Steal Away by Lance Levens

Author:Lance Levens [Levens, Lance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ante bellum South, teaching slaves to read the Bible, anti-reading laws for slaves, abolitionists who taught slaves, abolitionists who dies teaching slaves to read, Christians who fought slavery, slave masters and reading, slaves and the Bible
ISBN: 9781647183301
Publisher: BookLocker, Inc.
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The day after the beating and his full-on buckshot drunk, Gus nursed his hangover with two eggs, Madeira, red pepper, and vinegar, but the bitter drink could not erase the anger he felt at his own naivete. He believed he would sit back, observe the beating dispassionately and go on about his merry business.

Fool!

Instead, he’d tossed and moaned and nightmared until Addie stormed out to the guest room.

He even fell off the bed.

Flailed around like a new whelped calf. Couldn’t stand up, couldn’t sleep. This morning—hands shaking, his nose draining a greenish-yellow God-knows-what.

He saddled his horse—shaky even as he mounted—and rode out beyond his land to unfenced territory, old growth timber. The heat was tolerable because a breeze stirred that cooled his face and sweat-sour hair. When he crossed an Indian trail—hard-packed clay, a path that cut like a razor through the woods—for the longest time he sat imagining. Their war parties ran under the full moon with their sleek, fat-lathered bodies. A demonic terror in battle. Drew strength from drinking enemy blood. Slept on rocks so the female earth could not sap their power. They respected his Papa daddy because he knew their language, often parleyed with warriors on his porch, half-naked, silent, not an ounce of fat on their frames.

He’d allowed himself to grow too fond of Hooty. Still remembering my little buddies, he thought. Spud and Mose. Maybe it was inevitable that one day when I grew up I would grow fond of a bondservant.

But the little scoundrel sat there on the front porch that day, chatted and carried on and I honestly felt me and the boy were … what?

He pulled his thoughts up short. Were what? Were becoming … friends? And all that time the boy was sneaking around breaking the law.

He ought to be steaming mad.

But he admired the boy.

Lashley and Clapington suspect I’m some secret Abolitionist. Well, that’s a lot of cock-a-doodle hogwash, but he did enjoy Hooty’s friendship. Loneliness stalked him like a whispering ghost. And now the bullies had forced him to beat the boy. And that’s exactly the way it was gossiped in the town. Ooh, Marse Slackersby, he beat that boy good. Yessir, Marse Slackersby, he put a stop to all that reading foolishness. People congratulated him now when he went to town, praised him for lashing the boy, but the more they thanked him, the worse he felt.

*****

At dawn, Hosea blew the field horn bringing the hands out of the cabins, ghosts still sleeping. Their feet crunched on the road, their arms by their sides, limp. A few younger pups barked after them but turned to sniffing the slop-scabbed feeding trough. As soon as the dogs thrust their noses in, flies attacked them, so they snarled and snapped and backed away, whimpering.

In the Wells cabin, the air was layered with bluish smoke. Liddy lined up a row of elixirs and herbs beside the bed: marigold and golden rod, aloe and arnica. Granny and Sarah toiled through the night cleaning the welts while Hooty was still unconscious.

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