Liberating Atlantis

He was glad Davey seemed willing to let him lead. The head cook was one of a handful of men who might have wanted to run things himself. Lorenzo was another. He also seemed content with Frederick's leadership.

Well, of course they are, Frederick thought. Nothing's gone wrong yet, so they can't hang any blame on me.

A rail fence separated Master Henry's land from Benjamin Barker's. Maybe it was Frederick's imagination, but he thought the crops on the far side of the fence grew taller than they did on this side. Nothing, not even cotton plants, dared give Benjamin Barker a hard time.

He remarked on that as he clambered over the fence and came down on the other side. Now it's official. Now it's an invasion, he thought. Helen answered him before anyone else could: "We're go

"That's right!" Several Negroes and copperskins said the same thing at the same time. Women's voices were loud in the chorus. Frederick knew nobody liked Veronique Barker very much. Considering what was likely to happen to her, that might be just as well.

"Hey, now! What are you slaves doin' on Barker land?" an officious-sounding Negro demanded. "And"-the fellow's voice suddenly wobbled-"what are you doin' with guns in your hands?"

"This here is the Liberating Army," Frederick answered proudly. "We're here to clean things out, that's what we're here for. Are you with us or against us?"

"Lord Jesus!" the Negro yelped. If he said he was against them, he wouldn't live long. And maybe he didn't need much persuading. "You're go

"His snooty ol' Veronique, too," Helen said.

"You really are!" Benjamin Barker's slave might have discovered it was Christmas in summertime. "Count me in! You got a spare gun I can shoot?"

"Not yet, but we will pretty quick," Frederick said. If Barker's Negro wanted to think that meant they aimed to plunder the big house, he was welcome to for the time being. Let him prove himself before he got a rifle musket of his own.

"Well, come on, then!" he said now, and he sure seemed enthusiastic. "I'll take you straight to him, I will!"

V

They hadn't gone very far before they came upon a work gang weeding in the fields. Frederick's back and shoulders twinged sympathetically. He'd been doing the same thing himself a couple of days earlier. And making sure the gang actually worked, of course, was Benjamin Barker's overseer.

He was older and tougher-looking than Matthew had been. Matthew had been a man who wanted to rise, the kind who dreamt of owning a plantation himself one day. This fellow was out of dreams. All he wanted was to go on doing what he was doing already. He'd never rise higher than overseer, and he knew it.

Instead of a switch, he carried a lash in his right hand. And, where Matthew had had a knife on his belt, a pistol rode this overseer's right hip.

His hand dropped to that pistol as soon as he saw strange slaves. "All right, you bastards!" he growled. "You've got three shakes of a lamb's tail to tell me what the hell you're doing on Master Barker's land. C'mon! Make it snappy!"

He had to die. Frederick wasn't the only one who realized it. Half a dozen rifle muskets rose as one and trained on the overseer's chest and head. It wasn't anything personal-but, then again, it was. Frederick had trouble imagining a field hand who didn't want to shoot an overseer.

"Son of a bitch!" this white man exclaimed. "You lousy, stupid idiots are trying to rise up!" With startling speed, his pistol cleared the holster.

With startling speed-but not fast enough. Before the overseer could pull the trigger, those rifle muskets spoke together. A couple of the conical bullets the longarms spat might have missed him, but most struck home. A round that caught a man square in the face drastically rearranged his looks, and not for the better. Scarlet flowers blossomed on the overseer's shirtfront, too. He pitched forward and lay facedown in the dirt.

Benjamin Barker's slaves gaped at him, and at the men and women of the Liberating Army. Frederick paid no attention to them for a little while; he was reloading as fast as he could. Only after a new percussion cap sat on the nipple and a new powder charge and bullet were rammed down and firmly seated in the barrel did he start to notice their exclamations.

"What'd you go and do that for?" a mulatto woman asked shrilly, her knuckles pressed against her mouth.

Davey laughed. "You go

"But…" The woman's gaze traveled to the blood soaking into the ground under the dead white man, then quickly jerked away. "You went and shot him. Just like that, you went and shot him."

Lorenzo laughed at her. "Nothing gets by you, does it, sweetheart?" He'd also reloaded before worrying about anything else. Gunfire might bring Benjamin Barker at the run, intent on finding out what had happened.

"What you go

"Set you free. Give you guns," Frederick answered. "Nobody's go

The copperskin looked at him as if he'd just declared himself God Almighty. "You're go

Frederick also knew that was possible-and feared it was probable. Even so, he said, "Best thing we can do is whip all the planters around us and make our army bigger. The more people we've got fighting, the better our chances."

"Maybe we can lick some of the planters," a Negro field hand here said. "We ain't never go

Frederick brandished his rifle musket. The long sword bayonet glittered in the sun. "We got these from Atlantean soldiers," he said proudly. He didn't mention that most of them were down with the yellow jack. He also didn't mention that the Liberating Army might have brought the sickness with it. Instead, he added, "Now-who wants to see Master Benjamin dead?"

No matter what Barker's field hands thought about the ultimate fate of the uprising, they did want to see their master dead. "And Mistress Veronique, too!" one of the women said-the one who'd been so horrified when they shot the overseer. Yes, Benjamin Barker's wife had found a way to make herself remembered, all right.

"Well, let's go get 'em," Frederick said, and then, "Scouts forward!" He wasn't going to run into any nasty surprises, not if he could help it.

He could see the big house in the distance. It was larger and fancier than Henry Barford's place. Veronique Barker had always thought herself above Mistress Clotilde. Now Frederick saw why. The Barkers had more money, and with money came status. It was that simple.

No-it had been that simple. Now there was a new game, complete with new rules. One of the new rules was, a white man couldn't get rich off the labor of Negroes and copperskins. Benjamin Barker was about to be taken to school by the Liberating Army. He would remember his lessons for the rest of his life, however long that was.

Here he came toward the fields: a big, sturdy man with streaks of gray in his black hair. He cradled a rifle or shotgun in his arms. Behind him strode his son, who was thi

Seeing strange copperskins and blacks heading his way, Benjamin Barker shouted in a great voice: "What kind of riffraff is this?" He sounded more disbelieving that such people could invade his land than angry.

His son reached out to pluck at his shirtsleeve. Frederick couldn't hear what the younger Barker said. It wasn't meant for him anyhow. But Benjamin's response to it left Frederick in no doubt about what it was.