Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  Jonah found tears in his eyes. He’d come all the way from South Carolina and survived a flood and Mr. Wells’s cruelty, the jail in Winchester, only to be trapped in the dumbest way possible. He would not answer the smirking Oliver.

  “If you get hungry have an apple,” Oliver called. “Or a pertater if you want one.”

  Jonah wiped his eyes and listened. He thought he heard a mouse, or maybe a bat, rustling in the basement. It stirred among leaves or shucks or papers. He shivered, and then he heard another voice outside. It was the old woman talking to Oliver. It was hard to tell what they were saying. Jonah placed his ear against the wood.

  “That’s enough of that,” the old woman said. “Now open the door.”

  “But Ma,” Oliver said.

  “But nothing,” the old woman said. “The girl has run away. Where is that key?”

  “I just wanted to show him the lock,” Oliver said. “And he stole the apples. What’s the hurry?”

  “The hurry is because I say so.”

  Jonah didn’t hear anything else. He thought they’d gone away. Maybe they’d decided to leave him locked in the cellar. Maybe Oliver had persuaded the old woman he was worth reward money. Jonah wiped his eyes again.

  There were footsteps outside and he heard the key scratch in the lock. He stepped back from the door as it swung inward. He wondered if he should lunge out and make a run for it. He had nothing to hit Oliver over the head with.

  “Come on, old boy,” Oliver said. “Time to get out of there.”

  “I ain’t done nothing,” Jonah said.

  “Everybody has done something,” Oliver said and laughed.

  Jonah blinked as he climbed the steps. The scythe was still lying on the ground where he’d laid it.

  “Didn’t mean no harm; just funning you,” Oliver said. The old woman stood by the clothesline watching Jonah. “Be on your way,” she said. “The girl run off into the woods.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jonah said and picked up the scythe. “I be going now.”

  “You watch out, boy,” Oliver said.

  Jonah turned away and started around the corner of the house toward the road. Two Plymouth Rock hens pecked in the grass by the woodpile and he walked around them. When he reached the muddy road, he turned north. He knew Angel was watching him and would join him when he got out of sight of the house. Sure enough, as soon as he rounded the first bend, she stepped out of the trees, still holding the kettle full of apples.

  “Next time you won’t be so sociable,” she said.

  Jonah saw no point in answering her. His knees were weak from the scare, and he concentrated on avoiding puddles and the worst ruts.

  ONE NIGHT A FEW days later Jonah and Angel couldn’t find a barn, but they did come upon a haystack at the edge of a pasture. The farmer had stacked his hay close to where his cattle grazed. It was almost dark, but Jonah thought he could see a feeding trough and white block of salt just inside the fence. “We’ll have to sleep in that,” he said.

  “You sure this ain’t a snake nest?” Angel said.

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Jonah said. Angel dropped into the hay and he covered her up with handfuls of straw. Tired and full of boiled eggs cooked beside the river, he left the scythe and whetstone on the ground, parted an opening into the hay, and with his coat wrapped tightly around him slipped inside. The hay was spicy and pleasant as the smell of a warm autumn day.

  Jonah must have slept soundly, for when he opened his eyes, gray light came through the hay. It was a special gray light, as if something was glowing close by. He stirred the hay and wet crumbs fell on his face and neck. He wondered if it had rained during the night. When he pushed the straw aside, more crumbs shook in his eyes. As he lifted himself from the hay, he saw everything was white. The haystack was covered with snow, and the field and pasture. Snow stood two or three inches high on the fence rails. The trees on the mountainside were covered with white.

  Jonah could smell the snow. It was not a smell he could describe, almost the absence of smell, as if the snow had swept all the dirt and dust and smells from the air. It was the scent of cleanness and freshness. The air had been brushed pure.

  “Get up!” he shouted to Angel.

  When she pushed the hay aside and looked out, snow fell on her face. “Oh,” she yelled, like somebody had dashed cold water on her. “What happened?” she said.

  “It has snowed.”

  “I can see that. I ain’t blind.”

