Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  From near the top of the giant pine, Jonah could see the wagon road he’d followed from the church hill. A horse with a rider trotted along the track. Jonah was pretty sure it was the man who had chased him. He hugged closer to the top of the tree, hoping he couldn’t be seen at such a distance. In the breeze the top swayed back and forth, leaning far out and returning, rocking and returning. He thought that must be the way it felt to ride a big horse, swaying and returning, rising and falling.

  If he had a horse he could travel three times as fast as he could on foot. With a horse Jonah could reach the North before summer was over. He’d have a chance to outrun posses and sheriffs and bounty hunters. But even as he daydreamed about stealing a horse, Jonah knew such a plan was impossible. If he stole a horse he’d be pursued as a horse thief and hanged. Added to that, the sight of a Negro on a horse traveling long distances would bring attention he didn’t need.

  But while he was daydreaming high in the pine, Jonah saw another picture in his mind. It was an impossible picture, but so pretty he couldn’t help but study on it. If he had a good horse and a fine closed carriage, he could be the driver and act like he was carrying some important white person to Richmond or Washington. If he had the right clothes, everybody would assume he was the driver for a rich man. Who would look inside the closed carriage to see who the passenger was?

  The idea was so attractive, Jonah kept running it through his mind. Of course he didn’t have any such horse and carriage, and he didn’t have any fine clothes, but if he did he might be able to pull it off, drive all the way to the North on the widest and best roads, and nobody would ever stop him. It was something to study on.

  Another thought came to Jonah because of the tablet he carried inside his shirt. He wondered if it might be possible to write out a certificate saying he’d been freed by his owner. If he knew how such a document looked, he might be able to make one that would convince any sheriff or bounty hunter who stopped him. Of course he’d have to know what kind of paper to use, and what kind of pen and ink, and he’d have to know the words to write on such a document. If he had the right kind of papers, he could go anywhere without fear.

  JONAH STARTLED HIMSELF FROM his daydream and began climbing down. He had to run before the man returned with dogs and more men on horses. He descended from limb to limb, and it seemed that with each step he lost more confidence. The limbs trembled with his weight, and his arms trembled as he grasped at the branches. Resin made his hands stick on the wood, pulling his skin like glue. As he dropped into the shadows of the deep woods, he wondered why he’d ever thought he could escape from Mr. Williams and from slavery. He was a thousand miles from Canada and at least five hundred from Pennsylvania. He didn’t have a map, and he didn’t have any transportation except his own bare feet. He only had money enough to last for a few weeks at most, and every time he stole something he might give away his whereabouts. The man at the store in Flat Rock had spotted him because of the poster, and because of the direction he’d taken. It was only a matter of time before somebody caught him and sent him back to Mr. Williams. Why had he thought he was smart enough to run away? Why had he thought he could be lucky enough to make his way all the way to the North? By the time Jonah reached the ground, he was overwhelmed by his own foolishness and doubts. It was because he’d learned to read and Mrs. Williams had encouraged him to read that he had such a high opinion of himself. If he was as ignorant as the rest of the folks at the Williams Place, he would never have thought of escaping.

  All is vanity and vexation of spirit, and grasping for the wind, the Bible said, and now he could see clearly what the preacher in Ecclesiastes meant. Instead of humbling himself and accepting the facts, Jonah had let pride lead him into deeper trouble. It was his silly pride that tempted him to run away, and now he would be shot or beaten to death. There was pine resin on his shirt and pants, and more resin on his face and on his hands. He had to remember what would wash it away. Soap wouldn’t melt the gum, and neither would hot water. He could scrub his fingers with sand, but that would only make the skin raw. Turpentine might melt the resin, but turpentine would burn his skin. Jonah recalled Mr. Williams rubbing his hands with something after they’d cut and trimmed a pine tree. It was an oil of some kind, mineral oil or olive oil. Or machine oil or whale oil for the lamps. Maybe even lard would dissolve the stiff, tight resin.

