Virginia Hamilton Read Online Free PDF Page B

about theplantation that Big Walker Burns was once a freeman. That he had been tricked, caught, and brought down South. But Anthony never knew for certain if this was true, nor did any other of Mars John’s black folks. Big Walker never said anything about it directly.
    What matter any of it now? Anthony thought. Here I be, like a starved dog in his pen.
    Anthony’s stomach ached him, he was so hungry. He hadn’t eaten since sometime in the dayclean before this. The room stank from the odor of stale ale and sweat. Anthony felt dizzy, then sick to his stomach from the stench. He would have to have something to eat and soon, or he would faint dead away.
    Presently the heavy door to the jury room swung open. A man entered. He went over to Asa Butman. “Get him ready,” he said. “We have to take him down now.”
    He came over to Anthony. “Deputy Marshal Riley,” he said, introducing himself. “You are going to court now, Anthony. Go with Asa here. He will see that you fix yourself up a bit.”
    Anthony did as he was told. In a small room off to the side he washed his face and smoothed his hair. There was no comb or brush for him. He straightened his clothing. He took a tin cup of cold water that Asa offered him, but that was all he was given. When he and Butman came out again, Deputy Riley ordered irons closed around his wrists.
    Anthony went numb into himself. He moved down the steps like a sleepwalker. When he entered the room set aside in this state Court House as aFederal courtroom, he made no response to seeing Colonel Suttle and William Brent there flanked by men he had never seen before— their lawyers. Also present was the one called Marshal Freeman. Some ten of his men, deputies, were with him.
    Anthony took the prisoner’s seat across from the judge’s bench as he was directed by Asa.
    â€œI’m makin’ no promises, Tony,” Colonel Suttle said to him calmly as he seated himself, “and I’m makin’ no threats.”
    Anthony heard what Suttle said but could give no answer. He was aware of all that went on around him, but it was hard now for him to keep his mind on any one thing for long. His head felt light. He wanted so much just to lie down. The wrist irons and the chain that connected them grew heavier by the minute. Anthony couldn’t find the strength or will to lift a finger even to scratch his nose, which itched him. The itching became a dull aching. It in turn spread into a throbbing loneliness throughout his body. He felt miserably hot in his shoulders and deathly cold in his legs.
    Anthony bowed his head. For the rest of the time he sat as if hypnotized.
    Asa Butman and one of his men took their seats on either side of Anthony. Also present and seated was the U.S. Attorney for the Federal Government, District of Massachusetts, Benjamin Hallett. Hallett was a politician who believed his position as U.S. District Attorney gave him the right to oversee the government’s policy of rigidly executing the Fugitive Slave Act. He agreed with that policy, in fact. He and the other officials presenthoped that the examination would be completed as soon as possible. There had been no inkling of a fugitive arrest in the morning papers. Reporters knew nothing yet about what was going on. Colonel Suttle and Mr. Brent intended to take the prisoner out of Boston and down South before the dreaded Boston “radicals” knew about his capture. Ben Hallett hoped they would, too. For if the abolitionists found out, they had a hundred ways in which they might come to Burns’s defense. They might try to mob Colonel Suttle or even have him prosecuted for kidnapping.
    The prisoner was definitely the slave Anthony Burns. He had admitted as much when he had first faced the colonel. It was a simple matter, then, of going through the proceeding according to law. Colonel Suttle had provided an affidavit of ownership, and Commissioner Loring had