Chapter Fifteen

 

Long before daybreak the next morning, Rosalyn heard Grant’s persistently soft knock on her bedroom door. Clutching her robe around her, she cracked the door and peeped up at him through a tangle of disheveled hair. Grant was fully dressed in riding clothes and holding a lighted candlestick, which he handed her.

“Why so early?” she yawned.

“We need to put a few miles on these nags before breakfast. You have five minutes to throw on a dress. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Rolling her eyes, she closed the door. It had taken hours to fall asleep, but if she wanted to get away from Wortham Manor and its occupants, she knew she must hurry. Splashing cool water on her face, she rubbed her skin briskly to bring blood to the surface and banish the last vestiges of sleep. Donning a lightweight brown dress over her shift and petticoat, she applied her brush in swift strokes and secured her loose hair with a blue ribbon the color of her eyes. As an afterthought, she tied on a wide-brimmed hat of Mercy’s to keep the sun’s rays from her face.

Grant was pacing at the bottom of the verandah steps with two horses when she fairly sailed out the front door into the dark. He put his watch back in his pocket with a satisfied nod. “One minute to spare,” he announced and handed her up into the side saddle he'd cinched to a cream colored mare.

She took the reins from him, still yawning. “You’re the only person I know who doesn’t at least drink a cup of tea first thing in the morning.”

“I carry my own liquid.” He grinned wickedly at her and patted the flask in his pocket. “I also have scones and fruit in my saddle bag, should you develop an overwhelming hunger for food.”

“But no tea,” she groused good naturedly. She was so glad to escape the Sanford household that even breakfast on the run seemed acceptable.

As they rode away, she told him in greater detail what she had observed in the fields and at the sugar works compound the previous day.

“I hate to disillusion you,” he said, smiling at her naïveté. “Such abuses are widespread in the islands.”

“It’s still wrong!” Her eyes clouded with tears, as she thought of the dehumanizing plight of so many men, women and children.

“I agree,” Grant said. “The sooner we get off this island and head back to trade sugar for a load of Belmont’s tobacco the better.”

“I thought he was going to pay you in gold,” she said.

“I know Belmont. Once a pirate, always a pirate. What’s to stop him from having us waylaid at sea? If that happened, we’d come out of the deal with virtually nothing.”

“Yes. I trust your judgment in that regard. So the plan is to sell the tobacco in England?”

He nodded. “Aye, we should get an excellent price for it in Liverpool.”

“Liverpool? But I intend to go to London!” she exclaimed.

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“I have relatives in London,” she replied. “And though the Morgans hail from Wales, a few members of the Tredegar Clan reside within a stone’s throw of the royal court.”

“Sounds as if you plan to set your sights high, once you get to England.”

Grant watched her silhouette as the first faint glimmerings of light stole over the Blue Mountains. The pert set of her chin, the high thrust of her breasts, and her wasp-thin waist made her a breathtaking sight, even at such an early hour. They crossed the plain and entered a dense wood, where wisps of fog fingered the rich foliage. As they took the road toward Spanish Town, he fell silent, struck by the disturbing changes wrought in his life these past few weeks, mostly caused by his father’s feisty young widow.

Aye, and now she wanted him to set sail not for Liverpool, but for London. Where she chose to live was none of his damn business. Still, he wondered if such a lively, well set-up lass wouldn’t find England rather repressive compared to Boston.

Rosalyn gave him a sidelong glance through her dark lashes, trying to interpret the meaning of his silence. “We’re in this together for as long as the Fair Winds stays afloat, and as long as the Boston shipyard prospers,” she assured him cheerfully.

“So I am stuck with you unless I go down to Davy Jones’ Locker, or meet with some other calamity?” he said in a bantering tone.

Rosalyn laughed. At least they'd finally begun to get past having a constant clash of wills. “It’s so much nicer, now that we are becoming friends,” she said.

“Aye, well, you’re not the heartless bitch I took you for,” he had to admit.

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” she returned, her dander beginning to rise after just a few blunt words.

“Don’t get your hopes up for a fight, Rosalyn. I only meant that my first impressions were off the mark,” he said, playing her like a fish on his line.

“Still and all, I like that we can work together—just as friends ought,” she went on, hoping to prompt a similar admission from him.

“No reason to be fighting all the time,” he agreed, then clammed up.

They rode on for a spell, until Rosalyn, miffed by his persistent aloofness, kicked her heels against her horse’s sides, causing horse and rider to lunge recklessly through the tall guinea grass. Grant watched her straight back, as she urged her horse into a brisk canter. Never having thought of them as friends, exactly, he conceded that there was always a first time for everything. His connections with women, though enjoyable, had always been brief and hardly could be described as being based on friendship. Certainly nothing like the camraderie he enjoyed with other men. Nay, whatever Rosalyn believed about their relationship, it didn’t match his conception of it!

