The Storm Before Atlanta (8 page)

And Missus had smiled a secret, satisfied smile that Dulcie found terrifying.

Not long afterward Mas’r sent Dulcie’s mama away. He hired her out to someone as a cook. “I never break up families,” Dulcie remembered him saying to the white man who came to take Mama away. “But this is only temporary, and anyway, the girl is nearly six already.”

And Dulcie never saw her mama again. A letter had come once, that someone had written for Mama and that Mas’r had read to Dulcie. But there had been no more letters, and when Dulcie asked when Mama was coming back Missus told her to stop complaining and get back to work.

After that Dulcie hated Mas’r and Missus, and hated being a slave, and determined that one way or another, one day, she was going to be free.

And now she was running away to the Yankees.

Dulcie walked all night. They would have missed her by now, but Missus would think she was just hiding from the inevitable beating. Mas’r and Missus thought they’d succeeded in making their slaves afraid of Yankees. But their slaves never believed anything Mas’r and Missus told them, on general principle.

When the gray mist of dawn came, Dulcie scrambled up the cliff-steep bank of the stream, eager to find out how
far she had come. At the top she looked down. Below her she could see a white clapboard house, and a yard with a dog in it, fields green with new corn, and a cluster of slave cabins.… Dulcie knew those cabins. She’d grown up in them! She’d barely come any distance at all, after walking all night, and her feet were stone-bruised and wrinkled from the cold stream.

She needed to leave the stream, to move faster. But which way to go? Quickly she climbed a hemlock tree—she had always been good at climbing. She stood on the highest branch she could get to, the bark rough under her bare feet, and looked out over the surrounding land. To the west of her lay a wagon road, two red lines of Georgia clay stretching into the distance. Clouds of red dust rose all along the road. One dust cloud meant a traveler. Dulcie had never seen dust clouds like this. A whole army was moving along that road. But it was moving away from Dulcie—so it was probably the Secesh.

A railroad track gleamed silver in the sunlight. Both road and railroad led northwest, in the direction Dulcie believed she had heard cannons from yesterday.

She heard the distant clap of guns again. It went on and on. Dulcie clambered down. She had to decide which way to go, and fast. The railroad seemed to go in the direction the guns were coming from. And where those guns were, Dulcie would find Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers.

Keeping to the trees and listening hard for sounds of pursuit, Dulcie headed toward the railway tracks.

By her second night on the railroad tracks, Dulcie’s feet were blistered and might have been bleeding—she couldn’t see them in the dark. Her stomach hurt from the unaccustomed diet of parched corn, and she was thirsty. She kept her ears perked for the sound of trickling water.

Hoofbeats! Crunching over the railroad ballast, beating hollowly on the ties.

Dulcie made a dash for the bushes, but the horsemen were around her in an instant. Strong hands gripped her arms, her head was forced back, and a lantern glared in her face. Dulcie could see nothing but the light, which made her squint her eyes shut painfully, but she could smell horses and sweat and unwashed clothes.

“Gotcha,” said a voice. “Who are you, girl? Who do you belong to?”

“Don’t belong to nobody,” said Dulcie. “I’m a Free Person of Color.”

“Right. Tell that to the marines.”

“Where are your free papers, then?”

“Whatcha doing skulking along the railroad at night?”

At least three different voices. Dulcie didn’t dare ask them who they were—even Free Persons of Color were expected to answer questions, not ask them—but she was sure there must be more than three. Whatever they were—slave patrollers, Home Guards, Secesh army, militia—they would be traveling in a pack of at least half a dozen.

Her eyes adjusted to the light. She could see the man holding the lantern now—boy, rather. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old. He was dressed in ragged homespun and a slouch hat. Dulcie couldn’t see any of the others. Many hands were holding her, so tightly that she couldn’t move her head. But she knew from their voices that at least some of them were grown men.

“Where’s your free papers?”

Big hands began groping at Dulcie’s apron pockets, and she said hurriedly, “I left them home.”

But nobody ever left their free papers home. She knew the men didn’t believe her and that she would probably be safest if they thought that she belonged to someone who might give them a reward.

“Belong to John Butler,” said Dulcie, picking a name anyone might have. “In Chattanooga. I been visiting my ma and I’m headed home now.”

“Well, we’ll help you out,” one of the men said. “We’ll take you to the calaboose and lock you up safe, and your mas’r can come and get you.”

A shot split the night. Dulcie heard the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground. One of the hands that held her tight was gone.

“The Union forever!” yelled a voice. More voices cried, “Georgia and the Union! The Union! The Union!”

The men let go of Dulcie as they scrambled to face the new threat. “Homegrown Yanks!”

Dulcie didn’t stick around. She ran, faster and harder than she had ever run in her life. The railroad ties vanished beneath her swift bare feet. Behind her she heard more cries, shots, and then, as the men had all emptied their guns, the sickening smack of the rifle butts against flesh, groans of pain. Dulcie paid it no mind. She just ran.

Finally she had to stop, out of breath and with a stitch in her side. She could no longer hear the fight behind her. Maybe they’d all killed each other. If not, the survivors would be looking for her soon. She had to get off the railroad.

A half-moon had come out, and she could see a little now. The train tracks ran through a gully. To her right was a sheer rock cliff. To her left the bank was steep and rocky, but not perpendicular. Here and there a sapling stood out black in the moonlight. Slowly Dulcie began to climb up the cliff. Once, she dislodged a rock and heard it tumble down and thump on the ground below, and she froze, listening. But she only heard the night sounds of crickets and frogs.

At last she reached the top of the bank. Her toes were sore, and one of her hands was bleeding from a cut on a jagged rock. She pressed the cut against the hem of her apron.

