A few slaves were returned to the plantations from which they had been sent. They whooped and laughed as they left.
With the ceaseless attention given to the cotton, Sheol’s grounds and buildings had fallen into disrepair and neglect. Goodfriend judged that the plants could safely be left untended for a day, and the slaves were put to work on the plantation proper. Jud was working on the chimney at one of the overseers’ homes. With him were Caesar and another slave. Caesar’s term had expired more than a week ago. He had not been told yet what was going to be done with him. He was whining and petulant, and broke into tears often. He was terrified of Wilkey. Several times the white man had approached Caesar, stroked his shotgun, and said gravely, “Well, nigger, Mista Ackerly finally tol’ me whut to do with you. Come on, you an’ me are goin’ to take a little walk out behind the barn.”
Caesar would fall to his knees screaming.
Wilkey would walk away guffawing.
At midday, Goodfriend appeared. With him were an older man in a broadcloth coat and a pudgy little boy with red cheeks. The boy kept tugging at his father’s hand, trying to gain his attention. The party came to a halt.
The boy jumped up and down, clapping his hands. A few blacks—not many—grinned and waved at him.
“Which one?” he squealed. “Which one, huh, Daddy? Which one?”
His father looked questioningly to Goodfriend. Goodfriend pointed.
“Hey, you Caesar. Get on down here.”
Caesar scrambled across the roof of the overseer’s house and clambered down the ladder.
“Yes, suh. Yes, Masta, I’s here.” His head bobbed up and down. He wrung his hands.
“That’s him,” Goodfriend said.
“Kin he do tricks like Scroomey?”
“Scroomey?” Goodfriend asked.
“The boy’s dog,” answered the man. “Died a while back. Calvin got the notion into his haid that he wanted a nigger this time ‘stead of another dog. Ain’t none of our own bucks really fit for what the boy has in mind.”
Goodfriend nodded. “Sure he can do tricks. Caesar, you do just what that boy tells you, hear?”
“Yassum. Yes, suh, Masta.”
Calvin danced from foot to foot. Caesar waited.
“Sit!” the boy cried suddenly.
Caesar sat.
“Roll over.”
Caesar complied. The boy giggled.
“Now . . . play dead!”
Caesar lay motionless.
“No-no-no!” Calvin screamed. “With big white eyes an’ your tongue floppin’ out an’ your arms an’ legs sticked up in the air.”
When Caesar mastered the position, Calvin pointed and called, “Dead nigger, dead nigger. See, Daddy?”
Jud, atop the roof, looked away. He looked out across the fields, to the trees, to the horizon. It wasn’t enough. He looked up to the sky. Then he forced his vision directly into the blinding white heart of the sun. His eyes watered immediately; his lids struggled to close themselves. He was unable to stop the instinctive bunching of his muscles which wrenched his head to the side. For a few moments he could see nothing but whiteness.
Caesar was still playing dead. Calvin stood beside him, gnawing on his upper lip.
“I cain’t think of what to have him do,” the boy wailed.
“Well,” said his father, “what do you want him to do?”
“I don’ know!”
“Fetch a stick, maybe?”
“No. What good’s a nigger if he cain’t do no more’n Scroomey could?”
“Get him to ride you around,” the boy’s father suggested.
Calvin picked up a piece of lath from the ground and had Caesar crouch so he could climb up on the black’s shoulders. The ride exhilarated the boy. He threw back his head and laughed, struck the black with the piece of lath, and yelled, “Faster. Faster.”
Caesar broke into a shambling run, a parody of a gallop. They finished the ride. Calvin dismounted and ran to his father.
“I want him, Daddy. Kin I have him? Please, Daddy?”
“You’re sure now?”
Calvin nodded. “He ain’t awful bright, but he moves fast. I can learn him lots of tricks.”
“How much you want for him?” the man asked Goodfriend.
“Three hundred fifty.”
“That’s a mite steep for a toy.”
Goodfriend stroked his jaw. “Aren’t going to find a buck that your boy can handle as easy as this one, and, if you really need him, he’s not completely ruint as a worker.”
“Daddy, he kin eat an’ drink out’n Scroomey’s old dishes, cain’t he? An’ it’s all right if I give him the leavin’s from my plate, ain’t it?”
