Indentured

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “It is not much farther,” Nat told Leatrisha, as she hugged against his arm to keep her balance as the wagon sometimes rocked precariously over the rough path.

  “Damnation!” Nat breathed, as he pulled the horses up. “A tree has fallen and blocked the path. I don’t know how we will get this wagon turned around. There is not enough room. And we can’t back it up all the way.”

  “What are we going to do?” Leatrisha asked, starting to feel frightened.

  “What ever we decide, it is going to take time to accomplish. Either we manage to move the tree, or we manage to turn the wagon. I do not have a hatchet or ax to cut the tree up, but I do have tools to dismantle the wagon. Trouble is, I don’t think we can get it dismantled and turned around before dark. If we try to work in the dark, we might end up losing nuts and bolts, and would never get the wagon back together again.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Leatrisha asked.

  “We will have to stay the night, and first thing in the morning, dismantle the wagon, and turn it around. We can sleep under a the wagon for shelter, in case it rains or something. Come down and help me pile up some leaves to lay on, and we will cover with the blanket. There’s enough food left over that we can eat for breakfast.”

  “Rand is going to be worried sick, if I don’t come back tonight,” Leatrisha cried.

  “There is nothing we can do about that right now,” Nat pointed out.

  “He may send someone out looking for us,” she reasoned.

  “They will never find us here,” he assured her. “They will expect we took the main road.”

  “This is awful!” she moaned.

  “Guess I am not going to be able to meet Nelly tonight after all,” Nat chuckled. “I’d rather spend the time with you, anyway,” he told her truthfully. “We will have time for me to collect the rest of the kisses you owe me,” he teased.

  Nat climbed down and helped Leatrisha to the ground. Without talking the two of them began scooping up leaves, and piling them under the wagon. By the time they had finished, the sun had started to set, and a chill filled the air, the moment it started getting dark. Nat, pulled the blanket from the wagon, and the two of them crawled under the Wagon, while the horses stood patiently.

  Pulling Leatrisha against his strong chest, Nat, put the blanket over the two of them, and held his arms around Leatrisha. “If we start kissing, it will warm us,” Nat told Leatrisha.

  “How?” Leatrisha wondered.

  “It will cause our hearts to beat faster, and that will pump the blood faster, which warms the body,” he explained. “You owe me anyway, so we can take advantage of it, to keep us warm,” he reasoned.

  “All right, if you believe it will work,” she shivered.

  “If it doesn’t work, you can insist we stop,” he promised.

  Nat pulled the blanket up over their heads, as he found Leatrisha’s mouth with his, pulling Leatrisha into a long extended kiss, while his hands rubbed against her body to help warm her. Leatrisha found her breath quickening, as she participated in the kiss, allowing Nat access to her inner mouth. She realized she was starting to warm up, and so did not resist.

  Once again, she tried to pretend it was James there with her. Leatrisha let her mind float away as Nat, feasted upon lips, bringing her senses alive and causing her body to start to burn as her breath started to race even faster. Leatrisha felt she should stop him, and yet he had been right, she was almost too warm now, and her body was screaming out for how his kisses were making her feel, so she allowed him to continue, kissing her, remembering how she had kissed Rand all night once. She could feel the rising of her soul, wising that her world could erupt into that place of bliss that can drown one alive, and make them pray to continue drowning, the way it had when she was with James.

  “Are you warm enough now?” he whispered, as he smoothed her face between his hands.

  “Yes, I think so,” she whispered back. She realized that it was something she had needed. She had missed James so desperately, yet now she realized part of the missing James, was missing the touch of a man.

  She didn’t love Nat. Not the way she loved James. The love of James had built up over a lifetime of sharing. But Nat was a friend. She hoped she wasn’t fooling herself when she rationalized that his actions were motivated by the want to keep her warm. But she responded in her longing for the delight of being kissed and wanted by a man. Rand certainly did not want her. Everything she did merely aggravated him.

  Leatrisha stirred. Nat was not beside her any longer, and she opened her eyes, to discover that Nat had started taking the wagon apart. When she sat up, Nat turned to look at her.

  “Were you warm enough all night?” he asked.

  “Yes thank you,” she smiled.

  “You only owe me five more kisses,” he smiled back. “I didn’t want to use them all up last night. I might want some for the future, in case you get cold.”

  “I beg to differ with you. You took much more than ten kisses. Just because you refused to remove your lips from mine did not mean it was merely a single kiss!”

  “No use talking about it now. It’s done and over with,” he said. “By the way you were responding, I think you needed what I gave. Right now we need to get this wagon apart and then put it back together again, and I am going to need your help.”

  Leatrisha pulled herself out from under the wagon, and came over to where Nat was working.

  “Tell me what to do,” she mumbled, smiling down at his tousled hair, and sleepy looking eyes. “You don’t look like you got too much sleep last night.”

  He grinned. “If you must know, while I was kissing you, my frustration only mounted. I’m still frustrated, but I’ll survive.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair. You should have pleasured yourself, or something. I’ve heard of it.”

  Nat turned and looked at her. “You are rather direct,” he stated.