  He had maybe an hour before dark, and Jonah couldn’t wait any longer. Men with dogs might already be on their way to comb the woods. Perhaps they were already waiting for him to come out of the pine woods. Maybe they thought he would run over the next hill, and stood waiting for him there. He moved through the pine woods quickly, but when he reached a thicket with brush and briars he had to find a way around it, and he searched for a path or road. Vines and briars would slow him down too much. Once it got dark he should get on a road and walk as fast as he could. Jonah stumbled about a mile through brush before he came to a little road. He hid in the brush until it was almost dark, and then turned left and followed the road. He figured the sand and gravel in the tracks would soon wear away the resin on the bottom of his feet, but sand stuck to the resin and made his feet sore and his steps uneven.

  He passed a house near the road, and a dog ran out from the woodshed and barked. Jonah held out his hand and whistled a little. Holding out your hand was a friendly gesture, and it usually made a dog stop barking or growling. He knew the worst thing you could do was cause a dog to think you were afraid or angry. Jonah held out his right hand and the dog quieted. In the twilight he could see the animal wag its tail. After a few moments Jonah continued on his way.

  The breeze that comes at the end of a summer day cooled Jonah’s face and blew under his shirt, making it easier to walk. He might be able to get to the far chain of mountains before morning. It was a wide valley, and he needed to get across it. Once he reached the mountain chain he’d be far from South Carolina and closer to the North.

  Twilight was a peculiar time of day, a time when you could both see and not see. The world looked real and not real at the same time. In twilight everything appeared far away, but you felt it was close enough to touch. There was a comfort in twilight, as if you were safe and maybe hidden from danger.

  Jonah tried to choose a stride that he could keep up for hours. He needed a pace that would take him mile after mile. It was no good to wear himself out too fast. It was long hours of steady walking that would carry him to the North. He felt he’d found his gait when he heard the dog barking again far behind him. The dog’s bark could mean something was following him a long way back, for he’d gone at least a mile since passing the cabin. Jonah looked back and saw a light. He hurried forward and then looked back again. This time there appeared to be several lights, as if a group of men with torches was following him. Men carrying lanterns and torches could be foxhunters or coon hunters, but more likely they were hunting him. If they were on horses they could catch up with him quickly. If they had a pack of dogs they could follow him wherever he went.

  If he stayed on the road they’d soon overtake him. If he ran into the woods the dogs might well find his tracks and lead the men right to him. What he needed was a stream. If he could discover a creek and wade in it for a few hundred yards, he might throw the dogs off for half an hour. Maybe he could double back and throw the posse off his tracks even longer.

  Jonah looked back and saw the torches were getting closer, and he began to run. There may have been copperheads crawling in the tracks, but if there were, Jonah leapt over them. One two three four, he said to himself, keeping time with his running. One two three four. Run out the kitchen door. Five six seven eight. Jump over the pasture gate. As the road dipped into a little hollow, Jonah looked for a creek, but what he saw was a bridge, a plank bridge across a creek wider than any he’d yet seen in the mountains. His first thought was that if he got under the bridge maybe the posse would go right over him. And once they’d gone he’d double back the way he’d come.

  Bu
t if they had dogs, the dogs would trace him to the bridge and sniff under the bridge and find him. Jonah would have to get in the creek and wade as far as he could, and then climb out and head through the woods. The creek appeared to wind between fields and rows of trees. The stream ran to the east, not to the north. Climbing down the bank through vines and brush, Jonah saw something at the edge of the water. In the gathering darkness it at first it appeared to be a little shelter, like a chicken coop or dog house. Then he thought it was a trough or box, the kind milk and butter are placed in to keep them cool. But when he touched the object, he found it was a little boat made of boards, with a paddle and one seat and a fishing line on the floor. Paddling the boat down the creek might be his best chance to get away. The posse would follow his tracks to the creek and not know in which direction he’d gone.

