by Simon Rumney
Then it dawned on her: 'This must be why the animals she had wounded always sought a place of solitude.' 'Animals knew when they were about to die.' 'Was she about to die?'
Thinking of the animals she had wounded made her sad, but thinking of herself as a victim of white people made her angry. Even though the thought was entirely in her mind and she was the only person able to see her weakness, it humiliated her.
She stood up by way of defiantly changing her destiny. 'She did not intend to die at the hands of the cruel white people in this nothing place!'
Forcing all negative thoughts from her mind, Julii focused her anger and used it as fuel to power her legs. Standing, she walked defiantly along the side of the court martial building until she found a laneway that ran along the back.
It was hard to grasp quite how big the buildings were until she had walked along the side of them and turned to look back. 'They were enormous and as high as old trees.'
Looking up and down the laneway in both directions did not help Julii make her next decision. Both ways looked the same.
Making a choice at random, she set off along the lane towards a row of smaller buildings that sat on the opposite side of the lane. Julii saw many brown people working there. Strangely, no white people were working, just brown people.
Thinking about it, Julii realized that there had been a few brown people in the big street but they were only there to serve the white people. The brown people had been controlling horses that pulled carriages and wagons with white people in them. The brown people had also been carrying things for the white people or pushing small carriages with white babies in them.
Here at the back of the buildings there were no white people serving the brown people. 'This is what Robert must have been talking about.' 'White people own brown people, but brown people do not own white people.' 'How does such separation happen?' 'Why do the brown people allow themselves to be owned?'
One pretty brown woman was beating on a floor covering suspended above the ground between two trees. Clouds of dust billowed up every time she hit it with a stick and she sang as she worked.
The sound of singing was familiar and comforting for Julii because women in her village did the same as they scraped their deer hides. Not the same song, of course, but a song nonetheless.
Julii stopped walking to watch in wonder as the pretty brown woman hit her floor covering over and over again. As the clouds of dust drifted away on the light breeze, she approached the pretty brown woman to ask for food, but the pretty brown woman screamed, dropped the stick in panic, and ran into the rear door of a big house.
Julii first instinct was to ask her Robert why the brown woman was afraid of her, then, for the first time, her conscious mind faced the fact that her Robert was really dead.
The tears came with such force they seemed to weaken every part of her body. Kneeling down for fear of falling, Julii let her head fall to her chest and sobbed in a way she had never sobbed before.
She wanted to give up but that was not in her nature. 'Get up!' She berated herself. 'Get up or die here in this awful place!'
Lifting her head to look further along the lane, Julii could see a horse drinking at a waterhole and that welcome sight gave her the energy to stand.
She had not taken a drink of water since leaving Robert's parents kitchen room earlier this morning and she was in desperate need of a drink.
Julii forced herself to take the first step and then another and another. 'That's right!' 'Keep going!'
The thought of what it was going to take to survive in this place called “Atlanta” overwhelmed her. 'Don't think of everything at once!'
Julii was angry with herself. 'Do one thing at a time!' 'Right now, in this moment, all you need is water!' 'Focus only on water!'
Arriving at the strange waterhole, Julii realized that it was not a waterhole like the one near her village. This waterhole was man-made. It sat above the grounds behind a large building full of horses.
Unlike the rounded edges nature had created around her waterhole, it had sharp corners. It was made of wood and a dark thing stood high at the end of the waterhole with the shortest bank.
The dark thing looked like a much larger version of the thing Robert's nanny had used to bring water into the waterhole she called “sink” - the thing in the kitchen room she called “pump”.
Julii lifted the handle on the dark thing and nothing happened. Julii pushed down the handle on the dark thing, but still nothing happened.
She lifted the handle once again, and a little water came gurgling out of the throat of the dark thing called “pump”. One more pump on the handle and water gushed out.
She drank from the spout. The water was cold and clear and wonderful to taste and, for the moment it took to quench her thirst, every other problem seemed to vanish.
Julii was reveling in her achievement, the flavor of the water, her own determination to survive, working out how to make water come out of the dark thing, and the fact that she would survive for another day because of finding water, when she noticed something very odd.
The thing she saw was more than odd, it was shocking. In a day of shocking observations, this was the most shocking observation. A brown man was standing with his back to her. 'No, not standing, his wrists were tied to a tree with no branches and his arms were stretched out above his head.'
This was peculiar in itself, but the most shocking thing was the brown man's back was open. 'No, not open, flayed.'
Julii was reminded of the many times she had skinned deer after a hunt. 'Had this brown man really been peeled?' 'Did those awful white people eat brown people?' When the brown man moved, Julii jumped backwards in surprise. 'How could he be so damaged yet still alive?'
The red stripes on his back opened up with his movement and oozed blood. A cloud of black flies lifted from his skin then settled back onto his wounds.
'The brown man had not been flayed.' 'He had been cut into stripes, but he was still alive.'
