by Vella Munn
If Master Croon somehow knew she'd been watching him all day from behind brush and shadow, if he was even now sneaking up behind her—No. He'd gone in the opposite direction.
She whimpered and ordered herself not to look too closely around her. A minute passed, then five. If only it were daylight, maybe the wilderness wouldn't feel as if it was reaching out to strangle her. If she'd been allowed outside more, maybe she'd better understand the world beyond what had been painstakingly cleared. Maybe.
Still shaking, she stepped around the tree and half walked, half slunk toward the abandoned carriage. Mistress Liana was dead; she knew that. And the way Joseph lay left no doubt in her mind that Master Croon had killed him as well. What—
A scream sliced through the night sounds. Her flesh felt as if it had been touched by lightning and ice. Another scream began before the first finished echoing. It wasn't human, was nothing like any night-sound she'd ever heard. When she realized what it was, she clamped her arms around herself and leaned forward, gasping for enough air to quiet her stomach. Mistress Liana's horse, terrified. Somewhere in the swamp.
A third scream catapulted her into action. Mindless, she began running down the narrow road back toward the plantation, thinking—thinking what?
Her mother.
The mass of growth surrounding her sang its endless and eerie song, making her want to shriek at it to stop. The only time she left Croon House after dark was to go to her mother's cabin with the precious books she'd snuck out of Mistress Liana's library. Whenever she did, she walked quickly, concentrating on her goal and not the creatures that came out after the sun went down.
Tonight she was alone.
Ready to bolt into the wall of trees and bushes at the first sound of footsteps, she hurried toward the plantation as fast as her tender and stinging feet would allow.
Was she mad? Had what she'd seen and heard been a nightmare?
Sobbing, she struggled to shove the questions into submission. All that mattered was that her mistress was dead and her master—Her master what?
A sound like that of distant teeth snapping together made her whimper in fear. She strained to see, but the night kept its secrets. If an alligator or panther or other wild creature was out there—stalking her—she could only pray her end would come quickly.
Dying in a panther's jaws was better than letting Master Croon get his hands on her again.
The snapping sound was repeated. It was only with a great force of will that she kept from panicking. There wasn't anywhere to go, anyplace where she would be safe.
Only with her mother.
Knowing that was no longer true and hadn't been for years, she nevertheless comforted herself with thoughts of the soft and gentle woman who'd given her the only sense of belonging she'd ever had.
Faint candlelight flickered from inside the crudely built slave cabins. The light guided her first out of the awful darkness and then toward where her mother lived. She'd remained close enough to the plantation today that she'd have known if Master Croon had sent his foreman or slaves out to look for her. Maybe he figured she would return once she became hungry and tired enough, and maybe he was so grief-stricken over his wife's death that he couldn't think beyond that.
No. Whatever he felt about his wife, grief wasn't part of the emotion.
The thought that someone might grab her and hold her for Master Croon's return froze her in midstride. Then she reminded herself that if he had said anything about what had happened in his room, the other slaves would be talking about that tonight, not sitting quietly in their separate cabins. Not said anything? Why not? Didn't anyone know that Mistress Liana was dead?
Her mother was alone. Calida spotted her shadow as she passed between the open door and the candle she read by. Hand at her throat now, Calida slipped slowly closer. Her body hummed with fear of what the future might bring, but she had to see the only person she'd ever loved.
Pilar had stopped moving about and was now perched on a small wooden chair, her head bent forward. Her lips moved as she read and Calida heard or believed she heard her mother's mutterings as she went over Bible verses she could recite in her sleep. For longer than was safe, Calida stood with her arms wrapped tightly around her against the cold, her stomach pinched with hunger and nausea, and her heart and head filling with tears.
