The Underground Railroad

Chapter 2 Summary

This chapter opens with a runaway enslaved person bulletin by a W.M. Dixon. Dated July 18, 1820, it states that a "negro" girl by the name of Lizzie ran away and may possibly be hiding near the plantation of someone named Mrs. Steel. It offers a $30 reward for Lizzie’s return and threatens the penalty of the law for anyone found to be harboring her.

The chapter begins on Jockey’s birthday, which “only [comes] once or twice a year” (11), and is always on a Sunday, the enslaved people's half day. Birthday feasts are a priority, unless they have obtained a pass to sell wares in town or hired themselves out for day labor: “Impossible was the slave impudent enough to tell a white man he couldn’t work because it was a slave’s birthday” (11).

Cora takes a seat on the hunk of sugar maple in her garden. This is her customary Sunday spot. Cora’s garden tending is not only maintenance, but “also a message that she had not lost her resolve since the day of the hatchet” (12). Cora’s friend Lovey asks her when her birthday would be if she could choose it. Cora proceeds to tell Lovey that she has already told her when she was born. “Can’t pick […] it’s decided for you,” she says, before Lovey chides her that she had better “fix [her] mood” (12).

Cora’s garden plot holds the oldest story that Cora knows: the story of Ajarry staking her claim on this three-yard square of land which was, during her time, at the end of the row of enslaved people's quarters. However, Randall later had a dream about an endless cotton sea and switched his crop from indigo, which was a very dependable crop, to Sea Island cotton. This resulted in prosperity for Randall, as “Europe was famished for cotton and needed to be fed, bale by bale” (13). That was also when he had a new line of cabins built, leaving Ajarry’s plot in the middle of the row.

To Cora, the 14 cabins feel as permanent and timeless as the hills in the west and the creek that bisected the plantation. Their feeling of permanence is rooted in the “timeless feelings [of] those who lived and died in them: envy and spite” (13).

In a manner that is a poor imitation of white men arguing over their claims to land in court, enslaved people fight each other for the scraps of land surrounding their quarters. A strip of land in between cabins could be used as “a place to tie a goat, build a chicken coop, [or] a spot to grow food to fill your belly on top of the mash doled out by the kitchen every morning. If you got there first” (13). An enslaved person’s sale is scarcely approved before their scrap of land is claimed by another, and if there are any disputes, no judge will hear them. However, Mabel, Cora’s mother, told Cora that Ajarry said she’d take a hammer to the head of anyone who dared to even look at her garden. This story did not square with Cora’s own memories of her grandmother, but once Cora became the garden’s steward after Ajarry’s death, she understood the truth of her mother’s words.

Mabel vanished when Cora was about 10 or 11. Mabel had been too taciturn and obstinate to have numerous friends, but Ajarry was well-respected. However, when Cora combed the area for any of the original Randall enslaved people who might be loyal to her grandmother, she found them all to be dead or sold away: “some variety of gone” (14). And so, the garden became the sole spot of color in Cora’s devastation, and she decided to defend it, even though she no longer had anyone to look after her.

Shortly after Mabel’s disappearance, a woman named Ava set machinations in motion to get Cora sent away. Mabel and Ava had grown up on the plantation at the same time and were victimized by the monstrosities of enslavement side by side: “Sometimes such an experience bound one person to another; just as often the shame of one’s powerlessness made all witnesses into enemies. Ava and Mabel did not get along” (15).

Ava loved her chickens more than her own children, and she had her eye on the strip of land for a chicken coop. Ava therefore made arrangements with Moses, a field hand that Connelly had promoted to a position as one of the overseer’s enforcers: “Order in the rows, such as it was, needed to be preserved, and there were things a white man could not do” (16). Moses then banished Cora to a cabin named Hob, where the “wretched” (16) stayed.

First, Hob housed damaged men. Then, it began to house women. These women, beaten and raped by both white men and Black men, had given birth to children maimed by violence. In the gloom of Hob, the women’s voices rose like a chorus, ceaselessly enunciating the names of their dead children. Cora, afraid of these women’s abjection, slept alone in the main room rather than upstairs with them. Before this, she had never slept anywhere but her cabin.

Cora had not only Ava to contend with, but a misanthropic man named Old Abraham, who was only actually old in manner rather than actual age. Old Abraham always groused that Cora shouldn’t have that strip of land all to herself just because Ajarry once laid claim to it.

