One Day. Someday. Soon

By Gay G. Gunn

In the midst of a family celebration the first, free ancestor, a tenacious six-year-old Saidah, is savagely ripped from her family and beloved African homeland and deposited into slavery on a Georgia plantation and expected to survive under the care of venerable Aunt Pearl. Whisked to freedom by a Cherokee warrior, Saidah returns years later only to inadvertently escort their son, Black Pony, into the heinous system she’d escaped and the woman who’d raised her. Saidah dies leaving her son a cowrie shell and the edict... “Be who you are.”
The Civil War ends. Black Pony and Aunt Pearl try out their new freedom in Washington City, living in the shadow of the Nation’s Capitol until Aunt Pearl dies, freeing Black Pony to head west...on his own... a man-child of 12. A son to no one, Pony proves perfects, establishes and becomes...Colt Culhane. He conquers the frontier, blazes trails, rides range with his “boys", survives, and prevails. At long last he finds a wife, founds a town and raises a family... fiercely protecting their right to “Be who they are.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gay G. Gunn
• Release date: Nov 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311139580

Gay G. Gunn

Gay G. Gunn, who also writes under the name GiGi Gunn, is a native of Washington, DC and has a MSW from Howard University School of Social Work. Gay is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels: Never Been To Me, Cajun Moon, Rainbow's End, Living Inside Your Love, Pride and Joi, and Everlastin' Love. Nowhere To Run is the first of her novels to be required reading at the high-school and college levels, from Boca Raton, FL to Covina, CA. She resides in the Metropolitan Washington, DC area, where she is currently working on a trilogy.

Book preview

ONE DAY. SOMEDAY. SOON

By

Gay G. Gunn

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Different Drummer (TM) on Smashwords

One Day. Someday. Soon

Copyright 2013 by Gay G. Gunn

*****

To Skye G, Matthew and Tristan…

My ties that bind.

"Be who you are."

And Gary Sr…

My brother… my hero

*****

ONE DAY. SOMEDAY. SOON

* * * * *

Table of Contents

ONE DAY

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

SOMEDAY

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SOON

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

Book I

ONE DAY

1849

Rio Dos Camerones, Africa

ONE

She died the season of her sixth year. Innocent and full of anticipation, she hadn’t known her life would end. For her, the time had come. With her father’s acceptance of the herd in exchange for her sister’s hand in marriage, weeks of preparation commenced, and finally, the celebration began on this night. As she held her mother’s hand tightly, Saidah watched the last remnants of the red-orange sun blaze along the horizon, and when it fell off the edge of the earth, the village plunged into darkness, rescued by fiery torches which lit the faces of her people. Excitement danced in her soul and Saidah shifted from one foot to the other.

Stop fidgeting, Saidah, her mother admonished playfully. Be who you are.

Saidah smiled up at her mother and ran her tongue in the space where her tooth used to be. She had been reminded for the last two days who she was. Like her sister, Saidah’s ebony skin had been anointed with sacred fragrances. Like her sister, Saidah’s hair had been meticulously separated, painstakingly oiled and elaborately coiled into topknots. Saidah pursed her mouth and wondered if the stain of berry-juice remained on her lips. She dare not touch her face and risk smudging the stripe of gold-dust under each cheekbone, signifying her royal status. She had been very careful and knew that in less than ten years, it would be her turn to marry the man who presented her father with the most goats.

She looked up at the clear, star-filled night, then watched the fire of the torches jump and skip along the wedding path. The sound of the drum began, issuing the ceremonial cadence for each of her sister’s steps as she wound her way slowly through the villagers toward her husband-to-be and the Holy Man. Saidah’s eyes grew wide and her heart soared at the sight of her sister; she looked so beautiful. Dressed in equally elegant attire, Saidah was only moments away from enjoying the feast. The delicious scent of grilled meats tickled Saidah’s nose forcing her mouth to water. Happy that her tooth had been lost two nights ago, nothing prevented her from savoring every succulent morsel. Jide, who stood next to her father, smiled and Saidah blushed at the attention from her father’s bodyguard. The hushed sound of the couple’s vows, the fragrance of the oils and the incense, the sight of the torches and feel of love and family swelled Saidah’s heart with immeasurable pride and she smiled broadly, happy to be who she was. Never had there been a more joyous moment in all of her life.

