Chapter 5 #3
The spring night was chilly and wet, and we’d traded ramshackle cabins for surviving in the elements. Still, I knew a comfort some enslaved mothers didn’t. I had my children. “No, I don’t have more than you three, but having you keeps me warm and brave.”
“Like you were with those snake eggs?”
“That wasn’t me being brave, Annabelle. Just cautious. Now, settle down and go to sleep same as your baby sister. Hattie’s already snoring like a grown man.”
Giggles sprinkled from the lips of my two oldest.
“This blanket’s itchy.”
“I can’t argue with that, Abigail. It is. Bet I have something that’ll take your mind off the itching.”
“What? A story?” Excitement coated Annabelle’s query.
“Yes.” I smiled around a yawn before shushing my daughters’ quiet squeals of glee. Soothed by familiar smells of my cache of roots and herbs, and the comforting presence of my girls, I told a tale Mama Ruth said came from Africa of a crafty trickster spider named Anansi.
Moments later my children were asleep. I was left to listen to the rain. My body was heavy with fatigue from what felt like non-stop walking. Before long I was drifting asleep, praying the downpour would cease and not make muddy rivers of the trail we were traveling.
Awakening to a dark new morning, I discovered my prayers were unanswered and the deluge continued.
“Somebody best pray up Noah and his boat,” Miss Tandy—the eldest of the enslaved—joked that morning while rocking and cooing over Hattie as I cleared away breakfast. As an elder no longer forced to work in the fields, she often looked after the children as we cooked meals.
Miss Tandy’s sentiments seemingly held merit as the skies remained relentless, unleashing their liquid bounty and making our Tennessee journey lusterless.
By the second rainy day I’d taken to administering poultices and teas to mitigate coughs and sniffles and keep our caravan healthy.
But come midday we reached a swollen, fast flowing stream that left me with a flicker of defeat as it failed to restrain the rains and seemed liable to overflow.
Sodden. Cold. Miserable. We impatiently waited as wagon after wagon, oxcart after oxcart, crossed the burgeoning stream while prodding herds of livestock to do the same.
Too tired to carry Hattie, I’d secured her slumbering form in a basket on the oxcart with my store of roots, herbs, and those precious sacs—those remnants of my daughters’ origins.
“Get on, Tessie! Yah!” I pressed against her flank, trying to urge the cow down a slight embankment.
She was skittish. And in good company. Buck and the larger boys from accompanying farmsteads were forced to hoist reluctant goats across their shoulders and transport them to the opposite bank.
Tessie was far too large for such measures.
“Let me help you, Miss Zinnie.”
I looked up to see a young woman from one of the other plantations moving towards me.
She was tall like Ella. But not lean. Shapely.
She had deep brown skin as smooth as the sample strips of satin Miss Norene brought home from a shop in the town square and coveted.
Her magnificent face was marred only by the palm-sized cloth bandaging the left side, hiding what I imagined was the comeuppance Master Ryland mentioned before leaving Mississippi.
She was the one who dared to run away from the Peterson homestead only to be caught and returned.
Her name was Alretha. I’d noticed her kindness; how solicitous she was towards Miss Tandy, whose eighty-plus years made her revered.
Alretha offered that same consideration now, joining me in pushing, prodding Tessie.
She didn’t speak, was as silent as she’d been the few times our paths crossed while walking this long walk. “Your help’s much appreciated.”
She nodded in response.
I told myself this wasn’t no social setting.
She wasn’t obligated to talk. Even so, I wanted to draw her out, to know what it was like to escape and be free.
If only temporarily. Instead, I focused on moving Tessie and glanced down in the process.
Alretha’s feet were bare, muddy, and slightly swollen.
But it was the shackles about her ankles—a preventative measure against repeat escape—that arrested my attention and made my heart ache.
Those metal bonds were cruel, animalistic, and I hated them.
I tore my gaze away and looked up again, encountering her stare.
“Being shoeless is part of my punishment for wanting freedom more than bondage.”