Then, Blake arrived. He was one of five new enslaved people brought in by the young Terrance Randall, during the summer that Terrance and his brother were preparing to take over management of the plantation: “Blake, Pot, Edward and the rest made a tribe of themselves on Randall land and were not above helping themselves to that which was not theirs” (17). Terrance made it clear that they were favored, and Connelly enforced the new order.

Blake was a tall, strong man who “quickly proved a testament to Terrance Randall’s investment acumen. The price they’d get for the offspring of such a stud alone [was very high]” (17). Blake also had a booming singing voice that made time fly by, and even those who hated him could not resist singing along. Blake soon set his sights on Cora’s garden patch, determining it to be a suitable place to tie up his dog. He also constructed a handsome doghouse, which Old Abraham admired. Blake let Cora know that he was watching her.

Cora, for her part, tried fruitlessly to enlist the help of those who owed a debt to her mother. It wasn’t long before Blake unceremoniously uprooted the cabbage that Cora had been cultivating in her garden and deposited his doghouse on the strip of land. When Cora arrived and discovered it, everyone quietly watched her. Had it been later in her life, she would have asked the Hob women or Lovey for assistance. Instead, as if in a trance, she walked back to Hob and plucked an old, forgotten hatchet off the wall. As everyone watched, Cora hacked the doghouse to pieces as the scared dog scampered to a hiding place beneath his master’s cabin.

Blake then balled his fists and stepped towards Cora, and “[w]hat happened between those two figures in that moment—the burly young man and the slender girl in white shift—became a matter of vantage” (20). Those that were situated near the older line of cabins saw Blake’s flabbergasted and anxious face, while those who stood by the newer row of cabins saw Cora’s eyes flashing as though she were confronting an advancing army: “Regardless of perspective, what was important was the message imparted by one through posture and expression and interpreted by the other: You may get the better of me, but it will cost you” (20). Cora then cleaned up the mess that Blake had made of her garden and placed a piece of castoff sugar maple wood in the garden as her perennial seat.

Cora then became the Hob’s longest and most notorious inhabitant. Unlike the others, who killed themselves, were sold off for cheap once they lost their minds, or were hobbled by the work, Cora endured. The legend of the hatchet confrontation with Blake permanently marked her as an outcast. Blake and his friends began telling menacing tales about Cora. Women claimed that she engaged in bestiality with donkeys and goats in the forest during the full moon. Not long after she came into sexual maturity, Edward, Pot, and two others from the southern portion of the plantation raped Cora behind the smokehouse. The women of Hob women ministered to her injuries after the assault.

By the time of Cora’s rape, Blake was gone. He absconded three years after Cora destroyed his doghouse and was able to survive hidden in the swamps for several weeks. It was the barks of his dog that clued the patrollers in to his position: “Cora would have said it served him right, had his punishment not made her shiver to think about” (21).

Chapter 3 Summary

On the day of Jockey’s birthday feast, a large kitchen table has been laid with food for his celebration. Alice, the cook beloved by the Randalls, swats a child named Chester away from the food, as she tends to a pot of soup. Cora recounts the time that Alice threw the heads of cabbage that Cora once brought as a contribution to another party into the slop pile once Cora turned to leave. Cora wonders if the same fate befell the food offerings she brought to Alice over the past five years.

James Randall could always be soothed by a treat from Alice’s kitchen, whereas Terrance Randall hit Alice after becoming displeased with one of her broths when he was 10 years old. She still had a bump next to her ear that marked the blow. This anecdote displays the differences between the two brothers’ temperaments: James is happy to manage his inheritance with a slow and steady hand, while Terrance is more proactive and ruthless in his pursuit of the riches that he can secure through the labor of his enslaved people.

Cora takes up her customary duty of prepping children for the race that will occur as part of the festivities. She takes note of Chester in particular. Chester is an orphan like her—his parents were sold off during his first year of life. He has recently undergone a growth spurt, and Connelly remarked that Chester has the makings of a great picker. Cora sees Chester’s manhood approaching and predicts that he will opt out of the races next year, in favor of scheming on the sidelines with other young men.

Lovey presides over the race’s finish line, and Jockey, as is his custom, doles out slices of ginger cake to winners and losers alike. Cora intimates that, although Jockey claimed to be 100 years old at his last birthday party, he was only half that age in actuality. Still, at that age, he is the oldest enslaved person on either of the two Randall plantations. His birthday celebrations, as well as the day on which they occur, are subject to his whims.

