Princess Ces'alena (54 page)

“It’s okay…Kayleen will be back. You are not so bad off that I cannot leave you alone. She’s returning with clothing for you and a salve from Ma’ Nicey for your bruises.” She announced rising from the floor to leave.

“At least stay with me until - ummm- Kay comes back.”

“It’s Kayleen…and you will be fine. Goodnight.”

“Wait - please! Can you spare a moment to tell me your name? I don’t know your name.” He leaned up on his elbow wishing he could get out of the bed to follow her. She stood in the door looking down at him.

“Ceś alena …everyone calls me Lena.”

“Please Ceś alena, just, stay until Kay-leen returns.”

Lena stood in indecision, and with a sigh she went to the chair beside the bed and made herself comfortable there. “Alright, I’m here…now lie back down. I’m staying only until she returns.”

“Thank you.” He returned to his pillow making sure to angle himself so that he could stare at her. “If you wish for me to stay, you’re going to have to stop looking at me that way.”

“Please accept my apologies. I have eyes with a need to drink in more of your loveliness.” He was soft spoken and cunning with his words. With the lift of a brow, “Emmm.” She murmured, not willing to be taken by his words, although he had her attention. “I think you need distraction. I could gather you something to eat, you must be hungry?”

He shook his head, staring at her still. She sighed, and he jumped right to the point of his thoughts, “I know this is going to be a silly question, but…are you taken, spoken for? Is there a man at your cabin waiting for your return as I lie here hoping not.”

Lena sat staring a moment as visions of all that she and Manny had gone through together came to mind. In her body, she’d carried four of his babies. Mike, losing two… now…she had their Hope. She looked into this mans eyes and couldn’t help but wonder what his presence meant for her. She shook her head feeling silly. She didn’t even know who he was, what did anything else matter? She would take her life one day at a time; with the most important factor ever…Hope. “No, but I have a child. A little girl. Hope… my life and everything in it, is about her. No one else. I’m alone, and I expect to remain that way.”

He quietly digested that bit of information, wondering how someone so beautiful could possibly end up with a child and no mate. Then something occurred to him, and so he asked next, “Where is her father?”

He settled back on the pillow again feeling weak. His face grimacing from using sore muscles, he needed to lie back again. The aches and pains were registering loud and clear now…and his eyes burned.

His head was spinning even more with him lying back. Kayleen re-entered then with her arms full.

"He’s awake.” Lena informed her as she entered the room. “But if he doesn’t learn to quit talking so much and stay still…he is going cause himself a lot of discomfort.”

“I see, I’m here now…you go on back to m’sweetie…I don’t know how it happen, but somehow Leon end up with her and he out there riding through the lane with that baby on the horse with’em. I ain’t say nothing, didn’t have time. She got that boy wrapped around her finger I swear.” She talked on, chuckling at the picture. Lena grinned as she stood. “Well, you’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time.” She said as she headed for the door.

“Yes sir…we mend you up.” Kayleen announced taking a look at him as he lay with his eyes on Lena, who was on her way out. “What’s your name boy?” Kayleen asked, he turned from looking at Lena to Kayleen. Smiling carefully he answered.

“Thomas, Thomas Sandoval.”

“Well, welcome to Webster Fields Thomas.” Kayleen greeted, Lena stood only a moment more, then without another word…she was gone.

* * *

In the days that followed, Lena let Kayleen care for Thomas alone. Morris had already gone to him, giving him the rules and ways of Webster Fields, inviting Jordan and the other leading men on the plantation in to meet him… including the new overseers. None present caught the relieved eye contact between the new men and Thomas.

Once introductions were over, Morris gave him a few more days to recuperate and then addressed his primary function for being there. He led him to Manny’s office, showed him where everything was and asked him if he could make heads or tails of it.

Instead of answering Morris, Thomas took the seat behind the desk, went through it looking for everything he would need in order to do the job given him. After finding all; he asked Morris a few specific choice questions…to which Morris answered. Then he set about getting the papers in order with Morris looking on. Forgetting himself, he slipped into a business jargon relating to each thing he was doing and why. Morris watched amazed, he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. He read, sorted, compiled figures, made entries and corrections from Morris’s dismal attempts, and became fully engrossed into it. Asking from time to time questions about purchases and receipts.

Morris was overjoyed when in a few hours…he had all in order, explaining to him what he’d done, how he’d done it and the current riding value of the plantation with its land, livestock, buildings, crops and slaves. Morris stood tall and relieved.

“Well that’s it then. You take care of that from now on. And…that room you’re in, it’s yours…you can stay there.” Morris announced.

From that day forward, Thomas took his responsibility serious, showing Morris everything he did, putting everything in alphabetical order. As plantation clerk, he saw many areas in where he could increase the pay of the overseers, and did so.

Morris didn’t take that so well, but Thomas explained by doing this…he could give along with the higher pay, greater responsibilities. This would lend a greater loyalty from those working for him. Morris thought his son had already done that. This led to a discussion about Manny, which is where Thomas gained his greatest knowledge of the plantations true manager, Maynard Ramsey Webster.

He had an ability about him that drew Morris out, and gained his good side right off the bat. He spoke on such an intelligent level; that he held Morris’s constant attention. Then Morris learned that Thomas, could play cards. Hours were spent in cards between the two. Wanting to sweeten the pot, they brought in Markus, then Jordan, and Morris was in heaven. He also taught Morris to play chess, this Morris felt also engaging, he’d always had a marble chess table, but no knowledge of the game. Thomas’s eagerness to teach, share and laud him slowly began to help Morris feel good about himself again. Never in his life had he known a Negro like Thomas Sandoval, and in no time at all, Morris Webster was eating from the palm of his hand. For Thomas was not only intelligent and compassionate…he was a charmer as well.

