Ignotus
By Allan Dowell
Smashword Edition
*****
Published by:
Allan Dowell on Smashwords
Ignotus
Copyright © 2011 by Allan Dowell
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Ignotus is a work of fiction.
Although some of the actual towns, cities and locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner. The events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author and any similarities to characters or names used within of any person past, present, or future are coincidental.
*****
Is est a niger mancipium puella... She is a black slave girl.
Will these whispered ancestral words, still echoing throughout the blood soaked valleys and hills, changed forever by the actions of the civil war, resonate in the collective conscience of humanity for eternity?
*****
Philip Dowell owned property in Anne Arundel Co., Maryland on the upper branches of the Gunpowder River. The following will of Philip Dowell lays out his estate.
Will of Philip Dowell of Anne Arundel Co., MD
“...being weak of body...
Unto my son Philip Dowell, 200 acres out of a tract called New Years Purchase, nigh Gunpowder River in Baltimore county; fifty acres out of a tract of my lands called Kemps Desire in Calvert County, including a house lately built by Philip Dowell.
Unto my son Peter Dowell, 250 acres out of my lands called Kemps Desire and Coxes Choice where he things fit to take it, except where I have given my son Philip and 100 acres I gave my son John by deed.
Unto my daughter Elizabeth, the remaining part of Kemps Desire and Coxes Choice.
Unto my son Richard Dowell, the remaining part of New Years Purchase.
Unto my son Philip Dowell, one Negroe called Cezear.
Unto my son Peter Dowell, one Negroe called Harry and one negroe called Will.
Unto my daughter Elizabeth, one Negroe called Tom.
Unto my son John Dowell, a Negroe man now in his possession called Harry.
Unto my son Luke, one Negroe man called James.
Unto my son Richard Dowell, one Negroe woman called Sarah.
Unto my daughter Ann Wilson, one Negroe woman called Bess and her increase now in her possession.
Unto my daughter Mary Breshiers, one Negroe woman called Sarah.
Unto my daughter Charity, one Negroe boy called James now in her and her husband's possession.
My now dwelling plantation to be sold. The remaining part of my estate be equally divided between all my said children.
My two sons Philip and John Dowell and my friend Edward Reynolds, executors. If Edward Reynolds depart this life, his son Thomas be joined executor.
/s/Philip Dowell
*****
My dad turned the old ford ranchero off the main highway onto a deserted gravel road. The golden wheat fields stood like glistening proud armies presenting on both sides of us, their heads full and ripe. Our car rolled up the grade of the hill, slowed, and pulled off to a stop on the shoulder. My father's demeanour had changed; he was unusually quiet.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“I just want to get out to see if that wheat crop is ready for harvest.”
I thought this odd; for they weren't our crops and it wasn't our field. I followed my dad as he exited the car, walking down through the ditch over to the edge of the grain field. Standing beside the mid-thigh grain he grabbed a head of wheat, breaking it loose from the drying stalk. He rubbed the golden spike between his palms. Opening his rough, calloused hands he blew away the chaff. Grinning, he showed me the final results of cleaned kernels laying cloistered together in his left palm.
“Bill's probably out harvesting,” he stated.
"You should try some." He threw the kernels into his mouth and proceeded to chew on them.
I broke off a head of wheat for myself, emulating what I had watched my dad do to remove the chaff from the grain. I put the kernels into my mouth, chewing on them to create a gum-like paste of durum.
“They taste pretty good. Who's Bill?” I asked. Munching the kernels I watched the undulating waves of the golden fields blown by the erratic gusts of a warm dry autumn breeze, the same one latently caressing my face.
“Bill would be a cousin...” My dad paused for a moment. “A cousin I haven't seen in a long time... ”
“How come I've never heard of him before?”
“No particular reason. You may meet him today; if my memory serves me right, he lives just up the road there.”
We got back into the ranchero and continued the ascent up the country road, the grain surrounding us, ripening under the afternoon sun.
*****
In the early 1700's, records show that my ancestors boarded a ship in Liverpool bound for America. They registered as buyers of slaves, from Africa. They were Scots; McDowell's when they left England, their name however became shortened to Dowell when they stepped off the vessel onto the solid wooden docks of their new homeland.
The estimated population of the world at the time was six hundred million; of these roughly five hundred thousand inhabitants resided in colonial America and of those an estimated seventy-five thousand were owned; African American Slaves.
*****
Our car tires gave off a rattling sound from the gravel of the road, a noisy contrast to the pavement we had been travelling on. I could see a farmhouse and a hip-roofed barn appearing on our left. Built naked onto the apex of the hill, its view overlooked the very fields we had just driven past. Coming up on the right was a thick set of trees. My dad stopped the copper painted ranchero between the house on the left and the trees on our right.
"Your uncle Bill and aunt Bernie live in the house over there," he pointed to our left. "It doesn't look like anyone is home."
Tractor tire tracks had left an impression in the dirt road leading off to the right; it passed through a dark grove of spruce rising out of the willow underbrush. My dad turned the car onto this narrow trail. Winding our way through the trees the side panels of the car squeaked in protest when the willow branches scratched at their paint.
Driving out into the open light, from within the tunnel created by the trees, an old barn, gardens, and a small white farmhouse presented themselves in front of us. My dad stopped the car near the house.
"Who lives here?" I asked.
"My aunt Florence lives here," he said. "She would be your great aunt."
Exiting the car, we slammed the doors shut and walked towards the house. I could see a thin frail white haired old lady coming through an inner passageway out to the glassed-in porch of her home. She had got up out of her chair to investigate who it was arriving to interrupt her day with their noisy car doors. Her eyes were having some difficulty focusing through the translucent glass window of the porch while she attempted to recognize who it was coming to visit her.
