Chasing the North Star (7 page)

A limb smacked Jonah in the face, and his eyes filled with tears. There was no way he could see every limb that reached out over the water. He bent forward, keeping as low as possible. He studied the water ahead to catch the gleam from the faint light given off by a bright, rising moon. All he had to do was follow the sparkle. Soon the men with torches were so far behind, they were lost to sight. He seemed to have reached a stretch of still, level water, with few trees on the banks. As he paddled he could watch the moon and the stars above. A dog howled in the distance. He saw lights on the hill to his left. There were so many lights it must have been a town.

The boat scooted along the still water, and from time to time something scampered down the bank ahead and plunked into the stream. After walking all day and climbing the pine tree, it felt good to rest on the seat of the little boat. His arms did all the work, guiding and pulling the paddle. He crossed his legs and almost knelt in the shallow boat, which nudged weeds here and a sandbar there. It was the easiest traveling he'd done yet, gliding over the water. He wished he could float and paddle all the way to the North. He wished he could get in a current that would sweep him hundreds of miles away from the posse with torches, from Mr. Williams with his black snake whip.

The creek made a slight turn and Jonah saw a light ahead, and it seemed to be out in the middle of the stream. He quit paddling and drifted, straining his eyes to see the light better. Had somebody from the posse ridden out ahead and now lay waiting for him around a bend in the creek?

It seemed that on either side of the creek there were open fields and no trees to hide in. He stopped the boat and listened. He heard no voices. He would sit in the boat and wait to see what happened. He could try to paddle back upstream, but that would be hard, and there were no woods to scramble into.

Jonah pushed the boat to the bank and pulled it up on the sand, working as quietly as he could. The bank was covered with briars and vines, and they tore at his clothes as he climbed to the edge of the field. From there the light ahead was hidden by brush, and he walked ahead as quietly as he could, watching for the light.

Keeping a clump of brush between himself and the light, he tiptoed up as close as he dared. He expected to see men with shotguns and torches, but instead he spied an old man wearing a straw hat and holding a fishing pole. The man was barefoot, and Jonah saw he was a black man. The man was so still Jonah thought he might be asleep. He held the long bamboo pole out over the still water of the creek. And then Jonah saw the pipe in the man's mouth and smoke curling past the hat brim.

“Howdy,” Jonah said.

The old man turned to look at him, his eyes reflecting the lantern light. “Now ain't you a sight for sore eyes,” the old man said.

“What creek is this?” Jonah said.

“This be Mud Creek, I reckon,” the old man said.

“And where does Mud Creek go?”

“Go to the French Broad, and don't ax me where that go 'cause I don't know, 'cept maybe it go to the ocean.”

“Does the French Broad run north?” Jonah said.

“Boy, you ax a lot of questions,” the old man said. He looked at Jonah like he was trying to remember his face. “Ain't seen you 'round these parts before,” he added.

Jonah figured he'd better not say any more. The old man would not believe his lies, and it would be foolish to tell him the truth.

“Reckon you could use some cornpone,” the old man said. He unwrapped a cake of cornbread from brown paper and handed it to Jonah. Jonah took a bite of the pone. Nothing he'd ever put in his mouth had tasted better. The bread had cracklings in it and tasted like gravy.

“Fish ain't biting no-how,” the old man said and stood up. He knocked the ashes from his pipe and raised the fishing pole until the hook baited with worms swung back within reach. Stripping the bait off the hook, he wrapped the line around the tip of the pole and stuck the hook into a joint of the bamboo.

“You be careful, boy,” the old man said and picked up the lantern. He seemed in a hurry to get away, and Jonah guessed it was because he didn't care to be seen with a runaway. A Negro could be beaten for helping a runaway. The old man carried the lantern and fishing pole across the field toward the town, and Jonah watched him until he disappeared among the row of houses.

After eating every crumb of the cornbread, Jonah walked back toward the boat. He climbed down the bank, but the boat was not where he expected it to be. He'd walked farther than he remembered to see what the lantern was. It took him several minutes to find the boat farther upstream.

With the energy the rich cornbread gave him, Jonah began to paddle again down Mud Creek. He couldn't see the mud, but he could smell it. In still stretches, the creek smelled of rotten things, rancid rags and fetid silt, dead fish and frogs, sick, festering things. He reckoned the runoff from toilets also seeped into the creek, and water from hogpens. He paddled quietly and quickly, hoping to get beyond the town and beyond the narrow, stagnant water. He reached a stand of trees again where the stream passed under low-hanging branches, and it seemed he was in a swamp, both from the smell and the glimmer of water that spread like wings on either side of the creek. Big trees leaned over his path. He ducked and turned aside, and rammed into a log.