Cora reflects on her own age, which she figures is 16 or 17. It has been one year since Connelly commanded her to find a husband, two since Pot and company raped her, and six since her mother fled.

Then, although many of the northern plantation enslaved people have moved to the kitchen to eat, Cora finds Caesar lingering near her. He tells her that he is running north soon, and that he wants her to come along with him, “for good luck” (27). Cora knows that Caesar is sexually involved with a woman named Frances, although she also puzzles over her own attraction to him. However, she immediately concludes that Caesar is simple because of his request, and she replies, “I ain’t trying to get killed by Connelly, or patrollers, or snakes” (27). Cora has resolved that she is not going to endeavor to make the white man’s mission of killing her any easier.

As the party continues to unfold, corn whiskey and cider circulates while husbands from other plantations, having walked miles, begin arriving for their Sunday evening visits. Lovey openly lusts after a man named Major, whom she watches as he engages in a wrestling match.

Cora, hearing the music surge, is deterred from joining in the dancing by the knowledge that men take the carousing as license to violate women according to their whims. Although both Edward and Pot are now dead, she remembers one time that she joined in the dancing only to find Edward quickly in front of her, “his eyes alight” (29).

Then, the music suddenly stops when the Randall brothers emerge from the darkness like specters and begin surveying the party. Terrance announces that he was drawn to the party upon hearing its “god-awful racket” (30), while also telling Jockey not to let his presence disturb the party. The two men are visibly drunk.

Cora looks for Caesar but cannot find him. He was also not present the last time the Randall brothers had come to the northern part of the plantation as a unit. James customarily leaves daily operations in the hands of Connelly. Terrance, on the other hand, likes to appraise the enslaved people on his brother’s side of the plantation—especially the women upon whom “he grazed heartily”—even going so far as to visit enslaved couples on their wedding night to “show the husband the proper way to discharge his marital duty” (30-31). It is also known that, although James often engages various marriageable women for dinner on the plantation, according to his valet Prideful, he prefers to exercise his erotic energies at a brothel in New Orleans, where he practices BDSM. Cora knows that the brothers are eventually bound to unleash sudden violence upon the party.

Terrance begins scratching the cane that he inherited from his father in the dirt. The cane, which Terrance has beaten many enslaved people with, is topped by a silver wolf’s head. Terrance asks to see Michael, a boy who has been trained to recite the Declaration of Independence. Terrance wishes to confirm the boy’s talent, which James has spoken about. However, Moses, “the boss unfortunate enough to stand closest to the Randall brothers” (31), informs Terrance and James that Michael is dead. By the time Michael arrived at the Randall plantation, his mind had already become so unstable due to trauma and torture, and his work so subsequently mediocre that Connelly staved the boy’s head in. James, clearly upset, declares that he should have known of Michael’s demise, as the boy and his recitations were often trotted out as a parlor trick when conversation inevitably turned to the diminished mental capacities of enslaved people.

Terrance then taps his cane and demands that his enslaved people, who have already begun to haltingly assemble for a dance staged for him, indeed dance: “Putting on a show for the master [is] a familiar skill, the small angles and advantages of the mask, and they [shake] off their fear as they [settle] into the performance” (33). Cora forces herself to join the circle and, like everyone else, begins craning her neck to nervously check the Randall brothers’ responses to the dance. Then, suddenly, Terrance singles out Chester, blaming him for a single drop of wine that has soiled his pristine white sleeve cuff. As Chester grovels before Terrance and James assumes a fatigued expression, Terrance begins to repeatedly bring his cane down upon Chester, who is now screaming.

A feeling that has not possessed Cora since the day she brought the hatchet down upon Blake’s doghouse exercises a spell upon her. She has witnessed horror upon horror during her time as an enslaved person and done nothing, but now, that feeling “[grabs] hold of her and before the slave part of her [catches] up with the human part of her, she [is] bent over the boy’s body as a shield” (34). Terrance proceeds to savagely beat her.