As soon as she could see my dad, I sensed her excitement in her facial expressions. While she fumbled with the latch of the door to greet us, I hung back allowing them to meet up with one another.
"Oh Elvin, it's so good to see you," she hugged.
Elvin? I thought... My dad's name was Lloyd. Who the hell was Elvin?
*****
John Dowell, a local plantation owner, stopped his buckboard outside the general store. He stumbled up the wooden stairs into the mercantile. The redness of his eyes stood out against his ashen face.
Shocked by John's dishevelled appearance, George Miller the shop keeper, a large balding rotund man, came out from behind his counter. "John, how are things?" he asked with concern.
"Not so good George. Mary died early this morning during childbirth."
"Oh John, I'm sorry," George replied, as he came around from behind the counter, approaching John in an effort to console him. The only other person in the store was a red-haired southern lady poking around quietly amongst some coloured rolls of textiles.
John hung his head, "I have to worry about the young'un now."
"What do you mean?"
"Mary bore a son, but he needs to eat. I'm looking for a wet nurse."
"John, I don't know of anyone right at the moment who could help you with that," George wrung his hands, despondent at not being able to provide more assistance.
Hearing this, the red-haired lady looking at the textiles lifted her head and came around into full view of the two men.
"Excuse me, let me introduce myself... My name is Aileen Carson." Her words had a touch of Irish lilt to them. Aileen came closer to the two men. "I apologize for eavesdropping and I offer my sincere condolences with regards to the loss of your wife, but I may know of someone who could help you."
John was a strikingly handsome man. He wore a black cowboy hat set on a very symmetrical face. His salt and pepper hair was cropped to his neckline and he was normally clean shaven, but not today. He had hazel eyes and although not deliberate, most people who first met him found his physical carriage could be very intimidating.
"Aileen, I know of your husband Richard, I'm John Dowell." John reached out his hand, "thank you and please, if you can assist in any way."
Aileen’s beautiful green eyes flirted when she offered her hand and when she spoke again it was in diminished tones, barely above a whisper, "I don't wish to gossip but the Simmons family has a bit of a sensitive situation, which may work in your favour."
"How's that?" John asked.
"One of their field girls just gave birth to a mulatto baby. The long and short of it is, Emily, the wife, is not happy with her and wants her gone."
"Thank you for speaking up." John reached out taking Aileen's hand once more.
"You are welcome, but please, you didn't hear it from me."
"No problem," John turned away from both George and Aileen. "Thank you, this is most urgent, I have to be leaving."
"Do you know where they live?" Aileen called after John.
"Yes," John replied, abruptly rushing out through the doors of the mercantile, clambering back out onto his buckboard. He whipped the reins, driving the team of two spirited horses hard for the Simmons' plantation.
*****
Over the next few years we stopped in at my great aunt's house many times to have tea and chat. It was during one of these many visits when my great aunt reached out and took both my hands and squeezed them firmly within her own. Looking directly into my eyes, she stated in a matter-of-fact manner, “our family fought on both sides of the civil war.”
Now in her nineties my aunt had very discerning blue, glistening eyes. How was I, at seventeen, to understand the implications of what she meant? Or what she was trying to imply? I was born generations past the death and mayhem of those times.
However, what she related to me planted a seed in a fertile mind. Even at that moment, it sent shivers up my spine and what she told me would haunt me throughout my lifetime.
*****
Rounding the bend John could see a black maid outside the Simmons' home tending to laundry on a clothes line in the yard at the rear of the house. He brought the team of horses to a halt near the front gate, urgently proceeding up to the door, knocking loudly. A lady soon answered. The door opened inward to a pair of striking blue eyes framed by strawberry blond shoulder length hair.
"May I help you?" she asked politely in a soft southern gentile accent.
"I'm John Dowell, I'm looking for Emily Simmons."
"I am Emily."
"My wife passed in childbirth a few hours ago and my son is in need of a wet nurse. I understand you may have a girl who is freshen."
Emily put her hand to her mouth and replied, barely audible, "I am so sorry, I knew your wife. This is a terrible loss, Mary was a wonderful lady."
"Thank you," John responded sadly.
"Yes, I will help you, please come in."
Emily lead John into a front room of the house. "Wait here," she said as she continued down a hallway into the back of the house. John could hear muffled voices coming from somewhere in a back room, then Emily returned to speak to him.
"The girl is known as Celia. She will meet you at the rear of the house. As far as compensation, my husband Clarence will have to work that out with you; I will trust you to be fair."
"Thank you, this is very gracious and I will consider whatever your husband asks as more than just."
"Again, I am sorry for your loss," repeated Emily.
*****
A black ceramic vase sat on one of my aunt's tables, flowers of various colours had been hand painted on to it. Sticking out of the vase were fresh cut lilac flowers, white and purple. Their branches had been severed just hours before our arrival and they scented the room.
"How do you know our family fought on both sides of the civil war?" I asked my great aunt.
Immediately, I could see a flash of anger in her eyes. In her old age she'd developed a short fuse, which I generally tried not to ignite. I guessed by her reaction to the question, that she had been confused by my meaning and thought I had doubts that what she had been saying had been completely truthful. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized me closer, analyzing my intentions. I squirmed.
Finally, she moved beyond her indignation. I quietly breathed a sigh of relief. I assumed she had concluded that I meant no malice towards her and my reason for asking was only to confirm her sources were ancestors from my own history. She paused, I supposed, to add gravity to her answer and when she spoke it was with deep sincerity.
