Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  As Jonah and Angel left the schoolyard, children walked beside them and followed them to the road.

  “Where are you going with that blade?” a boy said.

  “Going to cut down some cornstalks,” Jonah said.

  “Too cold to cut down cornstalks,” the boy said.

  “Not where I’m going,” Jonah said.

  At the end of the schoolyard, the children stopped and Jonah and Angel kept walking.

  “Ain’t never seen a nigger before,” the boy called after them. Jonah didn’t look back.

  They slept that night in a hay barn on a hillside, boiled four eggs in the kettle the next morning, and then started up the river again.

  At the village of Owego Jonah and Angel found that the main street ran along the north bank of the river. It was a prosperous village with many brick buildings and a courthouse for Tioga County. The railroad station was right on the bank of the Susquehanna. A crane swung cargo from railroad cars onto a platform, and from the platform barrels and boxes, crates and bales, were loaded onto barges in the river. Goods were also being unloaded from boats and barges and stacked in train cars in the railyard. Owego was the busiest place Jonah had seen since Harrisburg. The streets were filled with people, and dozens of men worked in the freightyard and on the barges. Bales of wool were unloaded from one of the boats and winched up to the platform to be packed in a railroad car. Cattle were unloaded from one car, and sheep from another.

  “I ain’t going to ride on any more trains,” Angel said, as they watched freight loaded onto the cars.

  “Then how will you get to Ithaca?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to go to Ithaca.”

  “How will you get to Canada?”

  “Find my own way, I reckon,” Angel said.

  Jonah could never predict when Angel would get stubborn and arbitrary. She liked to provoke him at the most unexpected times. It angered him that she seemed reluctant to continue, now that they were getting close to their goal. Before he’d hoped to escape from her; now he found he depended on her.

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “I ain’t going on a train and freeze to death,” Angel snapped. Jonah turned away from her. He walked away from the waterfront without looking back. He thought she might follow him, but she didn’t.

  Jonah knew he couldn’t get on the train while it was stopped and being loaded. He followed a street that ran along the tracks until he came to the edge of the little town. Then he stepped on the tracks themselves and walked on the ties for maybe a mile, as the rails ascended a grade. Since the train would have to labor up the long hill, he figured that was the place to get on. Twice he looked behind to see if Angel was following him: she wasn’t. He stepped off the tracks and slipped behind some sumac bushes at the edge of a field, then sat down on a log that was free of snow and laid his scythe and the kettle in the weeds beside him.

  Jonah had to wait a while before he heard the huff huff huff of the locomotive coming from the town of Owego. The train had to gather speed as it left the freightyard, and it had to struggle up the grade. It was a small engine and it moved slowly. Jonah hunkered in the brush as the engine puffed past. The engineer leaned out the window looking ahead. The train whistle hooted and startled Jonah. He crouched lower until a passenger car went by and then an open car loaded with coal.

  A boxcar passed, but its door was closed. Jonah picked up his scythe in one hand and the kettle in the other and ran to the edge of the rails. The train was rolling slowly, but every car appeared to be locked. He looked down the track and saw there were only four more cars, but they were open beds. He turned and ran after the first boxcar. It was easy to catch, but he wondered how he was going to grab onto the ladder without dropping the scythe and the kettle. He didn’t want to lose either, but he had to seize a rung of the ladder with both hands. He threw both scythe and kettle aside and heard them clatter on gravel as he grabbed the rung on the boxcar.

  Jonah rode between the cars as the train climbed higher into the hills and then entered a long valley. A light snow glittered on the fields and pastures, and big red barns rose noble as churches from the valley floor, mile after mile. Jonah shivered in the breeze but found if he clung close to the boxcar out of the wind he was not quite so cold. The sunlight warmed him, and when he bowed his head, he breathed less smoke and ash. It would do him no good to climb on top of the car, and there seemed no way to get inside it.

