Fire on Dark Water

by Wendy Perriman

  Our passage grew ever more dense and swampy but the marvelous birds and the otherworldly beauty made the night bugs almost worthwhile. Fortunately the mosquitoes didn’t seem to like me any but they gave poor Shane the odd nip or two. My favorite bird wore a little red crown that fluttered when he flew past the great white herons posing gracefully on the sandbanks. I spied the most enormous gaily painted butterflies imaginable, and heard strange eerie chirps from alien creatures that clattered like drunken grasshoppers. And the flowers! Huge clusters of red camellias . . . gaping white magnolias . . . I ain’t never seen nothing like it. And whenever we caught a view of the river itself it looked like a silver serpent wending its way through a tunnel of cypress and oak trees, all festooned with a feathery plant that Shane called Spanish moss. Best of all though—and it still takes my breath after all these long years—was sight of the rising moon set in a sky of pink and purple velvet. It was absolutely stunning. And then one day, out of the shimmering heat, came my first glimpse of the Black River Plantation that was to be my future home. We entered a distinctive stone gateway and drove the long shaded path to a large white house with a ceramic tiled roof, nestled in front of a cluster of huts, sheds, and barns. The place vibrated like a busy hamlet tucked away in a wasteland of wood and water. For, as I was about to discover, the rice harvest was in full swing.

  Now, I didn’t know nothing about what a rice plantation would look like but in them early days (when they were still learning how to grow Carolina Gold) the place resembled a small country estate on the banks of a black tidal river. If you ain’t never seen rice growing before it looks like swampy fields of rye, cut through with dikes as I’m told they have in the Netherlands. Sweetness hangs in the sultry air. The fields are lush and copious. Then, of course, you find all the other things you’d expect on a farm—cattle and sheep, hogs and chickens, wheat and corn and vegetables. There’s an orchard bursting with ripening fruits, with plenty of deer and game lurking in the swamp. The river yields fish and fowl and turtles but—as in every Eden—you’ve to be wary of the snakes (and on this particular waterway of the log-sized alligators too).

  William Cormac had built himself an unusual three-story federal-style home on a raised foundation of stone. The main floor consisted of two large rooms, each with its own fireplace and chimney off a long side hall that contained both front and back doors, entered from three granite steps framed with fancy porches. The upstairs mirrored the lower floor plan, with two huge bedrooms and a smaller guest room that contained a spinning wheel. From the landing a winding staircase led to an airy attic that extended the entire length of the building and was divided comfortably to accommodate all the white servants. The kitchen was located in a separate shed set back from the Big House to reduce the risk of fire, and a selection of scattered structures boasted a meat house, well house, chicken house, barn, stables, winnowing house, and rice mill. There were apparently eight slaves (with the darkest complexions ever) who worked the fields and lived in two wooden shacks set back at the edge of the woods. The white overseer—Mr. Bart Higgins—resided in the largest attic room with Mrs. Joy Higgins, the cook. And, as I was replacing the deceased housekeeper, I was given the smallest space above Miss Anne’s bedroom.

  Now don’t get me wrong—Miss Anne had the most gorgeous chamber imaginable—but for me to have my own space with two tiny windows and a corded bed was unbelievable good fortune. I was ecstatic. After I’d said farewell to Shane (who went off to conduct his business around the plantation with Master William) I was left in the care of Mistress Mary. She was a thin, delicate woman, with long dark hair and vivid green eyes. I could tell she was shy and didn’t much like being boss lady, for she always treated folks graciously in the hope they would respond in kind. And generally they did—all excepting her daughter. Now, Annie Cormac was always a spoilt tetchy baggage there’s no mistaking. And I couldn’t never understand her. She had everything a bonnie girl could dream of—parents, money, social advantage—and yet she was wild as a pit viper. Her father pampered her every whim and the mistress couldn’t do nothing to save her. They gave her the finest home this side of Charles Towne, the most elaborate dresses, the costliest horses to ride, a ridiculously fluffy kitten too pampered to catch mice, and a series of tutors who only managed to teach the basics she chose to absorb. Oh, Annie could read and write and count (in fact, she was the one who taught me my letters), but she was far more interested in farming and horses—perhaps because she was trying to be the boy her father always wanted. Anyways, when she was supposed to be learning to be a refined lady she often outwitted the poor scholar assigned and snuck off down to the river to pester the men. So her father eventually gave in again and agreed to groom her to run the plantation. After all—he was much older than his wife—and they had no other heir.

