Chapter Forty Eight
24th December, 1788AD
1100hrs
His name was Bill Strongman.
Well, he weren't sure if Strongman was the last name of his pappy, but it was the name his boss 'ad given him when he showed up for work here that fine spring mornin'.
The mining trade, now there was a trade indeed for such a strapping Negro.
His Pappy had been a plantation slave, toiling under the hot Louisiana sun till he died. After his Pappy went home as the expression was, the plantation owner fell under hard times; he was a gambler and would often place up whatever property or money he had at hand to lay a bet on them tables.
One day, it happened to be ole Bill Strongman who was offered up in place of currency.
Now, it tweren't no effort at all to gamble, but it should only be done by those who could do it right, and his ole master, well, sir, he couldn't no gamble more then he could do a hard days work on the plantation! So, that's how ole Bill Strongman ended up in the darkened mines doing a job without pay and without freedom.
But that didn't concerns ole Bill, no sir, Bill was happy just to be doing something, and if someone else got the benefit, well, that didn't bother ole Bill none at all!
The master had promised the men, slaves and freed alike, that should they meet today's quota and finish placing the support beams of the next three tunnels then they could have Christmas off and spend it with their families. Now, Bill, he didn't have no family anymore, but he did have a good group of friends who would be sure as the British were tea drinkers to offer him up a good old fashioned Christmas dinner courtesy of their master's left overs, course, there was more to Christmas then fancy food and fine gifts, yip, Christmas was about family and if you didn't have none, it was about friends and Bill was sure as the rain was wet that all people had friends!
Now, Bill's job was simple, he'd dig.
That's all.
Just dig.
It was up to the smart folk, the white folk, to figure out where to dig and for how long and in what direction, and this fine winter's morning, he was told to dig north and not stop until told. And so he did.
Ole Bill dug north and didn't stop…
Well, he did stop, but not because he was told, but because the wall of dirt gave way under his pick axe and collapsed inwards into a large chamber.
Now, such chambers under the sod weren't uncommon, but they didn't happen upon a man very often.
What definitely didn't happen upon a man… well… ever, especially for ole Bill was that chambers under the earth held big ole metal horseless carriages.
Is that what that thing was? A carriage?
"Eh BOSS!"
He roared with his deep lungs pushing out those mighty words.
"You right better come see what I am seein' down 'ere boss".
"What you hollerin' about, ole Bill?"
A man poked his head into the tunnel holding a larger lamp then Bill used, he was one of the chaps who saw to the slaves down here, a free man by the name of Harry Robinsyn, spelt quite oddly with a "Y", a man with a thick Irish accent that didn't match up with the name he offered with a handshake greeting. Word around the mine was he'd gotten himself up into some unsavoury type business and then changed his name on arrival to America.
"Look 'ere, Boss, I say I ain't never laid me peepers against something the likes of that!"
Bill pointed one of those stocky fingers at the shuttle and Harry had to agree. He stepped forward into the chamber and holding his lamp approached the large structure.
"What in the name of the Virgin is that?"
"Dunno, boss".
The question wasn't directed at Bill, but he gave answer.
"I'm getting Mr. Wilson".
Harry rushed from the chamber, rather rattled, shouting instruction to Bill to stay here.
Mr. Wilson being the mine's foreman.
Bill may not have been a smart man, maybe he could have been if he had been allowed to go to school, to learn to read, and write and do math, but being a slave, and a largely built one, meant to his master, there was no point in educating a Negro. Had he been born in another time, the IQ that sat deep within him, locked away by prejudice, would have flourished and given him the means to be a great academic, but that was for another time, perhaps an ancestor would have greater and freer success, that was all a slave could hope for. Bill would not venture into that thing; he was not dim enough to do something so reckless. He instead wandered along the sides of it, his fingers tracing along the chilled steel, much in the same way fingers of another human life had done so many, many years before.
Bill had no intention of accessing the vessel, but was rather concerned that something, somehow, had opened it. The large door that he didn't know was a door swished open and he found himself standing before it. His tiny lamp giving only a small amount of light into the pitch.