  The train kept going up until it appeared to be on top of the world. The tracks crossed the wide valley and climbed around a long, low ridge and ran over rolling highlands. The hills were low and smooth and stretched out for miles, unlike any country Jonah had ever seen. He didn’t know that the glacier had once rubbed these hills smooth and rounded them off, but he understood this was a different kind of landscape. Little farms were tucked in coves, and bigger farms stood out boldly on the open plateaus. Jonah felt he’d almost reached the true North. The land seemed to touch the sky in every direction.

  As the train rattled and banged along, Jonah saw that each little town they passed had a white church and a red schoolhouse, a store and a village meeting hall. A pump and water trough stood in the middle of each village. Most houses were white and looked recently painted and clean. Jonah held on to the ladder and his teeth chattered, but he was thrilled to be in such high country. After about an hour Jonah was numb with cold. The train began to labor up an even higher hill, and it felt as though the rails ahead must go right off the ground into the sky. Did the ground get higher the farther north you went? Everyone described the North as “up” north. Jonah felt they were already approaching the top of the sky. Spruce trees lined the track. And then the locomotive ahead appeared to drop out of sight. Jonah looked around the corner of the boxcar and saw a great open vista. It was a deep valley with a lake in the distance. He held his breath, looking at the depth and grandeur of the scene revealing itself. A town lay at the edge of the lake, with steeples that shone like points of snowflakes and big brown buildings with many eyes stretched along the sides of hills.

  It took several minutes for the train to wind and rumble its way down into the valley and approach the town. The cars rattled and clanked slowly through the outskirts, and soon as Jonah saw the yard ahead where barges and steamboats were pulled up to the docks by the tracks, he knew it was time to jump off. The railroad ended where its cargo would be loaded onto boats for the trip across the lake.

  When Jonah touched the ground, he was so stiff with cold, he fell and rolled off the gravel into weeds. He was almost numb, but pushed himself up and looked around. The town was on flat land by the lake, with steep hills on either side. To the east two gorges cut through the ridge and waterfalls milked and smoked over the rims of rocks. Mills with waterwheels jutted out of each gorge. To the south Jonah saw the apron of another waterfall combing and foaming from a lip of rock. It was like no place he’d ever seen. The lake stretched out of sight to the north between rounded shoulders of hills.

  With no money, no scythe, no kettle, Jonah had to think first of getting something to eat. He walked away from the tracks toward the center of town as a steamboat blew its whistle. No one he passed on the street paid him much attention. Wind shoving off the lake chilled him more, and he had to get warm before he could think what to do. He had to get out of the biting wind.

  Seventeen

  Jonah

  At the corner of Aurora Street, Jonah came to a brick church with stained-glass windows, and found the door unlocked. It was mostly dark inside, but he saw benches in the light from the colored windows. Out of the wind the air was warmer. As Jonah’s eyes adjusted a little, he saw a stove at the side of the church near the altar. He walked toward the front and realized as he neared it that a fire was crackling in the stove. If the stove was lit, someone must be in the church.

  “Hello and welcome,” a voice said.

  Jonah spun around and saw a man in a shiny black robe emerge from a room behind the pulpit.

&nbs
p; “Hello, sir,” Jonah said and took off his hat. “I just wanted to get warm.”

  “I’m Timothy Belue,” the man in the robe said. “You are most welcome.”

  Jonah was so surprised he couldn’t think what to say. He couldn’t claim to be a laborer on his way to work. It must be a Sunday if a fire was roaring in the stove.

  “Make yourself at home,” Rev. Belue said. He was a short man with glasses and side whiskers. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see Jonah. “We’ll have worship service in about twenty minutes,” the reverend said. “You are very welcome to stay.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jonah said.

  The minister looked at Jonah’s boots and his coat, soiled with soot and ashes from the train. “I keep coffee and biscuits in the back room to refresh me while I prepare my sermons,” he said. “Could I offer you something to nibble?”

  Jonah knew it was impolite to accept, but he was too famished to refuse. “Thank you, sir,” he said and bowed his head. Rev. Belue led him to the little room piled with books and papers. Another black robe hung from a hook in the corner. A coffeepot sat on the hearth of a small fireplace where lazy flames beckoned and gestured. The preacher cleared a spot at the table and set a plate of biscuits and a cup of coffee before Jonah.

