Authors: Ashley Ryan
"Are you calling me a liar sir?" Ms. Rebekah said offended.
"These papers are obviously only a few days old, likely written after Mary returned here." Master Wilson said.
"Who are you to say when I can and cannot free a slave that I own?" Ms. Rebekah said. "Now remove those chains."
"I'll not remove these chains, when your brother arrives we will get this settled." Master Wilson said.
"So your name is Maggie is it?" Master Wilson said as he turned his attention to me. "And that's the lie you want to tell?
I didn't say a word. I looked away to the field that lead to Mister Mark's house hoping to see him coming, though I knew he hadn't had time. Likely Henry was just now arriving to tell him what was happening.
"I want you to remember one thing Mary, I still own your mother" Master Wilson said.
I felt my heart racing. I knew Master Wilson was capable for cruel things and couldn't think of anything but my mother's face.
"When I return home I'm going to make her wish she'd never spit you out of her womb" Master Wilson whispered.
Ms. Rebekah came down off of the porch to stand by me. I'm sure she couldn't hear what he'd said, but I don't think he cared because even with her standing there, he continued.
"First I'm going to whip her until she goes limp. Then I'm going to see if she has any breeding years left in her. I'm going to have John open her up and... No I think I'll have all of my
bucks take turns with her. I doubt she can still breed, but it should be fun to watch. Master Wilson said. Before Ms. Rebekah slapped him.
"How dare you speak that way in front of
me!" She exclaimed.
"I was having a private conversation with this wench. You are the one who brought yourself into ear shot. If you don't want to hear it then..."
"This is my yard you are standing in sir and you have insulted me." Ms. Rebekah said.
"Then I'm not a gentleman, so be it but I'm not a liar." he said.
I was relieved when I saw Henry returning but I didn't see Mister Mark.
"Mister Mark say you
tole him dat you didn't need his help and he ain't coming" Henry told Ms. Rebekah as he gasped to catch his breath after the long run.
"Fine" Ms. Rebekah told Henry before turning her attention to Master Wilson.
"Seems my brother is occupied with other tasks. Remove those chains and release her."
"This is my slave!" Master Wilson said. "And you know it."
"I know that you believe Maggie belongs to you, but if you don't release her immediately, I'll send for the sheriff. You are trespassing and about to commit theft." Ms. Rebekah said.
Master Wilson motioned for the slave catcher to get the key.
"I doubt your mother will make it through the night." Master Wilson said as he turned the key, releasing me from the chains.
I nearly told him to just take me. But I knew after all that had been said, if I returned with him, that he would kill me. At the same time I couldn't help but think of my mother and the things that I knew he would do to her.
After Master Wilson climbed back into his wagon and traveled out of sight. I saw a figure approaching through the field followed by another. It was Mark and Thomas.
"I thought you weren’t coming to help" Ms. Rebekah said.
"I'm not; I'm come to keep Thomas out of trouble. Is Wilson gone?" Mark asked.
"Yes" Ms. Rebekah replied as Thomas wrapped his arms around me.
"He's going to kill my momma" I said to Thomas with tears in my eyes.
Thomas didn't say a word, he walked to the barn and opened the large doors and began saddling up his horse.
"What are you going to do, steel Martha too?" Mark asked Thomas.
"Yes" he replied.
"Wilson will have every man he has in those slave quarters of his, you'll never make it. He's probably half way home by now. It's too late for that." Mark said.
"I have to try" Thomas said.
"By the time you get there she'll be dead" Alice said.
"Maybe, but at least I will know that I did what I could." Thomas said.
"And if you get caught?" Mark asked.
"Then I get caught." Thomas said.
"Damn it. Let me get my horse and I'll go with you." Mark said.
"No time" Thomas said as he buckled the last strap.
"Then I'm going with you." I said.
"Can't, not enough room.
I'll have to have a place to put your mother." Thomas said as he climbed on his horse.
"I love you" were the last words Thomas said to me before riding away.
"Come on, let's go inside. It' about to start raining." Ms. Rebekah said.
I hadn't even noticed the dark clouds forming on the other side of the distant mountain. We no more got inside the house than big drops of water began hitting the roof.
"Henry, where are you going?" Alice asked as Henry walked into the raid towards the barn.
"Going to
brang that fool back foe he get killed I hope!" Henry said as he jogged to the barn.
A few minutes later he emerged on horseback.
"Keep check on Sissy" He said. His grey hair soaked from the rain.
"Oh lord they both gone get killed because of me" I said.
"Now, that ain't so" Alice said as she sat down on the sofa beside me putting her arm around me as she tried to comfort me. I could hear the fear in her voice as she tried to console me.
The next few hours were filled with waiting and pacing, followed by pacing and waiting. The worst of the storm had blown over and a steady rain had set in. It was hard to see or hear anything outside. I stayed on the porch a lot, mostly to look out for Thomas and Henry's return but also because the house had become so humid with the rain that it was hard to remain inside. Alice had gone upstairs to sit with Sissy and Ms. Rebekah came out to sit with me on the porch. Mark returned home after he and Ms. Rebekah had words about him not coming when she asked.
As I sat on the porch swing and Ms. Rebekah sat in her favorite rocking chair I heard her ask, "Do you love him?"
I thought about it for a minute even though I already knew the answer. "Yes" I replied.
"You know that's all that matters don't you?" Ms. Rebekah asked.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Loving someone. I've never had that." Ms. Rebekah replied.
"You never been married?"
I asked thinking back to what Thomas had told me about her and the slave.
