I wondered if more houses stood over the next hill and if there might be someone to whom I could explain our lives and how we had been kidnapped. I would make them understand that Patience and I did not belong to this group. I meant to remember these places. “Casco and Harraseeket, Casco and Harraseeket,” I chanted under my breath. I would write a letter to Ma. I would tell her how to find us. I decided I would not tell Ma about Cora being greedy, and perhaps we would find her and buy her from those men and keep Cora with us. I would see she got a whipping for the shoes, though. Things like that cannot go unnoticed with slaves. I thought about telling Patience, or asking if she had seen them, too. At length, however, I decided again to keep the thoughts with me.
In the morning we were fed the same stew of potatoes. It was so cold in the cave my breath formed a cloud such as I had never seen before. After those days aboard ship, the potatoes were quite comforting to me, and Patience did tolerably better with it today, too. Rafe MacAlister blustered into the room and whistled as if we were a pack of dogs. “Get in line. Get in line,” he called. “End of the road for most of ye.”
A woman from the inn pushed and shoved at us with a heavy stick the way you might work a hesitant sow into a corner. She growled and muttered, threatening us with the stick but none dared affront her. She produced a bucket of water and walked before the women. “Wash yer faces, ye hoors. Get tha’ glin off yer. Get to it, now. Ye’s’l ne’er be her lady’s dresser wi’ them foul troll’s faces. Any you ’as bleedin’ get back and leef t’ others first.”
“Why, Patey!” I whispered. “How rude.”
Patey cautioned me with a raised finger. “Put your petticoat back under your skirt.” She snatched it from my shoulders, and with the same brusque motions Ma had used, tied it to my waist.
“But I am cold. And I do not want to be some woman’s dresser.”
“Check later for holes and patch them. Sew a piece of your gown to it.”
“Where shall I get thread? You will have to help me.”
“Scrub your face, Ressie,” she said, falsely cheerful as the bucket came past us. We dipped in our hands and took water. Cold drizzles of it ran down my arms to my skirt. “Take a thread from someplace that cannot use it anymore. You shall always, from this moment on, have to be clever and make use. Do you hear me?”
“Well, tell me what to do,” I said, as she threaded a needle from her petticoat.
“I told you. Be clever. Make everything count. Let me fix your pocket.” When she felt satisfied, she put her own back in place.
Rafe strutted about the room and stood upon a small chair. “Line!” he called. From under his coat, he produced a long black whip. He thrashed it over our heads as if in warning, snapping it on both sides of the line. Someone behind me cried out with pain. Once in line, we trudged up the frozen road. I had felt cold inside the cave but the chill outside was bitter. My feet felt as if every step were trod across hot coals, so great did the pain shoot up from the soles. My arms, my nose, everything became numb and yet pained at the same time. I could not speak. My lips froze in place with the cold.
A collection of small wooden shacks, no more than our slave quarters, sat beyond a small hill. In the midst of the little houses, a clearing held a wooden platform that wore a covering of white dust. All the women stepped upon the platform, and Rafe began that shrill whistle again, time after time, until people emerged from the houses. They collected about us, looking upon us as if we were sheep or horses.
I peered in awe at my feet and the pressing of my steps upon the white stuff. “Patey? What is this?” I asked.
“Frost. It got so cold in the night that the wood froze and the dew upon it became ground snow.”
“Ground snow?”
“The white thing you thought was feathers falling from the sky. Snow. This kind is on wood or the ground. The kind in the air falls to the earth. Sometimes in great amounts, sometimes mere—”
“Quiet!” Rafe hollered. He stepped upon the platform, too. In ones and twos, he along with our other captors sent the men aboard the platform. People crowded up. Some stayed silent, but many jeered and called out. Some of the buyers seemed stern and some appeared gentle. Pious men in black frocks. Lordly men stepped from carriages and rough men came on foot. Men were sold for coins, for pistols, and one was traded for a horse. Then they came for the women. Rafe took Patience’s arm and pulled her to him. “I’ll see what you’ll bring. If it ain’t enough, you be mine.”
I made fists with both my hands, but he left her and took up the arm of an African woman and called to the crowd. “Fresh and sturdy stock! Fresh and sturdy stock! Trained. Hardworking. Who’ll give me fifteen pound for this one here?”
“Let’s see ’er teeth!” a man called from the people gathered.