The Purchase (41 page)

Under the tabernacle roof there was utter quiet.

Ruth handed the Bible to Missus Sharpe, who handed it down the line of seated neighbours to Mister Craig. Then she went back to her bench.

Daniel was staring at his wife in astonishment. Then he got up and began his slow advance. By the coffin there was a small hammer and a pile of wooden pegs on the bench. He took up the hammer and leaned down for the lid, but the pain in his shoulder stopped him and he stood perplexed. Then he looked to Isaac, his eldest son, and held out the hammer with a small shrug of apology for what he was unable to do for himself.

L
ike those who had gone before and those who would come after, Bett walked. Travel by night. Beware of dogs. Beware of fast water and sucking sand. In the best situations, where a traveller could read, there were no written signs. There might be a tree drawn over waves on a card in a window. A quilt hanging by one peg on a laundry line. In the absence of such signals, the North Star was the only guide. Her head wrapped in a scarf as she set out, Bett wore Ruth’s given boots and woollen jacket.

As always, she carried her cloth medicine bag as well as the soft woven bag in which to collect mushrooms and plants. She had packed hickory nuts and sunflower seeds and there was a dented flask. Years before, she had concocted a strap for the bags that fit across her shoulders so that each lay more or less flat on her back, leaving her hands free to forage. She had no books, only the stories of a lifetime. When she woke in the afternoon, after a long morning sleep, she would search ground and trees and bushes for edibles and give herself one pleasant memory each day, since regret would slow her pace. She would pull up a clump of yarrow, to make her see what she must see. Mandrake. Poppy. Comfrey. Chamomile. Even the tansy is useful, if given with knowledge. She thought of Mary. Their need of each other for years. It felt as strange to her as the clothes on her back.

This was a country not of kills, or even creeks, but of runs; and she came down the valley between steep ridges. She went past a field where a man was standing in his wagon, driving a team of horses, and she hid behind a bush and waited until he had gone. Home for supper, as it was night. The valley was green and ancient. Up ahead was a tiny cabin with a stone chimney, smoke on the rise. Wondering if Bry might have passed, she wanted to stop. The porch railings were topped with unflowered plants in pots that gave off the scent of geraniums, and she thought of picking some leaves for her bag, but it has been said often enough that stolen herbs make a patient sicken. She passed two narrow houses and on the porch of one was a rocking chair. Perhaps this was the edge of Rosehill. She turned away from the road then, looking for shelter cut out of the forest. In the north, we will have sheep and a spinning wheel, she said to herself. Washing our lambs will make for an occasion, after which Bry will sheer them and I will twist and wind the clean wool as I learned from my first mistress. I will make Bry a coat to keep him winter warm. I will dye it whatever colour he chooses. We will have corn planted out in rows and we will top it while it is green, cutting the stalk above the ear to make winter feed for our flock of sheep. She quickened her pace.

In the woods, she met a man and boy. The boy had walked from North Carolina. The man from a near plantation. They were expecting a wagon to come along, an abolitionist, and soon the three vagabonds were crossing a field together. It was a cool night and Bett put her hand on the boy’s warm shoulder, as if she needed aid. She leaned against him and he allowed this and she told him that her son had set his face toward the north and she was going after him.

The man, who was old, chanted, “And
they utterly destroyed
all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword
.”

The boy said, “What that about?”

The old man whistled. “How the children of Israel were delivered out of bondage. Ain’t you know it?”

In the dimness of moonlight, the boy looked sullen, as if a secret had been kept from him.

“What people rised you up?” the old man asked.

The boy kicked at the ground, but Bett pressed against his shoulder with her weight, remembering the feel and smell of her own lean son. The boy said excitedly, “I know what happened. It was your boy who climbed up in the masta’s house and chop him up. That was your boy with the axe.”

“Not so,” Bett answered. “He has no guilt, only a broken heart to carry where he goes.” She thought back on the visits Isaac had made to the quarters, telling Bry and the others about the escaped slaves who had formed a regiment in Canada. “To fight us,” he had said with a laugh. “And who can blame them?” She might mention this to the boy, who was offering his support but would he believe her? Then something else came to her mind and it was terrible: not wanting to dishearten him, she had not told Bry that Jemima was dead. What if he had waited nearby, hoping to see her? He’d be found in a matter of hours by the dogs. She put more weight on the boy’s firm shoulder.

The three made little noise as they continued across small holdings in the dark. Before dawn they were met by a wagon. The driver was wrapped in cloth the colour of night and wearing a broad-brimmed hat. He gave a birdcall. “This be him,” said the old man, but the boy was not sure. “This the one we was told to espec,” the old man insisted.

The boy stood behind a tree as if that way he would not be seen, although the tree was small. The old man reached out for
Bett and she was convinced, since she had no real belief in the dangers she faced, but the boy was untrusting and the old man stayed behind with him, electing to walk on to the next station, some kind of mill. From her whispered conversations in the quarters of various farms, Bett knew there were people who aided runaway slaves, but how were they found? Who had summoned this wagon with its Quaker driver? The wagon had a shallow space under its floor and she squeezed herself into it, lying face down with five bags of freshly ground wheat flour on the wagon bed above her. Freight to be delivered in due time. She could not turn or shift. Perhaps such people as the driver, she thought, need to make the task seem more dangerous than it is. She had not been much in the world. But were there ears listening? Surely there was no sheriff waiting for her at the next crossroads. There were men who suffered boredom, who desired conspiracy and importance, that much she knew after living with Eb and Rafe Fox. There were men who lived on the bounties paid for runaway slaves.

