CHAPTER ONE

Looking through the window across the field, a wall of the heat seemed to rise from the ground. Upon focusing on the black figures in the distance, their skin seemed to glisten as the beating sun shone upon their sweaty backs. They had a frail look upon them, as they hadn’t eaten a proper meal ever since they arrived in this dastardly place. Their cries of pain and agony seemed to be heard for miles as they echoed inside Robert’s head. He wished that it would all stop, that they would be set free and be allowed to lead their own lives instead of being his father’s sheep. But he knew that everyone on the Destrehan Plantation were his father’s sheep, including him.

While looking upon these tired, tortured souls, Robert heard the soft footsteps of the house maid. As she entered his room, her body quivered with every step as if she was stricken with fear. As her lips opened, a trembling voice came through, “ Master Destrehan... your father has requested you to come downstairs for supper”.

“I’ll be right down”, he blindly answered; but upon realizing who ordered his presence, he corrected himself, “Coming right away”, as he followed out of the doorway and down the main staircase.

Arriving at the dinner table, he heard the footsteps of an angry man entering the room, the footsteps that he knew all too well, they were his father’s.

“Took you long enough, you negro piece of garbage!”, his father swore as he entered, “Now get out of my sight! You will get food later after doing the rest of your duties for the night”

“Sorry Mr. Destrehan, it won’t happen again”, she said as she quickly turned the corner into the broom closet, leaving with the old tattered broom that looked like it had been in the house for centuries.

Afraid of similar treatment, Robert nervously took a seat at the table, waiting for his father to sit before he ate. As the cruel man sat at the opposite end of the table, he spoke, “Have you thought about what I mentioned to you earlier?”

Sheepishly, Robert answered, “I have put some thought into it, but I’m not sure, I was thinking I could...”

“That’s enough! If you can’t make the right choice for your country and family, then I’ll make it for you, you are going into the army! A war is coming and you are enlisting, that’s final!”

Robert submissively looked down at his plate of food and ate in silence. As much as he wanted to rebel against his father’s words, he knew questioning his father would only end in an argument that he would lose. He didn’t want to fight for a cause that wasn’t right. He felt the glare of his father on him, as if he was wishing to get a rise out of his son for this action, but Robert knew better, he knew not to give his father the satisfaction that he seeked.

After several gruesome minutes, his father yelled, “Get out! Get out of my sight! Go back to your room and pray that I don’t come up there and take your indecision out on you with my belt, now go!”

Getting up from the table, he walked up the stairs to his room, happy to leave his father. Robert lied in bed, just lying there without a sound, thinking. He thought about why he faced so much hate from his father, had he done something wrong other than following his father’s wishes? For god sakes, he was 17 and wanted to make his own decisions. He didn’t want to fight for some unholy cause, he wanted to be in a land where everyone was equal, a land that was liberating for all colors not just whites. He was part of the Union, not the Confederacy. He knew something had to be done, but he knew that he must keep quiet, he couldn’t disobey his father after all these years. Promising this to himself, his eyes grew weak, the end of the day had come. Drifting off to sleep heard the faint sounds of something cracking. The wails and cries of a familiar sounding woman followed every crack. With each snap, Robert felt as if he was getting punched in the gut. Each whimper and cry echoed inside Robert’s head. He knew he had to do something, but he only shook his head.

CHAPTER TWO

“Hey! Get up, before they come,” a man said shaking me awake. “Quickly Quanesha, you know what they do if you’re asleep when they check for us!”.

Opening her weary eyes she found herself wishing that it was all a bad dream, that this barebones shack and the tiresome fields were all just make-believe, but she knew better than that. As she stood up, the burning sun shone upon her face as the soil crumpled beneath her feet. Breathing in the same rotten smell every morning, she knew that the nightmare of the fields wasn’t over, she knew she wasn’t anywhere close to becoming free. Looking around the shack she was hoping to get something to eat before the long day ahead, but she was the last one up and someone probably ate her rationed out food. It was the same thing every morning, the sick were all laid out on the ground, getting help from the old ladies until they were taken to the hospital, which was a death sentence, as they would go and never be seen again. She looked over to the right to see a hollering overseer, “Hey! It's time to do something useful with your lives! Get to work you filthy animals!”

