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The rain continued to sink into his hair from the dangling leaves that hovered over him at Still River. Cosah stood there like he was waiting for his mother to rise up from the water as the young lady that his betrothed killed was sinking into the depths. Each time his eyes poured over the top of the water, he felt a deep sense of loss and at the same time longing. He could barely remember at all what his mother looked like, but if he could just see her, he would know who she was without a doubt.
It had been just over fifteen years since he left her, watching her moan in agony as he rode away. It was like it was yesterday for him; the pain never left. Tears moved over his face along with the raindrops as he remembered looking at his mom, the lowest she’d ever been before in her life. He remembered at the time not wanting to make her pain worse so he held back his cries, but inside he hurt so bad until after he couldn’t see her anymore, his insides erupted. On the back of the wagon, he dropped down and covered his head and wept like he was a newborn baby. Even though his twin sisters were crying prior to his break down, they even had to comfort him by falling on top of him, covering him like a shield, not only because they were sad, however. It was because they knew they needed him. Somewhere in their young souls, they knew that he was all they had left to protect them from what they simply didn’t know. Cosah had always been their protector, especially after their father died.
The world never looked the same to Cosah again. Watching Bigun get shot down like a dog for helping his mother was evidence to him every time he woke up that he would be free one day. Being trapped in the arms of his mother as she got whipped and hearing her scream in agony, taking the lashes with the preference of dying over losing her children was the worst of all. Even at that age, Cosah wanted to kill them. He wanted to kill all of them, especially Mr. Marksman. The problem that he ran into was that he couldn’t, and it would burn him to the deepest parts of his soul until he had the chance.
Despite the anxiety that speaking brought him, he opened his mouth and began to pour out his heart to his mother. His cry was no longer that of a boy but of a man, a man who hadn’t learned to forget his past, but clung to it. That was the only way a whip and cotton couldn’t raise him into the weak man that the whites wanted. That was what he cried to his mother. He cried to her all alone, how he’d felt all of his life since they parted, with the weight of his two sisters on his shoulders and a future that condemned him for nothing.
“Mama, I’m sorry that I had to leave ‘em now,” he cried. “But they say they wanted to stay with they husbands, and they happy with ‘em. Say they gonna get out soon, too. If they don’t though, mama, I’m gonna send for ‘em. I promise I will,” he cried, staring down into the water. “Mama,” he continued, still thinking about the body he’d just hidden in the waters, just as she was hidden. “I had to put somebody there,” he explained referring to the water, “That Misty said she had to kill. She got your grand in there, in her stomach, and you know Mrs. Sarah would have cut it out of her thinking it was Mr. Marksman’s. She couldn’t take that chance there, mama, so I put the lady body right here so they think she just up and ran away. Forgive me, mama, but I know you told me to live and not die, so that’s what I need to do for my child and my soon to be wife. We gonna live,” he said holding his head high. “I’m gonna live for you, mama, and you ain’t gonna lose no more of your family. You ain’t, not no more,” he wept.
“I told Seena and Sadie the family names every night until they left. We even been in the fields saying them ‘cause that’s how we remembered you, added your name on it,” he continued, choking back tears. “I ain’t ‘shame of what you did, ma. Ain’t nobody shame. You still my mama, and always will be.” He paused before continuing, looking around to be certain he was still alone. “Mr. Thomas done sent me off with these papers on assignment after I gained his trust. I ain’t read ‘em, but they be my ticket ‘cause I ain’t never coming back. Everything all set up. I’m gettin’ Misty tomorrow, and I’m leavin’. I’ma do somethin’ that you want me to do though, just so you can have your peace. I’m gonna get free, and your family will be free then. Marks my word, mama. Marks it plain as day.”
He stood up and wiped his eyes, and just as clear as the waters were before him, as he turned to leave, there she stood. Before Cosah could utter a sound, his voice left him, and as he reached out to touch her, she slowly vanished before his eyes.
