Little Black Girl Lost 4 (10 page)

Chapter 29

H
erman, Marcia, and Ibo were in the kitchen eating the delicious apple pie Marcia had prepared for the Torvells when several members of the Maroons kicked in the back door, machetes in hand. Stunned by what had happened so incredibly quickly, Ibo stood up. Her eyes bulged. Her mouth fell open.

Marcia was about to scream when one of the Maroons sliced her vocal cords. Blood pumped out of her neck. Gagging, she grabbed her throat and squeezed. Blood leaked out of the corners of her mouth and slid down her chin. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Then she fell dead onto the floor.

Herman had grabbed the other man and wrestled the machete away from him. Then he plunged it into his stomach. Almost as soon as he stuck the machete in, another man grabbed him from behind and sliced through his throat.

That's when Ibo came to her senses and ran out of the kitchen. She ran right into Captain Rutgers, who had heard the commotion. The man came at Rutgers with the machete, but Rutgers was ready for him. When the man tried to slash his throat, he stepped in and wrapped his arm around the man's arm and back-fisted him. The machete clanged to the floor.

Rutgers tried to grab the machete, but the man stuck out his hand and tripped him. He fell hard to the floor. The man climbed on top of him and pounded his face. But when he went for the machete, somehow Rutgers found the strength to grab his arm when it was only an inch or two away from the bloodied weapon. Each man struggled to break free of the other.

Rutgers arched his back, lifting the man up and to the left, away from the machete. Once the man was off balance, Rutgers was able to flip him over and gain the advantage. He pummeled the man's face until it was a bloodied mess. Then he grabbed the machete and plunged it into his chest.

Rutgers heard Helen screaming in the dining room, which was only a few feet from the kitchen. He heard a musket fire. He ran in there and saw several large Negroes. Two of them were attacking Helen and Ibo, ripping off their clothes. The breasts of both women were exposed. A third man had taken Francois' musket from him and was on top of him, beating him senseless with it. He grabbed the man who was attacking Ibo first and snapped his neck.

One of the Negro men had Helen on the floor. Her dress was up; her panties torn off. The Negro was inside her already, plowing vigorously. Rutgers was about to help Helen when several more angry Negro men poured into the house. He grabbed Ibo by the hand and they ran for their lives. Outside now, they saw a lot more Negroes running toward them.

Quickly, he picked up Ibo and put her in the carriage. Just as he was about to get in, the Negro who had beaten Francois to death grabbed him, and they fell to the ground. He elbowed the man in the nose and the man let go. Then Rutgers stood up. He tried to get into the carriage again, but the man grabbed his foot. Rutgers turned around and kicked the man in the face. He let go and fell backward.

Another Negro ran and tried to dive on him, but Rutgers saw him. He bent his knees at just the right time, grabbed the man while he was in the air, stood up, and tossed the man into several other men running toward him. They all fell backward to the ground.

Rutgers quickly jumped into the carriage, grabbed the reins, and pulled off in haste. As the carriage pulled off, they looked through the window and saw the Negroes who had poured into the house standing in a line, waiting to take their turn with Helen Torvell. Rutgers knew that if those men hadn't stopped to ravage their former mistress, he and Ibo would have been brutally murdered too.

More men were coming. There didn't seem to be an end to them. He ran the horses into some of them and still they came, determined to kill them both.

By the time they made it back to the ship, it looked as if the entire island was ablaze. Rutgers stopped the carriage at the dock. They got out and quickly headed up the gangplank to the ship.

Breathing heavily, he said, “We're even now. You saved my life and I just saved yours.”

Holding her torn dress to cover her naked breasts, Ibo remained silent. She breathed in his fear, swallowing it whole; savoring it like it was the delicious apple pie she'd eaten before the Maroons barged in. The look in his eyes gave her the confidence to pursue the plans she had made to turn the tables on her pasty tormentors.

Nevertheless, she was wise enough to hide the pleasure she was experiencing, knowing that if he thought she was relishing any part of what the Maroons did to the Torvells, he would probably renege on the deal and sell her to a wicked plantation owner.

Angry about what the Maroons did to his friends, he grabbed her by the arm and shouted, “I want to hear you say we're even.”

He had never been so scared in his life. He thought he was dead for sure. What frightened him most was the thought of being taken alive by the Maroons. The idea of losing power, losing control to men of color, men whom he was used to beating into submission, made his hair stand up. While he drove the carriage back to the docks, he had imagined being tied to a post of some sort and tortured with a whip, being beaten to within an inch of his life, much like he had done numerous times.

Glad to be alive and sensing the need to show deference, she looked at him and said, “We're even, Captain.”

