Diamonds in the Rough

by Emmy Waterford

  Missy sat in front of the mirror while identical sister Chrissy sat behind her, dragging a silver-handled hair brush through her sister’s long, straight, sandy-brown hair, their frilly dresses worth more than Belle’s life.

  “What about when we get married?” Missy asked her sister. “We won’t both be able to keep her.”

  Chrissy glanced at Belle, who stood at the wall, arms at her sides, eyes down as instructed. “You can keep her, I’ll get another one.”

  “Fine. I’ll probably marry a man so rich he’ll have as many slaves as we could possibly use. Why drag some old thing into my new house?” The girls nodded, Missy looking at Belle. “Who knows, Belle, maybe we’ll grant you your freedom?” Just the words, just the idea, sent a thrill through Belle’s body and soul. Her face bent into a mask of surprise and wonder and gratitude, heart beating faster, lungs filling. But Belle fought back the instinct to be happy and even more so the desire to express that happiness. It had never led to anything other than disappointment before.

  And when the girls erupted in a fit of mean giggling, Belle released her lungfuls of air, shoulders sagging once more.

  “Don’t be sad about it,” Missy said to Belle. “Don't you like us?” Belle nodded, saying nothing, which was the Robinson sisters’ preference. “And don’t you like living here? Don’t we treat you well?”

  Belle nodded before Chrissy added, “A lot better’n a lot of folks do.” Belle nodded again, having no choice.

  Missy went on. “You been real lucky so far, having both yer mammy and yer pappy with ya. Don’t take that for granted.”

  “That’s right,” Chrissy said. “Our daddy was just tellin’ one o’ his business associates ‘bout yer kin, that cute little’n pup yer just now got. Could be a change in the weather, far as all that’s concerned.”

  “Nigger pup like that trade for all kinds’a things. May even send yer mammy too, so the little one don’t get lonely.”

  “With as many slaves as the Haddock’s got? I should hardly think!” They broke out in another round of laughter, that expensive brush stroking languidly through the girl’s silky hair as they joked about Belle’s family being torn apart forever.

  “It’s really better that way,” Missy said. “Keeps you from inbreeding, makin’ friends with each other and the like. Our daddy says there ain't any good can come of that.”

  “It’s the same thing with families of regular folks, too,” Chrissy said, “not just nigger families. We ain’t all gonna stay under one roof all our lives, for heaven’s sake. You might even wanna get married, right? But how’re you gonna do that if we don’t bring in any fresh niggers? Gotta just find one on a new plantation is all. People move around, that’s nature’s way.”

  “Unless the master says stay put, then you stay put! That’s the Lord’s way.”

  A bell tolled out over the plantation, loud enough to carry through the house and into the sister’s room. They looked at each other with eager smiles, eyes wide. But for Belle, the sound only rang in the hollow shell of her soul. Each of the Robinson twins took one of Belle’s hands and led her out of the room.

  “Let’s go, Belle, you know you’re not supposed to miss this.”

  Belle knew, she’d heard that midday toll too many times to have forgotten, to ever forget what it meant or what would follow.

  Belle and the Robinson sisters stepped out onto the balcony outside the second floor of the plantation house, facing the back yard. Slaves filtered in from various quadrants of the property, each under guard of armed men on horseback, chains and manacles giving them a stooped, shuffling gate. Her father, Mo, was in one of the lines, and he glanced up to make eye contact with his young daughter, a house slave, something he knew he’d never be.

  Alice and the other kitchen slaves came out too, standing in the yard beneath the balcony, Belle able to identify her mamma by the frayed scarf tied around her head.

  But the center of Belle’s attention, and everyone else’s, was the big buck being dragged in by Taggart himself, a rope leading from his saddle to the man’s tied hands, five paces behind as Taggart and two of his men led him to the whipping post.

  Taggart dismounted and he and his men dragged the slave, a failed escapee whom Belle knew as Samuel, to the whipping post, hands above his head. There was no need for an announcement or an explanation. Everybody knew Samuel had been recaptured and brought back, and was now going to be yet another example of the price to be paid for a flight to freedom.

