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@@ -983,7 +983,7 @@ Lulu sat down next to her sister. Henri slumped down into the sand and busied hi This time, after they all fell silent, Henri looked up from a drawing he had made. "You can call back an arrow you know. You just have to tie a string around it before you shoot it." -## Chapter 7 Ann Fulford +## Chapter 7: Ann Fulford The kiln fires burned for nearly a full cycle of the moon. The children tended the fires, Tamba, Kobayashi, and Papa tended the tar. There was still time to play, time to fish, time to climb trees, wade through the marsh in search of bird eggs, and time to sit around the fire at night listening to stories. Birdie and Lulu fished the bank whenever they could. There was a barrel half full of dried fish carefully stowed in Delos' hold to trade when they went to Charlestown. @@ -1109,7 +1109,7 @@ Sarah smiled. "And that's what you do? You help them careen and tar?" The girls nodded. -Their father returned saying Tamba had taken the ship into the marsh, to help them anchor it just offshore from Delos. They were going to careen and tar them together beginning the next day. Eliza May turned out to have a crew of six, including Sarah. Her father sent Birdie down to the end of the island to fetch her Aunt and Uncle and cousins. Between the two camps, plus some salt pork from Eliza Maj, they were able to put together a stew that Birdie seasoned with wild onions she'd gathered the day before. She and Lulu had spent the morning hunting the marsh for eggs, which they boiled to go along with stew. Aunt Māra made bread the way the Edistow did, laying the dough right on on the coals and then breaking the hard crust into half moon shapes into which they poured the stew before setting the whole thing in their abolone bowls to cool. The result was a bready, gooey, stewy mess that was Birdie's favorite meal, after turtle. +Their father returned saying Tamba had taken the ship into the marsh, to help them anchor it just offshore from Delos. They were going to careen and tar them together beginning the next day. Eliza May turned out to have a crew of six, including Sarah. Her father sent Birdie down to the end of the island to fetch her Aunt and Uncle and cousins. Between the two camps, plus some salt pork from Eliza Maj, they were able to put together a stew that Birdie seasoned with wild onions she'd gathered the day before. She and Lulu had spent the morning hunting the marsh for eggs, which they boiled to go along with stew. Aunt Māra made bread the way the Edistow did, laying the dough right on on the coals and then breaking the hard crust into half moon shapes into which they poured the stew before setting the whole thing in their abalone bowls to cool. The result was a bready, gooey, stewy mess that was Birdie's favorite meal, after turtle. It was beginning to get cool in the evenings and her father had been lighting the big fire again some nights. Though it wasn't cold enough to gather around it he lit it tonight and Unle Cole brought out his fiddle and the men from Eliza May brought their instruments and there was playing and dancing well into the night. Birdie danced with her father, with Sarah, with Tamba, and finally was too tired to dance anymore and sat and watched the men from Eliza May, pass the rum between them. They offered it to her father, who glanced up at their commotion to see the jug being offered. Birdie watched as he stood. Her father looked at the men and smiled. "Normally I don't drink. But I do appreciate the offer and I want you to feel welcome here, I have no complaint with any man that drinks, so long as he controls himself within the bounds of reason." The other men listened, glanced among themselves and slowly nodded. "Sounds good," said one. @@ -1139,7 +1139,7 @@ She told him what she had thought. He smiled and rubbed her back. "Exactly," he The sat in silence for a while until Lulu and Henri climbed sleepily up the dune and laid down beside her. Her father tucked each of them into their quilts and kissed their cheeks before returning to fire. -## Lulu and Sarah +## Chapter 8: Lulu and Sarah Lulu stood in the shade of the oaks, watching the thick hemp cords that held the Eliza May over on it's side. Her job was to inspect the ropes and the tree that held them, looking for any signs of weakness or fraying or rubbing. If any of these ropes slipped or broke loose it would put more strain on the remaining ropes and if they went, the ship would role back upright, crushing anyone who was working under it. It was pleasant work, watching things, though she couldn't help but feel tense and nervous since it was more than likely her father working under the boat. He always took the most dangerous jobs himself. If anything slipped she would scream and run which would be signal for anyone in the way of the rolling ship to run for their lives. Lulu was well known for her ability to out shriek anyone, which was why her father had given her the job. @@ -1261,16 +1261,60 @@ Sarah sat back and looked at them for moment, studying their faces. "How old are They both nodded. -"Sarah is not my real name." +"You have to promise not to tell anyone, not even your father." Lulu and Birdie's eye met for a flash, but neither of them said anything. -"My true name is Ann." +"My name is not Sarah. My name is Ann." + +Lulu considered this. It wasn't much of a secret. She'd figured out years ago that hardly anyone who passed through their camp used the name their parents had given them. What Sarah, or Ann, was really revealing was how little time she'd spent at sea, and for this Lulu was grateful. This information was far more valuable than a name, and Lulu loved her for it far more than she did for the trust she was showing in telling them her name. On impulse, before she could stop herself, she threw her arms around Ann's neck and hugged her. + +## Chapter 9: Campfire Talk + +Two days later Birdie sat at the edge of the river, watching Eliza May thread her way through the shallows, out to sea. Her father was on board to help. Maggie was tied to a stern line so he could sail back once he'd guided them out of the river mouth and into the open ocean. Lulu could see her father, but