Zakes Mda - Cion

As soon as blood began to flow in their limbs again they extinguished the fire lest it invite the slave chasers from Fairfield Farms or sundry slave hunters who were always out looking for bounty. They put on their britches, stockings and boots and once again trudged on. They had walked for a few hours when they came across a giant sycamore. They knew at once that it was even older than the one in front of their mother’s cabin. Most likely it was over a hundred years old, or even two hundred, for its hollow heart was so big that a whole family could live there. Indeed the ghost tree knew what the boys did not know, that over the years families of runaways had taken refuge inside its trunk, some even staying for days on end. From the dry manure on the floor the boys knew that the tree had been used in the past to house animals.

The boys transferred the contents of the crazy quilt to the sampler. They cuddled up together for body warmth, wrapped themselves in the crazy quilt and slept. They planned to sleep for the whole day, waking up only to nibble at the dried fruit and take a swig of water from their flask. But by midday sleep was gone. Nicodemus decided to while away time by playing his flute, against the advice of his brother who feared that it would call the attention of the enemy. What enemy could there be, since they had already crossed the River Jordan? Nicodemus wondered. Even across the river there was no safety, the brother reminded him, since they had been warned that Ohio would be crawling with slave hunters. But Nicodemus was addicted to his flute. He continued to play, albeit softly.

The flute did call someone’s attention: a white boy and his dog on a journey of their own. He immediately identified them as fugitives but assured them that he would not betray them. After all, he himself was a fugitive of some kind, running away from a drunken and abusive father to the succor of aunts who ran a small farm on the western borders of Fairfield Farms. They learned from him that what they had crossed was the Kanawha River and not any River Jordan. They were not in Ohio at all but were still in Virginia. Ohio was in the northerly direction. To figure out the north they would have to look for the moss on the trunks of the trees. It tended to grow on the northern side. The boys were troubled and disappointed by the news that they were still in Virginia, but that taught them to be smarter next time.

The boy did not want to waste time in the ghost tree since he had a long way to walk and wanted to reach his aunts’ farm before dusk.

At sunset the boys’ longing for their mother became acute. At that time, they knew, she would be singing the sun to sleep. She had a variety of lullabies — one for each day of the week. On sunless days the sun did not set, for it was not there in the first place. Still she sang at the time she estimated the sun would be setting if the clouds had not imprisoned it. They could imagine her sitting under the ghost tree, singing softly as if to herself, and this time adding to the words that were meant to lull the sun to a restful sleep after its long journey across the sky, the plea that it should rally all its heavenly friends and relatives — the stars and the moon and the comets — to look after the boys and to guide them to safety. They imagined her singing until dusk, but failed to imagine that at that very moment she was lying in the throes of death in her room, with the blind matriarchs doing their best to nurse her back to life with a variety of herbs brewed in blindness at their hearth.

Dusk meant the journey should resume. It was difficult to leave the warmth and the relative safety of the ghost tree. If only they could take it with them. Perhaps they would find other ghost trees along the way. Reluctantly they walked on, and the Spirit (or Massa Blue Fly, as Abednego insisted) filled the skies with stars this time. Whiteness flooded the world. Silvery and shimmering. The ground was white. The trees were white. Usually in summer their foliage was green and could not be penetrated by the eye. But now they were naked and ghostly, although only a few of them were ghost trees. If anyone was following the boys, they would have nowhere to hide. They were two little black blobs charting a path on the whiteness.

The sampler nagged them: follow the North Star. Their eyes scoured the skies for the guiding star. Abednego pointed at the brightest star and decided that it was what they were looking for. But that was not the right star according to Nicodemus. The mother’s lessons had sunk well into his head, complemented by book reading — rudimentary books stolen for his reading pleasure from the big house by The Owner’s children. Books to be returned, of course, before they were missed by the lady of the house.

To find the North Star one had to locate the Big Dipper first. They traced with their eyes the two stars at the end of the cup of the Big Dipper. These were the Pointer Stars, for they pointed the boys to the next bright star, which was the North Star. From there it was easy for them to tell which way was north. They changed direction and trudged northward.

The impression the boys had got from their mother’s stories was that throughout their journey they would come across quilts hung out to give them directions. But there were no such quilts. No Jacob’s Ladder hanging out of a window or from a fence, empowering them with information that they could use for their survival. Perhaps it was because their whole journey was undertaken at night and people only sunned their quilts in the daytime. In the day they hid in the woods, in deserted barns or among boulders that they roofed with dead leaves retrieved from under the snow. They slept, for they did not want to invite the eyes of the enemy. However, despite the risk of capture, they could not resist building a fire after every few miles to warm themselves lest they be frostbitten.

The sampler reminded them: follow the Drunkard’s Path. It was one of the lessons the Abyssinian Queen had drummed into their skulls. Never take a straight line in all your journeys. Only evil travels in straight lines . From time to time the boys took a zigzag path instead of walking straight northward. They headed northeasterly. Then northwesterly. Then northward for some time. And then again northeasterly. It was like a game. Occasionally Massa Blue Fly visited and hovered above their heads and then disappeared, only to materialize again when they had forgotten about him. By now they were convinced that it was indeed a familiar spirit: the Spirit that allowed them to escape in winter in the first place and that must now protect them against other spirits that were bent on facilitating their capture. As long as they kept to the Drunkard’s Path they would be safe even from trackers.

As the boys followed a combination of the North Star and a Drunkard’s Path the Spirit made the snow fall heavily and once more covered their tracks as soon as they had made them. Even the sharpest of bloodhounds would have lost their scent. But, as before, the snow’s effort was not needed, for the chasers and their dogs were not anywhere near the area. They were ahead of the boys and were heading toward Gallipolis, reputed to be one of the major crossings of the Underground Railroad. At that time the boys were trudging in Mason County in the direction of Pomeroy.

When it was unbearably cold they prayed for snowstorms. Just minor ones. During snowstorms it was generally not so cold. When snowflakes were thick they knew there would be a blizzard. They sought cover in yet another ghost tree.

The distance between Fairfield Farms and Pomeroy was about fifty miles. But because of the Drunkard’s Path it became almost a hundred miles, and it took them a number of days to travel. Delays were caused by lack of food after their dried fruit had run out. A number of times they had to dig in the snow to feed on the soil under it. On two occasions they robbed the scaly bark of the nuts that had been stored by the squirrels for winter survival. Then there were the two nights they had to spend in a cave while Abednego was recovering from fever. Nicodemus had to nurse him back to health by burning twigs and forcing him to inhale the smoke. On the second day Massa Blue Fly visited and Nicodemus knew that his brother would be well again.