Slave (The Shame & Glory Saga)

by Mundis, Jerrold

  SLAVE

  by

  Jerrold Mundis

  Books Available on Kindle

  by Jerrold Mundis:

  NOVELS

  The Retreat

  Best Offer

  - The Shame & Glory Saga -

  Slave Ship

  Book I

  Slave

  Book II

  The Long Tattoo

  Book III

  (May 2012)

  Helbottom

  Book IV

  (June 2012)

  Running Dogs

  Book V

  (July 2012)

  ~

  Several more to come by August 2012, including:

  Gerhardt’s Children

  The Dogs

  & more

  NONFICTION

  - For Writers -

  Break Writer’s Block Now!

  - On Personal Money-

  How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously

  Earn What You Deserve: How to Stop Underearning and Start Thriving

  Making Peace with Money

  SLAVE

  Jerrold Mundis

  Copyright © 1967, 2012 by Jerrold Mundis

  (Originally published under the pseudonym Robert Calder)

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No material in this book may be copied or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without the express written consent of the author, except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

  Kindle Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, other than through the Kindle lending program, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you would like to share it. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it through the Kindle lending program, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  * * *

  Publication History

  Print editions:

  Parallax Press, New York, 1967.

  Pocket Books, New York 1968.

  Kindle edition:

  Wolf River Press, New York, 2012.

  * * *

  This is for Stowe Hausner, in memory

  an abolitionist of sorts

  * * *

  As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, They kill us for their sport.

  —King Lear

  BOOK I

  JUD LAY MOTIONLESS ON the dirt floor. He stared at the high ceiling, blinking only after long intervals. He was listening to the grumbled angry mutterings and the occasional hoarse shouts, the sound of hammers driving nails into platforms as hasty repairs were made, infrequent horse whinnies and snorts, and a blacksmith’s sledge ringing against an anvil. The market was stretching, coming to life.

  Jud flexed, then relaxed, then flexed again the muscles of his right arm. The arm was asleep. Around its wrist was an iron shackle that was attached by eight links of chain to the shackle circling the left wrist of the slave beside him. Jud scratched the itching skin around the edges of the iron. His partner was awake, but neither of them spoke. No one spoke. There were only a few groans, a few coughs.

  Fear crouched in the strong-walled shed: muzzle twitching, tail lashing the floor. Jud could sense it. Could smell its breath.

  When you get sold in Memphis, you get sold down South. And when you get sold down South . . .

  Jud wondered what it would be like to be afraid. He had been once, at least he now thought that he had, and he tried to remember it. He couldn’t. He saw scenes, but the scenes evoked nothing in him save a vague and ill-defined sense of loss. His mother, Tui. Could that be right? He’d been so very small when he was sold away from her to Tiligman. The name sounded strange to his ears, Tui, but it was what had stayed with him. He remembered that she wore a bright yellow turban. And that she was very black, like darkness when the moon is behind clouds. He had never seen his father, and his father had never seen him. His mother had told him his father had been a warrior and a leader of men. They’d been stolen away, she said, from a place where there were no white men or slaves. That was hard to believe. His mother and father had been lost to each other. Jud did not know if he remembered it right or not. Or if any of it was true. Many niggers did not know who their fathers were, and sometimes they told wild stories of princes, presidents, and kings. Adoko. Osai Adoko. That was the name his mother, who was called Tui, he thought, had told him—he thought. Maybe.

  He stopped trying to remember. There was so little. And it didn’t mean anything anyway.

  There was a grating sound as the crossbar was pulled free on the other side of the thick oak door. Then the door swung in and a man in shirtsleeves carrying a coiled bullwhip and wearing knee-high leather boots entered. From the brightness of the light that silhouetted the man, Jud reckoned it to be well past dawn. Eight, possibly eight-thirty. The buyers would be arriving soon.

  “All right, nigguhs,” the man shouted, “wake up! That’s it, ever’ one of you. Lord Almighty, but it stinks in here. Wake up!

  “Now listen, cause if’n you don’, you gonna have the miseries the rest of your natural-born days. Hear? Not jus’ from no whuppin’ you get this afternoon, but ever’ day from when your masta club you outta bed to when you drag your busted ass back to sleep. But if’n you listen, you not gonna have no miseries. No, you gonna have easy work and delights fo’ the rest of your days. You gonna have warm clothes in the winter, and meat with your mush three times—maybe more—each week, and you gonna have a masta that give you no laborin’ on Sunday and that ain’t hardly gonna beat you at all.

  “Now, any of you hankerin’ to know jus’ how you gonna get all this?”

  There was a shifting of chains and limbs. Heads bobbed.

  “Yes, Masta!” someone called, and it was as if he had pulled the lever which opened the floodgates.

  The silence was drowned in a babble of voices.

  The white man raised his whip. “Enuff. Enuff there. Then what you do is get them gennelmen who’ll be lookin’ and biddin’ on you to think you the best, the soundest, and the strongest nigguh they ever did see. You don’ make no trouble. You stand tall and you stand strong. You get you’self a masta who gonna pay a lot of money fo’ you. Because that’s the gennelman who gonna value you and treat you good.

