A Different Day, A Different Destiny (The Snipesville Chronicles)

by Laing, Annette

  Jupe spoke, sounding shocked. “White folks run away?”

  “Why, sure they do,” Jupiter said. “Children run away for all kinds of reasons. Even if you’re rich, that won’t protect you from a devil of a father, or a cruel master.”

  Alex slowly opened his eyes, and saw that he was in a bleak, dark wooden cabin, and that everyone in it was staring at him. Immediately, Jupe’s mother averted her eyes from his. She made herself busy stirring the kettle that hung over the blazing fireplace.

  Jupiter spoke to Alex, but now he sounded different, as though he was speaking to someone older than himself, not to a mere boy. “You feeling better, young massa? My wife here can fetch you a dipper of water, and something to eat. I’m Jupiter, the slave driver here at Kintyre Plantation. You already know my son Jupe, and this here’s his mother, Sarie.”

  “Pleased to meet you all,” said Alex. Hearing this, a startled Sarie stirred her cauldron so hard, she slopped some of the contents into the fireplace, where they sizzled loudly. Sarie tasted the soup, and made a clucking noise of approval. Then, grabbing a rough flat piece of wood, she scraped some gray and red ashes out from under the pot, and made a pile of them on the dirt floor. Seizing a thick rag, she carefully lifted the handle of the three-legged pot, and swung it onto the ground, over the glowing embers.

  “Soup’ll be warm a long while, Massa,” she said to Alex. “You just tell me when you want some.”

  Alex sniffed the air and scrunched up his face. “What is it, if you don’t mind me asking? Smells interesting.”

  “It’s chitlins with cabbage,” Sarie said matter-of-factly.

  “Chitlins?” Alex looked blank.

  “You must know chitlins?” exclaimed Jupiter. “Unless you’re not from round here…You must be from the North!” Now that explained some things about this strange white boy, Jupiter thought to himself.

  “No, not exactly,” said Alex. “I’m from the West. From Northern California.”

  Jupiter smiled at him, and pointed to his jacket and waistcoat. “You must’ve made your fortune in them gold fields out there, young massa. Look at them fine clothes! Now, where are you headed?”

  “Home, I guess,” Alex said. “Hey, do you know where Snipesville is?”

  Jupiter chuckled. “Know it? Snipesville’s just up the hill there. We’ll have you there in no time.”

  Sarie tapped her husband’s arm. “You and Jupe take him in the cart, Jupiter. But first, you let him eat.”

  “What are chitlins, again?” Alex asked.

  “They’re the bowels of a hog,” Jupiter replied bluntly, enjoying what he knew would be Alex’s reaction.

  Alex blenched. “Um, just water for me, thanks all the same.” He got to his feet.

  As Alex followed Sarie out to the well, Jupiter, with a grim smile, said quietly to Jupe, “Well, he’s a gentleman all right: Won’t touch chitlins. We’d best get him to where he needs to go.”

  Although Alex protested that he felt well enough to walk, they took the cart, driving through the fields and up a gentle forested hill. Jupiter drove, while the two boys sat in the back. Alex worried about his sister and Brandon. Were they here, too? Had Brandon been mistaken for a slave? He got the shivers, and found himself fervently hoping that the Professor would turn up soon, reunite the three of them, and take them home.

  The cart soon ground to a halt in a clearing in the woods, in front of a log cabin which had a set of deer antlers affixed over the door and smoke curling from the chimney. “Where are we?” Alex asked.

  Jupiter took a deep breath and said, “Well, young Massa Alex, you asked for Snipesville. And this here is Snipesville.”

  Alex gazed forlornly at the lone building. “But where’s the rest of it?”

  Jupiter laughed. “You’re looking at it, sir. That there’s the inn, where Massa and Missis Marshburn live. There was supposed to be more to Snipesville, folks say, but the land in the west of Georgia is a whole lot better than here, and so folks keep on moving out yonder. The Marshburns and their slaves, they’re the only people who stay here.”

  Alex briefly chewed his lip. “Wow. Well, that’s that, then. Let’s head on to Savannah, I guess.”

  But Jupiter shook his head. “Oh, too late for that today, sir.”

  “Why?” Alex asked. “I mean, Savannah’s only an hour from here.” He immediately realized what he had said: He had been thinking of the journey by car.

