The Outlaws

Chapter 1

YEAR 1848, JANUARY 245:23 AM

     You hear all over the world that people are going to get rid of slavery. But is it ever going to end? The answer is very simple. No. Never is the the agony of pain going to end in slavery. You can be a kid in fifth grade or sixth learning about slavery, way in the future maybe reading this now. Let me tell you, child, that you should be very thankful for what you have. The food on the table, the water, the love you get from your family... everything. I can just imagine how spoiled you are, you lucky being. You must get food everyday, and not finish it, then throw it in the trash after you're full. I bet you I would have eaten that straight out of the trashcan if I was put back on that dreadful wagon. If you're a slave, you can sit in the fields picking cotton, or you work inside sewing cloth. Or you could just be a type of servant slave, working indoors, doing the dishes and laundry. Or you could have the dreadful task of being both. You get insipid food, with no flavour, if your master gives you any food at all. The water is dirty, and they give you the lowest types of vittles that make you want to throw up all over the floor. Just years into the future, and I bet you there still are slaves, working hand and foot in all areas, being treated badly. Maybe not as much of the percent of the people are slaves, but I bet you there are much more. Not all the masters are bad, but I so happened to fall into a household of the worst types of people. It wasn't that Master was bad, it was just that he confused me. I guess my luck had run dry over my years of happiness and joyousness.

     My name is Lawrence. I was a 14 year old a slave working in a small wagon. My master, Clarence, was taking me with him and another slave, John, whom had a strong build, from Mississippi to California to mine gold and strike it rich at the time. He didn't bring his wife because they had divorced a some time ago. I heard the whole journey to California was quite dangerous, and I was a little worried about it. I didn't want to come, but I didn't really have a say in what happened here. The wagon was full of all the items we had to bring, including furniture, and my very few belongings. Including this pencil and paper I'm using to write this documentary, so it was quite cramped. We even had an organ that the master played when he wanted too. It had a sweet, chill sound an amazing way of cheering me up even if Clarence was playing.

     Clarence was a man of many personalities. He was two-faced, you could say. I had horrible memories of him and the way he acted. He obviously had reasons to be in such a dreaded mood. When I was six, I was harvesting vegetables in the field and I was incredibly parched. The blazing heat of the sun hit the bare skin of my back as I took the tedious time to pick all the potatoes from the ground. My shirt was on the ground, covered in dust and dirt, and I dug my fingers in the soil to pull the potato out. Dirt lay under my fingernails, and my throat was incredibly thirsty. I yearned for water, but the only water I had was my sweat collecting on my brow and upper lip. I licked my mouth and my sweat tasted sweet. I was young and naive at the time, so I had knocked on the door to Clarence's small shed and waited for him to come outside. He was holding a brick in his left hand, and a trowel in his left.

     "Whaddya want?" He asked in his gruff voice. He was wearing a straw hat with a white shirt and overalls over his pants. His face was covered in soot and debris.

     "Sir?" I asked staring at him in the eyes. "May I have some water please. I'm real thirsty, and I've been workin' for a long time."

      He glared at me. "Yer want water, huh?" He asked me, his hands now on his hips, his eyes squinting.

     "Er, yessir." I wondered why he was taking such a long time to just get me some water.

     "Stay here," he had said to me, "Lemme get you some." He put the brick down near his feet, opened the door, and disappeared inside the shed which was insulated from all the heat. I had waited for him to return, sitting on the steps to the house and wondering if he would give me a little break. How very stupid I was. He returned with a glass of water and handed it to me. My eyes immediately lit up at the sight of it. I took it in my hands carefully and my heart sank deep down my stomach. There was only one drop of water in the glass.

     "What's this?" I frowned while looking at it.

     "It's your water."

     "But I want more! I'm thirsty!" I had exclaimed helplessly.

      "I don't give one big hoot about what you say!" he yelled and took the glass from my hands and smashed it onto the floor letting it shatter. "You're here to work, not to drink all of my water! Have you learned your lesson!?"

     I stuck my face up right up his nose. "Well you should give me water and then maybe I'll do better at my work," I said, my arms crossed. All Clarence did was stare for a while. For a moment we stood eye to eye in silence.

     After moments of silence, he spoke. "Get back to yer work." I lumbered back to the fields. Out of the corner of my eye, I didn't notice Clarence pick up the trowel, and pull it back to strike. But what I did notice was the excruciating pain in the back of my head as the impact of the metal hit me on my skull. My head ached, and I could feel the blood falling down my head onto my back. I screamed and immediately started crying. I curled up into a ball on the floor, my hands on my head, now covered in the blood from the wound. I writhed in pain on the ground as he drew the trowel in his right hand now and struck my back. I screamed again, yelling and sobbing. All the courage I had before now eluded me. "No," I sobbed, crying into my hands, "Please stop!"

     I screamed as he continued to beat me. "Now get yer little wrangly body out and get back to work." I continue to lay there on the floor, the blood from my head dripping sideways into my mouth. Still on the ground, my vision was blurry in the edges. "What are you doing!?!" He roared in my ear. I felt a dispersed pain in my temple. Had he beat me again? He hit the ground near me with the trowel, causing dust to fly up in the air. " 'Git on up and work!" He grabbed me by my arms firmly, picked me up, and threw me to the fields. "I'm not leaving 'till I see you working."

     I was a horrible sight. Dirt covered me and blood dripped down my head and back. Raw skin was covered in debris, and my tongue would occasionally flick out to lick the blood from my mouth. It was a while before I even noticed that the glass from the floor had become embedded in my hands. Slowly, and carefully, I had inched my 'lil six year old self out onto the fields and had started picking at the potatos. "Make sure you get the cotton, too. You'll grab extra for me, you hear?" I nodded my head slowly and continued working.

     I had just picked about two pounds of potatoes when I heard the door squeak open just in time to see Bartley went walking back into the small shed. Had he been watching me? How long was he standing outside? I glanced back at him, and he mouthed some words I couldn't understand. He then pointed down at his feet, signaling me to look down. I grinned a big, lopsided smile when I saw a pitcher of water laying at my feet. Thank you, I mouthed. He had nodded his head and disappeared into the house. This may have been the only amount of kindness he had ever showed me.

    That was my first year of staying at Clarence and Bartley Carlton's house. Off course, Clarence had his reasons, but at this time, I would never have been able to learn the complications of the situation, not until everything had changed.