  But Taggart took the bullwhip from one his two men as they led the horses back to give everyone a clear view.

  Taggart’s voice was as big as he was, loud and echoing across the plantation grounds.

  “This buck had some rabbit in him,” Taggart shouted, “now he’s gonna feel the sting of the lash, just like any one of you thinks you got a chance out there.”

  Taggart spun in a flash, raising the whip up and bringing it down in a terrifying flash, cracking against the man’s bare black skin, leaving a red streak of exposed flesh, Samuel screaming and throwing his head back and preparing for another blow.

  Crack!

  Another hard strike left a third strip of bloody meat under his dark skin.

  Taggart turned back to face his captive audience. “You think this is cruel? You think this ain’t right? This is nothing compared to what you’ll find out there! I seen dogs rip a buck bigger’n this one to pieces, he died screaming!” Taggart spun and whipped the bound Samuel again as if to make his point before turning back to the crowd. “There are plantation lords out there’d make a capon outta this rabbit-foot here, or put a stake in his neck and leave him out here to rot! But not your Mr. Beau Robinson. He’s a man who cares about his property, treats it right.”

  Taggart looked at the plantation and nodded, all eyes following his line of sight. Belle did too, turning to see none other than Beau Robinson himself standing on the balcony next to the one she stood on with his daughters. He looked over and gave them a little nod, a smile and a wink as he puffed on a cigar rolled from his own tobacco.

  Taggart went on. “I ain’t doin’ no killin’. I’m just teaching this boy a lesson, teaching you all a lesson! You should be grateful to Mr. Robinson, not mistreatin’ him, trying to steal his property, ruin his business here! Look at this fine plantation, look at the fine food and shelter he provides you! Then you turn around and insult the man, try to make him look foolish after all he’s done for you?”

  Taggart’s anger inspired another turn and two more hard cracks of the whip. Samuel was barely responding, head hanging down over his chest, arms taut above him.

  “You be smart,” Taggart went on, “do yer work, be glad the Lord gave you such a fine man as Mr. Robinson to work for, to take care of you. And don’t be gettin’ any fool ideas, or you’ll be the one tied to the post!”

  Another turn, another vicious swing of that long, leather whip. The crack was loud and stunning even to hear, shooting through Belle’s body as if she were the one being struck. Samuel himself slouched forward as the two men untied and then re-chained him.

  The bell rang again and everyone turned to shuffle back to their fields, the kitchen, Taggart’s men keeping a deadly eye on them as the business of the plantation returned to normal. Belle didn’t have any doubt about what her parents would be talking about in hushed tones in their little shack, if they were lucky enough to still be sharing it.

  “We got’sta run, and we got’sta run now, ‘fore it’s too late!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Can’t run,” Alice said, her voice low and raspy. “Too dangerous out there, Mo. I ain’t draggin’ my babies into that.”

  But Mo leaned forward, hand raised to point out Belle just a few feet away, huddled with her parents, kid brother in her lap as they ate their meal of rotting fruit rinds and stale bread soaked in rancid gravy. “You heard what Belle said about them girls, how they said Massah Robinson’s gonna sell us apart!”

  “But the dogs, Mo! An
d that’s not all! You wanna get cut out there? And what about when we get caught?”

  “Suppose we don’t,” Mo said, “ain’t everyone gets caught, Alice.”

  “Ain’t everyone makes it to the Canada line neither, Mo. You know how far that be up north, how long? You think Belle can walk all that way?”

  “I hear there are folks, white folks, loading up carts with slaves, hidden under things, even inside cart floors and such.”

  “White folks! What fool notion makes you think you can trust them? Those’er just stories, Mo!”

  “That ain’t so, Alice!” Footsteps passed the shack and the conversation fell silent, Belle watching and waiting with her parents as the footsteps got fainter and farther away. Even quieter, Mo went on. “I hear’d tell from Toby, he nearly made it all the way past the Kentucky state line! He say it’s true—”

  “Then what’s he doin’ back here? What good’d the drinking gourd do him?”

  A long, considered silence filled the shack. “He nearly made it passed the state line.”

