The Baron Brand

by Jory Sherman

  “My stomach hurts,” Sarah said.

  “At least you are not being beaten,” Caesar said. He was a young man of only eighteen who bore ridged scars on his back from being whipped. “Your stomach does not bleed.”

  “Do not be so mean,” Sarah said. “I know we are all hungry. Maybe the Boss Man will come after us and take us back to our homes.”

  “Ha,” muttered a slave called Rastus, a married man of twenty-five years, tall and slender, handsome, with thick black hair like wire. “Boss Man don’t care about us.”

  They never used the white man’s real name when they spoke of him among themselves. They considered it an evil name that could do them harm to speak it. They did not use the term Boss Man in their native tongue because they had no such words. The nearest they could come to it would be chief man and they hated him too much to call him that. So, they used the English term, Boss Man, because that was what he had told them to call him and they knew it was not his real name.

  The woman lying next to a young man whom Boss Man called Fidelius stirred. She poked her husband in the ribs, a gentle nudge that served to flip open his sleep-heavy eyelids. “Water,” she said, in English, and he straightened, sat up.

  “Petunia, you have to get it yourself. Ain’t no cup.”

  “Tired,” she said.

  The small wooden bucket sat in a corner by the padlocked gate, no ladle, nor spoon with which to dip into it and bring forth water. Petunia struggled to rise and Fidelius leaned over and helped her get to her feet. She stood there, wobbly, a thin, twenty-year-old woman aged beyond her years. She hobbled over to the bucket and knelt down, dipped her head like some dark fawn and sipped the straw-flecked water, straining it through her teeth to keep the dirt and straw from entering her mouth.

  Fidelius watched her drink and felt the hot tears well up in his eyes. He could almost see the bones of her back beneath the thin worn dress that clung to her like a burial shroud. They might have been in a thatched hut on some night-blackened savannah in Africa, he thought, listening to the he-lion’s cough as it waited in the high grasses for its mate to kill the kudu, free to go with the sun to the river where the crocodiles basked like sunken logs on copper water. He often went back to Africa in his mind to glimpse the high grasses waving gently in the breeze as gazelles fed or bounded away from him, looking like graceful porpoises leaping from a tawny sea.

  “Don’t you drink it all, girl,” the old man chided. He was called Socrates by the Boss Man and the other slaves liked the sound of the word, saying it sounded like the African grasshopper feeding on the grasses of the plain in high summer when they all lived like the water buffalo and the hippopotamus down at the river where they could stay cool while the boys laughed and chased away the crocodiles or teased the waterbirds by throwing sticks and stones at them.

  “No, sir,” Petunia said obediently and stopped drinking.

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you, girl?” Socrates said in a kindly voice.

  “Yes, sir, I’se hongry.”

  “Maybe they will feed us in the morning,” a young man called Pluto said. He was nineteen, his skin black as polished ebony, with high cheekbones and pretty eyes like a girl’s or a sable’s, and white even teeth that made people smile when he grinned, for it was as bright as the moon over the veldt on a clear spring night.

  Lucius, who was only seventeen, arose to squat in the corner. He made sounds as he voided the small amount of waste in his system, grunted softly, then rubbed straw on his bottom. He stood up, a tall, slender young man, and stretched his wiry arms over his head. Talia, who was but a girl of sixteen, looked up at him in admiration. She was tall, too, and her hair was beribboned with faded pieces of cloth that set off her comely, pear-shaped face, her beautiful dark eyes. She purred softly and patted the empty place next to her and Lucius grinned, walked over and sat down.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Talia asked him.

  “I could eat a warthog,” he said, “but I do not think about it.”

  “I want to cry I’m so hungry.”

  “Must not let the massa see you cry.”

  “There ain’t no massa no more.”

  “There’s always a massa,” he said.

  The two grew quiet and she nudged up against him, stroked his bare arm for comfort in the darkness.

