When the parish doctor arrived at the Harrove plantation that August morning in 1857, the first thing he noticed was the silence.
No sound came from the cotton fields in Burke County, Georgia.
No shouting, no wagons.
Everything still.
He saw the workers gathered near the main house.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Everyone stared at the ground or at the pine forest in the back.
Where is Mr.Harrove? The doctor asked.
Nobody answered, but everyone looked toward the barn with its doors ripped off.
That’s when he saw it.
Blood on the red dirt.
Four bodies scattered across the yard.
The overseers, big men armed, hired to keep order.
Now dead, broken necks, crushed skulls, one thrown against the barn wall so hard the wood had splintered.
An old man approached.
It was yesterday afternoon, doctor.
The master ordered Sarah whipped the twins mother 50 lashes.
She died tied to the post.
The doctor closed his eyes.
The twins saw everything.
Josh and Zeke, 7′ 7 in tall each, 28 years obeying, never raised their voices, controlled because of her.
The master used the mother as a chain, threatened to beat her when they questioned anything.
Always worked until yesterday.
The overseers tried to stop them.
One shot Josh in the shoulder.
He kept coming.
They killed all four in less than 2 minutes.
Then they entered the house, took the master, dragged him into the woods.
Still alive.
The old man pointed to the dark forest.
The sheriff came from Augusta with 12 men, hunters, the best in the county, armed with rifles, machetes, ropes.
They entered the woods at dawn, confident, ready to hunt two runaway slaves.
The old man paused, looked at the woods, but they didn’t know what they would find in there.
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The story of Josh and Zeke begins 28 years earlier in the summer of 1829.
Sarah was barely 27 years old when she went into labor on a suffocating July night.
The heat in the slave quarters was unbearable.
No breeze came through the cracks in the wooden walls.
Two midwives worked by candle light, their faces glistening with sweat as Sarah screamed through 14 hours of the hardest labor they had ever witnessed.
When the first baby finally emerged, the older midwife gasped.
She had delivered over a 100 babies in her lifetime, but had never seen a newborn this size.
The infant weighed 13 lb and had arms and legs that seemed to belong to a six-month-old child.
His hands were disproportionately large, his fingers long and thick.
But what made her step back was his left eye.
A milky white film covered it completely, like someone had poured cream over the pupil.
Before she could speak, Sarah’s body convulsed again.
The second twin was coming.
Another 40 minutes of pushing, of screaming that made the dogs howl outside, and the second baby arrived, almost identical to the first, but with clear eyes that seemed to take in everything around him with an unsettling awareness.
He weighed 12 lb.
The younger midwife made the sign of the cross.
“Lord have mercy,” she whispered.
“These ain’t natural.” Sarah, bleeding and exhausted, pulled both babies to her chest with a fierceness that silenced the women.
Her voice came out but firm.
These are my sons.
God made them this way for a reason.
They’re going to survive in this world.
They have to.
She named them Josiah and Ezekiel after prophets in the Bible her own mother had told her about before being sold away when Sarah was just 8 years old.
Josh and Zeke, she called them.
And from their first breath, it was clear these boys were different from any children born on the Harrove Plantation.
The Harrove Plantation was one of the larger operations in Burke County, valued at approximately $45,000 in land and property in 1829.
The estate stretched across 12,200 acres of prime bottomland along the Savannah River where the soil was rich and dark, perfect for growing cotton.
The main house was a two-story structure painted white, built in 1803, worth about $8,000 with its furnishings.
It had six bedrooms, a dining room that could seat 20, and a parlor with imported furniture from Charleston.
Behind it sat the overseer’s house valued at $600, the stables worth $400, the smokehouse, the cotton gin house worth $2,000 with its machinery, and the various storage buildings.
Further back were the slave quarters, a row of 22 small wooden cabins that leaked when it rained and baked like ovens in summer.
Each cabin measured 12 by 14 ft and housed anywhere from 4 to eight people depending on family size.
They were worth maybe $30 each to build, though Thomas Harrove’s records listed them at $50 for insurance purposes.
