The Way North
Copyright© 2025 by Art Samms
Chapter 12
We snuggled up together as the evening light faded through the thin curtains in our motel room. Passing cars and distant voices could be heard outside. The cash from the coin dealer lay on the table between us, still feeling unreal — too crisp, too modern, too present. We’d counted it together, just to be sure. We couldn’t even comprehend that a much larger payday was most likely in our not too distant future.
Lena got up and sat cross-legged on the bed, her hair loose for the first time in days, her expression thoughtful. She stayed quiet for an interval, tracing small circles in the blanket, before finally speaking.
“Caleb,” she said softly, “you said before that a white man and a black woman can marry in this time. You still mean that? Folks really don’t mind?”
I looked up at her and smiled. “It’s true. It’s legal — has been for a long time. Some people don’t like it, but they’re the minority. Most folks won’t care at all.”
She studied my face carefully, her eyes uncertain. “So, if I walked down the street with your arm around me ... no one would try to stop us?”
I smiled gently. “Not legally, no. And anyone who’d try otherwise isn’t worth a second of our time. We just steer clear of the ones who can’t let go of hate.”
Lena nodded slowly, letting that sink in. “That’s ... different. Feels like something I used to dream about but didn’t dare say out loud.” She gave a small, amazed laugh. “Ain’t sure I’ll ever get used to being allowed.”
I reached for her hand. “You’ll get used to it. And when you do, you’ll wonder how it ever could’ve been any other way.”
For a moment, we sat in silence — the kind of quiet that felt heavy with new beginnings.
Then Lena tilted her head. “What about your people? Your family. You gonna tell them you’re alive?”
There it was... the question. I stared at the wall, at the plain motel furniture that looked like it belonged to no one in particular — maybe that was fitting.
“I thought about it,” I said. “A lot. But ... no. I can’t.”
She frowned slightly. “Why not?”
“Because if I show up now, everything changes. They buried me, Lena. There was a funeral, probably. They grieved, they moved on. My old life is gone. If I walked back in, I’d have to explain where I’ve been. No one would believe the truth. And even if they did — imagine what would happen. Reporters, scientists, the government. We’d never have peace again.”
Her expression softened as the reality sank in. “You mean ... we’d be hunted. Like some kind of secret.”
“Exactly,” I said. “We’d lose our freedom all over again.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze steady on mine. “Then we stay dead.”
The phrase hung in the air — strange, grim, but also liberating.
“Yeah,” I said. “We stay dead. And start over. Here. Hundreds of miles away. New names, new papers, new lives.”
Lena leaned forward. “How we gonna do that?”
“I know a guy,” I said. “From before. Used to help people ... off the record. Not criminals — just folks who needed a clean slate. He can get us IDs, Social Security numbers, everything. Quietly.”
Her eyes widened. “He’ll do that for us?”
“We’ll pay him. Plus, he owes me a favor,” I said. “And he doesn’t ask questions.”
She gave a small, incredulous smile. “Seems like you been thinkin’ ahead.”
I shrugged. “You have to, when the world’s this complicated.”
The next morning, I called him from a prepaid phone. His voice was gruffer than I remembered. I didn’t explain much. Just said I needed two clean identities and was willing to pay cash.
A day later, we met him in the back of a quiet diner, the kind that still smelled like the 1970s. Lena sat close beside me, eyes darting around at the chrome and neon lights. My old acquaintance — Paul — didn’t say much. He just took the cash, asked for a few details, took our pictures, and told us he’d have everything ready in forty-eight hours.
Two days later, we picked up the envelope. Inside: a driver’s license for me, a State of North Carolina ID for Lena, Social Security cards, birth certificates. All of the documents were for Caleb Ward and Lena Ward.
Lena held her new ID in her hands for a long time, staring at it like it was a miracle. “So, this means ... I’m real. Here.”
I smiled. “More than real. You’re officially alive.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head in disbelief. Then she looked at the name again and glanced up at me, a teasing glint in her eyes.
“Ward,” she said. “So that’s the name I got now?”
I grinned. “If you want it.”
She tucked the card close to her chest. “I do.”
And in that small moment — in a cheap motel parking lot under a bright, ordinary sky — our past lives finally slipped away, and our new ones began.
The little apartment wasn’t much — one bedroom, slanted floors, paint faded to the color of old bone, and a draft that found its way in no matter how carefully we sealed the windows. But to us, it was paradise. It was ours. For the first time since either of us could remember, we had four walls, a lock on the door, running water, electricity, a soft bed, and most importantly — no one chasing us.
