Digger was lying across the open doorway, catching what little breeze he could. As Honor stepped over him, he did not growl as he would normally have done with her. He knows, she thought. He knows, and is glad.
Crossing the orchard-the apples on the trees reddening, the plums past their best and covered with yellow jackets-Honor entered Wieland Woods and picked her way steadily through maples and beeches, through brambles loaded with blackberries she could not stop for. The trees were thick with leaves in suspension between the ripeness of summer and the decline of autumn. While the oak leaves were still green, the maples’ were veined with red, ready to flush.
There was no sign or sound of the Negro. At one point Honor strayed close to the edge bordering the field where the Haymakers were working, and heard their voices, though not what they said. After that she went deep into the middle of the woods, where the woman must be hiding. As she walked she was followed by the song of the bobwhite, named for its distinctive call. Jack had teased her once when she asked what it was, refusing to believe such a common bird did not exist in England. On the road with Thomas over a year ago, she had not even recognized the cardinals and blue jays. There was so much to learn about America, not all of it good.
Eventually, beyond the bobwhite, Honor picked up the chattering of a squirrel, clucking and scolding as if annoyed at a child, or an intruder. Following the sound, she did not try to hide her own presence, but allowed her skirt to brush against the undergrowth and her boots to snap dead branches in the hope that the woman would look out and see who it was, and trust her.
The runaway was perched on the branch of a beech tree six feet above the ground, the squirrel protesting high above her. Honor stepped onto one of the tree’s roots, looked up and held out a plum. The woman looked at her. She did not take the plum, but after a moment she climbed down. Taller than Honor, she had long limbs and a yellowish cast to her skin. Indeed, the woman’s face was familiar, though it took a moment for Honor to place her. She was the first runaway, who had hidden by the well and left a tin mug of water by her bed-the mug that was now buried with the dead man nearby. Honor remembered that Donovan had caught her; she must have been taken back and was running away again. She looked healthier now: she had filled out somewhat, her skin was clear of pimples, her eyes whiter, and her dress looked newer, if dirty. She was wearing a pair of men’s shoes, and carried a bundle similar to Honor’s own.
The first time Honor had met the woman she’d held out bread to her. Now she pocketed the plum and untied her bundle to offer some bread and cheese. The runaway shook her head. “She done fed me up at the last place. Don’t need nothin’ for now. She said to say hello if I saw you-though she told me to go on through to the next stop if I could, an’ not to be botherin’ you, what with that an’ all.” She gestured at Honor’s belly. “I wouldn’t of been in that hay at all but for that slave catcher drivin’ me off course. Same one as last time. Caught me in these woods. He persistent, ain’t he? Don’t think he even knows who I am, but chase me anyway.”
The woman stopped. The squirrel had doubled its voice with two women to complain about, but now it went silent, and they could hear a horse in the distance, coming along the track to the south of them, with its uneven hoofbeats. It was the first time Donovan had come out this way since the runaway’s death. He did not know about Honor’s silence.
And now she was breaking her silence-a sensible, undramatic end to it. “I will go with thee.” Honor’s first words in over three months came out as a cracked whisper.
“Thankee, but I know where I’m goin’.”
Honor cleared her throat to ease the words from it. “We must leave these woods. He will come looking here.” As would Jack: in a few hours Dorcas and Judith would go back to the farm for the evening milking, find that Honor was not there, and raise the alarm.
They listened. They could not go north into the hayfield, where even now Honor could hear the distant voices of her family, the jingles of the horses’ bridles, the creak of the wagon. Donovan was blocking their escape east along the track past the farm and Faithwell. Honor did not want to go west: the track through Wieland Woods petered out halfway through, and besides would lead them into unknown territory, away from the main road and Oberlin. If they could get close to the main road between Oberlin and Wellington, they could then follow it, keeping in the fields on either side.
“If we cross the track that way”-Honor pointed south-“there is a cornfield that has not yet been cut. We can hide there till dark, then make our way east to the main road.”
The other woman nodded. “First I got to drink.” She led the way to the creek that bisected the woods, where Honor had rolled Dorcas in the mud to soothe her bee stings. There was little water in it other than a couple of standing puddles scummed over, insects hovering above. The women picked their way along it till they found a small trickle over a rock. The runaway placed her mouth there to suck up the water. After drinking, she stood up and gestured to Honor, who tried to crouch, then went on her hands and knees in an awkward position to accommodate the baby. She hesitated for a moment when she realized she would be putting her mouth where the Negro’s had been. But that thought was a mere flicker, and she lowered her mouth to the rock. The water tasted wonderful.
Afterward the woman helped her to her feet, then led the way south toward the track, clearly in charge. Honor did not mind. It was enough for her to be out walking in the woods on a late summer afternoon with a Negro, going… she did not know where she was going. She was running away.
The black woman moved through the woods silently, her feet sure, aware of her body in a way that kept her from brushing against branches or crackling leaves. Honor could not imitate her silence: she rustled through the undergrowth and got herself caught in brambles. She was also slowed by the weight she carried, and the pains along her groin and inner thighs. The woman did not slow down, though, and was soon little more than a movement among the trees. At one point Honor stopped and wiped her brow, and listened. She could not hear Donovan’s horse. He was probably searching the barn and other farm buildings. Behind her she could hear the wagon with its load of hay bumping down the track that led from the hayfield along the edge of Wieland Woods to the pasture and barn. If Jack came upon Donovan at the barn, what would they say to each other? Would Donovan ask if he’d seen the runaway? Would Jack tell him, or lie? Honor shivered, and hurried to catch up with her companion.
She was leaning against a maple at the wood’s edge, the track before them little more than a trickle of crusted mud spreading east and west. Diagonally across it, next to the woods, was the bright green shimmer of the Haymakers’ extensive cornfield. Tall and healthy and ripe, it would be left to stand until autumn when the ears had dried in their husks. Seeing it reminded Honor of first lying with Jack Haymaker in a cornfield. She flushed at the memory; only a little over a year ago, yet it felt as far away as England.
“You can go back now,” the runaway said. “I be all right from here. I jes’ wait in the corn till dark, then go on when no one can see me.”
Honor shook her head. “I will go with thee.”
The woman glanced at Honor’s belly. “You sure you want to go like that?”
“The baby’s not due until next month. I’ll be fine.”
The runaway shrugged and turned to look up and down the track, listening. “Come on, then.” She stepped out of the woods. Honor followed, the sunlight blinding her so that she ran without seeing where she was going. In a moment she was crashing into the corn.