Tainted Harvest

by E. Denise Billups

  Forty minutes later, the heavens conspire against their journey, dropping a downpour so thick it masks the pathway, dimpling the ground with puddles and mud covering her leather boots and dress hem. Rain pelts hard as nails, driving their clothes to their bodies in no time. Heaven’s sudden angry tears pound the dusky trail, intensifying the worries in Delphine’s mind. No rain in five days. Why now? It is as though the heavens deliberately forestalled their trek ahead. With that thought, lightning flashes and dances, ghosting the path and trees. Is the Lord warning them to go back or lighting their way in the dark? She chides her foolish, fearful mind, and races along the flickering path, searching for a tree to take cover.

  A flash of lightning illuminates a tunnel beneath long fronds and overhanging Spanish moss atop a slight mound bordering the trail. They race toward the opening, scooting beneath dripping moss. Sheltered inside, they listen to the rain and occasional sloshing of feet, possibly of freed slaves or nasty paddy rollers searching for runaways.

  “We’s go when rain lets up,” Benoit says, pushing his bag into the overgrown clay wall and resting against it.

  Glad to rest for a moment but fearful of what else lies inside the loamy burrow, she peeps around the murky space for animals or someone else sheltering from the rain. When a rustle sounds at her rear, she slings a hard gaze toward the dark space for movement and gathers a tuft of moss from the floor, tossing it toward the area. Nothing stirs. Perhaps it was just fronds brushing the top of the burrow outside.

  They are silent, only their breath resounding in the dark. Frogs croak nearby. Critters burrow in shrubs. Earthworms slither above ground. She and Benoit shelter among moss and vines, two of God’s creatures trying to survive, just another test of their backbone. For a moment, she questions the toilsome journey. Will life be any better up north? Given what she’s suffered, she can’t believe she’d consider running back to Magnolia because of a minor inconvenience and discomfort.

  Ain’t nothin’ worse than dat prison.

  Taking the canteen from her waist and setting it on the mossy floor, she huddles into Ben’s side, aching with leaking breasts and silent tears, worried the twins woke hungry for her milk, though they seldom do at night, only morn. She shivers, folding into the sodden dress, squeezing moisture and pain away, not bothering to wipe tears mirroring raindrops quivering puddles on the trail. A passage that leads to new beginnings. A better future for her unborn child.

  Be brave foe da unborn one.

  An hour later, rain ceases as fast as it began. The moon moves past clouds, gleaming through overhanging moss, awaking Delphine to a weighty mass gliding across her belly. Every muscle in her body tenses as she lifts her head and holds her breath, eyes widening on an enormous, glistening snake. Her pulse races and gooseflesh pimples her skin; she fears the reptile senses the baby in her womb and the child will move as it had earlier. A silent sigh of relief escapes her as it wriggles beneath her midriff to her thighs and coils along her calf, clinging to her leg as if it were a branch. She scrunches her face and tightens her lips, repressing an urge to kick it off, knowing it might incite the creature.

  Horses and men’s voices sound nearby. Ben springs up at the sight of the snake and turns his gaze to Delphine’s frightened, wide-eyed gape. Afraid she’ll scream and alert the approaching men to their hiding place, he cups her mouth tightly.

  “With the rain and Delphine’s condition, they couldn’t have gotten far.”

  At the sound of Massa Henry’s voice, a gasp rises in Delphine’s throat, muted by Ben’s hand. Fear of Massa’s nearness and the snake squeezing her leg, triggers sweat from her forehead to her brow. Every muscle constricts in her body except the wild animal beating in her chest.

  “You sure that gal headed this direction?”

  Delphine recognizes the voice of the nasty paddy roller she’d seen dragging runaways back to the plantation so often. Massa never joins the party of men. He must be hotter than hell, she thinks.

  With the pound and splatter of horse hooves and men’s voices, the snake tightens further, cutting off blood to her numbing foot and leaving it tingling with pins and needles. Delphine fears the serpent will snap back with a poisonous bite if the mares sense its presence and whinny loudly or stomp their hooves.

  “Josie moe stubborn than a mule. I couldn’t beat a word out of her. Even if I’d lashed her to a bloody pulp, she won’t betray her children. She didn’t have to say a word. Two sets of footprints behind her cabin leading to this trail I’m sure belong to Delphine and Ben. Let’s keep on, they can’t be far,” Massa Henry says.

