All aboard, p.4
All Aboard, page 4
Ruth had tried her best to keep her cotton count right all week, but this day, she was feeling extra hungry and lightheaded under the scorching sun. This day, her meal consisted of one hoecake and some old fish that Mavis had dropped off the night before. That cold catfish was a delight to her taste buds. She was glad for a change in her diet.
Ruth felt her stomach cramp. She kept on picking. She knew what those cramps meant. It didn’t help that her menstrual cycle was extra heavy this time. Since her menses had been so sporadic, Ruth thought she was finished with them. After all, she was somewhere around thirty-seven or thirty-eight, and she hadn’t had a menstrual cycle for over six months. She didn’t have anything to catch the blood, and she looked around to see where her skirt was spotted in the back where the blood came through when she was bending down. She would have to wait until that evening to wash her skirt. She knew the smell of vaginal blood was unpleasant to those close to her, not to mention the discomfort she felt because of the stomach cramps and stickiness between her legs. This was something she and other female slaves had learned to live with.
That day, Ruth kept falling behind. Ol’ Cyrus had been cussing at her all day, threatening to have her stripped and whipped.
“You lazy wench! You keep coming up short! Come up short tonight if your want to, and I’m gon’ whip you ’til the cows come home!”
Ol’ Cyrus and his trusted hounds rode off to harass a couple of slaves who were falling behind. He rode upon them, screaming, “You infernal sons o’ bitches! Hurry along! You been behind all damn day!” Brute and Savage growled. Ol’ Cyrus took the end of his rifle and hit one of the pickers across his back. The slave vomited.
Ruth knew she was due for a whipping any day. This day, she picked as fast as she could.
As the sun began to set, Jim, one of the faster cotton pickers, shared some of his cotton with Ruth. He was afraid he might be over his count anyway, and he knew that if that happened, he’d have to maintain the new count from then on or be whipped for slacking off.
The sun finally decided to go to bed. The evening breeze was a merciful relief. Even in the cool of the evening, the cotton resisted Ruth’s pull. Her stiff, callused fingers struggled to loosen the cotton from its cradle.
Ol’ Cyrus finally blew his whistle to call it quits for the day. The pickers were soaked in cold sweat. Ruth, weary and anxious, joined the others and toted her baskets to the gin house. They all solemnly made a line and inched their way up to the front to get their baskets weighed by Ol’ Cyrus. Their baskets felt like shackles on them. They each approached Ol’ Cyrus nervously and unloaded their white booty. Ruth inched her way toward the front, her knees knocking. She wondered if she had made her quota; she knew others had not.
Like a rundown robot, Ruth moved into Ol’ Cyrus’s view until they were face-to-face. She quickly lowered her eyes. When she got her cotton weighed that night, she held her breath—197, 198, 199. She barely made her count. She weighed in at 199 pounds; it should have been 200.
“I’m watchin’ you, you good-for-nothin’, triflin’ nigga wench!”
Buck, the slave driver, ushered her outside the gin house. “Ruth, make sure you keep your count up. You know once Ol’ Cyrus gets riled up, he’s liable to hurt you bad. Real bad. Get on now. Get you some rest.”
Ruth made her way down the dirt path to her shack, relieved that she didn’t have to face a whipping. She was too tired to go back to the well for water. She’d go later on.
That night Ruth sat on her bench, worried about what her tomorrow would hold. She had one candle to light her shack. She peeled two potatoes that she’d managed to get from her meager garden patch outside her shack. She was about to dice them when the door opened.
Lila entered the shack in a fast pace and began stashing clothes into a bundle.
Trying hard to hold back fear, Ruth studied Lila. When she could hold her tongue no longer, she gave way to her suspicion and tried to steady her voice as she asked, “So … y’all leavin’ tonight?”
Lila stopped what she was doing. “You ain’t gon’ tell, is you, Mama?”
“Ain’t no sense in me tellin’. Y’all gonna have it hard ’nuff, tryin’ to stay alive without my hep.” Ruth turned her back to Lila to hide her pain. “So, you gonna let Odie tempt you to run into the night. You don’t know what’s out there! None of us know for sure. Don’t let Odie git you kilt!”
