Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  After I washed him up and put on dry clothes, I went to make some coffee, and I made some mush. And then I had to hold the mug of coffee while he drank, and I fed him mush like he was a little baby. I kept thinking, Girl, what are you going to do? Way out here in strange woods with a helpless man and five goats. You don’t know anybody and a sheriff could catch you and send you back to the Thomas Place to be whipped and branded on your cheek, and have your ear cut off.

  We like to think we can make big choices, that we choose what we do. We like to tell ourselves that. The truth is, we usually do what we have to, what there is to do. We don’t really know what we’re going to do ahead of time. It just happens, like me running away because I saw Jonah at the jubilee. It was the biggest thing I’d ever done, and it wasn’t even a plan, but just a happen.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do, but we couldn’t just sit there in the rainy woods and rot. The Goat Man didn’t have any money except what he made sharpening knives and saws and such. I thought I still had the money I took from Jonah on the night of the jubilee, but when I looked in my pocket, it was gone. It must have fallen out somewhere. There was nothing to do but hitch up the goats with the Goat Man lying in the wagon, wash up the pots and pans and put out the fire, and get on up the road the same way we had done before.

  The road was muddy with little streams running in the ruts. The wagon splashed and creaked along. The river by the road ran red and angry with flood. We crossed a branch that was ugly and dirty. I tramped alongside the wagon holding my skirt up, but the hem got muddy all the same.

  The first house we passed, a woman came out on the porch and hollered at me. I stepped into the yard and she said, “Ain’t that the wagon of the Goat Man?” and I told her it was.

  “Then where is the Goat Man?”

  “He’s not feeling too good,” I said.

  “I need my scissors and knives sharpened,” she said.

  “I’m doing the work now,” I said. I don’t know why I said that, because I’d never used the Goat Man’s wheel or his files. But I’d watched him use them. I figured that with a little care I could do knives and scissors, maybe file the teeth on a saw. I wasn’t ready to use the solder torch though. I took the file and whet rock and wheel from the wagon and brought them to the porch. The woman carried out a half dozen knives, two pairs of scissors, and a handsaw and a bow saw. “I’ve never seen a woman tinker,” she said.

  “I am a gypsy,” I said.

  Sharpening a blade with the wheel was pretty simple. I just held the lip of the metal to the stone and turned it so sparks and dust flew. I kept sharpening the blade till it sparkled and was razor thin at the edge, thin as a whisper. But sharpening a saw was different because the teeth had different angles and directions and the file had to be true to the pitch, this way and that way, changing back and forth along the edge. I tried so hard to file the teeth right I was sweating and my hand trembled.

  The goats wandered into the woman’s flowerbed and she hollered and drove them out. I stopped working and tied the goats to the wagon and came back and filed on the saws some more. When I was done the woman gave me a quart of sourwood honey and two dimes.

  “You are just learning,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said and took the honey and the money.

  People all along the road were surprised to see me come into their yards with the Goat Man’s wagon. Sometimes they went out and talked to the Goat Man lying in the wagon while I sharpened their knives and saws and scissors. And sometimes a woman looked at me and told me she didn’t have anything for me to do, and I had to get on up the road. And sometimes, when I could, I stole eggs from a henhouse because eggs made the Goat Man strong, and besides I liked eggs in the morning. It was a habit I’d gotten used to in the big house. While the field hands in the quarters ate mush of a morning, Sally always gave me an egg or two.

  And the Goat Man started to move again. First he could push himself around while I washed him, and in a few more days he could take the bucket and rag from me and wash himself. I don’t know what kind of sickness he had, but he was getting his strength back little by little, as the leaves along the road turned yellow and orange and it was cool in the morning. We went on up the road past a place with a brick courthouse.

