Hidden

by Hoodfabulous

Dedicated to the real "Black Jack."

I lie in wait for her under the shade of the blackjack tree.

The sun beats down all around me, trails of light shifting along the surface of the earth. Restless, I kick at the leaves below my boots and remove a cigarette from the pocket of my shirt. Plumes of smoke dance around me. Dust settles on my boots. Weeks have passed without a drop of water to wet the earth's surface.

Songs of my people hums in the distance. Turtle shells shake shackled to ankles, the contents rattling with the jolt of brown limbs. Rhythmic chants lull my tired body to close my eyes. Sleep hasn't come easy to me, not since the first Revenuer set foot on Cullen Mountain many moons ago.

A sweet birdsong fills the air, forcing my weary eyes open. Glancing around, I notice no bird, but find something sweeter. She's standing in front of the window, singing a song, a small slave girl by her side. Puffing on the cigarette, my mouth curls into a smile at the sight of her carefully placing an apple pie in her window to cool.

Isabella speaks low and soft to Alice, her father's slave, before leaving the window. Alice stands in front of the pie, her tongue working her lips. I don't blame her. The little girl's half-starved, toiling away all hours of the day, Isabella picking up the slack whenever she can. I know more about Alice than I do Isabella, for Alice roams the woods at night like a mountain lion: quiet and alone, searching the hills for herbs and gathering dirt from my family plot. There ain't much that scares me in this life, but little girls wandering around graveyards at midnight does raise a fraught deep inside soul. When I'd told my brother about the little gal, he'd laughed and compared her to our people. We gather plants to heal and dance to bring forth the rain.

"But we don't dig up dirt in graveyards durin' the dead of night," I'd said.

I've seen her gather her master's hair clippings, and mix it in with the cemetery dirt and pig's manure. What she does with the mixtures, I'm not sure. There's a lockbox hidden under the porch steps where she keeps all the works of the devil. Sometimes I consider stealing the box, on days my curiosity is piqued, but then the little witch might put a root on me, and I ain't in no mood for no more bad luck. Bad enough I've got them government boys breathing down my neck, let alone a witchy slave girl with a vendetta against me.

The smell of sugar and baked apples rushes past me, reminding me why I'm here. As soon as the girl leaves her place at the window, I step forward, closing the distance between me and the humble mountain home. Chickens scatter, clucking and kicking up dust. Hogs squeal from the the pens behind the house. Frozen on the steps, I don't move again until the animals settle down.

I should be nervous, standing on another man's porch with poor intentions in mind, but I've found there's not much in this life that works my nerves besides Revenuers. Isabella's father is close enough to a Revenuer as one could get I suppose, without wearing a fancy federal badge. The badge he wears is one that means little to me or the people of Cullen Mountain. Charlie Swan is the sheriff in a neighboring town, the type of man who wouldn't tolerate thievery. Not at all. Which is why I take the pie into my possession and leave nothing of myself behind but a smile for the open-mouthed servant girl stepping out of the house and onto the porch.

One mile turns into two, and I've almost finished the pie before I find my favorite rock. Isabella follows me into the woods, as I knew she would, but it's too late. Smirking atop a boulder jutting from the soft slope of the mountain, I lick my fingers clean, humming at the taste. The hot apples have burned the roof of my mouth leaving a raw, fleshy taste on the tip of my tongue.

Putting the pie pan aside, I watch her from my perch. Unaware of my presence, she navigates the world below me, moving brush about and calling my name, frustration ringing in her voice. Her knowledge of my name confounds me, draws my grin out even wider, but it's the words she hollers which brings a laugh deep from inside my belly.

"They're right about you, Black Jack Cullen. "She wipes her hands on the white apron tied around her slender waist. "You're nothin' but an animal. Worse than a damned old racoon, I swear you are! Climbin' on people's porches and stealin' hot pies from the window. Folks are starvin' in these parts and you're gettin' fat on stealin' people's sweets!"

Chuckling, I stand, stepping to the edge of the rock and crouching like the animal she claims I am. "You stole my apples, Isabella Swan. Consider the pie a repayment of sorts."

Twirling around, she plants her hands on her hips. She gazes up the mountain slowly until her face is staring back at mine. Her cheeks are sunburnt, her face too thin. "You don't own all the apple trees in Tennessee."

I plant my knees on my elbows, unfazed. "I own all the apple trees on Cullen Mountain."

Narrowing her eyes, she says, "Sugar and flour doesn't grow on trees. I expect a sack of each on my porch steps by tomorrow mornin'."

"Yes, ma'am, anything you want."

Isabella nods and turns to walk away, but halts and turns back around. "How'd you know my name anyhow?"

"How'd you know mine?"

Cocking her head to the side, she replies, "Everyone knows your name. Why, there's a write up about you in the paper at least once a week, but I reckon you know that, bein' a famous outlaw injun and all."

"There's a write up about me in paper? Who's this person writin' about me in the paper?"

"Riley Biers. In the paper every Sunday, just like clockwork. Sometimes on Saturdays too. You ain't never heard of Riley Biers? Reckon he's the best doggone journalist around these parts."

"Must'n be too famous, considerin' I don't know him. What's he say about me?"

"Says you and your folks hide in these mountains, along with the Whitlocks, the McCartys, and the Hales. Says you've got tunnels dug from one to the other, that you hide your injun families and friends in caverns rooted deep in the earth. Says you make the best apple jack brandy in Tennessee."

"Just in Tennessee? Hell, I make the best brandy in the doggone South."