  He tugged at the boat, but it was fixed to something. He lit a precious match to see what was holding the craft and found a rope from a ring on the prow tied to a sapling. He untied the rope and pushed the boat into the current and jumped in. Taking up the paddle, he pushed himself out into midstream. The water was so shallow, he could use the paddle to push against the bottom, pointing the little boat downstream.

  In the dark he banged against a rock, and turned aside around it. He then hit a log or snag, and had to turn again. Without a light he couldn’t avoid hitting objects. He pushed on and discovered he could see rippling water if he looked out of the corner of his eyes. Water rippled on a rock or snag or sandbar, so he tried to avoid ripples. Jonah found that if he paused and listened he could also hear the ripples. He paddled quietly, and then listened.

  When he’d gone a ways down the stream he looked back and saw a cluster of lights milling around. The posse must have reached the bridge. They’d be looking for him along the banks of the creek. If he’d stayed under the bridge, he would have been tied up by now. He paddled as quietly as he could, going slow enough so that when he hit a rock it didn’t make much of a thunk. The front of the little boat ground in the sand, and he pulled it back and turned aside and started again. The murmur of the water told him where a rock was, if he listened closely enough. Jonah had never used his ears in such a way before. He listened and paddled. Once he hit the side of the boat with the paddle and it sounded like he’d thumped a wooden drum. He stopped paddling and looked behind him, but the men with torches must have been making so much noise they didn’t hear the knock.

  A limb smacked Jonah in the face, and his eyes filled with tears. There was no way he could see every limb that reached out over the water. He bent forward, keeping as low as possible. He studied the water ahead to catch the gleam from the faint light given off by a bright, rising moon. All he had to do was follow the sparkle. Soon the men with torches were so far behind, they were lost to sight. He seemed to have reached a stretch of still, level water, with few trees on the banks. As he paddled he could watch the moon and the stars above. A dog howled in the distance. He saw lights on the hill to his left. There were so many lights it must have been a town.

  The boat scooted along the still water, and from time to time something scampered down the bank ahead and plunked into the stream. After walking all day and climbing the pine tree, it felt good to rest on the seat of the little boat. His arms did all the work, guiding and pulling the paddle. He crossed his legs and almost knelt in the shallow boat, which nudged weeds here and a sandbar there. It was the easiest traveling he’d done yet, gliding over the water. He wished he could float and paddle all the way to the North. He wished he could get in a current that would sweep him hundreds of miles away from the posse with torches, from Mr. Williams with his black snake whip.

  The creek made a slight turn and Jonah saw a light ahead, and it seemed to be out in the middle of the stream. He quit paddling and drifted, straining his eyes to see the light better. Had somebody from the posse ridden out ahead and now lay waiting for him around a bend in the creek?

  It seemed that on either side of the creek there were open fields and no trees to hide in. He stopped the boat and listened. He heard no voices. He would sit in the boat and wait to see what happened. He could try to paddle back upstream, but that would be hard, and there were no woods to scramble into.

  Jonah pushed the boat to the bank and pulled it up on the sand, working as quietly as he could. The bank was covered with briars and vines, and they tore at his clothes as he climbed to the edge of the field. From there the light ahead was hidden by brush, and he walked ahead as quietly as he could, watching for the light.

  Keeping a clump of brush between himself and the light, he tiptoed up as close as he dared. He expected to see men with shotguns and torches, but instead he spied an old man wearing a straw hat and holding a fishing pole. The man was barefoot, and Jonah saw he was a black man. The man was so still Jonah thought he might be asleep. He held the long bamboo pole out over the still water of the creek. And then Jonah saw the pipe in the man’s mouth and smoke curling past the hat brim.

  “Howdy,” Jonah said.

  The old man turned to look at him, his eyes reflecting the lantern light. “Now ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” the old man said.

  “What creek is this?” Jonah said.