They all sluggishly walked out into the sugar cane fields for yet another taxing day. Quanesha had her heavy, sharp-curved blade slung over her right shoulder. The sight of cane was sickening, it was unfair how they were out here everyday while the whites just sat inside with all their fancy bells and whistles while they worked their asses off. How could none of them have any compassion or sympathy for them?

“Why,”, she asked herself, “Why do I continue to ask, I already know the answer”

Many other times, she looked up at the mansion, and at the perfectly cleaned window that overlooked the fields. Frequently, she saw a slew of men looking out of it, but today she saw someone different. It was a boy, whose face looked to have emotion, instead of the cold-blooded men she regularly saw.

Befuddled by this astonishment, she asked herself, “Why does he look like that? Why doesn’t he look like the others?”. Whatever it was, she couldn’t understand it.

Continuing to stare at the boy, Quanesha returned back to reality with the yell of a white man, “Hey, what the hell do you think you are doing, get your ass back to work or I’ll take it out on your back, now start cutting!”

With that order, she returned to work and didn’t cease working until she heard the hum of a nearby slave. She joined in with the hum until she sang the lyrics, “Walk with me lord, walk with me! All along this tejus journeys, I want Jesus to walk with me”

With the inspirational lyrics, she slaved away, without another distraction until sundown.

Starving, Quanesha searched the shack for food, looking for anything on the rotted wooden table in the corner of the small space to the maggot and insect covered ground. Any food was good enough for her, it didn’t matter where it was from, she was too hungry to care.

Out of the blue, an elderly woman approached Quanesha and said, “Here honey, have my apple, it’s something, please go ahead and eat it, don’t worry about little old me”

“Thank you so much!”, Quanesha gratefully said.

The sourness of the green apple was a bit overwhelming, but the crunch and the juiciness of it were unmatched to any other apple she had ever eaten. As Quanesha bit into it again, she could feel the juice cover her lips and secrete into her mouth. Maybe the apple was so good because she was literally starving, but at the same time, she was overjoyed that the apple was so good.

As the night came to an end, Quanesha said a prayer, “I’m holding steady on You, an’ You’ve got to see me through”. As the night ended, she tried to get as comfortable as possible on the dirt ground and the teared up blanket she had. Slowly and surely as she fell asleep, she wished and dreamed of a better tomorrow.

CHAPTER THREE

“You fucking bitch, why don’t you do what you are told, you useless nigger!”, his father hollered startling Robert awake

“I’m sorry Mr. Destrehan, I’ll make it up to you, I promise I will” she pleaded.

The yelling stopped and the conversation ceased to be, as if his father was for once pleased. How was she going to repay him for what she did? As Robert looked out to the field of slaves bending their backs to chop the stalks of sugarcane. He didn’t see them as a tool, they were people just like him, and his father treated these people so wrongly.

Robert sat in the desk that overlooked the fields, because this was the one space i the house that he could think about everything and not be constantly questioned by his father. Thinking about the other night, he realized how much he didn’t want to fight for an unholy cause, and how he wanted to get away form the whole slave issue.

“I wish I could just run away from all of it”, he said through his deep sigh.

The talk of a civil war between the North and the South had started and become more prominent as reports from the papers showed that the North was getting an army together, and they had no problem finding volunteers and soldiers for their army. If his father was truly serious about him going to the Confederate army, he would take him into New Orleans to enlist during the weekend, when he had duties off of the plantation.

His train of thought was interrupted when a vast amount of arguing ensued. A slave had disobeyed what the overseer had said to him, and everyone knew how this was going to end. He grabbed the slave, taking him out of the fields and throwing him to the ground, sending mud splashing into the air. Turning around, someone went over and grabbed the cart whip, that was used for the horses.

The overseer yelled, “Take your damn shirt off you scum!”. The man obeyed, revealing the multiple purple whip scars on his back. The whip cracked and struck the slaves back, again, and then again. After the fourth the slave fell to his knees.

“Get up nigger!”, the overseer exclaimed while whipping him again. The slave didn’t stand, he stayed down.

“Get up!” he repeated with another whip crack.

