Becoming Americans (17 page)

1622 and 1644 to keep in mind, and a Virginian never knew when a Dutch or French privateer might try a daring raid. This was where Thomas and the Birkenhead twins would retire to, briefly, while Anne and Richard talked in the barn below.

      The young men ran down the hill, jumping across the rows of tobaccoplant stumps. They hid in the corncrib at the end of the barn, covering themselves with the dried ears of corn. They talked underneath the corn, hidden from each other and, thus, masked.

      "What's it like in Bristol, Richard?" Thomas asked.

      "It's not like the old folks make it seem," Richard said. "It's cold and damp. It never is summertime. Sunday is a terrible day. Young people are fair play to evil men. But, it's exciting. Carriages and sedan chairs. Processions of the army. They must have great royal processions, now. You want to see it, but you want to live in Virginia. Believe me," Richard said.

      They shushed each other as they heard voices running down the hill.

      The speakers came to stand in front of the slatted wall of the corncrib.

      "So, why did you insist on coming down here? I don't want to see an old burned-down shack. It was cool up there in the shade."

      Richard knew Anne's voice.

      "Because we tricked you," Jane, the Birkenhead girl, said. "We have a present for you!"

      "For me! You do?"

      Anne
was
still a little girl, Richard thought.

      "Here!" he said, and sat up in the corn. He put his face up to the open slats.

      "Richard!" She yelled, and threw her hands over her face.

      They all laughed. Jane and Thomas pulled her arms down.

      "You have to look! You have to look!" they said.

      Anne opened her eyes to Richard. She smiled, and then she frowned.

      "I promised," she said. "Father would be very hurt that I deceived him. And I'd get in trouble."

      "He won't know, Anne," Jane said. "It's just for a very few minutes."

      "I've missed you, Anne," Richard said. "I hope you know I tried to talk to your father. I think he's a fine man, I do, but…."

      Charles Birkenhead ran down the hill, interrupting the reunion.

      "Some men are coming! Several of them. I recognize two Roundhead servants. Some of them are talking loud. Angry," he said.

      "A servant uprising!" Anne said. "Grandmother keeps saying we're going to have one!"

      "Everybody get in here!" Richard said. "We can't be seen!"

      "But, I'll get my dress dirty," Jane said.

      "Those corn husks make you itch," Anne complained.

      "Do what he said," Thomas ordered. "Quit being stupid females."

      They crawled into the corncrib and, when they'd made themselves comfortable, Richard and the two boys carefully covered the two girls with the cleanest ears of corn. Then they burrowed underneath the corn, themselves.

      Soon, they watched five men enter the barn while another waited outside, by the door.

      "We'll get plenty of recruits once the word is out," one of the men said. "Even my master says, 'If you want a thing done right, call on one of Cromwell's men.'"

      The others murmured their agreement, and one man added that it wasn't just the former Republican soldiers who would join the fight. Many other servants would join in.

      "Aye! We'll go to Councilor Willis' house first and seize his arms and his drum. Then, we'll march from house to house, and by God, kill those who won't follow!"

      "The Governor will have to give us pardons, or at least let us go to another colony. New England! Where the people are more Godly."

      "The righteous Christians aren't the only ones unhappy. We'll be dealing with the Devil, to be sure, but the criminals and the whores the King keeps sending over here won't be fighting
against
us."

      "And the slaves!" another man said. "Now that the Council's made their bondage permanent, there's some smart Africans what'll join us."

      Richard and the others hardly dared breath. The danger that a planter feared above all was in the making: a rising of the servants, black slaves, and any Indians that might be nearby. Rumors of such risings often flew about, that planter's families had been slaughtered by their dependents.

      Richard was enraged by the folly of these servants. He was a servant himself, but the hope of this new land was that you could rise above the station you arrived in! These rebels could make lives for themselves, soon enough. And, as for rising up against authorities for the way they made you pray? That was absurd. No one need know what was in your head.

      For an hour there was silence in the corn crib as other former soldiers came to make their vow with those already assembled, and to confirm their plans for the coming week.

      The plan was for them to meet at Poplar Springs on the next Sunday and, with all the recruits they could safely gather in this week, they'd march to Councilor Willis' house and seize the crucial guns and drum. The uprising would be on!

      Richard motioned for the others to be still long after the men had gone. Then, they went inside the barn and picked their clothes clean as they vented their excitement. They calmed to listen as Richard spoke.

      "We have a problem, now, of our honor to protect Anne, and our duty to the safety of our friends and family," he began.

      Anne buried her face in her hands and muttered, "What am I going to do? What will I do when father finds out I was here with you?"

      "Anne," Richard pleaded in apology.

      "You will be spared, I promise that. That problem comes from our scheming. We will find a way."

      "If Father knew I saw you, he'd be furious with me, but he'd blame it on Grandfather!" she screamed.

      "I'll tell them all that
I
heard the plan. Alone," Thomas said.

      "No, Uncle John saw us ride off together," Richard reminded him.

      "What if Anne and I heard them?" Jane asked.

      "No," Charles Birkenhead said. "What happened was, I left Anne and Jane at the house and came here to answer nature's call."

      "A most excellent plan," Richard said. "And you'll be a hero. I applaud the way you think. A true Cavalier!"

      For all of them, it was a brush with destiny. Mister Ware did more than applaud Charles Birkenhead's report; he relayed the alarm to the County Sheriff and magistrates and to the county militia. The uprising was thwarted, the plotters lashed and branded, and after the crisis plans had reached Governor Berkeley and his Council, it was thought that a fitting reward be given to the young servant, Charles Birkenhead.

