Shackles of a Freeman (eBook)

CHAPTER 1 – THE LUCKY ONE

It was 1846, another sweltering day in the Antebellum countryside of North Carolina. The sun beat down mercilessly on the stable yard behind my father’s business at the edge of town. I, an eleven-year-old boy with stringy arms, stood nervously on a stool in front of a horse’s massive ribcage. My name was Lewis Sheridan Leary.

My father wanted me to test the first saddle I had ever built in his shop. It was a simple sheepskin saddle, nothing special, but he believed it was important for me, as a free colored child, to be skilled in a trade at a young age. This was a lesson passed down to him by his father.

“Stop thinking and put it on, Lewis,” my father said from behind me, urging me to stop procrastinating. I had been daydreaming about not being there. My father, whom I’ll refer to as Pa, was Matthew Nathaniel Leary. He was a free colored man of mixed race, classified as “mulatto” by the census.

His father, my grandfather, Jeremiah O’Leary, was of Irish and Lumbee Indian descent and fought in the War of Independence against the British. After that, he married Sarah Revels, my grandmother, a free woman of Black lineage, whose father, Aaron Revels, also fought in the war. This distinguished American history of the family name came with great pride for Pa, as illustrated by the large wooden sign over his shop, which read “Leary’s Saddle & Harness Co.” and was on the edge of Main Street in Fayetteville.

Upon hearing Pa’s voice, I shook out of my daze, trying my best to abide by his demand, which took some balancing, as I wasn’t the most coordinated kid in the world. After a couple of labored deep breaths, I readjusted my feet on the stool, using all my lanky strength in my legs to bend, and with one swift motion, finally swinging the saddle onto the horse’s back.

“SUCCESS!” I remember thinking to myself, following a giant sigh of relief after briefly stepping off the stool to secure the straps around the horse’s body. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of myself as I glanced over at my older brother, who I will refer to as “Junior” because he was named after Pa. He was the eldest boy by two years but acted more like he was born ten years my senior by the way he carried himself. Because of that, I never failed an opportunity to gloat, so at this moment, I grinned ear to ear, cheesing over at Junior who was standing next to Pa like a baby bird under its mother’s wing. He just gave me the classic “no big deal” treatment with the shrugging of his shoulders and snarky glare.

Junior was always at my father’s side, naturally considering himself the ideal heir to the so-called throne and eager to follow in our father’s footsteps. This created a rift between us because he saw me as a threat to that idea. At eleven years old, I didn’t care about the family business and saw the rivalry between us as trivial. I preferred to revel in the competition for pure entertainment, so any opportunity I had to get under my older brother’s skin, I took it.

“Hop on now, Lewis!” Pa yelled as he caught me daydreaming again.

These weren’t the words I wanted to hear, because Spartacus, the horse in front of me, was a monster compared to my thin frame and looked as if he could break every bone in my body with just a sneeze. I had thought Pa would test the saddle out for himself, maybe to the delight of thinking I was a boy genius for crafting such a perfect product, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he approached from behind and placed a firm hand on my shoulder, digging his fingers into the fabric of my linen shirt and my skin, causing that pinch I knew all too well—a reminder that there would be consequences if I didn’t do what he said.

Knowing that Junior would have loved to see me get the paddle, and convinced that I could do without it, I took a deep breath, trying to gather the type of bravery I had only heard about in my father’s tales of my grandfather’s time during the Revolutionary War or read about in books. I hopped onto the saddle, secretly praying to God that Spartacus wouldn’t buck and hurl me into the burning Southern sun. To my surprise, the ride started off smoothly. I even had time to look over at Pa, and to my other surprise, saw him give a head nod with a hint of fatherly pride—which I ruined the moment I stuck my tongue out at Junior.

“Jesus, Lewis! Show some damn humility!” Pa yelled out, shaking his head, the look of approval quickly vanishing.

