10 Pound Bag Ch. 036-040

He was a different looking lad when he came out: he didn't reek any longer, and he dressed and walked out for everyone to see. He was a sight in my much too-large overalls, billowing t-shirt and old broken-down sneakers; any clown in the world would have struggled to beat that get up. Matilda immediately took over and started fussing with his clothing. She then went into storage and returned with the roll of heavy canvas and a bolt of white cotton cloth. She got down to work with the scissors.

Sonya and Michelle had taken Esther into the camper to work on her appearance, so I took Amos and headed out to the livestock pen. I introduced him to the horses and llamas, the latter fascinated him to no end. He was still shy and quiet, but who could blame him considering his past and more importantly his current situation.

"Have you worked with livestock son?"

"Yessir, only it was chicken, geese and pigs."

"Well Amos, we're going to teach you how to take care of all these animals. That's going to be one of the first things you learn.", I told him.

"Thankya sir, I promise I learn real quick."

"I know you will Amos."

We headed back to the campsite and I told him more about the llamas, he was amazed that one creature could be so useful. I told him I had a lot of information he could read about them and he simply replied "Read? Can't read sir, it unlawful for a negro to read."

I'd known that fact but was curious to see what he'd say.

"We'll teach you Amos; all of my friends can read and you will too if you're going to stay here." Was my reply.

We had gotten back to camp by that time and Matilda had Sonya and Esther sitting around the fire hand stitching what I assumed to be new clothing. Michelle was tidying up around the camp. I was searching my way through the problems of these new joins to our party and needed to do some research, so I asked Michelle to take Amos down to the stream and teach him how to fish with our equipment. If he had gone fishing in the past he wouldn't have been exposed to anything like the modern rod or reels. Which once again reminded me I needed to figure out a way to keep all of this technology under wraps.

Michelle showed Amos the gear to tote, grabbed up the double barrel and the two of them went off down to the stream. We'd have to be careful now as undoubtably the two kids were being hunted. Slaves, particularly young, healthy ones were a valuable commodity and people didn't allow them to just walk away without giving chase. At the same time, we were from the 21^st century and we weren't going to just let them be taken back; I'd fight, and fighting was something I knew how to do.

So the first order of business was to get back into the gun safe and pull out my 1911. It was a pain to carry, but now that we had a known threat I wasn't going to take any chances. I also dove into storage and found the .22s I had purchased for target practice and the ammo to go with them: it was time to arm Sonya and Matilda. I cursed myself for still not having done a full inventory yet, and wished would just slow down for a day or two.

My second order of business was to run a scouting patrol., I'd left the drone out last night after all the fuss and muss, so it was a simple matter of launching it and watching as it ran its pre-programmed routine. It would be weeks before I could leave it on its own, as in the face of a potential threat someone would always need to monitor it. A recording of danger lying in wait for you does you no good if you don't watch it before that danger strikes.

While that drone flew its mission I cleaned, oiled and loaded the .22s; there was nothing of note even with infrared activated. There was what looked like a small herd of deer a ways off, but we had plenty of meat for now and it was the wrong time of year to take them. I brought the drone back to base, swapped out the batteries and started up my extended mapping scripts; I needed to have more information on our surroundings.

I would still need to go out and actually explore these areas, but right now with the trees not yet leafed in so I was getting a pretty good overview, and the software stitched them all together into a surprisingly good map. I still needed altitudes and the like, but this was far better than nothing.

While I cleaned my shotgun and the A2 and watched over the drone, the ladies worked away and chatted amongst themselves, and despite everything it was actually a calming scene.

The drone returned and I recovered it with its base from on top of Michelle's trailer; I did a maintenance check on it and put it away for the day. I needed to figure out a better solution than packing it up into its suitcase every night.

I went over my to do list which was getting way to long. First thing was to make a tent for Amos. I had a roll of canvas available, but it simply wouldn't be enough to build him a full sized tent. He'd have to make do with a pup tent for sleeping. Dipping into our archive, I found a few examples and quickly sketched out the schematics; construction would be up to Matilda. I called her over, showed her the sketches, and that was that: she was off cutting canvas before I could say a word.