  Mistress Mary guided me round the farm and explained her expectations. She and I would take care of the house and any of the folks who fell sickly (so she was pleased to find me young and green and pliable) and when Mrs. Higgins brought over the meals from the kitchen my job was to serve the family and guests, then clear away the dishes. I would eat later with Bart and Joy in the kitchen and then help Bart take food to the black people out in the woods. The men there had no women to look out for them and they were always too exhausted by the end of the day to do much more than eat and sleep. It didn’t take me long to realize that being a white servant was one step up from being a slave—these folks had been bought forever and therefore belonged to the Cormacs, body and soul. I, at least, got to work and sleep in the Big House. My tasks were boring and sometimes arduous (making beds, scrubbing floors, beating rugs, polishing and cleaning), but I didn’t have to wade chest-deep in murky dangerous waters digging dikes and weeding rice plants. I didn’t have to thresh the crops with flail sticks or mill the rice with mortar and pestle. I didn’t have to toil in the fierce stinging sun wearing only a coarse long-tail shirt. It’s no wonder the master didn’t buy women for his fields. I ain’t sure they’d ever survive.

  First time I laid eyes on Anne was later that day when she came in from steering the flatboat to the winnowing house. She was definitely older, a good head taller, and looked far stronger than either me or her mother. I stood silently by the mistress as the robust girl shot into the parlor shedding stalks and soil across the polished boards. Her mother pointed to the offending boots and watched as her reluctant daughter shucked them off her feet. Then she announced, “Annie—this is Lola, our new person.”

  Anne looked me up and down with a disdainful sneer. Then she pointed to the dirty footwear and said, “Take those away and clean them.” I looked up at the mistress. Her face indicated that I was to obey so I picked up the filthy boots and took them outside to the river’s edge. All the pretensions of Nurse Blaise suddenly fell back to being poor little Lola, and at that point I realized this is how things were to be.

  I guess if I’m honest I’d secretly hoped, being almost the same age and all, that me and Anne would be mates. I desperately missed my kinfolks at home, the gang back in London, Bristol’s cleverness and friendship, and Shane’s amusing banter. But Annie was one of them solitary souls who prefer to keep their own company. In many ways she was much older than her years but I saw right enough in her empty stare that there was something hollow inside her that all the sunlight of the Carribee wouldn’t never warm. And I still—to this day—ain’t got no idea why.

  So after my first encounter I disliked the young miss, especially when she took to following me about my chores, critiquing my performance, and making me flinch on the air of her hostile, sharp tongue. She’d do whatever new trick entered her mind to get me into mischief—for example, one time when I’d finished making her bed she slid back into the room and scattered the linens all through the air to create a mass of dust and feathers. Then she told her mother I’d deliberately thrown things about in a temper and I got a good rapping on both knuckles from a wooden spoon. Annie laughed herself sore that evening, chuckling
every time she caught sight of my swollen hands. Later, I got to hating the little snake. She was rude and intimidating whenever she came near, and she made three times more mess than the rest of the household put together. I designed my work schedule to intentionally avoid her but within a few weeks I was lusting to bite out her pearly-peach throat. You see, I’d been given a patch of land to raise herbs and a large chest in which to store my collection. This was my only possession and therefore my greatest treasure. One day I went to my room and discovered that the contents had been emptied. I could hear Annie giggling below so I scurried downstairs and knocked on her door, entering before she could speak. And there I discovered my precious medicines slopped into one big pile at the edge of her rug. Everything was mixed up together. All were utterly useless. I gasped and held my words back by clamping my hand across my mouth. Then I rushed down to the parlor where Mistress Mary was sewing. The angst on my face said all. She immediately rose and said to me, “Whatever’s the matter, girl?”

