Black Sea Horan: Trail of Tears
Life had turned into one long walking nightmare for Rose - "walking" being the operative word. Afterward, she had no idea how long she was on the "rope gang", as she called it, or how far they finally marched. Day after day passed in a painful blur, trudging along behind one horseman or another – whichever one had grabbed the end of the rope she was attached to and tied it to his horse's saddle – far past any endurance. They were allowed to stop for a few minutes to rest occasionally, and simply dropped in their tracks. Rose had hoped they would be allowed off the ropes to take care of business, but no such luck; they were expected to do it right there in line, and she quickly blessed the impulse that had put on her peasant skirt and blouse for work that fateful morning. She couldn't imagine having to drop her usual jeans in front of everyone – their captors made no attempt to hide their leering watchfulness, making loud comments to each other.
The horsemen had passed out blankets the first night against the rapidly falling temperature – probably seized in the village along with everything else – and didn't bother to collect them again, so they were carried folded up and draped over their shoulders during the warm days. Rose wished they had also been a little more generous with other things – her shoes had fallen unseen and forgotten into the mud when she was knocked out, and her lifelong habit of going barefoot whenever she could had only toughened her feet but so much. Nobody offered her any new footwear, though, and she struggled over the rocks and pebbles.
She wondered dully why nobody tried to escape; although her hands were tied so securely that she couldn't work loose, surely somebody could? The third day brought the answer, when three of the younger men tied to another rope suddenly broke free and made a break for it, running straight down the slope they were traversing towards the river below. Their captors laughed, and four of them lazily spurred their horses after the escapees, catching up with them before they'd made it to the boulders and surrounding them. The men were made to march back up the slope, bleeding from horrendous gashes on their shoulders, backs, and upper arms from the slavers' long knives, then they kneeled in front of the watching lines – and swiftly, brutally beheaded, an object lesson in obedience.
As Rose and the other captives stared, several of the women wailing for their loved ones, the Captain rode over and dismounted, then fiddled with one of the corpses. When he straightened, he had the man's shoes in his hand, and he walked straight over to Rose and tossed them down at her feet, motioning to the bloody footprints beside her. She stared at him in horror, and he grinned and rode away.
How could she possibly – ? But the pain in her feet, and the realization she'd be left with bloody stumps before much longer, overrode her disgust, and she swallowed it and her pride, and slipped them on. The shapeless lumps of leather weren't too much bigger than her feet, and she tied the thongs securely around her ankles.
The "gift" didn't help her status with the other prisoners, but then, it didn't hurt much, either. She hadn't managed to make any meaningful contact with the women around her, not even the woman directly beside her, who walked like a zombie, tears streaking continually down her otherwise dead, wooden face, moaning softly. Rose finally cottoned to the reason when she noticed the twin wet spots on the woman's blouse, and realized there were no babies or young children anywhere in the group of slaves. They had all been murdered back at the village. Every woman seemed to be in mourning, and none of them so much as spoke a word to Rose.
She had tried to figure out where and when she was in her lucid moments, of course, but it was impossible. The one clue seemed to be her own continued existence. From her admittedly sketchy understanding of things back with the others, she had to have been sent back to before the point where her timeline split off from the main one; else the moment she got far enough away from the dimension cannon's (whatever that was) effect field, she would have winked out.
Fat lot of good that realization did, though: all it accomplished was placing a bright dividing line across her personal future: July, 1711. She could be any time from a few hours to a few centuries before that deadline.
She had tried a few questions of the women, asking the names she remembered: Charles, Peter, Russia, Moldavia, Bender... but got only uncomprehending stares. From the way the captors shouted and gestured, it seemed they spoke a different language from their slaves, but she didn't get a chance to "question" any of them, either – nor did it seem prudent to attract any further attention to herself.
Nor could she work out any other clues. The clothing meant nothing to her; rough, shapeless, undyed homespun skirts, pants, and tops, and rough-tanned leather jerkins and hats. The footwear, like the pair she'd been given, had never seen a cobbler, but was merely scraps of leather roughly sewn and tied together. The captors seemed a bit better dressed, with heavy black pants and similar, almost-tailored (in comparison) leather jackets, boots that were actual boots, and fur-trimmed hats – but still meaningless; she was no clothing historian. And of course, all the talk she heard was simply gibberish; she'd never had any ear at all for foreign languages; had even failed the one semester of French she'd taken in school.
