Tangled Passion (21 page)

“No!” Bushwacker countered.

“No?”

“No, there is no need for that,” Bushwacker replied, Nathan was still waiting for an explanation when Bushwacker’s gun went off. Alarmed and completely flabbergasted Nathan stood frozen as he watched Jonah buckle and hit the ground. Ashana’s scream rose as Jonah hit the ground and tore through the night like a sharp siren.

“What are you doing?” Nathan shouted at Bushwacker, “You must be out of your mind?”

“No but I have changed my mind, I’m keeping the girl,” he added and before Nathan could reach for his gun Bushwacker squeezed the trigger and Nathan’s body was on the ground.

“Bloody fool, now you’ll keep your big mouth shut and stay out of my way,” Bushwacker said. “Get her,” he ordered and his men jumped on Ashana, who was on her knees wailing hopelessly.

“Massa! Massa!” Jonah whispered into Nathan’s ear but there was no response. A closer look at Nathan told Jonah that the Massa had been shot in the chest; blood was still gushing out of the spot where the bullet hit and if the bleeding wasn’t stopped quickly, the young Massa might lose his life, he worried, temporarily lost as to what to do.

   Jonah’s left hand was also bleeding; Bushwacker’s bullet had caught him in his hand. He’d raised his right hand the moment Bushwacker’s gun went up; the move was purely involuntary but saved his life. Bending over he grabbed a part of Nathan’s shirt with his teeth and with his right hand ripped off a slightly long piece. He tried to work it over the bleeding spot but the piece was too short to go around Nathan’s shoulder or around his body. “Massa!” he called out, frustrated and confused. His eyes swept the surrounding helplessly and fell on a stone and a thought crossed his mind. He dragged himself to the stone too weak to walk over and dragged the stone back with him. Then he folded the piece of cloth flat, placed it on the bleeding spot and placed the stone on it; the bleeding subsided. Then he adjusted the bandage around his left arm, the piece of cloth was soaked with blood but the bleeding had stopped. “Oh God!” he cried and stretched out on the ground, closed his eyes and replayed the events that had just taken place; they were too complex to wrap his mind around. Ashana was gone, he was shot and the Massa’s son was lying on the ground almost lifeless; he couldn’t stop wondering wondering what could have come over Bushwacker to make him shoot the Massa’s son.

Minutes later, he sat up and broke down in tears, crying for Ashana and confused as to what to do with the young Massa. It was a long way home and he was wounded and too tired to make it back to the Fort on his own, much more so if he had to carry Nathan. “Ashana!” he cried, crawling on his knees and one arm in the direction that Bushwacker and his men had ridden through. He was far into the bush and standing at the edge of losing his own mind when sounds of horse hooves reached brought him to a halt. He turned around shivering in fear as he hurried back to where Nathan’s body was lying. He’d barely dropped to the ground next to Nathan and closed his eyes when a band of five horsemen pulled up.

   From the corners of his eyes he could see that they weren’t Bushwacker’s men, so he groaned as one of the men reached for Nathan.

“Can you hear me?” one of the men asked in Creole.

Jonah opened his eyes very slowly and looked at the three men stooping over him and then closed them again.

“He is alive!”

“What in the world happened here?” the leader of the group asked visibly shaken, “that’s Longstands’s son.”

“This must be his slave then,” the second man added. “What happened?” he asked Jonah in Creole. “Who shot you and the young Massa?”

“Bushwacker,” Jonah whispered.

“Bushwacker?” The men chorused.

“Get them on the horses, we must take them to Longstands immediately,” Inglewood said and two hours later they were back at the Fort.

Suzanne was so hysterical that she fainted; when Nathan was brought in she was sitting in the balcony combing her hair carelessly. She jumped to her feet and the comb in her hand fell to the ground when she saw her son’s body in the arms of two men but when she noticed the blood on his shirt she collapsed into her chair knocking over the table and the cup of tea on it. Then almost immediately she jumped to her feet and took off to the back as if running from a ghost then returned to parlour and passed out on the ground without a word.

