Underground to Canada (7 page)

He walked swiftly away from them through the shadow-filled forest.

“Massa Ross is a good man.” Julilly spoke for all of them.

When they could no longer hear his foot-steps, Julilly, Liza and Adam turned to Lester.

“Put everything he gave you in your crocker sack and fasten it to your back,” he said. There was no expression on Lester's face, but Julilly saw fear and excitement in his eyes.

He looked at the watch, round and smooth in his hand. It was time to go.

“No one is huntin' for us tonight,” Lester said. “We got to cover a lot of ground.”

Julilly glanced at Liza. Her head was down, and her back was bent, which meant that it was already hurting her.

“I'm gonna walk by Liza,” Julilly stated firmly. “We've agreed to help each other.”

“You take the rear, then, Adam.” Lester seemed to agree and they started off.

The ground was dry and soft for a stretch and then the wetness came. The lank swamp grass whipped their legs and their feet sank deep into the oozing mud beneath. Julilly grabbed a drooping willow branch with one hand to keep her steady; with the other hand she held Liza's arm, guiding the bent girl along beside her.

Julilly was grateful for the soft moonlight. It illumined dead branches jutting from the water and water-knees protruding from the tall swamp cypress.

Twice she felt the shell of a turtle slip under her feet.

“I hope those old
alligators
and
water-moccasins
are sleepin' tonight like they are dead,” Julilly whispered to Liza.

“Don't put your mind on things such as that,” Liza whispered back. “And don't forget, no bloodhound can smell our scent through this ol' swamp water.”

At last the ground became more solid. Then it was dry again. Now was the time for Julilly and Liza to change into their boys' clothes and throw the worn tow shirts on top of the swamp water. Lester quickly clipped their hair with scissors from his knapsack.

There was no time at all to giggle over their changed appearance. Lester was impatient to go on. Already they could hear the flow of the great Mississippi River. None of them had seen it before— but Massa Ross had told them how it would sound and how it would be muddy and fast-flowing and how they would walk north along its banks away from the running current.

When they came to the shores of the river, they stopped. It was an awesome sight. As far as they could see, mud black water rolled past them—broken now and then with
eddies
and splashes that caught silver from the moonlight.

Adam bent down and eased his hand into the water.

“It's warm and gentle-like,” he smiled. “It holds no harm for us, and I smell catfish in the wind that blows right out of it.”

“That's good to know, Adam.” Lester paced nervously along the shore, looking upstream. “We'll remember about those fish later. Tonight we have bread and cold meat for our meal.” He started walking ahead through the dry
canebrakes
and tangled shrubs, expecting the others to follow.

Julilly watched Liza hunched against the trunk of a sheltering willow. Her face showed pain.

“We're goin' to rest a bit, Lester,” Julilly stated. “And Liza and I are goin' to have a piece of our bread and a drink of that cat-fish-smellin' water.”

Lester waited ahead of them on a dry log. Adam cooled his feet in the rushing river. Liza closed her eyes gratefully, accepting the piece of bread and gourd of water that Julilly offered her.

It was a short rest.

“We're ready now.” Julilly stood and reached for Liza's hand, pulling her slowly to her feet.

“I'm leading us back a ways from the river,” Lester called. “The trees are thicker and the brush is thinner.”

They walked on as before, Lester in the lead, Julilly and Liza between them, and Adam behind, humming softly and making a rhythm for their steps. There was no stopping now. The running waters of the Mississippi filled their ears, and the North Star gleamed above them.

Not until the night began melting into the black earth and a streak of pink rimmed the eastern sky did Lester stop. The giant trunks of two fallen pines blocked their path. Underneath the solid logs was a rippling brook of clean water, and beside it a hollow place almost hidden by the rotting limbs.

“This is where we eat and where we sleep,” Lester yawned, finally exhausted. The others agreed. They ate slowly, putting aside a portion for the next day's meal. Julilly passed her gourd from one to the other. The water they dipped up with it was cold and sweet and there was plenty.

