Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  “I won’t steal any more eggs,” I hollered to Goat Man and shook my head. The eggs were so good I doubted I could keep my word if the chance to get more came my way. But I promised it anyway. I had to travel with the Goat Man, and I didn’t have any other way to go, and I had to keep on moving.

  “I won’t steal anymore,” I yelled again, and the Goat Man smiled and nodded and said some more of his strange talk. I was glad to have that settled.

  After I got more water from the creek and washed up the pots and pans, the Goat Man took a wooden pipe with holes in it from the wagon. It was a kind of whistle, and when he blew it and lifted his fingers from the holes, it made a kind of tune. Some of the notes were sour, but the beat was strong, and he moved his body to the beat. I wondered how he could play at all if he couldn’t hear. How could he make music if he was deaf? And then I thought he must be able to hear the music a little bit. Maybe he could feel it in his hands.

  I got up and started dancing to the music of the pipe, two steps this way, two steps that way, swung my hips around and clapped. He nodded and played harder, trying to match the playing to my steps. By watching me, he could see the music he was making.

  “You old rascal,” I said and lifted my skirt a little as I danced. If I was going to wear a gypsy scarf, I might as well dance like a gypsy. I clapped and danced around the fire as it got dark. He knew lots of tunes and he kept playing them. Watching me seemed to please him.

  If the Goat Man had guessed I was a runaway, he didn’t seem to care. I reckon he lived in a world of his own, on the road with the goats, and didn’t take much interest in what happened on plantations and in the towns. Sometimes I thought he must be an Indian from the way he traveled in all weather and lived in his wagon. Except that little book he read out of every morning didn’t seem like an Indian thing. It had funny-looking writing, and he made humming sounds when he read from it.

  I could tell which way was the north because when the sun came up I looked to my left. That was the way that low-down Jonah said to go. And when the Goat Man left the river, that’s the way we tended. I was glad we were working our way in that direction. Jonah might be dead for all I knew, but I was headed in the right way. I didn’t know the names of all those places the way Jonah did, but maybe I could get there just the same. Nothing ever works out the way you plan it anyway.

  The strangest thing happened after we’d been traveling about a week and got up into Virginia. We shuffled along the road, me leading the goats on a string and the Goat Man whistling and sun crashing down hot as a cookstove. It was so hot, I felt the heat coming up from the ground and the dust on weeds along the road glaring. The Goat Man was looking for a house where he could sharpen knives or a saw and make a little money, and maybe get some new potatoes. In that wild country we hadn’t eaten too well in the last few days.

  We came creaking over a hill and saw these cherry trees loaded down with black cherries and a woman on a short ladder picking cherries. Now the Goat Man and I thought the same thing: we had to get us some sweet cherries to eat on the way. We needed a change and cherries were just the thing. So we stopped on the road and I hollered to the woman to ask if she wanted any pots and pans mended, or knives and scissors sharpened. She didn’t hear me at first and I yelled again. Only then did I see the baby lying on a blanket on the grass at the edge of the orchard. The baby was waving its legs and arms around and crying.

  “I have scissors that need sharpening,” the woman on the ladder called. “Can you wait till I get to the house?”

  “How long will you be?” I hollered.

  Now for some reason when I called I looked up and saw this big bird out the corner of my eye. I thought at first it must be a hawk, but then as it came closer I saw it was a golden eagle. You don’t expect to see a bird that spreads its wings so wide. And then it dove just like a hawk dropping on a chicken. And I screamed because it was going like a lightning bolt straight for the baby.

  “No, can’t be!” I hollered and started running toward the baby. I heard the whoosh of the wings, but I was too slow. That awful bird that looked like it was on fire swooped and grabbed the pretty baby in its claws. Its wings were longer than I was tall and I could feel the wind off its wings as they beat to lift back up.

  But that baby must have been heavier than the devil bird expected, for it beat harder and blasted up dust from the weeds, and slowly lifted away. It looked like I wasn’t going to reach the baby in time. But the awful bird was slower than he meant to be, flogging and flapping his wings to carry off his prize.

  “No!” I yelled and grabbed the baby around its belly. “No, you bastard!” I screamed.