It was hard to tell the path of the creek through the swamp, with water going out in every direction. Twice he ran into vines and brush and knew he'd strayed from the channel. He hated to think of the spiders and snakes all around him. It was better that the swamp was too dark for anything to be visible except for the trees that rose like shadows out of the glimmering water. Cobwebs brushed his face and caught in his hair and on his hat.

He crashed against a tree trunk and backed away. Something big dropped to the water and began swimming. It sounded big as a bear or panther. He kept still and listened to the splash get farther and farther away. Whatever it was moved quickly.

By straining his eyes, looking sideways to find openings, Jonah finally got to the other side of the swamp. The creek beyond moved faster, rippling on rocks, dashing between trees. To make up for the time he'd lost in the swamp, Jonah paddled faster.
One two three four
, he said to himself as he pushed the boat forward.
One two three four
.

Listening for clues of current churning around rocks, he aimed the little boat at the glimmer of water ahead, and moved faster than the current.
One two three four
, he said again, and pulled himself forward.
One two three four.
Jonah was so intent on finding his way among rocks and logs and sandbars he hardly noticed the darkness start to thin and the light in the sky making the trees seem farther away. He could see overhanging branches better, and once he passed under a footlog that was so low he had to duck. In the dark he would have smashed his head against the log, but now he could see it. Someone's toilet stood on stilts over the creek, and he swerved around it. Jonah rounded the bend and saw what looked like a long pool spreading wider than the creek. He paddled into the middle of the pool, and it was only when he reached the middle that he saw he was entering a much larger stream. He'd reached the French Broad, and though the spot where the creek joined the larger stream was still, the river got rougher just below.

The French Broad was maybe a hundred yards wide, and it frothed and jumped, galloping over rocks and trotting through troughs of shoal water. Water leapfrogged, overtaking itself. The river seemed to move at different speeds and in different directions all over the surface. The river appeared to be sorting and resorting its pieces.

It was a good thing the sky was lighter now, for he was going to have to be alert.

Five

Jonah

It seemed very strange to Jonah that a river could be called the French Broad. He'd heard of the Broad River, which ran out of North Carolina into South Carolina. It made sense that a wide river could be called the Broad River. But he could think of no reason why any stream would be called the French Broad. In the early dawn light he paddled fast around rocks and down dashing, slurping chutes. The river moved so fast through its many channels and currents, he had to look out for obstacles and paddle hard to stay ahead of the tide. His hands were getting sore where they gripped the shank and middle of the paddle. Resin still stuck in patches to his skin.

The little boat pitched and dipped and shot ahead. The river swung this way and that, around gravel bars and rocks, swapping sides, as though it was braiding and unbraiding strands of bouncing water. He passed a little dock built in a bend, and then the mouth of a sizable creek. As the sky got lighter still, Jonah knew he was going to have to pull to the bank and stop for the day. He was worn out and his hands and back were sore. His arms felt numb. And it would be dangerous to continue on the river in daylight, so he started looking for a place to land. Because he needed to pull the boat up on the bank out of sight, he knew it would be better if he turned into a branch or little creek. He needed a place to hide and a place to conceal the boat. He scanned the shore for a likely spot, and saw a hollow that opened back from the river ahead. Wherever there was a hollow coming down to the stream, there would be a branch. He began to turn the boat in the direction of the hollow on the right bank. Sure enough, a small creek fed into the river there, but its mouth was cluttered with overhanging brush and grapevines. Jonah had to bend low and pull the boat forward by grabbing limbs and vines.

Soon as he was out of sight of the river, he pulled the boat up onto the creek bank and tied the rope to a small birch. He was pleased to see that the fishing line had a hook and sinker on the end of it. He would indeed be able to catch fish in this river. A tow sack lay on the floor of the boat and he folded that for a pillow. Placing the cushion in the prow of the boat, Jonah found he had just enough room to lay his head there and rest his feet on the seat. That was more comfortable than lying on the ground where ants might bite him again. As he floated into sleep he kept feeling the dip of the boat, the thunk of the prow butting a rock.

W
H
EN HE WAS TIRED,
Jonah often had long dreams, and that day, as he slept in the little boat, he dreamed of searching through pine woods on a hill. Seeing a red light ahead, he followed the glow. Suddenly it was night, and he came to a clearing where people circled around a bonfire. They'd thrown their clothes on the ground and danced naked, their bodies glistening like polished leather. Some danced with their hands on the shoulders of the person ahead, and others danced alone. Both men and women danced, and as they moved they sang in some language Jonah didn't understand. They shook their bodies and chanted.

A woman spotted Jonah and beckoned for him to join them, but he held back at the edge of the pine woods. “We're going underground,” the woman said. She pointed to a rock in the hillside, which he hadn't noticed before. And beside the rock was an opening that looked like the entrance to a cave. The dancers took up sticks from a pile and lit them at the bonfire. They carried the torches around in a circle.

