Captain Swaggering Hank,
Comes to Shadow Wood
It is the fifteenth of
November; the King of the
Hank has several people that
work and live on the boat. They
keep passengers amused and take a little of their money. First, let me tell you about the man who
runs the gambling on the boat. He
calls himself “Hammer” and nobody knows where he came from. All we know is that he is very good at
cards and no one has ever seen him with a woman. Next to tell you about Janelle Levieu.
She is the niece of Marie Levieu, the voodoo queen of
I get up early so I can go to
the dock to meet Hank and start unloading the boat. Kenny goes with me and takes some of the
slaves from the plantation to help. He also brings his two sons who are eight
and ten years of age. After all the
passengers are unloaded, Hank will let the boys have run of the boat.
Kenny has 5 children all with
the same slave who he has been living with the past 10 years since she was 13
and he was 16. He is the son of the
overseer of my father’s plantation and Opal was a slave there. When Maggie and I started our
plantation, Opal and her family came with us. She is one of ten children in her
family. My father and
Maggie’s father never separate a family when they move over. Kenny came with Opal and he became the
overseer of my plantation. He plans
to marry Opal in the spring. He
will have to become a man of “off color” by mixing her blood and
his in wine, and then they will have to drink it. He will never be able to return to what
he was before. (I can not fault him
because she is light skinned and has the looks of a lady from one of the paintings
that hangs in the museum in
When we get to the dock the
boat has already docked. Most of
the passages have left and the slaves have started to unload the boat. I have never seen so many people trying
to unload the freight. All the work
was done with manual labor by using block and tackle with mules doing most of
the pulling. (I still remember
where I came from and how we did things there) if I were to tell anyone about
all the things I know, they would lock me up.
I think everyone from 50 miles
around is at the dock to pick up the things they have ordered. There are all types of buggies, horses,
and mules. The children are all
running and playing games that I have never heard of. The girls are sitting on the steps
shading themselves from the sun and trying to catch the eyes of the boys they
want to take them for a walk down by the river.
Hank informs me that he, Janelle,
and Hammer will be staying at the house until his boat is repaired.
This should take about three weeks.
The boat has been unloaded, so
Hank and I head for the bar to drink some of Hank’s fine bourbon and
listen to the lies he will tell about the river and the women he knows.
We sit in the bar talking
about the plantation, Maggie being pregnant and the women Hank has working on
the boat, who now are loose in
The first mate comes in to
tell Hank that everything is put away and the boat has been cleaned. “Very well”, said Hank, “you can tell the crew they have the next three weeks off while the
boiler is being fixed and tell them to be back by the 10th day of December to
begin loading the boat so we can be back in
The boys ask Hank, “Can we take a look at your boat?”
Hank tells them, “You can go anywhere you want to and look it all over. Just do not take it too far out in the river the. Take off and explore the boat”. As they head for the boat, they run into g
Hammer as he is coming into the
room. He asks, “Where are you
boys going in such a hurry?”
They tell him, “We are
going to look at this here boat.”
He says, “You are? Do you want me to take you on a tour?” They look up at this big white man and
do not know what to say. So he
takes them by the hand and heads off down the hall to give them a tour of
the boat which they will remember the rest of their lives.
We look at each other in shock
because this is the first time anyone as ever seen Hammer do anything with
anybody. He will show them the
boat from the top to the bottom and from back to front.
Jamal joins us at the table
for a drink and starts to read
Hammer returns with the boys after
a two-hour tour, just as Swaggering Hank tells everyone, “For the next
three weeks we all will be staying at Shadow Wood”. Hammer has the strangest
smile I’ve ever seen. It
is as if he is getting something that he has wanted his whole life and now
he’ll finally get it. This
news also makes Jamal smile a real smile that I have never seen her do before.
I do not think she has slept in a house in a long time or been treated
like a lady. She will have a room to herself and will
not have to read any palms the whole time they are there.
I am glad that I can make them
so happy by opening my home to them.
Lord, help us with them being here for Thanksgiving. It will be different than any I have ever
had. Who’s going to tell
Maggie?
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Copyright ) 2003-2005 tmwarner |