  Now I had to stop by a creek to wash out his clothes and my dirty dress. I didn’t have a washpot, so I heated water in a kettle and washed in the dishpan and rinsed in the creek. I wore my new gold dress while the old one was being washed and dried by the fire. I was hanging wet clothes on sticks to dry when I looked around and saw the Goat Man slide out of the back of the wagon and fall to the ground. I ran to him, but he waved me away. He pulled himself up off the ground on the side of the wagon, and I handed him a spade to use as a crutch. The Goat Man grabbed the handle and took a step. He arms trembled as he leaned on the spade. He took another little step. I could see his left leg was good and his right leg was bad. He took another step holding on to the shovel. Making tiny hops he moved to the fire. It seemed like he was holding the spade up as much as it was holding him up.

  The Goat Man pointed to the spade handle and then he pointed to the woods. He pointed to the hatchet on the side of the wagon and then he pointed to the trees again. Then he pointed to the handle again. For a minute I didn’t know what he meant, and then I saw he wanted me to take the hatchet and cut a stick in the woods he could use for a walking stick.

  While the clothes were drying, I took the hatchet and went looking for a sapling just the right size. The Goat Man needed something strong to hold him up, but light enough to carry easily. He needed a stick smooth to the touch that wouldn’t bend too much. I found a maple, but it was too slim. A white oak would be too crooked. A pine or a poplar would break too easily.

  And then I saw this hickory straight as a curtain rod and nearly as thick as my wrist. I hacked it off at the ground and then chopped it to about four feet long. Yellow leaves fell all around me, whispering and cool when they touched my arms.

  At the fire the Goat Man looked at the stick and tried leaning on it. And he pointed to the rough end where it was cut and the bark was thick. So I took a knife from the wagon and peeled the bark from the sapling. The bark was stiff as oxhide, but I stripped it off and smoothed the bare wood with the knife, scraping away knots. I rounded off the big end so it felt like a knob, scraping the hickory wood smooth as an egg.

  With that hickory stick the Goat Man could hobble around the fire and go to the woods to do his business, and I didn’t have to clean him up anymore. When the clothes were dry, we moved on, him riding in the wagon. And when we came to a house, he went to the door, holding on to the stick, and I carried the wheel to the porch, and his other tools. The woman brought out her knives and scissors, saws and hoes.

  I never saw anybody so happy to be working again. The Goat Man was so thrilled, he smiled all the time while he filed and turned the wheel and made sparks fling off the metal. I reckon he was that happy to be walking again, happy to not be lying in that wagon. That was the first time I ever saw how happy work can make a man. Being lazy is dreary, and lying helpless is more awful still.

  Every day the Goat Man could walk a little better. He still had to lean on the stick I made for him. And he took short steps and favored his right leg. And I reckon his right arm didn’t work as well as it had before. But he was soon working almost like he worked before, except he rode in the wagon more. He rode while I walked and led the goats.

  Now we came to the place I later learned was Roanoke, between high, dark mountains. There were houses along four streets and the Goat Man went door to door asking if they needed any knives or such sharpened. And then while he was working on a porch, I glanced down the street at a store and saw somebody that looked like Jonah walk into the store. My heart jumped into my mouth and I almost fainted. It couldn’t be Jonah, that low-down, trifling boy, I said. But I kept looking, and a few minutes later he came out with a poke in his hand, and I saw it truly was Jonah. />
  I wanted to go up to that rascal and crack him on the head, because I’d thought he was dead, or in jail, or taken back to South Carolina. But there he was in Roanoke, dressed in new clothes, and walking in the street just like a free man. You trifling, no-count rascal, I thought.

  I was still holding a file in my hand, but I started following Jonah. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t even think about the Goat Man and his work. I had to follow Jonah and see where he lived, and what he had done to have new clothes and walk in the street like he owned it.

  He turned a corner and followed a road that ran into the country going north. I stayed back so he wouldn’t see me, but I kept after him. I couldn’t do anything else. And then he turned a corner into a yard with a white picket fence, and he went around the house to the back.