  “But if’n you don’ look good and a man buy you cheap, why he gonna treat you cheap and work you like to kill you. And he gonna tear meat off you fo’ no more’n scratchin’ a fly outta your wool.”

  He flicked the whip backward and lashed out and cracked the splayed tip against a board ten feet distant, ripping away a long splinter.

  “But if any of you frets me, there ain’t gonna be enuff left fo’ me to sell. Unnerstan’?”

  They did. Very well.

  They were taken out in groups of ten to be washed, greased, and auctioned off. Since the shed in which Jud was enclosed was only one of four bins of male slaves, he wasn’t called until midafternoon. The day moved slowly, and the worsening tempers of the auctioneer and his assistants testified that it was a hard day. The new cotton cycle was about to begin, and planters needed good strong field hands. The bidding on likely-looking bucks was spirited. But the chief auctioneer refused to run through his prime stock in a lump. This would have lost him his best buyers. They’d make their purchases quickly and leave, and the auctioneer would have to sweat for every penny he managed to drag out of the tight-fisted men who remained
. So he spaced his merchandise, refusing to offer the next group of bucks until he’d sold a group of the old or very young, those who were infirm and those who were sickly, and the females—which were not in much demand this day. The system was hard on nerves and tempers, particularly since many of the buyers had skipped lunch so as not to miss a good bargain and were uncomfortable, but prices were high, and occasionally the auctioneer could needle a man into buying an inferior slave out of sheer impatience.

  As the shed emptied, those who remained grew progressively more talkative. Sometimes Jud listened to them, without any real interest, but mostly he did not. He could do simple sums, and so he occupied himself for a while by counting the number of slaves in the shed and by subtracting the number removed each time the white men came.

  “I goan be sold up North,” announced a slim man with yellowish eyes. “My masta goan take me up to Richman’. That in Virginy where I birthed.” He lowered his voice. “A big white man goan see me there. A big white man who talk partic’lar like they does in the Bible. And he goan steal me ‘way. Him an’ his white fren’s. They goan make me free.”

  “You crazy, nigguh. You been hit in the haid.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ goan make you free ‘cept a grave.”

  “You hush that, nigguh. They hear you talk moon-crazy an’ they bloody us all.”

  “It true,” the thin man protested. “I got me a charm,” he said smugly. “I paid a witchlady a whole silvuh dolla’ fo’ it.” Around his neck was a thong. He dipped his hand beneath his shirt and held out the charm for the scrutiny of those nearest him. It was a curved, polished piece of sassafras root studded in a cabalistic design with tiny colored bead fragments.

  “Lemme see.” A greedy voice, a grasping hand.

  The thin man thrust the charm back under his shirt. “No, suh. That my ticket to freedom. Ain’t nobody touch it.”

  “Whut you goan do when you free?”

  “Whut I goan do?”

  “Yes. Whut it really mean to be free?”

  The slim man scratched his head. “Well, it mean . . . it mean nobody goan whup you for nothin’.”

  “An’ it mean you kin sleep all day if’n you want,” volunteered another man.

  “How you goan eat if’n you doan work?”

  “Why, you gets nigguhs of yo’ own, an’ they does all the work.”

  “You git a little land,” said Jud’s partner, “an’ you grow a little cotton an’ some greeneries. You work some ever’ day and you does ‘zactly whut you wants with the rest of your time.” He pulled against the chain that bound him to Jud. “Ain’t that right?”

  “I don’ know,” Jud said. “I’m not free. I don’ know what it means.” Then he closed his eyes, cushioned his head with his left arm, and thought about nothing.

  The thin man and Jud were taken out in the same group. They were marched, ten of them, to the smithy. A grizzled old black man was working the smith’s bellows. Jud thought about the plantation that had been his home for some sixteen cotton seasons. He didn’t miss it. Nor was he glad to be gone. What he felt was for Diggs, not the plantation. Diggs, the stoop-shouldered, withered old groom with glistening black patches of skin showing through his white wool.

  Diggs had taught Jud reading, and some writing. Diggs was too old to be a groom any longer. Tiligman sold him to a man who never said just what he wanted to use the old man for. Jud was sad when Diggs was sold. He was sad the same way he had been on the day he was sold away from his mother—a restless, troubled feeling.

  A brief feeling.

  The blacksmith was shirtless and sweaty. He had a massive gut covered with tight curls of black hair. Removing the irons was a simple process. He placed the sharp edge of a cold chisel just beneath the head of the bolt that held the manacle closed, and struck the butt a sharp blow with a hand sledge. The bolt was decapitated, and the shank was pulled loose.

  “Over there,” the overseer said, and pointed. “Grease up.”

  The area was busy with slaves preparing to appear on the block, overseers of plantation owners making ready to transport newly purchased slaves, market officials tagging slaves with the names of their masters and making change, wealthy buyers who’d bribed someone in order to get a preliminary look at the merchandise. All this was masked off from the auction block and the bidders by a high wooden fence. There were half a dozen barrels in the corner to which Jud had been sent. Around them were clustered slaves, male and female, child and adult, in various states of undress. They were smearing themselves and each other with grease.

