A Different Drummer

by William Melvin Kelley

  Already some folks standing on the dock could see the captain looked kind of sick. “Fine, excepting we had one real ornery son of a bitch. Had to chain him up, alone, away by himself.”

  “Let’s have a look at him,” said the auctioneer. The Negro behind him nodded, which he did every time the auctioneer spoke, so that he looked like he was a ventriloquist, and the auctioneer was his dummy, either that way or the other way around.

  “Not yet. God damn! I’ll bring him up after the rest of them niggers is off the boat. Then we can all hold him down. Damn!” He put his hand up to his brow, and that’s when folks with good eyes could see the oily blue mark on his head like somebody spat axle grease on him and he hadn’t had time yet to wipe it off. “God damn!” he said again.

  Well, of course folks was getting real anxious, not just out of common interest like usual, but to see this son of a bitch that was causing all the trouble.

  Dewitt Willson was there too. He hadn’t come to see the boat, or even to buy slaves. He was there to pick up a grandfather clock. He was building himself a new house outside of Sutton and he’d ordered this clock from Europe and he wanted it to come as fast as possible, and the fastest way was for it to come by slaver. He’d heard how carrying things on a slaver was seven kinds of bad luck, but still, because he was so anxious to get the clock, he let them send it that way. The clock rode in the captain’s cabin and was all padded up with cotton, and boxed in, and crated around, and wadded secure. And he’d come to get it, bringing in a wagon to carry it out to his house and surprise his wife with it.

  Dewitt and everybody was waiting, but first the crew went down and cracked their whips and herded this long line of Negroes out of the hold. The women had breasts hanging most down to their waists, and some carried black babies. The men, their faces was all twisted up sullen as the inside of lemons. Most all the slaves was bone-naked and they stood on the deck, blinking; none of them had seen the sun in a long time. The auctioneer and his Negro walked up and down the row, as always, inspecting teeth, feeling muscles, looking over the goods, you might say. Then the auctioneer said, “Well, let’s bring up this troublemaker, what say.”

  “No, sir!” yelled the captain.

  “Why not?”

  “I told you. I don’t want him brung up until the rest of these niggers is off the boat.”

  “Yes, surely,” said the auctioneer, but looked sort of blank. And so did his Negro.

  The captain rubbed that shining grease-spot wound. “Don’t you understand? He’s their chief. If he says the word we’ll have more trouble here than God has followers. I had enough already!” And he rubbed that spot again.

  The crewmen pushed them Negroes down the gangplank and the folks on the dock stepped out of the way and watched them go by. Them Negroes even smelled angry, having been crammed together, each of them with no more room to himself than a baby in a crib. They was dirty, and mad, and ready for a fight. So the captain sent down some crewmen with rifles to keep them company. And the other crewmen, twenty or thirty there was, they just stood on deck fidgeting and shuffling. Folks on the dock knew right off what was the matter: them crewmen was afraid. You could see it in their eyes. All them grown men scared of whatever was down in the hold of that boat chained to the wall.

  The captain looked sort of scared himself and fingered his wound and sighed and said to his mate: “I reckon you might as well go down there and get him.” And to the twenty or thirty men standing around: “You go down there with him—all of you. Maybe you can manage.”

  Folks held their breath like youngsters at a circus waiting for a high-wire fellow to make it to his nest, because even if an old deaf-blind lady had-a been standing on that dock, she would-a known there was something down in the hold that was getting ready to make an appearance. Everybody got quiet and over the waves slapping against the hull they could hear all them crewmen tramping downstairs, the whole swarm of them in heavy bro-gans, taking their time about informing that thing in the hold it was wanted on deck.

  Then, out of the bottom of the ship, way off in some dark place, came this roar, louder’n a cornered bear or maybe two bears mating. It was so loud the sides of the boat bulged out. They all knew it was from one throat since there wasn’t no blending, just one loud sound. And then, right in front of their eyes, in the side of the boat, way down near the water line, they saw a hole tear open, and splinters fly, splashing like when you toss a handful of pebbles into a pond. There was a lot of muffled fighting, pushing, and hollering going on, and after a while this fellow staggered on deck with blood dripping from his head. “God damn—if he ain’t pulled his chain outen the wall of the boat,” he says. And everybody stared at that hole again, and didn’t take note that the crewman had just passed on from a cracked skull.

  Well sir, you can believe that folks got into close knots for protection in case that thing in the bottom of the ship should somehow get loose and start a-raging through the peaceful town of New Marsails. Then it got sort of quiet again, even on the inside of the ship, and folks leaned forward, listening. They heard chains dragging and then they saw the African for the first time.

  To begin with, they seen his head coming up out of the gangway, and then his shoulders, so broad he had to climb those stairs sideways; then his body began, and long after it should-a stopped it was still coming. Then he was full out, skin-naked except for a rag around his parts, standing at least two heads taller than any man on the deck. He was black and glistened like the captain’s grease-spot wound. His head was as large as one of them kettles you see in a cannibal movie and looked as heavy. There was so many chains hung on him he looked like a fully trimmed Christmas tree. But it was his eyes they kept looking at; sunk deep in his head they was, making it look like a gigantic black skull.

