Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3)

by Annette Laing

  “There is naught to the thing,” Sukey said with a laugh. “I tell you what to do. You get in first.”

  She pointed to a tiny plank on which Hannah was to sit. A paddle was propped against it. The canoe sat mostly on dry land, but the far end on which Hannah was to travel dipped into the water. Unsteadily, Hannah clambered onto a rock in the river, then gingerly, she stepped onto the plank.

  For a moment, she feared she would lose her balance, but the canoe held still, and awkwardly she dumped herself down onto her bottom, her knees crammed against barrels. She reached under her seat and pulled out her paddle from where it had fallen.

  Sukey grabbed the end of the canoe with both hands, then leaned forward and shoved the craft most of the way into the water before hopping in, sitting down, and pushing off, all in one easy motion. To Hannah’s astonishment, they were afloat.

  Sukey commanded, “You paddle now, Hannah.”

  Hannah paddled.

  An hour after Hannah and Sukey departed, Tony brought Alex a gourd dipper full of water. He had to work to persuade Alex even to sip at it.

  “I feel lousy,” Alex moaned. “I can’t get warm. I keep getting shivers up my spine. Tony, can you get me a thermometer? So I can see what my temperature is?”

  Tony tilted his head in puzzlement, and Alex, in his fevered state, couldn’t understand why. After a moment, he ceased to care. With Tony still watching him, he drifted off to sleep.

  When Alex awoke, he was alone. He was lonely and depressed, not just about being sick, but about his whole situation. He had the appearance of a stranger, and he was constantly on edge, afraid of the white people who had so much control over his life. Tony and Sukey had assured him that kids were rarely whipped. Both of them told him that Mr. Gordon’s brutal punishments of Cuffee and Quashee were unusual: He meant them as cruel warnings to the other slaves, to keep them afraid of him. Tony said that Mr. Gordon always made sure that they heard of horrible things that happened to slaves who stepped out of line.

  But Alex couldn’t help worrying that he would somehow offend the Gordons, and that something horrible would happen to him. So he had followed how the others behaved: He tried not to look white people in the eye, and in fact, he had resolved not to have anything to do with any of them except, of course, Hannah and Brandon. And possibly Jane.

  Alex thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. The room seemed strangely bare, as though something were missing, although he couldn’t imagine what it would be. On impulse, he turned his head toward the doorway.

  A miniature face stared back at him. Not just small, but impossibly tiny. A perfect, miniature human face.

  The face suddenly disappeared, and Alex thought vaguely that he must have imagined it.

  But here was the face again, and this time, it came with a body, stepping out from behind the door post. His visitor was a miniscule but perfectly-proportioned Indian warrior. He was barely more than a foot tall. He had bronzed skin, very long black hair, almost down to his ankles, and he wore only a loin cloth. He carried a tiny bow and arrow. He returned Alex’s stare with a curious look.

  Alex knew he must be seeing things, and he desperately looked around the room to get his mind off this live action figure. But when he looked back at the doorway, the tiny man was still standing there, and still staring at him.

  “What do you want?” Alex blurted out. The man replied in a string of words in another language. It meant nothing to Alex, who shook his head to show the tiny man that he didn’t understand. The man said nothing more, but smiled kindly. Then he turned, stepped back through the doorway, and disappeared from Alex’s sight.

  Chapter 8:

  Hannah had crossed rivers in Georgia in the twenty-first century, but she only knew that she had because the green signs on the freeway had told her so, and because of a split-second’s glimpse of brown water as she glanced out the car window.

  Nobody had ever suggested to Hannah that she might want to take a boat or a canoe on a river, and she wouldn’t have been interested if they had. But now was different, not only because paddling was the only efficient way to travel, but also because she was enjoying herself.

  “This is pretty cool,” she said breathlessly to Sukey as she slid her paddle into the water. Sukey smiled, but did not reply.

  The journey upriver was strangely peaceful. Only birdsong, breezes rustling through the trees, and the gentle splash of the paddles in the water broke the silence. Hannah had had a tricky start with the paddle, finding steering difficult, but Sukey soon taught her. To Hannah’s own astonishment, she took to canoeing as though it was something she had been doing all her life. Going upriver wasn’t entirely easy work, but the river was flat and gentle, and so it wasn’t too arduous, either.