Pursing her lips, she shifts her weight from leg to leg. "They're gonna find you, you know. You can't dodge the Revenuers forever. They're gonna find you and lock you up, if they don't relocate you first."

"Ain't nobody gonna relocate me. My family's lived in these mountains for over four generations. I was born on Cullen Mountain, and I'll die fighting to live here."

Standing, I back off the boulder and climb down the mountain slowly, as not to frighten her, but she looks anything but. Face set in stubbornness, her body as rigid as the rock I abandoned, she doesn't back away, not even when I'm within a stone's throw of her.

"You ain't scared of me?"

"I don't suppose I am," she says with a sniff, looking away. "Why'd I be afraid of you, Black Jack Cullen? You look harmless enough." Her gaze returns to mine, her eyes skirting over my worn breeches and threadbare shirt and dark arms. Scars whiten my flesh in places, each one uprooting a memory of how I obtained it.

"Ain't everyone in town scared of us big, bad injuns?" Flailing my hands around, I moan like a spook. Isabella hides her smile behind a cupped hand, her face blank once it slips away.

"Some folks are, I suppose. I ain't one of 'em."

"I ain't never met no woman who wasn't afraid of me. Especially a little ole skinny thang like yourself. Skinner than that little slave gal that lives with you. What's her name? Alice?"

Isabella narrows her eyes. "Alice ain't no slave gal."

"Enlighten me?" I drag another hand-rolled smoke and match from my breast pocket. Instead of using my thumbnail this time to light the match, I use my teeth. Heat from the match sizzles and pops. Isabella's eyes widen as I light the tobacco and inhale the addicting substance. With a flick of my wrist, the flame is gone, the match smoldering on the ground below me.

"I ain't never seen no rolled tobacco before. Daddy always uses a pipe."

"Speakin' of your Daddy, you said Alice ain't his slave …" I gesture for her to continue, but she doesn't. Sighing, I fill the silence with my opinion, as I often do whenever possible. "Coulda fooled me. Cleans your house all day, works the garden, warms your pa's bed at night. Sounds like a slave girl to me. Can't be no older than twelve. Sickens me, the thought of it." I spit on the ground to emphasize my point.

Sweat beads her brow. She wipes it away with the back of her hand. "No worse than the incest of your people, I suppose?"

"Incest?" I chuckle, shaking my head in disappointment. "Because a few of us adopt and later marry the orphan children of deceased Cherokees? That's a pretty unfair opinion of us, if I do say so myself. We don't interbreed."

Silence envelops us, and I want nothing more than to banish the abashed expression from her face. Leaning against a tree, I pinch the tobacco firmly between my fingers, extending it in her direction, a humorous gesture. To my surprise, she steps closer to me, taking the cigarette from my grasp and bringing it to her lips. Women folk don't smoke. At least, not the white women. They find it downright appalling, but Isabella's different.

"Barely breathe," I coax her, an unfamiliar worry strangling my chest. "You'll cough and sputter the first time. Don't take too much in."

When she inhales and exhales, there's no coughing, no choking and watering of her eyes. Smiling in satisfaction, she hands me the tobacco and I take another drag, tasting her lips on the paper.

"Wasn't my first time," she confesses, winking. "Daddy doesn't know I smoke his pipe sometimes. I threw up the first time I tried."

"And you kept tryin' anyway?"

"Don't reckon one bad experience warrants quitin' anything."

Admiring her persistence, I nod. "You really ain't scared of me?"

"Naw." Crossing her arms over her chest, she reveals a sincere smile. "I really ain't scared of you."

I finish the cigarette, putting it out with my boot. "I'm scared of you."

Isabella's mouth opens in shock, but only for a matter of seconds. Throwing back her head, she laughs, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "Well, I've heard it all. Black Jack Cullen scared of a little mountain girl. What's so scary about me?"

"You walk around bear-infested woods unarmed and unafraid. You smoke tobacco like a man. And you face a half-breed injun without battin' an eye. You must be touched in the head."

Smirking, she reaches into a deep pocket of her apron, producing a huge knife. "I ain't crazy, if that's what you mean. And I didn't come unarmed."

"Lord have mercy, I think I wanna marry you, gal." I laugh.

Isabella's smile falters. She drops the knife back into her pocket and hunches her shoulders, avoiding my gaze. "Daddy'll be home soon. I best be gettin' out of these parts now."

Wrinkling my brow at the sudden change in her mood, I say, "That's all it takes to scare you off? Mentionin' marriage?"

Songs and chants and laughter grows in the distance. Isabella's head springs up as though she's never heard the sound before now. Eyes round with fright, she ducks between the trees, and I follow, hollering out her name like the wild man they claim I am. I follow her until we're at the base of Cullen mountain, her house less than two miles away. This is where she stops, turns and slams into my chest. Jarred, I grab her wrists, preventing her from tumbling to the ground. Nightfall's creeping in and she's so pretty, standing under the orange glow of the sinking sun, staring at her little boots.

"I want you," I confess, tilting her chin back. "I've been wantin' you for a long time. Since the first time I saw you stealin' apples off my mountain."

"Black Jack?"

"Ma'am?"

"I was wrong." Isabella swallows, her little body trembling. She pushes me away, ripping a piece of my heart from my chest as she goes. "Turns out I am afraid of you after all."

Preread by Jonesn. Thanks, boo. **throws kisses your way** Make sure you're following our JonesnInDaHood account. We're working on a story together and will start posting as soon as it's complete. Neither of us are history experts, but if you find an error feel free to point it out and I'll correct it as quickly as I can. Inspired my genealogy research.