“I gotta go, Mama.”
Ruth sat down and unwrapped some of the layers of gauze on her legs. She removed some crushed biscuits, a piece of fried chicken, and some nuts she was able to get Mavis to “borrow” from the Big House. “Here, gal,” Ruth handed Lila her gift. “I had a feelin’ you might need these pretty soon.” Ruth began unwrapping more layers of gauze and came up with a handful of coins. “Here’s some money. Don’t ask how I got ’em. Make ’em last. Can you figga, baby?”
Lila proudly answered, “Yes, ma’am. I been knowing my numbers for some time now.”
“Figga’d as much.”
Lila quickly gathered the last of her belongings.
“Which way y’all headed?”
“Mama!” Lila whispered. “You said you weren’t gonna tell!”
“I’m ain’t, baby. You can trust me. I promise.”
There was a worried look on Lila’s face. She searched Ruth’s face for some assurance.
“I love you, Lila. You know that. I’d hurt myself ’fore I’d see you hurt. You know I love you, don’t you?”
“I know that, Mama.”
“You trust me?”
“OK, Mama. We’re gon’ head off down by the pond.” She tilted her head to the right. “We’re gon’ dip in the water, hoping to fool the hounds, and then we figure we’ll head east before heading north. I hate running wet, especially at night, but that’s the best we come up with. We figure on heading north, follow the drinking gourd, and somehow make it the Ohio River. The folks I’m running with got a map of sorts. We’re gonna hide during the day and run at night, eating what we can off the land.”
Ruth studied Lila’s face, not knowing if she would ever see it again in this life. She wanted to remember the way her mouth moved when she talked, the arch of her beautiful eyebrows, the shape of her nose, and those big brown doe eyes that were always searching for new things to discover.
“Mama, I know it sounds crazy, but I’m willing to do it. I want to see what’s out there. Maybe we can get help from the Underground Railroad, if we can find it. I don’t know which white folk to trust. I don’t even know which black folk we can trust. I’m scared, Mama. I don’t know the exact plan. I just know I can’t stay here the rest of my life. I can’t.”
Lila looked Ruth squarely in the face. She wiped away a fallen tear rolling down her mother’s dry cheek. “Don’t cry, Mama. I pray we make it out, but if we don’t, it’s not your fault. I love you. You the only person ever showed me any kind of love. I’m scared, Mama, real scared. Pray for us. I hope I see you again before I die. I’m gonna always remember you.”
Ruth pulled a stone from her skirt pocket and placed it in Lila’s hand. “Here, take this. It’s the only thing I really own. A boy I liked gave it to me a long time ago. He scratched his African name on it. He liked it better than the name Massa gave him. Take it to remember me by.”
“Mama, you keep this stone. It’s yours. I’m gonna always carry you in my heart. I’m never gonna forget you, Mama. Never. I don’t need no stone to remember you.” Lila gave the stone back to her mother. “Mama, look at the moon every night. I’m gonna be looking at it too. We can share the moon—me and you. Looking at the moon is the one thing we can do together. Massa can’t stop us from doing that. Mama, you know when the moon is almost gone and you just see an edge. Looks like its smiling?”
Ruth nodded her head. “I know.”
“When you see the moon smiling, that’s me smiling down at you, Mama. OK?”
“OK.”
Ruth put her arms around Lila for one last embrace. Lila wiped another tear rolling down Ruth’s cheek. Ruth rushed out the shack and went left down by the old strawberry patch. She made sure to make enough noise to cause attention as she limped into the night. She hoped that Lila would grab her things and rush out the shack in the opposite direction, taking advantage of this gift. Now, Lila and her friends would have more time to make their escape.
Ruth headed close to Ol Cyrus’s shack and purposely shook the bushes outside.
Ol’ Cyrus was drinking his whiskey and rubbing the shawl his beloved Celia had worn before she died. This was his ritual most nights when he settled in to rest. When he heard the movement outside, he wasn’t sure just what it could be. He heard the bushes move again. He was tipsy, but he wasn’t too drunk to know that something was wrong.
He came out on his porch, looked around, and hollered, “Who goes there?”