  “Begging your pardon, Massa Alex,” Jupiter said slowly, “But you don’t know Georgia right well, do you, young sir? We’re more than a day’s drive away, even if we start at dawn. Now, you might could take the Macon to Savannah train tomorrow, but it don’t pass near here. Closest railroad stop is at Millen.”

  There was a silence. Alex was running out of ideas. Thoughtlessly, he felt in the recesses of his pocket, and was relieved to find, lodged next to the calculator, a small leather pouch that jingled when he shook it. He pulled out the pouch, and eagerly tipped several coins into his palm. “Tell you what, Jupiter, if I stay the night here, would you drive me to Millen in the morning? I could pay you.”

  Jupiter had been thinking about this possibility, too. And more. “Might could do that,” he said cautiously. “But could I beg a favor? Will you take Jupe with you to Savannah? There’s not much for him to do at Kintyre Plantation, what with the massa gone. Maybe he could find a little work in the city, hiring himself out.”

  Alex nodded. He figured Jupe would be good company. But Jupe sat up in alarm and looked questioningly at his father, who ignored him and said to Alex: “Very good, sir. We see you first light tomorrow.” With that, Jupiter shook the reins, and turned the cart around for the return to Kintyre Plantation.

  As Jupiter drove slowly down the hill, Jupe could no longer keep quiet. “Daddy, why are you sending me away with that white boy?”

  “It’s a chance for you,” Jupiter said bluntly. “You and him, you might could get away to your Aunt Betsy in Massachusetts, and her abolitionist preacher husband. You persuade Massa Alex to take you there or out to California with him, and you’ll be free.”

  Free. What a powerful word that was. But Jupe couldn’t get his head around it, because all he felt was panic. He said desperately, “I might never see you again, you or mama or the rest of them.”

  But his father was adamant. “There’s no certainty in this life, Jupe. We’ll all see you in the next life.”

  Jupe wasn’t giving up, and thought desperately for other reasons to stay at Kintyre. “But what will you tell the massa? What will you tell the others about me?”

  His father had a ready answer. “I’ll tell them you ran away, and somebody saw you fall in the river. Look, if things turn out bad with Massa Alex, you leave him as quick as you can. You can do that, because I’m gonna write you two passes, one that says you belong to him, and one that could take you all the way to North without him. But much better you should stay with Alex, because in the company of a white boy, you won’t draw the attention of the slave patrols. Don’t you get the passes mixed up, or let Alex see them close up, you hear? And don’t you trust this Massa Alex, not for a moment, or he’ll sell you down the river soon as look at you. He seems like a nice innocent Yankee boy, but he’s white, and he’ll soon learn what that means for him. Got that?”

  Jupe was forlorn. He knew from the tone of Jupiter’s voice that he could not change his father’s mind. “Yes, sir. But what will we tell Mama?”

  Jupiter said quietly, “The truth. You always tell your mama the truth.”

  The nineteenth-century Marshburns were a far cry from their descendants, Alex’s dad’s boss and his family. Mr. Marshburn, the 1851 version, was lying curled up asleep and drunk under the table in the filthy, smelly front parlor. Mrs. Marshburn, wearing a torn and stained dress, was screaming at him to get up, and kicking his shoulder. Alex, stood awkwardly in the doorway wondering what to do. Finally, he coughed to let them know he was there. “Um, I guess I need a room? How much is it?
Is breakfast included? Do you have a restaurant?”

  Mrs. Marshburn gave her husband a last savage kick, and turned to look at Alex as if he were mad. But she spoke politely to him. “Good evening to you. You know, it’s real late, and you look mighty young. You got negroes with you?”

  Alex was confused. “Uh, they just left.”

  Mrs. Marshburn wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shriek, so she did both.

  “Your niggers just left you here? They ran off?”

  “No….” Alex hesitated. Then he realized the misunderstanding. “They’re not my slaves. They just helped me out. I’m travelling to Savannah.”

  She nodded, and wiped her hands down the front of her dirty dress. “Well, then, we got a place in back. I’ll see what I can scrape up for supper, but there ain’t much. Might could give you clabber milk and a crust in the morning. Maybe could boil you a mess of corn and ham for your supper tonight.”

  Unappealing as the offer was, Alex thought it sounded better than pig gut soup and a mattress on the floor.