At the mention of leavings, Caesar’s face seemed to illuminate itself. He dropped to his knees in front of Calvin.
“I be a good nigger fo’ you, Masta. Caesar be the right fittest nigger you ever see. I put your ol’ houn’ dog to shame. I be twice as perky an’ I learn mo’ tricks than all the smartes’ houn’s in the world.”
Calvin rubbed the black’s hair. “We kin put Scroomey’s old collar roun’ his neck too, huh, Daddy?”
“Well,” the man said to Goodfriend, “how ‘bout three hundred even?”
“Since the boy’s heart’s set, I suppose I could come down to three twenty-five.”
Calvin found a length of rope amid a pile of harnesses that had been brought out to be oiled. He tied one end around Caesar’s neck and clutched the other end in his small fist.
The man laughed and tousled his son’s hair. “All right. Three twenty-five it is.”
“We’ll go back to the house, and I’ll draw up a bill of sale for you.”
They left. Calvin followed them, tugging Caesar along after him.
“Bark,” Calvin said.
Caesar grinned. “Arf. Arf-arf.”
THE MORNINGS CAME, YANKED the slaves from their dreams, and matured into bright searing days that rolled over them like millstones and then faded and left them to sink into stuporous sleep again. The cotton plants thrived. Straps welted skin. New faces appeared; old ones left. There was not much sense of either gain or loss.
The ground was not the same. The sky was not the same. Everything was strange. The earth was hard beneath Jud’s feet; it would not let him sink into it. The sky weighted down upon him; it would not let him rise to float insensate through the vaporous clouds. He felt the impact of the hoe striking the dirt. The cotton plants scraped his skin. The boards on which he slept were hard. At every moment, at every place, something assaulted him.
The sound in his head had died; he could not hear it, no matter how intently he listened.
At night in the shanty, he narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce the gloom that encompassed all but the areas around the two small oil lamps, trying to see the faces of the blacks who spoke. It was dark in his corner. No one saw the way his mouth opened, sometimes forming silent words. No one saw him sitting erect—after most of the others had gone to sleep—listening, hoping.
“It a lot,” he said one night.
Homer turned. “You say somethin’, boy?”
“It a lot.”
“What?”
“I don’ know. Ever’thin’ . . . nothin’. It— I don’ know.”
“Make sense, nigger. You all sudden learn how to talk, it ain’t goan do you much good if’n you doan make sense. Whut you sayin’?”
“I don’ know what it all about.”
“You doan know whut whut all about?”
“Ever’thin’.”
“The sun fry your brains in the field, boy?”
Jud was silent.
“Ever’thin’,” Homer muttered. “Nothin’. Your brains boiled sure. I cain’t unnerstan’ you nohow. Hey, doan look at me like that. Whut the matter wif you, boy?” Homer peered into Jud’s face; then he shook his head. “All right. All right. Ever’thin’s about nothin’. Nothin’. Tha’s whut ever’thin’ is. Nothin’ doan ever change. The sun come up, th
e nigger work the field, an’ the white man hoi’ the whip. But it ain’t nothin’, you unnerstan’?” His voice grew angry. “Nothin’ ain’t nothin’! Now leave me alone, you crazy nigger.”
Homer turned his back. Jud sat with his hands folded in his lap, his shoulders slumped. After a moment, he reached out and touched Homer on the shoulder.
“I tol’ you to leave me alone.”
“I want to . . . to talk.”
“Cain’t make no sense outta your talk.” He looked at Jud. “Nobody doan wan’ lissen to no nigger that . . . Oh, all right! Go on, talk. But make sense.”
“I. . . I . . .” Jud lifted his hands helplessly.
Homer put a forearm across his eyes, rubbed, then said quietly, “It all right, boy. Now you jus’ think a minute, then you tell Homer about your mammy—if you ever knowed her—an’ about where you growed up. You jus’ think a minute, then you talk. Homer lissen to you. Much as you wan’.”
