From what I gathered, abolitionists made a lot of trouble for Southern landowners who kept slaves. I was stunned when I realized they were talking about God-fearing white people who didn’t believe in slavery—who thought it should be outlawed. In Aunt Nancy Lynne’s kitchen Silas had spoken of people who opposed the institution of slavery. Now I was thinking about them differently. I knew Silas and I were headed north because we could be free. But I hadn’t thought clearly about what freedom would mean for me or what it would look like. How could I make my way in the world? I had not shared these thoughts with Silas because my plan was to disconnect myself from him once we reached safety. It would be better for us to separate because anyone in search of runaways would look for a pair. Now, hearing that I could find people, perhaps these white abolitionists, willing to help me sustain myself in my freedom, I felt heartened.
We arrived at Savannah early in the evening and got into an omnibus, which stopped at the hotel for the passengers to take tea. Silas stepped into the house and brought me a small sandwich and coffee. I sat outside and ate a little. Silas knelt next to me and tended to me like he would Massa Holloway. He dusted off my boots and checked and retied the poultice.
“You all right?” he whispered.
“Boss Everett was on the train,” I said. “Silas—Henry, I thought I was going to die.”
Silas took small, nervous looks around the area, moving from me to the street and back again. “Damn it,” he said. “Where is he?”
“No, no.” I patted him on the shoulder. “He’s gone. Got off a ways back.”
Silas sat back on his heels, took out a handkerchief, and wiped at the sweat trickling down the sides of his face. “Well, the Lord must be looking after us then,” he said.
“Are you all right? Have you eaten? Here, take this.” I carefully wrapped the rest of my sandwich. I had only managed a few bites.
“No, you keep it. Gotta keep your strength up. We’ll be traveling over water soon. Might make you sick.”
He was right. The omnibus took us to a steamer bound for Charleston, South Carolina, and then another steamer to Wilmington, North Carolina. On board, the up-and-down motion of the waves gave me a painful ache at the back of my head. My stomach felt so unsettled it was all I could do to sit up straight on the bench outside. We stayed outside on both steamers. Silas said it would help me feel better. Still, the journey wore on me badly. We boarded a train for Richmond, Virginia, and by the time we arrived, my slow sick-man walk was no longer pretended.
Silas thought some fresh air might help. He led me from the platform to the street, and we were walking like that, speaking quietly about where we should go next, when Silas suddenly took my elbow.
“Stop,” he whispered. “You hear that?”
I wasn’t sure what “that” was supposed to be. We were surrounded by people and horses and carriages, all making their own noises. But the sound came to me: a low and rich melodic hum, the way a mother might sing to a child. The hum rose in tone and volume, and then a woman’s voice, deep and clear.
“Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.”
“That’s a signal song,” he whispered. “Someone from the Underground Railroad. They’ll help get us someplace safe.” He looked around carefully.
“Over there.” Silas guided me to a shop stand of squash, collards, and potatoes. A colored woman wearing a dark-brown cloth wrapped around her head was stocking the table from a crate at her feet. She sang as she worked.
I pretended to examine the vegetables while Silas spoke to her.
“You lookin’ to hire a carriage for your man?” she asked him.
Silas nodded.
She glanced briefly in a direction opposite us and a little way down the street. “Take that one with the man in the green hat. Tell him Miss Maude said he has the finest carriage in town.”
I gave Silas a few coins to pass to her. She wrapped a butternut squash in brown paper and handed it to Silas. I gave her a slight bow, and we walked on.
When we got to the carriage, Silas repeated Miss Maude’s message, and the man opened the door and helped me in. Silas got up on the outside seat with the driver. The man never asked where we wanted to go. He just started. We traveled out of Richmond but still, I could tell, in a northerly direction. We ended up not going far, but the man let the horses walk, so our progress was slow. I figured that was best. We wouldn’t call attention to ourselves. There didn’t seem to be anything to fear, so I sat back and relaxed and felt better. I even managed to fall asleep for a bit.
It was dark at the small farmhouse that turned out to be our destination.
Silas hopped down, and the man in the green hat opened the door for me. I climbed out and took off my hat, my spectacles, and the poultice. I could breathe deeply for the first time in days. But then suddenly Miss Maude was there. She slipped out of the shadows and approached the carriage. I looked at Silas. How had she managed to get there? Maybe that was why we had gone so slowly—she had been walking along with us.
“Thanks, Charley,” she said to the driver. He turned his horse and went back toward Richmond. To us she said, “This here the Burke house. Come on.” She moved fast. Her steps bounced up from the ground, one right after another. It was all we could do to keep up with her.
Miss Maude knocked on the door softly in a rhythmic pattern and then did something very strange. She ran her hand over my head as though she would press down any errant curls. Who would care what I looked like? The nighttime dew had already done its work, and I helped it along with my sweating despite the chill of the night.
The glow of a candle illuminated the face of the woman who opened the door. She was white.
“Missus Burke, I have a man and a girl with me.”
The woman pulled the door wide open. “Yes, of course. Come in, Maude. It has been quiet for a while. I thought you would be here yesterday.” She pulled out chairs at a wooden table, and I could make out the hearth and the walls of a kitchen. “Sit here. You both must be hungry.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I’d eaten very little on the journey, but I didn’t tell her that the edge of the hunger had kept me going, even when I’d felt sick on the steamer. It made me feel alive, and I was happy to feel my body talking to me. It meant I was healthy, and I had that going for me, if nothing else.
She placed the candle on the table and moved about the room. She put bread on the table and put a kettle over the fire in the hearth. Miss Maude didn’t sit but followed her around the room and whispered to her. I could just make out “need” and “help” and “don’t know.” Silas and I looked at each other. He shrugged.
Missus Burke put cups on the table and filled them with hot coffee. She sat, and Miss Maude sat with us.
“I’m thinking of that family stuck north of here. We could get them all to Philadelphia if we make it look like they belong to somebody, like they’re traveling with a master like these two just did.” She nodded at me, and I stopped chewing the bread. “Or a mistress.”
Missus Burke looked at me and did the same thing Miss Maude had done. She ran her hand over the mess of my cropped hair. “What is your name?”