by C. E. Morgan
He runs then, cradling the delicate, knocking eggs in his shirt until he reaches a distance of a mile or more, and when no one seems to be following, he cracks the eggs and drinks them down. Then he moves on through what he hopes is the center of Harrison County, and on that very same afternoon, after having not seen anyone in four days except the woman with the eggs, he spies a second woman—this one from the back and from such a distance, he just watches her creep shakily along for a breathless minute before he realizes she’s colored. He can hear her crying now from where he stands, but he makes no sound at all, resolving to melt back into the undergrowth and shield himself from her eyes; he can afford no joiners, least of all a woman. Then she turns jerkily, suddenly, like a deer that senses rather than hears its predator, and he sees that her belly is as big as a sugar kettle and now her black eyes are on him. Deep as coal rocks, full of lustrous tears. She reaches out one hand to him, her mouth aslant: “Help me! Help dis poor gal!”
He takes a step backward from her call, but he can’t look away, and she comes forward a few broken paces. He is set to run, one foot behind him, his weight ungrounded, a bird preparing for flight.
“Help me! Help us get north!”
Warily, he whispers, “You got to shift for your own self.”
“Please, mistah!” she pleads. “You talk fine, I can tell you a smart nigger. Help dis ignorant gal and dis here baby get dey freedom!”
He rears back in distaste and manages one deliberate step backward, but she stumbles forward, grasping up his shirtfront now in her dirty fist; her touch is what he had most wanted to avoid, even more than her desperate voice. Her distended belly is inches from his. Her eyes burn into him. “Iffen you leave us, dey gone kill us. Dey gone kill dis baby.”
No, no, no, Scipio wants to scream in frustration and anger—unwind the clock, unspool time—but these eyes, this belly … sweat springs up beads on his forehead and upper lip. He wants to curse every step that brought him to this particular spot. All his effort was for him alone! He eyes her angrily and tries to press back his conscience, but it’s no use. In another instant, the thing is done and they are a pair, Scipio plowing through the woods at a frightful, angry pace; the woman drying her tears and skipping along despite her bulk, her rounds of thanksgiving and gratitude devolving into pleas as she falls back now and again with Scipio saying only, “Keep up.” And when they stop at a burbling spring to drink, she whips off her headrag and falls to her knees, saying, “Praise de Lord for … what dey name you?”
“My name ain’t no consequence.”
She blinks. “I’s Abby and dis baby gone be name Canada when it come. I’s gone live in dere, I is.”
“Listen here now,” Scipio says, “I’ll take you two days and then you got to aim east on your own and walk to Mason County. There’s a man there what got a yellow barn. He’ll skiff you across the river to Ripley. He’ll know you by the password ‘Menare.’ I promise you that’s the truth. But I ain’t going there. I got my own plan to swim that river, and I can’t be shaked from it.”
“I’s gone where you’s gone,” she says.
“You ain’t doing no such,” he growls.
“I is!” And to this vehemence, he doesn’t know what to say, he can only glower at her and then they walk on for another day, she at his heels like a bulky terrier, pestering and questioning him and thanking him again and singing and moaning until he feels sure she’s soft in the head and he regrets her more and more each step of the way. Finally he whips about and, with a finger to her face, says, “Don’t talk, don’t ask, don’t touch! Just follow!”
And Abby does follow, gradually quietening and walking with her forearms cradling her enormous belly like saddle straps to hold it secure. Scipio is at first grateful for her silence, but once or twice as they walk during that second day, he glances back and sees silent tear-trails tracking through the grime on her face. It gives him pause, he thinks of his mother. It slowly destroys his resolve.
That night when they’ve sat down side by side, preparing for sleep under the spread arms of a tree, Scipio takes up his case again, but gentler this time.
“Listen here, Miss Abby,” he says. “In the morning, you got to strike out for Mason County on your own. I aim to swim the river and you can’t swim it with that belly a yours. You hear?”
“I can swim,” she says, staring at him mulishly.
He rears back. “God almighty, gal!” The wick of his impatience is lit now. “You gone and lost your mind? What kind of crazy gal runs off when she needs to be laying in? I planned this escape nigh on three years, choosing the month, the day, the very hour, and I won’t have no crazy gal getting me shot on the riverbanks with Canaan right there in my sights!”
