May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel (54 page)

It’s an hour before you get them all to the railroad bridge over the Edisto River. Where the Savannah-Charleston line crosses. And you know straight off that this is where your Daddy made his jump. Thomas looks at you. So does Momma. ’Cause they know. You shoot a glance at Bellie, but she’s smilin’ and talking to folks, like the place means nothin’ at all. And you nod. Knowing that she doesn’t need to know. Doesn’t need to think the way you do, the way Thomas and Momma do, too. That maybe your Daddy picked out this place to jump that train ’cause he knew it’d do just the job it done. And oh—how you wanna
do
something about it. How you wanna shoot something. Someone. But you can’t let yourself drift back into that fog that led you to kill Dunmore and the Embrys. This ain’t just about
you
now.

There’s some Union soldiers walking along the rail line, in something like formation. Twenny thirty of ’em. A patrol, most likely. But the shots you heard that morning came from upriver of
Les Roseraies
, not down. And you know that means Sherman an’ his army must be all around this place. Farther west maybe, the way this patrol is walkin’ with their rifles at the ready. They halt and look at you an’ your crew of twenty-two runaways. Women and a couple of old men’n boys. And one or two men around your age. But they focus on you. Focus on that Spencer Repeater strapped to your back.

The leader, a Lieutenant, stares down at you from just that thirty forty feet above. So you nod. Like you the man he’s dealin’ with, if there’s need for dealin’. But he just turns to the back of his line and hollers some orders. Only he’s not instructing his men, but the fifteen twenny runaways he’s got following at a long safe distance. Tells ’em to
follow you. And then there’s forty-one of you, counting yourself. And now you’re
really
like Mrs. Tubman. Moses. Leading ’em out of Egypt.

It takes a while to assemble everyone together once the new ones are with you. Turns out there’s another twenty or so not far off that couldn’t keep up with the soldiers, these folks say. And you tell the two best men from the new ones to go back an’ get ’em. Meet you on this side of the river. And they go, straight off.

You give Thomas the shotgun and tell him to take Momma and Bellie and all but the boy that took the tools and three other good men. Tell him to lead the rest on down the river far as they can go ’til they’re ready to fall over. And you’ll be there by nightfall. Momma and Bellie are the only ones that don’t do just as you said. Feeling like they finally got to have you in their lives again, after they thought you were gone forever. And now you gonna leave them again.
So, no
. They say. But they go eventually. When Thomas tells ’em you’re only doin’ what his friend woulda done, what Samuel, your Daddy, woulda done.

Thomas gets them moving, and you smile just a little to see him like this. Like that fear got so built up that it just spilt out and onto the ground and now he’s back to bein’ a man. Not a mule. Or maybe it’s ’cause he ain’t just thinking for himself now either. But you don’t waste any time trying to figure these things out. Instead you get the boy and the three other men and tell them to cut every short tree they can find to make into rafts. You go too, and when the first buncha branches and small tree trunks gets brought back, you stay with the boy. Show him how to set the thick ones on the bottom. Make a frame. Then the small ones on top. You and he finish the first one and get the frames for five more all set. And it’s getting late in the afternoon now and no sign from the ones who fell behind the troops. So you leave the boy behind to finish the rafts, and set off with the Spencer.

You’re not more than a mile from the railroad when you hear a few shots. Sound like tiny snaps, and you know they’re not from the Union soldiers or any local man with a shotgun. A pistol probably. Maybe a twenny-two. Somebody in over his head, considerin’ your Spencer. And that’s just what it is. An overseer from one of the local plantations got a six-shooter he’s using to try and corral the stragglers back. Like they’re cattle gonna get spooked so easy. And there they are laying down on the ground, kids, old folks, and the two good men you sent off to find
them. You pull out that Spencer and start firing. Seven shots go like nothin’, even though you don’t aim at nothin’ but sky. Just to create some noise.

You reload, easy as can be with this breechloader. Then he fires one, and you know where he is. An’ you let go, seven more shots almost right where he’s standing. But not exactly. Feeling somehow that you can’t kill this fool. Feeling like you don’t want to kill anyone unless you have to. And it’s all quiet as you reload, wondering how that hate’s not there anymore. ’Til the runaways start percolating. Stand up, watching the overseer ride off south. And then they jubilate some. Before the men you sent to get them tell’m to come on.

You’re back to the meeting place as it’s getting on sundown. And the boy and the three other men you left got four more decent-size rafts ready to go. You figure the math in your head. More than sixty of you and five rafts means twelve or thirteen for each one. So you get fourteen onto the weakest one, just to be sure. When it doesn’t sink, just getting the passengers a little wet is all, you smile at the boy. Who reminds you of yourself more than ever.

It’s well past dark when you get to No Man’s Land. See the ones from
Les Roseraies
. Announce to everyone that they’ll be safe just a few miles more down the river. And then it’s everyone onto the rafts, and all the stuff they carried is left behind. ’Cause it don’t matter when you that close to freedom. And floatin’ down those cool waters starts some of ’em singin’ in low, humming voices. And you don’t do anything to stop ’em.

You spend that night on the beach, two men standin’ guard to the west in case anyone followed you. And you telling them about Edisto Island where there’s a school for colored folks and whatever they’re gonna need. Just waitin’ for them, that close. Next mornin’ you go in that rowboat across the inlet with Thomas and a few others. Find that Quartermaster Corporal that gave you the rowboat in the first place. Tell him about the folks on the mainland. Only there don’t seem to be any more boats available. Not with Sherman coming this way. ’Course, a hundred dollars makes them boats reappear. And by the early afternoon every one of them folks, all sixty-three of ’em, are off the shore. And on Edisto Island. Free.