  I couldn’t go right up to the front of the house, but I meant to see what that boy was doing. I stepped into the woods and worked my way around to the back of the yard. There was a barn and woodshed and well there. Three young women sat on the second-story back porch talking and laughing. A black woman opened the back door and dumped a dishpan of water. I stepped around to the side of the barn, but didn’t see Jonah anywhere.

  I must have waited an hour listening to those girls talking on the porch before Jonah came out with a wooden bucket. He went to the well and I hollered to him from the bushes by the barn. When he saw who I was he turned gray, and hurried over to look at me. “What are you doing here?” he snapped.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you, too,” I said.

  And I saw how scared Jonah was, so afraid he’d be found out as a runaway, and he was afraid I was going to tell on him. He was afraid that if I was caught he would be caught and sent back to South Carolina or sold off to the South. And I saw he was so scared because he was so smart. He knew the names of all the states and towns and rivers he had to cross to get to the North. And he knew what happened to black men caught running away. He was little more than a boy. But he was like my brother now, and my only hope to find my way, and to find love. I can’t explain it all, but that was what I felt all of a sudden. That was why I had to tease him a little and say I would turn him in if he didn’t take me with him.

  Now when a white woman came out on the back porch and saw me talking to Jonah, she called me in, and I had to think quick. This Miss Linda ran this place and I saw quick she wasn’t anything but a whore. She had on a fancy dress and perfume, but she was nothing but a hussy. I told her my name was Sarepta, a name from the Bible. And when she called me into the front room and told me what I was going to do, I just smiled and nodded my head and said, “Thank you, ma’am,” like I was happy as a pig in mud. I’d do whatever she said because she spotted quickly that I was a runaway. She had the power over me, and I had to do whatever she wanted, because I had to stay close to Jonah. But she didn’t know that, I reckon. Working for Miss Linda was the only way I could stay close to Jonah Williams.

  While we were eating supper in the kitchen, us four colored servants, including Lonella the cook and Hettie the maid, I saw Jonah was so mad at me and scared of me he could hardly say anything. And I thought that was because he was already in love with me halfway and didn’t know it yet. That was why he was so scared, because he knew he couldn’t leave me again. He wanted to escape far away to the North, but he couldn’t go anywhere without me. He knew how to read, and he had a map in his head, but he was just a scared boy that knew the odds against him. I wasn’t going to tell him how I got to Roanoke and found him. I thought: let him be puzzled and think I followed him and tracked him like a hound dog after a fox. That would make him even more scared.

  Only then did I remember the Goat Man. I was so surprised and thrilled and curious to see Jonah, and so pleased to be taken in by Miss Linda, I had forgotten all about the Goat Man and his wagon. I had come all that way with the old man and then I forgot all about him. A sour flash of regret passed through my bones. But I didn’t say anything. I helped clean up and wash the dishes with Lonella, and then slipped out like I was going to the privy.

  But soon as I reached the edge of the yard I hurried to the road and made my way back into town. Everything looked strange, because I hadn’t paid any attention to the houses and streets when I was following Jonah. I passed a tavern, and several stores, and came to a courthouse. The house where the Goat Man had stopped to work was on a side street, but I couldn’t remember which one. And I wasn’t even sure what the house looked like, except it had a porch.

  I walked slow and stayed in the shadows, because I didn’t want to be noticed. I crossed a street and followed it to the edge of town and I looked in every yard for the Goat Man’s wagon. A dog ran out and barked at me. A drunk man stumbling along tried to get hold of me, but I pushed him away and ran on.

  The street led out into the country past a warehouse and a mill, but I never saw the Goat Man or his wagon. I turned back and followed all the streets one after another, looking into yards and behind hedges. But I knew the Goat Man wasn’t in town anymore. When he finished his job and saw I was gone, he must have driven the wagon on out of town, and would be camped somewhere miles up the road. But I didn’t know which road he’d have taken. Roads ran off in all directions. Some led right into the mountains.