  As Jonah sipped the coffee, he felt the hot liquid warm his belly and begin to spread through him. His bones ached with cold, and the warm coffee didn’t touch the marrow at first. The biscuits were sweet as the sweetest cake. There was butter to spread on the biscuits, making them even sweeter.

  Mrs. Belue, who was the organist, arrived and also invited Jonah to stay for the service. She was taller than her husband, with dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. She invited Jonah to come to their house for dinner after the meeting. “I hope you’ll find friends in Ithaca,” she said.

  When Jonah finished the biscuits and coffee and returned to the meeting room, the room was already half filled with worshipers. Rev. Belue sat in a chair behind the pulpit and Mrs. Belue began to play a quiet hymn on the organ. Jonah walked to the back of the church and sat on the last bench. Some of those entering in their fine Sunday clothes glanced at him and looked quickly away. An older woman smiled at him. Jonah knew he smelled bad after all the days on the road. He tried to gather himself into himself, to keep his stink from spreading.

  As he watched the church fill, Jonah wondered how safe he was here, appearing in public, at a service for everybody to see. There was no guarantee that Rev. Belue, kind as he seemed, wouldn’t report him to the sheriff if he knew Jonah was a runaway. And someone in the congregation might be suspicious of him and inform the authorities. But as he warmed up, filled with coffee and biscuits and butter, Jonah felt heavier and heavier. He’d walked many miles, and he’d not slept much the night before. As soon as the Reverend Belue stood up and announced the first hymn and the congregation began to sing, Jonah was already asleep. He dreamed about cliffs and waterfalls and sparkling lakes.

  It was only after the church was empty that Rev. Belue woke him. “Service is over,” the preacher said and shook his shoulder. “I can see how rousing my sermon was.” The preacher laughed and Jonah woke to his laughter.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Jonah mumbled.

  “No need to apologize,” the minister said. “Perhaps you needed sleep more than a sermon.”

  Jonah had slept so deeply in the warm church, he was befuddled. It took him a minute to understand Rev. Belue’s questions.

  “Yes, sir,” Jonah murmured, as if he was about to go back to sleep.

  “Well I have just one question really,” Rev. Belue said. “Have you killed anybody?”

  Jonah woke and looked the preacher in the eye. “No, sir,” he said. “I never killed anybody.”

  “Well, that settles that,” the preacher said. “Come with me to the house and we’ll have some dinner.”

  AFTER THEY’D EATEN, MRS. Belue put on a kettle to heat water and told Jonah he could bathe in the downstairs bedroom. The pastor and Jonah carried a tub into the bedroom and a bucket of cold water and the kettle of boiling water. When the two waters were mixed the tub was half full of warm water. The preacher brought him soap and a towel and Jonah washed himself thoroughly for the first time since he’d left Miss Linda’s. Until he cleaned himself he hadn’t realized just how dirty and smelly he’d become.

  To wash when you’re dirty is almost as satisfying as eating when you’re starved or warming when you’re cold, Jonah thought. The coffee and biscuits, the nap in church, the dinner with the Belues, and now the bath—they all seemed too good to believe. He wondered when this dream would end.

  Slow there, boy, he thought. Easy does it. Don’t get too happy. Dangerous to be too happy.

  After Jonah dressed and emptied the tub in the backyard, Rev. Belue led him down to the basement of the house, where he had a small printing press. It was the first press Jonah had ever seen. He looked at the large screw that pushed the plates together, and the bits of type in trays. A book could be made from the letters packed in the boxes.

  “I haven’t asked what your old name is,” Rev. Belue said.

  “Why is that?” Jonah said.

  “Because you will need a new name.”

