Tag: black woman

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White Lion of the Trinity River

Texas, 1875 A.D.

Penelope Jenkins held her brass-framed binoculars to her eyes and peered at the steamboat resting on the southeastern horizon. Even within the evening mist, the vessel’s blocky bright white form stood out against both the deep violet sky and the dark waters of the lower Trinity River, as did the lanterns that twinkled along its tiered decks. On the side of its hull read the words “The Lion’s Den” in thick black lettering.

Penelope could not resist a quiet snicker to herself. “If that ain’t his hideaway, I don’t know what would be.”

She dismounted her black stallion Ramses, hitched him to one of the oak trees that fringed the floodplain, and took out both her revolver and rifle from holsters attached to his saddle. Weaving her svelte figure through the thick reeds along the riverbank, she made sure to walk on tiptoes so that her boots wouldn’t squish too loudly in the mud.

The closer Penelope drew to the steamboat, the more audible was the vulgar banter and laughter of men on the bow of the boat’s uppermost deck. Amidst this played music like the squealing of a fiddle, the staccato twanging of a mandolin, and the buzzing of a harmonica. She could even catch a faint whiff of tobacco smoke mingling with the sweet scent of liquor. Whatever occasion these pirates were celebrating, they sure liked to party.

Looking through the binoculars again, she scanned the length and height of the ship for the likeness of the White Lion as she remembered it from his wanted poster. She could find him nowhere, not even among the noisy throng of revelers. Penelope recalled from the poster’s description that he had once been a gentleman of refined taste, so perhaps he would not associate with his own minions by dancing among them. He might have retired to one of the fancier cabins inside.

Regardless, Penelope’s plan from that point on was nothing elaborate. She would wade up to the steamboat’s stern, possibly climbing up its paddle wheel like a ladder, and sneak her way around until she found her prey and end his career of robbery and terror the way he deserved. In an ideal situation, she’d be able to accomplish all this and escape before the Lion’s men knew what hit them, but failing that…well, a few drunken pirates couldn’t be too difficult to take on or evade. Could they?

Something ice-cold and metallic prodded the dark brown skin on the back of Penelope’s neck.

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The Demon Beneath the Dome

A woman climbed onto the bough of a kapok tree, which twisted up from the treetop canopy. Her lissome dark umber figure, clad with a barkcloth skirt and halter-top, sparkled with droplets of perspiration beneath the hot glow of the sun piercing through the overcast sky. She raised her hand over her eyes, surveying the green ocean of jungle as it rolled in choppy waves all around her high vantage.

To the east rose a jagged range of overgrown crags, which ran in a ring like a caldera. Covering the basin within was a vast, terraced dome glimmering of corroded gold, with a circular hole in its summit. Under the shadow cast by the crater walls, the green-stained spires and roofs of ruined masonry poked through the jungle, but there appeared no evidence of a living settlement in the proximity of these ruins.

The woman shuddered slightly as she tightened her grip on her perch. She had heard the legends, but never considered them anything more than village storytellers’ way of frightening children into good behavior. Neither had she imagined that she would ever venture within sight of a place like they had described.

Dinanga, huntress of the village of Mungu, had spent the better half of the past moon-cycle searching for her younger sister Kazadi. The memory of the girl’s abduction, with men in blood-red loincloths lunging out of the undergrowth to seize and drag her away, had haunted Dinanga’s every dream with a vivid clarity that never faded. She would have taken those men for common marauders had she not tracked them all the way to such mysterious ruins. If the old myths had spoken the truth all that time, an even more terrible fate would await Kazadi.

Within the jungle to the southwest, someone screamed.

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Mayhem in the Menagerie

This is meant to be a sequel to an earlier story of mine titled The Battle Roar of Sekhmet, which you can also read on this website’s blog.

Reference sheet for Takhaet, an Egyptian warrior who is the protagonist of my short stories “The Battle Roar of Sekhmet” and “Mayhem at the Menagerie”.

Egypt, 1345 BC

I crouched at the edge of our raft of woven papyrus and peered down at the dark green-blue water with harpoon in hand. Near the reeds along the river’s edge, there drifted a plump tilapia almost two feet in length. I licked my lips at the thought of chowing down on its succulent flesh. The fish would feed both Nebet and I for at least one whole day, if not two.

