––––––––
Her arms held tightly onto his back as they rode the silky, brown horse down the small hill of sand that met the sleepy salt waters. The night was quiet and so were they as their thoughts met in a melancholy mood about the passing of Lady Rose. Before they left for the beach, they’d stayed back with a few of the others and laughed about the good times they had with the woman who’d become their mother.
There was once a time when Lady Rose chased some of the children around the cabin with her cane, and nobody knew she could run that fast in her old age. She did though, at the children who had just snatched her favorite berries from her bowl. Just the sight of Lady Rose running behind the quick feet of the children caused all the field workers to stop what they were doing and catch her. Lady Rose was hot like a firecracker that day, but despite her anger, when everyone caught up to her and the children, there was laughter all the way around. Lady Rose loved everyone, and it was the saddest moment to see her go.
As the water’s edge scraped the side of the horse’s hooves, Clance stopped the horse, allowing Shelone to hop down. It was the first time either one of them had been to the beach together without Marcus. It felt different, and that was only because it really was very different for the both of them.
“I’ll go ahead and start collecting the shells as you go tie up the horse.”
He didn’t say much back, but instead, continued to walk the horse down to the large hook that was halfway up the beach, which was only twenty or so feet away from where they were. Shelone watched him walk away. The way she looked at him was as if he was never coming back. She’d learned to do that for some, if not all, her friends. The problem was that she never wanted to let Clance go, not like she had to do with Marcus. For the first time in a while, she felt like she belonged to something that she didn’t have to be in control of but quite the opposite – something that could care for her where she needed it the most.
There were shells everywhere. Where ever she walked, her feet would hit them as they were buried in the sand. Some of them were directly on top of the sand as well, all various shapes and sizes. Each time she picked one up to place it in her bag, she made certain there was a great, powerful yet sweet and soothing sound of the ocean. It was those qualities of Lady Rose that stood out. People may have seen her as a servant, but that translated as a great leader in the eyes of God because without her, many people were already starting to feel lost. People were already grabbing at the lessons and teachings from Lady Rose because if they didn’t remember in their minds, whether they could write or not, they couldn’t write them down on paper. It was only allowed to be written in their minds...or face death for not playing dumb like the whites wanted.
Shelone’s dress covered the ground around her feet as she reached for a beautiful seashell, and just as she touched it, Clance’s hand slid down her arm softly. She wore a white head scarf that had a long train that draped around her right shoulder, and she felt his fingertips motion it from around her neck, revealing a scar she acquired from an angry overseer years back. His lips kissed it tenderly as if it just happened yesterday, and every wound that it gave her internally left at that moment.
The gusts of wind increased in speed as he cradled her body into his, using his other hand to remove the bag full of shells that she’d already collected from around her body. The bag fell into the sand, and he’d finally freed her. Shelone’s backside fused into his chest as his fingers intermingled with her own, and as he enjoyed the moisture from his lips mixing with the sweet scent of her brown skin, she looked up toward the starry sky, closed her tired eyes, and embraced the love he lavished all over her neck.
He moved her hands to the strings of cloth that tied the front of her dress together, and Shelone graciously loosened the bonds that held so tightly to her skin since Marcus died. The top of her dress fell open as the weight of both their hands pushed the fabric from the tempting elements of her skin while Clance motioned her in unison with his imagination until she was turned around facing him. Their eyes met like magnets, and Shelone commanded his shirt off with only her eyes while they both danced in each other’s desire for one another.
The sand swallowed the skin of Shelone’s back as he laid her in the sand, and as he moved over her like a sheet covering the chill of her loneliness, his hands sank deeper and deeper into her soul as they paced up and down her body until there was nothing left to undress.
“I love you, Shelone.” His words unearthed all the cracks founded by heartache and healed them with just their sound. Shelone moaned for him and his affection as she motioned him back up her body to her tears that he kissed away. “I’ll never leave you, Shelone.”
“Please, don’t ever go,” she spoke, centering her words atop his lips as his hands gripped the sand around her. There they were, alone on the beach, making love in the sand surrounded by the sound of the mighty ocean from whence their ancestors came.
