Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  Jonah slipped behind the counter and lifted the lid of the till. He shuddered when he saw the compartments were empty, all except the box where the pennies were kept. The storekeeper must have taken the more valuable coins and paper money upstairs. Slow now, Jonah said to calm himself. Slow down, old hoss. He knelt to search the shelf beneath the counter. A pistol and a shotgun lay behind some boxes. Also a long knife, a Bowie knife. He’d love to have the knife, and he could use the pistol, too. But if he took them the storekeeper would know, first thing, that he’d been robbed. And Jonah knew it was not a good idea for a Negro, especially one not known locally, to be caught with a pistol. He looked in the boxes under the shelves and found no money. Farther on there were needles and thread, thimbles and pins.

  Harness hung on pegs behind the counter and a saddle sat on a kind of sawhorse. A set of saddlebags hung behind the saddle. Something about the way a saddlebag leaned caught Jonah’s eye. The leather looked weighted on one side. The match burned down and he had to strike another. When he reached into the left pocket of the saddlebag, he felt cold, slick coins. That was where the storekeeper hid his cash.

  Jonah was tempted to steal the saddlebag and all its cash. But if he did that, a sheriff and posse would be after him tomorrow. Most of the coins were small. He took three silver dollars and two half dollars, and he took a five-dollar gold piece, then dropped it back into the bag. The storekeeper might assume he’d miscounted the evening before if silver was missing. But gold would be another matter.

  When Jonah looked at the clothes he thought of grabbing the best shirt and pants. But what he needed was work clothes that wouldn’t call attention to themselves. He took a pair of jean-cloth overalls and a thick cotton shirt. He was about to look for a pocketknife in the box behind the counter when he heard a horse galloping, getting closer. Jonah backed to the wall where a cloth-covered coffin lay on the floor. He blew out the match and listened to the hoofbeats approach the store. The horse stopped and someone clomped up the steps at the back of the store and pounded on the door above.

  “Who’s there?” a voice shouted.

  “It’s Silas,” a man shouted. “Mattie has the headache. She needs her laudanum.”

  Footsteps creaked on the ceiling of the store as the storekeeper hurried to get dressed. “Mattie has her headache,” the storekeeper muttered.

  His steps moved toward the back door.

  As the two men came down the back steps Jonah knew he’d waited until it was too late. He should have escaped through the front door while he had a chance. He didn’t have time now to find his way through all the shelves and tables and unlock the front door without striking a new match. He must hide. As the storekeeper fitted the key in the back door, Jonah lifted the cloth and lid of the coffin and lay down in it, with the overalls and shirt clutched to his chest. He closed the lid as the men stepped into the store.

  A match was struck, and through the crack under the lid Jonah saw a lantern was lit.

  “Hate to roust you, but Mattie has the headache terrible.”

  “Sure does smell like matches in here,” the storekeeper said.

  “You just struck one,” the man named Silas said.

  The weight of the men made the floor creak as they walked around.

  “What size bottle?” the storekeeper said.

  “Better make it two ounces this time.”

  Footsteps came right toward the coffin and then walked past it. Jonah cringed inside the casket and heard a cabinet open and bottles clink, and then the door was closed.

  “When can you settle up?” the storekeeper said.

  “I hate to run up a tab,” the other man said, “but I ain’t got no choice.”

  “Don’t know how much longer I can carry you,” the storekeeper said.

  “Soon as the tobacco’s in, I’ll settle. You know I will.”

  “It’s been a long dry summer,” the storekeeper said.

  The two men walked to the counter and Jonah heard the scratching of a pen on paper. “That makes seven dollars and eighty cents in all that you owe,” the storekeeper said.

  “When Mattie gets the headache she can’t do a thing but sit in the dark with her eyes closed. If she don’t get her medicine she gets the all-overs.”

  “Good night, Silas,” the storekeeper said.

  “Night,” the man said.

  Jonah listened to the door close and the key turn in the lock. He was awfully glad he’d thought to replace the key under the bucket and lock the door from inside. It was only luck that he’d thought of that. He listened to the horse gallop away and heard the storekeeper’s steps above. The storekeeper and his wife talked for a while, and then the house was still. Jonah waited for several minutes, and then he waited some more.

  When he raised the lid of the coffin, he smelled burnt coal oil from the lantern. As he got out he took care to prevent the lid from slamming down on the box. The coffin was covered with black cloth, but even so the falling lid would make a racket. He propped the lid with his elbow until he could lower it gently. Standing in the dark, Jonah tried to remember where the box of knives was, and the supply of matches. He’d seen the knives at the other end of the counter, but he’d not noticed where the matches were. If he could get a good knife and matches, that’s all he would take. His only hope was not to be greedy. The storekeeper must never guess anyone had been there, at least not until Jonah was a hundred miles away.

