For Her Love (36 page)

“Our blood and the blood of every planter’s family around you will be upon your hands!” one of them had ominously warned. Now, they lurked around the perimeter of the gathering, carrying flintlocks and muskets.

Matu, Keyah, Encantadora, and Jawara stood with Giles. Matu would sign as clearly as she could while Keyah translated into Mande and Jawara into Fula. Both were major West African languages, and they hoped that, among them, the message would get through to the majority of the workers. Those who did understand would be responsible for communicating with others, if at all possible. Encantadora stood with them in a show of solidarity, one more African who could attest to Giles’s fairhandedness with Blacks, should such testimony be needed.

“My name is Giles Courtney. I am married to your former master’s daughter, a daughter given to him by a slave many years ago.” While the three Africans translated, Giles worked hard to maintain an air of confidence and relaxed authority. He continued, pausing periodically for interpretation. “Now that your former master and mistress are dead, Grace and I have inherited the farm. I have never owned a slave in my life, and as I said, my wife is the child of a slave. I can speak for us both when I tell you that we have no wish to own you.”

There was no mistaking the palpable dread and anger that swelled around them among the Blacks. Giles hurried on. “Nor would we sell you. We need workers. There is a way that Whites often work for other Whites. They work for seven years, and then they are free to do as they please. We could free you now, but where would you go? We offer you decent food, clothing, and housing, far better than you ever had under the old master and mistress, in exchange for your labors. We will feed and clothe your children, and they will not work in the fields until they are old enough. Even then, they will work fewer hours. At the end of seven years, you may leave or stay. If you stay, you will receive money for your work.”

What Giles had envisioned as a brief speech followed by much relief from his new workers turned into an hour-long ordeal, trying to communicate with everyone and allay their fears and suspicion. Finally, Keyah suggested that Giles go back to the house and take the white guards with them.

“We gotta talk a dem witout you. Let Jawara an’ Matu tell dem what it like a work for you. Let dis ‘ooman,” Keyah pointed to Encantadora, “tell dem how you look for Miss Grace. We gotta be open togetta, an’ we can’t be wit’ dese guards here.”

“But if they have questions…” Giles protested.

“We can ansa,” Jawara replied. “Dis a way for slavery in Africa. Dem seen it, but dem not trus’ you. Maybe dem not trus’ us. Africans gotta bad habit of sellin’ each otta.”

“We’re not leaving these bloody Negroes alone,” one of the guards shouted. “‘Tis suicide, and murder besides!”

Giles looked hard around him, and finally his eyes lit on Jawara and Keyah. “Is it safe?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Jawara said, “but me tell you dis: me tink dese people a-go kill you all before dem let demselves be sold.”

Giles looked to Matu. “Matu, if you tell me that we can leave and be at all safe, I’ll take the risk.”

Matu nodded with confidence.

“Her right,” Keyah said. “Her de oldes’ one here. Her a survivor. Dem respec’ Matu. You be pretty safe.”

Giles looked across the crowd at the guard who had spoken. “You said it yourself: if they sense that we are not in agreement, we haven’t a chance. If you don’t obey me, why should they? Now will you follow me into the house, or will you strike the flint that sets off this powder keg?”

Reluctantly, all seven accompanied Giles. They took up positions around the keeping room, watching at the windows. The ticking of the clock in the sitting area seemed to echo in the tense silence. Giles moved from guard to guard, offering words of encouragement and bits of advice. Well he remembered the needs of men facing battle, and the air of quiet authority that he’d gained in his years as quartermaster on a privateer ship gradually eased the tension between them.

As the afternoon wore on, they all pulled wooden chairs from around the table and placed them in front of the windows so they could rest as they kept their vigil. The light had begun to fade and the tree frogs had begun to sing ere Matu, Jawara, Encantadora and Keyah returned. They seemed neither relieved nor overly worried.

“Well?” Giles prompted as soon as they walked through the rear door.

“Me tink dem listen,” Jawara said, skeptically.

“Dem listen,” Keyah asserted, and Matu nodded her agreement. “Me know dese people. Dem not a-go fight a war ova dis. Dem seen dat dem can’t win. What you offa dem, it not all dat different dan what dem seen at home. It be pretty hard for de ones dat was free in Africa, but dem smart enough a know dat dis a betta way.”