Chapter 4 Summary

This year, there are seven women living in Hob. Mary, the eldest, moved herself to Hob because she suffered from fits that left her writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth. The fits damaged Mary’s productivity, and she moved to Hob to escape the wrath of her cabin mates. Mary works in the milk house with two enslaved women, Margaret and Rida, who, prior to their purchase by James Randall, were “so tangled by sufferings that they could not weave themselves into the fabric of the plantation” (35). Margaret is prone to emitting “miserable keenings and vulgar oaths” at inopportune moments, and Rida, “indifferent to hygiene” (35), reeks. Lucy and Titania, other Hob residents, never speak—“the former because she chose not to and the latter because her tongue had been hacked out by a previous owner” (36). Lucy and Titania work under Alice in the kitchen. Two other Hob women died by suicide during spring, and the narrator intimates that no one will remember them. This leaves Nag and Cora, who are cotton workers, as Hob’s other residents.

At the end of the workday, Cora walks unsteadily, and Nag assists her. The boss fixes them with a wrathful gaze, but Cora’s “obvious madness had removed her from casual rebuke” (36). They walk by Caesar, and Cora arranges her face into a blank expression, which she has done ever since he asked her to run away with him.

It has been two weeks since Jockey’s birthday, and Cora’s injuries have not yet healed. The beating left one of her eyes swollen shut, and her injured temple bears a scar in the shape of an X.

However, the lashing that Connelly subjected her to the following day was much worse. Connelly is an aging Irish man who gleefully whipped Cora’s mother and grandmother before he whipped her. He was doubly displeased by what had happened during Jockey’s party for two reasons. First, he was interrupted while he was laying with Gloria, his current wench. Second, he hadn’t informed Terrance about Michael’s death, which made him look bad when the boy’s death was discovered. He brutally whips both Chester and Cora as a result—and Chester never speaks to Cora again.

James Randall falls ill following a visit to New Orleans, and Terrance takes over administration of the plantation’s northern half as a result. The following day, Terrance will inspect the northern half to make it harmonize with the southern half. The idea of his visit fills Cora with dread: “No one [doubts] that it would be a bloody sort of harmony” (39).

Cora goes to sleep. In the middle of the night, she awakens. She reflects on the events that transpired at Jockey’s party. While she intellectually understands why she rushed to protect Chester, the kernel of passion that seized her during those moments has “retreated to that obscure corner in herself from where it came and couldn’t be coaxed” (39-40).

Randall pays a witch to “goofer” the property, so that anyone with African blood who attempts to flee will develop a terrible palsy. The enslaved people, unsure if the goofer applies only to those with intentions to run away, ceased foraging and hunting in the swamp (from which the actual food comes) for a week. With the exception of Mabel, who was never found, no other enslaved people have escaped. Fugitives—ratted out by friends—are always brought back to be “abused mightily before being permitted to die and those they left behind [are] forced to observe the grisly increments of their demise” (41).

One week after Mabel’s escape, Ridgeway, notorious for catching enslaved people, visits the plantation to take notes and gather information. He arrives with five skulking associates, including a threatening Indian scout with a necklace composed of shriveled ears adorning his neck. Ridgeway is 6.5 feet tall and has a square-shaped face sitting atop a thick neck. His attitude is simultaneously serene and ominous.

Ridgeway does not return to the plantation until two years later, shortly before Old Randall’s death, to apologize for his failure at catching Mabel. He comes bearing the heads of two runaways, killed for crossing state lines, in a sack. The Indigenous person in his party has been replaced by a young rider with a similar necklace. During the visit, Ridgeway relays rumors that a new leg of the underground railroad is in operation in the southern part of the state—although such a thing should be impossible. Old Randall dismisses these rumors, assuring Ridgeway that accomplices would tarred and feathered or disposed of in whatever manner local custom dictated. Then, Ridgeway and his party set back out on their never-ending work.

Mabel prepares for her journey by packing a machete and a cabin mate’s stolen shoes. She also packs the turnips and yams from her garden plot, although such a cumbersome load is counterintuitive to the stealth that her escape requires. For several weeks, her uprooted garden testified to the miracle of her escape—until Cora arrived to smooth over and cultivate her inheritance. The garden sits neglected during Cora’s convalescence. She feels that it is now time to return to tending it.

Terrance arrives to pay his visit to the northern half, and his customary sardonic remarks are markedly absent. As Cora attempts to hide herself in the shoulder-height cotton stalks, Terrance tips his cane at her and then silently moves on.