With each whip crack, the slave seemed to sink more and more into the mud which he was rested on. With each whip crack, Robert jolted as if he was in the place of that slave, as if he were getting whipped by his father. With each crack, the overseer got a happy look in his eyes, a psychotic look. He continued whipping the poor soul until he no longer moved with each whip to his back. The overseer handed his whip off the man that once gave him it. With a smile, he walked past the blood-covered slave, kicked him, and then continued to walk out of the window’s sight. A slave went over to the man on the ground, touched his neck, then looked at his fellow slaves and shook his head. A couple more slaves came over and carried the body away.

Wide awake, thinking about how the man had just killed another man with no remorse because of the color of his skin. Trying to get it off his mind, he shut his eyes, when he heard something.

He listened closely, hearing the cries of a woman saying, “Stop, please stop, no more, stop!”

Robert had a feeling what was happening, it was the voice of the house slave from this morning, down the hall, in his father’s bedroom. He grabbed his pillows and buried his head in them trying to forget what he heard. He knew all of this was wrong, he knew that this abuse had to stop. He needed to help as many slaves as he possibly could.

CHAPTER FOUR

She had seen many slaves come and go, but the death of a friend, a brother, never gets easier. “Too many lives have been lost because of the cruel actions of the slave owner!”, Quanesha exclaimed.

“There’s nothing that we can do about it, they own us and they always get their way with us” a slave said opposing Quanesha’s belief.

“Well something has to be done, we have to revolt against these men”, Quanesha restated.

A well-dressed boy sauntered into the room, fairly handsome with his long, luscious locks flowing with the draft that came into the house. He had a white shirt that was as white as snow with a ebony bow tie. His pleated pants were a charcoal gray, like the ashes from coals after burning them. His blazer was a matte black but it wasn’t about the look, the blazer gave him a confidence, he looked intelligent and very direct. He didn’t look angry at them like other white men, he looked caring and compassionate, was this the person she was looking for? Was this the man that was going to give them the help that they so desired?

He opened his mouth, his voice soft and almost nervous, “Uhh, hi, my name is Robert Destrehan, I am the owner’s son, and I’ve come to help you, not harm.

With their attention, he ran with it. “This may come as a shock, but I don’t like the way that you are being treated, and I’m sure that you don’t like it either, so let’s work together and get you off this plantation”

There was no response from them, just an awkward silence.

“I hear tomorrow, there is a slave driver delivering more slaves to the plantation, he drops slaves off, but he also takes many with him to be free, I know it’s not a big change, but it’s a start to your freedom”

That made them talk, they all started getting excited over it.

“We’re going to get out of here!” they all rejoiced.

“What do we need to do to help him?” Quanesha questioned.

“All you have to do is spent another day in the fields doing what you have to do, when you see the driver talking to the overseer, some of you will hop in the back of the covered wagon”

“Alright, sounds like a plan, I will lead us”, Quanesha said.

“Quanesha? A woman leading us? What a joke” a slender male slave said.

“That’s the point, no one will expect it, if I lead a group of us around, they won’t think we are up to anything suspicious”

Realizing she was right, everyone was silent. It seemed to be that all the men in the room were too surprised that a woman was right.

Breaking the silence, Robert spoke up, “I should get back before they find out that I left to talk to slaves, Quanesha, select a handful of people to take off the plantation with you”

Okay, I will tell the slaves of the plantation tomorrow!”

She watched him leaving, memorizing all of his intricacies, from his perfectly formed jawline and square shoulders to the brass buckles on his shoes. He was a great looking boy.

“I know that look,” said an older woman in the corner of the slave hut, “you like him don’t you, he is the man your looking for”

“By God no, he is a white man and the son of a slave owner, I don’t want him at all! He’s just kinda attractive” Quanesha said blushing.

With that, she went over to the back corner of the shack to try and get some rest, knowing there was a long day ahead. For as much as she wanted to sleep, her mind dead set thinking about that handsome boy.

CHAPTER FIVE

The plan was set, whilst thinking of her new love, she thought over a plan that had potential. As dawn broke, she rallied all the men and women in her shed.

“So, I thought of a plan,” she began, “I know many of you won’t like this but it has to do with going to the hospital”

Shocks and gasps came from them, they obviously wanted nothing to do with that devilish place.

