Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  Girl, you’re not as smart as you think you are, I said to myself and started back toward the river. In the dark, limbs hit me in the face and briars raked my ankles. I held my arms out in front of me but still ran into a tree. I thought I heard somebody walking, and stopped still as a stump until the footsteps were gone.

  It seemed to take me all night, but when I reached the river I followed the bank, knowing that boy had come back to the boat and left me. But then I stumbled on something in the dark and it was the boat right where I’d left it. The paddle was there and the fishing line was there. But Jonah had not come back. I thought he must still be waiting outside the store.

  So I sat down in the boat and waited. And then I lay down, using my hands for a pillow. I must have gone to sleep, for next time I opened my eyes it was beginning to get light and the birds were singing in the trees along the river. I lay in the boat, but there was no sign of Jonah. First thing I thought is, that boy has been caught. For all his bragging about knowing how to read and knowing the map of the way to the North, he had been caught breaking into that store. He had been killed, or taken in chains to a jail.

  A sick pain shot deep through my belly, for if Jonah was caught he might tell on me. People had seen me in the boat the day before. They might already be looking for me with dogs and guns. If they caught a colored girl in the woods, they could do whatever they wanted with her. I listened, but didn’t hear anything but birds in the trees.

  If I got in the boat and paddled on down the river, I might leave Jonah stranded, if he had not been caught but ran back to the river to get away. If I stayed any longer, I was liable to get caught myself, if they were out looking. It was an awful puzzle about what was the best thing to do. I wished I’d stayed at the Thomas Place where there was plenty to eat and all I had to do was carry trays and help Sally and let the Master have his ease with me. But I saw it was too far to go back up the river now. If I started walking up the river I’d be caught for sure, and they’d whip me and brand me on the cheek, or cut off my ear.

  I sat in the boat and listened, and the longer I waited, the more I was sure Jonah had been caught and put in jail. And if he told about me, I’d be caught, too. And then I thought, no, he’s still hiding and will come back to the boat anytime. He would come when it was safe, for he’d not leave the boat, which was the only way he had to travel down the river.

  It never crossed my mind that he wanted to get away from me so bad he’d just leave the boat and start walking along the roads and trails. A young girl never thinks a man will leave her. I figured I was so special and I made him happy, and he needed me for his long trip to the North. A girl will fool herself, thinking a man needs her. I told myself I’d be good to that boy when he came back.

  But after a long time I saw he was not coming back. He’d been caught or killed or had run off on his own and I had no way of knowing what had happened. I was miles down the river from the Thomas Place, and I didn’t know where the North was, because I didn’t have any map in my head.

  Since I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I pushed the boat into the river and climbed in. But guiding that thing and paddling was harder than I expected. Every time I paddled one way, it seemed to go another. The current pushed the boat sideways and I hit on a rock and was nearly thrown in the water. Everything seemed to go backward. The boat rammed into a log and tilted.

  The open water in the middle of the river ran fast and dangerous and deep. I’d never learned to swim and knew I’d be drowned for sure if I got out over deeper water. I tried to steer the boat and hit a sandbar. After I pushed off of the sand and mud, I tried to aim for the still water in a bend. I tried every which way to make the boat go for me without getting far out on the river. But I kept running into brush and overhanging limbs. A big snake plopped into the boat and I flung it out with the paddle. A mud turtle the size of a dishpan sat on a log watching me go by. I brushed past a hornet’s nest in a birch tree and one stung me on the shoulder.

  Finally I saw it was no good. Jonah could made the boat work, but I couldn’t seem to find the right way. If I tipped over on a rock in deep water I would drown and nobody would ever know what became of Angel. I didn’t know where the river went anyway, though I knew that all rivers run to bigger rivers that go to the sea. Girl, you better get out and walk, I said to myself. You’re not going anywhere in this rotten old boat.

