Preacher (7 page)

“Stick your hands out here, boy,” one of the two men said gruffly. He grabbed Art's wrist, clamped one of the shackles on it, then brought the other one up to secure it as well.

With Art and Jennie secured, one of the men passed a chain around the shackles, connecting them to each other, and ultimately to the saddle of one of the horses.

“You chil'run keep up now,” Jensen said as his two cohorts mounted their horses. “Don't give me no trouble and I'll be good to you. I won't go too fast.” With everyone mounted, they started down the road. Although Jensen kept his promise not to go too fast, it still required a very brisk walk for Art and Jennie to maintain the pace. By nightfall, Art was exhausted, and he couldn't help but wonder how Jennie could possibly keep up.

As Jensen and the others rode into town pulling Art and Jennie along behind them, several of the town's citizens turned out to look them over in curiosity. By now both Art and Jennie were so tired and dispirited that they were barely aware of the fact that they were the center of attention of just about everyone in town.

They stopped in front of one of the larger buildings. A sign on front of the building read:

“Keep an eye on 'em,” Jensen said as he dismounted.

Jennie shuffled over to sit down on the edge of the wooden porch.

“Get up, you,” one of the men said, jerking hard on the chain. As the chain was looped around in a way to be attached to both of them, Art tried to spare Jennie by taking up the energy of the jerk, but he couldn't. Jennie was pulled off the porch, and landed, facedown, in the dirt in front of the trade market.

“Haw!” the one who jerked the chain said. “D'you see that, Pauley?”

“Leave 'er be, Dolan,” Pauley said. “Let 'er sit down.”

“You gone soft on her, have you?” Dolan asked. “You ain't a'thinkin' ole' Boyd's gonna let you sample this girl, are you? 'Cause I tell you true, he ain't goin' to do it. He aims to get as much as he can out of her, and he figures if any of us mess with her, she won't bring as much.”

“Let 'er sit down,” Pauley said again. “Let both of 'em sit down.”

“Sit,” Dolan said, making a motion with his hand.

Art helped Jennie up; then they both sat on the edge of the porch. A moment later Jensen came back out of the building with another man.

“See what I told you, Sheriff? They both as white as you or me,” Jensen said. “But I got papers says they're slaves, the both of them.”

“Sheriff?” Art said, perking up. “Are you the sheriff?”

“I am.”

Art held up his hands. “Turn us loose, Sheriff. We aren't slaves.”

“You got any papers says you aren't?” the sheriff asked.

“No, I don't have any papers,” Art answered. “Why should I? People don't go around carrying papers saying they aren't slaves.”

“Them that was slaves at one time do,” the sheriff replied. He looked at Jennie. “What's your name, girl?”

“Jennie.”

“Jennie what?”

“I don't know as I got a last name,” Jennie replied.

“And you?”

“Art.”

Jensen handed the sheriff a piece of paper and the sheriff looked at it, then nodded. “According to this, a Creole female named Jennie and a young, male high-yella named Art were the property of one Lucas Younger. That property was transferred by a bill of sale to Boyd Jensen. I'm Boyd Jensen.”

“Wait a minute! I never belonged to Younger,” Art said. “I've never belonged to anyone! In fact, Younger tried to kill me. Look at the back of my head. That's where he hit me with a shovel.”

“True enough, Sheriff,” Jensen said. “Mr. Younger explained how this young buck went after his wife and he had to hit him with a shovel to stop him. He said he knocked him out, then went to get some water to throw on him to bring him to, but by the time he got back, the boy was gone. Then that night, the girl was gone too, so he figured the boy come back for her. He sold 'em to me at a bargain, seein' as how I was goin' to have to run 'em down.”

The sheriff stroked his chin as he studied the two. Finally, he nodded. “Take 'em inside. Tell Ancel I said if he wants to buy 'em, it's up to him.”

“Sheriff, you're making a big mistake!” Art insisted. “I'm not a slave!”

“You ain't, huh? Then how come you ain't got a last name?”

“I'll tell you my last name. It's . . .”

The sheriff held up his hand, interrupting Art. “Never mind, boy. You could make up a last name, wouldn't mean anything now.”