  The wings beat in my face and the eagle pulled away. But he couldn’t lift the baby out of my grasp. Even the hell bird wasn’t that strong. He yanked and beat my face and pecked the top of my head like a cold chisel, and I still didn’t let go. I thought he was going to peck out my eyes, and I turned my face away, but didn’t let go of the darling child.

  Now the eagle had to make up his mind. He couldn’t carry the baby off as long as I held her, and he wouldn’t let go with his claws. His eyes glared at me like squirts of fire. He was as mad as a demon from hell. I jerked my head sideways and he pecked my ear. His claws were dug into the baby’s flesh, and I couldn’t grab his foot because I was holding on to the baby’s belly.

  I looked around to see if anybody could help me, but the Goat Man just stood by the wagon like he was frozen, and the woman had fallen off the ladder and was picking herself up in the weeds. For a second I thought of trying to grab the eagle by the neck, but if I let go of the baby he would fly away. He beat his wings more and dust boiled up so I could hardly see and the baby screamed. That devil was trying to see how determined I was, and when he saw I didn’t aim to let go, he gave it up and took his claws out of the baby. But before he flew away he slashed his claws on the side of my head, and I could feel the wet blood.

  That terrible bird flapped away and I held the baby that wasn’t hurt except for some claw marks. The woman ran up and grabbed the baby out of my hands and she pressed it to her bosom. She laughed and cried at the same time, and then prayed, and started to cry again.

  “Your baby’s not hurt,” I said, blood running down on my forehead. I rubbed the blood out of my eyes and felt the scratch on my head. My hair was all bloody.

  The Goat Man came to me and made me bend over so he could see the cuts on my head. Then he stepped into the weeds and got some cobwebs of a writing spider and put the sticky strands on my head to stop the blood.

  Still crying, the woman carried her baby to the house and we followed. I stopped at the well to wash my face and hands. The woman stood on the porch a long time holding the baby and when she calmed down, she went inside and came back out with two pairs of scissors. And she handed me a bucket and told me to go pick some cherries to take with us.

  All the time I was picking the cherries I kept thinking how strange it was to see that eagle try to steal the baby. Didn’t seem like it could happen, except it did. It didn’t seem possible for a bird to take a living child. But if I hadn’t been there that devil bird would have flown away with the baby.

  Now when I carried the cherries back to the house, I went in the back door, but the lady and her baby and the Goat Man were on the front porch where he worked. I could hear the grinding wheel. As I went through the living room I saw this pretty piece of gold cloth folded on the sofa. It would be just perfect to make a dress for myself. The fabric shone and shimmered like sunlight on water. I put the cloth under my dress and walked out the back way, and then I set the cherries and the cloth in the wagon, before going around to the front porch.

  The lady of the house was still standing there holding her baby. She reached into her pocket and held out fifteen cents. “Is this enough?” she said.

  “That will be plenty,” I said and gave a little bow. The place on my head had quit bleeding, but my head hurt like it had been whacked with a stick. The headache came
from being scared by that old eagle. Every time I got scared, I came down with the busting headache. When the Goat Man and I got back on the road, I was still shaking from the scare as I walked along.

  After we stopped for the night and the Goat Man looked in the wagon, he saw the piece of cloth beside the bucket of cherries. I thought he would be mad, because he feared he’d be blamed. But he held the cloth up in firelight like he was admiring it, and he said something I didn’t understand. And he didn’t seem mad. I was afraid he would throw the cloth away, or drop it in the fire so nobody could find it and blame him, but he didn’t.

  “Got to have something for my cuts and scare,” I said. The Goat Man just nodded and put the gold cloth back in the wagon bed.

  All the time I was getting water and gathering sticks, while the Goat Man was milking the nannies, I studied how to make a dress out of that fine fabric. My own dress was dirty and all torn up and I needed something to make me look decent. To be treated decently, a woman has to look decent. I knew the Goat Man had needles and thread in a box in the wagon, because I’d seen him sew up his own clothes. He even did embroidery on his shirt. But to sew well, you need a pattern to cut out the pieces of a dress. Out on the road I didn’t have a pattern and I didn’t have a table to lay the cloth on. I couldn’t cut fine cloth on weeds and dirt.