Julii felt so sorry for the brown man because she knew that those flies were the horrible kind that hurt when they bite.
Without thinking, Julii started walking towards the hanging brown man. When he moaned, she stopped walking and took a cowardly step backwards.
Bolstering her courage, Julii went back and picked up the shiny thing that hung from the dark thing called “pump”. Lifting the handle of the thing called “pump”, she filled the small bowl attached to the end of the long shiny thing with water.
The small bowl made carrying water easy and, when she held it up to his mouth, the brown man gulped at the water in desperation.
Julii tried to free the brown man from his heavy chains while fanning the horrible flies away from his torn up back, but an angry white man with a hide-covered front walked from the building full of horses and stopped to look at Julii. He held heavy-looking wood and metal things in each hand.
She smiled at the man with the hide-covered front. 'He would know how to help the brown man.'
She waved him over, but he did not move. He seemed confused and surprised by what he was seeing. For some reason, he was growing angry.
He started walking towards Julii. She wondered if he thought she had done this awful thing to the brown man. In panic she said in a fearful voice, "I found him like this!"
The man with the hide-covered front shouted, "What the hell you doing with my nigger?"
Julii was completely wrong-footed by the white man's words; it was not the fact that he was angry with her. 'All white men seemed to be angry with her.' 'Could he not see that the brown man was suffering terribly?' 'Surely he could see past his hatred of her to help a suffering human being?'
The angry white man did not seem to understand. He raised the heavy-looking wood and metal things in his hands. Walking menacingly towards Julii, he shouted again: "Get away from my nigger you goddamn Injun!"
Julii could see that the white man meant to cause her harm. 'Would he open her flesh like the bro
wn man's?'
As much a she wanted to help the unfortunate brown man, she had to think about her own safety. It felt wrong, even cowardly, to do so, but she dropped the metal bowl on the end of the long shiny thing and ran away.
Filled with confusion and panic, Julii ran along the laneway for the distance of a few buildings, then turned to run between the buildings whose fronts faced the busy street. Making sure the angry white man was not following, she slowed, then walked between the buildings until she reached a place, just short of the busy street, were she felt protected by shadow.
She could see white people walking along the street, but they could not see her and that felt safe.
When the shame of leaving the brown man lessened a little, Julii felt a modest level of pride welling inside her. She had faced terrible danger, but she now knew where water could be found and, if she returned only at night, she would be able to give the brown man more to drink.
Bolstered by her one small taste of success, Julii set to work on her next task. She must deal with her gnawing hunger, but food was going to provide a bigger challenge than water.
She found some hope in the thought that she had not found water until she had actually looked for it, so Julii collected all of her courage and took an anxious step out into the busy street.
Keeping her eyes directly ahead and her back tall and proud, Julii walked among the white people looking for something edible to keep her alive. For just a little while she was able to remain focused on her single task, but the white people's looks of derision and scorn soon began to wear her down.
Julii could feel her strength draining away with every ugly glance. She fought against her fears for what seemed like a long time, but such undeserved hatred was soul-destroying. It seemed to physically exhaust her.
In an attempt to distract herself, Julii counted the wooden boards that made up the front of the building as she passed, but each board seemed to grow wider with every disapproving look. It was just too much. Feeling like a coward, she ducked back between the buildings just as soon as she reached the next gap.
Julii told herself that she would rest in the space between the buildings for just a moment, just enough time to recover her strength, but 'just enough time' turned into two full days and two full nights of being excluded.
Other than the nights she moved to pump water for herself and the flayed brown man, Julii spent her time cowering in this sad space being an unwanted outsider. 'A hated subhuman.'
Every time her mind accepted the fact that she was going to drift into a hungry, agonizing, pathetic and lonely death in this place, she pushed angrily back on that thought. At the very least she wanted to decide when and where her death would happen, but the only thing she still had control over was the time of night she fetched water.
Then it hit her. 'If she was going to die, she would do it right now.' 'She would take back her power.' 'She would die by bringing the flayed brown man more water right now, in this moment, in the wonderfully-powerful sunlight.' 'She would let the white man, who was covered in hide, kill her with the heavy wood and metal things he held in his hands.'
Julii stood up tall, proud and determined. Unafraid, she walk between the buildings to the place where the flayed brown man hung from his chains. Without even taking a drink herself, she filled the shiny bowl on the end of the shiny handle and walked to his side.
Not caring who saw her, she held the bowl of cool, fresh water defiantly to his lips. When he did not drink, Julii tried to wake him by making gentle contact with a part of his body that was not flayed, but one cold touch told her he was dead.
Julia's spirit was suddenly crushed. Her bravado completely gone, she found herself overtaken by the need to double over and vomit onto her grubby moccasins. Until this moment she would not have believed it possible, but these pathetic heaves of bile weakened her even further. Even cleaning her lips with the back of her hand took too much effort.
She was totally devastated and diminished by the brown man's passing. This felt odd because he had never spoken and she knew nothing about his life, age, marital status, beliefs, or his origins, but his hanging corpse had been her only human contact in Atlanta.