"These stories I relate to you were passed along to me by my great aunts and uncles. They were but children during those times," she related.
I could see her eyes focusing on a distant point in the room while her mind wandered back, re-living the past.
The gravity of those words of a long time ago, of distant relatives she had known, added credence to all she had previously told me. I miss those stories as much as I miss her.
Now, whenever I smell the sweet scent of fresh cut lilac flowers I think of her.
*****
Celia, her head covered by a blue bonnet tied under her chin, sat on a grain sack in the rear of the buckboard hugging her babe. She couldn't have been much more than thirteen. They bounced towards John Dowell's plantation and as they got closer she could hear a rhythmic singing emanating from the tobacco fields surrounding them on both sides of the road.
Heads of workers, kneeling between the green yellowing leaves, dotted the landscape. Their shoulders were bent in submission keeping their hands busy working, making the landowner wealthy with their toil. Their singing helped the overseers keep track of where the slaves were, but it also served the slaves to communicate secrets to one another.
Arriving at the house, John got down off the buckboard. Celia had her bundle in her arms as she followed him towards the rear of the home. An infant's crying could be heard coming from inside. They were met at the door by a greying black woman. She was cuddling a swaddled inconsolable baby, whose lower lip was quivering as he sobbed.
Celia offered him a nipple from one of her swollen breasts and his lips urgently suckled onto it, immediately drawing on her rich milk for sustenance. The baby became quiet as he contentedly nursed.
"Arabell, can you see to this, I'm going back out to the fields."
John turned and left. He walked out to the buckboard and grabbed up the reins, driving the sweaty team of horses towards the barn.
Jerry, the black stable man, on seeing John came out of the barn to meet him and take the team of horses from him. Jerry had a crippled left arm from a farm accident, but it didn't slow down his ability to do his work. Stoically, John jumped down and without saying anything left the team for Jerry to attend.
A saddled, large grey gelding with a white slash on his forehead, stood tied to a rail. John untethered the horse, mounted him and rode off towards the fields. When the tobacco was in harvest all the plantations were working at full tilt and everyone was required. John's absence even for a few hours could be detrimental to a profitable outcome. More importantly, he wished he could find some solitude to digest his thoughts about his loss of Mary.
It hadn't been the best growing year; the corn crop seemed stunted, but the tobacco crop looked to be the most profitable. Harry Boyce was John's overseer. While John rode out to find him, a shot rang out in the distant trees. John kicked his mount into a canter towards the sound.
Far off on the edge of the tobacco field John could see Harry, mounted on his distinct mottled white and brown gelding, turning and moving in the same direction as the gun shot. When Harry spotted John's horse at full gallop he held up and returned back to his responsibilities of watching over the workers in the field.
John continued riding to locate what was occurring in the trees ahead. Approaching the forest where he thought the gun shot had originated from, he pulled back slightly on the reins and slowed his horse. A rider on a big black horse came out of the trees. John recognized him; it was Clifton, one of the overseers from his brother Richards plantation. He was a large coarse man with thick and callused hands and a no-nonsense attitude. Clifton rode over towards John.
"We got a runner," he said, as he halted his mount next to John's grey gelding.
"Who is it?" John asked.
"A young first time breeder. We had put her in with a couple of other girls in the stud-man’s quarters last night. My guess is she didn't like what she saw and snuck out while he was busy with one of the other girls."
"Did he help her?"
"I don't think so, we've never had problems with him doing something like that before."
Clifton's high-spirited mount stamped impatiently.
"It seems there's a lot of unrest these days," said John.
"Ya, sorry to bring our problems your way. I tracked her into these woods and I thought the gunshot might flush her out. I guess we'll have to get the dogs."
A second rider came up out of the trees on a chestnut mare. It was Richard's son, Manson. He had the typical look of a Dowell, dark curly hair with a square jowl.
Manson nodded to John, "Uncle."
"Manson, How are ya?"
"Been better."
John listened to the wind in the trees.
"Well, I'll leave you fellows at it. If there's anything you need, just let me know."
*****
It had been a long day for John by the time Clarence Simmons finally rode up on a large chestnut mare and stopped beside him to negotiate the trade for Celia. Clarence sat tall on his mount. He wore a grey silver cowboy hat over shoulder length brown hair and sported an overgrown goatee.
The two men sat in their saddles smoking cigars while looking over the tobacco fields. The workers' heads were busily bobbing up and down amongst the waist high leaves. It was dusk but the dew had not settled enough yet to bring a halt to the harvesting. Dust rose into the still night air while torches were being lit so everyone could toil into the dark.
Clarence Simmons spoke, "I should be angry at my wife for relinquishing Celia and her increase to you. However, after Emily explained your circumstances to me, in empathy to your needs I would be happy to accommodate you with an exchange."
"I appreciate your understanding Clarence. I wish to offer you whatever most benefits your requirements," said John. "Don't be afraid to come out ahead."
"Well John, I am in need of some younger field hands. The majority of my workers are getting old and as you know it's getting much harder and more costly to get replacements these days."
"I know," John agreed. "You can't get anything brought in by ship now with all the new laws being enforced. Feel free to look and choose as you like."
Both of their mounts' hooves sunk into the soft tilled soil while they slowly skirted around the perimeter of the fields together. Eventually Clarence reined gently back, bringing his horse to a halt.
"There's a boy over there," Clarence pointed to a young negroe toiling under the pale light of a torch.
"He would fit my requirements. I'd trade Celia for him if that's acceptable to you?"
"Considering the situation, it's far more important you are satisfied sir, than I," replied John.
