by John Jakes
He seemed to like working for Charles. Perhaps that was because there were about thirty different tribes scattered through Carolina, and most of them preyed on all the others; hence for the half-breed, who called himself King Sebastian, vocation and avocation became one.
King Sebastian had a villainous face, and like many other Indians, he enjoyed going about in white men’s finery. Today he wore filthy breeches that had once been pink silk, a brocaded bottle-green coat that hung open to show his huge chest running with sweat, and a great frowsy turban ornamented with paste jewels.
King Sebastian relished the work he was doing. Every so often he would jog his pony up beside the captives and jab one or more in the buttocks with his musket. Usually this produced hateful glares, at which times the half-breed liked to chuckle and utter a warning, as he did now: “Careful, little brother, or I will use this fire stick to make you less than a man.”
“And you be careful,” Charles said in French, having halted his pony to let the column straggle by. The scowls and glares of the captives were unusually ferocious, he noticed. “I’d like to deliver this lot to the vendue table intact, thank you very much.”
King Sebastian resented criticism. He took out his anger on the captives, lashing a laggard with a quirt he kept at his belt. Charles reluctantly let it pass.
The vendue table was the local name for the auction block. In this case it was a secret auction block, out in the country above Charles Town. The Indian slave trade had been illegal in the colony for several years, but it was a profitable business and still common.
What made it attractive was the relatively low risk. Charles’s prisoners, for example, had been snatched at gunpoint from a melon patch at twilight. The Cherokees were both warriors and farmers. When surprised in their fields in the foothills, they could be captured with relative ease. Of course danger was never completely absent.
Few Indians died on the trek to the coast, whereas large numbers of blacks imported from Africa via Bridgetown died on the long sea passage. Further, one couldn’t get into the African trade without owning ships, or at least some capital. All Charles owned was his little outpost, his pony, and his guns.
The heat increased. Clouds of tiny insects bedeviled the procession as it wound through the sand hills. The temperature and the dark smudge of woods on the distant horizon told Charles they were approaching the low-lying coastal plain. Another night plus half a day and they should reach the station, where he reluctantly left Jeanne alone each time he went on an expedition.
He was always on edge during these trips. Today, however, he was more than alert; he was nervous. He noticed the girl watching him again. Was she awaiting an opportune moment when she could signal the men to break away? He dropped back and rode beside King Sebastian the rest of the afternoon.
That night they built a campfire, not for warmth but to keep the insects away. King Sebastian took the first turn on watch.
Charles stretched out with his weapons arranged on his chest and closed his eyes. He began to speculate drowsily about rebuilding his fortune. Somehow he must change direction. He wasn’t making any money, only keeping even. Besides, the isolation of the trading station was no good for Jeanne, even in her sorry mental state. She deserved better, and he wanted to give it to her. He loved her deeply.
However, one couldn’t avoid practical considerations. If he did manage to rebuild his estate, who would inherit it? His poor wife, to whom he had remained faithful—it was the only point of decency left in his life—was not only mad, she was barren.
He was nearly asleep when a clink of chain roused him. His eyes came open at the moment King Sebastian uttered his shout of warning.
The half-breed had fallen asleep too; that much was evident from his seated position and the frenzied way he struggled to aim his musket. The eight Indians, their ankle and wrist chains stretched to full length between them, were rushing toward their captors in a line. The girl, third from the right, was dragged along. She was the one forced to leap directly over the fire.
Terrified, Charles grabbed one of the pistols off his belly. Christ Jesus, don’t let the powder be damp from the night air. The pistol didn’t fire. He snatched up the other one.
The Cherokee at the left end of the file had armed himself with a stone. He hurled this at King Sebastian, who was trying to get to his knees and aim his musket at the same time. The half-breed dodged; the stone hit his right temple, not much of a blow, but when his musket boomed, the ball went hissing harmlessly into the dark.
The brave near Charles drove his bare foot down toward his captor’s throat—and would have smashed it if Charles hadn’t rolled onto his left side, raised his right hand, and pulled the trigger. The second pistol fired. The ball went up through the underside of the Indian’s chin and lifted part of the top of his head.
That terrible sight broke the revolt, though the fight didn’t stop immediately. Charles was forced to shoot a second Indian, and King Sebastian killed another with his musket before the other four dragged the girl and the corpses away. The hair of one of the dead men scraped through the embers, smoked, and caught fire.
Charles was trembling. He was sooty with dirt and powder, and spattered with the blood and brain from the first Indian’s head. For supper he had chewed pieces of heavily salted deer meat, which now refused to stay in his stomach.
When he returned from the brush, he found an obviously shaken King Sebastian quirting the braves who were still alive. The half-breed had removed the three dead men from the chain, but he hadn’t bothered with the keys to the cuffs. He had used his knife. Somewhere out in the dark, huge black buzzards were already pecking at the corpses.
The half-breed jerked the girl’s head up by the hair. “I think the bitch needs punishment, too.”
For a moment, gazing down at the sagging bodice of her hide dress, Charles had a clear look at her brown breasts. The sight touched him. Her breasts looked ripe and full of life. Watching King Sebastian warily, she shifted position. The dress fell in place and hid her body.
