Chasing the North Star

by Robert Morgan

  In the kettle there were matches and two potatoes, and a busted egg had run all over everything else and frozen. I hung the rope handle over my shoulder to carry the kettle, and started walking along the tracks, for I didn’t know where else to go.

  Under my breath I cussed that Jonah and told him in my mind he had seen the last of me. But the kettle had brought him luck, and maybe it would bring me luck, too. And soon as I could find an egg or two I’d boil them in the kettle the way we had done so many times. I’d fill my belly with eggs and bread and then maybe I could think about what to do next. I’d sleep in hay barns to stay warm.

  After walking along the tracks and almost freezing in the wind, I stopped after dark at a big red barn. It was so dark I lighted a match to see inside and saw cows munching hay. It was so cold steam rose from the cows. By the ladder to the loft there was a feed room, and in the room were shelves with jugs, all shiny and stopped with cobs. If those jugs held molasses, I might just take a sip. I pulled out a stopper and tilted the mouth to my lips. But the stuff inside was sweeter and thinner than molasses. It had a special flavor I’d never tasted before, some kind of syrup I guessed. I tasted it again and swallowed some. The syrup was so sweet, it nearly burned the back of my mouth.

  Besides the kettle I hauled the jug up into the hayloft, and sat down in the hay above the cows and ate bread and sipped from the jug. That syrup was so strong it made me warm inside. Girl, you could use some sweetening, I said. Then I wrapped the coat around me tight and lay down and pulled some hay over the coat and went to sleep.

  All the time I slept, I dreamed of Jonah and followed him and cussed him out. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t worth a fart. He was sorry as a no-count polecat. I’d seen a rotten dog carcass more likable than him. Then in my dream I saw what I’d been trying not to see, which was that I knew I was going to follow that Jonah and see him again. Because he was just a boy that might grow up. He was just scared in a strange place and finding his way. I saw a house where we were going to live, with flowers in boxes on the porch, and I saw children on a floor scrubbed so clean it looked like a mirror to walk on.

  And I saw that a woman couldn’t quit loving a man just because he was scared and forgetful. She might get mad but she couldn’t stop loving him. Besides, a man thinks like a child anyway. He follows his little colonel and the groaning in his belly and gets ideas and makes all kind of trouble. A woman has got to think for him when he can’t think for himself. It made me sad to see that, but relieved at the same time. For I could see my way ahead, and I saw how hard it was going to be.

  It took me three days following the tracks across the hills before I came to this town by a big lake. It was the biggest lake I’d ever seen, between hills and waterfalls glowing on the hills. I had no idea where Jonah was and what the name of the town might be. I couldn’t read the sign at the depot, but stopped at a hardware store behind the station and asked what place this was. The man behind the counter looked at me funny, like he’d never seen a big, fat colored girl in a man’s overcoat before. But he said I was in Ithaca, New York.

  “Can’t you read the sign?” he said and pointed to the depot.

  “Just wanted to hear you say it,” I said.

  Now I’d been thinking what I might do in this cold place. Snow covered the ground and ice hung like fingers from eaves. The wind off the lake cut my face like razors. I had to get inside before I froze to death. I didn’t care if I worked in a steaming laundry or washing dishes or cleaning a bakery floor, as long as I could be inside.

  At every store along the street, I asked if they had work I could do. They shook their heads and stared at me like I had three eyes or horns coming out of my head. Men sitting around a stove in a store chewing tobacco all looked at me in the dirty coat, carrying the kettle on a rope. It looked like I wasn’t going to find anything. But I came to a big house with columns all painted white and there was a man at a desk inside.

  He asked if I’d ever mopped floors and washed sheets and I told him I had done that all my life. He asked if I could make beds and clean chamber pots, and I said I’d done that since I was a child.

  “Can you read?” he said, and I told him I had never been to school.

  He looked at me and said I had to wash up, and I had to wear a uniform. He took me up the stairs to the third floor of the hotel—for that’s what it was, a hotel—and showed me a little room not much bigger than the bed that was in it, with a little table. He told me to go wash myself, and he brought me a uniform.

