“My father is French. It’s his name. He was stranded in Haiti after a shipwreck. My mother’s family found him on the beach. My mother nursed him back to life. They fell in love and married. He was away on a sea trip with my brother when my mother and I were kidnapped from our home. When he finds out, nothing will stop them from rescuing us,” Darque said.
The Captain held back his anger. She was a feisty one and would have to pay for the outburst of disrespect later.
He turned and walked over to Betty, pulled a peppermint from his coat pocket, and gave it to her. Leaning over, he whispered something in her ear.
* * *
Arbroth Plantation set on over 400 acres of rich soil nurtured by the Mississippi River. It was a living, breathing entity that required constant care in order for it to thrive and bear fruit.
The main house had been built in a pecan orchard amidst sixty-year-old beautiful trees. The road leading to the house had twenty mighty oaks lined on either side. The trees were an adornment left from the original house on the property that burned some thirty years before.
The slaves were the main caretakers, and the plantation as a whole was like a village unto itself. A large workshop teamed with those skilled in blacksmithing and woodworking, busy with projects needed for the day. Several barns dotted about the property that housed horses and milking cows. There was even a butcher shop to provide meat for the main house, and the slaves too.
The house slaves lived separately from the field slaves. Their quarters were located near the main house, built by the Captain for them.
The field slaves lived in sixteen cabins that housed ten to tweleve people each, that they themselves had built from a combination of discarded lumber and hand planed wood from fallen trees. Some of the roofs were constructed from thatch. A skill brought over from their native countries.
Old rags plugged holes in the walls to keep the drafts to a minimum. The communal bed was nothing more than a pile of straw. Blankets were a most prize possession, most being thin and not large enough to adequately cover the cluster of people huddling underneath.
Darque Wight and her mother shared a cabin with two other families from their village in Haiti. Little time was spent in the cramped quarters due to the long work hours required by the overseers and the time spent working for their own survival. It was up to them to prepare and cook their own food. Food that was mostly grown by the slaves in small garden plots not far from the cabin area.
The blast from an overseer’s horn at dawn had everyone awake and scurrying about. They quickly dressed and walked sleepy eyed to the slave’s kitchen for breakfast.
When Darque and her mother arrived, their fellow captives were in a state of unrest.
Darque stopped at a whispering group of people, her mother a step behind. “What’s going on?”
“Puri didn’t come home from working at the big house last night.” The man had used her Haitian name and not her slave name, Betty. “You were working in the kitchen with her. Why didn’t she come back with you?”
“Miss Lucy told her to stay and help with preparing food for breakfast. She told me to leave. I didn’t know Puri didn’t come back last night,” Darque said.
The cry of a frantic woman pierced the thick humid air. Four men strode down the road toward the slave quarters. One led his horse by the bridle, the body of a young girl draped over the saddle.
An old woman ran to the side of the horse, speaking words of desperation in her native Creole. She looked for signs of life in the eyes of the girl. There were none.
Puri’s face had been battered and bruised. A gash across her lip looked as if knuckles had met teeth. The body was wet. The clothing torn and ripped. Blood stained the back of her work dress.
The slaves gathered in the middle of the road, blocking it, and waited defiantly.
Reeves and his company stopped a few feet from the slaves. He gave a stern expression as his eyes passed over the crowd. “This is what happens when a slave tries to escape.”
The crowd sent jeers and raised fists in the air.
Reeves put his hand on the butt of his revolver. The other three men stepped to his side. One carried a musket held across his chest. Another started unfurling a bullwhip. The last one had a machete gripped in his right hand and rotated it slowly in small circles by his side.
Darque pushed her way to the front of the crowd and faced Reeves. “What did you do to her?”
Reeves spit, and scratched the side of his face. “I didn’t do anything. She was found by the side of the river. Must have fallen down the levy. The fall tore up her clothes. She probably hit her head and drowned.”
Darque took another step forward. Her nose almost touched his. “That’s a lie.”
The mummers from the crowed hushed. The only noise slicing through the silence was flies buzzing around the dead body on the horse. Darque made herself as large and intimidating as she could, daring Reeves to make a move. It was rare that any slave had stood up to him face to face. Even rarer for one to do so and live.
Reeves pulled the revolver from his right hip. Darque reached across with her right hand and grabbed the gun butt and the back of his thumb, then twisted it to the outside. The gun fell to the ground as she overextended his wrist. A distinctive snap of bone breaking proceeded Reeves’ startled cry. Darque continued her assault by spinning her body and catching Reeves to the left side of his jaw with the backside of her left arm. Reeves went to his knees, and clutched his right wrist with his left hand, writhing in pain.
The man with the musket raised it to his shoulder just as Darque grabbed the barrel and jerked it past her body. She pivoted back on her left heel and brought her right foot up, smashing the man in the nose and sending him backward into the other two men.
She ran to a pile of wood used for fuel a few feet away and chose two moderately straight, thick branches nearly three feet in length. Much to everyone’s surprise, she ran back to the two remaining adversaries.
