by T. R. Simon
“Maybe that’s the problem. Old Lady Bronson thought Mr. Polk’s story and her story were theirs to keep, but they’re not. Don’t you see? Their stories are Eatonville’s stories, Eatonville’s history. I thought history was something in books, but it’s not. History is alive. Old Lady Bronson and Mr. Polk are living history.”
I had thought Zora was looking to solve a puzzle for the past two days. What she had really been doing was piecing together a quilt, made from the fleeting scraps of the said and the unsaid. She was starting to unfold and show us a whole cloth of Eatonville’s history.
As we hurried along the road to Lake Maitland, Zora’s words sank in deeper and deeper. Old Lady Bronson and Mr. Polk had been slaves right here in Eatonville, the first incorporated colored town in America. Eatonville, a place I couldn’t even associate with white folks, let alone slavery, was the same place that had enslaved folks we knew. Zora was right: history wasn’t just something you read in a book. It was everything your life stood on. We who thought we were free from the past were still living it out.
We walked without another word until we got to the heart of Lake Maitland, where Mr. Ambrose’s house stood.
As night approached on the day of our escape, I could barely contain my nerves. Rebecca brought me a plate of hominy and eyed me sharply when I dropped it. “I don’t care much for food tonight,” I mumbled. Guilt at deceiving her tightened my stomach. After Horatio, she was the person I cared for most. She had never failed to help me find my footing in this cruel new world. She had ministered to my physical wounds like a tender mother. If I told her what I was going to do, she’d be carrying a deadly secret. To protect her I would confide nothing. When Master George questioned her, she must be able to answer honestly.
Shortly after supper, she lay down on her pallet and began her prayers. I extinguished our one candle and did the same. My heart beat like a wild drum. Soon she was breathing rhythmically, and I lay kitty-corner to her, my eyes open wide, listening to sounds that weren’t there. Now I only had to feign sleep for two hours. I prayed Rebecca would sleep soundly.
Time never moved more slowly. With each passing moment, my hope slid toward terror as I imagined the horrors that awaited us if we were caught: Prisca imprisoned; me whipped to death. My mouth was dead-leaf dry, but I dared not stir or drink from the gourd. Any noise risked waking Rebecca.
At last I heard the sound I had been waiting for: the call of the white-necked crow. It was the sound of our island; no bird here uttered such a lilting call. I sat up and listened carefully to be sure that nothing else stirred. Then I stood. When I looked over at Rebecca to be sure she still slept, I startled. Her eyes were wide open! She put her finger to her lips and rose from her pallet as silently as a cat. From her skirt she took a little bundle. It was bread. She must have baked an extra loaf during the day. She pushed it into my hands, hugged me roughly, and lay back down. She turned onto her side, face toward the wall and her back to me.
I felt so much love for her in that moment that I wanted to weep. They could beat us, they could sell our loved ones away from us, but they could not reach our souls. They could not destroy our hope for others even when we could not hope for ourselves.
I opened the door and slipped outside. Prisca, in a full riding habit, emerged from behind a pine tree and we made our way to the stables. True to his word, Horatio was waiting there with Blue Boy. The glistening black horse had been fed, watered, and saddled.
Prisca thanked Horatio with tears in her eyes, for he was facilitating her escape every bit as much as my own. I think it was the first time that she was fully seeing him. Until then, I don’t think she had ever truly seen any slave at Westin. Such is the power of human bondage to blind the mind.
As she packed a small bundle into the saddlebag, I went over to Horatio. I took his hands in mine. As with Rebecca, I had no words.
“Got to be quick,” Horatio said to us. To Prisca, he said, “Walk the horse on the grass out to the gate. Mount him there.” Prisca nodded.
No sooner had Horatio given the reins to Prisca than a shaky voice echoed in the barn.
“You let go my papa’s property!”
From behind another stall stepped Timothy, pointing a rifle at us, his face looking particularly small behind the dark stock.
