Savage Surrender

by Natasha Peters

  I covered my ears with my hands against his raucous snoring. I couldn't stay to watch what would happen. I wanted no part in this new tragedy. I had to get away, soon.

  The next day Hennessy announced that he was going into Henderson, the village about fifteen miles away from the farm, to buy a new mule. He would be gone overnight. I felt that my prayers had been answered. Immediately after he left, I went up to Mrs. Hennessy's room and told her that her husband had ordered me to work that day in the fields. She was still feeling ill and had decided to take advantage of his absence by spending the day in bed. She nodded listlessly when I told her I would leave a cold lunch set out for her and the girls in the dining room. I made my preparations carefully but quickly: I assembled a parcel containing food, a strong knife, and a blanket. At about eight o'clock in the morning I was ready to go. The farm was quiet. The slaves had been working in the fields for two hours already. The children were playing in their mother's room. I left the house and ran for the shelter of the woods.

  I walked swiftly all through the day, stopping only long enough to eat some food and drink some water. I was thankful that my feet had developed thick callouses on the bottoms, for the terrain was rocky and often treacherous. I knew that Hennessy would set the dogs after me and so I followed creek beds as much as I could in order to throw them off the scent. I had heard the slaves talking about that one night soon after young Isaac had been captured. Isaac had used the trick and he had been taken anyway. I tried not to think about that, or the dogs, or the possibility of ever going back to that place. Nevertheless, a picture of Edward Hennessy's brutal, ugly face stayed in the front of my mind all day long, spurring me on whenever I felt tired.

  I traveled south, towards Louisiana. I had no knowledge of the geography of that part of the continent. I only knew that it was rough and mountainous and that I might travel for many days before I reached a town or settlement. I started preparing a story to explain my ragged appearance: I was going west with my husband and child, we were attacked by robbers who stole everything we owned and killed the rest of my family, leaving me for dead. I would win their sorrow and their sympathy from the start and never give them reason to suspect that I was a runaway slave.

  I heard the dogs at early evening. A shock of fright passed through me and I stopped and stood absolutely still, straining my ears to listen to their mournful baying. They couldn't be Hennessy's dogs, I reasoned. They just couldn't be! He was gone, gone until tomorrow. Their frantic howls sounded closer, ringing through the silent forest like hellish chimes. I ran. I scrambled over rocks and fallen trees, became entangled in sharp briars and heavy undergrowth, and twice I fell heavily when my feet caught in natural traps of vines and branches. As I extricated myself for the second time I began to sob, wasting precious energy and breath. I fancied I could hear the animals' breathing as well as their excited barks and cries.

  I needed to use my hands to help clear my path, and I dropped the bundle that contained my knife. Only a moment later did I realize that I could have used that knife now, and that I could use it as a weapon when the time came, as it surely would. The dogs were calling to each other. I heard the crash of hooves and a man's voice encouraging them. A deep bass voice, the voice of Edward Hennessy. I lunged forward blindly, not daring to look behind me.

  I didn't want the starved deprived beasts to devour me whole. When I came to a clearing and saw a fir tree whose limbs hung close to the ground I began to climb as quickly as I could. The dogs burst out of the undergrowth and dashed for the foot of the tree. Their din sounded in my ears like a death-knell, but I kept my eyes upward and climbed steadily. I could hear them snapping at my feet, scrambling at the bottom of the tree, whining and yowling with frustration. I looked down. The whole earth below me seemed to be filled with red, lolling tongues and white wet teeth and shiny, hunger-crazed eyes. I cried out fearfully and inched my way further up the tree. They clawed at the bark, and I could almost feel the moist heat of their breath on my legs. I imagined how their fangs would feel when they tore into my flesh.

  Hennessy rode out of a thicket and lashed at the frenzied dogs with his whip.

  "Come on down from there," he called to me.

  I shook my head. "You'll have to shoot me down. I won't let them eat me alive."