His emotions still unclear, he quickly reviewed their many stormy exchanges over the past few weeks. Except for when he let his physical attraction for her get out of hand, most of their encounters were mostly a battle of wills. She was forever vying for power, unfairly relying on her damned femininity to tip the scales in her favor! Reluctantly he conceded to her the title of “business partner,” out of respect for his father, but his past involvements with women didn’t predispose him to risking “friendship” where she, or any of her sex, was concerned.

Damn it! Even now she rode out ahead of him, as if she knew the way. Once again proving how headstrong and independent she was! Certainly she was not the kind of a woman he would ever consider marrying, he told himself for the umpteenth time. Except for when he kissed her the other night, she hadn’t shown a submissive bone in her body!

Suddenly angry, he spurred his horse forward to take the lead. The grass rustled around their horses’ legs as he passed at a gallop, leaving Rosalyn behind in seconds.

Taking up the challenge, Rosalyn soon realized that her sidesaddle placed her at a decided disadvantage. “Wait, Grant!” she called after him.

With grim satisfaction, he maintained a comfortable lead, until her muffled cry of exasperation made him relent and look back. Rosalyn had caught her skirt on a tree branch. Wheeling her horse around, she yanked furiously, trying to free herself. Her mare, already acting up and skittish, began prancing erratically. Losing her seat, she pitched forward on her hands and knees in the soft dirt. “Damn you, Grant Waterman!” Scrambling to her feet, unhurt, she grabbed for her horse’s bridle.

Grant turned his horse around, surveying her disheveled appearance. He marveled that falling off her horse only made her more alluring.

“Anything hurt besides your dignity?” he asked with a mocking grin.

She snatched up her wide-brimmed straw hat, clapped it back on her head, and glared up at him, her breasts heaving.

Relaxed in the saddle, he chuckled at her show of temper. “I didn't think Puritans approved of cussing.”

“They don’t!” Leading her horse to a low boulder, she remounted, refusing his assistance. “You are a corrupting influence, Grant Watermann. I can hardly wait to get to England, where I shall at last be rid of you!”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t keep up with me, Rosalyn—honestly,” he said, pouring salt on her wounded pride, “but you can hardly blame me because you fell off.”

“I wouldn't have cursed, if not for your bad example!” she said angrily.

The horse beneath him began prancing impatiently. “Look, I’m not perfect,” he shrugged, “but neither are you lily white.”

She gave him a disgusted look. “You have a dirty mind!” she shot back.

Laughing, he focused on controlling his mount. “If I do, it’s because you are too much temptation for a rotten sinner like me,” he goaded her with his best pirate’s leer.

“Just when I thought we could be friends, too,” she said, looking genuinely grieved.

“Relax, spitfire. I wouldn’t tease, if it weren’t so easy to get a rise out of you.”

They sat their mounts, facing each other under a mango tree. Suddenly her horse nickered and shied violently. Grant grabbed her bridle to steady the mare. As he did so, he spotted a dark, slender form on the ground a few yards away in the semi-gloom.

“What the hell?” His face turned into a thundercloud.

Forgetting their quarrel, she followed his gaze. An emaciated female slave lay face down, her back laid raw, with deep gouges of flesh torn away, the open wounds festering with maggots.

“Hold my horse,” he ordered sharply. Dismounting, he dropped to one knee and, turning the woman over, felt her neck for a pulse. “She’s still alive, Rosalyn, but look!” He pointed to a hole dug in the ground and to the woman’s swollen belly. “Whoever did this dug a hole to keep her from lying on her babe while she was being whipped.”

Quickly tying their horses to a tree branch, Rosalyn fell to her knees on the other side of the woman, who was barely conscious and far advanced in her pregnancy. She had an issue of blood between her legs and was also bleeding profusely from the lashes inflicted all over her body.

“The work of the cat,” said Grant, his face gone hard with anger. “Give me your petticoat, Rosalyn, so we can bind up her wounds.”

Rosalyn reached under her dress, untied her petticoat tapes, and stepped out of her undergarment. Meanwhile Grant strode quickly to her horse. He pulled off the saddle and, retrieving the blanket, spread it out on the ground beside the young slave. Very gently raising her head and shoulders, he looked up at Rosalyn expectantly.

“Take her ankles and lift with me,” he instructed. “Careful. The skin on her legs is raw.”

Rosalyn helped him ease the woman onto the blanket. Holding his brandy flask to the slave’s mouth, Grant coaxed the brown, cracked lips to accept a few swallows. Then he laid her on her side and began to cut Rosalyn’s petticoat into wide strips with his knife. He poured brandy on the worst of her wounds and gently wiped off the encrusted infestations of maggots. The woman moaned incoherently. With Rosalyn’s help, he wound long strips around the open sores. When they finished bandaging her, the young woman’s upper torso was swathed in white linen, and she seemed more comfortable.

