Mandingo

by Kyle Onstott

  ‘I wonder did Lucretia Borgia feed them new niggers?’ Maxwell bethought himself aloud. ‘Memnon, sen’ Lucretia Borgia in here.’

  Meg was in the kitchen and back again, pushing his mother before him before Mem could finish pouring the coffee, set down the pot and reach the door.

  ‘Here Mammy is. Here Lucretia Borgia,’ announced the boy as if the woman’s huge bulk failed to dominate the room by its presence.

  ‘Did you feed them niggers Masta Hammon’ brung?’ Maxwell demanded.

  ‘They’s et,’ she answered, ‘ ’ceptin’ I didn’t give that big ’un all he crave. Cain’t fill him.’

  ‘Give ’em all white vittles, all they kin eat. The big one, too. They’s special. All you kin shovel in ’em. Hear?’

  ‘I’s listenin’.’

  ‘An’ that Mandingo, make him swaller half a dozen raw eggs—eight or ten; stir ’em up an’ make him drink ’em down after he done et hisself full,’ Maxwell further instructed.

  ‘I pour ’em eggs down or I choke him silly,’ Lucretia Borgia promised. ‘Whure them niggers come from? Whyn’t they cain’t talk good? Cain’t know whut they sayin’.’

  ‘They learn. They learn,’ said Maxwell. ‘Treat ’em good. That Mandingo is fer Lucy an’ Big Pearl. He goin’ to be Masta Ham’s fighter.’

  Lucretia Borgia expressed her approval. ‘I bin a-lookin’ at him, myself. He sure a elegant buck.’

  ‘You don’ need him now. Maybe next time.’

  Meg was back at the table, forcing food upon his master.

  ‘Dinner bye,’ observed Maxwell, ‘an’ I’ll have to bring them niggers in an’ look at ’em.’

  The new Negroes, except for their being fed, had been ignored, waiting in the dooryard. Mede lay asleep on his hands, half in the shade of the tupelo tree. Hammond went himself to summon the three, limped across the yard to waken the Mandingo, rocking him back and forth with his foot. ‘Better shuck down out here,’ he told them. ‘Don’t want your dirty clo’s in the house. New ones, anyways, after you-all washed.’

  Hammond led the way to the sitting-room. Maxwell’s primary interest was the Mandingo, and he called him up first, leaving Ellen and Jason against the wall. Mede was restless with the tension of his examination, shifting rapidly from foot to foot, flailing his arms, tensing and relaxing his muscles, in his anxiety to display his symmetry and strength.

  ‘I’m right plagued to show off these niggers like this. Craves you should see ’em rested an’ well,’ Hammond made excuses. He was proud of his purchases, avid for his father’s approval.

  ‘You not showin’ ’em off, Ham; you jest showin’ ’em. I’m your papa, recollect; I not cravin’ to buy your niggers.’ None the less, Maxwell pulled Mede towards him, inserted his finger into the boy’s mouth and felt the teeth, after which, using both hands, he pulled the lips apart to note the occlusion.

  ‘Reckon he be a right good fighter. Eh, Cousin Warren?’ commented Charles.

  Maxwell took a sip of toddy, smacked his lips as a preliminary to his opinion. ‘Twenty-seven hunderd, you tell me? Whut the matter with that ol’ man? That nigger, a Mandingo, is worth thirty-five hunderd, mayhap four thousand any day in the New Orleans market. Never see a better buck.’

  Hammond sighed with relief. He knew the worth of his purchase, but had feared his father’s verdict.

  ‘Pure Mandingo? You sure?’ demanded Maxwell. ‘Don’t want no half.’

  ‘I tell you he Big Pearl’s brother, by ol’ Xerxes out’n Lucy.’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘Well, call Big Pearl. Might as well try ’em together, let ’em take up, an’ git it over.’

  ‘Papa, that buck petered out. He no good today.’

  ‘I not tired,’ protested the Mandingo. ‘I am ready.’

  ‘I say you tired, you tired. Don’t dispute,’ Hammond silenced Mede. He dismissed the Mandingo, and instructed the boy to get soap from Lucretia Borgia and go to the river to bathe.

  Ellen and Jason came forward together, but Maxwell’s survey of them appeared superficial and without enthusiasm. ‘Right smooth and right purty,’ he appraised the girl. ‘Good milker, too, will be. Git good wench suckers out’n one like that; no good to breed bucks though—too thin skinned an’ fine drawn, an’ too much white. To bring good bucks, use a yaller wench ever’ time, not less than quadroon. How much, you say?’

  ‘Fifteen hunderd dollars. Don’t care had she been five thousan’, she mine an’ I wants her.’

