The Blooding of Jack Absolute (31 page)

It wasn’t just Sundays; there would be drunkards whatever the day. But Sundays, God duly propitiated, gave licence to all
and amounts were consumed that would have disgraced no gathering in Covent Garden. Jack had seen the result the Sunday before,
the joy of the first bumpers moving through songs on the fifth to arguments and fighting by the tenth. One man had been beaten
near to death for some slight. And much as Jack could have used a snifter to set against the cold and fortify his thin, borrowed
garments, he was unwilling to risk its consequences. As with the rest of his slavery, safety came with keeping out of the
way.

His route to the longhouse where he slept took him close to a group of youths, occupied as any Cornish lads would have been
of a Sunday – seeking trouble. A stone jug of rum was being passed round their circle. As he made to slip by, he saw what
it was that they were yelling about. They were crouched over a large pit, a dozen paces across and the height of a man deep,
in the bottom of which there was movement. Despite himself, the snarling below and the excitement above drew him.

Two dogs were down there, held at their necks, their hair up and stiff along their spines. The Abenaki kept two kinds of hound
– for hunting and for eating – and these were of the latter kind and thus dispensable for this sort of game. As they circled,
the youths yelled, bets obviously being made, called back and forth in their harsh tongue, accepted with grunts. Jack had
often attended the cockfights – Marks was as fond of them as he was of dice – and the scene before him could have been exchanged
for one in the Mall.

One of the dog-holders was a youth from Jack’s own longhouse, the one who’d snuck so many kicks in when Jack first arrived
and who had been his chief persecutor ever since, always ready with an extra task, an extra toe in the ribs. Segunki. Recognizing
him made Jack duck down on the
instant, begin to turn; but at that moment the dogs were released and the roar and snarling pulled him back.

It was over fast, one hound’s fangs fastened in the other’s throat. No attempt was made to save it, its scrabbling rear paws
jerking ever more fitfully as it was shaken back and forth. Cries of triumph came from many around – but not from Segunki
who responded to the final spurt of blood by stepping back into the pit and stomping on his dog repeatedly. The other dog
was pulled off by its triumphant owner while the loser stood there and glowered all around.

Time to be gone, Jack thought, taking a step away. Too late.

‘As-ban!’
Segunki yelled the name he’d given him, that supposedly indicated both his status and his white man’s smell. ‘Racoon’ was
what MacDonald had called it when they’d chased one away from his tent.

Jack wasn’t fast enough to elude the reaching hands of Segunki’s friends. He was pulled back to face his tormentor whose features
were twisted by the disappointment of his loss. His large hands twitched at his side and Jack prayed that he would observe
the restraint that had been urged upon him by the longhouse matriarch. Though Jack spoke no words of their language, he understood
clearly enough the meaning behind the kindness: the white man is property. Don’t harm the livestock.

A rapid debate took place. Something was agreed and two of the group ran off towards the longhouses. Jack, meanwhile, was
being pulled and poked towards the fields.

Segunki had a few words in French and was using them now to convey what he intended for Jack but perhaps because of the distracting
prods that accompanied the words, he could understand none of them. Finally, when they stood at the edge of the rows of maize,
whose ears had been stripped only the week before and lay now in huge piles that awaited carrying to the village, Jack at
last caught a repeated word he understood.

‘You want me to … race?’ he asked in French.

‘Race! Race!’ Segunki shouted, moving to the ears of corn.
Beside them were the birch-weave baskets that were used to carry the produce to the grindstones. These had been left by those
who worked here, no doubt at the summons of the church bell, because several were half-full. Segunki threw a few more ears
in, then hefted the bucket, miming a run towards the village.

‘You want me to run with this?’ His French was accompanied by gestures that the Abenaki nodded at. But when Jack sighed and
reached to begin this latest of his chores, the basket was jerked beyond his reach.

‘You race!’

Jack just kept his tone within bounds – for only slaves could be yelled at in that society. ‘Who? Who do I race?’

‘Me.’ The voice came from the edge of the group. ‘You race me.’

The words were spoken in English and so, for a moment, Jack didn’t understand them. He turned to see Até, the one man he’d
been avoiding, thrust forward into the circle. ‘You race me, we carry these,’ Até gestured at the birch-bark containers. ‘You
carry more because they say you are stronger than me.’ The eyes finally met his. ‘They are wrong.’