So tjat bit of work was under way and we'd have a pup tent for Amos soon enough. My collapsible wood stoves were far too much for a pup tent so I'd have to go with heated rocks and the best place to come up with rocks was down at the creek. I hitched up Brin to the cart and off we went.

Michelle and Amos were just leaving the creek when I showed up, the old driveover wasn't far from the camp but it was hidden by some trees. I offered a quick explanation of my mission and they jumped in to help. We managed to locate a goodly amount of cantelope-sized rocks and picked out ten that seemed to be the best candidates. I explained to them that you shouldn't take rocks out of the stream, only from up on the bank so they aren't water-soaked, as wet rocks might explode in the fire.

We placed the rocks around the edge of the fire to begin to warm and turned to the next task. I gave Amos a hatchet from my tool box and sent him out to find a nice straight sapling, I gave him an indication of the height and diameter with my hands. There was no shortage of saplings around the creek, so that wouldn't take long.

Next, I went into the storage room and dug out some tent stakes; if you plan to tent camp you always have extra stakes, so I had a small box of metal tent stakes. I also cut off some thick twine from our spool to use as guy wires on the tent posts.

Amos was back with the sapling and Matilda had finished stitching the tent; it wasn't a work of art, but would keep him warm and dry. We'd treat it with oil later on to make it completely water repellent, but we were in decent shape for now. Until then, he could always retreat to the camper, one of the other tents, or one of the stalls if it did start to leak.

We cut the sapling in half, creating two shorter posts, sharpened one end of each, and then ran a length of heavy twine between the two equivalent to the width of the canvas we had. We drove the posts into the ground so that the twine was taut, then attached a length of twine to each end in a V to keep the tension steady, using the tent stakes to anchor the guy lines. Each of the lines doubled back and had a loop knot in the center so they could be easily tightened.

Next, we stretched the canvas over the frame to form a triangle and mark a line where the cloth would hit the ground. We removed the canvas and along one edge line we dug four holes where the heated stones would go each night, his sleeping pallet would go on the other side of the tent. We restretched the fabric and used tent pegs to secure it; canvas door flaps were attached to each end and we had a tent.

Being a kid, Amos immediately clambered inside and tried it out, and I cautioned him to not touch the canvas as that would make it leak. I handed him an LED lantern for use not even thinking of the effect it would have. His reaction made me realize it was time to address our tech and more importantly our stories.

**** Chapter Thirty-Nine -- Historical Fiction ****

It was lunch time.

It was also a good time to start explaining our new story. This is a story we would all take turns telling, telling it over and over again at every meal. This was the story which would make up the first of the kids writing and math lessons. We would repeat this story until even we believed it to be fact.

Luckily the kids were still fairly young and that would make it easier, but this was still something we needed to get handled anyway. Starting with them would make it a lot easier to get our own story straight, as well. To get them to focus on the most important part, I started the story on the Barbary Coast.

I tried to keep the story as close to our backgrounds as possible, it would be easier to avoid mistakes that way. So to start the story I was, and am, Sergeant Zachariah Ebenezer Narrater recently of the United States Marine Corps; having served under Lt. Presley O'Bannon on the USS Argus. I had participated in the March on Tripoli and the Battle of Derna. I mustered out after that campaign and took a commission providing personal protection to Señor Abello and his family. The Abello Family Trade House was a minor trade endeavor moving goods between Spain, the Barbary Coast and the Spanish Empire in Central America; they also made occasional runs to the Orient; Sonya Abello was the treasured daughter of Señor Abello. There was a grain of truth to both of those back stories, Sonya's father did work at the Port of Los Angeles and I had been a Marine who had fought in campaigns in that part of the world.

Sonya had been headed to Veracruz on a sensitive business matter and I was escorting her; so far so good. Sonya did have a vacation scheduled for Veracruz later that year. We purchased Esther and Amos at the giant slave bazaar in Algiers to serve as pesonal servants during the journey, and that was where I bought Michelle also.

