by Natasha Boyd
I heard a sound of what could have been indignation gurgle from Cromwell’s throat. Then he rose and left the room.
So this had been his final attempt to prove to me I couldn’t do this. It was beyond comprehension that he would so perjure his own integrity to make a point. What purpose could it serve to cause me to fail? I imagined he’d thought he’d timed it perfectly. That I’d be unable to procure more help.
Cromwell proved himself quite correct. Despite my plea to Starrat to send Negroes down from Waccamaw, Starrat’s response was that he was unable to help due to the fall rice harvest. A valid excuse. But somehow I knew he could have managed.
Quash informed me he had never heard from either Ben or Cromwell of the need for more help.
Each day that passed brought us closer to the day it would suddenly be deemed harvest day, and I didn’t want to miss that moment when it came. But with the end of October and the King’s Birthday Ball bearing down upon us, it seemed I might.
There was no way I could be absent from the largest social event Charles Town had ever seen. It would put the final nail in my coffin of spinsterhood and probably seal Polly’s fate as well. Besides, Mama wouldn’t allow me to back out, I was sure of it. I wanted to see Mr. and Mrs. Pinckney. She had, after all, been so generous in having her seamstress, Bettina, make our dresses, we could hardly not attend. We needed to be there for fittings a few days prior to the event.
I hadn’t been alone in the fields with Ben since the day I’d grabbed his hand, but I couldn’t avoid being near him forever. Now I found myself seeking him out.
Ben was facing away from me, inspecting the rows with Togo, talking softly, pointing out certain plants. From the looks of the buds, the indigo would soon burst into bloom. I had a feeling this was what we were waiting for. For the indigo to be at its most potent and its most creatively fertile; moments before it burst forth into flower.
I waited on the edge of the field. Togo saw me and nodded his head. When I didn’t summon him, he kept moving. Ben did not look up. On a whim, I looked around at my feet and spied a small pinecone. I picked it up and taking careful aim, I let loose and hurled it at Ben’s back.
He stopped.
My heart pounded with nerves.
Ben resumed his walking without turning around.
If Togo noticed what I’d done, he didn’t give it away.
I felt stupid for replaying our silly childhood game. I didn’t know what had come over me. It was a childish gesture and now I simply felt ridiculous.
After a few more minutes, Togo left and Ben turned to me.
“I don’t like being kept waiting,” I said when he finally approached, his gaze guarded.
“I not like things thrown at me,” he responded.
“You didn’t used to mind so much,” I half spoke, half whispered, my voice feeling oddly choked up.
He breathed in through his nose. “I was a child then.”
I looked away. The energy between us, unable to become anything resembling what we’d once had, was almost physically painful in its impotence.
Swallowing, I cleared my throat. “Did you tell Cromwell we needed more hands for the harvest, or did Cromwell tell you?” I already knew the answer. It was Cromwell I didn’t trust.
Ben cocked his head to the side. “You do not have more workers coming?”
“You didn’t answer me. But no. No, we don’t. Because no one told me.”
Ben shrugged. “We will manage.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, not giving him the satisfaction of a nod. “When will it begin?”
He turned to the stalks nearest us, fingering the small buds. “Sunrise in three days. Maybe before.”
Exactly what I was afraid of. I’d have left for the ball. I swallowed in disappointment. At a loss as to what else to say, I began walking away, blinking rapidly.
I felt like I was holding on too tight to everything. My ambitions, my emotions … I feared they would soon slip through my fingers and unravel at lightning speed.
A thump hit my lower back. I gasped and turned around. Ben stood, a small smirk playing around his mouth. Two more pinecones in his hands.
I swiped at my eyes, betraying myself.
He stilled when he saw my tears and was quiet a few moments. “It be alrigh’,” he said finally. “I’ll make it alrigh’.”
I let out a long breath that wobbled and hitched as it left me. “Thank you.”
He nodded and brought two fingers up, laying them gently to the pouch at his breast.