“What now?” Rosalyn asked. “We can’t leave her here.”

“No. God curse the bastard who left her to die,” he said fiercely. “I’ve heard of women miscarrying after such a beating. They often die, along with their babies.” He shook his head. “She’s in labor right now.” He straightened, contemplating what action to take. “Hellfire!” he swore. “I can’t move her in this condition. Any more rough treatment will surely kill her.”

The woman was mumbling in a strange mixture of her native dialect and English. Grant raised his flask to her lips again in an effort to relieve the pain in her pinched face.

“Obeahman...Obi . . ." she repeated in faint tones.

Rosalyn looked to Grant. “What is she saying, Grant?”

“Something about an Obeahman. It has to do with the African religion these slaves practice. The Obeahman is some kind of holy man or leader. They claim he has the power to contact the spirits and heal.”

Rosalyn pressed her lips together. Even thinking of such heathen practices made her shiver. It sounded too much like eerie ghost stories or the wild rumors that were so often whispered in the streets of Boston during the Salem witches’ trials. And she'd heard tales of strange practices among various Indian tribes. She shivered, listening to the slave woman’s chants fade in and out.

“Obi...take me to de Obeahman . . .” The woman gazed up at them with frightened eyes. “Obeahman...he my uncle.”

Puzzled, Rosalyn asked, “Where can we find this uncle of hers?”

Grant shrugged. “Probably one of the slaves on McManahan’s place.”

“He live...mountains,” the woman whispered. “Not far. Obeahman. . .”

“How can we find him?” Grant, his voice urgent, bent over the young slave woman. “You need a doctor. Let me take you to the hospital.”

“No!...Obeahman...Cudjoe...he have de power...heal me . . .”

“She’s delirious,” Rosalyn whispered. “Besides, how can an ignorant slave give her the care she needs?”

“I’ve heard the slaves use natural remedies similar to what the Indians use up north.” He gripped her shoulder. “Rosalyn, I need you to stay here with her. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour to ride ahead for help. Surely McManahan must know this fellow Cudjoe.”

“I don’t want to be left out here alone in the woods!” Rosalyn started to protest, but then she saw the woman’s face contort with pain. “All right, I’ll stay,” she relented. “Only be quick about it!”

“I’ll leave food and water from my saddle bags.” He handed over his supplies, swung into the saddle, and gave her a reassuring wink. “Don’t worry Rosalyn. I shall return as fast as I can. You helped deliver one baby. I reckon you can do it again, in a pinch.” Then he whirled, his heels drumming his horse’s sides, and disappeared through the mangrove trees.

Rosalyn wiped the young woman’s forehead and gave her a sip of water. With this slave woman striving to deliver her baby on the blanket, memories of the previous morning came surging back. This woman was in much worse condition than the young slave in the field. While she spoke comforting words and sponged the woman’s face with water, she wondered about those who dared inflict such pain on others, and the plight of women in a world run by men.

Men! They took it for granted that a woman existed only to serve a man's pleasures! And what better example than Grant Watermann. Irreverent and cynical, totally without illusions about the world he lived in, yet in many ways he put her to shame. It was hard to admit he was probably a better Samaritan than she. Yet for all his faults, could it be that this cigar smoking, hard drinking, wenching sea captain possessed a more loving Christian heart than she? For if she had a choice, she would rather be anywhere else. In truth, the last place she wanted was to be stuck out here alone, tending a wounded slave woman, who might die at any moment.

Frightened by the woman’s weakened condition, Rosalyn edged closer to her. Despite the tropical air, the woman shivered violently with shock and painful contractions. Sweat rolled off her forehead. The bloody discharge between her legs was now frank red.

Seeing it, Rosalyn froze in horror. The woman was hemorrhaging! Using water from the container Grant had left, she moistened a remnant of her petticoat and, recalling horror stories from her childhood, she pulled the woman’s legs apart. With no thought about the immodesty of such an act, she looked to see if her worst fears were correct. To her horror, the flow was not stanched. When the other woman’s baby was born yesterday at the Sanford plantation, there hadn’t been nearly this much blood!

Plagued by a chilling fear, Rosalyn tore off another clean cloth. Not knowing what else to do, she shoved the wad of petticoat inside the woman, packing it as far up inside as possible. The woman’s eyes fluttered and rolled back in her head. Her own heart clenched with fear, and she began desperately packing additional clean material against the woman’s womb. Checking the woman’s pulse, she found it thready and irregular.