"Yes, I was married but that doesn't mean that I was in love." She replied.
"Why would a white person marry someone they didn't love?" I asked. I knew slaves were often forced into marriage but I guess I never understood the concept of a free person not being free to make their own choices.
"My father" Ms. Rebekah said and then paused. "He was so eager to marry me off to someone wealthy that he couldn't see that wasn't what I wanted."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
"My father came from a poor family. He worked hard every day of his life to build this plantation and to make it what it is today. I guess he thought that as long as I had money, I would be happy." Ms. Rebekah answered.
"What happened to your husband?" I asked.
Ms. Rebekah gave me a strange look that seemed to last for a while and made me very uncomfortable.
"He had an accident in the bard nearly twenty years ago." She said though the look on her face and the tone of her voice told me that there was more to the story than that.
Ms. Rebekah started talking about Sissy and Henry. She said that they had what she'd wanted all of her life. It was easy to see that Henry loved Sissy very much and I assumed that she felt the same for him. He was reluctant to leave her bedside, even when it meant someone's life although I was thankful that he'd gone after Thomas. Ms. Rebekah went on to tell me about Sissy's daughter Mavis and how she would nearly give Sissy a heart attack climbing to the top of an oak tree that used to shade the garden spot by the barn. She told me about her son William and how he hide in the root cellar and pretend to be a dragon who would jump out at anyone who walked by. Then she started talking about Thomas.
"I was closer to him then all of the other children; he was the closest thing that I had to a son after mine died." She began.
"You had a son?" I asked.
"Charles" She replied as she broke down into tears. "I had him for seven years. Sometimes I think God just let me have him so that I would know what it was like to suffer."
"Oh Ms. you can't think like that." I said.
"You wouldn't understand. I guess when you get older you start looking back on the mistakes you made in your youth. Getting old is about remembering the wrong things you did and wishing you could go back and change them." Ms. Rebekah said.
"But would you change them? Would you give up the seven years you had with your son just to avoid the hurt of losing him?" I asked.
Ms. Rebekah smiled. "No I guess not."
"What happened to him?" I asked after Ms. Rebekah stopped crying.
She smiled. "You really want to know?"
"Yes I do" I said. The fact was that talking to her took my mind off of Thomas and I couldn't keep thinking about him or I would go insane.
"Well" Ms. Rebekah began. "When I was young I let my father talk me into having a surgery that left me damaged inside. My father meant well but didn't know the surgery could hurt me like it did. I married and became with child but because of the surgery Charles didn't grow the way he was supposed to. One of his legs was shorter than the other and his heart was too small. He almost died being born so in a way I felt lucky to have him at all. One morning I woke up and found that he'd passed away in his sleep. He was still curled up with his eyes closed. The doctor said that his heart just stopped beating and the he slipped away peacefully."
I got up and went over to Ms. Rebekah and held her hand as she began crying again. We sat together and listened to the sound of the rain. I asked what kind of surgery she'd had, but she only said that it was an ungodly sin to even speak of it.
She went on to tell me about Thomas and some of the things he's done as a boy. I told her that I often played with him when he was at the main house. Ms. Rebekah didn't know that we had known each other since childhood. She said that she did remember him going to the main house to play a lot though, especially as he got older.
"I guess I know why he spent so much time up there now." She replied.
The rain let up some, but the day still looked like night. The sky was an awful grey color and nervousness was beginning to return. I stood up to stretch my legs and pace on the porch a little more when in the distance I heard the sound of hooves running toward the house. It was Thomas. Riding on the back of his horse was my mother. She was hurt but not from a whip. She was bleeding from her lower back.
"She's been shot" Thomas said.
Ms. Rebekah ran out and Alice came out to help. They helped Thomas and I carry her inside. The wound was as bad as it could be.
"What happened? Where's Henry?" Ms. Rebekah asked.
"Henry? Isn't he here?" Thomas asked.
"No he came to find you!" Ms. Rebekah yelled.
"Oh no. I will go back for him after we get her settled in." Thomas said.
I looked into my mother’s eyes as she squeezed my hand. I saw the light leave her eyes and knew that she was dead.
"There is no need to get her settled. She's gone" Ms. Rebekah said softly.
I don't remember exactly what happened next. I only remember crying uncontrollably. The next thing I knew Henry had returned.
"What happened?" Ms. Rebekah demanded of Thomas.
Thomas explained that when he got to the Wilson plantation, the slaves were all in the southern field sewing winter grass. He said that he found Martha and rode away with her. He said that there were several slave catchers still staying at the Wilson plantation and they passed him as he left the plantation. One of them fired a shot and hit Martha in the lower back. Thomas explained that he had to keep going.
"Martha held on for a long time and just before we got her I felt her grip go loose so I held on to her until we got here." Thomas said.
"What about you?" Ms. Rebekah asked of Henry.
"By da time I got dare da whole place was in an uproar. Some of da salves say dat Martha got on a horse with someone. I knew dat Thomas already come and gone so I come back through the woods so the white folk wouldn't see me. I spect Mister Wilson be here soon." Henry said.
"I expect you're right" Ms. Rebekah said. "Take Martha's body to the closet under the stairs."
"Wouldn't it be better to take her to the root cellar?" Alice asked.
"Yes it would but I don't want Wilson driving up and catch you moving her." Ms. Rebekah said.
Alice began cleaning the blood drops that lead from the front yard into the house. There was still a blood stain on the table where Martha had been laying but there was no time to clean it. Alice had no more gotten the blood off of the porch til a bunch of white men rode up on horseback. Ms. Rebekah went out to meet them.