The Underground River

by Martha Conway

  “Have you ever been to the North before?”

  She nodded. “Once with my mistress.”

  Thaddeus had finished tying up the rowboat. “What now?” he asked, indicating Lula.

  I didn’t think a crowd on the road was a good idea so I told him I would take care of things from here, and that he should go on up to his stateroom. My words conveyed that I knew what I was doing and I didn’t need his help, but in truth I didn’t know what to expect. “Give her to the next one down the line,” was all the farmhand had said.

  Lula wouldn’t let me take her basket from her even walking up the rough path to the road, where she stumbled on the pebbly dirt, and as before I had to content myself with holding her arm. Once we got to the road, I saw the carriage at the far side of a bend half hidden by the shadow of an oak tree. Without cloud cover, the moon was very bright, and if anyone were to come along the road, flat as it was, they would see us from a long way away. I held my breath so I could hear better, turning my good ear toward the road, but all I could hear was my heartbeat thrumming in my temples. As we approached the carriage, Donaldson climbed down from the driver’s seat and clasped his hands in front of him. But when he saw the girl, he unclasped them, and for a moment he did nothing but look at her.

  “This is Donaldson,” I said. “He’s here to take you on.” I gestured toward Lula. “This is the baby’s mother. Lula.”

  I was close enough to see him draw a breath before he held out his hands for the basket. She gave it up to him easily, which surprised me. Maybe because, unlike me, he was a Negro. Donaldson tucked the basket up next to the driver’s seat, but when Lula moved to get up there with it, he turned and blocked her way.

  “She’s the baby’s mother,” I told him again. Then, more boldly: “She’s to go with him.”

  He shook his head.

  I felt my heart sink. “She could ride inside. I can get a rug or a blanket or something to cover her up.” But he shook his head again.

  By this time he had one foot on the bottom step and he turned slightly toward us but not enough to give Lula room to get past him. He shook his head a third time even before I could think of what to say next.

  My heart sank further, as if making room for the onrush of anxious fear, which arrived a second later. The moonlight was behind him, so I could not make out Donaldson’s expression, but I daresay he probably had none. He took the next step up and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Wait!” I said, louder than I meant to. Lula looked back along the road nervously. “Are you coming back for her?” I asked. “What should I do with her?”

  Donaldson held the reins in his hands. The horse stomped his back hoof, wanting to be off, no doubt, and back in his stable for the night. I was hoping for a gesture at least from Donaldson. Some indication of what would happen now.

  “What do I do?” I asked him again.

  Donaldson looked at me. He moved his head but I didn’t know what that meant. He flicked the reins.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Lula asked. The horse started down the dirt road.

  “He’s mute.”

  “Where’s he going?” She began to go after them, but with her bad feet she couldn’t run very well. She managed to slap the side of the carriage but it didn’t slow down. I thought she was going to try to pull herself onto it, but instead she called up to Donaldson, “His name is William!” She wasn’t shouting—we were both too nervous for that—but her voice was urgent and strong. By now the carriage was beginning to outpace her. “Tell them he’s called William!”

  The wheels creaked quickly down the road, and after a minute Lula stopped running and stood there looking after them. When I got up to her I saw that her face wore a shocked and exhausted expression, too worn-out even to cry, and I heard the leaves in some nearby trees lift and shudder in the wind.

  “They’ll make a plan,” I told her, remembering what the farmhand had said. “They will. They’ll make a plan for you and come back.”

  “But what about my baby? I need to feed him. Why wouldn’t he take me?”

  “Maybe the next place, maybe the hiding place, is too small for anyone but a baby?” I was making things up, speculating, and it felt strange. I gave it up. “I don’t know.” I gently touched Lula’s shoulder and turned her around. There was nowhere to go now but back to the boat. The first thing was to get her away from this open road and off her bleeding feet.

  “Please don’t . . .” A sob came up from her throat marbling the rest of her sentence, but I understood what she wanted to say: Please don’t leave me.