I stabbed after the tilapia. It escaped by darting over to the reeds where it vanished. Under my breath, I cursed Sutekh’s mischief for hexing my aim yet again. The aardvark-faced Lord of Chaos had caused me nothing but grief and disappointment since we had set out on the day’s expedition this morning.

Nebet, my niece of ten years, held up a line of rope with a hook that transfixed a tiny morsel of mutton. “You sure you don’t want to use the lure, Aunt Takhi?”

I gave her a half-serious scowl while accepting her lure with a grumble. I would always protect the child with my life, but I had to admit that she had grown into quite the smart mouth over the last few years.

I plopped the hook into the water. “I must have underestimated how rusted my fishing skills have grown. When I was your age, Nebet, I would put all the boys to shame at this!”

“Maybe find yourself a man who would do the fishing for you?” Nebet asked. “There should be plenty to go around, and most of them seem to like you.”

I raised my eyebrow. “How would you know that?”

“Whenever you go by, they always seem to look at you twice. And you know that old Vizier Ay from way back? I remember he sounded like he wanted you for himself.”

The memory of that shriveled husk of a man, that lecherous lackey of the false Pharaoh, flooded the inside of my mouth with a sour flavor. The passage of five years since we last crossed paths had not softened my distaste for him and his minions. I would sooner swim with crocodiles than occupy the same room as him.

“You have seen much more than any child your age should see, my little niece,” I said. “As far as men are concerned, the problem I have isn’t that I can’t attract any. If anything, they like me more than I like any of them.”

“Then maybe you like women more, Aunt Takhi?” Nebet said. “Maybe you could have another woman in place of a man?”

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “No, no, I prefer men in the way you mean. It is only that I haven’t found a man worthy of our house. Maybe I should consult the priestesses of Hetheru. They might know why.”

For most of my life, it was Sekhmet I had served more than any of the other old gods or goddesses. Yet the stories held that Sekhmet, she of the lion mask and blood-stained gown, was in truth another guise of the loving bovine Hetheru. Perhaps calling upon my patron goddess would convince her to shift forms and answer my prayer for love.

“I thought there weren’t any more priestesses of Hetheru?” Nebet said. “The Pharaoh shut all their temples down long ago. Don’t you remember?”

She was right. Too often, my mind drifted back to the better days of my youth, before the false Pharaoh had assumed the throne and desecrated everything his righteous father had built and maintained. I had to return to the present, not think too much of the past or future, and get back to fishing.

I checked our hook beneath the water’s surface. The bait had disappeared, yet there was no fish still attached. They must had figured how to bite off the meat without getting themselves caught. How foolish I had been to let myself get distracted!

A wave rocked our raft from the side. Over by the far bank of the river, a man screamed while splashing and thrashing his arms in the air. Zipping through the water towards him was the bumpy, olive-brown wedge of a crocodile’s head.

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Dribble Like Me

It’s a ball game between two cultures. If our heroine loses, she might be put to death!

The sunset lent a warm, almost cozy glow to the stacks of scarlet-washed terraces that supported the buildings of Mutul. It was a city stuffed with more pyramids than any place Neith-Ka recalled from her native Khamit. Her people might have buried their Pharaohs in monuments of equal or even more mountainous scale, but then these peculiar Mayabans would lay every one of their structures on top of a stepped pyramid, none less than two stories high, with everyone having to hike up a succession of stone stairs to reach the summit.

Neith-Ka shook her foot to dull the pain chewing away at her tendons. Already the woven papyrus of her sandals had started to splinter apart from wear. The Khamitan people may have taken pride in the grandeur of their own monuments, but never would their architects dare subject anyone to so many tortuous steps. You weren’t even supposed to climb the royal tombs back home.

Huya, her high steward, clicked his tongue with a frown. “You could feign a good attitude, Your Highness.”

Neith-Ka drew in a deep breath through her nostrils. “I’ve done my best. Please show some understanding.”

“I saw you pouting. And, I swear by the scales of Ma’at, I heard you mutter a curse while shaking that leg. You don’t seem to remember that you’re representing your father, your family, and all the Black Land here, princess. I’ll see no more lip from you tonight!”

With another inhale, Neith-Ka straightened herself up and nodded to her steward. As he and their entourage of guards and servants marched up yet another ramp of steps, she huddled close behind while keeping her focus on their destination on top. Looking back down the pyramid’s height could only intimidate her further. Even more so with the lighter brown locals crowding behind her with the gawks of strangers who had never seen even one darker-skinned person their entire lives.