  When I saw a bare spot on the bank a little way ahead, I pushed the boat in that direction. When the point of the boat hit the mud, I jumped out and pulled it out of water. Soon as the boat was safe, I heard this noise halfway like a laugh and halfway like a belch, not quite like anything I’d ever heard before. I looked up the steep bank and saw this animal with big ears and silver whiskers under its chin and big old eyes like bubbles looking down at me. I thought it must be the devil himself making that funny noise. And then I saw it was the devil’s own pet, a goat with a collar and bell on it.

  I wasn’t going to climb the bank with this goat looking down at me. He might butt me right back into the river. So I was stuck between the mud and the steep bank when I heard somebody singing up there in the trees. But it wasn’t any kind of song I’d ever heard before.

  “Who are you?” I hollered. The singing went on, and I climbed a little higher and saw this old man at the top of the high bank. He wore a straw hat and had the biggest mustache I ever saw. He said something I didn’t understand and beckoned me to come up. He took the goat by the collar with one hand and waved me up with the other.

  It took me some huffing and puffing to climb that hill, and when I got to the top the old man lifted his hat with one hand and smiled under that mustache big as the goat’s horns. No white man had ever lifted his hat to me before, though I wasn’t too sure this man was a white man. His skin was nearly as dark as mine, but his features looked white.

  And then I saw this wagon in the clearing about half the size of a regular horse or ox wagon. The wagon was painted all kinds of colors, with figures like hex marks and pictures. And the canvas cover was also painted with pictures of trees and goats and hills and pretty houses with white columns. Buckets and pitchers, kegs and pans, hung from nails on the sides of the wagon. And hitched to the wagon were two goats in red harness, and three other goats with collars were grazing beside the wagon.

  The old man smiled at me and pointed to his wagon and said something else I couldn’t understand. And I thought he must be a gypsy or foreigner, maybe a Melungeon, or some kind of Indian. And then it came to me all of a sudden: this was the Goat Man that people talked about. I had heard tales all my life about a man who traveled with goats up and down the country from north to south and sharpened knives and soldered buckets and dishpans. Every few years he passed going one way or another, and then would come back again. I’d never seen him before but knew the stories.

  “You’re the Goat Man,” I said and he smiled and nodded and said something that didn’t make sense. But I reckoned he knew his name. He understood what people called him.

  “Where are you going, Goat Man?” I said. He shook his head like he didn’t understand me. But then he pointed to the direction that I thought was maybe north. His shirt had big, droopy sleeves and flowers embroidered on the chest. But the cloth was dirty. I don’t reckon that shirt had been washed in a year.

  “Have you got anything to eat?” I said. I was so hungry I was ready to beg, or drop to the ground. But he didn’t understand me. The Goat Man was so short, he didn’t come to my shoulder. He pointed to the boat like he was asking where I came from and where I was going. I didn’t want him to think I was a runaway, but he didn’t seem to understand anything I said.

  “Goat Man,” I said and rubbed my belly, and pointed to my mouth. He raised a finger like he meant to say wait a minute. Then he ran to the wagon and came back with a long, thin loaf of bread. I’d never seen bread like that before, shaped like a sausage. He broke the loaf in half and gave me a piece.

  The bread was hard on the outsid
e and soft on the inside. I could hardly bite it, but when I crunched into it I found it was the sweetest bread I’d ever tasted. I was so hungry I crushed the bread with my teeth and ate the whole thing quickly.

  Soon as I finished the bread the Goat Man took two buckets off the side of the wagon and handed them to me and pointed toward the river. I hated to go back down to the water, but he had given me the bread so I took the buckets.

  By the time I climbed back up the bank, sloshing the buckets of water, the Goat Man had a fire started, and he unharnessed the two goats from the wagon and all the animals were grazing on the weeds and vines. He put water in a pot to boil and make coffee, and he boiled more water to make mush.