she was watching Ann. Ann lying down on the bowsprite with a lead line in the water, taking soundings. All Birdie could see of her was her red hair near the tip in the bowsprite, but that was exactly how she wanted to remember her, clutching the bowsprite, leading the way out to sea. + +Earlier that morning as they'd help load the last bunch of dried, salted fish the crew of the Eliza May had purchased from Birdie, Ann had pulled Lulu and Birdie aside and told them that she intended to make Nassau before the year was out and that she would be working hard to get a ship, and that if she did, they were to be part of her crew. Birdie liked this idea, though she knew there was next to no chance it would actually happen. Still, what stuck in her mind more than that was her offhand suggestion, "See if you can convince your father to go south this summer, not north." Birdie had never thought of trying to influence their destination. It wasn't that she couldn't she realized, after thinking on it, it was that she'd never had a reason to go any particular direction so she was happy to go wherever others wanted. Now though, maybe she did have a direction she wanted to go. + +Birdie watched until she could not longer see any people, and noticed that Maggie was being pulled in closer to the Eliza May. Soon her father would be back. Soon it would be back to work making tar. Birdie had an escape plan. She'd managed to unload one bundle of dried fish to the crew of the Eliza May in exchange for several copper kettles. Now she wanted to take those upriver and see if she could trade some of the Waccamaw families for some kind of blue dye she could make into ink. She'd seen them with blue painted on their faces and knew they must have some, though whether or not she could trade for any of it she did not know. Still Tamba was an excellent trader and she was hoping she could convince him to go with her. They needed vegetables , he'd have to make a trip upriver soon anyway. + +Few people lived as close to the sea as Birdie's family. There was too much salt in the river to drink, too much salt in the air to grow crops. People came out in the warmer months when Bridie's family went north, but when it cooled, and big schools of fish moved further offshore, most people headed back up the rivers, further from the sea, where the land was better for growing, the water better for drinking. + +Birdie and her sister dug the marshes for sedge grass roots, and gathered a root the Waccamaw people called potato. The island also had plenty of Muscadines, blackberries, and raspberries, which they all gathered when they ripened. But they relied on trade with people upcountry to provide a variety of vegetables, corn and squash, tomatoes, okra, and of course rice. They brought dried fish, fishing line and French guns to trade, most of that was traded from passing ships that paid for tar in whatever was in their holds. + +And everyone always traded news. The river carried stories from far up in the mountains down to the coast and the river boatmen carried stories from the coast back up into the mountains. Birdie had never been more than a few miles inland, but Tamba had once trekked far up into Iroquois territory with copper pots and French rifles to trade for seeds and high quality corn from the foothills, fatter and plumper than the red corn that grew in the coastal plain. + +To her surprise, Tamba thought going upriver to trade was an excellent idea and agreed to take Lulu and Birdie as soon as their father returned with Maggie. He grumbled a bit about losing his best helpers, but then his eye fell on Henri who happened to walk through camp. "Come here my boy, I have a task for you..." + +Lule and Birdie leaped in the boat with Tamba and unfurled the sail and pushed off before their father changed his mind. There was a decent cross wind that had them tacking slightly up through the marsh, until the waterway narrowed down to something more like a river. There was a big island at the entrance this year, which Tamba called a good omen, when the river splits further inland it means the waters have been low, floods are unlikely. + +The marsh was what separated Birdie's family from the world. Only the muskrats and herons lived in the marsh. But as you worked your way up the rivers, the shore became more crowded. The first were the small huts of some of the few remaining natives who fished the rivers, hunted the bottoms and marshlands, and mostly kept to the themselves. Parties of slave traders from Charlestown had begun raiding these small villages the previous year, capturing men to work the plantations further up the river. Usually the men came by sea, and Birdie's father had twice sailed upriver ahead of the slave traders, warning the villagers. Most of them had moved south by now, though between the British in Charlestown, the Iroquois inland to the west, the sea to the east, and the Spanish to the south, they were running out of places to hide. Birdie didn't understand why the men in Charlestown couldn't work their own farms, she'd asked her father but he just laughed and said the British believed work was something other people did for them. She'd also asked him what would happen to them, and he'd stopped smiling and looked suddenly very tired, "they will be like us Birdie, they will run as long as they can, and then..." He gestured at the air, "who knows." Birdie had never thought of herself as running. So far as she could tell she had never run from anything, but it made her sad to think that other people had to run. As she tacked back across the river the first of the abandoned huts came into a view. It was a stout structure, make of pine logs and thatched with palmetto fronds, just like her own home, but this one was bigger, made of larger logs and raised off the ground to keep it dry even when the river flooded. + +There should have been fires burning, the smell of drying fish, smoke, and hides, naked children playing in the river, swimming out to their boat, laughing and splashing. Now there was just a still silence that left Birdie shivering even in the hot stillness of the middle of the river. She glanced at Lulu, who was watching the shore, not saying anything. She