaming at the back of them. They scraped over me as if uncertain what lay beneath my skin.
He was anxious, and
I smiled despite the gravity of the setting. When we’d worked together at Nick’s Oyster Cellar in Stone Street, which seemed millennia ago, Julius shelled upward of a thousand gleaming oysters a night. He’s quick and contemplative, with a calm, round face and deep-set eyes under inquisitive brows. My friend wore the clean but loose-fitting clothing of a carpenter after work hours, and he’d fragrant tea leaves braided into the rows of his hair. If it was a shock to see him, at least it was a pleasurable one. We’d worked together for so long, I think the pair of us could still serve a hundred stock jobbers blindfolded and never break a sweat. We’re sympathetic that way. In tune.
“Julius, what in hell are you doing here?” I gripped him by the arm. “And what have you been doing with my reputation?”
“Nothing it didn’t deserve, I calculate. Everyone, this is Timothy Wilde, Ward Six copper star. Meet the Reverend Richard Brown and George Higgins, of the New York Committee of Vigilance. And the third member would be me.”
City dwellers are inordinately fond of committees. Committees for temperance and against it, organizations supporting everything from the expulsion of the Irish to all-vegetable diets to secret fraternities. But I’d never heard of this one. “You’re part of a club?” I asked.
“No, a cause. We do what we can to keep free blacks alive and well and in the North, where they belong,” Julius explained. “People of color run the risk of capture every time they step outside. We do what we can to reduce the danger. It’s all run on a volunteer system, and any donations go toward keeping the streets safe. Mainly organizing patrols and night watches in colored neighborhoods, providing legal advice to blacks who find themselves in hot water with slave agents, that sort of thing. We try to take care of our own.”
“You’re an unofficial watchman?”
I shouldn’t have marveled, for Julius is square as they come, but the thought took a moment to settle. Smiling gravely, he tapped his forefinger against his chin, a wonderfully familiar little gesture he employs whenever I am surprised for no good reason.
“But for how long?”
“Nigh about three years by this time, I’d figure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Julius shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t want it getting around. You remember Nick—fair enough as bosses go and always paid us on time, but he liked me better the less he saw of me.” My old friend brushed his palms down his shirtfront. “Sit down, everyone. There isn’t much in the way of time.”
We seated ourselves—Julius and I in a set of matched armchairs with our backs to the fire, and Mrs. Adams, Reverend Brown, and Mr. Higgins spanning the settee. Richard Brown was thin and scholarly, with the bulge of a miniature book straining his waistcoat pocket, though I didn’t need the tiny Bible or Julius’s introduction to set him down as a minister from eighty yards. His face was worried but strangely peaceful—as if he’d accepted that the outcomes of his trials were in hands other than his.
George Higgins was much more intriguing a fellow. Taller and thicker built, with a kingly jaw and a very dark, almost blue-black complexion. He wore a carefully trimmed beard, a silver watch chain, and a green silk cravat, though his hand was calloused where it dangled from one crossed knee. The calluses could have meant anything—local blacks tend to average three jobs at minimum. But this Mr. Higgins was wealthy. Had the watch chain possibly been an inheritance, I wouldn’t have leapt to such a conclusion, but it was fashionably long and slender. Anyhow, silk cravats are capable of surviving a single New York month at best, and his gleamed sumptuously at me. He’d widely spaced, clear brown eyes with something flintlike gleaming at the back of them. They scraped over me as if uncertain what lay beneath my skin.
He was anxious, and
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