––––––––
“I want to marry you, Shelone,” he stated as he gathered the seashells while she held the bag open for him to release them inside. The statement didn’t stun her at all. After spending so much time with him since the death of her husband, seeing how he is with her children and how her own needs could be met with him, she wanted the same thing. She was just always afraid to be with him due to the circumstances.
Cosah was still upset with her for hiding his father’s death from him. He spoke and was still as respectful as he always was most of the time, but it wasn’t the same. As far as Cosah talking to Bigun, he didn’t. He only looked at him and turned his head. As soon as picking was over, Cosah went to sleep.
Shelone didn’t have a response to Clance’s proclamation of love for her through marriage, and when she didn’t pause to reply, he stopped gathering the shells. The ones that were inside his hands, he dropped back into the soft sand. Then, he took the bag of shells from her arm and spoke again, this time looking her square in the eyes.
“Didn’t you hear me, Shelone?” His voice tenderly wrapped around her body like a warm sheet. “I want you to marry me, and we can do it as soon as we get back.” Shelone looked away, concerned about everything that was transpiring because it was happening so fast, and her heart, although in love, weighed heavily on Cosah and her other children. It was mainly Cosah, however, that she knew it would affect the most. “Shelone, please. I already talked to...”
Shelone’s eyes shot up to him, stunned at the words that escaped his mouth. “You told somebody?” she asked, noticeably uncomfortable and quite irritated by what he said. Clance noticed her movements, the way she started pulling at her head scarf and wiping the back of her neck as if he hadn’t already washed the gritty sand from her back with the warm ocean water. He gently moved her hand down slowly in efforts to calm her nervousness.
“I spoke to the minister already. He said he would read the scriptures and we can jump the broom anytime. We already...”
“We already what, Clance?” She shook her hand away from his and glanced back at the spot where they made love in the sand under the night sky. Then, she opened her mouth to shout something else back at him, but before she could do so, he put his hand over her mouth lightly and interrupted.
“We already in love.” He glanced over her head and back at the disrupted sand that laid between the sand that was still smooth and flat. Then, he brought his attention back to her. “That’s all I was gonna say. We already in love. That means, the sooner we get married, the more likely nobody will look for us when we run. You know we got a better chance of being trusted if we a family, to stay on the land. Nobody will be expecting us to go. It look like we all settled in. That way...”
“That way we can make it out...” Shelone’s angry countenance faded to one with hope, hope for love and endless freedom to do so without being sold off.
“The children and all. Set up a boat to carry us across the water and a carriage to carry us up the rest of the ways to a safe house that’s near...all four of them, and we’ll be so far that the dogs can’t smell us.”
The plan sounded exciting to Shelone, however, she just didn’t know if her baby would survive it. On the other hand, she didn’t know how long her baby would survive being a slave either. Dying was the only other option to surviving as a slave, and she would rather choose her child’s death if she had to do so than it be chosen by the hand of some of the whites Mr. Marksman knew. There was no certainty that Mr. Marksman would have favor on any of her children being that he drove their father off to death.
“How many people you know that already done this?” She’d heard about the routes of escape, but she’d never considered taking one of them since becoming a mother.
“I know only some, not many. I used to know this boy named Sam that worked up the yard on that old plantation...”
“Mr. Turner’s?”
“Yeah, that one. He escaped. He sent a message down. A few others did, too. Say you can’t stop for nothing in the world, and to hide at all times until the help says you crossed the border.” He stared at her with concern, but quickly lost it by picking her feet up from the sand and spinning her around with joy. Shelone laughed the loudest she’d laughed in a long time as she threw her arms up in the air, grasping at air that she wanted to call hers but couldn’t...because she was a slave. Even her air was borrowed, and she knew it.
––––––––
Sunday evening was a whole twenty-four hours from the time Shelone and Clance left the beach. They had to prepare for the funeral every chance they got, and each slave had to work together because there was no way Mr. Marksman would let his crop slip because a Negro died, no matter how hard she worked. As a matter of fact, there were some Negroes in particular who continued to pick through most of the night, taking turns, to make up for the slack of the funeral. Some didn’t need much light. They felt their way while someone held a flame up high on the outside of the field to shine just enough light for them to get the job done.