The man with the bullwhip wore an evil grin across his face. The whip snaked along the ground ready for a target. The man with the machete stood several feet to his left. She would have to face both at the same time.
She ran full speed at the whip-man.
He tossed back the eight-foot long weave of cowhide, and with the flick of his wrist, sent the stinging tip at her. At the last split second, Darque ducked, and slid toward him. The whip’s tip cracked into the empty air where she had been.
She brought one stick crashing into the side of his left knee, and the other a full upper-cut to his groin. The man went down before he could defend himself.
Darque tumbled forward and sprang up ready to face the man with the machete, the sticks in front crossing making an X.
The man rushed her with machete grasped tightly in both hands, and lifted it high above his head. Instead of slamming it straight down, he maneuvered the blade over his right shoulder and went down to one knee, bringing the blade around from his right to his left, aiming to cut Darque in half.
Fearing she could not move into him fast enough to avoid the blade, Darque was forced to retreat. The blade sliced into her midsection, just enough to cut through her dress, and tore into the surface of her skin. A trail of blood marked the blade’s path.
The man recovered from his swing and brought his blade back around from left to right. Darque brought a stick hard across the back of his right elbow, stopping his arm cold. She raised the other stick and slammed it hard against the man’s skull.
The next thing Darque felt was a numbing chill from the back of her head, then down her spine. A massive pain filled her head as she succumbed to the uncertain fate of unconsciousness.
Captain Hampton stood over her crumpled body, an oak cane with a brass loin’s head handle clutched tightly in his hand. Reeves appeared at his side, and spit. Half the spittle dribbled down his chin. He removed the revolver from his left side, cocked the hammer, and pointed it to the back of Darque’s head.
&
nbsp; The Captain reached and put his hand over the revolver. He slowly pushed it down. “Not here. I’ll take care of this my way.”
* * *
The drums beat low in the background. Two men sat on opposite sides of the cabin, facing the wall. Their eyes closed, pounding in rhythm with bare hands. Their backs were to the dead body of Puri lying in the middle of the room. Her eyes were closed, and despite her ravaged face, reflected the peace of death.
An old man walked through the door, small burlap bags dirty from the earth that hid them held tightly in his arms. He approached an old woman kneeling by Puri’s side, showing the utmost of reverence. The woman’s face was devoid of emotion. Her spirit was no longer in the world where her body existed.
He waited until her head jerked back and for her eyes to open before he spoke. “I have it for you, Alma. Everything you asked for.”
She went to speak, but her mouth would not move, and waited until the control returned. “I must hurry,” she whispered. “Her spirit has not moved to the next world. There is still time.”
The old man set the bags down.
Alma hurriedly untied the thin cords freeing the contents. She unrolled a soft leaf from one and pinched four different powders from the others. She spread them out on the leaf forming lines next to each other; powders of red, green, black, and white. Her wrinkled, gnarled fingers carefully rolled the leaf, encasing the powders. “Did you find what they have done with my daughter?”
“She is in irons. In the slave’s prison cell by the barn,” he said with reservation. The cell by the barn housed instruments of torture.
Alma held the rolled leaf in one hand and waved a black feather from a crow in the air above the body with the other. Her lips moved without letting any sound escape. The drum beat continued.
The old man said a silent prayer; not for Puri, but for himself.
Alma dragged the end of a match across the floor. Its flame burst orange and yellow, sending the smell of sulfur into the air. She put the rolled leaf between her lips and inhaled as she lit the other end. It burned with an acrid odor and gave off thick, black smoke.
Alma inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the mystic amalgam of burning powders. She placed her lips on Puri’s and exhaled.
Puri’s chest rose from her expanding lungs. Alma moved away as the old man placed his hands on her chest and pushed down. Alma inhaled from the leaf again, and filled Puri’s lungs two more times. The old man pushed down on the chest after each.
One last time she breathed into Puri. When the old man pushed down a blast of black smoke puffed from her nostrils.
Puri’s eyes opened.
* * *
When Darque came to consciousness, she was not sure where she was or how she got there. Shackles bound both wrists, with a few feet of chain connected to the wall on each.
She reached behind her head and felt gently about. A large knot throbbed where the cane had struck her. Part of her hair was stuck together with matted blood.
Moonlight peeked through the window casting eerie shadows on her cell walls. The floor was covered in a mixture of hay and grime. She groped blindly hoping to find a pitcher of water but found nothing.
Darque knew how she got into her predicament but didn’t know how she was going to get out of it. Her father had taught her the art of savate, French foot fighting. She had learned to defend herself growing up. That may have contributed to her rebellious nature. Growing up in Haiti, other girls had been forced to do things against their will. Darque was trained not to be forced to do anything. Her uncle aided in her training by teaching the art of mati. She had learned to defend herself with sticks against any assailant short of those armed with a gun.
This was not the first time she had gotten herself in trouble for standing up to others, but she felt it could be very well her last. Her heart longed for her father and her twin brother, both away on a South American trading ship. She knew nothing could stop them from finding her and her mother. Unless they were already near, it would be too late for them to save her. She wondered if her mother could survive the shock of her death.
