Enigma (Road to the Breaking Book 2) by Chris Bennett

Author:Chris Bennett [Bennett, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CPB Publishing, LLC
Published: 2021-02-21T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10. HARD LESSONS

“Experience is a hard teacher

because she gives the test first,

the lesson afterwards.”

– Vernon Sanders Law

Friday June 29, 1860 – Greenbrier County, Virginia:

The others who’d lived their whole lives at Mountain Meadows hadn’t yet grasped the true joy of a Sunday morning’s Sabbath, but George did! He’d been at other farms that let slaves off work on the Sabbath. And though the day off was a great pleasure to be sure, the real gift it afforded was … Saturday night! The gift of not having to hear the overseer’s horn, come dawn. This meant there was no need to be in bed early the night before. And from George’s point of view, having that Saturday night to experience some of life’s pleasure made all the difference—the difference between being a human being, and being just another work animal, like a horse, or a mule.

But now, he had to convince the others. He’d spent the evening the previous night turning Babs to his way of thinking, and he was making the rounds to the other cabins to convince more people. It was Friday after dinner, so he had little time to get around before everyone would be asleep.

“Lookie, here … we ain’t gotta be up before first light. So we can have us some fun, like we all used to have over at the other farms where I been. The folks’d slip off into the woods of a Saturday night, and light a big ol’ fire, then dance, and sing, and laugh, like they’s no tomorrow! Come on now … we ain’t never done nothing of the like here-abouts. And now Master’s given us the Sabbath … well, it’s our chance to live life a little.”

“But Master won’t like it. Don’t matter what he says in them fancy Sabbath talks, when it come right down to it he ain’t gonna like us black men running around in the woods, makin’ music and whatnot! And what if them overseers catches us? They’s gonna be powerful angry … and maybe they makes us work on the Sabbath after all. They’ll give us a whipping for sure if they catches us …” and on and on, went the naysayers.

“Come on, now … Master said they’d be no more beatings, didn’t you hear? And I, for one, believes him. And … he never said we couldn’t go out and have fun the night before the Sabbath, did he? Come on now … are y’all mules? Are y’all cattle? Or are y’all actual, human people? Come on! Whatcha gonna do, just work ‘til y’all die, and never enjoy nothing of life? Lookie here what I done made already … you others can make something of your own too.”

He pulled something out of an old burlap bag he’d brought with him. It was half of an old discarded whiskey barrel; he’d cleaned it up and stretched an animal hide across until it had dried nice and tight. Holding the homemade drum in front of him, he sat cross-legged on the floor of the cabin and proceeded to pound out a rhythm with his hands.

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