I stood still. The distant beat was low and menacing, unlike any rhythm I’d heard. Not a soldier’s tattoo. Something almost otherworldly. A tribal beat. The knowledge dropped like an icy shard into my belly. Indians? Or slaves?
A feeling that I was being watched crept over me. A breeze picked up, tickling the surface of the charcoal water, and a sudden loud cry of birds signaled the flight of a skein of geese. The sound gave me a start, and I turned back to the house. The stillness of the plantation around me made me uneasy. Where was Togo, watering the woad fields before dawn as instructed? Where were the sounds of people rising and chattering? Even the birds were silent today.
I veered for the stables. Quash would know what was going on; he would be helping Indian Peter ready the horses for our ride to church this morning. Even if Quash was not there, Indian Peter, who lived above the horses, would be up by now, so I didn’t worry about disturbing anyone.
In the dark stable, the horses whinnied softly, their pails of water and seed were full, but the door up to the loft was closed tight. The ladder was removed.
I backed out slowly, my heart beating erratically, then turned. The figure of Essie hurrying from the house to the dwellings caught my eye.
“Essie!”
She stopped as I ran toward her.
“What’s going on?” I panted, my voice breathy with fear and worry.
“You go on inside, and you don’t go outside again ’til it’s safe, you hear?”
“What? Why? What’s going on?”
“You’ll be safe here in da house.”
“What is going on? Where’s Quashy?” My panic grew, and I glanced about wildly, noticing all the closed doors at the dwellings and drawn curtains. “Where is everyone?”
“We’ll see where everybody be at the end of the day,” she said cryptically. “Go on inside now.”
I stood staring at her.
“Go on,” she said, her eyes fierce. “You hide. You hear?”
Hide? When my people were at risk? “From who, Essie?”
She shook her head.
Hide.
I’d never had any reason not to trust Essie. “Is everyone safe?”
She glanced toward the creek not answering.
“If I hide,” I told her, my heart thumping, “you must all hide. If I see one of you out here, I’ll come outside. Do you hear me? This is my place to protect.”
“Everyone will stay hid,” she said. “Now go on.”
Confused, I turned and then hurried back to the house. The weight of her eyes followed me the whole way until I’d entered the house and closed it up tightly behind me.
Mama was still in bed, but I heard Polly moving about above me. I hurried to the study and pulled open the small armoire in the corner. Father had taught me to use a gun while we were still in Antigua, but I was uncomfortable. The musket stood there, leaning against the back wall of the cabinet. My chest heaved in and out as I stared at the gun. Swallowing, I closed the door again, without touching it. If the need arose, I knew where it was.
The house and surrounds were still as the morning wore on. I informed Mother and a panicked Polly that we were to stay inside until I understood what was afoot, and after locking all the doors, I rustled them up some cheese, sliced apple, and leftover bread.
The drums, which I could barely hear from the house as it was, faded out for a spell, and I wondered just how long our self-imposed imprisonment would last. I would need answers soon.
Just before noon, the drums grew loud again. I hurried to perch at the window upstairs and squinted as a pirogue laden with dark figures slid slowly up the creek. Negroes, not Indians.
What was going on?
Mama had decided to stay in bed. But Polly sat with me, her needlepoint forgotten as she clutched my hand tightly. Holding my breath, I saw the oarsmen stop and the boat slow. The eyes on board were all trained on our property.
“Don’t move,” I whispered quietly to Polly. But in truth we were both frozen.
A tall, dark man stood in the boat and brought his hands to his mouth. A sharp caw, like that of a hawk, echoed into the stillness.
Polly and I were still as statues.
The man waited and watched.
There was no movement below me or anywhere I could see.
There was no sound.
The drums, which I presumed now came from one or more occupants of the vessel, were silent.
Finally, after interminable minutes, the tall man turned his face away from us and sat. Six pairs of arms began rowing again. The drumbeat started up and faded gradually as the boat disappeared from sight toward the Stono River.
Silence settled over the land and over the house. Nothing stirred. I counted the beats of my heart and knew an intense relief. It was something akin to the tight pressure and irritability one incubates throughout a long day with tight dress stays, the realization they were too tight only coming after they are finally loosened and cool air hits one’s skin.