  Jonah swept the hay off his coat and shook the snow off the scythe and located the whetstone under three inches of snow. His hands got wet and cold. He needed gloves, if he was going to be traveling in snow country. With the scythe on his shoulder and the stone in his pocket, he handed the kettle to Angel.

  “Maybe the apples are froze,” Angel said, her teeth chattering.

  “Not likely,” Jonah said. They headed back to the road. Every step left a track in the snow that anyone could follow wherever they went. The trackers wouldn’t need dogs. If you slipped into a henhouse and took two or three eggs, the farmer could see you’d been there.

  Slow down, old boy, Jonah said under his breath. Whoa there now, for sure. The road ran along the edge of the pasture and then over a hill. A wagon had already passed on the road, leaving horse tracks and wheel slices in the snow. Mud puddles stained the whiteness. Jonah’s shoes slipped on the steep places and he had to find footholds on the uneven road. Angel walked in her broken shoes in the snow, staining the white cover.

  “I’ve got to find some new shoes and a coat,” Angel said.

  “How do you propose to do that?” Jonah said.

  “Have to think about it,” Angel said. “You think about it; you’re so smart.”

  As they crossed the hill Jonah could smell smoke drifting through the trees. It was not just smoke, but something else as well, steam or damp fumes. They descended the hill into the smell. Before they reached the floor of the valley, he knew where the steam was coming from. Two men on hands and knees were scraping hogs beside a pot of boiling water. Smoke from the fire under the pot and steam from the water fogged the barnyard and drifted up the valley. A third man splashed smoking water on the two dead hogs as the other men scraped hair off the carcasses with butcher knives. Smell of scorched hair and blistered skin reached Jonah on the road. Along with the smell of blood and manure, that was the stink of hog killing.

  Though he’d never had to do it himself, Jonah hated the smell and sight of hog killing. He knew the ritual well. After the bodies were scraped they’d be hung up and gutted. It took an axe or a saw to break through the breastbone. The entrails and lungs and heart would have to be carried away and buried. Men always got bloody and dirty, tearing out entrails, cutting off the big, fat head, and cleaning out the brains for frying with eggs and onions. Just the smell of hog blood and fat rendering always made him feel a little sick at his stomach. Much as he liked fresh tenderloin and ribs, he dreaded the bloody work, the stink of scalded hair and skin.

  Jonah hoped the men butchering hogs wouldn’t call out to him or Angel. Much as he would like some fresh meat, he wanted to avoid the bloody mess. There was something almost human about hogs, or something almost hoglike about humans. Their pale skin reminded him of white folks. He had watched hogs squeal when hit over the head, seen them die in mud and manure.

  As Jonah and Angel got closer to the barn, the man who dipped the scalding water and splashed it on the carcasses looked toward them. Jonah took off his hat and bowed slightly, and kept on walking. The bucket carrier nodded in his direction and dipped more water from the steaming barrel. Jonah knew it looked odd for a Negro to be walking along the road in these snowy hills, and it looked even stranger for him to be carrying a scythe while the ground was covered with snow. There were not many jobs done with a mowing blade in the snow. Perhaps he could claim to be carrying the blade back to the owner from whom he’d borrowed it.

  As Jonah and Angel got even with the barn, the two men scrapin
g hides looked up at them. They stopped work and watched him walk past. “Howdy do?” Jonah said and lifted his hat again. If he’d been in South Carolina one of the men would have yelled, “Where you going, boy?” They would have ragged him and inspected the scythe and asked if he’d stolen it. They would have asked who his owner was.

  Jonah expected one of the hog killers to call out to them and ask if he wanted to work. He expected them to ask where they were going, and what he was doing with the mowing blade. He was certain they’d ask who he and Angel belonged to. He’d walked past the barn and was almost even with the farmhouse when he realized they were not going to yell at him or accost him. The men scraping and scalding hogs were going to let him go about his business as they went about their own business. They seemed to have no interest in stopping him. It was too good to be true. He expected every second to be called back and told to do something hard and dirty. He walked farther, almost past the house, and no shout came. The silence of the men was almost as scary as a shout would have been. Jonah wondered if they were quiet because they were afraid of him, afraid of a runaway black man with a mowing blade over his shoulder and a whetstone in his pocket. Afraid of a black man and black woman together? Would they wait until they were out of sight and then run to get a sheriff? Would they follow them and seize them while they slept?

