My chest began to thump. Weren’t the patrollers still out there? I had been waiting for this, but now I was afraid to leave. Daily I had reviewed each fear and obstacle we might face. The most concerning had to do with Kitty. “What about Kitty?” I asked. “What will we do for milk?”
The question hung in the air as I looked from one to the other.
“Best you ask Peg if she give you her goat,” Willie finally said.
Peg shot him a sharp look.
“But . . .” Pan protested, knowing what the animal meant to Peg.
I looked to the old woman, certain of her denial. She clutched her hands together as she gazed at her prized goat, then turned back to Willie and gave a quick nod. I was disbelieving, yet I looked to Pete. “How can we take a goat?”
“You think that the biggest thing we ever carry out?” Pete asked, then went silent as though he had said too much.
Peg went over to the fire and removed the possum from the spit, then pulled the sweet potatoes from the coals. No one needed further encouragement to eat, but as we did, Peg went off to her hut. I leaned over to Willie and asked if she was coming back out to join us. He shook his head. “Let her be. She gettin’ used to the idea of losin’ her goat—and the boy,” he added, nodding to Pan.
It had grown late, but as we prepared to leave, Peg returned to insist that we give Kitty a last feeding. Pan, as excited as I had ever seen him, went to Peg as she fed Kitty. “Do you want me to write to you and tell you how we got through?”
“You know I can’t do no readin’,” she said.
“I can draw some pictures. How ’bout that?”
“You good at it?” she asked.
“Not as good as Mr. Burton,” he said.
“I want ’em from you,” she said.
Pan looked around as though he’d suddenly remembered our whereabouts. “Where should I send them?”
“Send them to that Mr. Spencer. He’ll get them to me,” she said, solidifying a connection I had guessed at.
Pan watched as she changed the baby’s clout and then settled Kitty into a new moss-lined basket. “You gonna miss Kitty, Miss Peg?” Pan asked.
“She too much work,” Peg said, handing Pan a small leather bag that held clout-sized pieces of cloth, a small turtle shell, and fresh reeds for Kit’s feedings.
“Thank you, Miss Peg,” Pan said, and Peg’s eyes glistened before she turned back toward her hut.
I followed. “Miss Peg,” I called, addressing her with the formality that Pan always used.
“What you wantin’ now?” she asked, turning back to face me.
“I want to thank you. I can never replace your goat, nor can I ever repay your kindness, but please take this.” I reached for her hand and pressed my grandmother’s large garnet and diamond brooch into her palm. “Get that to Mr. Spencer and he will get more goats for you, if you like,” I said.
She closed her hand around the jewel, then turned and walked away.
When I picked up Kitty’s basket, Willie stole a last peek. “You raise her up good,” he said. “You tell her ’bout us out here. How Peg do for her.”
PETE MOVED SWIFTLY, leading the muzzled goat through the impossibly thick vegetation. Each time something large slithered into the watery underbrush, the goat panicked and pulled back, until Pete, frustrated with her resistance, picked her up and slung her around his thick neck.
Even with Pete burdened, Pan and I had to work hard to keep up as he navigated first the boggy land and then the gnarled and slippery tree roots. Though now familiar with the night sounds, I was often startled by disturbed wildlife as it flew up or rustled past us in the undergrowth.
Kitty seldom fussed, and Pan remained close to my side, but it was such a difficult hike that I had little time to worry about what lay ahead. My most immediate fear was that I would lose my balance and take Kit into the water, so I gripped tight the walking cane Willie had thrust into my hand on our departure.
We trekked deep into the night, and even Pete appeared winded by the time we caught sight of the towpath. The night view of the winding canal was deceptively peaceful; overhead trees leaned in to one another, their branches folded together across the water as though in prayer. Down a distance, a long stretch of the canal was open to the sky, where the black shadow of a nighthawk glided across the still water.
A lone owl hooted and wolves howled as though in answer. I grew increasingly anxious as I watched Pete pace the bank. Suddenly, he rushed back to where we waited in the underbrush. “Somethin’ comin’!” he whispered, and through the shadows, as though moving through molasses, a small barge pulled into view. As it moved closer, I could make out a Negro man and a smaller boy moving toward us on the towpath. Each had hold of a long pole secured to the craft and with these they pushed the boat forward.
“Come on, come on!” Pete waved us forward as the barge hit the bank. “Quick, climb up,” he urged as he reached for Kitty.
I hesitated. What if, once I was on the barge, he meant to keep her?
“Jus’ do what I say!” he said, grabbing for Kitty’s basket.
“No!” I argued, until a woman on the barge reached down.
“Gib me the chil’,” she whispered.
I handed Kitty up, and in short order, Pan and I found ourselves on board and standing next to piles of cut wood, melons, and sacks of grain.
“Come, quick, get in here,” the barge man said, standing at the back and tossing away a stack of wood to expose a small trapdoor. He opened it and pointed. “Quick, get in,” he said. Pan leaned on his haunches for a look inside. “Both of us is supposed to fit in there?” Pan asked in a whisper, and the man nodded. The small barge, not more than a large raft, was built so low and loaded so heavily that it was impossible to believe any space could exist underfoot. Yet there it was.
I hesitated, dreading the idea of that small space. I turned and saw Kitty in the woman’s arms, then saw Pete sling up the objecting goat.
“Go on.” The woman waved at me. “Go on. Get in. I got the chil’.”
To my later regret, I did not thank Pete, thinking only how I didn’t want to wedge myself into that narrow dark enclosure. But there was little time as the barge man urged me in. I forced myself to my knees and slid in, then encouraged Pan to wedge himself in beside me. We lay flat on our stomachs in the narrow damp space. “You got to stay quiet!” the barge man warned as he closed the door behind us. Wood clunked as it was tossed to cover over our hideout. Within minutes the raft bumped away from the canal banks and we slid off silently, but for the sound of the canal water rippling under us.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
1830
Pan
WHEN WE GO from Willie and Miss Peg’s house, I’m not scared no more because I know my mama’s watching out again.
Miss Peg give us her goat because she’s a good woman, but she don’t like Mr. Burton for being a white man, even after I tell her that his mama was colored. “You sure she colored?” Miss Peg asked.
“I’m not sure of nothing no more,” I say.
“Why not?”
“?’Cause after my mama die, she say she was gonna look out for me. Then I got took for a slave. Where was she then?”
“How’d you get took?” Miss Peg asked.
“I snuck down to the docks, where I wasn’t supposed to go.”
“Huh! How you expec’ your mama to look out for you when you act the fool?” she asked.
I never look at it that way before, so that night, when Mr. Burton’s sleeping, I talk with my mama. “You take care of Kitty and me and Mr. Burton, and I don’t ever act the fool again.” Then I go to sleep, ’cause now I know she’s looking out for me.