Tainted Harvest

by E. Denise Billups

  She lifts her gaze to Missus’s artic-blue eyes, unable to answer a question she’s often heard. Most evenings she burns with shame from the comfort she gets from Massa’s touches. But those times come after Missus’s nasty attacks and painful swelts, moments when Massa saw her with crocodile tears rolling off her chin and anger in her heart so tight she wanted to be incinerated by burning rage till her miserable life ended. His touch soothed her pain, made her flesh and blood with human needs. A woman again.

  When Missus lost the third child, she started treating her nicer, praising her attractiveness, exotic mixed-breed looks, and firm body. She buttered her up with words thicker than curd, allowed her more rest and food she now realizes was nourishment for a healthy baby to come. She suspects Massa started visiting her bed at his wife’s demand to fill her belly with a child. Missus knows no decency or jealousy just need for babies. Unknown to Missus, Massa’s occasional trips to her bed grew into regular visits. He never stopped sneaking into her room, even while she was carrying twins.

  “Does he pleasure you?” she asks again, catching Delphine’s shamefaced expression. “I keep forgettin’ you’re just a child at fifteen. But there’s no need for embarrassment now that you know men and conceived. You’re a woman. And don’t worry, I’m not offended by my husband’s carnal desires. There’s no lust for Henry. We tolerate each other in this matrimony of convenience devised by my deceased father. God bless his soul. Henry rose in station when he married into my family, one of the oldest families in Mississippi. I ask for only one thing from this dreadful marriage, children which I can’t conceive.”

  Delphine bristles with disgust at being treated like a mare kept for breeding or as a cow pumped for milk. She tolerates the shame of giving pleasure to Massa Randolph. Pleasure Missus Lorelei’s ailing body can’t produce. The only good from this mess is a better fate for her children. Without flinching, she replies to a question she’d answered more than once before, wondering if she taunts her or the illness has addled her brain. Glaring at Missus with hateful eyes, she catches her tongue, holding back anger, but she can’t control daggers in her tone. “No, Missus, no pleasure, just a woman’s deed.”

  “Don’t sass me with yo lies, Delphine.”

  Wails resound in the nursery, causing her milk to rise.

  Missus circles the breast milk seeping through Delphine’s dress with her finger. With a quick yank, she squeezes hard on her nipple. “Tell my husband, lyin’ in your bed, not to disturb my children with his groanin’. Go now,” she commands, releasing her painful pinch and turning away with a bloody hack.

  Into the Devil’s Arms

  Earlier, Delphine stole Missus’s bottle of laudanum and placed several drops in Massa Henry’s whiskey. The tincture always put Missus fast asleep, as it has Massa. His breath steadies, assuring Delphine a stampede of cattle couldn’t rouse him from bed. She rises from the mattress as quiet as the moon creeping across the night, slips on her dress, slides shoes from beneath the bed like a knife through butter, and tiptoes toward the crib. Leaning over, she sniffs the twins’ skin and cupid lips, still sweet with milk from feeding. Her chest aches, knowing she’ll never hold them again or see their toothless grins and heartwarming giggles when she makes faces. Inches from snatching them up and fleeing, she stiffens and catches a tear rolling from her chin before it splashes the babies.

  She rubs her eyes and stares over at sleeping Massa and the room she’s spent two years nursing in. Two years Massa’s woman. Two years wanting to escape through that dark, starry window just to catch a sliver of blue sky, bright sun, fresh air, and a whiff of the river’s tangy breeze. A window she’d considered leaping from with the twins more than once. A sin the Lord may never forgive.

  Can’t take no moe of Missus’s meanness and Massa’s insatiable needs. Death looks better than days serving them. After long, too brittle-boned and dried up, she won’t run. No moe milk. No moe young flesh for Massa’s seeds, she thinks.

  A sudden pang strikes her at the thought of leaving Massa. I won’t ail for him. It’s wrong, she scolds, rubbing her swollen belly. “Dat ain’t no future foe bof us juz slo’ death,” she whispers to the unborn soul.

  She’d carry the babies on her back if she weren’t with another child, but their weight and a swelling belly is too much to haul miles north. Besides, she’d never forgive herself if something happened to them on the dangerous trails. Missus Lorelei’s voice resounds honest in her thoughts. Loving the twins as she does, Delphine believes she’d give them a better life here at Magnolia.