“We're going underground,” another woman with large, shiny breasts said to him. She came to the edge of the clearing and took his hand. One by one the dancers entered the mouth of the cave. Rocks at the entrance resembled teeth. The mouth looked like it could close anytime it wanted to. Still chanting in the unknown tongue, the dancers slipped through the orifice one by one. The woman handed Jonah a torch and pulled him behind her toward the cave, drawing him as if he was under a spell. He stepped forward through the teeth, and could see ahead a long room that looked pink. The cave walls glowed like he imagined the flesh inside a throat or belly would. The torchlight flickered on the walls and ceiling. Pictures of animals and whirling dancers covered the walls.

“This be the way to go home,” the woman said.

When Jonah woke he found his pants wet at the crotch. He had shot off in his dream and his pants were sticky. Whoa there, he said to himself. The dream that had been so intense and vivid was flying away from him. He could recall the color of the cave's insides and the brightness of the torches. The woman with the gleaming breasts had reached back and taken him by the member.

Whoa now, Jonah said again, and drifted back into sleep, dreamless and exhausted.

W
H
EN
J
O
NAH WOKE A
G
AIN,
it was late afternoon. Sunlight slashed into the upper stories of the trees above him. A crow called somewhere up the little creek hollow. And he could hear the mutter and lisp of the river nearby. The river passed beyond the brush at the creek mouth, and he heard the splash and crash of water over rocks. Jonah wished he had some cornpone left, and also some sidemeat. He thought of Mama cooking cornbread over the fireplace in their cabin. The pain of the thought surprised him. He bent over and hit the ground with his fist. You are never going to see Mama again, or Mrs. Williams, or anybody you know, he thought. You're a fool, and you're lost.

The sob that rose in his chest felt like it could tear him in two, and he flung himself down on the ground and cried harder than he had since he was five. Later, he was ashamed of himself. He remembered how, when she saw he felt low and worried, Mrs. Williams had sometimes given him things to perk him up, perhaps a piece of cake, or two bits to spend at the store, once a magazine from London with pictures. But Mrs. William was not here to see his tears and help him. And she never would again, either. Wake up, you silly chicken, he thought. You could cry for a week and it wouldn't put any food in your belly. Hunger forced Jonah to stand up and pick his way through brush and trees up the bank of the little creek. Before it got dark he would try to find a garden with new potatoes and dig a few. He'd have to get a pot and frying pan if he was to cook things. It was a long way to the North.

Jonah figured there must be a farm up the little creek hollow, and wherever there was a farm, there'd be a garden, and chickens also. It was too dangerous to steal chickens, but maybe he could grab a few eggs. Why had he not thought of that before? If he had a pot, he could boil eggs. He could steal a few eggs at almost any farm and they'd not be missed. If he got a pan he could fry eggs. He could even eat eggs raw if he had to.

Jonah walked through the dense woods beside the creek until he came to a field with corn and a melon patch. There was no garden. The house must be farther up the hollow, and the garden would be beside it. In the melon patch he saw both watermelons and musk melons. He turned over a few watermelons, but found them not ripe; a ripe watermelon showed white and yellow on its bottom. Most of the cantaloupes were green, also, but he found two with promising orange color in the rind. The smart way to check for ripeness in a musk melon was to look at the stem attached to the navel. The stems were just beginning to dry up, so the melons were almost ripe.

After carrying the melons to the creek and washing them, Jonah took them to a little opening in the woods. He sliced a melon and raked out the pulp and seeds. The inside of the cantaloupe glistened, and he carved off a piece, the orange meat dripping with sweet juice, and ate it quickly. He was hungrier than he'd thought. After eating the first slice, Jonah remembered that melon or almost any fruit on an empty stomach could give you the bellyache. The second piece he chewed slowly, mixing the melon with spit and savoring the sweet flesh. He would save the second melon for later. It would ripen even sweeter, riding in the boat down the river. Jonah decided to pick some of the field corn also and carry it with him. He could roast the corn by the river. He would take it with him and roast the corn when he stopped far down the French Broad the next morning. If he caught a fish with the hook and line he'd found on the bottom of the boat, he could eat corn and fish together.

By the time Jonah washed his hands and the knife in the branch and returned to the cornfield, it was already far into twilight. But it was easy to locate the fat, hard ears in the rows just by feeling them, and he quickly gathered half a dozen. That would do him for two meals. He'd leave the shucks on the ears to keep them fresh until time to roast them.

