Underground to Canada

by Barbara Smucker

  “Grab the food and the compass, Julilly, and get your bundle.” Liza’s voice was harsh and rasping. “The sounds are gettin’ closer. They is comin’ to this barn.”

  Julilly jumped up and gathered their meagre supplies. Together they watched the quivering arrow on the compass point to the east. They knocked the table apart, kicked the straw about the floor, then ran up the stream in the opposite direction to kill their scent. They left it finally to enter a grove of trees across the main road. They headed east into denser undergrowth, then stopped.

  “There’s no more pretendin’ on this trip, Liza.” Julilly hunched beneath a shrub. Her face was grim. The line of her mouth was rigid. “It’ll take a load of hard work, plain luck, and lots of prayin’ to get us both to Canada.”

  Liza faced the North. Her fists tightened. “Lester’s that determined for freedom, he’ll break those chains and drag Adam right along behind him.”

  They huddled together, listening to the disappearing yelps of the hound dogs.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WASN’T UNTIL the night closed over them that Julilly and Liza felt safe to begin their journey east toward the mountains. “The Appalachians,” the Quaker-man had called them. They ate a scant portion of their food. It had to last for at least one more day. They found a handful of berries on a bush beside their hideout and the sweet juice quenched their thirst. It was the one bright happening in a grim day of fear and despair over the capture of Lester and Adam.

  A large moon lit the sky, exposing all the open paths and roads. The girls stayed among the trees and bushes, remembering the cruel riders of the night before. Because of the moonlight, it was possible to see the compass, and they checked it often to be certain their course was true.

  Their feet hurt, their legs and arms were scratched, but they pushed themselves on through the tangled paths and jagged rocks almost beyond endurance. Near dawn, they stopped by a shallow stream to drink and wash, allowing themselves only a little of the dried venison and stale bread. They ate slowly and silently, saving their words as though savouring the one thing left that they could use freely and abundantly.

  “We got to find a good place to hide for the day,” Julilly said dully. She stood up slowly and pulled Liza up with her hand. They walked on. An overgrown path led through the rocks and trees.

  “Every step’s goin’ up,” Liza breathed heavily. “We must have reached the mountains.” She climbed, bent and haggard, on her hands and knees.

  The morning mist that spread around them parted and dispersed. Far below they could see a few small farms. The animals and people moved about like tiny ants.

  “These are the mountains for sure.” Julilly leaned exhausted against a tree, but at least she could stand upright. She worried about Liza.

  “From now on we travel north,” she said. They both leaned over the compass and found the little arrow pointing straight ahead of them.

  A large rock jutted across the path and above it was a hole in the mountain’s side.

  “Round as the doorway of a snake,” Liza exclaimed.

  “Must be one of those caves the man told us about.” Julilly started climbing toward it, and Liza joined her. They looked inside. The floor was dry and sandy, the walls around and above solid stone. They walked deeper inside and darkness closed over them like the canvas on the Quaker-man’s cart. Julilly stretched out her arms and she couldn’t see her fingers.

  “We’ll sleep near the front of this hole,” Julilly announced. They turned toward the opening. “You sleep first, Liza.” Julilly leaned wearily against one of the rocks.

  Small, wiry Liza dropped exhausted into a curl around the food bundle. She had spent all the strength her ill-used body could muster. Julilly bent over her little crippled friend. Now that Lester was gone, she would have to be the one to decide which way they should go. Liza could do no more than just keep her aching body moving. She’d have to worry about food, too. There didn’t seem to be anything to eat on these craggy mountains.

  The pink spread of sunrise came. It covered Julilly and turned her ragged shirt to gold. All was peaceful, as far as she could see. She breathed deeply of the morning fragrance and forgot that she was hungry. The sun rolled itself bit by bit onto the earth and spread out its warmth. It touched Julilly, brushing the cold earth from her feet and drying the dampness of her ragged shirt. She felt herself melting into a warm pool of light, soft and protecting. Julilly closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  The two girls slept through the noonday sun. They slept while a deer crossed before the doorway of their cave. Its delicate nose sniffed the grass near by. Its timid eyes caressed them, and moved on.