We froze. I couldn’t breathe. He had spied on Prisca the time she’d spoken to Jude about marriage, he had followed her again tonight. This time, I could tell he would not be satisfied with merely reporting what he’d heard or learned. Timothy was no older than me and Horatio, yet he stood like an insurmountable wall between us and freedom.
His voice sharpened even as it quavered. “Horatio, you let that horse go. Lucia, you come round here where I am.”
Not one of us moved. It was as if we were in a trance.
He spoke louder. “You hear me? You do as I say. Now!”
Prisca laughed. “Timothy, honestly, you scared us half to death!” Her tone was light, but her eyes were dark. “Now, hand me that thing before someone gets hurt.”
I could see that her teasing tone only made him angrier. I wanted to go to her, take her arm, tell her it was already over, but I couldn’t — they were still talking, and time was moving faster than my thoughts could make themselves real.
Timothy kicked at some straw. “My papa will make Krowse whip you, too, Prisca,” he warned. “You see if he doesn’t.”
“I have no patience for your childishness.” Despite her long dress, Prisca was upon him in a few steps. With her left hand she snatched the rifle, and with her right she slapped Timothy’s face so hard the sound echoed off the barn walls.
Timothy touched his cheek. His face burned the bright color of a winter apple.
“Childishness,” she said again, tossing the rifle atop a stack of hay bales against the wall. “Now, you stand there, and not a word until I tell you to speak, understand?”
Anything Prisca may have understood about slavery had flown from her mind the moment Timothy challenged her authority and her seniority. He was a boy — two years younger than she was — so Prisca failed to recognize the power he had just for being the son of Master George.
Every slave on the plantation, however, recognized it. Horatio’s mind was faster than mine; he leaped for the gun before any words of caution could even leave my mouth. Timothy and Horatio reached the weapon at almost the same instant, but Timothy was a hairbreadth closer. He grabbed the rifle and spun around, hitting Horatio above the right eye with the butt. Horatio lurched sideways with the impact and then fell to his knees, his hands on his bloody head.
I turned to stone.
Prisca turned on Timothy. “You little beast!” she snarled, and moved toward him again, her hands outstretched for the gun.
Timothy made a strangled sound. Then he began to sob. His hands were shaking, too, but he turned the rifle around expertly, raised it, and took aim. Only then did Prisca register the hate that lived in him, the hate that every slave at Westin knew. But it was too late. I had known it was too late from the moment she slapped him.
“Put the gun down, Timothy,” she said more gently. “This is a mistake. You don’t understand what you’re seeing here. No one is taking anything.”
Timothy yelled one word. “No!”
Prisca moved again, her arm out. She was only inches away from the end of the gun when a hot pop burst the air.
Horatio dropped his bloody hands and looked up at me, trying to figure out what had just happened. He and I locked eyes for a moment, and then we heard the sound — something solid slipping heavily to the hay-strewn floor.
I dropped to the floor and crawled the few feet to Prisca, cradling her head in my lap. Blood was pooling across her chest and down the fabric of her dress.
Hermana, hermana, I cried in Spanish. Hermana, hermana, hermana. I screamed so long it became a wail.
I became aware of voices from outside, yelling, drawing nearer. The stable door exploded open and there stood Master George, ni
ghtshirt over his pants, eyes wild, a long pistol raised. Mr. Krowse ran up behind him, similarly disheveled, holding a carbine.
Master George looked from Timothy to Horatio, who had made his way over to me, and from Horatio to me, holding Prisca in my arms. I saw the dawning realization focus Master George’s gaze. He swung to face Timothy again. “What happened here, boy?”
Before Timothy could answer, Blue Boy began to gasp and paw at the floor. I had the fleeting impression that he was grieving his mistress, but then his knees buckled, and I saw the blood and understood. He was suffering. The bullet had gone straight through Prisca and landed in Blue Boy’s neck. His eyes rolled back wildly. He could no longer draw breath. He shook his great head, refusing, like all living things, to accept that his time had come. Then his head dropped to the ground. His eye looked at us, and stopped moving.
