On to Richmond (9 page)

             
“You okay?”

             
Opal started at the sound of Sam’s soft voice.  Immersed in her own thoughts, she had almost forgotten he was there.   “I’m okay.  Thanks.”  She was relieved to find the tremor was gone from her voice.  Taking a deep breath, she settled back and let the warm wind blow across her face.

             
Sam nodded and kept driving, content to let silence reign between them.

             
Opal was glad to be left to her thoughts.  It hadn’t seemed real until last night.  Until she had begun packing her meager belongings for the trip.  Somewhere around midnight it had struck her that she may never see Cromwell Plantation again.  She may never see Old Sarah again.  Never see the little children that called her Auntie Opal.  Never enjoy another Christmas dance in the old barn.  That’s when the tears had come.  Protected by the darkness of her cabin, she had sobbed until there had been no more tears.  Then she had straightened her shoulders and faced the future.  Whatever may come.

             
“What you be knowin’ bout Richmond, girl?”  Sam’s voice broke into her thoughts. 

“What do you mean, Sam?”

              “Just what I said.  What you be knowin’ bout Richmond?”

             
Opal hesitated.  “Not very much I guess.  My cousin told me she has a small house down at the bottom of one of the hills.  She’s going to help me get a job in one of the iron works, and I got this letter from Miss Carrie that handles my pay.  I guess that’s all I need to know for now,” she said more firmly than she felt.  In truth, she had spent a lot of time thinking about Richmond and realizing how little she knew.  The reality had done nothing but fuel her fear.

             
Sam barked a laugh and turned to stare at her from his seat.  “Come up here next to me, girl,” he ordered, pulling the horses to a stop.  “We got a passel of talkin’ to do.  You go into the city like that, and they’s gonna chew you up.”

             
Wonderingly, Opal climbed up on the seat next to Sam.  

             
He started right in on her, seemingly anxious to make sure she knew what she needed to know before she reached her destination.  “What you be knowin’ bout the Black Code?”

             
“The Black Code?” Opal echoed.  The sound of it did nothing to reassure her.  It couldn’t be anything good.

             
“I thought as much!” Sam snorted.  “Now you listen, and you listen good, black girl.  You’s got to know this stuff, so’s you can stay out o’ trouble.”

             
Opal nodded.  He had her complete attention. 

             
“You got to make sure you ain’t out after dark.  For sure not two hours after the sun done gone down.  Leastways not without a pass.  The Black Code says they can whip you for dat.  A pass don’t always make no difference.  Some peoples got mean in their bones and just wait to find a nigger to whip.”

             
Opal shuddered and resolved to confine her activities to daylight hours if at all possible.  She wondered what kind of danger she was walking into. She gripped the wagon seat tightly to control her shaking hands and tried to remember her earlier courage.

             
Sam continued.  “Can’t no slave ride in a carriage or nothin’ without a written pass sayin’ he can.  They find you doin’ that - they’ll whip you.  They call it punishin’ with stripes!”  His tone was scornful.

             
“Does it happen very much?”  Opal was horrified.  She had thought it would be different in the city - away from overseers who took their anger out with the whip.

             
“Happens plenty,” Sam said grimly.  “You got’s to watch where you walk, too.   If you be on the sidewalk and you see a white person comin’ at you, or you be passin’ one, you got to pass to the outside.  If there ain’t be nuff room to do that, you’s got to get off the sidewalk and down in the street.”

             
Opal listened intently.  She was deathly afraid of the whip.  She also didn’t want to draw undue attention to herself.  It could put everything in jeopardy. 

             
“Your cousin... Miss Carrie say in dat letter dat she gives her permission for you to be livin’ there?”

             
Opal nodded.  “I read it myself.  Had Rose read it with me, too.”

             
“That’s good,” Sam said sharply.  “I’d hate to see your cousin get a beatin’ cause she was puttin’ you up.” 

             
“Miss Carrie said she was going to make sure there was no trouble.”

             
“I’m sure Miss Carrie did the best she could, but trouble just seems to follow us, no matter how careful we be.”

             
Opal could feel her fear threatening to overwhelm her.  She stifled the impulse to tell Sam to turn the carriage around and take her back home.  Nothing was worth this.

             
Sam, oblivious to her feelings, continued on.  “You’s got to watch how you talk to a white person.  All the time, you’s got to watch it.  You say something wrong - or maybe just something they think is wrong.......”

             
“And you get the whip.”

             
Sam nodded, his satisfied look saying he was relieved she was getting it.  Oh, she was getting it all right.  She was going to Richmond, stay in her house and not say a word to no one.  Not that that would do the cause any good.  Silently, she willed Sam to stop talking.  All he was doing was making her more fearful. 

             
Finally, she mumbled, “I thought the city was going to be different from the plantation.  Why, Sam, there be blacks there who are free!”

             
Sam nodded.  “Yeah, they be free.  In some ways, that be.  All them laws - the people don’t care whether them niggers be free or slave.  All they care ‘bout is keeping them under control.”  Sam shook his head.  “As much as they do to us to keep us afraid of them - they still got a whole passel of fears ‘bout us.”

