The Seige Of Dragonard Hill Part 12

Stumbling along the fern-festooned paths, Imogen decided that they obviously alternated their places of rendezvous. She now refrained from shouting out into the I49.

night for Belladonna, instead muttering to herself how she would surprise them. Her boots tripped over roots snaking across the path. The whip trailed behind her, its tip gathering leaves and dried gra.s.s and catching in the entanglement of underbrush.

Emerging at the far end of the path, Imogen stood facing the awkward skyline of Town, the tall-legged houses lining the two dirt streets and silhouetted against the starry darkness of night.

They've found themselves a new place here, Imogen told herself. The pair of them are tired of humping on the dirt like dogs and they've found themselves a new place.

Narrowing her eyes as she wondered where her father might take Belladonna for a night of abandoned lovemaking, Imogen's eyes settled on the small, steep-roofed cabin built at the crossroads.

The chapel! The old chapel! That's where they are, she told herself. She knew n.o.body used that old place-of-wor-s.h.i.+p any longer. And finis.h.i.+ng the whisky with one gulp, she tossed the brown jug into the bushes; it landed with a loud clatter as Imogen moved toward the wooden front door of the chapel.

Convinced now in her alcoholic stupor that her father and Belladonna were inside the chapel, Imogen first considered the idea of standing on the road and demanding in loud shouts that they come outside to receive their punishment in front of all the black slaves in Town. She was intent now to inflict the lash on both of them. She retained no sense of balance. She ruled this land now in her mind. She held the whip. She did not have to wait for anyone to bestow further power upon her. She possessed it all.

Deciding that she would rather catch them in the act, she stumbled up to the door and, kicking it open with one booted foot, she flailed the whip into the darkness. She screamed. 'Come out, you sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes! Come out or I'll come in there and strip the hide off both your bare a.s.ses!'

A circle of black people sat around a small tallow candle in the middle of the chapel floor. They looked in astonishment at Imogen standing in the doorway. Malou crouched in the centre of the circle of black men and women.

Surprised as the black people, Imogen drunkenly de- I50.

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manded, 'What you doing here, you black. . . sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes?'

The tallow candle was quickly snuffed. The people rolled back into the shadows. But one Negro, a man who had worked alongside Imogen today in the timberland, saw her inebriated condition. He moved toward her, generously offering, 'You looks like you needs some help, Miss Imogen, Mam/ 'I need no... help!' she slurred, pus.h.i.+ng his arm away from her. She stumbled farther into the room, saying, 'This is a meeting. . . . You n.i.g.g.e.rs are having a secret meeting!' She snapped her whip into the near darkness of the chapel, repeating, 'A secret meeting!'

The sound of toppling benches, quick gasps, and the flailing whip suddenly spread through the chapel. Imogen drunkenly pursued any figure whom she saw move in the shadows in an attempt to escape her. She snapped the whip against the floor. She occasionally landed a strike on a black man or woman; she raised back her arm to strike again with the bullwhip.

Her mind was now blurred with reality and her original intent; she ranted one moment at the Negroes for holding a meeting which was forbidden to them, and, in the next moment, she called abusive names to Belladonna and her father whom she had expected to find here. The black people who had come to the chapel to listen to Malou now had all managed to escape out the front door as Imogen stumbled around and around in the chapel, knocking over more benches, snapping her leather bullwhip in the darkness, profaning both Belladonna and her father.

'Imogen!'

The thunderous voice stopped her She turned and squinted her eyes toward the door behind her. She saw the outline of a man standing in the doorway. She lowered the whip in one hand. She stared at the door, asking, 'Who you?'

'Imogen, you are drunk. You are disgusting.'

'Who you?' she asked in a louder voice.

'You know we don't whip people here!' Peter Abdee stepped forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the bullwhip from his daughter's hand.

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Momentarily staring at him, Imogen then threw back her head and laughed. She said. 'We don't whip our. . . people! h.e.l.l no! We just. . . screw them!'

