by Riva Zmajoki
The woman looked at her surprised.
“You said that like you cared.”
“I do care,” Josephine said honestly.
“You’re stranger than I thought,” the woman shook her head.
“If you get in trouble come to the White Phoenix Plantation at the end of this road, I’ll give you shelter,” Josephine said breathlessly.
“Just what would I have to do for that shelter?” the woman rose her strong eyebrows.
“Nothing,” Josephine surprised even herself. “You wouldn’t have to anything for shelter. I would help you.”
The woman shook her head suspiciously, suddenly opened the door and jumped out disappearing in the bushes. Josephine put her hand on her heart feeling as it will burst out of her chest. The door slammed as the carriage moved on. The Major-Domo moved and closed the door.
Josephine stared at the forest which moved quickly leaving the woman behind.
“You did that marvellously,” the Major-Domo spoke up too directly, the disdain could be easily heard in his voice.
Josephine focused her attention on his face. He shook his head looking through the window. Never before did Josephine kiss a woman outside of the safety that White Phoenix provided her. The woman made her lose all her bearings and caution to the wind.
“Let’s just hope,” the Major-Domo continued, “that she and her pistol won’t accept your enamoured invitation.”
Her pistol was harmless, Josephine wanted to say to him but words didn’t come out of her mouth. She didn’t want to use her lips and cover the imprint of her lips on them. The mark was left behind, stronger than ever before, and with that mark, there was also the scent of her skin, musk and alluring.
Josephine moved and sat on the place where the woman sat before. She felt trepidation for the woman all alone and hunted in the middle of the woods. She hoped that there is a safe place she can reach, somewhere warm and calm.
1.1 The Phoenix
Charcoaled House
For Sue Preston, her mistress was a strange woman whose desires she couldn’t understand. Sue was a simple woman. All she wanted was for her fiancée to return and to live a peaceful life in some small cottage wearing modest clothes that will draw no gazes her way.
This way even with her belly she had to wear a wide black skirt that prevented her from bending fully. It was a challenge to find a way to scrub the floors. Sue wiped the sweat from her tall white forehead and tucked the lock of her black hair back under her black cap.
The mistress wasn’t home so Sue let herself bend without any grace. When her mistress was there she always tried to find the most modest ways of doing her chores avoiding anything that might provoke attention. Sue feared her mistress most of the time but the roof over her head and food in her growing stomach kept her put.
That and her slow mobility.
There were days when she prayed for her mistress to get convicted so all of them would be free of her wicked ways. Other days she was just grateful that she doesn’t have to roam the streets pregnant and alone.
Carol Thorpe was a proud Major-Domo. His role was his whole life. His thin high figure, his hands in clean white gloves and his white skin made him an admirable addition to a wealthy home that was wealthy enough to employ only white servants. His groomed moustache was the only thing that signalled his masculinity in this women populated household but it was more than enough to send his message through.
His mistress wasn’t a moral woman and that Carol took to heart to cover up. Her wickedness had nothing to do with the outside world.
What happened inside of this house, he kept under his guard. What they did was no business of the outsiders.
Inside of his premises, another kind of rules applied.
‘It’s important,’ he could hear his master say, ‘to keep the mistress of the house safe. She’s the phoenix that keeps us all in check. If she doesn’t approve of us we’ll burn. If you ever wish vengeance over her, don’t ever think that destroying her is the path. We would all burn and she would just fly out of the fire untouched because she lives on the inside of the flame.’
1.2 The Conductor
White Phoenix
Cynthia Kirkpatrick was born into a wealthy family. Her downfall led her to be thrown out of her home and end up on the streets. She blamed her looks for her troubles.
With her lean figure and pleasant features, she attracted the attention of men. It was inevitable that one of them turns out to be convincing enough for her to throw away her chastity.
While she roamed, Cynthia realized that she had no way of supporting herself. She had no skills she could offer. All she was raised for was to become someone’s wife.
Then she would supervise her numerous slaves and just wait for her husband to come home.
Once upon a time that seemed like a dull and unacceptable destiny. Walking through the mud she thought wistfully on that future that would never be.
Tricia Harmon was an orphan. She worked hard from a very young age. Tricia never expected anything but misfortune to fall on her head.
Still, she didn’t expect this kind of trouble. She kept her head low and her appearance didn’t demand attention. That turned out to be poor protection from the male gaze.
All her life, her skill was her only security. Tricia knew how to work but to apply for a position of a maid she had to be at least decent looking if not pure.
Now all she could do was to stumble on the street holding for the walls of the buildings. She was too weak to stand on her own.
“God, have mercy on me,” she whispered.
People who passed her by acted as she was invisible. Tricia wished she was.
Santos Durant de la Cruz was born even paler than his almost white grandma. He wasn’t like his dark father or his mother in the colour of the caramel.
