Antebellum

  I heard another sound behind me, and I whipped my head around again expecting to see someone, but no one was there. I wondered what had caused me to be so paranoid as I turned around. I could make out the silhouette of the big house now, and the fire within my body began to kindle itself once again. I moved even quicker, once again aware of the dying animal sound, but not caring. All I wanted was my Ella.

  Finally, I reached the edge of the perimeter. I was grinning despite myself, and did the best I could to keep my composure. I’d never known what it was to want someone with your entire being before. It was like ecstasy and torture at the same time. I began trying to fix up my clothes, oblivious to the fact that I was wearing the same rags as all the other slaves. Holding my breath, I pushed the grass that was in front of me to the side, and beheld my queen.

  There was no dying animal...

  There was no dying animal. There was no dying animal. There was only Ella. There was Ella, with her face shoved into the dirt, her skin grinding against the ground like sandpaper. Pieces of her underwear lay strewn under her, and her dress lay in shreds underneath that.

  Talbert kneeled behind her, shoving his pelvis into her so hard I could see the path in the dirt showing where he had begun to rape her, and follow it some fifteen feet to where they were now.

  There was no dying animal. The sounds escaping from Ella were so horrific, I would have never guessed they belonged to a human being. She choked and suffocated, screamed and cried, convulsed and seized all at the same time. She sounded like a possessed woman, like some demon had taken over her body.

  He rode her as if she was some god-forsaken horse. He used her hair as the reigns, and yanked her head up so she stopped moving forward from the force of his thrusts. Then he forced himself up through the front of her body, and slammed her face back into the dirt and laughed as she tried her best to keep her balance.

  I shook behind the blades of grass. I shook so hard that the world became one big vibrating picture. The watercolors of the rape bled and blotched over everything else, and soon everything was rape. The trees, the grass, the bighouse, everything.

  I could feel my mind when it snapped again. It felt like a rubber band when it’s held with one finger and pulled back with another and then let go. Or like a twig when it’s stepped on at the right place and gives way under your feet. I felt it. And once the watercolors had run their course, and things settled after God finished picking up and shaking my world like an Etch-A-Sketch, all I could think about was murder.

  I stood straight up from the grass. I had no gun. I had no knife. But Talbert was a dead man. And that’s all there was to it.

  Before I could take my first step, one hand wrapped around my waist, and another around my mouth, and both my assailant and I fell backward into the grass. As soon as we hit the ground, he took his legs and hooked them around mine. I fought for ten seconds, and when I realized I couldn’t move, I stopped and resolved that two people would die.

  For a while we lay there quietly, the sounds of persecution echoing all around us. I silently lost my mind.

  “No go,” he whispered in my ear.

  Roka! With renewed vigor I struggled against him, but to no avail.

  “Shhhh! Massa hear us!”

  I wanted to kill him. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat while screaming out that I didn’t give a damn. Talbert was going to die tonight. Him and Roka both. But my mouth was covered, and my body was locked up by Roka’s, and I couldn’t do anything but listen to the woman I loved as she was tortured.

  “No go!” Roka whispered in my ear. “No, no now! Not right! She tell me! She tell me come! Please!”

  Finally, the sounds stopped. I could hear Talbert standing up, putting his pants back on, and Ella writhing on the ground.

  “Bra...Bradley!” Talbert called out with the little wind he had left, and footsteps came out of the far right corner.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The voices stopped for a moment, magnifying Ella’s.

  “Why...why do you...have your gun out?”

  “Thought I heard a noise in the grass ova there, sir, but ain’t nothin’. Probably jus’ ’coons. Thought ’bout comin’ over to check, but...”

  “It’s a good thing...you didn’t...Bradley...” Talbert still hadn’t gotten his wind back. He wheezed out his words. “You... might’ve...disturbed my party...”

  “Naw, wouldn’t do nothin’ like that, sir.”

  “Good.”

