Hannah rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, before she renewed her assault on the turnip root. “Someday, sure, but not yet,” she said. “And he was really sweet, more like a dog than a dumb old chicken.”
“Well, never mind,” Alex said, “He gave his life for a good cause.” He rubbed his stomach.
“You’re so weird,” Hannah said. “I thought you liked animals?”
“I do,” Alex conceded with a shrug. “But I like meat, too. I don’t think the pig cares much what happens to it when it’s dead. And anyway, pigs are not pets, especially these pigs. They’re more like wild boars than the pigs we know.”
Hannah grunted as she finally wrenched the turnip from the ground. She stood up and looked at her prize. “Huh, smaller than I thought. I’ll need another one. Hey, that is totally sad about Mrs. Osborn, though. I feel really bad for them. How’s Brandon doing?”
“You can ask him yourself,” Alex said, pointing to an exhausted-looking Brandon as he emerged from the woods.
“Hey, is Mr. Gordon around?” he asked wearily.
Alex nodded, and jerked his head toward the house.
Hannah was already pulling on another bunch of turnip greens, but she looked up and greeted Brandon. “How’s it going over there? How’s Mr. Osborn taking it?” she asked. Brandon twitched slightly, but did not reply.
Hannah could tell he didn’t want to talk about it, but she said, “I kind of thought it was stupid of Sukey to go to that witch doctor they all keep talking about. Maybe she could have helped if she got there sooner. And what good would some stupid magic do?”
Brandon shrugged. “It’s 1752. That’s about as good as medicine gets. At least the witch’s medicine wouldn’t have done any harm, not like what Mr. Gordon and Mr. Osborn do. Anyway, I don’t think anyone could have done anything for Mrs. Osborn. My mom’s a nurse, and she says it’s pretty rare in our time for anyone to die giving birth. But it was pretty common back in the day. I mean, like, now.”
Alex asked hopefully, “So Mr. Osborn wasn’t shocked that his wife died?” But Brandon just gave him an exasperated look, and shook his head.
“Alex, don’t be dumb. Of course he’s shocked. Nothing prepares a man for losing his wife. I learned that in the funeral home. Sometimes, you would get these old men in, who were like eighty years old, and they were still stunned that their wife had passed.”
“What is Mr. Osborn going to do now, Brandon?” Hannah asked gently.
“First thing,” Brandon said grimly, “is he needs help to bury his wife. Matter of fact, that’s why I’m here. Mr. Osborn wants one of the guys to help us dig the grave.”
The neighbors gathered to witness the burial of Mrs. Osborn and her baby. The two bodies were not placed in coffins, but rather wrapped in shrouds, which Hannah found rather creepy. Mr. Osborn led the service, speaking in a wobbly voice, and with tears streaming down his cheeks.
Brandon thought guiltily that he hadn’t really known Mrs. Osborn at all. She had been so quiet, and so often ill in bed. He wondered whether, if she had lived in the twenty-first century, she would have been diagnosed with serious depression. Whenever he had spoken to her, she had seemed kindly, but distant. But now the house felt empty without her presence.
He was proud of how Mr. Osborn was coping with the tragedy, even as he felt sorry for him. At night, he heard his master weeping quietly, but during the day, the minister carried on his usual schedule at his desk and in the fields. Even on Sunday, Mr. Osborn was in his pulpit as usual, giving his uncomfortable and irritated audience of planters yet another of what Brandon thought of as his “hinty-hint” sermons about the religious conversion of the slaves.
Two weeks after his wife’s death, Mr. Osborn called on Mr. Gordon. Hannah watched as the two men had a quiet conversation. She only caught scraps of what was said, but she learned that Mr. Osborn needed more help around the house and in the fields, and that he hoped to replace Brandon with a slave one day. Mr. Gordon was clearly touched by the minister’s plight, despite the differences between them. The two men shook hands, and Mr. Osborn then handed over some gold coins from a leather pouch. In return, Mr. Gordon wrote out a receipt. With that, Alex was sold.
As November wore on, there was less to do on the farm, except to feed the chickens and the cattle, and tend the tobacco and winter greens. Alex kept house, which mostly involved learning to cook, with Brandon’s help. He was boiling a ham donated by a neighbor, when he hesitantly asked Mr. Osborn about the arrangements for Thanksgiving. His questions were met with a blank stare.
