May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (47 page)

Micah figured that he killed four men. Bastards every one of ’em. At least the last three for sure. And sure he’s got to answer for that. Fair enough. But God’s got to answer for Mary, he figured. So it was time to have it out. Time to settle the accounts, the way Dunmore used to say when he was of a mind of collecting a debt.

It took more to get to the top than he figured. He was out of breath like he hadn’t been since he was hauling Albert Embry’s horse behind him. Still, when he got to the top, it was a magnificent scene. To the west was the setting sun, slipping down behind the hills. The way it used to each night back at Dunmore’s. Taunting him. And now, for the first time, he could look to the east and see far off into the distance. Imagine Washington, the Yankee capital, out beyond his view. And freedom, whatever that might mean. There he was atop the whole world, as far as he could tell. Wondering what any of it, freedom, killing horses and men, getting killed even, mattered. After all.

He took a piece of paper from the hidden pocket inside his coat. The one he was fixing to give Mary somewhere along these mountains. Sometime when she got tired of the walk. Sometime when she figured it wasn’t worth it anymore, maybe. He’d stolen a real pencil from Longley’s parlor and wrote the note on something like a real piece of paper. The kind a man uses to write such a thing to a woman. And then it was just him to read it, instead of her. Him to be taunted by his own words then. Reading still, all the same …

It practically suffocated him to read it now. Alone as he was, but sad enough that he was looking for more sadness instead of steppin’ outside it. That’s what made him reach back inside his secret pocket
again and pull out the note she gave him. A week before they were supposed to run off.

It was the first note she wrote like it was a poem. Like the ones she read in Miss Justinia’s books. The kind of words she said he wrote without thinking of making them poetry. Like that’s what he was just by nature, a poet. And he read her poem over and over again, there on top of
Stony Man Mountain, approx
. 4000
ft
. Remembering back, months before, when she first told him she loved him. The afternoon she referred to in the poem. Back behind the dress shop in the early morning, when he was still building the new storeroom, just a few weeks before they decided to run off together. And how she walked across the field between the house and the store. Looked all around like she always did, seeing if there was anyone watching. Then she walked right up to him. Him setting up his tools beside the lumber pile like always. She stood right in front of him, silent. A smile all over her face like she knew something he didn’t. And then she kissed him. Strong enough to let him know it was her idea. Soft enough to remind him there was magic in the world. And she went up the steps to the store before stopping. Turned toward him, playfully.
I loves you
, she said. Then kicked back one foot just a little. Dancing in the half-seconds of stolen moments. And walked inside the shop. With him left to stand there, out in the yard with his tools all about him. And his jaw hung low. Wondering how he’d breathe an all-together breath again. Hard as it seemed to imagine just then, knowing such moments were in this world. And such a woman. Who
loved
him. Loved
him
.

So he sat atop that rock on
Stony Man Mountain, approx
. 4000
ft
. And waited until the sky turned through every color until it was just black all around. Waited for an answer.
Waited
for God to tell him it all meant something, the suffering. Waited for him to tell him that he’d see her again. Or tell him just enough to understand a little, just enough to keep going. He waited. Raised his open arms toward the blackened sky, hoping to summon a thing greater than him. A reason to go on.

But still, he felt only the cold, tearing at him now like it hadn’t done before. Ever. Mighta been six seven eight at night. Mighta been midnight or later. Didn’t matter. Wasn’t an answer coming. So he went back down from the peak. No dying horse to even give him the lick of company he needed
so
much just then. Instead, just him. No Mary. No answers. Alone.

Not even God.

BY THE TIME HE REACHED
the Potomac River, he’d been gone eight nine ten weeks. Couldn’t tell for sure. Never bothered counting days at the start, in the lingering haze. Certainly couldn’t figure them out counting backward. Until, not that far in, it didn’t matter anyway. As the peaks began dwindling north of
Stony Man Mountain
. Strong from the horse meat, he’d walk all day long. Partly from the strength, partly not to have so much time to think only of Mary. He’d build a fire at night and eat some more horse meat. Then, exhausted sleep. Get up the next day, and eat some more, and walk all day. Like he was a nag, a mule with blinders on. Again.

