Exoduster, p.1
Exoduster, page 1
EXODUSTER
BEFORE FREEDOM
A novel
by Kristopher King
Copyright © 2023
Ebook ISBN 978-1-7352627-2-7
Print ISBN 978-1-7352627-3-4
Exoduster: A name given to African Americans migrating from the south into new territories post-Civil War.
For CKC
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Chapter 1
Louisiana 1846
The Boy
He listened to the life slipping away from her; his protector, his teacher, his everything, the matriarch of the Conner clan. Her shallow, raspy breath rattled. His breath was all staccato inhale and sobbing. The suffocating sounds made it uncomfortable for everybody in the room. The Boy felt as any son might, watching his mother leave this world for the next; except he wasn’t her son. He was a slave. The dying woman was his owner not his mother. Tears burned and blurred his eyes as he watched her gaze freeze. The feeble, crackling hiss stopped coming from her lips. Her open eyes were dry despite the humid afternoon.
It was a large, opulent bedroom, with a dark oak four-poster bed covered in silk and linen. The floor was rich mahogany with expensive rugs from the farthest corners of the world. Heavy velvet drapes hung aside the leaded glass windows. Sunlight coming through the windows slowed down to match Mrs. Conner’s frozen, cloudy eyes. The heavy, damp, mid-summer Louisiana air made it difficult for everyone in the room to breathe.
Ian, in his thirties and the woman’s actual son, stood sulking in a corner by the door. Mrs. Conner’s lawyer sat in a chair near the foot of the bed and her doctor flanked the bed opposite the Boy. The Boy was one of three slaves kept on the property. He helped maintain the house alongside Lily. Lily stood stoic near the door opposite Ian. Old Tom kept the horses and stable in order. He waited outside with the carriage to take Mrs. Conner to the morgue.
The Boy buried his face in the heavy duvet, trying to forget the room around him. The doctor checked his pocket watch.“I’m declaring time of death at 4:14 in the afternoon,” and rose to close the old woman’s eyes. The lawyer began to speak,“Well Ian, I suppose we should go over the final will.” Not hearing a response, the lawyer turned and looked over his shoulder to where Ian was standing, but the young man had already left the room. The Boy barely noticed that someone was talking, all he knew was that Master Conner was gone.
Both the doctor and the lawyer left the room, ogling Lily as they passed. Her muscles tensed with alarm. She pretended not to notice the stares. She forced her gaze onto the boy, trying to contain the familiar terror that men always sparked deep inside of her. After a moment she exhaled. She reminded the boy that they still had chores to do and company to attend to.“You got five minutes more, boy. Then I need you downstairs.”
The Boy’s emotional turmoil lulled him into a daydream as he lay next to the dead woman. He struggled with blurry memories of Master Conner. He thought he remembered her teaching him how to tie and shine his tiny shoes. A vague memory of her trying to put a comb through his coarse, curly hair floated up, but he was unsure because Lily mostly did that. His tears and resistance were crystal clear: combing his hair was always painful. He wondered if any of these memories were true, he wanted to ask her. His daydream cracked into focus with the whip and the blood. He shuddered as he remembered that first beating so long ago. It wasn’t the clawing scourge whip or the hot blood trickling down his back and legs that frightened him. It was the rage in Master Conner’s eyes as she beat him.
He was almost nine years old, sitting on the back porch outside the kitchen. He had abandoned his chores to join Master Ian’s two children at play. They were older by a few years but were always kind to him. As they shot marbles together, they chattered about the beautiful swirls of color in the glass balls. Ian Jr. proclaimed that red, yellow, and green made all the other colors in the world. The Boy corrected Ian Jr.“It’s blue, not green, and they’re called primary colors.” Ian Jr. insisted that it was green. The Boy ended the argument by holding up a blue marble and a yellow marble back-to-back in front of the sun. Ian Jr. and his younger sister Samantha squealed with delight at the green hue. Mrs. Conner had overheard most of this exchange from her reading chair. She flew into a rage that ended in the bloody whipping while she screamed that“A nigger never corrects a white, no matter how smart he thinks he is!” That was right before she got sick, he thought to himself.