"How old would that boy be?"
"He would be eight and goes by the name of Chas."
"Hmm, large frame, well muscled for his age," Clarence pondered. "Yes, he will do."
Clarence reined his horse over closer to John's mount. "If agreeable to you sir, I would be satisfied with this boy as settlement."
"Done," John replied without hesitation. "Is it a fair enough exchange?"
"Yes, it is. It meets my needs and my hope is Celia meets yours. As for her increase, I'll toss that in as a gesture of condolence."
"Thank you Clarence, you've been kind and more than generous. I'll have the boy brought over to you at first light, fresh for the fields tomorrow."
"Sounds good."
"We'll make his relocation appear to be a loan to help you with your crops, that way there's less turmoil when he leaves and doesn't return."
"That's fine," Clarence agreed. "In time he'll learn to stay."
"Would you like to stop at the house for a drink on the matter," asked John.
"I would, but I'll have to say no . . . another time. I'd best get back to home."
"Then I bid you a thank you and goodnight sir," said John.
"Goodnight to you as well, it was nice to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise," John replied.
With that, Clarence turned his mount to ride off in the direction of his home.
*****
Under the blackness of a dark moon, a pale yellow light flickered from an open fire and sifted between the leaves and branches of a dense thicket of trees. Next to the warmth of the fire sat a lone priestess busy with her voodoo.
Directly in front of her on a piece of flat slate, lay the crescent shaped claw from a bird of prey. A few smooth stones of various shapes and colours were scattered amongst a smattering of bleached white skeletal bones which she had delicately collected and cleaned from the carcasses of small animals.
She moaned, while swaying to a rhythm only she seemed to sense. In the eery light, her body appeared to levitate, gently hovering in front of the fire like a piece of floating driftwood in a slack tide with its surface worn silky smooth from travelling over vast oceans. Her beat carried softly and whispered outwards into the night air.
*****
When the daylight disappeared with the setting of the sun, the dew began to settle on the tobacco leaves. The overseers were now depending on the torchlight to do their accounting of all the workers. John turned his grey horse to head back to the house for supper.
He could hear the howling of the bloodhounds hunting the scent of the female slave through the trees. They'd soon run her down, he thought to himself. Once they got her home the stud-man would finish his service. After that they'd whip her with leather cattails cutting open the skin on her back and then throw salt into the wounds as a painful reminder not to run again. Her future increase should more than make up for their lost time chasing her. Once born, the baby should keep her close to home. For the most part female slaves were too frightened to run again, but times were changing, John mused.
When John walked into the house he could smell supper. He washed up and changed out of his work clothes in the privacy of the anteroom off the porch and went into the kitchen. Arabell was busy cooking. Celia sat off to one side on a chair nursing her daughter. She had been humming before John entered the kitchen, but as he came in she went quiet.
John's newborn son was sleeping soundly in a cradle, enjoying the comfortable warmth radiating into the room from the cast iron stove.
"Celia," John said.
Celia looked up in acknowledgement, deflecting her soft brown eyes from looking directly into his.
"How old is your daughter?"
"One week, suah."
"Does she have a name?"
"Yes, suah, she named Sarah."
Celia looked back down lovingly at the swaddled newborn.
John looked up towards the ceiling, remembering his wife in repose in the upper floor bedroom.
Then he spoke, "if we'd had a boy, my wife wanted to call him Gentry."
John looked towards the cradle.
"So Gentry will be his name."
John could hear the older boys coming into the porch to wash up. With the baby's name decided, he left through the kitchen door and went into the dining room. The boys had gone to work in the fields early that morning. Mary had been bedridden for the past week due to her pregnancy so the boys hadn't seen much of her. The thought made him melancholy.
John sat while the boys chatted about the day. He contemplated how to tell them their mother had died. He knew how hard they worked, no sense in ruining their appetites with bad news that could wait.
"Dad, you're quiet tonight," said Philip. Philip was the oldest of the three boys, stocky, dark and lanky like his uncle Richard. At sixteen he had earned his spot ram rodding the tobacco drying buildings scattered around the plantation, as well as overseeing the southeast fields.
John took out a cigar and lit it, like he always did after dinner.
"What were you and that fellow on the chestnut mare discussing at the edge of the field today?" Peter innocently asked.
Peter was the youngest and more fair haired, like his mother Mary. Only twelve, he had already grown as tall as Philip, although he was not as big boned. Mary's childbirth with Peter had been so difficult that she and John had decided not to have any more children.
Gentry, as he was now named, was unplanned and should not have happened. John felt the oppression of guilt from this fact pressing hard on his emotions, and combined with the weight of the long day, he was feeling the exhaustion. He'd never really found that time he needed for himself.
John looked at Patrick. Patrick sat under his thick brown curly mop of hair. Being the middle child he was the quiet one. Patrick would let the others speak while he listened. Then with most things in life he would decide what Patrick would do, right or wrong, and then he'd do it. He smiled back at his dad.
"Boys, there's no easy way to put this, I've got sad news."
John's jaw clenched as he prepared to force out the next few words.
"Your mother died this morning in childbirth."
The smoke from John's cigar rose straight up towards the ceiling. A solemn quiet settled over the dining room, while the dourness of their Scottish family heritage percolated to the surface around the table. Arabell entered the room, but on seeing the look John gave her, she immediately sensed the mood and retreated back through the door into the kitchen...
It closed, with a soft swish, behind her.
*****
"Mom, why does dad's aunt Florence call him Elvin?"
My mother was rinsing carrots at the kitchen sink. I was watching the profile of her face for a reaction. She looked out the window as a barely discernible smile curled up on her lips while she thought about the answer to my question.
