Bowing to a colored girl.
—
BESSIE Carpenter was the name on the papers Sam gave her at the station. Months later, Cora still didn’t know how she had survived the trip from Georgia. The darkness of the tunnel quickly turned the boxcar into a grave. The only light came from the engineer’s cabin, through the slats in the front of the rickety car. At one point it shook so much that Cora put her arms around Caesar and they stayed like that for a good while, squeezing each other at the more urgent tremors, pressed against the hay. It felt good to grab him, to anticipate the warm pressure of his rising and falling chest.
Then the locomotive decelerated. Caesar jumped up. They could scarcely believe it, although the runaways’ excitement was tempered. Each time they completed one leg of their journey, the next unexpected segment commenced. The barn of shackles, the hole in the earth, this broken-down boxcar — the heading of the underground railroad was laid in the direction of the bizarre. Cora told Caesar that on seeing the chains, she feared Fletcher had conspired with Terrance from the very beginning and that they had been conveyed to a chamber of horrors. Their plot, escape, and arrival were the elements of an elaborate living play.
The station was similar to their point of departure. Instead of a bench, there was a table and chairs. Two lanterns hung on the wall, and a small basket sat next to the stairs.
The engineer set them loose from the boxcar. He was a tall man with a horseshoe of white hair around his pate and the stoop that came from years of field work. He mopped sweat and soot from his face and was about to speak when a ferocious coughing wracked his person. After a few pulls from his flask the engineer regained his composure.
He cut off their thanks. “This is my job,” he said. “Feed the boiler, make sure she keeps running. Get the passengers where they got to be.” He made for his cabin. “You wait here until they come and fetch you.” In moments the train had disappeared, leaving a swirling wake of steam and noise.
The basket contained victuals: bread, half a chicken, water, and a bottle of beer. They were so hungry they shook out the crumbs from the basket to divvy. Cora even took a sip of the beer. At the footsteps on the stairs, they steeled themselves for the latest representative of the underground railroad.
Sam was a white man of twenty-five years and exhibited none of the eccentric mannerisms of his co-workers. Sturdy in frame and jolly, he wore tan trousers with braces and a thick red shirt that had suffered roughly at the washboard. His mustache curled at the ends, bobbing with his enthusiasm. The station agent shook their hands and appraised them, unbelieving. “You made it,” Sam said. “You’re really here.”
He had brought more food. They sat at the wobbly table and Sam described the world above. “You’re a long way from Georgia,” Sam said. “South Carolina has a much more enlightened attitude toward colored advancement than the rest of the south. You’ll be safe here until we can arrange the next leg of your trip. It might take time.”
“How long?” Caesar asked.
“No telling. There are so many people being moved around, one station at a time. It’s hard to get messages through. The railroad is God’s work, but maddening to manage.” He watched them devour the food with evident pleasure. “Who knows?” he said. “Perhaps you’ll decide to stay. As I said, South Carolina is like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
Sam went upstairs and returned with clothes and a small barrel of water. “You need to wash up,” he said. “I intend that in the kindest way.” He sat on the stairs to give them privacy. Caesar bid Cora to wash up first, and joined Sam. Her nakedness was no novelty, but she appreciated the gesture. Cora started with her face. She was dirty, she smelled, and when she wrung the cloth, dark water spilled out. The new clothes were not stiff negro cloth but a cotton so supple it made her body feel clean, as if she had actually scrubbed with soap. The dress was simple, light blue with plain lines, like nothing she had worn before. Cotton went in one way, came out another.
When Caesar finished washing up, Sam gave them their papers.
“The names are wrong,” Caesar said.
“You’re runaways,” Sam said. “This is who you are now. You need to commit the names and the story to memory.”
More than runaways — murderers, maybe. Cora hadn’t thought of the boy since they stepped underground. Caesar’s eyes narrowed as he made the same calculation. She decided to tell Sam about the fight in the woods.
The station agent made no judgments and looked genuinely aggrieved by Lovey’s fate. He told them he was sorry about their friend. “Hadn’t heard about that. News like that doesn’t travel here like it does some places. The boy may have recovered for all we know, but that does not change your position. All the better that you have new names.”
“It says here we’re the property of the United States Government,” Caesar pointed out.
“That’s a technicality,” Sam said. White families packed up and flocked to South Carolina for opportunities, from as far as New York according to the gazettes. So did free men and women, in a migration the country had never witnessed before. A portion of the colored were runaways, although there was no telling how many, for obvious reasons. Most of the colored folk in the state had been bought up by the government. Saved from the block in some cases or purchased at estate sales. Agents scouted the big auctions. The majority were acquired from whites who had turned their back on farming. Country life was not for them, even if planting was how they had been raised and their family heritage. This was a new era. The government offered very generous terms and incentives to relocate to the big towns, mortgages and tax relief.
“And the slaves?” Cora asked. She did not understand the money talk, but she knew people being sold as property when she heard it.
“They get food, jobs, and housing. Come and go as they please, marry who they wish, raise children who will never be taken away. Good jobs, too, not slave work. But you’ll see soon enough.” There was a bill of sale in a file in a box somewhere, from what he understood, but that was it. Nothing that would be held over them. A confidante in the Griffin Building had forged these papers for them.
“Are you ready?” Sam asked.
Caesar and Cora looked at each other. Then he extended his hand like a gentleman. “My lady?”
She could not prevent herself from smiling, and they stepped into the daylight together.
The government had purchased Bessie Carpenter and Christian Markson from a bankruptcy hearing in North Carolina. Sam helped them rehearse as they walked to town. He lived two miles outside, in a cottage his grandfather had built. His parents had operated the copper shop on Main Street, but Sam chose a different path after they died. He sold the business to one of the many transplants who’d come to South Carolina for a fresh start and Sam now worked at one of the saloons, the Drift. His friend owned the place, and the atmosphere suited his personality. Sam liked the spectacle of the human animal up close, as well as his access to the workings of the town, once the drink loosened tongues. He made his own hours, which was an asset in his other enterprise. The station was buried beneath his barn, as with Lumbly.
At the outskirts Sam gave them detailed directions to the Placement Office. “And if you get lost, just head for that”—he pointed at the skyscraping wonder—“and make a right when you hit Main Street.” He would contact them when he had more information.
Caesar and Cora made their way up the dusty road into town, unbelieving. A buggy rounded the turn and the pair nearly dove into the woods. The driver was a colored boy who tipped his cap in a jaunty fashion. Nonchalant, as if it were nothing. To have such bearing at his young age! When he was out of sight they laughed at their ridiculous behavior. Cora straightened her back and held her head level. They would have to learn how to walk like freemen.