Zakes Mda - Cion

It dawned on the boys as Birdman spoke that the Underground Railroad was neither a railroad nor was it under the ground. The lines that he talked about were trails, the conductors were people like him, and the stations were safe houses. They were passengers, although they did not understand how they could be called that since they had actually looked for their freedom themselves up to that point and had not been ferried around like passengers.

Birdman was impressed that the boys had made it all the way on their own without any assistance from the Underground Railroad network. “Well, from now on you gonna be my passengers,” he said. “I am gonna look after you and hand you over to other conductors until you get to Canada.”

When he realized the boys were reluctant to let go of their Berlin Crossroads dream, he stressed once more: “Better you forget about Berlin Crossroads for now. No safe place for fugitives. Besides, it ain’t on your way to Canada.”

The boys were impressed that Birdman seemed to be so fearless that he operated alone on such dangerous missions. Many conductors, he told them, went around guarded by armed men. But he preferred to work on his own because he attracted less attention that way. Also he was able to escape easily from slave hunters and from the law, using wiles instead of force, unless it was absolutely necessary to use force.

Birdman led them to his wagon hidden in a gully where his two horses were feeding on the hay that was stacked at the back. He unloaded some of the hay to reveal a secret compartment on the wagon. Nicodemus would hide in the compartment. Abednego would dress up as a woman and wear a broad-brimmed bonnet. The gear was all there in the secret compartment. With his complexion he would pass as a white woman. Birdman would be her manservant. But first he would have to discard the deerskin and the meat since they would be well fed from then on. Nicodemus wondered why they had to go through all the subterfuge when they believed that they were now in a free state that did not have any slavery. Birdman explained to the boys that Ohio was not as free as blacks south of the river thought it was. In reality the Ohio River was no River Jordan and Ohio was no Promised Land. In this supposedly free state fugitive slave laws forbade the assisting of escaping slaves and the penalties were high. And of course there was always the danger of slave hunters, who operated with impunity in the southern areas of the state, where sometimes they even captured free blacks to sell in the neighboring slaveholding states.

Birdman rode with his secret cargo and his “white employer” through Meigs County into Athens County without raising any suspicion at all. Lying flat on his stomach in the false bottom of the wagon Nicodemus could hear the rhythm of the shod horses on the cobbled streets of the city of Athens. Abednego sat humped like the old lady he was supposed to be next to Birdman, who kept on reminding him not to stare at the sights and people in the street. In no time they arrived at an Underground Railroad station in East Washington Street, a red-brick building like most buildings in town.

The stationmaster was a middle-aged white man in a black frock coat and top hat and with well-nourished pink cheeks. He was a Quaker, Birdman told the boys as he ushered them into the house, with Nicodemus clutching his quilt bundle.

How come there was no quilt hanging out with the Log Cabin design for runaways to identify the house as a place of refuge? The house was known only to a few conductors, Birdman explained. The stationmaster had a strong suspicion — though he could not be sure of this — that the quilt sign was now known to some of the slave hunters. Sometimes they sent out well-paid black traitors who pretended to be runaways in order to uncover some of the stations. The Quaker man couldn’t be too careful who he welcomed at his Underground Railroad station.

“Quilts ain’t no use to no one no more,” observed Nicodemus.

On the contrary, Birdman corrected him; quilts still served an important function. They bound the individuals into a cohesive force, and reminded them of their duty to freedom. Abednego reminded his brother that indeed it was the designs that had inspired them to carry out the escape. The designs, Nicodemus agreed, had also given them general advice on how to conduct themselves on the road and what signs to look for in their quest for survival. The boys had to find their own way. The quilts could not be so specific as to act as a map to freedom. Quilts were like sayings, Birdman added, they were like adages and proverbs learned from the elders and were effective in jolting the people’s memory and in recording the values of the community for present and future generations. Quilt designs did not map out the actual route to the Promised Land but helped the seekers to remember those things that were important in their lives. They did the same work as spirituals. Like the stories the storytellers and the griots of the old continent told, whose rhymes and rhythms forced people never to forget them and the history they contained, the patterns and colors and designs and ties and stitches of quilts were mnemonic.

The way Birdman talked about quilts made Nicodemus fall deeply in love with his. He held it close to his chest. He vowed that he would keep it and treasure it for as long as he lived, and would of course share it with Abednego since it contained the soul of their mother. Its batting was made of the Abyssinian Queen’s old dress. As he caressed it he could feel the herbs placed in the batting to ward off evil spirits and to give it curative powers.

After they had taken a bath the stationmaster gave the boys a change of clothes and his equally ample wife fed them cheese and bread.

When Birdman took leave of them, promising to see them the next day with plans for their escape to the north, the boys were reluctant to remain at the station. It was obvious that they did not trust the stationmaster because he was white. Birdman assured them that the man could be trusted as he was a hard-core abolitionist and many abolitionists were white. Indeed, the term was associated only with whites whereas in fact blacks were abolitionists too since they were fighting for the abolishment of slavery. The boys, however, could not forget how they were betrayed by a slave hunter who posed as an abolitionist back in Virginia.

The boys were kept in the basement and were given strict instructions not to venture outside. Nicodemus was addicted to his flute, so before they went to sleep on the mattresses and thick blankets laid out on the floor for them he played it for a while. Abednego could not wait to get into the comfortable bedding after all those days sleeping rough on the road. Soon he was fast asleep and dreaming of the Abyssinian Queen singing a lullaby to the sun.

Deep in the night the boys were awoken by loud banging at the door and angry shouts demanding that it be opened forthwith. The stationmaster rushed to the basement with a lantern. “I know that voice,” he said. “William Tobias. Slave catcher from Virginia. Crosses the Ohio with impunity in search of runaways. Works with lackeys in southeast Ohio. His spies must have seen Birdman unloading the passengers…you, I mean.”

Tobias was known as a dangerous man who would stop at nothing to track down his quarry. He was running a thriving business hunting down fugitives and returning them to their owners for the reward. And it was quite substantial. One hundred dollars for bringing a slave back to Kentucky or Virginia. Two hundred if the slave had already crossed the Ohio. When he couldn’t find any runaways the unscrupulous Tobias captured free blacks and sold them to other unscrupulous slaveholders in his home state.

Tobias and two henchmen broke down the main door and the stationmaster ran up the stairs to meet the invaders before they could discover the boys.