The stranger’s name was Boyd.
He was fifty years old with a wiry physique and a personality that overflowed
with charisma. He led his new group of prisoners deeper into the woods for
quite a distance to a small area where the trees had been chopped down and
three small cabins had been built. There were torches burning around the site,
and an assortment of men, women, and children were walking out from the cabins
towards the visitors as they approached. The men wore layers of old tattered
clothing and makeshift shirts made from bandannas and unbleached brown linen. Most
of the women they saw wore dresses made out of a rough material that reminded
Kyla of potato sacks. A couple of the women had blue and white dresses made
from better linen, but even that material looked old and worn out.
Kyla
noticed a tilled garden area on the other side of the cabins. All of the
vegetables had been harvested for the winter, but several rows of cut corn
stalks and drooping tomato vines could still be seen lying dormant for the
winter.
A
few chickens and some mangy dogs were roaming around the campsite. Zammie could
count the ribs on one of the dogs that walked up to him. He felt bad for it. It
must have been hungry. The dog sniffed Zammie’s feet, looked up at him with shiny
black eyes then walked away.
Boyd led them to a fallen tree that was behind the cabins and
had them sit down on the trunk. There was a small bonfire burning in front of
the tree bench, and everyone in Harriet’s group appreciated the warmth.
Two
wooden poles had been stuck in the ground about six feet apart from each other.
A leather strap connected the two poles and hung tight in the air, and a series
of fresh animal skins had been hung over the strap to dry out near the fire.
“Fresh meat,” Henry said to himself when he saw the skins.
“Bad luck.”
“Ellen,” said Boyd.
“What?”
An older woman looked up from a wash basin where she was scrubbing a young boy
with lye and water. She was probably also in her fifties.
“Bring
our guests some of that meat we had earlier.”
“Lucy!”
Ellen yelled.
A
younger woman who was trying to get a good look at the strangers from a nearby
cabin said, “Yes, mama.”
“Go
do what yur father ask,” said Ellen.
“Yes,
mama,” said Lucy, and she disappeared inside one of the cabins.
“You’re going to feed us?” asked Robert.
“Our door is always open to runaways,” said Boyd. He
touched his swollen lip and smiled. “Specially those that can fight.”
“Who said we was runaways?” asked Harriet.
“I know my own kind,” said Boyd. “I can spot a runaway
negro from a hunnerd paces. And you’s all is runaways. You wanna deny it?”
Harriet didn’t say anything.
Boyd noticed Kyla and Zammie. “But these two are different.
You two ain’t colored children, are ya? You injun?”
“They’re Californians,” said Harriet.
“Californians?” said Boyd. “I ain’t never seen no
Californians.”
Kyla and Zammie looked at Boyd. Kyla gave a weak smile, but
Zammie’s expressionless face didn’t change.
“I hear they got gold out in California
“No, sir,” said the cousins.
“Ah.
That’s too bad.”
-- Boyd's Swamp Colony
from Time Trip #2 (Chapter 17)
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
KILLING FOR COUNTRY
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2
A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3
WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
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