Chasing the North Star (31 page)

He looked at the wrapped present on the bed. He'd splurged in his rush of affection for Angel. He'd wasted his money. It was a beautiful scarf, with colors bright as gemstones. The fabric was shimmery, gleaming like sunlight on troubled water. Suddenly Joshua knew what to do with the scarf: he'd give it to Mrs. Belue tomorrow. He hadn't thought of taking a present to the Belues, but he would give the scarf to Mrs. Belue, who'd been so kind to him so many times.

I
N THE DA
Y
S AFTER
Christmas, Joshua worked at the mill as usual, and he began to read the novel that he'd started that fateful day in the barn loft at the Williams place. But after reading a few pages every evening, his thoughts would return to Angel. He tried to think of other things, but always there was Angel at the back of his mind. He'd been a simpleton to leave her behind, and ignore her after she arrived in Ithaca. She'd followed him all the way from North Carolina. She'd comforted him on the train after following him to Winchester, and she was the only person in Ithaca who could make him happy. He thought of the color of her shoulders in the firelight. He thought of the way she had of nudging him with her big hip. He recalled how deft she was at stealing eggs from a henhouse early in the morning so they could eat breakfast.

In the days before New Year's, a period of heavy snow began. Wind roared across the frozen lake and flung drifts into the streets and yards. Each morning Joshua shoveled a path out to the street from the porch of the rooming house. He walked with head down and ears wrapped in a scarf up the hill to the mill, and returned after dark to his room. Joshua had wondered before how people in the North lived through winters amid ice and snow and bone-cracking wind, and now he found out. They did it mostly by staying indoors. The farms had big barns where hay and grain were stored, and cows and horses stayed inside their stalls until spring thawed out the snowy pastures. Children might play in the snow, sliding and building snowmen, but they soon ran back inside to warm their hands and feet by the fire. Men who had to work outside bundled up and took breaks to warm themselves inside or by bonfires.

The fact was, winter was a sociable time. When blizzards roared down the lake, people were more friendly. They helped each other. Some who were usually glum became cheerful when they had to stumble through deep snow to get to work. In the evenings Joshua read
David Copperfield
or the newspaper by the fire in Mrs. Gregg's parlor. On especially cold nights the landlady served hot cider with spices in it. At the end of every day in the harshest weather, people seemed to feel they'd achieved a victory over the elements just by surviving.

It took almost a week for Joshua to admit to himself that he had to see Angel again. He had to eat his pride and his resentment. He had to humble himself and admit he had a lot to learn about Angel, and about himself. She was less than two years older than him, but she'd experienced far more of life than he had.

It was on New Year's Eve that he finally made up his mind that he had to try once again to see her. It hurt Joshua's pride to think he had to go back to the hotel where he might find her with another customer. But by then it seemed he had no choice. There was nobody else in Ithaca for him to be with and love. Nobody else understood where he'd come from, or cared about him. The choice was inevitable, he saw.

Ithaca was almost as festive on New Year's Eve as it had been at Christmas. Most of the decorations were still in place and candles burned in the windows. New snow had whitened the streets and roofs as if they had been repainted. Stars shivered so bright, they seemed hung just above the houses. But when Joshua reached the corner of Buffalo Street something stopped him. The sky to the north was red, a glowing rose red that stretched from horizon to horizon. And then he saw trails in the red and other colors, green and blue, that hung like curtains and waved and trembled.

In church he'd heard about the Second Coming, the end of the world. Was this the Great Tribulation? Was the sky falling and time coming to an end? But even as Joshua caught his breath and felt his heart thump in his chest, he remembered the description of the Northern Lights he'd heard from Rev. Belue. This was the aurora people talked about, coming like fireworks on New Year's Eve, welcoming in the New Year.

The colors and the curtains wove around far up in the sky, getting brighter in one place, fading in another. It was the green that seemed strangest, a green light in the night sky, eerie and mysterious. No wonder people thought the Northern Lights could foretell terrible things and dramatic changes. But maybe they foretold good things, too. Maybe they were a favorable omen for the coming year.

Joshua watched the display for several minutes. He wished Angel was there to view the spectacle with him; it would be even more beautiful. Maybe if he hurried it would not be too late for her to see the show in the northern sky. Beyond all the color, the North Star blazed just where it always was.

As Joshua approached the hotel, he decided to use the back door and the back stairs this time. He'd not repeat his mistake of Christmas Eve. He would quickly find the back stairs and climb to Angel's room. Surely there would be a name on the door or something to guide him to the right room.