THE BLOOM BEGAN IN the morning, a few hours after dawn. The buds opened into wet and crinkled petals that spread under the heat of the sun, grew full, and emitted a heavy fragrance. By noon the fields were carpeted with the white flowers. As the afternoon wore on, faint reddish streaks appeared in the petals, lengthened, and grew darker. When the slaves arrived the next morning the thousands upon thousands of flowers were a pure, clear pink.
Surrounded by the blossoms, Jud felt good as he worked. Jud had never sung in his life, but today he hummed. The flowers began to wither about noon. They died, and the dry petals dropped to the earth, to be ground underfoot. Brief, beautiful, brilliant lives. Jud’s eyes teared. He grew careless, damaging several of the denuded cotton plants.
ALEX, THE SLAVE WHO’D said he was going to steal a buckboard from Olympus and run, was brought back to Sheol less than a week weeks after he’d been returned to Olympus. He’d been beaten by the bounty hunters who had captured him on his second day of freedom and carted him, chained and unconscious, back to Ackerly for the reward. He was bruised, lacerated, and unable to use his right arm. He refused to eat. Collins and Wilkey fed him by force, but later he regurgitated everything he had swallowed. The slaves woke one morning to find him stiff and unmoving. Homer was one of the slaves assigned to the burial. Alex’s spindly and shrunken body was not dragged to the grave. Homer carried it, cradled in his arms.
Shadrach had not spoken much since the day Caesar had been sold. The elephantine black sweated, ate, and rested in silence. Wilkey baited him, but Shadrach gave the overseer no satisfaction.
The cotton bolls formed with their tough leathery skin. The sun grew ferocious, and the blacks worked stripped to their waists. A slave from Wilkey’s group had gulped too much water at midday meal and had fallen into a seizure and been carried back to the shanties. Collins’s group was working nearby, and Shadrach had been transferred to Wilkey. It was hot, quiet work—no sounds save the occasional snap of a strap, a moan, grunts, and the white men telling the slaves to move on to the next row, to work harder, to work faster. . . .
“Kill the white man!”
Jud stopped in midstroke and looked up. The figures around him were frozen. It was not real: Kill the white man?
The bellow rolled over the field a second time: “Kill the white man!”
Shadrach was standing spread-legged in front of Wilkey, holding his hoe high, like a staff. The overseer wore an expression of bewilderment.
The hoe seemed to Jud to remain suspended for a very long time.
“Wilkey!” Collins shouted.
Wilkey swung his shotgun as the hoe began its rapid arc down. The hoe ripped Wilkey’s shoulder and struck the gun. The weapon discharged, but its load smashed into the ground and the gun was knocked from Wilkey’s hands.
Collins drew his pistol and aimed at Shadrach.
“Kill the white man!” shouted a man behind Jud.
Collins spun and covered his blacks. “The firs’ nigger t’ move is a dead nigger.”
Wilkey’s own pistol was in his hand.
“Kill him!” shouted one of Wilkey’s slaves.
Another hoe slashed down. Wilkey screamed. The pistol was gone. His hand dangled from his wrist. Bright red blood spouted over the cotton plants. Shadrach struck again and a crimson line streaked across the overseer’s face. Then there were four slaves chopping at the white man, screaming.
In the distance there were other shouts, and dull reports of firearms.
Wilkey stumbled back, was rushed and hacked. He fell and disappeared between two rows of plants. The hoes rose and plunged. Blood sprayed into the air. Shadrach flung aside his stained hoe.
“Kill ‘em!” he shouted. “Run!”
He crashed through the cotton rows toward the woods. A handful of others followed. The rest dropped their tools and stood trembling, mouths gaping.
“Kill the white man!” Homer cried hoarsely at Jud’s side.
He rushed forward, swinging his hoe. Two slaves went with him. Collins stepped quickly back.
“Hold it! Hold it!” he shouted.
Homer aimed a blow at Collins’s throat. Collins fired. Homer’s head blew apart and he spun and fell into the cotton plants. Collins went down beneath the hoes of the other two slaves. Then they ran toward the woods.
Jud looked across the field. There were several blacks churning through the cotton toward freedom. Most of the groups were still intact, though, their overseers holding them at bay with leveled weapons. There were a few clusters of slaves standing alone.