Suddenly, a loud crackling noise pierced the calm. For a heartbeat, all the villagers were stunned, motionless. Then, spat from the cloak of darkness, ghosts overran their congregation. Ghosts? Saidah had never seen ghosts before; it seemed that the villagers were equally shocked by their intrusion. The sight of these ghost-men’s pale faces, stringy yellow hair and strange clothes, anchored Saidah’s feet to the dirt beneath her. Screams of her people were answered by ghost-men pointing firing-sticks at her father, the Holy Man and her brothers, who grabbed themselves and fell to the ground; blood squirted from their bodies as they writhed in pain before becoming still. This was the way her people killed animals for food, she thought. Were the ghost people going to eat them? Saidah’s voice joined the shrieking. She began running toward her father and brothers, but her mother jerked her arm and ran the opposite away. Saidah looked back to see the ghost-men had stopped firing the sticks and began clubbing her people over the head—both grandparents, her uncles and aunts as defiant tribesmen’s bodies crashed in contorted waves to the earth.

What was happening? What had they done? Her young mind fought to understand. The ghost-men snatched up the torches and lit the thatched roofs of their huts. The aroma of grilled meats cancelled by the charred smell of their homes burning mixed with the foul odor of the ghost people, who smacked then shoved her and her mother, not caring that they fell to the dirt in their fine dresses. The unending melee suddenly halted into an eerie silence. Bodies of her family and villagers littered the yard as they lay in puddles of their own leaking blood, unbelieving eyes shocked open. The ghost people rounded up the living; the wounded and those who resisted, shot with the firing sticks. Three men yanked her sister by the arm and took her where Saidah couldn’t see. She heard her sister’s torturous screams, like the wild cry of a cornered animal. Then, a loud silence. The ghost-men reappeared. Saidah waited for her sister to come out. She never did.

Tears stung Saidah’s eyes and washed away the gold dust from beneath her cheeks. She looked up at her mother who did not move. Her mother did not speak, just stared blankly ahead and would not let go of Saidah’s hand, squeezing hard to the point of hurting, but Saidah dared not complain. Saidah watched the ghost people savagely devour the food that’d been so lovingly prepared for the wedding feast. What was happening? And why? Saidah didn’t know, wanted to know, but had no one to ask.

The survivors of the massacre sat hunched together, cloaked in confused anger until dawn, when the ghosts shackled the men and women in metal chains; first, around the neck and then the feet; the children left to walk by the adults’ side. The ghost-men prodded and poked them to walk—and walk they did. Jide reared up in protest, was struck and blood gushed from his head. If Jide, the only brave man left from their village, was treated that way, Saidah knew of their danger. She looked back at where her village used to be. Where the bodies of her father and brothers lay in the open, unburied, for animals to feast upon. Without being told, Saidah knew she would never see her tribal village again. She would never see her father again, but she had her mother. She looked up at her once proud, strong mother and did not recognize the woman she saw. She squeezed her mother’s hand and whispered, Be who you are, Mama.

In her new dress, torn and splattered with the blood of her people, Saidah walked with the others. The chains clanked and her tender, bare feet padded across the unforgiving land. The sun scorched their bodies during the day and they huddled together in the chill of the night. In the morning a thin white gruel became their sustenance, not the feast her hungry body craved. Sleep only came in exhausted snatches for fear of what would be done to them next. Saidah grew weary as the sweat and sacred oil from her undone topknots stung her eyes. She and her people soon smelled as bad as their captors. After three nights, more chained black people herded by ghost-men joined them. From their wide round faces, she thought them to be Bantu, but wasn’t sure. She only knew the tall, thin Fulani builds of her people as they all marched together in silence, for anyone who cried out or stopped was clubbed with a stick. Jide bent to carry Saidah. After a few steps a ghost punched him in the side and Saidah crashed to the ground near her mother and scrambled for her mother’s hand, fearing separation. Her mother was all she had.