  “Strip down there,” a white man said to Jud, “and git yourse’f covered. I want to see you shine, boy, ever’ inch of you.”

  Jud removed his shirt and pants and stood naked. He dipped his hands into a barrel, came up with two great lumps of gray lard, and began spreading them across his body. The grease was cold. It was a chilly day despite the bright sun. He shivered, but he did not dislike it. He replenished his supply, working it over his legs, loins, and arms.

  A white man flicked his strap across the buttocks of a girl beside Jud. She was plump but not fat, and had large conical breasts with purple nipples, and meaty thighs. Her lubricated skin sparkled.

  “Come here, wench,” the white man said. “I tol’ you, I tol’ all you niggers. You grease up good. You git out there an’ sparkle for them gennelmen.”

  The girl stood before him with head bowed.

  “Now whut kine of greasin’ you call that, huh? You still ‘bout dry as a dust storm. Whut you think, huh?”

  “It whut e’er kine you say, suh. But I don’ be slothful, suh, jist mayhap careless, suh.”

  “Well, I believes you, wench. Indeed I do. I don’ opine you a troublesome nigger, so I ain’t gonna hide you. But we got to git you lookin’ good. You bring me two globs of that lard there.”

  The girl went to a barrel, scooped out grease, and returned. The white man took the lard in his hands. He applied it to her a little below her shoulders, at just the spot where her breasts began to swell out. He rubbed vigorously, warming and liquefying the lard. Then he dropped his hands over her breasts, fingers spread wide and palms cupping, massaging slowly.

  “Right nice titties you got, wench, an’ right perky li’l nips on ‘em. Gonna make some gennelman a fine bed-warmer.”

  “Yes, suh.” She stood motionless, expressionless.

  “Lift your arms.”

  He worked his hands down her sides, and brought them round front again when he reached her belly. He stroked it awhile.

  “Spread your legs a bit.”

  She planted her feet apart. He knelt in front of her, reached his arms through her legs, grasped her buttocks, and kneaded them. Then his hands went to the upper, inner parts of her thighs, slipping easily, freely over her flesh.

  “Um, um,” he breathed. “Yes. Um.”

  One hand moved up to the soft, moist juncture of her thighs and began a slow back-and-forth motion. Sweat pearls gleamed on his forehead; his eyes were nearly closed. He was rocking on his knees.

  Jud had finished anointing himself. He looked at the man and at the girl with little interest. He lifted his trousers from the ground and stepped into one leg. A short white man with stumpy tobacco-yellowed teeth prodded him in the ribs.

  “Not them raggy things, nigguh. Put these on. Un’il af’er you sold.” He took a pair of clean and untorn pants from the several pairs he carried across one arm and handed them to Jud. Then he turned to the man and the girl. “Alworth, you’d best stop that foolery an’ git these nigguhs movin’. Mista Mason be wantin’ ‘em on the block afore long.”

  “Yuh, yuh,” answered Alworth. He stared at the girl’s brown belly a moment and sighed. He spun her around, and slapped her on the buttocks. “Git on, nigger. Git on. Cain’t tarry all day.”

  A second white man joined the first, and the slaves were formed into loose ranks, two abreast. The men wore only trousers, and the females were naked from the waist up, the open tops of the
ir frocks loosely tied around their waists. The newly arrived white man walked down the line, inspecting them, while Alworth lounged off to the side, scratching his crotch and yawning.

  The second white man stopped. Instead of a strap he carried a polished hickory club two feet in length and twisted with a large knot at one end. He jabbed the thin slave—the one with the yellowish eyes who’d talked about being sold up North—in the chest.

  “Whut that doodad roun’ your neck, nigguh?”

  The slave covered the charm with his hand. “That jus’ my charm, suh, jus’ a li’l thing.”

  “Give it here. You goin’ on the block clean. Don’ want nobody thinkin’ you a odd or contrary nigguh.”

  The slave took a step backward. “No, suh, please, Masta. I needs keep it with me. It doan do no harm. Please, Masta, suh!”

  The white man raised his club. “Nigguh, give it here.”

  “Please, suh!”

  “Don’ mark him, Jubal,” Alworth called.

  Jubal lunged, ripped the charm loose, and flung it to the ground. The slave wailed. Jubal drove the end of his club into the pit of the slave’s stomach. The slave doubled over, then sprawled to the dirt, eyes bulging, mouth working soundlessly.

  Jubal stood back. “No marks,” he said to Alworth.

  RICHARD ACKERLY SHIFTED HIS weight from his right leg to his left, then back again. The inactivity, the standing, the waiting, were tiring him. And now on the block that mustee—the two-year-old baby that was almost white—was squalling hoarsely. Ackerly bounced nervously on the balls of his feet. Damn that suckler, wouldn’t it ever shut up?

  He could not stand crying children. The sound always cramped his stomach, made his throat tighten. Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it, he thought as the baby, whose mother had been taken away, wailed even louder. If he had not been hemmed in by the milling crowd of buyers he would have stalked off someplace where the sound could not reach him. It made him feel brutalized, lost; it evoked a sensation of falling through darkness, flailing out with desperate hands but never finding anything solid to grasp.