With the knife in his pocket and the corn under his right arm and the melon in his left hand, Jonah started back to the boat. The woods were dark, but all he needed to do was to follow the stream. As he stepped through the undergrowth he heard a low rumble, as if it came from the ground under him. It was more a boom than a rumble, and when it came again he thought it must be from the mountain to his right. The mountain swept up from the river into the eastern sky. He stopped and listened, and the sound came again, a deep bump, a bang like vast rocks inside the mountain had shifted and knocked against each other. The ground he stood on seemed to tremble when the sound came through. It was the lowest sound he'd ever heard, like a drum had been struck. The blow sounded again, a low thunder coming out of the earth, out of the ridge above the river. It was a stroke of doom from deep in the ground.

Once when Jonah was in Greenville with Mr. Williams, he'd heard a church bell ring out again and again, with a pause in between each note. Mr. Williams said it tolled in memory of the governor of the state who'd died. It was an eerie sound, like a warning—a reminder, that even while you went about your business, somebody was dying, someone was being mourned.

It was time for Jonah to push off in the boat and continue downriver before it got completely dark. He needed a little light to find his way among the rocks and chutes of the shoals. But the doom sounds from the mountain rang out so regular, he had to listen. They repeated on the count of twelve. Saying the numbers slowly, he got to twelve every time before the jolt came through the ground again. Jonah placed the corn and the melon in the boat and decided to climb partway up the ridge to see where the sound was coming from. Could there be a mill with a large hammer that crushed rocks? He'd heard of a hammer mill and the loud noise one made, but the jolt seemed to be coming from
inside
the mountain. Jonah climbed higher on the ridge. The river below appeared to wave white handkerchiefs from its shoals, but the woods were shadowy, except for a glow on the top of the ridge. When he looked at the shadows farther up the slope, Jonah saw a spark in the air just above the ground. At first he thought it was a lightning bug, but this spark stayed lit, and it had a yellower, warmer light than fireflies made. And then he saw another spark, and then another. All the ridge ahead was covered with the little lights. The sparks hovered a foot or so above the ground and seemed to light a trail to the top of the mountain. He climbed to get closer, but as he moved they moved, too, floating just off the ground. Whoa there, Jonah said to himself, for he knew he should go back to the boat and continue his journey. He should turn back, but first he had to know what the little sparks were. The ridge was so steep, he dropped on hands and knees and crawled. The trail of lights up the mountain was like something out of a dream, and he wondered if he was still asleep. But he'd wakened and found the cantaloupes and corn. He'd walked along the little creek, and he'd seen the sunset. Jonah could not turn back. He climbed over rocks and logs, and picked his way through laurel bushes. The lights retreated to the very top of the ridge, but still he couldn't turn back. He was far above the river. There was a faint red glow in the west, the river a ghostly band between the dark mountains. He seemed at the top of the world.

The points of light seemed to spill into the laurel bushes on the other side of the mountain. Slow down there, Jonah said. You can't lead me all the way to the top of the mountain and then disappear. But in fact the hovering sparks seemed to have burned out. Were they bugs or flies, or the glimmer of the swamp gas in the air? He'd heard of the will-o'-the- wisp that floated in the air above swamps, sometimes called fairy lights. But that was a bigger light. He'd heard of the light called a jack-o-lantern that appeared to people lost or hurt in the woods and led them to safety. But this light had just been sparkles.

Jonah searched the woods below him. The laurel thicket was black as a cellar. He'd been so busy following the trail of lights, he'd forgotten the boom inside the mountain. But it came again, a dull stroke that shook the dirt right under his feet. It sounded like the shudder of doom, from a cavern below the mountain, below the river, below the deepest well. As Jonah looked into the thicket, he saw another light. This was not floating sparks but a glowing mist, like a cloud of lighted vapor. It was a blue and orange light, the kind that comes from burning applewood. What are you doing here? Jonah said to himself. You're a runaway. You have been beaten, and if you're caught you'll be whipped again and branded with a red-hot iron. You can be attacked by dogs and sent back to the Williams Place. You have one chance in a hundred of reaching the North. And yet you follow a will-o'-the-wisp, or swamp gas, into a snaky thicket. The boom shoved through the ground again and the jack-o-lantern slipped farther into the thicket, as though lighting his way. Jonah followed a few steps, and then a few more. The light appeared to beckon to him. Its glow was strong enough to show him brush and roots and rocks to avoid. He took three steps and the boom sounded again.

The Israelites had followed a pillar of fire in the Bible. He'd heard more than once of lost or sick men following such a jack-o-lantern and reaching safety. If such a thing appeared to him, it must have a reason. He took three more steps and the strum deep in the earth sounded again. Jonah came to a kind of bench on the mountainside and paused beside a big rock. The jack-o-lantern faded and he was once again in complete darkness. He could see nothing and he was lost. The jack-o-lantern had led him away from the river and the boat. It must be a light of cruelty and not of safety. He'd been deceived by the glitter of the points of light and the will-o'-the-wisp. He would have to find his way back up the mountain and across the top and down to the boat.