The mornings settled into a rhythm. I’d make coffee first thing. Lena still called it “that bitter drink” but liked the smell. I’d sit at the tiny table with my laptop — the one I’d picked up at a pawn shop — trying to turn everything that had happened to us into something that sounded like fiction. On the screen, it became “a man and a runaway woman in 1853, journeying north toward freedom.” I changed names, details, places, but the heart of it stayed true.
I wrote about mud-soaked trails and starlit nights, the sound of river water, the closeness of two people who only had each other. I published the chapters online, a few at a time. To my surprise, people started reading — then commenting. Small numbers, but they cared. Some even sent donations. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cover groceries and the internet bill, while our coin money remained untouched.
While I wrote, Lena began her own journey. At first, she was shy about it — almost embarrassed to sit across from me at the table with a workbook.
“I ain’t never been good with letters,” she’d said the first night, turning a pencil over in her hands like it might bite her.
I smiled. I got up, walked over, and kissed her. “You just haven’t had a teacher who loves you yet.”
That made her laugh, and the sound filled the little cottage like sunlight.
We started simple — the alphabet, then small words. “Cat.” “Tree.” “Sky.” She stumbled at first, hesitating at the shapes of each letter. But it didn’t take long before something lit up inside her. She was curious — insatiably so. Once she realized she could learn, she wanted to know everything.
There were moments that I’ll never forget — the first time she read a full sentence without my help, she threw her arms around me, laughing like a kid.
Another night, she practiced writing her name over and over in her notebook: Lena Ward.
When she showed it to me, the letters uneven but proud, she whispered, “I never had a name that felt like it was mine before.”
Sometimes, when I was writing, I’d look up and see her at the kitchen table, tongue between her teeth, slowly sounding out a word from a borrowed library book. Or she’d be fiddling with her smartphone — the same one she’d been terrified to touch at first. Now, she couldn’t put it down.
The first time she opened a messaging app, she gasped. “So ... folks just talk through the air?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “Through signals.”
“Signals,” she repeated slowly, shaking her head. “And I thought letters were magic.”
Within a week, she was sending short texts — mostly to me, even when we were in the same room.
Hi, Caleb. I love u.
It never failed to make me smile.
Days passed quietly, the rhythm of modern life settling around us like a new kind of music. I’d write in the mornings, she’d study in the afternoons. In the evenings, we’d cook dinner together — or rather, she’d insist on cooking while I pretended to help.
One night, I caught her watching a GED prep video on the tablet. She looked up, eyes wide with determination.
“Think I could get one of those certificates?” she asked.
“You mean your GED?”
She nodded. “Then maybe learn about history. I wanna know what happened after me. What became of all the people like me.”
I felt something tighten in my chest — pride, and maybe a little awe. “Yeah,” I said. “I think you can do all that. And more.”
She smiled, her eyes catching the glow from the laptop screen. “Feels like I got a whole world to catch up on.”
I reached over, covering her hand with mine. “Then let’s catch it together.”
One day, I decided to take Lena into town — a larger nearby place. I surprised her by renting a car for the day. The moment she saw it, her face lit up.
“That’s one of them cars,” she said, almost whispering.
“That’s one of them,” I said, opening the passenger door.
She climbed in, studying everything — the dials, the mirror, the seat belt. When the engine came alive, she clapped a hand to her chest. “Feels like it’s breathing,” she said.
When we pulled onto the road, she pressed her face to the window. I lowered it for her. She felt the wind in her hair, laughing as we picked up speed. “Feels like flying, but with the ground still under us!” she shouted over the rush of air.
I laughed too. “That’s exactly what it is.”
After a few minutes, she found the window control and pressed the button, yelping when the glass slid down with a soft mechanical whir. Then she pressed it again, and it rose smoothly. Down. Up. Down. Up.
I could see the delight spreading across her face.
“You like that?” I asked.
She nodded, smiling. “I like that I can choose. Down or up. Wind or no wind. All my life, I never had much choice about anything.”
Her words really hit home. The joy in them, simple as it was, held a lifetime of pain beneath it.
In town, I parked the car and we got out. She clung to my arm like a child seeing the larger world for the first time — which, in a sense, she was. The place buzzed with life: cars humming by, phones chiming, people darting in and out of stores under a bright, digital sky.
Her head swiveled constantly, eyes wide. “So, this is how folks live now?” she asked. “So clean. So bright. So loud.”