Calling Forth

Western North Carolina, 1840
Late one night, after everyone at Dark Level Farm slept, Gabriel stepped outside the slave cabin he shared with his wife, Oglatha. His footsteps were muffled by heavy rain as he walked to the nearby shed. A blanket’s coarse wet wool raked Gabriel’s naked shoulders. Though only in his thirties, his back was already bent from years of fieldwork. Nearby he heard sounds, cloaked in the shadows of wet leaves, of those beasts that were still wild, hunting, their hungry tongues licking sharpened teeth …

Gabriel entered the small tool shed behind the barn. Inside, the damp air hung close with the blood taste of iron. He drew in a deep lung-full and rubbed his short beard, already flecked with gray. His footprints quickly vanished into the fine silt of the dirt floor. Rising up before him was his shrine to Ogún, the greatest of warriors…