Her sandaled feet slapped against the brick pavement as she and her sisters crept cautiously up Peachtree Street. The Union guns rumbled in the distant north, driving the confused and weary Confederates toward the city in ragged ranks. The greycoats did not know what waited for them.
She worked the glowing bracelet around her wrist, a strange talisman that did not match her other accoutrements. She could not remember where she procured it, whether it was given to her or whether she sought it from a powerful shaman. It comforted her at that moment, just as it had during the long journey in the belly of the British man-o’-war, as it had when they stormed the docks of Savannah, and as it had when they hard marched through swamps and farmland to Atlanta. The British told them if they captured Atlanta this new land would be theirs to control.
She slipped into the darkness with her sisters and waited. Their banners appeared first, ragged red flags crisscrossed with blue bars inlaid with white stars. Dirty bearded men in tattered uniforms trudged up the road as their officers shouted encouragement from their horses. She worked her hand around the stock of her musket as she raised it to her shoulder. The strange world she’d entered months ago became familiar as she set her sight on one of the officers. This was what she was trained for; this was her destiny.
A piercing scream came from the darkness and she squeezed her trigger. Smoke blinded her for a moment; when it cleared, the horse twirled about riderless. Together she and her sisters shrieked, dropping their rifles and unleashing their machetes from their leather sheaths. They charged into the streets, barreling into the stunned soldiers; hundreds of black-skinned woman warriors attacked with unbridled fury. In moments the battle was done. But there was no time to celebrate, no time to claim trophies. The Union soldiers would not be far behind. She returned to the shadows, picked up her musket and reloaded. The bracelet felt warm against her sweating skin. This land would be theirs. This land would be New Dahomey.
Do you see?
Yes, I see.