A party was underway on the first floor of the hotel. A band played soft music and people were dancing. He could see their gliding shadows through the candlelit windows. When Joshua entered the building from the rear, he almost bumped into a man and woman in fancy dress kissing at the bottom of the stairs. The smell of perfume charged the air. The light was so dim in the stairwell, Joshua had to feel his way up the steps. Normally people carried a lamp or candle when they climbed to the upper floors, but as he had neither, he touched the wall and took careful steps. When he reached the top landing, he saw a thin string of light under the doorway, and he opened the door to see a hall dimly lit by one small lamp.

There must have been ten doors on either side of the corridor, all looking the same. He walked slowly down the hall, searching for telltale light under a door, listening for the sound of laughter or conversation. In one room he passed there was the sound of snoring. Most rooms seemed deserted. He passed a room where there was a light under the door, but he walked on, hoping to find a clue to tell him which was Angel's room. When he reached the end of the hall and still had found no indication of which room might be Angel's, he returned to the door with light under it and knocked quietly, holding his breath.

I
T WAS LATE MARCH
before the snow really began to disappear in the woods on the hills above town. Even after the snow was gone on the streets, and ice had fallen away from the waterwheel at the mill, the hills were still white, and gold and copper in early morning and late afternoon. Sunset turned the lake into a wide boulevard paved with gold.

One Sunday afternoon, when he could see the bare ground in patches on the hills, Joshua decided it was time to fulfill a promise he'd made in the fall after arriving in Ithaca. Wearing his gloves and scarf, he climbed the trail above the mill, which was still muddy from thaw and melting drifts. He took care to find footholds on rocks and roots.

Many pine trees and cedar trees grew along the ridge, on the edge of the gorge. But what he was looking for was an oak tree, preferably a large oak tree with wide, spreading limbs. He followed the path beyond the bluff where you could look down on the mill and all of Ithaca and the lake, and came to a little cornfield enclosed by woods. The corn had never been gathered, and the stalks had been knocked down by wind and snow. Deer tracks, turkey tracks, geese tracks, printed the ground where ears spilled kernels into the mud. Joshua wondered who would have planted a field up there only to abandon it.

To avoid the thaw mud, he walked around the edge of the field, through briars and brush. Beyond the sumac bushes along the clearing, pines gave way to hardwoods, maples, gum trees, shagbark hickories. Joshua entered the woods and picked his way among vines and undergrowth, and then he saw the oak tree.

It was a noble tree with silver, sooty bark, a trunk at least five feet thick at the base, with branches spreading over the other trees. It was older than the other trees, and must have stood there before the white men came to the region. It was a miracle the ancient tree had been spared by the axe. It had dignity and strength, and seemed to stand for a kind of truth. It reached high into the spring sky, but was balanced, perfect all around.

Joshua looked about for a rock. What he needed was a special stone, small enough to be moved, but noticeable. Most of the rocks in the area were flat gray shale, rocks that melted a little when wet or chalked off when rubbed in dry weather. What he wanted was a harder stone, a rounded stone. He searched among the undergrowth, the thickets of vines and briars, the cedars with white shadows, but found only flat rocks. He looked along the edges of the field, avoiding the creamy thaw mud.

And then he saw the rock pile at the corner of the clearing. Some farmer, or more likely his children, had carried rocks out of the field for decades and piled them in a cairn at the corner of the patch. They'd probably dragged stones on sleds and hauled them in carts to clear the ground. Joshua picked among the rocks and found many kinds and shapes. He found blocks and cubes, broken fragments, sheets and plates, and stones shaped like potatoes. And then he saw one rounded almost like an egg, tan colored, about the size of a watermelon. He knew as soon as he spotted it that this was his witness rock. It was a stone that had been waiting for him for years, for ages. With his pocketknife he scratched his initials on the stone.

It took all his strength to lift the rock out of the briars and raise it to his chest. He staggered and stumbled through the underbrush and reeled with the weight. Once he had to drop the stone to the ground to rest, but eventually he brought it to the big oak tree. Out of breath and sore, he placed the rock on bare ground at the base of the great oak.

Joshua knew this would be his special place, the spot he would come to from time to time to remember his escape from the Williams Place and his arrival in Ithaca, to reaffirm his strength and hope, his love. Whatever happened, he had come this far. The oak tree and thawing woods and glowing rock bore witness to his progress, his pilgrimage to this particular place.

And then he turned back toward the town, knowing that Sarepta would be there, waiting for him. She'd probably ask where in hell he'd been to get his boots and his pants so muddy.

