The Underground Railroad

Mr. Fletcher was a Pennsylvanian. He relocated to Georgia because, he found out belatedly, his wife refused to live anywhere else. She had a notion about the air down here and its ameliorating effects on the circulation. His wife had a point about the air, he conceded, but in every other way the place was a misery. Mr. Fletcher abhorred slavery as an affront before God. He had never been active in abolitionist circles up north but observing the monstrous system firsthand gave him thoughts he did not recognize. Thoughts that could get him run out of town or worse.

He took Caesar into his confidence, risking that the slave might inform on him for a reward. Caesar trusted him in turn. He had met this sort of white man before, earnest and believing what came out of their mouths. The veracity of their words was another matter, but at least they believed them. The southern white man was spat from the loins of the devil and there was no way to forecast his next evil act.

At the conclusion of that first meeting Fletcher took Caesar’s three bowls and told him to return next week. The bowls didn’t sell, but the duo’s true enterprise thrived as their discussions gave it form. The idea was like a hunk of wood, Caesar thought, requiring human craft and ingenuity to reveal the new shape within.

Sundays were best. Sundays his wife visited her cousins. Fletcher had never warmed to that branch of the family, nor they to him, owing to his peculiar temperament. It was commonly held that the underground railroad did not operate this far south, Fletcher told him. Caesar already knew this. In Virginia, you could smuggle yourself into Delaware or up the Chesapeake on a barge, evading patrollers and bounty hunters by your wits and the invisible hand of Providence. Or the underground railroad could help you, with its secret trunk lines and mysterious routes.

Antislavery literature was illegal in this part of the nation. Abolitionists and sympathizers who came down to Georgia and Florida were run off, flogged and abused by mobs, tarred and feathered. Methodists and their inanities had no place in the bosom of King Cotton. The planters did not abide contagion.

A station had opened up nonetheless. If Caesar could make it the thirty miles to Fletcher’s house, the shopkeeper pledged to convey him to the underground railroad.

“How many slaves he helped?” Cora asked.

“None,” Caesar said. His voice did not waver, to fortify Cora as much as himself. He told her that Fletcher had made contact with one slave previous but the man never made it to the rendezvous. Next week the newspaper reported the man’s capture and described the nature of his punishment.

“How we know he ain’t tricking us?”

“He is not.” Caesar had thought it out already. Just talking to Fletcher in his shop provided enough grounds to string him up. No need for elaborate schemes. Caesar and Cora listened to the insects as the enormity of their plan moved over them.

“He’ll help us,” Cora said. “He has to.”

Caesar took her hands in his and then the gesture discomfited him. He let go. “Tomorrow night,” he said.

Her final night in the quarters was sleepless, even though she needed her strength. The other Hob women dozed beside her in the loft. She listened to their breathing: That is Nag; that is Rida with her one ragged exhalation every other minute. This time tomorrow she would be loose in the night. Is this what her mother felt when she decided? Cora’s image of her was remote. What she remembered most was her sadness. Her mother was a Hob woman before there was a Hob. With the same reluctance to mix, the burden that bent her at all times and set her apart. Cora couldn’t put her together in her mind. Who was she? Where was she now? Why had she left her? Without a special kiss to say, When you remember this moment later you will understand that I was saying goodbye even if you did not know it.

Cora’s last day in the field she furiously hacked into the earth as if digging a tunnel. Through it and beyond is your salvation.

She said goodbye without saying goodbye. The previous day she sat with Lovey after supper and they talked in a way they hadn’t since Jockey’s birthday. Cora tried to slide in gentle words about her friend, a gift that she could hold later. Of course you did that for her, you are a kind person. Of course Major likes you, he can see what I see in you.