Two days later, James dies of kidney failure. Those who had been alive during Old Randall’s funeral couldn’t help but compare James’s funeral to his father’s. Old Randall and his brothers, having led the area’s turn to cotton and its ensuing prosperity, are greatly respected. Many younger planters went to Old Randall for counsel, which he gave uninhibitedly. Even the enslaved people were permitted time off to attend Old Randall’s funeral, and were his pallbearers. This detail seemed scandalous at first, “but on further consideration [it was taken] as an indicator of [a] genuine affection” (44) that many of the white attendees shared with their own enslaved people.

In contrast, by the time of James’s death, he and his brother had severed all social ties with their father’s contemporaries and protégés. James had many business associates but few friends, and Terrance “had never received his human portion of sentimentality” (44). James’s funeral is sparsely attended, and the slaves work through it without question.

While James was not kind by any means, “he was the portrait of moderation compared to his younger brother” (44), and Terrance’s reputation on the southern half precedes him. As Terrance travels to New Orleans to get his brother’s affairs in order, the narrator remarks that Terrance’s impending domain over the northern half provides good a reason to run away. An enslaved man named Big Anthony seizes the opportunity and is discovered by the constable 26 miles away, sleeping in a hayloft. He is brought back in a giant iron cage. His punishment is held off to prepare its accompanying theatrics.

On the evening before Big Anthony’s punishment, Caesar comes to call at Hob. Cora brings him outside to prevent any eavesdropping. She has told no one of his proposition. He tells Cora that he is sorry about her beating. Cora, having viewed Caesar as a complete fool two weeks prior, now observes that he seems to be in possession of a curious wisdom. She also reflects that, unlike most enslaved people, who inevitably turn away from the spectacle of witnessing another’s beating, Caesar stood unflinchingly during Cora’s beating. He looked not at her, but at some mysterious thing beyond her.

Caesar repeats his proposal to Cora. She replies that he is mistaken to believe that she is some kind of lucky charm. Caesar warns Cora that things will be bad when Terrance returns, and Cora retorts that things have always been bad.

Terrance has ordered the construction of new stocks, which explains the delay in Big Anthony’s punishment. Despite the time constraint, the carvers have been ambitious with the wood stocks, emblazoning it with frolicking minotaurs, mermaids, and other mythological creatures. Big Anthony is then secured into the device, where he dangles for the first day of his punishment. On the second day, a coterie of fancy visitors from Atlanta and Savannah arrive, along with a journalist from London. As these guests slowly savor a fine meal from Alice’s kitchen, Big Anthony is whipped nearby. Even after the guests retreat inside to escape the mosquitos, his whipping continues.

On the third day, the enslaved people are pulled from their work posts and corralled onto the front lawn. Randall’s guests drink spiced rum and Big Anthony is sprayed with oil and roasted alive for all to see: “The witnesses [are] spared his screams, as his manhood had been cut off on the first day, stuffed in his mouth, and sewn in” (47).

Terrance then addresses all the enslaved people. He declares the plantation one entity with a singular purpose and management. He laments his brother’s death. He walks among them, touching individuals according to his whims—petting older worthies from the southern half, jerking a boy’s jaw to inspect his teeth, and slapping a man who weeps at Big Anthony’s thrashing against the stocks. He informs then that all pickers’ daily quotas will now increase, and that the fields will be reorganized for maximum efficiency. When he walks by Cora, he cups her breast, and she does not flinch. He then informs everyone that the only feasts that they will be allowed are those on Christmas and Easter. He finishes his speech and leaves to lead his guests on a tour of the cotton while the assembled enslaved people wait for Connelly’s dismissal.

Cora understands that, now, she definitively belongs to Terrance. Her mind wanders beyond the borders of the plantation, and she tries to cobble together the outlines of the outside world based on the stories she has heard. She imagines white buildings and a free, Black blacksmith who serves no one but himself, but these visions are fleeting. She resolves that she must make them tangible by escaping.

Chapter 5 Summary

Cora decides not to tell Lovey or Nag about her plans to run away. She fears Terrance’s wrath upon her friends in the aftermath of her escape. The only person she can speak to about the matter is Caesar.

Caesar is unlike any other Black man that Cora has ever met. He was born on a small Virginia farm, and his enslaver was Mrs. Garner, the petite, elderly widow who owned the farm. Mrs. Garner did little other than maintain her garden and bake. Caesar and his father attended to the farm crops and the stables, while Caesar’s mother took care of Mrs. Garner’s domestic affairs. Caesar’s family also grew their own small crops to vend them in town. They lived in a private two-room cottage, which they painted white with robin’s egg trim, in the back end of the property.

