Ghost On The Train

This was the third trip that Charlotte had taken to the swampy area around the Ohio River. During this time of the year, slave catchers have their bounties, and the summer nights provide easy traveling weather. This time, 3 people were waiting for an opportunity to get their piece of the American dream. Mack brought his wife Josie, a mulatto, who could pass for a white woman, Trevor, and a map. Mack was 29 years old and a 2nd generation slave from Master Jeb's plantation. Josie, his second wife, a transplant from a neighboring plantation, sold off when her Master fell ill and the land in disrepair. Young Trevor, 6 years old, was the only child of his parents and already a trusted field hand.

During their trek through the thick and uncompromising forest of Kentucky, Josie fed her family sweet bread and tea that she smuggled from the kitchen. Being a mulatto allowed Josie to get into areas not generally accessible to slaves. During those days, the darker you were, the more likely you would work in the field. Inside those plantations held the most monstrous and evil things you could imagine. "Now look Josie," Mack reminded, "if we see any white men I will give myself up, and y'all keep running." Years earlier, this would have been unbelievable for Josie to run off on her husband, even when she had plenty of chances to do so for freedom.

But this night, they were running together and would encounter the woods that sought to deny them.

Charlotte Baines was born on Master Steven's planation around 1809 to an African man, Mutulu, and a slave girl named Emily. The two were strangers and forced together to produce bigger bucks for Master to use in the field. But they had a girl, Charlotte. Mutulu and Emily had 5 other children, all sold off to other plantations early in their collective lives. Charlotte was born with rickets (a condition where her bones did not form correctly), as the folks on the plantation called her bow-legged. This was the saving grace that kept her on the same land as her parents. Charlotte grew up with all the raiments of the time; however, she seemed to stand out to the other boys and often men on the plantation for her courage and tenderness. In particular, Master Steven's son Caleb took a strong liking to her and made his intentions known to Charlotte, and in secret, he did conceive a child with her, Josie.

Charlotte now found herself in a strange relationship that demanded silence, exacted shame from her, and confused her young child. By this time in Charlotte's life, Mutulu and Emily had gone to be with the ancestors, which discomfited her greatly. Despite her challenges, she raised Josie into a beautiful young woman and unfortunately would not live to see her jump the broom with Mack or see Trevor be born. Although, in fact, Charlotte never wanted to raise anyone in that environment where freedom could never exist, only fear.

Once Mack, Josie, and Trevor reached the river-bend, their map instructed them to look for the tree with arched branches and a distinctive "R" marking. Mack had never made the trip all the way north; he was only a scout for others attempting to make a jump on the train. As he and Josie began to discuss the prospects of making it to the north, Chicago specifically, they began to reevaluate their situation and reconsider the motive for this dangerous endeavor. Just as their words began to carry throughout the summer night, there was an echoing "hush, child" from the bush. Mack, Josie, and Trevor kept silent, not understanding where or who made the sound. As they sat down on the forest floor and strategized the next move, Trevor quietly got up and began to walk toward the bush where the timely advice to "hush" had emanated.

Mack and Josie had finished their brief discussion and were now steadfast in their plan to push forward. They turned to retrieve Trevor, who was not lying on the ground; he vanished. Just as Josie began to panic, her mother Charlotte walked out of the tree line, Trevor in tow, smiling and unharmed. Josie quickly grabbed her son and inspected him for injuries before approaching the woman to give her an earful about what had transpired. It was no sooner than Josie looking at this lady's sweet brown face, with perfectly placed lines, that Josie realized it was her mom. Josie screamed loudly. "MAMA!" "How?" "This can't be real!"

At this point, Mack, thoroughly confused at the entire scene, grabs Josie and Trevor to gain space and perspective over the encounter. All this with the threat of being discovered looming ever loudly. "How can she be alive, I know that my daddy's wife done killed her when I was a girl?!" Josie exclaimed, "Mack, are we seeing a ghost?"

Mack says, "Josie, if this be a ghost, we all are seeing it."