  “Don’t worry.” I tried to comfort her. “I’ll take care of you. And they’ll make a plan and come back. We just have to hide you tonight. And maybe also tomorrow. Part of tomorrow.”

  She took hold of my arm, whispering something that might have been “Thank you” or might have been “Can you?” Without her basket her other hand hung empty and her shoulders seemed very thin. As she limped along next to me, I was afraid her feet would finally give way altogether and that I’d have to carry her, but it didn’t come to that. We made it down the road and then back down the path to the boat.

  But I had forgotten about Thaddeus. He was standing at the boat railing, smoking the end of a thickly rolled cigarette, and I had the feeling he had not gone right up to his stateroom on purpose. He looked around at the sound of our footsteps on the plank and then, after a moment, flicked the end of his cigarette over the guard. An owl started up and then stopped mid-call. The silence felt like something hiding. Thaddeus cocked his head at me, a question, as he drew a breath.

  “Don’t you say a word,” I told him.

  18

  I tried to think of a place to hide her.

  My room contained only the barest necessities: a cot, a washstand, and a line of brass hooks along one wall to hang my clothes. My blankets were too short to screen her if she hid underneath the cot, which was the only obvious place.

  The green room was a possibility, although actors and actresses went in and out of there all day, checking costumes or making themselves a private cup of tea. But there were crates in the green room, one of which might be large enough to hide Lula inside, although damp and moldy. I could line it with a sheet or a blanket. I would have to make holes for air. A day or two in a crate—after all she’d been through, I thought that she could manage that. But what about during our performances? I’d seen Pinky or Sam shift the crates to make seats for themselves while they waited for their cues or even look inside for a prop they’d misplaced. Any number of things might happen. And there was no lock on the door, as there was on my own door. Could she stay in the green room during the day and then come up here while everyone else was in the dining room eating supper? But that plan seemed too risky. On a boat as small as ours, there was no guarantee of privacy, even during mealtimes. People forgot a handkerchief, or wanted a shawl, or suddenly remembered a letter they wanted to read aloud, and they popped back to their stateroom to get it. They might see us coming up the stairs: me and a runaway slave girl. That would be the end.

  I took Lula up to my stateroom, not knowing what else to do, and she looked all around at the small space, the cot and washstand and the brass wall hooks illuminated only by the moonlight coming in through the window. I pulled the curtains closed and then pulled down the blind that covered the window on the top half of the balcony door. After that, I carefully wiped her blistered and bloodied heels with the rag I used to polish my boots so that her feet began to smell like blackening. She had delicate, curved arches and long toes. I gave her a clean pair of stockings in lieu of bandages, and then I dipped a clean cloth into the water basin, wrung it out, and washed her face.

  “Thank you, miss,” Lula said when I was done.

  “Call me May,” I told her, but she had already begun crying in quiet gulps and might not have heard me.

  I made her lie down on the cot, pulling the blanket up to her chin and touching her forehead as my mother use
d to do for me. Then I stretched out on the floor beside her, using one shawl as a blanket and another as a pillow, and I listened to her quick, low, muffled sobs, wishing I could say something helpful or in some way ease her mind. After a while her sobs fell away and she went to sleep.

  Exhausted as I was, I stayed awake for a long time studying the ceiling, trying to think what to do. I had certainly made a mess of things. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but feel that it was hardly my fault. Anyone would have done the same. I would write to Mrs. Howard in the morning, I decided. I still had Comfort’s itinerary, which I’d tucked into a book of verses that Liddy had loaned me. By now Donaldson had probably informed Mrs. Howard about Lula anyway. It was lucky for me that they were following the Ohio River, as we were. Or was it luck? For the first time I wondered if we were on the same route on purpose. When Mrs. Howard realized I was living on a boat moving down the Ohio River, the natural division between the North and the South, she might have seen it as an opportunity not to be missed. Perhaps she began to plan her schedule around ours. I could picture Donaldson settling Mrs. Howard and Comfort at an inn and then later driving to the dark road above the river to wait for me to bring him the rescued babies. The “packages,” Mrs. Howard had called them. A dark snake seemed to wrap itself around me: a feeling of resentment, of being used. She had wanted me out of the way, and then she wanted me to help her. Would she help me now in return? I didn’t know anything about getting a runaway slave to safety. I wouldn’t know whom I could trust.