The purchase of Amos and Esther was fairly straight forward, they were young, healthy and ready to be trained as personal servants. The trader was proud of the fact that the whip wasn't required with these two young ones. Back in the real world, Sonya didn't like this at all and protested quite loudly, I told her to ask Amos.

Amos only had to relate his and his families experience briefly. "T'ain't no fun being a slave ma'am," he quietly said, "the massa he liked the drink and the cards. When he'd lose at the cards he'd whip my pa fer sure the next day. When he drank he liked to do mean things to my ma."

Tears were on Sonya's and Michelle's cheek and Matilda sat in stony faced silence; I had expected a story something along these lines.

Amos went on, "Massa lost us to the trader man playing the cards, he was surely angry about that. Ruth and me run one night when we was in St. Jo with the trader man."

I interrupted then, "That's not the story any more Amos, you can remember that and we'll teach you how to write it down but this new story is important. You can't be run-aways anymore, we purchased you in Algiers which is far across the ocean. Remember only the new story for it's important if you want to stay free. You may never speak the true story again until you are an old, old man, your Momma and your Papa want you to be safe and be free; this is how you can give them their wish."

Conflicted feelings raged on Amos and Esther's faces but they nodded their heads in agreement.

We took a bathroom and drinks break, I had hoped to make this quick but it was apparent that the rest of our day would be spent on grinding through this. Matilda picked up her sewing, I think she was finishing up the clothes for the kids. I grabbed a beer.

"So," I continued, "Amos and Esther we bought in Algiers. They had been taken from their village during a raid one night. They walked a long way in a line with other people from other villages until they were put on a ship and taken to Algiers. They don't know what happened to their mother and father."

I stopped and quizzed each of the children on that until they got it right. Amos, bless his heart, seemed to understand and he promised to help Esther.

I motioned to Michelle and she took over telling her portion of the tale, we had discussed this at length in our tent at night and did a lot of research to back up our story.

Michelle began, "I'm from Pennsylvania, I was raised on my father's horse ranch there; we specialized in those fine Morgan steeds you see in the corral over there. We sold our horses at auction and to private parties in Philadelphia and New York City, we had an excellet strain and we trained them well. We got top dollar with many sales overseas, usually to England and France; we delivered in person to insure the health of the animal. The delivery fee was always part of the payment collected up front."

She paused for a sip of tea before going on, "This particular delivery was going to Constantinople..."

Another interruption from Sonya, "It's Istanbul, everyone knows that!"

"No," I replied, "it didn't become Istanbul until 1930, that's one hundred and ten years from now."

Sonya still refused to fully accept our situation; I'm not sure any of us truly did, but we were a lot further down that road than she was.

Michelle restarted, "This particular delivery of one stallion and three mares was going to Constantinople. We never made it there, we were taken by pirates before we could make it safely to Ibiza; head winds slowed us. We were boarded; some of the men including my father tried to fight and were killed. The rest of us were chained together and put in the hold. The young women were kept separately and nobody touched us, but horrible things happened to the other passengers."

She paused to take a breath and then continued, "We were off loaded in Algiers and taken to the bazaar, traders come and bid on us as groups. I was with the slave trader for two nights, he was a skinny black man and had a large black wife, she wouldn't let him touch us because 'we were too valuable'. At the end of those two days you guys purchased me. It was a blessed relief."

Sonya interrupted again, "Everybody knows that the slave trade was only black people!"

"Your flat out wrong," I stopped her, "Slaving raids in Europe were a constant thing up until about the 1850's. Up to a million white slaves were taken and traded in each century before that point. They would simply raid a village, take who the wanted and sell them at market; sometimes their own royalty did it just to raise money."

"But," she moaned, "they told us in school..."

"They repeated the lie they were told; the cold hard truth is that pretty much every person in the world is the descendent of both slaver and slave. Slavery and brutality are color-blind and have been everywhere forever."