  Again, seconds passed without words. His belt buckled and shoes shuffled across the dirt. And a woman moaned.

  “What you want me to do with the wench, sir?”

  Mr. Talbert stopped moving. I could tell he was looking at Bradley. “You want her, too; don’t you, Bradley?”

  “Well, sir, I...”

  “Get that thought out of your head, Bradley.” Talbert quickly cut him off. “You can have any of the nigger wenches you want. You can even take Rosa from the kitchen if you like. But this one here...she’s mine. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir! I never even thought ’bout it.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “So, umm, what you want me to do with the wench?”

  “Leave her out here. She can make her way over to Sarah’s when she’s up for it. Those nigger roots will have her good as new in no time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I heard the door to the house open and shut, and everything was quiet.

  Roka continued to hold me in place until he was sure Talbert and Bradley were squared away in the house, and then he loosened his grip. As soon as he did, I sprang up, turned around, wrapped my hands around his throat, and squeezed as hard as I could.

  I can’t imagine what my face must have looked like, but multicolored flashes went across my vision as I watched Roka’s face go pale and his eyes go bloodshot. I squeezed so hard that I half-expected his throat to collapse in my hands. I could hear him choking and gurgling as I tried as hard as I could to squeeze the life out of him. But he never fought me back. He never raised his hands to push me away, or tried to move my fingers from his neck. He just lay there, staring at me as the life dripped from his body.

  He’s willing to die. The thought found its way into the madness of my mind. He’s going to let you kill him. And just as I began to feel his tense body give up and go limp, I forced myself to let go. For several seconds he lay there, limp and lifeless. I just knew he was dead. But his body jerked up suddenly and he began to gasp and cough. I stared at him, partly in disbelief because I had almost killed my friend, and partly because I was terrified to turn around and face the woman lying on the ground. I watched as Roka’s lungs reinflated, and he stumbled to make his way to one knee.

  It suddenly hit me that he had already been hurt, and with what I’d done to him, it was a wonder he was still alive. Later I’d wonder how he found the strength to even follow me up to the big house, much less keep me confined after I’d seen Ella.

  I still hated him, although I knew he’d saved my life. If I had come out from the grass, Bradley would have shot me. But Roka had also stopped me from saving Ella. And hearing her still moaning on the ground, I hated him even more.

  We stared at each other long and hard in the dark. I watched him try and regain what little strength he could muster, and he watched me debate whether or not to kill him.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and broke the silence.

  “Her...” He spoke as if he had a tube in his throat. It was painful to hear him. “Help her...”

  I turned around and began to hyperventilate while the rage found its way back into my bloodstream. Talbert’s murder was still my number one priority, but to get him now meant walking past the woman I loved struggling to breathe on the ground. I tried to force myself to do it, to sprint right past her and though the door of the big house, up the stairs to whatever room Talbert was in, where I would shove the closest object I could find into his chest—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Ella here.
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  Three steps and I would be completely out of the grass, and directly in front of her. The first two found my hands shaking and my lungs unable to take in a full breath. The last found my legs turned to a soft, bendable substance that was nearly impossible to walk on. But I made them. I made the three steps. And when my left and right foot stepped out of the grass and onto the dirt ground, I doubled over, suffering from a pain too unbearable to describe.

  The side of Ella’s face lay flat on the dirt. She hadn’t been able to lift her head up. And just as when Talbert was tearing her apart, her knees searched, to no avail, for the strength to prop themselves up. Shaking uncontrollably, and muttering words that no interpreter of this world could ever understand, she went from lying flat on the ground, to making it up to one knee, and then falling back to the ground again.

  I wept as I approached her. Still doubled over, my hands searched around me for something to brace myself on. Having found nothing by the time I reached her, it was all I could do to drop down to my knees.

  “God...God...Ella...”