“Come on inside, you two,” Jensen said. “I want you to meet Ancel. He's a slave trader. If you think I was unfriendly, you ain't seen nothin' till you see Ancel. Best you do every thing he tells you to do.”

* * *

Ancel was a very overweight man with a round face, bulbous nose, heavily lidded eyes, and a thin mouth. He handed over a sum of money to Boyd Jensen.

Jensen counted the money, then put it in his pocket. He smiled at Art and Jennie. “I want to thank you two for runnin' off like you done. It made me a handsome profit.”

Ancel turned to a man who was standing nearby. “Take their shackles off, Frank, then take 'em on into the back and get 'em cleaned up,” he said. “I'll be along directly.”

Frank, who was a large, muscular man, put the club he was carrying under one arm. Then, getting the key from Jensen, he removed the shackles and gave the devices, plus the key, back to Jensen.

Art began rubbing his wrists, gratified that, after several days of wearing the restraints, he was finally free of them.

“Back there,” Frank growled, pointing to a door.

There were two barred cells on the other side of the door. One of the cells was filled with black men, the other with black women. All were naked.

“Take your clothes off,” Frank said. “Both of you.”

Jennie began complying without question, but Art hesitated.

“I'm not going to take off my clothes,” he said defiantly.

The muscular man hit him with the club at the juncture of the neck and shoulder. He inflicted the blow with an easy snap of the wrist, seemingly putting no power at all in it, yet the effect was devastating. Art felt a numbing pain run up his neck, then out his shoulder to his arm, and finally into his stomach, causing a nausea so severe that he thought, for a moment, that he was going to throw up.

“Take off your clothes,” Frank said again. He did not increase the tone of his voice, but repeated it in the same cold, dispassionate way he had used earlier. Oddly, it was much more frightening than it would have been had he shouted the words.

Art looked over at Jennie, who by now was naked. It was the first time he had ever seen a naked woman and, though Jennie was still quite young, her small, but well-formed breasts and the little patch of pubic hair showed that she was indeed a woman. He had long been curious about seeing a woman nude, but his current state of despair and humiliation robbed him of any sense of satisfying that curiosity.

Jennie made no effort to cover her nakedness, but stood there as if totally detached from herself. Art decided that the best way to survive this was to be as much like Jennie as he could be. Making his mind a complete blank, he took off all his clothes.

“You two get over here,” Buck said, pointing to a wooden platform. When they complied, two men came in carrying buckets of water. One man threw a bucket of water onto Art; the other threw a bucket onto Jennie. Each was given a piece of soap.

“Scrub yourselves down,” Buck ordered.

Following Jennie's lead, Art did as he was instructed. Then, when they were both covered with soap, the second bucket of water was thrown onto them. Not until then were they taken to their respective cells. The door slammed behind Art with a loud clang. Though he wasn't the only one naked, he was the only one white. The others in the cell stared at him with as much curiosity as had been displayed earlier by those on the street.

A young boy, no older than Art, came up to him, then ran his finger along Art's skin. After that, he stared into Art's eyes.

“Your eyes be blue,” he finally said.

“Yes.”

“Ain't never seen no colored boy with blue eyes before.”

“I'm not colored, I'm white,” Art said.

“What you doin' in here then?”

“I don't know,” Art said.

“I tell you why he's here,” one of the others said. “He been passin', that's why he's here. He's a high-yella that's been passin' hisself off as white, but he got caught.”

“I am white,” Art said.

“Not as long as you in here, you ain't,” one of the men said. “Don't make no difference what color skin you wearin'. When you in here, you as black as the blackest one of us.”

Half an hour later a basket of cornbread and a bucket of molasses were shoved through the bars. The others swarmed around the food, but Art hung back. The boy who had commented on his blue eyes brought him a piece of cornbread with a dab of molasses.

“You better eat,” the boy said. “This here be the only food we get today.”

It wasn't until that moment that Art realized he was hungry. He took the piece of cornbread. “Thanks,” he said.

The young black boy smiled broadly. “I be Toby,” he said. “Who you be?”