Twenty

Sarepta

I knew Joshua was going to ask me to marry him long before he knew it himself. He read books and had all those names in his head and could narrate stories and tell facts you never heard of. But he didn't know himself as well as I did. And that is still true to this very day. I saw he was going to come to me out of the cold because he didn't have anywhere else to go. I was the only place he had for comfort and love.

So when he showed up out of the dark to say he loved me and always had, I teased him a little and asked when he was going to up and leave me again. When was he going to run off on his own as he had done already four times. But all the same I told him yes, because I knew he was my only hope, too, in this shivering place. I was all he had left of home, and when that Preacher Belue married us in his fine church, I wore a turban just like the one my mama wrapped around her head for jubilee. There was no jubilee in these winter hills by the lake except what I made my own self.

One thing I liked about Joshua was how he could always spin a tale. He could talk big to the white folks in Ithaca, like he had read a lot of books and knew just what to do. He remembered everything he heard, and he could spread more bullshit with his tongue than ten wagonloads and men with pitchforks. And Preacher Belue loved it, and everybody in the mill and at the church seemed to love it, too. And they made a fuss over Joshua like he was somebody special.

He worked as a janitor at the mill and next thing I knew he was put in charge of fixing things, of keeping all the machines running. And whether he knew what to do or not, he always acted like he did. And that was almost as good as knowing, for he learned quick and remembered.

Now Joshua wanted to teach me to read, but I told him it wouldn't do any good, but he kept on till I gave in and he taught me to write my name and make letters and read a little bit so I could tell street signs and count money and tell time by the clock on the mantel. And once I started reading I kept going, for I found it was fun. And finally I learned almost as many big words as Joshua had, in the Bible and in newspapers, and in the dictionary he bought, and all the novels we got from the lending library.

But I hadn't forgot my dream on the road in Virginia when I saw those houses with pretty flower gardens and apple trees and cherry trees and chicken houses with big brown eggs in pine straw nests. I loved flowers much as I loved good potato patties and hog sausage with pepper in it. After we got the house on Albany Street, the first thing I did was put geraniums in boxes alongside of the porch, red geraniums, a color so bright you thought you dreamed it.

And I put bulbs in the dirt along the walk, so I had tulips and dahlias and such in their season. Such colors you wouldn't think to see this side of heaven. At the Thomas Place I'd hated working in the dirt, but here I was happy to get my hands in soil. And I got grape hyacinths, too, coming early. Those colors show God loves us I reckon. It was a blessing to have these beauties. Joshua said it would break us up, all the money I spent on flowers for yard and porch, but he didn't mean it. He had all those big words and talked to Preacher Belue about things in the Bible and in the paper. I read the Bible, too, and I had my flowers and the floor of my parlor, which I kept shined like a mirror.

When Joshua became the man who fixed things at the mill, I told him not to get too big for his britches, because I'd seen him when he don't have any britches. But he didn't pay any attention to my teasing because he knew I liked his strutting and bragging with all those fine words. But I still gave him the lash of my tongue when he stomped into the house with muddy boots and smeared the floor I'd polished like it was fine silver.

Now I wondered in secret if I would ever have kids after I'd been with so many men and never got pregnant. I didn't mention this to Joshua, because we never talked about all those things I had done back then. There was no use to rake up the memories. But in my own heart I wondered if we would ever have children like I dreamed of way back on the road when I thought of my own house and yard and flowers and it seemed impossible for me to ever have such. I didn't say anything, but fear ran through me like a cold blade stabbing my spine. So much good had already happened to me. Girl, I told myself, how can you expect any more?

I don't need to explain to you how scared and excited I was when my bleeding stopped that next summer, after we got married. I'd never been one for praying much, but I prayed every night that it would be true. After one month the bleeding didn't return, and then a second month. That was when I told Joshua I might be expecting; most likely I was expecting. I don't think he believed me at first. Then he saw that maybe I was telling him the truth and he was the happiest man I'd seen since the jubilee.

“We'll name him Frederick Douglass,” he said. Frederick Douglass was the colored man that published a newspaper called
North Star
in Rochester, New York.

“What if I want to name my baby something else?” I said, just teasing him a little.

“We'll find no name better than Frederick Douglass,” he said. He was so excited he didn't hear anything I said anyway.

“How do you know it will be a boy?” I said. “It's just possible we'll be blessed with a little girl.”

But I was so tickled I didn't argue with him anymore. I'd be happy with a child of my own, whether a boy or a girl, and I knew it would be as clever as Joshua, and wise and pretty as myself.