  Holding out her hand, Mrs. Marshburn said, “It’s just a dollar for the tariff.”

  Alex counted out the money in change. He marveled at a huge thick penny stamped with an Indian in braided hair.

  Twenty minutes later, Alex was sitting in front of his meal, wishing he were somewhere else. Mr. Marshburn had removed himself-- or been removed -- from under the table, but otherwise, the dining room was still revolting. In one corner, an emaciated dog suckled her newborn litter. Flies hung in the air. The whole room smelled like rotting wood, dog poop, human pee, and whisky. Alex’s supper was equally disgusting: A rough wooden bowl containing a thick warm paste of coarse corn grits. A few shreds of salty, stringy ham were mixed into the mush. But Alex was starving, so he ate it anyway. Or, at least, he ate it until he found the crushed remains of an enormous cockroach on his spoon.

  After supper, Alex saw his room in the rear of the house, and wished at once that he were back in Jupiter’s cabin. Boots and clothes littered the room,and sleeping men shared every small double bed, up to three of them in each. The room stank of whiskey, armpits, flatulence, and sweaty feet. “Where do I sleep?” Alex asked the landlady.

  She pointed to a bed next to the window. “In with him,” she said, and with that, she left the room. The bed was occupied by a man who appeared to be in his forties, and who was snoring gloriously.

  Alex was incredibly embarrassed, but he didn’t have much choice. Quietly, he removed his shoes, and tentatively slid into the bed on the window side. He decided against trying to wrench any of the blanket away from his bedmate.

  Startling Alex, the man spoke. “Good Lord, what time is it?” he said, struggling to sit up. He had an English accent, and if Alex wasn’t mistaken, it was quite upper-class.

  Alex had no idea what time it was. He whispered, “It’s pretty late. Sorry to wake you.”

  The man rubbed his head and yawned. Then he said loudly, “That’s quite all right. There’s not a great deal of sleep to be had in this dreadful lodging anyway.”

  Others in the room growled at him to be quiet. But he ignored them, and continued to speak to Alex at regular volume. “I do hope you didn’t eat the rubbish that ghastly woman was serving.”

  “Afraid so,” admitted Alex. “It was gross. I found a roach in mine.”

  “I am surprised,” the Englishman drawled, “that it wasn’t a rat. This must surely qualify as the worst inn in America, and that’s no small contest.” He stretched his arms. “I cannot sleep, it’s hopeless. Would you care for a drink?”

  He looked closely at Alex through the half-light from the windows. “Oh. You’re a bit young for whisky, I suppose. Never mind, do you object if I…?”

  “No, go ahead,” said Alex. He hoped the man wasn’t going to turn out to be a violent drunk. Where was the Professor, he wondered?

  The man retrieved a silver flask from the leather bag under his head, uncorked it, took a sip, and shuddered. “Ugh, dreadful stuff. And the landlady would evict me in a minute if she saw it. She’s temperance, she says. She doesn’t believe in alcohol, and neither does her pig of a husband. Meanwhile, we are supposed to pretend not to notice that her husband is a drunken sot, and that the entire house reeks of spirits. What an odd country this is.”

  Alex was curious about his bedmate. “You’re from England?”

  The man wiped his mouth on his hand. “Hmm, yes. I live in Georgia now, for my sins. If the climate does not kill me, I may return home for good one day. Indeed, I already have plans for a sojourn in London this summer, my first

  in many a year. I shall come back, though. Or perhaps not. It depends on business. And on other things.” “Where are you from in England?” Alex asked pleasantly.

  The man exhaled loudly, as though irritated to be asked. “Oh, I very much doubt you will have heard of it. I hail from Balesworth in Hertfordshire. Is that a satisfactory answer?”

  Alex gasped. “That’s so cool! I lived there once!”

  “Did you now,” said the man skeptically, and took another sip of whisky. He clearly didn’t believe Alex. There was a pause. “I wonder,” the man said carefully, “do you read, write and compute?”

  “I know computers, if that’s what you mean,” Alex replied.

  The man looked puzzled and tried again. “I mean, do you know your numbers?”

  Alex figured he meant math. Of course. No computers in 1851. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay with numbers, I guess.”

