The Underground Railroad

by Colson Whitehead

“You two are not the sort that goes to Red’s,” Sam said, “but I wanted you to know.” “Red’s,” Cora said. “This is more than the saloon, Sam. We have to tell them they’re being lied to. They’re sick.” Caesar was in agreement.

This is not the only place with a new hospital.”

After Cora’s discussion with Dr. Stevens, Miss Lucy had stopped her one morning on her way to the museum. Had Cora given any thought to the hospital’s birth control program?

the screaming woman who wandered into the green when the social came to an end. “They’re taking away my babies.” The woman wasn’t lamenting an old plantation injustice but a crime perpetrated here in South Carolina. The doctors were stealing her babies from her, not her former masters.

“Were we wrong to stay?” Cora asked.

“Maybe this is where we were supposed to get off,” Caesar said. “Maybe not.

Not pure merchandise as formerly but livestock: bred, neutered. Penned in dormitories that were like coops

One day she decided to retaliate against a red-haired white woman who scowled at the sight of Cora’s duties “at sea.”

Cora stared into her eyes, unwavering and fierce, until the woman broke, fairly running from the glass toward the agricultural section. From then on Cora selected one patron per hour to evil-eye.

eye.

She got good at her evil eye.

They always broke, the people, not expecting this weird attack, staggering back or looking at the floor or forcing their companions

to pull them away.

Fugitive Slave Law says we have to hand over runaways and not impede their capture—not drop everything we’re doing just because some slave catcher thinks he’s onto his bounty. We don’t harbor murderers.”

Cora went to Caesar’s dormitory first.

The town records had her name as Bessie. The sketches on the fliers Terrance had printed after their escape were crudely drawn but resembled them enough that any savvy hunter would look at her twice.

Sam stood in the shadows, his foot on a crate as he laced his boots. “I was trying to figure out how to get word,” he said. “The slave catcher’s name is Ridgeway. He’s talking to the constable now, about you and Caesar.

He handed her a flier.

Now that she knew her letters, the word murder h...

Sam couldn’t leave for another hour,

try to intercept Caesar at the factory. It was best if Cora went ahead to his house and waited.

“They got a posse together,” Sam said. “I couldn’t get to Caesar. He knows to come here or the saloon—we had a plan.

The thundering above woke her, terminating the void. It was not one person, or two, but many men. They ransacked the house and shouted, knocking over cabinets and upending furniture. The noise was loud and violent and so near, she shrank down the steps.

The house was on fire.

Runaway or conveyed off, From the subscriber’s residence, near Henderson, on the 16th inst. a negro girl named MARTHA, belonging to the Subscriber. Said girl is of a dark brown complexion, slightly made, and very free spoken, about 21 years of age;

I understand she will try to pass as a free girl. RIGDON BANKS

GRANVILLE COUNTY, AUGUS...

It was the day after Sam’s house collapsed, though she couldn’t be sure.

The only way to know how long you are

lost in the darkness is to be saved from it.

The platform was twenty-eight paces long, and five and a half from wall to tracks’ edge. It was twenty-six steps up to the world above. The trapdoor was warm when she placed her palm against it.

Her stomach quivered under her fingers. She had starved before, when Connelly got it in his mind to punish the quarter for mischief and cut off rations.

to know when she would eat next. The train was late. The night Sam told them about the bad blood—when the house still stood—the next train was due in two days.

Caesar. If they had been sensible and kept running, she and Caesar would be in the Free States. Why had they believed that two lowly slaves deserved the bounty of South Carolina?

The South Carolina chains were of new manufacture—the keys and tumblers marked by regional design—but accomplished the purpose of chains. They had not traveled very far at all.

The earth trembled faintly. In days to come, when she remembered the late train’s approach, she would not associate the vibration with the locomotive but with the furious arrival of a truth she had always known: She was a stray in every sense. The last of her tribe.

The train sped past the station and out of sight.

incredulous, until she heard the train stop and back up on the tracks. The engineer was apologetic.

The boy cried “Gosh!” and “Sweet mother!” at every complication in her story, tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his overalls and rocking on his heels.

How he came to command the locomotive was a story, but now was not the time for the unlikely histories of colored boys.

“Georgia station is closed,” he said finally, scratching his scalp beneath his blue cap. “We’re supposed to stay away. Patrollers must have smoked it out, I figure.”

Her underground prison waned as the darkness reclaimed it. She wondered if she was its final passenger. May the next traveler not tarry and keep moving up the line, all the way to liberty.

The builders of this stop had hacked and blasted it from the unforgiving earth and made no attempt at adornment,

Cora stood in the guts of a mountain.

Passengers chose their seating from empty cases of explosive powder. Cora tested the water in one of the barrels. It tasted fresh.

engineer watched her, fidgeting. “Where is this place?” she asked.

“North Carolina,”

“The station agent?”

“I’ve never met him, but I’m sure he’s a fine fellow.”

“The station agent will be along. I’m sure of it.”