  “It drives Rand crazy,” she smiled. “I one time described to him how I had touched James, and he refused to allow me to finish describing it.”

  “I can see why. Just you mentioning it, is frustrating me even more.” He glanced down at his buckskins.

  “You should have told me, and we could have stopped,” she insisted.

  “Too late now. Hold that board up for me, will you, while I loosen the bolt, and stop this risky talk, or I will have to collect my last five kisses, and we will never get out of here.”

  Slowly the wagon was taken apart and then reassembled and at last Nat was able to hitch the horses back up, and the two of them climbed up in the wagon, eating the rest of the lunch, as they road back down the path to the river out look.

  “We are going to have to double back to the landing, and go back up the main road, which is going to be time consuming, but is the only way we will be able to get back,” Nat related, as they turned back towards the landing.

  “Well, at least we are both safe and sound, and even though Rand will probably never let me go with you again to deliver the cotton, I will finagle a way to get you invited to my engagement celebration,” she promised.

  “You are going to have an engagement celebration, even though you are not even engaged?”

  “For appearances sake,” she told him. “Rand has been at me about it for weeks, so I am going to have to give in. I wouldn’t let him plan it for the week end we are transporting cargo, but the week after it will probably get planned.”

  “I would love to come. Then I could dance with you,” he insisted.

  “That would be fun, and you and I, other than Rand, will be the only ones there who know it is all a sham.”

  When they reached the landing, Leatrisha saw Rand, mounted on his horse, galloping up to them. “Where in the name of Hades have you two been? We have been searching all night for you!”

  “We took a short cut through the woods, and got stuck. The only way out was to dismantle the wagon, and it was too late to do it, so we waited until morning,” Leatrisha explained in
one breath.

  “This is unacceptable!” Rand exclaimed.

  “Regardless, there is nothing you can do about it now. We did not plan it, and we resolved the problem, and as you can see, all my limbs are in one piece, and I only kissed Nat to stay warm, so that is the end of the story.”

  “You what?” Rand roared.

  “I can kiss whom I please, as long as I don’t do it in public,” she hissed.

  “Get down from that wagon this instant!” Rand bellowed.

  He climbed down from his horse, helped Leatrisha down, and then placed her on his horse in the saddle, in spite of her skirt, and swung up behind her. She told him that on purpose to irritate him, he grumbled to himself!

  “Don’t forget about coming to our engagement celebration, Nat,” Leatrisha called.

  “What?” Rand hissed in her ear. “You have invited him to our so called engagement party?”

  “He knows it is all pretend. Otherwise I would not be kissing him.”

  “I thought James was the only person you could ever love?” Rand questioned.

  “He is. Heavens, I don’t love Nat. First of all I lost ten kisses to him in a poker game, and he collected them while we were trying to stay warm. Luckily he had a blanket, or we would be having to do a lot more than just kiss, to keep warm,” she smiled.

  Rand was beside himself with anger and frustration. He had been sick with worry over her safety, had stayed up the whole night scourging the countryside for her. He had been waiting for the barge owner to come to the landing to make sure they had delivered the cotton, and now she gaily tells him she spent the night kissing Nat, a person she had just met, while ignoring him as much as she could manage, even before James had died. He had a good mind to just send her back to her father and be done with her!

  “Every time I give you a little rein, you prove you can not be trusted, Lettie,” Rand complained against her ear.

  “I have not broken any rules,” Leatrisha insisted. “It was not my fault we got stuck. We went to eat lunch at a place over looking the river, and in order to get back we had to cut through the woods. There was no way we knew a tree had fallen across the path, and the road was so narrow we couldn’t turn around.”

  “That is not what I am talking about. What is this business about playing poker with kisses?” Rand demanded.

  “Actually it was with pebbles, only Nat won all my pebbles, and each pebble represented a kiss, so I owed him ten kisses. He had planned to stretch them out over a period of time, but under the circumstances…”

  “Why were you playing for kisses?” Rand interrupted.

  “James and I used to do it all the time, and we were bored waiting for the wagon to be unloaded because there were so many wagons before us, so we spent the time playing cards, and unlike chess, I guess I am not that good at cards. Funny, I used to beat James all the time playing cards for kisses, though.”

  “Could it be you wanted to lose?” Rand guessed. “Or perhaps you were actually winning, by losing,” he sneered.

  “I hardly know Nat. But he was a friend of James, so I liked him,” Leatrisha admitted.

  “He knew James?” Rand took in his breath.

  “Yes. James told him all about me, so he felt like he knew me pretty well himself.”

  “Well enough to take advantage of you with winning kisses at cards?”

  “I was the one who suggested playing for kisses. He even gave me an opportunity to back out, if I wanted to.”

  “And yet you didn’t?”

  “It didn’t seem fair after I suggested it,” Leatrisha pouted. “Why does this all interest you so much?” she asked suddenly. “You keep telling me how you are never going to marry me, and I did not kiss Nat in public, so why are you so upset?”

  “I was just worried sick about you, and there you were enjoying yourself with kissing some stranger who happened to know the man you wanted to marry. It just seems…hard to accept. I will never understand you, Lettie.”