Takes another fifty dollars to buy food from the Quartermaster
Corporal. At least something more than the hardtack and some halfrotted potatoes he usually gives out to runaways. And then a sort of feast breaks out. ’Cause these folks ain’t breathed this sea air, or anything like freedom, ever. And you think, seeing them like this. Jubilatin’. That it makes up for the disappointment your own freedom was. ’Cause this ain’t just about you now. When one of the strays you went back for, a preacher of sorts, gets to praying, they all join in. Thomas and Momma and Bellie do, too. And soon they’re asking the Lord to bless you in a
special
way. Like you’re their Moses. Like the Lord sent you here to find ’em.

And in the middle of all the jubilation, you walk off just to be on your own, for a few moments. Breathing deep, thankful breaths. Thanking your Daddy for everything he taught you about being a man. Preparing you for this very day. And you say goodbye to him, like you never got to, years ago. Telling him your inheritance, that indigo field … thousand pounds or not. Has come in at last.

So it turns out that everything’s falling all at once, instead of the slow crumble it’s been these last nine or ten months. Mista Kittredge has been all out of sorts with the Misses ever since February, when the dress shop got closed down altogether. And with how Mista Kittredge sold off all the slaves except Cora and Ginny and Mabel in the kitchen, and Mary, of course, it looks like the Mista and Misses’ll be startin’ off down in Carolina with nothin’ like the household they had just a year ago.

Richmond’s become a corpse. And saddest of all is that there’s all these people still around to watch it get buried, Mary included, watchin’ it whimper to a sad end while most folks are still holding on to memories of its past glory. The whole South is gettin’ to be a memory, too, and slavery right along with it, and now it’s just the hardest part left. Mista Kittredge has his sources in the war department, he always says, and they told him the end wouldn’t come ’til early June at best, late April at worst. There isn’t any more money to be made from the folks of Richmond anyway, since any flour and cornmeal has been requisitioned directly by the war department for months now, and it only ever trickles its way down to the soldiers and civilians in little bits not anywhere close to filling any of their bellies. Mista Kittredge still has a few barrels left from months back, but nobody’s got much of anything to buy them with.

Still, what bothers Mista Kittredge, and the Misses especially, is that they won’t be able to take most of their best things with them on that last train out of Richmond. It’ll just be those two trunks full of silver tea sets and picture frames and gold jewelry wrapped in silk-laced curtains that they managed to slip out already on a train bound for Danville, Virginia. The Misses’s brother was supposed to pick that up when it arrived a week ago, but they have no way of knowin’ if it got there or not, since the telegraph is for military communication only now, and there hasn’t been any mail in at least a month.

So Mista Kittredge announced just the day before that by the end of the week they’d be leavin’. It’d be Mista Kittredge and the Misses and Justinia and a few more trunks of picture frames and linen and clothes and such … and Mary, all gettin’ on a train to Danville. He said it to Cora and Mabel and Ginny like it was the worst news they could ever hear in their whole lives, that they’d be left behind. And Cora and Mabel and Ginny did their best not to break out in laughter and celebration right there, savin’ it for a minute later when they walked in the kitchen. When Cora saw Mary not long after that, she just nodded her head up and down with her lips pursed tightly and her hands perched on her hips.

See that now, she said, you jus’ like a little pup to them what they figure they can take wit’ ’em wherever they goes.

And Mary looked sternly at her, using every bit of anger she could find within herself to keep from crying in front of her. She’d thought the same kind of thing, too, wondering why she’d be the one to go and not Ginny or Mabel who at least knew how to cook. But she offered Cora her own explanation.

Juss wants me to go with them, she said, purposely not putting the
Miss
in front of her name and then walking out of the room.

So Miss Juss wants her little pup t’come along, Cora said, and walked away with a look on her face as if she’d been right all along.

But then the morning of April 2 brings news of a Yankee victory south of Petersburg, and Justinia and Mary are sent to her room to pack
one
trunk, that’s all, ’cause they may be leavin’ as early as the next morning. Of course, Justinia has no interest in packing, wantin’ only to talk to Mary about what, or more especially
who
, she’s leavin’ behind.

I can’t leave him here! Justinia says, talking about Lieutenant Farnsworth. What if he’s wounded? What if he’s been captured? When this is over, he won’t know where to find me.

Aww, Juss he’ll find ya, Mary answers. Lieutenant Farnsworth knows about your Momma’s brother down in Carolina. He’ll be comin’ lookin’ for ya, Juss.

He knows about them livin’ in
Raleigh
. He doesn’t know that they’ve moved to
Greensboro
! I haven’t seen him since we got that letter from Uncle James last month.

Mary’s been able to see Justinia growin’ up fast these last few years. And the tears Juss cries now are not the sort from the spoiled child she used to be but a woman’s, filled with the sadness of everything that’s beyond her control. Mista Kittredge wouldn’t give his consent on their gettin’ engaged back at Christmas, but he did let them leave off with a sort of
understandin’
, like they were engaged
to get
engaged once the war’s over. Still, Mary knows that having an understandin’ is as good as bein’ engaged in a woman’s eyes, and she feels something awful for Juss. She wants to at last tell her about Micah, and tell her how much she knows exactly what she’s feelin’. But there’s no time for any of it, ’cause the Misses bursts into the room, frantic.

Today! We’re going today, she says breathlessly. Right now! The final train is leavin’ in an hour. The Yankees broke the lines at Petersburg and—oh, it’s awful. Your father says we can take one trunk for all of us, an’ even that he’s not sure of—so you’ll have to wear as much as you can. One dress over another. Wear your jewelry, but cover it with a shawl—oh—hurry Justinia. Your father says this is the only train he knows for certain we can get aboard. The troops are retreatin’ through the city right this moment. Hurry!

And with that she’s out of the room and off to her own. But Mary and Justinia have nothin’ like her sense of panic.