Mandingo

by Kyle Onstott

  ‘ ’Sides I fancies ’em, them two, kind of. With them gone, it wouldn’t be the same-like.’ The terror in his tone gainsaid the casualness of his words. Hammond valued the twins more than he had been aware.

  ‘Ain’t no danger now. It all over,’ Maxwell sought to soothe Hammond’s anxiety.

  A shiver descended Hammond’s spine, but he sat forward. ‘I’ll take the hosses now,’ he offered. ‘I reckon I kin drive.’

  ‘Nev’ mind. I doin’ all right, right well. My han’s don’t hurt me,’ Maxwell dissembled and fell silent. Ahead, he saw a woman in a Mother Hubbard dress disappear in the brush beside the road. The spot was far removed from any habitation and Maxwell wondered briefly what she might be doing. He did not mention her to Hammond, whose eyes were closed, although his father was sure he was not asleep.

  He had forgotten the woman as he approached the spot where she had disappeared. Abruptly a Mother Hubbard sprang from the side of the road and grabbed the head of the horses, stopping them. The wearer was masked by a red handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face. Another masked man in a Mother Hubbard approached the carriage with a cocked gun.

  ‘Raise your hands,’ commanded the second man. ‘Drop the hosses an’ raise your hands. We want your money. Don’t want to haf to shoot.’

  The man in front of the horses did not speak.

  The Maxwells were unarmed and unable to resist. Bewildered by the suddenness of the unanticipated danger, the older man unwound the reins from his hands and raised his arms. ‘Don’t fight ’em. Do like he say,’ he adjured his son. ‘On’y wantin’ jest money.’

  There was no alternative for Hammond, with the point of the highwayman’s gun in his ribs. Half comprehending, he too slowly raised his hands.

  Mede roused himself and made as if to rise at which his older master turned his head and ordered, ‘Don’t do nothin’. Set you still.’

  ‘Whure is your poke?’ demanded the robber. Hammond lowered his right hand to withdraw it, and the robber cautioned him, ‘Keep ’em high. Tell me. I’ll git it.’

  ‘In my pocket,’ murmured Hammond reluctantly and weakly.

  The robber felt him over, located the purse and withdrew it. Holding it before him, he backed toward the overgrown forest at the roadside. ‘Drop the hosses and leave ’em go,’ he called to his companion.

  ‘Ought to cut his harness, loose the hosses, and let ’em walk,’ replied the other.

  ‘Let ’em ride. One is old,’ said the man with the gun. ‘Come on.’ He disappeared into the brush. His partner relinquished the horses and followed.

  The robbery had been almost casual, entirely lacking in melodrama. The highwaymen had appeared, made their demands, garnered the money, and departed as suddenly as they had come. It would be as futile to pursue them as to resist.

  ‘Turn ’round. Go back. Go back fer help,’ Hammond urged.

  ‘You think they goin’ to the tavern to spen’ that money?’ Maxwell asked calmly. ‘They half toward New Orleans already.’

  ‘Neri?’ suggested Hammond.

  Maxwell nodded, as he readjusted the reins about his hands. ‘An’ the other one, the other at the hosses, Brownlee, or I miss. ’Bout his size. They in cahoots all along.’ He clucked to his mares.

  ‘They could taken the niggers an’ the hosses. We couldn’t a-done nothin’.’

  ‘Didn’t want ’em on they hands. That’s hangin’.’ The older man paused and then chuckled. ‘Look comical in them dresses an’ them kerchiefs over they heads. Reckon they reckoned we ain’t a-goin’ to know ’em.’

  ‘We don’—not fer sure.’

  ‘We knows, but cain’t swear, cain’t take oath.’

  ‘All that money,’ lamented Hammond.

  ‘Five hunert dollars, ain’t it?’

  ‘Three thousand.’

  ‘But on’y five hunert out. The other we won from ’em. They jest a-takin’ it back. Jest one half-grown nigger worse off than when we started—’bout that. It ain’t bad.’

  ‘ ’Tain’t fair,’ said Hammond.

  ‘Nigger fightin’. Got to expect it—anything.’ Maxwell did not condemn the sport. He merely noted its hazards. ‘Don’t tell nobody how we was bilked—’ceptin’, maybe, Doc Redfield. Nobody needin’ to know. Neri an’ Brownlee ain’t a-tellin’. We eatin’, jest the same.’