As Josie and Mack embraced, Trevor walked up and said, "I love my Grand-mommy, she gave me candies." As Trevor pulls the candies out of his pocket, Josie slaps them to the ground and tells Trevor to hush. The lady clad with soft brown eyes and a rustic dress slightly torn around the seams, as though she had worn it forever. "Child, I kno' you are terribly confused by all this, but we need to be moving, for the baby's sake." "You don't know him!" Snapped Josie, "you just an aberration, cause of the heat."

Mack suggests to Charlotte that she point them north and help them get on their way. As she spoke to Mack and Josie, little Trevor dropped one of the toys on the ground, and as he reached down to get it, to his amazement, Charlotte had no legs and was indeed floating under her dress. "Grand-mommy how you do that trick?" Trevor quipped. "I think I can float too!"

Mack and Josie, in disbelief, asked Charlotte who she was and what tricks she was playing. Charlotte, realizing that an explanation was needed, advised the group she would explain while they walked. The journey would take 4 hours on foot, and it included crossing the Ohio River at a shallow area, making it into the woods where an abolitionist has a cabin where they can rest. Josie was completely crestfallen, yet her emotions could not allow her to get in her head if she wanted to race against time and the unseen threats of the forest.

Charlotte's story began around the time that Josie was 3 years old. Caleb, Josie's father, came to her and announced that he planned to allow her to have the southern part of the plantation to raise her family and never have to worry about a place to live. Caleb was married to Ms. Anna Franklin at the time, as interracial marriage would have been unacceptable in the social order of plantation life. Although the agreement was made secret, a night of drinking and an argument about the amount of time Caleb was spending out of the main house during non-working hours had kindled Ms. Anna's rage against Caleb and Charlotte alike.

To complicate things further, the county court would not recognize Charlotte as a rightful owner, so to an extent, Caleb had to disclose the information to his wife. Armed with this information, Ms. Anna hatched a plan to lure Charlotte into the woods under the guise of gathering wood. Generally, this is not an issue, so long as the enslaved possess a pass to be off the plantation. However, Charlotte was purposefully not given one and encountered slave catchers who were instructed to ensure she did not make it back to the plantation. With this information, Caleb, heartbroken through his soul, could not express grief and instead chose stoicism. Charlotte was left in the very woods where Josie was led at this very moment. The family, in complete disbelief, had the closure they needed to understand Charlotte's disappearance from her life.

As they approached the river bank to cross into Ohio and stepped into the shallow entry, a gunshot rang out, and the sound of dogs became audible. Charlotte instructed the family to run and not look back. As the men came closer and the hounds began to foam and salivate at the taste of human flesh, Charlotte appeared in front of the pursuers, fully levitating and even more enraged. With the wisp of her hand, the men were relieved from their clothes, guns, and skin. To the slave catcher's misfortune, they encountered the slave spirit of Ogun that bewitched the deceased slaves of the forest. Amazement and horror allowed the family to run as fast as they could until they reached the riverbank in Ohio; they continued exhaustively primed by the adrenaline into the dense sanctity of the trees. Charlotte left the blood-soaked remains of the slave's catchers and went back to her family. She led them to the cabin when John Russell lived and would now complete the rest of the mission north.

A white Baptist minister and staunch abolitionist, John Russell loathed slavery, the institution, and its tenets that bred nasty graduates fed strange fruits and apologized not. To John, this new American man who carried his degree from the institution felt as though his liberty itself constituted the subjugation of the man deemed three-fifths. In their purview, no parts really equated to a whole human. John found the vile ways the Bible was utilized to underpin strict control mechanisms, purposely decontextualized as a means of controlling another shameful.

How could a preacher accept that institution which transformed the love and grace provided by God into a human experiment painted with hate and greed? He could not; thus, his current profession prevailed. Although John was now in his 60s, his passion for abolishing slavery peppered his life, including his wife's decision to leave him for his beliefs.

Charlotte and Josie enjoyed a brief moment under the moonlight, where the scars from their separation were evident, but also healing could begin. As uncanny for one to digest, this night was a gentle reminder that a mother's love was unconquerable and on full display.