Scipio expects her to begin crying again, an act which seems nearly as natural to her as speech, but she just hangs her head for a long minute, like she’s studying deeply on his words. He begins to wonder whether she’s even understood him when she says, so quietly does he have to strain to understand her, “My mammy name me Abby. I am taken from my mammy when I’m age thirteen. I never forget de day. My mammy she done wrapped up my nubbins in a old linen rag so nobody see em, but de speclator come and he seed I got de age on me and he teared me from my mammy and I never forget, she say, ‘Be good, Abby, don’t give em no cause to whup you,’ and I ain’t never done no such. I never seed my mammy anymore. Well, dat speclator man take me to Lexington and he stand me up on de Cheapside block. He den tear off my woolens and de mens come and look and pinch and de speclator cry me off. Dis one man, he pay twelve hundred dollar for me. Ignorant nigger I is, I thinks how lucky I is, a rich man gone pay dat kind a money for me, he gone take right good care a me.”
Abby stops, she seems not to know what to do with her hands as she speaks, pressing them into her hair now, which is wild and unkempt, her rag long fallen away. She will not look at Scipio, she just rocks her knobby hands into her hairline.
“Well, come find dat white trash man ain’t rich,” she says bitterly. “Don’t know how he paid dat kind a money. He only had him three niggers and only one dem’s my age and he done make me de wife a all three.”
Scipio makes an involuntary jerking motion with his hands. He almost asks her to hush, but she continues on.
“Now, here he don’t make me work in no field like I’s expectin, no, he lock me up in dis quarter, ain’t no bigger dan a root cellar and ain’t got no window. He lock me on dis bed with one chain on de wrist and one on de ankle and den dey come messin with me and sometime de Marster he watch de niggers mess with me and den he mess with me. I don’t know how long I’s livin dere, den I get swole up big and he say, ‘You gone have you a baby, Abby,’ and I got de amazement cause I don’t know nothin and den dat baby get borned. Den he let me out and I gets de run a de place, cause he figure if I got a baby, den I ain’t gone run. And he right. I ain’t gone run.”
She looks at Scipio then and she appears crazy to him and he wishes all over again that he could have avoided her somehow, or left her along the way. Cruel as it is and against his own will, he wishes she were back where she’d come from, but still he utters no word.
She says, “Den I seed he got him a Missus. A Missus! Why he messin with a nigger gal when he got a Missus? I don’t never understand. But dey both am mean as devils. Dey chained de niggermens to dey beds at night and dat Missus she whupped em in de morning with a leather switch out a pure devilment. Forty lashes ever day. Dey ain’t never run, cause de Marster say he kill em if dey do and dey knowed it de truth. De Marster have him a old nigger name Perry and one day Perry say, ‘I’s too old, you can’t make me work no more, I’s got to rest,’ and de Marster, he say, ‘Dat sound all right, you slowin down,’ and when Perry turn away, de Marster crack him over de head with de hoe he holdin and drop Perry stone dead. De Marster make de niggers wait to bury him five days and den without no stone. So us all knowed dat true.
“Now, on dis farm don’t a body never visit, no preacher never c
ome, no family never come, just us all de time shiftin for usselves. Well, I gets a string a babies and when dey six or seven year old de Marster, he sell each em away for de money and I ain’t even say no, see, I pray God dey get sold to a good white man. I knows dey’s lots a good white folk in de world like my mammy’s Marster. He ain’t hardly whupped on his niggers and only when dey deserved it.
“But—but den it finally happen. I gets me a white baby and den de Missus know de Marster messin with me and she open hate on me all de time. She pullin my hair and lashin me and de Marster tell her, ‘Quit,’ but den she just do it when he ain’t dere. It am a misery. Dis bout de time my Sarah die a de fever and I only got William who age six and my white baby, Callie. Den one terrible day I brings de sheets in de house for pressin and I fetch de iron out de fire and I got—” She screws up her lips, her whole body shaking.
“Hush!” Scipio whispers, fear and horror curdling in his belly. “Quit talking now, Miss Abby.”