After five more sunsets and rises, they halted by a huge wide ocean. A mesmerized Saidah had never seen so much water. She’d heard of this ocean just as she’d heard about how the Fulani had taken over the Hausa people many years ago. She knew this as history just as she knew of the luck of her village that’d never had to move in search of water during her young life. The contented Fulani had been a happy people until the night of the butchering. But now she faced a new fear—so much water. Saidah stared at its ebb and flow, watched it froth and tumble against white sand and run out just before it reached their dark feet. She and her mother were thrown into a cage of sticks like animals, women and children in one, and men in the other. She couldn’t see Jide. Her mother fell to the ground in a crouch and Saidah crawled up into her arms. Mama. Mama? Saidah pled; her mother offered no sign of recognition. Mama, what will happen to us? What did we do wrong for the gods to turn their backs on us? Mama?

Saidah tried not to whimper, but the sight of her beautiful mother reduced to this haphazard-looking stranger unnerved her. Had her mother’s spirit left, leaving only this fleshy shell?

The ghost-man put a trough of the white gruel before them and many thrust themselves upon it. When Saidah and her mother did not move, the ghost came over to them, yelled and then yanked the cowrie shell choker from her mother’s neck. Her mother screamed as she gathered the fallen shells ripped free from the leather hide. The ghost man grabbed many of them, but Saidah saw her mother put some in her mouth, the only emotion Saidah’d witnessed from her mother since the killings. The ghost man kicked Saidah’s mother with his foot and she fell back, scraping her shoulder against the wooden bar. Saidah went to her.

This is a good sign, Saidah thought my mother must think we are going to a place where we can use the cowrie shells as currency. At that moment Saidah glimpsed a hint of familiar recognition in her mother’s eyes. Mama?

Her mother took a cowrie shell from her mouth and shoved it between Saidah’s lips. In the hoarse whisper of someone who hadn’t spoken for days, her mother said, Keep it always.

Saidah rejoiced at her mother’s return to her again. But as quickly as she’d come, her mother faded away, looking over her, unseeing. Mama. I love you, Saidah whispered into her mother’s ear.

Over the next few days, Saidah watched as the ghosts brought new black people and took others, putting them on a boat to coast beyond their sight. No sooner had she wondered where they were going, than she and her mother were placed aboard a floating vessel. Black people lined its deck and drifted for two days until they came to an island shore with a huge stone building. Shackled, they walked up steps smoothed by many bare feet before them. They descended into a narrow, dark hallway with only glimpses of a huge sea cut into the rock fortification. Again, the men and women separated. Saidah and her mother entered a windowless room, hot and stuffy, filled with women and children sitting against the walls. When some moved, imprints where their heads lay depressing the stone, revealed themselves. Saidah wondered how long they’d be in this cell with strangers who stared off as blankly as her mother.

Saidah labored to keep track of the days and nights, but there was no way to count the moon rises or the sun sets. Besides the troughs of white swill and water, the cell filled with urine, feces, vomit and womanly bleeding, the stench sour and unbearable. Some days they were taken outside where the sun poked at their eyes as they were forced to walk in circles while the ghosts threw water at them before putting them back. Saidah hated being outside because it reminded her of her village, of the carefree days spent visiting her grandparents, playing with her sister and cousins. She hated going back into the cells, wet from water because the cold damp nights caused them to shiver and cough. Saidah watched a dead woman be pulled out by the feet and thrown onto a pile of other bodies just beyond the door’s entrance. She listened to a mother’s scream as she refused to let go of her child, stiff and ashen with death. Finally, the ghost-men took them both. The woman’s wailing echoed through the halls all night until suddenly stopped, the silence as deafening as her anguished cries. Surely, this was the hell her grandfather spoke of if you did not live a good life. But we were good and have done nothing wrong, Saidah thought over and over again. Why?