“Adam and I will take turns staying awake on guard until sunhigh.” Lester's eyes followed the widening pink strip along the sky. “Then, Julilly, you and Liza will watch until sundown.”

“Thank the Lord that we've had one safe night.” Liza bowed her head briefly. “I ask you, God, keep special watch on us tomorrow when Massa Sims finds out we are gone, and starts out lookin' for us.”

The others were silent.

Julilly and Liza crawled into the hollow place beneath the logs and slept. They were too exhausted to say a word.

At sunhigh, when Lester shook Julilly's shoulder, she sat up frightened and confused. Had she overslept? Was Massa Sims ringing the morning bell on the plantation? Why were her feet so sore and bruised?

Then she saw Lester's drawn, tired face and she knew where she was. It was her turn to watch and soon it would be Liza's. Adam lay face down on the soft grass beneath a sheltering willow near the fallen logs.

“If you hear any noise at all, you wake me, Julilly.” Lester rubbed his long fingers over his eyes to smooth out the tired lines.

“You can trust me, Lester,” she answered.

“And when the sun goes down, we'll eat. Adam caught some
catfish
—just like he said. He cleaned and skinned them.” Lester smiled.

“Someone will see if we start a fire to cook them.” Julilly was alarmed.

“Massa Ross told me how to do it,” Lester answered calmly. “He said, build a fire in a clear place far away. Then watch. If nobody comes, just lay whatever you catch on the hot
coals
. When they die down, the fish is ready to eat.”

Julilly smiled too. She settled herself on a scattering of dry pine needles, behind a tangle of
brambles
and dead limbs and waited. Liza looked bent and shrivelled lying asleep near by. Twice she moaned, but didn't wake.

“I'm strong enough to watch for both of us,” Julilly decided. “She better rest her aching back.”

A
mockingbird
sailed through the sky, then perched above her and sang its own clear song. A gentle deer walked serenely to the river's edge and dipped its head for a long drink.

It was peaceful to sit so quiet. But it didn't last. The deer jerked its head upright. It listened and then ran back among the trees. The mockingbirds chirped a mixed-up song of many birds, then sped away.

Julilly sat tense. Softly at first and then louder came the cry of baying dogs. Bloodhounds! Somehow their scent had been found and they or other slaves like them were being followed. Lester heard too. He shook Adam. Julilly called Liza.

“Pack everything in your bags.” Lester spoke quickly. “Roll up your pants, and we'll walk north, straight through the middle of this stream. It will kill our scent.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE DAYS AND NIGHTS strung together for Julilly, Liza, Lester, and Adam like a looped rope without an end. When they heard dogs barking or saw men on horse-back, they waded through the water-soaked land of the swamps. When the sun shone they fell exhausted in some dank shelter or beneath dry canebrakes and thorn-covered thickets. Their clothes were torn and dirty, their feet were scarred and blistered with insect bites and they were always hungry. One day they found only pecans and
hickory nuts
to eat.

When it was safe and there was time, Adam and Julilly hunted for
swamp rabbits
and fished for catfish. Liza kindled small fires with
flint
and
spunk
that Massa Ross had given her. Lester charted their course.

He studied the stars on clear nights and when it rained and there were clouds, he felt for
moss
that grew on the north side of the forest trees.

“How we gonna know when we've reached Tennessee?” Julilly asked one night as they talked of Massa Ross and how much they needed him.

“I can read.” Lester spoke bluntly.

“No slave I ever heard of was allowed to read. You is just tellin' a lie, Lester.” Liza gave him a dark look and lapsed into one of her sullen moods. “One time my daddy bought himself a spellin' book with some money he saved from sellin' apples. You know what happened when the Massa found him lookin' at that book?”

Julilly didn't want to ask. She knew the answer.

Liza went on. “Massa grabbed that book and threw it in an open fire. Then he said, ‘No nigger of mine is goin' to get uppity and try to read.' He tied my daddy's hands to a tree and stripped him to the waist. Then he got his whip and gave him fifty lashes. I had to watch. His blood ran all over the ground. I loved my daddy.”