Encantadora gazed up at Jawara and added, “You mon Jawara tell dem dis how tings be on you ship. Matu sey it her idea a try it on de plantation.”

“Me tell you,” Keyah added, “dem respec’ Matu.”

“Dem respec’ Jawara, too,” Encantadora replied tartly. At her emphatic defense, Jawara gave her a speculative glance, and the young woman blushed underneath her dusky skin.

“Summa dem a-go run away,” Jawara added, looking back at Giles. “Dem be Maroon before dem be any kinda slave if dem can help it.”

“Aye,” said Keyah, “deh no way a stop dat.” The life of a Maroon in the mountains of Jamaica was not much easier or longer than a slave’s life, but it was a free existence. For some, it would be preferable. “But Encantadora right. Me tink dem like Jawara. Him a good mon. Him tell dem true wheneva him can, an’ him admit when he don’ know sinting. Him a good choice for de new ovaseeah. Him not a bakra, not aways a-go use de lash.”

The white guard who had been most outspoken rubbed his eyes wearily. “I suppose we had better get out there. Tell your
white
overseer,” he sneered at Jawara then looked back at Giles, “that until he finds transportation out of here, he still works for you. Your dogs won’t obey us.”

“No dogs!” Keyah snapped.

“You see!” the man said to Giles, his voice accusatory. “She’s black, and a female besides, and she thinks she’s in charge. This will never work.”

“You tink you can stop dese people if dem decide a come afta you an’ de res’ of de Whites?” Jawara asked. “Dis deh only chance a be free. You can offa dem freedom you way, or dem gonna take it dem way.” He turned to Giles. “Keyah know dese people. Her help me pick guards, black ones. We tell dem, dese guards don’ keep you in, dem keep Whites out. We tell dem, you all sleep safe tonight or go in de hills. Dem gotta make a choice, you know?”

“They’ll murder us in our sleep,” the guards predicted.

*

Given the various sets of circumstances that everyone had been through, it had been days since most of them had slept in more than bits and snatches. Giles retired to Edmund’s old room. Keyah and Matu wanted nothing to do with Iolanthe’s quarters. They squeezed into Grace’s bed with Encantadora, while the girl who had come with them from Havana slept on Matu’s old mat. Jawara hadn’t known Iolanthe, and he wasn’t about to turn down a real bed, so he took that room. The keeping room chairs and floor became the domain of the guards. By the early morning hours, every White in the house was sound asleep, and in varying degrees, each was surprised to awake with the dawn to a calm and quiet island day.

Giles accompanied the others to the slaves quarters, where the workers had already begun to gather in the clearing. It was the first time at Welbourne plantation that they had been awakened by the sun rather than the plantation bell signaling a long and brutal workday. Once the huts were empty and the workers accounted for, it was clear the labor force had gone from one hundred-forty-seven to one hundred-nine.

Giles sighed with relief. “Only thirty-eight gone. Surely not enough to cause our neighbors any worry,” he added, for the benefit of the guards.

“For now,” came a surly response. But it seemed satisfying enough that the men set out for their respective employers’ farms.

The day was declared a holiday from sugar production. The first order of business was to repair the huts and begin work on new structures so they would no longer be as crowded as they had been. Jawara oversaw this, while Matu and Keyah spoke at length about food. The slaves’ steady diet of cassava and corn had not provided adequate nourishment and had been a major contributor to the abhorrent mortality rate of Welbourne’s Blacks. They needed meat, and while cattle were expensive, the women thought pigs might not be out of the question. Fish were plentiful, but sparing workers to catch them would be tricky. Furthermore, they would need chickens for eggs and goats for milk and cheese. And all of this would require more space allotted to the keeping of animals. They and the captain had much to do.

Encantadora lingered a while with the women, then wandered back out to the slaves’ quarters where Jawara supervised repairs on old huts and the framing of new ones. She fetched a dipperful of water and took it to him. There was no trace of prostitute in the shy young woman who handed the big man the refreshment. He smiled at her as he took it, his teeth dazzling white against ebony skin.

