His pursuer crested the plateau at a limping shuffle, breathing heavily, a sack slung over his shoulder. There was no stealth or guile in his progress. Viewed through the screen of branches, he moved with a strange, wide-legged gait, his legs bowed out to either side of his body. He passed below William, ducking beneath the branches, muttering curses so steadily they seemed to be a necessary feature of his progress. William couldn’t see the man’s face or hair, hidden as they were by the brim of his hat, but his voice had a throaty cadence, a richness that William recognized. The realization stunned him, for in the various forms he had envisioned his hunter, this was certainly not how he had imagined him. In the few moments it took to conclude this, the man faded from view, leaving in his wake a silence greater than the one that had preceded him.
William sat for a few minutes. He looked around him from tree to tree, but there was no company with whom to confer. He leaned to study the ground below, as if some further information might be offered in that quarter. Strangely, it was. A smell rose up, pushing aside the pine syrup and replacing it with an even stronger odor, pungent, repulsive, and delicious all at once. It was the scent of overripe cheese. It went to the back of his brain with a force that set his mouth watering. He shook his head at his own stupidity, but began the climb down anyway. On hitting the ground, he set out after the man at a lope. He had long ago discarded his sack, but he still carried the corn knife. He pulled the weapon from under his shirt as he ran and strode with it out to his side.
When he caught up with the man, he was standing on the far side of a dry creek bed, under the full force of the sun. He was bent over, alternately contemplating the ground and peering through the low-slung branches ahead of him. He scratched his butt cheek, then lifted his hat and fanned his face. William moved toward him, crooked a little to the side as if ready to bolt to the left at any moment. The needle flooring gave beneath his feet, not completely silent, but muted enough not to betray his approach.
As he grew nearer, so gaining a clearer picture of the man’s narrow back and thin arms, William’s demeanor changed. His posture grew more erect, his strides more forceful. The lines around his mouth twisted like a man preparing to spit. Whether he thought out the actions that followed or not was unclear. They happened fast, fueled by a sudden overflow of anger. He switched the knife from one hand to the other. Without catching his step, he bent, snatched up a small rock in his free hand, cranked his arm back past his ear, and snapped it forward. The rock flew with an audible hiss. It hit the man at the base of his neck and sent him stumbling forward onto all fours. He scrambled like that for a moment, then remembered himself, stood up, and turned around. He stared wide-eyed and mute as William strode toward him, knife once more in his favored hand.
The other man was a thin Negro. He pulled his straw hat down tight around his head, beneath which a mass of curly hair struggled to get free. He stood on crooked hips that set the whole of his upper body on a slope, like a person carrying a bucket in one arm. His clothing was as bedraggled as that of any field hand, although his shoes were of a better make than the coarse brogans allotted to most slaves. He rubbed the back of his neck viciously, as if whatever thing had done him harm was there to be wiped away.
“What’d you do that for?” he asked.
“Why you tracking me?”
“Tracking you? I ain’t tracking you.” The man’s features were a mismatched collection of parts, eyes canted at divergent angles, forehead exceptionally wide, tufts of hair dotting his cheeks. He used the whole of his body when speaking, shoulders jolting around in the sockets, neck thrusting forward and back in the effort of it. “I caught sight of you a ways back,” he said. “Was wondering if maybe we couldn’t travel on agether. I don’t mean you no trouble. You can be damn sure of that.” He held up his hands to show that he was unarmed, with intentions as plain as the whites of his palms. “What I mean to say is, judging by the look of you we’re in the same particular. You a runaway too, ain’t you? Only ask cause I’d confess the same about myself.”
William switched the knife from one hand to the other and back again.
The man shuffled back a few steps. “You looking to stick me with that? After I come up on you like a civilized body? I didn’t make you for a culprit. Figured you for a Christian, at least.”
William wiped the sweat from his eyes with his free hand. “What difference does that make?”
As if this question established some confidence between the two, the man explained that in his experience Christians made for the best company. And that was all he was looking for, a little companionship in his travels. He had more supplies than the good Lord should’ve provided him and he thought it best to share with others in need. “You can smell that cheese, can’t you? Got a stink to it, right enough, but it’s fine going down.”
William sucked his bottom lip, weighing the demands of his hunger against the prospect of traveling with this man. It was a hard call. “Don’t know that I need company. Where’d you come by that food anyhow?”
“Stolt it.”
“Then there’s men hunting you.”
The other shook his head. “Naw, I don’t reckon. I ain’t hardly worth the trouble. Got a weak constitution, they say.”
“That may be the first honest word you spoke.”
The man took no offense at this. Quite the contrary, he nodded and smiled. “Anyway, we ain’t properly met. Name’s Oli. And if that don’t impress you maybe some rock candy will. Got me a whole bag of it.”
William cursed under his breath, lowered the knife, and motioned for the man to retrieve his sack. “Let’s get some cover. For a spell, at least, while I think what to make of you.”