She knew she had to give every indication that Captain Rutgers was still in control. She knew he needed to be—or at least feel like he was. She would supply that need, because she now knew a truth that had eluded her. The Maroons' rebellion had taught her a valuable lesson. She now knew that the person who relinquished control was the person in control, not the other way around. She now knew that giving up control was always temporal. Control could be seized again at any moment, and more could be taken in the process. She therefore gave him the respect he wanted, and in so doing, controlled her fate in New Orleans without Rutgers ever knowing she was now in charge.

Still angry, he said, “I think a little gratitude is in order.”

“Gratitude?”

“Yes. A thank you.”

“You mean the way you thanked me for saving yours?”

“Hmpf . . . well . . . as long as you know we're even.”

As the ship set sail, Ibo stood on the deck, holding her torn dress over her breasts as she watched the island burn. She wondered what would become of Amir and how many people had died that night. She hoped that the rebellion would be successful for Amir's sake. He was a warrior, so she knew he would survive. That's what she believed anyway. But if the whites ever regained control of the island, they would put all the rebels to death, she knew.

Then she remembered his final words to her in the barn: “Stay alive and I will come for you. No matter how long it takes. I will come for you.” She took comfort in his words. She would stay alive. She would hold on to his love and believe that one day they would see each other again. And if necessary, she would come back to the island to find him.

Still covering her breasts, she walked across the deck of the
Windward
and down the stairs. Her newly discovered truth made her feel like she was floating on a cloud. She entered Rutgers' quarters, changed clothes, and sat in one of the spoon-back chairs. Then she did her best to remember everything she had seen.

She focused primarily on the rape of Helen Torvell. She had now seen two of them, but the second rape gave her an immense sense of satisfaction. As far as she was concerned, turnabout was fair play. What she didn't know was that with each act of brutality she witnessed, her heart was hardening—and the repercussions of that would reveal themselves in her future.

Chapter 30

A
nd there she was, standing on the auction block, looking into the faces of the men who wanted to permanently purchase her goods and make them their very own, like she was some life-sized, black-faced doll to whom they could do all the nasty things they imagined in their wicked hearts. While they were thinking about her, she was thinking about her precious Amir and whether he was even alive. Full of hope, she trusted that someday they would be together.

In a strange way, not knowing what became of him was worse than knowing. If she knew for certain that he was dead, at least there would be a measure of closure. If she knew for certain that he was dead, she could hold on to the memory of him and yet extricate herself from him at the same time. She could move on emotionally and figure out how she would gain her freedom on her own. But if she knew Amir was still alive and trying to keep his promise to come for her, that bit of information would strengthen her resolve to resist those who would enslave her in any way she could. Knowing he was alive would keep her alive, and give her hope for a future with him.

She looked down at the men and listened as their lively clamor rose in volume. She felt the need to release all the turmoil going on inside her heart. She hadn't seen her family in more than four months. She missed her older sisters, her brothers, and her mother and father. She missed her home and her own little corner in the house on the farm where they lived. What she missed most was the freedom to come and go as she pleased; to so much as relieve herself without having to tell her captor why she needed a few minutes to herself.

Telling Rutgers why she needed a few minutes or longer made it easy to figure out if she needed to urinate or defecate. And that was so very personal. Her own father didn't know when she had to relieve herself, yet this Dutchman not only knew when she had to go, but could figure out which of the two she needed to do. It was
so
humiliating.

The beginnings of tears were starting to form, but she fought them off, remembering that she was in control. She refused to give those who would buy her the satisfaction of seeing her at her weakest moment. She refused to let them see how broken she felt, how absolutely alone she felt, even though there were plenty of people in that place who resembled her; people who had her skin tone and facial features. When she felt her heart was at the point of shattering as if it were fine, expensive crystal, she fought off the ocean of tears by remembering how strong Amir had been when the crew of the
Windward
tossed their disposable slaves to the powerful jaws of the man-eating sharks that patiently waited for their meal, and she found the strength she needed to journey on.

The highest bid was now at two thousand dollars. Ibo had no idea how much that was. In Dahomey, they didn't use painted paper as currency. They used cowry shells and goods as legal tender. She looked at the man who had bid what many in the burgeoning crowd thought was an outrage. He was standing next to Captain Rutgers, who was saying something to a different man and pointing at her. She naturally assumed that the man was Monsieur Beaumont Bouvier. He was well-dressed, sporting a pair of cream-colored trousers, a cream-colored vest, and navy tails. But he was very short. He was five feet one inch in shoes.

As she listened to her price rise higher and higher, she noticed that the black man in the fancy clothes, the one the people standing around him called Massa, was coming over to the auction market. His name was Walker Tresvant.

Chapter 31

W
alker Tresvant was a multimillionaire; one of several black men in New Orleans to be so distinguished. He had been educated at the Sorbonne in Paris and was the owner of a very large sugarcane plantation.

He had been standing too far away to see how beautiful the woman on the auction block was, and had only gone over because he heard the bidding amounts and they intrigued him. He had to see what all the commotion was about. He had to see what the white men were going to get for all that money they were about to spend on one slave girl.