I don’t know how long we sat there. My gaze roamed the creek and the trees either side. Every shadow became a question, and the rays of late afternoon sun provided no answers as they revealed nothing but tree limbs and vegetation.
As I looked on though, a dark shape detached itself from a tree close to the river. I gasped then blinked, surprised I had not seen him before now. Quash. His chest was bare and streaked with thick pluff mud dried to gray. All the better to hide, I supposed. A long rice scythe hung at his waist. He looked along the river in the direction the boat had traveled. Then he turned his back and walked onto the dock. I inhaled sharply. I had never had occasion to see Quash half dressed. Thick rigid scars cut across his back haphazardly, making a patchwork of mud and chaos. He knelt at the water’s edge and used creek water to wash something from the post. When he seemed satisfied, he stood and slipped toward the trees again and disappeared.
A gasp and a sob jolted me back. Polly was rigid with fear, tears sliding down her sweet cheeks.
“Oh, Polly. It’s going to be all right,” I murmured, though with the way my heart was thundering, I felt I could use that comfort myself. I pulled her close, soft curls tickling my nose.
Over her head, Mama, still in her bedrail, her hair braided and hanging like a rope over one shoulder, stood leaning against the doorframe for support. “Was it the Indians?”
“No, Mama,” I whispered. My voice had quite disappeared.
“Curse your damned father for leaving us in this wild land unprotected,” she muttered. “What the devil is going on?”
Polly’s sobs subsided into hiccups, but her little body trembled still. “I think it’s an uprising, Mama,” I answered finally. “I’m sure we’ll know more soon.” At the word “uprising,” Polly gave another shudder.
“I suppose we’ve lost all our Negroes.” Mama sniffed. “That’ll teach your father.”
“No, Mama,” I said and thought of Quash out on the dock. “I believe … I believe Quash, and Essie too, protected us in some way. And I did not see our people leave.”
She made a small disbelieving scoff and shook her head. “You sound more like your father every day.”
“A fact for which I am grateful,” I responded softly, unwilling to put much heat into my retort.
Had it really been an uprising? In my mind I imagined an uprising to be more frantic. People running, muskets fired, things set alight. But as silent as the approach had been, the atmosphere had wailed and screeched of danger. I knew we had somehow skirted a dire end.
The slave quarters at Wappoo remained closed up and silent all day and into the night. Not even the singsong, chirping voices of Mary Ann’s and Nanny’s children could be heard.
Mama, Polly, and I scavenged in the kitchen for food. The three of us made a makeshift meal of hominy cakes, apples, and dried venison. I could, of course, be capable in the kitchen, but I kept thinking Essie or Mary Ann would be back at any moment. They didn’t return to the house that night. But I knew Essie would be back when she deemed it safe.
Mama decided the occasion was right to open a bottle of Madeira as we would no doubt all have trouble sleeping. For once, I was grateful for Mama’s instruction.
By unspoken agreement we used little light before bed, keeping the house invisible against the black of a moonless night. Polly curled up next to me in my room, her small body like a furnace. I rested my cheek on her curls and waited throughout the interminably long night.
I couldn’t help but worry for the planters I knew. Had Mr. Deveaux and the Woodwards escaped whatever madness had taken place?
I awoke during the early hours to distant chanting and wailing. The eerie nature of the sounds, and the memory of a similar morning in Antigua years ago, kept me in my bed longer than usual. When I finally met the day, all had returned to normal. And the bustle of plantation life picked up as if it had never paused.
The first thing I did upon entering the study was compose a short note to the Woodwards, inviting them to visit that day. I hoped they were unaffected.
The Woodwards and their daughter, Mary, lived in a modest whitewashed wooden house on a similar sized parcel of land to our plantation a mile or so from us. After the death of Mary’s elderly husband, she had returned home to live with her parents.
I knew there was no way I would get Mama to leave the plantation anytime soon. I had moments throughout the day where I thought I must have dreamed the whole thing.
This had been my first true test as plantation manager and I was not sure if I had passed or failed. Could it be considered my success if it was simply luck?
But in my heart there was no doubt that my first instinct was correct—we had been protected yesterday. It didn’t stop me from acknowledging how very vulnerable we were, three white females alone out here in the country.