Mosana - Part XXVI
EPISODE 26
In all the times I’d been in her room to serve her, the gun had always been there. ALWAYS. But today of all days, it wasn’t. What were the odds that the gun, upon which my whole plan depended, should be absent from the wall? Before I had time to process all these thoughts running through my head amidst my rising panic, I heard a voice behind me.
‘Looking for this?’
I whirled around so fast, I almost fell. Only to see Madam Russell with the gun I wanted, pointed straight at me.
How could this happen? My plan was foolproof! There was no way she could have known.
It wasn’t hard to deduce that I had been betrayed. But by who?
While Madam Russell taunted me on my failed plan, my mind worked on the possible traitor. Even though Tricia knew of my desire to escape, she didn’t know how I was going to do that. She didn’t know I was going to go for the gun. Only two people knew of my endgame. Judy and Gabe. And I was willing to bet my life it wasn’t Judy. That girl would rather die at the hands of Madam Russell if we were caught than give us away before we had a chance to escape. It couldn’t possibly have been Judy.
Which left one other suspect: Gabe.
But how could Gabe have betrayed me? He wanted out as much as I did. Maybe even more than I did; he had a little sister he had to look out for, so it was possible he wanted twice as much freedom as I did. He wouldn’t tell on me.
Or would he?
As my brain struggled to figure out how Gabe was a part of this, Amy stepped in with Judy…
...also at gunpoint.
My heart rate spiked. Amy was home?! I saw her go through the gates myself on her way out!
She could have easily turned around and come back while everyone was distracted, my brain replied. But she had Judy with her! Which meant she knew exactly where the girl was going to be and had picked her up.
Oh, we had definitely been betrayed. I half-expected Gabe to show up too at gunpoint, but when Amy closed the door and roughly pushed Judy closer to me, my stomach dropped. Now Judy and I were on one side while Amy and her mother were on the other, shotgun and handgun pointed at us.
I didn’t think Gabe was coming. But I asked anyway. For Judy, who I was sure was also looking for an answer to all this.
‘Where’s Gabe?’ I asked, hoping I had not inadvertently implicated him in case Madam Russell didn’t know he was involved. But how else could she have known?
Madam Russell couldn’t resist the opportunity to rub it in my face and she told me, ‘Oh, I cut a deal with him and let him escape on one of the horses with his sister. Of course, it won’t be too long before I have the police catch up with him. There’s no way I’m letting him go when he planned to make a fool of me along with you!’
My worst fears confirmed, I looked at Judy and saw her fear, and how hard she was trying to put up a brave face. She hadn’t expected things to turn out this way, but something told me she would go down fighting.
‘Guess he didn’t trust you to get him out of here alive and came to me for a truce,’ Madam Russell continued. ‘He didn’t believe in the chances of all of you getting out of here. Too many cooks spoil the broth, you see. And that, my dear, is the mistake you made.’
I didn’t think the idiom she used fit the bill right then, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. I hung my head and struggled to come with something… anything to get Judy and I out of there. What lie could I tell? Gabe had obviously told her everything. Only the fool didn’t realise he was going to suffer the same fate as me too, once Madam Russell caught him. I wanted to ask her why he would do this, why he didn’t just talk it out with me, but it registered in my brain that she had already answered that question.
I reasoned: Gabe had never liked the idea of all of us escaping. He had always felt that it would give us away at the last minute and most likely hinder our escape. So if he couldn’t get me to take just him, his sister, Judy and maybe Tricia along, he was going to go himself. And to do that, he was going to have to detain me. In other words, report me.
Was I angry?
Yes.
But I had bigger fish to fry at that particular moment. Which consisted of Madam Russell, her daughter and their guns, which were still pointed at Judy and I.
‘Who else is with you?,’ Madam Russell asked.
I kept my mouth shut. Whether I told her or not, I wasn’t going to get out of this.
When she didn’t get an answer out of me, she tried another tactic. The same one her daughter had used on Flint when we had been caught together.
‘Do you know what happens to runaway slaves when they’re caught, Mosana?’