  I went to gather some sticks for the fire, for I was still hungry and I wanted him to let me stay. And since he talked in a strange tongue, maybe he wouldn’t turn me in to the sheriff. I brought an armful of sticks and then I gathered another load. The Goat Man had a pan of tomatoes somebody had given him or he had bought or taken from a garden. And he had some sweet corn, too. He roasted the corn in the ashes for a few minutes and then stripped off the dirty shucks. And then he got plates and let me eat with him. The corn and tomatoes and mush tasted so good, tears came to my eyes. The old man took a drink from a flask but didn’t offer me any. And I didn’t care. I’d never eaten better vittles in my life.

  Nine

  Jonah

  With the money he took from Chitwood’s Store and the new pair of overalls and new shirt, the matches and fishhooks and sharp pocketknife, Jonah struck out overland until he reached the river he learned later was the Holston. He thought of looking for a boat to paddle up that river, which ran from the northeast, but saw the current was too strong. He could walk faster than he could paddle upstream.

  Jonah followed the river to a village called Kingsport, and then took the road to the northeast. He found that with the new clothes he didn’t look so much like a runaway. And he wrote a note on a page in the tablet that said: “This nigger boy is going to help my sick mother in Winchester. Please help him get there, Cyrus Page, his owner, in Knoxville, Tennessee.”

  Jonah had decided to say he was from Knoxville in Tennessee instead of South Carolina, in case someone made inquiries and found that a boy like him had run away from the Williams Place. Twice he’d been stopped by a sheriff on the road, and each time, after reading the note, the sheriff had let him go. Jonah thought it was the words “help my sick mother” that worked the best. He was proud he’d thought of that detail.

  And he’d learned how not to act like a runaway, also. Scared as he was, he tried not to show it. From time to time he remembered the saying, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” He walked right along the road like anybody else, as if he had nothing to hide. And when white folks passed, he stepped aside and took off his hat and bowed. He found that if he showed good manners, nobody was suspicious. A runaway slave was supposed to be angry and dangerous. Jonah was always smiling and cheerful, and took care to appear humble. If runaways were expected to be nervous and resentful, he would try to act the opposite. The wounds on his back had healed, and he tried to act as if they’d never been there. Jonah was pleased by his cleverness.

  Every day he asked himself how a Negro would behave when traveling to Winchester, Virginia, at his master’s behest. He wouldn’t be expected to have much money. He would have good clothes but not fancy clothes. He decided that a boy like himself, if he was traveling legally, might stop at houses along the way and ask if he could work for his dinner. He could chop wood or slop the hogs. He could cut weeds and carry fodder from the corn fields. He had nothing to hide.

  Through trial and error, he found the method that worked best. Along about dinnertime each day, he’d stop at the biggest house in sight and knock on the back door. When the cook or other black servant came to the door he would say, “Has you gots a little work I could do for some cornbread?” It was best not to sound educated. One cook who’d met him at the door when he talked proper had said, “What kind of high-talking nigga is you?” And slammed the door. After that, he’d always spoken as if he didn’t know how to read.

  Some cooks would say, “What you doing here in my yard, boy?” or “How come a lazy boy like you ain’t out working in the field?”

  But they’d usually end up handing him a piece of cornbread or a baked potato or two. Sometimes, but rarely, he’d get a biscuit with a piece of meat. They almost never asked him to do any work. In fact, they seemed happy to send him on his way as soon as possible. Maybe they suspected he was a runaway.

  “Now go on, get out of my yard, before somebody see you,” the cook might say, like she was the Queen of Sheba. But that was all right, for as far as he was concerned, she could be the Queen of Sheba.

  It nearly always worked. It was the new overalls and manner of not being afraid that were effective. He acted humble, but not afraid. At suppertime they might give him a piece of cornbread and a cup of milk. And more than once he’d eaten watermelon with the field hands when they came back in the evening. They ate watermelon and sang hymns in the backyard until it was dark and the crickets and katydids had come out.

  The rule seemed to be: don’t ever act like what you really are. All is appearance and deception.

