Mosana - Part XXIX

EPISODE 29

Our first encounter with danger was with a group of men riding back from town. I initially thought they were on their way back from church, but I didn’t notice any women or children with them. Men didn’t go to church alone. In the end, I decided they might have just been passing through town.

There were five men on horses, and as soon as they came close, I grew stiff. They hailed Jerome who replied their greeting. Then they suddenly stopped and began to talk to Jerome. I bowed my head, acting the part of a dejected slave and listened to their conversation.

‘You on your way to the auction, sir?’ one of them asked.

‘Yessir,’ Jerome answered cheerily.

The man who had spoken looked quizzically at Jerome, then at the rest of us.

‘But the auction’s closed on Sunday,’ the man pointed out.

Shit!

‘I know that,’ Jerome replied without missing a beat. ‘But I intend to camp out there till tomorrow so I can get my slaves in a good view. My missus wants them sold quickly so I can be home early on Monday.’

The men continued to hover. ‘But that’s a lot of slaves. You must be quite wealthy.’

‘Oh we get along. But we’re in a rough patch now. Crops ain’t what they used to be, so we need the money off of these slaves.’

When the men still didn’t move, Jerome added. ‘Still got leftovers back home of course. But these ones need to go.’

‘Well good luck to you,’ said the man finally.

‘Thank you,’ Jerome answered, and drove away.

We kept our heads down for a good distance until we could no longer see the men. It was then I could breathe.

Harvey almost got us into trouble when he was seen eating by a passer-by. Of course, most of us had packed food items before leaving the Manor which were now hidden in small sacks and cloth bags beneath our feet in the cart.

The passer-by who had seen Harvey eating hollered at Jerome. ‘Oy! Thought you were on your way to the auction, my good man?’

Jerome shouted back without breaking his easy pace. ‘Yes sir, that’s right.’

‘Well, it looks like one of yer slaves here is having a pleasure ride!’

At that, Jerome stopped the horses and got down from his. As he walked towards the passer-by, he asked, ‘Which one of ‘em?’, and the passer-by pointed to Harvey, who had kept his snack away and was sitting stiffer than a Greek sculpture. I turned to catch the look on Jerome’s face as he passed me. He would have to do something to Harvey in order to alleviate suspicions and it would be unpleasant.

Jerome walked slowly to where Harvey was in the third cart and faced him.

‘What were you doin’?’ he asked.

The passer-by answered for him. ‘He was eating, is what he was doing.’

‘You were eating?’ Jerome said to Harvey, who remained stiff with his eyes on the former.

‘I was hungry, sir.’ Harvey replied.

The passer-by laughed. ‘These slaves sure are something. Thick-headed, if you ask me. On their way to being sold, and the only thing they can think about is food!’

I wanted to scream, “Well nobody asked you!”, but I kept my mouth shut. I also wanted to choke the man, but I kept my hands to myself. There were so many ways this could go wrong.

I felt Jerome stall. It felt like he wished the passer-by would continue on his way and leave us alone, but it seemed the man wanted to see how Jerome would take care of things. Almost like he wanted to supervise it himself.

‘You stole from me?’ Jerome asked Harvey again.

And again, the damn passer-by replied, ‘Sure did. What you expect? That’s all they know how to do, thieving and lying.’

Oh for God’s sake, who the hell was this man? Passers-by were supposed to pass by. Why didn’t this man just pass the hell by?!

‘Well, I’m going to have to discipline you now,’ Jerome said. He had gotten the hint that this man wasn’t going to leave us alone until he had punished Harvey.

I saw the silent understanding pass between Jerome and Harvey. I saw the slight nod that Harvey gave to show that it was okay. They both understood this had to be done.

Then as if on cue, Jerome swung his arm and hit Harvey on the side of his face. From where I sat, I noticed that the blow wasn’t hard enough to put Harvey on the ground, but the latter went down like he had been hit by a truck. I could tell that Jerome was holding out on Harvey. He didn’t want to strike him too hard, and at the same time, he knew he had to look angry enough to the passer-by to avoid suspicion.

He hit Harvey again and began to yell at him, trying to sound angry at being “stolen from”. Harvey lay on the ground, just taking the hits without saying a word. He could take it, I guess. Years of being hit made you grow thicker skin.

Finally, the beating stopped and Jerome thanked the other man for pointing out Harvey’s “foolishness” to him. He promised to keep a better eye out on “these filthy negroes” and keep them in line.

We separated from the passer-by and all was quiet. We rode in silence for a long while before Jerome stopped the horses again. He got down from his horse and went to Harvey in his cart.

‘I’m sorry, man.’

I watched the two men hold each other’s gazes for a few seconds before a smile slowly spread on Harvey’s face.

‘It’s a’ight,’ he said in his familiar drawl. ‘You hit like a woman anyway.’

At that, they both laughed along with the rest of us, and it was settled.

By this time, we were far away from the Manor, and I think far away from Virginia. But I didn’t know the state we were in. Sometimes Jerome or Tricia could guess from the vegetation around, but most of the time we were clueless. We travelled through miles and miles of countryside, avoiding the towns. Sometimes we got strange looks from country people, especially because of our number. It was easy to see that we were slaves. But as long as no one asked us questions, we continued on our way without sparing them a second glance.

Jerome warned us not to make eye contact with anyone, and to keep our heads down at all times in the presence of people. At one point, we considered stealing clothes so we could look like normal, free men. But Jerome pointed out the problem with that: if we were stopped and asked for our freedom papers, we would be in trouble. Because we had none. So we decided to stick with the slave act.

We travelled for days, camping out in abandoned barns and forest sheds. We begged to sleep in chapels after Jerome or Tricia had confirmed that the residing reverend was black. Sometimes we slept in the open, with someone keeping watch. We ate nothing but the rations we took along. We didn’t dare go into town to scrounge for food.

Soon, we came upon slave bounty posters. Jerome went into town one day to get us some food and came back with a flyer with our exact descriptions. Someone had put out papers with rewards for catching an entire group of runaway slaves. There was only one group of 24 runaway slaves I knew.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was up. We had a bounty on our heads now.

The Russells were looking for us.

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Hey you!

I'm so sorry I couldn't post within the week. I've been shit busy, and right now I feel ill. I didn't even go to church today so I could get in a few hours on sleep. 

Hope this was long enough.

Till later,

xoxo,

Ava.