Thomas Harrove, the owner at the time, ran what he considered a model operation.
He owned 68 enslaved people in 1829, representing his largest capital investment at approximately $55,000 total value.
An average field hand was valued at $600 to $800.
Skilled workers like blacksmiths or carpenters could be worth $1,200 to $1,500.
Children under 10 were valued at $200 to $300.
Women of childbearing age were worth $700 to $900 because they could produce more valuable property.
The plantation produced between 100 and 120 bales of cotton annually, each bale weighing around £400.
at the going rate of 10 to 12 cents per pound in 1829.
This meant annual revenue of 20,000 to $24,000.
After expenses for food, clothing, equipment, taxes, and paying the overseers, Thomas cleared about $8,000 profit each year.
A comfortable income that placed him among the wealthier planters in Burke County, though nowhere near the true cotton aristocracy of the lands, who owned thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves.
It was into this world of calculated values and human property that Josh and Zeke were born.
A world where their worth would be measured in dollars and cents, where their bodies were assets on a ledger, where they were simultaneously priceless and worthless, depending on who was doing the counting.
They grew at an alarming rate.
By 6 months, they were the size of 2year-olds.
By age 2, they looked five.
By five, they stood as tall as boys of 12.
Their bodies already showing muscle definition that shouldn’t exist in children so young.
Thomas Harg Grove would bring visitors to see them like they were prized livestock.
He’d make them stand while men in fine clothes examined them, measured them with walking sticks, felt their arms, checked their teeth like they were horses.
Finest specimens I’ve ever produced, Thomas would say as if he’d somehow created them rather than just owning their mother.
Worth $500 each already, and they ain’t even old enough to work yet.
By the time they’re grown, these boys will be worth more than any three field hands combined.
He was right, though.
Even he underestimated their eventual value.
Sarah hated these exhibitions, hated watching her sons treated like curiosities, but she stayed quiet.
Speaking up in 1835 got you sold, and she couldn’t protect her boys if she was gone.
The boy’s father, Samuel, had been a tall man himself, standing about 6’3 in.
He’d been valued at $900 when Thomas Hargrove sold him to a Mississippi plantation owner in 1829 for two younger field hands, valued at $400 each, plus $100 cash.
The trade made financial sense to Thomas.
He got two workers for the price of one plus money.
That Samuel was leaving behind a pregnant wife didn’t factor into the equation.
Love had no value on the ledger.
Sarah never saw Samuel again.
Never got to tell him about his sons.
Never got to show him what they became.
Sometimes she’d tell the boys about their father.
How he had a deep voice.
How he was gentle despite his size.
how he’d been sold because the old master needed cash and Samuel was worth more than most.
The boys would listen and try to imagine a man they’d never met, a father who existed only in their mother’s memories and in the genes that made them giants.
Josh and Zeke were inseparable from the beginning.
They developed their own way of communicating, a mix of words and gestures that only they fully understood.
When one was hungry, the other knew without asking.
When one heard, the other felt it.
They were two parts of the same soul.
People said the bond between them was something you could feel when they were in a room, like the air itself connected them.
But their size created problems as they grew.
By age 10, both boys were over 6 ft tall and still growing.
They couldn’t play with other children without accidentally hurting them.
Their strength was too much.
Once when Josh was nine, he was playing catch with another boy named Thomas.
He threw the ball too hard and broke the boy’s hand in three places.
The crack echoed across the yard.
Thomas screamed.
His mother screamed.
Josh cried for hours afterward, inconsolable, while Zeke sat beside him in silence, holding his brother’s massive hand in his own, sharing the guilt and pain.
That’s when they learned to be careful, to move slowly, to be gentle despite the power in their bodies.
They learned to make themselves smaller, to hunch their shoulders, to speak softly so people wouldn’t fear them.
Because fear made people cruel.
Fear made people dangerous.
The other enslaved people on the plantation didn’t fear them, though.
They respected them, even loved them.
The twins worked harder than anyone, never complained, and always helped those who needed it.
When an old man named Thomas couldn’t lift his water buckets anymore, Josh carried them for him without being asked.
every morning without fail.