He remembered a lifetime of this type of contradiction. He was taught to read but forbidden to tell anyone. Encouraged to be the best he could be and consistently shown he would never be as good as a white person.
He picked himself up to sit on the bed beside his deceased master. Taking a deep, staccato inhale, he tried to breathe normally. He studied her face; the lines of age like tiny rivers cut into the earth, her paper-thin eyelids so relaxed. He convinced himself that she had his best interests in mind, only wanting to make him a better slave.
Downstairs the lawyer found Ian wondering around outside in the flower garden. The two men stood very close and talked softly at first. The lawyer spoke with urgency and Ian’s attention seemed to be on the southern magnolias. The lawyer pleaded with his hands while Ian only shrugged and studied the dirt beneath his shoes. It appeared that the lawyer was losing a fight that Ian had no desire to win.
Lily stood over the sink half watching the two men from the kitchen window and half washing the tea service from upstairs. When Ian and the lawyer left the garden together Lily finished the dishes in earnest. She knew that she must prepare and serve the evening meal soon, even if no one would eat it. Ian’s voice startled Lily. The two men were suddenly in the hall next to the kitchen and Ian was yelling that it was his decision now.
The thick mahogany door to the den slammed closed with a great boom, causing Lily to drop a china teacup into the sink. It shattered into a hundred dancing pieces. Terror ripped through her body like lightning. She waited for the inevitable footsteps to come storming into the kitchen. She held her breath until she remembered that Mrs. Conner was gone. She knew the men were too engrossed to care about a teacup. A few more seconds passed as she tried to calm her breathing and slow her racing heart. The now muffled voices of the two men continued unrestrained. Lily began picking up the pieces while trying to make sense of the fragments of overheard conversation.
The Boy floated into the kitchen like a ghost. Lily jumped as she turned from the sink and found him seated at the small wooden table. He did not take his eyes off the tabletop when he asked her what he could do to help. With a heavy sigh Lily let fall the pieces of china into the waste bin like tiny bells. She dusted her hands over the bin and picked at the diamond-like slivers of china that pierced her callused palms. She did not take her eyes from the delicate work as she addressed him.“You wanna help me, you best to help yo’ self. I know you sad about Mrs. Conner. I’ve been passed around most of my life to these so-called mastas, and she was better than some, but she was still yo’ masta, do you undastand me?”
Feeling emboldened by the shouting men down the hall Lily continued.“Those men yellin’, they fightin’ bout us, you and me, like we part of the house, like we furniture, like dishes they can break and replace without us a say in any of it.” She sat at the table and reached out for the Boy’s hands. As he pulled away she breathed deep, forced a smile and continued,“Ain’t how God intended people to live. I know you undastand me! Please tell me I ain’t been wastin’ my breath on you all these years. Now leave me be. Go on out to your room and think about what kinda man you gonna be. You ain’t no use to me right now anyway.” He looked at Lily for the first time.“Yo’ time is comin’ boy, you gonna be free, out in the world, one way or another. I know it, I know it in my heart.”
Upstairs in the old barn the Boy sat on the edge of his single cot made of wood and rope and scanned the room. The roof was gabled, just tall enough for him to stand up straight. One small window let in light. Bare wooden planks creaked underfoot. A change of clothes and his polished shoes lived in the corner. A small vegetable crate stood as a nightstand with a short stack of books next to a candle.
He liked his small room, a space he felt belonged to him. But it was the books that made him happy. They were the world that Lily had spoken of; places and things so far away and so grand that most people he knew would not believe they existed. It was also illegal. He knew he could be whipped or worse for having a book let alone knowing how to read. Lily, or Master Conner—he wasn’t sure—had been particularly clear about keeping the fact that he could read a strict secret. He flashed back to a memory of listening to Ian Jr. and Samantha read the newspaper out loud. The Boy smiled to himself. He knew he was getting away with something, like having ice cream before Sunday supper.
