Never Too Late (10 page)

Seconds later, two men ran past. One paused to glance down at her where she lay, then hurried on.

“Stop, the rest of you niggers!” he yelled, “or we'll shoot the lot of you.”

But Seffie's comrades had seen her fall and knew they could do nothing for her now. Capture was a risk they all took, and the capture of five slaves and the discovery of the local railroad line was not worth trying to help a single individual against angry pursuers with guns.

They understood. Seffie understood.

The small boat glided out into the current. By the time their pursuers reached the water's edge, it was just faintly visible going around a bend thirty yards away.

Several curses and a volley of gunshots followed. But within seconds the boat with its passengers was out of sight.

The two walked back the way they had come. They paused where Seffie lay groaning in pain.

“Well, it's not a complete loss,” said one of the men. “We got this one at least.”

“Doesn't look like much to me. What should we do with her?”

“Take her back and see what the boss says.”

Seffie felt rude hands grab her and yank her to her feet.

Her ankle exploded in pain. She began to faint as she felt them pulling her along and yelling at her to walk. She felt her knees wobble, and they grabbed at her to keep her upright.

Finally everything went black.

N
EW
S
URROUNDINGS

14

S
EFFIE AWOKE CONSCIOUS OF NOTHING BUT A
terrific pain in her right ankle.

It was still dark. She lay on her back on the ground and was nearly freezing to death.

Coming to herself and remembering what had happened, she was filled with panic. She had to catch up with the others!

She rolled over on her side and struggled to get up. Her whole body shouted out in pain from her fall. The moment she tried to stand she realized it was no use. Something was badly wrong. She knew she wouldn't be able to walk a step.

She lay back down and tried to think what to do. She didn't even know where she was. She had either walked or been moved from where she had fallen. She could remember nothing. And where were the men who had been chasing them?

She did not have time to think about it long.

The sounds of a wagon clattering along the road intruded into her thoughts, then gradually grew louder. She
realized she was lying on the side of the road they had crossed earlier. Frantically she tried to rise again. When she couldn't, she tried to crawl into the undergrowth to the side of the road.

But it was no use. The horses pulling the wagon galloped up and the driver pulled them to a stop almost beside her.

“There she is,” he called. Two men jumped down from behind.

“Wait for me,” said the driver, joining them. “It'll take all three of us to lift her—she's a big one.”

Seffie struggled momentarily as she felt hands grabbing at her legs and shoulders and arms, but a slap in the face stopped her. They lifted her up and rolled her into the wagon bed as if she had been a sack of potatoes, then jumped back up themselves. Moments later the horses began to move, got turned around, then the wagon lurched into motion and went bounding along the road. The jostling about on the wagon's wooden bed, without benefit of straw or any other cushioning, was almost more painful to her bruised legs and hips and shoulders than she could bear.

Before they reached their destination, she had fainted again.

Again she awoke, still in pain, now with even less idea where she was. She lay in semidarkness, but it was obviously morning. She heard cows and chickens not far away. She opened her eyes but did not move so as not to draw attention to herself. The rafters above her, the slanted shafts of light coming from the walls, and the smell of the place told her she was in a barn of some kind, still lying in
the back of the wagon. Three men were talking nearby.

“. . . think she's hurt . . . moaned when we tried to move her . . .”

“. . . couldn't stand up . . . ankle or foot . . .”

“She was with the runaways we heard about. What'll we do with her?”

“Put her down in Hazel's cabin. She'll look after her.”

“. . . ought to look at her . . . see how badly she's hurt . . .”

“. . . notify the marshal?”

“No need for that . . . see if anything develops . . . if there's a fugitive warrant on her . . .”

“. . . can't be worth much . . . big thing like her.”

“If not, she's no good to us . . .”

“. . . what use could she be?”

“. . . get a few dollars for her in Charlotte.”

“All right, then . . . couple of the boys to help you get her down . . . into a cart . . . haul her down to Wayne and Hazel's till we decide what to do with her.”

Seffie pretended to be asleep when several men came a few minutes later to get her out of the wagon. But a cry of pain when her lower leg bumped the floor gave her away, and only made the men treat her even rougher. She did not know it, but her ankle had swollen to twice its normal size and she would not be able to walk on it normally again for months.

By the time they reached their destination and deposited her on the floor of what she took for one of the slave cabins, the pain had again become excruciating.

“Soun's ter me dat you's hurtin' mighty fearsome,” said a woman's voice.

“Yes'm,” moaned Seffie with tears in her eyes.

“What's yo name, chil'?”

“Seffie.”

“Where you come from?”

“Don't know exactly . . . Louisiana, I think, but I been travelin' a long time.”

“How you git here?”

“On da railroad.”

“Da freedom railroad!”

“I reckon so—dat's what dey sometimes called it.”

“You's a runaway?”

“Yes'm.”

“Laws almighty—you's lucky you's still alive. Da way dey tell it, dey kill runaways when dey fin' 'em.”