  “Youse my heart fo’ever, little ones,” she whispers into their dewy faces with a soft kiss, pulling the cover over their legs. When a rising sob threatens to burst forth, she steps away from the crib, backing into the rocking horse with a gasp and a quick grasp, stilling the squeaky toy. Tiptoeing toward the door, she holds her breath and twists the clicking doorknob with a glance over her shoulder at Massa, peaceful in a whiskey-laudanum sleep. The door hinge whines a quarter-way open. Fearful of being caught, she squeezes through the narrow gap into the silent hall.

  In the corridor, she pulls the door shut and doubles over between Missus Lorelei’s door to evil and the nursery’s door to pure goodness, wrapping her arms across her heaving chest, suppressing a sob. The invisible chains that bound her two years to Missus snap but refuse to free her from the twins. With one palm on the nursery doorframe and the other firmly on the doorknob, she breathes deep and tightens her grip on the knob.

  Please, lawd, give me strength.

  As though the spirits heard her prayer, a voice rises deep within her soul.

  Go or youse will live yo dyin’ days in dis place.

  Now!

  The urgent subliminal command rips her palm from the wooden doorframe. The entrance to a room she lost her youth and her babies. She glares at Missus’s door and back at the nursery, the heart-rending sacrifice she leaves to the devils themselves. “God be with youse, little ones,” she whispers. Turning away, she rushes along the hall, never looking back.

  In the small garden behind Maw’s cabin, Delphine appears a mad woman tear-stricken with rage for her plight as she pulls the handmade bag Maw sewed from an old blanket from beneath a row of turnips and checks inside for items she’d tucked away for several days. Cala and hot cakes. A jar of molasses. A sweetgrass basket filled with dried beef, cloth-bound cheese, nuts, seeds, and leftovers Maw pilfered from Massa’s kitchen. A hand-sewn quilt. Extra clothing. The quarter eagle, and silverware she’d stolen from the cupboard. She figures Missus’s expensive silver is worth more than the coin Massa gave her, money she needs up north.

  Delphine wrinkles her nose when a caustic odor emanates from the bag. A small lumpy croaker sack Maw filled with several small satchels tied with flax cords contain liniments and salves made from various herbs, roots, and shrubs grown in her garden. A skill she learned from her mama and passed on to Delphine. Boneset and sage tonic for colds and fever. Rue for poison and plagues, although Maw warned her not to use it until the baby comes. An asafetida, turpentine, and garlic amulet to ward off disease. The healing burdock root and dogwood bark that cured many of Maw’s pains. Castor oil fed to Delphine in teaspoons every night as a child. Comfrey oil used for rashes. And cocklebur roots and bluestone potion Maw explained stops the babies from coming when Massa has his way. Delphine used it many times, but the twins and the one she carries still came.

  At the bottom of the pouch rest the twins and firstborn’s braided locks, a good luck charm to keep dear to her heart. Maw feared she’d fetch attention on the roads and stashed slaves’ clothes in the pack. She loops the traditional head wrap her people wear around the elegant chignon she’d worn in the main house, securing the ends with a knot, tucking the edges. At once, she unties the hot cloth from her head, unaccustomed to her curls being hidden.

  “No. I ain’t coverin’ my head,” she chides, placing it back in the bag.

  A fit of anger and disgust overcomes her as she discards
Missus Lorelei’s expensive hand-me-down silk-calico dress, ripping and tossing it with the fancy shoes into a row of corn.

  “I’s free to dress and do as I’s want. No moe Missus and Massa’s need of my flesh. No bind to others’ needs, juz my own.” She inhales and exhales like a newborn, taking life’s first breath, staring at the bright moon shining only for her. Baptized anew in its glow, Massa and Missus wickedness sloughs like white, viscous birth matter from her soul.

  Moonglow brightens the dark, humid night as she undresses and withdraws the homespun clothes Maw weaved with her own hands from hemp. A linen petticoat. A brown skirt. Gray waistcoat. Plain but sturdy leather boots. Now she looks like a simple slave girl, not a well-kept Missus.

  Slinging the sack over her shoulder, she turns around and gasps at two figures drifting toward the garden.

  “Shush, child . . . It’s me. Youse late. I thought Massa done caught and chained ya to da bed like Missus done b’foe.”