One day a great distant roar shook the cell making it rain white plaster on their dark skin. Fear, the universal language, spoken in every person’s eyes. People started mumbling and praying as the roar came closer and closer, like a hungry monster sniffing them out. A great bang struck the building so that more chunks of mortar fell upon their blackness and white dust rose to their nostrils. Another great bang, then another and Saidah knew the world had come to an end. A wooden door on the outer wall swung open and more ghosts came in on a stream of fierce rain as thick as the water of her people’s rainy season, which threatened to flood the village, destroy their crops and carry them away, and those rains were to do the same thing. A ghost with dingy light hair plastered to his face, prodded women near the door, forcing them onto a wooden plank that led to a great ship, so big Saidah couldn’t see it all through the wooden door. It banged against the cell again, shaking the stone walls, as lightning flashed, reflecting anger in the ghosts’ eyes. The ship pitched and slammed as she and her mother were pushed onto the rough plank. A woman fell off and Saidah fastened her hand to her mother’s so tightly it bruised. Lightning zigzagged across the angry black sky as the stinging rains tore at her small body harder than the whippings from her mother’s switch. That was the second most terrifying experience of her life as nature and ghost-men conspired against her. Relief washed her face as she jumped into the belly of the vessel, a welcome respite from the pelting rain.

The ghost shouted and drove them deeper and deeper into the mouth of darkness. Candles lit the massive cavern as she and her mother were ushered onto a plank, her mother shoved over and chained to wood. Saidah watched other women treated the same, women and children above, beside and below them. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, as far as her eyes could see, all the men and boys had already been loaded and fastened to planks. Feet to head... stacked and anchored with chains. What is this hell? Saidah wondered. When will it be over?

Seemingly for as many years as she had lived, the ship pitched and rolled and people slid in their slimy vomit, urine and feces. The chaotic sounds of many languages converged to produce one deafening cry of anguish in Saidah’s ears. Her eyes tortured by the sight of the white gruel commingled with human excrement, all undistinguishable so she couldn’t tell which was which. All Saidah wanted was just one complete breath of fresh air. One whiff of something that didn’t make her stomach wretch, one moment of complete stillness when her body didn’t sway and rock. Bodies were rubbed raw by continued friction of exposed pinkish skin over the rough wooden boards, red glistening on black skin. Oozing sores, popped blisters, crusty mouths and matted, soiled hair teeming with maggots everywhere forced Saidah to close her eyes and try to remember her life on the savannah. How the sun shone brightly after a cleansing rainfall. How fresh the air, blue the sky, fluffy the clouds. How the loving embrace of her grandmother felt. The sound of her father’s voice telling stories. All slipping away.

One night a ghost-man came and stood over them. He unshackled her mother and Saidah screamed, No!

The ghost looked at Saidah, and slapped her mother as he started taking her away.

No! Saidah yelled again. He hit her mother again—harder. Saidah realized that every time she protested, the ghost hit her mother. He said something to her with his rotted teeth in an evil grin and yanked her mother away. Saidah cried all night through the next day until her mother returned. Her mother had been in a fight; a black eye, a busted lip, her clothes torn off and her breasts naked for all to see. Saidah covered her mother with her own small body. Her mother gave Saidah a sad-eyed smile and then, showed the cowrie shell at her lips, like a badge of courage, that through her nocturnal ordeal, she had kept the shell. Between her teeth, Saidah bared her own shell to her mother. Mother and daughter put forehead to forehead and cried salty tears.

The next night, the ghost came back and took her mother again. On this night, Saidah stood in protest, but did not speak. Her mother returned the next day with a new dress. Her mother’s eyes sadder still, but she showed Saidah her cowrie shell and Saidah did the same. The only communication they shared.

