Caleb (14 page)

Jardine finished his narrative and looked up at Caleb. “So, there you have it, Caleb,” he said. “A tale of adventure, romance, and sheer stupidity. I’m back here without a wife, without a damned good nurse who I sold into God knows what situation, out of pocket more money than I like to talk about, but—I hope—a little wiser. You got anything to say about all that?”

“No, Master.”

“And a damned good thing,” Jardine said menacingly. “You just try to forget it, and I’ll try to remember it next time I am tempted by a pretty face and a lot of curly blonde hair.”

When Caleb was about to leave, Jardine remembered something. “Did Missy have anything to say when she left?” he asked.

“Just good-bye, Master, and thanks for the twenty dollars.”

Jardine thought for a moment. “I guess I deserve that, Caleb,” he said quietly.

For all of his hurry to get away from Charleston, Jardine did not neglect to bring back another stack of newspapers, which Caleb slowly read to him. One theme was repeated so often that it became clear to both of them.

“Damn me, Caleb,” Jardine exclaimed, “if there isn’t going to be a war. Get me the atlas, the big one with the red cover.” Jardine laid the big book open on his cleared desk and put his finger on it about where Three Rivers was. “I suppose,” he said sarcastically, “that you are an expert at map reading.”

“No, Master,” Caleb said, but as they studied the detailed map, it became clear that he knew his way around it at least as well as Jardine did.

“As any fool can see, when the national government stops fooling around and comes down here to start putting down the rebellion, Three Rivers is going to be smack dab in their way,” said Jardine. “And since it’s not likely to move, what are we going to do?”

Neither of them had the answer to that.

32

A few days later, after continuing to read the papers and talking to neighbors and strangers he met on trips to local towns, Jardine again called Caleb to his study.

“You still got your heart set on being free, Caleb?” he asked.

“Yes, Master.”

“All right. I’ve been thinking. I reckon when this coming war starts, owning slaves is going to be an even worse proposition than it is now. If the Yanks don’t come through here and free you, one night you’ll take advantage of the confusion and just head north.”

Caleb did not deny that.

“Okay,” Jardine said. “I’ve decided that if you are so bound and determined to go up north and take your chances, I’ll sell you your freedom for the same price I paid for you. Do you have five hundred and fifty dollars, Caleb?”

“No, Master,” Caleb said, though it was hardly necessary.

“You got five hundred and fifty red cents?”

Caleb just shook his head.

“Well,” Jardine said, “I’m not about to give you your freedom for nothing, and I’m not going to sell you to some other poor devil because you’d just disappear, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d try, Master,” Caleb said.

“So that leaves one other possibility. You have to—or rather, we have to—come up with some way that you can make that money. You got any ideas?”

“No, Master.”

“Well, you’d better do some thinking, and so will I.”

When Jardine came back from his next trip to town, he was buzzing with excitement. Now, he thought, where the hell are they? Going into the horse barn, he began opening boxes, searching through one and then turning to another. Soon the floor was littered with worn-out harnesses and other odds and ends.

After a while, the smallest house girl knocked breathlessly on the door of Caleb’s little office. “Massa’s in the big horse barn,” she blurted, “and he wants you. Right away.”

Putting away the account books, Caleb went out the back door and was soon at the horse barn. He found Jardine deep in a big steamer trunk, throwing things out of it.

“Aha!” he shouted in triumph and came out with a pair of worn boxing gloves. Then another pair. Caleb looked at him stupidly.

“Caleb, you ever do any fighting? I mean in the ring—prizefighting?”

“No, Master,” Caleb said. “Brent and I were given boxing lessons when we were boys, but the only real fighting I’ve done was rough-and-ready with no rules.”

“That might come in handy,” Jardine said. “I learned to box at the Citadel and then did a lot of it at Harvard when I should have been studying. Let’s see how much I remember.” He threw a pair of gloves to Caleb. “Strip down to just your trousers,” he said, “and put those on.”

“Why, Master?”

“Because I said so, damn you. Who’s the master here? Get them on!”

While Caleb was stripping off his shirt and pulling on the gloves, Jardine used a hoe handle to line off an improvised ring in the dirt just outside the stalls. Then he also stripped off his jacket and shirt and called in Old William to lace up his gloves. Then William tied Caleb’s laces. When they were ready, Jardine sent William back to work and faced Caleb.

“For the next few minutes, I want you to try to forget that you are a slave,” said Jardine. “We are just two boxers trying to knock each other’s heads off. You got that?”

“I think so, Master,” Caleb said.

Jardine squared up to him, and Caleb desperately tried to remember what the boxing teacher had taught him and Brent all those years ago. While he was thinking, Jardine’s glove came through Caleb’s upraised hands and hit him in the face. It was not a hard blow, but it stung Caleb into alertness.

