Princess Ces'alena (56 page)

“Am I feeding on a fantasy?” She asked softly. In the dim quiet of her cabin she looked around at all that Manny tried to provide for her, wondering what she was trying to hold on to? She closed the book leaning over and turned down the lantern extinguishing the flame. Laying on her side, one arm beneath her pillow and head; she slowly drifted off to sleep.

“Alright…I’ll go.” She informed Thomas the next morning in the kitchen as he was passing through. He turned at the door with a smile. “If - you can assure me that Hope will be safe. That we both will be?”

Thomas sighed, “Lena, nothing in life is a certainty. I can promise that we have seen to the success of our travels back and forth, and that you both will be protected. The rest is in God’s hands.” She nodded, he was right.

“Still going?” He asked holding his breath. She was silent a moment, as he waited on her answer. Chewing her lip nervously, she nodded then answered, “Yes, still going.”

Thomas smiled. She glanced back and saw the smile, and wanted to clarify where she stood. “I’m only agreeing to go with you to see what you do. Just for the adventure. Nothing else…I do not want you thinking this means anything else, or anything more.”

“Fair enough.”

They left much earlier than usual because Morris was gone from the previous night. Thomas stood watching as she prepared her daughter for the journey. Applying the cream to her skin which darkened it, and hiding her hair beneath the scarf, just in case they were to cross paths with someone, who was acquainted with Katherine or Manny. She couldn’t take the chance someone would see her and know…it wouldn’t take long before it reached the wrong ears. So with a wrapped and tied bundle of clothes within for Hope and herself, she joined him. Shyly, she met Patrick and his wife Liddy Dovey. Liddy was a sturdy young woman of ambiguous origin. There was something about her, that made it hard for Lena to believe she was all Irish as many assumed.

Her figure, while not given to excess, was full bodied and ample; busty, tapering waist, and broad hips and rear. The texture of her ash/sandy color hair, though wound up tight at the base of her head - Lena knew would uncoil to reach past her hips, at the same time she was sure it would curl and twist naturally. Her skin, though very fair…was not however, transparent showing veins as most white fair skinned women. It had a thick, rich olive quality about it, not delicate. Her eyes were just a bit too dark, black in fact, her nose a touch too rounded and not the common straight, sharp thin lines one would expect; her lips, dark maroon, and full.

She was mulatto; Lena was certain of it, but kept her suspicions to herself. Liddy could feel Lena’s observant, examining eye on her and was quiet most of the trip…reluctant to speak. Only nodding or shaking her head in answer to chit-chat sent her way.

Lena sat in the rear of the wagon with Hope. It would be a comfortable trip with the short canvas top on the wagon, leaving the sides wide open for air to circulate around them, as they viewed the scenery while offering shade from the hot sun. Thomas had changed into a garb normal for Negro slaves, and rode beside the wagon, as Patrick and Liddy rode up front. She listened as they spoke of the progress they were making, and the setbacks as well. They laughed at the antics and questions of some…Liddy would rock and nod, smiling her agreement, with a chuckle here and there.

Patrick reached over to pat and squeeze his wife’s hand. “Speak missus. No need to hold your tongue.” She looked up at him with loving eyes…but would not speak. He accepted her silence knowing she was not yet ready to confirm what Lena already suspected…her speech and her voice would give away her heritage. It was during this trip to the Indian village that Lena would learn of Thomas’s past life and the various assignments in one state after another. He had done a lot of traveling in his adult years to this thirty-first year.

Patrick also told of his beginnings with the mission, and after meeting Liddy, married her…and joined the cause. As he spoke, Liddy smiled but held true to her reticence. They wanted Lena to feel a part of the group, and soon she too told a little about herself; leaving out her royal background and the status of her father as ruler of Makia Island. She told them only that she’d come from Makia Island and how she ended up at Webster Fields. She and Thomas had to laugh at Morris’s skill in getting slaves without having to pay for them half the time. She went into what it was like for her experiencing slavery for the first time, how frightening it had been to be taken from her home, thrust into an unfamiliar world where she lost value as a human, and was re-classified as to what worth and category she might be placed.

She admitted that it was no doubt through the grace of God that she ended up in the hands of the man who lost her to Morris Webster. So at fifteen years old, she came to Webster Fields and had been there ever since. She talked about her son, Michael and for the first time, they learned the truth first hand, from the horse’s mouth.

That Manny had no knowledge of Hope, and why it had to be that way, mainly to protect her from being taken away as her son had been. Even though Thomas didn’t want to hear it… she slipped into explaining the way she knew Manny would be if he knew of their daughter.

All was quiet, Lena in thought feeling she had said too much when suddenly Liddy, who’d kept her back turned the entire time she spoke, turned to look back at her. Her eyes were filled with tears, rolling down. She climbed from her seat and went into the back and grabbed Lena and hugged her, holding onto her. At first Lena held her thinking Liddy meant to console
her
…but then, the young woman’s shoulders began shaking and she started to sob. Shocked Lena held her tighter. Patrick only looked back once, with moist eyes, then back to the front as he led the team. Thomas rode ahead leaving the woman to sob in Lena’s arms. Hope sat back staring, quiet … not understanding, but stayed still. Not a word of explanation came from her…but for Lena, none was needed… she knew when Liddy was ready…she would say why she cried. Finally she calmed and slowly withdrew from Lena’s arms, ashamed and unable to look her in the face.

“It’s okay.” Lena spoke softly, handing her the hanky her husband passed back from the seat.