  Jonah hadn’t thought of that. Of course the reverend was right: he would need a new name. It would be foolish to go by his old name. Jonah tried to think what he should call himself. He’d used different names since he’d run away from the Williams Place. He’d been Julius and Ezra and Isaac and Jeter. Thinking of Mama back in South Carolina, in her little shack behind the mansion, brought tears to his eyes. He could never again be Jonah Williams. He would no longer be Jonah who disobeyed God and was swallowed by a fish and coughed up on the shore. He wanted to be somebody that arrived at the promised land. Moses had gone into the wilderness, but he’d not been allowed to reach the land of Canaan. It was Joshua that led the people on to the promised land. Joshua was the prophet who made it into Canaan.

  “I am Joshua,” Jonah said, “Joshua Driver.”

  “That’s a good, strong name,” the minister said. “Joshua from the Bible and Driver for one who goes forth, and goes far.”

  The preacher took letters from the tray and arranged them on a plate, then screwed the plate tight. He fitted the plate on the press, inked the letters with a pad, and placed a small sheet of paper on the press. With the wooden arm he turned the big screw until the two halves of the press came together. When he raised the top half and took out the sheet of paper, the words were like tracks with soles of bold new ink.

  This certifies that ____________ has paid

  500 dollars in good money for his freedom.

  Robert Montgomery

  Frederick, Maryland

  Reverend Belue took a pen and wrote “Joshua Driver” in the blank space, and added the date “February 15, 1851” after the address.

  “Well Joshua, you must carry this with you at all times,” the preacher said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jonah said.

  The reverend said he was foreman in the woolen mill at the foot of Ithaca Falls. They spun the wool that came in bales on the railroad from Owego into thread and yarn. The yarn was shipped by lake and canal to the cities in the east.

  “I think you might find work as a janitor,” Rev. Belue said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jonah said.

  That night, before he went to sleep in the clean bed in the room downstairs, Jonah asked himself whether he should continue running, to reach Auburn and Rochester, Buffalo and then Canada. The Reverend Belue seemed to think he would be safe enough with his new name and the forged certificate of freedom. It was impossible to know how safe he was. But Jonah was worn out from running, and he didn’t want to go on. And he’d never met anyone as helpful as Rev. and Mrs. Belue. He’d stay here for a while, until he got rested up. He’d stop here for a few days or weeks and see what happened. If he was caught, he would be caught. He just didn’t feel like running anymore.

  Eighteen

&nbs
p; Angel

  When Jonah left me in Owego, I told myself I would never see that boy again. It was too cold to ride the train. Besides, I couldn’t run along a moving train and jump up on it again like he could. If I tried that I might fall right under the wheels and be cut to pieces. He ran away from me on the French Broad, and he ran away from me at Roanoke. And he rode off with that farmer in a wagon at Harrisburg. But I always caught up with him. We lived on boiled eggs all through the mountains of Pennsylvania, tramping through snow and mud and sleeping in haystacks and hay barns. But I wasn’t going to run after him anymore.

  Still, that left me standing there by the river where they were loading and unloading all the boats and snow whipped sideways in the wind. I walked down that street thinking about what I was going to do. Where was I going, now that Jonah had left me again? What was a big colored girl to do, cold and dirty, way up north on a riverbank?

  I walked along the muddy street till I saw a bakery, and I walked behind the bakery and sure enough they had thrown out old bread. Some pieces were soggy and dirty and some were frozen, but I stuffed my pockets with stale bread. And I started to eat a piece that wasn’t too dirty.

  The train had already pulled out of the depot and I followed the tracks. Didn’t seem like there was anything else to do. I figured Jonah had jumped on the train and was riding north in a boxcar or on top a boxcar, and he would freeze to death for sure before he got to the next town. With wind shoving into my face, I munched that old bread and followed, stepping over cinders and turds on the crossties.

  As soon as I got out of town, climbing a little hill, I spotted something lying beside the tracks, and when I got closer I saw it was Jonah’s kettle and his mowing blade. He must have dropped them when he ran to grab hold of that train. Either that or he fell off and was killed. I looked around but didn’t see any pieces of his body or blood on the tracks. I didn’t want anything to do with that mowing blade.