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either side of me I pressed my cold knuckles against the buggy bench for balance. Before long, my mother transferred both reins to one hand and with the other covered my cold fist. My hands felt as though they had turned into toads or stones. Her palm was warm and comforted me, but it was also damp as though her hand had been crying.
    Because I did not want her to think I was indifferent to her comfort,I uncurled my fingers, turned my hand over, and returned her clasp. Still, my torso felt petrified, the fibers of my being turned insentient.
    As we stood on the street admiring the steamboat, a plume rose from her and immediately a blasting sound that reverberated up from my feet, through viscera, and out the top of my head. I was surprised it did not lift my scalp and attendant hair as though I wore a wig. And with this mighty noise gush, I was blasted from numbness back to life. Like gunpowder clearing the river of ice, the sound cleared me and life flowed again, seeking its own expression and adventure.
    I gasped, my mother looked down at me, we exchanged excitement, wonder, hope, even happiness at our decision, and stepped forward. Thus began our upstream journey. When I looked down at the giant wheel turning, I thought of Don Quixote’s windmill.
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    A STEAMBOAT is a pretty thing, trailing its black cloud; to tour its tiers, to look out at the slowly passing landscape are activities so purely recreational that one feels deliciously leisured. Sometimes a drab barge, headed west, would pass us. We gloried in the white-glazed gingerbread of our railings and our knowledge of the appointments within, the shined brass and the velvet seat covers. We felt valuable and promenaded the balconies daintily, stopping at the railing first on the Kentucky side and then on the Indiana side to admire the vistas.
    We walked past one gloomy section. On a bulletin board affixed to the cabin were tacked several Wanted posters, advertising Rewards for runaway slaves. I yet remember three of these declamations and the Value they attached to Property:
    Wanted
    Large, strong, coal-black $800 male Shifty eyed,
    bit-broke teeth on left
    Clover-leaf brand left shoulder
    Dangerous and Desperate
    $50 for information
    $500 for return to Sweet Clover Farm
    Tidewater, Virginia
    WANTED
    CLEVER SMALL MALE MULATTO, CAN MEND SHOES AND
DO OTHER LEATHER SEWING. SCARS IN LEFT PALM .
MAY TRY TO PASS FOR FREE WITH FORGED PAPERS.
CAN READ SOME AND IS VERY TRICKY.
STABBED OWNER TO DEATH.
RETURN LEFT HAND FOR REWARD
$1,000
SHERIFF AND CITIZENS OF CHOCTAW COUNTY, ALABAMA
GONE SINCE EASTER 1820
    Negro Wench and Daughter
    $1,200 Reward for Both Unharmed
    Mother is Pecan-colored; daughter almost white but with broad nose and dark freckles, gold eyes
    Mother may be in family-way; daughter about 12, unbroke
    Last seen New Year’s Day 1822
    Take to New Orleans Dock: Mr. Beauchamp
    When I walked with my mother I did not look at the posters because it seemed degrading to even glance at the offering of blood money. Whenever I promenaded the deck alone, I stopped and read the notices in horrible fascination. The girl with the golden eyes was my own age. There were three notices with sketches of men who looked through me at the passing Kentucky shore, but I did not think the pictures would be of much use in apprehending any particular slave. The runaways had been drawn so as to look more or less alike, as though to be a Negro were simply to have certain lips and hair. All the eyes looked haunted and frightened.
    After supper but before we retired to our sleeping berths, Mother said, “Come, Una,” and took me for another stroll on the deck. The sun was setting and breezes had come up. Most women and childrenhad gone straight to bed and the men to the card room. The stench of cigars polluted one section of our walk. Mother pointed out how the smokestack blew a dramatic black plume across the red of the western sky. Someone played an accordion from within. I