Not having seen more than a few people in all that time, and those only at a great distance, the contingent at Harper’s Ferry seemed like the whole Yankee Army. He dumped the Home Guard’s pistol. Strapped the shotgun to his back and took his chances. Walked right up to the sentries up the road from the main bridge across the river. Like he hadn’t done a thing wrong. Certainly hadn’t killed four white men.

Jesus Mickey, it’s a nigger!
The first sentry said as soon as he saw him.

In the weeks since he’d left Richmond, there was one thing he’d been happiest to leave behind. It wasn’t the work. Climbing the mountains was harder than building chicken coops and fixing barn roofs. It wasn’t Longley or any of the other slaves. All of them could be tolerated at least. No. What he’d been happiest to leave behind was the subjugation. Of himself. The need to present himself as less than a man. He’d learned, like every colored man had to learn, how to be nonthreatening to the white folks. Everything was Nosuh, Yessuh, Yes’m, No’m. Ignorant. Broken. Tamed. Like a dog lowering its head and tail to a more dominant one. Only it wasn’t enough to do it that once, upon meeting,
like the dogs did, then go about business. Like the fact had been acknowledged, and that was that.

No.

This subjugation was an
every
day thing. Played out over and over again, even to shit excuses of a man like Dunmore.
Especially
to shit excuses of a man like Dunmore. But for these last eight nine ten weeks that was the one thing he didn’t have to do. And it’d just about made the hunger, and the cold so deep inside him he’d forgotten what normal was. Just about made it all worth while. Not to have to bow like that. Until now. Again.

Don’ shoot, please Suh. I’s just a … a runaway Suh
. He says.

What he learned right off was that just ’cause they were wearing blue uniforms didn’t make them any less than what they were first and foremost. More than any nation, religion, anything else. They were
white
men. And they didn’t take kindly, runaway or not, to a colored man with a shotgun slung across his back.

No Suh, ’at’s jus’ for scarin’ off bears—maybe do some huntin’
. It was enough of an explanation to get him brought to the Lieutenant instead of shot right there.

Got us a runaway, Lieutenant
.

A runaway with a shotgun?

That’s what we was sayin’—go an figger that!

It didn’t take much to slip right back into it. The subjugation of himself. Something carved that deep into everything he was couldn’t go away with eight nine ten weeks in the mountains. Wasn’t likely to ever go away. So they were properly appeased before long. Confident that he was harmless. Ignorant. One helluva lucky nigger to traipse all the way up the Blue Ridge. Not get shot by Johnny Reb
or
Billy Yank. Not freeze to death. Or starve. Lucky. Couldn’t be smart, of course. Just,
lucky
.

But when the Lieutenant dismissed the men, and it was just Micah and him now, he started askin’ how he did it. So Micah told him just enough. Told him he’d been coming up the mountains all the way from Carolina. Left a couple of weeks before Christmas. Lied, in case word had made it this far about the dead men he’d left in Virginia. Just in case something as comparatively small as the war could be put aside to find
a colored man who’d killed four white men. The Lieutenant brought him over to the giant map stretched over the wooden table. Asked him more questions. And Micah tried pointing out what he thought his route was, acting ignorant. ’Til the show and the story altogether were enough to earn him a hot meal and a pot of coffee. And a tent for the night.

Next morning the Lieutenant set him up with more hot food and coffee. And Micah could feel some of the frozen layers begin to thaw, from the inside out. The Lieutenant brought him back to the big tent from the night before. Only this time, waiting inside, was a Captain. The Lieutenant presented Micah, and the Captain looked him over without saying anything. Looked him up and down. Appraised him.

What’s your name, son?

Son. Captain couldn’t be more than twenty-five, like Micah. Still. Son.

Micah, Suh
.

Ahh, from the Old Testament. Those Rebs often do that. They figure if they name their slaves after Biblical figures, that it makes it all right in the eyes of God
.