Charles caught the half-breed’s wrist in midair. In the firelight his blood-streaked face resembled a Cherokee brave’s painted for war.
“You’re the one who needs punishment,” Charles said. “You’re the one who dozed on watch.”
King Sebastian looked as if he might turn on his employer. Charles continued to stare at him. Although the girl didn’t understand the tall man’s French, she understood his meaning. She didn’t dare smile. But there was a flicker of gratitude in her eyes.
A minute passed. Another. The half-breed slapped at a gnat on his neck and looked away. And that settled it.
Except that it didn’t. The incident had profoundly shaken Charles. Even after his watch, when King Sebastian again took over, he couldn’t fall asleep. The brush with death kept reminding him of his lack of sons. Three brothers had died in infancy. One sister had disappeared over the Pyrenees at the start of the time of trouble. He was the last of his line.
When he finally fell asleep, he had strange dreams in which images of the fertile fields of the Cherokees were mixed with visions of the Indian girl’s breasts.
Early the next afternoon they reached the trading station on the Cooper, one of two rivers named for Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, who was one of the original Proprietors.
Jeanne was safe and well. She and Charles walked for half an hour on the riverbank. He kept his arm around her. She babbled childish things while they watched a white heron perch on one leg in the shallows. She deserved better than this. She deserved a fine house, the protection of servants.
In the morning he made preparations to depart for the coast. He intended to leave around noon, with the Indians and some bundles of pelts he had accumulated to trade. On the trip to the secret vendue table he would, as always, avoid the main trails where he and his human contraband might be seen.
A half hour before his departure, Jeanne came rushing into the post with excited cries. He cou
ld make no sense of her warnings, but King Sebastian soon appeared, looking frightened. The half-breed struggled to find the right words in French.
“Who’s coming?” Charles interrupted. “Gentlemen? Nabobs? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
The frightened Indian nodded and held up one hand with all the fingers extended. “Lot of them.” Charles’s bowels turned watery.
They rushed the slaves to the outbuilding, which was constructed of palmetto logs and cypress planks. Frantically, Charles chained the four men and the girl in one of the pony stalls while King Sebastian tied rags around their mouths. If the prisoners made any outcry, the slaving operation would be discovered and he’d be lost.
The glaring eyes of his captives told him they hoped it would happen. On Charles’s instruction, the half-breed checked all the gags a second time.
To make matters worse, the leader of the party of visitors was a member of the colony’s governing council, an elegant Englishman named Moore. He was traveling into what he termed the “demmed pestilential back country” with four Negro servants, one of whom had some skill in surveying. Moore was looking for land for a summer residence away from the fever-ridden coast.
Moore stayed three hours. Charles was in a state of barely concealed nerves the whole time. Once he heard a thump and a rattle of chain from the outbuilding, but Moore, talking at the time, did not.
When one of the servants spied chains and cuffs under his serving counter, Charles had to do some fast talking. “Took them in trade for a gun,” he lied. “From a suspicious fellow who claimed he was bound for Virginia. Last autumn, it was—”
Moore didn’t give the chains and manacles a second look. With typical arrogance the Englishman occupied himself with a stream of criticism of the weather, the primitive countryside, and the New World in general. By four, when it was slightly cooler, he and his party rode on. Charles poured a heavy drink of warm gin, swallowed it in two gulps, hugged Jeanne, and hurried to the outbuilding.
King Sebastian stood guard at the door. Inside, Charles found the four men directing furious looks at the girl. Her gag had slipped down around her neck. She could have cried out.
She stared at Charles with the same intense gaze, and he at last understood. Perhaps he had understood all along but had been prevented from admitting it by guilt and thoughts of Jeanne. He turned abruptly and hurried out into the steamy sunshine.
Things were growing too dangerous in the Indian slave trade. The conviction stayed with him when he made a belated start next morning. It accompanied him along the swampy trails of the low country, and it was still with him, a hobgoblin riding his shoulder, when he reached the coast.
The clearing was located outside the palisade surrounding Charles Town. The site had been carefully chosen. It was not so close as to be easily detected, not so far as to represent an unduly dangerous trip after dark. It could be reached by riding up the shore of the Cooper River for about ten minutes. In the clearing there gathered half a dozen men Charles silently characterized as Anglican snobs. They were planters from the district, all struggling to find a cash crop whose profits would fulfill their original dreams of Carolina. So far the search had been a failure. The colony was a losing enterprise.
Nevertheless, they persisted in pretending their life was ideal in most respects. They chatted over the latest gossip of the town. They complimented Charles on his offering, though they didn’t stand too close to him while doing so. His smell, as well as his lineage, offended them.
Torches driven into the sandy ground shed a smoky light on the vendue table of split palmetto logs. An auctioneer, another eminently respectable gentleman, handled the bidding in return for a small percentage of the total sale. In town Charles had heard the man prate about the evils of Indian slavery. Such talk was common. Most of those present had owned at least one Indian in the past. What they really objected to was not the immorality of enslaving other human beings but possible impairment of trade with the Indians should the tribes ever unite to protest the practice. The white men also feared an Indian uprising.