  The man smiled. “Should you require a position as a clerk, I may have a place for you in Savannah. My name’s Thornhill, and you’ll find me on the Bay. I make no promises and I cannot pay a great deal, but you will find me there. For now, I think I shall make another attempt at sleep. I must depart early tomorrow.” He returned his flask to his bag, lay down, and turned over.

  In the early hours of the morning, Alex awoke, his stomach swirling with nausea. He realized that he had no idea where the bathroom was, or if there was one. With no time to spare, he dashed to the open window, stuck out his head, and threw up onto the ground below. When he was done heaving, he realized he was itchy all over, and he held his arm out into the moonlight to see the problem. To his horror, he saw spots of blood. Further frantic self-examination revealed the same spots all over his body. He discovered their source on the bed: Big bloated bedbugs. He and the stranger were sleeping with an entire bedbug colony that had been feasting on them both. Alex decided to spend the rest of the night on the bare floorboards.

  Early the next morning, Mrs. Marshburn’s slave woman bashed loudly on the door. The sleeping men murmured in protest. Alex lay shivering on the floor, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. He felt sick and filthy, and his mouth tasted like a hamster habitat. With no toothbrush, he pulled a corner of his shirt out of his trousers, and rubbed his teeth with it. It didn’t help much.

  Suddenly, he realized how he could prove to Mr. Thornhill that he knew Balesworth: Balesworth Hall! During the Second World War, the massive old stone and brick mansion had served as a hospital for soldiers. Alex hadn’t visited it, but he knew that Mrs. Devenish had sometimes volunteered there. Surely it had existed long before 1851. Eagerly, he jumped to his feet to tell Mr. Thornhill.

  But the bed was empty. Mr. Thornhill was gone. Alex was disappointed, but he remembered the job offer. The idea of holding a job scared him a little, but surely the Professor would rescue him soon?

  Once dressed, Alex reluctantly made his way to the dining room, where several men were already eating breakfast. Recalling his supper (and its unpleasant aftermath), he refused the “clabber milk” he was offered, milk that had gone sour while it sat around unrefrigerated. It was thick and lumpy. The slave woman didn’t seem offended when he declined to taste it. She simply said, “Okay, then,” and poured the milk into a wooden bowl for the dog and its puppies. Alex, trying to be polite, asked her where Mrs. Marshburn was. The slave looked toward the ceiling—or was she rolling her eyes? “She still in b
ed,” she said sourly, and left the room.

  Alex needed fresh air, and so he waited for Jupiter and Jupe in the misty clearing in front of the inn. He trembled with cold, and listened anxiously for the clopping and rolling of Jupiter’s horse and cart. As the cart emerged from the woods, Jupe waved to him, and Alex felt slightly less anxious. But only slightly. When he had first time-traveled, Hannah had been with him. It was lonely without her. He felt in his pocket once more and made sure he still had the calculator. Where was the Professor? And what had happened to his sister and Brandon?

  Chapter 5: Attitude Adjustment

  Brandon had crouched in the pitch darkness of the coal mine for what felt like forever. Every few minutes, the thunder of an approaching cart broke the silence, and he pulled on the rope to let the cart, pony, and miner through the door. He fervently hoped that the Professor would show up soon, and tell him what he must do to get home, just as she had in 1915. It was scary underground: Dark, dripping wet, and freezing cold. Occasionally, voices and the clang of metal picks striking rock echoed from the mine shafts. Mostly, the only sounds came from the mine itself, as it creaked and shifted overhead… How deep underground was he?

  Nothing distracted Brandon from focusing nervously on his surroundings. The mine was eerie. The darkness closed in on him, and he imagined that fresh air was running low. His breathing became rapid and shallow. He had to get out of here. He needed out. Now.

  Without any plan, Brandon crawled from his alcove, climbed uncertainly to his feet in the total darkness, and started to feel his way along the tunnel. When he realized he had no idea where he was going, or how to get back, he began to tremble uncontrollably. Taking one more step, he cried out as he scraped his head against the roof of the mine. Clutching his scalp, he dropped to his knees and wept, more from fear than pain.

  A few seconds later, stirred on by panic, Brandon resumed his escape attempt, only to find that his way was blocked. Was he trapped? He swallowed hard, and felt around the blockage, only to realize that he had found another trap door. He knocked loudly on the door and, to his enormous relief, a trapper opened it for him. Stooping down, Brandon struggled through, emerging into an enormous barely-lit underground cavern. He took a deep breath.