"Your dad's first name is Elvin, but he hated it. As soon as he was old enough he started to go by his middle name Lloyd; however his aunts still call him Elvin, 'cause that's the name they called him by when he was growing up."
She turned towards me, the water continued to noisily cascade from the tap into the sink. We smiled at one another as if we both now had some tantalizing secret on my dad, to be used at our discretion.
Then my mom got a very scornful look on her face, "and don't you ever call him Elvin."
I smiled mischievously. My mother turned off the water and walked over to where I was sitting at the kitchen table. She leaned over into my face looking seriously into my eyes.
"I mean it, except for his aunts no one should ever call him that; it digs up old and very painful memories for your dad. Do you understand me? Never . . . promise me."
*****
The three boys had taken turns digging their mother's grave. She was laid to rest in a family cemetery plot up on a hill under a large oak tree where she could look down peacefully over the homestead below. While John spoke the eulogy, the baby Gentry was asleep in his arms.
They lowered Mary's coffin slowly, dropped the ropes, and discarded them into the hole. When the last of their shovels finished placing soil, each of them set a wildflower upon the mound of brown dirt now covering her casket.
A hawk spiralled on the thermals above. It screeched once, when they grouped together as a family of lonely men to slowly walk back down to the house.
It was a Sunday.
*****
Sarah and Gentry chased each other around the yard while Celia hung the laundry. The kids were two years old and her breast-feeding of them was starting to curtail while their playing together was escalating and bringing them closer as friends.
Sarah was a light skinned mulatto and because of her Caucasian facial features she was often mistaken for being white. She had golden flecked brown eyes.
Gentry was the spitting image of Peter when he was a child and a constant reminder to John of Mary.
John rode into the yard. It was odd for him to return so early from the fields. Dismounting, he tethered his horse to a rail at the front of the house. The stern look on his face reflected the fact that the decision he was about to make was not an easy one. Walking in the front door he made his way through the house into the kitchen where he found Arabell washing the breakfast dishes in the sink.
"Arabell, I want the babies weaned off Celia over the next two weeks," he gruffly ordered.
Arabell did not even look up from her hands in the dish water; she understood all to well what this meant for Celia. John left as abruptly as he had come in and Arabell listened for his horse to leave the yard.
Celia came in the rear door into the back porch with Gentry and Sarah, tired from playing. She walked through the kitchen to a back bedroom where she sat nursing both of them at the same time, one on each breast. When they'd finished feeding she set them down to sleep, a child at each end of the small single bed. She gently placed a blanket over them to keep them warm while they napped. Then she entered the kitchen to assist Arabell.
"What did massa John want?" Celia curiously asked Arabell.
"Him saay, ya stop wit dat nursun," answered Arabell, as she went about placing kitchen towels from the laundry onto the shelves over the counter near the sink.
With the answer, both women became quiet and reserved within their own thoughts. They both understood the implications for Celia. She was either to be bred or sold.
Arabell went into the back porch, then out through the door, stumbling down the rear steps into the yard. She tried to regain her composure and find her equilibrium so she didn't project her own emotions onto Celia, who wasn't yet sixteen.
Finally, she stopped escaping, distracting herself by focusing on a hummingbird feeding unconcerned on the red flowers of a nearby bush...
Arabell inhaled a deep breath...
*****
The priestess looked up through the canopy of the trees and chanted towards the star filled sky. A lone star streaked across the heavens. She abruptly stopped her incantations to watch its sparkle dissipate into the night.
She turned her eyes downward to look at her talisman on the flat stone in front of her. A gust of wind caused the fire to flare up; it crackled, spitting three glowing embers up onto the stone amongst her assortment of voodoo. She cackled up to the heavens as if the star had somehow transferred its energy magically into these embers now transitioning from their glowing red phase into blackened charcoal...
*****
Harry, John's overseer, pulled a blindfolded Celia down off the buckboard. With her feet on the ground he removed the black cloth covering her eyes. Celia could only see that they had stopped next to a secluded building. The walls were crudely constructed of rough hewn lumber. In the darkness of this nightfall she had no idea where they were and she didn't recall ever having been to this place before.
Harry gripped harshly onto the loose ends of the leather straps that lashed Celia's hands together in front of her. Tugging, he commanded her attention while he led her towards the building. She tried to get her bearings, her young body involuntarily shivering from the fear of the unknown. When they arrived close to the wall of the building Harry reached out and slid a worn latch aside, freeing a large heavy outer door. It creaked, swinging crookedly open on its hinges.
Celia was immediately overwhelmed by a waft of hot humid air spilling out from the dank cavernous interior of the structure. The smell of musk and human sweat made her nauseous; she turned to retreat into the night, forgetting she was bound and held by her wrists.
Harry had anticipated her revulsion. With deliberation he harshly jerked down on the leather straps reminding her of her captivity and helplessness, and of his control. He always sadistically savoured this moment as he watched their reaction and revelled in the fear consuming them.
Celia tried to focus, terrified by the rhythmic animal-like sounds of grunting and moaning coming from the pitch blackness within. Harry pushed her thru the opened doorway before she had time to react. Beneath her bare feet she could feel the straw scattered on the dirt floor. Harry took her arms and lifted them vertically over her head, stretching her up, hanging her by her bound wrists from a wooden peg protruding out of the rough timber beam above.
The tips of her toes just touched the straw on the floor as she twisted and turned slightly to one side. The leather straps groaned and squeaked, cutting into her wrists as they dug in from the strains of her own weight being suspended from them. The animal-like moaning seemed to be louder, careening off the walls around her, pounding into her ears. She fought back the urge to vomit.