  I pointed up to Anne’s bedroom and then rushed ahead, but when her mother entered, she flashed her most innocent smile and said, “Look, Mama! I have conjured myself a baby!” She had dressed her terrified marmalade cat in doll clothes and bonnet, then bound it tightly in a blanket to prevent any escape. Mary was torn between relief that her tomboy daughter still had some maternal instinct (which she desperately wished to encourage) and anguish at the lost storehouse of medicine (made apparent by the familiar containers scattered about the floor).

  “Oh, Annie!” she wailed. “What have you done?”

  The manipulative daughter held out her magic child for her mother to examine and said, “I needed the herbs to transform Miss Kitty. . . .” She then abruptly dropped her bundle on the floor so the poor creature could find sanctuary under the bed, and sprang into her mother’s flailing arms to proffer a conciliatory hug. The mistress turned to me in the entrance and said sheepishly, “You’d better clean up this mess, Lola. Salvage anything you can.” I numbly obeyed.

  It took me several months to gather and dry replacement herbs but I’m glad I ain’t never thrashed the little wench because—as it happens—all turned out for the best. First, I was given a larger strongbox that closed with a sturdy lock, and from that time on I always wore the key on a leather thong round my neck. And second, Anne was ordered by her father to spend each evening tutoring me so as I could write down all the medicines and their uses. It took most of that winter for my coarse brain to learn, but the whole episode gave me a grudging respect for the intellect hiding beneath that mischievous tumble of strawberry-blond locks. Annie made an effective teacher—being impatient she cut to the core of the lesson, and being vain she basked in full credit for all of my growing success. I think I became like another of her pets—a silenced companion to be toyed with and changed. And of course she had no real idea of the power she was seeding inside of me. I listened to all of the anecdotes for whatever ailments from every loose tongue, and as soon as I’d mastered the quill I wrote them down. An apothecary needed to record and remember. I was also allowed some time late afternoons to roam river and woodlands in search of new ingredients in the hope that my pharmacy might rival the best in Charles Towne. I discovered how white lips favored the use of rosin pills, spirit of turpentine, and castor oil (which could be mixed in numerous ways for various ills), while black tongues swore that life-everlasting could break fevers, artichokes cured stomachaches, and tar could soothe both tooth and ear. I listened, experimented, observed—and wrote everything down in my raw splotchy code. On Sundays we went round the other estates visiting, and that’s where I learned how to talk low and act proper in company. We’d always stop at the Mid Town Estate to drop off and collect the week’s laundry, carefully cleaned under direction of their Jamaican washerwoman, the formidable Miss Abbie. And there we’d catch up on the local news.

  Then one fateful day my mistress caught the marsh fever. Of course, this was in the early days—before owners realized that plantation air was lethal from May to September—before they built summer homes in the mountains to escape like they do today. Poor Mary took to sweating and shaking, vomiting and moaning, and I tried everything in the chest to help her condition. But the only easement I could manage was to waft my arms stiff, fanning the flies from her waxy face. The master sent to Charles Towne for the surgeon, who duly arrived, flustered about, and prescribed a new remedy called cinchona bark. I brewed the herbal exactly as instructed but unfortunately it was too little too bitter too late, and the dear sweet lady dropped into a dark slumber and never returned. My own first patient had died, and I was beside myself with fear. What would become of me now?

  The next dizzy weeks lay jumbled in my confused memory. There was a wake—and Mrs. Higgins ran me ragged plucking chickens and pounding bread. There was a houseful of mourners—offering condolences, needing attention, and poking round the property. There was a funeral—and we buried Mistress Mary under her favorite live oak by the river. And there was the master—so inconsolable in grief that (like the field hands) he fell disinterested and stopped working altogether. The overseer didn’t have no heart to whip the desolate slaves so the entire place hung morbid and silent until the last of the visitors left. Annie spent the mornings with her father dealing with the unwanted guests, and then wandered off around the plantation for most of the afternoons. I tended my garden, roamed the woods for hickory nuts, acorns, cane roots, and artichokes, and raided the orchard of its quinces and plums. I sometimes stopped and watched the Africans as they moved about in their own incomprehensible world. Everything seemed disheveled and awry.