He assumed he had offended his boss, but Brandon explained that Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated in 1752, or at least, it wasn’t celebrated in Britain or Georgia. He was hugely disappointed: He hated being stuck in a rut, sitting around the house with Mr. Osborn brooding, as he complained to Brandon when the minister was away.
Brandon agreed that he also needed something to look forward to, and he reckoned that Mr. Osborn did, too. Living in backwoods Georgia in 1752 could be a pretty joyless experience, Brandon thought: At least the slaves knew how to enjoy themselves when they got the chance. But the white people he had met seemed reluctant to let their hair down. He admitted to Alex that he thought much the same way about black and white people in modern Snipesville. Alex thought he had a point.
So when, one Sunday at the slaves’ catechism lesson, Tony invited Brandon to join Cuffee and him on a hunting expedition, Brandon happily accepted. But then he paused, thinking about it. “Wait, hunting? You mean with guns?”
“Certainly!” Tony said.
Slaves with guns? Was that possible? Brandon tried to remember if he had ever read of such a thing. Not for the first time, he wished he could ask the Professor.
As if reading Brandon’s mind, Tony explained, “Mr. Gordon lets us borrow guns to hunt, so long as a white man accompanies us.”
Brandon was once again reminded that he was living in strange times. Even though he was a kid, he was supposed to chaperone gun-toting guys just because he was white and they were black? Now he wondered nervously if he had been wise to accept Tony’s invitation. Would Tony try to kill him?
On the morning of the hunt, Brandon rose when the cockerel crowed shortly before dawn, dressed, and walked briskly to Mr. Gordon’s slave quarters. Tony and Cuffee were already waiting for him, smoking short clay pipes while squatting on the ground outside their hut, their hunting guns lying on the grass alongside them.
Brandon eyed the two men nervously as they scrambled to their feet and picked up their guns. He was comforted to notice that if they had any designs on murdering him, they seemed very relaxed about it.
When, Brandon wondered, had he started being afraid of black people? He was beginning to understand why white people in 1752 were so paranoid. They were surrounded by people who had every reason to hate them.
But Brandon also knew that if Tony and Cuffee had decided to run away, or start a rebellion, he wouldn’t try to stop them. He just hoped they wouldn’t kill him in the process.
As they tramped through the woods, Brandon plucked up the courage to ask the most obvious question he could think of. “So why don’t you guys just run away from slavery?” he said quietly. “Like right now?”
There was a pained silence, and Brandon was reminded once again that, in this world, he was white. But he plowed on regardless. “I mean, what’s to stop you?”
Finally, Tony answered with a forced laugh. “Run away? Where would we go? The Indians would find us and sell us as slaves. We would always be running, all our lives. And if Mr. Gordon catches us . . .” He glanced pointedly at Cuffee’s half foot, and said, “Cuffee can never run away again. That is what happened when he tried.”
Cuffee gave a sardonic smile. Brandon already knew that Mr. Gordon had cut off Cuffee’s foot, but he still shuddered when he thought about it.
“You could go back to Africa,” he suggested. “Maybe you could stow away on a ship.”
Tony looked at Brando
n as though he were nuts. “Africa? Why would I go to Africa? I am not from Africa. My father was an African, from the country of Angola, and he was banished by his own king. He sold my father into slavery because he fought in the rebellion of Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita. She was Saint Anthony, returned to earth in a woman’s body, and my father was proud to have fought for her. But he could never return to his homeland.”
Brandon remained silent, but he was fascinated by this fantastic story. Could it be true? He made a mental note to ask the Professor about this Donna Beatrice person, whoever she was.
Tony continued his story. “I was born in South Carolina, and I would never want to go back there, either. Terrible, terrible place. Here is better than working on the rice plantation in Carolina. Anyway, wherever we live, we are slaves. We will never be happy in this world, only the next.”
“I am from Africa,” Cuffee chimed in. “From Angola, like Tony’s father. If I ever get back there, I will be slave trader.”
Brandon was shocked. “What? Why?” he sputtered in horror.
“Because it is better than being slave,” Cuffee said with a smile. “What else will I be? If I am a slave trader, I will be wealthy and powerful man in my country.”