“Mama!” he cried loudly under the tremendous thunder that shook the earth. In haste, he ran forward to touch her, but she was gone. He stood there for many minutes, searching the darkness, hoping that what he saw wasn’t an image conjured up from his imagination as a result of his yearning to see her again. Suddenly, in the midst of sharp lightening that ripped down from the sky, he became angered once again, his wrath triggered by him being separated from his mother once again, in his adulthood, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
He began to revert back to being a small boy who passed the Still River as he was being hauled off of the plantation over a decade ago, and his emotions became locked down once again. Strangling in his rage, he began to tear through the trees, branches and rocks. Whatever was before him, he shoved out of his way, and as he continued on his difficult path, with the tree limbs slapping him in his arms and chest, finally in the distance, he laid eyes on Mr. Marksman’s huge home. Then, he dropped the last thin limb from his hand, and it shot backwards as he stepped forward out of hiding. Cosah stood there in the open grass, his nostrils flared and his heart ice cold. It wasn’t long before he began to cross the large yard, driven by anger in the pouring rain.
**
Misty couldn’t get the mud and dirt off of her fast enough. She’d only had a smaller bucket of water in her hut, and when the water had gotten completely filthy, she took the bucket and sat it outside so that it could fill with rain water. In the meantime, she then began to wipe herself down again and change clothing.
Still shaken by the night’s events when she had to take the life of Jane, she sat down nervously and began to rock back and forth, thankful that the storm was so grievous that it was likely that Mr. Marksman wouldn’t come to her hut again. Staring down at her hands, they were still shaking as she still felt the resonating force from the tie of her dress that she used to kill Jane with, imprinted her fingers and palms. She rubbed them together vigorously to camouflage the redness that was visible on her light skin.
“Get off it, get off it!” she complained, continuing to rub until finally she shoved her hands in the dirt floor and began to cry. “Cosah,” she called multiple times, praying to God that he wasn’t captured while moving Jane’s body. She had an overwhelming sense of guilt and agony as she thought about all the things that could happen if someone saw him carrying the body out of the hut. “Cosah!” she screamed, holding her belly like if something ever happened to their baby she would end her own life. It wouldn’t be long before even Mr. Marksman knew she was pregnant, and because of the loss of his own children, he would lay property claim on the one she had surely to never sell them off the land, but from what she learned about Mrs. Sarah, it would mean the death of her baby.
She’d left the bucket of water outside long enough, so as soon as the thunder calmed its roar, she tipped to the door and stuck her hand right outside to retrieve it. However, when she did, another hand grabbed hers as she laid hold of the bucket.
“No!” she hollered, afraid that it was someone coming to get her for the murder. She yanked back fiercely and stumbled back onto the floor of her hut. Then, she quickly grabbed a stick that was left leaning up against the wall and pointed it toward the door. Her breathing was out of control, and her stomach had begun to pain. Rubbing her belly and trying to calm down so that she wouldn’t lose her baby, she stood firm ready to attack with the stick, until she saw who came through the door. It was Cosah, and she could tell he wasn’t the same man by the way he entered, put the bucket down and stared away from her.
Immediately, she ran toward him and apologized. “Cosah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Cosah, please. She would have...”
“Nothin’ to be sorry for, Misty. Go rest yourself. Sorry for scarin’ ya’ like I did. Let me clean you off some,” he said, finally turning to look at her with compassionate eyes, dismissing his rage for a time. “I don’t blame you for nothin’,” he spoke, pretending to be fine when he was truly bothered, not about her, but about being within feet of the man who took him from his mom and had her beat as she tried to protect him.
“Thank you, Cosah,” she cried, believing that she’d won his love back.
“Let me clean you off.”
“No, Cosah, here,” she said, bringing him down with her to the ground. “Let me.” From there, she gathered the water in a warm rag, rubbed his body, from his head to his feet. When she was finished, he then returned the comfort to her. Her skin was covered in dirt, as if she’d been running through the woods just as long as he’d been, and as he cleaned and cradled her, she spoke.
“Somebody grabbed me in the waters out there, out by that lake. I was trying to clean myself off, and somebody grabbed my hand, Cosah. I know it was somebody out there in that water, and it wasn’t a gator or a fish because I felt it wrap fingers around my arm and try to pull me in,” she continued as Cosah rubbed the rag down her right arm.
“Was it running or still?”
“The water?”
“Yes.”
“Still. It was calm and still, but when the arm grabbed me, that was the only thing that made them waters move, I swear it, Cosah. I was washing my face and drinkin’...”