  ‘Whut you arguin’ about, Son? You got her, ain’t you? She’s a fancy, all right. No denyin’. Easy worth the money—especially was she a virgin time you bought her.’

  ‘She still a virgin,’ Ham confessed, blushing.

  ‘Whure you bin? Thought you got her fer your own self. Ain’t no money in payin’ fifteen hunderd fer a wench to sell agin. Too risky, might die or git raped takin’ ’em to market.’

  ‘I got her fer my own self an’ I goin’ to keep her fer my own self—always. I tender of her. I guess, I guess I kind of loves her—as folks calls it. On’y wench I wants; on’y wench I ever will want; ain’t you, Ellen?’

  A blush suffused the girl’s face. She smiled at her master. Indifferent as she had shown herself to the examination, to the estimate of her value, and the discussion of her virginity, her master’s mention of love touched modesty and stirred her blood.

  ‘How your wife, how Cousin Blanche goin’ to like that?’ asked the father. ‘Course, she ’spects you pester around, but she not like you lovin’ one.’

  ‘Make no diff’ance whut Blanche like. She cry an’ pout, anything you do. She pizen, I tellin’ you.’ Charles’ denunciation was as emphatic as it was vague.

  ‘I cain’t help. I never seen Ellen until after I’d asted Blanche,’ Hammond confessed. ‘Besides, Ellen a nigger. No white lady goin’ to care about no nigger.’

  ‘Mayhap not,’ Maxwell admitted with reservation. He turned to Jason and shook his head. ‘Ol’ Man Wilson jest gittin’ shet of this one. Know it ain’t worth nothin’. Know I cain’t sell a present.’

  ‘Mista Wilson gittin’ ol’. Fixin’ to die. Right choice of this young buck. Craves you should take keer on him.’

  ‘Whut the matter with Jason?’ Charles wanted to know. ‘Whut wrong with him?’

  ‘Yes, whyn’t you like him?’ seconded Hammond. ‘He sound.’

  ‘Why, he slick an’ thin-skinned as that wench. Half one thing an’ half t’other; that whut wrong. Fac’ is, he look more wench than buck.’

  ‘I couldn’t refuse a present,’ Hammond protested.

  ‘You could a run him home. Come in ridin’ the Mandingo’s neck, tirin’ him out.’

  Jason winced and hung his head at the old man’s contemptuous words.

  ‘I likes him. A good nigger,’ Charles maintained.

  ‘Keep it way from me, an’ you kin have it. Reckon you kin use it as a bed wench, too,’ the owner sneered.

  Charles paled at the remark but ignored the implication. Jason, feeling himself disposed of, retired to beside Charles’ chair and squatted by it, and Charles ran his hand through the boy’s hair.

  Meg had loitered in the background during the latter part of this colloquy, as if he had something to say. At length Hammond turned to him.

  ‘Please, suh, Masta, suh,’ Meg announced. ‘Tub ready when you like it.’

  ‘Come along, Ellen,’ said Hammond, and then to Meg, ‘I wants you should wash Ellen too after you washes me.’ He started toward the stairs, Meg half running in front of him and the girl following after.

  The young slave undressed his master in silence, added hot water to that in the round tub, and steadied Hammond skilfully as he sat down in it. He lingered in his enjoyment of his washing of the master’s pink flesh. Then he aided Hammond to his feet and towelled him briskly until he was completely dry.

  Hammond was refreshed. His flesh tingled and the fresh linen felt good against his skin. He surrendered to the boy to put the remainder of his clot
hes on him, all except his coat. He seated himself on the bed beside Ellen, who had watched his bath with silent interest. ‘Now, you wash her,’ Hammond told the boy.

  Meg did not relish the chore assigned him, but his master failed to see the condescension in the glance when Meg rolled his eyes towards Ellen.

  Ellen rose from the bed, and Meg pushed her none too gently into the tub of water, spattering the carpet. To none of the three did it seem more incongruous that the young buck should bathe his master’s wench than that he should be called upon to bathe his horse or his dog. Ellen’s status as her master’s concubine would stifle any desire she might arouse in a slave. Meg’s passion, anyway, was not lust but jealousy. He set about scouring the girl’s body with a determination to get the unpleasant job over as quickly as was compatible with getting her clean, and she did not resent the roughness with which he handled her.

  When Meg had finished drying Ellen, Hammond instructed him to go to Lucretia Borgia and obtain a dress for her—a new dress, none of those patched-up rags such as the other wenches wore. ‘And then,’ he added, ‘you might as well wash yourself in that tub as is all ready, an’ you wants to.’

  Meg’s eyes rolled with scorn. ‘I don’ craves to wash in her water, Masta, suh. I wants yourn.’