Captain looked at the Lieutenant like he was conducting a class or something. Then it was more of the same from the night before. Lieutenant asked Micah to point out the route he traveled. Went through the whole thing on the map, playing dumb again. Not that it mattered. The Captain didn’t seem to care at all what he had to say. Started talking about his Daddy the preacher up in Connecticut. Talked about what an abomination slavery was. How it was the white man’s burden to look out for the inferior races, not enslave them. The Captain spoke with the righteous indignation of a preacher himself. Seemed to have a very clear understanding of the Natural Order of Things.

Let me ask you now, Micah. Did you boil bark and make that Negro soup along the way?

Micah looked at him. Unable to speak. After all that with the map, here he was asking about soup. Lieutenant didn’t seem too pleased by the question, either, but had to stand quiet.

Suh?

You know, stripping the white birch bark and boiling it up into one of those primitive Negro soups. The runaways on the Peninsula did it all the time
.

Didn’t have no pot, Suh. Jus’ a fryin’ pan
.

The Captain seemed very unhappy to hear that answer.
But you would’ve. If you had a pot, you would’ve, yes?

Micah looked over at the Lieutenant, whose eyes seemed to instruct, give the man what he wants.
Yessuh, Cap’n, I s’pose so
.

Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm. See, that’s what many of these Negroes are accustomed to. It’s an instinctive thing in them from back in Africa. They’re like the Indians that way. Not as cunning, but the same primitive instincts. Best to free all the slaves and put ’em on ships back to Africa. Back in their natural habitat
.

From the entirety of his life thus far, it was hard for Micah to imagine hating a man more than he’d hated Dunmore. But he believed, just then, that he could come to feel that way about the Captain, given a little more time. Maybe an hour or so. ’Cept that was the end of the interview. Soup, and such.

No
wonder
they’re losin’ this war, Micah thought.

Then the Lieutenant gave him another warm meal and some rations to take with him. Made sure he got back the shotgun and all the ammunition that was left. Gave him an extra blanket, walked with him across the pontoon bridge to the other side. Lieutenant told him that they were in Maryland now. Started explaining what waited ahead for him, just like Micah’d told him about what stretched out south of here. Told him how the mountains kept getting smaller and smaller as he kept on north. Told him he could stay off the peaks, walk on the crest along the valley. Nobody up in these parts owned slaves, and no slave-catchers’d make their way past the Union Army. Lieutenant told him he could make Pennsylvania day after next. And that would mean freedom altogether. Said it like it’d mean something to Micah. Then shrugged his shoulders when Micah said nothing. Still, he wished Micah good luck. Turned out to be one good man in a whole army of ’em, after all.

He walked all that day and the next until it was too dark to see three steps in front of him. The mountains were smaller, like the Lieutenant said. The streams were easy to cross in the places he’d told him about. And except for a few farms that looked more like frontier homesteads than something permanent, he didn’t see much sign of anyone. On the third day he knew he’d made Pennsylvania. Didn’t know where Maryland let off and Pennsylvania picked up. Just knew he was there. And free, like the Lieutenant said. Built himself a big fire that night. Big,
like the one on Christmas Eve back at Longley’s old place. A free man should have such a fire, he figured. But it wasn’t nearly warm enough. Not without Mary. Or Daddy and Momma and Bellie. To see that he’d made it this far. Got himself free, indigo field or not.

’Stead it was just him and the not-warm-enough fire.

And freedom. Mostly empty, after all.

There were fifty or sixty people there at least, Ethan’s family of course, and some of his friends—Smitty and Violet—and some men who were later introduced as
business
associates of his brother Seanny—and a few people from the neighborhood including Mr. Hadley—and then, as they made their way through the crowd, she saw Catherine and Mrs. Carlisle, and five members of the Ladies Abolition Society and three of their husbands too! … and she burst forth to greet all of them, elated somehow, even though she had spent hours since her return with them … Catherine and Mrs. Carlisle
of course
, and the other ladies even—and yet still, somehow, she was filled with such great joy that they were here!