Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
ZINNIE
Alretha made it to Illinois and freedom and knew life as a liberated young woman.
She became a maid in a convent and received wages for her labor and lived quietly with them.
Life was frugal but hers until the Fugitive Slave Act became law last year.
Like a vengeful beast, its talons reached into free states, demanding all citizens assist in recapturing suspected escaped slaves.
There was no trial, no jury. A plantation person’s claim that someone belonged to her or him was sufficient.
Backed by this new law, Mister Peterson staked his claim and hired bounty hunters to return his runaway.
They brought her that great distance—sometimes by wagon, most times walking.
With her owner’s consent, she was spared no abuse on that voyage that restored her to bondage.
Alretha arrived in California bruised, battered, and a breath from death.
“She gonna live?”
“If I have anything to do with it, yes.” I answered Ella without taking my eyes off my broken patient.
“God knows what kinda life she’s gonna have.
It’s a damn shame they hurt this child like this.
” Swollen eyes. Cracked lips. Skin and bones.
Delirious. Open wounds. No inch of her was unscathed.
Her body bore brutal witness to the sin of running away. “Help me turn her on her belly. Jesus…”
Her back was such a torn mess I had to look away and gather myself. “Hand me that warm water, please.” I took the bowl from Ella and dipped a rag in. Gently, I cleaned Alretha’s open flesh, thankful she was spared full pain by being unconscious. Still, she moaned in response.
By lantern, with Ella’s assistance, I bathed her back and applied a healing salve.
“Her whole body needs washing, but she shouldn’t be moved too much right now. We’ll have to do it in stages.” I tossed the bloodied water out the door, hoping I wasn’t seen. We’d taken a risk in bringing Alretha home, but I refused to leave her in that plaza like refuse.
“Ella… I can’t take this no more.” I stood in the darkened doorway watching the wounded woman. Her courage had cost her. Horrifically. Still, I admired Alretha’s defiance of this heinous system. “We gotta leave.”
“Zinnie, you talking running when you see this child liable to die any minute?”
“I didn’t say nothing ‘bout running. There’s too many of us for that.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “We gotta buy our freedom.”
“With what? You got money I ain’t met?”
“Buck said when he did odd jobs in Mississippi, Massa Marion kept the money but said he was amenable to applying a portion of it to Buck buying his freedom.”
“How much he got left to earn?”
“He’ll have to ask. We can get outside work and do the same for ourselves and the children.” I would ask Coraline and our free community about wage earning opportunities.
“In what hours of the day we doing extra toiling? We already work can see to cain’t.”
I sat on the stool beside Alretha and covered gaping flesh with cloth strips for protection. “If working sunset to sunrise’ll earn us enough to never be in this child’s position, so be it. I’ll gladly sacrifice sleep for freedom.”
Finding work proved easier than expected. Mr. Bayard needed Buck’s help at the livery, the Negro woman who supplied the marketplace with bread was delighted with Ella’s skills, and the town doctor had plans for me.
“I understand you possess a talent for midwifery, but I only need my office cleaned.”
Lovie’s death damaged my confidence in baby catching. Cleaning was fine by me.
It was Coraline’s idea to secretly withhold part of our earnings. “Don’t give Tolliver everything. Keep some for yourselves. Your family will need things when you’re emancipated.”
I didn’t worry about Massa Marion asking our employers what we earned and finding out we were giving him less, knowing he wouldn’t credit us with that type of intelligence. Still, I asked Coraline to hold what we set aside so that money was never found on our person.
She promised to maintain a tally in a tiny notebook. Illiterate, we had no signatures but could mark each deposit with an X as confirmation. The irony wasn’t lost on me that we’d be working for freedom in a free state, but it outweighed the alternative.
The day after she’d been abandoned for dead, Mister Peterson learned we’d taken Alretha. I hated him more than before when he strode into the cabin I shared with Ella, assessed Alretha’s condition, and told me to nurse her back to health so he could break her down again.
I was determined to nurse her to health not for him, but because she deserved to live. And if her injuries proved too extensive for her to work again, I would be the one to buy her freedom.
I like to think my ministrations helped Alretha. Greatly. But Hattie’s presence was like medicine.
Even in an unconscious state, Alretha responded to Hattie sitting vigil with me. My busy, little independent baby decided to be my nursemaid and helped wash Alretha’s hands and feet. She sang lullabies and told made-up stories. She was a calming force for Alretha’s restlessness.