He picked up one of the well-worn books. It was an epic tale of brave men in the wilds of the west, his favorite type of story lately. He lay back onto his bed and opened the book. As he stared at the page he wondered if the men in these stories were free. He wondered what freedom meant as the weight of the day pressed down on him. Overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted, he slept.
When he read about exotic places and people he felt unbound, but when he dreamed he would soar. He would travel across time and space to the places that he read about in those books. Today’s dream took him to a rugged landscape, like the stories and sketches in the book. A place made of glacie rs and granite. A land full of bighorn sheep and grizzly bears, fast, roaring rivers, and slow, sultry sunsets. This land was known as the Montana Territory, and he had been unable to dream of anything else for weeks. The valley he always came to in his dream was as big as the sky. A jigsaw mixture of rolling meadows, full of deer and bison. Sentinel Ponderosa pine trees crowded together to protect mountain lions and their prey. A wide, slow, river wound in and out of armies of trees, cutting the meadow into giant islands of grass and wildflowers.
He pictured himself doing battle with“savages,” a terrifying people who lived in caves and ate each other, the way black people lived before being taught about God. He would learn to plow the earth and grow food, hunt meat, wear fur and skins, just like the men in the stories. He believed all this in his dreams, but none of it in real life.
The rolling thunder clapped so hard and loud that he bolted awake. Only to realize it was the large wood and iron doors of the barn beneath him closing. He could hear Thomas, the old stable man, calming the horses and stowing the carriage and tack. The brass and leather making a rhythmic cadence, they mixed with the snorts and hooves of the horses. Above the din of Thomas’s work, grunts and groans came shooting up through the floorboards of his room. Some from the horses, most from old Thomas.
He lay still, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, his mind on Thomas. He knew he should get up, but facing Thomas seemed too much to take right now. Thomas wasn’t any older than Lily, but a life spent on one’s knees, a slave to labor, is devastating to body and spirit. He looked to be a hundred. He expressed himself well for an illiterate man, but he only spoke of sorrow, distrust, and disappointment. Tom’s constant babble annoyed him. He wondered how a grown man unable to read could know anything about life. It became overwhelming quickly. He did his best to avoid the old man as much as he could. Sitting on the edge of his bed he gathered the will to face the old man and finish his responsibilities for the day.
Thomas was brushing down the last horse as the Boy slumped down the stairs into the lamp light of the open barn.
“Hey boy,” Thomas called out.“You decide to take the day off now that masta done crossed over? You think ain’t no one watchin’ you boy? Jus’ because she gone ain’t no excuse to be lazy, besides you makin’ Lily pick up yo’ chores, and that ain’t right and you knows it! Right now be most important to be on yo’ best behavior anyways.”
The Boy wanted to resist engaging Thomas but fatigue was still pulling hard on him.“I’m going to finish my work now.” He headed for the door where he could see the outline of the main house through the darkness.
“Best you understand some things now that she gone,” Thomas barked before he could leave the barn. He slouched against a wall of hay with a sigh. Unable to make eye contact while he endured the verbal abuse. He stared at the big man’s feet and fought back the stinging tears.
“Times be changin’, both out there and in here, and you gone have to learn to deal wit’ it like a man. You’s a nigga, no matter how pretty you is, and niggas ain’t worth the dirt to bury em’ with. In fact, you remind them white folks of that every time they see yo’ ass, and that there creates what they call resentment. It makes ‘em mad that you got they blood in yo’veins, and they gonna treat you even worse fo’ it! Now that she gone and her son not wantin’ nothin to do wit’ you, times gonna get hard fo’ you, boy. Mark my words boy, you ain’t shit, you ain’t never gonna be shit. You best get used to that now and make things a little easier on everybody here.”
“Lily says we’ll be free one day,” the Boy whispered to the floor.