Mrs. Garner did not agree with the mainstream enslavement apologists, but she did see it as “a necessary evil given the obvious intellectual deficiencies of the African tribe” (49). She believed mass emancipation of enslaved people to be unfeasible, as they would inevitably need intensive tutelage to manage their own affairs. However, she did grant Caesar and his family many passes which allowed them to move about the countryside according to their desires. She also taught her enslaved people how to read, “so that they could receive the word of God with their own eyes” (49). These choices caused consternation among her neighbors, but Mrs. Garner was preparing Caesar and his family for their impending liberation: She promised to grant them their freedom when she died.

However, upon Mrs. Garner’s death, Caesar and his family discovered that the woman had left no will, so they would not be manumitted. To add insult to injury, they were also sold South, separately: “Theirs was a pathetic goodbye, cut short by the whip of the trader. So bored was the trader with the display, one he had witnessed countless times before, that he only halfheartedly beat the distraught family” (50). Caesar took this unenthusiastic beating as a sign that he could withstand the abuse to come. His experiences at the Randall plantation quickly proved otherwise.

Caesar and Cora now meet at the schoolhouse whenever they can to discuss their plans. Caesar wants to leave the following night, during the waxing moon. The narrator informs us that Mrs. Garner had “sown the seeds of Caesar’s flight in many ways” (51). For one, he began woodworking because of her encouragement: She counseled him to cultivate a skill that he could use as a freeman. Caesar then apprenticed for a progressive Unitarian and began selling his finely crafted bowls in the town square. He continued this practice at the Randall plantation. Although he did not make good sales, this weekly habit was a small, aggrieved reminder of his former life: “It tortured him at sundown to tear away from the pageant before him, the mesmerizing dance between commerce and desire” (51).

One day, while Caesar was in town, a hunched, gray-haired white man named Mr. Fletcher invited him into his shop and proposed that Caesar begin selling his wares through the shop. Fletcher had caught Caesar’s eye on previous occasions, as the man strolled “among the colored vendors and pausing by his crafts with a curious expression” (53). Fletcher’s sudden request piqued Caesar’s suspicion. Then the man lowered his voice and warned Caesar that his ability to read was obvious and noted by whites in the area.

Mr. Fletcher was from Pennsylvania and relocated to Georgia because his wife refused to live anywhere else. He viewed enslavement as an affront to God, and his firsthand witnessing of the practice’s horrors changed him from being inactive in northern abolitionist circles to having “[t]houghts that could get him run out of town or worse” (52). He made his sympathies and intentions known to Caesar—risking the prospect of Caesar informing on him for a reward. This earned him Caesar’s trust. Together, they planned Caesar’s escape, with the bowls serving as the pretense for their interaction.

Fletcher and Caesar decide that a Sunday would be best for the escape, as Mr. Fletcher’s wife visits her family on Sundays. Mr. Fletcher has informed Caesar that the Underground Railroad, with its “secret trunk lines and mysterious routes” (53), did not operate as far south as Georgia. However, if Caesar can make it to Virginia, the Underground Railroad might be able to help him there.

Abolitionist literature is illegal in this part of the country. Abolitionists and their sympathizers are actively met with mob violence and are subsequently run out of town. An Underground Railroad station has opened up despite this—and Mr. Fletcher has promised to bring Caesar to it if Caesar can make it the 30 miles to his home. Cora and Caesar resolve to escape the following night.

Cora spends a sleepless night in Hob. She wonders about her mother’s last night on the plantation. In Cora’s mind, “her mother was a Hob woman before there was a Hob” (54). She had that “same reluctance to mix, the burden that bent her at all times and set her apart” (54).

The following day, Cora works furiously. The previous night, she enjoyed a conversation with Lovey. During the conversation, Cora displayed a rare intimacy and tenderness with her friend, as a manner of saying goodbye.

For her journey, she packs her hatchet, flint, and tinder. Like her mother before her, she also digs up her yams. As planned, she and Caesar meet by the cotton after the activity in the village dies down. Caesar is bemused by the yams, though he does not protest. They each feel animated by their fear and the impossibility of their flight. They figure that they have six hours before the detection of their escape.

They make their way through the swamp: Caesar has learned how to traverse its terrain by accompanying trappers. After covering only a small amount of ground, they hear a voice. It is Lovey, who jauntily insists that she is coming along. Cora figures that if they force Lovey back, she may be discovered sneaking back into her bed and thereby ruin their head start. Caesar begrudgingly agrees to allow Lovey to continue traveling with them.