I straightened up, focusing only on what was in front of me: the mane running down the back of Spartacus’s neck and a lot of dirt. I felt a newfound confidence that I had never known but had always believed was lurking within me. Soon, I felt larger than life and in complete control of the beast, gripping the saddle reins tightly as my young brain started coming to terms with this simple piece of equipment that my father had forced me to construct.

“Could this be the best saddle ever made?” I thought to myself.

And before I could allow my eleven-year-old ego to get carried away …

The lace attached to the horse’s body, which went through the stirrups, suddenly broke and whipped around, spooking Spartacus and causing him to jolt up and down like a bull at a rodeo. I forgot any thought of grandeur I had as the saddle repositioned itself, sending me underneath the turbulent animal. All I remembered was hitting the ground as the horse’s enormous frame blocked the daylight and eclipsed my body. I hadn’t lived long enough to have my life flash before my eyes, so all I could do was stare up as one of Spartacus’s back hooves came barreling down.

I took a deep breath and, with a loud thud, Spartacus’s hoof luckily landed inches away from my head as the dust from the impact took over my vision.

I sat up in the dirt, my view clearing as I watched Spartacus try to gallop away, only to be stopped by the hardwood fence boards of the stable. At that moment, I could tell that deep down, Spartacus wanted to venture far beyond the borders that Pa had laid out for him, but for some strange reason, he just stood there, frozen in conflict as his head peeked over the railing.

“Why doesn’t he just leap over and run away?” I wondered, not fully comprehending the severity of almost getting my skull crushed.

I looked over at Pa, who I could tell had just wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead. He was probably trying to shake the morbid image of burying one of his sons.

“I swear to the Almighty, son. It’s that damn luck of yours,” Pa said.

This “LUCK” he was referring to didn’t solely hinge on that there was some Irish blood coursing through the family’s veins or that I was born into freedom. This fortune stemmed from me being born on one of the “luckiest” days on earth, for I, Lewis Sheridan Leary, began this life on Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1835.

“Now stop your gazing and get up!” Pa yelled as he and Junior struggled to lift my dead-weighted body to my feet, patting the dirt and manure off my clothes. All the while, I kept my eyes fixed on Spartacus, who had given up on his daring escape and was now just grazing over a patch of grass at the edge of the property.

“All fine over there, Mister Leary?” a man shouted from the backdoor of Pa’s shop, which connected to the stable yard.

At first, the shade of his open-brimmed hat silhouetted this mysterious man’s face, but as he stepped forward into the sunlight, I noticed that the darkness didn’t dissipate from his skin. The man, who had a lazy eye and a deep scar running down his cheek, was introduced to the family as Luke. However, little was revealed to us about this Black man in his early thirties, other than that he worked for Pa.

“Everything’s fine! Go fetch that horse and settle it back in the stable,” Pa responded to Luke.

As the man complied and rushed over to rein in the now docile Spartacus, Pa walked over and picked up my broken saddle, the torn strap dangling at the side as he grunted and moaned his frustration.

“The stirrup was loose …,” I heard Pa grumble under his breath before looking over at me.

I suddenly tensed up, mentally preparing myself for a scolding.

“I can’t express how important it is to focus on every detail, son. We can’t sell shoddy work to the customer. Our business depends on it. The family name depends on it …,” Pa expressed as he then continued his lecture, listing everything wrong with the saddle, even mentioning that my older brother, Junior, had aced his test on the first try.

I just stood there taking it, almost in a dream state, my eyes staring right through my father as I pretended to heed every word with timely head nods of acknowledgment. I even caught Junior in the corner of my eye, holding in his laughter at the verbal onslaught.

This wasn’t the first tongue-lashing that I had ever received from this man I called Pa. In fact, it had almost become habitual at this point in my childhood. All I remember at that moment as Pa dropped the saddle into my chest, causing my skinny legs to buckle backward under the weight, was looking over at the man in the open-brimmed hat leading the defeated horse, Spartacus, into the stable.

I remember feeling a mixture of frustration and sadness as I watched them go—frustrated at myself for not being able to please my father and sad for Spartacus, who seemed to have no desire to escape.

As I stood there, Pa’s gruff voice interrupted my...