But that didn’t prevent them from showing up tonight. Stinking hypocrites, Charles thought.
One by one the four males were sold. Each brought a successively higher price. Charles stood to one side, his resentment easing as he puffed a clay pipe and contemplated his profit.
He listened to conversations. One man spoke of sending his new purchase to the West Indies for what he termed “seasoning.” Breaking the slave’s spirit was what he meant. A second gentleman discussed new land grants being made along nearby rivers and creeks.
“Yes, but what’s the use of owning land if you can’t pay your quitrent and there’s no crop that’s accepted in lieu of cash?”
“Maybe there is such a crop now,” the first man said. He displayed a plump little sack.
The others crowded around, curious. Even Charles drifted up to listen; the auction was stalled while the man with the sack answered a question put to him.
“This is seed. From Madagascar. The same kind of seed that’s growing so well in those overwatered gardens in town.”
A man pointed, excited. “Is that some of the rice Captain Thurber gave Dr. Woodward last year?” Thurber was captain of a brigantine that had put into Charles Town for repairs; Charles had heard the story of some rice brought ashore.
The man with the sack tucked it safely away in his pocket. “Aye. It thrives in wet ground. Nay—demands it, Many in town are agog over the possibilities. There’s a rush for land all at once. And a feeling that a profitable use has been found for these benighted lowlands.”
The doubter had another question: “Yes, but what white man could stand to work in swamps and marshes?”
“Not a one, Manigault. It will take men accustomed to intense heat and nearly unbearable conditions.” The speaker paused for effect. “Africans. Many more than we have in the colony now, I warrant.”
In France, Charles Main had suffered for his religion. But the hypocrisy of schemers like Emilion, and the cruelty inflicted on Jeanne, had all but destroyed the faith that had dragged him into the ordeal in the first place.
His own will, not some supernatural power, had sustained him under the hot irons of the torturers. So, although he still harbored a vague belief in a Supreme Being, his picture of that Being had changed. God was indifferent. He had no benevolent plan for the cosmos or its creatures; very likely He had no plan at all. It therefore behooved a man to rely solely upon himself. It was all right to give God a courteous nod now and then, as you would a doddering uncle. But when it came to shaping the future, a wise man took matters into his own hands.
And yet, in that firelit clearing in the midst of a vast, dense wood that reeked of damp earth and rang with the cries of birds, a curious thing happened to Charles. He felt his old beliefs surge up with unexpected strength. For one intense moment he felt the presence of some outside force that had willed he survive the past couple of years in order to reach this place at this precise instant.
In that instant he set a new course. He wouldn’t put a shilling of his earnings back into trade goods for the station. Whatever it cost to consult one of those twisty lawyers, he would pay, in order to learn how he might secure a grant of land down here, closer to the sea. He would investigate what he had just heard about the Madagascar seed. He was, first and foremost, a man who had worked the land. If he could raise grapes, he could raise rice.
But the labor did present a problem. He knew the inhospitable nature of these lowlands. He wouldn’t last a month working waist-deep in the water that bore disease, not to mention alligators, on its slow, serpentine tides.
The answer was obvious. A Negro slave. Two, if his earnings would stretch that far.
With the warped logic of someone who knows he is guilty and must find a way to prove otherwise, Charles had always considered himself a man who sold slaves without endorsing the system. Deep in him something recoiled from the whole process. Moreover, he never saw
what actually happened to the Indians he caught and sold. Perhaps—the ultimate saving sophistry—kindly owners later freed them.
Now, however, conscience had to abdicate completely. He himself had to own at least one prime African buck. It was a matter of economics. Of opportunity. Of survival.
A man did what he must.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” exclaimed the auctioneer. “Too much talk diverts us from the choicest offering of the night.”
Mounting the table, he raised the hide garment so that the girl’s private parts were visible. The men were suddenly attentive.
A man did what he must. That same rule applied to the problem of heirs, Charles realized. If he was to rebuild his fortune in Carolina—and at last he had a glimmer of hope, something he had lacked for year—she had to accept certain realities. He had no intention of leaving his beloved Jeanne. At the same time he could no longer be overly scrupulous about fidelity.
“Gentlemen, who will begin the bidding for this comely tribal maiden? Who will give me a price of—?”
“Stop.” With outward thrusts of his hands, Charles parted the group of men ahead of him.
“What’s that, Main?” said the auctioneer, while the gentlemen Charles had pushed dusted their sleeves and sneered behind his back. He might be a Protestant, but he was also a churl. What else would you expect of a Frenchman?
Standing as straight as he ever had, Charles stared down the surprised, faintly annoyed auctioneer.
“I’ve changed my mind. She is not for sale.”
Slowly he looked to the girl. The auctioneer let her garment fall. Her large eyes were fixed on Charles. She understood.
He knew better than to try to stay the night at a Charles Town lodging house. Not even the most sordid of them, down near the point of the peninsula where the two rivers met and flowed into the ocean, would welcome a white man with an Indian woman who was obviously not his slave.