Underground

by Gayle O'Brien

Samantha hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Then come with me.”

  Samantha looked at Odus and shrugged.

  Odus took the reins of Eli’s horse. “We’ve got nothing to lose, Miss Sammy.”

  We’ve got everything to lose, she thought.

  The man led them to a dry path. Minutes felt like hours. The woods spilled over into a deep bank.

  “You’re gonna have to leave the horse here,” he said, his voice gentle and calm.

  “She’s pregnant,’ said Samantha, motioning to Amira.

  “Sorry, ma’am. To be honest, having an animal like that in tow will only increase the risk of getting caught. Once they’re across, it’s only five miles to the next station.”

  “Station?”

  “You can go home now,” he said. “I’ll take them from here.”

  “No. I’m going with them.”

  “It’s not necessary for conductors to go over the Potomac. We’ve got it pretty well covered once they make their crossing.”

  “It’s not necessary for what?”

  The man studied Samantha. “Is your name Weston?”

  Samantha froze. “Yes.”

  “There was a man here earlier looking for you.”

  “A man?” Father? she thought. “Did he say what his name was?”

  “No, ma’am. Said he needed to keep it quiet, but said it was important that they find you. Said they thought you’d been kidnapped, although looking at you now I’m guessing you ain’t standing here against your will.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then all I can say is you’d best stay low and you’d best move fast. It don’t sound like you’re going to be getting away easily.”

  He helped Samantha onto the raft, extinguished the lantern, then picked up a long stick from the ground and used it to push the raft off. Samantha watched as Eli’s horse got smaller and smaller, until she could no longer see it on the bank.

  “Next stop is a log cabin to the northwest,” said the man. “Stick to the woods. Follow the sawdust. If you hit the railway tracks you’ve gone too far. If you get lost, wait until the next nightfall, then try again. All else fails, just stay out of sight and keep heading north.”

  “How do we know you ain’t goin’ turn us in?” said Odus. Samantha was struck by the panic in his voice. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be scared, too.

  The man smiled as he continued to push the raft towards the shore. “Young man, if I were truly in the business of turning in escaped slaves you’d know it by now.”

  They walked well into the night. Samantha tried to ignore the sores on her feet, the rumbling in her stomach and the chafing of her dress against the whipping wound on her back. She ached for her bed, for the ability to fall into a deep, deep sleep under a soft blanket, to have Oma and Chimi take off her dress and put her into a bath full of steaming water. She thought back to the smells of the kitchen: the bread, the beef, the rice. It all felt so far away.

  Who was looking for her? Her father? Royal? They already realized she was missing, but she could not be sure they’d found Eli’s body and connected the two events. What she couldn’t gauge was if they knew she’d run off with the slaves Eli meant to return.

  Only if Nessie told them, Samantha thought. As far as Nessie knew, Eli was meant to take the slaves to freedom, not Samantha. With Eli dead, Nessie must have grasped that this was what Samantha had done. What she wouldn’t conceive was how Eli had lied and given Samantha no other course. Part of her wanted to find a way to explain everything to her father so that he would know, so that he would understand. But she knew she couldn’t just yet. She would have to wait until they were all safe in the north. Then she would write a letter, to her father, explaining everything. Whether or not he’d accept or forgive were questions Samantha found too excruciating to consider.

  “Miss Sammy?” said Odus. “I think Amira be needing to rest.”

  Samantha did not want to stop. She wanted to keep going until they’d found the cabin. She wanted to feel like they’d gotten somewhere, like they weren’t just walking into nothing.

  “Alright,” she conceded, sitting on a stump and opening up the pack. She gave Amira and Odus the last of the hard tack and dried beef.

  In the distance, a train blew its whistle. “If you hit the tracks you’ve gone too far,” the man had said.

  “We can’t be that far off,” said Samantha. “We have to keep going.”

  Amira excused herself and disappeared into the woods. Odus sat next to Samantha on the stump.