  Hammond grasped Meg, clothed as he was, and plunged him into the soiled water. ‘Nev’ mind the water, nor whose; when I says wash, you wash. Hear me?’

  ‘Yas, suh, Masta,’ Meg answered sullenly. ‘I never meant——’

  ‘Nev’ mind. You a triflin’ nigger, jest like your pappy. Now, go git that dress and come back here an’ wash—good.’

  Meg departed, dripping.

  Hammond’s violent action had mollified him. He ran his hand over Ellen as she sat on the side of the bed. ‘This is whure we goin’ sleep—ever’ night. Come up here soon’s you kin after supper. I’s petered from that ridin’. I’ll need you early,’ he instructed her and went downstairs.

  ‘Whut become of that Charles?’ his father inquired as Hammond entered the room.

  ‘Around, I reckon. Mayhap sleepin’ or trainin’ that buck. Glad to be shet of him an’ we kin talk.’

  ‘His sister, Miz Blanche? You goin’ to marry, are you? Dead set on it?’

  ‘I reckon I am. You craves me, doesn’ you? Cain’t crawdaddle now, ’lessen you won’t sen’ that money to the Major.’

  ‘I’ll sen’ it, an’ you wants, but it looks like buyin’ her. Charles kin tote it along home with him when he go. Had ought to have knowed Woodford would scrudge money outn you someways; like him. Cain’t never collec’ it back.’

  ‘I knows,’ admitted the son.

  ‘Miz Blanche will make a good wife. Hammond blood. She nice? And purty?’

  ‘Blanche all right—right light-haired an’ fair-complected an’ all. Course she all covered up all the time, an’ right shy-like. I hadn’t seen this Ellen then, you knows.’

  ‘Ellen only a nigger,’ the elder man said casually and without contempt. ‘She right nice an’ shapely, but she ain’t white. Couldn’t marry her and have no son—leastwise not a white son.’

  ‘Course not. I’m goin’ to marry all right. But I’m goin’ to keep me Ellen, Blanche or no Blanche,’ Hammond affirmed, and the father nodded his acquiescence.

  ‘Whure that nigger of yourn? Minute you comes, he go off an’ not stir me no toddy.’

  ‘He upstairs washing off. Not hot enough yet fer to wash him in Ol’ Tombigbee.’

  ‘Call that Mem, an’ you kin find him. His ain’t as good, seems like, not as strong, like the ones your buck stirs, but call him anyways.’

  Hammond called Mem loudly three times and at length he came with feigned alacrity.

  ‘I’d keep that Meg away from the Tombigbee, an’ I was you. This other’n right here with me all the time. Better keep yourn up,’ the father counselled.

  ‘Gaters? Early for ’em. An’ no harm anyways.’

  ‘Worse. Nigger stealers. I’m not sure but seem like. Nigger stealers after them twins.’

  Unconvinced, but wary, Hammond asked, ‘Whut makin’ you think?’

  ‘Well, mayhap not, but Willis Hall—you know that Preacher Hall they run away from Benson fer tryin’ to steal niggers——’

  ‘Never could prove nothin’,’ said Hammond.

  ‘I know, I know. Well, this Hall come a-ridin’ in here Satiday on a good sorrel, after you had went on Friday, wantin’ to buy niggers. Thought I wouldn’t know him, called hisself Mason, but it was Hall all right. Wanted to buy the twins, knows all about ’em. Let it slip out that Brownlee told him.’

  ‘Brownlee?’

  ‘Yes, Brownlee is in it. I wouldn’t even show ’em. Told him the two on ’em was down with the epizootic, notwithstandin’ that this ’un was layin’ right here drunk asleep at my feet and Hall a-lookin’ right at him.’

  ‘Brownlee dead set on gittin’ them twins, seem like.’

  ‘Got a buyer waitin’ fer ’em in New Orleans, a rich Frenchie, Hall say,’ the older man explained. ‘But I don’t want no truck with Brownlee, or Hall neither.’

  ‘Hall ain’t too bad, I reckon,’ Hammond defended him.

  ‘A nigger stealer,’ persisted Maxwell. ‘Right well set up though, an’ handsome like. Talks good.’

  ‘You know who Hall is?’ said Hammond. ‘He worked fer Ol’ Mista Wilson a long time ago—overseer at Coign Plantation until religion struck him an’ he felt the call to preach. Mista Wilson like him—good driver.’

  ‘Ol’ Wilson likes ever’body. Wonder Hall didn’t steal all the Coign niggers, ’ceptin’ he hadn’t started his preachin’ then.’

  ‘Fac’ is, Hall is Ellen’s pappy, an’ that Jason’s.’ Hammond felt some temerity in saying this.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Fact. Ol’ Wilson said so.’