When a woman named Ruth got sick with fever and couldn’t work, Zeke did her tasks plus his own for two weeks straight so she wouldn’t get whipped for falling behind.
He worked 18-hour days and never once complained.
Children loved them most of all.
The twins would let kids climb on them like they were trees, carrying three or four at a time on their shoulders and backs, walking carefully so nobody fell.
They’d carve little toys from wood scraps during their few moments of rest.
Their enormous hands somehow delicate enough to create tiny horses and dolls that made children squeal with joy.
By the time they were 15 years old in 1844, Josh and Zeke had to duck through doorways.
Both stood over 7 ft tall and showed no signs of stopping.
Thomas Hargrove had them valued by a slave trader from Savannah, who specialized in unusual merchandise.
The man examined them thoroughly, measured them, watched them work, and declared them worth $1,500 each at current height and age.
But if they keep growing, he said, and if they stay healthy and strong, by the time they’re 20, you could get 2,000, maybe $2500 each.
I’ve never seen anything like them.
They’re one of a kind.
Thomas smiled.
His investment was paying off.
He fed them well, gave them slightly better clothing, made sure they had decent shoes, not out of kindness, but economics.
You maintained valuable property.
You didn’t let a $2,000 asset go barefoot and hungry.
That would be poor business.
The twins had different personalities despite their physical similarities.
Josh was quieter, more thoughtful.
He’d watched things for a long time before acting.
Even with his bad eye, he noticed details others missed.
He taught himself to read by watching the Harrove children’s lessons through windows, memorizing letters and sounds.
His good right eye was sharp enough to compensate for the blind left one.
He’d practice on old newspapers, on signs, on anything with words.
Zeke was more direct, not impulsive, but less hesitant than his brother.
When something needed doing, Zeke did it.
He understood numbers and mechanics better than reading.
Could look at a broken piece of equipment and know how to fix it.
could estimate weights and distances with frightening accuracy, could solve problems that educated men couldn’t.
Together, they made a formidable team.
In the fields, they could pick more cotton in a day than five average workers.
During harvest, when every hand mattered, the twins were worth their waiting gold.
Thomas Hargrove knew this.
knew that selling them would bring $4,000 or more, but keeping them was worth more.
So, he kept them, treating them like valuable machines.
Sarah watched her sons grow into men, and felt pride mixed with terror.
Pride because they were good.
Truly good, despite living in a world designed to break them.
terror because she knew their size made them valuable and valuable things got sold, separated, torn away from everyone they loved.
But something did protect them, their uniqueness, their value.
Thomas Harrove knew he could never replace them.
So he kept them, kept them working, kept them close.
And when Thomas died in 1847, clutching his chest during dinner and falling face first into his soup, his son Thaddius inherited everything.
The land valued at $45,000, the house worth 8,000, the cotton jin and equipment worth 2,000, the livestock worth $1,500, the 68 enslaved people worth approximately $55,000 total.
All of it passed to a man who’d never worked a day in his life, but considered himself a brilliant businessman.
Thaddius Hargrove was different from his father in all the worst ways.
Thomas had been brutal but straightforward.
Thaddius was cruel in a calculating way.
He was 42 years old when he took over, a man of medium height with a growing belly and small eyes that were always watching, always assessing value.
Everything was a transaction to him.
Everything had a price.
He had accumulated substantial debts during his youth.
Gambling debts in Charleston amounting to $3,000.
A house in Augusta on Green Street that had cost him $4,000.
A mistress there who expected expensive gifts, jewelry that cost $200 here, a dress for $150 there.
He owed various merchants in Savannah another 2,000 for furnishings and luxuries.
When his father died, Thaddius inherited assets worth over $100,000, but also inherited responsibility for maintaining an expensive lifestyle he’d grown accustomed to.
Within months of taking over the plantation, Thaddius made changes.
He hired new overseers, offering them better pay than most plantations.
The head overseer position paid $400 annually, high for Burke County, where the average was $250 to 300.