The flat of Peter's hand struck Imogen's cheek. She staggered back from the blow. She caught herself against a wooden post, muttering, 'You . . . b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

Tm not going to take any abuse from you. Not even when you're drunk.'

'You're not ordering me around like a wench. You're talking to ... me! To ... me!' she said, thumbing her chest. 'Who do you think runs this place? Me!'

'Not any more.'

The words took her by surprise. She asked in a meek, almost childlike voice, 'What you say?'

'Not any more,' he repeated. 'From this night onwards, Imogen Abdee, you are no longer the overseer of Dragon-ard Hill. You're just one more of my daughters. And a rather disgraceful one at that. Let me tell you this, too, Imogen. If you try to go against my word I will personally drive you out of your house and off this land. There is no excuse for conduct like I've seen tonight. None!'

He then turned and left her, walking away from the chapel as Imogen shouted after him, 'You son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h. You p.u.s.s.y-mouth! Who wants to do your filthy work anyway? Not me! Take it! Take all of it! Take all of it! I'll see you dead and her, too!'

Peter walked angrily back to the main house. He had left the house shortly after supper for a solitary stroll to reconsider the idea which had occurred earlier today. In thinking today about Belladonna, he had remembered that Posey was without Fat Boy to help him in the kitchen and he had thought that Belladonna might a.s.sume her long since given-up post as cook's helper. Belladonna had been in the kitchen all day today-and evening-with Posey except for the time she had taken a pot of stew down to the old house for Imogen. Peter had been strolling alone after supper, wondering about the wisdom of keeping Belladonna so close to his bedroom. He knew that such an arrangement would keep her away from Imogen and a s.e.xual I52.

arrangement she no longer enjoyed. But he wondered what this nearness to him would accomplish. Had that been an incorrect choice to make for both of them? But all these thoughts were now gone from his brain as he stormed back to the main house. He was determined that Imogen should not keep her post as overseer at Dragonard Hi!!. He remembered the days when the kind-hearted black man, Nero, had held that position here and it was then that he recalled the idle prattle which Vicky had recently told him-that the young man, Lloy, lived nearby in the farm for free Negroes called Treetop House.

Slowing on the path, Peter thought about giving the position of overseer again to a black man. A Negro had done the job before and performed his work we!!. Excited by this idea, Peter foresaw that-yes-instead of having a black slave act as overseer he would pay a wage to a free Negro. Why not? He thought about the objections which certain white people in the neighbourhood might raise about such an innovative idea. But he knew he could cope with narrow-minded critics. He not only would be paying a wage to a Negro-elevating at least one of them to a position of paid employment-but he also would be mending old ties with someone who was connected to him by blood.

The more that Peter thought about the idea the more excited he became about Lloy replacing Imogen as the overseer of Dragonard Hill.

Malou crept from house to house in Town in the late hours of that same night, shaking the pole ladders which led up to each of the tall-legged houses in which she knew she had followers. When a head appeared at the door in , answer to her rattling signal, she whispered, 'Have no fear, brother. Our meetings continue. We'll find a new place of wors.h.i.+p. The master is more worried about his own blood than us.' She made a sign-of-a-cross to them with one hand and proceeded to the next tall-legged house with her message of hope, to have faith in themselves, that whips were not to be feared, that not even fire could destroy their I53.

spirits. Fire had driven her out of the hougan s sacred hut many years ago in Africa and she had learned only more truths about the G.o.ds, the spirits, the saints, the crucifix, all the black ancestors in the sky.

Chapter Twelve.

A CLUB WITH NO NAME.

No shortage of hospitaiity awaited Veronica in her spontaneous visitation to farms and villages lying to the north of Dragonard Hill. Having originally planned to go no farther than the Mississippi border in her excursions, she had found herself approaching the stateline of Tennessee by the end of her first week away from home. Arkansas had only been considered a state by the United States of America this year-I836-and, in the throes of the excitement of travel, Veronica even momentarily entertained the notion of travelling to the northwest in that direction. But the people whose names Royal had sent her from Boston to visit all politely dissuaded her from such an idea, urging her instead to pay only calls on farms or towns which lay toward the northeast.