Something outside bumped the wall, and then keys fumbled by the prison door. Darque had looked death in the eye before, but the odds had never been so greatly against her. She was alone, chained and shackled. Eventually, she would be overwhelmed. As always, she turned her focus on her objective, and determined that there were worse things than death. She resolved to fight using every remaining ounce of energy left in her body, and to kill, or maim any who walked through that door.
The door slowly creaked open.
She crouched against the wall and waited for the final conflict.
* * *
The Captain came down hard on the slaves for Darque’s display of defiance. He was determined to make them all suffer even though it was the action of one. Next week the slaves were going to have to survive on half the meat rations he normally supplied. He wanted to discourage any other would-be martyrs.
As for Darque, he had special plans for her. She was going to feed every need of his perverted pleasure before he would use his bare hands to strangle her life out. The Captain loved strong willed women. He loved to bend and break them, and treat them like the black hearted animals he believed them to be.
The Captain strolled through the sultry night air to the door of the prisoner’s cell. He moved the four-foot slave whip from his right hand to his left, retrieved the key, and opened the door.
The door opened. The stale air left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was dark, but he could make out the silhouette of the girl chained against the wall.
“Your time has come, you pathetic, ungrateful savage. I pulled you from a world where you lived like a beast and brought you to civilization.” The Captain paused, seething with anger. “How dare you defy me!” His words reverberated off the thin walls.
“I’m not going to be as kind to you as I was to Betty. Oh, no. I offered her opportunity.” The Captain walked toward Darque with the whip grasped firmly in hand. “She’d be alive today if she’d have learned her place. But you, you have no option of opportunity. I am going to beat you to within an inch of your life. Then, I am going to delight in all my manly pleasures in your young, beautiful, battered body.”
The whip snapped forward and struck her across the chest.
The Captain waited for a scream, a cry for mercy, but there was only silence. He raised it again and brought it against her three times in rapid succession. The whip whistled through the air and snapped loudly against her body. Still, she uttered not a sound, nor moved from the wall.
He brought the whip against her again and again without pause. His breathing weighed heavy from exerting full strength into every lash. Still nothing changed. She hadn’t moved once.
In a fit of rage, the Captain reversed his hold on the wooden grip of the whip and beat her in the head. “Scream, damn you! Beg for mercy! Beg me for your life!”
The girl reached up and grabbed both his wrists, and pulled him toward her. She twisted him around and slammed him into the wall. The moonlight through the window illuminated her face. The Captain gasped in horror.
The dead eyes of Puri bore into him. Her spilt lip curled up revealing her teeth and black tongue. She bit down hard on his neck as he franticly tried to squirm out of her grip.
Numbing fear washed over the Captain as Puri gnawed out chucks of flesh. He watched her chew and swallow. Blooded dripped from her chin and splattered on the floor.
*
The slaves gathered in a humble field reserved for their dead. Not too far from the prison to hear the dying screams of the Captain. The drums beat loudly as Darque danced naked by the ceremonial fires, burning to light the way of the departed spirits.
Alma repeated her final chant. The air charged with electricity and made hairs stand on end. The dead buried in the shallow, unmarked graves started to move. The less rotted being the first to emerge.
Darque ran to her mother’s side
and held her tightly. Never had she witnessed the power of voodoo to this magnitude. “How are you able to do this?”
“I channeled the power of the great evil released at the death of the Captain. I have brought back the spirits of the Just. They shall have their revenge.”
The dead now walked and waited for instruction. Alma pointed to the overseer’s barracks in the distance. The time had come for the abused souls to reap the fruits of their final harvest.
*
“How’s that wrist?” Cletus asked.
“Time heals all wounds. That, and revenge,” Reeves said, looking at the cards Cletus had just dealt him. He had a bandage wrapped around his right wrist. “I tried to get the Captain to let me take care of that slave bitch, but he insisted on handling it himself.” Reeves laid his cards down to take a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. “I didn’t put up too much of a fight with him. From what I’ve heard, he’ll do a much better job with her than I would.”
“She was one hell-cat all right. Broke your wrist and took your gun. Gave Jed a blow to the balls. Henry took a bust in the nose, and Bob, a cracked noggin.”
Reeves grunted, and said, “Give me three,” and threw his discards to the table.
“She was a looker, too. Young. Tall. Nice legs and perky tits. Her dark skin all smooth. Why, I even heard she was educated and could speak three or four languages. They say her daddy’s French. You know what they say about French women?”
“No. What do they say?” Reeves showed his hand. Cletus shook his head and laid his cards face down. Reeves raked in the pot.
“Well, I hear they can suck the life out of you. In a good way, if you know what I mean.” Cletus showed his yellowing teeth in a smirk. “Darque Wight. That there’s a queer name for a slave. I’d like to put me some white meat in that—”
Scrapes on the outside walls cut Cletus’s words short. It was night, but light enough to see silhouettes of bodies moving slowly past the windows.
A Fistful of Zombies: 12 Zombie Tales Page 4