Mandingo

by Kyle Onstott

  ‘Mamma, she mad! She done took it an’ squashed it agin the commode an’ throwed it over there in the corner,’ Blanche answered unmoved. ‘She say it a nigger. I ’on’t know how come.’

  The naked baby lay on the floor in the corner of the room under a window, its skull crushed. Mrs. Redfield picked it up into her arms and held the warm, dead body towards her husband.

  Redfield looked at the beautifully formed little boy. ‘The Mandingo, Ham’s Mandingo,’ he breathed. ‘Look jest like him; an’ big, must be fifteen pounds. Jest like the Mandingo.’

  ‘An’ a boy,’ declared his wife. ‘They a-wantin’ a boy.’

  ‘But not a nigger boy,’ said Redfield. ‘Ham’s mother-in-law, her a-doin’ it save me from gotten to do it. Me, I’d haten to got to kill it—it so big an’ purty an’ soun’ like.’

  ‘Is it a nigger, sure ’nough?’ Blanche asked but was indifferent to the reply.

  Redfield sighed as he went down the stairs, trying to make up his mind what to tell the Maxwells.

  As he entered the sitting-room, Hammond looked at him, expectant, and the older man asked, ‘Well?’

  ‘It dead. Come dead, I reckon,’ said Redfield.

  ‘Dead,’ sighed Hammond. ‘A boy?’

  ‘A boy. Made purty like,’ Redfield answered.

  ‘How Blanche? Kin I go up now? All over?’ Ham asked.

  ‘She all right. That is, she goin’ to be,’ said Redfield. ‘But no, no! Don’ go up. You don’ want to see it. Purty bad messed up. You don’t want to see it. Let the niggers bury it. Whure that cook-wench, that Lucretia Borgia? She bury it.’

  ‘I cravin’ I should see him. A boy! Dead!’ declared Hammond, starting towards the stairs.

  ‘Not yit, not yit!’ Redfield grasped his arm in an effort to detain him, but the young man eluded him.

  In the emotional turmoil, the Woodford surrey with old Wash in the front seat and Beatrix in the rear was hardly noticed as it went past the windows and down the lane. Beatrix had done her duty as a Hammond and would not stay for questioning. Later, Blanche’s challis dress, which she had given her mother, was found on Beatrix’s bed.

  Redfield stood by the door until Hammond was half-way up the stairs, after which he turned and walked towards the elder Maxwell. ‘Nigger!’ he said in a tragic whisper. ‘The chil’ a nigger!’

  ‘Whut you mean? Nigger?’ Maxwell failed to comprehend.

  ‘It a nigger, I tell you. The Mandingo, jest like him. A nigger!’

  ‘No! No! It cain’t be!’

  ‘It is!’

  ‘A white lady have a nigger? Blanche, she white, she Ham’s wife! It his chil’. Ifn any buck rape her, she’d say, she’d tell. No, no! You wrong!’ Maxwell set aside his toddy glass which had suddenly turned bitter. ‘Not the Mandingo?’

  ‘You reckon I don’ know a nigger?’ Redfield asked rhetorically, expecting no answer. ‘I tried to keep Ham from goin’ up; that why. Ain’t no use in him seein’ an’ knowin’.’

  ‘An’ you killed it? That whut the Widder wantin’, that whut she call you fer, to kill the nigger?’ Maxwell had no doubt. ‘You done right, right.’

  ‘Miz Woodford, afore I got there, she done bashed its head. I would of, would of cut the cord an’ let it bleed. I tol’ the Widder so, but I never needed. Miz Woodford,’ Redfield explained.

  Hammond returned, his face bloodless, his limp hardly noticeable, his step resolute. He sank into a chair and stared, wide-eyed, at nothing. ‘Doc Redfield,’ he said, ‘that powder? That pizen powder? The kin’ you used on an old, blin’ one of Widder Johnson’s, ’fore you married? You said if ever I needin’ it. You got some left?’

  ‘I reckon so; they’s some in my saddlebag,’ the doctor nodded. ‘On’y it too good fer him. You had ought to burn him.’

  ‘Mede, you meanin’? My Mandingo?’ Hammond inquired, dazed.

  ‘It was him all right. Sure was. It look jest like him,’ testified Redfield.

  ‘The powder not fer him. I got another I got to do fer. I goin’ to take care the Mandingo my own se’f. I take care of him. Don’ you fret,’ Hammond promised.