  There was something under his arm. At first they thought it was a tumor or growth and didn’t pay it no mind, and it wasn’t until it moved all by itself and they noticed it had eyes that they saw it was a baby. Yes sir, a baby tucked under his arm like a black lunch box, just peeping out at everybody.

  So now they’d seen the African, and they stepped back a little as if the distance between him and them wasn’t at all far enough, as if he could reach out over the railing of the ship, and down at them and pop off their heads with a flick of his fingers. But he was quiet now, not blinking in the sun like them others, just basking like it was his very own and he’d ordered it to come out and shine on him.

  Dewitt Willson just stared. It was hard to tell what he was thinking but some folks said they heard him saying slowly to himself over and over again: “I’ll own him. He’ll work for me. I’ll break him. I have to break him.” They said he just stared and talked to himself.

  And the auctioneer’s Negro, he just stared too. But he wasn’t mumbling or talking. Folks said he just looked like he was pricing something—looking at the African from head to toe and adding totals: so much for the head and the brain; so much for the build and the muscles; so much for the eyes—making notes on a piece of paper with a crayon.

  The captain had yelled down to his men to get them Negroes over to the auction place, a mound of dirt in the center of New Marsails in what is now Auction Square. Some men cleared a way and some others came down off the boat and started pushing the line of chained Negroes. Then came all the people on the dock who was going over to the Square to see what the going price for a good slave was on that day, like folks read the stock market reports nowadays, and more important, to see how much the African would sell for. And after they’d gone away some, came the African and his escort, twenty men at least, each holding a chain so he looked like a Maypole with all the men around him in a circle staying a good healthy distance out of his reach.

  When they got to the Square they pulled them other Negroes way off to one side and the African and his attendants went right up on the hill. Then the auctioneer, with his Negro behind him those same three steps, s
tarted his selling:

  “Now folks, you see here before you about the most magnificent piece of property any man’d ever want to own. Note the height, the breadth, the weight; note the extraordinary muscular development, the regal bearing. This is a chief so he’s got to have great leadership ability. He’s gentle with children as you may be able to see there under his arm. True, he’s capable of destruction, but I maintain this is merely a sign of his ability to get a job done. I don’t think you need any proof of all I say; just to look at him is proof enough. Why, if I didn’t own him already, and if I had a farm or a plantation, I’d sell half my land and all my slaves just to scrape up enough money to buy him to work the other half. But I do own him, and I don’t have any land. That’s my problem. I can’t use him; I don’t need him; I got to get rid of him. And that’s where you come in, friends. One of you has to take him off my hands. I’ll pay you for that kindness. Yes, sir! Don’t let anybody tell you I’m not grateful for the good turns my friends do for me. What I’ll do is this: I’ll toss right in this deal, at two for the price of one, that little baby he’s got under his arm.”

  (Now some folks said they found out later the auctioneer had to make that deal, since it was the captain who’d tried in the first place to get that baby from the African, and that’s how come he’d got his head smashed. So I reckon the auctioneer couldn’t very well sell them two as separate items without having to kill one to get the other.)

  “Now, you know that’s a bargain,” he was going on to say, “because that baby will grow up to be just like his daddy. So now just picture it: when this here man gets too old to work, you’ll have his spitting image all set to take over for him.

  “I reckon you must know I’m not very sharp when it comes to prices and costs, but I’d say right off this here worker shouldn’t go for less than five hundred dollars. What say, Mister Willson, you figure he’s worth that much?”

  Dewitt Willson didn’t answer, didn’t say nothing, just reached into his pocket and pulled out one thousand cash, as calm as you’d pick lint off a suit, walked halfway up the hill and handed that money to the auctioneer.

  The auctioneer rapped his green derby against his knee. “Sold!”

  Nobody, not even folks what claims to-a seen it, is really certain about what happened next. It must-a been them crewmen, who was still holding all them chains, relaxed when they saw all that money, because the African spun around once and nobody was holding nothing except maybe a fist full of blood and skin where them chains had rushed through like a buzz saw. And now the African was holding all them chains, had gathered them up like a woman grabs up her skirts climbing into an auto, and right off he started for the auctioneer like he understood what that man was saying and doing, which could not-a been since he was African and likely spoke that gibberish them Africans use. But leastways, he did go after the auctioneer and some folks swears, though not all, that, using his chains, he sliced his head off—derby and all—and that the head sailed like a cannon ball through the air a quarter mile, bounced another quarter mile and still had up enough steam to cripple a horse some fellow was riding into New Marsails. Fellow came into town babbling about having to shoot his horse after its leg got splintered by a flying head wearing a green derby.

  Some strange things happened just then. The auctioneer’s Negro, who’d taken a step or two back when the African got loose and didn’t seem to take notice of the headless auctioneer except to make certain he didn’t have no blood splattered on him to ruin his clothes, he ran up to the African, who was just standing near the body which hadn’t even had time to fall yet, and grabbed his arm and pointed and started yelling: “This way! This way!”