  Delphine furrows her brows as her eyes well with tears, remorseful they’ve caused Maw a severe lashing. She swings her gaze to Ben’s blazing glare and clenched jaw, sensing his muscles tense and chest constrict when Massa mentions beating Maw.

  The horses trot past their hideaway, continuing along the muddy path. The snake loosens its clutch, unwinds, and glides to the side of the tunnel.

  Delphine plucks Ben’s sweaty hand from her mouth, releases a long-held breath, and yelps, “Snake, monster, bastard!” Words she’d wanted to scream the moment she first felt the slithering snake, now a fading vestige as blood rushes into her toes, and when Massa spoke of whipping Maw to a bloody pulp. Jolting upright, her head bumps the top of the burrow with a tumble of dirt and debris falling around her. With frenzied hands, she swipes at her hair and skirt, shuddering. “It wus on my belly.”

  Ben covers her mouth again. “Youse too loud, Delphie. We’s gotta go before deys find us.”

  Delphine peeks her head through the fronds, inspects the trail, then scoots from the tunnel when it’s safe. She steps back with her eyes on the spot the serpent slithered, afraid it’s still there.

  Ben slides from the opening, wiping fallen debris from his face and damp, wrinkled clothes. “It’s moe likely a harmless garter snake,” he says, laughing just as he’d done when a turtle snapped at her finger at six years old.

  “It ain’t no garter snake. Dat thang long as yo body,” Delphine barks, still feeling the snake’s wriggle on her belly and recalling how something had rustled when they entered the burrow. “It wus inside da whole time. It could’ve wrapped ‘bout our necks and choked us in sleep,” she says, shivering again at the thought.

  “Longs it didn’t bite, youse be fine,” he says, dragging the bags from the tunnel. “We’s got bigger worries than dat snake.”

  “Maw . . .”

  “She’s strong, Delphie. B‘sides, Massa cares an awful lot foe Maw. He gave her a light whippin’, nothin’ moe.”

  Ben’s right. Massa cares for them both. She’d seen it in his eyes more than once, it was as though his heart burst when he inflicted pain at Missus’s command. Maw’s safe as long as he’s Massa of Magnolia. With a darting gaze around the black space, she reckons the twins woke hungry for her milk, alerting Massa and Missus to her absence.

  When a rumble and voices sound behind the tunnel, Delphine glances around, expecting Massa to appear any minute atop the speeding steed, bind her wrist to the horse, and drag her back to Missus Lorelei’s biting whip. Missus will lock her in the nursery and throw away the key for good if she’s caught.

  “Ben, we’s gotta move.”

  “Youse read my mind, sis.”

  Feet slosh through puddles and wagons roll and rumble past the tunnel on a parallel footpath, the noise Delphine heard a moment ago. She and Ben peek through the trees, spying a small caravan of three horse-drawn wagons with families and a straggle of freedmen, women and children tramping alongside and behind the wearied convoy.

  “Deys been leavin’ plantations foe days, toward Union lines,” Benoit says.

  “Deys goin’ to da same place, then we’s join ’em. Massa finds us easier alone than with des people,” Delphine says, grabbing Ben’s hand with a sharp turn, ducking and weaving through the dark underbrush, fighting snapping branches and thick vines as her boots sink into swampy ground. She glances over her shoulder at Ben’s
irked scowl as he stumbles on vines. “Come on,” she urges.

  Delphine emerges through the thicket, gazing at bedraggled men, women, and children moving at a snail’s pace, some in bare feet, others in shoes threadbare from miles of walking from distant plantations, determined to reach Union lines as she and Ben.

  A haggard mother with a child in a sling on her back and meager belongings on her shoulder sways when her knees buckle beneath her dingy skirt. She shifts the child’s weight, dragging her bare feet along the muddy path. In the moonlight, exhaustion hangs off the mother and child’s faces, aching Delphine’s heart and reminding her of the twins she, unlike the other mother, hadn’t had the courage to bring. Why hadn’t they tried? Benoit hauled sacks of cotton every day and could easily have carried her babies. But it’s too late. They can’t turn back. As though the woman heard Delphine’s thoughts, she turns a crestfallen gaze to Delphine’s face, then her belly, smiling and then looking away with the obedient timidness of slaves. Concerned for the woman and child, Delphine rushes toward the convoy.