  ‘An’ we got the twins,’ Hammond groped for consolation. The encounter had rallied his strength. The weakness he had forgotten now returned. A clammy sweat drenched his body and chills followed one after another down his backbone.

  Maxwell gave the mares their heads, and they required little guidance or urging, but the strain upon his flaccid arms was racking. He sought to conceal his discomfort from Hammond and succeeded. They rolled through the waning daylight in silence.

  ‘I gotten us here,’ observed Maxwell as the team turned from the road into the lane at Falconhurst.

  Napoleon ambled forth to grasp the horses. Lucretia Borgia appeared on the gallery.

  ‘Whure Memnon?’ the owner demanded.

  ‘He comin’, Masta, suh.’

  ‘Tell him hurry. Hammond here sick.’

  Lucretia Borgia rushed impetuously forward in her solicitude. Memnon came up to help his master down from the surrey and was cursed for his pains. ‘Git aroun’ to other side. God-damn slothin’ fool. Lift down your young masta. Lift him careful. He sick.’

  Before Memnon could pass around the vehicle, however, Lucretia Borgia had grasped Hammond and had lifted him from his seat, stood him upright, supported him with her vast arm around his waist, and was leading him toward the house.

  Memnon recircled the surrey, but again before he could reach the other side, his master had crawled down under his own power and was stretching his muscles and flexing his hands. He was fatigued; but the realization that he was still good for something caused him to forget his pain.

  ‘Git him abed,’ he instructed nobody in particular. ‘Heat him up a sad-iron fer his feet. Cain’t you see he sick?’

  Lucretia Borgia required no instructions. She was taking Hammond into the house as fast as he was able to walk. Again he was a frail and petulant little boy, whom she could at once master and serve, command while she pampered.

  ‘Whure Meg? An’ Alph?’ Hammond demanded.

  ‘They eatin’, Masta, suh. Feedin’ ’em ’thout waitin’ fer you all—gittin’ so late.’

  ‘Call ’em here. I craves seein’ ’em, jest seein’ ’em,’ murmured Hammond weakly, pausing at the edge of the gallery.

  Lucretia Borgia bellowed their names. ‘Come here to yo’ masta,’ she roared sternly, as if to indict the twins of some negligence. ‘Why you wantin’ them, Masta? They done somethin’?’ she asked.

  ‘They all right? I near to sold ’em, both of ’em,’ he confessed. ‘I don’ want to sell ’em. They mine.’

  The twins appeared and asked in unison, ‘Yas, suh, Masta?’

  Hammond gestured the boys nearer. He placed his hands on their shoulders and drew them toward him. It was enough. He had confirmed with his senses that the slaves had not vanished.

  Meg, without prompting, fell in on one side of his master to lead him. Only after Hammond had satisfied himself of the presence of the twins did he bethink him of Mede. He turned and called to him. ‘Git down outn that seat,’ he commanded. ‘Have Lucy wash you down and rub you good. You all right, come mornin’.’

  The Mandingo roused himself and tried to obey, but in dismounting from the carriage sank to his knees between the wheels.

  ‘Run fer Lucy,’ Hammond told Alph. ‘Hurry!’

  ‘Nev’ mind,’ said the father. ‘You go on. Git you abed. I’ll see Lucy puts him away.’

  But Hammond tarried, supported by Meg and Lucretia Borgia, until Lucy arrived, terrified and convulsed with anxiety, followed placidly by Big Pearl.

  ‘Ain’t it a pity, ain’t it a pity?’ repeated Lucy over and over as she helped Mede to rise to his feet. ‘Whut they do to y
ou? Whut happen?’ she demanded.

  ‘We won. I kilt him,’ Mede murmured the only explanation he could give.

  ‘Wash him down good an’ rub him in bed,’ Hammond prescribed. ‘I’ll send some sleepin’ medicine fer him.’

  ‘You looks so funny. Sho’ do look funny,’ commented Big Pearl as she and her mother, one on each side, dragged the Mandingo to his feet and supported him toward their cabin.

  Hammond watched them go and reluctantly turned to be led himself into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He sank back upon the bed and submitted to being divested of his clothes. Maxwell and Memnon followed, and Ellen came, panicking in apprehension.

  Nurses more devoted could not have been found, although there was nothing for them to do. Hammond turned and snuggled himself in his bed. He reached his hand from beneath the covers and drew Meg to the side of the bed, permitting his hand to rest on the boy’s thigh. Sure of his possession, he closed his eyes. Meg could not escape, might not even fidget, lest he wake or disturb his master. He was elated at the distinction of his master’s touch, and grinned in his triumph over Ellen in being chosen.