He then became aware of just how cold, just how dark, and just how desolate it was down here. The shuttle was half buried in the curving wall of the chamber. What had once been a window was blackened by age and covered in dirt. Large boulders had fallen against it, denting its hull and then falling to the side, pressing themselves up next to its walls. Mould and moss having now sprawled their organic material against the long stilled rocks.
Someone was being him.
He turned quickly and found nothing.
"Boss Harry? Mr. Wilson? That you there?"
There was no answer. He shrugged. But he still felt as if someone was there, watching. He got scared. He stepped up into the vessel, if only to escape the sensation of eyes on his back.
The interior was foreign to him, but then he'd say the same of a fine house. The first thing he noted, unlike the first human who lay a bare foot down in this place, was the head of the dead machine. His mind, simple as it had been demeaned, did grasp the concept that this metal face staring at him, was one, not human, and two, was dead, meaning it had once been alive – whether it was some fancy suit that a human wore about their form, like armour, or… well… he didn't want to think of the other option.
He then noticed the remains of the boy.
The body was well preserved from the chill that the ship saw to wrap around him.
"Oh Lordy".
Ole Bill stepped back, lost his balance and fell from the craft.
"Oh Lordy!!"
He called out.
"Bill, what say you?"
It was Mr. Wilson.
"Mr. Wilson! Mr. Wilson! Boss! There be a body in there, a sure as heck is hot, dead body!"
"How fascinating".
Mr. Wilson ignored the slave he didn't own and instead approached the vessel; his comment was based on the shuttle and not on the concept of a dead individual within.
"This… this… this is amazing! Do you know what this is! What this means?"
He sounded so excited; he waved his hands upwards, his left still clasping the finely crafted cane.
"What's that, Mr. Wilson?"
Harry asked.
"It's a vessel! From another world! Perhaps Mars! Maybe even the moon! Can you imagine! Finding such a wonder in my mine! On my watch! I'm going to be a rich man indeed!"
"No disrespect to you Mr. Wilson, but I dun reckon its something to lets be forgettin".
"Shut your stupid ignorant mouth".
The word that came after mouth was a word ole Bill was used to hearing and a word of insult indeed, but as a slave, he could do nothing to claim his honour.
"Just not right, is all, something down here, and it ain't that horseless carriage".
He whispered to himself.
Harry heard, but said nothing.
"What you want us to do, Mr. Wilson".
Harry instead asked.
"Get more lamps down here, I want to see more of this wonder".
--
The find had caused all activity to cease, the majority of workers were sent home, if only to keep the find secret. They were aware of something happening, and the rumour was they'd stumbled upon some Indian burial ground, and with talk of curses and scalpings, they were only too happy to head back to camp and their families and their meagre Christmas dinners.
Ole Bill, however, was told to stay behind with a few of the other slaves to work to reveal more of this vessel. Mr. Wilson had walked free from the ship holding in his hand the head of the eyeless youth, laughing and speaking words of cheer to all who granted him their attention. Mr. Wilson, for all his finery and fancy education and his pretty wife and pretty children then did something that ole Bill, slave or not, knew was disgusting. Mr. Wilson threw the skull a few centimetres above him and then smacked it like a baseball with his cane. The skull flew through the air and then struck a side of the chamber before crashing down to the ground, a few clumps of dirt burying it… for another few hundred years.
"Get rid of that filth, I don't want anything ruining my big moment, and nothing ruins a moment of adoration like a dead… child".
There was that word again.
How did Mr. Wilson know the child had been of that race?
The skin was black probably because of age and death, not because of any perceived ill gotten birth right.
It made him mad beyond mad.
Ole Bill took it upon himself to wrap that child in a blanket, with a toy horse he had whittled and then buried him deeper in the mine, away from the shuttle and the chamber and hopefully in a place where he could sleep undisturbed.
Ole Bill didn't know how this child met his end, or how he'd come to loose his peepers, or how he came to be in that metal carriage, but he did know enough to know that it weren't right to disrespect no corpse. Poor kid had parents at one time, and that mammy and pappy would shed too many tears to count if they saw their baby being treated so, even after having gone home.
Gone to the land of the rotten.
Words in a different voice spoke within his head.
