Wild, Beautiful, and Free(24)

I made my way to Silas’s place. We sat up that night making final plans. He was glad I could read and write. With Aunt Nancy Lynne’s money, I could stay in a hotel room and would be able to register my name in the establishment’s logs. He laid out on his table a small bunch of herbs—eucalyptus, thyme, and mint. He used a pestle to crush them together into a fragrant medicinal poultice. I prepared the strip of muslin that would hold it, sprinkling the cloth with water and placing it near the hearth to warm it.

When he was done with the herbs, Silas removed my head wrap and cut my wild, unkempt hair. I didn’t care because it was always too hard for me to gather it into a bun or make it look tidy in any way. Then we folded the poultice into its cloth and carefully wrapped it under my chin and around my head. Silas arranged it to obscure my face as much as possible. Then he put on me a pair of spectacles he’d bought at a shop in Monroe. He held up a piece of mirror so I could see myself. The spectacles, which I couldn’t look through straight on, seemed to magnify my eyes and spread them to the sides of my face. The lenses were slightly tinted, making my eye color more ambiguous. The smell of the poultice made my eyes water slightly.

“That’s good,” Silas said. “The smell will keep people away.”

With a hat on and the spectacles and wearing the poultice, I did look like a common, if slightly odd, Southern gentleman.

“I know you can talk good,” said Silas. “But don’t say nothing unless you have to. No telling what might cause people to look at you funny. Gotta keep our heads down and just go about our business. Remember to walk slow and lean on the cane.”

We prayed first. Silas insisted on it. Since Fanny and her baby had died, I didn’t consider myself on good speaking terms with God. I knelt with Silas, though, because I wanted God to know how mad I was still.

The October night was silent, the air and the leaves on the trees unmoving. We stepped through the door, and suddenly we were quiet too. Silas and I looked at each other. It was like we could see the hundreds of miles laid out in front of us, and it all seemed so strange and impossible that it scared us into stone. God only knew what they would do to us if we were caught. It seemed to me Silas had more to lose than I did—his favored position of trust, his relative comfort. If Massa Holloway learned Silas had used his experience of traveling with him to get away, he’d doom Silas to work in the fields and never come near even a horse again. That would be after he was whipped within an inch of his life. My eyelids flinched. I would be whipped, too—more likely branded. Aunt Nancy Lynne said they didn’t like marking up the fair-skinned women on account of it lowered their value as fancy girls, but I was certain they’d make an exception for me.

I took his hand—something I’d never done before as a woman, and here I was doing it disguised as a man. It would be the last time on the journey I could do such a thing. Made sense to do it then. “Come on, Silas. We gotta be on our way.”

When we arrived at the railway station, Silas and I parted. He went to the negro car and stood with the trunk, an old one that Massa Holloway had discarded long ago but Silas had had the foresight to keep. He would stow the luggage and wait for me, his new massa. I entered the small crowd of early-morning travelers. The cane I leaned on gave me an excuse to keep my eyes cast downward, but I made myself look forward as much as possible. I didn’t want to look like I had anything to hide. It was like Papa used to tell me—I had to walk like I belonged. I had to put off my fear. At the window I purchased a ticket for the port of Savannah. That would be our first piece of the journey, about three hundred miles away. The clerk barely glanced at me.

I moved slowly with my cane over to Silas and gave him his ticket. He nodded, and I made my way to the front and climbed into the comfortable carriage. The surroundings fascinated me. The smooth wood of the trim of the compartment and the plushness of the cushions were such a stark difference from the straw pallets on which I’d slept for the past four years. But I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted. I sat and focused on the scene outside the window and waited anxiously for the train to move. I paid no attention to the passengers walking up the aisles and arranging themselves on the seats across from me and in front and behind.

If I had been looking, I would have seen the devil, Boss Everett himself, sitting directly across from me. When I turned and saw him, I stifled a scream in my throat. How had he found me? When would he snatch me by the collar and drag me back onto the platform? But he looked at me—looked at me!—and nodded cordially. I coughed to cover the sound of my fear and managed to return his nod. The disguise was working, but I’m sure it helped that the man had never seen me straight on when I’d been in Aunt Nancy Lynne’s kitchen. I turned back to the window so I wouldn’t call attention to myself or encourage conversation.

The train moved away, but I didn’t breathe easy. Not with that man, whose vile smell seemed to be cloaked with the scent of strong soap, sitting so close. After a few miles he spoke to me.

“Sir, it looks like we have a good day ahead of us.”

He really could have been talking to any of the passengers around me, so I said nothing and kept my eyes focused out the window. Everett then repeated himself, but I kept ignoring him as before. Perhaps this wasn’t the best course of action, because he didn’t take well to being ignored. And the other passengers noticed, so he didn’t want to be embarrassed. “It’s all right,” he said to no one and everyone. “I’ll make the old man hear me.”