“Some kinda freedom ain’t gonna change how white people think of us! These folk ain’t never gonna worry ‘bout a nigga bein free! Yo’raggedy ass wouldn’t know what to do wit yo’ self even if you was set free. You jus crawl up in a little ball and shit yo’self cause you ain’t shit, I keep tellin’ you! Do you even know what bein’ free means?” At that the Boy stood and walked into the night towards the main house. Over his shoulder he could hear Thomas convincing himself, or the horses, of all the things he had said.
The house was dark as Lily finished folding laundry in the back room off the kitchen. A single candle burned to light her work. The Boy filled the doorway, startling Lily.“Everything is done,” she said.“Just haul the rubbish out to the burn pile and have yo-self in here tomorrow mornin.”
The burlap sack was lighter than usual. As he began to heft it over his shoulder he noticed a candle burning in Master Ian’s den. He could see the back of the leather chair, an arm hanging over one side, an empty crystal whiskey decanter on the small table. A bigger-than-life portrait of James Patrick Conner, Ian’s grandfather, stared past Ian and into the dark kitchen. The house was so quiet he thought he could hear the old man trying to speak. Like cannon fire, Ian screamed at the portrait of his grandfather. James Patrick Conner was the first of his family to emigrate to the“New World” almost fifty years ago.
Chapter 2
Ireland 1789
The Connors
James Patrick O’Conner left the tiny seaside village of Port na Binne Uaine, Ireland in a hurry. He had lived with his parents and his younger brother Joseph in a fine but modest home overlooking a large bay. His father, Cullen O’Conner, worked the local waters as the captain of a fishing vessel. His mother Keelie catered to her family as well as the tight-knit community.
Cullen was the captain of the Faoin Spéir, Gaelic for“Under the Sky.” It was a forty-foot Galway hooker, one of the biggest of its day. It brought home enough herring every season to make it one of the most successful fishing vessels in the north of Ireland. As a young boy James had loved the ship. He would often be the first onboard to prepare the vessel for the seasonal trips. He’d race to the docks as she returned, to help empty the hold and scrub down her mahogany decks. He would include the majestic vessel in his evening prayers. He loved watching it from his bedroom window, sitting proud in the marina below. But he could not sail on her.
James suffered from severe seasickness, without fail, on every trip he tried to make with his father. On the last three-day fishing trip James took, he lay crumpled against a bulwark on the aft deck for an entire day. The crew let him be and gently offered encouragement. The captain, his father, was kind and supportive despite his disappointment. Upon their return to port his mother was not so understanding. She put an abrupt end to James’s seagoing career and made the boy spend three days in bed. Cullen built the boy up as a man with“solid land legs.” A man that would“control industry” instead of breaking his back to produce the supply. Over the years Cullen tried hard to provide James with a firm sense of self.
The family also owned a small farmhouse outside the village of Coleraine. It consisted of a crumbling clay and wattle structure, a small barn, and a garden. Often during the short summer, James would accompany his mother and younger brother to help harvest the tiny vegetable garden.
August was hot. James, his mother, and his little brother were halfway to Coleraine when the horses decided to stop pulling the carriage. James was sore about having to spend the day doing women’s work, as the fishermen called it. He was a teenager now and his father’s crew liked to tease him. He was also feeling sluggish and irritable from the oppressive heat. He had toiled under the sun before, but today was different. Today the heat not only came down hard from above but also came up from the ground and hung in the air like fire. So when the two gentle draft horses stopped, James seemed to take it personally. He began shouting and jerking hard on the reins, until he noticed his mother and brother staring wide-eyed at him. His already rosy cheeks turned a brighter red and they began to laugh. James laughed so hard that he cried at the same time, the tears and sweat running down his face together. The three laughed wildly. The horses, perhaps caught up in the mirth, began moving again and the family laughed even harder. When they came through the gate of their tiny farm they were still grinning and giggling.
They set about their routine, a little lightheaded from the merriment and the sun. Keelie and Little Joseph gathered the old wooden buckets and hoisted water up from the well. James unhitched the horses so they could get their fill of grass before the trip back. The three of them met behind the barn to determine what was to be gathered.
