Crossing Bok Chitto

THERE IS A RIVER CALLED BOK CHITTO that cuts through Mississippi. In the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears, Bok Chitto was a boundary. On one side of the river lived the Choctaws, a nation of Indian people. On the other side lived the plantation owners and their slaves. If a slave escaped and made his way across Bok Chitto, the slave was free. The slave owner could not follow. That was the law.
One Sunday morning during this time, a Choctaw momma woke her daughter up.
“Martha Tom, the sun has been up for two hours. Get up and put your dress on, you lazy little girl! I have a wedding to cook for today. Take this basket and fill it with blackberries. Now hurry back.”
When Martha Tom couldn’t find blackberries on the Choctaw side of the river, she did something she’d been told never to do- she went crossing Bok Chitto. The only way to cross Bok Chitto in those days was a stone path just beneath the surface of the river. Only the Choctaws knew it was there, for the Choctaws had built it. When the river flooded, they built the stones up. When the river sank in times of drought, they built the stones down, always just beneath the muddy surface of the water.
Martha Tom found a patch of blackberries on the slave side of the river. She filled her basket, then looked to the sky for the sun to lead her home. But it was cloudy and she was lost. Martha Tom thought she was approaching the river, but instead she was walking still deeper into the woods.