  I reckon the African didn’t really understand but he knew the Negro was trying to help him and started out in the direction the Negro was pointing, and the Negro followed him just like he’d followed the auctioneer, a distance of three steps back, and the African ran down off the hill though he must-a been carrying close to three hundred pounds of chains on him, swinging them, breaking seven or eight arms and a leg, carving himself and the Negro a path through the townspeople of New Marsails. Some men raised rifles and took aim, and maybe could-a hit them (not saying, mind you, they could-a stopped the African), but Dewitt Willson ran up on the hill like a crazy man, and got between the men and the African and Negro, screaming all the while: “Don’t shoot my property! I’ll sue! That’s my property!” And by that time the African was out of range and heading south into the swamps at the end of town. So the men and Dewitt got horses and more rifles and after a while set out after him.

  The African was traveling pretty fast (he must-a been carrying not only his baby and the chains but the Negro too because I don’t see how that small Negro could-a kept up), and Dewitt and the men might-a never trailed him except that he went straight through the woods and swamps and left this trail of torn-up bushes, grass, and small trees where them chains had caught on things and he’d pulled them right out of the ground, heading straight for the sea. They just set out on this trail, wide enough for two horses to go abreast, as straight as a plumb line, and followed it through the swamp, right down to the sand and into the water. That’s where it stopped.

  The men figured the African must-a just tried to swim back home (some said he could-a made it—chains, baby and all) and that auctioneer’s Negro must-a lit out on his own, and now they was sort of tired and wanted to go home and forget about it, but Dewitt was sure the African wasn’t gone, not swimming, and was coming back, and got the men to look up and down the beach for some sign. They did, and a half mile down the beach they found two sets of tracks going into the woods.

  Right about now it got hard for Dewitt Willson to get men to help him chase his property. First of all, it was getting dark. Second of all, there wasn’t no wide trail like before because the African must-a been holding them chains off the ground so they wouldn’t catch on anything, like a little girl holds up her skirts around her waist when she goes wading. So the men just naturally cooled down when it came to tracking a wild man through the woods at night when, at best, it would be hard to see him and when you couldn’t be sure where he was, and he could pay you a visit and slice off your head even before you knew he was calling. So they camped on the beach, and some men went for supplies and at daybreak they took out after him again.

  But that one night was all the time the African and the auctioneer’s Negro needed and it was going to be harder than ever to catch him now because when they came into a clearing about a mile into the woods, shining in the sun was a pile of broken stones, and links, and bracelets where the African had spent the night cleaning them off himself. So now he was loose, free of his chains, and was somewhere in the area. He was so big and so fast you didn’t dare make a guess at where he might be, since folks began to realize he could-a been anywhere within a distance of a hundred miles. But Dewitt, with fewer men now, kept going and tracked his property for two weeks, halfway to where Willson City is now, and back, which is a total of two hundred miles, and all along the Gulf Coast almost to Mississippi and the other way into Alabama, and finally, those men still with Dewitt noticed he was looking sort of funny. He didn’t sleep at all, or eat, spent twenty-four hours a day on his horse and was talking to himself, saying: “I’ll catch you…I’ll catch you…I’ll catch you.” And then, nearly a month after the African got away, in which time Dewitt hadn’t been home at all, while the men watched, he keeled off his horse and didn’t wake up until they’d taken him home in a litter to his plantation and he’d slept in a featherbed for another week. His wife told folks he kept right on talking to himself and when he did wake up, he came up screaming: “But I am. I’m worth a thousand too! I am!”

  Now the African changed his tactics.

  One afternoon Dewitt and his wife was sitting on their front porch. Dewitt was trying to get back his strength by sipping something cool and taking in the sun. And up the front lawn, dressed in African cl
othes of bright colors, with a spear and a shield, comes the African, bearing down on the house like he was a train and it was a tunnel and he was going right through—which he did, on out the back door, across the back lawn to the slave quarters, where he freed every last one of Dewitt’s Negroes and led them off into the dark of the woods before Dewitt could even set down his glass and get up out of his chair.

  Well, if that wasn’t enough, the next night almost the same thing happened to a fellow east of New Marsails. He came into town and told everybody about it: “I was sleeping peaceful when I heared this noise outside down by the slave cabins. God damn, when I rushed to the window if I didn’t see all my niggers heading into the woods behind a man who was as big anyways as a black horse on its hind legs. And there was another one too,” the fellow went on, “never more than a few steps behind the big one, waving his arms and telling my niggers what to do and where to go.”

  Even though he was still ailing, Dewitt Willson came into town and stood up in front of a big meeting they was holding to try and solve the problem and said: “Now I swear to you, I’m not going home until I can take the African or what’s left of him with me. And let everybody know this: white or black, anybody who can give me news that’ll help me catch the African will be walking around the next day with a thousand of my dollars in his pocket.” And that news spread like the smell of cooking cabbage, spread all up and down the region so that years after, if you’d gone into Tennessee and mentioned you was from down this way, somebody’s ask: “Say, who did get Dewitt Willson’s thousand?”