Livy straightened, held her hoe up-right, and turned to him with a face she hoped would freeze him solid. "What you want?"
"I want to know your name."
She stared at him. Maybe he was simple. Then he smiled at her, and she saw the twinkle in his eye. Annoying, but not simple.
"Livy," she said, and turned back to her hoeing.
He chopped a weed with his own hoe. "Morning, Livy." And he set off down his row, like he was completely satisfied now he knew her name.
Next day, and the day after that, he said, "Morning, Livy." She ignored him.
Day after that, he said good morning, and then at sunset, he found her coming from the tool shed and said, "Evening, Livy." Two more days of good mornings and good evenings, he said, "My name's Zeb. You want to use it, it be fine with me."
He kept on with the good mornings, good evenings. Finally, she snapped at him. "What you want with me?"
He grinned and light shone off his face like a lantern. "I want you to call me Zeb. Good morning, Zeb. Good evening, Zeb."
She felt it first like a tickle behind her throat, then a tightening around her mouth, and then a tiny half-smile pulled at her lips. She tipped her head at him like she'd seen the master's women do and said, making it as formal as she knew how, "Good evening, Zeb."
Now the moon moved in behind his eyes and he glowed. "Good night, Livy."
~ ~ ~
After a long day's work, even if the night was steamy and still, people in the quarters slept hard. Livy shared a cabin with two other women. Etta, an old woman whose back was so bent all she was fit for was riding herd on the littlest children while their mamas were in the fields, and Grace, a dried up little woman with a limp who milked the cows.
Livy listened to their quiet, even breathing. She tried to match her breath to theirs. She tried to remember all the yellow things there were to look at. She did not allow herself to think of home, of her mama and her sisters back on the Griffin plantation. She didn't let herself think about being nothing more than a kind of coin – the master gambles, he sells off a few slaves to pay his debt. No, better to tot up how many yellow things colored the world. Butterflies, daffodils, squash, baby chicks. Still, she could not sleep.
She rolled off the corn shuck mattress as quietly as she could and padded out to the porch. She could just believe it was a little cooler out here. Livy crushed a few leaves of the mint Etta had growing in a pot and rubbed them on her skin to discourage the mosquitoes, then settled on the top step to listen to the night music, bat wings whirring overhead, crickets sawing away in the bushes. A little sliver of moon gave enough light to see the outlines of the cabins.
A movement down the lane caught her eye. A man slipped into the cabin third down the row. That was Tish's cabin, Tish whose little boy Beesum toddled around with his fingers in his mouth. But why did a man have to sneak in to see Tish? Nobody would care. Tish was alone in her cabin, just her and the baby since her man run off. Run off and left her and their baby behind, that's what she'd heard.
Maybe he didn't run off though. Maybe her man was one of those maroons who hovered around the plantations to see their people or get food. Livy didn't see the point in that. Lying out in the woods, you still ain't free – hungry all the time, slave patrols after you all the time, scared all the time. You want to be free, then keep going till you be free.
After while, the man stepped out of Tish's cabin and closed the door real quiet. He looked up and down the lane, but Livy was sitting still and he didn't see her in the shadows. He crossed the lane and let himself into one of the bachelor cabins. She figured that was why this master bought her – he had too many bachelors on the place. Well, she didn't want none of them, so she wasn't gone be no help to him about that.
Pretty soon, here come another man. Jubal, it looked like. Jubal, the quarters' lover man who had two or three women pining after him all the time. She thought he stayed in the bachelor cabin at the other end of the lane. What did he want slinking into another cabin full of men?
Livy's mind wandered lazily over the possibilities. Maybe they were gambling in there, using carved wooden dice and pebbles instead of coins. But why be secret about that? Why be secret about anything in the quarters? They lived on top of each other, day in and day out. There were no secrets.
Except for this skulking in the night.
Sure as she'd ever been, she suddenly knew. They were planning to run.