  “This be Mud Creek, I reckon,” the old man said.

  “And where does Mud Creek go?”

  “Go to the French Broad, and don’t ax me where that go ’cause I don’t know, ’cept maybe it go to the ocean.”

  “Does the French Broad run north?” Jonah said.

  “Boy, you ax a lot of questions,” the old man said. He looked at Jonah like he was trying to remember his face. “Ain’t seen you ’round these parts before,” he added.

  Jonah figured he’d better not say any more. The old man would not believe his lies, and it would be foolish to tell him the truth.

  “Reckon you could use some cornpone,” the old man said. He unwrapped a cake of cornbread from brown paper and handed it to Jonah. Jonah took a bite of the pone. Nothing he’d ever put in his mouth had tasted better. The bread had cracklings in it and tasted like gravy.

  “Fish ain’t biting no-how,” the old man said and stood up. He knocked the ashes from his pipe and raised the fishing pole until the hook baited with worms swung back within reach. Stripping the bait off the hook, he wrapped the line around the tip of the pole and stuck the hook into a joint of the bamboo.

  “You be careful, boy,” the old man said and picked up the lantern. He seemed in a hurry to get away, and Jonah guessed it was because he didn’t care to be seen with a runaway. A Negro could be beaten for helping a runaway. The old man carried the lantern and fishing pole across the field toward the town, and Jonah watched him until he disappeared among the row of houses.

  After eating every crumb of the cornbread, Jonah walked back toward the boat. He climbed down the bank, but the boat was not where he expected it to be. He’d walked farther than he remembered to see what the lantern was. It took him several minutes to find the boat farther upstream.

  With the energy the rich cornbread gave him, Jonah began to paddle again down Mud Creek. He couldn’t see the mud, but he could smell it. In still stretches, the creek smelled of rotten things, rancid rags and fetid silt, dead fish and frogs, sick, festering things. He reckoned the runoff from toilets also seeped into the creek, and water from hogpens. He paddled quietly and quickly, hoping to get beyond the town and beyond the narrow, stagnant water. He reached a stand of trees again where the stream passed under low-hanging branches, and it seemed he was in a swamp, both from the smell and the glimmer of water that spread like wings on either side of the creek. Big trees leaned over his path. He ducked and turned aside, and rammed into a log.

  It was hard to tell the path of the creek through the swamp, with water going out in every direction. Twice he ran into vines and brush and knew he’d strayed from the channel. He hated to think of the spiders and snakes all around him. It was better that the swamp was too dark for anything to be visible except for the trees that r
ose like shadows out of the glimmering water. Cobwebs brushed his face and caught in his hair and on his hat.

  He crashed against a tree trunk and backed away. Something big dropped to the water and began swimming. It sounded big as a bear or panther. He kept still and listened to the splash get farther and farther away. Whatever it was moved quickly.

  By straining his eyes, looking sideways to find openings, Jonah finally got to the other side of the swamp. The creek beyond moved faster, rippling on rocks, dashing between trees. To make up for the time he’d lost in the swamp, Jonah paddled faster. One two three four, he said to himself as he pushed the boat forward. One two three four.

  Listening for clues of current churning around rocks, he aimed the little boat at the glimmer of water ahead, and moved faster than the current. One two three four, he said again, and pulled himself forward. One two three four. Jonah was so intent on finding his way among rocks and logs and sandbars he hardly noticed the darkness start to thin and the light in the sky making the trees seem farther away. He could see overhanging branches better, and once he passed under a footlog that was so low he had to duck. In the dark he would have smashed his head against the log, but now he could see it. Someone’s toilet stood on stilts over the creek, and he swerved around it. Jonah rounded the bend and saw what looked like a long pool spreading wider than the creek. He paddled into the middle of the pool, and it was only when he reached the middle that he saw he was entering a much larger stream. He’d reached the French Broad, and though the spot where the creek joined the larger stream was still, the river got rougher just below.