George was sweating. I could see it glistening on his forehead in the soft light cast by Horatio’s lantern. The scene was so gentle, the light so golden, the other horses snorting so softly, it could almost have been a manger scene. But instead of new life and a hopeful start, this was a tableau of fresh death and the end of hope.
“Prisca was fixing to run off with Lucia,” Timothy was saying between sobs. “I saw them, Papa. Horatio, he was helping them. I . . . I stopped them.”
Master George took hold of his son’s arm. “Give me the gun, son.”
When George had the gun in his hands, he held the barrel up to his nose and smelled it. Then he walked over to us. “Is she dead?” His voice was matter-of-fact, though the hand that held the gun shook slightly.
I couldn’t register the question, much less voice an answer. I knew when I touched her that there was no hope. She was gone by the time I had cradled her head. My own dress was soaked in blood and she still bled.
I pointed at Timothy, and what came out of me was a shriek. “He killed my sister!”
I screamed again, and then again, the sounds coming up from deep inside.
George leaned down and slapped me to make me stop screaming. I tasted my own salty blood.
Now the only sound in the barn was Timothy’s sobs.
George’s hands were no longer shaking, but his voice was ragged. “Timothy did not kill her, you hear?”
I looked up into his face and his whole intention became clear. He was not thinking of Prisca or about the fact that she had just been killed. He was thinking only of how he would protect Timothy and himself, of how he would hide the fact that his son was a murderer.
And then I was floating and the room was falling away. From up in the roof beams, I looked down and watched myself settle Prisca’s body gently on the hay. I watched myself stand, my hands red, my dress heavy with blood.
That’s when Mama Sezelle and the old women of my island began whispering old words in my ears. And as their words came to me, I floated back down to the ground. I pointed my finger at the father and then I pointed my finger at the son, and I spoke the words. I spoke in a voice I had never heard, in a whisper so cold and distant it seemed to come from underground. “I call on the gods of my land, and the gods of my ancestors. I call on every power of this world. I call on the spirits who move among us, and I curse you and yours. I curse your name that it be a sign of shame. And I curse the land under your feet that it fall fallow and yield nothing as long as you live.”
I flicked blood on the ground at the feet of the boy and spat in it. I flicked blood on the ground at the feet of the father and spat in it. With my heel I ground it into the dirt.
Alice and Caroline were at the stable door by then, watching. Alice had her hand over her mouth. And I caught a glimpse of Rebecca hiding in the shadows behind them. For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. Then George slapped me so hard I fell.
He turned to Horatio. “What did you see, boy?” It was equal parts threat and demand. “What did you see?”
Horatio was staring at the scene, but no words left his lips. No words then. No words since.
George pushed Timothy toward Krowse, who had been watching the scene with his gun at the ready. Krowse moved quickly to herd the boy and the two women out of the barn. Timothy held on to Alice’s hand, wailing like a small child. Rebecca must have hidden herself. I prayed they had not seen her. George closed the stable doors behind them. I could see that his hands trembled again. He stepped quickly over to Horatio and knocked him down with a blow twice as hard as the one he had dealt me.
His voice was thick, and it faltered. “You don’t want to tell me what you saw? That’s fine. I’m going to tell you what you saw, and you’re going to tell it back to me, just the way you heard it.” Now his voice rose with urgency. “‘I was mucking out the stalls,’ you’ll say, ‘but bad luck, because just then, just then, horse thieves bust in.’ Horse thieves! And they beat you on the head. ‘Then Miss Prisca came in to see her horse; she came in with her slave girl Lucia —’” He stopped, scanned the room before he continued. “No. No slave girl. ‘Prisca came in alone. She tried to keep the thieves from taking her horse, but one of them shot her. In cold blood! They shot the horse, too, and then they ran off. That’s when I came running in, but it was too late — the horse thieves were gone and Miss Prisca was dead!’” He pulled Horatio up by the shirt so they were face-to-face. “Now say it back to me.”
Horatio didn’t answer. He didn’t even acknowledge that George had spoken. He just stared at Prisca, at her empty body.