I didn’t know what it meant. It was familiar, though. I felt a chill move through me that I would have dreamt something so foretelling. It must be a memory.
A gasp from my right drew my attention, and I saw Sarah, hand on her swollen belly, swinging her gaze between us.
And somehow, with dread, I knew Ben had made a terrible mistake.
Again, I was awake before dawn.
Impatience for the indigo harvest was driving me to madness. I felt as if any one of a hundred things could go wrong at any moment. Sarah and the way she had looked when Ben made that promise haunted me.
The new batch of live oak shoots I was growing in a box on my window ledge would soon become trees if I didn’t take them outside and plant them.
I gave them a bit of water in the half light, then holding my shoes in one hand and the small container in the other, I padded down the stairs and out into the cool early morning. I was surprised Essie hadn’t seen to me yet.
Not only my mind, but my body was restless too. I waited anxiously for the harvest of course, and I was keyed up about having to leave for Charles Town soon, but there was something else. Something I couldn’t pin down. A sort of aliveness that ran under the surface of my skin and just out of reach from my thoughts. It was hard to concentrate on anything, let alone relax enough to sleep. And it was hard to keep still.
A late rising moon shot a twinkling path toward me across the water of Wappoo Creek. I donned my shoes, lacing them tightly, and grabbed a small trowel from the basket at the end of the veranda.
Seeking out a spot near the water on the southernmost part of our land, in a spot rarely trampled upon, I methodically planted a spaced-out stand of what I hoped would become beautiful, tall, and strong live oaks. The earth was damp and gritty, dark and fertile. I was careful not to plant in the line of sight between the house and the creek, lest they should one day block the view.
There was a live oak near Lord Fenwick’s land across the creek that, rumor had it, was a thousand years old. The trunk would take the arms of six men to encircle it, its gnarled and curving branches almost too heavy to hold themselves up. What majesty and mystery must a specimen hold to affix itself upon the earth in such a hardy manner, come thunderstorms and hurricanes. I hoped at least a few of these oaks I was planting would see out whatever became of this land a thousand years hence, sentinels upon the banks of Wappoo Creek. Others, I knew, would doubtless be harvested for ships. That was my intention, anyway.
I’d ask Quash later today to create a barrier of sorts with sticks and twine so that nobody damaged the small saplings.
Quash’s lessons were going well. I thought I might try to procure some books on architecture for him if Charles had some. It seemed his knack for arithmetic, along with his carpentry and building skills, had coalesced into a burning fire. His thirst for knowledge had been well and truly ignited.
I blew out a breath and tramped back to the house just in time to hear an almost inhuman scream that froze the blood in my veins.
The hut where Sarah and her daughter, Ebba, lived was dark as I entered, lit only with a small oil lamp I recognized from the house. Essie was within, hovering over Sarah, whose normally dark skin seemed leached of color and polished with sweat. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her teeth bared.
The smell of camphor and Essie’s her
bs did little to diminish the sickly sweet and metallic smell of bodily emissions. I hurriedly pulled out my small hanky to cover my nose and mouth.
Essie’s face was grave.
“What happened? Is she all right?”
Sarah moaned, the hoarse, guttural moan of a wounded animal bleeding out. It was then I saw the dark blood staining the sheets around her lower body.
My chest seized, my stomach flipping over in protest. Her baby! I lurched forward. “Oh, my sweet Lord.” I made the sign of the cross upon my body. “What can we do?”
Essie shook her head. “It is too late.”
Sarah seemed to hear Essie and cried out again, her back arching in agony.
“No. It can’t be. I shall run to the house for wet cloths. We’ll bathe her and give her willow bark for the pain. She will be all right!” The baby wouldn’t. My breath hitched. But she would be.
I turned and fled, hurrying toward the kitchen block. Mary Ann was there already. Ebba, unaware of the situation with her mother, sat with Mary Ann’s daughters at the scarred wooden table eating corn cakes and drinking cow’s milk. Hopefully Lil’ Gulla would stay oblivious in the stable block.
