Chapter 2

The walk back across the field was much faster than my crawl around it had been. Tara was excited that we were going to help slaves escape. I realized that we could be shot for doing it, but we could also be shot just because Mr. Tyler and his sons were assholes. At least this was a worthy cause. Then again, so was ridding the county of the Tyler brothers.

My dad and Wanda should have gone to the sheriff this afternoon, so Mr. Tyler had probably started rounding up men to look for us by mid-afternoon. Aside from the handful of men who worked for him, I hoped that he had a difficult time getting anyone from town to help with the search. Nobody liked him, not even the merchants that he frequented. While they were polite to his face. I overheard two of them talking about him once and they had nothing good to say about him except that his business helped make them prosperous.

When I questioned the escaped slaves about the death of Mr. Greene, they indicated that he and his son were the only two white people at the plantation with no more expected until late March. One of the Negro slaves acted as overseer, so nobody should be looking for them until we were long gone.

Isum had killed Mr. Greene in a fit of rage that I thought was entirely justified. Mr. Greene had sex with all the female slaves, keeping them pregnant to increase the number of slaves he had. He allowed most of the female slaves to set up house with another of the slaves if they wanted to. As long as her “husband” kept her pregnant, he left her alone. If she wasn’t pregnant soon enough for his liking, Mr. Greene would keep her at the house and “breed” her, like Isum called it when they had sex. Once she was pregnant, he let her return to her husband.

He did keep two female slaves for himself, though. Both women stayed in the house as housekeepers. Even when his wife had been alive, he had used the female slaves for sex, having eight children by Isum’s mother. Four of the eight died before the age of two, leaving Isum, his brother Jimmey, and two sisters, Mahala, and Sallie.

Mr. Greene brought the slave girls to live in the house when they reached womanhood and used them, too. With the younger girls, he wore a condom made of animal intestine. He had the girls make the condoms since they knew the danger of getting pregnant at such a young age.

“We blew them up to be sure they didn’t leak,” Mahala explained. Even in the dim light of our small fire, I could see the blush on her coffee-colored skin.

“He had a length of chain he used to measure the girls when they got older. When the chain no longer reached around the widest part of her hips, usually about the age of seventeen or eighteen, he stopped using condoms with that girl, intending to breed her,” she added.

Greene had only one child with his late wife, a twenty-year-old son. All seven slaves agreed that the son was lazy, preferring to drink and breed rather than help oversee the day-to-day operation of the plantation. Hoping to control his son’s drinking, Mr. Greene had stopped giving him spending money.

Angry, his son stole a quarter-eagle from his dad’s room and went into town to drink. His father noticed the money was missing and blamed Isum’s mother since she was the only other person he allowed in his room. She protested her innocence, telling him that his son had gone into the room right before leaving for town.

Enraged, thinking that she stole from him and was now trying to blame his son, Mr. Greene stripped her and tied her to his bed, and then found her four children. He made them watch while he viciously had sex with her, slapping her repeatedly as he berated her for stealing and lying.

When he finished with her, he got dressed again and faced her four children. “Make sure you tell everyone that I will not tolerate a lying, thieving slave,” he shouted. Then he drew his knife and cut her throat.

While her other three children were frozen in horror, Isum was so enraged that he hit Greene, knocking him out. Then he picked him up and squeezed him, not even stopping when he heard bones snapping. He finally dropped Greene’s dead body when he was so spent that he couldn’t hold him anymore.

When Greene’s son came home drunk late that afternoon, Isum was in the house waiting and did basically the same thing to him. That night, they buried their mother’s body in the slave cemetery. When the Negro overseer heard the next morning what happened, he told the four that they had to leave. When the two deaths were discovered, a mob would be after the four of them, even though Isum had acted alone.

At the suggestion of the overseer, they took Greene’s best horses and mules, as well as all his rifles and revolvers. They also took half of the money he had at the plantation, and food for three weeks. They headed north, told that Ohio was to the north and was a free state. They had no idea where Ohio was other than “north,” and didn’t know they’d have to cross a river.