Brandon shook his head in amazement. He walked in silence for several minutes. Then he had an idea. “Hey,” he said, stopping on the trail. “How about I help you guys get to England? You could be free there.” Did slavery exist in England, Brandon asked himself? He had no clue.
Tony looked at him suspiciously. “Tell me, Master Brandon. Why do you want us to be free?”
Now Brandon realized that he had gone too far. Tony didn’t trust him at all. And that made sense. Why would some random white kid encourage slaves to run away, unless he wanted to get them in trouble? And if a miracle happened, and Cuffee and Tony made it across the Atlantic, would England be friendly to them? Or was there slavery there, too?
Brandon felt frustrated and useless. He knew now that he could do nothing to end slavery in 1752. Nobody could. It was not the time. Maybe the people here were right. Maybe they were all innocent victims of “fortune’s wheel,” as Jane put it. And when God blesses people, Brandon thought angrily, why does He never bless slaves with freedom?
Suppose these guys never got off the plantation? Suppose they met women, and had kids, and doomed their children and grandchildren to lifetimes of slavery?
As Brandon thought and walked, he found himself keeping pace with Tony. Glancing up, he looked at Tony’s face in profile for the first time.
How could he not have seen this before?
The resemblance to his father was faint, but it was there.
Was it possible?
Were Tony and Sukey his ancestors?
Suddenly, Tony stopped Brandon in his tracks with a hand on his chest. Something was moving in the trees ahead of them. Tony and Cuffee lifted their guns and pointed them. In the still of the forest, Brandon could hear the sound of his own breathing.
Just as suddenly as he had raised his gun, Cuffee lowered it, and reaching out, slapped the barrel of Tony’s weapon toward the ground. Tony looked questioningly at him, but Cuffee put a finger to his lips and then pointed.
Their prey wasn’t a deer, but a human. Through the trees Brandon could just glimpse a tall black man, who was concentrating on wrenching something out of the ground.
Tony signaled to Brandon to turn around and return the way they came. Brandon didn’t know why, but he obeyed.
But as he turned, he tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face. By the time he sat up, the man was vanishing through the trees.
“What was that about?” Brandon exclaimed, brushing pine straw and dirt from himself. “Who was that guy?”
“Nothing and no one,” Tony muttered. “Come hither, and we will follow this other trail instead.”
But Brandon didn’t move. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Do you think he was a runaway slave or something?”
Neither Tony nor Cuffee looked back at him, but he could sense them both tensing.
“No,” Tony barked without turning his head. “I never saw nothing. Did you, Cuffee?”
“Me neither,” Cuffee growled. “I saw nothing.”
Once again, Brandon was forcefully reminded that he was not part of the men’s brotherhood of trust. But he couldn’t help wondering, who was the man in the woods?
It all happened in seconds.
Hannah awoke to the acrid smell of burning. It wasn’t the usual aroma of firewood, or even overcooked food, but something altogether more pungent and repellent. It smelled like cigarettes. She knew that it was not yet dawn because no light seeped through the cracks and holes in the shutters.
At that moment, Mrs. Gordon was walking downstairs, with Mr. Gordon right behind her, holding her hand. Mr. Gordon escorted his wife outside, but returned almost immediately afterward, running upstairs past Hannah and Jane, who rubbed her eyes and sat up. “What’s going on?” she asked Hannah.
In his haste, Mr. Gordon had left the door open, and with horror, Hannah could see flames outside. Before she could say anything, Mr. Gordon had reappeared on the stairs, yelling, “Hurry! The tobacco barn is ablaze! Jane, assist my wife. Hannah, go and draw water from the well while I collect important papers.”
Hannah grabbed the bucket and darted for the door. As soon as she stepped outside, she started coughing from the thick black smoke. Quickly she began to pump water from the well. Slaves were arriving from the quarters, some bringing buckets of river water, but the barn was now completely ablaze, orange and yellow flames leaping into the air at twice the height of the building, and the water evaporated as soon as they hurled it on the flames. Sparks drifted lazily through the air, many flying dangerously close to the house. Instinctively, Hannah glanced up at the house roof, and, in the light of the blaze, she saw how much pine straw had collected up there. She bet that Mr. Gordon would regret not having removed it.