 It was a little over two hours before Doctor Bullwealth arrived from Roseau; he pulled in Nathan’s bedroom door and immediately went to work on the young man. For another hour and half Longstands was pacing the entire house; from the parlour to the end of the hallway and into the bedrooms, kitchen and balcony. And when it appeared as though the house was not big enough for him he began to walk around the house. The Fort itself was as quiet as a graveyard; slaves knew to stay out of sight at times like this and did exactly that. They all prayed for Nathan to survive, it was in their best interest; the consequences that his death was sure to bring was too painful to imagine.

“He’s a very lucky fella; lucky he had someone to stop his bleeding. I can tell you that if the bleeding wasn’t stopped when it was, he’d have died a long time ago and there are no two ways about that,” Doctor Bullwealth said to Longstands, who had been speechless since Nathan was brought in.

“Thank you very much Doctor,” Longstands said, one could see that he was completely drained and still unrecovered from the shock.

“He’d be fine,” the Doctor said, slapping Longstands gently on his shoulder, “the bullet missed his heart narrowly and his bleeding was stopped on time—he is a lucky fella; he’d live.”

Longstands shook his head and slowly and gently lowered himself into a chair and thanked God for Bullwealth and for the fact that the man was on the island at a time when he needed him.

“Edwards!”

“Massa,” Edwards answered and appeared before Nathan. The young Massa hadn’t called him in three days and he was both excited and apprehensive to hear from Nathan.

“Get me Jonah, immediately.

“Yes Massa,” Edwards replied and reappeared in fifteen minutes with Jonah, fear plastered all over their faces.

“Massa,” they both chorused.

“Sit down Jonah. Edwards, tell him to sit down,” Nathan said.

Jonah nodded, bowed and then carefully lowered himself into a chair.

“Now ask him why he saved my life,” Nathan said to Edwards.

“Because you are human,” Jonah answered after a brief period of loss and confussion at the young Massa’s question. “Human life is precious,”

“Do you love Ashana?” Nathan asked, without acknowledging Jonah’s response.

“Yes, with all my life.”

“Me too,” Nathan snapped, he wasn’t sure why he was so angry and was even more upset because he couldn’t hide his emotions. “So what should we do?” Nathan asked, he couldn’t believe he was actually negotiating with someone he didn’t have to, someone he had wanted to punch a few days ago. Jonah remained silent; he too wanted to know what should be done and how things would eventually play out.

“This is what we’ll do,” Nathan continued. “For now we’ll have to pray for her safety and when she is returned safely, we’ll ask her to choose whom she wants and whoever he chooses, the other will back off, agreed?”

Jonah nodded, it wasn’t as if he had any choice to begin with but the young Massa had a point; Ashana’s safety was the primary concern and he was starving for any news about plans to go in search for her. After a brief handshake, Jonah departed, he was partially disappointed although grateful that his meeting with the young Massa wasn’t what he had feared. He’d hoped to hear something about a search group for Ashana being put together. Massa Longstands hadn’t held back in his kindness towards Jonah since the incident; exempting Jonah from any kind of work both on the Fort and the plantation but the pain in Jonah’s heart had not ceased and neither had his nightmares.

“Edwards, please call my parents,” Nathan instructed and reclined his chair.

By the time he arrived at Scottshead, it was already dark and nobody had seen him. His hut was in the middle of nowhere, completely hidden and out of sight from all, making it easy for him to come and go whenever he wanted. He’d brought Ashana to his clearinghouse and in the middle of the night he planned to smuggle her into a boat and take her with him to another island.

Once on a different island, he could sell her for a heavy price or start a little enterprise with her; a beautiful girl like Ashana would make him a sizeable amount of money everyday.
Men would pay decent amounts of money to spend a few minutes or hours with you
. He thought admiring her as she lay on the floor in ropes. He’d always wanted to start a venture like that but had no money to buy a decent looking slave girl, now with the monies he got from Longstands, his little savings and a beautiful girl like Ashana he had everything he needed. “But before anyone touches you, I will,” he whispered with a smirk on his face. He was going to have her to his fill but only when she was fully awake and conscious, he planned.