Livy's pulse picked up. Running together, they'd help each other. Keep watch for each other when they had to rest, keep a lookout for the slave patrols, share the food they could forage.
~ ~ ~
The men sat in a circle around the candle placed on the floor, the windows all covered so nobody outside could see the light. Clem had the only chair, and Hector thought that was right since Clem must be near forty.
Hector looked around at the men, their chins and noses casting shadows in the yellow candle light. There was Pete, just hooked up with a woman, but he aimed to bring her with him. Clem, he wouldn't go, said his bones hurt too bad, but he help anybody thought they could get free. Clem's own boy run a few years back – nobody heard nothing about him, so they all believed he made it to freedom land. That was best -- believe he made it. And there was Samson, planned to come out in a year or two, when his oldest boy big enough to run with him.
That left Jubal. Hector had him figured for a wishful kind of man. He made time with three women, last Hector knew, no telling how many kids. He just liked dreaming about being a free man, but he was a help to them sometimes. He the reason they had a machete.
That meant only Pete was coming out with him, at least the only one this year.
"I found us a place," Hector said. "Eight or nine miles back in the swamp, maybe three miles from Flavian's camp."
"How much this place dry land and how much water?" Jubal asked.
"I reckon there's maybe twenty acres dry, two to four feet higher than the water."
"It got to be cleared, though."
"Yeah, it got to be cleared. We gone need saws and axes."
"And we gone need boats."
"Yeah. Either that or wade chest deep with the gators nipping at you. I've done it, but it wadn't no fun."
"I got a dugout started back in the bayou," Samson said. "Rate I'm going, it'll be ready in twenty, thirty years."
"Flavian don't mind you splitting off?" Pete asked.
"Nah. He all for it," Hector said. "A camp get too big, it make too much noise, leave too many trails, eat too much. He help us all he can, but we got it to do ourselves."
"Got something to tell you," Pete said. "I ain't going."
Anger flashed over Hector, but he kept his voice cool. "Why not?"
"Bess told me this morning. She pregnant. She won't go, and I ain't going without her."
Well, hell, Hector thought. All this talking and planning for nothing. He couldn't very well start a camp all by himself.
He guessed he couldn't blame Pete for not leaving a pregnant wife, but babies been born before in a maroon camp. It was up to Pete though.
"What about this Adam over at the Bissell plantation – he coming or not?" Clem asked.
"Yeah, he coming. Trying to get his hands on a axe."
The door handle jiggled -- Hector's hand was on his knife before he half knew the door was opening.
A woman stepped in and closed the door behind her. She was tall and slim, her eyes burning hot.
Sampson jumped to his feet, menacing her with his six foot bulk and his clenched fists. Judging by the looks on the men's faces, Hector figured she wasn't expected.
"I'm going with you," she said.
"What are you talking about, girl?" Clem said.
"You gone run."
"We ain't running. You think we fools? Go on back to bed. This here is a men's cabin."
Bold as brass, the woman brushed past Samson and sat down in the circle just like she been invited. "I'm going with you," she said.
&
nbsp; "No, you ain't, cause we ain't going nowhere. Get on out of here," Clem said.
"I'm strong. I'm fast. I can run all night, steal food, cook, keep watch. I'm not afraid of nothing. I won't hinder you."
"No," Pete snapped. "Go on. Get out."
She had grit, Hector had to give her that. She stared at every one of them, not backing down one bit.
"She talk to the overseer, we in trouble," Jubal said.
"I won't never tell nothing to the overseer, never. But I'm going with you anyway, so I got nothing to tell."
"Your name Livy, ain't it," Clem said. "Livy, nothing we doing here got anything to do with you. We ain't running. Go on now, go to bed."
"I don't believe you."
Clem let out a great sigh and nodded to Jubal. "Take her back to her place. Livy, you make a fuss out there, wake folks up, they gone think you in here after a man. They all laugh at you from sunup to sundown."
"I'm going with you," she insisted as the men pulled at her.
