EVENTUALLY THE HOUSE is transformed into a pile of ash and the cotton field is totally blackened. The plantation is virtually unrecognisable.
Amos and I wander around the estate, exploring the destruction caused by the fire. Only four out of thirty slave cabins remain undamaged. People walk aimlessly through the ash, their faces scarred by fear and devastation. There is no sign of Julia or her family.
I look around for Hannah and Beckey.
"Is Hannah's Mama alright?" I ask Amos.
"Yeah, some a the others took her to the stream after you got her out a the cabin. I don't knows where she is now."
"She gone live then?"
Amos nods. "I thinks so."
"An' Hannah?"
"I ain't seen her. She's probably wid her Mama."
"An' Beckey?"
Amos shrugs.
"They gotta be here somewhere," I say.
We pass Jack and his Papa. They're collecting vegetables from the truck patches of the four cabins still intact.
"You wants help?" Amos asks.
"Yeah, pick all a the vegetables, everythin' you can fin'. An' don't throw nothin' away, not even if its rotten," Jack's Papa says. "Pompey's bringin' baskets."
As soon as he finishes speaking, a man arrives with three baskets and a wooden bucket. He's extremely tall with not a single hair on his head.
"They's all I could fin'," he says sadly, dropping the baskets and bucket at our feet. "The rest was burned I thinks."
"That's ok," Jack's Papa says. "We gotta use what we has. Start fillin' 'em up, Jack." He tosses a basket to his son who places it on the ground and begins to pile carrots and potatoes into it.
"Cass, go an' help Pompey wid the truck patch thattaway," Jack's Papa tells me.
I follow the tall man to the garden in front of the nearest cabin. We bend down to tug vegetables out of the Earth, chucking them into a basket between us.
"You's seen Noah?" I ask Pompey.
"No, ain't seen 'im or 'is family all day."
"You thinks they gone?"
"Gone?"
"Escaped, I means."
Pompey stops pulling carrots up from the ground and stares at me. I watch his lips curl. His eyelids crinkle. Then he starts to giggle. He laughs and laughs and laughs until he chokes.
I lift my hand to pat his back but he waves me away. He wipes tears from his eyes.
"Escaped?" He stutters, "You thinks they's escaped?"
"Why not?" I say, feeling suddenly very defiant. My question hurls Pompey into a new world of laughter.
"'Cause we slaves is their slaves an' they ain't gone jus' leave us here!" He says. "They needs us to work for 'em. Why would they jus' go?" He starts to chuckle again but I don't hear his laughter.
I frown at the ground. When I raise my eyes, Pompey is looking at me like I'm stupid. And maybe I am, but maybe I'm not.
A couple weeks ago, the idea of Noah's family leaving the Planation would have seemed crazy, but now, at this moment when I can see the uniformed men running wildly around the field and behind them, the smoking pile of ash that used to be a house, I'm not so sure the idea is crazy at all.
It seems that while the lives of we slaves are coming together, the lives of the white men are falling apart.
By midday we have cleared the entire truck patches of vegetables from all four cabin gardens. Amos and I help the others haul the baskets inside one of the cabins.
Someone taps my shoulder. Beckey. She beckons to me to follow her. Her lips are pressed together. Tears swim in her eyes.
"What is it?" I say, alarmed.
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Cass. I'm sorry."
I look behind me at Amos. He shrugs. He stays close by me as I hurry after Beckey, with his fingers curled around mine.
We stop outside a heap of ash, the remains of a cabin.
"I don't understand," I say.
Beckey begins to cry. "It's Agnes's," she sobs, "It's where I were bringin' alla you things. I'm so sorry." She sinks to her knees in the dirt and weeps into her dress.
"I don't understand," I say again, and I'm not sure who I'm talking to.
Then it dawns on me all at once. My clothes, my food, my things.
I walk into the ash. It's still hot. It's burning my skin.
"Cass,, get outta there!" Amos shouts.
I wade deeper into the mess. I feel around the area with my feet. The ash flows around me like water. Nothing. I feel nothing. My feet continue to move, and I concentrate, like I'm expecting to hit something hard or soft any moment now, something other than ash.
Someone grabs hold of me and without warning I'm moving backwards. My feet sweep the ash to the side as I am dragged away.
I sit at the edge of the pond of ash and sift through the tiny grey specks with my fingers. I'll find nothing. I know that I'll find nothing. Everything I had has been burnt. Gone. I touch the metal piece on the string of my necklace. Except the alligator, I think. I still have the alligator. And the paper in my pocket. And the clothes on my back.
I stand up. Amos's hands rest on my hips, rough against the skin under my shirt, holding me steady. His lips kiss the nape of my neck.
And Amos. I still have Amos.
His hand fits perfectly in mine.
"I'm sorry," Beckey cries. I move away from Amos and crouch down beside her. I wrap my skinny arm around her shoulders.
"It's okay," I say.
"No it ain't," she sniffs. "It were everythin' you had."
"It were everythin' you had too."
"But I didn't have much," she says.
"Nor did I," I tell her.
"An' I ain't ever had anythin'," Amos says.
"For real?" Beckey asks. "Nothin' a your Mama or Papa's?" She sounds as shocked as I felt when I first heard that Amos had nothing at all. Few slaves have lots of things, but nothing is unheard of. Before, I always thought that everyone had something.
"I never knew my Papa," Amos explains. "An' Mama died long time ago. Don't know what happened to her things."
"Sorry," says Beckey quietly.
"That's okay. I don't need nothin' anyway," Amos says.
I help Beckey to her feet. She embraces me, holding my head against her bosom.
Her fingers find my necklace and she pulls it over my head. It looks tiny and insignificant in her dirt-caked hand.
She squints at it as she turns it over in her palm.
"It were my Mama's," I say.
Her big lips spread into a smile.
"It's real beautiful." She lowers it carefully over my head.
"An' I still got the paper right here in my pocket," I say. "See? I still got things."
"Okay."
YOU ARE READING
Mind Of A Slave
Historical Fiction"The life we're living is the easiest of the difficult." Cass Jinney Jackson is a Louisianan slave girl. She has recently moved to a plantation near the woods, but her life there is far from ordinary. Growing up as the civil war rages on, she finds...