But Thaddius wanted men who would be loyal to him, men who wouldn’t question his methods.
He hired four overseers total, paying $1,600 yearly for labor management.
He cut food rations to save money, reducing weekly portions of cornmeal and salt pork.
This saved him approximately $300 annually.
He increased work hours, pushing sunrise starts even earlier and sunset endings even later.
He sold 12 people that first year to pay off his most pressing debts.
An average of $700 each meant $8,400 that went straight to creditors in Charleston and Savannah.
Over the next 5 years, from 1850 to 1855, he sold 23 more people.
Young men averaged $800 to $900.
Women 700, children 400.
Total sales brought in approximately $17,000, most of which went to maintaining his lifestyle in Augusta and paying gambling debts that kept accumulating.
The plantation’s enslaved population dropped from 68 to 33.
This created a labor shortage that Thaddius compensated for by working the remaining people harder.
Hours increased from 12 to 14, then to 16 during harvest season.
Food rations stayed low.
Medical care was almost non-existent unless someone was valuable enough to justify the doctor’s fee of $5 per visit.
The plantation’s cotton production dropped from 120 bales annually to about 80.
At the current rate of 11 cents per pound, this meant revenue fell from about $26,000 to about 17,000.
After expenses of $6,000 for overseer salaries, equipment maintenance, taxes, and minimal food costs, Thaddius cleared about $11,000 profit, but he spent 12 to 14,000 annually on his Augusta house, his mistress, gambling, and luxuries.
The math didn’t work.
Every year he went deeper into debt.
By 1857, Thaddius owed various creditors approximately $9,000.
His Augusta house had a mortgage of $1,500.
He owed $2,000 to a Charleston gambling house.
Various merchants in Savannah held notes totaling 3,000.
Local creditors in Augusta held another 2500.
He was slowly liquidating his father’s estate to fund a lifestyle he couldn’t afford.
But he still had assets.
The land, the house, the equipment, and his most valuable property, Josh and Zeke.
By 1848, the twins were 19 years old and had reached their full height.
Josh stood 7’7 in tall and weighed 320 lb.
Zeke measured 7’6 and 310 lb.
They were the largest men anyone in Burke County had ever seen.
Thaddius had them appraised again in 1850 by a slave trader from New Orleans who specialized in unusual merchandise.
The man offered $3,000 cash for each twin immediately.
No negotiation needed.
$6,000 more than many plantations were worth.
more than enough to pay off every debt Thaddius had.
For 2 days he seriously considered it, walked around the plantation calculating $6,000 in hand versus the labor value they provided, but ultimately he kept them.
Not out of sentiment, economics.
The twins did the work of 10 men combined, replacing their labor would cost more than their sale price over time.
and they were obedient, controllable, valuable property that kept working without complaint.
He kept them because of Sarah.
Thaddius was smart enough to recognize the relationship, observant enough to see how the giants deferred to their mother, how they’d stop midmovement if she called them, how they’d do anything to protect her.
It was their weakness.
And Thaddius knew how to exploit weakness.
The first time he tested his theory was in March of 1849.
A young man named Isaac had been working a rocky section of field when the plow hit a buried stone and snapped.
The wooden handle split right down the middle.
It was an accident.
Plows broke sometimes.
The replacement cost was $2, a minor expense.
But the head overseer, a man named Crawford, who Thaddius paid $450 annually specifically for his reputation for cruelty, wanted to make an example.
He ordered Josh to whip Isaac.
20 lashes right there in the field where everyone could see.
Josh looked at Isaac.
The boy was 17, scared, trembling.
“No, sir,” Josh said quietly.
“I won’t do it.
The field went silent.
Nobody refused a direct order.
Crawford went for his whip.
But before he could raise it, Thaddius rode up on his horse a thoroughbred that had cost him $200.
He’d been watching from a distance.
There a problem here.
Crawford.
This boy refused an order, Mr.
Harrove.
Direct insubordination.
Thaddius looked at Josh.
studied the giant standing there 7’7 of muscle and bone that could kill him easily.
Thaddius was smart enough to know that force wouldn’t work.