  “Delphie, stop!” Ben screeches, yanking on her waistcoat.

  The driver of the wagon turns his head and tips his hat from his forehead, eying them for a suspicious moment. “If headin’ to Union lines, y’all moe than welcome to join us.”

  “Yessa, dats where my sis and I’s headin’,” Benoit says.

  “Alright then,” the driver says, turning his gaze ahead.

  Delphine scuttles beside the woman with the child in the sling. The girl lifts her head and coughs several times with a weak whimper. Her runny eyes glisten in the dim light as she extends her small arm. Delphine takes the girl’s outstretched hand, hot as though warmed over a blazing fire, noticing a reddish rash on her face and arms. The mother, absorbed in the wagon ahead, doesn’t notice Delphine run her hand across the child’s forehead.

  She’s burnin’ up.

  When the woman’s profile comes into view, Delphine sees the same rash runs along her neck and collarbone. At once, Delphine recalls the measles and rubella that spread through the slaves’ quarters several years ago and worries the woman and child’s illness is infectious. Before she can step away, the woman’s knees give way. The child scowls and whimpers with the sudden dip.

  “Ben, help me,” Delphine calls, gripping and boosting the woman’s arm over her shoulder. The woman shivers with fever through her damp clothes. “Youse need to rest.”

  “Not till we’s get to Union line. Soldiers give us medicine and shelter.”

  The woman’s determination even in illness amazes Delphine. It ain’t right she’s on her feet while the buggy ahead has space for more people.

  “Ben, take her arm.”

  Ben grasps the woman, flinging her arm over his shoulder as Delphine hurries toward the wagon driver who’d greeted them moments ago.

  “Mista, please stop.”

  “Name’s Joe,” he says, swiveling his head toward Delphine.

  She points toward the woman and child. “Deys sick and can’t walk. Da wagon got plenty room to carry ‘em.”

  With a hawk-eyed gaze, he peers at the woman and child and the others’ judging eyes and brings the trotting horse to a halt. “Make room,” he says to two women and a boy behind him. The boy drags a burlap sack to his side and pats the floor.

  The older woman looks up at Joe with a scowl. “No, Joe. Youse don’t know wat sickness deys carry.”

  “Scoot over, Sissy. Don’t be heartless.”

  The woman pushes a spinning wheel into the corner and moves over, pulling a girl about Delphine’s age into her side in alarm.

  Ben hustles the woman and child toward the rear of the rickety buggy that plantations use to haul crops and hay, hoisting them between two stuffed sacks and a small trunk, wondering what it holds.

  “God bless y’all,” says the woman to Delphine and Ben with a feeble smile. The buggy rocks and rolls forward.

  “Dat big ole heart goin’ cause a world of trouble one day,” Ben says, edging beside Delphine.

  “I’s juz like my brother.”

  The buggy stops again. The driver turns and lifts his black derby, wiping sweat from his shiny face. “Wat y’all waitin’ foe,” he says, motioning them aboard with his hand.

  Racing forward, Ben hoist Delphine up and pulls himself aboard, sitting in front of the woman and sleeping child.

  “The lawd looks after y’all like youse foe me,” says the woman.

  Delphine smiles but worries like Sissy that the illness may infect everyone, even her unborn child.

  “I’s Anabelle, and dis my girl, Georgia, short for Georgina.”

  “Dat’s a beautiful name. I’s Delphine and dis my brother Benoit.” At once, remembering Maw’s herbs, Delphine opens the bag, removes and unwraps two hotcakes, placing a scoop of comfrey and boneset in each linen rag. “Maw swoe by comfrey and boneset. Da herbs cure y’all’s ails.”

  The woman takes the potion from Delphine’s extended hand with a gracious nod. “A kind soul foe a beautiful woman . . . God bless youse with an angel. Anabelle’s gaze slips to Delphine’s belly. When’s the baby come?”

  Delphine recalls the brisk March night Massa released her and rolled on his back. At the moment his seed took root, she knew he’d put another child in her belly. She didn’t need Missus Lorelei’s doctor poking around to tell her when the baby would come. She learned from two births and from Massa Henry how to count five months. “I’s havin’ a December baby.”

