She put miles behind her, put behind her the counterfeit sanctuaries and endless chains, the murder of Valentine farm. There was only the darkness of the tunnel, and somewhere ahead, an exit. Or a dead end, if that’s what fate decreed—nothing but a blank, pitiless wall. The last bitter joke. Finally spent, she curled on the handcar and dozed, aloft in the darkness as if nestled in the deepest recess of the night sky.
When she woke, she decided to go the rest of the way on foot—her arms were empty. Limping, tripping over crossties. Cora ran her hand along the wall of the tunnel, the ridges and pockets. Her fingers danced over valleys, rivers, the peaks of mountains, the contours of a new nation hidden beneath the old. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America. She could not see it but she felt it, moved through its heart. She feared she’d gotten turned around in her sleep. Was she going deeper in or back from where she came? She trusted the slave’s choice to guide her—anywhere, anywhere but where you are escaping from. It had gotten her this far. She’d find the terminus or die on the tracks.
She slept twice more, dreaming of her and Royal in her cabin. She told him of her old life and he held her, then turned her around so they faced each other. He pulled her dress over her head and took off his trousers and shirt. Cora kissed him and ran her hands over the territory of his body. When he spread her legs she was wet and he slid inside her, saying her name as no one had ever said it and as no one ever would, sugary and tender. She awoke each time to the void of the tunnel and when she was done weeping over him she stood and walked.
The mouth of the tunnel started as a tiny hole in the dark. Her strides made it a circle, and then the mouth of a cave, hidden by brush and vines. She pushed aside the brambles and entered the air.
It was warm. Still that stingy winter light but warmer than Indiana, the sun almost overhead. The crevice burst open into a forest of scrub pine and fir. She didn’t know what Michigan or Illinois or Canada looked like. Perhaps she wasn’t in America anymore but had pushed beyond it. She kneeled to drink from the creek when she stumbled on it. Cool clear water. She washed the soot and grime from her arms and face. “From the mountains,” she said, after an article in one of the dusty almanacs. “Snowmelt.” Hunger made her head light. The sun told her which way was north.
It was getting dark when she came upon the trail, worthless and pocked rut that it was. She heard the wagons after she’d been sitting on the rock awhile. There were three of them, packed for a long journey, laden with gear, inventories lashed to the sides. They were headed west.
The first driver was a tall white man with a straw hat, gray-whiskered and as impassive as a wall of rock. His wife sat beside him on the driver’s box, pink face and neck poking out of a plaid blanket. They regarded her neutrally and passed on. Cora made no acknowledgment of their presence. A young man drove the second wagon, a redheaded fellow with Irish features. His blue eyes took her in. He stopped.
“You’re a sight,” he said. High in pitch, like a bird’s chirping. “You need something?”
Cora shook her head.
“I said, do you need anything?”
Cora shook her head again and rubbed her arms from the chill.
The third wagon was commanded by an older negro man. He was thickset and grizzled, dressed in a heavy rancher’s coat that had seen its share of labor. His eyes were kind, she decided. Familiar though she couldn’t place it. The smoke from his pipe smelled like potatoes and Cora’s stomach made a noise.
“You hungry?” the man asked. He was from the south, from his voice.
“I’m very hungry,” Cora said.
“Come up and take something for yourself,” he said.
Cora clambered to the driver’s box. He opened the basket. She tore off some bread and gobbled it down.
“There’s plenty,” he said. He had a horseshoe brand on his neck and pulled up his collar to hide it when Cora’s eyes lingered. “Shall we catch up?”
“That’s good,” she said.
He barked at the horses and they proceeded on the rut.
“Where you going?” Cora said.
“St. Louis. From there the trail to California. Us, and some people we going to meet in Missouri.” When she didn’t respond he said, “You come from down south?”
“I was in Georgia. I ran away.” She said her name was Cora. She unfolded the blanket at her feet and wrapped herself in it.
“I go by Ollie,” he said. The other two wagons came into view around the bend.
The blanket was stiff and raspy under her chin but she didn’t mind. She wondered where he escaped from, how bad it was, and how far he traveled before he put it behind him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Nicole Aragi, Bill Thomas, Rose Courteau, Michael Goldsmith, Duvall Osteen, and Alison Rich (still) for getting this book into your hands. At Hanser over the years: Anna Leube, Christina Knecht, and Piero Salabe. Also: Franklin D. Roosevelt for funding the Federal Writers’ Project, which collected the life stories of former slaves in the 1930s. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, obviously. The work of Nathan Huggins, Stephen Jay Gould, Edward E. Baptist, Eric Foner, Fergus Bordewich, and James H. Jones was very helpful. Josiah Nott’s theories of “amalgamation.” The Diary of a Resurrectionist. Runaway slave advertisements come from the digital collections of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The first one hundred pages were fueled by early Misfits (“Where Eagles Dare [fast version],” “Horror Business,” “Hybrid Moments”) and Blanck Mass (“Dead Format”). David Bowie is in every book, and I always put on Purple Rain and Daydream Nation when I write the final pages; so thanks to him and Prince and Sonic Youth. And finally, Julie, Maddie, and Beckett for all the love and support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colson Whitehead is the New York Times bestselling author of The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and one collection of essays, The Colossus of New York. A Pulitzer Prize finalist and a recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, he lives in New York City.
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Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
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