Read The Stone of Blood for Free Online Page B

up!”
     
    “Yay!” she exclaimed as I got up out of bed. And then she squealed and clapped her hands!
     
    “Mama, can me and Anna go outside and play?” I said in a yawnin’ voice, stretchin’ my arms over my head while walkin’ thru my room to the kitchen to stand in the doorway.
     
    My mama smiled.
     
    Anna couldn’t go outside by herself, but I knew that if I asked if she could go outside with me then there was a better chance of Mama sayin’ I could!
     
    We did get to go outside again. Mama came with us. She came outside, laid a blanket down on the grass and we had a picnic lunch right out there in the sun!
     
    We played the rest of that afternoon. I played at bein’ the fastest gun in the west, while my sister pushed her baby doll around in her stroller. Anna didn’t understand the whole cowboy and Indian game, but if she wanted to play with me I would let her.
     
    Anna laughed at me as I ran around in the grass pretendin’ to shoot the sky.
     
    And she laughed again as the dandelions puffed up into the air and tickled her nose!
     
    ***
     
    July 1833
     
    A rogue band of U.S. Calvary seized control of the Federal Hill Plantation . It had been torn asunder; thoroughly searched and turned upside down! Its contents lay in shambles: rubbish strewn across its floors, its curtains ripped down from their high places! Its people were horded into its main room where they sat together upon the hardwood floors, children sitting in grownups laps, coloreds and white people alike.
     
    Nathanael’s soldiers held back the fires by his command though torches were prepared and his men stood at the ready.
     
    The General positioned himself in the parlor now, shouting at his prisoners; and interrogating them for information!
     
    “Where is the ‘ Sang Pierre ’ ? Where is the Blood Stone!” he demanded as he reached down and grabbed a small child by the hair of her head, and held her up in the air as she squealed and kicked!
     
    “Someone, tell me where it is!” He exclaimed and then threw the girl against the wall and watched her as she collapsed to the floor.
     
    Nathanael’s rage consumed him as his mind slipped willingly into madness; his insanity changed him as his anger and resentment surged!
     
    “I will have that stone!” He screamed as he toppled over tables, bookshelves and vanity’s filled with bourbon, shattering glass upon the parlor’s floor at his captive’s feet!
     
    “It’s not here sir!” One of his officers interrupted “We’ve searched the entire place sir, men women and children. It’s not here sir! It’s been moved.”
     
    Nathanael dropped his head. For so long he had searched for it; for so long it had eluded him.
     
    He looked down upon the faces of the women, children and slaves that sat before him. He looked into their faces as they huddled together for comfort, cowering and crying in fear.
     
    “Bring me the witch!” he demanded.
     
    Moments later a sullen tattered clothed woman stood before him.
     
    She was dirty and barefoot, clad with shackles on her feet.
     
    “You told me it was here Witch!” He barked at the woman and slapped her face!
     
    She turned her gaze back to him slowly and smiled at him with contempt.
     
    “You said Rowan!” Nathanael sneered.
     
    “La pierre de sang ne sera jamais la vôtre!” Cria la femme comme elle cracha sur lui!
     
    “The Stone of Blood will never be yours!” She shouted and then spat on him!
     
    Nathanael’s eyes shown red with fury and his voice grew deeper with wrath! “Don’t leave any of them alive!” he commanded of his men. “Kill them! Kill them all!”
     
    A great wailing of sorrow began as his soldiers moved forward to seal the captive’s fate!
     
    “Wait!” Nathanael suddenly ordered, holding up his hand for them to stop. An intrinsic silence fell over those confined, as they hoped for reprieve, a silence that was replaced immediately by dread as their captor spoke again; this time at a