You couldn’t threaten someone with violence when they could break you like kindling.
But you could threaten someone they loved.
Bring Sarah, Thaddius said.
5 minutes later, Sarah stood in the field confused and frightened.
Thaddius positioned her in front of Josh.
Your son disobeyed a direct order,” Thaddius said loud enough for everyone to hear.
“You have a choice.
Either you do exactly what Crawford tells you from this moment forward, or your mother receives the punishment meant for you.
Every time you disobey, every time you question, she pays.
You understand?” Josh felt something crack inside his chest.
He looked at his mother, saw the fear in her eyes.
Fear for him, always for him, Josh.
Sarah whispered, “Just do what he says, please.” Zeke had been working nearby and came running.
He arrived to see his brother standing there shaking, staring at their mother.
Zeke understood immediately what was happening.
Josh lowered his head.
“Yes, sir.” Louder.
Yes, sir.
You’ll whip Isaac? 20 lashes.
Josh closed his eyes.
Yes, sir.
He did it.
20 lashes while Isaac screamed and Sarah sobbed.
When it was over, Josh walked to the river and vomited.
That night, Sarah tried to comfort them.
“This is not on you,” she said.
“What happened today is not your fault.
It’s theirs.” But Josh and Zeke didn’t believe her.
They had crossed a line.
Had learned that love could be used as a weapon.
From that day forward, Thaddius Harrove had complete control over his giants.
He never had to threaten them directly.
He simply had to look towards Sarah.
And Josh and Zeke would fold immediately.
It happened again and again over the years.
Zeke once tried to stop an overseer from beating a pregnant woman.
Thaddius threatened to sell Sarah to the rice plantations in the lands.
Those plantations paid $800 to $1,000 for older women who could cook.
Sarah would bring maybe 600 given her age, but to Zeke, the threat was enough.
He stepped back.
Josh once questioned why they worked 16-hour days when everyone else worked 12.
It was a simple question, not angry, just curious.
Thaddius made Sarah stand in freezing December rain for 3 hours while Josh watched from the field.
She developed pneumonia.
The doctor’s visit cost Thaddius $5.
The medicine another three.
He considered it a worthwhile investment in maintaining control.
The system was perfect.
The two strongest men on the plantation, men valued at $3,000 each.
Men who represented $6,000 in walking, breathing assets were held in place by love, by their inability to sacrifice the one person they cared about more than their own freedom.
Josh and Zeke changed during those years between 1849 and 1857.
They spoke less, worked more, became the perfect slaves, model property, worth every dollar of their appraised value because they never caused trouble.
But inside, something was building.
8 years of rage, 8 years of humiliation, 8 years of watching injustice, and doing nothing because fighting back cost too much.
Sarah grew older and sicker.
By 1855, she was 53 and looked 70.
Her arthritis worsened.
Her back curved more.
A cough that started one winter never went away.
By 1857, she was 55 years old and failing.
She knew she was dying.
Could feel her body giving up piece by piece.
Strangely, it didn’t frighten her because dying meant her sons would be free.
not legally free, but free from the one chain that bound them.
She never said this out loud, but she thought about it.
August 14th, 1857 started like any other day.
Sarah woke before dawn and made her way to the main house kitchen.
She started preparing breakfast.
Cornbread, bacon, eggs, coffee.
Around 900 in the morning, she reached for a cast iron pot on a high shelf.
It was heavy, maybe 15 lb.
Her hands were shaking.
The pot slipped, crashed to the floor with a sound like thunder.
Hot coals scattered across the kitchen floor.
Sarah’s heart sank.
She knew what was coming.
She dropped to her knees, trying to gather the coals with her bare hands, apologizing to the empty room.
Thaddius heard the crash from his study.
He’d been drinking since breakfast, reviewing financial statements showing his debts mounting.
The crash gave him a reason to lash out.
He stormed into the kitchen.
You stupid old woman can’t even hold a simple pot.
I’m sorry, master.
My hands, they just I don’t want to hear excuses.
He grabbed her arm roughly.
I think you need a reminder about being careful with my property.