“It's no lie. I can read.” Lester stood up and turned away from the three doubtful faces. “On the Hensen Plantation, one of the house slaves could read and Massa Hensen knew. He taught me to read and the Massa knew that too. He just made us promise never to tell anybody—not even Missy Hensen.”

They sat for a moment on a dry log near the muddy banks of the Mississippi. They ate cold fish which had been cooked before sundown.

“Soon we'll cross into Tennessee,” Lester said. “I'll see a sign beside the river when we get there, Massa Ross said. Then we wait until night—maybe two nights. Massa Ross will come with a cart on the nearest road. We listen for three calls of the whippoorwill and then we meet him.”

“He might not come.” Adam spoke gently. Usually he was silent. When he did speak, the others listened carefully.

“Why you say that, Adam?” Julilly asked.

“Adam's right.” Lester answered quickly.

“He might not come. If something happens to him, he promised to send another man.”

“How we gonna trust a man we've never seen before?” Liza was bent over, resting her head on her knees. She was too tired to look up.

“There's a password,” Adam said again very softly. “We say to this man who gives the bird call, ‘Friends with a friend.' He answers the same thing and then we trust him.”

“Friends with a friend.” Julilly repeated the password to herself over and over again. A mean, hateful man would never make up such words, she decided.

She would trust whoever said it.

“I don't trust no white man,” Liza muttered to herself.

The stars were bright that night and there were only the night sounds of lapping water, croaking frogs, and the hollow, chilling hoot of an owl. They walked near the river.

Julilly locked Liza's arm through hers. She could bear her friend's weight as well as her own. The long night walks were making her legs stronger. But Liza grew thinner and weaker. Lester, especially, was uneasy with her.

“Lester won't slow down for nobody.”

Julilly knew this in her heart. “Lester will fight and protect us from slave catchers, but he won't slow down.”

Julilly listened to the plodding steps of gentle Adam behind her. “Adam and I will carry her if she gets more sickly,” Julilly reassured herself and walked steadily forward along the path that Lester made for them.

It was still dark when the four of them came at last to a sign printed on a large high board beside the river. Lester read aloud—TENNESSEE.

They stopped beside it. The open road settled far enough into the canebrakes, so that anyone passing by would never guess they were there. Two men on horseback galloped by, one on either side of the road. The moonlight outlined their figures. One of them was fat and carried a whip; the other one had a gun.

The four slaves sat immobile as stunned rabbits until the sound of hoof-beats disappeared. Adam was the first to speak.

“That fat man sure did look like Sims.”

“He could be Sims,” Lester agreed. “The way he beat his horse and waved his whip made me wonder.”

“We'd best stay right where we are for a long time,” Liza cautioned.

Julilly heard another noise. It was the clatter of wagon wheels. It might be Massa Ross. If the fat man was Sims and he turned around and rode back, he would recognize him! The four of them shared the same thought without speaking it. They moved farther back into the cane-brakes.

The wagon came closer. When it reached the Tennessee sign, it stopped. There was silence. Then, three soft calls of the whippoorwill filled the air. It was their signal; but they had to be certain with the possibility of Sims so near.

Julilly knew at once what she had to do.

“Listen,” she whispered to the others, “if it's somebody trickin' us from the Riley plantation, they'd right away know Lester and Adam and maybe Liza with her bent-up back. They wouldn't know me. I'm just a big, tall nigger boy the way I'm dressed now. I'll go first.”

Lester hesitated, then nodded his approval.

Julilly took a deep breath like she was going to jump into the Mississippi River, and walked into the open.

She stood at the edge of the road and spoke hoarsely.

“Who is you?” Her voice quivered. She couldn't risk revealing the password.

“Friends with a friend,” the man on the wagon answered. It wasn't Massa Ross, but this man knew the right password. Liza, Lester, and Adam came from the shadows. The man relaxed the reins and leaned over the side to see them better. He was brisk and small. It was hard to see his head because a wide-brimmed hat covered most of it. His lips smiled kindly above a white looped-over collar.