  As I lay there fretting, Lula began to moan in her sleep, and then suddenly she cried out:

  “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!”

  I sat up quickly and took her hand, which was very small. Her fingers were cold. I hushed her and bent to whisper in her ear that she was all right now. She was lying faceup with her two short dark braids splayed out against the pillow, and she looked even younger than fourteen. Perhaps she was. But she’d had a baby only two days before, a child giving birth to a child. A taste like old meat rose in my mouth. I wondered if she’d had a nightmare about the father—one of the sons, she’d said. When I stroked her forehead Lula didn’t open her eyes but she did stop moaning. A few seconds later I heard the floorboards creak outside my room and my heart jumped. There was a knock at my door.

  “May,” Hugo said quietly. “You all right?”

  I cleared my throat, hoping to keep my voice even. “I’m fine. I had a bad dream but I’m fine now.”

  I was watching Lula’s face while I spoke. I was afraid she would cry out again or wake up and say something.

  “You need anything?” Hugo asked.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  I hadn’t locked my door—a mistake. There was a long, still moment, and then I heard Hugo go back to his room. I listened for the sound of his cot groaning as he lay down on it. When the quiet extended itself long enough, I let go of Lula’s hand and, as quietly as I could, got up and locked my door, turning the iron key slowly to keep it from making noise. After that, I stretched back out on the floor, prepared to get up again at a moment’s notice. But when I next opened my eyes, the sun was coming up and Lula was awake and turned on her side, looking down at me. I could feel our boat moving down the river.

  I’d been dreaming of Giulia. “Someone’s coming,” Giulia had said.

  • • •

  I went over the possibilities again in my mind. The green room, the dining room, the office—they each had their drawbacks. The main one was that none of their doors had locks.

  “Are they gonna find me,” Lula whispered, “now that it’s day?” It was still very early, the only light the soft gray of sunrise, but I understood her fear. She was curled up in a U on the cot and I sat down next to her, feeling the small nub of her knee against my hip.

  “They’re not going to find you.” I tried to smile—I wanted to reassure her—but the movement felt awkward and pinched.

  “They gonna look,” she said grimly.

  That was true. But who were “they”? We both no doubt painted our own pictures in our minds: mine was a man with manacles hanging from each pocket, a hound at his side, a whip in his hand, and the righteousness of the law spurring him on.

  “I’ve locked the door,” I told her. “No one can come in. But we have to think of a good place to hide you.”

  She slid off the cot and bent to look underneath it, and after a moment I looked, too, wondering if I could make the small space hidden from view. Below us I could hear Jemmy practicing lines as he worked the sweep on the starboard side, “Yes, sir, she put me in a box—she allowed the Marquis to escape and made me take his place. I cried, but she laughed.”

  A box would be perfect. I thought again of the crates in the green room. And then I thought: Helena’s trunks.

  They were still at the foot of my bed, since I had never found another place for them. The larger trunk, a dove-colored dress trunk, was big enough to hold a crouching girl. It opened like a book and had a patch of soft wood on one side, having once been left—this was my guess—in standing water. It was not the trunk of a woman who cared about appearances. Comfort’s trunks, in contrast, had shiny latches (shined by me), and if just one strap began to show wear, she bought a whole new trunk, bargaining in her dimpled way with the trunk maker, trading the old one in for the latest model and getting a better discount than anyone but me thought she could. Helena’s second trunk was smaller than the gray one, a long, black, workmanlike box with fraying straps.

  However, the problem with Helena’s trunks wasn’t their shoddy condition. The problem was that they were both filled to the brim.

  I’d taken all the costumes out of the larger trunk, but even so, it still had many of Helena’s personal effects: two fishing rods of different length, waxed twine, a gutting knife, a hunting rifle, a few hats crushed in different ways, and one hefty teal book: Birds of America, Volume I. I read the words on the flyleaf: Happy birthday to my sister, who is most happy outdoors. Love, Hugo.