Sarah’s eyes went wide.
Please, sir.
It was an accident.
I’ll be more careful.
But Thaddius wasn’t listening.
He was thinking about the $1,200 he’d lost last week on a cotton deal, about his creditors demanding payment, about his mistress wanting a new dress that cost $80, about this old slave who was probably worth $50 at most now breaking his things.
“Crawford,” he shouted.
The overseer appeared within minutes.
Take her to the post.
50 lashes.
I want everyone to watch.
Crawford hesitated.
Sir, she’s old.
50 lashes might.
Did I ask your opinion? I pay you $450 a year to follow orders, not question them.
Yes, sir.
Sarah started shaking.
Master, please, I’ll work harder.
I’ll be more careful.
Please.
Thaddius slapped her.
Split her lip.
Get her out of my sight.
They took her to the whipping post in the yard, the same post where dozens had been punished.
Crawford tied her wrists to the iron ring at the top.
Her feet barely touched the ground.
He tore her dress down the back, exposing wrinkled skin marked with old scars.
Word spread fast.
Within minutes, everyone who wasn’t in distant fields had gathered.
Some looked away.
Others watched with blank expressions.
A few cried quietly.
Thaddius took the whip himself.
He wanted people to see.
Wanted them to understand that age didn’t earn mercy.
That you were never safe, never free, never human enough to be spared.
The first lash made Sarah gasp.
The second made her cry out.
By the 10th, she was screaming.
By the 20th, the screams became weaker.
By the 30th, she stopped making sound, her body just jerking with each impact.
Thaddius didn’t stop.
35, 40, 45, 50.
When he finally stepped back, breathing hard, Sarah hung limp.
Her back was destroyed.
Blood ran down her legs, pooling in the dirt.
Crawford checked her pulse, pressed his fingers to her neck.
Nothing.
She’s gone, sir.
Thaddius dropped the whip.
For a moment, something like awareness crossed his face.
Recognition that he just killed a $50 asset over a dropped pot that cost maybe $2.
Then the moment passed, replaced by annoyance.
Cut her down, bury her somewhere, get back to work.
He walked away, heading for more whiskey.
Nobody moved for a long moment.
Then someone said it.
Where are the twins? Josh and Zeke had been working in the south field almost a mile away, but they heard the screaming.
Something about this scream cut through everything.
Josh stopped mid swing.
That’s mama.
Zeke dropped his tools.
Can’t be.
But the screaming continued, getting weaker, definitely her voice.
Josh started running.
Zeke followed.
Two giants moving faster than seemed possible, covering a mile in minutes.
They arrived just as Crawford was checking her pulse.
Just as he said, “She’s gone, sir.” They stopped.
Just stopped dead.
Stood there staring.
Their mother’s body hanging from the post.
Back destroyed.
Blood everywhere.
That walking away like this was nothing.
Josh fell to his knees, moved forward, took his mother’s body from Crawford with trembling hands.
She felt so light, so small.
He touched her face, still warm in places.
He closed her eyes gently.
Zeke stood frozen, staring at the whipping post, at the blood on it, at Thaddius’s back as he walked away.
Something happened in that moment, something people would struggle to describe later, like watching something that had been asleep for 28 years finally wake up.
Josh stood up slowly, still holding his mother, turned toward the main house.
His good eye found Thaddius on the porch pouring another drink.
Zeke turned too.
Both giants stared at the man who just killed their mother over a dropped pot.
The chain was gone.
The weapon was destroyed.
Crawford sensed it first.
“That shift, that moment when everything changes.” He went for his pistol.
“Don’t move,” he said, voice shaking.
“Either of you, I’ll shoot.” Josh gently laid his mother on the ground, straightened her dress, folded her hands, then he stood up, all 7′ 7 in.
Zeke moved beside him, 7’6 of rage, finally finding a target.
On the porch, Thaddius felt real fear for the first time in years.
He’d always had Sarah, the weapon that controlled them.
Now that weapon was gone, he tried the old formula.
Your mother broke my property.
Actions have consequences.