“You’re a spitting image of my father,” his grandma Belva would say and Santos wasn’t sure was that a compliment or an insult.
Still, his father was a man he admired the most.
After all, his father was a conductor on an underground railroad. That meant that he wasn’t often home but when he was he would tell tales of all the slaves they, he and grandma, would free.
“Did you find your father?” Santos’ mother Jolene would ask cutting through the story his father would weave for them to see.
“No,” his father would frown. “We don’t really believe that we’ll find him, there are more than three decades since we last heard of him. Who knows what happened to him.”
“But isn’t that the point? That’s why you risk so much, to find him,” his mother would frown upon him.
“It’s to honour him and to make things right,” his father would caress Santos’ light straight hair sadly. “Even if we found him what would we say?”
“Then why do you go so near your old home? You can go anywhere but in South Carolina. I beg of you at least stay away from the Kershaw County, knowing you two you could walk in Camden hand by hand. You risk of being recognized and captured.”
“Not really,” his father smiled caressing his thick beard. “I was still so young then, beardless boy and my mother young. We know the counties there and we have contacts that trust us to do our chores and I promise to stay away from Camden.”
“Then what’s your expiry date?” his mother continued.
“The expiry date?” his father was confused.
“Yes, till what date will you keep on going down south to do this chore. You know, there is life being led here, mouths to feed, and bills to pay.”
“I know and I do send my pays. We do work wherever we can.”
“So, never,” his mother said darkly in a way Santos would expect a slap all over his face for misbehaving.
“No, not never, until they are all free,” his father said softly.
“Now you’re just being silly,” his mother threw her hands in the air. “You know that will never happen.”
His father jumped up and caught her
hands.
“Don’t be like that. It must happen, there is no way this can go on forever, there just is no way.”
His mother smiled then.
“Then fix it and I’ll wait for one more route to pass. After that, we’ll renegotiate this thing between us.”
His father smiled and they were all sent to bed.
As he lied in his bed, Santos felt safe because he knew that his father will end slavery in his next quest and all of them will live in peace forever in the company of his father.
1.3 The Hunter
Between Tiles
Evan Durant followed his mother Belva Durant on her quest to establish a new railroad to freedom all the way to South Carolina. Paired up they didn’t look like a mother and son, they looked like an owner and her slave.
Evan’s deeply dark skin was a source of their misfortune from his early days and he tried to make up to his mother for all she lost because of him and his reckless behaviour.
Evan towered high over her making her looks small. On her own, her mother would always stir a suspicion that she’s a mixed breed. By his side, she looked like the whitest lady of the south.
Evan was more than happy to be with her on the road. While they roamed it seemed that they’ll make it, that they can erase their past. That Evan can make amends towards her. When they would stay still, dark thoughts would come to haunt him. That’s why he welcomed the difficulties of the task before them.
Although they couldn’t roam deep into the country, both of them wanted at least try to make a first outpost on the top of the state. It was a way of facing their fears.
Evan was so used in seeing his mother as unbeatable that he never questioned her choices. When she said South Carolina he just followed her back towards their old home.
That’s how they ended up in York County where they had no previous contacts to trust. They were also too close to Kershaw County. There were so many areas to avoid. To be recognized here meant jail time.
They got separated when that unexpected hunt began and now he had to find his way on his own.
Evan was never a slave, for that he had to thank his mother. This was the first time he could taste how it feels like to be in the wilderness on your own while the pursuit is on your tail.
To Evan’s despair, he managed to lose them but it was sure that they went after his mother. Earlier, they went into town as they usually did and tried to blend in, to go by unnoticed. Why those random dogs targeted them, Evan couldn’t understand.
Maybe his mother was too noticeable with her skirts and scarfs, she looked too fancy for her skin tone. Evan started to think that he would make a much better conductor than she did. He was a master of not being seen.
That he learned in their years of running away from the law. Still, they should have been forgotten by now but this pursuit was too persistent and precise for Evan’s taste.
When his mother went out of sight, Evan stopped to hear will dogs go after him. They passed him by and went after his mother with precision and relentless care.
That made Evan think.
How could they stir dogs at her without a piece of her clothing? How did they know of her?
The question bothered him so he decided to return to the town in which they ended up in trouble in the first place.
There he wasn’t recognized at all. It seemed like this all was all about his mother and not him.
Luiz Terdreau was a respectable man. Not a good man, but respectable enough that he could walk with his head held high in this world. After all, he looked like he was everything that this world admired and that admiration was reflected back to him.
With his broad shoulders, tall figure and blue eyes smirking beneath his dark hair he was what every mother hoped to bring to the world.
Most of the women showed him all signals they could muster but still, Luiz was aware of his own faults. He was a man who was honest to himself and he wasn’t free to give himself. He had the task that made him stand apart from the rest of them. He was a Federal Marshal that roamed the states and brought criminals to justice.