The Duprees. The Breakwaters. The Lewises. The Sells. Veronica visited all the families listed in the letter which Royal had sent her, the letter which he had intimated that she destroy after reading. Veronica received names of new hosts at each household upon which she called, being promised a warm reception at her next stop if she again explained who had sent her and the two black companions with whom she was travelling.

Maybelle and Ham proved to be excellent companions for Veronica. They had both seemed shy, seldom speaking, on their first day away from Dragonard Hill. Veronica suggested to Ham to stop the wagon at the small town of I55.

Keybury on their first afternoon; she had timidly knocked on the door of a small white cottage, knowing only that she would announce herself as 'Mrs Royal Selby from Boston' and that her husband had suggested that she visit them during her stay here in the South.

The name of that first family in Keybury was Westcott. Mister Westcott was a lanky man with bushy red sideburns. Mrs Westcott was equally tall and equally as insistent that Veronica, Maybelle, and Ham stay with them for the night. Veronica was as surprised as Maybelle and Ham when the Westcotts firmly insisted that they all-Ham and Maybelle included-sit at the same table in the kitchen to eat their supper. Mister Westcott said grace before the meal and, by the time that Mrs Westcott served a cherry cobbler for dessert, everyone-Maybelle and Ham included-were exchanging stories about planting, the new people coming to this region, settlers moving west to the Oregon Territory, The Westcotts ignored the fact that Maybelle and Ham were not familiar with the table manners followed in a white household; Mrs Westcott ate a chicken leg with her fingers, licking the grease from her thumb and making a joke about food often tasting so much better when you didn't have to use a fork.

Maybelle and Ham quickly learned the smattering of etiquette needed to live under the same roof as white people. Maybelle said to Veronica the next day in the wagon, 'You know, Miss Veronica, I never sleeps on white cotton sheets before.'

'Did you like it?' Veronica asked.

'I just don't want to get spoiled!' Maybelle laughed.

Veronica examined the straw hamper of food which Mrs Westcott had prepared for them and, seeing a plentiful amount of cold meats, pickles, freshly baked bread, she asked Ham to look for a spot where they could have a picnic by the side of the road.

Thus, Veronica, Ham, and Maybelle progressed from Keybury, to Haddleytown, to Rockdale, to the Pointers' farm near Hononga Falls, calling upon one family after another who welcomed them into their homes; they were all comfortably-living but not ostentatiously prosperous people who refrained from questioning Veronica about her personal life, nor did they question Maybelle's and Ham's I56.

relations.h.i.+p to Veronica's family, only extending hospitality like members of a club with no particular name once that Veronica announced she was the wife of Royal Selby of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts.Ham was the first to mention the subject of Abolitionists. He held the team of chestnut mares at a neat trot on their travels this afternoon south from Horton on the second day of their return trip home to Dragonard Hill.

He said, 'If I didn't see no slaves at some of them places we visited, Miss Veronica, I would swear we've been calling on slave-runners. Them folks who white folks around here call that Underground Railway."

Maybelle sat alongside Ham in the front seat of the wagon. She slapped him on the shoulder, saying, 'Sharne on you, man. What you thinking Miss Veronica getting us mixed up in? Shame on you!'

Veronica rode in the seat behind Ham and Maybelle. She had been watching them enjoying the summer warmth, riding side-by-side like any ordinary man and wife.

She called, 'I know as little about Abolitionists as you do, Ham. It's no secret that I'm married to a man whose skin is darker than my own. We have three children. Maybe some people would call me an Abolitionist. Royal and I live in the North. Our children aren't slaves. But to put your mind at ease, not one of the kind people who we've visited mentioned even a... peep about slave-running or railways under or over the ground!'