Jack gasped, watching Segunki and the others haggling over the corn ears they were throwing into each of the baskets. ‘You
mean, they are … are handicapping me. Like some racehorse?’

Até shrugged. ‘I don’t know this word. You carry more. That is all.’

Jack felt his face redden. He muttered. ‘I’m not a fucking horse. I damn well won’t be treated like one.’

‘Then they beat you.’

‘Better that perhaps.’

‘No. Not better. You win, you rest.’

‘And if I lose.’

The shrug again, no words.

‘So a beating either way,’ Jack said.

‘Unless you win.’

‘Well, I better do that then, hadn’t I?’ The baskets had been filled and Jack walked to the fuller one, pointed at it. Segunki
nodded and Jack bent, hefted it onto his shoulders. He staggered back slightly, which made the youths jeer. When Até lifted
his, he did it with hardly an effort; the load, less than Jack’s but not by much, seemed to trouble him less and Jack noted
that though the Mohawk was thinner than him and had certainly suffered longer, his muscles were corded under his patched cotton
shirt, his legs strong within his torn breeches.

One youth stood before Jack and Até, a hand in each of their chests. ‘How far?’ said Jack.

‘To the church door,’ same the reply. Then, to a shout of ‘Aieeee!’ the horses were off.

The weight! As Jack took a step, he felt the load pull him backwards. Até had immediately gained a pace, so Jack was able
to observe his opponent reach behind him, pull forward a strap, slip it over his forehead. Reaching behind too, he groped
until his fingers found some loose leather. Lifting it over his head, he mimicked the man now five paces before him. The strap
instantly took some of the strain from the shoulders and back, while putting more on the neck but, dropping his chin, he was
able to counter that. His speed built and he began to try to make up the ground lost.

The land sloped down from the fields and for the first hundred yards the going wasn’t too bad. But then it began to climb,
the path winding through a stand of spruce pine. Despite the slope, still Jack could not gain, the gap maintained. If anything,
he dropped a little further behind, to the fury of Segunki and the joy of those who had bet against him. But it wasn’t for
him that Jack, when the ground levelled, began to pound harder. Even if he had seen the way the Abenaki youth had treated
a dog that had let him down, it wasn’t what drove him now. There was a rival ahead and rivals were there to be beaten. It
was the Westminster way.

They had maybe two hundred yards to go when he saw the first flagging in the stride ahead. Not much, a misplaced foot, a
slight stumble. But in any footrace there was a moment to be seized when a show of strength would add to an opponent’s weakness.
This was that moment. With a grunt, Jack sprinted the yards to come up beside, then pass, Até. Segunki, his cronies, cheered;
those who had bet on the Mohawk screamed at him. And he responded, not with a burst of speed, but by reaching up into his
basket, grabbing a corn ear and hurling it between Jack’s legs. It was little, should have been nothing, but it caught just
as his ankles were at their closest, lodged for only a second between them. Unencumbered, he’d have taken the stumble in stride,
strode on. But here the pannier followed gravity forward, the top edge of it crashing into Jack’s neck, turning stumble to
fall.

The ground was hard, the basket pressed him into it, corn ears clattering around his head. Spluttering, he tried to force
himself up just with his arms, then sank until he could pull his legs up underneath him. Heaving, he rose again to his feet.
His opponent was at least thirty yards ahead now but Jack needed none of the curses or kicks. Nothing more than his own anger
to drive after him.

It was too far. Despite the yelling, the encouragement turning ever more to threat – Jack, speaking none of the language,
could at least hear the change in tone – he wasn’t able to get any closer than ten yards. Até maintained that gap, speeding
up to match Jack’s final effort, which caused him to fall again. He raised his head in time to see Até touch the church door.

Jack took his time to rise, drawing in the breaths he knew he’d need. The men with the winning bets had clustered around Até,
his slave status momentarily forgotten in the euphoria of victory. The losers, Segunki prominent, were spread between Jack
and the finish. Despite their glares, they too were breathing deep after their run up from the fields. So no one tried to
do anything more than curse him as he dumped the birch pannier and walked up to Até.

‘You cheated,’ he said quietly.

‘Cheated?’ Até turned his head quizzically. ‘What mean?’

‘You cheated to win the race. You didn’t win fair.’