Ruth whispered words loud enough for him to hear, but they were muffled sounds. Ol’ Cyrus got nervous. He knew something was definitely wrong. “Damn it to hell! Who goes there, I say?”
When no answer came, Ol’ Cyrus went back inside and grabbed his horn. He was not about to let a slave escape. He came outside and blew the horn rapidly.
In about two minutes, Buck came running out of his shack and ran over to Ol’ Cyrus’s place. “What’s going on, Cyrus?”
“Heard somebody outside my shack, whispering, and I heard somebody moving past my damn bushes! Feel like some nigga trying to run! And I ain’t having it!”
By now, Odie had made his way into Cyrus’s yard. “What’s going on, Cyrus?”
“Looks like we got us a nigga trying to run! Get the hounds! Brute and Savage will tear ’em limb from limb! Seems like they headed off down by the strawberry patch!”
Odie ran toward the hounds’ pen to make sure they were ready for the chase. “Billy Bob! Wake up! We got us a nigga on the run! Wake up, Billy Bob!”
Billy Bob’s shack wasn’t too far from the hounds’ pen. He came out of his rundown shack, still half asleep.
“What’s goin’ on, Odie?”
“Looks like some nigga trying to escape! Let’s get the hounds ready! Cyrus say he’s headed off down by the strawberry patch.”
The two young men, both tired and half asleep, ran toward the hounds’ yard.
The hounds knew something was up. They started baying as soon as they were set free to chase a runaway slave. They were ready for the chase. Odie and Billy Bob led the hounds down by the strawberry patch.
Ruth panicked. She hoped Lila had left the shack and run for freedom. She heard the horns blasting rapidly. She made her way close enough to her shack to see that the door was wide open. She heard men yelling and screaming obscenities. She smiled. She knew her baby was gone. She ran back toward the strawberry patch, hoping they would stay close on her trail and not look in the other direction.
“I wish to hell some nigga would try to git off this place! Wait ’til I git my hands on ’em!”
“Son of a bitch gonna find hisself hangin’ from a big oak tree!”
“I can taste that scoundrel’s blood! Hurry up! You go down that row. I’ll head off down this way!”
Buck ran past Ruth’s open door but then stopped, turned around, and ran back. He went inside the shack to take stock of the situation. There was no one inside – just a small candle burning on the table. A slight smile crossed his face. He ran outside to continue the hunt.
Ol’ Cyrus was beside himself. “We gon’ hang us a nigga tonight! Let me find out who it is. and they gon’ be one sorry bastard!”
The slaves stayed inside their shacks for fear of being shot by mistake. The white men were running up and down the slave quarters, trying to determine who had escaped.
An unknown male hollered, “Which a-way, Cyrus? Which a-way?”
Another male voice shouted, “Feather and tar his ass! Somebody’s gon’ die tonight!”
“Hey, Buck! Who you think it is?”
“Don’t rightly know!”
“Some nigga gon’ pay for this, damn it! Let’s ride!”
The slave quarters and nearby areas were filled with dust from the horses. The screams continued. Everyone on the plantation was awake and worried.
Ruth limped down by the strawberry patch in the moonlight, careful to evade her hunters. She knew that once the hounds caught wind of her, she’d be in trouble, but until then, she had to keep them away from the real escapees. When she felt her hunters had left her hiding place and headed off to where Lila might be, she knew she had to think quickly.
Ruth started moaning, loudly enough for her hunters to hear.
“Over there! Git the hounds! Hurry!”
Odie and Billy Bob brought the hounds to the moaning sound. The hounds focused on the bush, their tails stiff, their posture erect. They raced into the bushes and encircled their prey. The only sounds were growling and screaming.
“Come here, Bullet! Here, Tiger!” A minute later, one hound pulled a bloody Ruth out by one ankle into clear view.
Ol’ Cyrus and his henchman dragged a bloody, crying Ruth over to the old oak tree—the one they used for hanging. He quickly threw a rope around her bleeding neck and lifted her onto one of his mares.
“Call Odell! Get Buck! Get the niggas up! We gon’ have us a hangin’!”
Buck rushed over. He saw Ruth’s limp body on the mare. Even in the dark, he could see the damage the hounds had done.