  In the early afternoon a soft grey mockingbird flew from the sky onto the white-barked branch of an aspen. It preened among the shimmering, sunflecked leaves, before bursting into a loud clear song.

  Liza and Julilly stirred. The clear song brought a memory of Mississippi.

  “It’s mornin’ and cotton pickin’ time and I’ve slept too long …” Julilly jumped to her feet, hitting her head on the rock ledge above her. Liza lifted herself up slowly. There was pain in every bone she moved.

  “Looks like I should have been on watch by now,” Liza sighed, relieved that Julilly was still beside her and that only a mockingbird had found their hide-out.

  “I’ve been sleepin’ too, Liza.” Julilly felt guilty and troubled. She had vowed that she would take every precaution while watching and hiding from slave catchers. But there were no accusations from Liza. She reached for the food bundle, and turned it carefully inside out. A few crumbs and a small piece of bread no bigger than a bird’s egg was all she found inside. She broke the bread and divided the dry crumbs. Julilly hunted for a spring and filled her gourd with water. They nibbled the bread and drank great gulps of water, but were still hungry. They would have to find more food. They couldn’t climb all night over the mountains without eating. Julilly walked about the outer rim of the cave looking for berries or even roots that they could chew. There was nothing.

  “We can’t walk, Liza, ’less we get some strength from eatin’,” Julilly said.

  “We can’t just sit here, Julilly, and waste away.” Liza’s voice was hard and determined. She was looking down into the valley where scattered farmhouses sent up spirals of smoke like cobweb clouds—smoke from cooking food.

  Ahead of them stretched the peaks of the Appalachian mountains marking the direction north that they must take. The mountains meant days of rocky climbs up and down steep Indian trails. They meant plants, and animals, and trees, and rushing water that was new to the slave girls from the flat lands of the cotton-growing South.

  Julilly looked at her friend and then at the valley farms below.

  “I guess we know, Liza, what we got to do. We got to travel on and when dusk comes, we got to walk down to one of those houses, use some of the money Massa Ross gave us, and buy some food.” Julilly felt for the crumpled dollar bills in the bottom of her bundle.

  “That’s what we got to do,” Liza nodded. They sat silently for a long time but there was nothing else to say. They picked up their meagre bundles and the compass and began climbing slowly down the side of the mountain.

  The path they took led to a small clearing, surrounded by thick bush and a few tall pines. In the centre of it stood a square log cabin. It was sturdy and warm and lived-in because smoke spiralled softly from its chimney.

  “This is where I got to go, Liza.” Julilly took a deep breath and clutched one of the dollar bills in her hand. She quickly smoothed down her hair. It was the first time since the journey began that she had even thought how she must look. The short haircut was growing and her hair was bristly and unkempt.

  “You stay here, Liza, in case we got to run.”

  Liza said nothing, but rubbed her thin, scarred legs and nodded.

  Julilly walked forward. She kept her eyes on the cabin door, knowing that she mustn’t stop until she got there. As she walked closer she could
smell cooking food and her need for it grew so desperate that she ran to the door and knocked loudly.

  For a moment there was no answer and then the door swung open widely and a gaunt, white farm woman stood tall and defiant in front of her. She held a gun and pointed it straight at Julilly. There was no fear on her stern, weathered face. She was as sturdy and strong as her cabin, and her dress was thick and woollen and had no holes.

  The nearness of the cooking wiped all caution from Julilly’s mind. She held out her money, trying to look around the gun and see inside the cabin.

  “I got money,” Julilly said. “I want to buy some food.”

  The woman stood still. Her lips barely moved, but the voice that came through them was a loud, clear whine. Her words could have been bullets from the pointed gun.

  “You get off my land, you nigger slave.” The words whined through the clearing and into the still, silent woods.

  “You’ve been running away and you’ve been stealing money.” She whined evenly without a quiver of fear.

  Julilly crumpled the money inside her fist.