Later that day, for the first time, the ghosts pushed the blacks up the wooden steps on the deck. Sun and fresh air. Have our prayers been answered? Saidah wondered. The ghost made them dance to the drum beat and threw water on them, many screaming as the salt water set their open sores ablaze.The ghosts laughed.As the blacks began to file back into that hell-hole, in a split second, Saidah’s mother grabbed Saidah’s hand and darted to the ship’s edge. Her mother leapt up on the platform holding her daughter’s hand tightly and looked at the ocean below. She gave Saidah a cheerless smile, showed her the cowrie shell and jumped. As a reflex, Saidah jerked her hand loose, surprising herself by the gesture—a defiant refusal to go with her. A stunned Saidah watched her mother plunge into the deep blue water as it swallowed her whole.

Mama! Saidah screamed, her flailing hands reaching out towards her.

Her mother came to the surface and motioned with one hand, Come, Saidah.

Saidah could not. She stood frozen. Petrified.

Their unblinking eyes locked—mother and daughter. Her mother did not struggle or cry out. She grinned at her daughter and Saidah watched her mother gleefully sink into the welcoming watery grave.

Don’t leave me, Mama!

The furious ghosts ran over and spat at the place where her mother had been, then heaved Saidah to the dungeon below. My mother won’t be here ever again, Saidah thought. No ghosts will come for her tonight. My mother is with my father, and brothers and sister now.

Over the next few nights, Saidah sought comfort with the cowrie shell. She played with it in her mouth, through her tooth-space and back. It was all she had left of her mother and family… all she had of Africa and her village. Out of tears, her little body was finally dry. She heard her name as she had since her mother left her, the spirits calling to her from the next world. Only then she realized that someone in this life called her. Saidah! Saidah… over here.

In the darkness through the moans, groans and slime, Saidah followed the sound of the familiar voice. She stopped. Jide.

I saw what your mother did, Saidah, he spoke Fulani. You cannot blame her, Jide said, laying face up in his own filth.

I am all alone.

You have me and you have your ancestors who have welcomed your mother, but still look out for you.

Saidah grimaced at the sight of the powerful Jide laying chained to the wood. Like her father and brothers, he’d been such a proud man.

"Ngorgu, Jide simply stated. You must have courage, Saidah, for wherever they take us."

"Misuusaa yaade ton, Saidah replied in Fulani, I do not have the courage to go there."

"Sembifinde, Jide said, be strong. Be who you are."

Can I stay with you?

I would be honored.

Saidah climbed up on the slimy second tier of the planks and sat beside Jide. The man attached to him on his left, dead. His stiff limbs cold to the touch and his black skin had turned an ashen gray. A six year old should not have to experience such things, she thought. But she was no longer just six. She was very old now. She was alive with one of her people. She did not know what the ghosts would do to her—to them. Maybe she would be visiting her family in the other world soon. She’d always obeyed her mother. Why had she not that time? What did the spirits have in store for her?

She tongued her cowrie shell and thought, ngorgu—courage.

TWO

The unrelenting sun beat down on Saidah like hot rain. She wondered if it was the same sun that shone on her village in Africa or was it a different sun just for this bizarre and torturous land; a sun for devils and demons. After four days and as many nights, Saidah grew used to the jostling of the wagon. She’d been ripped from Jide and shoved into an open coffin with other blacks. A crusty scab formed where she’d been pushed up under the seat on which a white man sat. She was numb. Her mind grew tired of reverting back to when her mother jumped over the side of the ship, but Jide helped her through that ordeal. Now he was gone, she had no one… in this strange place with these strange people.