  All the same, Hannah worried about wild creatures.

  She knew alligators lived in southeast Georgia, of course, but she had never actually seen one. Now, on the river in 1752, she saw them everywhere: floating in the shallows with only their creepy eyes peeking out of the water, or resting on the riverbank, watching the passing canoe with mild interest. When the canoe skimmed close to a floating log, Hannah gave a small shriek and practically jumped out of her skin.

  “I thought it was a ’gator,” she explained sheepishly to Sukey, who had spun around to see what the matter was. Sukey laughed at her.

  “Well, it looked like one,” Hannah grumbled.

  “They do not harm you if you leave them be,” Sukey said kindly. “They are clever. Like the snakes, they see all we do. And some snakes are once people. Perhaps that one.”

  She nodded toward a water moccasin that was sunning itself on the riverbank.

  Hannah remained silent, wondering what on earth Sukey was talking about.

  Sukey took up the story. “Once, there are two hunters who come from a people who never eat squirrel. All day the two men hunt, but the only animal they ever catch is squirrel, which they do not eat. At night, the two men build a fire near the riverbank, and begin to prepare their meal. The first takes some cornmeal from his pocket, scoops up river water, and makes a bread to bake. But the other hunter, he decides to eat a squirrel. ‘Don’t do that!’ his friend says. ‘We are forbidden to eat squirrel! If you eat that squirrel, something terrible will happen!’

  But the second hunter is starving, and so he says to his companion, ‘Oh, that is nonsense. It is the story of a witch.’ And then he prepares the squirrel, and cooks it over the fire.”

  Sukey paused for what felt to Hannah like a very long time. “So,” Hannah said, “Is that it? Is that the whole story?”

  “No, of course not,” Sukey said. “I am just watching the snake over there.” She pointed to another water moccasin. “He is listening to my story.”

  Hannah looked over at the snake. It did appear to be paying close attention to the canoe.

  Sukey continued. “The squirrel that the hunter cooks, it looks like any other squirrel. It is delicious, and the second hunter eats every scrap of meat, but his friend refuses to touch it. Soon after, they lay down to sleep. Late that night, as the fire burns down, the first hunter awakes suddenly, hearing a terrible noise. He who eat the squirrel is screaming for help and rolling around on the ground in pain. His friend is shocked to see that his legs are gone.”

  “Somebody cut his legs off?” Hannah was shocked.

  “No,” Sukey said, “His legs are vanished. In their place, the second hunter has a snake’s tail. His friend cannot help. As the hunter screams and writhes, his friend keeps watch, but he cannot do anything for him. It takes hours and hours, and the hunter is screaming almost to the end. His arms slowly draw into his body, his skin grows scales, his body shrinks, and finally, he becomes silent as his head becomes the head of a snake.”

  “And what happened then?” Hannah asked breathlessly.

  “He slithers down the riverbank, and into the water. And for all we know, he is there still.”

  A horrible thought struck Hannah. “Wait, d
id you know this guy?”

  Sukey shook her head. “No, but my mother say he was well-known among her people.”

  Hannah was disturbed. She tried not believing the story, but the way Sukey told it, it seemed so real. Afterward, she peered nervously at every snake they passed, trying to glimpse any human spark in its glassy stare.

  As Hannah surveyed the riverbank, she occasionally spied a gap in the densely packed trees and shrubs. Through these gaps, she could see what looked like teeny dirt trails into the woods, with miniature trees lining the ways. She pointed out the next one to Sukey. “That looks like a freeway for elves, or something,” she laughed.

  Abruptly, Sukey shushed her.

  “What’s the matter?” Hannah asked, alarmed. Had Sukey seen somebody watching them from the forest?

  When Sukey didn’t reply, Hannah turned and looked back at her, and was astonished to see her companion appearing tightlipped and anxious. Nervously, Hannah paddled harder.

  Only when they were well past the “elves’ freeway” did Sukey speak. In a loud whisper, she said, “That path you see, it belongs to the Yunwi.”

  Hannah repeated, “It belongs to the . . . What?”

  “The Yunwi,” Sukey hissed, “the Little People. You are most like to see them after dark. But if you do meet them on a trail, never tell another living soul that you seen them, or the Yunwi find you and they kill you.”