  ‘I swan. Mayhap he is after stealin’ them. He kin have the buck, fer all I care.’

  ‘You don’t like Jason? He make a good little house nigger.’

  ‘I wouldn’t a laid out no money fer him.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘He right whure he fittin’, a-flunkyin’ that cross-eye of Woodford’s. But we cain’t keep Cross Eye ferever jest for the nigger to have somebody to flunky. So Hall is his pappy? Reckoned they was something wrong with that buck.’

  ‘An’ Ellen’s pappy,’ added Hammond jealously.

  ‘Don’t hurt her none—not fer whut you wants her.’

  ‘I reckon, Papa, you right put out with me, spendin’ so much money fer Ellen. Seems like we didn’t need her none. But I wants her, Papa, I wants her.’ Hammond began to weep in his effort to make his father comprehend his need for the girl.

  ‘There, there, Son. Don’t you cry. The wench is all right, right fancy, an’ right cheap at the price. Make a breeder outn her, once you gits tired of her an’ ‘Tense ripen up.’

  ‘Ain’t a-goin’ to git tired. I don’ crave ‘Tense or no other wench,’ declared Ham.

  ‘The other’n is the one you payin’ too much fer.’

  ‘The Mandingo? You said——’

  ‘Not the Mandingo, but the other’n—the Woodford gal, Cross-Eye’s sister.’

  ‘But, Papa. You want me to——’

  ‘Marry a white lady. Sure do, but not buy her an’ her whole family.’

  ‘You kin jest not send the money,’ Hammond suggested almost anxiously.

  ‘We’ll send the money. ’Tain’t the money.’

  Charles entered the room and interrupted the colloquy. He threw himself in a chair, announcing, ‘I like it. Ain’t no prayin’ an’ don’tin’. You an’ Cousin Hammond treats me growed up. An’ there ain’t that Blanche a-cryin’ an’ a-wantin’ an’ carryin’ on.’

  ‘You be goin’ home agin purty soon. Don’t git to likin’ Falconhurst too good,’ warned Maxwell.

  ‘I ain’t never goin’ home. I’m a-goin’ to stay.’

  ‘I reckon not,’ Maxwell modified the finality of his statement.


  ‘Not till I see Cousin Ham’s fightin’ nigger, no way.’

  ‘Got to train him first,’ said Ham. ‘Mayhap take weeks.’

  ‘Jason won’t never make no fightin’ nigger,’ Charles hazarded, hopeful for a contradiction. ‘Cries when you hurt him.’

  ‘No sense in hurtin’ him,’ said Ham.

  ‘I means trainin’ him.’

  ‘Don’ train him rough, or I’ll snatch him away from you. I tol’ you not to larrup that buck.’

  ‘Mayhap whut he needin’,’ said Maxwell. ‘Make a buck outn him.’

  ‘Charles an’ me aims to go into Benson Satiday to watch the fightin’, see who got fighters, an’ whut kind of niggers they bettin’,’ Hammond told his father.

  ‘An’ carry Mede along—jest to show him,’ Charles added with enthusiasm.

  ‘Mede stay home—hid,’ said Hammond.

  ‘When you in Benson, better git a bottle of Dr. Mulbach’s Serpent Oil to rub on that Mandingo,’ Maxwell suggested. ‘It sovereign.’

  ‘Mede, he ain’t sick, don’t need no medicament.’

  ‘Better git it. Stink bad, but you need it a-trainin’ him. Makes him limber and flexuous, rubbed on his jints. Circus folks all use Dr. Mulbach’s.’

  ‘Dr. Mulbach’s Serpent Oil, you say,’ Ham repeated to impress the name upon his memory.

  ‘An’ now we better dig up that pot, the one under the big tree, I reckon, and count out the money fer Wilson,’ the old man decided. ‘You-all kin tote it into Benson to Banker Meyer, an’ git him to send it. No use procrastinatin’ it.’

  ‘Reckon we kin trust Meyer to send it?’

  ‘Cain’t trus’ no bank or banker long. But he’ll send it. Meyer honestlike, as bankers goes. Safer havin’ gold buried in a pot, but how else kin we send to Wilson?’ Maxwell was not without misgivings.

  ‘An’ to Major Woodford?’ Ham asked.

  ‘Kin count that out an’ keep it aside. Don’t need no banker to send that. Charles here will be goin’ first thing, an’ he kin tote it. Cain’t you, Charles?’

  ‘Charmed to oblige you.’ Charles assumed formality.

  ‘Oblige me? Oblige your papa.’ There was a hint of a sneer in Maxwell’s voice as he got slowly to his feet.