Her mind kept wishing for Jide to teach, to guide, to comfort and explain. Even then she could tell, in that instinctual way of children, when adults know more than they let on; Jide’d protected and prepared her as much as he could. He’d taught her that the stripe-less zebras were called horses. The ghost people, buckras, and they, the blacks, were called slaves. But he hadn’t answered her when she asked how the women from the slave ships bellies had grown fat from eating that white gruel. He hadn’t answered as to why the buckra with the black bag visited them in the slave pens daily treating the sores and blisters that’d been ignored for months during the crossing. Jide hadn’t explained why the buckra men and women came to inspect them with a pad and pencil, poking their ribs, opening their mouths, examining the private parts of men and squeezing the breasts of black women. Jide hadn’t explained why, all of the sudden, they’d been fed food of substance and their bodies exercised and their dark skins oiled. Either Jide had no answer for her childish inquiries or the reasons were too painful for him to share with her. Saidah couldn’t help but believe that if only her mother had waited, everything would have turned out alright.

As the wagon jostled on, she recalled how one day, after they finished exercising, they were not returned to their pens, but taken through a side door which opened into a crowd of ghost-whites; noisy and loud and the sights, sounds and smells of the buckras merged with that of the animals hitched to working wagons and fancy carriages. Saidah grabbed Jide’s thigh and watched, over and over, as men were pushed up steps onto a wooden platform; one buckra man sing-songed while others descended on the blacks and even more ghosts in the audience waved their hands clutching money. The black men, were led down the other side of the steps, climbed into wagons and driven away. Saidah remembered how her stomach lurched with an intuitive, palpable uneasiness when a black woman climbed on the platform where the white men touched her breasts and their hands disappeared between her legs, before inspecting her mouth. But when the buckra led her off to the other side she resisted, her big feet stomped up dust on the worn wooden steps. She’d protested in a language Saidah didn’t understand, but the message clear, reminding Saidah of the buckra taking her mother on the ship. This time they forced the woman onto a wagon with chained black men. Saidah’s heart began to beat faster for no reason. Next on the block, a woman with a child cowering behind her. The same inspection, the same yelling from the masses and then they led her off to a wagon, but there was no space for the child. A buckra came and ripped the child from the mother, who let out a piercing screech as the child was deposited back on the platform. The child’s yells echoed his mother’s wails in a symbiotic, eerie call-and-response as the wagon pulled away. The child cried so hard he convulsed, his body shook, trembled and he fell onto the splintered wooden block writhing uncontrollably. Tears sprang to Saidah’s eyes, but too stunned to fall, as she heard the tormented cry from the mother. Since the child could not, Saidah watched the mother’s image in the back of the wagon grow smaller and smaller until it was out of sight. Would she have been separated from her mother anyway? Saidah wondered. What have we done that you split a mother away from her child? Saidah’s young mind wanted to know. As they handed the confused child off to another buckra, Saidah looked up at Jide and desperately clasped his hand with every bit of strength she could muster.

Be strong, Saidah, Jide said in their native tongue.

The tears that brimmed her eyes, fell silently as they neared the platform. Saidah cried for what may or may not happen; a bad feeling shrouded her.

Saidah, no matter what, you must be strong. Be who you are. You will survive. You already have.

Saidah held on to Jide’s leg as he ascended the block. They inspected him like a horse, and Saidah prayed, Please let there be enough room for me and Jide on the same wagon. Two buckras came on either side of Jide and chained his feet and his neck and Saidah held fast to his thigh. They peeled her away and Saidah knew she was not going with him. She burst into loud tears.

Saidah! Be strong. Courage! he yelled to her as the two men dragged him down from the platform. A third man waited for him at the bottom of the six steps and Saidah wailed internally. Her mouth opened, tears soaked her skin, but no sound came out for she knew this buckra cared nothing about her voice. They would not listen. She watched Jide’s image get smaller and smaller just like the mother of the little boy. Jide was gone and she was there—alone on the block. There was no water for her to jump into; no escape as her mother had.

Another buckra came up behind her, whisked her off and threw her on a wagon with other chained people. Her little body trembled as the others stared off blankly. For the first time, Saidah felt the heavy, cold metal around her ankles. Shoved up under the driver’s seat until the wagon filled, then it began to move. The motion of the buckboard over the cobblestones caused the wood to skin her shoulder. She didn’t care. Didn’t notice when the cobblestones gave way to dirt roads, or when the hot day’s sun gave way to a cool night. Her destination was not a place of love and affection. She would never feel comfort again. Father, mother, brothers, sister and now Jide... the last of her people. She wanted to die. With every roll of the wagon wheel, she moved farther and farther away from Africa and closer to some new kind of hell. She decided right then and there that her voice did her no good as buckras were immune to their tears, their emotions, their humanity. She wouldn’t use her voice again. Nobody listened to her. Nobody cared.

