* * *
It took us two full days to Memphis, and the closer we got the more uneasy I became about the scheme we had undertaken. The chief risk was that we would be recognised by somebody, and if looking back I can say that it was only a chance in a thousand — well, that's still an uncomfy chance if your neck depends on it.
I was in high enough spirits when we set off from our camping place at dawn, for the glow of being free again hadn't worn off. It was with positive zest that I hauled the corpses of Little and George well into the thickets, and dumped them in a swampy pool full of reeds and frogs; then I tidied up the tracks as well as I could, and we set off. Cassy sat in the back of the cart, out of sight, while I drove, and we rolled along through the woods over the rutted road — it was more like a farm-track, really — until I Came to a fork running north-west, which was the direction we Wanted to go.
We followed it until noon without seeing a soul, which I now know was pretty lucky, but soon after we had cooked up a fry and moved on we came to a small village, and here something hap pened which damped my spirits a good deal, for it showed me what a small place even the American backwoods can be, and how difficult it is to pass through without every Tom, Dick and Harry taking an interest in you.
The village was dozing in the afternoon, with only a nigger or two kicking about, a dog nosing in a rubbish tip, and a baby wailing on a porch, but just the other side of town there was the inevitable yokel whittling on a stump, with his straw hat over his eyes and his bare feet stuck in the dust. I decided it was safe to make an inquiry, and pulled up.
"Hollo," says I, cheerily.
"Hollo, y'self," says he.
"Am I on the road to Memphis, friend?" says I.
He thought about this, chewing and polishing up one of those cracker-barrel witticisms which are Mississippi's gift to civiisation. At last he said:
"Well, if y'don't know for sartain, you're a damfool to be headin' along it, ain't you?"
"I would be, if I wasn't sure of direction from a smart man like you," says I.
He cocked an eye at me. "How come you're so sure?"
It's like talking before salt with the Arabs, or doing business with a Turk; you must go through the ritual.
"Because it's a hot day."
"That makes you sure?"
"Makes me sure you're thirsty, which makes me sure you'll take a suck at the jug I've got under my seat — and then you'll tell me the road to Memphis." I threw the jug at him, and he snapped it up like a trout taking a fly.
"Guess I might sample it, at that," says he, and sampled about a pint. "Jay-zus! That's drinkin' liquor. Ye-ah — I reckon you might be on the Memphis road, sure enough. Should git there, too, provided you don't fall in Coldwater Creek or git elected guy-nor or die afore you arrive." He threw the jug back, and I was about to whip up when he says:
"You f'm Nawth? You don't talk like ol' Miss, nor Arkinsaw, neether."
"No, I'm from Texas."
"You don't say? Long ways off, the Texies. Young Jim Noble, be went down there, 'bout two years back. Ever run across Jim?"
"I reckon not."
"No." He considered me, the sharp, sleepy little eyes peeping out under the frayed straw brim. "Would that be Tom Little's wagon your drivin'? Seems I know that broken spoke — an' the horse."
For a moment my blood ran cold, and I stopped my hand from going to the pistol in the back of my belt.
"Well, it was Tom Little's wagon," says I. "Still would be, if be hadn't loaned it me yesterday. When I take it back, it will be his again, I guess." If I'd stayed in that country, and learned to whittle with a Barlow knife, and chew tobacco, I'd have made president.
"That a fact," says he. "First time I heerd o' Tom lendin' anything."
"Well, I'm his cousin," says I. "So he didn't mind lending it to me." And I whipped up and made off.
"Good for him," calls the yokel after me. "He might ha' told you the road to Memphis, while he was about it."
By George, it rattled me, I can tell you. When we were out of sight I conferred with Cassy, and she agreed we must press on as hard as we could go. With every loafer in the county weighing us up, the sooner we were clear the better. So we pushed on, and might have made it next day if I hadn't had to rest the horsespavined old bitch she was. We had to sleep another night out, and the following morning we left the cart beside a melon patch, telling a nigger to mind it for us, and walked the last mile into Memphis town.
It was a fair-sized place, even in those days, for half the cotton in the world seemed to find its way there, but to my jaundiced eye it appeared to be made entirely out of mud. It had rained from first light, and by the time we had walked through the churned-up streets, and been splashed by wagons and by damfools who didn't look where they were going, we were in a sorry state. But the crowded bustle of the place, and the foul weather, made me feel happier, because both lessened the chance of anyone recognising us.
Now all that remained to be done was for me to sell a runaway slave and arrange for us to get out of town without any holes in our hides. Easy enough, you may think, for a chap of Flashy's capabilities, and I'll admit your confidence wouldn't be misplaced. But I wonder how many young chaps nowadays, in this civilised twentieth century, would know how to go about it, if they were planked down, near penniless and with their boots letting in, on a foreign soil, and asked to dispose of a fine-strung mustee woman whose depression and nervousness were growing steadily as the crisis approached? It takes thought, I tell you, and a strong grip on one's own gorge to keep it from leaping out.
The first thing was to find when the next sale was, and here we were lucky, for there was one in the market that very afternoon, which meant we could do our business and, God willing, be out by nightfall. Next I must inquire about steamboats, so leaving Cassy under the shelter of a shop porch, I pioshed down to the levee to make inquiries. It was pouring fit to frighten Noah by now, with a howling wind as well, and by the time I tacked up to the steamboat office I was plastered with gumbo to the thighs and sodden from there up. To add to my difficulties, the ancient at the office window, wearing a dirty old pilot cap and a vacant expression, was both stone deaf and three parts senile; when I bawled my inquiries to him above the noise of the storm he responded with a hand to his ear and a bewildered grin.
"Is there a boat to Louisville tonight?" I roared.
"Hey?"
"Boat to Louisville?"
"Cain't hear you, mister. Speak up, cain't ye?"
I dragged my collar closer and dashed the rain out of my eyes.
"Boat to Louisville — tonight?" I yelled.
"Boat to where?"
"Oh, for pity's sake! LOUIS! —" I gathered all my lung power "— VILLE! Is there a boat tonight?"
At last he beamed and nodded.
"Shore 'nough, mister. The new Missouri. Leaves at ten."
I thanked him forcibly and ploughed back up town. Now all that must be done was render myself and Cassy as respectable as possible and go to work with our hands on our hearts. The first part we managed, roughly, in the back room of a cheap apartment house which I hired for the day; my good coat, which had been thrown over my head when I left Greystones — a prodigious stroke of luck that, for it had Spring's precious papers sewn in the lining — was sadly soiled, but we made the best of it, and rehearsed the final details of our plan. I was in a sweat about how Cassy would slip away from her new owner, but this she brushed aside; what made her grit her teeth to stop them chattering was the thought of mounting the slave block and being sold, which seemed strange to me, since it had happened to her before, and didn't involve any pain or danger at all.