  There was nothing to do but turn back to Miss Linda’s house. It pained me to think I’d run away from the Goat Man. He had taken me all the way from the French Broad River. But at least he could walk again, with his stick, and he could work. He might have trouble carrying water from a creek, but I reckoned he could manage, toting a little at a time. He had managed before he ever saw me, cooking his mush, feeding those goats. And I had done more for him than he had for me. I’d cleaned up his filth and taken care of the goats, and even sharpened knives and saws when he couldn’t do anything. Yet when I turned back toward Miss Linda’s house, I found my eyes were wet. I walked slow to let myself get calm.

  There were lights on in the parlor of Miss Linda’s house, and girls were laughing and somebody was playing a piano. I could smell wine or liquor. I went on around to the back of the house.

  Now Miss Linda had said I was to sleep in a room down in the basement with Hettie. And when I took a lamp and went down there, I saw there was only one bed. But that was where I was going to have to sleep. Hettie was a kind of dried-up old woman with a stooped back and white hair. She didn’t ever say much.

  When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw this door open, and Jonah standing in the door. He looked at me like he couldn’t take his eyes off my breasts. He was scared and he wanted to drive me away, but I saw he hadn’t had any company in a long time.

  I giggled and shook my butt a little. But the last thing I needed was to get caught with Jonah at Miss Linda’s just when I had to behave myself and study on how to survive and keep going to the North. “You look mighty curious,” I said and winked at him before sliding into Hettie’s room and closing the door.

  NEXT MORNING MISS LINDA called me into the parlor and asked if I knew how to sew. She said I needed new clothes and some shoes. She said everybody who worked for her had to have good clothes. “We all have to look decent,” Miss Linda said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  She said to go down to the shoemaker’s and get some shoes, and she gave me two kinds of cloth, yellow and pink, to make two dresses.

  “Those that work for me don’t see anything and don’t say anything,” Miss Linda said and looked at me hard.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “I hope you understand me,” she said.

  “I understand you,” I said.

  Eleven

  Jonah

  After Mr. Wells punished him with the hot and cold water, Jonah was ashamed to look at anyone at Miss Linda’s. They all knew he’d been humbled and broken. They knew he’d begged Mr. Wells and promised him to be nothing but his dog. Somehow men like Mr. Williams and Mr. Wells knew that the worst pain, the most lasting pain, was not to the body but to one’s dignity.
That’s what their punishments were intended for, to destroy the last sliver of your dignity.

  Lonella and Hettie and the girls knew he’d screamed and begged and cried like a baby. They’d all returned from church while Mr. Wells was torturing him. He couldn’t look at their faces. And when he passed a mirror, he couldn’t look at his own face. When he was around Miss Linda, he looked at the floor. They’d caught him seeking pleasure with an Indian girl. It was a very personal humiliation, something he knew he would never forget.

  After that Sunday morning he and Prissy avoided each other. She’d been punished again and had screamed and screamed. Whether they had used ice to hurt her or not Jonah didn’t know. Prissy turned away when she passed him in the hall or saw him in the dining room. He understood that she was ashamed, ashamed of what had been done to her, and what had been done to him. After that Sunday morning Prissy never spoke to him again.

  As he regained his strength, Jonah began planning his escape. He knew that Miss Linda and Mr. Wells expected him to try to run away after he was punished. As soon as he was missed, they’d tell the sheriff, and men on horses with rifles and dogs would ride after him. They’d run him down in a few hours. He knew he had to wait until they no longer expected him to run. And he had to convince them he was humble as dirt and happy to be at Miss Linda’s.

  Whenever Miss Linda spoke to him he bowed his head and said, “Yes, Miss Linda.” He took off his hat whenever white folks passed near him. As summer changed into fall, the trees all around took on bright colors. Hickories became rusty gold and maples bright yellow and orange. And some maples on the ridge above the town turned pink orange. Jonah had never seen such intense colors. The mornings were cool and the afternoons sunny and hot. Molasses furnaces steamed in the valley outside town.