Liberating Atlantis

Moving faster than they would have under an overseer's glare, the copperskins and Negroes piled firewood into a pyre for the Barkers. Someone poured lamp oil on the wood to help it catch. As soon as it was burning well, the newly freed slaves cut down their late masters and threw them on the fire. They cheered again, loud and long, as the stink of charred meat joined the cleaner odor of wood smoke.

"In a way, this is good," Lorenzo said, watching the Barkers' people caper and cavort. "After they do somethin' like this, they can't say they didn't mean it and we made 'em join up with us."

"Who would they say that to?" Frederick asked.

Lorenzo looked at him as if his wits could have worked better. "To the white folks, of course," he answered. Sure enough, he might have been speaking to an idiot child.

He might have been, but he wasn't. Patiently, Frederick said, "Only way the white folks'll get a chance to ask 'em questions like that is if we lose. I don't aim to lose. I been waiting my whole life to get free. White Atlanteans, they take it for granted. They don't know how lucky they are. They've got no idea. But I do, on account of I've seen it from the other side. Nobody's go

By the look on Lorenzo's face, Frederick had startled him. That saddened Frederick, but it didn't much surprise him. "I don't want to go back to being a slave, no," Lorenzo said after a pause, "but I don't know what kind of chance we've got of really wi

"If we don't, they'll kill us all," Frederick said, wishing the copperskin hadn't come out with his own worst fear.

"If we do, we've got to kill them all," Lorenzo said. "Otherwise, they ain't go

Frederick also feared that was much too likely to be true. Even so, he answered, "Main reason white folks didn't is that, when slaves rose up before, they just wanted to murder all the masters they could."

"And you don't?" Lorenzo pointed to the fire consuming the mortal remains of Benjamin and Veronique Barker.

"Got to do some," Frederick admitted. "But the white folks, even the ones without slaves, live pretty damned well in Atlantis. How come we can't live the same way? Proclamation of Liberty set this country free from England. Don't you reckon it's about time Atlantis lived up to all the fancy promises it made itself a long time ago?"

"Don't I reckon so? Of course I do," Lorenzo said. "That ain't the question, though. Question is, will the white folks reckon so? I've got to tell you, friend, it looks like long odds to me."

"You'd better run off now, then, on account of that's the only hope we got," Frederick said.

"If it is, we've got no hope at all," Lorenzo said. "But I ain't ru

Frederick didn't believe it, either. Sometimes you had to rise up whether you believed you could possibly win or not. If that wasn't the measure of a slave's damnation, Frederick had no idea what would be.

The Liberating Army had plenty of rifle muskets to arm Benjamin Barker's slaves. Barker's own arsenal would give several more slaves weapons. He'd kept far more guns in his big house than Henry Barford had in his. "Why does one man need so much firepower?" Lorenzo asked. "He couldn't shoot 'em all off at the same time."

"Not at the same time, no," one of Barker's men, a Negro, answered. "But if he needed to shoot himself a snake or a hawk or a fox or a deer or one o' them big ol' lizards in a river, he had the right piece for it."

"Or if he needed to shoot himself a nigger or a mudface, he had the right piece for that, too," Frederick said with a shudder.

"Or one of them," the black man agreed. His former owner had put up much too good a fight.

A halloo made Frederick break off the conversation. A warning shout followed the halloo: "Somebody comin' up the path!"

"Oh, good God!" Frederick exclaimed. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. No one had called at the Barford plantation, even before the rebellion broke out. Maybe neighbors knew the yellow jack was loose there. Or maybe it was just that Henry Barford wasn't what you'd call sociable, even if Clotilde was.

Such musings blew out of Frederick's head when Lorenzo asked, "What do we do now?"

That was a fine question. Show the visitor the pyre where Benjamin and Veronique Barker had burned? He'd surely want to see that, wouldn't he? And what about the corpse of the Barkers' son? And the dead overseer? Oh, yes-plenty to show off.

On the other hand, if the slaves chased the caller away, he would ride off and let the outside world know they'd taken over the plantation. If they killed him, more outsiders would come looking for him. That might buy a few hours-maybe even as much as a day-but it would also let the cat out of the bag in short order.

Before Frederick could decide what to do, his sentries went and did it. Two gunshots rang out, one after the other. The first provoked a startled shriek; the second abruptly ended it.

A Negro trotted back to Frederick with a big grin on his face. "We got us a new eight-shooter, jus' like the ones the cavalry soldiers use," he said proudly. "An' that fella was ridin' a mighty fine horse."

"Well, good," Frederick said, hoping it was. By the nature of things, you couldn't keep an uprising secret very long. He made up his mind: "We go after the Menand plantation next. We move out tomorrow morning-early tomorrow morning. And, between now and then, we post extra-strong watches all around this place."

Lorenzo nodded. He understood what was going on. Davey would have, too. Frederick worried about how much he'd miss the chief cook in the days ahead. But the field hand who'd brought word of the visitor's demise scratched his head. "How come?"

Frederick sighed quietly. You liked to think the people on your side, the people you were leading into the sunlight of freedom, were all clever and filled with natural nobility. You liked to think so, yes, but they would disappoint you in a hurry if you did. They were people, no better and no worse than any others. For too long, masters had judged them worse than others. That would have to change. But they were no better, either.

And so Frederick had to explain: "Somebody's go

"Oh." The other Negro contemplated that. He didn't need long to find an answer that satisfied him: "Then we plug that son of a bitch, too."

That could work… for a little while. "They won't keep coming one at a time, you know," Frederick said gently. "They may not even come one at a time when this poor, sorry bastard doesn't ride home."

"Oh," the field hand said again. He nodded, with luck in wisdom. "Reckon you're right. I didn't think of that."

"Why am I not surprised?" Frederick murmured. Lorenzo's shoulders shook with suppressed mirth. The field hand didn't get it. Frederick wasn't surprised at that, either. A swallowed sigh almost gave him the hiccups.

He gave his orders. One of the new recruits to the Liberating Army, a copperskin from the Barker plantation, said, "I don't want to do no more fighting. Long as I'm rid of the dirty snake who was crackin' the whip on us, I'd just as soon take it easy for a while."

Several others, copperskins and Negroes, made it plain they felt the same way. No, not everybody in the uprising was as bright as he might have been. "Well, you can do that," Frederick said.

"I can? All right!" The new recruit sounded amazed and delighted. He hadn't expected things to be so easy.