“Art.”

“Me'n you be tight,” Toby said.

It took Art a moment to figure out what Toby meant; then he realized that Toby was offering to be his friend. Despite the misery of his condition, this unreserved offer of friendship warmed him, and he smiled at his new friend.

“Yes,” Art said. “We're tight.”

* * *

Bruce Eby had been doing very well in Ohio, until he was forced to flee to save his neck. For nearly three years he had run Eby's River Trading Post in a cave alongside the Ohio River. It was a place where he sold to travelers goods he had stolen from other travelers.

He was successful for as long as his operation was secret, and the operation was secret as long as the river pirates who worked for him left no witnesses. Normally they were pretty good about that. They would swoop down on the flatboats, be they commercial or immigrant, kill everyone on board, then steal everything of value and bring it back to Eby.

But his men got careless. They attacked a family that was traveling in two boats. They didn't realize this when they attacked the first boat, and before they knew what was happening, the second boat was upon them. There were six men in the family, all armed, and for the first time, the river pirates found themselves outnumbered. Two were killed, and two got away.

They thought their getaway was complete, certain that the immigrants, grateful for their escape, would continue their journey. But they thought wrong, for one of the immigrants remembered seeing the pirates at Eby's Trading Post. Tying their boats to the bank, they came back down river to the cave, where they found Eby and the two surviving pirates engaged in a serious conversation. That was all the evidence they needed, and that night they attacked.

Eby managed to escape, but his remaining two men were killed, as were his wife and sister-in-law. He didn't mourn his wife, a half-Indian that he had bought, and her half sister was full-bloodied Indian. But he did regret losing what had been a lucrative business.

He was in Missouri Territory now, trying to decide what to do next, when he happened upon the slave auction in Tywappiti. He had no real need of slaves, but he thought he would hang around and watch the auction anyway, because the sight of human beings being traded like cattle intrigued him. He actually got a perverse sort of pleasure from watching a wrenching family separation.

When they brought the female slaves out for auction, he was stunned to see that one of them was white. When he inquired about her, he learned that she was a Creole. And as she had never done much physical labor, no one expected her to bring very much money.

“I heard tell that the last man who owned her sold her services as a whore,” one of the spectators commented.

“That's a hell of a thing,” another said. “It's one thing to own slaves to do labor. That's in the Bible. But a man ought to treat his slaves decent, and turnin' a young woman into a whore, be she black or white, is a sin.”

As it turned out, most of the men at the slave auction shared that same opinion, for when the bidding began, the girl known only as Jennie received only a few, halfhearted bids. Eby was able to buy her at a very cheap price.

Even as the male slaves were being brought out for their own auction, Eby had the girl tied to his horse. She was walking alongside him as he headed north to Cape Girardeau.

Jennie looked back, hoping to see Art, but Eby gave a jerk on the rope, and she had to turn back quickly to avoid falling down.

“Keep up, girl,” Eby ordered. “Or by God I'll drag you all the way to Cape Girardeau.”

* * *

By the time they led Art and the other men out of their cell and up to the sale block where they stood, nude, the women's sale had already taken place. The sales of the men and women were purposely separate because there were some family members who were being separated and the officials didn't want any difficulty.

It was a lively auction, with spirited bidding being done on several of the slaves, especially some of the bigger, more muscular ones. The auction was brought to a premature end, however, when a man named Matthews made a bid on all the remaining slaves. Art and Toby were in that lot, and as soon as the bidding was over, Matthews came up to auction block to pay for and claim his property.

“You boys go over there to the wagon and find you something to put on,” Matthews said to the group of slaves he had just bought.

Art looked hard at Matthews, hoping to be able to get his attention, to explain to him that he wasn't supposed to be here.

“Art, don' do that. Don' never be caught lookin' into a white man's eyes,” Toby warned. “They don' like that.”

“I was trying to get him to look at me so I could say something to him.”

Toby shook his head vigorously. “That be a good way to get yourself a whuppin'.” Toby studied his new friend for a long moment. “You tellin' the truth, ain't you?” he finally said. “You ain't no high-yella pass in'. You really be white.”