Madam Russell edged towards me slowly, the barrel of her gun now sloping towards the floor, away from my face. On instinct, my brain began to calculate the logistics of seizing that gun from her in comparison to the fact that Amy also had a gun of her own. I decided it would be next to impossible. Even though I was almost sure I had the strength to match Madam Russell, the gun in Amy’s hand was a huge disadvantage for me.
I didn’t answer her question, I just watched the gun.
This time, she didn’t need me to answer. She continued, ‘They are executed. But since you didn’t even succeed at trying, I will show you something worse. You will regret ever thinking of escaping.’
At that moment, the door burst open. It was Jerome.
Oh great, I thought.
He took in the whole scene with one sweeping glance and faced Madam Russell. ‘Uh, Gabe said you sent for me, ma’am.’
‘Ha! He tricked you, but I will deal with that fool soon enough. Since you’re here, you can tie them up with that rope she’s holding; I’m going to teach these ones a lesson.’
Jerome moved towards us and began to manoeuvre us towards the bedpost, seemingly to tie us up - the same position I had imagined tying him and Madam Russell up. What irony.
Then suddenly, he reached towards Amy and in one move, had her by the neck in a secure hold, with her gun in his hand. He used her body to block himself and kept her gun steadily pointing at her temple. If Madam Russell was crazy enough to take aim, there was a high probability she would take her daughter down with Jerome.
He was actually aiming at her. My God. What was happening?
‘Drop the gun, ma’am.’
‘What in the blazes are you doing?!’ Madam Russell shouted.
I had never heard Madam Russell cuss, and I had to look at her to confirm that the sound had come out of her. In her shock at what was unfolding, she had shifted her attention from Judy and me to Jerome who was holding her daughter ransom.
‘I suggest you do as I say, ma’am, or I will fire at your daughter.’
It was interesting to hear Jerome threaten Madam Russell with respect. He had to be the most polite criminal in the world. While I still didn’t understand what was going on, I secretly praised Jerome for the target he chose. If he had pointed the gun at Madam Russell, she would have called his bluff. He knew her weakness and he knew it well. As tough as she looked and acted, the beast had one chink in her armour.
Her daughter was all she had left. Without her, she would be barren, in addition to being a widow.
Jerome saw her hesitating, sizing him up, and he cocked the gun, its muzzle still aimed flat at Amy’s head.
‘I’ve done a lot of odd jobs, ma’am. I am not just a coachman. I will shoot your daughter. Last chance. Drop the gun.’
All this time, Jerome hadn’t said a word to us. Judy and I were by his side, watching the whole exchange. By now, I had already deduced that maybe Jerome was on our side. But how? He was white!
Could he be a secret abolitionist? He was hardly in any position to be helping the blacks in their fight for freedom. He wasn’t anybody important, and he didn’t look like he had any connections.
But at his command, the Mistress of the manor put her weapon on the floor. ‘Traitor,’ she hissed. That didn’t bother Jerome even a little bit, as he kept Amy locked in his left arm.
‘Get the gun,’ he commanded, to no one in particular. I moved swiftly and extracted the shotgun from where Madam Russell had dropped it on the floor. Then I stepped backwards and waited for the next instruction.
‘Go out the door.’ This time, the two of us moved. We went outside the room and kept the door wide open for Jerome to step through. He pushed Amy roughly back towards her mother, the gun still aiming at her. Then he walked slowly backwards.
Then the three of us turned and ran.
As we ran through the corridors, something kept bothering me. But I wasn’t too focused at that moment to figure out what it was. When it finally came to me, it was too late.
We should have tied them up.
Till today, I can’t imagine how it happened. It was like some freak accident. We had run all the way downstairs, on our way out the back, when I heard a door slam. Jerome had gone ahead of us, supposedly to get the horses ready. Suddenly I heard someone scream out my name. I heard a loud crack and turned quickly to see a flash of brown.
Judy.
She flew past me… or was it in front of me? Then I heard another loud crack, at which moment it registered in my brain that it was a gunshot, and it was similar to the one I had heard earlier before Judy fell. I saw Madam Russell go down and heard Amy scream behind her. Then I realised Judy was also on the floor as well.
And she wasn’t moving.