  “Now get off my land, and get off fast”—the woman still didn’t move her lips—“or I’ll use this gun, and I’ve got a right good aim.”

  Julilly turned around and ran. She stumbled into the tangle of bushes looking frantically for Liza. A bony arm grabbed her leg. It was Liza.

  “Come back here,” Liza whispered, “there’s a cave.”

  This time Liza led Julilly. The cave was small but sheltered by dead trunks of fallen trees. They huddled beside each other, shaking and frightened.

  “That woman looked mean as a one-eyed crow, aimin’ that gun at you,” said Liza finally.

  Julilly laughed a little and jammed the money deep into her bundle. It was such a relief to be safe and to be with Liza.

  “Well you sure is better company than an old cold gun.” Julilly tried to smile.

  But there was no returning humour from Liza.

  “We’ve got to try again, Julilly, and this time it’s my turn.” Liza began crawling painfully from the cave. Julilly lifted her up by her arm and hunted for the path that had led them into the clearing. They both knew that food must be found soon or they would be too weak even to look for it.

  They plodded slowly in the opposite direction and this time they came to a flat plateau with waving grass. Some cows nibbled, their bodies swaying to and fro. A clear-sounding bell rang from the neck of one of them.

  The cows were heavy with milk, but neither Julilly nor Liza had ever milked a cow or been near one. Julilly did remember Massa Hensen’s herd coming home at dusk and following the leader, whose bell tinkled around her neck.

  “We’ll wait here a bit and when they start toward home, we’ll follow them.” Julilly sat on a smooth rock behind a thicket of low protecting brush. Liza joined her.

  “It seems if a cow can fill itself with grass, we could do it too,” Julilly mused, watching the friendly animals rip and munch great mouthfuls of green.

  “We ain’t cows.” Liza frowned.

  Julilly laughed. It burst forth unexpectedly, like a lid popping off a boiling pot. Bubbling inside her was a set of fears that sent a tingling prickle right to the ends of her fingers.

  “I know we’ve got to do it, Liza”—Julilly spoke without looking at the sullen face of her friend— “but it means talkin’ to white folks again, beggin’ them for somethin’ to eat. They won’t take our money. I’m scared.”

  “We can do it, Julilly. You got strength and you got courage. I’ve been askin’ the Lord to give us help.”

  Strength and courage. Julilly thought about these words. That’s what Mammy Sally had. It meant looking right at danger without bowing down your head. Like Lester did when the chains cut his ankles. It was hard, thinking of Lester. It brought fear and more pain. He had chains around him now and was bleeding on his ankles.

  The girls sat close together. They whispered their plans. They would follow the cows to the farm house. If the farmers wouldn’t give them something to eat they would have to take food—maybe corn from the fields. If the farmers caught one of them, the other one would creep into the house at nightfall and set her free.

  The sweet-smelling grass rustled around them, for the cow with the bell swung her head back and forth near the rock where the girls sat. The girls didn’t hear or see a tall, white-faced farmer standing directly behind them.

  There was no time to hide or run when he walked around and faced them.

  Liza grabbed Julilly’s arm.

  “Lord, save us,” she cried.

  Julilly stared at the farmer. Terror and fascination mixed inside her head.

  This man was no Sims or Riley kind of farmer. He had a fresh, home-made look. There was nothing mean about his blue eyes and the straight, pale eyebrows on top of them.

  He smiled.

  “Slaves?” he asked.

  The girls didn’t move.

  The farmer grabbed the collar of the belled cow and began walking down the mountain path. He waved for Liza and Julilly to follow.

  It seemed the right thing to do. He hadn’t touched them and he wasn’t making them go. But they walked a safe distance behind him.

  They turned around a grove of tall pine trees and came to another stretch of flat land. On this place, however, there were rows of small neat cabins. But not slave cabins. They weren’t worn and shabby. They were new and shining with boxed-in gardens behind them and bright flowers growing around the edges. Women in long skirts moved about busy with their work; their light, pale hair pulled back tightly into tidy buns. Little children, covered with skirts and pants, skipped and sang and played with one another. They stopped only for seconds to stare at Julilly and Liza. It was a common sight, it seemed, for runaway slaves to follow a farmer into their village. There was no fuss at all.

