No one knows you're here

I hear the devilish barking of dogs somewhere in the night behind us. Making good time in these woods in these damp conditions had been more difficult than expected. I had spent most of the previous day walking through mud that rose up to a pig's eye. An unexpected encounter had been caused by the rain that morning. Despite everything, the day's progress was a godsend. Hattie was less positive than I was. At sunset, when the dogs began to cry, she cursed my name. She cursed him and asked God to strike me, "as he did with Uzah in Nakon," she said angrily. I was demoralized (despite the terror that drove my body forward into the cold, dark night). But like Uzzah, I was just addressing someone else when I asked them to come. I still remember our first conversation about our trip. When I told him about our departure from the farm, he had trouble hiding his emotions. Her eyes shone like fresh polished gems, warm and shiny against her tanned skin. I told her that it was better to moderate her enthusiasm, so that she would not reveal our secret to the whole farm. He finally pulled himself together, though that twinkle in his eyes remained. Also, from that day he brought a smile to his face. A smile that said she had a secret, a secret that shone deep within her. A smile that lifted his spirit, despite the fact that he lived in the depths of degradation in the Johnson estate. This can be considered unnatural. You see, the farm was a dangerous place. The Judases, trying to improve their image in Mr. Johnson's eyes, were everywhere and reported us without thinking. More than once I had to remind her to be careful with her behavior, the way she carried herself, how she looked. There were sightings. Everywhere. And not just those of the Johnson family or their supervisors. And a lot of things had to happen before I got to William Taylor's house, I told him. Lots and lots of things.
Now his inner light had faded, and a dark night like the one that enveloped us had taken its place. It was an eclipse of the soul caused by the barking of dogs.
We moved east without mercy, despite the constant fear and paranoia that consumed us. We followed Mr. Taylor's instructions. He told us to follow Wilson's Grove east until we reached the brackish waters of Black Stone Swamp. We finally turned north toward Greer and his property. It was at least half a day's march, but the winding road, he thought, might be enough to confuse the search parties, for they would surely come for us.
The group following us seemed to be at least a quarter of a mile, perhaps more. It was good news. But I wouldn't want you to misunderstand: I am neither naively shrewd nor a tired fool. Two summers ago, a strong slave named Jacob was captured after four days of freedom. The young man was arrested in Chapin, where he had fallen from the stars. For fun, the Johnsons invited Willis and the Browns to an outdoor dinner where they shared stories, drank Merlot and watched the guards administer Jacob's sentence. A punishment did not survive. So he knew what was at stake, but according to Mr. Taylor, no one expected that the fugitives would go into a swamp, and certainly not one as long and winding as the Black Stone. It was almost suicidal. The waters will slow you down considerably if the alligators and moccasins aren't finished first. But when no one is looking for you, your pace doesn't matter anymore. So, as long as the party wasn't upon us, it was good news. There was hope.
"Do you know where you're going?" cried Hattie. His face crumpled into a moan in the ghostly moonlight. I was determined to keep up our pace. Answering the same question over and over felt like an anchor slowing us down. But she didn't ask for an answer. She was only determined to throw all her venom at me if her Palisade, Johnsons and Merlot were her fate.
"We'll go as far as Blackstone Swamp," I said, "then we'll turn north." » I pushed the laurel branches out of the way as we moved on. "And how do you know when we get there?" »
I think the answer "when we are in a swamp" was not the best idea. But, like me, Hattie had grown up in a kind of forced servitude in the North. Like me, she and her family were promised freedom when the mistress died. Unfortunately, like me, other family members stepped in to sort out the family finances after the death of Mrs. Eleanor Williams in Hattie's case and the widow Patricia Evans in my case. And after a careful but brutally inhuman accounting, our families were all sold to different farms in the South - his in the summer of '47 and mine in the winter of '51 We both ended up in Mrs. Josephine's , where he serves the Johnson family. meals, day and night - country ham and biscuits for the Johnson boys, for twelve years.
All of this means that our two husbands taught us to read and write before we arrived on the farm, gifts given to us in anticipation of our impending freedom. These skills made Hattie and I useful in the Johnson household. We can talk well when the Johnsons feign the courtesy of talking to us. But on this particular occasion, in the desert, her upbringing had given Hattie enough common sense to know the answer to her question, which was "When we come to a water swamp." But... well, you know the rest.
