Three-Fifths Freedom

The Un-hireds (from Chapter One):

Pokey always fell behind. Not from a desire to be disobedient. She was just curious.  Everything about the bottomland excited her. The muskrat, beaver, frogs and jays, butterflies and wasps all held magic for her generous smile. She was as distractible as ever a child could be. And the summer of 1796 proved to be a particularly diverse time.

Of course Pokey didn’t know it was 1796. She didn’t know she was six or seven years old. Her mama gave birth to her less than a year after the ship arrived in Charleston.  Her father departed with the ship. She didn’t know he was a despicable sailor working a slaver off the Cape. She didn’t know and she never asked. And her mama wouldn’t ever tell. Neither knew he went down with all hands on the return voyage. Her mama knew he needed to go down on his knees. When the wicked stood before the Lord o’ All, all will tremble at His feet.

Pokey liked to watch the sun as it filtered through the tree leaves. She would spend several minutes everyday searching for the morning webs woven into sunlight. She liked the spiders most specially. How the world could be trapped in their web and yet they could dance upon it. Their world was complete. They ate what they trapped. They did not play with their food or make it work. Batah taught her to look around her and see how the real world was and know that men lived that way too. Everywhere else but here. Not here. Here was not part of the world, the real world. Batah and Pokey did not belong here.  They were of another time and place. As were the others the overseer kept under his watch. It was a difficult concept to hold inside a six-or-seven-year old mind. It was easier to just look and not think.

The Neighbors (from Chapter Nine):

Clara had not returned to town these several weeks and she did not care what the townsfolk thought of her or about her anymore. She had her man chosen and he was resigned to it. You could tell from his breathing as he lay next to her. He slept peacefully because of her. They had made some informal agreements and concessions with both of them being widowed. Physically beyond her prime, but she most enjoyed his favoritism and it gave her a smile that lasted for days. Subtle, but she knew the intimacy was beneficial for her. She knew she was going to become Missus Clarabelle May Krantz. All she had to do was announce it at the time and place she had conspired in her mind to declare. He could not refuse, for the consequences would be dire for him socially and he would lose what standing he had left in him. The poor dear didn’t know what was happening to him as he dreamt of hunting with his father.

He could clearly see his father, Jon Wilhelm Krantz Sr., forging ahead with his shotgun raised at the ready. The dogs were yelping and when the quail flushed he would fire. He saw his own hands reaching down to pick up the feathered prize. His hands would curl around the scruff of the neck and he would strike the nappy head down again hard, hard, harder. He had hunted this one over the river, three times a-crossing, and would not again. This one would be hobbled and his son taken away. The dogs kept yelping and now the foreman and overseer were there, picking up the body and throwing it onto the wagon. The wagon pulling away, always pulling away with his breath attached. He gulped and gulped but no air was there. He was running again, running, asking, pleading with his father, is it right, is it right, is it right? It seemed so wrong to be the hunter. Must they die, do they suffer, does it cause pain, are they animals, isn’t there another way? Running pounding thumping pain in his head, what is that sound, that sound, louder and louder and louder, and beat after beat after beating. It’s raining and he’s drowning and swirling in the water and these great hands are picking him up and flinging him high into the air landing on his head. He is dead.

Jon Krantz awoke to his day, his life, his time and obligations. He was as hollow a man as walked the earth, and this woman next to him wanted to fill him up. For what, he knew not. He hadn’t a clue why. He didn’t know how to stop the world the way it was, and he didn’t know how to manage himself. He was empty after a long life, after a loving wife, after all the strife and successes. How could she possibly fill a bottomless pit? He woke knowing he was drowning and the river kept rising with the rain.

The Mother of the Bride (from Chapter Sixteen):

“Have you ever noticed how geese behave when one is injured?” Mother was off on her own tangential stream of consciousness. “We just passed those geese, or rather they just passed us, anyway, they flew overhead and I have noticed many and many a time that when one is injured they are never left alone by the flock. Not like the terns and shorebirds from our side on the coast, these creatures seem to have a sense about them when one of their own needs help. Beyond how beautiful they are and they really are magnificent aren’t they, they seem to have a sense of family. One of them goes down from the flock, perhaps an errant shot or pellet giving some manner of difficulty, or maybe indigestion if birds have such a thing, ah-ha, well, they go down and not one, but two always follow after. And I’ve heard or read or been somehow imbibed with the knowledge that they manage to stay together until the injured goose is well enough to travel or has finally succumbed to its plight and cannot rejoin the flight. Plight, flight, ha-ha, I made a rhyme.” Mother held such wonderfully important and immaterial information in her head, it was hard not to both laugh at or with her and, at the same time, take serious note of her utterances. Such a smile she had! She was beaming today. Anna hoped she would grow into half the woman her mother had become, and maintain that freshness and spontaneity that made her, well, her.

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