“For Christ’s sake,” Jardine complained, “are you going to sleep? We’re supposed to be boxing.” He threw another right, but Caleb picked this one off. “That’s more like it,” Jardine said, dancing around. “Now, come on, let’s box!”

As he faced Jardine, Caleb remembered something the old boxer had said:
Boys, half of the art of boxing is not getting hit. You manage that long enough and eventually the other feller will get tired and be ripe for the picking.
That philosophy began to drift back into Caleb’s consciousness, and he soon found that he could fend off Jardine’s enthusiastic but clumsy punches with ease. He was beginning to enjoy watching his red-faced, sweating master vainly throw punch after punch. Very few of them came anywhere near Caleb.

“Come on, damn you,” Jardine puffed. “Hit me! You’re supposed to be a boxer, not a dummy.”

Desperately, Caleb tried to do as he was told and launched a roundhouse right at Jardine’s bobbing head. The feeble punch came no closer than a foot.

“That’s a little better,” Jardine called. “Keep it up. Keep it up! Come on, try to hit me.” He launched a vicious right cross at Caleb’s head but succeeded only in hitting his glove.

Caleb shifted his weight from foot to foot and warded off Jardine’s punches, but the ones he threw came nowhere near Jardine. It wasn’t that Jardine was so elusive. It was as though something was staying Caleb’s arm, taking the strength and direction out of his punches before he could launch them.

Finally, Jardine stopped what he hoped was very stylish bobbing and stood there, red-faced and gasping. “Christ,” he said, “I can’t keep this up. I’m going to die of exhaustion or old age before you lay a glove on me.” He lowered his gloved and trembling hands to his sides. He stuck his chin up at Caleb. “Now, come on, you big black bastard. Hit me! That’s an order!”

Caleb raised his hands to do as he was told, but nothing happened. Jardine was an easy and inviting target, but Caleb simply could not will his muscles to move. He lowered his hands again. “I can’t, Master,” he said.

“Why the hell not?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said, “but I think I might kill you. I can’t take that chance.”

Jardine looked at the massive muscles on the slave before him and wondered if what Caleb said might be true.

“Are you some kind of Quaker?” he asked.

“No, Master. I just can’t hit you.”

“We’ll see if you can hit at all,” Jardine said. “You just stay here. Don’t move an inch. I’ll be right back.”

33

Storming out of the horse barn, Jardine strode over to the big barn where slaves were cleaning out a large accumulation of manure. He studied the three men as they worked. He considered Big Mose. He was the right size, but he was also pushing sixty years of age and was too valuable to damage in the event Caleb could actually fight. Finally, he shouted, “You, Caesar, come here.”

The slave dropped his pitchfork and walked over to Jardine doubtfully. He was about twenty years old and muscular but both thinner and taller than Caleb. “Massa?”

“You want to earn a quarter?” Jardine asked.

“Yassa.”

“Then follow me.” Jardine turned on his heel and marched back to the horse barn with Caesar following close behind, wondering what Master Boyd was up to. But he looked forward to having that quarter.

When they got into the horse barn, and he saw Caleb waiting there wearing boxing gloves, Caesar was even more confused. He stopped and shifted his wondering gaze back and forth from the master to the house slave. Caleb paid no attention to him.

Jardine turned back to him. “Caesar, you do any boxing? You know, fist fighting?”

“Nawsa, not much. Us boys, we mostly wrestle. Don’t need no ’quipment for that. Nobody gets hurt.”

“Let’s see your muscles.”

Sheepishly, Caesar raised his arms until his fists were alongside his head and flexed. His biceps were well developed, and his young body was lean and hard.

“You’ll do,” said Jardine. “What do you think, Caleb?”

“He’ll do, Master,” Caleb said.

“All right, Caesar,” Jardine said. “Here’s what we’re doing. You’re boxing with Caleb here. You’ll wear these gloves I’ve got on, and you have to stay within these lines I’ve scraped in the dirt. You’re going to fight as many three-minute rounds as it takes, and I’ll give you a quarter for every round you last. If you can beat Caleb, I’ll give you another two dollars. How’s that sound?”

“That’s fine, Massa,” Caesar said. He applied his limited mathematical skills to how much he could earn, but he stopped cold when he came to two dollars. He’d never had two dollars together in his whole life. And although he had nothing in particular against Caleb—the two had never exchanged two words—he had no natural liking for the privileged house slave with the peculiar way of talking, either. This might be fun as well as profitable. At the very least, he’d have a quarter.

“Quarter anyway, Massa?” he asked just to be sure.

“Quarter anyway,” Jardine assured him, reaching into the pocket of his trousers and fishing out a coin. “Here, put that in your pocket. You’re a rich man already. A professional fighter.”

Liking the sound of that, Caesar eagerly took the coin and tucked it away.