In all the times I’d been in her room to serve her, the gun had always been there. ALWAYS. But today of all days, it wasn’t. What were the odds that the gun, upon which my whole plan depended, should be absent from the wall? Before I had time to process all these thoughts running through my head amidst my rising panic, I heard a voice behind me.
‘Looking for this?’
I whirled around so fast, I almost fell. Only to see Madam Russell with the gun I wanted, pointed straight at me.
How could this happen? My plan was foolproof! There was no way she could have known.
It wasn’t hard to deduce that I had been betrayed. But by who?
While Madam Russell taunted me on my failed plan, my mind worked on the possible traitor. Even though Tricia knew of my desire to escape, she didn’t know how I was going to do that. She didn’t know I was going to go for the gun. Only two people knew of my endgame. Judy and Gabe. And I was willing to bet my life it wasn’t Judy. That girl would rather die at the hands of Madam Russell if we were caught than give us away before we had a chance to escape. It couldn’t possibly have been Judy.
Which left one other suspect: Gabe.
But how could Gabe have betrayed me? He wanted out as much as I did. Maybe even more than I did; he had a little sister he had to look out for, so it was possible he wanted twice as much freedom as I did. He wouldn’t tell on me.
Or would he?
As my brain struggled to figure out how Gabe was a part of this, Amy stepped in with Judy…
...also at gunpoint.
My heart rate spiked. Amy was home?! I saw her go through the gates myself on her way out!
She could have easily turned around and come back while everyone was distracted, my brain replied. But she had Judy with her! Which meant she knew exactly where the girl was going to be and had picked her up.
Oh, we had definitely been betrayed. I half-expected Gabe to show up too at gunpoint, but when Amy closed the door and roughly pushed Judy closer to me, my stomach dropped. Now Judy and I were on one side while Amy and her mother were on the other, shotgun and handgun pointed at us.
I didn’t think Gabe was coming. But I asked anyway. For Judy, who I was sure was also looking for an answer to all this.
‘Where’s Gabe?’ I asked, hoping I had not inadvertently implicated him in case Madam Russell didn’t know he was involved. But how else could she have known?
Madam Russell couldn’t resist the opportunity to rub it in my face and she told me, ‘Oh, I cut a deal with him and let him escape on one of the horses with his sister. Of course, it won’t be too long before I have the police catch up with him. There’s no way I’m letting him go when he planned to make a fool of me along with you!’
My worst fears confirmed, I looked at Judy and saw her fear, and how hard she was trying to put up a brave face. She hadn’t expected things to turn out this way, but something told me she would go down fighting.
‘Guess he didn’t trust you to get him out of here alive and came to me for a truce,’ Madam Russell continued. ‘He didn’t believe in the chances of all of you getting out of here. Too many cooks spoil the broth, you see. And that, my dear, is the mistake you made.’
I didn’t think the idiom she used fit the bill right then, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. I hung my head and struggled to come with something… anything to get Judy and I out of there. What lie could I tell? Gabe had obviously told her everything. Only the fool didn’t realise he was going to suffer the same fate as me too, once Madam Russell caught him. I wanted to ask her why he would do this, why he didn’t just talk it out with me, but it registered in my brain that she had already answered that question.
I reasoned: Gabe had never liked the idea of all of us escaping. He had always felt that it would give us away at the last minute and most likely hinder our escape. So if he couldn’t get me to take just him, his sister, Judy and maybe Tricia along, he was going to go himself. And to do that, he was going to have to detain me. In other words, report me.
Was I angry?
Yes.
But I had bigger fish to fry at that particular moment. Which consisted of Madam Russell, her daughter and their guns, which were still pointed at Judy and I.
‘Who else is with you?,’ Madam Russell asked.
I kept my mouth shut. Whether I told her or not, I wasn’t going to get out of this.
When she didn’t get an answer out of me, she tried another tactic. The same one her daughter had used on Flint when we had been caught together.
‘Do you know what happens to runaway slaves when they’re caught, Mosana?’