  I hadn’t seen the blood from where I had been. It was everywhere, as if someone had tried to paint her body and the ground beneath her. She heard my voice, and her groans grew louder. I stayed beside her, frozen.

  “Take...take her...” Roka’s voice still sounded like someone was carving it with a knife. “Take...her...to Sarah...”

  I didn’t move.

  “Moses!”

  It was the first time Roka had ever called my name. It snapped me into attention like a drill sergeant.

  “Take...her...to Sarah.”

  I nodded through my tears, and turned Ella’s body over. She flopped onto her back like a rag doll. The blood, sweat, and dirt had formed a plaster of Paris that hardened on the front of her body. The side of her face looked like a car had run it over. One of her eyes was caked shut with the hellish plaster as well. The other one seemed to search aimlessly for me, although I was right in front of her.

  “Mo... Mo... Mo... Moses... Moses...”

  My hands shook and I could barely breathe, but I felt Roka behind me, telling me to be strong without words. Slowly, I slid one arm under Ella’s shoulders, and one arm underneath her knees, and hoisted her up. I thought her body would break into pieces and fall back to the dirt, but it stayed together long enough for me to stand up straight and bend my arms in slightly, letting my back take some of her weight. Ella’s head lay back with her mouth open, and she began to gurgle on her own blood. I used my arm to tilt her head forward, and lean it upright against my bicep. She continued to mumble and gag, but she’d stopped choking.

  Roka couldn’t stand. I walked up to him with Ella cradled in my arms, and watched him raise up halfway and fall back down again. After the second time, he looked at me with an intensity that I could see through the darkness.

  “Go!” He spat his venom at me, but I couldn’t move.

  “Roka...”

  “Go!”

  I was frozen. I looked at him, and I looked at Ella, and it was too much. I just couldn’t do it anymore.

  My legs began to weaken, and my knees started to buckle. I felt myself going down in slow motion, dropping to my knees in surrender. I didn’t have anything left to give. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was giving up on, but I was giving up.

  And then, out of nowhere, came the slightest of noises. I looked over, and there in the dark I saw the silhouette of a slave girl, and then of another one. I didn’t know how long they had been outside, but they stood there with a bucket of water and towels that I figured had to have been for Ella. I didn’t know any of the other slave girls that worked in the big house, so I figured they had found a way to sneak themselves outside.

  They both had a light with them, but I wouldn’t realize until much later that neither one carried a candle.

  One of them, the shorter of the two, began to dip her towel into the bucket. After she’d wrung it out, she walked up to Ella and slowly dabbed her forehead and face, cleaning the disgusting paste off of her. Then she approached Roka, and did the same. Finally, she approached me, and when the towel touched my face, I heard the stillest of voices come out from the darkness and speak to me. And after those few words, my legs found their strength again, and I worked my way back up to my feet, with Ella still in my arms. The slave girl placed the wet towel on Ella’s chest as if she was playing an instrument.

  Ella was quiet now. She was broken, but she was quiet.

  The second of the two slave girls walked up to Roka. She reached into the darkness beside her, and gave Roka a white, wooden staff that must have been six feet tall and as thick as a soda can.

  Even in the dark, I could see Roka’s face go pale with shock.

  Hesitantly, Roka grabbed the staff, and after two or three tries, he was able to use it to pull himself up to his feet. He was still staggering, but after he got set, he nodded to me, letting me know he was ready to move.

  We turned at the same time to thank the slave girls, but they were gone.

  Then, one step at a time, we made our way back across the stream.

  14

  “JESUS!”

  Some of the slaves had seen us approaching before we actually reached Sarah’s and informed her of our arrival. Even in the dark, I’m sure they took enough from how we were moving to tell her we didn’t look so good.

  She came rushing out to meet us. Roka, upon hitting her doorstep, collapsed to the ground. Ella had begun moaning softly again. She had bled the entire time we were walking. By the time Sarah saw us, she thought all three of us were dying.