  I can’t tell you how happy I was to have a room with a real bed, a clean room. There was no fireplace, but it sure was warmer than outside. And there was a blanket on the bed. I didn’t care if I had to scrub floors and wash shit out of pee pots, for I had a place to lay my head, in a clean room. And nobody had asked if I was running away. I got some hot water from the kitchen of the hotel and I washed myself all over.

  Every day it got colder in that town, and wind came off the icy lake between the hills, and snow blew down the streets like white ghosts and bees swarming. So I stayed inside and worked. I didn’t need to go outside because I had to save my money, which was two dollars a week. And besides, I figured the less I was on the streets the less I was likely to be called a runaway. Maybe I would go on to Canada, where there weren’t any slaves, when spring came and a girl could travel. I guessed Jonah must already be in Canada.

  I worked at cleaning rooms. I swept and dusted and mopped the floors and emptied chambers. One day Tertius, the man at the desk, said to me, “Sarepta”—because I’d told him my name was Sarepta King—he said, “do you want to make some extra money?”

  “Sure I do,” I said. I looked him in the eye and saw exactly what he meant.

  “All you have to do is show a guest a good time,” he said.

  “What do you mean a good time?” I said, to kind of tease him a little.

  “You know what I mean,” he said and winked.

  “How much extra money?” I said.

  “Fifty cents a time,” he said.

  So he came up to my room from time to time and sent me to a guest room where some salesman or farm boy had come into town, and I did my best to make them happy. Because I had no other way to save extra money for going to Canada. And pretty soon Tertius said I was the most popular girl he had.

  “I’m the most girl for the money,” I said and laughed.

  “That you are,” he said. “That you are.”

  It was getting on toward Christmas when I was walking down the street and saw a black face come out of the hardware store. I stopped in the snow and my heart almost jumped into my mouth when I saw it had to be Jonah. Sure as shooting, it was that trifling boy who I thought was in Canada.

  When I called his name, he turned around and looked at me hard. “I’m called Joshua now,” he said. I told him I was called Sarepta now, like I was at Miss Linda’s. And when I told him I worked at the hotel I could see by his look he already knew what I did.

  “Come over and see me,” I said. I told him I lived on the third floor of the hotel, and if he came to see me he should climb up by the back stairs. He said he worked at the Ithaca Falls Woolen Mill. Then he turned around and headed back toward the mill, where he worked as the cleaning man. I felt silly that I was so glad to see that no-good boy. I’d been wondering if I would ever see him again, and all that time he was right there in Ithaca. I was all heated up because I’d seen him and talked to him. And I saw maybe I’d stayed in Ithaca because I thought he might be there, or near there. I’d told myself I never wanted to see him again. But in my dream I knew better. And there I was, all out of breath because I’d seen his sorry ass. Girl, you are hopeless, I said.

  But I studied on it, and knew Jonah cared for me. He just didn’t understand it yet. That boy didn’t know his own mind. He was dreaming of something big, like he longed to be a boss man, or president. He lived in a dream that would make him mighty disappointed. There was nobody to help him but me.

 
Tertius said that black boy named Joshua lived at the boardinghouse on Cayuga Street. Everybody in town knew where he lived, and where he worked. So I began to study on how to help him and how to make him see that he loved me. He was my only hope to have a house and family of my own. There was nobody else to love me.

  So I took the old kettle that he’d carried all the way through Pennsylvania, that I’d toted over the hills to Ithaca, and I cleaned it up and polished it with wax until it shined. Then I got cookies and candy and nuts to fill it. Nothing pleased me as much as thinking about Jonah and fixing up a present for him. He liked to read, but I didn’t know how to pick a book for him.

  Now when it was just before Christmas I went over there to the boardinghouse on Cayuga Street and carried that old kettle tied up in a ribbon. I could hardly get my breath because I wanted to see Jonah so bad. His landlady looked at me funny, when I told her I came to see Jonah, and then I remembered he was now called Joshua.