By the time they got back, Lady Rose was all wiped down and everyone was taking turns praying over her and talking with her so she wasn’t left alone on her travels to heaven. The men were already standing outside next to the coffin they painted with a black oil, and each of the men had a makeshift torch cut from wood so the fire would burn long enough for them to see how they would lay Lady Rose who was already dressed in the best they could make. She smelled like the flowers that grew in the woods, and her hair was remarkably braided onto her scalp. There was a head dress already made for her because Lady Rose tended to think ahead, knowing that someone would either be killed or die. Her parents taught her the art of crowning the dead in honor, especially the women. Therefore, it was with one of the head dresses that she’d previously made that covered her braids. Although it was made of straw, twigs and white cloth, it appeared as if it was tailor made in a side shop by what some would call a professional. However, there was none more professional at slave life than Lady Rose, and there would never be another to come on Mr. Marksman’s plantation.
“You gonna put her in the coffin now?”
“Yes, we got to. Y’all need all of us to pick tomorrow. You know how much Marksman wants done, and they still out there in the fields. He ain’t give us much time. Sunday is Sunday, or else he gonna set her on fire out there in the woods.”
Shelone understood. Normally, they would allow the body to stay in the shack for a day or two so people could soothe their sadness by sitting with her over a couple days, but she knew that everyone had already done so...except for her. “Let me get my time after you put her in there and take her off to the grave. Let me get my time, Clance.”
She watched as they all lifted her high and set her back down low into the coffin which was already sitting atop a wheeled crate that they would wheel through a pathway through the woods to the Negro grave. They took great pride in keeping it far enough away from the plantation house because no one wanted to be buried where they were already buried while living. Before they left, Shelone was able to get her alone time with Lady Rose. During that time, she began to place the seashells inside the coffin, two big ones at the bottom of her feet so that she can float to heaven when it’s time, two medium sized ones at her ears to drown out the noise from the hell on earth above her head, and one to cover her heart so that she can continue to have motion in her soul. There was one other thing that Shelone remembered. It was a raggedy Bible, one that her mother gave her from her mother. Lady Rose couldn’t read, but her mother secretly could. She never taught Lady Rose to read out of fear because of how independent she was, so she taught her that the plantation massah’s teaching was wrong. There was nowhere in there that said a Negro person should be whipped, raped and killed, hung by trees and tortured. She told her that Jesus loved all and never mentioned to not do so, so that was what Lady Rose held on to when she opened that Book. She knew her mother wasn’t a liar and wouldn’t lie for anyone’s white man. She told Lady Rose that Jesus was from back where she was from, across the ocean, and He loved everyone. The white man was the wrong one, so don’t listen. Lady Rose never went to hear the readings. She only listened to the truth her mother told her and held on to the Bible as her mom requested.
Shelone quickly got up, ran into Lady Rose’s shack, retrieved the Bible, and when she returned to the coffin, laid it atop of her stomach, and began to speak to her.
“I know you with the good Lord, Lady Rose. I know you knew you were dying when you came to my shack over there. Thank you for choosin’ me ‘cause you know what was best for me.” Shelone wiped tears from her eyes. “You know me and Bigun should be together. Nothing you ever did was by coincidence, not nothing,” she sobbed. “Thank you for taking care of my young, and choosing us to leave with. Watch over us and visit with us some time, if the Lord lets you.” Shelone then stood up and walked over to where the men stationed themselves while she had her time with Lady Rose, and when they saw her coming, they rushed over to move Lady Rose’s body. Clance stopped directly in front of her.
“We ain’t gonna die on no plantation. We ain’t.” His face was stone solid, and Shelone knew that look, the look when a man’s face was stern and his eyes failed to shut but looked as if they were staring at his own soul in front of him. She knew that look because all the Negro men on the plantation had that same appearance when they had plans that were going to go forth. Clance’s breathing stalled, and finally, he broke free from his trance, walked around her, and joined the other men as they took Lady Rose’s body to the Negro grave yard, hidden in the woods. As he walked away with the other men, she knew then that she had to save Cosah, both Cosah and Clance, before all hope left. The girls were easier to handle, but she knew a boy could raise up much troubles without a care if he believed in what he was doing. Therefore, she would marry Clance as soon as possible.