FOUR The hunt began as easy work. The hound found the fugitive’s scent with little difficulty. Her only confusion lay in separating the hunted’s scent from those of the other trackers who had already followed his trail. Once this was dealt with, she bounded away with Morrison in pursuit. They followed the path from the slave’s hovel and through the woods, down a creek and up under a bridge and on again. The rain began soon after. When the hound hesitated the man thought this was the cause. He urged her forward with an encouraging whistle and a rough pat on the shoulder. He took the lead for a moment, sure that the hound would bound past him, renewed by his touch. But the dog was of another mind. She spun in circles, scenting the air, and finally concluding that the trail led to the west. The man almost called her back, for the signs of the other trackers were clear to see, heading north in line with the slave’s progress thus far. But he held his tongue, for the hound was already some distance away.
When he burst through the vegetation and onto the beach, the storm struck him full in the face. Rain pelted into the Bay and jumped back up toward the sky. Water careened sideways as much as vertically and struck him like a hail of stones. He set his feet wide apart and shaded his eyes with his free hand. The hound moved up and down the beach in desperation, oblivious to the storm. When she caught sight of the man, she met his eyes and then turned into the face of the storm and howled out across the water. The man understood the message, but was little sure of what to make of it.
The rain had abated by the time Morrison returned to the plantation. He stood before the planter and told of his progress so far, of his hound’s conclusions and of how he had tried to convince her that the scent was still there to be found. He had even roped the dog and dragged her along the path laid by the others in the hope that she would find the scent again. He had asked her to see reason and to overcome her stubborn inclinations. He had even offered her a bribe in the form of a twist of smoked meat. While the hound accepted the meat as her due, she wouldn’t be led away from her beliefs, and so the man acquiesced.
That boy went into the water, Morrison said. That’s one fact you didn’t share with me.
That’s hardly a fact, Humboldt said. He was sure that the boy in question was scared to death of water, just like they all were. He said that the rain had just scu
ddled the scent. He paused and looked between man and dog and added that perhaps the hound wasn’t much of a tracker.
Morrison studied the dog. She studied him back. Don’t believe she’s the problem here, he said.
Again the other man countered, saying that all the other slave hunters had turned their hounds to the north and were halfway to Delaware by now, and probably right on the boy’s heels. He said that there wasn’t anything else for it. A nigger don’t just disappear. And a nigger don’t swim across the Chesapeake Bay. I’ve known three men in my life who could swim, he said, and not a one of them had a drop of black blood in him.
Morrison knew what he knew and now that he had mentioned it he had no more doubts. He proceeded cautiously, not wanting to share too many of his thoughts with this man, but needing some aid where his local knowledge failed him. He asked if the fugitive might not have crossed the water by boat, but Humboldt doubted this. There hadn’t been any boats in that immediate area, nor had any gone missing. He didn’t doubt that there were Quakers and other godforsaken sons-a-bitches who would help a slave escape, but he was dead sure that none of that element had gained access to this particular boy.
So there it was, Humboldt said. He hadn’t stolen a boat, hadn’t been picked up by a boat, and he sure as hell hadn’t swum it. The boy ran north, he said. You get yourself in that direction and you might catch him. Otherwise you’re wasting my time.
He turned to walk away, but the tracker asked him one more question.
Did he have any family across the Bay?
Humboldt spun around, annoyance in the crags of his forehead. No, no family, he said. But he did have a bitch he was hungered for.
A woman?
That’s right, the planter man said, and, as an afterthought and a kind indulgence, he went on to tell him what he knew of her and her owner.
FIVE The two men sheltered in the nook between the overturned trunk of a fallen oak and the base of one still standing. As Oli unwrapped the cheese, William swallowed hard to keep down the saliva that flooded his mouth. It was a frightful-looking block, slimy with the day’s heat and dotted with fungal growth. But when Oli’s knife bit into it, the flesh of the cheese sliced open beautifully, white inside and so soft on his tongue that it melted almost instantly. With this came great mouthfuls of corn bread, smoked fish and fresh peas eaten raw and so crisp that they popped between the teeth. They drank from a large skin of watered-down beer. It had little to recommend it over creek water, but William drank it down all the same.
Oli enjoyed talking. As they ate he told a painful story of life on a Virginia plantation. He had been a sickly child, the only one of six to survive into his second year. He grew into a sickly man, never built for the hard labor to which he was put. His master had tried each year to sell him but was unsuccessful every time. Oli came to suspect that his master was planning some devious venture with him. He had been approached by a slave trader who was willing to purchase Oli cheaply for resale into the deep southwest, into the fabled bottomlands of malaria and dysentery where owners hardly expected their chattels to live through a full summer. They get what work they can out of them, then write them off as little more than a footnote in a logbook on their deaths. Oli couldn’t abide that prospect. That was why he had hit the road north, his eyes set on that Canadian horizon.
The day faded into dusk. Deep within the woods as they were, their hideout was almost dark as full night. The branches above them obscured the sky and unhinged the clockwork that marked the passage of the hours. For the first time in days William forgot to measure the progress of the sun. On Oli’s prompting, they built up a tiny fire, which they contained in a small bowl and fed on twigs. William ventured down to the last creek they’d crossed and refilled the water skin. When he climbed back into their hiding place he found Oli grinning.
“You drink this?” he asked, holding up a bottle of an auburn liquid.
“Whiskey?”
