Chapter 21
It takes a bit of maneuvering, but I manage to get Trixie inside the house. I hold out a carrot stick. I assume donkeys are like horses and will eat carrots.
I approach her with caution.
She backs away.
I step forward.
She backs up further. My hat teeters on her head, ready to hit the floor.
I reach for it. The donkey brays loudly, and I jump.
But then, it bows and tilts its head to the side, toppling the hat from between its pointy ears into my open hands.
“Wow! That was brilliant,” I praise her.
She grins a large white donkey smile that would put one of Denzel Washington’s smiles to shame.
“We have a lot in common,” I tell her. “I don’t know anyone else here. We can be friends. I hope you like the name Trixie. I will call you that because you tricked me into liking you.”
“Hee-haw.” She seems to agree.
Keston wants me to embrace the donkey. Well, that’s what I’m doing. Emotionally.
I hope he didn’t mean physically.
I gaze at the donkey doing a sideways trot down the hall as I lead with the carrot. “You look like you just left a bar. You’ve got that shuffle thing going on.”
She flicks her ears at me. Flashes a big smile. I make a note to Google how intelligent donkeys are. I swear Trixie understands what I’m saying.
“By the way, I’m Carmela Jones. But don’t ever call me Carmela. I’m CJ to my friends.”
Trixie brays.
“Cool.”
She shakes her rump. Followed by batting her long dark eyelashes.
“I get it. You want attention. Okay, may I say what a pretty donkey you are?”
The animal stares quietly waiting for me to say more.
“Trixie, enough with the compliments. I need help moving heavy boxes from inside this room to the front porch. Are you up for that?”
Her loud bray tells me she is.
I think.
Using common sense I didn’t know I had and my newfound ability to talk to animals, well, to this particular donkey, I manage to haul two of the largest chests to the porch with just a few scratches to Keston’s walls.
The entire enterprise involved a rope I found in his kitchen cupboard that I tied around one chest at a time, and carrots I dangled to motivate Trixie to keep pulling.
Sweat ran down my face as if I was the one doing the pulling instead of the dangling. But alas, I was set up outside where I felt brave enough to tackle the contents of the old chests. Come what may.
Trixie lay on the grass right next to the porch, keeping me company like an oversized lumpy grey dog. Occasionally, I’d throw her another carrot to keep her happy after all of her hard work.
I open my laptop, create a new spreadsheet, and begin inventorying the chest. Like all new relationships, the honeymoon period of excitement and newness quickly wears off.
The first chest is about four feet deep.
I sweat through all of one chest and half of another before I find something of interest.
“Whoa, Trix, I think we found something important.”
Gentle snores and not-so-gentle farts emanate from Trixie, who is lying on the grass.
It’s a soft, buttery, old leather diary. It appears to be old. Older than anything I’ve come across.
I pull on gloves I found in Keston’s kitchen.
I forget my aches and pains. The leather is dark brown with an intricate embossed pattern showing scuff marks and deep creases.
I open the journal carefully. The pages inside are unevenly cut with a ragged textured edge as if they were made by hand.
Some of the pages retain their original cream color, but most of the pages are yellowed and some have brown age spots. The binding is sewn with thick thread.
“Oh my,” I breathe when I see the first page and the date.
“Diary of Ms. Charlotte Campbell, twenty years old.”
Below that is written “1803.”
It’s a diary! More than two hundred years old.
The name rings a bell. Is “Campbell” a name Keston mentioned?
Then it hits me. At the museum. A plantation log by a Scottish person whose last name was Campbell was on display.
But who is this, Charlotte Campbell? Was she a family member of the plantation owner?