Hector listened to the three pairs of feet on the porch and on the stoop. Then he didn't hear nothing else. At least she had sense enough not to cause a commotion out there.
"She gone be trouble," Samson said.
They breathed quiet for a few minutes, sweat trickling down their fronts and their backs.
"She want to go too bad to run her mouth off," Clem said. "We'll keep an eye on her. May be she can come out to the new camp with you, Hector."
"You taking your woman when the new camp set up?" Jubal asked.
Hector let out a breath. "When the boy old enough not to pick up a scorpion and put it in his mouth, Tish maybe come then."
"Me, I been thinking maybe me and my boy run," Samson said. "When he gets some age on him, maybe we run instead of coming out with you all. Head north till we hit the free states. Clem's son done it, some others must have done it, too."
Hector stared at the candle flame. It wasn't easy living out in the swamp and it wasn't any easier lighting out for the north. If it was easy, they'd have all done it by now.
"I ain't heard of nobody, but that don't mean nobody else never done it."
"Samson, don't you and the boy be running on your own," Clem said. "The odds ain't good, you know that. Go on out to the camp, make a new place. Hector gone need you and you be better off with him."
Samson ran a hand over his head and let out a breath. "It ain't time to do nothing anyway. The boy too young to leave his mama, too little to keep up. When the time come, I talk to you again."
"All right. Nothing more to do here." Hector got to his feet.
"Don't give up on us, boy," Clem said. "This ain't a small thing, running off. Maybe later on, some of us go out there with you."
He needed them now, Hector felt like shouting. But it wouldn't do any good.
Hector blew out the candle and slipped into the night. He was disgusted. He was disappointed. He'd seen it all in his mind, this new camp, clearing the land, building a place like the one Flavian had built. And now not even Pete was coming. He felt like punching something.
Once he found the trail heading back into the swamp, he made good time. The path took him through the back of the plantation deep into the woods to a pond that caught the moonlight so it was like a silver mirror with the moon caught in it. Hector skirted the marshy edge trying to keep his shoes dry, but it wasn't happening that way. Wet muck sucked at his heels and he was glad when the trail angled up a couple of feet onto dry land.
Owls hooted back and forth. Somewhere out in the marsh, a chorus of bull frogs sang to the skeeters. Come here, they croaked, hoping for a mouthful of bug. Plenty of bugs following him around. He entertained himself with the thought of having a frog tongue himself to turn the skeeters from a torment into a treat.
The dugout he'd left under a hanging willow waited for him like he'd told it to. He got in and shoved into the black waters. Flavian's camp was miles back in the swamp and Hector knew he'd never find it in the dark. He paddled and poled in the general direction, best he could tell from what stars he could see through the tree tops. When the sun sent a pearly gray light into the sky, he got his bearings.
People were up and stirring when he dragged the dugout up the bank. Still a little mist coming off the water, the heat holding off for another hour or so. Bacon scented the air and Birdie's two younguns were running around like wild Indians, but quiet like. Maroon children learned quick not to hoot and holler and carry on loud enough to bring the slave hunters down on them.
Flavian himself stood in the yard with his hands on his hips, waiting for him.
"How's it look?" Flavian asked.
Hector thought Flavian was the best man he knew, but he wasn't much to look at. Not puny, but kind of slight, not much meat on his bones. So Hector and the others didn't listen to him cause he was big and strong, and not really cause he was the smartest. Hector figured that was him, the smartest. What Flavian had was something else, a quiet something he carried with him.
"Look like the only one coming be this man Adam from the Bissell place."
"Well. It gone take time, that's all. And too many run off at once, that just stir everybody up. You got to remember too that everybody come out here got to be fed."
"I know it." Hector went on to see if he could get Birdie to feed him.
Livy is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle e-book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gretchen's best-selling novels, rich in memorable characters and historical detail, are profiled on her website at www.gretchencraig.com. Further details are available at her Amazon Author Page. Gretchen also invites you to visit her blog at glcraig.wordpress.com.
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