  Buelah, a childless mother of thirty-one, looked over at the two young people and sighed. Her son and daughter, twins, had been taken from her when they were only six years old, when the slave ship came for her, and she had never seen them since. But, she saw them in every child still. They would have been about the age of Talia by now and she hoped they were still alive and safe. She had seen babies die in their mothers’ arms while waiting for the slave ship to pick them up, and she had once seen a white massa grab an infant by the feet and dash its head against a tree while its mother watched in horror.

  Buelah had seen the scars on Lucius’s back and longed to soothe them with a caress of her hand, but she had kept her feelings to herself. She had scars of her own that she could not bear to look at or touch, not the thorn scars she had gotten as a child in the bush, but whip scars on her breasts and legs. She had been a slave for ten years and was resigned to dying a slave, for she knew there was no hope for any of them. They were all so far from home and none of them knew how to return.

  But, Buelah had been making a quilt at the plantation before they were taken away by their captor, a quilt that contained secret signs that pointed to the North Star and the road north where she had been told there was freedom for Negroes, and she had learned, from another slave, the secret hiding places, and the rivers along the way, and she had sewn all of those into her quilt. And the quilt was back at the plantation hidden under her pallet, not quite finished.

  She heard a sound outside the barn, footsteps, voices, and the Mexicans began talking. They arose and she heard the clickings of their rifles and the swishing sounds of their feet as they moved toward the doors.

  “Quién es?” one of the Mexicans asked, and Buelah did not know what it meant.

  “David,” came the answer, and she heard the door creak open and when she craned her neck, she saw two stars in the sky and then she heard a woman’s voice, soft and low, and then the door closed and she heard the people walking toward them, their shoes scuffing the straw and dirt.

  Then, a man looked in on them, and a woman, a white woman.

  “We brought food for them,” David said, in Spanish. Buelah could not understand his words, but she smelled the scents in the large basket the woman carried. She stirred and got to her feet.

  “Poor dears, haven’t they eaten?” Ursula asked, in English.

  “No,” David said.

  There was more talk in Spanish and then the Mexicans stepped back. But, they held their rifles up so all the slaves could see them. The white woman lifted a cloth from the basket and David opened the door a crack. She pushed the basket inside, and Buelah smelled fresh bread. She rushed to the door just as it slammed shut.

  “Thank you,” Buelah said. “Bless you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ursula said. “Please see that each one of you gets something to eat. There isn’t much, but it was all we had.”

  “Yes’m, yes’m,” Buelah said, and she plucked a loaf of bread from the basket and stuck the end of it in her mouth and bit off a large chunk. The others arose and hurried to where the basket lay and began pushing and shoving to get at the food.

  “Look at them, poor things,” Ursula said. “They’re starving. How can you stand to see them treated this way, David?”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it, Ursula. They belong to Matteo.”

  “Why didn’t he feed them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Socrates established order and handed out the food, bread, turnips, dried beans, potatoes, dried beef, a dozen pieces, at least, and a bag of cracked corn. He did not thank the white people for the food, but went to the farthest wall and sat down, began eating.


  For a long time, that was the only sound in the locked room as Ursula and David looked through the large cracks in the door. Ursula began to weep, but she made no sound. Tears trickled down her face as she watched the young ones gobble down the food like starving beasts.

  Then, she turned away and pulled on David’s hand.

  “Tell the Mexicans to set the basket out when they are finished and I’ll pick it up in the morning.”

  David spoke to the two guards, who grunted without assent. Then, Ursula and David left the barn and one of the Mexicans closed the door behind them.

  “An angel,” Buelah said to Socrates. “Did you see the white woman?”

  “I saw her,” Socrates said. “She ain’t no angel.”

  “But, she brought us food.”

  “She brought us garbage she would not eat. It is dry and tasteless.”

  “She wasn’t no slaver,” Buelah said.

  “She was white.”

  “You have no gratitude.”

  “No beggar has gratitude,” Socrates said.

  “I did not beg. Neither did you.”