Harry pulled out a sharp knife. He cut open the front of her clothing, spilling her ample breasts, exposing them to the illuminating moonlight that was shining in through the doorway. Tears welled up in Celia's eyes as he lifted each of her breasts to examine them, as if comparing the weight of one to the other. He ogled and then fondled her ebony nipples with his thick rough hands while all around them the grunting sounds amplified and the hot moist air in the room became intolerable. Celia tried to force out a scream, but her own fear was overwhelming and stifled her.
Harry reached up under her skirt. At first she resisted, squeezing her legs tightly together. Beads of sweat began to trickle down from her forehead, their saltiness stinging as they ran into her eyes. She tried to strain and bite him but Harry was not to be denied, he was too strong and he forced her legs open exploring her insides with his coarse thick fingers. She managed to squeak out a barely audible shriek, it was enough to silence the sounds coming from the surrounding darkness and now it felt as if someone was listening to them.
Harry hastily stopped what he was doing, pulled his hands away, and stumbled backwards from Celia towards the door. Celia could instantly sense his fear as he shouted, "thars another un hangin' for ya Raz."
After a few tense moments a deep baritone voice cut through the heavy silence from somewhere in the back of the building.
"Leave har thar," the voice called between laboured breathes, "I'll be gittin ta har."
The voice from the blackness sent shivers up Celia's spine, causing the hair on the back of her neck to bristle with fright. Harry hurriedly left, closing and re-latching the door. Celia could hear the buckboard leave, then there was complete and utter silence.
Alone in the darkness swallowed up by the repugnant air, the heat and foul odours settled oppressively onto Celia, like the acrid heavy smoke from a hickory fire. Her fears intensified and she felt an anxiety she'd never experienced before, as if drowning, struggling for her next breath.
She began to weep, gently at first, just to herself, and then as she lost control she started into a stuttered erratic sobbing, loud enough to be heard throughout the building.
Her sobs seemed in some way to satisfy those listening and once again the sounds of human flesh wrestling in the darkness resumed, their rhythm echoing off the walls. Celia was confused and in shock. She grew more frightened as the guttural noises became louder and louder, pounding in her ears like deep base drums, their rawness and savagery growing more intense by the moment, punishing her. Finally, they reached a deafening crescendo and then abruptly . . . they stopped.
Celia, alone, sobbed into the unknown darkness.
Whatever lay beyond, was listening.
*****
A jet black raven, with a single conspicuous white stripe of feathers tattooed on the upper part of its left wing, sallied gently through the air, its feet dangling to a landing onto a dry and dead standing oak.
The bright blueness of the sky contrasted with the stark greying branches of the tree that afforded the raven a perch, from which to gaze and amuse itself.
Eventually, the bird chortled its displeasure at what it was observing and seemed to ask anyone listening, if they wished to engage in raven conversation?
*****
Most mornings after Gentry had breakfast he would seek out Sarah. Usually he'd find her running around outside. They played well together and at ten years old they could meander on their own without needing much adult supervision.
Celia by now had another child to nurse and with a toddler to watch was too busy to keep very close tabs on them. Arabell was old and much too slow to chase them, so as long as they stayed within calling distance, coming when summoned, this became their accepted boundary.
A scruffy old farmyard dog named Molly would tag along after the kids. Arabell developed a trust in the dog and knew that when the kids were out of sight all she had to do was look for Molly. If she could locate where the dog was laying she was sure the kids were not too far off.
On one of their days exploring together Sarah had discovered two blood red pebbles lying under water in the bottom of a small charcoal grey rock basin. The flow of water over the years had eroded the rock, forming the saucer shaped pool. There was a time when the two smoothed stones had been one. Fractured into ragged but equal halves, the stones themselves had caressed each other smooth.
By the time Sarah happened upon them they were almost identical in size and shape. She opened the palm of her wet dripping hand to let Gentry choose one while she kept the other for herself. With a childhood oath they used these smooth blood red stones to link themselves in friendship forever.
*****
A teacher was now regularly coming by the house to educate Gentry. She taught him how to read and work with numbers. By sheer coincidence it was Aileen Carson, the very same red-haired southern woman with the green eyes and the Irish lilt, who had originally suggested Celia as a wet nurse for Gentry. When John wanted a home-school teacher for Gentry he had gone back to George Miller at the general store. George had suggested Aileen, for he had heard she had taught others, like Charlie Simmons of the local area, in their homes with great success.
It was a Wednesday morning when John made a special trip in from the fields so he and Aileen could discuss Gentry's learning progress. Aileen was highly educated and she and Gentry seemed to work well together. Aileen and John sat having tea and as conversations can sometimes wander Aileen eventually asked how Celia was working out.
John had always assumed Celia had first gotten pregnant by her owner Clarence but Aileen straightened him out to the fact that it was Charlie, the son, who had done the deed. This is why Emily had not been overly pleased. Aileen knew this tasty bit of gossip because she had home-schooled Charlie. Charlie was the Simmons' only child. Emily had been kicked by a horse shortly after Charlie was born and was unable to have any other children. She further related the fact that Emily had been raised in a Quaker household. Emily was one of those quietly pushing to abolish slavery. On appearances alone it would not do to have her son impregnating a black slave girl. Clarence was not a Quaker and being a slave owner, had his own points of view on the subject of the slaves.
The conversation about Charlie and Celia spurred John to reflect on the relationship evolving between his own son Gentry and Sarah.