Michelle added in gently, "I'll show you the research this evening sweetie; it's harsh."

We took another break; Sonya looked exhausted and Matilda looked bored.

Reconvening, we prepared to move on; Michelle had produced some chocolate bars from somewhere and shared them around.

The kids were shocked when they took their first bite. We just sat and watched them eat. Michelle had to warn them to go slowly and enjoy. It was quite obvious and not surprising that they had never tasted chocolate before. There was going to be some fun having them around, I thought a kite might be in order.

I took over on the restart.

"First thing we did was take Michelle for a proper meal. Over that meal she told us her story and the fate of her father; she bemoaned the loss of the horses she had raised as well. I couldn't help her with her father but we could see about her clothes and horses. We managed to find the horses waiting in line to go to auction, I paid too much but purchased them out right. We also found the chest with her belongings waiting to be auctioned as part of a grab bag lot, we managed to strike a deal for both her's and her father's travel chest."

I paused here to light a cigarette and take a pull on my beer.

"The money I was spending was from my saved earnings and the prize money I won in the Battle of Derna, but it was going fast. Senor Abello was willing to give me an advance on my salary so I could book Sonya and her horses on the same ship to Veracruz as us. I would try to see her home if possible. The house servants took Amos and Esther in under their wings and gave them good clothes, they even taught them a few things. Sonya's mother, who was from the Orient even looked in on Michelle."

"We left a week later and sailed for Veracruz."

It was time to quiz the kids again, I had each of them tell their story and we corrected them where needed; extreme repetition was needed. When the kids started to embellish the story on their own we'd know they had it down.

"In Veracruz we found that Sonya's uncle had left for Chicago and we should meet him there; we were also instructed to bring some merchandise with us. The merchandise happened to be the three llamas. We met Matilda iat the inn where we stayed in Veracruz. She asked the girls if she could come with us, the girls told me that she was coming with us so I purchased Matilda as well."

Well this set Sonya off again, "Matilda, you tell him right now that you can't be purchased you are a person."

Matilda spoke, "Si, purchased."; and then quietly, "again."

Both Sonya and Michelle were stunned; I had expected that was the case.

Sonya tried again, "Matilda, we didn't purchase you."

"No, he save." She said pointing at me.

Damn it Max, was my thought.

I ignored her and finished it up quickly, "We travelled north along the coast via boat until we came to a trading post. At that trading post we joined with a trader who was returning north to his Wichita squaw wife and was happy to have our company. From the Kansas territory we travelled through tribal lands to here."

"We have been travelling a long time and are resting nearby here; we will continue our journey later."

Now the afternoon was fleeing us and it was time for a bourbon and a cigarette.

I sat and thought.

I asked Matilda to teach the kids the dog cart; that got them out of my hair.

I called Sonya and Michelle over.

"We need to educate the kids," I led off with, "I want Sonya to do it.

"We need them to be able to read and write, and they must know this story from their point of view."

Sonya started to object but I merely looked at Michelle and walked away to get the drone; I had scouting to do. I could hear the girls in combative conversation behind me. I launched my drone and ignored them, focusing on surveying and survelliance.

Chores got done and dinner was eaten. After dinner the story was retold again by me, this time without interuption, and Michelle recorded it.

We got Esther settled in the top bunk and Amos into his tent, heating rocks and all.

Emotionally it was a draining day.

I collapsed into bed and Michelle crawled over me to the tent wall side of the bed; sleep came quickly.

Matilda came to my bed later that night, Michelle schootched over and made space for her between us.

I sleepily assumed it was a scared child and I simply put my arm over them both and went back to sleep.

**** Chapter 39.5 -- Matilda Episode 3 ****

Breasts...!

There were succulent, delightful breasts everywhere I touched, lots of them.

I had inserted my hand into a barrel of wonderful breasts.

My right arm seemed to be trapped so my left hand had to do extra breast duty.

I found nipples. Lovely nipples, the bringer of life; the very first thing that brings joy to a newborn human or any other mammal.