  Lula and I discussed it in whispers. “Maybe we can wedge the smaller things into the other trunk?” “What doesn’t fit we can just put under the bed.” I heard shouts below us as the men landed the boat, but it was still too early for most of the actors to be up. The gulls and the shorebirds were loudest at this time of day, and I could also hear men calling out along the pier below us. I was thankful for the noise, and for having an end room. I knew Hugo wouldn’t come back up to his stateroom until after breakfast. Still, I kept my good ear trained for footsteps on the stairs or along the upstairs guard: someone walking about before breakfast was unlikely but not impossible.

  We packed everything we could into the smaller trunk, although I was loath to smash the hats more than they were already smashed. But the hunting rifle? I picked it up. It was on the short side, as befitted a woman, but not short enough to fit in the smaller, black trunk. With no better options, I put it under my bed and covered it with Helena’s old shirtwaists and a shawl.

  Lula had to sit on the trunk lid so I could latch it. She was in my hands completely: my responsibility. She could make no movement by herself toward freedom. What was worse, I realized that Hugo had landed the boat on the other side of the river. We were back in the South. I didn’t tell Lula this. I just said, “Stay away from the window.” The curtains were closed, but to be absolutely sure I pinned them together with three of Helena’s hatpins.

  “What’s that noise?” Lula whispered.

  I listened. “Those are seagulls. Haven’t you ever heard seagulls?”

  She shook her head and touched the end of her braid.

  “But isn’t your home . . . didn’t you live near the river?”

  It wasn’t near the river, she told me. She and the farmhand had to travel all evening and into the night in a hay cart. She and William were squashed up in a barrel together.

  “He slept mostly. That was one good thing.” Below us we could hear the men’s voices as they finished tying up the boa
t. “How many people live here?” she asked.

  “On the Floating Theatre? Twelve.”

  We spoke so quietly, we could hardly hear each other, and Lula kept looking at my door. I got up and tested that it was locked, and then I brought over the basin to clean her feet again. I wanted to take another look at her sores.

  “Have you ever been on a boat before?” I asked, wiping her heels carefully.

  “Once,” she said, “when I went to Evansville with the missus. Maybe I heard seagulls then but I forgot. That town was big! I couldn’t believe how many stores they got. One store had a whole wall stacked with rolls of colored fabric. I don’t know how you could choose just one. If you had the money.”

  “Do you like to sew?” I looked at her fingers, which were long and strong.

  “Yes’m. I sewed both these dresses I have on.”

  She was still wearing her two dresses. I looked at the top one, and she lifted the hem up to show it to me. It was very straight, with small, even stitches. I could not have done better myself.

  “Did you use a rule to keep the line straight?”

  “Jes’ my eyes,” she told me.

  The bell rang for breakfast.

  “Hungry?” I asked.

  She looked at me uncertainly, as though the last question might be a trick. Already her belly was flattening, and her arms were as thin as two twigs. Her curly eyelashes seemed out of place with her suffering.

  “I’m always hungry,” she said.

  • • •

  If anyone in the dining room had paid any attention, they might have seen how clumsy I was: I dropped my fork on my plate three times before I stopped counting, and I knocked over the pitcher of maple syrup, which was luckily empty. Fortunately, everyone was caught up in the thrill of dress rehearsal later that day and opening night tomorrow. No one paid any attention to me, although Hugo did look up briefly when, as I was rising, I pushed my chair back so abruptly, it fell.

  I brought Lula folded pancakes that were moist from being in my pocket, and hot coffee in a large mug that I went back to refill twice. There was always a pot of coffee on the side table in the dining room, along with crackers and biscuits and sometimes cake. When I went back for Lula’s second refill, I saw that Cook had just put out a fresh batch of biscuits, so I carried three of them back to my room. Lula drank the coffee quickly, hot as it was, and ate three biscuits one after another without stopping, then licked the tips of her fingers and felt the sides of her mouth for crumbs.