Liddy blew her nose…and held herself still.

Then told Lena, “I been wit’ Mr. Weston since I was a lil’girl, ‘bout. My daddy was a Negro slave, my mama…the white daughter of the missions - she help him escape. We live in a little hidden cabin shack in the bayou… we was always laughin’, fishin’ and walking through them swamps. My daddy know’em like the back’o his han’. At night, we would go to the mission meetin’s…an’… then we sneak back to our cabin. Nobody know we was there. We hear somebody comin’…we just sneak below in this hole my daddy dug with a false flo’ on top’of it. We stay down there till they gone. Then we come out…and all was fine.” She quieted looking up at Lena. “My daddy…he love my mama so much and she love him too. They was always touchin’ each other…singin’ to each other, they voice sound so beautiful together, my daddy, voice deep and strong, my mama’s like a bird, so sweet. They be hugging and thankin’ the Lord fo’ each other – all the time.” She was lost in thought a while more. Hope had crawled to Lena’s lap and lay there dozing as the movement of the wagon rocked and jostled them.

“Then one night while I lay sleepin’, my mama woke me, she rush me to the hole. She ain’t move that fast cause she was heavy with child. She shove me down real quick, an’ drop the floor over me…tol’ me hush and don’t come out till they say come out. I didn’t…I - I didn’t come out…” She stopped a while more, silent tears rolled once more. She wiped them away and soon continued, “I had to pee so bad…an’ I was getting’ so hot – I was down there so long an’ it was daylight and so quiet – cause I fall asleep and when I woke up, everythin’ – so quiet. So I come out…I try to be quiet so nobody know I come out. I snuck out the back doah. Never got no further…I’on know how long I sit on the back poach. Must’a been - a few days…cause Elder Weston and his son, they…they come and fetch me.”

Lena sat with her heart pounding and waiting. Waiting for her to finish… what had happened to her father and mother? Liddy sat so long quiet after that… she felt she wouldn’t say. In her peripheral she saw her husband Patrick use his shoulder to wipe his cheek. Liddy sat there lost in another place, no longer speaking…she rocked with the wagon as if no one was there with her, and she was yet again alone.

“I remember thinking…” She began again as if she’d never stopped. “Mama did it hurt? I’ain hear yah’ll… screamin’. Yah’ll didn’t even holler out. How come yah’ll didn’t…just - holler out to - to - somebody? So – somebody could – he’p you – if you just – call fo’he’p.” She looked at Lena then with vacant eyes. “They was all cut up. Blood everywhere.” Her eyes searched Lena’s for understanding. “How come – people – be so mean, so – evil? I don’ know - my daddy’s privates and all was gone…and my mama…they just open her up…and took the baby out.” Lena shook and cried out covering her mouth not to make another sound, but the horror went through her mind, haunting and ugly making her ill.

“My baby brother…was layin’ at the base of the tree where my daddy was leaning back agains’ as if he sat there cause he was tired or somethin’. He still had everything attached to him from my mama. She was on the other side of’em. They look like…the perfect family. All dressed in red…flies buzzin’em. Eyes open-…”

Lena’s whimpering cry with her face turned away stopped her. Lena shook, tears rolling from her eyes at the horror of it.

Liddy went from seeing them as she last saw them, to seeing Lena tremble and fight back sickness. “You gone be al’right?” She asked sincerely. Lena couldn’t look at her but nodded that she would be, holding onto her sleeping toddler as she clung to the wagon side. Liddy sat a moment more, and said to sooth her.

“It’s okay. They love each other, and … some things… just worth dying for. I figure…they didn’t want me to die though, cause…they never made a sound. Not one sound.” She patted Lena’s hand smiling, “I love it, that – he – Manny – love you and you – love him. Maybe even, like my daddy, an’ my mama.” She smiled at Lena and then went back to her seat beside her husband. Thomas was still riding way ahead and she turned back to Lena, “Do what you got to do, but – don’ fight what you feelin’ in yo’ heart, hang on to it. Hang on.”

Her husband, Patrick sat quiet, because he had never heard the heartbreaking tale until right then. Up until that moment, his wife had never spoken it to anyone…and neither had Jacob Weston or his son told anyone how they’d found, Rueben and Sarah Brown.

Chapter Thirteen

The last leg of their journey ended with Thomas riding back by the wagon telling a thoughtful Lena of the current situation with the tribes. There was rumor of a planned attack on Fort Mims by the Red sticks. This, he learned from Chief Long Bow. “You’ll meet him and his wife when we get to the village. She is the daughter of the O’Brien’s. They own Harvest Gold plantation…the biggest in the area. You’ll like her.” Lena only nodded, paying half attention to him. Liddy’s line kept echoing through her mind.
“Some things…just worth dying for.”
Right then, she wished she hadn’t come with him. She wished she’d stayed at Webster Fields. Right then, all she wanted was Manny. To hold him, cling to him and know that he loved her. However the decision had been made and so, she would make the best of it.

Finally they reached the Indian village, and Lena was awed by the giant fortress. The entire village was enclosed by a wall of timbers with ivy taking over its exterior. They reached the entrance where a gate was at first naked to the eye until it swung open, giving them entry. The wall looked continuous as if no way in. Because of a lookout, they were allowed entrance without wait. As the huge gate closed behind the wagon and Thomas on horseback, Lena was all eyes. Hope stood against the side of the wagon, wide eyed, ooohing and aaaahing all that her big eyes could take in.