“Whey Matu an’ Keyah up to?” he asked after finishing the water.

“Dem talkin’ ‘bout food,” she answered. “Me don’ know much ‘bout farmin’. Me work de fields once, but me tell you, me neva do it again.”

“Whey you a-go do, den?”

Her smile was simultaneously sweet and sly. “Me gotta plan.”

Jawara handed the dipper back to her, his eyes never leaving her face. “Whey you plan, Encantadora?”

Her face hardened again, just for a moment. “Encantadora a slave name, a whore name. Deh no slaves nor whores here. Me madda call me Ciatta, an’ Ciatta a-go be de ovaseea wife.”

Jawara’s smile faded, and he gave her a doubtful look. “You tink so?”

“You tink dis place a-go work?” she challenged.

“Aye,” he replied. “We all a-go work hard an’ make it work.”

“You don’ tink dat jus’ a silly dream?”

“Me tink sintime dreams come true.”

“Aye? Well, me tink so, too.” She gestured around them to the progress being made on the huts. “You work for you dream,” she tapped him lightly on his bare chest with the dipper, “an’ me work for mine.” When she turned her back and strutted back to the water barrel, there was a pronounced swing to her skirts despite her slight limp. Unable to help himself, Jawara watched her go with a little smile on his face.

On board
Reliance
, Giles encouraged Geoff to return to Faith and Jonathan, promising not to leave Jamaica without him. Once he had placed his friend in temporary command, he sent the ship and Welbourne’s former white employees back to Port Royal.

The next morning, he and Jawara toured the outbuildings with one of the sugar workers. There were language barriers to overcome, but they got the general gist of how it all worked. Together, the captain and overseer devised work shifts in the sugar house and mill that would occupy morning and night hours, when the weather was cool. The field workers would be away from the huts during the day, so the production workers would have plenty of quiet in which to sleep during that time. At least, until the children were made healthy enough to become normal children. Then Giles expected the desolate clearing to ring with childish voices.

Within a week, routines had begun to establish themselves, some from the way that things had run before, some forming roughly and sluggishly as everyone worked to build an organization unlike any that had existed before. Where once workers had needed to look no further than a man’s skin to know who fell where in the plantation’s hierarchy, now they needed to work out a new system, and nearly everyone in it was sick and tired of being under someone else’s control. Women insisted that cooks should be released early from the fields, while men argued that they had been able to cut cane all day and then cook before and that things were no different now.

Giles had taken a few days off to track down oxen to run the mill. It was then that several of the strongest and most assertive sugar workers challenged Jawara’s authority. He was just an African, like them, and he had never even worked a sugar mill. Who did he think he was? These concerns were hardly foreign to him. He knew the frustration of having to take orders from men who were only his equals in rank, merely because they were White. But he had also spent years serving under his captain. He had seen a true leader at work. He listened to each challenger, showed his willingness to learn, but held fast to his belief in himself. In the end, he gained a much better understanding of his new job and earned the respect of the men he now led.

At each day’s end, Giles met with the people he had come to think of as his first and second mates, Jawara and Matu. Ciatta, well pleased to have reclaimed her African name, had found her place in the kitchen, which was being enlarged so it could be used to cook for everyone. The women all agreed she was a terrible cook, and not even particularly useful for chopping and toting since she had an aversion to work, in general, but her teasing nature and scandalous sense of humor were enormously entertaining. Her recently-made friends watched with avid interest as the pretty mulatto waged an all-out campaign for the heart of the new overseer. For a people deprived of laughter and happiness, she was like the breeze after a rainstorm. To Giles, she was an endless source of information regarding the hopes and fears of his people. Saran, the child he had rescued from Jacques, also worked in the kitchen and blossomed in the nurturing warmth of the women working there.

In bits and pieces, everything was coming together. But one piece was missing, and she had left a hole in Giles’s heart. At night, he lay in Edmund’s bed and listened to the endless singing of tree frogs, acutely aware of the empty pillow beside him. Every day he was helping to shape something he could feel proud of, a little corner of the world just as he wished it, but that had been a dream he had shared, and his partner in that dream was God knew where. He knew beyond all doubt it would never be enough without her.