'Don't mind him,' Maybelle said, leaning back to hand Veronica a Sap robe. She warned, 'You watch yourself, Miss Veronica. The weather seems warm but I see a few clouds up ahead. We could be heading into a storm.'

Enjoying the fresh air herself, Veronica said, 'We can always take shelter tinder a tree. Mister Ruley said that we'd be pa.s.sing through a thick forest before we come to Reverend Machim's home.'

Ham called, 'Do you knows anything about this Reverend Machim?'

'No. Nothing except that Mrs Ruley said that the Reverend would be pleased to have our company.'

I57.

Maybelle joked, 'This man here is just wondering if he's going to have fancy decorations on his bedsheets tonight. That's what. He's getting so spoiled with all this high living that I don't know what I'm going to do with him once I get him back home. The only high living there is our house built on ... legs!' She laughed at her joke.

Although the prospect of returning to Dragonard Hill excited Veronica, she had been thinking about what returning to the plantation would do to Maybelle and Ham. She hoped to find another letter from Royal waiting for her, some news of her children, perhaps even the name of the mysterious man who was supposed to contact her about Royal's puzzling business. She wondered, though, how Ham and Maybelle would adjust to living in the plantation slavequarter again, sleeping on a straw pallet on a board floor. She somehow thought that bringing them on this trip with her had been wrong, that they had tasted a way of life which they would never again enjoy.

'Looks like we got visitors up ahead,' Ham said, slowing the horses.

Veronica sat forward in her seat and, reaching for her purse where she kept their doc.u.ments, she said, 'We have no need to worry. Just keep driving, Ham. Just keep-'

She stopped. She looked alongside the wagon. She saw one horseman, then a second riding alongside them. She immediately recognized these riders-as well as the three men blocking their pa.s.sage on the road-as belonging to a local element called 'red neck farmers', the men who also volunteered their services to be slave-patrollers on the public roads.

The first rider called from alongside the wagon, 'Where you headed, young lady?'

Veronica answered, 'My name is-' She hesitated. She had just been speaking that it was no secret that she had married a black man and moved North. Why chance mentioning her married name to these men who might have heard about Royal? She decided to use her father's name. She knew that he was well-known and respected. 'My name is Abdee. These are two of our people. I have been visiting friends.'

'Abdee? From Dragonard Hill?'

'Yes,' Vernoica said firmly to the patroller. 'That is where I58.

we are headed now. We plan to stop the night in the next town.' She reached again for her purse, saying, 'If you care to examine our papers-'

The rider was not listening. He raised his head and called to a rider up ahead, a dark and swarthy young farmer who was sitting on his horse with two older men astride their horses on either side of him.

'Hey, Billy! Here's another Abdee woman for you. Do you think you can handle her like the last one?'

Maybelle turned quickly on the seat to glance at Veronica. But shaking her head, Veronica reached deeper into her purse. She gripped the small pistol which her father had given her as protection on this journey.

The darkly featured farmer now galloped toward the wagon and, smiling as he saw Veronica setting in the back seat, he asked, 'You have a sister living at Dragonard Hill?'

'I do not understand such a question. I told you who I am. I have papers to prove all our ident.i.ties. If there are no further questions, please let us pa.s.s.'

*Oh, you're a feisty one! Well, I always say, if there's one b.i.t.c.h in a litter, dig around the ma's t.i.ts and you'll find another.' He leaned from his horse to grab Veronica's arm.

Quickly withdrawing the pistol from her purse, Veronica threatened, 'If you make one more move I'll. . . shoot you..."

'Ah, a real feisty one, you are! Well, you're messing with the wrong man, lady. Your sis showed me how hot you Dragonard ladies are under all your fine manners and high-faluting ideas. I ain't been able to think of nothing else but getting me more of the Abdee poontang ever since I sunk my p.e.c.k.e.r into your sis.' He shouted to his companions, calling, "Come on, boys.' The other patrollers had already raised their long-guns.