  “If you go to his room you can’t close the door,” she said.

  “I don’t want to close the door,” I said and gave her a smile. I guessed she had heard rumors about me at the hotel.

  Jonah was so startled to see me I almost busted out laughing. He was about to panic I reckon, and then he looked confused. When I showed him the present and he looked in the kettle I saw his eyes get wet. That told me what I already knew, that he cared for me, just like I cared for him. He lifted out the nuts and cookies and candy. And I said real quick, “Now what do I get?” He was so confused, I had to laugh again.

  The door was open and the landlady stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at us. But Jonah leaned against me and brought his mouth to mine, and I kissed him like he was the dearest thing in the whole world. I just wanted to be with him. I’d been with lots of men, but that didn’t mean anything compared to what it was like to be with Jonah again. We had loved in haystacks and barn lofts, and in the woods by the river. I didn’t ever want to quit kissing him. But when I did stop, I asked him to come to my room.

  “You live in the top of the hotel?” he said.

  “Come up the back stairs,” I said.

  And then I saw the book on the table. He had a black Bible. That boy had been reading again and it made me proud to think he was the one I loved, so smart and with a head filled with words and maps and the stuff he was always talking about.

  When I walked back to the hotel in the snow and climbed the stairs to my room, I felt better than I had in a long, long time. I didn’t have any presents or company in that cold, windy town. But I knew Jonah cared for me, and that made everything different. Jonah was going to come see me. And giving him presents was better than getting presents. He would see he couldn’t do anything without me. He was so young he just didn’t know what he wanted yet.

  As I got in bed and pulled the old coat over me to stay warm, I thought about the Thomas Place. They would be having a Christmas party there before long. Old Sally would make eggnog and Master Thomas would give everybody fifty cents. And Christmas dinner would be collard greens and baked ham or sausage and sweet potatoes. And master would want me to come down to his room and keep his feet warm and be good to him. Except I wouldn’t be there this Christmas; I’d be off in the North and I had my own man and a new name. I had a room to myself and money in a sock. Jonah may not have known I had him yet, but I did. That was the best present I could think of.

  Nineteen

  Joshua

  Now that Joshua had a little money and was living alone in his room on Cayuga Street, he bought himself a leather Bible to read in the evenings by lamplight. It was not as fine as the Bible Mrs. Williams had given him, but it was his, bought with his own money, to be read in his room. As he savored the familiar words, it seemed too good to be true that he was free to read any time he had a spare moment. No one would punish him, even if he was caught with the book open. He would get other books later, and he could read the newspaper every day in the parlor of Mrs. Gregg’s house. But first he wanted to pick up where he’d left off reading when Mr. Williams whipped him.

  Joshua turned first to the book of Joshua in the Old Testament to read about the man who’d led the Children of Israel out of the wilderness into the promised land. As he read, Joshua was surprised to find the Israelites had to fight the Canaanites to possess the land they’d been promised. Only through a mighty struggle were they able to claim their birthright. And after they had won, Joshua made a covenant with his people and set laws and statutes. Joshua wrote the laws in a book and took a large stone and set it under an oak tree as a sign of God’s promise. The favorite verse Joshua found was Joshua 24:27.

  “And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest you deny your God.”

  The passage thrilled Joshua in ways he couldn’t explain. Something about the large rock under the oak tree as a reminder of the laws and covenant with the people delighted him every time he thought of it. Just imagining the stone placed as a witness made him feel hopeful and strong. He’d left behind Jonah and his gourd vine for Joshua and his stone and oak tree for witness in the promised land. As soon as it was spring, he’d get his own large rock and place it under an oak tree as testimony of his arrival up north.