They and the overseer agreed on a story and agreed not to tell the other slaves what had really happened. The overseer would say that Mr. Greene took the missing slaves west to Missouri, intending to sell them to his favorite nephew, although the overseer didn’t know exactly where the nephew lived. He wanted to sell them because they were all related and he wanted to bring in new blood for breeding. Mr. Greene and his son had taken half of their money intending to take a steamboat to Natchez to buy more slaves on their way home so he could expand his plantation, something he’d talked about doing for more than a year.

The overseer said that he would wait until that night and put the two bodies in a spot along the river where the ground was swampy, weighing the bodies down with large rocks to make them sink into the muck of the river bottom where they’d never be found.

I felt better after hearing what happened, especially since nobody should be looking for seven runaway slaves anytime soon.

Tara agreed with my assessment. Once we crossed the Ohio, the slaves could strike out on their own or go with us. “I have a feeling they will want to stay with us, at least until we reach St. Louis,” Tara said. I had no problem with that, although I still wasn’t sure what I’d do to earn a living.

I could farm, hunt, and trap. I also had experience helping to build both wooden and stone structures, having helped build a house for each of my older brothers when they got married. We did some building on our farm and helped several neighbors build similar structures. Some neighbors repaid us by helping us when we had to build something, while others chose to pay cash or goods for our labor. Both forms of payment helped the family. That meant I could work as a carpenter or a mason. I’d even helped run cast iron pipe from our well to the house when I helped Dad install a hand pump, so Ma didn’t have to draw water from the well and carry it into the house.

I’d never sat down before and thought about all the things Dad had taught us to do. All three of us boys could live independently and knew how to do enough to live comfortably or to find a job in the city. The last two years, Dad had sent me when he needed more limestone. I’d take four mules and load each with two deep baskets filled with limestone to take home. Once there, I helped Dad burn the chunks of limestone to make lime to use for making mortar or plaster, or to spread on the fields.

I’d been the one to find the salt lick where Wanda and I were headed when the Tyler brothers found us. I’d bring home a couple of baskets filled with crystalized salt each week for us to use preserving meat or to sell, not that salt licks or salt springs were uncommon in the area. Come to think of it, the Tyler brothers had to have purposely followed us since the salt lick wasn’t anywhere between their plantation and Mr. Conner’s place.

That made me angry at the Tyler brothers all over again.

By then, Isum and company had arrived, but eyed Wizzer nervously. Once Wizzer noted that I wasn’t upset by the presence of the new people, he went to them and sniffed each of them.

“He’s just getting to know you,” I explained. We helped unload the two mules carrying their goods and made a rope corral to hold the animals for the night, hobbling the horses. Looking at their horses, they were every bit as good as Mr. Conner’s stallion and best mares. They had some good breeding stock among the horses. The mules were large, and looked to be extremely strong.

We got to know each other a little better as we ate a late supper. Isum stunned me while we were eating. “We was talking while we loaded our mules and walked over here,” he said nervously. “We want you to be our Massa.” I was stunned, but saw the others nodding.

“You can even breed us,” Mahala offered shyly.

“First,” I replied, “once we cross the Ohio River, slaves aren’t allowed. None of the states we’ll travel through are slave states until we reach Missouri, which is where I intend to head. After that, we might go north to the Iowa territory and slavery isn’t allowed there, either.

“Second, why would you want to be slaves? I thought you were escaping to be free.”

“We thought we wanted freedom, too,” Isum agreed. “We found out that we don’t know enough to be on our own. Massa always told us what to do and when to do it. We learned to do the different jobs when we was young and most of what we know is plantin’ and pickin’.

“The one time I did something without being told to, I killed Massa Greene. I have no idea how we got here, and we had no idea where we was afore you told us. We didn’t even know we had to cross a river. We need someone to tell us what to do and we think you would be a kind Massa,” he explained.

“I’ll think about it,” I replied, “but I don’t like the idea of slaves. You can still come with us without being my slaves and I’ll still tell you what to do. It’ll be safer for us if we travel together and easier to do everything we need done.”

That seemed to satisfy them, and we finished supper and went to bed. Tara was a wild woman once we were inside our tent. “I need you, Lewis; make me your wife,” she whispered urgently.

Afterwards, we kissed several times and she giggled quietly. “Did you see the way Mahala and Sallie were looking at you?” she asked.

“No, I was talking mostly to Isum,” I replied.