  He chuckled, a low growl that I could hear over the dogs' clamor. "They won't eat you. They're trained to scare, not to eat. Get away from there, you bitches." He tossed them a dead rabbit that he had slung over the saddle. They fell on it with hungry snarls and soon they were tearing it to bits. I could not believe that they would have spared me.

  "Come down," Hennessy called again.

  I locked my arms around the rough, sappy trunk of the tree and shook my head vigorously. I was terrified of him. He would surely kill me, I knew he would kill me. Or maim me, as he had maimed Isaac.

  He dismounted and walked over to the tree. Very calmly he tested his foothold on one of the bottom branches and he began to climb up after me. Several branches snapped under his weight but somehow he kept himself from falling. He came slowly and steadily. I had climbed as far as I thought I could go before the thick growth of branches at the top of the tree prevented me from going higher.

  I looked down at his upturned face. An excited gleam shone in his eyes, and he was grinning and salivating, just like his dogs. I screamed loudly and begged him incoherently to let me go free. He stretched his arm up and grabbed at my naked ankle. I tried to kick his ugly face in, but he held me fast and began to drag me down. His strength was terrific, and I was exhausted from a day's running. I felt myself being dragged down, down, and although I tightened my grip on the branches over my head I soon felt my fingers being ripped away from their hold.

  Then we both fell and landed on the hard dry earth under the tree. He grappled with me silently, clamping a huge hand over my mouth to still my incessant deafening screeches. I thought for a moment that he was going to rape me as a way of celebrating his victory over me, but then I saw that the light in his eyes was not lustful but angry and full of mad hatred. He unstopped my mouth and when I screamed again he drew back his hand and hit me hard. Everything grew dark for a moment, and I could taste my own blood on my tongue.

  He hauled me to my feet. "Bitch. Damned bitch," he hissed.

  I swayed dizzily. "Why—didn't—you—kill—"

  "You're surprised to see me, ain't you, bitch? I didn't have to go to Henderson after all. Found a neighbor with a mule he wanted to sell. Good thing, too. You didn't have time to get very far. Get up on that horse."

  "Get up!" He picked me up and set me on the saddle, then climbed up behind me and whistled at the dogs, who, appetites appeased, now regarded me with a more casual interest.

  We retraced the path I had carved with my own scratched and scarred body. When Hennessy saw the bundle of things I had stolen he muttered an oath and retrieved it. The journey back to the farm took such a short time, and I had felt as though I had gone a hundred miles since early morning. It was nearly dark when we reached the farm. As we rode into the yard I felt sick and faint with fear. I was sure that he would not let this transgression go unpunished. He could have tortured and beat me in the forest, but he didn't. He was saving me for something worse.

  He shouted to the frightened slaves who came out of their cabins to build a fire in the middle of the yard. They hurried to do as he ordered, bringing armloads of wood and scraps of lumber. Soon a good-sized bonfire was blazing at the heart of the homestead, bathing the shabby buildings in a pink glow and casting tall, eerie shadows all around. My heart was thumping madly. I looked around me desperately, searching for some means of escape, but Hennessy stood next to me and when he saw my panic he grinned and put a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  Then he turned to face me and tore the clothes off my body. I flinched and shuddered as he stripped me naked, shouting at the Negroes to watch.

  "Get 'em out here, all of 'em," he bellowed. Soon a forest of dark bodies closed around u
s.

  I hung my head with shame, even though there was no joy, no interest in their faces, only deep sorrow and pity. Hennessy bound my hands in front of me and forced me to kneel.

  "Please," I said to him, "please let me go. I won't try to run away again, I swear it."

  His mouth tightened. "You call me Master. Say it. Say, 'I'm sorry, Master.' Say it, damn you!" He locked his hands around my throat and pressed hard, and as he choked the life out of me he pushed his leering face close to mine and repeated, "Say it, or I swear I'll kill you right here and now."

  "I'm—I'm sorry," I gasped.

  "Master!" he thundered. The pressure on my throat tightened.

