The Underground Railroad

A man in a rumpled linen suit took the stage to deliver a brief welcome. Martin told Cora later that this was Judge Tennyson, a respected figure in town when abstemious. This night he tottered. She couldn’t make out the judge’s introduction of the next act, a coon show. She’d heard of them but had never witnessed their travesties; the colored evening at the theater in South Carolina offered different fare. Two white men, their faces blackened by burned cork, capered through a series of skits that brought the park to exuberant laughter. Dressed in mismatched, gaudy clothes and chimney-pot hats, they molded their voices to exaggerate colored speech; this seemed to be the source of the humor. A sketch where the skinnier performer took off his dilapidated boot and counted his toes over and over again, constantly losing his place, generated the loudest reaction.

The final performance, following a notice from the judge regarding the chronic drainage issues at the lake, was a short play. From what Cora put together from the actors’ movements and the bits of dialogue that traveled to her suffocating nook, the play concerned a slave-again, a white man in burned cork, pink showing on his neck and wrists-who ran north after a light rebuke from his master. He suffered on his journey, delivering a pouty soliloquy on hunger, cold, and wild beasts. In the north, a saloon keeper took him on. The saloon keeper was a ruthless boss, beating and insulting the wayward slave at every turn, stealing wages and dignity, the hard image of northern white attitudes.

The last scene depicted the slave on his master’s doorstep, having once again run away, this time from the false promises of the Free States. He begged after his former position, lamenting his folly and asking for forgiveness. With kind and patient words, the master explained that it was impossible. In the slave’s absence, North Carolina had changed. The master whistled and two patrollers ushered the prostrate slave from the premises.

The town appreciated the moral of the performance, their applause resounding through the park. Toddlers clapped from the shoulders of their fathers, and Cora caught Mayor nipping at the air. She had no idea of the size of the town but felt that every citizen was in the park now, waiting. The true purpose of the evening revealed itself. A sturdy-built man in white trousers and a bright red coat took command of the stage. Despite his size, he moved with force and authority-Cora recalled the mounted bear in the museum, posed at the dramatic moment of his charge. He twisted one end of his handlebar mustache with patient amusement as the crowd quieted. His voice was firm and clear and for the first time that evening Cora did not miss a single word.

He introduced himself as Jamison, though every soul in the park was aware of his identity. “Each Friday I awake full of vigor,” he said, “knowing that in a few hours we’ll gather here again and celebrate our good fortune. Sleep used to come so hard to me, in the days before our regulators secured the darkness.” He gestured to the formidable band, fifty-strong, who had assembled at the side of the bandstand. The town cheered when the men waved and nodded at Jamison’s acknowledgment.

Jamison caught the crowd up. God had given one regulator the gift of a newborn son, and two others had observed their birthdays. “We have a new recruit with us tonight,” Jamison continued, “a young man from a fine family who joined the ranks of the night riders this week. Come on up, Richard, and let them have a look at you.”

The slender red-haired boy advanced tentatively. Like his fellows, he wore his uniform of black trousers and white shirt of thick cloth, his neck swimming in the collar. The boy mumbled. From Jamison’s side of the conversation, Cora gathered that the recruit had been making the rounds of the county, learning the protocols of his squad.

“And you had an auspicious start, didn’t you, son?”

The lanky boy bobbed his head. His youth and slight frame reminded Cora of the engineer of her last train trip, inducted by circumstance into the work of men. His freckled skin was lighter-hued, but they shared the same fragile eagerness. Born the same day, perhaps, then steered by codes and circumstances to serve disparate agencies.

“It’s not every rider who makes a catch his first week out,” Jamison said. “Let’s see what young Richard has for us.”

Two night riders dragged a colored girl onstage. She had a house girl’s tender physique and shrank further in her simpering. Her gray tunic was torn and smeared with blood and filth, and her head had been crudely shaved. “Richard was searching the hold of a steamship bound for Tennessee when he found this rascal hiding below,” Jamison said. “Louisa is her name. She absconded from her plantation in the confusion of the reorganization and hid in the woods these many months. Believing she had escaped the logic of our system.”