The Family Mansion by Anthony C. Winkler

Author:Anthony C. Winkler [Winkler, Anthony C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book, Historical
ISBN: 9781617751660
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2013-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

After finishing breakfast, Hartley rode around the perimeter of the sugarcane fields, looking for malingerers and trespassers. Armed with two pistols and a dagger, he was soon bored to death. It was Meredith’s orders, however, that the backras make their presence felt by these horseback patrols, which were rotated among them. He trotted past a field that was being harvested, stopped under a shady mahoe tree, and watched as the cane cutters, slashing right and left with their machetes, reduced the stalks to stubble and piled up the cut cane into mounds that other slaves loaded into carts yoked to Brahman bulls and hauled away to the mill. The sun was scorching the land and ripples of heat shimmered in the air. When it was this hot the island wilted and all creatures sought respite in the scrap of shadows, but not the slaves, and especially not during harvest time. The cane cutters advanced steadily through the fields flattening the rows with their machetes. Every now and again the crack of a driver’s whip sounded like the snap of breaking bone.

Hartley was looking idly on when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone flitting behind a nearby tree. He rode over to it and found Cuffy trying to hide behind a bush.

“What are you doing here? Have you been following me?” Hartley asked testily.

“A good slave stay with him massa.”

“I’m not your blasted master! You’re free. And you’re no longer allowed on the plantation premises. Now go away.”

“Cuffy don’t want no damn free. You can’t just dash ’way Cuffy like old shoe.”

Hartley stared at the boy, who he thought must obviously have gone mad. A few yards away in the cane field a driver, looking bored and hot, was snapping his whip for practice.

“You there!” Hartley called out, beckoning to the driver to come to him.

The man ambled over, still playing with his whip. Cuffy shrank away behind a bush.

“You see this man?” Hartley asked, pointing to Cuffy. “He doesn’t belong on the plantation. He’s no longer a slave. He’s free. If you see him anywhere around, run him off the grounds.”

The driver broke into an evil grin and flexed his whip. “Hey, boy!” he snarled. “Off de grounds.”

“Massa treat Cuffy bad,” the boy blubbered, backing up with his eyes fixed to the snapping whip. He back stepped to the cut-stone wall bordering the thick woods that encircled the grounds of the plantation with a scruffy collar of thick bush.

“Massa,” the boy shrieked, “don’t send Cuffy away!”

This plea was followed by the crack of the whip and the sound of scurrying footfalls. A few minutes later, the driver reappeared. “Him gone, Massa,” the man grunted.

“Good riddance!” said Hartley.

The backra nodded curtly and rode away, leaving the driver looking disappointed as if he expected some special favor in return. The man shambled back to the field being harvested, still snapping his whip for practice, making a sound like gunshots that bounced off the mountains with an ominous echo.

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