“Where are you going?” the livery owner asked Victor.
“Harvard.”
“You work there?”
“No. I’m on my way to get my slave back.”
“Your slave?” Lowell asked, his tone tightening like a jack-in-the-box about to spring.
He nodded. “Someone kidnapped him.”
“Why would someone take your slave to Harvard?”
“My brother-in-law is planning to free him,” Victor said, as if he were indicting Alden in the worst possible crime.
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely,” Victor replied. “I’m going to find my slave and make sure my brother-in-law is flogged for stealing him.”
“How about the slave?”
“Perhaps I’ll have him flogged too.”
The image of his own father flashed into Alden’s mind, the whip in his hand ready to lash Benjamin, and he shuddered. He would return a son to his father, but not a slave to his master. He had to keep Isaac away from Victor, even if he had to escort the boy up to Canada on his own.
“I have a friend named Jameson who runs a livery ten blocks north of here, next to Park Street Church,” Lowell directed. “He rents out coaches for hire, and his horses are much better in the snow than mine.”
Victor stepped toward the door. “I’ll find him before dark.”
“I’m always glad to help someone of a like mind.”
“I thought Boston was chock-full of abolitionists.”
“Only a few of them around here.”
Alden stayed in the stall several more minutes until he was certain Victor was gone. “What’s ten blocks north?” Alden asked when he stepped back into the alley.
Lowell smiled. “The burying ground.”
Alden laughed.
“He’ll never even make it there tonight in this snow,” Lowell said. “You aim to keep that boy as a slave?”
Alden shook his head. “I’m trying to find him a way up to Canada.”
The man eyed the snow again. “Perhaps I will drive you to Harvard myself.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to change my plans.” Again. Victor may not be able to get transportation today, but he wouldn’t be far behind Alden and Isaac on the route to Cambridge.
“There aren’t many places you can go by foot or carriage in this weather,” Lowell said. “Certainly not up to Canada.”
The banknotes his mother had given him for tuition were back in the room. She may have meant for him to finish his schooling, but she’d also told him to use his education for good.
“How about a ship to California?” he asked.
The man eyed him for a moment. “We’ve got two kinds of ships that leave from our harbor. The slow boat goes all the way down around Cape Horn, ending up four or five months later in San Francisco if the weather’s decent. Seven months if Mother Nature’s fighting you.”
“What about the faster route?”
