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ecotone99 · 4 years

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[SP] The Mis-Adventures of Le'xander Malcolm Part 1

My dear Jenny,

I pray this letter finds you in good spirits.

The Lord's good grace seems to have finally ended five years after those damn Yankees abandoned us. They hoped our spirits would dwindle after they destroyed our guns and choked our supply of gunpowder, but they were wrong, for we Southerners are a resilient bunch who take pride in our fortitude. That could be the reason for our downfall. We arrogantly dismissed the North and worried nothing of our free labor force. We should have worried.

When reports of the Negros not working began to spew about, it should've given us cause for concern, but instead, we ignored them. The missing power of the gun behind the master's hand must've made the whip sting a little less. Even my most loyal and trustworthy Negros began to speak more loosely at the lip, declaring when they would or wouldn't do a task.

Whispers began to pick up in multitude, speaking of the Negroes arming themselves with sword amongst other savage tools. Then talk of attacks spread. One rogue Negro turned into a few that turned into a mob. Soon enough, full revolts were afoot. Men hacked to death in their sleep; plantations painting the sky orange and red as fires engulfed cotton fields.

I write this now barricaded in my bedroom. The Negros have hung the overseers and are banging on the door as I scribe. I'm confident I won't make it through the night. My arrogance has failed us, my love. To think we were justified in–

Charles Sumter 1856

Moonmilk Plantation, Georgia.

Blood trickled from Slash's thick broadsword dying the cotton parchment a tarnished brown. The smooth feather-penned ink was still wet. He stood over the slaver's limp body gazing at it with relish. A pounding heart rocked his chest and surged warmth throughout his body.

"Do we burn it down?" Dante asked Slash and interrupted his moment of triumph. Thick creases of worry burrowed into Dante's light-brown forehead.

"No, let em find it. Let em see what fruit their seeds have brought," Slash swung the massive blade onto his back.

He spent days sweating in front of a sweltering hot forge tucked away in the Chattahoochee Forest, hidden from prying eyes. He'd strike the molten metal until it formed into shape, and with every hit, he envisioned how rich it'd be to watch the man who caused him years of torment finally get what he deserved. The finished product wouldn't have hung on anyone's mantle in an attempt to impress onlookers, but the look never concerned Slash. The only thing of importance was its usefulness–the sword's ability to execute. He knighted it Sweetback's Revenge.

Slash stepped over the slaver with complete disregard and out the door. Dante and the other members of their freedom crusaders followed close behind. The plantation house was unrecognizable. Splintered wood pieces from a hacked door were scattered apart on the floor. Blood-soaked soles tracked footprints throughout the formerly pristine mansion that once hosted dignitaries with fina china for a Sunday's tea. Imported Italian leather couches mourned for sections of itself to be whole again after being cut and sliced about, neglecting its painstaking assembly. The extensive portrait that previously overlooked the opulent fireplace, meant to be the piece people commented on while eating pound cake served by a subservient Negro woman, decorated with gold trimmings, laid face down and ignored.

The only care displayed that fall night was a benevolent, full moon as it cast its silver light down onto their black skin and tinted it a milky-blue as they stepped out the house.

"So, what are we going to do now, Slash?" Dante asked.

Slash pointed across the field towards the stables, "we gone snatch sum hawses up and make fo tha hills."

The grass crunched under their feet as they made their way towards the stables. Five men walked across that field, some armed with clanking swords at their hips, others toting large maces on their backs or small personal hatchets. Slash and his brother in arms were together for three years now, which was rare for field-hands, well all except for Dante, who looked white enough to be in the house. He and Dante went so far back, Slash would often forget when was the first time they met. The occasions Dante snuck food to him, risking his own hide, out of the big house made him forever endeared to Slash's heart. He promised Dante he'd bring him along when the time came. The time was here, but they all knew, this was only the first step. The road ahead of them would be far from easy and about two miles from hell.

They entered the stables and found it barely lit by the moonlight, making the veiled movements of shadowed horses the only thing visible. One of the men struck a lantern for light and counted eight horses. There were only five of them, but the extra horses would come in handy, especially with the immense distance they planned to travel. Bothered horses whined and neighed, surprised at the time they were awakened, but quickly recognized the soft touch of hands who brushed, bathed, and fed them, and instantly calmed.

Dante approached the last stall and squinted, trying to figure out what was tucked away in the crevice. There was a small figure laid in the corner of the booth curled into a ball.

"Slash," Dante called, sure to speak softly for fear he'd startle it.

"What," Slash's voice boomed throughout the stable and woke it, unaware of Dante's efforts to keep quiet.