When he saw her hypnotic, deep-set eyes, her long, slender neck, and the thick cushions disguised as lips, he had joined the bidding; however, when the amount reached seventeen hundred dollars, he withdrew and watched to see which of his competitors would acquire her “services.” He had never seen any slave go for more than seventeen hundred dollars. To his recollection, he had only seen one slave even approach that number, and he was a man—a prime black buck of a man, a studding buck of a man, one that could keep the women on the plantation barefoot and pregnant.

While he could understand why the men wanted to bed her and were willing to pay handsomely to do so, he didn't understand why they allowed their sexual proclivities to get in the way of a sound business decision. The woman on the block could only have one or two children at a time, at the most three, and then she couldn't have more until nearly a year later. A stud could get one woman with child, and then keep producing children as long as there were women to impregnate.

If a planter was fortunate enough to have ten, perhaps twenty women pregnant months or weeks apart, a prime studding buck could start the pregnancy cycle over and over again. At that rate, he could get somewhere between twenty and forty slaves to work the plantation for the cost of one buck. Paying nearly seventeen hundred dollars for one like that made all the business sense in the world. It was a good investment. The woman on the block, while she possessed incredible beauty, couldn't be seen as an investment on future children the way a stud could.

“The bid is two thousand,” the auctioneer said. “Do I hear two thousand one hundred?” There was considerable grumbling, but no one bid. “Two thousand once . . . two thousand twice . . .”

“Twenty-five hundred,” Beaumont said, and raised his white handkerchief.

Monsieur Bouvier was a third generation Frenchman from Monaco. One hundred years earlier, Damien Bouvier, his grandfather, who had been a renowned baker, wanted more for himself and his family and made plans to stake his claim on some of the vast real estate he had heard about.

When he had saved enough money for the voyage, he set sail for the New World, with grandiose dreams of becoming a success in a place called North America. He opened a bakery, and business boomed. He soon learned, however, that slavery was far more profitable and one could live like a member of the House of Grimaldi of Monaco.

When Tresvant saw Beaumont bid, he raised his hand, indicating that he was bidding twenty-six hundred. He wasn't going to buy the woman. He just wanted to make Beaumont pay considerably more because the Bouviers had once owned his family.

Tresvant's grandfather was the first slave that Damien Bouvier purchased—that's the story that had been handed down to the third generation. His name was Alexander Tresvant Bouvier, and he served Damien faithfully for two years.

One day, Alexander saw a lovely octoroon on a neighboring plantation. Her name was Jennifer. He made inquires and learned that she was a nineteen-year-old maiden with no man in her life other than her father. After Alexander got permission to court her, they fell completely in love over the course of three wonderful months. Alexander asked her father for her hand in marriage, and he was agreeable. He then asked Master Bouvier to purchase her so he could marry her and start a family.

Bouvier agreed immediately. But on the night of their honeymoon, Bouvier told the young man that he would have to bed her first, and then Alexander could have her afterward. When Bouvier saw the astonished look on Alexander's face, he explained that he had an insatiable penchant for virgins.

Gleefully, he told Alexander, “There's nothing like being the first to break a virgin in. That's something you could never fully appreciate. Besides, I paid two hundred dollars for her. It's only fair I get a crack at her first.” It never even occurred to Bouvier that Alexander wanted to be the first and only man his wife knew intimately.

The salacious visual ran through the young man's mind in an instant and crushed his spirit. Being a slave afforded him no formal rights as a husband, and therefore, he was powerless to keep them both from being violated. They didn't know it at the time, but they would wear visible emotional scars as if they were clothing—and so would their children.

On their wedding night, when the time came to step aside and allow his master to enter his wife, Alexander refused her and avoided the act. He didn't have the heart to tell Jennifer what was going to happen to her—to them.

Jennifer had been looking forward to joining with him and was confused. She wondered why he was taking so long to consummate the marriage. When Bouvier enter their house without knocking, knowing they were on their honeymoon, Jennifer looked at her husband, expecting him to do or at least say something. But he didn't. He just bowed his head and left immediately without a word of explanation. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head when she realized what was about to happen.

“No, Massa,” she said when he started taking off his clothes.

Bouvier acted as if he didn't hear her and continued undressing. Twenty minutes or so later, he left their house and made his way back to his own bed, where his wife, who knew what was going on, waited in silence.

While Tresvant's grandparents stayed together, their relationship was never the same because not only did Bouvier take his grandfather's right as a husband, but he didn't keep his word. After that initial encounter with Jennifer, he continued seeing her regularly for well over a year. Sometimes he'd stay the entire night.

Jennifer's attitude changed, and Alexander wanted to know why. One night, he stood outside an open window and listened to them grunt and groan. Much of the music he heard came from Jennifer, who was obviously enraptured by what they were doing
together.
When Alexander realized that his wife had somehow learned to enjoy the impromptu visits, he was enraged and decided he would have his revenge.