  “I’s pray foe da child,” Anabelle says with a weak grin. Overcome with fatigue, she curls to her side, leans into sleeping Georgia, and closes her eyes.

  Delphine catches the baby-faced teenage boy and watchful girl’s curious stares in the wagon's front and smiles.

  The boy’s face broadens with a smile. “Names’ Willy, and dis my sis, Beth.”

  “Dat my boy and girl, and wife, Sissy,” Joe explains.

  Delphine nods at the three, noticing Joe’s russet, reddish-brown hues in the girl, which contrasts with Willy’s light yellow-brown skin, acquired from his fawn-skinned mother.

  Aware of everything around her, Beth turns her owl-eyed gaze at Simone, her lips narrow into a timid smile. With uneasiness in the corner, Sissy shifts her glare from Anabelle and Georgia, nods at Simone and Ben, and swings a squint back at Anabella.

  “Where y’all come from?” Delphine asks.

  “Lansdowne.”

  “Grants here in Natchez lookin’ for colored soldiers. I aim to join ‘em,” Willy divulges.

  “Dat’s where I’s headin’,” Ben says with enthusiasm.

  Joe twists his head around, hissing air through his teeth. “Boy, dey ain’t puttin’ guns in no black man’s hand. Y’all end up doin’ labor as teamsters, cookin’ and cleanin’ soldier’s mess. And I’s heard boys too young to fight ain’t nothin’ but gophers for higher officers. Y’alls work for yo clothes, food, and shelter, and no moe,” he says, hissing through his teeth again. “Union camps no place to stay, juz shelter, a bed, and food foe movin’ north.”

  “Not no moe. Back at the plantation, words got ‘round dat General Grant set up camp at Rosalie Plantation. He’s formin’ a colored regiment to fight,” Ben says.

  “Pfft . . . I’s believe it when I see it with my own eyes,” Joe says.

  Delphine listens as they babble on about the war, Lincoln’s emancipation, and fighting for their people. With images of a blue-uniformed Ben dying bloody on the battleground, she wants to knock sense into his skull. She tunes out the conversation and glances toward exhausted people trudging behind the wagon, struck immediately with a guilty conscience, wishing she could ease their suffering. But she can’t help everyone. Dismissing guilt and disquiet, she rests her head on Ben’s shoulder, gazing at the dark sky and the moon moving through the trees. She relishes the smell of petrichor rising from the dusky trail, the muggy breeze on her face, and her newfound freedom, but wishes her firstborn and twins were beside her. The sound of voices on another
path dashes momentary elation, and she fears Massa’s nearness and his men halting her journey.

  A flutter spreads across Delphine’s abdomen as they arrive at the Union soldier’s outpost, a white canvas city along the dark grounds where Fork’s trading block stood, now demolished. The quickening comes sooner than the other pregnancies. She supposes the rickety wagon brought on the fetal movement and being near the razed slave auction. Or is it fear of being captured? She dismisses her worries and soothes the twitching child with a rub of her belly, never voicing concern to Benoit.

  Lanterns hang from trees and firelight illuminates the night as listless guards watch their arrival. The caravan slows to a stop behind a long train of freed slaves. More men, women, and children flood the town in waves. Voices resonate ahead. Delphine sits straight, taking in the makeshift porches made from carved wooden posts and poles with twig-and-branch roofs attached to many tents. Tree trunks, gathered from adjacent woods, line the center of the camp in large stacks. Wounded soldiers with bandages, absorbed in a card game, imbibe from tin cups around a table bordering a large A-shaped tent.

  A man’s voice commands ahead, stopping the slow-moving caravan. For an hour or more, they inched toward the commanding officer and several other soldiers, documenting every person’s name, the plantation they’d left, and their master’s name. A forceful voice booms, “Picket Anders and Jones.”

  Two colored soldiers appear, searching the possessions of the new arrivals. A commotion sounds when they remove furniture from a family’s wagon and untie two mules and a horse they’d brought with them.

  “Please, sah, dose my family’s. It’s alls we’s got.”

  “Under the Confiscation Act, the Union may seize any property that belongs to your master and turn it over to the quartermaster,” the officer in charge answers, while picket soldiers haul their items and livestock away.