             
“Is that why you ain’t run away, Sam?”   Opal had always wondered about that.  She knew Sam had free family up North.  Why had he never joined them?

             
Sam looked at her for a long moment and then turned back toward the road.  A long silence stretched between them.  Finally he spoke.  “My mamma and daddy was born on Cromwell Plantation.  They used to talk to me ‘bout leavin.  Told me ‘bout my kin up North.  Used to dream ‘bout goin’ up there.  I done knowed ‘bout the Underground Railroad for a long time.”

             
When he fell silent, Opal resisted the urge to say something.  She could tell he was lost in his thoughts.  He would talk when he was ready.   Sam had always been like that.

             
Finally he continued.  “I’d planned on leavin’...”  Another long pause passed as the horses trotted smartly down the road.   “Then John done give me a job to do.  I done been doin’ that job ever since.”

             
Opal was confused.  “John?”   She could tell by the look on Sam’s face that he wasn’t going to say anymore.  She cast in her head for a solution.  “Do you mean Sarah’s John?”

             
Sam shrugged.  “Don’t know none other.”

             
“But what job did he give you to do?”

             
“That don’t matter none,” Sam said simply.  “I’ve did my job the best I could.  Dat’s all that matters.”  Then he turned his head and clucked to the horses to speed up.                As the wheels turned faster in their pursuit of Richmond, Opal knew the old butler had said all he was going to say.   Many miles passed as she tried to figure out what he could have been talking about.

             
Opal gazed around her in awe as the carriage rattled down the road leading into Richmond.  Nothing she had ever experienced had prepared her for this. 

             
“Look up ‘dere on the hill,” Sam said, pointing his finger.

             
Opal gasped as the Capitol came into view.  “Why, it’s bigger than the plantation house!”  She leaned forward and allowed herself to drink in the sight of the huge columned building on the hill.  “What is it?”

             
“That be the Capitol building.  It be where Marse Cromwell work now.”

             
Suddenly Opal was nervous.  What if she ran into her owner while they were riding through town?  Sam was here on business for Miss Carrie.  If Marse saw her with him, it would mess everything up.  Marse Cromwell hadn’t seen her enough to recognize her away from the plantation probably, but he would know Sam instantly.  Instinctively, she shrank down into her seat and ducked her head.

             
Sam laughed heartily.  “Ain’t no reason to be nervous, girl.  We ain’t goin’ up there.  The part of town we be headed to, I guarantee you he ain’t gonna be there.”

             
Sam’s words comforted her.  Soon she was looking around again, trying to drink in all the sights.  The hills of the city were enough to amaze her.  They were beautiful in their lush green growth.  She had never known anything but the flat land along the James.  Sam was silent as he navigated the crowded streets.

             
Suddenly her attention was caught by something else as they rounded a curve.  “Is that our river, Sam?”

             
Sam laughed again.  “That be the James for sho.”

             
Opal could only shake her head as she stared.  All she had ever seen were the wide, open expanses of a calm river as it moved to join the sea she had been told about.  Here, the James looked like a stranger.  She watched, fascinated, as it boiled over rocks and crashed down falls.  The swirling waters churned into foamy rapids and then glided smoothly around little dots of islands.  Her amazement increased even more as she noticed a large black object moving toward them on an expanse covering the entire river.  “Sam!” she exclaimed.  “Is that thing be what they call a train?”

             
Sam looked at her almost in sympathy.  “You sure got a heap o’ learnin’ to do.”  Then he chuckled.  “Yep, that be a train.  That bridge be the only thin’ keeping that train out o’ the river.  I allus been glad I didn’t have no reason to go on ‘dat train.  Don’t know as how I’d trust that wooden thing.”

             
Opal shuddered at the very thought of getting on that metal monster.  Then she felt a surge of excitement.  Why not?  Who was to say that someday she wouldn’t be free and headed somewhere on that train?  She almost laughed at the idea and then decided to hang on to it.  The rest of the trip passed in a haze of discovery and astonishment. 

             
“Here we be, Opal.”

             
Opal started as Sam pulled the wagon to a halt.  She had been staring at the rows of simple, wooden houses they had been passing.  Were all the black faces peering at her really free?  How had that happened?  Why had she been born a slave - spent all of her life in slavery - and they got to live free?  She pushed down the resentment that rose to try to choke her.  She had had her chance.  Miss Carrie had told her she could go free.  She could be on her way north right this moment if she had chosen.  It had been her decision to come to Richmond.  She knew what she was doing.  The day may come when she could be free.  Until then she would follow Old Sarah’s advice.  She would bloom where she was planted. 

             
“Opal!”

             
Opal gave a glad cry and jumped from the carriage to meet the woman running toward her with outstretched arms.  “Fannie!”   Within seconds she felt herself wrapped in a warm embrace.  For long moments she just stood there, reveling in the feel of a hug from someone who was family.  There were tears in her eyes when she stepped away.  “Fannie,” she whispered.  She could think of nothing else to say.

             
Fannie had tears in her eyes as well.  “Come inside.  The rest of the family is waiting to meet you.”