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE JOSHUA sat in his room looking through the first volume of the David Copperfield. The pages were crisp and the print vivid. With his knife he slit open every other page. There were pictures illustrating the story. But he couldn’t keep his attention on the book. Even though he was invited to the Belues for Christmas dinner the next day, and even though he had a room of his own, he was lonely, more lonely than he’d been since he arrived in Ithaca. Maybe it was the thought that it was Christmas that made him feel so alone, so abandoned. He thought about Mama back at the Williams Place, and the cakes she always made at Christmas. He thought of the presents Mrs. Williams always gave him. He thought of the cedar tree Mrs. Williams had him decorate in the parlor, and the holly and turkey’s-paw moss he gathered to put on the mantel and over doorways. He would never see the Williams Place again. An ache shot through his chest so hard he could barely breathe. He’d never before felt such homesickness. He would never eat Mama’s cornbread again, and he wouldn’t catch catfish in the Saluda River to skin and fry for supper. He’d never read scripture to Mrs. Williams again and get presents from her.

  Joshua was surprised by the depth of his loneliness and homesickness. In his room on Christmas Eve he should have been happy and grateful that he had a job and a clean place to live, and he was going to Rev. Belue’s tomorrow for Christmas dinner. He should have felt more confident than he had in all the months since he ran away from the Williams Place. Instead it seemed the bottom was falling out of everything he knew. He was sliding down into a blackness he’d never known before, not even when he was humbled by Mr. Williams and Mr. Wells. He was falling and could find nothing to catch onto.

  Since fleeing the Williams Place that July night, Joshua had been too busy and maybe too scared to face the loneliness and homesickness he carried somewhere deep in his marrow. Along the road there had been too much danger to ever admit there was such a thing as despair. And anger had borne him up and carried him along at the worst moments. Anger had been the horse he’d ridden and the armor he’d worn after Mr. Williams had whipped him, and after Mr. Wells had hurt him with the hot and cold water. Hate and fury had fueled his long journey from South Carolina and enabled him at desperate moments to go on.

  But now that he had plenty to eat at Mrs. Gregg’s house, was apparently safe in Ithaca, and had the friendship of Rev. and Mrs. Belue, the fear and pain he’d pushed away before for all those months came crashing down on him. He thought of Christmas Eve at the Williams Place, the carols they would be singing in the quarters, and at church, the pitiful presents Mama would give each of her children, a comb, a ribbon, a stick of horehound candy bought at the
store in Travelers Rest. When he thought of the pathetic gratitude he’d felt when Mr. Williams had given him a quarter on Christmas morning, tears filled Joshua’s eyes. A quarter had seemed a bounty, a tiny fortune to be carried to the store. Now he could earn that much in a few hours. The cruelty of the Williams Place seemed worse now than it had then. At the time it was all he knew. Now he could see the horror of that way of life. He shuddered, recalling the day Mr. Williams had caught him reading in the barn loft. But even as he shivered, he felt a stabbing homesickness that hurt every part of him, a torment he could not brush away.

  At that moment Joshua knew he would crawl a mile on his knees to see the shack where Mama was making mush with molasses sweetening for a Christmas pudding. Since he’d stolen her money she didn’t have anything to buy presents with, however small, for the younger children. He would never be able to repay her, and he’d never see her again. He could never ask her for forgiveness.

  Joshua felt sick in his bones. He tried to think of something firm and strong to grab hold of. He was sliding down into a pit where there was no air to breathe. He had to catch onto something to stop the tumble or he’d suffocate. He opened one of the volumes of Dickens’s novel and tried to read a few lines, but closed the book as the words swam like frog spawn on the page. He opened the Bible he’d bought and saw the name Lamentations. He tried to recall all the people he’d met since he left the Williams Place, on the road in North Carolina and Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York. Miss Linda and Mr. Wells, Hettie and Lonella, Prissy and Sheriff Watkins, Mr. Driver and his daughter Sylvia. Rev. Belue and Mrs. Belue. And then he saw the kettle in the corner of his room, the kettle he’d carried through Pennsylvania, and he began to think of Angel, now Sarepta King, who’d been with him much of the way. He picked the kettle up and saw how Angel had polished the iron with stove polish until it shone like leather.