Beyond Crossriver

After an hour’s journey, Thomas entered the slave quarters south of the mansion. Ducking from bush to bush, He made it to the tree line that ran through the back yard of shanty #4. Looking from behind the brush cover, Thomas saw the damage caused by the raid. With no one in the area, He made his way to the shanty and entered through the front doorway. There, Thomas saw pieces of wood from broken furniture and glass scattered all over the place. Putting memories aside, Thomas started gathering supplies for their journey. Going to the back bedroom, he checked his hiding place underneath the floor boards for the books that he kept. But, they were nowhere to be found. Figuring the men had taken them back to Mr. Cooper, Thomas returned to the front room to tend to the bodies of his mother, grandmother, and older sister lying on the cold wooden floors. He paused for a few seconds and started to cry. Feeling somewhat responsible for what had happened there that night, Thomas gathered up their bodies and placed them together in the center of the room. He then kneeled down beside them, bowed his head, and said a prayer. Knowing their spirits were safe with God, Thomas got up and walked to the front door of the house. There, he picked up a keg of gun powder sitting near the front steps and carried it out the back door. With great pain in his heart, Thomas popped the cork from the keg and began back tracking to the shanty, leaving a trail of gun powder. As he walked up the back steps, Thomas dropped the keg, startled by the sounds of gunshots in the air and people screaming. He looked around nervously. Not seeing anyone, he picked it back up and hurried back into the shanty. “Ya’ll are now free and them men will never be able to hurt you again.” Thomas placed the keg next to the women. Hearing the screams draw closer to the quarters, Thomas picked up his supplies and packed them in a sack that he used to store cotton that he picked in the fields. He then placed the strap across his body and ran out the back doorway. Stopping in the middle of the back yard, Thomas struck a match and lit the end of the gun powder trail with fire. As it streaked towards the shanty, he ducked into the tree line and started running back to Amanda. Three minutes after Thomas had left, Mark and his men rode up to the front of shanty #4 on horseback. “Where is the keg, didn’t we leave it out front?” Mark asked his men. “I don’t know, but I can smell it,” replied John. The five men dismounted from their horses and proceeded inside the shanty. “There it is!” one of his men spotted it lying next to the bodies of the three women they killed the night before. As they got closer, a spark lit up the room as fire burned along the trail of powder towards the keg. “It’s a trap, Run!” yelled one of his men. They dropped everything and fled towards the front doorway. Within a second, the fire reached the keg and the shanty exploded. Black smoke and reddish-orange ambers billowed into the air. Leaving behind smothering pieces of the wood frame, The blast could be heard for miles startling the working field slaves and bring enjoyment to the overseers of the plantation.