The lip of the stairway connected to a platform that supported a ring of rectangular buildings around a courtyard, all plastered with a blazing red base. Yet these were not monochrome edifices, for each had mounted on its walls and over its doorways elaborate reliefs of jade-plumed gods, snarling gold leopards (or were those called jaguars over here?), and the strings of complicated square images that constituted the Mayaban culture’s written language.

To think that foreigners claimed that Khamit’s hieroglyphs were impossible to read! No mortal could possibly even draw their Mayabic equivalents.

From one short and wide building at the far end of the complex floated a faint yet spicy odor, with thin trails of steam snaking out from tiny windows in the walls towards its left edge. Dark green curtains, splashed with reds, golds, and purples hung behind the gallery of square columns that supported the remainder of the building’s length. Standing in front were a pair of native guards, stocky men in padded cotton vests who parted their obsidian-fringed spears upon noticing the Khamitans’ arrival.

Huya bowed at the waist to both guards. “Excuse me, my good man, but where would His Majesty the Ahau and his family be?”

“Already inside, waiting with as much patience as they’ve got,” one of the guards said.

The second glanced at Neith-Ka from the corner of his eye. “And you’re the one he’s waiting on, I presume. Not so ugly as far as your kind goes, if a bit overcooked. I’d advise you to stay clear of his youngest daughter.”

Neith-Ka gave him a subtle smile to hide the prickling sensation that crept up her back. “I’ll…uh, keep that in mind…my undercooked friend.”

“Princess! What did I say?” Huya hammered the butt of his high steward’s staff twice on the stone pavement.

“Aw, give your woman a pass,” the first guard said. “She was only telling my friend to show more hospitality. Right, Yaxkin?”

Strutting away from the two guards as they argued with one another in the Mayabic language, Neith-Ka plunged herself through the curtains into the royal dining hall.

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The Battle Roar of Sekhmet

Egypt, 1350 BC

I entered the sanctuary area at the back of our hut with a bowl of gazelle meat. Beside me, my little niece Nebet hugged her miniature drum as if it were a doll. The likenesses of our forefathers and mothers watched our passage with painted eyes, their altars adorned with weapons and the gold flies their valor had earned them in life. But it was the gilded likeness of Sekhmet, she of the lion mask and blood-dyed gown, who awaited our arrival against the wall. Despite the dimming of the sunlight through our hut’s narrow windows, Sekhmet’s amber eyes blazed with the same fire that had emboldened generations of our ancestors.

Many times I had knelt before her as I did now, lighting the meat I laid at her feet. The scent of its burning recalled battle after battle of blazing tents and enemies being speared, shot, or cleaved into pieces. The warmth channeled the sun’s blazing heat, which glossed my dark brown skin with perspiration. Even the crackling of flesh breaking down into ash became the cracking of bones and shields as I yelled the battle roar of Sekhmet in my memories.

This evening I would consult our matron for a different battle. This time, our enemies were not Kushites with ochre-reddened hair and leopard-belted kilts. Nor were they easterners like the Hittites or Babylonians, with pale skin and loosely curled beards. No, they were Egyptians like us, fellow children of the Black Land who had fallen under the influence of the false Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Already they had dragged little Nebet’s father away to slave away in the lair that tyrant had built for himself and his cult of lies. I did not even want to guess what his minions had done to her mother. Only I remained to protect and teach the girl over the past year, and never would I let her suffer the same fate as her parents.

I gave her a nod and she pounded her drum with more unbridled passion than a temple ensemble. Together we sang our prayer for Sekhmet’s vigilance, for her guidance, for the courage with which she would imbue us in the face of war and persecution. The fire on my offering continued to flicker on our ancestors’ faces as their spirits’ voices joined ours in a greater chorus. The thumping of my heart became a rhythm complementing Nebet’s drum, as did the war drums that had thundered before all my past battles. Alongside the music’s growing fury there rose an energy within me that flamed as hot as Sekhmet’s gaze. As she opened her jaws to bare her fangs in my vision, so did I.

It built up from my breast to my throat, ready to be released over a climax of cracking drums and shrieking cries.

Instead came the hoarse bray of a royal trumpet. Then followed silence, and finally the rapping of a bony knuckle on our door.

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