Hattie screamed. This time it was for a spotted salamander. The gray, shivering form slipped between his legs in the mossy darkness. He began to scream at the sight of every salamander and turtle crawling on God's green earth. And he saw fit to curse my name every time. But to her credit, Hattie followed me all the way. Only a few times I will encourage him to run across the grounds, pushing him through mud and overgrown bushes.
All night I chased the stars so I wouldn't get lost like Jacob - or the dozens of other souls who had returned to the farm scared after a brief taste of freedom. "Why do you keep looking?" There's nothing up there but the signs of Cain," she said. When she didn't have to speak proper English to the Johnsons, Hattie preferred the Southern dialect to the language she had learned from Mrs. Williams in the North. .His adopted dialect had been passed on to him by Mrs. Williams. Jozefina and the rest of the kitchen staff.
I recorded her tone. "If I keep those stars up there on my right," I said, determined to keep the peace even though it wasn't, "we'll surely reach the swamp."
Hattie gritted her teeth and stopped abruptly. I stared at her with wide eyes. I thought she had lost her mind, that she had given up, that perhaps she should give up and beg for mercy at the feet of poor Mr. Johnson. "Hattie-"
She dropped the bag she was carrying on the ground. She opened it and began digging. The linen bag had once been white, but now it was a shade of gray and brown, its uneven colors visible even in the dim light.
"I need to eat," she said. "I'm so hungry I could die here."
I exhaled through my nose, worried. "Make it quick."
Hattie looked at me. His look could kill a bear.
I turned and walked back and forth. She pulled a beet out of her purse, a beet she had grown in her little garden on the Johnson farm. I had long since abandoned my little two-foot-by-two-foot square of dirt. I exchanged it for two bottles of York's best spirits with another slave, Josiah. The man was a magician with a basket of wheat and a handful of yeast.
Hattie put the purple root between her teeth, turned the bag on its tip and put it back on her shoulder, then took a bite of the sweet vegetable. He jumped to his feet, then stood up without missing a beat, walking towards me and between two tall magnolias.
"Where are you going?" I said, pulling up behind her. "I just have to keep these stars up there on my right, you said, right?" He raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's what I'm going to do. »
I followed him for miles. Even with my nerves on edge, raw, and pushing my body forward, I could feel my stomach rumbling. I hadn't eaten since the afternoon and Hattie continued to eat her root foods as we drove. The beets looked good, if that's even possible. However, if there's one thing you learn from living on a plantation, and there are many - some useful, some sad - it's how to read people. And I saw that, despite the sound of the banging going on in her bag, Hattie was in no mood to share.
The dogs continued to follow for hours. When we finally got to the swamp, I couldn't count my lucky stars. The noise of the party had subsided and was replaced by the sweet chorus of crickets and wood frogs. Hattie stopped and looked at me wide-eyed, her nose scrunched up as she took slow, measured breaths. "Where did they go?" he asked.
"I think they're headed north, like Mr. Taylor said." My chest rose in time with his.
I saw him listening, calming down.
"What if they were waiting for us at the other end of this swamp?"
“Hattie, this swamp is long. The desert here is endless. With any luck, they will choose one of the endless roads to nowhere. » I did my best to believe my words. «Besides, we have no choice now, do we? »
A cold wind rose as my words fell on him like a shawl. He nodded his head in agreement and, after a moment, resumed his pace. Then we set off and headed towards the depths of the Black Stone. The rising sun filled the swamp with hot orange and fiery red as we were invited to our third birth as a free people. I knew it was the same sun in the sky, but these outdoor sunrises were more beautiful than I could remember.
And the Black Rock around us was a wooded swamp. Small islands of dry grass and bald cypress trees dotted the marsh and covered the area for miles. With luck, we can move from one small oasis to another, avoiding all the toothy jaws of a random alligator or the fast, steady fangs of a cotton moccasin. I reached to help Hattie out of the wet spot and onto firmer ground.
"How do you know this man, Sam?" she asked.
"I met him at the market," I said, stepping over a slippery patch of mushrooms. He motioned Hattie behind me to watch his step. “He made a comment about my speaking voice the first time we spoke. He told me that someone with my mind was chained. Hattie made a sound, something between a snort and a laugh. "Yes, I know. I almost spit out my cigarette. He said that my vomiting state was a great stain on the soul of humanity. I avoided it before, so to speak. I thought he was going to lynch us both. But after a few months, she saw that she was more comfortable with him and his honesty. One day he told me he was a Railway driver. The world turned in my eyes. I didn't know what to say. »
"Well, it looks like you said, 'I'll buy a ticket.'"