  Jonah had walked slow as he approached and passed the men, to show he was in no hurry, that he was not afraid. He’d tried to act as if they were casually going about their own concerns. But soon as they were out of sight of the hog killers he picked up his pace. Better to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the men with sharp butcher knives. The road was slick with snow and muddy water stained through from the puddles. He tried to pick his way through the cleanest, driest places.

  “I need some shoes,” Angel said.

  “We’ll find you some shoes,” Jonah said.

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Angel said.

  AS THEY MADE THEIR way on the uneven roads, Jonah studied the problem of finding shoes and a warm coat for Angel. Every day it seemed a little colder. The first snow had melted, but there would be more snow any day. Clothes could be taken from clotheslines, but nobody would hang a coat on a clothesline. And Angel would need an especially large coat, big enough to fit over her wide shoulders and belly. A country store would be the most likely place to find both shoes and coat, but every store they passed was in a little crossroads village, with barking dogs and people walking about.

  “Maybe we can find a blanket you can wrap around your shoulders,” Jonah said.

  “Blanket won’t do my feet any good,” Angel said.

  The next day they came to a large stone farmhouse just as a family there was getting into a buggy, all dressed up like they were going to church. Jonah realized it must be Sunday morning. As the buggy pulled out into the road and passed them, Jonah got an idea.

  “Maybe they left their house unlocked,” he whispered to Angel.

  “And maybe they left somebody at home,” Angel said.

  Soon as the buggy was out of sight, Jonah turned back into the yard and walked to the back door. The ceiling of the porch was hung with dried beans and onions and peppers. He knocked on the door and stepped back, waiting for a cook or some other servant to open it. A dog came around the corner of the house and growled at him. Jonah whistled and held out his hand. The dog barked and backed away.

  “That dog ain’t too friendly,” Angel said. Chickens cackled in the henhouse behind the woodshed. No one came to the door and Jonah knocked again. When no one appeared, Jonah tried the door and found it unlocked. He stepped into the kitchen and Angel followed him. The house smelled of fresh baked bread and roast beef. The Sunday dinner had already been cooked and set on the table with cloths over the dishes, waiting for the family to return. Jonah and Angel each grabbed a roll.

  Beside the door several raincoats hung on pegs, and beneath the coats sat rubber boots and galoshes. If nothing else, they could take some rubber boots. The dog whined outside the door and barked. Most likely the clothes were in bedrooms upstairs. Before looking for the stairs, Jonah tore a piece of beef off the roast on the table and crammed it in his mouth. The stairway was just down the hall, and Jonah mounted the carpet-covered steps, followed by Angel. The first room they looked in must have been a child’s room, for a rocking horse sat in the corner.

  The next room must have been the master bedroom, for women’s shoes lined the floor on one side of the bed, and men’s shoes stood in a row on the other. Jonah looked in the closet for a coat while Angel dropped to the floor and started trying on the shoes.

  “That woman took her good boots,” Angel said. But there was another pair of boots, a little worn, made of fine leather with lots of hooks and eyelets. It took some effort for Angel to pull the boots over her dirty feet, but she finally got the shoes on.

  “The boots are too little,” Jonah said.

  “No, they’re just the right size,” Angel said.

  “Then your feet are too big,” Jonah said.

  “No, my feet are just right,” Angel said, “for a woman my size.”

  There was no heavy coat in the woman’s closet. “We’ll have to take a blanket,” Jonah said.

  As soon as she had laced the boots, Angel looked in the man’s closet, and took out a heavy black wool coat. “Look here,” she said.

  “That’s a man’s coat,” Jonah said.

  “A warm coat is a warm coat,” Angel said and slipped the coat on. It was not a bad fit.