  The bizarre scene became even more distorted to my bulging eyes. The sea of black faces seemed evil now. His own face was diabolical, hideous and satanic. Then a blackness began to press in from the periphery of my vision. I couldn't breathe. He was killing me—

  "M—Master," I croaked.

  He released me and I fell panting to the ground. I was aware of figures moving around between me and the fire. After a while, Hennessy took hold of my hair and pulled me up to my knees.

  "Somebody hold her," he barked. "You, Ira and Jess, take her hands."

  They raised my arms over my head. I twisted my head around to see what was happening. I saw Hennessy pull a red-hot iron out of the fire. He carried it towards me.

  I screamed so loudly that it felt like my life was being wrenched out of my body by that scream alone. I was still screaming when I heard the sizzle of the iron on my flesh and smelled the sickening odor of charred skin. Pain shattered my whole body and exploded in my brain. I sank into merciful oblivion.

  When I awoke I was immediately aware of the burn, which hurt so badly that I was sure I must still be on fire. I tried to speak but no words came. When I cried no tears came. I opened my eyes. Martha Hennessy was standing over me, holding a glass in her hand.

  "Drink this," she said kindly. "It will numb the pain."

  She and a tiny black woman, old Annie, helped me to sit up. I drank some of the brandy and it helped to clear my head. I saw that I was lying on a pallet in Annie's cabin. Martha's face swam into my field of vision once again as she knelt in front of me. I saw no hatred in her eyes now, only a haunting look of the deepest despair.

  "You've been sick for days," she told me. "You've, had a fever. We thought you were going to die." Annie peeled the bandage off my back. I groaned and clutched at Martha's hands. "We have to change the dressing. Please try to bear it. He—he shouldn't have done this. He had no right. You're not even—" she lowered her voice and I felt Annie's hands pause in their work, "you're not even a black woman," Martha finished in a whisper. "He's inhuman, a fiend. He was furious when he found you were gone. I thought he was going to kill me. He must have thought I had helped you. Oh, may God forgive me. God forgive and help us all." She bowed her head over our clasped hands and cried.

  I looked away from her. The burden of my own self-pity was too much for me to bear. I couldn't begin to sympathize with her.

  "I should have known when I married him," she said brokenly. "He was stubborn and hot-tempered then, but I thought it was romantic. He—he worked for my father. We were well off, rich, I suppose. My father was an important man. Edward wanted to prove himself. He made some money in a scheme and he came back for me. Father hated him. We ran off together. We haven't had one happy moment since, not one. He's trying to prove something, I guess, by scratching a living out of this worthless land with his own hands. He doesn't want to owe anybody, he says. But he never loved me, I know that now. He couldn't believe it when Father died and didn't leave us anything, not even a penny. I thought Edward would go mad. He was counting on that money, even though I told him that Father was hard, that he would never relent. But I was glad in my heart, glad that he was hurt so much. I hated him then. I hate him now."

  When she had gone I said to Annie, "The next time I'll need help to get away. You'll have to cover up for me. I'll pretend to be sick. I'll go now. He doesn't come here. He'll never find out."

  Annie said sternly, "He comes in here every day, jes' to look at you, grinnin' like the Debil. You want us all to get branded, Missy? Now you jes' lay back and close your eyes. You is crazy with pain and grief, that's all. You hush and I'll fix us some nice soup. Don' you go talkin' 'bout runnin' away again. Next time he'll kill you for sure."

  "I hope he does," I said dully. "I can't live like this. I'd rather be dead."

  I closed my eyes. This was Josiah Fowler's revenge, I thought bitterly. I could almost hear his laughter echoing up from Hell. Yes, he had found a worthy successor in Edward Hennessy.

  In time the wound from the branding healed. I could trace the scab with my fingers: a letter "R", for Runaway, I supposed. I was branded for life, branded because I wanted to be free. Branded because Georgette and Arnold hated me. Because I had loved Garth McClelland, and he had betrayed me. By loving him I had brought the full wrath of the gods down on me. I knew I would never see him again, and I wasn't sorry. He was at the root of all my sorrow, all my pain.