“Now,” Jardine ordered, “strip off that shirt and put on these gloves. Time to stop talking and start fighting.”

As he watched Jardine tie the boxing gloves onto Caesar, Caleb realized that the young man had no idea what he was getting into. His only assets were strength, youth, and speed. Caleb knew that these were not enough.

Finally, the gloves were on, and Jardine backed out of the improvised ring. “Okay, boys,” he said, peering at his pocket watch. “When I say go, you go. When I say stop, you stop. Got that?”

“Yes, Massa.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Well, then,” Jardine said. “Go!”

Caleb stepped forward rapidly while Caesar was still thinking and struck a sharp right just where Caesar’s left arm met his shoulder. The blow rang out in the silent barn. Suddenly, Caesar wasn’t thinking anymore; he was reacting. But instead of darting back, Caleb stayed in close and hit him again in exactly the same place on his other arm. The punches didn’t hurt, but they were a reminder to Caesar of why he was in that barn.

Caesar shook himself like a big thin dog and launched a roundhouse right that might have murdered Caleb if it had landed anywhere near him. But by that time, Caleb had backed off and was bobbing and weaving in a pattern that he vaguely remembered from his brief training.

“Now you’re going!” shouted Jardine. “Show me something.”

What Caleb showed him was a lot of speed and mobility, but not much power and absolutely no savagery. For two full rounds he treated Caesar like a giant, slightly mobile target while he revived his dormant boxing education. He tried out a bit of everything the old pug had taught him and Brent. And at the end of each combination, he hit Caesar with a sharp, painful punch to a different part of his body.

By the third round, Caesar was enraged, confused, and desperate to come to grips with this stinging whirlwind. Forgetting about the easy money he was earning and anything he might have learned from studying what Caleb was doing, Caesar charged at Caleb. All that effort got him was a flurry of sharp punches as he passed. Then he gave up boxing entirely, reverting to what wrestling he knew. But before he could get a grip on Caleb, a quick jab to each kidney drove Caesar back in confusion, opening him up for a knockout punch.

But Caleb did not deliver it. Instead, he followed his retreating opponent, delivering harassing, stinging, and humiliating punches, which did no real damage.

“Come on, Caleb,” Jardine cried, consulting his watch. “Finish him! You’re costing me money.”

As if responding to a cue, Caleb stopped dancing, weaving, and dodging, and strode like a panther directly into Caesar’s path, his eyes focused on the younger man’s chin. At first, daunted by Caleb’s glinting eyes and determined expression, Caesar fell back and covered up, his dark eyes peeking over his gloves. Then, gathering both strength and heart, Caesar launched himself with weakening legs straight at Caleb, like a bull tiring of sport and going in for the kill.

Stepping slightly to one side, Caleb delivered a straight right to the point of Caesar’s chin. Caesar’s momentum still carried him forward, and Caleb stepped aside and followed up with a left hook, which landed just below Caesar’s right ear. Caesar dropped to the dirt floor, and Caleb stepped back and lowered his hands.

“Damn!” Jardine shouted, jumping into the ring. “You can fight. But why did you take three rounds? You could have finished him off in one.”

“That depends on what you want, Master,” Caleb said. “Caesar working or Caesar lying in his bed with a broken jaw.”

Jardine shook his head. “Get a bucket of water and wake that boy up,” he said. “He’s got work to do.”

“He won’t be worth much this morning,” Caleb observed. He knelt down and shook the boy’s shoulder gently. “Caesar,” he said softly, “come on, boy, it’s all over. Up you go.” He helped the groggy youth to his feet.

“Wha . . . happen?” Caesar asked.

“You slipped,” Caleb told him.

“All over?”

“Yes, it’s all over, Caesar,” Caleb said. “You did well.”

“Quarter,” Caesar suddenly shouted and dug into the waistband of his ragged trousers. He found the coin and relaxed. “How many?” he demanded.

“Rounds?”

“Quarters!”

Caleb glanced at Jardine, who was trying to look as though his part of the transaction was over. Caesar looked at them with a half-afraid, half-belligerent expression that showed that he expected Jardine to cheat him. Neither man spoke.

“Oh, all right,” Jardine said testily, digging into his pocket and giving Caesar another three quarters. “Now, get back to work. And don’t you talk about this.”

Caesar stumbled back to the big barn, still slightly groggy but clinking the coins together happily. Both Jardine and Caleb knew that the first thing he would do was show Big Mose and the other slaves the money and tell them everything that had happened. The big barn would not get cleaned out that morning.

“This boxing is an expensive business,” Jardine complained.

“It could have been worse, Master,” Caleb said. “Caesar could have lasted five rounds or even beaten me.”

“Not if you know what’s good for you, he couldn’t have,” Jardine said. “Now, get yourself cleaned up and come to my study. We got some talking to do.”