Pilar's hair was graying. Although she'd had Calida when she was little more than a child, the burdens she'd carried throughout her life had aged her too quickly. That and the accident that had crushed her right thigh and turned her into a cripple. Calida saw not the ragged dress and sagging breasts, but a woman with the determination to teach her only child how to read. A woman who'd shown that daughter that even though she couldn't escape the destiny determined by her light skin and man-pleasing body, she must hold her head high and keep her heart and mind separate from those who owned her.
"Mother?"
Pilar immediately dropped her Bible to the floor and kicked it under her long skirt, the movement as instinctive as Calida's had been when she ran from Master Croon. Her hand up to shield her eyes from the candlelight, Pilar stared out into the night. A slight if strained smile touched her lips. "Calida? What's you doin' here?"
Running.
"I've been watching you," Calida said softly. "Why do you open your Bible? You know the words by heart."
"Not all of 'em. Besides, it gives me comfort to see the words hasn't changed. Missy Liana has no need of you tonight?"
Although she was certain no one could overhear them, she slipped inside and took her mother's dry hands before saying anything. Then, holding her voice to a harsh whisper, she told her everything. Pilar started to tremble. She rubbed her daughter's arms as if she were a small, frightened child.
"Dead? Missy Liana and Joseph. You're sure?"
Unable to say the words again, she simply nodded. She gently pulled free and stepped over to the rough-finished pine table and picked up a small hard corn biscuit. "I can't stay here."
"Can't stay? Calida, no!"
"He'll want—he'll be after me all the time. Or maybe he'll take me into the quicksand like he did that poor horse. He—Just before I ran, he said I'd killed her. What—I don't know what to think."
Pilar's thick-knuckled fingers knotted. She stared, first out at the night and then into the flickering candlelight until Calida thought she might have taken her mind far from here. "I hates 'em," Pilar whispered. "I hates 'em as I's never hated in my life."
"No."
"Yes. Even more than I did the man who put you inside me."
Calida thought she might cry, but if she broke down, her mother would do the same, and how could she possibly leave her then? Leave? Where? "To have him pestering me all the time, the things he does—how did you abide it?"
"I hads no choice." Pilar ran her hand over Calida's face as if trying to commit it to memory. "But you—" Suddenly she gripped Calida's arms with fierce strength. "I's been 'fraid for you for so long. From the moment your body turned to that of a woman. You're beautiful; I wanted you to be ugly."
"I wish I was." Her arms ached, but she couldn't bring herself to pull out of her mother's grasp.
"Where's you goin'? The runaway I give water to the other day—If the slave-catchers find you like they did him—" A spasm coursed through Pilar's body. "I'd rather have you dead than them brings you back."
Where are you going? She'd heard of white people who helped escaped slaves go north—the Freedom Trail they called it, but this was untamed Florida, not Georgia or Alabama. Far from those who cared whether a black person lived or died at her master's hands. "The savage I freed." She started slowly. "If I can find him—if he remembers I saved his life..." Find? But the Seminoles lived deep in the jungle and just the thought of them left her weak with fear.
"The savage saw your face?"
"I think—yes. I know he did."
"He said nuthin'?"
"There was nothing to say, no time. He looked so wild; such rage was in
his eyes—Oh Mama, maybe I'll give myself up to an alligator."
Pilar released her and sank back onto her chair. She stared at her bare feet for so long that Calida forgot her own desperate situation and worried that something was wrong with her mother.
"Follow the river, deep into the wilderness."
"What are you saying?"
"When I gave that poor captured darkie water, I asked where he been livin'. That's what he tol' me."
"Can you believe him?"
"I don't know." She groaned. "But there's nuthin' else."
Nothing else. Only, if she somehow survived the journey to wherever the Negro had been living and the Seminole was there as well, would he welcome her or slit her throat? Would she be no more to him than she was to Master Croon?
"The river," she whispered. "Come with me, please. Together—"
"No."