“Whoa! Hold up, Cyrus! Think about what you’re doing? You think this is what Massa Odell wants? One less hand in the field? We ain’t got enough hands in the field as it is. Get Massa Odell over here, and let’s see what he say. I know he’s real low on his cotton count. He ain’t made his quota yet. He ain’t gonna like this.”
A voice in the dark cried out, “Odell’s on his way back! He rode off down the road with Deek and Barney!”
“Throw that wench on the ground, and let the rest of ’em see what happens when you try to run!” Ol’ Cyrus certainly didn’t want to rile Odell any more than he had to.
Buck and another hand loosened the rope around Ruth’s neck and lowered her body to the dirt.
Ol’ Cyrus looked on in contempt. “Wake everybody up, Buck! Bring more light! Let ’em see!”
YOU EVER WONDER?
I lays in de bunk two days, gittin’ over dat
whippin’, gittin’ over it in de body but not de
heart. No suh. I has dat in de heart till dis day.
—Andy Anderson, age unknown
Fort Worth, Texas
The morning after Lila’s escape found Ruth huddled in a corner of her shack. The barren shack was dark, except for sunlight peeking through the cracks. Ruth was curled up in fetal position on the dirt floor, badly beaten. One eye was swollen shut; the other eye was swollen and bloodshot, with crust in her eyelashes where she had opened it. Ruth struggled to lift her head but didn’t have the strength.
As she lay on the dirt floor, she felt the need to call out to someone. “Help me. Please … help. Where are you, God? Don’t … don’t let nothin’ get in your way, Lila. Don’t … stop. Help …”
Her delirium continued throughout the morning. “Help. Help. When can we go home? When can we go? Stop! No! Stop! Please … help me. Lila … Lila … Lawd, help me.”
Around noon, she managed to lift her head and look around the shack. She didn’t see Lila. A smile slowly crossed her swollen face. The blood caked on her face began to crack over her smile. She tried to move, but the pain stopped her. All she could do was moan. She thought of Lila, running to a better life, and she smiled again.
“Run, Lila. Keep running, no matter what. Keep running. I love you, Lila. I love you, gal. Maybe I could have done better. I didn’t know how. Get that ticket, Lila. Get on board.”
Ruth thought about the situation, about Lila. The smile slowly left her battered face. Her mind raced with all sorts of concerns.
Maybe Lila is hangin’ from some tree, swayin’ in the hot noon-day sun all by herself. Lawd, you know she’s only a chile. Maybe she’s lyin’ in some muddy ditch, half eaten or chewed on by the hounds. Them hounds is known for pullin’ the skin off runners. Maybe she just couldn’t keep up, and they left her behind, and she’s all alone and scared.
God, are you there? I never ask you for much, but this time I’m askin’ that you put everythin’ aside and watch over my little girl. She’s out there in a world she knows nothin’ ’bout. Please keep yo’ arms ’round her. She ain’t but fourteen. Watch over my Lila. Keep her safe from harm. Keep her safe from mean, dirty men. Keep her safe from women folk who could take advantage of my baby. Lila, gal, did you make it out? Do your best, chile. Pretend like you free. As smart as you are, folks just may believe you. Look up at the moon. I’ll be lookin’ up too. Love you. I miss you, gal.
Suddenly, the shack door swung open, and a big, powerful woman entered. She was in her early fifties and weighed around 250 pounds and stood five feet four. She carried the presence of authority with her. She wore a worn but colorful dress on her brown frame; the dress was covered with a well-used kitchen apron. Some of her short gray hair had slipped out from under the scarf wrapped around her head. Her fists rested on her wide hips, and she frowned at the sight of Ruth.
“What the hell be goin’ on here?”
Ruth knew Big Aunty all too well. She worked in the Big House, alongside Mavis. She was respected by both the whites and the slaves on the plantation. She cooked and cleaned in the Big House, but she was loyal to those she befriended. She was known for speaking her mind on behalf of the slaves. She’d never married, but she served as a mother figure to many young slaves. She was the one the slaves went to when they needed help. She was the one who urged Massa Odell to let slaves start growing vegetables in their own little gardens.