Abby raises up her eyes. “Oh Lord, dat day I got Callie on my arm and she cryin and William, he complainin like he hungry and needin fare or some such and I leave de iron on de sheet and it burn a big black mark. And de Missus, she see dat mark and her face get real funny and Callie squawlin and den de Missus say, ‘Hush dat nigger chile!’ and den she reach over and pick up dat jingling iron and she strike dat hot iron against my baby Callie so hard she break her head in. I never forget how it jingle. My baby don’t even cry, she only open her broke mouth like she a baby bird, her face ruint and broke in and she gasp just like dat and shake oncet and den she die in my arm. Right dere in my arm. Oh God, Lord—I so pained I runs out de house and de Missus wailin to de Marster what she ain’t meant it and he come a-runnin and a-shoutin.”
Scipio has lost the will to quiet her, unable to take his eyes from her stricken face.
“I runs through de yard with my poor Callie and I can’t make no sense a nothing and I screams and I don’t know what, but finally I understands my baby dead and I gots to bury my baby, but my William, oh Lord, my William, something done shaked loose in dat little soul. He snatch my Callie away from me and hold her like he got a nubbin for milkin and he singing to her, and den he cryin and he make like he playin and talkin to her, and de Marster, he come sneak up on him, but William see him and stop and screech like he done lost ever wit, ‘Go away you ugly nigger! God hate you, nigger!’ He callin de Marster nigger, he so distracted, and de Marster, he start to cryin too. Den he smack my boy so hard he fall and de Marster bring me my dead Callie. Den William, he runnin and skippin bout like a dog gone ill and de Marster tell me, ‘You ain’t nothin but bad luck, Abby. Dis here baby dead and now your son, he gone plum crazy. I done lost one thousand dollar dis day.’ And den he done gone off and leaved me to bury my baby gal. I buried her with dese hands. But I ain’t seed where William runned off and I never seed my William anymore. I gone lookin in de woods for him dat evening, and I heared him talkin nosense but he runned away from me, and two days later one a de other niggers come on him in de deep part a de creek where he drownded. Dey all suspicioned de Marster drownded him, but I disbelieve dat. I disbelieve dat! God, I pray my son done put hisself away like a good boy and ain’t let dat dirty white trash hold him down one instant! I heared once God don’t favor de man dat put hisself away, but I disbelieve dat. You hear me? I disbelieve dat! God got righteous mercy if dey six year old!”
She weeps openly and loudly and Scipio scoots over through the dry, rustling leaves, reaching around her, but not to embrace her, only to clamp one dry hand over her mouth. “Hush,” he says. “Hush your mouth. Don’t make no sound now.”
She sobs against his hand, staring up into the blank sky at something beyond his eyes. With an utterly lost feeling, he looks around them at the butternut trees, at the stones, the dumb soil, all the while holding her, rocking her. He keeps that hand on her mouth, feeling a deep burn in his soul, and finally, when he senses that her tears are only coming harder and won’t ever abate, he says, very quietly, “Hush now, hush. Let me tell you something what’ll make you feel better. I got a story for you. This a story about a young buck named Scipio. Miss Abby, you know who that is?”
Her chest still heaving, Abby shakes her head against his hand, her brows drawn in wretched sorrow. “That’s me, you understand? My mother, she named me Scipio. Now, when Scipio was just a young buck, he was mighty good friends with Master’s son, named Richmond. Richmond and Scipio was running all over the place, through the fields, up the road, and all in the great house. Being friends with Richmond, Scipio didn’t never get whipped, cause he never made no trouble, and he got some education on the sly. Nobody learned him to read, but he listened to the white folks talk and he learned plenty that way. He figured enough to know that the black folk was property in Kentucky but free in Ohio, and that got him to thinking. Got him to thinking hard. Now, Scipio’s mother was the cook for the great house and Scipio, he was brung up to do the carpentry. The years passed until Richmond was near bout a man, sixteen or so, and four years older than Scipio. Richmond begun watching Scipio’s mother and then one day he tried to interfere with her. Now, Scipio’s mother wouldn’t tolerate that kind of treatment from a pup and she slapped him away. But Richmond thought he had got the right to Scipio’s mother! Richmond was so mad then, he put a wedding gift fire poker in the quarter Scipio shared with his mother. All the great house was searching for that fire poker and when they found it in the cabin, they raised revolution. They intended to whip Scipio’s mother. So what you think Scipio done?”
Abby blinks and tugs his hand from her mouth. “What you done?” she whispers. He grins angrily, feeling strangely loose from his old self, almost disembodied; he has never told this story to a soul. His life has always depended upon it.