“Yep. Been saving it up and this here seems as good a time as any. Go on and get a pull.”
As William took a few furtive sips, Oli began a long string of tales about rebellious slaves. He seemed to have a library of such stories stored in his head, embellished, no doubt, with his own embroidery. He told of three slaves who stole into their overseer’s cabin one night and bludgeoned him with clubs. They dragged him from his home, broke his neck, and spent the rest of the night arranging to disguise his death. One slave rode behind the dead man on his horse, scuffing the ground in a peculiar way, and then he tossed the man from the mount, loosened his saddle and tugged it over to its side. They then slapped the horse and sent it running. The officials ruled the white man’s death to be an accident, though most of the slaves who lived thereabouts knew the real truth. In another tale two bondsmen absconded from their master’s plantation on horseback, sharing a single pony between them. One of them had the shoulders of a bull and a bullet-shaped head that glistened with sweat; the other one’s deformed torso measured only twelve inches from crotch to neck. The sight proved so odd to passersby that all let the couple ride on, more amused by the spectacle than inclined toward any action. There were slaves who stole away with chests of gold and those who ravished their mistresses and those who avenged old wrongs before parting. There were fabled gangs of Negroes who roamed the wild country of the uplands, stealing from white settlers and wreaking havoc wherever they passed. And there was Nat Turner and the swathe of terror he cut through Virginia, like an incarnation of every white man’s nightmare. It was a crazy time they were living in, Oli concluded, and he didn’t see any signs of sanity on the horizon.
Asked if he was really heading all the way to Canada, Oli’s eyes lifted and studied William for a moment. There was something in them that William couldn’t read, but he imagined them to be the mirror of his own thoughts. Such a place as the land of freedom was too far away from the place of their birth. How could they know that that country would accept them? That the ground would feel the same beneath their feet and the air the same in their lungs? And what of kin and friends and familiar places never to be seen again? In Oli’s answer William heard nothing to indicate that this other man hadn’t had the same thoughts.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t reckon there’s any way to be free but to be quit of this whole country. Ain’t no place in it a nigger’s safe. I know that for a biblical fact. Don’t much matter to me, not having much kin to speak of. But how bout yerself? You hurting? Leaving your kin, I mean.”
“Seems like that’s why we were put here—to hurt.”
“That’s a biblical fact, right there.”
William smirked. “A biblical one, huh?”
“Been my experience that that book’s a hard one to dispute.”
“We may be of two minds on that.”
“Ain’t no two minds about it …”
“I’d just as soon not talk it to death,” William said. His voice was edged just enough to quell Oli’s response. But, having spoken sharply, he lifted the bottle and scented it and nodded to his companion. “Think I’m starting to feel kindly toward this whiskey.”
The evening hours passed, and the two men became more fluid in their conversation. At first, William tried to speak sparingly, not caring to share too much of himself with a stranger. But as the night wore on the other man’s talkativeness proved infectious. The whiskey spread out through William’s body, loosening his tongue, lowering his guard. Oli didn’t seem like such a stranger after all, and it felt good to talk to someone after all his time alone. He spoke of his home in Annapolis, of the various chores he worked at, of Kent Island and of St. John Humboldt. He admitted that the scars he wore across his back were fresh wounds, administered by Humboldt just before he ran away.
“Came out after me in the fields,” he said. “This a couple days after I heard word that my woman had left Annapolis. Humboldt came out and asked why had my work slacked the last few days.”
“What’d you say?” Oli asked.
�
�Told him I didn’t know. Couldn’t recollect. Didn’t know what he was on bout.”
“Bet that didn’t sit with him.” The small man passed the bottle.
William took hold of it and lifted it straight to his mouth. He closed his eyes at the sting of the stuff, although already it wasn’t so sharp as it had been at first. He confirmed that his denial had not sat well with Humboldt. “Ain’t nothing I could’ve said would’ve pleased him. He wasn’t looking for no answers. Said he already knew what the problem was. I had myself a case of nigger love. That’s what he said, ‘Nigger love.’”
“Hit it right on, didn’t he?” Oli asked.
William cut him with his eyes, a warning but not a firm one. He handed the bottle back to him. Oli asked what happened next, but William shrugged it off. No surprise. The overseer had pushed him to his knees and rained blows of rawhide across his back. “He beat me,” William said. “Whatchu expect him to do?”
“And he done all that damage? Made you bleed and all?”
“Well … He ain’t the only one beat on me. I was there on my knees, this big white man above me, tearing my hide, cursing at me, talking bout the slave girls he’d had, bout the things he did to them. It put a rage in me. Not just the beating, but the way he was talking. I put out my hand and grabbed a hold of that whip. I knew just then that he was an evil son-a-bitch, and that I could’ve snatched the whip from his hand. Could’ve turned it on him and beat him down. Could’ve bitten off his nose and spat it back into his face. Could’ve done anything, I was so full of hating him.”
“You do that?” Oli asked. “Bite him I mean?”
“Naw. Just held the whip twined round my arm. Just held it ready. Just waited to see what he would do, and to see what I’d do. But he didn’t do nothing. Just had me get up and walk back to the plantation.”
Walk Through Darkness Page 4