“Dey wuz shootin' las' night,” said Seffie.

“Who wuz?”

“Da white men dat got me. Dey wuz shootin' at da others. But dey got away downribber in a boat. But I fell an' cudn't keep up. So dey got me an' brung me here.”

“Laws, Laws,” muttered the woman, shaking her head. “Dem hired hands er da master—dey's bad'ns all right. You's lucky dey didn't shoot you jes' fo da fun ob it. We's gotter take care er you, chil'. But one thing's fo sho'—you ain't gettin' back on dat railroad no time soon.”

“What's gwine happen ter me?” asked Seffie.

“Can't say, chil'. Dey might sen' you back, or dey might sell you, or dey might kill you, or dey might keep you.”

Seffie shuddered at the prospects.

“In da meantime, we's better hab a look at dat foot ter see what's ter be done.”

S
WEET
B
ISCUITS AND
W
HAT
B
ECAME OF
T
HEM

15

S
EFFIE SPENT THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS INSIDE THE
one-room shanty of the old woman and her husband, called Wayne Jukes. Once she was able to get a good look at the wrinkled face of her nursemaid, Seffie thought she must be more than eighty years old. In fact, Hazel was only sixty-nine. But those years had taught her more than most people learn in three lifetimes, which was one of the reasons the master told his men to put the injured runaway in her charge.

Hazel sent for nettles and mud. When her husband and the men came in from the fields for lunch, she told Wayne what wood she would need for a splint, how long and how thick. He and their son Hank, a childless man in his late thirties who had lost his wife to pneumonia several winters earlier, set about preparations at once. When Seffie's foot had been thoroughly cooled and the swelling somewhat reduced, Hazel herself, with Hank's help, set and bound the splints in place, from Seffie's foot up to just below the
knee, with tight wraps of clean cloth. A huge man's old boot was slit apart so that both the bottom of the splint and her foot would fit into it. They bound her foot to the boot with more strips, enabling her, with the aid of crutches, to get around on it. Within a week the pain was considerably reduced and Seffie was able to slowly move about with relative ease. Neither the master nor his workers had come down to ask about her or give any instructions concerning her.

Hank, who shared the little cabin with his mother and father, was attentive and kind to the invalid. Out of respect for Seffie's condition and privacy, during her convalescence he moved into the slave house where most of the other single men stayed.

Seffie could do nothing but stay every day in the cabin with Hazel, but before two weeks were out had begun to make herself useful with meals. She and the old woman gradually began to laugh and talk together like old friends. Seffie still did not know what would become of her. But there was no question of moving on or getting back on board the railroad anytime soon. That was the one thing she could not do. If she was going anyplace now, it would take a
real
railroad to get her there. But there was no actual railroad line within miles of this place, and she hadn't a penny to her name. And she had no idea how to reconnect with the underground and invisible railroad that had brought her here. Hazel did not seem to know anything about it like the woman called Amaritta had.

What would happen when her ankle was completely healed, she didn't know.

In the meantime she tried to help with the cooking as
much as she could. Gradually she took over more and more of the cooking duties for the cabin's small family, enabling Hazel, who was past field-working age, to spend more of her own time with the washing or cooking for the single men or helping out with the other women's young children.

Finally the day came they had all been expecting. The master appeared walking toward the slave village. Everyone knew he was coming about the newcomer. He didn't usually come to their living quarters with good news. Usually his presence meant that somebody was about to get sold. Most expected him to take her away.

He went straight to Wayne and Hazel's little one-room house, then walked inside like he owned the place, which he did. Hazel and Seffie were occupied near the wood cook stove. Wayne sat seated at the one table in the room with a plate of warm biscuits in front of him.

The three all stopped and turned their heads at the sound of feet coming up their steps and through the open door. The master nodded an expressionless greeting, then glanced toward Seffie's leg. Wayne stood up.

“Looks like you're getting around all right now,” he said.

“Yes, suh,” said Seffie, staring at him in fear for what was about to happen.

“You fix up her leg, Hazel?”

“Yes, suh . . . me an' Wayne an' Hank.”

“Looks like a fine job.”

The master pulled out one of the rickety chairs and nodded to Wayne to sit down.

“What's your name, girl?” he asked.

“Seffie, suh.”

“Where you from?”

“Don't know exactly, suh . . . Louisiana, I think.”

“You're a long way from home.”

“Yes, suh.”

“You ran away?”

“I reckon so, suh.”

“Why'd you run away? Did your master mistreat you?”

“Not too bad, suh.”

“Why then?”

“I didn't hab no kin dere. I reckon I wanted ter be free, suh.”

The master nodded his head, then scratched his chin thoughtfully. Whether unconsciously drawn by the smell, or whether he was actually hungry, he slowly reached out and took one of the biscuits from the plate. The silence continued another several seconds.

“What do you think I should do with you, girl?” he asked as he bit off a corner of it.

“Don't know, suh,” replied Seffie.

“It's wrong to run away, you know—it's breaking the law.”