Glory Over Everything (42 page)

One evening, after we had all eaten our fill of a roasted wild pig, Peg divided the remainder of the meat into two wooden buckets before Pete and Willie carried them out into the night. “There's others needin' food” was Peg's explanation to Pan, and later that night Pan told me more: “She say there's others who live out here. They was all slaves, just like Peg and Willie, and they all been here for a long time. She say this is their home now.”

Toward the end of the week, Pete came back with news that there were patrollers along the canal route searching for us. “Everybody want that money,” he said, and worried that he and Willie were not immune to the same temptation, I began to press for a departure date.

“We got to wait,” he said, then indicated with a nod for me to continue chopping wood.

I was so anxious to leave that, foolhardy as it would have been, I might have taken Pan and Kitty and struck out on my own. However, through Willie, I learned that this island had been chosen for their home because it was protected—surrounded by alligator and snake-infested waters. As dangerous were the numerous still ponds around the island, covered by a greasy surface sheen that camouflaged thick sucking mud. “Man don't know where he goin', he step in that, don' never see him again,” Willie said.

O
NE EVENING TOWARD
the end of the second week, as Willie, Pan, and I sat at the fireside and watched while Peg tested the readiness of a roasting possum, Pete burst through the trees.

“We set for tonight! 'Fore sunup, we got to get you to the cross-ditch. Barge comin' up, gon' take you to a wagon that get you to No'folk.”

My chest began to thump. Weren't the patrollers still out there? I had been waiting for this, but now I was afraid to leave. Daily I had reviewed each fear and obstacle we might face. The most concerning had to do with Kitty. “What about Kitty?” I asked. “What will we do for milk?”

The question hung in the air as I looked from one to the other.

“Best you ask Peg if she give you her goat,” Willie finally said.

Peg shot him a sharp look.

“But . . .” Pan protested, knowing what the animal meant to Peg.

I looked to the old woman, certain of her denial. She clutched her hands together as she gazed at her prized goat, then turned back to Willie and gave a quick nod. I was disbelieving, yet I looked to Pete. “How can we take a goat?”

“You think that the biggest thing we ever carry out?” Pete asked, then went silent as though he had said too much.

Peg went over to the fire and removed the possum from the spit, then pulled the sweet potatoes from the coals. No one needed further encouragement to eat, but as we did, Peg went off to her hut. I leaned over to Willie and asked if she was coming back out to join us. He shook his head. “Let her be. She gettin' used to the idea of losin' her goat—and the boy,” he added, nodding to Pan.

It had grown late, but as we prepared to leave, Peg returned to insist that we give Kitty a last feeding. Pan, as excited as I had ever seen him, went to Peg as she fed Kitty. “Do you want me to write to you and tell you how we got through?”

“You know I can't do no readin',” she said.

“I can draw some pictures. How 'bout that?”

“You good at it?” she asked.

“Not as good as Mr. Burton,” he said.

“I want 'em from you,” she said.

Pan looked around as though he'd suddenly remembered our whereabouts. “Where should I send them?”

“Send them to that Mr. Spencer. He'll get them to me,” she said, solidifying a connection I had guessed at.

Pan watched as she changed the baby's clout and then settled Kitty into a new moss-lined basket. “You gonna miss Kitty, Miss Peg?” Pan asked.

“She too much work,” Peg said, handing Pan a small leather bag that held clout-sized pieces of cloth, a small turtle shell, and fresh reeds for Kit's feedings.

“Thank you, Miss Peg,” Pan said, and Peg's eyes glistened before she turned back toward her hut.

I followed. “Miss Peg,” I called, addressing her with the formality that Pan always used.

“What you wantin' now?” she asked, turning back to face me.

“I want to thank you. I can never replace your goat, nor can I ever repay your kindness, but please take this.” I reached for her hand and pressed my grandmother's large garnet and diamond brooch into her palm. “Get that to Mr. Spencer and he will get more goats for you, if you like,” I said.

She closed her hand around the jewel, then turned and walked away.