      Richard heard from the Dutch sailors at Pine Haven that Charles Birkenhead had been awarded five thousand pounds of tobacco! In addition, the day was made a date of annual commemoration and celebration. The bad part was that now—to avoid more extensive plotting—no servants were allowed to be off their master's property without permission.

      Richard liked young Birkenhead well enough. He appreciated the help in luring Anne to the barn. But five thousand pounds? The boy owed
him
something of that five thousand pounds.

      Richard heard about it at Pine Haven because his visit with his Uncle John and Aunt Mary had been cut short with news brought by a rider from Ware Manor. Evelyn Harper was dead, and he was needed at Pine Haven.

      Troops were on the march and on the rivers, so travel was dangerous in those first days after Birkenhead's revelation to Mister Ware. John Williams's boat couldn't take Richard back to Pine Haven until the morning after Evelyn's funeral.

      Edward caught the line thrown from the sloop and tied it to the pier. He offered Richard a hand with his knapsack, and Richard saw the brace of pistols that Edward wore stuck into his belt. Richard was surprised that the fear of rebellion reached back to here. Edward led him to a bench that nestled between two holly trees.

      "The Devil's madness finally took her. Drusilla says that Evelyn was sitting at the hearth drinking her potion, staring into the fire, when she started chanting,

      "Opeechcot, Opeechcot, Opeechcot," and then she just wandered off while Drusilla was grinding corn. Billy found her drowned, here on the beach. Father's in a bad way. Drusilla says it's all a curse put on us by the old pagan. Including Mother's drowning when we first got here!"

      Richard crossed his heart and then crossed the fingers of both hands.

      Why would Opeechcot do that?

      "This was his homeland, Richard! He put the curse on us in revenge!" Edward explained.

      "And he must have cursed Old Brinson, too," Richard said.

      Both young men said silent prayers and vowed to take the minister a gift.

      Francis Harper's silence grew darker. Sometimes he sat by the open window at dusk so that he could hear the gulls. It was said that birds carried the wishes and spirits of the dead. He imagined that he heard his parents, his wife and, now, his daughter. His land was cursed. He'd paid dearly for this tract of land—this productive tract of land. His wife and his daughter had been taken. Surely, that would satisfy Opeechcot and his devils. But, if there were more to be paid, he'd pay. He wasn't leaving now. The spirits of
his
people were here, too. This was
his
land.

      Work resumed at twice the tempo and ferocity as after Mistress Harper's death. Francis Harper would chase away the Devil with his will and with his activity.

      The possibility of rebellious servants weighed on him and made him restrictive on them all; much harsher than usual with the former soldiers. Richard felt the man's suspicious eyes, himself. On two occasions he felt his master's whip for simply being nearby when Harper released his rage for no known reason.

      Harper encouraged Edward to make other friends; other sons of planters who had boats to race on the bay, or horses to race in the Old Field. The days became boring days of unceasing labor for Richard, and his status as a servant became more strictly upheld.

In the summer of 1664, Francis Harper bought two black slaves. He was convinced it was the coming thing—cheaper in the long run—so, with more credit from Edward Williams, and with the connections to Bartholomew Ingolbreitsen through his neighbor, Sawyer, he bought Eno and Philly.

      Eno, the boy, looked to be about twelve years old. Philly, the African girl, was a little older, with budding breasts, which she was not ashamed to have seen. Though very dark, she had fine, sharp features that made her look like a European girl who'd suddenly gone black.

      Philly and Eno seemed not to speak the same African language, and neither of them could speak English, other than the most basic words, like "eat," "no," "yes, master," and "please, master." Communication was done with gestures and by miming. The task of teaching them the language was assigned to Drusilla, for the girl, Philly; and to Richard, for the boy, Eno.

      Richard soon lost his apprehension of the strange-looking child, whose flat nose, square face, and large lips became intriguing.

      He tried the same techniques that Opeechcot had used with Edward and him. He held objects and said their names. As the boy watched him work, Richard said what he was doing, then made the boy repeat the sounds as well as attempt the task.

      Soon the boy was following him around and asking "what?" of everything he saw. Finally, Richard had to tie him to a tree to teach the meaning of the word, "stay." When the boy first laughed, and when tears of hurt were shed one day after harsh words from Richard, Richard came to believe that they were, in fact, human beings, if only of a simple type which might be left as useless savages in their forests, or trained to help their betters while living in a much more hospitable climate—as well as be introduced to the Christian God. That was one of Uncle John's favorite oration topics.

      Harper had bought two children for the price of one prime laborer. Investing in the future, was what he said, but Richard didn't care about Harper's future, Richard wanted help in the hot fields. He'd become so proficient in his cooperage that he had more free time, and Harper took the free time he'd been promised and put a hoe in Richard's hand when he wasn't using an ax or a froe. The young man had been with no woman since the red-headed wench, and he was increasingly discontent and restless. He was twenty years old and still had a year of this bondage that he hated more and more.

      He'd saved enough to buy his freedom, now. He could pay Francis Harper for the remainder of his indenture, but that would leave him with little more to start his life. He didn't know what Ingolbreitsen would pay him. Anne was not yet fifteen, though she would be soon.

      He told all of this to Sawyer on the Saturday night of his twentieth birthday. Edward was with his new friends, and Richard had gone alone to refill his cask with the wine that Sawyer still dispensed. The man's grapes and the wine he made were well known now, and Sawyer was making money selling whole pipes of wine.

      "Everything that he touches turns to gold," Drusilla had said of Sawyer. "He's made a pact in blood with the Devil. James Barnes's death was proof of that." She'd spat over her left shoulder.