  All night the household was astir, although, once abed and quieted with laudanum, Hammond required no attention. With morning he opened his eyes drowsily and tasted the soup that Lucretia Borgia had kept steaming through the night. He felt no hunger and was unable to drink three spoonfuls, but Lucretia Borgia was repaid for making it. His fever had subsided but had not entirely disappeared. He thrust his legs from the covers and sat on the side of the bed, fell backwards across it, enjoyed the play of the air on his feverish flesh. At length he summoned the resolution to rise and, over Ellen’s demur, bade Meg to dress him.

  ‘You ought not, Masta. You sick. I goin’ to call Old Masta,’ Ellen threatened.

  ‘Keep on your britches. Ain’t any damn wench drivin’ me. I got to ’tend to that boy; like is, he hurtin’.’

  ‘Mede? He kin come up here,’ the girl argued.

  ‘Stinkin’ up! That oil an’ all!’ He dismissed the idea.

  Still weak, once on his feet he felt better than he had anticipated. He surmounted the dizziness that overtook him at the head of the stairs and resolutely hitched his way down them, one step at a time, Meg on his left side to help and balance him. At the foot of the stairs he braced himself, opened the front door and strode into the open. As he moved from the cool shade into the sunshine, which was already growing hot, he shivered again.

  ‘Go on back,’ he turned sharply on the young slave at his side. ‘God damn! Has you got to try an’ tail after me, ever’ step I takin’? You’d reckon I ’longed to you, ruther as you ’longin’ to me. You don’t leave me be, I goin’ to trounce you, trounce you good. Now, go long.’ This tirade was an effort to negate the thing that had sickened him, about which he felt some shame. He refused to credit that his fear of losing the Borgia’s twins could have brought on his fever and laid him low.

  Hammond limped across the area and entered the Mandingo’s cabin. Mede lay in the bed, Lucy feeding him his breakfast morsel by morsel with her fingers. His eyes were mere slits between bulging blue-green lids. His cheeks were knobs, his thick lips were everted with swelling, and his nose spread amorphously over his face. Unable to chew without pain, he swallowed the bites of fat pork whole as Lucy stuffed them slowly into his mouth.

  ‘He funny,’ giggled Big Pearl. ‘That nigger shore look funny.’

  ‘Hush up, you big black mouth,’ Lucy admonished her. ‘You don’t, I makes you look funnier than he do. Cain’t you see he painin’? Ain’t got no gumption?’ In the mother’s indignation she turned also on Belshazzar, who was munching his breakfast, and ordered him, ‘Take that bone you suckin’ an’ git outn hyar! Cain’t you see Masta come? You jist in his way. Be polite, cain’t you? Git out.’

  Hammond ignored the household strife. He walked to the bed and asked, ‘How is you, boy? Is you hurtin’ bad?’

  ‘Naw, suh, Masta, suh. I all right—goin’ to be. I right tol’able, suh, please suh,’ the slave replied thickly and painfully, with a grimace intended to be a smile.

  ‘He near kilt,’ Lucy put in. ‘He don’ got to fight no more, Masta, do he? Mede near ruint.’

  ‘Whut you reckon I got him fer, jest to pleasure you an’ Big Pearl? Other bucks good enough fer that. When he well agin, I’m goin’ to fight him when I tell him. Mede craves to fight, don’ you?’

  The slits of eyes turned upwards at the outer corners in an implied smile, as the boy bobbed his jaw in an effort to nod his head.

  ‘He kill that othern. He tell you?’ Hammond praised Mede, who grinned broadly despite the pain.

  Lucy answered with an ‘Umm! Umm!’

  Hammond bent over the bed and touched the tender flesh of the eyelids with his forefinger, pinched the bulged cheeks, felt the lips, opened the mouth to examine the teeth. None was missing or broken.

  When Hammond cast back the covers to examine Mede’s body, the stench of serpent oil suffused the room. The torso was swollen in spots, and Mede flinched at Hammond’s prodding of them. But worst of all was the knee when Hammond tried to flex it.

  ‘Please, suh, Masta, suh,’ Mede begged while his master manipulated the joint.

  ‘I better sen’ fer Redfield,’ Hammond opined aloud. ‘He goin’ to fire that knee an’ make it bend.’