And there she sat, for all those days and nights on the back of the wagon. Through her mental numbness she managed to notice when the wagon pulled onto a rutted road engulfed by trees on both sides. Through her fog of fear and indifference, Saidah spotted a gigantic white house with pillars that climbed three stories, and even from a distance, looked as big as the ship that her brought her to this living terror. Before reaching the house, the wagon veered down another road, but Saidah could see buckra men and women sitting on the porch in hot clothes drinking a cool liquid as they watched the wagon of blacks pass. Saidah let her dry tongue touch her parched lips without losing the cowrie shell.

The wagon pulled into a center clearing near a barn, corral and water pump flanked by cabins. Black people like her watched their arrival, but none offered a greeting as they filed off. Another buckra came up to them, unchained them, and then started pushing them into different directions. When Saidah came to the edge of the wagon, he yanked her down to the ground and spat smelly brown phlegm at her. As with all the other buckras, she didn’t know what he was saying, but she knew it wasn’t welcome.

***

What the hell is this? O’Malley asked as he looked down at the little black nigra.

He come wit de lot.

Shit. It’ll eat more than it’s worth. Look at ‘em—too scrawny to be any use. O’Malley grumped and hawked tobacco juice at her bare feet. This is what happens when a massa buys slaves without the overseer. Go get Pearl! he yelled at no one in particular and at least three slaves scurried off obediently. Settle the rest of them nigras into any open space. Already got three hundred damned slaves. Like we need more...and this useless pile of shit. He looked back at Saidah again. Where’s Pearl! he bellowed. Like the Vaughns of Georgia ain’t got all the money they need between the cotton and the breedin’. We ‘spose to be selling slaves, not buying. That young massa don’t have the sense God gave a gnat. Tryin’ to impress his Pappy. An impatient O’Malley began walking toward Pearl’s cabin and motioned to Saidah to follow.

She didn’t. Another slave pushed the little girl from behind.

With the shove, Saidah began to follow the ugly white man with the fiery red hair, matted down with sweat, and skin so pale she could see his veins.

Plus he’s stupid. Is this a boy or a girl? O’Malley railed. Ugly as sin with that nappy-ass hair and dark as the ace of spades. Gon be trouble, he forewarned. You sell slaves as babies befo’ they gets attached to their mammies or you wait until they growed some and sell ‘em as workers or breeders. This here is a waste of time and money. Hell, he’ll cost us money. Where’s Pearl!

Here I is, Aunt Pearl said, meeting him near her door step.

You come when I call, gal, O’Malley raged.

I got stuff to bake for the birthday party tonight, she sassed, drying her hands on her apron. You gon ‘splain to Old Massa and the Missus why it ain’t ready?

You back-sassin’ me, old woman?

Aunt Pearl let the exasperation show on her face, but didn’t utter a word. She let the special treatment she got from the Massa rass O’Malley all by itself. She knew O’Malley believed that no nigra was better than any white—even po’ white trash like him.

Here, O’Malley said, pushing Saidah toward Pearl and wiping tobacco juice from his chin with the back of his hand. You takes the pickaninny children—

Not no more! Aunt Pearl protested.

You do what I tell you, gal.

For the first time Aunt Pearl caught a glimpse of the forlorn little child. Well, she ain’t nothing but a little bitty thing.

If’n you don’t take him I’ll chop him up and feed him to the hogs. Ain’t nobody gonna miss him or her or whatever it is.

Ignoring O’Malley, Aunt Pearl went to Saidah and bent down. Hello there, chile. What yo’ name? Aunt Pearl smiled warmly and the little girl with the huge round eyes just stared at her.