Madam Russell edged towards me slowly, the barrel of her gun now sloping towards the floor, away from my face. On instinct, my brain began to calculate the logistics of seizing that gun from her in comparison to the fact that Amy also had a gun of her own. I decided it would be next to impossible. Even though I was almost sure I had the strength to match Madam Russell, the gun in Amy’s hand was a huge disadvantage for me.
I didn’t answer her question, I just watched the gun.
This time, she didn’t need me to answer. She continued, ‘They are executed. But since you didn’t even succeed at trying, I will show you something worse. You will regret ever thinking of escaping.’
At that moment, the door burst open. It was Jerome.
Oh great, I thought.
He took in the whole scene with one sweeping glance and faced Madam Russell. ‘Uh, Gabe said you sent for me, ma’am.’
‘Ha! He tricked you, but I will deal with that fool soon enough. Since you’re here, you can tie them up with that rope she’s holding; I’m going to teach these ones a lesson.’
Jerome moved towards us and began to manoeuvre us towards the bedpost, seemingly to tie us up - the same position I had imagined tying him and Madam Russell up. What irony.
Then suddenly, he reached towards Amy and in one move, had her by the neck in a secure hold, with her gun in his hand. He used her body to block himself and kept her gun steadily pointing at her temple. If Madam Russell was crazy enough to take aim, there was a high probability she would take her daughter down with Jerome.
He was actually aiming at her. My God. What was happening?
‘Drop the gun, ma’am.’
‘What in the blazes are you doing?!’ Madam Russell shouted.
I had never heard Madam Russell cuss, and I had to look at her to confirm that the sound had come out of her. In her shock at what was unfolding, she had shifted her attention from Judy and me to Jerome who was holding her daughter ransom.
‘I suggest you do as I say, ma’am, or I will fire at your daughter.’
It was interesting to hear Jerome threaten Madam Russell with respect. He had to be the most polite criminal in the world. While I still didn’t understand what was going on, I secretly praised Jerome for the target he chose. If he had pointed the gun at Madam Russell, she would have called his bluff. He knew her weakness and he knew it well. As tough as she looked and acted, the beast had one chink in her armour.
Her daughter was all she had left. Without her, she would be barren, in addition to being a widow.
Jerome saw her hesitating, sizing him up, and he cocked the gun, its muzzle still aimed flat at Amy’s head.
‘I’ve done a lot of odd jobs, ma’am. I am not just a coachman. I will shoot your daughter. Last chance. Drop the gun.’
All this time, Jerome hadn’t said a word to us. Judy and I were by his side, watching the whole exchange. By now, I had already deduced that maybe Jerome was on our side. But how? He was white!
Could he be a secret abolitionist? He was hardly in any position to be helping the blacks in their fight for freedom. He wasn’t anybody important, and he didn’t look like he had any connections.
But at his command, the Mistress of the manor put her weapon on the floor. ‘Traitor,’ she hissed. That didn’t bother Jerome even a little bit, as he kept Amy locked in his left arm.
‘Get the gun,’ he commanded, to no one in particular. I moved swiftly and extracted the shotgun from where Madam Russell had dropped it on the floor. Then I stepped backwards and waited for the next instruction.
‘Go out the door.’ This time, the two of us moved. We went outside the room and kept the door wide open for Jerome to step through. He pushed Amy roughly back towards her mother, the gun still aiming at her. Then he walked slowly backwards.
Then the three of us turned and ran.
As we ran through the corridors, something kept bothering me. But I wasn’t too focused at that moment to figure out what it was. When it finally came to me, it was too late.
We should have tied them up.
Till today, I can’t imagine how it happened. It was like some freak accident. We had run all the way downstairs, on our way out the back, when I heard a door slam. Jerome had gone ahead of us, supposedly to get the horses ready. Suddenly I heard someone scream out my name. I heard a loud crack and turned quickly to see a flash of brown.
Judy.
She flew past me… or was it in front of me? Then I heard another loud crack, at which moment it registered in my brain that it was a gunshot, and it was similar to the one I had heard earlier before Judy fell. I saw Madam Russell go down and heard Amy scream behind her. Then I realised Judy was also on the floor as well.
And she wasn’t moving.
_______________________________________
Hey you!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
That's all I have to say.
Bye!
xoxo,
Ava.
Omo, E be many things
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