  Stepping a few inches at a time, Jonah felt his way around the clothes rack to the counter, and then along the counter to the box of knives. He struck a match and looked at the shiny specimens, penknives with ivory handles, larger knives too big to carry in his pocket. He looked at the treasure of middle-sized knives, with wooden handles, bone handles, mother of pearl. He’d never seen such a hoard of cutlery. He picked a folding knife that fit his palm. It had a red bone handle and one large blade. A kind of plaque was inlaid on the left side of the handle with BARLOW engraved on it. Jonah slid the knife into his pocket with a shiver of elation. He’d never before had such a fine knife.

  It cost Jonah another match to find the matches. They were in a box on the shelf behind the counter to the left of the harness. There were two kinds of matches, some in blue boxes and some in red boxes. He took one of each. As Jonah eased his way to the front of the store he saw the big cookie jar at the end of the counter. Laying the other stuff down, he lifted the lid and took out a cookie. It was almost the size of a cake, wider than his hand, and filled with raisins. He slipped the cookie into a pocket of the overalls. There were stacks of sardine cans and sausage cans on the shelf, and he slipped a can of sardines into the overalls also.

  When he reached the front door and turned the key the door would still not open. He wondered if it had a double lock, maybe one on the outside. Jonah felt along the edge of the door and found a bolt. The bolt was shot into its sleeve on the door jamb. He carefully slid the bolt back and eased the door open, then stepped out into the damp darkness. The storekeeper would find the door unlocked in the morning and maybe assume he’d overlooked it the evening before.

  As Jonah started down the dark road, walking slowly to make little noise and not trip over rocks and ruts, he thought at first of going back to the boat with his supplies and money. As far as he knew, Angel was still waiting for him there. But with her accompanying him, he had little chance of ever making it to the North. Even on his own he had at best long odds. Together it was only a matter of time until they were caught. If he meant to make it to freedom, he’d have to go on his own. There was no other way to look at it.

  The road ran along the river, near where the boat was pulled up on the bank. Jonah turned aside into the woods, and started climbing the ridge away from the river, in the direction he assumed was north or northeast.

  Eight

  Angel

  As I sat in the boat waiting for Jonah, I thought about all the strange things that had happened to me so suddenly after the jubilee. It didn’t seem possible I’d
run away from the Thomas Place and everything I knew just to follow this crazy boy that wanted to go to the North. But there I was, waiting in the dark for him to come back. And I thought about how we had gotten together and all the silly things that had happened in the last two days.

  After the jubilee Jonah must have been tired and worn out from the good time I gave him, for he slept on the ground like an old bear in winter time while we gathered up our stuff and had to leave. I didn’t mind leaving and taking the money out of his overalls flung on the dirt, for I had given him lots of jubilee. But before we got back to the Thomas Place I started thinking and feeling bad, for he was a runaway and needed all he could get. He had the nerve to run away and I’d taken his money. And then I thought: if he can run away, maybe I can, too. It hit me like blue thunder out of nowhere. I knew I was at least as brave and smart as him. I had to give him back his money. And if he really knew the way up north, maybe I could follow. After last night I should be welcome company. And I liked him. I can’t say why a woman likes one man better than another, but I knew I had a feeling for him.

  I dropped back on the trail like I had to pee, and soon as the others disappeared around a bend I started back up the mountain. If I hurried I might catch that boy before he woke up. I hoped to find Jonah still asleep and slide the money back into his overalls. And then I’d wake him up and say I was going with him. And I’d show him the way to the river. I was going to find out where he had run from and where he was running to. I would offer to go along with him, and help him, and if that didn’t work I’d go along anyway. For after all, how was he going to stop me? I was tired of being Master Thomas’s bed warmer, and soon as I got older or had a child he’d kick me out of the big house to work in the fields like Mama and the rest of the help. I reckoned I’d done enough hoeing corn and stripping cane already.

  But there was no boy at the clearing on the mountain when I got back there. By then it was daylight and he had already waked up and found his overalls and gone. He’d come down the mountain into the firelight and I thought maybe he’d climbed back up on the mountain. It was a steep slope with no trail and I had to pick my way through briars and blown-down trees and laurel thickets to the top. There was nothing on top but more trees, and I looked down and saw the river foaming over rocks way down below. And I thought: since Jonah hasn’t come on a trail, he must be traveling by river.

  I let myself down that steep mountain by holding to trees, and I fell and rolled over one time. And when I got to the bottom I saw a ghost wearing overalls and putting stuff in an old boat. And when I stepped closer I saw it was the boy himself all covered with gray paint or white clay over his face and arms. He looked like a corpse dug out of the ground.

  “What did you do that for?” I asked him, and he said he was going to look like a white man. I laughed and he didn’t like my laugh. I could see he was a serious boy.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, and I told him I’d come to follow him. I was ashamed to tell him I’d taken his money.

  “No you’re not,” he said, and asked how I knew where he’s going.

  “You’re running away and I’m going, too,” I said. He looked at me hard and shook his head. He was so mad he trembled a little.

  “I will be good company,” I said and patted his knee. He looked at me and then he looked away. A boy that’s mad at you, a good boy, will not want to look you in the face. Mean men will look right into your eyes.

