The Bird People | ONC2024

Chapter Fourteen | 1435 Words

"The depths of our misery
can never fall below the
depths of mercy."

Richard Sibbes

⚖︎⚖︎⚖︎

-Nightingale-

Segenah left Jamestowne by way of the river directly after the Reverend walked away. Now, as he sat in his canoe in the still waters of the Nottoway River at the bridge which led into the settlement, his mind struggled with what he had been taught, and what the Reverend was asking him to do. He had nothing to gain or lose he surmised, by bending his will to that of the Englishman, and he had done that many times over the course of many seasons to keep peace among the tribes and these strangers from across the sea. But he was becoming an old man now, and had seen more than his fair share of death and destruction.

As he sat at the rivers edge and pondered all these things the haunting song of a lone Virginia Nightingale drifted on the wind and it's reverie spoke of the deep sadness the land had suffered from drinking the blood of many souls from the hour of Segenah's birth to this very season of change. The bird's melody drifted past, and disappeared, much like the settlements of his people and a stillness took its place.

Wisdom had kept him alive and humility had become a friend to him when his own people had stubbornly chosen war, he had chosen the education of the English traders and joined them, becoming a valuable asset to their exploration and discovery of these great vast Territories from the rising sun in the east to the setting of the sun in the west.

A flock of night swallows burst from the forest dipping and darting over the mirror smooth surface of the river capturing bugs and slim marbled river trout swam in unison beneath him their invisible paths known only to them. The silence murmured against his ear and he watched as a black moccasin snake slithered from the bank into the river looking for its own type of meal.

Down river several wild turkeys stomped in circles fluffing their feathers to make themselves look much bigger than they were and faced off with one another in mock battles and several deer that had been lurking deeper along the bank popped their heads up and looked in the direction of Pennybacker. Segenah watched them closely.

These small deer were the sentinels of the woodlands, and all at once they exploded to life bounding away only seconds before Segenah heard the screams. He jumped from the canoe and pulled it to shore before he took off running up and across the bridge he had once vowed to never cross.

He kept to the shadows as he ran, not wanting to be seen as he was unsure of what was happening.

A woman's booming voice echoed from somewhere within the walls. It was high-pitched and angry.

Segenah entered the gates at a trotting clip and further in, noticed, with rising degrees of pith, the utter darkness that lived here but he did not have time to amuse himself with the reasons. He doubted any explanation would suit him. Above him at a slight incline sat what he assumed to be the main lodge. It was a huge rock and wood domicile and the basic type of lodging used by the English settlers. Unlike the inhabitants of his people, these dwellings were stationary, as these English were not wont to move about with the seasons.

Segenah stopped just shy of a wooden fence and squatted down beside it to watch the unfolding dispute. He was not keen to interfere as the angry woman held her flint-lock rifle with a steady aim. A young man cowered on the ground at her feet begging for mercy and another woman stood at the door of the enclosure screaming.