Horrible Harvest

We rode through a narrow-ass path through the woods for a mile ‘fore we reached a clearing. Once past the tree line, we come up on a silhouette of a steeple stretching into the sky 300 feet away. A towering, crooked oak hid the front door from view.

We all stopped in a row and give the grounds ahead a gawking. Mr. Stockton marched his pony back and forth in front of us as he growled out a speech he’d been saving up. “We all owe a great debt to Mr. Miller, do we not?”

One of the white fellas named Percy give a hardy, “Hell, yeah, we do!”

The two other crackers let out “Yips!” and “Wa-hoots!”

Douglas leant his head to his left and spit.

Three slaves were drunk enough to agree they owed Mr. Miller thanks, and they showed their appreciation with drunken grumbles and barks.

Tate give his head a shake. He weren’t showing disagreement. He was just trying to shake the liquor loose.

Mr. Stockton continued prepared words. “This church, this house of God, this temple of Jesus, was built to push a false doctrine. It espouses a fake Christianity. It pretends to be a harbinger of God’s word, yet it is constructed on lies meant to destroy our Mr. Miller, a man to which we all owe our good fortunes. Do we not?”

This time the three crackers and three slaves got their shit together and yelled out “Yes,” with devilish unity.

“The preacher, Jacob T. Woolsey, he has ideas that sets our values ablaze! He is a Northerner sent here to disrupt our traditions and turn our Southern homeland into an immoral wasteland! Are we going to stand for that?”

“No!”

“To our colored friends, he promises you freedom, but he denies you shelter. He denies you food. He denies your families these things, and he denies them futures. Without Mr. Miller, you are in want of the very air you need to draw in a breath. With Mr. Miller, you know not famine, need, lack. You are provided all, and Reverend Woolsey would take this from you! Are you going to stand for that?”

“No!”

Tate give me a look. I ain’t never seen a man more frightful. I could see plain as day that he wanted to set his horse to sprinting the hell out of there.. He wanted to howl and scream and take a bullet to the head rather than take part in whatever Mr. Stockton was planning. He wanted to end his bond to the Devil right then and there.

“Today, we go to war with evil, men! Today, we show our allegiance to Mr. Miller! Today, we spill blood to preserve our way of life! No one, certainly not a false prophet of God, will take our traditions and rights from us!”

Then come a murderous roar. A chill danced up my spine. Kenneth’s, too. My skin entire turnt to goose flesh.

“Percy, take our fine colored friends through the front door. Leave nothing unbroken. Leave no one unpunished. If the coward Reverend Woolsey is inside, drag him out, so he can stand trial for spreading his lies. Drag all who find fellowship in his lies out with him, so they can bear witness to what becomes of such men.”

Percy snatched his hat off his head and held it up on high. “We’ll make the sonny-bitch pay, Mr. Stockton! You can count on that. C’mon, you black bastards! Let’s route the rat out of his hole!” His horse lurched forward and took off in a sprint to the church. The three drunk slaves followed after.

Tate didn’t move. He and his horse froze in place.

Mr. Stockton give a scowl. “Is there a problem, Tate?”

Tate turnt to him. His eyes puffy from holding back an ocean of tears. “No, sir, Mr. Stockton, sir. It’s just that you introduced me to too much liquor. I’m unstable in my saddle.”

The advance man fount a smile, drew his revolver and took aim at Tate. “Then you’re of no use to me, boy.”

Tate worked his trembling lips into a frown and give a tap to his colt with the heal of his boots. The horse took off at a quarter-speed gallop to the church.

Mr. Stockton holstered his weapon. “Lockett. Tanner.”

The other two crackers maneuvered their mounts toward him.

“Hoods on.”

They dug deep into their saddlebags and pult out gunny sacks. They draped the covers over their heads, and worked like blind, dumb-as-shit monkeys to line up the pre-cut slits with their eyes.

“You two work your way to the other side of the church. Round up any runners that head your way and bring them out front.”

They rode toward the church without a fuss.

Douglas spit. “What about me? What’s my part in all this?”

“For now, you make sure the boys get a good view of the proceedings. Keep them far enough back so they can’t be seen.” As his pony marched forward, he placed a gunny sack on his head and put on a pair of black gloves. “Spike the torches. The darkness be your cloaks.”

He rode on.  

Douglas give a snicker. “Waste of my talent is what it is.” He jumped from his horse and grabbed up the torches from us, and snuffed them out with his foot one by one.

The cloudy, moonless night give us complete cover. We watched as a woman, teenage girl, and three small children – two boys and a girl – was rushed out the church by Caleb. All was screaming and crying. The woman pleaded with Mr. Stockton to let them go. He didn’t give her no reply at all.

My gut turnt. We was about to see the Devil’s work, for sure. We was to be give lessons on what it is to be true Miller men.  We was to be vigilance demons, and to my mind, there wasn’t a goddamn thing to be done about it.

I give Charles a look, and I seen a smile. He was dead-eyed as ever, but that fucking grin of his chewed me up. My brother was gone. This was the turn he’d been waiting for. I can’t say I fount hate for him at that moment, but I lost hope in him. We was brothers by a whole, but forever more there’d be a violent strangeness ‘tween us.

Opposite to him was Kenneth, and I seen right-off, me and him shared the same itch in our souls. Didn’t neither of us want no part of the evil that was to come. Worse for him, he was expected to learn from this night, to find joy and show skill for applying the darkness to be spread. He was doomed to be the next Mr. Miller, and I hated that for him.

Most disturbing of all, Douglas was bored and fidgety. He didn’t want to be no babysitter. He wanted to be one of the hooded monsters stealing Jesus from the hearts of the Northern abolitionists.