Down at the bend in the bottom of the road, a woman was hanging clothes on a line. Bett could see her through a hole in the wagon’s side. She had travelled among just such people, healing them. Later, at another place, a man swung a scythe. When they passed a white woman casting seeds from a pail, the image of Ruth came to her – Ruth had sown seeds with a waxing moon, had put hair in the trench when she planted her beans, and moved a healthy chamomile into any area of plants that were not thriving. Ruth had known that cabbages profited by being near sage or mint, that garlic repelled pests and aided the growth of tomatoes and asparagus. How, Bett had asked once in passing, did Ruth know these things? From my fine upbringing, Ruth had said, telling Bett that she had been leased out to the Dickinsons like a farm animal. Then she added, “Though I was sure never lowly as a slave.”

Mary hurried the horse in what was becoming darkness and remembered the colour or no colour of her skin, which would make her journey easier than Bett’s. The roads were full of men who made it their business to check on the movements of anyone who wasn’t white. Anyone else must have a pass clearly written and signed. She clucked at her horse. Twelve miles north of Jonesville she saw a small store. In its dark window was propped a card with a drawing of trees on water.

Feeling large and ungainly, Mary rang the bell, peering through a tiny circle of glass in the door, clutching the dark baby close and pulling at her hat, wanting to look respectable. An elderly man in a dressing gown stepped out of a room at the back and came to the door.

“My baby,” Mary gestured at the bundle pressed against her. “I wonder if you could spare a cup of milk.” She stepped inside.

While the storekeeper went to his root cellar, she glanced around in the dark, seeing that she had come to a place with provisions. On a back shelf there were three loaves, one brown and two white. When he returned, she asked the storekeeper the price of a loaf, scanning the place for something more to take with her. Pickles. Onions. Pig’s feet. “I see you have cheese,” she said gratefully and moved to a chest in the corner as if through deep water. She had eaten nothing since the day before, nothing since Rafe had come to collect her with his cart.
Your sister is labouring
. It seemed years ago that she had been so informed. Passing a counter, she heard the sound of ripping fabric. A nail.

The old storekeeper watched her examine her skirt. Was he taking note of her features, studying her through his small spectacles? “I am looking for a runaway,” she said boldly. “Also her son. To take them to safety.” The storekeeper nodded. Then, as
if he could not communicate in words, he wrote a number on a loose piece of paper.

Mary saw that it was only a bill and paid what he asked. “What does it mean? The picture of trees on water.”

“It indicates a mill, missus.”

“I saw no logging in these parts.”

“Flour mill, missus, just up the road. You could try for your runaways there.”

Mary went back to her horse and cart and went the way he had indicated. The horse moved along the black road through black trees and Mary tore off a piece of bread and a wedge of cheese, letting go of the reins and leaning back to pick up the baby, who had begun to fuss against her dress. She had poured the milk into a clean gourd and now put some into the tiny clay vessel with a spout that had been used to feed Joseph. It was part of the bundle Ruth had given her for the baby’s care. She fed the baby and chewed on her own cold meal, remembering the time she and Bett had driven through a snowstorm and been stranded late at night. They had been coming home from the Clarke plantation and finally curled as one under a blanket so that they collected the biting frost in one set of lungs and released it into the other. They had no wick for the lamp they had brought but Bett drew Mary’s hands into her own and then wept until the tears froze on her face, describing her longing for Bry. Mary had wondered if her own longing was different. How did it feel to be a mother in that bodily way?

When she made out a sign for the Ressler Mill and a small light behind one of two windows, she reined in the horse and stepped out of the cart again. Through the lit window, she saw the miller wipe his hands on an apron before he came to the door. “I am seeking a boy and his mother. They might not be travelling together.”

He shook his head. “I’ll see to your horse,” he said, leading the way through the mill without comment, as if strange women often came to his door. “I’ll bring supper,” he said, and Mary meant to say that she had eaten in her cart, but the thought of warm food made her hungry again.

In the moonlight that poured silvery through the window of the back room, she made out the shapes of a chair and table. Bed. She could not discern the colours of the quilt, but she felt its rough texture when she put the baby down on it. Well fed, the little one lifted her fists and blew bubbles out of her thumb-wide mouth. Mary unbuttoned her boots and stepped out of them. One of her stockings had ripped, but that could be mended along with the skirt that had been torn by the nail. She must keep up the appearance of self-regard, although she had none left to draw upon. A chamber pot, a pitcher of water, a washbowl. Mary supposed this was as fine a room as a runaway slave would encounter, though certainly there were places that were finer, hotels that served the tobacco merchants and slave merchants and cotton buyers. There were places with pretty settees and carpets and chandeliers, although Bett would never see them.