Veronica saw that her weapon was outnumbered. She murmured to Ham and Maybelle, 'Don't do a thing. They'll kill us as soon as look at us. Don't... do ... a ... thing.'

The two other patrollers rode quickly from down the public road and, whilst one steadied the horse team, the other held his long-gun on Ham and Maybelle. The young patroller named Billy dismounted from his horse and, grabbing for Veronica's hand, he said, 'Your sis got me into the I59.

bushes. But I still have nettles in niy hair. I think I'm going to take you right here smack in the middle of the road.'

Veronica said in a quavering voice, 'You'll never get away with this.'

Pulling her toward him, he grinned at her and asked, 'What you like to hear, honey? You like dirty talk, too? You like to be called "b.i.t.c.h" and "wh.o.r.e" and "c.u.n.t"? Do you like to beg for p.e.c.k.e.r, too, just like your sis does?'

One of the patrollers called from his horse, 'Billy, it ain't fair you having all the fun again. What about us taking this n.i.g.g.e.r wench?'

'Leave her be,' answered Billy. 'You can always get black tail. But white poontang-fine, well-brought-up white meat. We're all going to get a taste of that now.'

He ripped at the pearl b.u.t.tons on Veronica's dress, saying, 'Let's get a look at your t.i.tties, sister.'

A surge of anger suddenly replaced Veronica's fear. She did not know that she was capable of physically fighting for her honour in a situation as uncouth as this but she slapped at the patroller's hands, saying, 'Don't touch me ... tras.h.!.+'

He slapped back at her. She fell to the ground. He stood towering over her, saying in a deeper voice, I didn't plan on playing dirty, sister. But you've pushed me. You've pushed me too far.' He than began to unb.u.t.ton the fly of his trousers, saying, 'Now I'm going to show you what your sis got. But I'm going to give you more. I'm going to wetten you up a bit first, Miss High-and-Mighty. I'm going to cool down that hot temper of yours. You can go home and tell this to your sister-'

He held his p.e.n.i.s in his hand. It was not hard but, large in its softness, he rested it on the middle finger of one hand and a stream of urine suddenly gushed forth.

Veronica rolled to one side. She missed the degradation of his action. But another patroller jumped from his horse to grab her whilst Billy shouted, 'Hold the b.i.t.c.h! Hold her while I cool her down! I want to see her drinking my p.i.s.s!'

The sudden volley of gun shots sounded in the distance in front of them. The patrollers quickly looked in the direction of the sound.

Bill muttered, 's.h.i.+t!' The second patroller moved toward his horse and shouted, 'We better get out of here. I don't know who that is but I ain't staying to find out.'

I60.

The third patroller had already lowered the grip on the horse team and was galloping down the road.

Ham jumped from the wagon in the^ dust left by the five patrollers' horses. He lifted Veronica in his arms and, handing her quaking body to Maybelle, he jumped onto the seat alongside her. He snapped the reins of the horses and the wagon leapt forward into the opposite direction from which the patrollers had fled.

A bend lay ahead of them in the road and, as Ham hurdled toward it, a small buggy turned the bend. He veered his team to miss the buggy but one wheel cracked against a granite boulder on the roadside.

A white-haired man sat in the buggy and, doffing his black flat-brimmed hat, he announced, 'Reverend Machim.'

'Reverend Machim!' Veronica gasped, lifting herself from Maybelle's protective grasp. 'We were on our way to see you . . . We were just stopped by patrollers... It was awful. . . Horrible ... I didn't think ..."

The apple-cheeked man looked at the rents on Veronica's dress and, then glancing down the road into the direction in which the patrollers had ridden, he said, 'There are more than one set of patrollers who cover this area. One is very much in evidence. As you yourself saw. But the others ..."

Reverend Machim smiled, suggesting, 'Let us just call the second group of patrollers who keep to the trees, let us just call them "the hand of the lord" and leave the matter at that. Come now. Ride with me. We'll send someone back to mend your wheel.'