  “Nearly.”

  The conversation ebbed, Belle’s imagination once again drifting to distant places, things unseen and unknown. Horrible images of barking dogs, yellow eyes and white teeth flashing, digging into her skin, pain shooting up her limbs as they shook those muscular necks, pulling and yanking meat from the bone, only egged on by her pathetic screams.

  She thought about the litany of other horrors, desperate men traveling under cover of night, criminals of every color, army deserters, Indians who weren’t always as friendly as they were rumored to be.

  Belle clutched Joseph’s wriggling little body close. She knew it wasn’t likely that she or her parents would ever even try to escape, that they’d live their lives on the Robinson plantation and that was if they were lucky. More likely they’d be separated, sooner or later, sobbing and reaching out while the cart disappeared into the horizon, members of her family torn apart and never to see each other again.

  But at least they’d be alive, be fed, be allowed to marry and have children, even if they’d have to lose them eventually. Ain’t that just the way it is, Belle had to wonder, black or white, slave or free, rich or poor? Don’t nothin’ last forever; not life, not family, just God.

  But other images flashed across her mind’s eye. Her family sat together, dressed in the finest clothes, eating fresh foods, slaughtered and stewed just for them, the best from the garden and long walks in the moonlight afterward, her daddy smoking a cigar and drinking a brandy just like Mr. Robinson himself, only without the devil’s wickedness over his shoulder, but God’s true light.

  But the sweetness of her hope brought with it the bitter aftertaste of disappointment, of pain, of the sad truth that her life would never be her own, that Belle Robinson nor any member of her family would ever be free.

  But her pappy still didn’t seem to see things that way; secretly, Belle was glad.

  “Ain’t gonna keep livin’ like this,” Mo said, shaking his head. “Not me ’n you neither—”

  “That’s fine for you,” Alice said. “You maybe got a chance, maybe me. But not the little’ns, not my poor baby boy, he ain’t right! And I ain’t leavin’ them behind, Mo, no way and no how!”

  Mo nodded, knowing not only that she had some strong points, but that no amount of reason or begging would sway her from this position. Belle was even gladder of that.

  “Well I ain’t g’wine if’n you ain’t,” Mo said, “no ma’am. I guess we’s just gonna have t’hope n’pray Massah Robinson don’t see fit to break us up, that’s all.”

  Belle did pray that night, and she tried to hope, but neither brought her very much warmth against the chill of the early spring, much less of the icy cold misery in the bottom of her stomach.

  In some ways, Belle felt as if she was already dead.

  *

  Belle stood, silent and respectful, several steps back from the dinner table. Beau Robinson’s own personal man, called George, stood in fine attire several feet to Mr. Robinson’s left. His posture was rigid, his skin dark against his white cotton shirt and red jacket. Belle looked to George for an example, for company when she was away from her family, but he could scarcely be much of either. But gray haired, his face wrinkled with his more than forty years of life, he’d survived, and Belle knew that if she could do the same, he would be partly to thank for it.

  Beau Robinson cut into the beef heart, smothered in a deep red wine sauce leaking into his creamy scalloped potatoes, peas and carrots in a pile dominating another portion of his plate. Belle’s stomach roiled with pangs of hunger, the lunch hour passing with torturous slowness as those delicious scents filled the air.

  Robinson pointed his knife at his daughters, still chewing the meat as he spoke, handlebar mustache smiling where he never did. “How’s that little nigger of yours working out?”

  “She’s fine, Daddy,” Missy said. Chrissy shrugged.

  “Her mother’s a good breeder,” Robinson said as Alice stepped out of the kitchen with a small plate carrying a canvas mound. She set it in front of Mr. Robinson without her eyes meeting his or Belle’s. “Your beef brains, sir.”

  “Finally.” She set the plate down and turned. “Am I supposed to eat the sack?”

  “No, Massah Robinson, so sorry, sir.” Alice started to open the canvas sack, but Robinson just slapped her away. “All right, all right, get your filthy fingers out of my food.”