  Hannah was creeped out. To lighten the atmosphere, she tried to make fun of what Sukey had said.

  “Are you seriously telling me to watch out for killer gnomes?” she giggled.

  “This is no jest,” Sukey said sharply. “The Little People are dangerous if you trifle with them. They appear especially to children, but . . .”

  Hannah interrupted, “Have you seen one?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  Sukey said solemnly, “I cannot say. Do not ask me again.”

  The way she said it sent a shiver down Hannah’s spine.

  Hours later, the canoe glided toward a wooded hill rising from the riverbank. It was the steepest hill Hannah had ever seen in South Georgia, which wasn’t saying much, but still. About halfway up sat a cleared plateau, on which was built a log cabin that looked like any other hut in the Georgia backwoods, except for the metal bars on every window.

  Sukey steered the canoe toward the shore. A spry man in his fifties emerged from the open door of the house and ran down the dirt trail to the riverbank. Without a word, he grabbed the rope that Sukey threw and helped pull the canoe fully onto shore. Hannah, her legs stiff, climbed out.

  The man clearly knew Sukey, and he greeted her with a smile, a kiss, and a warm embrace. “How’s Mr. Gordon?” he puffed in a fluting accent that Hannah couldn’t place, although she thought he might be Irish. “I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

  “He’s a busy gentleman, Mr. MacKenzie,” said Sukey, brushing dirt from her skirt. She lifted a sack from the canoe.

  “Yes, I’m sure he is,” Mr. MacKenzie said, wiping his hands on his pants. “Wait, don’t unload. You have had a long journey. I will summon John to help me.” He turned and yelled a long stream of words in a language that Hannah didn’t recognize. She thought it might be German, because its sounds were guttural, with lots of throaty “ch” noises, but unlike German, it was also soft and gentle. A young black man came running from the woods and began to unpack the canoe.

  To Hannah’s amazement, the slave now spoke to MacKenzie in his own peculiar language. Hannah couldn’t help asking, “What language are you guys speaking?”

  “Gaelic,” said Mr. MacKenzie with a smile, pronouncing it “Gallic.” “It is the language of Scotland.”

  Hannah had lived in Scotland during her last adventure. But she had never heard anyone speaking like that, and she said so.

  Mr. MacKenzie chuckled. “You lived in the Lowlands, did you?” he asked teasingly.

  “No,” Hannah said crossly, not entirely sure what he meant. “I lived in Dundee, and it had mountains. It wasn’t low.”

  “Dundee?” Mr. MacKenzie said. “That’s in the Lowlands. They have hills, not mountains.”

  Hannah sneered at him. “How would you know? I bet you never went there.”

  “I did that,” Mr. MacKenzie laughed. “I traveled the Lowlands with Prince Charlie’s army in the Forty-Five Rebellion. I fought Johnnie Cope’s men at Prestonpans, I’ll have you know. And in the Lowlands, the people are English.”

  Hannah was now thoroughly confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Everyone I met in Scotland was Scottish. They weren’t English.”

  Mr. MacKenzie drew himself up and tutted at her ignorance. “We in the Highlands call them the English, those people who dwell in Dundee and Edinburgh. They are not like us, for they know not the Gaelic. I am a Highlander, from an t-Eilean Sgitheanach.” The words he said sounded like “an Tellen Shkee-a-nach.” He added, “the English call my birthplace the Island of Skye.”

  “Whatever,” Hannah muttered, although she silently resolved to look up Skye on a map someday. She stomped off up the trail as Mr. MacKenzie chuckled.

  When she got to the trading post, she found Sukey already inside, sifting through the goods on offer. Hannah stood awkwardly just inside the doorway of the cramped hut, where she soon found herself forced to make more conversation with Mr. MacKenzie. “So what are you doing here?” she asked him reluctantly.

  Mr. MacKenzie said slowly, “You have heard of the great Highland rebellion of forty-five?”

  Hannah hadn’t, but she nodded. Mr. MacKenzie shook his head sadly. “Prince Charlie’s army was destroyed at the battle of Culloden. Two of my brothers and my father were killed. I was lucky to escape with my life. I was taken captive, and I was luckier yet that I was banished from Scotland, and not executed. My other brothers were not so fortunate as me: They were banished too, but they died in the ship on the way across the ocean.”

