The Underground Railroad

from her legal but not rightful master fifteen months past, a slave girl called CORA; of ordinary height and dark brown complexion; has a star-shape mark on her temple from an injury; possessed of a spirited nature and devious method. Possibly answering to the name BESSIE.

Last seen in Indiana among the outlaws of John Valentine Farm.

She has stopped running.

Reward remains unclaimed.

SHE WAS NEVER PROPERTY.

DECEMBER 23

HER point of departure that final voyage on the underground railroad was a tiny station beneath an abandoned house. The ghost station.

Cora led them there after her capture. The posse of bloodthirsty whites still rampaged across the Valentine farm when they left. The gunfire and screams came from farther away, deeper in the property. The newer cabins, the mill. Perhaps as far as the Livingston spread, the mayhem encompassing the neighboring farms. The whites meant to rout the entirety of colored settlers.

Cora fought and kicked as Ridgeway carried her to the wagon. The burning library and farmhouse illuminated the grounds. After a barrage to his face, Homer finally gathered her feet together and they got her inside, chaining her wrists to her old ring in the wagon floor. One of the young white men watching the horses cheered and asked for a turn when they were done. Ridgeway clopped him in the face.

She relinquished the location to the house in the woods when the slave catcher put his pistol to her eye. Cora lay down on the bench, seized by one of her headaches. How to snuff her thoughts like a candle? Royal and Lander dead. The others who were cut down.

“One of the deputies said it reminded him of the old days of proper Indian raids,” Ridgeway said. “Bitter Creek and Blue Falls. I think he was too young to remember that. Maybe his daddy.” He sat in the back with her on the bench opposite, his outfit reduced to the wagon and the two skinny horses that pulled it. The fire danced outside, showing the holes and long tears in the canvas.

Ridgeway coughed. He had been diminished since Tennessee. The slave catcher was completely gray, unkempt, skin gone sallow. His speech was different, less commanding. Dentures replaced the teeth Cora ruined in their last encounter. “They buried Boseman in one of the plague cemeteries,” he said. “He would have been appalled, but he didn’t have much of a say. The one bleeding on the floor-that was the uppity bastard who ambushed us, yes? I recognized his spectacles.”

Why had she put Royal off for so long? She thought they had time enough. Another thing that might have been, snipped at the roots as if by one of Dr. Stevens’s surgical blades. She let the farm convince her the world is other than what it will always be. He must have known she loved him even if she hadn’t told him. He had to.

Night birds screeched. After a time Ridgeway told her to keep a lookout for the path. Homer slowed the horses. She missed it twice, the fork in the road signaling they’d gone too far. Ridgeway slapped her across the face and told her to mind him. “It took me awhile to find my footing after Tennessee,” he said. “You and your friends did me a bad turn. But that’s done. You’re going home, Cora. At last. Once I get a look-see at the famous underground railroad.” He slapped her again. On the next circuit she found the cottonwoods that marked the turn.

Homer lit a lantern and they entered the mournful old house. He had changed out of his costume and back into his black suit and stovepipe hat. “Below the cellar,” Cora said. Ridgeway was wary. He pulled up the door and jumped back, as if a host of black outlaws waited in a trap. The slave catcher handed her a candle and told her to go down first.

“Most people think it’s a figure of speech,” he said. “The underground. I always knew better. The secret beneath us, the entire time. We’ll uncover them all after tonight. Every line, every one.”

Whatever animals lived in the cellar were quiet this night. Homer checked the corners of the cellar. The boy came up with the spade and gave it to Cora.

She held out her chains. Ridgeway nodded. “Otherwise we’ll be here all night.” Homer undid the shackles. The white man was giddy, his former authority easing into his voice. In North Carolina, Martin had thought he was onto his father’s buried treasure in the mine and discovered a tunnel instead. For the slave catcher the tunnel was all the gold in the world.