Now get back to Josh started walking, not running, walking, slow, deliberate, straight toward Crawford.
Crawford fired.
The shot hit Josh in the left shoulder.
Blood bloomed.
Josh’s body jerked slightly.
Then he kept walking.
Crawford’s hand started shaking.
Stop.
I’ll shoot again.
But before he could fire, Zeke moved.
crossed the distance in three long strides and grabbed Crawford’s wrist.
Twisted, the bones snapped like dry wood.
Crawford screamed, dropped the gun.
Zeke grabbed his throat with the other hand, lifted him off the ground, squeezed.
The crack echoed across the yard.
Zeke dropped the body.
The other three overseers raised their weapons, but they were scared now.
Shaking, they fired wild.
One bullet grazed Josh’s side.
Another missed entirely.
The third hit the barnw wall.
Josh reached the nearest overseer before he could reload.
One hand grabbed the man’s head.
The other grabbed his chin.
Josh twisted.
The crack sounded like a gunshot.
The body dropped.
Zeke grabbed another overseer who was trying to run.
Lifted him by the neck, threw him at the barn wall.
The man’s body hit with such force the wood splintered.
He fell and didn’t move.
The last overseer dropped his weapon and ran.
Made it maybe 30 yards.
Zeke caught him in seconds, grabbed his ankles, swung him into a fence post.
The post snapped.
The man’s body wrapped around the broken wood at an impossible angle.
Four overseers dead in under two minutes.
The twins stood in the yard, Josh bleeding from his shoulder side, both covered in blood.
Then they looked at the main house at Thaddius on the porch, frozen in terror.
Josh and Zeke started walking toward him.
Thaddius ran inside, locked the door, shoved furniture against it, started screaming, begging.
Josh didn’t knock.
He grabbed the door frame with both hands and pulled.
The entire frame ripped from the wall.
They stepped through.
Inside, Thaddius had barricaded himself in his study.
Josh walked up to the door, placed both hands flat against it, pushed.
The door exploded inward.
The desk flipped.
The wall cracked.
They found Thaddius crouched in the corner, crying, holding a pistol he couldn’t load because his hands shook too much.
“Please,” he whispered.
“I’ll free you, both of you.
Write the papers right now.
Give you money.
all the money, just please.” Josh looked at him.
This man worth maybe $10,000 in assets after debts.
This man who’d controlled them for eight years, who just killed their mother over a $2 pot.
Josh reached down, grabbed Thaddius by the shirt, lifted him.
Josh, please.
I’m sorry about your mother.
I was drunk.
Didn’t mean to kill her.
We can work this out.
I’ll Josh hit him.
One punch broke Thaddius’s jaw.
The man’s begging turned to gurgling screams.
The twins carried him outside, through the destroyed house, past the bodies, past their mother lying in the dirt, across the yard toward the pine forest.
Thaddius tried to scream through his broken jaw, wet, bubbling sounds, called for help that wouldn’t come.
They disappeared into the trees.
His screaming got farther away, stopped, started again, different this time.
Pain, pure pain.
Sounds that made everyone look away.
As the sun set, they buried Sarah, wrapped her in clean cloth, dug a grave near the river, sang hymns.
Amazing grace, swing low, sweet chariot.
They cried for her and they waited.
The screaming from the woods stopped and started through the night.
Sometimes almost like words, sometimes just sounds.
It went on for hours.
Just before dawn, riders arrived.
Sheriff Coleman from Augusta.
12 men with him.
13 total counting the sheriff, hunters, trackers.
Armed with rifles and rope and confidence.
They surveyed the scene.
The dead overseers, the destroyed house, the forest where screaming still echoed weakly.
Two runaway slaves, Sheriff Coleman said, “Should be simple.
They’re wounded, tired.
We’ll have them by noon.” The slaves said nothing, watched as the 13 white men checked their weapons, and rode into the forest.
The old man whispered a prayer.
Not for the men, for what they would find.
Because Josh and Zeke weren’t running.
They were hunting.
And the men entering those woods had no idea that for the first time in their lives, they were prey.