  Hannah had no idea which war this was, but she felt bad for Mr. MacKenzie. The tough rugged Scotsman looked bowed down by his losses.

  “So you were transported, like me?” Hannah asked carefully.

  “Aye, to Barbados,” said Mr. MacKenzie.

  “So how did you wind up here?” Hannah asked.

  He didn’t answer, but instead looked over to Sukey. Hannah wondered if he had run off from Barbados, and stowed away on a ship to Georgia. She supposed he must have.

  Sukey, meanwhile, was pawing through a large heap of animal skins, building a pile of those she had chosen, and another pile of those she had discarded. Mr. MacKenzie picked up one of her rejects, and ran his hand down the fur. “Good quality, I tell you, Sukey,” he said. “You should take it.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said skeptically. “These are not so good as last time.”

  Mr. MacKenzie laughed. “Come now, do you think I would be a fool, and lose Mr. Gordon’s business? I only trade the best.”

  She looked sideways at him, as if to say, “Give me a break,” and carried on sorting through the deerskins. Finally, giving a firm pat to the pile she had selected, she said, “I take these for Mr. Gordon.”

  “Not so many, I’m afraid,” tutted Mr. MacKenzie, shaking his head morosely. “Your trade goods won’t fetch so much with the Cherokee as once they did.”

  Sukey opened her mouth to protest, but then changed her mind, took one skin off her pile, and stood with her arms crossed, daring Mr. MacKenzie to insist on more concessions.

  Mr. MacKenzie sighed heavily. “Very well. You drive a hard bargain for Mr. Gordon, indeed you do. Now, would you like a bit of supper?”

  “I would,” Hannah interrupted. “I’m totally starving.”

  Mr. MacKenzie laughed and spread his arms wide. “Then let us eat!”

  Hannah should have guessed what would be on the menu. She gazed balefully at her unappetizing wooden bowl of corn mush. Scooping up the gloppy white paste on her wooden spoon, she scowled at it.

  “It’s only porridge
,” Mr. MacKenzie laughed.

  Hannah looked up sharply. “No, it’s so not. Porridge is made from oatmeal. This is more like grits.”

  Mr. MacKenzie shook his head. “We can’t get oats here, girl, you must know that. So like everyone else, I make my porridge with Indian meal.”

  Hannah took a taste and made a face. She had learned to truly hate cornmeal mush and all other bland combinations of corn and water. “Got anything to put in it?” she asked grumpily.

  “Only this,” he said with a grin, passing her some salt. She mistook it for sugar, and had added about half a tablespoon before she realized her mistake. But she was so hungry, she ate most of it anyway.

  Mr. MacKenzie was still chortling at Hannah’s pickiness when John dashed in, agitated. Signalling frantically, he rattled off a long string of Gaelic to Mr. MacKenzie, who immediately lost his smile, and leaping forward, grabbed his musket from next to the door. Alarmed, Sukey dropped her spoon, while Hannah felt panic grabbing her insides.

  “What is it?” she breathed .

  “Wheest! Someone is in the woods,” grunted Mr. MacKenzie, aiming his musket from the window toward the rocky bluffs across the river. Loudly, he yelled, “Show yourself!”

  There was a tense moment. Then a young Indian woman rose slowly from a crouch in the bushes on the opposing riverbank, her hands in the air.

  Mr. MacKenzie lowered his gun, and gave a nervous chuckle. “Och, it’s only Indian Mary,” he said. “She fairly gave me a fright.” He waved to her, and she waved back limply.

  The entire room let out a sigh of relief.

  “So who did you think she was?” Hannah asked.

  “I know not,” Mr. MacKenzie said, replacing his musket by the door. “There are thieves and beggars who pass this way. I have many riches here that they would gladly take. And one day maybe the Creeks will turn on us. Begging your pardon, Sukey.”

  Sukey shrugged and said, “I care not, for I am not Creek.”

  For some reason, Hannah thought, Mr. MacKenzie seemed more approachable and normal than anyone else she had met so far.

  “So,” she snickered, figuring he would appreciate the humor, “did you hear about the little people who live in the woods?”