  “You are not going to punish me, are you?” she asked, turning in the saddle. “If you want I will play you cards for kisses, if you think it will make it up!”

  “Really, quite absurd, for you to offer. If I wanted to kiss you, I wouldn’t have to play cards to get your kisses.”

  “I suppose not, but at least that way, you would win them fair and square, instead of taking them as though you deserved them!”

  “You don’t think I deserve them, after all I have been doing for you?”

  Leatrisha stopped and took in her breath, when he said the words. He was right. He had done more for her than any other person in her life, and here she was accusing him of not deserving anything from her in return.

  “I suppose you are right,” she said at last.

  She turned in the saddle and put her arms around his neck.

  “Take all the kisses that you want, Rand,” she whispered, as she placed her mouth on his.

  Rand stopped the horse, and pulled her down from its back, enfolding her in his arms.

  “You don’t know how much I worried about you, Lettie. I was sure I would find you floating face down in the river somewhere. I was beside myself. I thought of all the times I have been angry at you for your silly stunts, and repented to God if I could only find you, and then you tell me you were kissing Nat the whole time...I…I…” He couldn’t finish, as he crushed her to him and covered her mouth with his.

  “Lettie, Lettie,” he cried, as he pulled his mouth away. “Stop scaring the wits out of me!”

  His mouth was closing over hers again, as he held her to him, thanking God she was alive, and in his arms where he wanted her to be, if she would only come to her senses and stop playing silly games.

  “If you truly want kisses, I will give you all you can handle. I just thought you were clinging to the memory of James. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “I do love James. I don’t think I could learn to love someone else. I wasn’t kissing Nat because I was falling in love with him. It was a game, and he was trying to keep me warm. That is all there was to it.”

  “And why are you kissing me?” he asked.

  “Because you deserve my kisses more than anyone else I know. I just thought that Mazy kept you contented with her kisses.”

  “You know so little,” he whispered, and placed her back upon his horse, swinging up behind her. “I’m going to hold onto you to keep from falling off, Lettie. I don’t know if I can hold my eyes open.”

  “I’ll take the reins, and you can sleep against my back,” Leatrisha offered. “I’m sorry for making you worry so much.”

  “I forgive you Lettie. You know it seems no matter what you do, I will always forgive you,” he murmured, and then she felt him lay his head on her shoulder, as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She wondered if he would forgive her, if he ever found out that she was helping the underground railroad.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Leatrisha and Theodore, waited at the shack, keeping their eyes pealed for the ‘cargo’ to arrive. She had slowly pilfered food from the pantry, but was careful to only take things at the back of the shelves, and things that Mama Liz would not miss right away. Her two bags of food was tied together with a short rope and slung over Black Magic’s neck. Theodore looked frightened, as the light from the full moon glistened against the whites of his eyes. Other wise he almost appeared invisible in the darkness.

  Leatrisha had robed herself in black clothing, and a black hat, only her face glowed in the moonlight. White puffs of breath hovered before her mouth, since the fall evenings had been turning so cold, but the warmth of Black Magic’s back against her thighs, kept her warm, and the black sweater pulled over her shirt, defended against the chill that surrounded her.

  No one would know it was a woman that helped guide the cargo through the woods to the next station. Nat told her that women helping the movement of what was sometimes called “The freedom Train” was frowned upon by those in charge, but there were always a few wom
en, like Harriet Tubman, who managed to take part, despite the disapproval of others. But she was a black woman, he explained to Leatrisha.

  Leatrisha didn’t want to be recognized as part of the movement. Rand must never discover her involvement in it. Once they got to the cave, she would return with Theodore, and leave the cargo with Nat, so when he reached the river, her participation would never be discovered.

  She would take the lead, and Nat the rear, on their trek through the woods. Nat had taken the rear when James got shot, and it would have been him lying and bleeding on the ground, had James not doubled back to help him fight off the slave hunters, as the slaves scattered and hid.

  Leatrisha, could not help but keep glancing back towards the plantation, worried that Rand would change his mind about letting her and Theodore ride out, and come charging after them. He had been so upset with her episode with Nat, that she was sure he would tighten the rein on her. But for some reason he seemed relaxed, ever since she told him he could have as many kisses from her as he wanted.

  He hadn’t taken the kisses, but it seemed to change something about him, when she said that, and now when he looked at her, he seemed less anxious about what she was up to. The rest of the week until that night, she made it a point to spend as much time with him as she could, playing chess, and reading books. She even offered to play cards with him for kisses, and he laughed and told her he would take her up on it later, maybe.

  Together they planned the engagement celebration, and he seemed excited about it, more than she was. Since it really didn’t mean anything, she couldn’t understand why he was so caught up in the idea.

  There was only one thing that kept nagging at her. She had not had her course yet, and it was two weeks overdue. If it turned out she was carrying James’ child, she would be overjoyed, and yet terrified. She would have to tell Rand, and she didn’t know what he would do when he found out. She was certain he would send her straight home to her father and wash his hands of her for good. She only hoped she was merely off schedule. If she didn’t start by the time of the engagement celebration, she would have to tell Rand, to give him the opportunity to back out of the whole charade.