Free The Call of Zulina by Kay Marshall Strom

play.
     
    Once again Grace's eyes burned with tears for what used to be. Or maybe for what never really was.
     
    Shuffling feet and rattling chains yanked Grace out of her reverie. She couldn’t see anyone, but when a sharp cry rang out, she shoved herself more deeply into her thorny refuge. Just below the spot where Grace slid over the side, the road made a sharp turn. Once the line of people rounded that curve, they would again be in her line of sight. Grace caught her breath and waited.
     
    Within moments, the first man trudged around the bend. In spite of herself, Grace let out a strangled gasp. It was no search party! The man below her was an African. His hands were tied and his feet chained. He was a slave. There was no doubt about that. But … what was that on his neck? Grace stretched forward to get a better view.
     
    A collar! The man was locked into a rough wooden collar about three feet long. As she watched, another man rounded the bend. The other end of the first man's collar was locked around that second man's neck. The two Africans were yoked together, like a pair of oxen plowing a field.
     
    As Grace stared, yet another person came around the bend. Then another and another and another. Not all were locked in neck collars. Some were shackled with long, loose chains. But all were bound, and all were lashed at the wrist and ankle. And all, tied together at the neck, were fastened into one long rope train.
     
    Eleven … twelve … thirteen …
     
    Grace tried to count the people as they emerged around the bend. It was hard because the line swayed and stumbled as though the train of captives had walked and walked until they could hardly pick up one leg after the other and still keep moving. Yet they didn’t dare slow down, Grace could see that. Unchained Africans with guns and spears moved back and forth along the straggly human train, prodding and threatening anyone who lagged.
     
    One woman had a baby tied to her back with a dirty cloth, and she kept falling farther and farther behind the man in front of her. Finally, the rope attaching the woman to the man was pulled so taut it looked as if it might strangle both of them. An African man wearing a white man's shirt ran over and jabbed repeatedly at the slow woman with his spear. She roused herself and, gasping and straining, managed to drag forward a bit more quickly.
     
    Grace forced her eyes away from the struggling woman and looked down the line—a young boy who could not yet be in his tenth year … a woman ripe with child … two young girls clutching their bound hands and sobbing … several strong young men who stared straight ahead. All were tied together. One after the other, they stumbled along in the rope train.
     
    Then she saw him. Before she could catch herself, Grace let out a strangled gasp and cried out loud, “Yao!”
     
    He was the last person in line. His neck was locked into the back end of a wooden collar, his ankles tethered in chains. And his hands were lashed together behind his back.
     
    “Lingongo!” Grace spat accusingly through clenched teeth.
     
    The guard in the white man's shirt swung around and searched the incline, and then he fixed his gaze straight at Grace's hiding place. She shrank further into her acacia nest and pulled her head down as low under the thorny branches as possible. Lacy leaves of gray-green dipped down and danced in front of her face.
     
    The African man took a step toward her hiding place and paused to survey the underbrush.
     
    Grace hardly trusted herself to breathe.
     
    Foolish, just like Lingongo always says I am! Grace cried silently. Why, oh, why did I say her name out loud?
     
    Slowly, the guard moved forward, stomping down the grass in his path until he was so close that Grace could see beads of sweat glistening on his blue-black forehead. All he had to do was lower his eyes, and he would stare straight into her face. Grace willed herself to stop the trembling that had started in