James Nelson - The Blackbirder

“So I said to the fellow…” Billy paused. “Lizzy, are you attending at all? You seem quite distracted, and this a tale the likes of which you will not hear again soon. I do hope you are not thinking on your precious Marlowe. I’ll warrant he has not had half the adventures that I have.”

“Faith, Billy, there is no one could be more interesting than you. But, yes, I am distracted. Thinking about my people. Wherever could they have gone?”

“Ah, your African is a crafty one, can take to the woods and disappear whenever they choose. Can’t find them unless you have dogs. The people here think these Negroes are docile and broken, but that is a dangerous mistake.”

“No, Billy, I fear you are wrong. Perhaps those natives in the jungle are of such a kidney, but our people here are like children, sometimes. I fear they cannot shift for themselves. What if now they have lost themselves in the woods?”

Billy shook his head. “I have sailed with many black men, you know, and they are as fierce as any. More so, in fact, because if they are caught there is no chance of pardon. It’s the gallows for them, between the flux and flood of tides.”

“Thank you, Billy. You put my mind at ease.”

“Forgive me, dear Lizzy. I meant only to say that you should not worry. Your people will be fine.”

Then, as if in answer to this prediction, a knock on the kitchen door, just a light rap, and then the door swung open enough for Caesar to stick his head warily through.

“Mrs. Marlowe? You all right?”

“Yes, Caesar, yes!” Elizabeth said, jumping to her feet, greatly relieved to see the old man. “Come in, come in! Wherever did you go? Where are the others?”

“We went into the woods, ma’am. They can’t find us, without they have dogs.”

“I should not be so sure. And in any event, they will be back with dogs, and soon, I fear.”

“That’s right,” Caesar agreed. He couldn’t have heard Dunmore ’s threat, he just seemed to accept this as a given. “Some of them others, they down at the houses, gettin’ their things together. I come back for mine, and Queenie and Tom and Plato is outside. Poor Lucy’s still in a state. Queenie says she’ll get her things as well, if that’s all right with you, ma’am?” Queenie was the cook for Marlowe House, Tom and Plato the occasional houseboys.

“Of course, let them come in.”

Caesar opened the door, beckoned to the unseen people, and a moment later Queenie and Tom and Plato shuffled in, sheepish, apparently unsure of their reception.

“Oh, Queenie, boys, I am so relieved to see you,” Elizabeth said, and that seemed to go far to ease their minds.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, for all this trouble-,” Queenie began, but Elizabeth shook her head, interrupted, saying, “It is never your fault. It’s that bastard Dunmore, has been him all along. But whatever are we to do?”

“Well, ma’am…,” Caesar began, glanced at the others for encouragement. Queenie nodded her head.

“Well, Mr. Marlowe always said we was free, so we reckoned we’d head to the woods, hide out until we can come out safe again. Ain’t like we’re running, ’cause Mr. Marlowe, he always say we can go if we want…”

None of the freed slaves had ever tested this promise. None had wanted to, and they understood as well that there were not many places that they could go.

Caesar was clearly unsure of how their plan would be received.

“Of course. There is nothing else for it,” Elizabeth said, to the others’ obvious relief. “First we shall need food…”

“Beg pardon, beg pardon…” Billy Bird stood, wiped his mouth elaborately with his napkin. “Pray, forgive me, but these are intrigues I do not need to hear. By your leave, my dear Lizzy, I shall be off. I am at the King’s Arms for another fortnight or so, should you need my services. Until then”-he stepped around the table, took up Elizabeth ’s hand and kissed it with a flourish-“I say adieu!”

He grinned, nodded to the others, and was gone. Elizabeth did not think he was gone forever.

“Food, ma’am?” Queenie brought her back to the present.

“Yes, yes. Take whatever you can. You know better than me what is in the pantry. Plato, run down to the slave…your quarters there and bring back five or six more men. We shall take all the guns and swords and such from the drawing room, and the extra powder and shot from the cellar.”

“Guns, ma’am? Mr. Marlowe’s guns?”

“Yes, the guns that belong to Mr. Marlowe and myself. Do you not see a need for them?”

Caesar and Tom exchanged glances. This was a largesse they had not expected. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Tom. “We surely could use them, if you could see fit to part with them.”

“Of course. Now let us round these things up and be gone. I do not know when Dunmore and those other sodding bastards might be back. There is not a moment to lose.”

Elizabeth felt strong, in charge of the situation, and it was a good feeling. Things could not proceed without her to organize them, to issue orders; these poor people would be in an utter state of confusion. She understood how Thomas felt, standing on his quarterdeck, seeing things happen in reaction to his spoken word.

Queenie and Caesar turned their attention to the pantry and the cellar. Elizabeth led Tom to the drawing room where a majority of the guns were kept, everything from battered old muskets to lovely fowling pieces and matching braces of pistols. Edged weapons too: swords, cutlasses, hunting knives. Thomas had taken the best weapons with him on the Elizabeth Galley, but he had amassed enough of a collection over the years that there was still an impressive arsenal remaining.

They stacked the weapons up on the fainting couch. Soon Plato joined them, leading a half dozen men from the former slave quarters who gathered up the weapons in strong arms, the food as well, and packed it all in sacks they had brought with them.

Elizabeth raced up to her dressing room, stuffed her warm cloak and other clothes into a pillowcase, then hurried down the stairs again and out back where the others were waiting.

“Very well. Let us go,” she said.

Embarrassed silence, looks shot back and forth. Then Queenie said, “Bless you, ma’am, you ain’t figuring on coming with us?”

“Of course I am.”

“This ain’t your problem, Mrs. Marlowe. Ain’t no reason you should suffer this.”

“Of course it is my problem, it is all of our problem. I most certainly am coming with you. Now let us go.”

More looks, a few shrugs, and then the men hefted the sacks of food, slung muskets over shoulders, jammed pistols in belts and they all headed back toward the former slave quarters and the woods beyond.

Elizabeth could not have let them go alone. Billy Bird’s assurances aside, she knew that they could not survive without her. These simple people needed her to show them the way.

They took to the woods, hiking hard along trails that Elizabeth could not even discern. Her skirts caught on the brush, and she found herself tripping over obstacles half hidden by the bracken, but she pushed on, keeping pace, unwilling to let her people face these hardships without all of the help she might be able to offer.

They came to a clearing, an open place in the woods where the grass grew waist high over a half acre or so. “This looks a fine place to stop,” Elizabeth suggested. “Set up some sort of camp right here?”

“Well, Mrs. Marlowe, you right, no doubt,” said Plato. “But maybe we best get a little further from Marlowe House. We ain’t but a mile or so, and easy tracking through them woods.”

“A mile?” Plato had to be wrong about that; they were three miles at least, but Elizabeth did not want to argue. “Very well, let us go on.”