  “Massa sho’d too early. I’s drugged his whiskey with laudanum and snuck out while he slept,” Delphine explains, staring at the familiar man beside Maw.

  “Benoit wus bout to climb da nursery window a moment ago.”

  “I wus till Maw stopped me,” Benoit says, stepping toward her.

  “Ben? What youse doing here?” She hasn’t seen her twin brother since Massa took her as Missus’s wet nurse. Since Benoit was a kid, he’s toiled the fields from sunup to sundown. Massa worked him to the bone and kept him away from his blood in another cabin.

  “Takin’ my sis way from dis place.”

  Ben’s words soothe like sweet molasses glazing her tongue on a warm summer morn. A sensation only his voice affects, and she hasn’t felt since Massa separated them. A comfort his presence always creates. Delphine steps toward a hardened man of fifteen, no longer the rail-thin boy known to her two years ago. His skin and hair reddish-brown from hours in the sun. She gazes up his tall frame at his changed face, etched with a world of pain, and runs her finger across a raised line running from his cheek to his jawbone. A deep lash he received protecting her from Missus’s whip, a lash that clipped his face as he’d jumped in front of her. A deep gash opened his beautiful cheek and jaw. A long-healed wound, now a rooted scar. Delphine drops her gaze, afraid he will see what’s become of her. She ain’t that pure girl he once knew.

  “Delphie, don’t hide yo shame from me. Youse still my sis and nothin’ change dat, not even Massa’s sinful ways,” he says, lifting her chin with his fist.

  Ben’s eyes hold nothing but brotherly affection, seeing her always as that sweet, untainted girl, but his assurances won’t rid her of the awful things they’d done to her. She lifts her gaze to his beautiful, thick-lashed brown eyes like her own. “Youse a sight foe soe eyes. I’s thought youse gone foe good.”

  He grabs her shoulder, crushes her into his chest, then releases her slowly. “I’s never left. Massa done kept us apart, but youse always here,” he says, patting his chest, “in my heart fo’ever, Delphie.”

  Delphine tries to speak, but emotions choke her words.

  “Yo brother gone join the Union Army’s colored regiment. When Maw told me what youse up to, I’s figure I’s help my sis to Union lines. Deys got camps to stay hidden from Massa tils da baby comes and youse ready to travel north.”

  “Lawd, boy, youse goin’ get yoself killed,” Delphine screeches, horrified. Ben’s always been a fighter, and no words will talk him out of joining the Union. “B’foe my eyes I sees a grown man, but youse too young to fight a war.”

  “Ain’t got no birth papers to say otherwise, b’sides I’s fight wounded and bleedin’ to death foe our people.”

  “Y’all ain’t got time to chat. Best hurry, b‘foe Massa and Missus Lorelei finds Delphine missin’,” Maw says, pushing both behind the cabin toward a tree-covered path spangled with fireflies.

  “I’s can’t leave foe sayin’ bye to baby girl.”

  “Delphie, it’ll rip yo heart out. Go while youse can.”

  “Juz a peek, Maw.”

  Delphine rushes toward the cabin, creeps onto the porch, and peers through the door at her sleeping, two-year-old girl curled on her side in the same bed she came into this world in. She scowls at the grayed, rough cotton blanket and the thin ticking mattress stuffed with corn shucks atop the wooden puncheon planks bored into the wall. She wishes her girl could sleep on the elegant white-lace-canopy crib's soft bedding with the twins. She steps inside with a burning urge to seize her from this god-awful place, but a realization halts her next step. She can’t take her from Maw. Her firstborn’s grown attached to her. She’s Maw’s now. Delphine’s hands itch to touch and hold her one last time, but knowing she may never see her again is too painful.

  She steps off the spick-and-span planks Maw always sweeps. “Cleanliness is godliness,” she’d said with a scowl one day while fixing Delphine’s messy bed. Maw made the modest cabin livable, homely with a constant, warm fire, sweet herbal scents, tasty meals, handstitched bedding with colorful patterns, and jars filled with blossoms from her garden. But the rickety one-room shanty will never match the luxury of the big house she admires.

  Delphine steps backward with fingers to her puckered lips, peers through the closing door at her firstborn until the door closes, and then places a farewell kiss on the doorframe with her fingers. Gripping her chest, she slinks off the porch and around the side of the cabin toward Maw and Benoit, who are staring with worry etched across their wrinkled brows.