  She looked from Roka, to Ella, to me, and threw her hands up and yanked at her hair.

  “AWW MY JESUS!”

  Her eyes darted between the three of us as she tried to figure out which one to help first.

  “Sarah!” I tried to wake her from the horrified trance she was in. “Sarah, get Roka up. He’s hurt bad. Put him in that bed over there. I’ll put Ella on this one over here.”

  “Is you hurt?”

  “Naw, I’m not hurt. Help Roka, quick.”

  She hoisted Roka up enough to be able to duck under one of his armpits, and used all of her strength to stand and support him at the same time. Roka did his best to walk, but it was a real struggle. Sarah got him to the bed and watched him collapse once again. She straightened his body and watched as he struggled to breathe.

  I lay Ella down gently and when Sarah looked over at her, I saw tenderness in the older woman’s eyes. She slowly walked over, and gently pushed me aside. She bent, and spent what seemed like forever just whispering in Ella’s ear. Ella sobbed as Sarah poured herself out. Her quiet sobs turned to wails.

  When they finally slowed, Sarah stood up again. She wiped her own tears and walked back to Roka.

  “What you go out from ’ere for, Roka? What in da name o’ God happened?”

  “He followed me. I don’t know how he knew where I was goin’, but he followed me.”

  “Is...is...is da...is da sign!” I thought Roka had begun hallucinating, but with a shaking hand, he began to point at something. He lacked the strength to turn his head, but pointed his finger in a general direction. When I followed where he was motioning, the only thing of any significance was the white staff that the slave girl had given him.

  Sarah looked at it for a moment, and then her legs almost gave out. She caught herself on the bed that Roka lay in, holding herself up with one arm as she stared intently at the staff lying on the ground. When she looked at Roka, he gave her a quick nod, as much of a smile as he had the power to make, and then he passed out. Sarah tried her best to get her legs back under her as she turned and looked at me.

  “Is there...is there a cloth...?”

  By this time, I was leaning over Ella. Her eyes were closed and I couldn’t tell if she was conscious or not, but I let her broken body fuel my rage once again. I ignored Sarah as my vision began to shake and become static again.

  “Is there a cloth, Moses?”
Sarah sounded frantic now, as though she needed a cloth for something important. But she was disturbing my ritual. I was already on the brink of insanity, and I stared at Ella to purposely push me over the edge. Earlier when the slave girl wiped my brow, she had given me a peace that I did not desire. Now, as I smelled the sweat and stink of Talbert on the woman I loved, that peace faded. I began to feel the bloodlust that I felt in the grass, before Roka had stopped me from avenging my shattered reality. I thirsted for murder, and as I kneeled there, seeing Ella’s hair stuck to her head and face with blood adhesive, I was determined to drink my fill.

  I looked and saw the cloth Sarah was crying about lying on Ella’s chest. It was the one the slave girl had given her. I picked it up and handed it to Sarah.

  “Here. Take it.”

  I must have held my hand out for twenty seconds before I looked at Sarah. She didn’t take the cloth from my hand, but stared at it, her eyes wide with a mixture of elation and terror.

  “This...this be it...this da day...”

  My rage decided it could wait no longer. I threw the towel on the floor and sprinted for the door. I wouldn’t stop, I told myself. I wouldn’t stop running until I got to the big house and had Talbert’s heart in my fist, feeling its last beats before I crushed it in my palm. I wouldn’t stop until he was dead. Until they were all dead.

  Just as I approached the door, Sarah burst in front of me, knocking me back.

  “Can’t let you go,” she said.

  I couldn’t read her face, but then again, I didn’t want to. I would not be stopped again from what I needed to do. If Sarah didn’t move, I would kill her. Simple as that.

  “Get...out...of...my...way.”

  There was a demon in my chest that came out through my vocal chords. I hadn’t yelled or screamed, but the blood drained from Sarah’s face when she heard me. Her terror validated me. I smiled and growled at the same time.