The word, although softly spoken, felt like a blow to Calida's heart. "I can't leave you. I don't want—"
"You has to! Do you think I wants you out there, alone? But for so long now I's wondered when your soul would cry for freedom. I knew it would happen; I seen the need burning in your eyes. Either you'll find the Seminoles—you won' be the first—or..."
"Come with me. Your eyes burn too."
"My leg, Calida. I'd only hold you back. You know that." She reached for a knife and a shawl and pressed them into Calida's hand. Then she gathered up the other corn biscuits and wrapped them in a scrap of cloth. She handed it to Calida, her mouth trembling. "I wants it to be more. If you wait, I'll go to the other cabins and ask—"
"No! I can't let anyone know I've been here." She looked at the burdens in her hands, then folded her arms around her mother and held her close. "I'll come back. As soon as I—I'll come back. And when I do, I'll take you with me."
"Don't talks 'bout tomorrow," Pilar said roughly. "And don't think of me. I'll be all right; you'll be all right. The Seminole..."
There wasn't anything left to say, was there? Calida thought as she continued to clutch her mother against her. She'd seen families torn apart, once shared Pilar's terror that Master Croon wouldn't buy both mother and daughter. When, with his stare so fierce that she'd felt stripped naked by it, he'd included her in his bid, she'd sent up a prayer of thanksgiving, even if it meant leaving Georgia and coming to someplace called the Florida Territory. It was only later that she understood why he'd wanted her.
She was leaving her mother; maybe she'd never see her again. With all her heart, she needed to tell her how much she loved her, beg her to flee with her. That leg! That twisted, prisoning leg! She felt as if she might explode with grief, and she couldn't leave her mother with that memory of her.
Instead, shattering inside, she kissed her mother on the forehead, spun away, and stumbled into the night.
Pilar waited until she could no longer see her daughter before making her way to the door. Her leg throbbed. She stood with one hand gripping the wood and her eyes already blurred with tears that might never end.
Be careful. Please. Please. May God look after you. Protect...
Chapter 4
Screeching, a snakebird took flight from a nearby palmetto. Too sick and exhausted to be startled, Calida stared at the long-necked black and white bird until it disappeared. Every muscle in her legs screamed at her to sink to the soggy, dank-smelling ground, but if she did, she might never rise again.
The river, at least this finger of it, was just beyond the tree the snakebird had been in. It seemed as if she'd been following it forever, although if she really thought about it, she knew she hadn't been out here for more than a week while it rained and rained and rained.
Out here.
The wilderness surrounded her, had swallowed her and might keep her trapped in its stinking, groaning, hissing belly forever. No matter how long she'd been walking, she couldn't get over her need to look up for a glimpse—any glimpse—of the sky. Most of the time, she couldn't see it for the mass of trees and brush that fought for light and space.
When she pressed her hand against the back of her hot neck, she felt countless mosquito bites. That first impossibly long and horrifying night, she'd come close to losing her mind because the insects wouldn't leave her alone, were trying to bite her to death, but as the hours and then the days passed, she no longer paid them any mind.
They, like the hordes of shadowy, screaming birds and animals, were everywhere.
Repulsed at the thought of drinking from the shallow, greenish, meandering river, she'd crouched openmouthed under leaves to catch the cascading raindrops. It should have been enough. While at the plantation, she hadn't needed more than two or three ladles of water a day, but back then her time had been filled with little more than tending to Mistress Liana. Now, always moving and always scared, her body craved endless moisture. Much of the time it ran sheet-like off her body, but the effort of getting it inside her—
Her eyes on the surrounding trees in case one of those horrible snakes was in them, she forced one bruised and lacerated foot after another. During the last storm, she'd taken off her torn, filthy dress and held it up to the deluge before scrubbing it between her hands. Although it chilled her, she'd put it back on wet because the single garment was all she had, and being naked made her feel even more vulnerable. The downpour hadn't ended until dark. By then it was too cold for the cotton to dry. She'd spent the night shivering and cursing herself for having lost her blanket in the underbrush several days before, but maybe it was her fever and not the cold that made her teeth chatter.