When I picked up Kitty's basket, Willie stole a last peek. “You raise her up good,” he said. “You tell her 'bout us out here. How Peg do for her.”

P
ETE MOVED SWIFTLY,
leading the muzzled goat through the impossibly thick vegetation. Each time something large slithered into the watery underbrush, the goat panicked and pulled back, until Pete, frustrated with her resistance, picked her up and slung her around his thick neck.

Even with Pete burdened, Pan and I had to work hard to keep up as he navigated first the boggy land and then the gnarled and slippery tree roots. Though now familiar with the night sounds, I was often startled by disturbed wildlife as it flew up or rustled past us in the undergrowth.

Kitty seldom fussed, and Pan remained close to my side, but it was such a difficult hike that I had little time to worry about what lay ahead. My most immediate fear was that I would lose my balance and take Kit into the water, so I gripped tight the walking cane Willie had thrust into my hand on our departure.

We trekked deep into the night, and even Pete appeared winded by the time we caught sight of the towpath. The night view of the winding canal was deceptively peaceful; overhead trees leaned in to one another, their branches folded together across the water as though in prayer. Down a distance, a long stretch of the canal was open to the sky, where the black shadow of a nighthawk glided across the still water.

A lone owl hooted and wolves howled as though in answer. I grew increasingly anxious as I watched Pete pace the bank. Suddenly, he rushed back to where we waited in the underbrush. “Somethin' comin'!” he whispered, and through the shadows, as though moving through molasses, a small barge pulled into view. As it moved closer, I could make out a Negro man and a smaller boy moving toward us on the towpath. Each had hold of a long pole secured to the craft and with these they pushed the boat forward.

“Come on, come on!” Pete waved us forward as the barge hit the bank. “Quick, climb up,” he urged as he reached for Kitty.

I hesitated. What if, once I was on the barge, he meant to keep her?

“Jus' do what I say!” he said, grabbing for Kitty's basket.

“No!” I argued, until a woman on the barge reached down.

“Gib me the chil',” she whispered.

I handed Kitty up, and in short order, Pan and I found ourselves on board and standing next to piles of cut wood, melons, and sacks of grain.

“Come, quick, get in here,” the barge man said, standing at the back and tossing away a stack of wood to expose a small trapdoor. He opened it and pointed. “Quick, get in,” he said. Pan leaned on his haunches for a look inside. “Both of us is supposed to fit in there?” Pan asked in a whisper, and the man nodded. The small barge, not more than a large raft, was built so low and loaded so heavily that it was impossible to believe any space could exist underfoot. Yet there it was.

I hesitated, dreading the idea of that small space. I turned and saw Kitty in the woman's arms, then saw Pete sling up the objecting goat.

“Go on.” The woman waved at me. “Go on. Get in. I got the chil'.”

To my later regret, I did not thank Pete, thinking only how I didn't want to wedge myself into that narrow dark enclosure. But there was little time as the barge man urged me in. I forced myself to my knees and slid in, then encouraged Pan to wedge himself in beside me. We lay flat on our stomachs in the narrow damp space. “You got to stay quiet!” the barge man warned as he closed the door behind us. Wood clunked as it was tossed to cover over our hideout. Within minutes the raft bumped away from the canal banks and we slid off silently, but for the sound of the canal water rippling under us.

W
HEN WE GO
from Willie and Miss Peg's house, I'm not scared no more because I know my mama's watching out again.

Miss Peg give us her goat because she's a good woman, but she don't like Mr. Burton for being a white man, even after I tell her that his mama was colored. “You sure she colored?” Miss Peg asked.

“I'm not sure of nothing no more,” I say.

“Why not?”

“ 'Cause after my mama die, she say she was gonna look out for me. Then I got took for a slave. Where was she then?”

“How'd you get took?” Miss Peg asked.

“I snuck down to the docks, where I wasn't supposed to go.”

“Huh! How you expec' your mama to look out for you when you act the fool?” she asked.

