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By Root 1698 0

his slave Stennis—were caught without incident near Virginia’s border with North Carolina. They were riding in a brand-new covered wagon. In the back of the wagon were two children, a boy and a girl, both stolen from their free parents. The children were Spencer and Mandy Wallace. Mandy would go on to become the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in literature from Yale University. Also in the new wagon were two adult sisters, slaves, who had been taken one evening on their way home from the funeral of a third sister at a nearby plantation. Those sisters, Carolyn and Eva, might not have been on the road to get themselves kidnapped if the owner of their dead sister had not decided that her funeral should be in the late afternoon, after most of the work in the fields was done, so as to maybe cut down on the length of another colored funeral.

Stennis and Darcy were tried and sentenced, Darcy to five years in the penitentiary, and Stennis to ten years. Darcy spent his time at the same prison where the murderer Jean Broussard had met his end. Stennis would have gone to a prison for Negroes in Petersburg, but the day before Stennis was to enter, the authorities decided better use might be made of him if he was sold to help pay the families of the slaves they had kidnapped and sold. He had a colorful history and was bought and sold five times in six weeks. Only the owners of slaves were compensated, all of them white; those people the government could find were paid $15 for each stolen adult slave and $10 for each stolen slave child. All the money left over, some $130, was put in the Virginia treasury.

There was nothing the Commonwealth of Virginia could do about the stolen loved ones of freed people, since such people really didn’t have a money value in the eyes of the law. So they received nothing but an earnest letter of apology from a dreamy-eyed assistant to the governor. The government acknowledged that it had failed to protect the loved ones and for that it was sorry, the assistant wrote.

Stennis was finally sold for $950 to a white man, a Kentuckian. On the way there, Stennis asked if Kentucky was anywhere near Tennessee. “Next door,” his new master said, “but we in Kentucky stays to ourselves.” Stennis, driving the wagon, went on and on about how the air from Tennessee wouldn’t have that far to travel to get to him in Kentucky. At the last, his new owner had had enough. He took out the pistol he had tucked in his coat and told Stennis to stop the wagon. He put the pistol to his temple and said, “I’m tired of your yappin so you best shut up right here and now. The people of Kentucky don’t care one whit for a nigger woodpecker.”

On Mildred’s porch the afternoon she died, Moses looked at Counsel putting out his cigarette in the yard. He said to Moses, “You done your business?” Moses looked one last time at Mildred’s covered body. Just before Moses came out, Counsel had been talking to God and God was answering back. God said, Job, I have not forgotten you. I heard you crying out there. You have been my worthy and loyal servant, and I have not forgotten you, Job. I will do what is right by you. I will put you back where I found you. I promise. “Your business done here?” Counsel asked Moses.

Moses nodded. He shut the door to Mildred’s house.

“Then you ready?” Counsel said.

“Yes, I be ready,” Moses said, not offering a “Master” or even a “Mister,” but just saying again, “I be ready.” Counsel didn’t notice that he wasn’t getting a “Master” or a “Mister.” They both looked at Skiffington’s body. Moses thought the white man would want to take the dead white man with them. He informed Counsel that Mildred’s place did not have a wagon to carry the dead man. Skiffington’s horse had wandered off.

“That so?” Counsel said about the missing wagon. He had never intended to take Skiffington with them. There would be time enough to come back and get him. “That so?” Moses nodded. “If you’ve done all your business in there, we may as well leave. So les you and me go,” Counsel said as Moses walked toward him and held out his hands