*****
Arabell had watched Sarah moping about in the kitchen, listening to the muffled voices penetrating the thin wall of the adjacent room while Aileen Carson taught Gentry his lessons. This was the third time Aileen had come to teach Gentry and Arabell had been watching and marking the time Aileen and Gentry were together in the study.
With the knowledge of their schedule, Arabell had made plans to sequester Sarah away from the house, for she had teachings of her own, ancient and secret teachings, guarded teachings, the kind only Arabell could provide. Also, Arabell was concerned that the relationship between Sarah and Gentry was becoming far too dangerous for Sarah. Celia was available for anything Aileen or Gentry may demand. No one would miss a young black girl and a wizened-up old black woman for an hour or so.
As soon as Aileen settled in with Gentry, Arabell called, "comes Sarah, weez thangs ta dooz."
Arabell hobbled her arthritic joints down the back steps of the rear porch; she had a satchel hung over her left shoulder. Sarah followed behind her. Jerry, the crippled stable man, was busy doing his chores. He smiled as he watched them leave the yard with Molly the faithful old companion trotting along, leading the way.
Arabell and Jerry had adopted Sarah, much like grandparents would. Jerry recalled with regret the loss and painful separation of his own family over the years; for the most part, traded or sold. Arabell was much the same, with no known family to speak of. From their own experiences, they tried to keep Sarah occupied and teach her what they knew about life and obedience; however, Sarah never really seemed to get enough learning.
Arabell, Sarah and Molly wound their way back beyond the barn, padding barefoot along a well-worn pathway. Hiking amongst the trees, they skirted a hill and a gurgling brook which eventually flowed out into one of the main fields. They were close enough to the fields to hear the singing from the slaves at work amongst the tobacco plants.
At a sharp bend stood a grand old oak. The bark of its trunk was coarse and rough, aged by time. Its thick gnarled roots traversed the path. In contrast to the texture of the bark on the trunk, the roots had a skin, which had been smoothed by the bare feet of hundreds of human slaves padding over them for five and a half generations, making their way back and forth to work in the fields beyond.
Arabell and Sarah weren't going as far as the fields . . . at least not today.
*****
Along the banks of the Potomac River lies a stretch of land known as the Arlington Plantation. It was here, during the battles of Bull Run and other subsequent bloody conflicts, that the bodies of brave soldiers were interred, many of their identities unknown.
*****
Peter and Gentry stealthily moved along the path through the trees, their muskets hung down in their hands by their sides, loaded with fresh dry powder, balls and cloth wadding, readied for action if required. The forest opened up onto a small meadow where Peter stopped Gentry and warily pulled him back into the trees.
"Shhhhh, quiet," said Peter, putting a finger to his lips. "I saw him late yesterday," he whispered, "feeding on some windfalls on the other side of that building; he probably bedded down for the night near there."
An old rundown building prevented them from having a clean sight line to the orchard on the other side, so they crept quietly, flanking the boarded up and abandoned structure. The autumn leaves covered the ground in a dry red and yellow carpet. To remain undetected they stayed hidden in the trees, stepping methodically and quietly towards their prey.
In the fresh light of the morning sun a large fattened ten-point buck stood silhouetted against the naked grey trunks of the forest behind. Unaware of the predators in the woods closing in on him, he sniffed about the meadow grass around the base of an apple tree, feeling safe and undisturbed. His tail flickered now and again, revealing its soft white underside.
Peter and Gentry crouched down, duck waddling the last few feet to a good vantage point. Silently, they decided Gentry would be the first to shoot. He swung the iron sights of his gun up to wait patiently for the large whitetail to turn, giving him his best opportunity for success and a quick kill.
Calmly the deer's gentle, moist, large brown eyes blinked up into the tree at the last remaining apples; hanging and tempting, just beyond the reach of his outstretched neck. He pawed, digging his front hooves into the bark of the trunk, using them to climb up he reared back onto his hind legs. Now perched against the tree, with only his rear feet dug into the ground, he stretched to his full height. The tip of his long tongue licked and tasted one lone ripe red fruit, high up in the tree. The apple twirled on its woody stem but would not loosen and fall into his mouth.
Gentry relaxed then expelled and held his breath as he squeezed the trigger with his index finger.
The musket erupted with a sharp crack from the heavy bore.
With the recoil of the gun still vibrating in Gentry's hands, both he and Peter watched the ball hit the deer just under the left front shoulder. The sound of the shot echoed throughout the woods as tufts of tawny fur hung in the air where the once vertical deer had just been standing. The shot shattered the silence and disrupted the calm of the morning forest. The slug hit solidly; the deer's body turned as it buckled and fell flat onto its back, kicking and scratching out its final few heart beats. Dark red blood pumped out of the wound in spurts, staining the hide as it trickled down the fur and formed a trail across it before dripping onto the grass.
"Nice shot," said Peter. "We won't have to chase him anywhere."
"Thanks," Gentry proudly replied, as they stood up together.
Excited, they briskly walked towards the prone tawny body sporadically twitching on the ground.
Standing beside the deer, Peter slid the clean sharp steel of an eight inch blade out of its leather sheath and he turned to Gentry. "Here," he held out the bone handle of the knife, "he's your kill, you bleed and gut him. I'll run back and get the buckboard; we'll take the carcass down to the creek and cool it off."
"Okay," grinned Gentry, poking the nose of the buck with the muzzle of his gun. Its eyes were glazed, unfocused and lifeless.
The antlers were a prize unto themselves.
*****
A faint, barely noticeable game trail branched off from the main pathway behind the great oak. It led off into the dark shadows of the forest. Many years ago, along this trail, Arabell had stumbled upon an abandoned root cellar while searching for herbs for her potions. She used the old cellar to hide what she found; always careful and guarded, she kept it concealed within the overgrown brush. She never really had found enough purpose for it, and had lost interest in it until now.