“Now now,”, she said bringing order back to her, “with myself leading, we will have pairs, the pairs will have one muscular man or woman with an ill or elderly, we will have around ten pairs”

“I’m not going anywhere near the hospital!”, one elderly woman protested.

“Me too!”, said a slender man in the back of the group between coughs.

“We don’t have to enter the hospital, we will just be heading toward it, as soon as the driver comes around and the slaves in the back get out, we will take their place”

“Mhm, I like this plan”, said a well build male slave.

“Alright well, we need to do this as soon as the driver comes this morning, so let’s get ready for it!”, Quanesha exclaimed.

As the bright sun further broke the sky, the slaves were all lined up according to plan, with Quanesha in the front. It was time for morning roll call, basically checking if all the slaves were awake, if not then they would be treated to a rude awakening.

As the overseer go to their shed, he questioned, “What the hell is going on here? Why are you all lined up like this?”

Quanesha explained, “We are taking our sick to the hospital today, just as you ordered yesterday”

“Mhm, quite right, carry on”

Walking out of the shed in their lines toward the hospital was dismal yet exciting for Quanesha. This walk had always been for the damned, the ones pretty much determined to die, but it was for something greater now, it was for freedom.

Now at the end of the row of slave houses and next to the hospital, they waited outside of it waiting for the driver. As the wagon with a solo man on top came rattling down the rocky road, she saw some of their faces light up with joy. The wooden tires shifted back and forth as they hit every possible rock and bump in the road. The driver saw them walking toward the road, and motioned with his hand to the back of the covered wagon. Then, he pulled up next to the overseer who was now awaiting him and the arrival of new slaves as Quanesha and her group now moved next to them at the hospital.

He hopped down off his high horse to the level of the overseer, where he lead him to the back of the wagon, where the slaves filed out the back of the wagon, then walking back to the front of it. From what she could see, they all looked miserable, as one should when arriving to a plantation, but a few of them had a smirk on them as they passed the overseer, who apparently, didn’t think very much of it. As the driver and the white man returned to the front of the wagon, Quanesha knew it was time to make her move.

“Hey! Let’s go!”, she said motioning for all her friends to move forward.

They moved quickly and efficiently across the road to the back of wagon, like they had rehearsed this a hundred times. They all filed into the back of the wagon with Quanesha being the last one into the wagon. Expecting to move shorty, they all excitingly awaited their freedom, when they heard a cry for help that was quickly silenced.

Quanesha peered out of the wagon to the side to see the driver approaching her.

Sporadically he said, “Leave your sick here, we have work to do, get out, let’s go!”

“Work to do? What are we doing?”, she questioned as she was pulled out of the wagon.

CHAPTER SIX

Overjoyed, Robert stared out his crystal-clear window as he saw the slaves get into the back of the wagon, his whole plan had worked and he couldn’t be happier. Looking away from the cause of his excitement, he laid on his bed just smiling and exuberant about the whole situation, he helped the suffering people from his father’s bondage. His father, Mr. Destrehan, now Robert thought about his father. What he had done was right, but it wasn’t what his father raised him to be for the seventeen years of his life. Now sitting with his head in his hands, he started to weep, knowing that he just went against everything that his father stood for. His weep grew louder, to a sob, and then almost to an outright cry when he heard the heavy footsteps who he knew belonged to his father. Why has his father come to visit him? The question lingered in his head as the door was opened with malicious intent.

“What are you doing up here?” his father questioned, “You aren’t even ready to go into town today are you?”

Robert completely forgot, it was Saturday, he was supposed to be enlisting today, “Oh, I nearly forgot, I will get ready right now”

Getting up from his chair that had the scenic view of the plantation, his father beckoned, “Son, get back over here”. Slowly but surely, Robert approached his father, hoping that he wasn’t in trouble for anything. Putting his arm around him, his father pointed out the window at the fields, “You see son, one day you will own all of this land, and all these slaves, and all this profit, it will all be yours”

“Yes, of course father, when it is passed down to me I will-”, as he was saying when he was shoved away by his father onto the ground.

“What the hell is going on out there!”, his father swore as he went running out of the room.

