The Underground Railroad(19)
Fletcher introduced him as Lumbly. He shook their hands weakly.
“You the conductor?” Caesar asked.
“No good with steam,” Lumbly said. “More of a station agent.” When not concerning himself with railroad matters, he said, he led a quiet life on his farm. This was his land. Cora and Caesar needed to arrive under the blanket or else blindfolded, he explained. Best they remain ignorant of their location. “I was expecting three passengers today,” he said. “You’ll be able to stretch out.”
Before they could figure his words, Fletcher informed them it was time for him to return to his wife: “My part is finished, my friends.” He embraced the runaways with desperate affection. Cora couldn’t help but shrink away. Two white men in two days had their hands around her. Was this a condition of her freedom?
Caesar silently watched the shopkeeper and his cart depart. Fletcher addressed his horses and then his voice trailed away. Concern troubled the features of Cora’s companion. Fletcher had undertaken a great risk for them, even when the situation grew more complicated than he had bargained. The only currency to satisfy the debt was their survival and to help others when circumstances permitted. By her accounting, at least. Caesar owed the man much more for taking him into his shop all those months before. That is what she saw in his face—not concern but responsibility. Lumbly shut the barn door, the chains jingling with the vibration.
Lumbly was not as sentimental. He lit a lantern and gave it to Caesar while he kicked some hay and pulled up a trapdoor in the floor. At their trepidation he said, “I’ll go first, if you wish.” The stairwell was lined with stones and a sour smell emanated from below. It did not open into a cellar but continued down. Cora appreciated the labor that had gone into its construction. The steps were steep, but the stones aligned in even planes and provided an easy descent. Then they reached the tunnel, and appreciation became too mealy a word to contain what lay before her.
The stairs led onto a small platform. The black mouths of the gigantic tunnel opened at either end. It must have been twenty feet tall, walls lined with dark and light colored stones in an alternating pattern. The sheer industry that had made such a project possible. Cora and Caesar noticed the rails. Two steel rails ran the visible length of the tunnel, pinned into the dirt by wooden crossties. The steel ran south and north presumably, springing from some inconceivable source and shooting toward a miraculous terminus. Someone had been thoughtful enough to arrange a small bench on the platform. Cora felt dizzy and sat down.
Caesar could scarcely speak. “How far does the tunnel extend?”
Lumbly shrugged. “Far enough for you.”
“It must have taken years.”
“More than you know. Solving the problem of ventilation, that took a bit of time.”
“Who built it?”
“Who builds anything in this country?”
Cora saw that Lumbly relished their astonishment. This was not his first performance.
Caesar said, “But how?”
“With their hands, how else? We need to discuss your departure.” Lumbly pulled a yellow paper from his pocket and squinted. “You have two choices. We have a train leaving in one hour and another in six hours. Not the most convenient schedule. Would that our passengers could time their arrivals more appropriately, but we operate under certain constraints.”
“The next one,” Cora said, standing. There was no question.
“The trick of it is, they’re not going to the same place,” Lumbly said. “One’s going one way and the other…”
“To where?” Cora asked.
“Away from here, that’s all I can tell you. You understand the difficulties in communicating all the changes in the routes. Locals, expresses, what station’s closed down, where they’re extending the heading. The problem is that one destination may be more to your liking than another. Stations are discovered, lines discontinued. You won’t know what waits above until you pull in.”
The runaways didn’t understand. From the station agent’s words, one route might be more direct but more dangerous. Was he saying one route was longer? Lumbly would not elaborate. He had told them all he knew, he maintained. In the end, the slave’s choice lay before them, as ever: anyplace but where they had escaped. After consulting with his partner Caesar said, “We’ll take the next one.”
“It’s up to you,” Lumbly said. He motioned toward the bench.
They waited. At Caesar’s request the station agent told of how he came to work for the underground railroad. Cora couldn’t pay attention. The tunnel pulled at her. How many hands had it required to make this place? And the tunnels beyond, wherever and how far they led? She thought of the picking, how it raced down the furrows at harvest, the African bodies working as one, as fast as their strength permitted. The vast fields burst with hundreds of thousands of white bolls, strung like stars in the sky on the clearest of clear nights. When the slaves finished, they had stripped the fields of their color. It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but not one of them could be prideful of their labor. It had been stolen from them. Bled from them. The tunnel, the tracks, the desperate souls who found salvation in the coordination of its stations and timetables—this was a marvel to be proud of. She wondered if those who had built this thing had received their proper reward.