She was in a forest, dense with underbrush. She started walking in the dark, pushing her way forward against twigs and stickers that caught at her clothes and jabbed
her face and eyes. She meant to be going the same way as the railroad tracks had gone, but she couldn’t see the sky, nor the ground beneath her feet. She couldn’t see anything, and fighting against the clinging branches made her tired. She almost wanted to sit down on the ground and cry. But she wouldn’t give up. There was no way they were going to catch her and take her back to Missus to be whipped two hundred times. No way in the world.

Somewhere above her a bird sang, and another answered back. Dawn was coming—Dulcie couldn’t see it, but the birds always knew. Imperceptibly the woods grew lighter, and Dulcie could see the trunks and branches all around her, and the sharp holly leaves that had made scratches all over her skin during the night. A flying squirrel glided past right in front of her face, making her jump.

Then she heard voices ahead of her. She froze. Men’s voices. She smelled mules, and wood smoke. She saw flickering orange firelight through the trees. Surely this was an army encampment. But was it Mr. Lincoln’s soldiers, or the Secesh?

She meant to go just close enough to look, but the woods ended suddenly and Dulcie tumbled right out into the camp.

A white man in a gray uniform and kepi hat looked up at her without much interest. “What are you doing in there, girl? Go get me some water.” He nodded at a bucket that sat next to a white tent.

Secesh. All that running and hiding and she’d fallen right into a Secesh camp.

There were hundreds of white canvas Sibley tents. Thousands of people moved among them, busy cooking breakfast around hundreds of campfires that sent orange sparks upward into the dark dawn sky. The tents and the men seemed to go on forever. The murmur of conversation mixed in with the neighing of horses and mules, and somewhere someone was singing.

“Hurry up with that water, girl,” the soldier repeated. “We’re moving out in an hour.”

Dulcie picked up the wooden bucket and put it on her head. She didn’t know where the water was to be found, but she knew a good disguise when she saw it. She walked off, in the casual, no-hurry fashion in which masters expected to see their orders obeyed. Most masters believed that slaves were afflicted with the slows and couldn’t move fast even if they wanted to. And that was fine, because a slow-moving slave wouldn’t run far.

Dulcie walked deeper into the camp, looking around her. There were many black men and women moving about—slaves, Dulcie knew—toting firewood, hauling water, tending the mules and horses, hitching up the teams to the wagons.

Dulcie held the bucket steady on her head with one hand, her eyes cast down, and walked as if she knew exactly where she was going. She looked down at herself. Her dress, which had been threadbare to start with, was torn nearly to shreds. There were bloodstains on her apron from her various cuts, and red dust coated her all the way down to her sore and dusty feet. She would have liked a bath, as well as something to eat and something to drink, but all of that was less important than getting through the Secesh camp and finding the Union side.

The smells of cooking made her stomach growl. Nobody around the tents and campfires seemed to notice her. And then, to her horror, she felt someone tug at her sleeve. Dulcie froze.

“Whoa, there, little sister.” A man’s voice.

Slowly Dulcie looked up from under the bucket at a tall black man with a broad nose between narrow, considering eyes. The kind of eyes that go “snap, snap” because they are taking everything in, like a camera, and remembering it.

“Ain’t seen you around here before.” The man spoke softly, not to be overheard by anyone else. But people all
around them were minding their own business, or each other’s. They had no time for Dulcie’s.

“People don’t notice me so much, sir,” said Dulcie, looking down at the ground again.

“I notice everybody,” said the man. “Name’s Nahum.”

“Pleased to meet you, Uncle Nahum,” said Dulcie, still looking at the ground.

“Got a name yourself?”

“Dulcie.”

“Well, Dulcie, I’ma show you the way to the river, in case you should be needing to cross it.”

“I’m just going to fetch water, sir,” said Dulcie. Did he mean that the Union Army was on the other side of the river?

“Follow me, and I’ma take a roundabout route, and when we get to a footpath I’ma leave you, and you can keep on walking it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dulcie.

Dulcie had never heard of a black person turning in a runaway slave. When it came to running away, everyone was your relative and everyone would help you—except white people, of course. Still, Dulcie had a frightful feeling in her stomach, knowing her life was in this strange man’s hands. And she didn’t like the way he’d noticed her when no one else had.

Nahum was carrying a bundle wrapped in canvas on his shoulder, and he walked away from Dulcie without
looking back. Dulcie hesitated a bit, to let him get a ways ahead of her, and then she followed. She kept her eyes on his feet, which were wrapped in rawhide sandals that had flies buzzing around them.

They made their way through the spaces that had been left to separate the regiments. The different states weren’t too awfully fond of each other—just enough to fight for each other but not enough to sleep near each other. After about half an hour they reached a tent where Nahum put the bundle down and picked up another. Then they changed direction, wended back the way they had come for a while, and then changed direction again and went on. They came out on the edge of the camp at last, and Dulcie saw the footpath.

“At the end of that path is the river,” said Nahum. “There’s no crossing here, but downstream a few miles there’s a railroad bridge. Problem is, it’s guarded. It’s safer to swim across here. On the other side of the river is a mountain. Start walking toward it. The Yankees are camped out in a mountain pass a few miles to the northeast of the river, but you should meet their pickets or scouts before that. Go up to them and tell them you are a slave who has left her master. Now, do you understand what you’re to do?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dulcie, looking up at him. “At the end of the path is the river. There’s no crossing here, but downstream a few miles there’s a railroad bridge. Problem is, it’s guarded. It’s safer to swim across here. On the other
side of the river is a mountain. Start walking toward it. The Yankees are camped out in a mountain pass a few miles to the northeast of the river, but I should meet their pickets or scouts before that. Go up to them and tell them I am a slave who has left my master.”