The pot of water was already heated, and I went to the shelves that held the lye soap and cloths, grabbing a handful and dumping them in the pot. “We need some willow bark tea too please, Mary Ann.”
Sarah had lost her baby. Ben’s baby perhaps. I could not identify my feelings on that score. How painful must it be to have a life wrenched from your body? Surely there was no sin that would warrant that act from God.
I thought of Mrs. Pinckney and what Charles had told me. Was it better to have the babe taken from your body before you knew him or her or for the babe to die as an infant? What was God’s plan to invoke the miracle of life under even the most difficult of circumstances, and then cruelly rip it away? Why? I blinked rapidly against the horror and bloodiness of the scene I had witnessed, even though I was headed back to it. God grant that I may never have to endure such a thing.
I drew the cloths out with a wooden ladle and set them into a pail, and then also spooned some water into the tin cup Mary Ann had set on the table.
Approaching Sarah’s hut, I saw Ben crouched outside. He sat upon his haunches, his indigo-dyed trousers stretched across his thighs and a tanned leather work vest upon his upper body. The charm that normally rested against his breastbone was clutched tight in his fist. He watched me approach, his eyes dark.
I swallowed, at once sympathetic but with a pain in my heart I couldn’t fathom. Shaking my head, I stepped past him. “Excuse me,” I muttered and holding my breath, entered the hut. I thought I felt him reach out to me as I passed, but I did not slow.
There was quiet from the bed. Sarah was perhaps unconscious at last. “Come, leave the pail. I must wash her,” Essie instructed, indicating the bucket I had brought.
“I’ll help.”
“She would not want that.” Essie shook her head and took the tea from me, setting it upon a low table. There was a small collection of artifacts upon its surface. Bones, some rocks, twigs, and dried berry husks. It looked like the bits and pieces Ebba liked to collect. Essie’s movements knocked a horse chestnut hung with twine, and it rolled from the table to the floor and under the low platform that served as Sarah’s bed.
I bent to retrieve it. Movement and light caught my eye. A blown glass jar was pushed under the bed. Curiously, I brought it out, seeing it was covered in cloth and tied with twine.
Then I almost dropped it in fright at the contents, mottled and distorted through the thick glass. Caterpillars.
No. Not caterpillars. I shook my head, not believing. Stuffed into the jar were indigo leaves and dozens of the awful pests I had seen only once before in my indigo fields.
I looked up and saw Essie staring at the jar in my hand, looking as aghast as I. Then my gaze slid to the bed and Sarah, who should have still been asleep but now lay staring at me. Her eyes were narrowed to slits and filled with such hatred, I could feel it slicing across my skin.
“How could you?” I asked, too shocked to feel anything but confusion. “I … I saved you. Didn’t I? Why would you do this?”
She didn’t answer.
The hatefulness of her actions, her intent, was almost too much to bear. It was hard to breathe under the assault of such malice. I blinked at her and thought she smiled, though her lips were pale and cracked, white against her dark skin. I wanted to be angry, but as I looked at her I couldn’t summon it.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I whispered with as much meaning as I could muster.
“She make it on her own self,” Essie muttered as she rang out the washcloth and peeled the sticky darkened sheets from Sarah’s legs.
I looked away, my stomach rolling at the sight. I had to swallow down a retch.
“This here dark magic. She done practiced a charm upon a body who is protected. Mighty protected.” Essie glanced at me meaningfully as if I was to know of what she spoke. “It come back upon her.”
My gaze darted back to Sarah’s face at Essie’s words, my gut still churning. But Sarah was passed out again. Taking the jar, I stepped outside into the now bright dawn, my eyes creasing against the assault of light.