  It was at that moment they heard a whimper and a whine in a room down the hall. Both Jonah and Angel froze and listened, then tiptoed to the bedroom door and looked down the hall. The whine came again. Jonah looked at the top of the stairs. To get to the steps, they had to walk past the room where the sound came from. Something metallic rattled, like a chain or coins in a box.

  Jonah and Angel stood in the hallway, and Jonah heard the blood thundering behind his ears. The rasp of a chain ran over the floor.

  “Let’s run,” Jonah whispered. He and Angel started toward the stairs, but just as they reached the first step, the bedroom door flung open and a woman with wild hair and scabs on her face glared out. She whimpered and moaned and flung her arms, which were held by chains. Jonah was so startled he just stood there staring at the chained woman for a second, then dashed down the stairs.

  Jonah and Angel didn’t stop running until they were out the back door and across the yard, with the dog barking and nipping at their heels. When they reached the road they grabbed the scythe and kettle and began walking.

  “That woman is a ghost,” Angel said, all out of breath.

  “That was no ghost,” Jonah said, short of breath also. “She was a lunatic.” It took them both several minutes before they could breathe normally. When they got out of sight of the house, they stopped to rest. The black overcoat fit Angel pretty well, and the laced-up boots protected her feet from the rocks and mud.

  “I wanted to get some more of that beef before I left,” Jonah said.

  “Don’t want to eat anything else from that house,” Angel said.

  Even though it was cold, and even though the road was rough along the river through the mountains of Pennsylvania, Jonah and Angel were able to travel ten or fifteen miles each day. The mowing blade on his shoulder seemed to give him a special immunity that he didn’t entirely understand. With the scythe he seemed to have a citizen’s rights. They walked all day and camped by fires in the woods at night. He caught trout in the river and Angel took eggs from henhouses in the hours before dawn. He bought cheese and crackers from a country store with some pennies he found in a church collection box. They slept in their coats on beds of pine boughs with bare feet to their fires. He didn’t try to touch Angel again, but some nights she would push up against him and let him warm himself between her breasts and legs. At those times in the dark, she seemed like a different person from the snapping, sarcastic woman who walked b
eside him in the daylight.

  Every day they followed the river north, through dark mountains and snowy fields. The mountains were long-running and steep as walls. He was grateful he didn’t have to climb over them. The road always ran near the Susquehanna River. They passed through the towns of Wilkes-Barre and Eatonville. They came to Terrytown and Towanda, and reached the village of Sayre, where the river turned right, toward the northeast. Elmira was a few miles to the west, on the Chemung River.

  Jonah’s map was so wrinkled and blurred, he could hardly read it. But he’d memorized the names and the directions on it. He knew the names of Elmira and Auburn, Rochester and Buffalo. If they could get to Auburn, maybe they could find what they were looking for. Maybe someone there could help them get to Canada. Instead of breaking away from the river to reach Elmira, he decided to follow the Susquehanna northeast.

  Jonah and Angel stopped at a little schoolhouse in a village called Tioga Center. They reached the school at recess when children were playing tag and hide-and-seek, and running around the yard. The children got quiet as they approached, and the teacher came to the doorway to see what caused the sudden quietness. The teacher had a red face and wore an overcoat and gloves with no fingers.

  “Good day, sir,” Jonah said and took off his hat.

  The teacher nodded to him and to Angel.

  “What be the best way to get to Auburn?” Jonah said.

  The teacher looked at Jonah and the mowing blade as if he knew exactly why a black man wanted to go to Auburn. Auburn was a well-known waystation on the Underground Railroad. Many citizens in Auburn helped runaway slaves reach Rochester and Buffalo and then Canada.

  “You’re a long way from Auburn,” the teacher said.

  “I was afraid of that,” Jonah said and bowed his head. The children gathered round to hear the conversation.

  “If I was you, I’d go to Owego and catch the train to Ithaca,” the teacher said. “From Ithaca it’s not so far to Auburn.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jonah said. “Where is Owego?”

  “Just a few more miles up the river,” the teacher said. He told Jonah he was now in New York State. They’d traveled all the way across the mountains of Pennsylvania.