I thought to say that I had sworn to my then-wife Sadie, who had taken up with another man when she thought I had murdered that white boy, Huck, that I would buy the children’s freedom and hers, which I intended to hold fast to, but when I told her I was leaving she convinced me to take her and our children with me, though I was not about to bring her new man along, she could send for him later, and as for my children, at that time there was only two of them, Elizabeth, who was deaf and mute, though sharp as a whipsaw, and Johnny, who looked like a little me, and I was going to fetch them to their freedom soon as I had gotten settled in. When all the signs confirmed the time had come I brought us to the farthest end of the levee, where I had identified a raft I would commandeer, and we stuffed all our necessities in one small sack and a canvas traveling bag I borrowed from the stables where I worked, I say borrowed since I eventually mailed it back, postage paid, and I could see Sadie was looking around as if that man of hers was going to steal away with us so I told her she could go with me and the little ones or continue in her bliss with him. I was prepared to carry those children on my back like St. Christopher all the way to the other side, and her too if it came to that, but not her lover, yet we reached Illinois easily on that cool spring night, landing far north of where the main docks in Alton were since I knew there were patrolmen to ensure none of us made it, and I had been warned to watch out for a notorious Negro who would run straightaway and alert the white constable, but that Rastus wasn’t anywhere to be found.
I thought to say I did spot the person who knew where to take us and put us on a wagon bound straight north along the river for Quincy, where Dr. Eells lived. We spoke in what they call our gibberish but to us it was a language full of secret keys, and that person guided us to another person, in these days despite the daily terror against us we are still free and I can tell the truth because nobody can prosecute them or punish them now, so I can say they were both colored women, the first one carrying herself in disguise like she had no home in the world and the second was clothed like a male night watchman’s assistant. The second woman guided us to the wagon that brought us to Dr. Eells. Have you ever tried to keep a small child from laughing or crying because your life depended upon it? Have you ever hid with a spouse and two children, which was actually two too many for Dr. Eells, and I had to cajole him not to turn us away, recounting at least twenty times for him how I was already manumitted but explaining the danger my wife, since that she still was, and my poor children, faced, so for a week I implored him in his attic, which is where we stayed, mostly lying down in silence until he would come to question me periodically, because the slavecatchers particularly trolled that city, which was notorious for harboring fugitives, and I was sure the people who had laid claim to Sadie and the children, along with her spurned male friend, had sounded an alarm.
I thought to recount that finally after dawn on a Sunday a white woman came to Dr. Eells’ house seeking the cargo to Elgin and points east, and Dr. Eells stowed us all under a false floor which my wife was convinced would be our coffin until I reassured her that was the only way we would be able to travel while eluding the catchers’ grasp. We traveled in that shallow grave on metal wheels for what felt like days, riding the worst roads I imagine exist in the state of Illinois, though it was not even a whole twenty-four hours, and we stopped in a roadside grove along the way for water and to relieve ourselves and eat some cold porridge with walnuts and hardtack biscuits, then returned to our hiding place and when we climbed out we were in the city of Chicago, which was an impressive sight, to say the least, far more impressive than Hannibal, though Chicago wasn’t even as pretty or built up as old St. Louis, and so not as impressive then as it is today.
I thought to narrate that there is where we settled, and as soon as we could I made sure Sadie and the little ones each got their Certificates of Freedom from the State of Illinois, Cook County, as I got mine, making sure mine read James Alton Rivers, since I kept the name I had always been known by but added the town where I first breathed in real liberty, and since we had finally reached the other side of the big snaking muddy river which had been the dividing line our whole lives up until then, our long bondage on the one side in Missouri and that goal we sought on the other, then we crossed the Illinois River which we had reached at Peoria, and finally the forking river in Chicago which takes you out to the sea-like lake, and I didn’t feel a single shred of remorse for having dropped the name of Miss Watson, since she wasn’t no great mistress or lady anyhow. I had to learn to say Mr. James Alton Rivers instead of just Jim as white folks always called me, or Jim Watson, which everyone had taken to saying, like this Sawyer boy now, just as Sadie had to learn to say Sadie May Rivers, May the middle name she took to acknowledge the month that we arrived, though she was not so fond of the last name Rivers, and kept calling herself simply Sadie May, and Elizabeth went by Bessie Amelia Rivers, to honor her late baby sister, Amelia, who died in infancy on that farm off Bear Creek where she was born, and Johnny, whose middle name became Obi after my grandfather I never met named Obi, who was a pure African they used to say, as well as the old faith I had kept alive, even in Hannibal, was quickly saying Johnny O. Rivers without missing a beat.
I think to conclude to the Sawyer boy and Huckleberry, all adulted now, that I keep that certificate at all times and in all places against my chest in a leather pouch I bought for myself and it reads JAMES ALTON RIVERS, FREE PERSON OF COLOR, a resident or citizen of the State of Illinois, at all times in all places, and entitled to be respected accordingly, in Person and Property, at all times in all places, in the due prosecution of his — my — concerns, at all times in all places, signed with the Seal of said Court, at Chicago, on the 23rd of November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, and I have carried it all the way up to and through the time I returned to Missouri, settling here in St. Louis since I was not ever going to set feet again in Hannibal if I could help it, and even when some of the Hannibal people including those LaFleurs have happened upon me down here there is not a thing they could say or do because I had the states of Missouri, Illinois and the federal government on my side, though I’ve always made sure to have an escape route and a safehouse on the other side of the river ready to flee to given the trials the courts are putting Mr. Dred and Mrs. Lizzie Scott through.
Instead I said, “I was living in Chicago for a few years then I decided to come back home. I posted my bond to stay here, have been working steadily and decided to settle down.”
“Chicago,” Sawyer said, looking at Huckleberry, “sounds like our old friend has gone and got pretty fancy on us. What do you think about that, Huck?”
“I been as far south as Mississippi and over to Louisville, Kentucky but I never been to Chicago myself,” Huck replied.
“All kinds of things going on up in Chicago,” Tom said.
“Jim ain’t said nothing about all that, just that he been there and come back here,” Huck said.