Although Ashana was very tired and completely drained of any amount of strength, she was fully aware of what was going on but she pretended to be unconscious still. She knew what Bushwacker’s intentions were simply from the way he touched her even when he thought she was unconscious. And she had made up her mind that she’d die before Bushwacker did anything with her.

Her heart was bleeding with the thought of Jonah, she had seen Bushwacker raise his gun and point it at Jonah and before she could make sense of it, a loud bang rang and she saw Jonah fall to the ground. His scream was still echoing in her head and there was no way she could bring herself to stop it, until of course she could find a way to make Bushwacker scream just like Jonah.

Ashana reckoned it was still some time before dawn when the squeaking sound of the door woke her just in time to notice Bushwacker quietly sneaking out of the hut. She couldn’t move because her wrists and legs were tied but he’d untied her mouth earlier on to feed her—he knew of course that no matter how loud she screamed no one would hear her; she was somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But Ashana had a plan.

She remained quiet for a few minutes just to ensure that Bushwacker wasn’t returning right away. There was a knife on a table next to the window and Ashana had noticed it when they arrived and Bushwacker lit a lantern and placed it on the table. Even though she didn’t know how she’d get to it or use it since her hands were tied, she knew she needed to have it in her possession. Heaving herself up and then hopping to the table, Ashana turned around and groped the surface of the table, until her fingers touched the knife. But she couldn’t grab it because her fingers didn’t have any room to allow for a proper grip. She turned around quickly, frustrated and enveloped in fear; if Bushwacker returned and caught her trying to get a knife, he’d probably kill her or hurt her seriously—he was that kind of person. Trembling as she slowly bent by her knees, Ashana opened her mouth and grabbed the knife with her teeth, then returned to where she was lying down.

A few minutes later, Bushwacker arrived with a bucket of water. “You need to wash yourself, you smell like shit, raw, and bloody,” he said to her in Creole but she pretended to still be unconscious. “Wake up girl, wake up!” he shouted into her ears, slapping her gently on her cheeks.

Ashana opened her eyes slowly and looked at him as if she was trying to figure out who he was.

“Wake up, I made some hot soup for you and then you need to wash, you smell too raw,”

Ashana’s heart raced, the knife was still in her hands, which were behind her back; if Bushwacker forced her to wash or hold a cup of soup, he’d discover the knife and it’d be a completely different story.  She had to find a way to conceal the weapon.

“I will wash first, before I eat,” she said, still feigning weakness.

“Suit yourself, the bucket of water is outside and soap too”

Ashana struggled to her feet very quickly; she didn’t want him to try to help her. “Will you remove the ropes?” she asked, hoping that he’d say no.

“No, you wash with the ropes and I will be watching just in case the rope gets slippery and came off.”

Ashana nodded and hopped after him towards the bucket, her fingers barely hanging unto the knife. Her heart pounded as she judged the distance that she needed to cover in order to get to the bucket and concluded that the knife would definitely slip out of her grip if she continued to hop towards the bucket.

“Can I stay here,” she begged in a very weak tone. “I am completely tired, I can’t go any farther.”

“What?” Bushwacker barked, quickly spinning around to look at her but she was already on her knees with her head so bowed it seemed her chin was resting on her chest. “Very well then, I’d get the bucket to you,” he said, and continued towards the bucket. Ashana immediately let the knife drop to the ground and quickly stood on it to conceal it.

“I’ll take that,” Bushwacker said taking off the wrapper that covered Ashana’s nakedness, which he then folded into a ball and tossed into the bush. “Here let me help you,” he continued, reaching for a cup in the bucket and splashing Ashana with water from it. “There’s soap to the bottom of the bucket, get it and wash yourself.”

Ashana nodded, Longstands had given her a very helpful tip without even knowing it; the soap would help her greatly, all she needed to do was soap up her hands and wrists properly and the rope on her wrists would slide off very easily. But he was right in front of her, watching her every move and this not only made her uncomfortable but prevented her from doing what she wanted.

“OK that should be good, at least better than before, so move it,” Bushwacker said after a few minutes, drying her off with a fresh towel, which he then wrapped across her chest afterwards. Ashana quickly squatted and retrieved the knife as he took the bucket away.