BY NIGHT WE’D ARRIVED at a small path, which led into a clearing and then to the Ross place. I saw a house and then a stable behind it. I remembered then that Harriet’s parents were free, and their children were not.
“Can’t see my momma,” Robert said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“She wear her feelings out front, and if she was to see me, if she was to know, she’d holler like a baby, and when the white folks come to ask what happened, no way my momma could lie. Harriet left here ten years ago. I seen her since then, but she ain’t spoke to momma. Ain’t ’cause she don’t want to. But how could she?”
At that Robert gave a whistle. After a few minutes, an older man, who I took as his father—Pop Ross, he called him—walked out and, looking in no particular direction, waved toward the back of the home. We circled around, picking our way through the surrounding woods. Partway around we caught a vision, through the window, of Ma Rit sweeping the floor. Robert paused, suddenly aware that he might never see her again, then he kept weaving his way back. Around the back we found the stable, and opening it there, I found the entire party seated and silent inside. We did not speak. Harriet emerged from the corner. Her eyes were glued on Robert. She took his lapels, shook them, and then pulled him close into the strength of her embrace. And there we sat in the stables, waiting upon the safety of the deepest part of night. Some took to the loft and slept. Pop Ross brought us food. But opening the door, he turned his head away without looking in and extended his right arm, waiting for whoever to take the tray.
Twice I saw the old woman venture out to the entrance of the road, look off into the distance, only to return. I wondered if she had some notion of Robert coming.
Now the rains started up. Ben and Robert peered through a crack in the stables, which framed the back window of the main house, and through that window they could see Ma Rit lit up by the fire, puffing on a pipe, with the forlorn weight of her missing children all over her face. Harriet, who had not seen her mother in years, did not want to see her now. She did not look through the crack. She would risk no farewell, even a distant one.
Finally, Ma Rit extinguished the fire and went to bed. I looked out and saw that a heavy fog had rolled in. Now Harriet inspected each of us. It was time. We walked out. I saw Pop Ross at the door, blindfolded.
“When they ask have I seen any of you,” he said, “I shall answer, with my word upon God, that I have not.”
We walked out into the fog. Jane took one of the old man’s arms. Henry took the other and we fell into the muddy woods. And as we walked, Harriet’s father hummed quietly to himself, then took up the familiar tune of departure and one by one they too picked up the song and it was delivered in a low quiet murmur through our party.
Going up to the great house farm
Going on up, for they done me wrong
Day so short, Gina. Night so long.
Then the woods broke and we came upon a wide pond, the length of which we could not see past through the fog and the dark. The voices lowered until the only sound was the rain against the leaves above, and the falling water rippling against the still water.
“Well, old man,” Harriet said, turning to her father, “time for me to take over.”
I think they must have all gotten some understanding of what was to happen, because as soon as Harriet said that, Jane and Henry broke their embrace and everyone stepped into the water. Henry, Robert, and Ben formed a line at the front facing out onto the pond. Jane took my hand and pulled me right behind them. I looked back and saw Pop Ross standing there, blindfolded. Harriet walked over to him, circled once as if to take up every inch of him for her memory, then kissed him gently on the forehead. Then she touched his cheek and I saw the green light of Conduction pushing out from her hand, and by that light I saw the tears streaking down Pop Ross’s cheek.
They stood like this for a few seconds. Then Harriet turned and took her place in front of her brothers and started walking out into the depths. Her brothers followed silently, and Jane and I followed them. Only I looked back and when I did I saw Pop Ross there, still blindfolded. And as we moved deeper into the pond, I watched him slowly slip away from us, slip away as memories sometimes do, into the darkness, into the fog.
When we walked into the water, just as before, it was not water at all. By then Harriet was shimmering. She looked back past her brothers to me and said, “Don’t you fear a spell. I got a chorus this time. And the chorus got me.”
She walked forward, burning brighter with every step, breaking the fog before us like the bow of a ship breaking the sea. Then she stopped, and the small procession behind her stopped too. Harriet said, “This here journey is done all on account of John Tubman.”