Weeping, Rosalyn threw her arms around the woman, whose life was slowly ebbing from her out here in this uncultivated orchard. Oh, where was Grant? What was taking him so long? Powerless to hold off the approach of death, she rocked back and forth with the slave woman in her arms, imploring her not to die. Looking down into the darkly handsome face, she experienced the most terrible anger. She cursed the system that condoned such cruelty against this defenseless, pregnant woman. She sobbed, her entire body wracked with sorrow, as she prayed for the survival of this woman, whose name she didn’t even know.

The abrupt crashing of horses in the thicket startled her. Glancing up, her arms still locked around the unconscious woman, Rosalyn found herself staring straight into the face of a ferocious black warrior riding a black horse.

And behind him, watching silently, were a dozen other men with machetes in their hands and murder in their eyes.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Originally Grant had intended to proceed directly to McManahan’s place to make inquiries about an Obeahman named Cudjoe. But as he climbed the hill and looked off toward the south, he saw a field ablaze. Concerned, he turned aside to alert the Palmers. Besides, it would be faster to have a cart sent back for the injured woman and Rosalyn.

Traveling at a brisk canter up the Palmers’ drive, he sensed an immediate marked change from the bustling routine so common to plantation life. As he passed several black workers standing idly about, his suspicions grew. Instead of going about their tasks in the fields and at the mill and boiling house, the slaves silently watched him approach the great house. He found it odd that the Palmers hadn’t risen yet, or were absent.

As he dismounted in front of the house, the mystery surrounding the slaves’ strangely subdued, fearful behavior began to unfold. The body of an elderly indoor servant was slumped over a porch railing, his skull split open and bloody. A deep gash in his neck had nearly severed his head from his shoulders.

Drawing his pistol, Grant ascended the steps cautiously. All signs pointed to a slave uprising. What he found inside the house was a scene of horrifying butchery. Old Mr. Palmer, his two married daughters and their children lay dead in various positions around the breakfast table. Slashed and mangled bodies lay in their own blood, the walls spattered. One young woman had had her unborn child cut from her body and hacked in two. The genitals of a slave, his arms still raised above his head in self-defense, had been cut off and stuffed in his dead mistress’s mouth. The maniacal savagery of the murders surpassed anything Grant had seen in all his years at sea. The hair on his neck bristling, he slowly backed outside and summoned a quaking slave to him.

“What happened here?” he demanded.

Eyes rolling with fright, one of the slaves shook his head, unable to speak.

Exasperated, Grant put the pistol to his head and threatened: “Talk, damn you!”

“It be de Maroons, suh. Dey come down from their hideout, an’ dey set de fields on fire. Dey kill all de white folks an’ some of us’n, too.”

Grant, recalling tales of similar raids, cursed his own stupidity for leaving Rosalyn alone in the woods. But then again, she was probably in less danger than the settlers round about, whose daily activities were well known to the Maroons. Even so, he knew he must get her back to the ship.

But first he must alert the authorities.

He shook the slave again. “When were they here?”

“Not long, massa. ‘Bout forty minutes ago.”

“Has anyone gone to summon the militia yet?” he demanded.

By now a few more servants had come out of hiding and began to cluster around him, looking at him, as helpless as lost children.

“We too scared to go nowhere, suh.”

“Is there anyone left who can take charge?” he asked. “If so, I need to speak with him right away.”

“Dey be all dead, massa.”

Realizing the desperateness of the situation, he sounded the bell, summoning all the workers on the place. Clearly he must restore order, and also prevent further destruction of life and property. Acting quickly, he began to assign various duties. One detail was dispatched to the overseer’s house to search for survivors. Another group formed a bucket brigade to put out field fires before they spread to the woods beyond. Others were assigned to wet down slave cabins, the hospital, and the sugar processing plant.

Two strapping black field hands were sent on horseback with a note to the Adjutant General, requesting that troops meet him at McManahan’s without delay. Grant considered assigning a burial detail but decided to wait. A full investigation must be made first. Before he left, he personally locked the manor house doors to prevent looting.

A handful of men saddled mounts and accompanied him to McManahan’s plantation. As a precaution he armed them with muskets, powder and ball, a few swords, and knives from the Palmers’ arsenal. No telling if they would run into the murdering bastards responsible for this heinous bloodbath.

Arriving at McManahan’s, Grant was relieved to find them unharmed. Indeed, they were totally unaware of the crisis at their neighbor’s estate. The fact that they had escaped a similar fate suggested that the Maroons were probably traveling on a path coinciding with the one he and Rosalyn had taken that morning.

Quickly he debriefed McManahan, who dispatched additional men to Spanish Town and Kingston to alert the militia billeted there. Then McManahan, Grant, and a large band of men rode hell-for-leather back to the grove where he had left Rosalyn.