When Mr. Gordon arrived outside and saw that the barn was completely ablaze, he ordered everyone to redirect their efforts, and throw water on the house, to keep it damp.
Shivering in the night air, Mrs. Gordon was standing barefoot in her shift, wrapped only in a blanket. She was in tears, but Mr. Gordon rushed to console her, clasping her arms. “My dear, this is a loss, certainly,” he said, “but do not forget that the greatest part of my fortune remains at Sidlaw, and if we can stop the fire from spreading, we may yet save this house. If not, it is but a minor loss to our fortunes, I promise you.”
He called over to Hannah. “Fetch a lantern from the house, and take Mrs. Gordon to Mr. Jones’s house,” he said. “Remain with her there until you are both sent for. Ask Mr. Jones if he can spare any slaves to help us extinguish the flames.”
But the smell of smoke drifting through the pine forest had already brought Mr. Jones, Mr. Osborn, Brandon, and several of Mr. Jones’s slaves, all of them carrying buckets. As Hannah put her arm around Mrs. Gordon and began to lead her away, she couldn’t help thinking that this motley crew was a pretty poor excuse for a fire brigade.
On the way to Mrs. Jones’s house, Mrs. Gordon began to shiver uncontrollably. Alarmed, Hannah half-dragged, half-carried her mistress for the last hundred yards. As soon as they reached the house, Mrs. Jones and Juba, her silent and grim-faced young slave woman, helped Hannah to get her to bed.
“Do you think she’s going into shock?” Hannah asked Mrs. Jones, a bustling, practical sort of woman, who didn’t answer except to tell Hannah to fetch water and heat it over the fire. When Hannah returned to Mrs. Gordon’s bedside with the boiled water, Mrs. Jones said, “Go tell Mr. Gordon that his wife has been afflicted with ague once more, and that he ought to administer physic to her. Hurry now.”
Hannah had hoped for a hot drink, but there was no chance of that now. Cold and exhausted, she grabbed her lantern, and set off.
Thirty minutes later, Hannah arrived home to find Mr. Gordon still supervising the effort to save his house. She
struggled to remember Mrs. Jones’s message to Mr. Gordon. Finding her master, she tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around. “What is the matter?” he barked. “Don’t touch me.”
Hannah shifted from foot to foot. “Mrs. Jones says that Mrs. Gordon is, um, affected by a glue, and that she needs some physics.”
Mr. Gordon somehow figured it out. “A glue? You mean ague, surely. A fever, yes? I will go to her as soon as I am able.”
But Mr. Osborn, standing nearby, overheard the conversation, and he put a hand on Mr. Gordon’s arm. “Sir, with your permission, I will do what I can for your wife.” He hesitated before adding kindly, “So soon after losing my own dear wife, I would do all I could to spare you the same loss.”
Mr. Gordon nodded in gratitude, and Mr. Osborn hurried off toward his own house to get his medical equipment. Hannah started back toward the Jones’ house. She didn’t want to miss the drama. And it wasn’t as though she had a bed to go to at the Gordons’.
Hannah reached the Jones’ house ahead of Mr. Osborn, and it was she who opened the door for him when he arrived with his black bag. She offered him a seat but, soon afterward, Mrs. Jones came downstairs to greet him. Mr. Osborn got to his feet.
“Madam, I am here to examine Mrs. Gordon,” he said gravely. “I am informed that she suffers from the ague.”
“She is very bad, sir,” said Mrs. Jones in somber tones. “But I do not think it is the ague, after all.”
“You would know better than I the symptoms, madam,” Mr. Osborn replied, “for although I have read of this disease and its treatment, I never have encountered it before.”
Mrs. Jones nodded primly. “Let me show you to her, sir,” she said, then turned to Hannah and gestured toward the stairs. “Girl, come up with us. Mrs. Gordon wishes to speak with you.” Without further ado, she led the way.
Upstairs, Mr. Osborn kneeled down on the wooden floor next to where Mrs. Gordon lay sleeping on the bed. Hannah, behind him, was shocked at how pale she looked.
“So, like, what is the ague, Mr. Osborn?” Hannah whispered to the minister as he unpacked his instruments.
Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3) Page 24