“Those two girls want you to have sex with them,” she whispered, although she didn’t sound upset.

“Won’t happen; you’re my wife,” I replied.

“Am I your wife now?” she asked coyly.

“You’ve been my wife since we slept together Saturday night, even though we didn’t do anything but sleep,” I replied, gently stroking her face.

“You know that a lot of slave owners have sex with both their wife and their female slaves,” she said suggestively.

I didn’t know what to say. It almost sounded like she wanted me to have sex with the sisters.

“What harm will it do if you agree to be their Master and let them know they can leave if they change their mind?” she asked.

“None, but I still don’t like the idea,” I replied.

“What if you agree to be their Master, let them know they can leave if they change their mind, and only consider yourself as the leader of our group?” she asked. “It would make them happy, and you could teach them all the things your dad taught you. In addition, we could have the sisters join us in bed,” she said suggestively.

“You want them in our bed?” I gasped.

“Yes,” she replied, completely serious.

When I didn’t say anything, she continued. “Remember when I told you what I wanted you to do after we got married?”

“Yeah,” I replied cautiously.

“I wanted that because one of my girlfriends and I used to do it with each other,” she admitted. “If we bring them to bed with us, they can do it to me. While you guys were talking, they told me that their Master used to make them do it to each other all the time.

“They wanted me to know that they would be willing to do it with me, too. They are used to sex several times a week and haven’t had any for almost three weeks. They’re desperate enough that they’re considering sex with their brothers. Those two girls were practically drooling when they looked at you tonight.

“If you don’t have sex with them, they’re going to become irritable and will make this trip miserable,” she warned.

“Fine, I’ll tell them in the morning,” I agreed ... hesitantly.

“You need to go get the girls now. Tell them you agree to be their Master and bring them to bed with us tonight. They had to listen to us just now, and I hear their brothers with their wives. Those poor girls have to be crazy with desire.”

I started to put my pants back on, but Tara stopped me. “You’re the Master, now. Just walk out there to the girls and tell them that you agree to be their Master and hold your hands out to them. They’ll be in your arms in a second.”

“Naked?” I squeaked.

“Yup, and I promise that the three of us will warm up anything that gets cold,” she chuckled.

I left the tent hesitantly. Isum looked up at me when I walked by him. “I agree to be your Master,” I told him, loud enough so the others could hear. Isum and his wife Edy were both still breathing hard from their bedtime exertions. I was surprised to see Lucey under the covers with them, also breathing hard. I thought she was one of Jimmey’s wives.

I was also surprised at how widely he grinned. “That will make my sisters very happy,” he said. By the time I walked the few feet to where the sisters had been laying, they were both on their feet, grinning ... and naked. When they hugged me, I kissed both of them.

We were quickly back in the tent and the two girls knelt beside Tara while I lay back down. “Thank you, Miss Tara,” they said almost simultaneously.

Mahala giggled and dragged me down into what passed as our bed. “Breed me, Massa,” she whispered in a sultry voice.

That thought panicked me and I looked over at Tara. “Do it,” she insisted. “I want all three of us pregnant before we get to wherever we’re going.”

While I was excited to think that I might make her pregnant, I was concerned because I knew nothing about raising a baby.

“Too late now,” I thought to myself kissing her, she returned the kiss enthusiastically.

Then Sallie insisted on a turn. Afterwards, she giggled when she felt me constantly stroking the feminine curve of her hips. “Massa said my hips would be wide enough that he could breed me before summer,” she said. “Now you’re my Massa and you’re going to breed me,” she said happily.

“And that makes you happy?” I asked.

“Very happy,” she replied. I’ve never heard of a Massa pleasuring his slaves, but I like it and hope you breed me a lot,” she giggled and then kissed me enthusiastically, even running her tongue into my mouth while we kissed.

“He will,” Tara replied from next to us. “The two of you will sleep with us every night, even if we don’t have sex,” she chuckled.

“Massa Greene’s son taught me that,” she gasped when we ended our tongue-wrestling match and came up for air. “He says one of the tavern girls he sexed taught him, but I think it was the parson’s daughter. He didn’t start doing that until he began sneaking over to see her when her pa weren’t home,” she snickered.