Ben stood and looked down at what I held in my hands. I watched the realization take hold. His jaw hardened, and he made a short clicking sound. Reaching out, he closed his hands around mine, so together we held the jar. The warmth and roughness of his skin soothed me, and I felt the delayed emotions inside me lurch for the surface. I let out a hiccuped breath, looking up at Ben’s kind and beautiful dark face. With all my might, I wished for Ben to draw me close and hold me against his strong body. I wished for two friends to be able to take comfort from each other. I yearned for it with such a fierce desire, I trembled, my heart hurling itself against my rib cage.
“Why does she hate me so much?” I whispered instead.
The low rhythmic melodies of field songs drifted with me as I emerged from dreaming to wakefulness.
I opened my eyes and sat up in bed, straining to hear in the darkness. Sure enough, the low sound of African voices and one melodious voice belonging to Togo dancing over the top of it floated in from outside.
We were harvesting.
Oh, thank the Lord.
I turned my face to the door. Essie materialized as if summoned. “Hurry, Essie. I want to go down and see.” I kicked off my covers, tangling my feet.
“Slow down, chil’.” She chuckled her warm treacle laugh.
“I’m too excited, Essie. I’ve waited for this day for far too long. Make haste.” Harvest had come early. I’d get to see it after all.
I was outside in the dark morning, racing toward the harmonious voices. We were succeeding at last! Nothing could stand in our way now. We had avoided another pest attack, though Ben had assured me there wouldn’t have been time to do any real damage. When I let myself think of it, I felt enraged. Fortunately, Sarah had survived the loss of her baby. I knew Essie tended to her each day, but I had not seen her since. And it was almost a relief to know she was not present at this momentous moment.
Dark figures moved through the rows of indigo, dipping and rising like waves as they tended to their work. The whisking sound of the blades lent a percussive undertone to the harmonies.
I searched for a familiar outline, even as I picked out voices. A beautiful vibrato stood out, and I pinpointed it coming from Togo. His voice was deep in parts and beautifully falsetto in others.
My eyes found Ben. My heart thumped erratically in excitement. As I started toward him, I noticed Cromwell too. Pacing nearby, a dim orange glow from his pipe was occasionally visible. He raised his hand in greeting, and even though Ben was the person I wanted to check in with, I changed course toward Cromwell.
“It will be a long day,” he said.
I nodded
. “But an exciting one.”
He made a sound of dismissal. “It will get tedious for a lady soon enough, I am sure.”
I ambled away from him to see where I might be needed.
Light seeped over the landscape. Work paused as the first ray pierced the trees at the creek’s edge and shot over the field. The cooking fire was going, Quash’s mother standing over a large, suspended pot, stirring constantly. Stone-ground cornmeal with hog’s lard and salted pork and greens from the walled garden. All our workers, young and old, played a part.
Hours passed. The atmosphere was one of camaraderie and excitement. We were united in a common cause. I’d shared with Togo one day, when he returned from the market in town, how I was depending upon the indigo crop to save the plantation. Perhaps it was pointless to explain something of such a personal nature to one’s slave. Anyone, even Charles, might have questioned my judgment in doing so. But in the end, I was glad. For whether Togo had chosen to share the information among his peers, or Ben had shared how Sarah plotted to destroy the crop, the feeling that morning of a team united and excited in the pursuit of a common goal, my goal, was beautiful satisfaction.
Every available pair of hands, including my own cased in cowhide gloves, worked until the field was green no more. We worked until every last leaf and all my hopes were bundled and laid out on sackcloth.
There were two large, square, three-foot-deep brick vats built adjacent and attached to each other. One was built up higher than the other, so liquid might be drained into the lower vessel. Ben climbed up the ladder to the higher of the two vats and returned shaking his head. Cromwell went up and returned too, though he looked less perturbed.
“What is it?” I asked, approaching.
“The water is perfect and ready for the plants.” Cromwell nodded as he spoke.
Ben’s stare scorched the side of my face. I swallowed and turned to him. “Ben, do you agree?”