Seasons changed from spring to summer before she could walk again, and when she did it was with a slight limp.
Her speech was slow, sometimes slurred. She’d regained weight but was still too thin in my opinion.
Her body bore scars time could heal, but it was her nightmares that tore my heart to pieces.
The flailing and wild animal screeches. Begging and pleading.
Each time I wrestled her back to awareness, rocking and humming to combat the reliving.
“Miss… Zinnie… I… missed… my… monthly…”
I paused hanging the Tollivers’ laundry on the line as she limped into the yard months later. For whatever reason, my mind flashed to her first words when she regained consciousness.
Forgive me… for taking… Hattie… to the… river… with me.
I’d hushed her, understanding desperation, and told her to save her strength for healing. Now, I watched as she limped towards me. “Peterson?”
She nodded.
“You want it?” I’d learned to use pennyroyal. She could lose his seed if she chose.
She studied the ground. “Thought I couldn’t love my first one… until she didn’t make it. That tore me up ’cause I thought she felt… the hate I held. I said if ever I got this way again I’d let my child feel all of me and none of him.” She looked at me. “I want this one.”
“Then we gonna keep getting you healthy for the two of you. I’ll make a tincture. Take it every morning, rain or shine. It’ll strengthen your blood. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. Will you be with me… when I have my baby?”
I hung the last shirt before cupping her face. “Nothing could keep me away.”
Time seemed to race, becoming autumn again. Leaves turned deep red, soft orange, and fell from trees, creating colorful carpets beneath our feet. The air grew crisp. Sweet apple orchards were ready for harvesting. And the spark between my girls and the twins was definite.
They stood before Buck, Coraline, Bayard Sr., and me that October, declaring their desire for marriage.
Any reservations I held about my daughters’ youth were outweighed by their being loved and safe from the prying eyes and wants of plantation men.
“We’ll have to get Master Ryland’s say-so.”
“Miss Zinnie, we’re not asking permission for a wedding.
I’m asking the price for their freedom.” I masked my expression when Bayard Sr. echoed my sentiments, stating that marriage wasn’t a safeguard for bondswomen.
“They have to be removed from Tolliver’s hold entirely.
” He was resolute and arranged the meeting.
Master Ryland agreed to sell Juniper and Annabelle after the season, claiming their labor was needed for autumn harvesting and preparing for winter.
“Winter wasn’t bad last year!” I mucked the sheep pen with Buck, disgusted and outdone when I learned the meeting’s outcome.
That devil’s greed had taken a backseat to his meanness, his constant thwarting of anything that would bring us happiness.
Rage rolled through me like a lava river.
I wanted my girls free now. Not at his and the Mormon community’s convenience.
“There’s more than enough progress on this colony of theirs to allow for this. ”
San Bernardino was no longer a Mexican rancho.
The Mormon community was five hundred strong, and at the behest of Old Man Brigham they’d purchased thirty-five thousand acres on which to construct a fort and support their municipal government.
Their plans meant our labor and that of the Native community.
Buck paused the dirty job we were doing long enough to wipe sweat from his forehead and commiserate. “Nothing but him throwing around weight and acting the ass he is. I’m just glad he agreed and the girls’ll be properly married.”
I knew it rubbed him raw that Massa Marion had yet to approve our uniting as man and wife, and that we lived separately. I silently continued the dirty work we were doing to avoid scrutiny or his knowing what I still endured on occasion.
“Juniper and Annabelle should have wedding dresses, Zinnie.” The end of the season and my girls’ weddings were months away; still, Coraline and I couldn’t help planning in advance in our excitement.
We walked arm in arm through the market doing our Wednesday shopping as Hattie skipped ahead of us, stopping at stalls with goods worthy of her attention.
“I haven’t saved enough for that.” Cleaning the doctor’s office in the evenings was easy work comparatively speaking. The joy of receiving wages for the first time ever was exquisite.
“It’ll be our gift. I’ll buy the fabric when we go to Bakersfield.” The daughter of her dear friend was getting married. “It’s so close to the holiday that we’ll stay over for Thanksgiving.”
“I appreciate that, but I can contribute to my daughters’ dresses.” I had earnings now.
Coraline laid a hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive…”
“Aren’t you a pretty little thing.”