"Wah?"
He asked out loud, quite taken back by sudden interruption to his thoughts.
--
Ole Bill was none to impressed when Mr. Wilson told him and two other slaves to watch the vessel that night, to sleep down in that cold, damp chamber to make sure no one steals it away in the night. Which, even Harry was seen to think was stupid, who could come in and take such a vessel without the knowledge of them? And even if they could get in, how would they get out? How would they get out? And who, other then they, knew about it?
Ole Bill decided not to concentrate on the strange doings of white folk and decided instead to sleep.
It was in his dreams that he found himself in a valley. It was pretty. Nice trees with their flowing branches and their lush green leaves bristled along on that chilly wind. There was a little stream that passed through the valley and next to it was a series of tee-pees. He liked Indians, they were a fine type indeed, and he liked their feathered head dresses and the way they didn't take much from the Whites. They were a good sort indeed. An Indian fella had met him once, was polite enough to him, and almost pitied him, how could a man own another man, he had asked Ole Bill, who explained that his pappy, and his pappy before him had been owned so he was owned too. The Indian man was rather stunned by this, but accepted that all were different and that a different culture with a different belief didn't make it wrong, just different, and since ole Bill seemed to not bother much with the formalities of being owned, the Indian let it go.
There was a fire dimly smouldering in the centre.
There were half butchered animals lying about the fire.
Old weapons, spears and the like were snapped and broken.
There was blood everywhere.
Up ahead he could hear a girl's voice, she was singing, he walked towards her.
The tee pee's material, a series of skins, were parted.
"Hello?"
He asked.
"Greetings".
A voice from inside replied.
"Tis ole Bill".
"Ole Bill, come inside".
He did, finding the owner of the voice sitting on a fuzzy fur.
"Waz your name?"
He asked.
"Hello, ole Bill! Have you come to me as a man comes to a woman?"
"Ah… ole Bill don't know much about that sort of thing, I just thought I'd come see where the people be at?"
"The people are gone".
Her voice was sullen but she continued her work.
He noticed she was stitching something.
Her tools were primitive, a piece of fish bone for a needle and dried guts for thread. Was she sewing before?
"Where'd the people go, ma'am?"
"They went to the land of the rotten".
"Where's that be at?"
"That would be at a place of much sorrow".
"I know sad places".
"Sit yourself ole Bill and take warmth from these furs which my great warrior uncle obtained on his hunting quests".
"They be fine furs indeed, ma'am. Furs a like I never saw".
"You speak pleasing words to me, shame that my great uncle is gone that he may not take complement".
"Where'd your uncy go?"
"He went to the land of the rotten".
"Gosh and golly, ma'am, sure be a lot of people you know that are going to that place of rottenness".
"It be a result of the creature's action".
"Creature?"
"An evil being that came from a strange vessel".
"I found me a strange vessel".
"Where upon did you find such a thing?"
"Under the ground. It was buried in a great deal of dirt and muck and all sorts of things that you find in the underground".
The dream ended.
Ole Bill sat up from his dream, the other slaves sleeping soundly next to him. In the dark he was aware of the feeling of being watched, but that sensation wasn't unpleasant to him, it wasn't like before, it felt as if whoever was watching wasn't meaning any harm.
In the darkness he caught sight of two blue lights flickering at him, a shape of a man, but much to large to be one. The silhouette was one of sharp lines and angles, definitely not a man.
"Who be there? Who be watching ole Bill".
It didn't give a name, it merely disappeared.
And somewhere, in the future, in the same mine, Sideswipe woke.
--
Author's NB: Forgive me, I know NOTHING about American history, its not really taught down under in little ole New Zealand, and Wiki provided little answers, so I'm sure as sure as the sky is blue on a summer's day that I've pretty much caused the pants of every historian to soil their pants. Though, I've tried to rely on general knowledge of American history (and movies) as much as I could so hopefully, there's no major boo boos. I know there were mines in Germany in 1750 so here's hoping there's some in the States at that time. Please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!
And hopefully no one up and accuses me of racism. _ (And with the family I got adopted into, last thing I can be accused of is racism, Hahah).