“Why, I hollered, ‘I done it!’ and then what you think happened?”
Abby is silent, saucer-eyed, but her tears have stopped.
“Why, they whipped Scipio heaven high and valley low and then they poured brine on his back and then they done it all over again with the stock end of the whip. But don’t you worry, Miss Abby—the story don’t end there. Don’t you believe that Scipio wanted revenge? Oh, yes, he did, you know he did. But he couldn’t get no revenge on Richmond, cause that was too easy to figure. No, Scipio decided he was gonna work revenge on the whipping man, that dumb overseer, who ain’t had no sense a smell and was half-blind in the one eye. That man was just mean as a snake. So Scipio waited real patient for his chance. He waited three long months, counting every minute. Now, he knowed his way all around that great house and he knowed the overseer smoked a ivory pipe alongside Master every Thursday evening in the front parlor while they talked the business. Well, Scipio done made a show of acting real sorry and sad and like that, but when nobody was in that great house, he sneaked in there with gunpowder he stole from the gun cupboard, and he packed that gunpowder in the overseer’s pipe nice and tight under the tobacco. It smelled real strong, but the overseer, he ain’t had no sense a smell at all. See, Scipio just sealed it good and tight and he ran back to the quarter and for a whole day suffered the awfulest fear that maybe he packed the wrong pipe and Master was fixing to blow hisself up instead, but no, come the next evening, there was the biggest bang from the great house and all the colored folk and all the white folk, they was running all over the yard, the Missus was hollering and they took that bleeding, jaw-busted overseer near sixty miles to a special doctor down in Perryville and he stayed gone nigh on seven weeks. When he come back, he hadn’t had no tongue, his head just crooked as a scarecrow’s, and nobody was the wiser, but they all knowed he was the most ignorant white man there ever was, packing his own pipe with gunpowder. And, sure enough, he also knowed he was the most ignorant white man there ever was, cause he whipped on the wrong nigger, but he done whipped on so many, he ain’t even knowed which one.”
Laughter erupts from Abby, a piercing bright sound of delight before Scipio clamps his hand down on her mouth again, sayi
ng, “Hush!” but she’s laughing, her breasts heaving, her belly shaking, and he has to cover his own mouth with his free hand, because he too begins to laugh; he’s laughing so hard it rocks him, but he also thinks of his mother dead and cold in the ground, who used to say to him, “You my onliest love and de whole world ain’t no count if you ain’t in it,” and he can’t tell whether his tears are laughter or despair, they burn his eyes like acid just the same.
In the morning, their laughter has echoed away, and he doesn’t mention Mason County again, or the skiff, or her need to veer east. They resume their northward trek, Scipio in the lead. He pushes ahead with renewed vigor, passing through open pasturage at times, sensing—knowing—that the river is not far now, not if they have covered close to ten miles a day, what would have been twelve or even fifteen without a pregnant woman at his side. But that is no matter now. Because of her story, or perhaps because of his, she stays close to him, sometimes grabbing out at his shirt when she stumbles or trips, but he doesn’t seem to mind; she’s broken him. Scipio will keep them safe. He will conduct them to the far side.
At midday, as he’s gathering berries for them, she makes a deep, chesty sound, what he initially mistakes for singing under her breath, but when he turns, she’s bent and hesitant, sweating, her hands spread for balance in the air. When he goes to her, trouble on his brow, she straightens up and blanks her face, says, “I’s fine. Walk on, Scipio.”
On the last day of their walking, the land grows increasingly hilly and curvaceous, much more so than Scipio had expected. No more obliging fields with forest enclosure, but hikes so steep that Scipio is hauling Abby up the inclines and her whole body trembles with the effort. She speaks no words today, as if every faculty she possesses, including speech, is sacrificed for this last consuming effort and it is the last, because at the break of the hill, she stumbles into Scipio, who has stopped suddenly. Through a natural window in the trees, they spy the Ohio River down below, that dark dividing line made by God but named by men, and they are standing at the watershed where all of life flows north to freedom. Scipio raises his arm and points and she peers around his shoulder with a hard sigh. He realizes with some dismay that though he can see the red brick and smoke of Cincinnati to the west, they are some distance from the city and there’s nothing to be done about it. They’ll swim from the bank directly below them.