While Cora is familiar with Lovey’s fussiness, which causes her to cry out at every night disturbance, she does not recognize the girl’s determination to run. However, she also innately knows the desire to flee toward freedom. Cora marvels at the way that Caesar uses an internal map to guide their steps.

By morning, the three of them are bug-bitten, exhausted, and covered in burrs and tendrils. Lovey fears that the Randalls have discovered the escape. Cora, however, is elated: This is the furthest she has ever been away from the plantation, and even a delivery back to the Randalls in chains could not take that away from her.

Caesar leaves the women posted near a cypress tree, with his pack of supplies, to find the country road and assess their progress. While they wait for Caesar to return, Cora and Lovey converse. Lovey tells Cora that she has known that Cora was planning to escape for quite some time. When Cora asks Lovey what her mother will do, Lovey says that her mother will be proud of her. Caesar returns sooner than expected, and relays that they have made good progress. They press on, resting once before coming upon a home with people inside. They hide until the family puts lanterns out. Although there is a more direct route to Fletcher’s home, they must loop through the trees to avoid going through people’s land.

The trio begins following a pig trail, and a group of four white men who are hog hunters quickly descends on them. The trio unmistakably matches the description of the bulletins that have already been issued. Two of the hunters pin Lovey, the smallest, to the ground—and then drag her into the forest as she screams. Another—a bearded man—wrestles with Caesar, who fights as if he is accustomed to striking white men.

A boy pursues Cora. While she is initially surprised, the feeling of his hands upon her body triggers the memory of her rape, and her body quickly reacts. She fights now in a manner she was unable to then—with ferocious abandon and strength. The boy wrestles Cora to the ground and rams her head against a tree. However, Cora repeatedly smashes a rock against his head until he stops groaning.

Time becomes a figment to Cora as the bearded man flees and Caesar pulls her away from the scene. Lovey is nowhere to be seen. Cora and Caesar flee, and they do not stop until the realization that they are directionally disoriented. Caesar has managed to salvage the waterskin, but they have lost everything else, and, more importantly, Lovey. Cora and Caesar do not speak for hours. Filled with anguish, they each wish they had made different choices. If they hadn’t escaped at all, they could have prevented Lovey’s fate.

Chapter 6 Summary

Caesar then scouts a position in the trees, and he and Cora sleep among the branches for the night. The morning finds Caesar pacing, wondering if Lovey knows the details of the Underground Railroad station. He and Cora haltingly conclude that Lovey knows no specifics.

The two adopt a shallow track in the woods, through which homes are just barely visible. However, they soon reach Fletcher’s home. The signal that Fletcher is home, while his wife is away, is there: The home’s back window curtains are shut. Cora is seized by fevered thoughts of the posses that could be lying in wait—either inside the home or within the woods—if Lovey told anyone the details of their planned escape.

However, Fletcher opens the door and escorts them into the cozy kitchen. Cora and Caesar drain the pitcher of water that is immediately offered to them. Fletcher is displeased to see Caesar’s extra passenger, but there is also now a host of other unforeseen difficulties. Cora and Caesar’s journey has gone awry since its beginning. Jeer, Lovey’s mother, feared that Lovey had gone off with a boy. She therefore was conducting a quiet search when a boss caught her, forced her to make an accounting for herself, and discovered that Lovey had fled. Cora and Caesar therefore never enjoyed their planned six-hour lead. By mid-morning, an unprecedented and well-coordinated effort to find the runaways was already mounted. Every spare hand county-wide has been out searching for the trio (and then pair) for hours. Drunkard and low-life whites were delighting in the opportunity to scourge the Black population; patrol bands swept through slave villages and freeman homes alike, ransacking and committing violence.

Most of the efforts were concentrated on the swamps, which helped the trio evade capture until the hog hunters had come upon them. Cora and Caesar learn that Cora’s attacker was a 12-year-old boy who never awoke from his injuries. Regarded as murderers, Cora and Caesar’s hunters are now out for blood. However, Fletcher’s name was clearly not associated with the venture: Cora and Caesar’s unscathed presence in his kitchen attested to that.

Cora, knowing nothing about the outside world, leaves it to Caesar and Fletcher to determine the ensuing course of action. They decide that it will be best for Cora and Caesar to move quickly and summarily, and Cora and Caesar are stowed underneath a blanket in the back of Fletcher’s cart. This would eliminate the obstacle of having to conceal Cora and Caesar from Mrs. Fletcher.