Among his tasks was to bring in the runaway slaves. That task wasn’t his favourite but it didn’t lie heavy on his heart because he knew for a fact that the colour of their skin was a true reflection of their insides.
He had witnessed that up-close. Their wicked nature was proven to him by free blacks.
Still, he didn’t like to meddle in the business of catching slaves because it was a dirty business. You never knew were the men, who would bring in runaway slaves, truthful or did they just tear someone’s papers of freedom and replaced a free man for a runaway slave.
The wall with faces of runaway slaves couldn’t help with that either because all those faces looked the same, you had to take the word of the bounty hunter as truth. By their very nature, always hunting treasure, bounty hunters were less than trustworthy.
On the other side, there was a wall with known criminals who ran from justice. That was his wall, his obsession. In the middle of seasoned criminals stood her face. The face of a woman who ruined his life.
In his mind, he had a holy mission.
His mission was to bring Belva Durant down, to find her and expose her for what she was, a merciless murderer who walked away free. He couldn’t stand that her name was whispered around the barracks, that it could be heard as something good.
He had chased her all over the country but it seemed that, finally, God showed him a favour and that he was closing in on her.
Soon, the judgement will come and the sinner will be hanged as she deserves to.
II. The Clean Skin must be Dusted
10/01/1858
Honourable Josephine,
The lesson I received from you was invaluable.
I would prefer if I didn’t have to receive it but there it is.
I must have been sinful even before we met but that is my private inner life.
Since we parted I’m making an effort of living an honourable life.
I guess that even a clean skin must be covered in dust before we start to understand, and value, cleanness.
With respect to your journey,
Tannery.
2.0 Split of a Second
Belva walked through the woods cursing herself and her foolishness. The day just got worse and worse. She couldn’t believe that she had hijacked a whole carriage and then, instead of driving it somewhere populated where she can blend in, she just jumped out to run away from that enigmatic lady.
She was far too old to just jump out of the carriage not even looking where she will land.
It was pure luck that she didn’t just break her neck in the fall. The bright side was that till now she had practice in falling so she rolled over the branches and under trees. There she just lied a few moments almost hoping that the crazy woman will stop the carriage and sought out for her.
She was so tired from constant running, but someone had to do it. That’s why she finally got up and went in search of her son. They parted earlier to confuse the hunt. The rendezvous point shouldn’t be far off.
At least now she was behind her hunt’s back, or so she hoped.
Evan waited for her all nervous.
“I told you they will go after you,” he was angry at her. “The dogs caught on your scent, not mine. That damn scarf is your death sentence. Why did you have to carry it, it’s flashy and unnecessary. When it stuck to the branch I thought you’ll die instantly.”
“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” she snapped at him knowing he’s right, but a woman must have some sort of satisfaction in her looks or what’s the point of it all.
“I apologize, mama,” he bowed his head. “I just worry that they will find you now.”
“Even if they do, they don’t have to catch you as well,” Belva put her hand on his beautiful kind face.
As she did that she noted as she always did how pale her hand looks on his dark skin. She loved his colour, it reminded her of what they
are fighting for.
“I know I owe you to survive,” he murmured and she felt guilty for scorning him.
“Let’s just go, if any trouble occurs leave me without hesitation,” she walked on.
“Where will you go if we part again?” he was worried. “There are no familiar places further down, we never went this much south before.”
“There’s a white house called White Phoenix at the end of the road on the left,” she said without thinking about it. “There you’ll find me.”
“On the plantation?” Evan laughed then and she smiled thinking how it’s a good joke.
“Where else,” she said feeling mischievous. “Just ask the matron of the plantation, she’s white as snow and her hair is golden with grey strikes. You’ll know her by her generous cleavage. I stole her heart on the road, she’ll do anything for me now.”
“Mother you’re impossible, joking in times like these ones, someone will hear us laugh,” he shook his handsome head.
“If we can’t even laugh it’s like we’re in those barracks with the rest of our kin, the freedom is worth nothing without laughter,” she said determinately
“Here,” he gave her back her scarf. “I got it off the branch. It’s not wise to leave them traces they can follow.”
“They followed me without it quite well,” she said as she tightens her thorn scarf.
Scarfs gave her the feeling of power, as she is a respectable lady, someone worthy of walking in the middle of the road, someone for whom door would open and trays of food would be lied before to pick carefree what is soothing for her palate.
For now, there was this woods and hope of a change of wardrobe, this one began to stink. Belva wondered how the lady didn’t mind her stench, it was as she was mesmerised with Belva. That would be understandable if she had her scarf if she had time to clean up and do something with her hair, but this way it was just baffling.
What did the lady see in Belva that she liked that much? Maybe it was just the danger. It must be the danger, the lady like that must be bored to death closed in her white house. Belva smiled then surprising even herself thinking how she would know how to end boredom in a nice place like the white house with a lady by her side.