I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed since we left Johnson's farm.
I could still hear her smile behind me, then she was silent. The same silence fell on me as we both considered the consequences of our decision. After months of discussion and planning, we finally left the farm, taking our destiny into our own hands. No more whips or chains. You no longer see men tied and crying in stocks, or mothers screaming in anguish while their children are torn from their arms. From the moment we crossed the borders of the farm, our life was our own. We finally experienced freedom. But for how long?
The sun crossed the sky and began to take on pink hues before he spoke again. We were both lost in our goal of getting out of the swamp in one piece.
"Sam?... Why me?" she said.
"Why you?... I don't know... Because of the way you look at me, it seems to me." The words came out by themselves. "What do you mean?" How do I look at you? »
"The way you look at me now." I addressed him. Yes, I was right. I turned my eyes forward, continuing to drive through the swamp.
Hattie was silent again. I think I understood my words. I didn't even know why I asked him to come. We spent the first few years in that overheated kitchen bickering like old cats. So we made a habit of not speaking to each other for years - except for a few words to make the collection of homework easier. But over time, he began to steal his looks. I could see it. And that triggered something in me.
"I'm not sure what you mean," he said.
I hufsha. "I guess I couldn't bear the thought of you staying in that place any more than I could bear the idea of ​​staying here." "We've seen so much." He wasn't sure what to say anymore. The words slipped between his teeth. "Maybe he didn't want to be alone here in these woods. Or maybe not my whole life. The emptiness that surrounded me in that farm, although I never had a moment of peace to myself - never…”
"Shh, that's enough now."
She shook my hand. I wiped the moisture from my eyes.
We walked through the swamp all night, doing our best to avoid reptiles of all sizes and types, guided by the constellations above and the blind hope in our hearts. As our fourth dawn in God's desert rose over the horizon, Hatti and I found ourselves on dry land at the back of the Taylor property. We were here, one step away from the beginning of a new life, a real Promised Land.
She looked me in the eyes. "Sam, can you come?" His voice trembled.
I saw the alligator bite. Deep puncture wounds scarred my chest and stained my crimson shirt. Hattie tried to hold me. I looked at her beautiful brown face, still charming even though it was contorted with confusion and wet with tears. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said.
I looked out at the long green space that separated us from the main house on the slope. The sun’s rays slowly spreading over the surrounding hills left us with little cover.
Hattie looked over my shoulder, then led me forward. “One step at a time,” she said, her eyes trembling with worry. She walked with me step by step, accompanying me with my step through the wide garden.
A crow screeched among the tall pines, startling Hattie and me. The flock of black feathers flew and flourished, then headed west over the foothills. My eyes scanned the landscape, looking for signs that we had been betrayed. But the palace still seemed calm and undisturbed in the quiet of the early morning. After several long minutes we arrived at the back door of Mr. William Taylor's house. I knocked at the pace we agreed upon. The silence that followed was the longest wait of my life. Finally, the door swung open, revealing an elegant, bespectacled man with gray-red hair and stubble.
"God, Sam, are you okay?"
"Yes sir."
"Come on." He grabbed me and helped Hattie pull me inside. "We were in the swamp again," Hattie explained. "Sam slipped and..."
I groaned as they sat me down on a chair in the kitchen. My wounds were still throbbing and bleeding.
Mr. Taylor brushed the pages of the flight away from his face and lifted my shirt. His eyes widened as he inhaled sharply. "I'm going to town." He got up quickly, looking for his hat. "I'm going to see Dr. Calhoun."
Hatti and I looked at each other. Mr. Taylor must have noticed our fear.
"He is a good man," she said. "Another driver."
Hattie breathed a sigh of relief. I looked around, a slight dizziness came over me. I had never been in a white man's kitchen before, not without having to work. My eyes wandered from the windows to the hilly subdivision outside.
"Your family…?" he muttered.
"I'm in Roebuck, visiting my in-laws." They nodded awkwardly. "I sent you on vacation for the week, as we had planned. We are alone. No one knows you are here."
Knock, knock, knock.
"Mr. Taylor?" called a voice from the other side of the front door. "Mr. Taylor?" »
Knock, knock, knock. A big dog barks in the hall. All three of us were frozen, out of breath.
"May I have a word with you, sir?" Mr. Taylor? It is important. »

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