  “Yes, sir, sorry sir.” Alice scurried quickly out of the dining room and into the kitchen. Robinson glanced at her exit and turned his attention to the sack on his plate. “She’s dumb as a stump though, I’ll tell you that. I’d have thought the girl would be much the same.”

  Chrissy nodded. “Didn’t you say the best ones are the dumb ones?”

  Robinson shrugged. He pulled the bread-coated brain out of the canvas sack, steam from the boiling rising up. He scooped out a forkful of butter from the tray and mashed it into the brain, breaking it down as the butter quickly melted. “I said the smart ones were the worst ones, but they’re pretty rare.” He sprinkled the brain with salt and pepper and then forked up a mouthful, chewing it with vulgar loudness. “That dimwit boy is gonna bring in some handsome coin.”

  Belle’s blood ran cold, mouth going dry. She wanted to beg Mr. Robinson not to do it, to let them have that one little pleasure in life, togetherness. But Belle knew the risk would be great and the reward, next to nothing. Any display at all was most likely to get Belle beaten, her brother sold and her mother put to the lash.

  And anyway, the rifle shot spoke for her.

  Beau Robinson dropped his fork onto his plate, brain still in his mouth as he wiped a drip of butter from his chin. He looked around, squinting concerned, but another gunshot propelled him up from the table, pulling the napkin down from his collar.

  “George, my guns!”

  George bolted across the dining room as Robinson stood up from his chair at the head of the table. George retrieved a gun belt, two holstered pistols in each, as well as a loaded Springfield. Robinson took the guns and said to his daughters, “Get to your room, lock the door! George, come with me!”

  Robinson headed out of the dining room to follow the second rifle shot, George on his heels, Missy and Chrissy shrieking and running off to the safety of their bedroom. They left Belle behind, paying her no mind at all in their flight for safety.

  Alice ran into the dining room from the kitchen, scooping up Belle and holding her tight. She looked around the empty dining room. “Where’s George?”

  “Went with Mr. Robinson,” Belle said. “The girls went to their room.”

  Alice looked around and Belle sensed the tension in her body, hands clutching her, her mind racing, her legs about to do the same. “Let’s go find ‘yer pappy.”

  Alice set Belle down, grasped her little hand, and pulled her out of the dining room and into the kitchen. The other kitchen slaves had already run, leaving an empty room with fire still burning i
n the oven. Alice led Belle out the back door to the plantation’s sprawling yard, fields in the distance in every direction.

  More rifle shots rang out, horse hooves stomping on soft dirt in various quadrants of the property. It was impossible to say what had started off the chaos that was taking over the plantation, but there was no denying that the chaos was spreading fast.

  One slave rode past on one of the slave drivers’ horses, but the crack of rifle fire made the man snap back, falling backward and off the horse as the creature ran on in frightened confusion, the slave’s new corpse lying lifeless in the grass, eyes wide and peering up in an enteral stare.

  But across the yard, two slaves were pulling one slave driver off his horse, one strangling the man to death with the very chains manacled to his wrist. And gun smoke was not the only scent wafting in that spring breeze, the air just a little less clear, almost burning Belle’s little eyes.

  She glanced over to the big plantation house, the main structure in the center of the sprawling grounds. Wafts of black smoke rose up from the kitchen, getting thicker fast as the smell of ash got stronger in the back of her throat.

  Alice gripped Belle’s hand and dragged her running away from the house and into the cotton fields, where the slave drivers were already absent, called to deadly fighting elsewhere on the plantation. Slaves were running from the property in every direction, some racing back toward the house to collect their loved ones, Mo among them.

  Alice ran across the field to Mo, hobbled by his chains as they fell into each other’s arms. Mo bent down to hug Belle, a quick squeeze saying all they needed to say, with no time to say any more.

  But the chaos and thickening smoke and random gunfire around them told Belle and her parents everything they needed to know about their present and their futures. This was their one and only chance to make a clean break and get away unseen. Whatever dangers awaited them, there was no more time to think about it, no more time to weigh the options. Whatever slaves remained would be punished for the transgressions of the escapees, the plantation itself may be sold off, all the slaves scattered.