It was a boy, small and lean clothed in tattered rags. The coal-skinned boy scrambled up into the nook of the enclosure, encasing himself in a dark shadow that hid everything but wide-open pupils of a startled child.

"Lemme see that lantern," Slashed illuminated the stall.

"It's a boy, still wit shackles on his wrists and ankles," Slash spoke once seeing him, "it's okay, we ain't gone hurt cha boi," Slash spoke in a low soft whisper with his hands raised in a surrender hoping to disarm the boy of his fears, but he stayed put.

"I ain't going back to the Johnsons, y'alls gone try and take me back but I's ain't gone go, y'alls gone have to kill me before I go," the boy's voice teetered on the edge of manhood and childhood while it navigated the cliff of uncertainty. He wasn't sure if death would be any better than the Johnsons, but he slowly spaced his leg apart and bent his back into an angle that welcomed a rushing bull.

"Oh, is that right?" Slash chuckled and rose his eyebrows.

"Slash, we ain't got much time for this. The sisters will be returning soon enough," Dante warned, sure to glance over his shoulder, "leave the boy and let's go."

"Nah, they'd torture him for our whereabouts, and I can'ts let that happen. Hand me ya hatchet, will ya?" Slashed reached out his hand, then Dante begrudgingly obliged him.

Slash crept within a hair's touch of the boy and sucked in a gut-deep breath. "Stay still boy, this won't hurt," Slash wielded the small ax high above his head, precisely casting it down onto the chains that trapped the boy and shattered the links between his wrist.

The boy's eyes widened with grateful shock as he shook his arms freely, no longer constrained by the stifling chains. Tear-washed eyes glanced up to Slash's towering figure in awe. Amazement swept the boy's voice from under his feet.

"What's your name boy?" Slash bent on one knee to meet the boy's eye.

"My ma and pa would call me Le'xander Malcolm, but Massa call me–"

"It don't matter what the white devil called ya. Ya name is the one ya daddy, and ya mammy gave ya. But we all gotta callin name, like mine is Slash, so we gotta give you one too. How bout' X?"

Le'xander would've preferred his own name, but Slash's benevolent warm eyes were reassuring arms for Le'xander to fall into, so he gracefully smiled and shook his head in agreement.

Dante continued to argue against bringing the boy, claiming the extra body unable to defend itself was nothing more than a liability. The path they were set to travel was ill-equipped to handle burdens because the mistakes here weren't your average dustups that were fixed with a light pat-down of the trousers. No, an error on this road surely preceded death or worse. Slash fully comprehended the consequences but still swung the boy on the back of his horse, for something occured in his spirit when he broke those shackles. No longer was it merely about enacting his revenge and escaping off into the hills for his own freedom, it was about his people.

Ten years later and Slash orchestrated the freedom of countless Black bodies thanks to The Nation, a paramilitary organization comprised of Black militants. An aged body now littered with wounds stacked on one another arranged in picturesque fashion, hindered him from leading the liberation missions anymore. Instead, he focused on running Bramblebush, a town named after the same shrub Moses seen set ablaze. It was Slash's version of Eden, a place where Black people could be free from the horrors of chattel slavery. The people who presided in the town were free from those fears, but Le'xander couldn't escape his own.

No longer the terrified boy Slash found, Le'xander grew into a man who was granted, as Slash thought, to lead The Nation's missions. The honor of delivering a people who look like him, from racist tyrants resonated with Le'xander like wolves resonate with the moon. But just like the rainbow after a treacherous storm, the feeling wouldn't last forever.

One muggy summer morning, where the humid heat of Georgia stalked you–a type of morning where mosquitoes buzzed and flies flew–Le'xander, now twenty-three, sulked through town. He dragged his anchored feet through the hardened red-clay that was soaked in steady sun rays robbing the dirt of its soft nature. Le'xander's head swooped and swayed in between his shoulders, staring at his feet with the melody of a lazily swinging hammock. A group of boisterous men alerted him to look, but it was nothing more than a group of railroad workers drunk with more than laughter tumbling out of the saloon. They chose to enjoy their day off, drinking away their aches and pains before going back to their homestead. The metal from children-thrown horseshoes amid a Pitch game rang in his ears. Thick-thighed, cornbread-fed women, who shuffled about and carried the town's gossip in their hips, waved hello at Le'xander. He gave a half-hearted smile keeping his hands securely thrust into his pockets and continued on his way. Years of nights where he was robbed of sleep, drenched pillows full of sweat, and daydreams transformed into nightmares occupied his thoughts. Freedom didn't seem so free, after all.

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