BREAK ONE: SEPARATION

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1: Dionysus - 1840

 

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A good horse could take you miles from murder. But a special one could deposit you some miles distant and then take itself right back to the scene of the crime. And Argent Blue was a very special horse. Wise too. The stallion had watched the whole thing without a snicker or a snort. He’d drawn his own line in the sand.

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Dio had spent hours with him in the stables, cleaning, shoeing, turning straw, feeding, brushing. Training him. The two of them had an agreement. Racing at the Kentucky Derby and moving up in the world, making a name for each other. A dream that was now never going to be fulfilled.

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He’d cleaned up as best he could, but it had still had taken him a good hour to remove all the blood and gore. He’d used the soft mosses, then taken his chances to dip in the river further down. His heart had pounded heavily through each second as the crocs fed. After that, he’d made preparations to skedaddle. He could hear the good sounds, the fireflies, crickets, frogs. He could hear the bad ones too. Things raced in the grass, hung from branches, skittered and jittered, and slid like rough-hewn logs rolling into the river.

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Argent Blue had taken him twenty miles along the route, through the night, instinctively knowing when to stop and when to sink into the shadows. Luckily they’d come across no dogs, although Blue would have made quick work of any of 'em. ​That stallion had a hidden temper.

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“Go, on boy, git. Git now. Git back to where you was stood. Kick up a bit, then head on home.”

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A soft nudge of his nose, acknowledging the urgency, then he was gone. Dio had no doubt Blue sensed what was wanted even if he didn’t understand the words. He’d head back to the scene, kick up some, then head on to the stables. ​Now all he had to do was stand and wait. Everything slithered. Some at the river’s edge. He felt something brush near his foot, and measured by the length and weight it was likely to be a rat snake. Anything heavier would be a worry. In this swampy night heat, last thing he wanted to run across was a copperhead or moccasin.

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Milly had gotten Old Sam to sneak him round some items and he would make his way. He had enough food to last him until three nights and no more. But there were places where food was left out, usually some meat, molasses, and plenty of hoe cake. He knew them all. ​For a long time he waited, without being detected. He’d always been very good at stillness. Sometimes people said it was as if he’d upped and disappeared. But it was just staying alive skills, was all. ​He wasn’t going to worry about the body now. No need to hide anything. It got what it deserved. Gators would take care of it and whatever they found would be easily explained. He’d waited a while to make sure. Watched them drag bits of the body down to the river. By the time they were done there was little left to say there’d once bin anything living that went by the name of sheriff Tyler Watson of Arizona Creek Missouri.

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* * *

 

He went down to Louisiana, and got himself into a slave position with Orcas Weller. Weller was a free black who was practising liberation in plain sight. He owned slaves, but mostly he was buying up slaves to free up. Freeing up his relatives and more. Not like some other free blacks who was slaving for slaving sakes and to sell their own down the river willing for no more a sliver of melon.

So down in Baton Rouge he put up with more cotton pickin' and waited. Because Millie had an idea stuck her head and wouldn’t let go of it. Because she’d wanted a fresh with him start like a new woman, a proper husband and wife relationship. Old Jeremiah Dawkins would married them off. And they’d made their way down one of Miz Tubman’s routes towards a new life in Canada.

 

He waited because they were going to get married and consummate their marriage. He waited because she said they were still young enough to have children. Three boys and two girls; even planned the names. They were going to be born free and do something that was better and being sold down the river working a cotton gin under an overseer’s whip—even if that something better was being dead.

 

He’d waited eight whole months, ducking and diving and at times just staying still like a statue.  Waited and waited—until word came in the form of his friend Marcus Eight Toes. Marcus was a man who’d absorbed so much life that it had left him like a smooth brown polished oak tree without branches. You tried to climb it and just slid down again. Nothing touched Marcus; neither slaps nor kicks nor whips nor branding. He had skin that healed like magic and just shook off pain like a dog shaking off drops of water. 

 

But that magic skin meant he couldn’t show grief no matter how deeply he felt it. In the middle of the night, he came to Dio in his tiny cabin. “She says she ain’t coming. Go on without her,” she says, “n’ live your life.”

 

“I can’t go without her, Marcus. We made plans.”

 

He’d refused to take it in until Marcus said, “She said to tell you she’s six months gone wid Massa’s child. Said to tell you ain’t losing this one and she ain’t comin’.”

 

The pain wouldn’t hit him until years later. “I don’t care, she can bring the child with her. I’ll look after ‘em both.”

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You ain’t listening, Dio. She says she got better plans for the child. And she wants you to be safe. You gotta move on, man. You can’t stay here.”

 

Eventually he had to admit that Marcus was right. He knew Millie; once her mind was set, it was set. “It’s alright. I know a place.”

 

“Where you gonna go?”

 

“I’m gonna go home.”

 

“Back to Georgia?”

 

“Back to Africa.”