  Mrs. Redfield came heavily down the stairs and across the hall. ‘I reckon she be all right now,’ she said, framed in the sitting-room door. ‘That big wench, she kin do fer her good as me. She know how.’

  The lack of concern with which Hammond answered ‘I reckon’ told Redfield for whom the poison was intended.

  ‘You kin go along home, Widder,’ Redfield told his wife. ‘I’ll come, soon as I kin git somethin’ out of the saddlebag fer Hammond, here. I’ll ketch you up afore you git there.’

  The woman adjusted the bonnet on her head and her husband followed to help her into her buggy, after which he turned to his own horse, opened the saddlebag and delved among the powders and pills and bottles. At length he found the poison, wrapped in a soiled paper, unlabelled. He divided the contents and placed a quantity in a scrap of paper torn from the larger piece. After restoring the miscellaneous contents of the saddlebag, he re-entered the house with the small packet.

  The Maxwells had not moved. They had hardly spoken in his absence.

  ‘Here it be,’ the doctor said. ‘It ain’t got no taste to it. Jest you stir it up in coffee or a toddy, an’ have her drink it down. She won’ feel nothin’ but jest go to sleep an’ stiffen out. It sovereign, sure sovereign.’

  ‘Jest put it there on the mantel, please suh,’ Hammond managed to say. There was no resonance in his voice.

  Redfield did as he was bidden and took his departure without any farewell. Sensing the young man’s agony, he knew that no civilities were indicated.

  When the doctor had gone, Hammond struggled to his feet and went into the kitchen. He soon returned with a toddy into which he poured the contents of the small paper on the mantel.

  ‘Goin’ to give it?’ asked his father.

  ‘I got to. There ain’t no other way,’ said the son, stalking down the hall.

  Maxwell heard him as he went up the stairs. Memnon brought him a toddy which he tasted but did not drink. His knees ached and he rubbed the joints but failed to relieve the pain.

  Hammond went into the room where Blanche lay on the bed. The girl was awake, and Tense, who sat on the foot of the bed, arose. Hammond carried the goblet of toddy and sat in the chair beside the bed where Beatrix had sat.

  ‘Rouse you up an’ swaller this. It a-makin’ you feel better,’ he said with no evidence of rancour. ‘Help her to set up, Tense.’

  The odour of the potion was alluring to the girl and she reached for it. Hammond sat and watched while she sipped it slowly as Tense supported her.

  ‘I didn’ mean no harm, Hammond,’ Blanche declared weakly. ‘I didn’t mean no harm. Only you an’ that Ellen—you didn’ pay me no mind, no min’ at all, an’ I reckoned—I never knowed the baby goin’ to come a nigger.’

  Hammond was silent.

  ‘That good. It taste real good,’ Blanche said between swallows of the toddy. ‘It right stren’thenin’. On’y somethin’ in it, somethin’ in the bottom, white-like.’

  ‘That medicine Doc Redfield left fer you. It make you sleep quiet,’ said her husband.

  Blanche drained the goblet and Hammond took it from her hand. Tense eased her mistress back upon her pillows. Hammond sat quietly a few minutes, after which he got up from his chair and, taking the empty glass with him, went downstairs and into the kitchen where he rinsed the glass and set it aside to be washed.

  He made his way, dazed but resolute, across the area to Lucy’s cabin, which he entered without knocking. ‘Mede here?’ he demanded.

  The Mandingo rose from the bed where he lay.

  ‘You know that big hog kettle,’ the master told the slave. ‘Well, you fill it up with water, an’ strike a fire under it, an’ heat it up hot. Bring fire from the kitchen to light it with. We goin’ to brine you agin, brine you good.’

  Being steeped in hot brine was not a pleasant experience, Mede knew,
but there was no way to evade the master’s purpose. He knew better than to protest. Hammond appeared grim and determined, but betrayed no anger. The slave wondered, however, at his failure to examine him and criticize his condition, as was Ham’s custom.