George raised his voice. “I said, say it back to me!” Horatio ignored him still. George kicked Horatio so hard then that he closed his eyes. He grunted, too, but still he didn’t speak.
“You see that, George?” I hissed.
He spun around to me.
“Your power over us will end.”
“Nothing will end, you witch!” He moved toward me.
But I no longer cared about the power he held over my body. Hope makes you believe the body can be protected, but I had no more hope.
I looked him right in the eye. “You’re not my master. I have no master, George.”
Rage flushed his face and he grabbed me by the arm. I fell and he dragged me out of the stable and across the long yard to the smokehouse. He undid the latch, threw me inside, and slammed the door shut.
That week I learned the contours of hell. The smokehouse was a small structure, maybe nine feet by nine feet, made of thick Florida oak. In late fall when pigs of the right age were slaughtered, the sides of meat were salted and hung to dry for a couple of weeks as a low fire burned in the corner, then they were moved to the side enclosure to be kept until needed. On the first morning I was locked in there, a small fire had been set to continue smoking a few birds that were hung, and mercifully, the fire was only hours away from reaching the last glow of its embers. But in those first few hours, the thick smoke burned so hot it closed my eyes and dried up any tears I might have had left. I lay flat on the floor, trying to get as far below the smoke as I could, but it filled every inch of the small round dwelling. It seared my lungs, each breath like molten glass. The smoky nettles moved into my clothes and penetrated the raw lashes on my back, but I did not cry, I did not wail, and I did not pity myself. Prisca was dead — what was there to pity?
I cried for Prisca and prayed for Horatio’s safety. I thought about the story George commanded Horatio to tell. If Horatio kept his silence, maybe George would curtail his punishment, but even as I allowed for the thought, I knew it was a fantasy. George would level his rage on Horatio as brutally as he did on me. A slave’s complicity in escape was as grave a crime as the actual escape.
By the second day the fire pit had burned out and I continued in darkness. I could tell night from day only by the smallest slivers of light where the blackened boards were not completely flush. Even with the fire out, the tin roof heated the tight space like an oven, and night cooled it only by scant degrees.
Three salted and smoked wild turkeys hanging in the smokehouse fed my hunger but also exacerbated my thirst. My thirst beca
me so deep that I barely passed water. I began sucking on my own hand.
Hate blossomed in my chest. I fantasized death and destruction. My grieving was displaced by rage, and through raging I felt no more pain, only the pandemonium of loathing, the blind ferocity of a rabid creature. Horatio’s words came back to me: Hate too hard and it’ll steal the memory of what you love. Hate long enough, and you won’t feel nothing for no one.
On the third day, parched, I became feverish. In my delirium, I visited Mama Sezelle on our island; I watched my own whipping; I ran along the beach with Prisca; I floated over Prisca’s body; I played with my wooden doll while listening intently to and absorbing Prisca’s daily lessons; I watched Horatio run his work-roughened fingers over words in a reader I had stolen for him. Once I even lay in a cradle and looked up at Don Federico’s enormous, sad face, looming over me like the moon. I don’t know how long I had been drifting when Prisca began to sing, her voice coming from somewhere just above me. I opened my eyes. I called her name. Only darkness and silence.
I closed my eyes again and her song returned. I struggled to my knees, then stood, legs shaking, hands reaching out to find her. I clutched only air, and I slumped back down to the ground. Her song continued. It was a melody from our childhood, a song Mama Sezelle taught us when we were either side of five.
Now I saw that Horatio was right. Consumed by hate, I was losing myself. But memory was my defense. Rooted in love, it was stronger than hate.
I felt things I had not felt for a long time. I remembered Mama Sezelle. I remembered her last words to me. I remembered that on the island the old women drew the wisdom from the natural world. How the cacata plays dead to escape a predator. How parched milkweed seeds hold themselves in the ground, small and tight, until the rains come. I closed my eyes and I curled myself into a tight ball against the earthen floor. I would be a milkweed seed; I would hold myself tight and refuse to die. Hate was my shield, but it would not be my essence. Prisca had staked her life to free me. I would not die.