  “We over the Potomac now, Miss Sammy, you done enough. S’time you start making your way back home.”

  “I couldn’t go home if I wanted to. I’ve killed a man. If I go back I’ll hang.”

  “You’s can always tell ‘em it was me who shot Mistah Eli.”

  “No, I can’t. They’ll know it was my gun.”

  “You can say I stole it from you.”

  “No, I killed Eli. Someday, I’ll have to face up to that. But that day is not today. And if you’re wanted for the murder of a white man you’ll never be free, no matter where you are.”

  Odus smiled. “Then I guess we all fugitives now.”

  Samantha leaned her head onto his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Yes, I guess we are.”

  They’d been walking for an hour when Samantha noticed that the ground under her feet felt different. She stopped and crouched down, running her hands over the shards of wood.

  “What’s wrong, Miss Sammy?”

  Samantha smelled the dust on her hand. “Sawdust. He said to follow the sawdust.”

  The grains on the ground got thicker. The smell of sawdust became stronger. Then, up ahead, a clearing, and in it, a single lantern drawing the darkened outline of a small cabin and a barn.

  They stood on the edge of the clearing, looking in.

  “Are you sure this is the right one, Miss Sammy?”

  Samantha was sure of nothing. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  As soon as they took a step into a clearing the front door of the cabin opened. A short, thick man bounded down the steps and extinguished the lantern. In the dark, he motioned for Samantha, Odus and Amira to make their way to the barn, around the edge of the clearing.

  “What’s he doing, Miss Sammy?”

  “He wants us to stay in the woods. We need to get to the barn without going into the clearing.”

  “But why?”

  “I think he wants to make sure we aren’t seen.”

  Their eyes readjusted to the dark as they walked the perimeter of the wood. When they got to the back of the barn, the ground near it moved. Samantha stifled a scream as the man came up from a hole in the ground that had been covered with wooden planks and foliage.

  “Down here,” he said.

  Samantha jumped first, then Odus helped lower Amira in. They crawled under the back wall and then climbed a small ladder into the barn.

  “First thing you need to know,” said the man. “This here is my bird whistle and it makes this sound.” He blew into it. “You hear that, you crawl into this hole and stay there until I come and get you out. Understand?” His voice was stern, but kind.

  “Yes, sir,” said Samantha. Then she noticed another slave, a male with a mass of gray hair curled tightly to his head, sitting against the back of a horse stall.

  “This here’s Wool,” said the man. “You can call me Jem. No doubt you’re tired and hungry, so I’ll go get some blankets and some food. Then you rest. You’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” asked Samantha.

  “Moses be coming tomorrow,” said Wool.

  “Moses?” said Odus.

  “That’s right,” said Jem. “Moses is comin’ to take you to freedom.”

  Jem came back with soft wool blankets, plates of biscuits and gravy, and a bucket of tepid water for them to wash their face and hands. Clean and fed, they made their beds in the horse stall – Wool and Odus in one, Samantha and Amir
a in the other. The night had become chilly, and Wool, Odus and Samantha hovered around the lantern, warming their hands while Amira slept.

  “How long you been on the run, Wool?” asked Odus.

  “A long time, my friend,” said Wool, “but that ain’t nothin’ compared to a long life in chains. I come up from Georgia. I born there and ain’t never been anywhere else until now.”

  “How did you escape?” Samantha asked.

  “Well, as you can see I ain’t a young’un anymore. I done passed out in the field too many times, and they’s looking to sell me on. Day before I s’posed to be goin’, I pass out again, but this time, they don’t know I’s pretendin’. They put me in the sick house and that’s when I go.” He laughed. “I bet they think old Wool didn’t have it in him to run. What about you three? I have to admit I’s surprised to see a white woman runnin’. Usually they’s the one we runnin’ away from.”

  Samantha laughed, then told him about Eli’s promising Odus and Amira their freedom and what happened the night Eli tried to turn them in.