She was dying.
A hissing sound stopped her in midstep. She waited, not breathing, but it wasn't repeated, and after half a minute she forced herself to start walking again. Why didn't matter. Where mattered even less. All she knew was that she couldn't stop.
I love you, her mother had said. They'd been the last words she'd heard from Pilar, the last human voice. Since then there'd been nothing except hisses and whispers, eerie screams and coughs, endless and unfathomable sounds.
She was dying.
A tangle of roots just ahead clogged what her feverish brain perceived as some kind of trail. Because she had nowhere else to go, she clambered over it. The effort exhausted her, and she fell to her knees. Moisture and rotting leaves seeped over her. Rocking slightly, she tried to lift her head, but her wet, dirty hair was so heavy and even if she could force her eyes to focus, she wouldn't see anything except this endless, living prison.
She would die in the wilderness, the horrible and terrifying wilderness.
After a meaningless length of time, she placed the back of her hand against her cheek. Her flesh felt so hot. The river. The stinking, churning, rain-swollen river. She was following it because... because her mother had told her to.
But why?
She should want the answer. She knew what she was running from; the memory of Mistress Liana's lifeless body, that poor trapped horse's scream. Those things had imbedded themselves into her brain. She'd told her mother good-bye because she didn't dare stay. And then she'd run into the fearsome jungle because she had nowhere else to go.
Go?
The hissing began again, closer, nearly as close as the wild sounds came at night. She wanted to get to her feet and run, but too many terror-filled nights and her growing fever had left her spent. She could only listen, stare into the living monster that was her world, and try to remember where she was going.
Follow the river. That's what her mother had said. It led—led somewhere.
A belly-deep roar split the air. Beyond screaming, she hauled herself to her feet. Five, or was it six, nights of this hell had taught her a great deal. She knew the sound of an alligator, what they looked like, their heavy slithering movements, the great jaws and uncountable teeth. This one was close; probably it was in the river—the river she was supposed to follow to...
Walking because if she stopped now she would never be able to start again, she kept her body and eyes moving. Except for the handful of co
rn biscuits, she hadn't eaten for the first three days for fear she'd poison herself, but finally hunger had forced her to try some berries and seeds. She watched the birds. If they ate something, so did she. So far she hadn't had any ill effects, but her weakening body told her she wasn't getting enough.
What did it matter? Fever consumed her; before long she would have to stop, and when she did she would die.
Alone.
To keep the thought from overwhelming her, she started counting her steps. Although she felt the weight of the clouds overhead, it hadn't rained yet today, which meant she hadn't had anything to drink. Her fevered body demanded water. Dragging one foot after another took so much effort, sapped her brain and left it incapable of anything except counting.
Walk. Just keep walking. Tonight you can... Tonight. Alone.
* * *
Panther stood motionless over a pond, his spear at the ready. Around him, the tops of the trees shook from the wind buffeting them. The air smelled of rain; the clouds were already dark purple. The others, seeking to avoid the approaching storm, were back in the village, but the clan's supply of fresh fish was almost gone. Besides, it was easier to fish than answer endless questions about how much longer the Egret clan and the runaway slaves who lived with them could stay in the small clearing created by a recent fire.
He wasn't a witch doctor. He didn't have the gift of sight. Still, he was the Egret clan's war chief, and in this time of war, everyone turned to him.
Tiny fish nibbled at his toes. He wanted to brush them away, but if he did, he would warn the two garfish swimming closer. In deference to winter, he'd put on leather leggings this morning but had stripped down to his loincloth before stepping into the pond. He loved standing here with the water flowing around him and the wind brushing along his back. This silence that wasn't really silence was important to him. Fishing or hunting alone, he could forget his responsibilities, his father's unavenged ghost, and the fear that the Egret clan could never outrun the army. He became a child again, concerned with nothing except filling his belly.
