I stood on the porch watching while you attached the plow to the horse and guide him out in the field. It was planting season, and you were getting the ground ready for seed. I waited until you started turning the ground, before I started down the stairs. I continue to walk to the road, while checking to make sure you were still out in the field. However, I was so nervous that you would see me leaving and try to stop me that I began to run.
I ran all the way
down the road, but not toward my home. No one wanted me there, I ran south, or
what I thought was south. I knew only that the sun rose in the West and set in
the East. I hoped that I was going in the right direction. Then I saw the line
of thick trees, their green moss showing me the way and I smiled. I don’t know how long I had been running,
when I can upon a lake in the distance. I decided to stop there and rest a bit
before continuing.
I walked through the
underbrush keeping my bag close, until I reached the clearing to the lake. I
thought it was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. A deer drank from the clear waters, under an
Old oak tree whose limbs hung over the water’s face like lover’s about to kiss,
it ran when it heard me approaching. I stared at the thick truck that had a
heavy rope around it, for swing into the lake, I thought.
I come up to the lake, dropping my bag onto the muddy shore, to fall on my knees. Reaching down, I placed
my hand in the cool water, spooning the sweet liquid into my mouth. I drank hungrily, before splashing it into my
face and in my hair to cool myself down. So I didn’t hear when the three white
men came up behind me from out of the woods.
“What we got us here
boys,” one of them said, pulling on the strap of his dirty overalls.
I quickly turned around scared.
“Why it’s a little
nigger girl,” another said smiling toothless.
I moved to my left to
grab the bag, but the third one came from behind me. He grabbed me around the
waist and lifted me up against his strong body. “She’s just a tiny thing too,
brothers,” he said.
“Please let me go, please,” I yelled.
“What we gon' do with
this here one,” the first one asked staring at me with hunger in his eyes.
“Well, now she is
trespassing,” the toothless said, “best show her what we do with trespassers.”
The man holding me giggled and it vibrated through my body.
He smelled like Papa on a Friday night after he came home from staying out all
night in the woods. I was frightened, as he started walking toward the thick
woods with me struggling to get out of his grip, but he was too strong. I
screamed and shouted for him to let me go, hoping someone would hear my pleas,
but they just laughed, taking me deeper into the woods.
Copyright © 2013-14 Glynis Rankin