  Winter was upon us. We slaves spent most of our time trying to keep warm in our drafty cabins. Annie and I huddled together near our little fire, rubbing our hands to get the chill out of our fingers long enough so that we could caulk the cracks in our walls and tack up old bits of sacking over the windows and door to shut out the icy blasts from the north and west. The wind out of the mountains cut us to the core. When the farm was buried under six feet of snow sometime in January, influenza broke out in the cabins. Hennessy lost half his slaves and one of his children, little Sarah. I suspected he grieved more for his slaves. He stayed away for weeks at a time, trapping and shooting so that when spring came he would have furs to sell in Wheeling. He didn't have to worry about our escaping in wintertime: he knew we would never survive.

  Sometimes the slaves would gather together in our cabin on cold evenings. We would talk and sing and exchange stories and tales. I told them about France, the slave ship Charleston Belle and her captain, Josiah Fowler. He was a character they recognized. They all marvelled at the changes in fortune I had experienced. I told them about the Chateau Lesconflair and described its beauties in detail. They were delighted with my stories about my pirate days, and Jean Lafitte became a kind of hero to them, as he was to me. And I told them a bit about La Rêve's gracious beauty and the comparatively easy life the slaves there enjoyed.

  I told them, too, about the slave rebellions in Haiti, and how the blacks there had thrown out their oppressors and made a country of their own. Those slaves had not had to run away to freedom: they had seized it, wrenched it away from their white masters, won it with their own blood and pain.

  When I had finished my story of the Haitians, the eyes of my listeners were shining with hope. Then Ira said, "But there was hundreds of them. And there's only twenty-some of us left." And the dream of freedom died in them as they thought about Hennessy and his guns and dogs.

  I looked around the shabby room. "What are you talking about?" I cried. "He's only one man! One man, and you couldn't find a more inhuman fiend anywhere. Why are you so cowardly?" They kept silent as I harangued them. "You all know what he's capable of doing," I went on. "You've seen it with your own eyes. We live like pigs and eat like pigs. Isaac can't walk. Millie can hardly pick up a straw, she's so weak from hunger and sickness. Ira, he broke your arm last year, didn't he? Just snapped it in two. And you, Jess, you're branded, too, just like me. Don't you hate him? I do. I hate him with every ounce of life left in me."

  Ira said slowly, "They kill you if you so much as lifts your hand against your Master, Missy. I seen 'em hangin' from trees, 'cause they did what you want to do. 'Cause they killed their Master and ran away."

  I said intensely, "He's no master of mine. I'm free, do you hear me? No matter what he's done to my body, my soul and my mind are free! I'll get away from him yet, I promise you."

  I walked to one of our tiny windows and shoved
aside our sack curtain. A light snow was falling outside. I felt desperate and alone with my hatred. One by one the slaves went away, back to their own cabins. When we were alone Annie said, "Talkin' like that won't bring us nothin' but trouble, Missy. If the Mas' finds out—"

  "I don't care if he finds out," I said passionately. "Can't you see that? What's the matter with all of you? You're like sheep, lambs to the slaughter. I'd kill him. I would. And I'd be proud of it. And I dare them to hang me for it!"

  She looked at me. "They wouldn't hang you," she said quietly. "You is white. They don't hang white women."

  We faced each other. My anger at them drained away. "I'm sorry, Annie," I said. "I don't know why I spoke as I did."

  "You ain't been a slave your whole life, that's all," she said. "It's harder once you know what it is to be free."

  I raged inwardly at my situation for the rest of the winter, while the cold and the misery deepened and we felt as though we would never be warm again. Hennessy came around to the slave cabins every day when he was home, just to count heads. He never spoke a word to me and I was thankful. But occasionally he would send Annie away and rape me. My hatred grew, and I amused myself with thoughts of his death while he was abusing me.

  Annie went up to the house in December to help with the new baby.

  "He's a scrawny, sickly-lookin' little mite," she told me. "She don't have no milk for that child, not a drop. An' that baby don't want cow's milk. Makes him colicky. He ain't gonna live out the winter."