It must have been the hottest, stickiest night of the Savannah summer. The night was black as tar and the full, bright yellow moon hung high in the dark sky. The mosquitos were biting and the sweat was still pouring off of anyone still moving. May, a slave, was trying to wash the stench out of her Master 's riding clothes from the deer hunt the day before. Almost everything about Master Berchman disgusted May, but most of all, she hated his scraggly old, rat 's nest that he called a beard that he made her wash every night.
On this rare night, May was happy. May was a girl the older ladies said was as sweet as an angel and looked like one too. It was her birthday and Master Berchman was in Savannah making a deal on cotton. She was going to have a few hours without him barking orders and hurling insults at her. But most importantly, she believed that Eli, the man she loved, was going to ask the Master’s permission to marry her when the Master returned from Savannah.
As she washed the Master’s clothes, May thought back to when Eli came to the plantation after being sold in Virginia. Eli was big and strong as a horse, and very nice. May was tiny and shy and he made her feel less afraid of the Master and his rages. After connecting immediately,
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May was now alone. The shadows were closing in, the sounds of the marsh were scaring her, and May was getting cold. She was scared, so scared. Then she heard it. The blood curdling, high pitched bark of the dogs. The Master 's dogs. It was like the devil himself and his henchmen were coming for her. "Oh no," May said to herself, "Not the dogs." She tried to run, but it was too painful. She tried to climb a tree, but she didn 't have the strength. They caught up to her. The dogs got to her first, and then came the Master. The dogs had her surrounded. The barking was deafening and they were baring their teeth. The daggers that some might call teeth, so sharp that they wouldn’t just draw blood, they would kill a person with