  “Gods gone punish me foe leavin’ y’all. Maw, please come with us.”

  “Child, there’s nothin’ out there foe me. Dis where I’s b’long. B’sides, I’s look after the chillun.” Maw draws her brows and stares hard, brushing tears from Delphine’s cheek. “Yo babies safe here with me.” She caresses Delphine’s belly with an anguished sigh. “Infant’s ripenin’ will make da journey difficult. Youse strong enough?”

  “I’m leavin’!” she blurts with staunch defiance meant for her captors not Maw, then lowers her voice, staring at Maw with resentful eyes. “Dey can’t have dis one. Dis my baby. I pray God bless my soul with courage to carry us bof.”

  Maw sighs, staring at Delphine’s growing belly. “Youse always been headstrong from da day youse came from my womb kickin’ and hollerin’ louder than yo twin brother foe da whole world to hear.” She stares at Ben and Delphine, clasps her chest with a pained face, and catches her breath. Her lips tighten, but it does nothing to restrain emotions in her trembling chin and watery eyes. “It won’t be easy. But I’s pray every night and day youse find goodness in dis world. Ben, get my daughter and grandchild to safety and stay alive fightin’ foe us,” she says, grabbing them both in a firm hug.

  Delphine fastens her arms around her and whispers, “Don’t let da chillun fo’get me.”

  “Deys our blood and I’s speak of youse till my blood runs cold. Dey goin’ know ‘bout deys mamma, Delphie,” she whispers with an assuring squeeze. “Be safe and brave, my chillun,” she says, then shoves them from her bosom, wiping her face. “Go on now, b‘foe Massa comes lookin’,” she demands, tears glazing her eyes in the dark.

  “I’s be back, Maw,” Benoit says, pulling Delphine toward the shadowy trail behind the cabin.

  Delphine snatches her hand from Ben’s and turns around with a vision she’ll never forget, a dreamlike image of Maw through a sparkle of fireflies vanishing through the trees toward the cabin. Before the big white house recedes in the distance, she gazes at the dark nursery window with a final goodbye to the twins, then turns and races onto the moonlit trail behind Ben. The last time Delphine crossed this path was her first day at Magnolia. A passage she’d spied freed slaves escape many nights through the nursery window.

  The brackish river odor, humid air, and chirping critters enliven her senses as if she’s seeing the world for the first time. A breeze brings a rush of liberation lost to Massa and Missus Lorelei. Her legs haven’t moved this fast since Massa snatched her from the cab
in at thirteen. The baby kicks in her belly as though delighting in the burst of speed. After mere minutes on the trail, her calves cramp and her breath becomes labored. Daily strolls around the home hadn’t prepared her body for such exertion. She catches her breath and yells, “Ben, slo’ down. My legs can’t keep yo pace.”

  Benoit glances back, shaking his head. “Shush, Delphie. Deys hear us.” He stops with his hands on his waist staring at his panting sister. “I’s knows it. Youse been housebound too long. And with baby, yo body ain’t ready foe dis. We’s got miles before reachin’ Union soldiers camped at da ole auction block. Now youse sho youse can do dis, Delphie?”

  “I’s fine, but can’t keep up with yo horse legs,” she says with a guffaw. The mention of Forks dampens the exhilaration. “Dat place scares me. Ain’t nothin’ good ‘bout da Forks.” The last time Delphine saw Forks of the Road, people gawked, poked, and inspected their flesh and teeth like prized cattle on the auction block. She teared up when Maw’s clenched jaw strained her face as men patted her breast and behind in approval. The second day at the auction, Massa Henry and Missus Lorelei showed up and loaded them on a wagon headed straight to Magnolia Sunrise. She and Benoit were just seven and Maw twenty. Now, eight years later and freed slaves at fifteen, they’re fleeing toward a place she’d left as an innocent child.

  In eight years, she’d experienced things no child should know: men’s lust, childbirth, evil in people’s hearts, death, and pain and sorrow that plunged her to hellish depths she never wants to experience again. Mental and physical abuse has left her skin thicker than cow hide, her spirit disheartened, and her mind distrustful of others’ intentions. Though flawed, she’s much wiser.