  “Do you know how far it is to the North?” he said. “First you have to get over the mountains to Tennessee, and then over the mountains to Virginia. If you’re lucky enough to cross four hundred miles of Virginia you have to cross Maryland after the Potomac River. And after that you cross the mountains of Pennsylvania. Then after a lot of miles you may get to New York. And from New York you still have to cross to Canada. I’ll probably never make it by myself, and with you I don’t have a shadow of a chance.”

  Right then I saw that boy was different from anybody I knew. He had all those names and all those miles in his head. That made me want to go even more.

  “Where did you learn all those names?” I asked.

  “I can read a map,” he said.

  “Can you read a book?”

  “Sure, I can read anything, books, newspapers, maps. I read lots of books,” he said, strutting in his voice.

  So I said to myself: this boy is special, this boy knows where he’s going. He’s silly and proud like all men, but he’s different, too. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with him. I’d just walk over and put my fat behind on the plank in the middle of the boat. He wasn’t big enough to get me off. He would have no choice but to push off with me sitting there, because if he hit me I’d beat him up. I was bigger than him. And besides, he was worried to get going, all covered with crumbs of clay like he’d been buried and rose up from the dead.

  “I’ll never make it to the North with you,” he said, and shoved the boat into the water. “Never even make it to Tennessee with you.”

  “You’ll never make it there without me,” I said and giggled.

  “We could be caught and whipped,” he said.

  “You’ve done been whipped,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything else. He wanted to look like a white man covered with clay and paddling the boat, but I didn’t think he could fool anybody. A colored boy covered with clay didn’t look like anything but a colored boy covered with clay.

  I TOLD MYSELF I’D have to stick to this boy like bark on an oak tree. I had run away from the Thomas Place and I didn’t mean to go back there, and I didn’t want to be whipped and branded either. Or have my ear cut off. He was my best hope for getting away to the North and freedom because he had that map of places in his head. Just like I knew the rooms in the Master’s big house and all the shacks in the quarters, he knew the map and the way to those places and freedom far away.

  That night after he caught two trout out of the river and we ate them, and then he put out the fire, I asked him how he learned to read so good, because no slave on the Thomas Place knew how to read, not even Eli. So he told me about waiting on his master’s children and listening while they did their lessons and learned their letters.

  “Does it come all at once, seeing what letters mean?” I said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Jonah said. “You learn a little at a time.” He looked at me in the dim light like I had no more sense than a fence post.

  “Ain’t you the high and mighty one,” I said.

  He sulked like a man does when he gets his feelings hurt. Because he was not going to argue with a woman, a woman that couldn’t even read. He was too important to snap back at me. We sat there as it got dark, listening to the mutter and whisper of the river. That river talked like it was telling a long story. “Where is this river going?” I said, but he didn’t answer.

  When I lay down on the ground to sleep, I thought, this boy is going to leave me the first chance he gets. He didn’t know yet how much he needed me. He liked the loving I gave him the night before, but that didn’t make any difference because he wanted to run off by himself. Only if I held back could I make him want me enough to take me along.

  When he reached for me I pulled back, and then he turned away. And during the night while he was sleeping I got up to pee and put myself in the boat. Then at daylight I made a fire while he was still asleep. And when he woke up I was already sitting in the boat and he couldn’t leave me.

  Riding in the front of that boat while Jonah paddled down the French Broad River, I felt like the queen of the river. I wished I had a turban like Mama. I was right out in the middle of that water in broad daylight and anybody could see me. But we were moving fast. Jonah knew the way to the North, but he didn’t have any money, and I was ashamed to tell him I’d taken his money. I was getting terribly hungry and we didn’t have anything to eat. Finally we passed a store on the road that ran away from the river, and a mile farther on Jonah pushed the boat to the bank and stepped out.

/>   “I will wait until dark and take what I need from that store,” he said.

  “I’m going with you,” I said.

  “No, you stay with the boat,” he said. “I’ll come back after midnight.”

  Now I knew you couldn’t put any trust in what a man said. A man will as soon lie to you as spit out a watermelon seed. But I figured he had to come back to the boat. He was traveling by boat down the river. He couldn’t leave his boat. But just to make sure I followed Jonah through the woods up the river and saw him hide behind a haystack watching the store building. All evening he hid there and I stayed in the woods and watched him.

  He will get some good things to eat, I told myself. And he won’t get away from me.

  But I saw my mistake after it got dark. I waited a long time in the woods and then I moved closer to the house, but couldn’t see anything. There was a flicker of light inside the store, but I couldn’t tell if it was Jonah or the storekeeper, or somebody else.

  Then I heard a horse clip-clop up to the store and I pulled back to the woods. There was lantern light and voices, and I thought maybe Jonah had been caught because a bright light came on inside the store. But I couldn’t really tell anything, except that a horse galloped away from the store in the dark and then everything was quiet.

  That’s when I thought I’d better hurry back to the boat, for maybe Jonah had already gone back there. Maybe he’d fooled me and soon as it got dark he slipped back to the boat and went on down the river without me. Maybe it was all a trick to get rid of me.