“John Tubman,” hollered Ben.
“Who, to my eternal heartbreak, could not join us. This is for Pop Ross and Ma Rit, who I well know shall be with us in the by-and-by.”
“By and by!” Ben hollered. “By and by!”
“We have found ourselves upon a railroad.”
“By and by!”
“Our lives be the track, our stories the rail, and I be the engineer, who shall guide this Conduction.”
“Conduction,” he shouted.
“But this ain’t no bitter tale.”
“Go head, Harriet, go head.”
“For I done my grieving in a time far past.”
Now Harriet’s other brothers took up the response.
“Go head. Go head,” they yelled.
“John Tubman, my first love, onliest man I found fit to follow.”
“That’s the word.”
“I have put my name on it for fact—Tubman.”
“That’s the word! That’s the word!”
“It began when I was a small pepper, for slavery make my child hands into grinding stones.”
“Hard, Harriet! Hard!”
“A touch of measles nearly put me down.”
“Hard! Hard!”
“The weight stove me in. And vigilance came.”
“Conduction!”
“I walked out into the woods. Testified. Beheld the path.”
“Conduction!”
“But could not walk it till I was fully grown.”
“By and by! By and by!”
“I worked the labors of men.”
“Well, go head, Harriet, go head!”
“Got me an ox team.”
“Harriet got a ox!”
“Hired myself out. Broke the fields.”
“Harriet got a ox! Harriet break the land!”
“The Lord put travails before me. Made me hard as Moses before Pharaoh.”
“Go head, Moses, go head!”
“But I sing of John Tubman.”
“Tubman!”
“Man don’t like to be outshone by woman.”
“Moses break the land!”
“John Tubman was not that kind.”
“There it is!”
“My strength honored him. My labors made him soft before me.”
“Go head, Moses! Go ahead!”
“And I love him because I know, a girl got to love who love you.”
“Moses got a big bad ox!”
“John Tubman love my strength. Loved my labor.”
“Strong, Moses! Strong!”
“So I know he love me.”
“John Tubman!”
“We planned for freedom on the slow steady grind of work.”
“Hard, Moses! Hard!”
“We had plans. Our land. Our kids. By my ox.”
“Moses got a ox!”
“But there was one who loved me more than John Tubman.”
“That’s the word! That’s the word!”
“The Lord give me vigilance. The Lord light the path.”
“Conduction!”
“The Lord called me to Philadelphia.”
“Conduction!”
“But my John would not come.”
“Hard! Hard!”
“I made my moves from the North. I saw new things.”
“Moses got a ox!”
“And when I come back I was not the same girl.”
“Moses break the land!”
“But I was fast to my word.”
“Strong Moses.”
“And I came back for my John.”
“Yes, you did!”
“And found him taken up with some other gal.”
“Hard, Moses! Hard!”
“I stewed on that. I thought to find them both and make a mess of the thing.”
“Moses got a ox!”
“Didn’t care how loud I was. Didn’t care if Broadus heard me in full fury.”
“John Tubman!”
“Didn’t care if I was put back under slavery’s chain.”
“Hard! Hard!”
“But one man stop me.”
“Strong, Moses!”
“My daddy, Big Ben Ross. He grab me up and say Harriet got to love who love Harriet.”
“Go head, Pop Ross! Go head!”
“And brothers, I shall tell you, like Pop Ross told me—got to love who love you.”
“Go head!”
“And it was my Lord who always loved me most.”
“Go head!”
“My John left me, brothers. But I knows it was I who left that man first.”
“John Tubman!”
“My soul was captive of the Lord, for it was Him who, over all again, loved me most.”
“Moses got a ox.”
“John Tubman.”
“Strong, Moses.”
“Wherever you are.”
“Strong, Moses, strong.”
“I know your heart and you now know mine.”
“Strong Moses.”
“May no vice come upon you. May your nights be easy.”
“Strong.”
“May you find your peace, even down in the coffin.”
“By and by.”
“May you find a love that love you, even in these shackled times.”
“That’s the word.”