  ‘No, no, please, suh, Masta, not that white man. He goin’ to hurt, hurt bad. It git well, Masta. I kin ben’ it now, almos’. You do sompin’, anything, but not him.’

  ‘Don’ want a stiff knee, do you, like I got?’ It was the worst fate that Hammond could suggest. ‘That red poker jist take a jiffy; Doc Redfield kin fix it.’

  Mede sat up in bed, weeping. ‘Naw, naw, no,’ he cried. ‘Please Masta, suh, don’ let him burn me.’ He grasped Hammond about the shoulders, and buried his face in his coat, tears of terror streaming from his face.

  The white youth hugged the Negro to him and let him cry. ‘Doc ain’t a-goin’ to hurt you none more than he got to. Won’t take more than a minute. I wish, they done it to me,’ Ham tried to appease his black child.

  Mede clung but the tighter to Hammond’s body, racked with convulsive sobs. Fearful not at all of the worst such an opponent as he had fought yesterday was able to do to him, he quailed at the concept of a hot poker in the hands of the veterinary.

  17

  By Wednesday the swellings on Mede’s face had subsided and his features were recognizable. He had quite recovered his spirits. Best of all, his knee had so mended that he was able to walk without a limp, if not without pain. Hammond instructed Lucy to continue the embrocations and the manipulations.

  Mede was too precious to risk in productive work, and, aside from the occasional use of him as a stallion, he was wholly unprofitable. This the Negro was not long in surmising and set himself up as a spoiled darling. Disdainful of the lesser slaves, he was as arrogant as he was exigent with Lucy and Big Pearl. His favours were a condescension and the women to whom they were delegated were expected to be, and were, grateful. He was as abject toward his white owners as he demanded his fellow-slaves to be to him, and he submitted willingly to the most rigorous regimen of exercise and diet that Hammond’s ingenuity could devise.

  That bugbear of the cotton planter, a wet picking season, beset Alabama. Wind and rain assailed the opening bolls, which wilted and rotted before they could be gathered. The Maxwells threw their whole force, adults and children, into the ‘patch’ on those rare days dry enough to warrant working, but the pickers were so indiscriminate that much of the sound fibre was mildewed by contact with the soggy bolls included in the bags. Hammond cautioned the hands each morning not to pick wet cotton, but it filled the picking bags as well as the dry. He had the women go through the wagons to sort out and discard as much wet fleece as they were able before the crop was hauled to Benson for ginning. It was futile, since all was dank, if not before it was picked, dampened by the dragging of the jute bags through the mud and pudd
les of the field.

  Would the rain ever stop? The crop had grown and matured well, better than Hammond anticipated when he had planted it, and he gave the credit to the Petit Gulf variety which was new at Falconhurst. But for Petit Gulf there was a long picking season; the bolls on a plant kept bursting for weeks, a few at a time. And the afternoon downpour or the all-night drizzle blasted them as they burst.

  If Ham was disappointed in the failure of his crop, Lucretia Borgia was desolated. She stood in the gallery, watching the rain descend and shaking her head while she supported her distended abdomen with her hands intertwined beneath it. For all the eupepsia with which pregnancy endowed the woman, she could not abide with complacency misfortunes which beset the family. Her moods mirrored those of her younger master.

  The elder Maxwell, on the contrary, took a perverse satisfaction in his son’s discomfiture, the satisfaction he had taken when Ham’s castle of blocks had toppled and the boy had to learn by trial and error to build securely. To Maxwell, the failure of a crop was but a lesson in the futility of planting. ‘He goin’ to learn,’ he told Blanche over their toddies, ‘whut I been tellin’. Cain’t make cotton on wash-away lan’. Jest some’in to keep the niggers from settin’ an’ rottin’. The harves’ is niggers—growin’ niggers, regular nigger farm. Cain’t learn him, seem like, Falconhurst ain’t a cotton plantation at all. Course, I know,’ he conceded, nodding, ‘cotton genteel. Goin’ to be a gen’leman, you got to grow a little patch of cotton. The Hammonds all growed it—an’ all busted.’ Neither rancour nor irony was in his tone.

  Lucretia Borgia’s child refused to wait for the end of cotton picking. As the Maxwells sat down to breakfast one morning, Meg came galloping impetuously from the kitchen, peacock brush in hand, and announced, ‘Masta, please suh, my mammy fetch you a sucker. Come see, please suh, come see.’ He even laid his hand on his master’s arm and sought to draw back his chair.