The Underground Railroad

The boy cried “Gosh!” and “Sweet mother!” at every complication in her story, tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his overalls and rocking on his heels. He spoke like one of the white children Cora had observed in the town square playing kick-the-ball, with a carefree authority that did not jibe with the color of his skin, let alone the nature of his job. How he came to command the locomotive was a story, but now was not the time for the unlikely histories of colored boys.

“Georgia station is closed,” he said finally, scratching his scalp beneath his blue cap. “We’re supposed to stay away. Patrollers must have smoked it out, I figure.” He clambered into his cabin after his pisspot, then went to the edge of the tunnel and emptied it. “The bosses hadn’t heard from the station agent, so I was running express. This stop wasn’t on my schedule.” He wanted to leave immediately.

Cora hesitated, unable to stop herself from looking at the stairs for a last-minute addition. The impossible passenger. Then she started for the cabin.

“You can’t go up here!” the boy said. “It’s regulations.”

“You can’t expect me to ride on that,” Cora said.

“All passengers ride coach on this train, miss. They’re pretty strict about that.”

To call the flatcar a coach was an abuse of the word. It was a boxcar like the one she rode to South Carolina, but only in foundation. The plane of wooden planks was riveted to the undercarriage, without walls or ceiling. She stepped aboard and the train jolted with the boy’s preparations. He turned his head and waved at his passenger with disproportionate enthusiasm.

Straps and ropes for oversize freight lay on the floor, loose and serpentine. Cora sat in the center of the flatcar, wrapped one around her waist three times, grabbed another two and fashioned reins. She pulled tight.

The train lurched into the tunnel. Northward. The engineer yelled, “All aboard!” The boy was simple, Cora decided, responsibilities of his office notwithstanding. She looked back. Her underground prison waned as the darkness reclaimed it. She wondered if she was its final passenger. May the next traveler not tarry and keep moving up the line, all the way to liberty.

In the journey to South Carolina, Cora had slept in the turbulent car, nestled against Caesar’s warm body. She did not sleep on her next train ride. Her so-called coach was sturdier than the boxcar, but the rushing air made the ride into a blustery ordeal. From time to time, Cora had to turn her body to catch her breath. The engineer was more reckless than his predecessor, going faster, goading the machine into velocity. The flatcar jumped whenever they took a turn. The closest she had ever been to the sea was her term in the Museum of Natural Wonders; these planks taught her about ships and squalls. The engineer’s crooning drifted back, songs she did not recognize, debris from the north kicked up by the gale. Eventually she gave up and lay on her stomach, fingers dug into the seams.

“How goes it back there?” the engineer asked when they stopped. They were in the middle of the tunnel, no station in sight.

Cora flapped her reins.

“Good,” the boy said. He wiped the soot and sweat from his forehead. “We’re about halfway there. Needed to stretch my legs.” He slapped the side of the boiler. “This old girl, she bucks.”

It wasn’t until they were moving again that Cora realized she forgot to ask where they were headed.

A careful pattern of colored stones decorated the station beneath Lumbly’s farm, and wooden slabs covered the walls of Sam’s station. The builders of this stop had hacked and blasted it from the unforgiving earth and made no attempt at adornment, to showcase the difficulty of their feat. Stripes of white, orange, and rust-colored veins swam through the jags, pits, and knobs. Cora stood in the guts of a mountain.

The engineer lit one of the torches on the wall. The laborers hadn’t cleaned up when they finished. Crates of gear and mining equipment crowded the platform, making it a workshop. Passengers chose their seating from empty cases of explosive powder. Cora tested the water in one of the barrels. It tasted fresh. Her mouth was an old dustpan after the rain of flying grit in the tunnel. She drank from the dipper for a long time as the engineer watched her, fidgeting. “Where is this place?” she asked.

“North Carolina,” the boy replied. “This used to be a popular stop, from what I’m told. Not anymore.”

“The station agent?” Cora asked.

“I’ve never met him, but I’m sure he’s a fine fellow.”

He required fine character and a tolerance for gloom to operate in this pit. After her days beneath Sam’s cottage, Cora declined the challenge. “I’m going with you,” Cora said. “What’s the next station?”