Rising from the ground, Robert peered out the window and saw that the overseer was now face down in the road with a knife in his back. Along with this loss, there was a large group of slaves, that would only grow, now running toward the mansion. The driver at the head of the group wasn’t only saving slaves, he was revolting against his masters though violence.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The group of rebels seemed to grow larger and larger as Quanesha looked behind her to see that her fellow slaves were rising from the cane to join the fight. Running through the mud there were fights all around her, the slaves fighting with whatever tools they had against the white men. Her group didn’t cease running, they kept going straight to the man they wanted revenge against, the owner.

With the bangs of fists against the pristine white door, it came down with a smash that sounded like a crack of thunder in the dark solem sky during a storm. With that, the opposition was met with a rifle in hand and a pistol on his right hip, in his holster. Like the crack of the whip they knew all too well, a shot whizzed through the air, piercing the head of one of her brothers. They charged up the stairs as the man whipped out his pistol to fire a quick shot, causing another one of her friends to collapse, falling to the ground. On the plateau of the stairs, the first man tackled him. With all of his might and a blood red face, the owner pushed the man off the top of him with his legs, but it was too late. With all the slaves around him, there was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. Quanesha saw the disparity and panic in his eyes as they darted around the circle of new masters. The driver sat on his chest, mocking all that the man stood for, “Look who is the master now, look who has all the power, look who holds all the cards”

“Please,” the owner begged, “ I don’t want to die!”

“You will pay for what you have done, all the suffering you have caused, all the pain, you will pay”, said one of the slaves standing above him.

With that the driver knew what must be done as he pulled the knife he carried out of his belt. With a swift motion, like a mouse scurrying across the ground, the knife moved across his throat. Blood flowed out like the water fountain that Quanesha saw in New Orleans when she was originally sold. As wrong as she knew it was to kill a man who had been asking for his life, inside she was rejoicing now knowing that she was even further liberated from her shackles. Looking around the circle, they all had the same look in their eyes, they all wanted more bloodshed. They scanned the vast room, looking for more people to pay the price of enslaving them, looking up the next flight of stairs, they saw the boy who visited the shed last night, regardless, they rushed toward him. Fear and shock struck his eyes as he saw his father lying on the ground with his blood pooled around his body from the slaves that were now charging towards him. She knew she had to do intervene, she had to help him.

“NO!” Quanesha shouted from the middle of the pack, “He helped us, don’t hurt him!”.

“He is with the owner, he has no remorse for us!”, one of the men shouted.

“I am different, I swear! She knows I am!”, he said pointing toward Quanesha.

“Yes he is different, he wanted to free us, he let us know you were coming to help us”, she said looking the driver in the eyes.

“I don’t care, if he helped you or not, he is the owner’s son, what worth does he have to us, other than the joy I would feel as this knife went across his throat?”, the driver said as he motioned the knife toward Robert.

“You can use me, I will help you all escape north or I can help you liberate other slaves”, Robert pleaded.

“I like that idea” , the driver said, “Since you love the white boy so much, you”, as he said pointing to the girl, “Take him, back to the wagon, we will leave when we are done clearing this land of bad men”

Together, they walked across the fields of blood soaked soil from the men that the slaves killed during their revolt. She felt a sense of horror inside her, but it was enhanced by the look that Robert had on his face. His eyes wide open, his mouth quivered with shock and awe, he looked afraid of what her people had done. She knew that he wanted to look away and escape the scene, but where was he suppose to look when death was all around them.

The sorrow walk through the relentless killing had eventually lead them back to the wagon, where Robert gained the courage to speak, “If you didn’t stop them, would they have done the same thing they did to my father?”

“I’m not sure,”, she said softly, “I don’t know”.

As the revolutionaries scavenged and ransacked the mansion, Quanesha and Robert just stood back and watched everything fall to pieces. Everything that they knew went up in flames, for Robert, the mansion was burning to the ground as the cane for Quanesha was being lit ablaze.

The rest of the slaves and the driver arrived back at the wagon where one slave questioned, “What do we do with the white boy?”

The driver answered, “Oh, don’t you worry about him, for he will be useful to us in the future”

As all slaves chuckled, Robert and Quanesha gave each other an awkward glance.