“Mama’s out there at Still River. That’s where you were. The name we have for that river is Still because it don’t move lesson you move it. That’s where I put that lady you killed, out there in that same river so it look like she run.” He then took a deep breath. “I saw Mama tonight, too. That musta’ been who grabbed you ‘cause she showed herself to me out there, too.”
“But why would she grab me, Cosah?” she asked, stunned and so spooked that she turned around. “Cosah, she ain’t here no more, so she know I ain’t do nothin’. Why would she do that?” she continued, looking around, growing afraid of her surroundings.
“Spirits ain’t never gone. Ole Harvey, the one who gave you the note, he was the one who tell me ‘bout Mama. Say she stays out here and ain’t been in peace since she left so her spirit done stayed here until she can rest, ‘til her children return. I’m here now. Explained to her ‘bout Seena and Sadie while I was at the river, but, yeah Misty, that was my Mama. Had to be.”
“Cosah, what you mean? She’d done tried to pull me in? What she got ‘gainst me? Cosah, I don’t believe in no live spirits. I believe in spirits, but she done touched me like she livin’. She was alive,” she replied.
“It ain’t about what you believe, Misty,” he explained, frustrated with her disbelief. “It’s what it really is. All these people ain’t lyin’, and I tell you that I seen her. Everybody else has, too, and the older ones like Harvey know what she looks like. You know the story I told you about, and ‘cording to everybody ‘round, she walks the place lookin’ ‘round for us. But tonight, Misty,” he said staring into her eyes hopefully, “She looked right at me, and she smiled. I ain’t never heard no tales of her smiling like that. They say she looks around all the time, confused and bothered, like something is truly eatin’ at her soul, searching through the cotton. She used to tell us to get low in the cotton field when I was a boy, so I know she lookin’ for us. She used to always look at us in the cotton, and now that we ain’t there, she probably won’t rest. Somethin’ is still wrong with her, Misty.”
Misty held her reply back, knowing what she heard from Jane the first time she ever talked to her. She talked about it all. Cosah was right. Lies didn’t have eyes as proof, and if he said he saw her and she even felt her on her own skin, then it was her. It was her. It was the mother of the man she loved and the grandmother to her unborn child.
“You right,” she said. “It had to be her Cosah. It had to be.”
There was an anticipatory silence as they sat there reading each others’ minds, knowing that the time for them being together in the hut was winding down. The rain was slowing down, the thunder was getting softer, and even the lightening didn’t shine through the holes in the hut anymore. That was when it would become dangerous for him to be anywhere on the plantation before twenty-four hours passed.
Finally, he broke the silence as he leaned in toward her her face. She thought that he would kiss her, but instead he went toward her ear. His voice began to quake as he stared down at her naked body that he just finished wiping down. Misty then placed her hands atop his strong, brown chest, wondering what he was about to say because she heard him choking back words as his chest shook beneath her palms.
“Cosah, what is it? What’s wrong now, tell me?” she asked, sensing that he was even more bothered than what she thought. She was just about to encourage him to speak up once again when he started to kiss her neck, then her left shoulder. Then, he spoke.
“One thing...” he started as his voice deepened to a sound she’d never heard before coming from him. Then, she felt a tear fall to her skin, causing her to jump back and look him directly in his eyes which had turned blood shot. Then, he finished his thought, “He ain’t never gonna touch you again.”
“Cosah, it’s...” she started, placing her hand on his face gently, but as soon as she did, he snatched it down and held it in place, so tightly that it almost made her holler. She became frightened but didn’t move an inch because she knew deep in her soul that Cosah wouldn’t hurt her. Instead she knew he was hurt and enraged by the one thing that was beyond her control.
“Ain’t nothin’ okay ‘bout it!” he shouted. His appearance transformed into a man who had lost his mind, and as his eyes traced every part of her body, he held back his anger as much as he could, something he’d always done, and promised, “He won’t never touch you again.” He then released her wrist. “Never again.”
On that, he stood her up, placed a cloth over her body, got dressed and then left, leaving Misty uncertain about where he was going for the long rainy night and new day that was ahead. All she knew was that she needed to be prepared and was going to be.