wondered what Ann would say. She knew Ann was running. Who was Ann running from? Birdie hadn't asked, wouldn't have asked even now. When the British were around, everyone seemed to running from someone. + +The sail lufted and Birdie went back to paddling. Lulu continued staring back at the remains of the village even as it faded from view. "Do you think those families are working on the plantations?" + +Birdie shrugged. "Maybe, but maybe the escaped." + +"Tamba told me they've been raiding again, they're shipping them off to the islands now." + +Birdie nodded, she'd heard this story as well. Tamba seemed shaken by it. She knew it was the same thing they'd done to his people in Africa. Then to see it here too. Like to was following him. For the thousandth time she wondered why someone didn't just stop the British. But no one ever did. Birdie had long ago decided she was going to stop them. She didn't know how, she didn't know if she could, but she was going to try. + +The river narrowed and finally they saw signs of life, first there was Kadiatu's family, but further up there were more small farms, indentured servants who'd paid off their debts, escaped slaves, a few former pirates who'd had the sense to take what they had and get out. Their farms were meager, but they usually had vegetables to trade for salted fish and other things Birdie and her family had easy access to that they did not. + + + + +Once the marsh country was behind you the river actually became broader, there was less floodplain for it run out over so more of it stayed together and it became wider and deeper. People called it the Stono river and it cut a arcing path around St John's island and eventually the narrow mouth of Wappoo Creek opened up, and took you through the last stretch of land, into the Ashley River right on the back porch of Charlestown. Paddling it would take at least three days, though with the sail on Maggie her father had managed to do it in just over a day and half. + +Long before the plantations, long before the farms even, between the tk natives and the nothingness that stretched out to the sea, lived Kadiatu's family. Like Tamba, her father was from Africa, her mother, and her grandmother who lived with her, were both tk native tribe. + + + + journey upriver to see kadiatu and family. + +Kadiatu and her family give a windows into slavery and river boat culture. Her father is a freeman, river boat worker. -## Campfire Talk -The Eliza May sails away two days later - the tar making continues The end of tar season, another big party. the scene below. Then the storm @@ -1940,7 +1984,7 @@ Tamba's people have been sailing these waters longer than ours probably. Her fat Birdie glanced back and forth between the two them. Her father raised his eyebrow. -"The Egyptians perhaps. There are stories I have heard from the northern tribes about trading for copper that came from over the seas. But my people were coastal cruisers. Why cross oceans when everything you need is right here?" Tamba stretched his arm toward the shore. "If you want to have food, you need to be by the shore. Maybe you sail out of sight sometimes, you follow the currents and migrations of the fish, but you do not need to go too far. Where I come from there is plenty of food to be had without even setting foot in a boat. You grow rice on the shores. We have yarrow and tk on the higher ground, and you cast a net in the shallows for fish. We have palms and a tree that is not here. It is very strong. Like the teak we traded in Siam. We have these trees for building shelter. Everything is just there, we use it. It is only crazy people who would leave this." He smiled and gestured at her father. +"The Egyptians perhaps. There are stories I have heard from the northern tribes about trading for copper that came from over the seas. But my people were coastal cruisers. Why cross oceans when everything you need is right here?" Tamba stretched his arm toward the shore. "If you want to have food, you need to be by the shore. Maybe you sail out of sight sometimes, you follow the currents and migrations of the fish, but you do not need to go too far. Where I come from there is plenty of food to be had without even setting foot in a boat. You grow rice on the shores. We have yarrow and tk on the higher ground, and you cast a net in the shallows for fish. We have palms and a tree that is not here. It is very strong. Like the teak we traded in Siam. We have these trees for building shelter. Everything is there, we use it. It is only crazy people who would leave this." He smiled and gestured at her father. Her father grunted. "I didn't leave anything. I was driven out." @@ -1966,7 +2010,7 @@ Birdie expected her father to join in Tamba's laughters, but he did not. He igno Kobayashi was nodding. "I too left to be free. It is a hard thing for some. For me it was easy because when I am here, I can breath, I am free, no one looks for anything from me. I an able to be who I am. Your father can be who he is," Kobayashi's eyes twinkled, "he can wear his loin clothes and do his dances by the seashore." -Now her father laughed. I will never live down the loin clothes will I? Everyone shook their heads. "That's fine. That's what I wanted a place of possibility. A place individuals can do as they wish, no matter how eccentric that might be, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else or try to force anyone else to pay their bills. You wouldn't think that would be so hard to find really, but it is, by god it is. I've been nearly around the world and this coast here, this is close as I have come." +Now her father laughed. "I will never live down the loin cloth will I? Everyone shook their heads. "That's fine. That's what I wanted too, a place of possibility. A place individuals can do as they wish, no matter how eccentric that might be, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else or try to force anyone else to pay their bills." He shrugged. "You wouldn't think that would be so hard to find really, but it is, by god it is. I've been nearly around the world and this coast here, this is close as I have come." "That seems silly. Why would anyone care what you did? That would just make them stupid." |