  “Well, that’s mighty good of you, ma’am,” said Wool. “Mighty good. And what about you, boy?” he asked Odus. “Where was you before you on the run?”

  “Mississippi. Tobacco plantation. Then ‘fore that me and Amira were in South Carolina. And before that we at home. In my village, with my mama, my father and my family. Three brothers and two sisters. Amira here’s one of ‘em. Then one day, we sleeping, and these men come into the village with guns, burn everything. They kill my father, sayin’ he too old to be any good. But they take my mama, and the rest of us. Mama died on the boat, couldn’t have been more than a day after they done put us on it. My littlest brother, Zeke, he sick the whole way, and one day they just throw him over. That leave just me, Amira, our other sister and two brothers. Soon as we land, they lock us in chains and put us on wagons. Amira and me, we together. The rest of my family, I don’t know where they gone.”

  “How old was you?”

  “I ain’t sure. I guess me and Amira was three or four. We share our mama’s belly, you see.”

  “And how old is you now?”

  “Don’t know. Probably ‘bout the same as Miss Sammy.”

  He looked at Samantha and saw she was crying. Her tears came as if they had a mind of their own, bursting out of her eyes and soaking her cheeks.

  Odus put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Miss Sammy,” he said. “It ain’t your fault.”

  But Samantha couldn’t speak. All she could do was put her face into her hands and let her tears for Odus come.

  Samantha awoke to the sound of the barn door creaking. She opened her eyes and saw a red and purple sky. She didn’t know if the sun was setting or rising.

  “Time for y’all to get ready,” said Jem. “Moses’ll be here any minute to take you on.”

  They all stood up. Jem pulled a penknife from his pocket. “Fore you go, what’s your full name, ma’am?”

  Samantha didn’t think to hesitate. “Samantha Weston.”

  Jem opened the hatch door to the barn’s concealed entrance and knelt down. Samantha looked over his shoulder as he carved SW, 3/24/61 - M. It was just one of a long line of initials and dates, the first one going back as early as 1841.

  “What is this ‘M’ for?” she asked.

  “For Moses. She like to keep track of how many come through, how many make it on and who it was that helped them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We all do this, all of us conductors, I mean. We log who’s been here and when. It’s the only record we keep.” He turned to Odus. “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Exodus,” he replied.

  “Exodus, what?”

  “Just Exodus, sah.”

  “What was the name of your last owner?”

  “Smith, sah, but he ain’t my owner no more. Next it was supposed to be Samantha’s daddy, but I guess I never got to be his slave.”

  “Well then,” said Jem, smiling, “that makes you a free man. Sounds to me like your name has to be Freeman.”

  Odus smiled. “Yes, sah,” he said, as Jem carved EF into the beam.

  Samantha leaned into Odus. “I didn’t realise your name was Exodus.”

  “Exodus Freeman now, Miss Sammy.”

  Samantha smiled, feeling the heat from his arm. “Exodus Freeman. What a beautiful name.”

  Chapter 21

  On the night everything changed, Annie’s day had started like any other Saturday. She’d slept late, gone to the mall with Jenna, and came home wondering where to hide the credit card receipt for items she did not need, but most certainly did want, especially the red leather belt that matched the cowboy boots her father had given her for her 16th birthday.

  Not long after she got back from the mall, she and her mother had a fight because Annie wanted to turn her bedroom ceiling into a starry night sky. Her mother vetoed the idea before Annie could barely state her case. She nearly argued that her mother should let her simply because it wasn’t Jenna or Marcy’s idea – it was Annie’s. “I thought you wanted me to start thinking for myself, to stop doing the things they told me to do. I’m trying to do that and you won’t let me.” But she didn’t because that would have only sparked a different argument.

  If they hadn’t fought over that, they would have fought over something else: Annie’s recklessness with the credit card, Annie’s attitude, Annie’s complete indifference to the education at her disposal. There was always something her mother found to criticize, and therefore always something for Annie to hate her mother for.

