“Tell ’em we need a password. And stop the train before it gets on the bridge. Not at the station. Otherwise the passengers will get out. Stop it at the bridge and I’ll come out and see what’s the matter. I’ll hold a lantern out. I’ll walk along the train and say whatever password we figure on. Can you remember that? Stop the train before the bridge.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell you what, since you’re thick, I’ll give you a password. It’s got to be something normal. So I’ll say, ‘Who goes there?’ And whoever is there will say, ‘Jesus is walkin’.’ Can you remember that?”
“Who goes there? Jesus is walkin’. I got it.”
“Don’t forget. ‘Who goes there?’ and ‘Jesus is walkin’.’ If they don’t say that, then by God I ain’t gonna wave the lamp for them that’s behind me. I’ll have a baggage car full of colored behind me, and maybe a wagonload coming alongside the trail as well. I’d have got more but I can’t roust ’em up in four days’ time.”
“Understood.”
“After I wave that lamp from the tracks, the colored’ll know what to do. They’ll jump off the back, come up, take the conductor and engineer, and hold ’em as prisoners for the Captain. The rest will take a few rail tools I give ’em and destroy the tracks behind the train so it can’t back up. I’ll hold the train for that.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“There’s another colored porter and a colored coalman, too. They’re with us. In a fashion.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means they know ’bout it and staying out the way. Everybody in this world ain’t a fool like me. But they’re trustworthy. If they wasn’t, you’d’a been deadened already. Hanging ’round the station like you is, runnin’ off at the mouth. Every colored at the Ferry knows what’s going on. Anyway, them two will hold the train under the pretense of being dumb niggers, long enough for the colored in the baggage car and wagons to get out. Understood?”
“All right, then.”
“Once them niggers clear the train, I’m out. You pass that word to the Old Man. Tell him thus: Once they’re off the train, the Rail Man is out. And without that password, too, I ain’t movin’. ‘Who goes there?’ and ‘Jesus is walkin’.’ I don’t hear them words, that lamp won’t swing from my hand. If that lamp don’t swing, them niggers won’t move. And it’s done, whatever it is. Anyway, my part ends right there, no matter how the cut comes or goes. You understand?”
“I got it.”
“All right. Git along, then, ya half-assed rascal. You’s an odd something. Slavery done made some odd weasels outta us, and I surely hope you don’t see the end of your days looking the way you do now. If you see me again in life on the road or anyplace else in this man’s world, never speak to me again or even nod in my direction. I wish I never met you.”
And with that, he moved off quick, slipping down the bank and under the trestle, up the slope to the hissing train and climbed on it. By the time I hustled across the covered bridge back onto the Maryland side and made my way up to the road that followed the Potomac along toward the Kennedy farm, that thing was chugging toward Virginia and out of sight.
When I got back to the house, it was chaos. That place was rolling like a military fort under fire. The fellers scrambled ’bout every which way, toting crates, suitcases, guns, powder, muskets, boxes of ammunition. They was relieved to get movin’, having been crushed in that tiny space so long it was a pity, and so they moved at full speed, busting with pep and excitement. Annie and Martha scurried ’bout, ready to leave, too. Everyone in that small farmhouse moved with purpose, pushing and shoving past me, while I lingered a bit. I moved to slow purpose them next two days, for I wanted to say good-bye to the Old Man.
He weren’t studyin’ me. He was in his glory, movin’ through the place like a hurricane. He was covered in soot and gunpowder, racing from upstairs to downstairs and back again, giving orders. “Mr. Tidd, dip them tow balls in oil so we can fire the bridges with ’em. Mr. Copeland, throw more cartridges into that rifle box there. Move with speed, men. Quick. We are in the right and will resist the universe!” I watched him the better part of two days as he ducked from one room to the next, ignoring me altogether. I gived up after the second day and slipped into a corner of the kitchen to feed my face, for I was always hungry and it was near time to leave. I got in there just in time to see Annie slip in and sit down, exhausted. She looked out the window a minute, not noticing me, and the look on her face made me just plain forget ’bout where I was.