“Y’all hold on tight.” Lovie’s voice carrying across the distance interrupted my response.
I turned to see Lovie watching an oxcart carrying the first group of children across the stream, driven by her son, July, who wasn’t but a bit older than Annabelle.
Our farm’s enslaved workforce was primarily women and children.
Consequently, youngsters like July were delegated duties typically carried out by men.
Many of the carts were hitched to the backs of wagons, creating a series of continuous conveyances.
Others were free-standing and required human steering.
Lovie’s July was just tall enough to reach my shoulders.
That didn’t keep Master Ryland from ordering him to man an oxcart when we left Mississippi.
Didn’t matter that he’d never handled such a task.
July was subject to his owner’s demands.
“Miss Zinnie…they say you know ‘bout healing. That true?”
I gave July and his oxcart a last look before turning towards Alretha. She swiped mud from her foot to reveal a long cut. “You know how to heal this? I’d be much obliged if so.”
Humbled by her trust in my abilities, I smiled gently, but a loud splash and bone-chilling scream prevented me from responding.
I spun in the direction of the commotion and lost my breath.
One of the rear wheels of July’s oxcart had sunk into a rut in the stream that left it tilting dangerously sideways. He vigorously slapped the reins against the oxen’s flanks to right the conveyance.
My heart had stopped. Or so it seemed as I watched the child who’d been tossed from the rear when the cart wildly careened being whisked away by the rain-engorged, rapidly flowing stream.
“Abigail!” I didn’t feel the rain. Or the paralysis snatching my breath and disabling my limbs.
Fueled by the horror of that greedy stream wrapping my middle child in its watery arms and carrying her away, I lifted my skirt hem and ran down the muddy embankment.
I slipped. I slid. I wished for the speed of the wind. “She can’t swim!”
Senseless words flew from my lips like a plea towards heaven.
“Mama!” Abigail’s anguished wail ended as her head disappeared beneath the surface.
My soul plummeted. I stumbled as if the earth had opened. “Lord, where is she?” I ran blindly, trying to keep my eternal self from dying.
“She’s there!” A wind screamed past me as the children on the bank pointed at a dark mass where Abigail resurfaced. Seeing him race down the bank and plunge into the stream, I realized Buck was that wind.
Only Alretha and Ella grabbing me prevented me from following, jumping in that churning stream and waging war for my four-year-old baby.
My sister-women anchored me, kept me from falling as other enslaved men raced towards the bank, plunging in after Buck.
They defied the current. Slipped on rocks.
Lost and regained footing. All in the name of rescuing my daughter.
“Lord, let them reach that child…” Ella’s prayer had barely left her lips when Buck reached Abigail—plucking her from the stream’s wet rage, sparing her from being swept into a larger outlet.
I trembled uncontrollably, grateful and heaving, as a handful of Negro men positioned themselves along the bank, forming a human chain to aid Buck’s ascent.
Together they worked until he was on solid ground, my child in his arms, limp as a ragdoll.
I tore free of Ella and Alretha’s grip and ran towards my Abigail. When Buck laid her stillness in my arms my universe collapsed.
“Is she breathing?”
I couldn’t attend to Alretha’s whispered inquiry, ignored every person standing there, towering over me as I sank to my knees. “Abigail, don’t you go nowhere! You hear me?”
I wanted to rock her, remind her of my love and entice her with my warmth, but time didn’t permit such tenderness. I squeezed her, kneaded the heel of my palm against her back repeatedly, rolled her onto her side when water gushed from her mouth, followed by heaving.
Her wheezing, gasping for breath and calling my name was the sweetest symphony.
She latched onto my embrace, wrapped her arms about my neck. I held her as if trying to absorb her back into my flesh as Lovie draped a blanket about us. Sagging with relief, I gave the Lord praise. We’d tussled with death and managed to escape.
“What the devil’s going on?” The sound of horses tramping through the stream cut my thanks as Master Ryland arrived, accompanied by Mister Peterson. A scout had made them aware of my child’s near tragedy. “What’s wrong with that brat? Bring her here.”