I never look at it that way before, so that night, when Mr. Burton's sleeping, I talk with my mama. “You take care of Kitty and me and Mr. Burton, and I don't ever act the fool again.” Then I go to sleep, 'cause now I know she's looking out for me.

M
R.
B
URTON AND
me is squished tight in the bottom of this boat. I see Mr. Burton's scared and that he don't like this no better than me, but I'm glad I'm not on my own like I was under that wagon seat. I'm just hopin' Mr. Burton keeps hisself settled. I never seen nothing like it when Kitty was comin' and he took off runnin'. I always thought Mr. Burton was something like God—that big a man. But then he goes off, leavin' Sukey and me. I'd of expected something like that from my daddy, but I was wrong about that, too. Turns out, afraid as my daddy was for getting took again, he come down into slave country looking for me. I'd never guessed he'd a done that. He musta cared for me that much. Makes my throat hurt to think about it.

My daddy was right. There's nothing worse than being a slave. I can't stop wonderin' what's going to happen to other boys like me now that Sukey is gone. Who's gonna help them get outta there?

Feels like this boat is movin' through the water at a fast clip. All I can think is that I don't know how to swim if it gets a leak. I can't talk to Mr. Burton 'cause we was told to stay quiet, so I close my eyes and try to think of something else. I don't want to remember Southwood and what it's like to be a slave there, so I think about Miss Peg and how I told her that I would draw her some pictures. She told me that she and Willie help out other runners all the time, but always Negroes. She don't take to Mr. Burton. “He act too white for me,” she said.

But I say to her, “If I was white like him, I'd be actin' white, too.”

“Why?” she said.

“For one thing, they don't take no white boys and sell them for slaves,” I said. She give me one of her looks but don't say nothing.

“For another, white people don't have to be scared, like my daddy always was, always looking over his shoulder.”

“I guess you's right, but no white man ever done me no good,” she said.

I told her about Mr. Spencer and how he helped me out. “He was white,” I said. “What about him?”

“I s'pose everybody got a little good in 'em,” she said.

“Mr. Spencer got a lot a good in him, and so does Mr. Burton. You just don't want to see it,” I say, and she shoots me a look that shuts me up.

Truth is, I don't know what to think of Mr. Burton no more. After he runs off and leaves me alone with Sukey, I got no use for him, but then he comes back and I see how good he takes care of Sukey and Kitty. I never would've pegged Mr. Burton to be a daddy, but with Kitty, it's like she's his own. He claims when we make it out of here, he's going to raise her free. I figure it'll fall on me to raise Kitty up, because Robert don't know nothing 'bout babies and if Mr. Burton is still gonna be white, Kitty will be down in the kitchen with Robert and me.

I wonder what kinda kitchen that'll be. Mr. Burton said we can't live in Philadelphia no more, so where we end up at, I don't know. I sure hope Mr. Burton means to stand by me and keeps me with him like he said he would, but you never know with a man who runs like that.

Even though I keep thinking that Philadelphia is where my mama and daddy live, in some ways I'm glad that we're leaving. That way, slave catchers come looking for me, I'm gone. Wonder how long they keep looking for their slaves that run? Daddy said they never stop.

W
E WERE DRAWN
through the water for what seemed an eternity. I tried not to panic at being trapped in the small enclosure, but as the long hours passed, I grew increasingly distressed. My one relief was Pan beside me, who was silent but as brave as any man.

It was difficult to gauge time. We must have traveled for hours and had gone through at least two tolls before I sensed that our direction had changed and that we were traveling north. I was proved right when the man above, as though speaking to the woman, announced loudly, “We on the big canal now. Won't be long before we get to the landing.”

Soon, amid sounds of horns and chugging, our small barge lifted and sank in the water as larger boats went by. Where were we headed? Surely a small craft such as this would not travel up as far as Suffolk or Norfolk!

It felt a lifetime had passed before the barge began to bump and thud in docking. Greetings were shouted, and through them I learned that I was on Joe's boat. He was well known and heartily greeted, as was his son, but his wife, Miss Lou, was noted with surprise. “See you brought the missus” was heard more than once.