She sat there near the stove, glum, then slowly picked up a few pots and pans and things to pack up, trying to keep a brave face on. Not a single one of them Browns ever lacked confidence in their Pa, I’ll say that for ’em. Just like him, they believed in the Negro being free and equal and all. Course they was out of their minds at the time, but they can be excused, being that they all growed-up religious fools, following the Bible to the letter. But Annie was wound down. She was feeling low. I couldn’t bear seeing her so spent, so I slipped over to her, and when she seen me she said, “I got a terrible feeling, Onion.”
“Ain’t no need to worry ’bout nothing,” I said.
“I knows I shouldn’t. But it’s hard to be brave about it, Onion.” Then she smiled. “I’m glad you coming with me and Martha.”
Why, I was so happy my heart could bust, but course I couldn’t say it, so I downplayed it like usual. “Yes, I am, too,” was all I could say.
“Help me get the rest of the things here?”
“Course.”
As we moved ’bout, making ready to leave, I begun to think on what my plans was. Annie and Martha lived on the Old Man’s claim in upstate New York near Canada. I couldn’t go up there with them. That would be too hard for me to be near Annie. I decided I would ride the wagon to Pennsylvania country and get off there, with the aim of getting to Philadelphia—if we could make it that far north. It weren’t a sure thing, for no matter how you sliced it, I was endangering ’em, surely. We would be rolling through slave country, and since we was traveling with speed, would have to move by day, which was dangerous, for the closer you got to the freedom line of Pennsylvania, the more slave patrols was likely to stop and confront Salmon ’bout whether he was transporting slaves. Salmon was young and strong-headed. He was like his Pa. He wouldn’t suffer no fools or slave patrols to stop him while he moved his sister and sister-in-law to safety, and he wouldn’t surrender me, neither. Plus he’d have to get back. He’d shoot first.
“I have to fetch some hay,” I told Annie, “for it’s better that I ride under the hay in the back of the wagon till we get to Pennsylvania.”
“That’s two days,” she said. “Better you sit up with us and pretend to be in bondage.”
But, seeing her pretty face staring at me so kind and innocent, I was losing my taste for pretending. I cut out for the shed without a word. There was some hay stored there, and I brung it to the Conestoga we was preparing to get movin’ on. I’d have to ride under the hay, in the wagon, in broad daylight till night for the better part of two days. Better to hide that way than out in the open. But, honest to Jesus, I was getting worn out with hiding by that time. Hiding in every way, I was, and I growed tired of it.
We loaded up the wagon the day before the big attack and left without ceremony. The Captain gived Annie a letter and said, “This is for your Ma and your sisters and brothers. I will see you soon or in the by and by, Lord willing.” To me he said, “Good-bye, Onion. You has fought the good fight and I will see you soon as your people is free, if God wills it.” I wished him luck, and we was off. I jumped inside the bottom of the wagon in the hay. They covered me with a plank that spanned along the side of the wagon and placed Annie on it, while Salmon, who was driving, sat up front with his sister-in-law Martha, Oliver’s wife.
Annie was sitting right above me as we moved out, and I could hear her throw out a tear or two amid the clattering of the wagon. After a while she stopped bawling and piped out, “Your people will be free when this is all done, Onion.”
“Yes, they will.”
“And you can go off and get a fiddle and sing and follows your dreams all you want. You can go on about your whole life singing when it’s all done.”
I wanted to say to her that I would like to stay where she was going and sing for her the rest of my life. Sing sonnets and religious songs and all them dowdy tunes with the Lord in ’em that she favored; I’d work whatever song she wanted if she asked me to. I wanted to tell her I was gonna turn ’bout, turn over a new leaf, be a new person, be the man that I really was. But I couldn’t, for it weren’t in me to be a man. I was but a