It wasn’t long before Morris began taking him into town with him to help him in making business decisions. Always asking Thomas what he thought concerning one matter after another, or should he invest in this or that. Over chess, Thomas would discuss with him the thoughtful strategy of weighing out the odds and trends, and desires for what he might invest in to gain real profit. The next step, the one which Thomas was waiting for, was when Morris Webster placed in his hand, a right of passage.

Freedom to travel the roads at will with the backing of the overseers and a letter carrying Morris’s name to prove he was a trusted servant. In just two months, Thomas had new clothes, a horse and freedom to roam, with Morris as his champion. Morris to the astonishment of all, displayed fond affection for Thomas keeping him suited in, crisp white ruffled shirts, black breeches and high black boots. No rough and tumble slave garbs for him.

Ferrus and Kayleen were shocked to hear Morris refer to Thomas as, “One helluva fine - struttin’ black buck – that one is!”

It wasn’t just with Morris that he made a fine show before…strutting down the lane from the barns with riding crop and gloves swinging and a dazzling smile. The young as well the middle aged women had their ideas of what they’d like to do with him if they were just given the chance. Usually he elicited two opinions from the female onlookers - one being, “He was so good lookin’ he wasn’t worth the shirt on his back,” or... “Too good looking to look at before bedtime, ain’t gonna get no sleep tonight! Lord have mercy!”

Thomas drew attention from all, one way or the other, except from the one person he desired to lure most of all… Ceś alena.

Every morning like clockwork, he would be up to meet her at the kitchen porch. Where he’d lay more of the charm on hoping for a change or an opening in the invisible shield that surrounded her. The first time he laid eyes on Hope the sight of her had blown him away.

‘
Well of course.’
came to his mind.

As beautiful as Lena was, who else would have had one such as she, but the master’s son. Any red blooded man with half an eye for beauty, an appetite for spice, and an inclination for the best in life would want this woman. She was class. She was elegance. She was a fantasy to haunt a man in the deepest heat of the night, making him burn for her. Thomas wanted her, like he’d never wanted anything…and as for the master’s son, well…in his mind, if he were so foolish as to leave her, then all the better.
‘Safe and long journey to you.’
Thomas thought.
He’d learned quite a bit concerning Maynard Webster, Manny as all called him. He heard that not only had she bore him children, but that - they had been in love. From her, he’d heard this…from other’s…he’d heard Manny had felt the same. Discovering this, Thomas knew that he was now belly deep in a competition to win her affections, and he would do everything in his power to succeed.

No one was ready as of yet to divulge the source of their problem, in why Manny had left, other than it all began to go wrong when he married, and his wife had sold their son…Michael. Jordan, as he began to learn…was loyal and true when it came to Manny. He’d noted Thomas’s moves on Lena, and in no uncertain terms, informed him, that regardless of the problems between Lena and Manny… Manny would be back. Thomas’s question had been.

“Why would you root for the master’s son? He cannot give her what I can?” This he had asked him in the barn when rubbing down his horse. Jordan didn’t like Thomas, and made no pains to hide it.

“Listen here nigga-…”

“Excuse me…nigga?” Thomas took offense. “And what have I done to deserve that label?”

“Cause tha’s what you remin’ me of, some sneaky weasel that don’ snuck his ass in the hen house, tryin’ to get to the prize hen! Well not that one you ain’t-…”

“Says who?”

“Look, why you here anyway? What you want? You ain’t no slave, never been one. Why-on’t you take yo’high fluttin’ ass, on back up North where you belong? Where all those like you…strut ‘round…doin’ what you do.”

Thomas stood staring and was stunned. This was the last thing he expected to be up against at a plantation. He was there for the freedom of men like Jordan after all, yet here one stood…aggressively standing on his master’s side, defending him. There was no understanding in him for this, and so felt compelled to ask him. “Have you been a slave for so long, you’ve forgotten what it means to be free?”

“What the hell you talkin’ ‘bout? I am free.”

“No you are not! You belong to the master.” Thomas reminded him.

“Listen here - Mister Thomas Sandoval. Ev’ry - man, woman an’ child on this earth gone serve, some thing… o’somebody. Don’ matter what color you is. Less you a rich man, in yo’ own right…you gone work f’somebody! You gone serve somebody! As for me…I’m right where I wanna be! Ain’t too many here, slave or free, willin’ to leave our master, for another one out there. You bes’ know what you bring, an’ who you bring it to. ‘fore you go feelin’ all high and mighty ‘bout yo’ offer. ‘Cause here at Webster Fields…it’s just the way we like it! An’ we ain’t willin’ t’let nobody come in and ruin it fo’us. Be the messenger white, or a fancy cock crowing Negro like ya’self.”

Thomas stood at the stall and stared quietly at Jordan. “That may be the way you feel Jordan, but there are black men out there who won’t agree with you. They wish freedom from this oppression. Slavery - is a sin.”

“That may be so. My advice to you, go fin’ them men. Set about yo’ business, and do it well. But while you at it…you leave me, and wha’s at Webster Fields alone.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed, then offered, “As in… Ceś alena?”

Jordan stood feeling angry for no reason…Manny had been through enough, and he couldn’t stand by and see this man make these moves while he was away, and just say nothing.