  When Jonah reached the village of Roanoke, it was late August. The leaves on the trees were beginning to look old and dry, and the nights were not as hot anymore. The little town had a courthouse and several churches, a row of brick houses, and a tavern and hotel. Jonah had found it was better to knock at a more isolated house, for cooks were happier to feed him if they were not being observed by neighbors. He walked through the town and looked down the side streets, hoping to find just the right place, not too far out and not too close to the center of town, either.

  There were many little houses on the streets and along some of the back alleys. High mountains swooped up on either side of the town. He saw more taverns with stables and stock pens behind them. He reckoned maybe lots of drovers and wagon traffic came through Roanoke. It was at the north end of town that he saw the big white house. It was not a mansion, but it had two stories, and dormer windows and a white picket fence in front. The house could be considered part of the town, but stood at the edge, in the country also. The main road ran to the left of it.

  When he went behind the house to knock on the kitchen door, Jonah saw a long back porch on the second story. Three women sat in the sun there, their dresses pulled down off their shoulders so most of their bosoms were bare. Jonah looked away from them and rapped on the door. The cook who answered looked hard at him.

  “Does you have a little work I could do for a pone?” he asked in his best humble voice.

  “What you doing here, boy?” the cook said.

  “Jus’ a piece of cornbread and I be on my way,” Jonah said.

  “Humph,” the cook said. She turned away and he saw he’d failed. It was time to move on. But then she turned back to him.

  “You know how to peel taters, boy?” she said.

  “Reckon I do.”

  “Wash your filthy hands at the well,” the cook said.

  When his hands were clean, the cook, who called herself Lonella, made him sit in the kitchen with a basket of washed potatoes and a pan for the peelings and another for the peeled potatoes. No one had ever put him to work in the kitchen before.

  As he peeled and Lonella stirred steaming pots on the stove, she complained, seemingly to herself. “Can’t get no help around here. Them trash won’t help with nothing.”

  “I can help,” Jonah said.

  “What you say, boy?” Lonella said, as if he’d spoken out of turn. “You put them taters in the pan and don’t cut away all the flavor.” He continued peeling and kept his mouth shut.

  Slow down there, Jonah, he said to himself. Just hold your tongue.

  “Now don’t slice away all the meat in them spuds,” Lonella said. “You know the good taste is right under the skin.”

  It had been a l
ong time since Jonah had peeled potatoes. He scraped some of the thinnest skin off the small potatoes and sliced away the skin on bigger ones. The knack came back to him as he worked.

  “And don’t take all day,” Lonella said.

  The potatoes were wet, and his fingertips began to wrinkle from the water and starch.

  “Now who is this?” a voice said from the doorway to the dining room. It was a white woman with red hair, wearing a fancy dressing gown with embroidery and ruffles on it. She had a ribbon in her hair.

  “He just a boy be helping me,” Lonella said.

  “We can use some help around here,” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jonah said and bowed his head. It was the first time he’d been caught in the kitchen by the owner of a house. The woman said her name was Miss Linda, and she asked him what kind of work he could do.

  “Mos’ any kind, ma’am,” he answered.

  The woman smiled at him, and he had a feeling she knew he was a runaway, or at least someone who was not where he was supposed to be. The woman’s gown fell open a little and he could see she had some kind of lace underneath. “Lonella needs a little help, and so does Hettie, the maid,” Miss Linda said.

  Jonah wanted to say he was on his way to Winchester, Virginia. He wanted to show Miss Linda his note, but with his hands wet he didn’t dare, for she seemed to look right into his head. She could call the sheriff and say he was a runaway and he’d be put in chains.

  “Yes, ma’am, I be glad to help,” Jonah said.

  When he finished peeling potatoes, Lonella showed him a room in the basement where he could sleep. There was a cot and nightstand and the place smelled a little damp. But it was far better than the barns and haystacks and thickets he’d been sleeping in. Then Lonella put him to work splitting wood at the woodpile in the backyard. The girls on the second-story porch talked and laughed and called out to him, telling him not to get too hot.