In front of Jud, hidden by the cotton plants, Collins groaned. Jud stepped forward, tightening his grip around his hoe. The white man was lying on his back. His head, and chest were cut and bleeding profusely. His eyes were wide and fearful. His torn lips twitched. His head jerked. Jud stood above him and looked down.
Kill the white man.
He could, he realized suddenly. It was not simply an opportunity; he was capable of doing it.
He raised the hoe. Collins whimpered.
Freedom. His arms shook. And death soon after. Shadrach and the others were dead. The whites could not permit them to live.
Why had Homer charged, knowing he had no chance, that Collins would kill him?
Did Jud want to live? He didn’t know.
And he didn’t know if he wanted to die.
Beneath Jud’s hoe, Collins was whimpering. The white man fouled his clothes. Jud dropped the hoe, bent, and reached. The overseer closed his eyes and screamed. Jud worked his hands under Collins’s shoulders and legs, and lifted him.
He was not conscious of the weight of his burden, only of the white man sobbing against his broad, dark chest.
“It goin’ be all right,” he said tonelessly.
He walked toward the Great House.
BOOK III
SAMUEL WAS SITTING ON the veranda smoking and reading a paper when Jud was brought to Olympus’s Great House. Samuel looked up with puzzlement.
The creases in the white man’s face had deepened since Jud had last seen him. His hair had grown thinner. His blue eyes seemed paler and the compact fortress that was his body seemed to have been battered. Ackerly stroked his jaw and peered from Jud to the overseer who had brought him, Sloan.
“Yes?”
Sloan cleared his throat. “Uh, this here’s Jud, Mista Ackerly. I brung him to you like Mista Goodfriend said I should.”
“Jud. Jud. Ah. Yes. Well, boy. How have you been doing these last months?”
Jud shifted his shoulders and nodded.
“Uhm. Yes, good. Did they work that devilment out of you? No more brawling?” Then, without waiting, he continued, “About Collins. Good, very good. Shows character. Knew you had the makings of a good nigger in you. Just a matter of bringing it out. All right, Sloan. Take him down to the smith’s and get those chains removed. Tell Goodfriend I have commuted his punishment and that he’ll be staying here.”
Sloan touched his hat brim. “Yes, suh.”
“Oh, Sloan.”
“Suh?”
“Tell Goodfriend I just learned that they caught three more of those black butchers near Foreston. Snaked them to death in front of the town hall. No word on that big one yet.”
“Yes, suh.”
They left. Samuel returned to his paper.
It was that madman Lincoln, and talk of secession. He set down the paper and sighed. He was tired. He always seemed tired these days.
“Samuel? Samuel!” shrilled Amanda from within the house. “Where are you? I want to talk to you.”
He rose with a grunt and stood facing the door a moment; then he backed to the stairs, went down from the veranda, and shambled across the lawn to the side of the house, moving out toward the shanties.
WHEN THE BOLTS WERE struck off and the shackles removed, Jud rubbed his wrists, and clenched and unclenched his hands. He walked out of the smithy and stood blinking in the sunlight. No one paid any attention to him. He felt vaguely uneasy; he hunched his shoulders without realizing it, anticipating a shout and a quick blow.
“Jud. Hey, Jud. It you. I knowed it you. Ain’t nobody else here so black.”
It was Plum, grinning broadly, the only marked nigger Richard had bought the day of the Memphis auction. He clapped a hand to Jud’s shoulder.
“Um-um.” His fingers felt the welts under Jud’s shirt. “The way they mark you, it seem like I ain’t hardly ever been touched. But I bets they whupped that ol’ demon outta you. Yes, suh, they surely must, else’n you wouldn’t be here now. Praise the Lord that demon been ex-or-cised. The Lord watch ovuh his chillen, he certainly do.”
“How you gettin’ on, Plum?”
“Pow’ful good. Jesus bin walkin’ by my side evuh since he strike my ol’ masta down an’ cause Mista Richard to buy me an’ my brother up. That the day of our deliverance, it surely were. We put our trust in the Lord, an’ he walk wif us—be our shield an’ our staff—fo’ the rest of our natural-born days.”
He stood back and eyed Jud critically. “You come to Jesus? You bin baptized?”
Jud shook his head.
Slave (The Shame & Glory Saga) Page 7