Not only is he ugly, but he’s stupid. Massa done bought another deaf and dumb slave. I wouldn’t never bought this ‘un, O’Malley concluded as he turned and walked away. Just keep him out of my sight or I’ll use him for feed, I swear.

Oh, chile. My goodness. You all alone? Aunt Pearl asked in vain. I guess you straight off the boat, huh? Come in at Savannah? You know they ‘spose to of stopped all this years ago, but they do what they want. It be a shame.

Saidah didn’t move.

Come on wit me. I bet you hungry. I get you sumpthin’ to eat.

Saidah stood motionless as she looked at the moon-faced woman with the big smile that made her cheeks puff up so her eyes reduced to slits. Just like Saidah sensed the evilness of buckras, she sensed that this woman with the sing-song voice and skin the color of parched elephant grass meant her no harm. But it had been so long since Saidah had trusted anyone. The woman took her hand and Saidah removed her fingers from the lady’s grasp. With the round face she is probably Bantu, Saidah thought, although she wasn’t sure, because under the red bandana on her head, the woman’s hair laid flat to her skull. And the woman had such girth, her body as round as her face. She must eat an awful lot, Saidah thought.

The moon-faced woman tried to get Saidah into the cabin, but Saidah saw a log near the trees and went to sit upon it. The woman never stopped talking as she brought Saidah a plate of food. Saidah looked at it and watched the lady set it down on the log and back away. When she did, Saidah removed her cowrie shell and pounced on the food. She hadn’t eaten in days and it was the most delicious thing she’d had in her mouth since her mother’s cooking.

Land sakes alive, girl, Aunt Pearl said, bringing her a cup of milk and watching her devour the food. Well, it gon be my pleasure to feed you. But right now, I gots to take some cakes up to the house for Massa Hiram’s birthday party.

Saidah never stopped eating as she watched the moon-faced woman go into the cabin and come out carrying a basket and a cake. She came down the steps, stopped, said something and smiled at Saidah before rounding the corner of her cabin heading towards that big white house Saidah’d passed on the way in. She wondered how long she’d be there before she was moved someplace else. She’d have to survive like Jide said. He’d helped her with the words, but on her own, Saidah’d picked up words like ugly and black and nappy and now she’d have to learn what an Aunt Pearl was.

The moon-faced lady got further away, stopped, turned around to look at her and smile. Saidah looked at her and thought, She is smiling at me. Me. Saidah was tempted to return the smile but she couldn’t; she’d forgotten how. Although it didn’t show on the outside, Saidah’s insides rejoiced in happiness. No one had genuinely smiled at her since she’d left Africa.

***

Aunt Pearl’s legs struggled on the uneven clay ground as she made her way towards the big house. She turned and watched Lil’ Missy eating, and watching her, smiled again. Aunt Pearl stopped and mopped her brow free of sweat produced by Georgia’s summer heat. At least she wasn’t laboring in the fields bent over with fingers bleeding from the pricks of the devil cotton. At least she didn’t have to pick the three hundred pounds a day quota, stuff it in the bag slung around her neck and drag it over to be weighed. Field or house slave, we all got scars, inside or out, compliments of them Vaughns, she thought.

Aunt Pearl kept walking toward the house. So young Massa William bought his daddy slaves for his birthday present. That’s like taking wood to the wood pile, she thought. This plantation surely don’t need no mo’ slaves, and that’s a fact, Aunt Pearl said aloud. Young Massa William ain’t got the sense his daddy had at his age. Old Massa Hiram Vaughn, a dirt-poor, redneck farmer, parlayed his patch of Georgia-red clay into the largest plantation in the state; first, with cotton, then with slave-breeding. Aunt Pearl hadn’t expected to be one of his breeders… but it turned out that way.

Aunt Pearl stopped again in the scorching heat and adjusted her wares as a mental distraction. She didn’t want to think on it this day. But, without her permission, her thoughts folded back on themselves, and with