  “Do you pray, Buelah? That is begging. Did you beg the white man’s god to bring you food?”

  “You mean old bastard,” Buelah said.

  Socrates laughed and chewed a potato to shreds with white gleaming teeth. The others made sounds as they ate and Sarah was crying because the food made her stomach stretch and hurt. Elmo, another man, sat near the door by himself, pouring cracked corn into his mouth and mashing the grains to a pulp before he swallowed.

  “Animales,” one of the Mexicans said.

  “Por seguro,” the other replied.

  “Tomorrow, we will take them north and sell them for much money.”

  “I will be happy to be rid of them.”

  “I would like to try that young black one first.”

  “Don Matteo would kill you.”

  “I would die happy.”

  Elmo, who had been a slave on an island before he was brought to the United States, understood Spanish and when he was through eating, he crawled over to Talia and slept near her. He had found a nail on the floor of the barn, and it was a large enough nail to pierce a man’s neck if he drove it hard enough and he thought of how he would do it if the door ever opened again that night.

  27

  CULEBRA SAT CROSS-LEGGED and stoic in the umber bloom of the mesquite tree shading his bronzed skin from the sun, sniffing the smoke from the sacred tobacco as it rose like a smoky vine from the coals of the fire in the center of the gathering.

  The others, Pajaro, Ferro, Conejo, Oso, Tecolote, and Dedo, sat with him, staring into the smoke, some with blood streaming down their legs and arms, others still covered with patches of soot and dirt that had stuck to their skin like stains.

  “We have lost the horses we caught,” Culebra said. “We have lost brothers who are now with the Great Spirit. Now, we are few, when we were many.”

  “We are scattered, that is all,” Oso said, the large fat one with big lips and small eyes like those of the javelina.

  “Where is our brother Cicatriz?” asked Conejo. “I did not see him go down when the white bull attacked us.”

  “And where is our brother Hormiga?” Pajaro asked. “I saw him running away, but he did not come to my call.”

  “The devil white bull killed them all, I think,” Ferro said. He scowled, and touched the many scars on his body, scars from the pieces of iron thrown by the cannon in the fight when Cuchillo had died at the Baron ranch.

  “Do you think the white bull is a spirit on the side of the Baron child, the one they call Anson?” Oso asked, and he was looking at Culebra.

  “I do not know. It is a thing to think about. The white bull gored our brother Humo and tore him to pieces.”

  Culebra passed the pipe to Conejo, who drew the smoke into his lungs and blew it out in the four directions. He looked up at the sky and saw faces and visions in the clouds, in the smoke from the pipe and the others knew he was trying to divine something from what he saw and they were silent.

  When Conejo finished, he passed the pipe to the next man, Tecolote, and he spoke. “If we kill the Baron whelp, perhaps the white bull will die too.”

  “What did you see, Conejo?” Culebra asked.

  “I saw the smoke of battle and the faces of our brothers who have gone to the place of the Great Spirit, who are traveling along the star path in the sky. I saw the face of Anson, the one we call Anda Lejos, the white boy who is a man, the friend of Hueso, the one who walks far.”

  “And did you see Anda Lejos die?” Culebra asked.

  A shadow seemed to pass across Conejo’s eyes. “No, I did not see this. I saw men fighting, white men fighting white men.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Ferro.

  “I think it means Aguilar will fight Baron.”

  “And will they rub each other out?”

  “I do not know. The clouds blew into the smoke and they changed shape and I could not read the shapes.”

  “Pah,” Oso exclaimed, “I do not believe in visions. I think we must rub out Anda Lejos and his companion, the one who brought the horses. I want to cut their faces and slice off their balls and make them swallow their penises.”

  The others grunted in assent. All but Culebra, who stared up at the little streamers and puffs of clouds and tried to make sense of them. He believed that clouds were part of the mysterious spirit world and he often saw visions in them, like Conejo.

  “I am thinking of my father, who was killed by Anda Lejos and his father,” Culebra said. “The spirits tell me I must kill them and Matteo says he will pay me for the scalps if I bring him their hair.”

