P. Parrish - South Of Hell

THE NARRATIVE

OF

JOHN LEPELLE

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BRANDT STATION EPISODE

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

“Brandt is the name you were looking for, right?” Daphne asked.

Louis nodded. “Where did you get this?”

“I’m not sure,” Daphne said with a sigh. “I’m ashamed to say we didn’t even know we had it until yesterday. Brenda was logging some titles into the computer, and this was just stuck in a box of textbooks. She was the one who realized it was a slave journal.”

Louis was looking at the name. John was the name Amy had spoken under hypnosis. Then it struck him: she had also said “lapel.” Could he have heard her wrong?

He looked up at Daphne. “I know I can’t take this with me-”

“You’re welcome to read it here,” she said. “You can use one of the desks in the back.”

She led Louis to a corner booth. He was about to open the journal when Daphne tapped him on the shoulder.

She held out a pair of thin white cotton gloves. “You’ll have to wear these, I’m afraid.”

“No problem.” Louis smiled slightly as he slipped on the gloves. He put on his glasses, opened the journal to the first page, and began to read.

THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN LEPELLE

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BRANDT STATION

EPISODE

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

IN THIS YEAR OF OUR LORD 1894

There are many things that are best left buried. The hurts men inflict upon each other, the evils that are witnessed and endured, these things can erode the heart until a human being can no longer go on. To keep silent about the past is sometimes the only way to survive. And survive is what all God’s creatures must do. But there comes a time when the silence becomes an acid that eats away at the soul. There comes a time when a man must face his past and be silent no more.

I have never told this story before. But it is a true story that needs telling for those who came after me, for those who came before me, for those who, unlike me, were not able to fly away. I tell this story only now because I am far nearer to the end of my life than the beginning and this has weighed heavy on my heart. I tell this story only now because I have been blessed with a long life lived in freedom, safe and loved in the bosom of my family. I tell this story now because my life was possible only because another life was sacrificed.

The journal was handwritten in faded blue ink in a large cursive style that looked as if the author lacked a steady hand. Louis wondered how old John LePelle had been when he wrote it.

He turned the page. The next ten pages were devoted to John LePelle’s early life as a slave in Louisiana. At thirteen, he was taken with his mother and sister to New Orleans to be auctioned off at the slave market. Given clean clothes and advised to “look lively and smart,” they were paraded before customers in a yard. Separated from his family, he worked as a field hand in Natchez. It was a life of brutality, terror, and small graces. Twice he tried to escape, and twice he was captured, the second time paying by having his right foot crushed in a vise to prevent him from running again. He was nursed back to health by a house girl named Fanny, whom he took as his wife. When John was twenty-two, they had a son whom they called Abram.

My back was striped with scars, my foot so damaged that when the cold came I could barely walk. But I saw myself a blessed man. I stood by the bed of my beloved wife as heaven placed in her arms a pure soul, in an infantile form, a new being, never having breathed earth’s air before, never having felt the earth’s goodness or its pain. Yes, they had robbed me of myself, and freedom would never be mine. But there was new life from me and from that, new hope.

Louis took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The shadows in the old cocktail lounge had lengthened. How long had he been reading? He put his glasses on and opened the journal again.

In the winter of 1849, John’s wife and son were sold to a tobacco farmer in Virginia. On January 3, in the dark of the moon, John slipped from his bed and began to run. Scared, starving, and crippled, he eventually crossed into Michigan, where he found shelter in stations on the Underground Railroad.

Louis began to skim the journal now, impatient to see a mention of the Brandt farm. Then, suddenly, there it was.

After dark, I emerged onto a road but I did not know which way to go. I knew only that my destination was to be a farm owned by a man named Amos Brandt. I looked in vain for the North Star but the cloud cover left nothing to light my way. Presently, I encountered a creek and had no choice but to ford its icy water. I saw in the distance a faint light, which I prayed was the safe haven I sought. I was cold and ragged, transformed into a mere ghost of a man by my long journey. And I had nothing but faith to guide me now — and the single name of my next savior, Isabel.

Louis sat back in the booth, stunned. He turned to the next page. John remained hidden in the Brandt barn for the next two days as he regained his strength for the last leg of his journey before he crossed into freedom in Canada. There were rumors of slave catchers in the area, and John knew his owner had put a bounty on his head. Isabel told John he had to leave the next night. On his last night spent in the Brandt barn, John told her about his wife and son. Isabel told him about her son, Charles, and how she worried about him growing up half black.

It is common for white men to be fathers of children by their slaves, but I had never heard a colored woman speak of a white man with love. Yet this Isabel did when she spoke of Amos Brandt. Her love, her forgiveness, this was a balm to my soul which had been so ravaged by hatred. I had no way to thank her. So I gave her the only thing of value I had — a locket that had belonged to my Fanny. It held a lock of my beloved wife’s hair and it had been warmed by its nearness to my heart.

Louis noticed that the writing in the journal had become shakier, as if the dreadfulness of what was to come next had been too much for John LePelle to record.

That last night at the Brandt farm, I awoke to a horrible noise. I heard howling dogs and horses and then the sharp voices of men. Isabel came and told me someone had betrayed her and set the slave catchers on my heels. She led me through a trapdoor and we fell down the hay chute and were quickly outside in the cold. We crept away from the barn and to the edge of the cornfields where Isabel hid me in a root cellar. There I stayed, unable to see but, God help me, I could hear. I heard a woman screaming and when I could not stand it any longer, I crept from the cellar and hid outside the barn. I saw four white men holding Isabel. Another man with eyeglasses stood apart with an expression of smothered horror and I wanted to believe this man was Amos, who could do nothing to help his beloved Isabel.

The men dragged Isabel into the barn, tied her to a hook and raised it until her bare feet just touched the dirt. I saw them whip her until her skin ran red. They wanted me and tortured her for my whereabouts. But Isabel did not betray me. I witnessed this, crouched in the weeds, my eye pressed to a gap in the boards, my body trembling with fear, my heart a dying animal in my chest.

But then I watched in dumb shock as a white woman came into the barn. As she gazed at Isabel’s hanging body I was horrified to see the barest smile tip her lips, and I realized it was she who had betrayed Isabel. The man with the eyeglasses stood at her side as if made from stone. If this was Amos, I cannot ever know. Nor can I know if his heart was as guilty as my own. But the look on that woman’s face I will carry to my grave with certainty.

What else I carry to my grave is of no concern to the readers of this journal. It is an issue between myself and the Lord. That I did nothing to help Isabel that dreadful night was to be my burden for all these years. That I turned away out of fear and ran is my shame.