Authors: Marlen Suyapa Bodden
The Wedding Gift
Copyright © 2009 Marlen Suyapa Bodden
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-4392-5583-0
ISBN-13: 9781439255834
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009908831
Dedicated in loving memory of my parents, Maria Borjas Bodden, who showed me the meaning of strength, and Hall James Bodden, who taught me how to tell a story.
Contents
Preface for the Reader: SARAH CAMPBELL
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THEODORA ALLEN
CHAPTER TWELVE: SARAH CAMPBELL
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THEODORA ALLEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SARAH CAMBELL
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THEODORA ALLEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SARAH CAMPBELL
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THEODORA ALLEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SARAH CAMBELL
CHAPTER NINETEEN: THEODORA ALLEN
CHAPTER TWENTY: SARAH CAMPBELL
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THEODORA ALLEN
I give special thanks to my husband, Timothy Rogers, my editor-in-chief, in-house counsel, my love, and my rock. Thanks to my extended family for their steadfast support and encouragement throughout the years: the Boddens, Rogers, and Lambes; Lynne Burgess, my first reader, for her eagle eye and keen insight; Mildred Berendsen, Tonya Bolden, Lucy Abbott, Virginia Dean, and the Chapin sisterhood; and Frances Peake, Bianca Proctor, Joshua Goldfein, Jane Bock, Joannah Dickinson, Amanda Moretti, Sensimone Williams, and Michelle Sagalyn. To Meredith Sue Willis, a wonderful writer and teacher, I send my gratitude for inspiring me to complete my novel.
The reader is invited to visit my website for the history behind
The Wedding Gift
in photographs, illustrations, maps, and a bibliography:
www.marlenbodden.com
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord. Psalm 19:14
IT IS DAYTIME, BUT THE PATH IS DARK. THE STENCH of decomposing vegetation mingles with the scent of ripe muscadine grapes. Ruby-throated hummingbirds chirr. The trunks of bald cypresses and tupelos are swollen with water, their branches leaden with pitch-green moss. Two cottonmouths slide by me, and then bloodhounds—I do not know how many—surround me, and my sight dims until all I can see are silver outlines of the dogs. As I twirl amid the animals, I hear their labored panting and images flood my brain of conical teeth tearing off my face. Sweat soaks through my lady’s maid garment. I yell, “Help, please, somebody help me.”
No one answers, and I wonder when the hounds are going to rip my flesh into strips. The palms of my hands dry and I take slower breaths. My vision returns. One hound is about two yards in front of me, and three dogs are farther away, at the bog’s edge. Each beast is black and tan, with pendent ears, and weighs about 150 pounds. I step toward the swamp and the dogs snarl. I move back and they are quiet. Then I slowly back away from the swamp’s edge. The dogs do not move. When I am twenty yards away, I turn. I run and I run, even though I do not hear the hounds chasing me. I run until my chest and feet hurt, and then I fall to the ground and rest.
I wipe my neck with a handkerchief and make my way to Allen Hall, the master’s residence, where my mother, Emmeline, my sister, Belle, and I toil. It is 1852, and I am sixteen. We belong to Cornelius Allen, Esquire, master of a 7,800-acre plantation called Allen Estates in Benton County, Alabama. He owns more than four hundred field hands and more than two hundred other slaves who labor in the stables, the smokehouse, and the dairy as carpenters, seamstresses, gardeners, cobblers, making leather goods and furniture, and in other trades. Twenty-five of us work in Allen Hall. My mother manages the kitchen and a house that has a ballroom, a library, guest quarters, and family apartments.
My mother told me never to go to the swamp, but she did not say that the warning was because bloodhounds are stationed there to prevent us from escaping. In two years, I will learn that slave catchers also use the dogs to catch slaves when they flee.