  Mede left the cabin and went to the end of the gallery where the vat-like kettle sat, saw that it was raised from the ground with blocks of wood. Then he began carrying more wood from the stacked pile and arranged the pieces around and under the kettle to heat the contents quickly. Next, he went to the kitchen for a brand with which to ignite the wood. He saw to it that the dry wood was burning well all around the kettle before he went to the well for water to fill it. He attached the bucket to the well-sweep and placed his weight against the pole, bringing the water to the surface. He poured the water into two buckets which he carried to the kettle. When the first of the water touched the bottom of the kettle, it hissed into steam which soon subsided with the addition of more water. Again and again he went to the well until the kettle was well filled. He shivered at the thought of getting into the hot brine and remaining there until it should toughen his skin. Why should his master undertake this process just at nightfall? There was no accounting for a white man’s whims. Mede knew nothing of what had occurred inside the house that day, and, if he had known, would not have associated it with his salting.

  After Mede left the cabin, Hammond turned to Lucy and told her, ‘You goin’ to tote the wood to keep that fire, after Mede git in that water.’ As he went toward the house, he paused to see that Mede was preparing his bath.

  Accompanying his father to the dining-room, Hammond could eat no supper, and the older man, sensing the anguish of his son, did not urge him to talk nor offer him counsel. He knew that the boy had poisoned Blanche, but could conceive no other course. He was, rather, grateful for the young man’s restraint, the absence of violence. He knew, of course, the need to destroy the Mandingo, but left the time and manner to his son. Hammond did not divulge his plans. Maxwell would have liked to have a few more women pregnant to the Negro stallion before his demise, but had misgivings about saying so. Indeed, he feared that the youth might undertake to exterminate the babies Mede had already begotten.

  Supper over, Hammond went upstairs to make sure the poison had done its work. Blanche was not dead. She lay on the bed, her breathing shallow with a detectable heart-beat. Her husband was impatient for the end, but saw that the woman could not long survive.

  Outside, the night was black, with only the stars for light, only the stars and the embers that sparkled beneath the hog kettle. Mede had gone. Hammond felt the water, which was hot but not boiling, then he limped toward the stable where he got a rusty pitchfork. As he came toward the house, he saw Mede replenishing the fire. The water had begun to bubble. He entered the house and went to the sitting-room where his father was drinking a toddy.

  ‘Throw the blue coverlid aroun’ your shoulders. The night-time is cool-like. Don’ want you should catch anythin’. But come,’ said the boy. ‘I cravin’ you should see.’

  ‘Whutever you goin’ to do, Son, it all right,’ declared the father. ‘I ain’t a-needin’ I should watch.’

  ‘Come,’ urged the son, adjusting the shawl to Maxwell’s shoulders.

  The old man rose stiffly, and Hammond took his arm to guide his steps. He went no further than the gallery, from which he watched.

  The water in the kettle was turbulent with heat. The fire around it was brilliant in the dark, crackling and emitting sparks as the wood burned and fell apart.

  ‘Shuck down now,’ Ham ordered the slave, who kicked himself out of his garments and stood naked.

  The coppery skin reflected the fire’s glow as the Negro stood with unconsidered dignity before his owner. Ham ran his hand over the youth’s flank, valuing the property which pride and duty prompted him to destroy. He took a firm hold on the pitchfork.

  ‘Git you in,’ he ordered.

  ‘It hot. It bilin’,’ objected Mede.

  ‘I didn’t ast you was it hot. I sayin’ git in,’ said Hammond.

  The Negro stepped toward the kettle and tested the heat of the water with his hand. ‘I cain’t,’ he argued. ‘Please, suh, Masta, suh, that water burn me. I cain’t.’

  ‘Never min’ burnin’, I say,’ Hammond commanded. The Mandingo knew that the instruction was not to be gainsaid. He swung one leg into the cauldron but the water was unbearably hot and he withdrew it.

  ‘God damn, git in there,’ said the master.

  The Negro replaced the leg in the pot, grasped the iron edge to support himself while he hoisted the other leg, and burned the palm of his hand. He stood in the bubbling water deep as his knees, treading the bottom of the hot kettle, lifting one foot and then the other to keep from burning them.

  ‘Stop that bouncin’ an’ set you down,’ commanded his master. ‘Set right down, I sayin’.’

  ‘I—I cain’t,’ said the Negro, beginning to weep.

  Hammond stepped forward, raised the pitchfork, and drove it into the Negro’s abdomen. The water muffled the boy’s screams of rage and anguish, so long as they lasted, but at length he ceased to struggle.

  Hammond stood a long while over the cauldron, the fire-shine in his face, until he was sure the slave was dead.

