Runaway
(A Short Story from the American
Frontier – 1800s)
by Richard Puz
E-Book Edition
Published by East 74th Street Press*Washington at SmashWords
Electronic Adaptation by LesDenton.com
Copyright 2011 by Richard Puz
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9799604-9-9
Dedicated to the love of my life ~
Table of Contents
Runaway
From the Author
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Runaway
“Justice consists not in being neutral between
right and wrong, but in finding out the right and
upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.”
Theodore Roosevelt
1825
Rowan County,
North Carolina
Alvin Tolle figured that the man was moving about as fast as possible. “It ain’t easy to run when you’re hunched over,” he said to his sons. On the hillside, they watched, as the man’s head bobbed above the rows of chest-high tobacco plants, until he stumbled and was lost to view. That gent seems to be plumb tuckered out, the plantation owner thought.
“Why is he running?” his youngest son, Emile, asked
“I’m not sure,” his father replied, as the stranger continued.
His other son, Victor, pointed to the edge of the field. “Pa, look there!”
A horseback rider approached the field with two other white men holding the straining leashes of three hound dogs. While the animals bayed, the horseman stood in his stirrups, obviously searching for the concealed man.
The runner was now moving toward the Tolles, as the tobacco rows followed the contours of the sloping hillside.
The rising elevation also allowed the rider to see his quarry. Quickly, he and his men hurried along the edge of the field, shortening the distance to the runner.
As the fast-moving man neared, Tolle was startled to see that he was an Indian, his black hair shining in the early morning sun. Most likely a runaway slave, he figured.
Every Friday morning at the Salisbury auction block, plantation owners bought and sold slaves. These days, they were mostly African. In the past, Indian slaves had been common, as slavers ensnared entire villages, selling men, women, and children, and sold them to toil in the fields.
He and his sons had set out early in the morning to hunt. Emile was seven and too young to handle a musket, but Victor, four years older and tall for his age, did well. He had himself a rabbit, to go along with his father’s pheasant.
The three men continued closing the gap to the runaway along the outside edge of the tobacco rows. The unfolding events left little time to think, but in that instant, the owner made a decision. He reached for his knife and quickly slashed the bird. “Victor, give me your musket and the rabbit. Here, take my bird.”
Puzzled, the boy did as instructed, holding the bird at arm’s length to avoid the blood.
Cutting the rabbit, Alvin said, “Emile, hold it by the hind legs, and you run between the plants up the hill. Victor, you take the pheasant and go downhill. Each of you go for seven or eight rows and smear as much blood as you can on the ground. Then drop the animal and head for the edge of the field. I’ll be there. And both of you keep quiet about the Indian. Now, get, and fast!”
For the first time, the runner saw Tolle holding two muskets, and he stopped abruptly, fear etched on his face. He was panting hard, and sweat stained his shirt.
Holding both muskets in the crook of one arm, the plantation owner gestured with the other, directing the man to go over the next rise.
The runaway hesitated, then nodded, and darted over the crest of the hill, casting a fleeting glance back at the horseman and the man with the muskets.
Alvin watched him disappear, then he turned and walked toward the three men at the edge of the field. As he neared, he called out, “What’re you gents doing on my land?”
The horseman replied loudly, “My name is Sapper, and I’m tracking a runaway Indian slave with my men. I saw him disappear into your field.” The slaver was a pinched-face man of medium height, broad across the shoulders, wearing a wide-brim hat, and carrying a coiled leather whip.
“What you aiming to do?”
“Why, catch him, as any silly damn fool can see, and drag him back,” Sapper replied, throwing him a crooked sneer and holding a tight rein on his spirited horse.
The owner bristled at the rider’s cocky arrogance.
“Good reward money is paid for capturing runaways these days,” the man continued, impatiently. “And we’re damn good at tracking and catching them. Later, we’ll chain the slave and make a big show of parading him back to the owner, as a warning to others. Haven’t had any get away from us once we’re on his trail. Keep me in mind the next time you have a runaway.”
What an unfeeling jackass, the owner thought. To him, tracking runaways is a business—maybe even sport. He has no regard for the broken souls he hunts. With a hard stare, he replied, “I only use hired hands—no slaves work my fields.”
Sapper gave him a curious glance and shrugged, reining his horse to enter the field.
In a loud voice, he warned, “Hold on, Mr. Sapper,” as he quickly leaned one gun against a tobacco stalk and leveled the other. “No one is going to ride a horse into this field, tearing up my tobacco crop.”
Startled, the slaver pulled up. “You know the law. Runaway slaves are fair game for hunting, and I aim to collect the reward on this Indian. And this one is owned by Colonel Goss.” Glaring impatiently at Alvin, he jeered, “What are you, a slave-lover? Is that why you don’t have any on your plantation? Or maybe it’s only Indians that you favor. Is that why you’re breaking the law this morning?”
The man is pompous—no, more than that—he’s brimming with sarcasm, like a cruel bully spreading his black cloud of cruelty.
Sapper spun his high-strung horse twice and then rode into the field, smashing plants.
Alvin raised his musket and fired a shot into the air.
Enraged, the slaver stopped. “What’re you, crazy or something? Put up that gun, you ring-tail possum-brain.”
Reaching for the other gun, he strode toward the horseman and said, in a low voice filled with fury, “I’ll tell you what I am, Sapper. I’m Alvin Tolle, the owner of this property, and you’re trespassing on my land. Now hear me good and hear me straight—no rider is coming through my fields and destroying my crop. And that goes for them hounds, too!”
“You’re a damn fool for interfering and stopping me from catching that slave?”
Tolle continued, in a voice laced with anger, “This has nothing to do with the runaway. My concern is for my tobacco crop. You can get off that horse and walk between the rows with your men as long as you like, but the dogs have to be leashed and only one for each man. As the owner, those are my laws. Get you
rself down, and be quick about it, or be gone. Is that clear enough for you?”
Sapper’s face flushed.
He knew that the man was roundly cursing him under his breath. The plantation owner continued inching the gun muzzle higher. “And one more thing, you ain’t no lawman, so don’t go trying to tell me the finer points of North Carolina jurisprudence—that dog don’t hunt.”
“Give me a hound,” the slaver barked at one of his trackers, as he dismounted. “Each of you, take a row with your animal. Get on with it, we’re losing valuable time.”
Soon, the dogs had the pheasant and rabbit scents, and they began baying excitedly, straining at their leashes in opposite directions.
At the edge of the field, Tolle looked on, a bemused smile on his face. “You remember what I told you, Sapper,” he shouted. “Don’t let them dogs trample any of my tobacco plants, for then I’d be obliged to talk to Colonel Goss myself, seeing as he’s family.”
Angrily, the slaver cast a wicked look at the plantation owner and trudged up the hill, holding the leash of a baying hound, while his men went in different directions, their dogs crazed by the wild and differing scent trails.
Alvin met his sons at the edge of the field.
“Pa,” a wide-eyed Victor asked, “why did we help that Indian get away?”
“Boys, I just figured that we’d give him a chance for freedom and maybe let him get back to his own people. As you both know, it’s never seemed right to me for one man to own another—never has and never will. Besides, slavers, like that fellow, are low-lifes, and they’ll get no respect from me. Last of all, no one is going to tear up our fields while I got me two muskets and two great sons like you standing beside me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I reckon,” Victor replied, “but didn’t that slaver say that this one belongs to Grandpa Goss?”
“Ah, yes.” Alvin paused. “I guess we’ll just have to let the dust settle on the matter and address it another day.”
END
From the author . . .