Julii's pride and determination now completely evaporated and she no longer knew what to do. Dying at the hands of the man with the hide front no longer seemed like a good idea, so she skulked back to her hiding place between the buildings.
She told herself that it was just for a moment, 'just until she got her strength back', but Julii knew that she was not telling the truth as she lay down, closed her eyes, and gave up.
Preparing herself for her moment of death, Julii thought of home and her parents and Ringwind. 'This was it.' She settled into a last, long recollection of the brief time with her Robert. Blissful feelings of surrender washed over her. Robert was there in her mind kissing her and loving her and touching her. 'It felt so real, but for some reason her Robert was being too rough.'
Her Robert had never been rough before and she didn't like it. She wanted him to stop pulling at her! Opening her eyes to end the fantasy, Julii realized what was actually happening to her. Three teenage boys were pulling her from her safe hiding place.
They were all laughing as they hauled her brutally out into the bright sunshine. Julii felt herself being stood up and pushed against a hard wall. She had no idea what was being done to her, but she knew for sure that there was nothing she could do to stop it and it was not going to end well.
The first clod of wet earth hit her in the chest and it really hurt. The second clod hit her in the face and hurt even more. She kept her head down and raised her arms to protect herself. One of the three boys shouted: "Hey! Now we got two Injuns outside this here cigar store!"
Julii knew white people called her an 'Injun', but she did not understand the meaning of 'two Injuns'. She was confused and tired. She looked for some kind of help, but the white people who walked past did nothing to help her; some of them were even laughing at her predicament.
Julii pleaded with her eyes in the desperate hope that one of these people would be willing to show her some measure of kindness but no one did.
Julii noticed the three young boys were pointing from her to something on the other side of the doorway shouting, "Two Injuns! Two Injuns! Two Injuns!"
Julii looked to where the three teenage boys were pointing and saw the most beautiful, tall, brightly-colored wood carving. She had seen many men in her tribe carve wood but none made anything as beautiful as this. It was a strong, handsome, dark brown wooden man who wore a full and extremely well-feathered war bonnet. He was a chief of his tribe. 'Why do the three young boys find such a wonderfully-carved chief so funny?'
Julii looked back to the three boys in time to receive another clod of earth to the face. Her knees and spirit gave up in the same moment and she fell back in a crumpled heap against the wall of the building. This was the figurative crossroads in her journey.
Had destiny chosen Julii to fall forward, she would have been trampled under the feet of people, horses, and wooden wheels with spokes and the white people of the Confederacy may well have gone on to win the war with the North. However, destiny determined Julii was going to fall backwards, which meant she was going to survive, which meant the Confederacy was going to acquire an angry, vengeful genius who would make it her remaining life's work to destroy them and that is something the south simply did not need at this critical moment in their fledgling existence
What is more, her hatred of their behavior was going to survive, and that meant she was going to punish them. And that meant they were going to lose.
Count Anton of Rome
The fifty-fifty chance which determined whether Julii fell forward to become one more dead Injun in a “New World” littered with millions of dead Injuns, or fell backwards to become a survivor who changed the world could have been considered luck, but nothing about Julii's life had ever been a mere act of chance.
She did not know it, but being bor
n who and where she was had been preordained. Meeting Robert was part of her unavoidable destiny; his arrival and being the inescapable driving force behind leaving home was all part of the plan. All of her terrible suffering, even falling back against the wooden wall of the building, were simply steps which carried her to the cigar store where the next influential character was destined to enter her journey.
Ignorant of her destiny, Julii lay against the wall and stared up at the friendly-looking man who walked out of the store. She wondered how he had achieved his incredible size. No one in her tribe had ever had the surplus of food required to become so fat. Julii even tried to imagine the number of deer that would have to be eaten to reach this man's size.
She knew that it was rude to stare, but he was so vast, so unusual. Incredibly, he had a brown thing sticking out of his mouth that glowed red and made smoke. He was simply too fascinating; she could not bring herself to look away.
Julii was watching the fat man dab at the sweat on his forehead with a peace of pretty bright red cloth when the most thrilling and amazing thing happened. The fat man reached down, picked her up, and held her in his arms. It felt unbelievably exciting to be supported by a white person who did not mean her harm. When he spoke, his voice sounded kind, concerned and warm. "Are you unwell, young lady?"
His voice was different to others who spoke Robert's words, but they were understandable and wonderful to hear.
The three violent boys became angry with the fat man. Julii feared he may let her go as they shouted: "Get your own Injun, fatso! This one's ours!"
A clod of earth hit the timber wall by Julii's head and she braced her legs readying herself for the moment the fat man let go and ran away.
He did not run. Moving incredibly fast for such a large man, the stranger with the brown, glowing, smoking thing in his mouth maintained his supportive grip on Julii's body as he turned and slapped the tallest of the three boys across the side of his head.