  As soon as the coffee was boiling and the grits were cooked, the Goat Man and I ate and had cherries with goat milk. The cherries were so sweet and ripe, they burst on my teeth and juice squirted all over my mouth. My head was still sore, but there was nothing I could do about that. After we finished the coffee, I got some more water and washed up the pots and cups and dishes. I was thinking about how I could cut out a dress from the fine cloth so it would fit me. But even if I had a pattern, where would I cut the cloth? And I thought how nice it would be to have a house and sewing table and light to see by. Just to have a chair to sit in would be a luxury. Out on the road with the Goat Man, I had to sit on a rock or a log, or on the ground. Girl, don’t you ever run away again, I said to myself. That boy Jonah got you in a bad fix and then up and left you, like any man will.

  And then by the fire, after everything was washed up, and the Goat Man was playing his whistle, I saw what to do. Instead of dancing to the music I took my dress off by the fire, so I was not wearing anything but my drawers. The Goat Man looked at my big titties and he kept playing that pipe. I reckon he thought I was going to dance without any clothes on. Instead I pulled a piece of spare canvas out of the wagon, the piece he sometimes used for a tent, and spread the canvas on the ground by the fire. I took a piece of charcoal and tried to draw the sections of my dirty dress on the canvas. It was hard to get it right, but I tried to fit the drawing to the lines and seams of the old dress. It took me several tries to get all the pieces lined out.

  The Goat Man watched me, and when I took up the scissors to cut the canvas, he stopped playing and shook his head and ran to the wagon. And he came back with a piece of cheesecloth, the kind he used to strain the goat milk and squeeze the whey out of cheese. It was a kind of light gauze, and I laid it on the canvas and traced out the pattern on the cheesecloth. The gauze was light as a mist when I held it up to the firelight. Taking up the scissors, I snipped out the pieces as carefully as I could.

  The Goat Man didn’t play any more; he just watched me cut out the pattern. I reckon he was watching my breasts, too. No man can keep himself from looking at breasts, and mine were mighty handsome, if I do say so. I didn’t mind being naked in the firelight, which made my skin the color of honey, but I put my old dress back on when the pattern was traced out as close as I could make it.

  On the canvas spread out on the dirt, I pinned the pieces of cheesecloth onto my fancy gold fabric, not paying any attention to my sore head. It seemed the fight with the eagle over the baby was all a dream anyway. Nobody would believe that could happen if you told them. I was not sure I believed it myself, except I had the scabs on my head to prove it. And I had the cloth I took from the big farmhouse, too. I sliced out the pieces as neatly as I could in the firelight. And then it was time to go to bed, so I rolled the pieces up and put them in the wagon, and when I lay down in the blanket underneath I expected to go to sleep.

  But instead of sleeping, I lay there with my head hurting, thinking about the woman picking cherries and the eagle swooping down, and me holding on to the baby. And when I drifted off to sleep finally, I dreamed about the eagle, and saw the gold cloth was the color of the eagle feathers. My dress would be made from the eagle’s feathers. My revenge on the eagle was to cut him in pieces and wear him to show my victory. And in my dream I knew I’m dreaming. But I saw that because I had beaten the eagle I would also beat the road, and I could reach freedom. It would be an awful fight and a long struggle, but I would get there in the end.

  Now the strangest thing in my dream was that when I was fighting the eagle and holding on to the baby’s belly, I saw the baby’s face, and it was not a white face; it was the face of Jonah. I knew that was crazy, and even in my dream I knew it was crazy. But that’s what I saw. I saw Jonah crying even as the eagle tried to tear him away. And I thought the story of Jonah was not over yet, and the story of Jonah was my story, too. Silly as it seemed, that’s what I saw.

  Next day as we walked along way up in the mountains of Virginia, the wagon creaking on rocks and goats cropping grass, I studied on my dream. And I saw it was all a portent. The Bible said a dream told the future, like a prophet, if you knew how to cipher it. I didn’t know all the dream meant, and I thought on the eagle and the baby, and I studied on the bright dress I was going to make. That dress flashed in the sun like they said the streets of heaven do. I was going to wear it with the scarf the Goat Man had given me.