  The moon appeared on the horizon and illumined the black night.

  Hammond called to Lucy and told her to replenish the fire and to keep it going throughout the night.

  ‘Masta, Masta!’ the woman wept, wringing her hands. ‘You done kill Mede, done kill him. He ain’t done nothin’. Whut fer you kill him, Masta, suh? Whut fer you kill him?’

  She expected no answer, but Hammond said, ‘Serve him right.’

  Maxwell, when it was apparent that the Mandingo was finished, turned towards the door, but before he reached it his son joined him and grasped his arm.

  ‘You got to look about now, I reckon; buy you another fightin’ buck,’ said the father. ‘Ain’t apt to find you anothern like that Mandingo. Mighty purty boy,’ he sighed as he entered the house.

  ‘Not reckon I git me any othern. Ain’t no point in fightin’ ’em,’ the boy replied. ‘A good one, an’ you cain’t fin’ nobody wantin’ to fight him, an’ a bad one al’ays gittin’ whupped. Cain’t trus’ no fighter, noways.’

  Hammond lay alone that night. When Ellen came to remove his boots for him, he sent her away. He lay alone but did not sleep. He lay and looked through the window into the moonlight. He heard Lucy throwing fresh wood upon the fire, and occasionally he saw the sparks that flew upward from the embers and went out. He felt his face redden with shame, not for what he himself had done, which was only his duty, but shame for his wife, a white woman and a Hammond, who had brought forth a Negro child.

  At the first hint of dawn he rose, got into his clothes, struggled to put on his boots without aid, and made his way to the room in which Blanche lay. He stepped over the body of Tense, sleeping on the floor of the hall outside her mistress’s door, but did not rouse her. The room had been his mother’s, and Hammond felt that it had been desecrated by the birth in it of the Negro child and, perhaps, by the assignation here at which it was begotten. He stepped to the bedside and laid his hand upon Blanche’s brow. It was cold. She was indeed dead. He made an effort to adjust the position of an upturned arm but found it rigid. She must have died early last night. The face was peaceful and there was no indication that she had struggled with death.

  He went out, closed the door, stepped again over the sleeping Tense, and went down the stairs.

  It was early, but the Negroes were beginning to stir. He encountered two stout youths, Brutus, shortened to Brute, and Treasure, whom he commanded to bring shovels and to follow him. He walked ahead while the boys went to get their shovels, but they soon came up with their master. He walked through the now brightening day, the two slaves at his heels, across the rows of burgeoning cotton toward the worm-fenced, weed-grown enclosure set aside to serve as a family burial ground. Instead of g
oing to the entrance gate, he climbed the fence and his slaves threw their shovels across and followed him. He paused before the wooden slabs that bore the half-effaced names of the members of his family buried beneath them, and stooped to pull the tallest of the weeds and grass from his mother’s grave. The family was huddled side by side in death in the very middle of the broad expanse, broad enough to accommodate ten numerous generations. Traversing the burial ground was another fence, beyond which there was a host of unmarked mounds beneath each of which rested the body of a dead Negro. Hammond remembered some of these servants and knew just where they lay. It was a quiet, peaceful stretch of high ground with a group of large elms, the young leaves of which were just turning from yellow-green to the deeper green of summer. Seldom disturbed by humans and never shot over, the area was a refuge for bob-whites and jays and cardinals which sensed their safety within its confines. Garter snakes bred here unmolested, and other small things scurried through the weeds at human approach.

  Hammond surveyed the scene while the slaves waited to be told what to do. Brute leaned on his shovel, while Treasure threw himself on a grass clearing among the weeds. The customary course was to bury members of the family, as they died, in a line, the last to die alongside the last-made previous grave, but Hammond, choosing a resting-place for his wife, felt the profanation of placing her beside his mother. That spot, he reasoned, should be reserved for his father. He went to the division fence and looked across into the Negro burial grounds, moved to inter his wife there. After all, had she not had a Negro child, and was it not to be buried with her? But he could not bring himself to do such a thing to a white woman, however culpable.

  At length he chose a spot on the white side of the fence, but hard against it, well away from the white dead, with them but not among them. He paced the space with his feet, length and breadth, and ordered the Negroes to dig the grave, cautioning them to conserve the soil and to pile it against the fence. He waited while they removed the surface with its weeds from the plot, seeing to it that the corners were square.