How she'd ever thought she could handle this mission she never knew. Well, obviously, she hadn't given the practicalities a single, solitary thought. All she'd been focused on, laser-like, was a single idea: getting home again. She found herself whispering it there in the slaver's line, over and over, "I just want to go home." Half delirious with hunger and exhaustion, she even tapped her leather heels together; sadly, those rude, second-hand moccasins were no magic ruby slippers.
All she could do was trudge along with the others, gnaw on the hard bread when it was passed around, keep an eye on the Captain with the time jumper on his wrist, and wait.
^..^
The first night, when they finally stopped and the blankets were being passed around, Rose's worst fear almost came true. Several of the slavers were walking around the women's lines, inspecting them, their gestures and laughter making the object plain. One of the men began to reach for the rope, leering at the woman just in front of Rose – but then a harsh shout interrupted him. The Captain strode angrily over, and a shouting argument erupted. Apparently the Captain was telling the men to leave "the merchandise" alone, and they didn't like it one bit. Finally he shrugged, and gestured to the poor woman, his meaning plain: just the one. She was cut out of line and dragged off behind some boulders, screaming; her screams slowly subsided to whimpers and then silence as the men took turns. Rose never knew the end of the story, but the woman did not return to the line, and her empty spot seemed to gape accusingly to Rose; she dreaded every step she had to take where the woman never would. She never even learned her name.
But after that first night, on the Captain's orders, the women were left alone.
^..^
He caught Rose's eyes a couple of days later, and edged his horse over to walk beside her, curious. They were walking over a meadow filled with wildflowers, in the foothills of a high mountain chain to their left. Rose abruptly registered the landscape for the first time in her misery. They had originally been higher up in the mountains; she remembered walking through valleys that slowly widened even as the rain petered out, always going downhill, then they turned and began paralleling the ridges. The sun had been over her right shoulder when they started early that morning, so they were traveling roughly northwest. They hadn't passed any other villages, or any signs of human habitation at all; apparently this part of the world was only very sparsely populated.
The Captain asked a question, curiosity evident in his voice. She looked up at him again, and he gestured towards her, then towards his eyes, and then himself. Why do you stare at me? she mentally translated. He gave her a wolfish grin, leering, his meaning obvious, and she rolled her eyes.
Her hands were still tied together, but she managed to tap her wrist with a finger, then nodded her head towards his hand, a bare two feet away from her eyes. So close... He glanced down, puzzled, then focused in on the time jumper strapped there, and looked quickly back at her. She could see him make the connection, finally, remembering her as the strange bauble's source.
"It's mine. Please give it back," she spoke to him directly for the first time in days, pleading. She gestured towards herself, then cupped her hands towards him, adding sign language to the words he obviously didn't understand.
He looked back and forth between her and the jumper, then grinned, asking another question, his voice lascivious. What will you give me in return? He leaned over and ran his hand through her hair – and she jerked away from it automatically, before she could think about it.
He only laughed at her rejection, tossed off another remark, and spurred away.
It quickly became a running joke – for him, anyway. Once or twice a day he'd ride by and leer at her, waving his arm so she couldn't miss the jumper on it, then ride on. The third night after that, after they'd stopped for the night, he walked by, and she called out to him in a low voice, "hey!" She'd made up her mind to do whatever it took to get it back.
She got to her knees as he walked over – as far as she could get up while still tied to the rope – and gave him a level look. She couldn't manage to fake a smile, but she hoped her willingness was showing through anyway.
He wasn't dumb. He knew what the game was. He ran his fingers through her blonde hair again, a calculating look in his eyes. But then he pushed her away, and shook his head. He pointed away, to some unseen spot in the direction they were traveling, then pointed to the jumper, Rose, then himself. Then walked away, laughing. But she got the message.
When we get to wherever it is we're going, then we'll see. All debts come due at the end of the trail.