  That night after all the things were washed up, I start sewing. By the firelight I could just see to thread a needle. Mistress Thomas had tried to make me learn to sew well, but I didn’t want to then. But now I wanted to sew more than anything. I had to make my pretty dress. I started joining the pieces of cloth by making tiny stitches. I poked the needle through by feel and pulled the thread tight. I made the most careful stitches I’d ever made. The shiny gold fabric was going to fit my body, the color of the cloth lighter than the deep gold of my skin. But the cloth was no softer or smoother than my skin. With every stitch I was sewing my future. If clothes make the girl, I reckoned I was making myself, what I would be. Pretty cloth to cover my beautiful skin.

  The Goat Man played his whistle, and instead of dancing in the firelight, I made my fingers dance with the needle, dancing a stitch at a time, every stitch a step on the long journey.

  ONE MORNING I WOKE up under the wagon and it was raining drip drip drip off the canvas top on both sides. My blanket was a little wet and the ground was wet. I roused myself because I had to find some sticks to start a fire. But the woods were all wet and the trees streaming water. It was late summer and there was a river nearby.

  Where do you find dry wood on a rainy morning out where there’s no roof or cover? The Goat Man had rags and paper in the wagon, but you have to have kindling to start a fire, to get enough heat to catch on bigger sticks. You have to have some cobs or pine cones or fat pine wood. I went looking for a pine tree and broke some dead limbs all wet on the outside. With the hatchet from the wagon, I laid one stick on another and split them open so the heartwood was bare. Then I shaved splinters off that sappy wood and put on more and more pumpkin pine till I got a blaze going.

  When I reached into the wagon to get the coffee and some pots, I saw the Goat Man hadn’t moved. Usually as soon as I rose, he got up. But he just lay there, and when I pulled the canvas back, I saw he wasn’t asleep. His eyes were open and he looked scared. He looked at me like he didn’t know what to do.

  “What’s wrong with you, Goat Man?” I said. He made a noise, but it wasn’t even the kind of talk he usually made. He moved one arm a little and I saw he could barely shift himself around. And then I smelled him; he smelled like
pee and a little like shit, too. He had dookied in his clothes and couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Goat Man, are you in trouble?” I said. He nodded like he was trying to say yes.

  I stepped back out in the rain. My fire was blazing and it was time to put on the coffee and start some grits or mush. I needed to go to the river for water. The goats had to be milked and hitched up to the wagon. And the Goat Man was lying there in the wagon in his own filth. We were out in the woods in Virginia and I didn’t know anybody to ask for help.

  I looked back in the wagon and the Goat Man opened and closed his good hand like he was milking, and I saw he meant for me to go milk the nannies. He was thinking more about the goats than himself. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took the milk bucket and went to one of the nannies. I’d never milked a goat before, but I’d milked cows. But a goat has only two teats and is easier than a cow to milk, once you get down on the ground. There was no stool, so I dropped on my knees and milked the first nanny and then the second.

  When I finished the second nanny and stripped her, I took the bucket and set it beside the wagon. And I saw what I was going to have to do, what I had been dreading. I was going have to clean the Goat Man up, because he couldn’t lie in his own mess. He was an old man that couldn’t even talk, and I had to clean him up. Girl, you are crazy, I said to myself. But I didn’t see any other way. I couldn’t let the old man lie in his filth. And I couldn’t just walk away and leave him like that. Besides, the Goat Man was my protection. The Goat Man was so strange nobody bothered me as long as they thought I was his slave or his girl.

  I took a bucket to the river and filled it, and then I warmed half the water over the fire. And then I took a rag and pulled off the Goat Man’s clothes and washed him in the wagon. I put a piece of canvas under him and scrubbed him with warm water and then dried him with one of his rags. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Nothing is as bad as you expect, once you get in the middle of it. I’d seen a man’s parts before and the Goat Man was no different. He was so helpless, he looked away most of the time, and he groaned like he was in bad pain.