Never Too Late (8 page)

“You can't go. I sent word ahead fo three passengers an' a chil'.”

“Dey ain't gwine mind one more.”

“You's mo like two mo, Seffie!”

“Dat may be. But I's goin', or else I's blabbin', an' none er you wants dat.”

“It's too far. You cud neber keep up.”

“Effen I don't keep up, den dey kin leab me behind. But I ain't goin' back. An' I reckon I kin keep up wiff dis chil'. An' I'm thinkin', missy,” she added to the other young woman, “dat maybe I could be some help ter you wiff da young'un.”

The nod and smile on the young mother's face said that she was only too glad to have another woman along.

“Laws almighty, Seffie,” persisted Uncle Fred. “What's I gwine say?”

“You ain't gwine say nuthin', dat's what, 'cause as I understan' dis here railroad, no one knows nuthin' 'bout it anyway. So you jes' git back ter da plantashun an' me an' dese folks'll be jes' fine.”

Still muttering to himself in disbelief, Uncle Fred
released the latch on the barge as the two men began to pull on the cable. The two women and child sat down in the middle as the barge began to ease out from the shore across the slow black current.

Within minutes Uncle Fred was on his way back to his bed with more secrets than he had expected to have to keep, while five runaway black slaves drifted in the night across the Pearl River into Mississippi.

“My name's Seffie,” said Seffie when they were settled and on their way. “Dat ain't my whole name but dat what folk's been callin' me longer'n I kin remember. I ain't got much wiff me 'cause I couldn't carry but what my pockets would hold. But I got me a half dozen apples, some white biscuits, some dried oat crackers, a few hunks er cheese, an' a slab er smoked bacon, dat is ef anyone er y'all's hungry.”

F
UGITIVES

11

B
Y THE TIME THEY REACHED THE OTHER SIDE OF
the river, the five runaways—or four, for the five-year-old girl mostly slept in her mother's arms wrapped in a small quilt—might have been friends for years. Nothing can win a man's good graces faster than food, and cold though they were, Seffie's provisions hit the spot.

The mother and one of the men were brother and sister. The other man had joined them alone several days into their journey. All were from New Orleans. The two siblings had another sister in Georgia who had connections to someone in South Carolina, they said, who had connections to anywhere a runaway slave might want to go. If they could make it to that station, they would be halfway to the North!

But however high their hopes, the life of a runaway was a treacherous one, filled with risks and danger on every side, sometimes betrayal, and constant fear of nigger dogs who could smell for miles and were known to have jaws strong enough to tear a man's leg right off. At least so the
stories said. Slaves had been told such tales all their lives to keep them from running away. For those who ran anyway, the days and nights were therefore filled with more imagined terrors than were really there. Yet if they were caught, they might wind up dead or whipped until they wished to be dead, so the fear was real enough.

They all knew they were hunted, would not be difficult to spot, and with two women and a child would not be able to move as quickly as the two men might have liked.

Seffie's strange absence at the plantation was initially a mere curiosity. Nobody suspected the truth about their soft-spoken cook, nor would have guessed that she had been planning her escape for years.

Mr. Meisner was at first merely perturbed. By the second day, when his eggs were runny, his bacon limp, and his coffee bitter, he began to get worried, thinking that something had happened to her. By the third day, certain rumors of runaway activity in and around the area filtered vaguely into his mind, and he began to harbor suspicions. And on the fourth he issued a warrant for the arrest of one Seffie Black—even he did not know her real name, for he had not bought her until she was seven: —
house slave, midtwenties, fat, soft-spoken
. He listed a two-hundred-dollar reward for her return, alive. It was a large bounty to offer for a single woman. He thought it best not to mention the fact that she was the best cook ever to serve himself or his family. Kitchen slaves of her caliber were very difficult to find. To broadcast the fact would insure that he never saw her again. The huge reward, however, to a perceptive bounty hunter, would tell the same story, and that in all likelihood she was worth even more.

Seffie never knew any of this. By the time she was officially listed as a runaway with a price on her head that in her mind would have been a fortune, she was three counties away.

She and her companions, led by their nightly conductors, crossed Stone County, then George County, and were soon moving steadily across Alabama on that mysterious mode of transit known to slaves seeking freedom as the Underground Railroad.

Two major river crossings stood ahead of them—the Tombigbee and the Alabama. After that their way would be mostly clear to Georgia.

Their path ahead into the unknown was marked with uncertainty and fear. Every day brought a new floor or stable or bed of straw or open field or woodsy hollow to sleep in. They usually didn't know the names of the dozens of people who led them from station to station. Mostly their guides were black, but a surprising number were white. They even slept in a few white houses along the way. Slavery was an institution with more enemies than the plantation owners of the South wanted black folks to know about.

Before many weeks were out, the five were all thinner and had blistered feet. Others joined them along the way, then left, the band of fugitives constantly changing. Seffie and the men helped the young mother carry her little girl when her small legs would no longer support her from exhaustion.

By day they slept, by night they walked . . . on and on in an endless and confused blur of fields and barns and lofts and cellars and streams and rivers, avoiding towns,
listening for dogs barking in the distance, trusting strangers to keep them from danger. Cold and hunger and fatigue were with them all the way.

Many times Seffie wondered if she had made a mistake with her rash flight. But she could not have found her way back even if she'd wanted to. She had no choice but to continue on, though she had no idea where she was bound or what her future might hold. Yet occasionally she began to feel a tingle of satisfaction, even excitement. No matter what happened, she knew deep inside that she had
done
something, she had not just stayed in the same place for the rest of her life.