‘Fair? Everything fair.’ He hammered on the wooden door. ‘Only win matters.’

Jack’s voice dropped but something in it, though they did not understand the words, made even his disappointed sponsors, even
Segunki, look closer. ‘Then what I said here that first day was right. Like all of them, you truly are a savage. And the Mohocks
of London know more about honour than all the Mohawks in Canada.’

Até flushed, the red running from his still-heaving chest up his neck, into his eyes. As the colour reached them he went for
Jack, as Jack suspected he might. Thus prepared, he stepped sideways, seizing the Indian’s reaching arm by the wrist, twisting
his own body, bringing his other hand up into the armpit, using the force of the assault to throw Até past him. He fell hard
but rolled up onto his knees on the instant, turning. Jack would have followed, pinned him to the ground, made him acknowledge
his knavery, and he sensed that Até would have met him halfway, but others interposed, seizing each of them.

A hasty, fast conversation was had as they glared at each other. Then someone laughed and then all of them were running away
from the church, dragging their prisoners with them. When they came to the dog pit, they were both lowered into it but still
held. There was a slight wait, until one of the younger boys who’d disappeared, now returned with something Jack could not
see. Segunki took what the boy brought, stepping up to the pit edge with the object behind his back. On a word, the two of
them were taken to opposite sides of the rough circle, yet still pinioned there. Then Segunki threw what he’d been hiding
… and two war clubs landed in the mud and the dog’s guts. He spoke something to someone beside him, one of those who had bet
on Até, and it was the way he said it that made Jack understand it instantly, even though he spoke none of their tongue.

‘Double or quits,’ the Indian clearly stated and, at his nod, Jack and Até were released.

As he dived forward, in the moment between thought and instinct, Jack realized that for the second time in just a few months
he was going to fight a duel and that if he didn’t hate this Até as much as he hated Craster Absolute, he hated him enough,
hated him because he was one with all who’d made him suffer these last weeks. There was no fellowship amongst slaves. Reduced
to an animal, he would fight, as the dogs had fought before him and on this same ground, for a higher place in the pack.

The slickness of the surface caused each to misjudge their leaps. Both slipped, slid, stuck together, one hand out to fend
off, the other to grope for the weapon. Momentum made them spin in a half-circle, their conjoined bodies the axis. Jack grabbed
a club first but he was holding it high up its shaft and couldn’t swing it. Instead, almost as if it were a sword, he jabbed
it into the face that grimaced close to his. Até turned aside, the blow glancing off his jaw. Drawing his legs up to his chest,
Jack kicked out, too close to damage, close enough for the force to send the other man sliding backwards across the mud. Yet
as he went, Até’s hand trailed, grabbed the other club, taking it with him.

Both of them were now up, staggering back to the extremity of the pit. Jack shifted his grip on the weapon, swung it through
the air. The weight was all at the top, in the heavy ball-head, these ones spikeless. He had never hefted one before and it
felt awkward – as it obviously didn’t to his opponent. In that instant, Jack knew the weapon couldn’t be used as any sword
he’d ever practised with, even the heavy cavalry sabre. But as Até moved away from the wall, circling left, and as he moved
the opposite way, Jack grasped the shaft with two hands, raised it …

Well, kiss my arse,
he marvelled,
it’s a cricket bat!

Wonder vanished as Até came for him, swinging the club in a high arc from behind him, aiming straight down for his
head. Jack stepped into him, club raised square across, taking the blow before it had reached its full velocity. And yet the
crack! It rang like a musket shot, sent a shock down his arms and on into his body, causing him to stagger back. Até followed,
the club coming hard into Jack’s left flank. He just blocked it in time but had to draw his feet awkwardly under him to do
it. Spinning, the Mohawk took his weapon out, around, his whole body-weight behind it, and by the time it reached him its
force was unstoppable; certainly the block Jack threw out barely slowed it. His club left his grip on impact. Only a leap
back meant that his side was not shattered by the blow but what landed in the soft flesh just beneath his ribs was enough
to knock the little breath he’d held from him. He fell into the wall, slipped to its base. On his back, the partisan cries
from the pit’s edge, of triumph and fury, came to him as if through a blanket. Jack looked back, expecting the killing blow
that would at least end the terrible pain. But Até had paused to yell some Mohawk triumph to the sky.