When Arabell had observed Sarah trying to overhear the lessons Gentry was being taught by Aileen, it brought back distant memories of her own informal education. What seemed like a lifetime ago on the distant shores of Africa, Arabell vaguely recalled her fear as she was captured by Krumen tribesmen. They bartered her to white slavers who sent her, just a child, on a hideous journey which could only be described as a voyage for the damned.
The ship sailed to the West Indies, where she was taken off and sold at auction. Bound and tossed into the back of an ox cart she was then roughly transported inland to a sugar cane plantation. She arrived with a fever, so her new owners quarantined her. Expecting her to die, they didn't want her infecting anyone else. Her fortunes changed when she was befriended by a kind and gentle elderly woman, who patiently nursed her back to good health with herbs and hot soups.
While living in servitude, Arabell was taught by this tribeswoman the secret skills of the art and soul of voodoo.
*****
Gentry was searching for Sarah when he happened upon Molly laying at the base of the ladder leading up into the loft of the barn. He climbed up the wooden rungs carrying a white cotton sack. Hidden in it was a surprise for Sarah. Over the years he couldn't help notice Sarah hovering about, curious, when Aileen Carson had come to the house to teach him. He knew Sarah was discretely trying to listen to his lessons. He'd hear Arabell catch her and tell Sarah to come, that they had places to go and things to do. He'd also been taught that it was forbidden for anyone to educate a slave, but to Gentry Sarah wasn't a slave, she was his friend. They'd sworn an oath to it. He kept the smooth red stone she had given him in his pocket as a reminder.
As Gentry reached the top rung of the ladder, he poked his head through the floor into the loft. He could see Sarah engrossed, watching a fledgling clutch of barn swallows in a mud nest clinging precariously to the wood planked wall. The birds were feeding. Each time the mother bird would return, it would capture all of Sarah's attention. He scrambled up off the ladder onto the loft floor.
"Sarah, come here . . . I have a surprise for you," Gentry said, sounding excited.
He held out the cotton sack for her, but just as she reached for it he snatched it behind his back. Sarah tried to wrestle it out from behind him but he teasingly twisted and turned away. Finally, she gave up and walked away, back towards the bird's nest, as if disinterested.
"I'm only kidding," Gentry held it out, "here," this time he allowed Sarah to take the sack.
Sarah eagerly pulled open the wrinkled cloth gathered at the top of the bag by string. She peered inside. Her golden brown eyes twinkled. Hidden in the cotton bag was a book of letters and numbers. Sarah removed it, looking at it quizzically as if to say, What am I to do with this?
Proud and smiling, Gentry said, "I'm going to teach you to read."
*****
After years of arduous labour in the cane fields of the West Indies, the tightening of the British slave trade laws made Arabell more valuable to her owners if she was traded as chattel into the American slave market. She was loaded onto a ship.
The trip north seemed far shorter than the one she had endured from Africa, but the fear of the unknown was every bit as frightening. When the boat arrived in America Arabell, along with others, were bound and off-loaded down a ramp onto the wooden docks. There they were stripped naked and hosed down with cold water. Finally, after being poked and prodded by a line-up of buyers, they were auctioned.
While this degradation and public humiliation was taking place, Arabell stood in a trance. Her thoughts had remained in the West Indies with the three children she loved and had been forced to abandon.
*****
Arabell had never revealed her secret root cellar to anyone. Never so much as spoken about it. The entrance was impossible to find, unless you were privy to where it was. With Sarah close behind her Arabell walked beyond the roots of the large oak, furtively glancing sideways at the faint game trail in the brush. When she felt she had gone far enough down the main pathway she stopped.
"Sarah, yute falloows cloze ta da mams nauw," Arabell said. She crouched down, stepping off the main pathway, her buttocks disappearing into the undergrowth.
Sarah had no clue as to where Arabell was headed, but she obediently followed the old woman, crouching along with her into the bush. She stayed close on her heels so as not to get lost. Sarah's life lately seemed to revel on the edge of secrecy and the forbidden. Soon they were both concealed, deep into the clean earthy smells of the woods. Arabell pushed the branches of the bushes out in front of her, holding onto them, keeping them safely to one side, so they wouldn't whip back and strike Sarah in the face.
As she crept along, Arabell moved in a semi circle keeping the oak to her left as a point of reference. She bent down on one knee to look closely for the intersection with the game trail.
"Yaa, see whaas ol mams das?" Arabell asked Sarah.
Sarah looked confused.
"Look heres."
Sarah looked around.
"Naa gals, downs heres." Arabell pointed to a small clump of rabbit pellets left behind on the gently trodden down leaves of the game trail.
"Daz, yaa sees?" Arabell asked. Sarah nodded yes.
"Ta beeg ols treet linez ups weer deez critzers goez." Sarah understood, nodding again.
"Falloows mams," Arabell said. She now stood upright, and by keeping the signs of the faint trail beside her, Arabell snaked her way along as she had done many times before through the forest, eventually arriving at a hillside. There, overgrown vines hung down over a door. This was the entrance leading back into the old cellar.
Arabell had been able to keep this entrance to the root cellar a secret for years. Being young and impressionable, Sarah enjoyed the conspiracy and thrill of it all. She promised never to come directly to the entrance, always choosing a different way each time so as to keep the path concealed. Also, she would have to give her word to Arabell never to divulge to anyone the root cellar's location or any of the secrets Arabell was about to impart to her.
*****