  In the midst of this confusion I found a reddish-pink rash speckling my body, strange because it spread across hands and feet. I worried I’d caught the marsh fever too—but although I felt sick and aching I’d not enough sweltering heat for undue concern. No, whatever I had was something entirely different, but as I couldn’t afford to be ill myself I snuck potions for the headaches, made toddies for the scratchy throat, and put the weight loss down to the extra panic and graft. Whatever it was passed away with time—and never did cause me no more bother.

  Then the following week several more folks fell stricken. Four of the black men who shared the same room now tossed and lurched in a feverish sweat, and I spent many long days teaching the healthy slaves ways to alleviate the distress of their roommates. I could understand little of the strange Gullah language, but they were familiar enough with the white tongue and followed my directions without question. One of the men—Gibby—told me he’d had a similar disease himself as a child. He suggested coating the patients in river mud and spent long hours chanting over their prone shapes, wafting smoldering sticks through the air round their faces. And he placed a bag of queer things called jacks at the foot of each groaning pallet. I brewed the rest of the cinchona bark into a huge pot of tea and spoon-fed as much as each parched mouth could tolerate. Then I instructed the others to imitate my actions to keep the patients watered throughout the long night. In the morning there was little change, except I noticed the restless eyes rolled less in their sleep now, although I didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. Gibby brought pails and pails of water and doused the muddy bodies to keep them cool, and Mr. Bart appeared with a thin gruel that we managed to minister with struggle and care. This pattern continued for another day. And another. And then one early dawn I entered the humid hut to find it empty. I rushed to the adjoining structure but there was no one in sight. Then I heard an enigmatic chanting wafting across from the fire pit that usually lay dormant (except for Christmas and Sundays), and there I saw a sparking fire and some kind of ceremony taking place. All four patients were alive! And I ain’t never been so relieved. But I also felt like an intruder spying on them with their gods . . . so I quietly crept back the way I’d come and left them to it.

  Now, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but Anne had an odd reaction to her mother’s passing. She wouldn’t go nowhere near the sick mistress for fe
ar she might catch the disease herself, but then right at the very end she stood rigid in the doorway and watched her die. I never heard a single word pass between them (which I thought was strange) but after her mother’s last breath I’m sure I saw Annie smile. She locked herself in her room for a night and a day where she grieved alone, away from her father. Then she opened the door, calm and composed as if nothing untoward had happened, and set about arranging the elaborate funeral.

  From that moment on, thirteen-year-old Annie Cormac became sole mistress of the Black River Plantation. And that, unfortunately, was that.

  5

  CHARTINGS UNDOUBT WHERE A WOMAN HAD BEEN

  1713–1714

  So you want to know more of Anne Bonny, do you? Well, I ain’t going to pretend we ever became best mates or nothing, but I’m guessing I knew her well as anyone. Her father was desperate to make her a lady and match her with one of the elite Charles Towne families and believe me, she could sure play the Southern belle when it pleased. She’d dress herself up in the finest brocade, her strawberry hair tempered in shiny ringlets, all light manners, polite chitchat, and giggles. Now, Annie had inherited her mother’s sea-bright eyes, but she flashed them from under hooded lids in an intoxicating manner that men found wildly exciting. If you saw her binding the stubble into sheaves you wouldn’t stop to glance twice, but when she swirled her silks like a gold-jeweled copperhead she could make the breath hang in the back of your throat. Anne was too vigorous to be a beauty—too long and firm and sinewy—yet she emitted a rare sexuality—an oozing sensual musk. By the time she was fifteen she’d ripened into her velvet skin and creamy bosom. Aye, she was bright and adventurous and hardy but there was a darker side to Annie Cormac that many lost souls would discover to their peril. She’d a vicious temper when riled and was given to violent shakes of the tail if she ain’t never got her own way—but beyond that there was something foreboding that made her callous and selfish. So if you were to ask me what I liked best I’d have to say it was her lust for life. Annie sure knew how to mesmerize, and at one time or another all of us silly critters were lured to her dazzling fire.