  “Yes,” Oso said. “That is what we must do.”

  “But,” Culebra said, “we must speak with Matteo and ask him about these visions. And, there is another we must kill, the man who came to help Anda Lejos.”

  “Hueso,” Conejo said. “Bone.”

  “That one,” Culebra said.

  “But he has the favor of Matteo,” Tecolote said, handing the pipe to the man next to him. “Will Matteo not be angry?”

  Culebra wiped a streak of blood on his leg into a smear that he studied for several seconds. His horse had been gored by the big white bull and it was the horse’s blood that stained his leg. The horse was limping badly and they would probably eat him before their journey was over.

  “Maybe the whites will kill Bone, too,” Conejo said. “When they fight with each other.”

  A quail piped in the ensuing silence, a sweet, plaintive call that reminded those seated there that they were part of the earth, part of all that walked, swam, or flew over the land.

  “No, I must have blood for blood,” Culebra said, after a few moments. “I hear the blood of my father calling out to me. I hear the voices of my ancestors telling me that I must spill the blood of Anda Lejos and his father, el marinero.”

  “And, what of Bone?” Oso asked. “What do your fathers say of this outcast, this man who calls Anda Lejos friend?”

  “I will drink the blood of Bone, too,” Culebra said. “I will carry his hair on my lance for all to see. I will speak of his death to my sons and they will tell of it to their sons.”

  “I swear I will help you kill these men,” Oso said.

  And the others nodded and swore their oaths and the quail went silent and the clouds passed over the sun and cast down a giant shadow that made for the men a small darkness in the day and then one of the horses whickered and Culebra heard its call, grunted, and rose to his feet.

  “Come, we will ride to a place where we can gather more arrows and food and talk some more of these things. Then, we will take up the war club and hunt down these men and spill their blood on the earth.”

  “We will go to the brasada,” Conejo said. “That is the sacred place for warriors.”

  “Yes,” Culebra said. “And we will pass by the house of Matteo and tell him what has passed this day and see what
words he has in his mouth.”

  The others rose to their feet.

  “Yes,” Tecolote said. “Perhaps Matteo will need to know about the white bull and know whose spirit breathes through its nose.”

  As they mounted up, the Apaches saw Culebra draw his knife and step up to his gored horse and put one arm over its neck. Then, he spoke softly to the horse: “I am sorry, my brother,” he said, “but you will carry me on your back no more. You will feed the grasses this day and our brothers will grow on your brave spirit.”

  Then, Culebra jabbed the tip of his blade at the base of the horse’s neck and twisted it hard and drew it up to its throat. Blood poured out of the wound like the water of a fountain and covered Culebra’s loins and he caressed the horse as its front legs buckled and it sank to its haunches. He lay atop its quivering body and drew his knife free and wiped the bloody blade across his lips. When the horse was still, Culebra stood up and beckoned to Oso, who rode over to him.

  “I will ride with you, Oso. We will go to the brasada and cut the arrows and make the fires and hunt the rabbit and the pig and the turkey.”

  Culebra climbed up behind Oso and the two rode ahead of the others who followed after, silent as holy men at chapel and the cloud shadow followed after them with a deep silence that seemed like the quiet voice of the Great Spirit in their hearts.

  And, each of them thought of the great white longhorn bull and wondered if their days were numbered like the leaves on the oak tree in autumn.

  28

  CAROLINE SUMMONED UP all her courage to go out to the barn. Esperanza had assured her that the cannon was gone, but Caroline was not sure. She had to know. And, since Martin was gone to town, when he had left, she did not know, this seemed the perfect time. She had wanted Esperanza and Lazaro to go with her, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  “It’s gone, it’s gone,” she chanted to herself as she walked across the backyard, toward the outbuildings. She saw men working in the field and three or four were herding a few head of cattle from one pasture to another. They stopped to look at her, but she did not wave. “I pray it’s gone,” she said to herself.