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.”