  One woman came forward, almost as if she were expecting them. She spoke to the farmer with strange words.

  “We speak German,” he said to the girls.

  “German?” they repeated after him. The word had no meaning at all for Liza and Julilly, but they followed her. They walked into one of the bright new cabins. Turned inside out, it wouldn’t matter, Julilly decided: all sides were scrubbed and polished.

  In the kitchen, the biggest kettle the girls had ever seen sat on the floor steaming with warm, clean water.

  The woman smiled. “Girls?” she said, and pointed to their ragged pants and shirts. The boys’ clothes hadn’t fooled her.

  “You wash in tub.” The English words came slowly for her. “You give old clothes to me.” She handed them a square of soap and two white towels.

  She waited. The girls peeled off their ragged, mud-soaked garments. They dipped their hands carefully into the water. The woman laughed.

  “You get in there all the way and scrub. Hair too.” She picked up their clothes with a stick and left the room.

  Liza and Julilly looked at one another.

  “You is the dirtiest girl I ever seen.” Liza leaned toward Julilly. “You scrub me and I’ll scrub you.”

  Julilly saw the scars from whippings crisscross over Liza’s back. She quickly looked away and climbed slowly over the side of the tub. “I never put myself into no wash-tub before, but it feels mighty pleasant.” She sank slowly into the water.

  “I feels like a skinned catfish.” Liza grinned and splashed down beside her friend.

  The girls scrubbed their faces, their hair, their legs. Soapsuds hid the water. First it was white, then grey, then brown.

  “Turnin’ into the ol’ Mississippi River,” Julilly giggled.

  They stepped outside the tub and dried themselves soft and smooth. Different women entered the kitchen. Two of them carried the tub outside to empty the water. Another slipped long, clean shirts over the girls. Another put food on the table—glasses of milk, thick bread, rich butter, slices of venison. Liza and Julilly sat on the benches and ate.

  The women chatted in low voices—always
in the strange German.

  Then the first woman came in—the one who had taken their clothes. She shook a scolding finger at them.

  “Eat slow,” she said. “Some now—some after sleep.”

  She spread clean mats on the floor. They had the sweet smell of grass, from the meadows where the cows ate. There were no buzzing flies—no sick whine from mosquitoes—no need to hide in this clean, scrubbed cabin.

  “My skin feel so clean, I think it must be shinin’.” Julilly yawned.

  Liza smoothed the white shirt over her knees, and slowly rubbed her hands together, turning them back and forth to view their cleanness. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks onto her lap. She wiped them away roughly.

  “It’s just that I’ve never been clean all over before,” she tried to explain.

  The woman who spoke a little English smiled. She took Julilly’s hand and then Liza’s hand and led them to the mats.

  “Sleep,” she said and walked away.

  The gold sunlight, filtering through the open door, faded and faded and faded, until it was the half-light time before dark. The girls moved their mats close together and slept at once.

  It was a long sleep for Julilly and Liza. Several times they jumped when early morning noises woke them. But they stretched their feet over the clean mats. They felt the safety of the farm cabin and slept some more.

  “My tired bones are layin’ here side by side feelin’ good and happy,” Liza smiled.

  “I’m gonna sing,” announced Julilly. At first it was a hum:

  I am bound for the promised land

  I am bound for the promised land

  Then the song burst into full-throated singing in a voice so like Mammy Sally’s that Julilly wondered if it were hers.

  Oh, who will come and go with me.

  I am bound for the promised land The women and children from the row of cabins came to the door and listened. They smiled. One of them shook her head and wept.

  Two of the women came into the room, chattering German. More food was placed on the table and the girls ate. It wasn’t until the woman who spoke English walked through the door carrying their washed and mended pants and shirts that Julilly and Liza knew their visit had ended.