Cora quickly finds herself nestled in between Mr. Fletcher’s crates, in his cart, beneath the blanket. Visions of the 12-year-old hog hunter keep her from sleeping. However, she soon resolves that it does not matter whether he ever awakens—if they are caught, she and Caesar will be killed regardless. She also feels no regret for her actions, as the boy should not have laid a hand upon her.

Cora listens to the sounds of the town, unable to even imagine the sights. When Fletcher stops the cart, she imagines that the blanket is about to be ripped from its place, bringing chaos—and likely Fletcher’s lynching—in its wake. If they are caught, Terrance is sure to devise torments for Cora and Caesar that will be even worse than those Big Anthony endured. She shivers to think of Lovey’s punishment—unless it is being saved for a reunion of the trio. However, Fletcher has merely stopped for a friend. When this friend leans against the cart, Cora lets out a cry, but he does not hear it. He tells Fletcher of the murderous enslaved people's capture, which a bystander contradicts. Fletcher’s friend also says that there is no word about the injured boy. Throughout the conversation, Fletcher pretends to hem and haw about the runaways and the boy.

When the cart is back on the road, Cora dozes off. She awakens to a reassuring pat from Caesar before the blanket lifts and she finds herself in a dark barn. She quickly notices that thousands of chains—“shackles for ankles and wrists and necks in all varieties and combinations” (66)—dangle from the barn’s walls. Cora examines the torture devices, including an entire row composed of chains designed for children. A man whom she hadn’t seen enter the barn, named Lumbly, explains that he assembled the collection by picking up shackles here and there.

The barn is on Lumbly’s land. Cora and Caesar needed to arrive blindfolded to it—as their ignorance to their exact location was decided to be best for the Underground Railroad. Lumbly is a station agent for the Underground Railroad and lives quietly on the farm otherwise. Fletcher presently announces that he must make his way back home. He hugs Cora with a fervent affection that makes her recoil. She wonders if having two white men’s arms around her is a condition of her freedom. Cora sees an expression of concern and responsibility pass over Caesar’s face as Fletcher departs: Fletcher took on a great risk by inviting Caesar into his shop all those months before and continued to do so by delivering Cora and Caesar this far.

Lumbly then leads Caesar and Cora down a trapdoor in the floor. He has entered first to ease their trepidation. The stairs, which are well-constructed, lead to a small platform, and a railway tunnel that is at least 20 feet tall. Its walls are lined with dark and light stones arranged in an alternating pattern. Two steel rails, secured into the dirt by wooden crossties, form the actual railroad. Cora and Caesar sit on the thoughtfully provided bench and admire the industry and seeming magic that have converged to form the railroad. Lumbly tells them that the railroad took many years to construct, and that the problem of ventilation for it was a particularly difficult obstacle.

When Caesar inquires about the identity of those who constructed the railroad, Lumbly replies with obvious pleasure, “Who builds anything in this country?” (69). He soon informs Cora and Caesar that they have the option of taking one of the two incoming trains. To maintain the railroad’s secrecy, however, he cannot reveal either train’s final destination. He also cryptically tells them that one destination may be more desirable than the other—although the trains’ routes and stations change to evade discovery. Cora and Caesar will not know what truly awaits them until they emerge. After feeling mystified by Lumbly’s vague warnings, they decide to take the next train.

As they await the train’s arrival, Lumbly regales Caesar with more information about the railroad’s construction. Cora, marveling at all the details of the station, cannot pay attention to the conversation. She reflects on the awesome labor that enslaved people perform in the fields—however, unlike that labor, which is stolen and taken from their bleeding bodies by force, the labor that went into the construction of the railroad is something that they can truly be proud of. She wonders if those that constructed the railroad have received their well-deserved rewards. Lumbly informs the two of them that each state holds its own unique opportunities, and that they will gain an understanding of the entire country before arriving at their final destination.

The train arrives. It is composed of an ungainly black locomotive and a single dilapidated car. Its Black engineer waves at them and smiles. As Lumbly ushers them into the car, he says, “If you want to see what this nation is all about, I always say, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America” (71). Cora, heeding him, peers through the cracks in the car during her journey, but sees only darkness. Soon enough, she and Caesar arrive in South Carolina.