  The truth was her mother was angry all the time. Even when Annie had done nothing, her mother seemed angry – angry that Annie no longer listened to her advice, that she preferred the company of her friends, that it was raining on a day she wanted sun or that there were other cars sharing the road. It was the kind of anger that had no rhyme or reason and no identifiable source.

  Annie’s only consolation was that it wasn’t all directed at her. Annie’s mother was angry with her father as well – for working too much, for ignoring her needs, and for the amount of time he spent with a state policeman named Robert Sanchez.

  Her father met Sanchez in the army. They were stationed at the same army base in Arizona. Sanchez was there the night Annie’s parents met at a bar in Tempe where her mother was working to pay her way through college. After her parents got married and moved from base-to-base, it felt like wherever they were, Sanchez managed to follow.

  It was Sanchez’s idea that Annie and her family move to Virginia. He had been discharged from the army a year earlier and retrained with the state police. Annie’s family relocated for what her father promised would be the last time. He set up a security firm that catered to the number of technology companies sprouting up all over the Beltway and, for the first time in his life, leaned heavily on Sanchez for advice. Her mother was drafted in to look after accounts and manage the office, even though she hated math and organizing other people.

  For as long as Annie could remember, no matter where they lived, Sanchez was there. He would turn up at their house at least once a week and help himself to her father’s enchiladas and the beer in the fridge. Annie never liked it when he was around. He insisted she sit on his lap and she hated how her clothes always smelled of cigarette smoke afterwards.

  It also annoyed Annie that he always acted like their home was his. He had habits that she loathed. No matter what time of year – winter or summer – he’d come in and crack open the window, letting out either heat or air conditioning. She asked her father once why he did it and her father didn’t know. “He’s full of weird routines like that,” he said. “I just don’t ask.”

  Her mother had always despised Sanchez, but this hatred intensified now they’d all settled in the same place with no prospect of moving on. She said more than once, “If a creep like Sanchez is a cop, then no one is safe.”

  Even her father didn’t seem to have much time for him. “Y
ou have to understand,” he’d say, “we’re army brothers. They’re your friends for life.”

  A few months before the night everything changed, Annie’s father poked fun at his upcoming midlife crisis and playfully warned that he was trying hard to find alternatives to the clichéd purchase of a red sports car.

  He did find alternatives. He came home with hiking and camping equipment and seemed surprised when Annie and her mother refused to use them.

  “We live within driving distance of the best hiking and camping in the state. Look,” he said, pointing out the window. “The Blue Ridge Mountains are right on our doorstep and we’ve not hiked them once.”

  “I prefer plumbing and electricity, thank you very much,” said her mother.

  Annie wanted to go. She loved the idea of being outdoors with her father, just the two of them. But she couldn’t afford to spend a weekend away from Jenna and Marcy. Any time spent away would give Jenna and Marcy chance to dissect her faults and make assumptions about her thoughts and actions. Absences would be marked and give others the opportunity to replace her. She’d seen it happen to other girls.

  It was futile trying to explain this to her father. He wouldn’t understand.

  So he went by himself, sometimes hiking for the day, sometimes staying all weekend. He bought a high-end digital camera and started combining hiking with photography. On Sunday nights he would come down from the mountain and disappear into the computer room with the memory card and print his photos.

  Rob Sanchez started to join him. Her father would joke that, for an ex-army policeman, Sanchez was a slow hiking companion, preferring to look into crevices and down ravines instead of enjoying the beauty of the landscape and sky. One night he came home and said he and Sanchez had found a set of caves. Her father joked that if you wanted to hide a dead body then that was the place to do it.

  On the night everything changed, Annie and Jenna were eating enchiladas and watching a re-run of Gossip Girl before going to a party hosted by Jenna’s latest crush. Annie’s mother was at Jenna’s house, no doubt drinking wine and complaining to Jenna’s mother about Annie’s father. Annie heard her father’s truck pull into the driveway and awaited his tales of views captured and sights seen.