A great storm held them up between the two rivers. Waiting for the Alabama River to recede enough after the rains to make it safe to cross, they had to spend a month in the barn of a free black farmer. When time came for the crossing, the one man had left them to strike out straight north on his own, but they had been joined by three others—a father and his teenage son, and a woman in her thirties whose story, judging from her countenance, must have been a tragic one, though she never spoke a word about it.

They got across the Alabama safely in the farmer's boat—though it took two crossings to transport them all—and continued on. He led them himself for two hours more, then met another man several hours before daybreak who took them on while their host for a month returned to his farm.

An uneventful week went by.

They had lain dozing on and off most of the day under a bridge on the slope of the bank of the small river it crossed. Several wagons and riders on horseback had
crossed above them throughout the day, but none had stopped. Any dog would have detected their presence in an instant. But they were by all appearances in the middle of nowhere and miles from any house or plantation.

“Dat's a mighty fine quilt you got fo yo young'un,” said Seffie to her companion. “I been admirin' it da whole time an' I can't figger out what dat pattern is.”

“Hab a closer look,” said the young woman, taking the blanket from around her daughter's shoulders and handing it to Seffie. “Look at it
real
close an' see effen you don't see somethin'.”

Seffie took it and held it up and looked it up and down, then shook her head.

“It's right nice, an' mighty colorful,” she said, “but I can't make sense ob all dese lines an' squiggles er yarn an' thread. It ain't like no quilt I eber seen.”

“It's a map.”

“A map!” exclaimed Seffie. “What kind er map?”

“A map ter show us da way ter go effen we gits los'.”

Seffie looked it over again.

“I reckon I kin see whatchu mean. But how you know where ter go from dis?”

“See—dem's ribbers, an' dere's towns . . . dere's da Alabama Ribber dat we come across las' week . . . an' dere's Souf Carolina where we's boun'.”

“I see what you's sayin', but seems ter me dat wiff no conducters dat blanket wudn't do you no good nohow.”

“I hope we don't hab ter fin' dat out. But dey gib it ter me jes' in case. I reckon we'd hab ter fin' some black folks ter tell us what it says an' which way ter go.”

“What's dat dere?” asked Seffie, pointing to the tiny
little outline of a house embroidered into the fabric.

“Dat's where we's boun'. Dat's where da station mistress called Amaritta is who dey says knows more 'bout dis railroad den jes' about anyone. After dat we won't need dis ol' blanket no mo—least dat's what dey says.”

“Who is da lady?”

“Jes' a slave woman dat helps folks meet up wiff other folks an' git norf.”

“Why doesn't she go herse'f?”

“Don't know. I neber met her. Jes' heard 'bout her, dat's all.”

As dusk began to fall, they wondered if they had mistaken their directions from the previous morning. Secretly Seffie wondered to herself if maybe they would have to try out the quilt-map sooner than they had thought.

Gradually the night came on.

Another hour passed. A quarter moon rose in the sky. All their stomachs were growling.

Suddenly a voice sounded so near that Seffie nearly jumped out of her skin. “Time ter git aboard,” it said. “Come on—dis way.”

How their new conductor for the night had come upon them so silently Seffie never knew. But they had learned by now not to ask questions but to trust. They climbed to their feet in the darkness and followed as he told why he'd been late—from having to keep out of the way of bounty hunters.

He led them up the bank and across the bridge. They followed the wide dirt road for ten or fifteen minutes. It wound through open country so that what little light the moon provided was enough to see where they were going.

They had just walked far enough to begin to warm up when suddenly the man stopped. He listened intently. Now they all heard it—the sound of galloping horses.

“Git off da road!” he cried. “Quick—foller me!”

He jumped down the road bank, then turned to wait, grabbed up the girl, and ran for a small wood some fifty yards away with the others hurrying after him.

As soon as they were surrounded by the cover of trees, he stopped, set the girl down, and fell to his stomach.

“Down, all ob you—git down and lay still.”

Seconds later thundering hooves echoed in the distance across the wooden bridge under which they had passed the day, then grew louder and louder as they came toward them.

Watching the road from where they lay, four or five riders came into view and galloped past. They could just make out their silhouettes in the faint light of the moon.

Slowly the hoofbeats died away.

One of the men stood up and started walking back toward the road.

“Git back an' stay down!” whispered their guide. “We ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon.”

“Why not?”

“Dem's bounty hunters, dat's why—git back, I tell you. Dey been troublin' me for a few munfs. Dey musta got word dat you wuz comin' dis way.”

“But dey's gone now.”

“Dey ain't gone. Dey sen' a few riders on ahead ter make a ruckus like dat, den one man'll foller on foot, hopin' da runaways'll do jes' what you wuz gwine do an' run out thinkin' dey's safe. He'll creep along behind on foot all
quiet-like, an' when you's unsuspectin', suddenly dere he is comin' along da road wiff a gun, an' den he's got you an' you's in big trubble. So we's wait here a spell.”

The man lay back down. They waited in silence.

Twenty minutes, then forty, went by.

As they continued to watch the road, slowly a lone figure came faintly into view, hardly visible except for his movement, walking quietly through the night. No one made a sound as slowly he passed. But they now realized their danger more than ever.

“Da others'll be waitin' fo him along da way yonder,” said the conductor. “Then dey'll do da same thing agin fo anudder few miles, tryin' ter lure you out er hidin'. I doubt dey'd be doin' all dis effen dere wuzn't some good money on yo heads. One er you somebody important er somefin'?”