The Tinsmith (16 page)

Orlett ordered the mulatto to pull the girls up. Cray did so mechanically, easily. “There's a better day a comin',” sang Motes with his head lifted and his eyes rimmed with tears. “Won't you come along with me?” Daney's girls went limp, all the fight drained out of them. No wonder their hands hadn't even been tied. The overseer slapped them both on the backside as the mulatto took them by. Daney moaned, a froth of spittle on her lips, and shook her head from side to side. The boys were sobbing heavily again.

John sprang up and launched himself, his hands forming a cross before him. But the overseer saw him coming. He jumped aside and expertly stuck one foot out. The planks rushed up to meet John. His face hit hard. Before he could even roll over, Orlett pressed a boot down so hard on the back of his neck that he could barely breathe.

“Goddammit, Cray, why isn't he chained like the rest?”

“You never told me to.”

Orlett cursed. “Do it now then.”

“Don't have no mo' irons.”

“Then go and find some, for chrissakes! And take the girls with you while you're at it. There's time tonight to deal with this boy too.” The overseer kept his weight pressed down hard.

Daney's moans rose to screams again as the mulatto drove the girls out of the shed. Then, with the door shutting out the brief light, she suddenly fell quiet. Only the boys' snufflings could be heard.

John's neck flashed with pain. He struggled to twist his head sideways an inch to allow a little air into his lungs. Daney's voice reached him dully. She was pleading with the overseer.

“If they got to go, let me go with them. I'm a good worker. You know it. Please let me go. I can pay you. I have some money. I'll give it to you and you can let the trader take me away for nothin'. Please, I got to go. They jes babies still. Please, massa, please, I'll do anything only let me go with them. They jes babies.”

John wanted his neck to snap and he wanted even more to rise up without cuffs and wrap his hands around the overseer's throat and squeeze until he saw the tiny eyes bulge and turn the same red as the red on Caleb's back.

The overseer said nothing. But now a different sound, even more terrible, filled the shed. Motes was weeping in great, heaving gasps. The shame of it surged through John's body. He readied himself to focus it into one desperate act of strength when the door opened again and the iron snapped around his leg. The pressure came off his neck. The mulatto grabbed him under the shoulders and yanked him up.

The overseer looked straight at him, as if Daney's pleading had deflected his hatred. “I can't let you go out into the world, bright boy, without the world knowing what you are. And I want you to know too. Bring him, Cray.”

In minutes John was back in the barn, his hands chained to the wall, his legs also shackled together. The mulatto had stripped him. The cold bit into his skin, but John promised himself that he would give no satisfaction. He imagined Caleb going to the whipping post to protect his family and Daney pleading to do the same. He would not give the overseer anything but hatred. And yet he wanted to live. Life was more precious than ever because it meant the future and the future meant his hands around the overseer's throat.

Even when they tightened his chains and applied the first coat of tanning to him, he understood that worse was coming. Tanning wouldn't last; it was merely a gesture. He knew it, Orlett and Cray knew it. Something deeper than the surface of the skin was involved. The fear came into him and he could not stop it. His stomach swayed, his groin tightened. He closed his eyes against the flickering oil light, heard the hiss of the coals.

When the iron sank into his cheek, he did not think he would survive the searing pain. Then he did not think at all. There was no thought except the pain, no sight except the pain, no sound, no past, present or future. Only the pain.

He did not know how long he lived inside it. Or when he passed out of it and woke to it again. The barn was dark and quiet. He shook the whole length of his naked body as he watched his white breath float up to the rafters where an owl ruffled its wings. Something scurried in the straw. A strip of moonlight fell straight down and just missed his feet. They were dark in the darkness. His thighs too. He could not see his arms or his hands chained behind him. But he felt the darkness on him, inside him, beating there. With relief, he became aware of his genitals. Then he returned to the pain. Whatever they had done, they had done to his face.

He lay in the soft night sounds of the barn and stared at the strip of moonlight. The overseer was right. As he lay there, John knew exactly what he was, and he knew also what that meant. Between the pain on his face and the desire for the future to hurry to him, he passed the hours until cock-crow.

As the darkness lifted, the mulatto returned. Expressionless and silent as always, he undid the wall shackles and drove John, still naked, the hundred yards across the frozen mud, then the crisp, tinsel-like grass, to the big house.

The overseer sat at the kitchen table, his face greasy with egg and bacon. Behind him, Charlotte gaped, her hand pressed to her cheek.

“Give him some bacon,” Orlett said to her.

The mulatto shoved him into a chair. John did not look at either Charlotte or the plate when she brought it over.

“Go on, eat,” the overseer said. “You got to keep your strength up. Unless you want to die of starvation even before your new life starts. What's the matter? Don't you want to know what it's like to look like a nigger same as the others?”

But the overseer's voice was tired, his face pale. His hands shook a little. Still he found the strength for goading.

The words, however, did not touch John. He thought better of refusing the food. The bacon smelled wonderful, and he knew the future he dreamed of was not possible if he did not recover. But his hands were still cuffed. With difficulty, he took a fork in one hand and stabbed at a strip of bacon and raised it to his mouth. But he was weak and the bacon dropped to the plate before he could put it in his mouth.

Orlett said, “Don't just stand there, woman, feed the nigger.”

Charlotte did as she was told and, not meeting her eyes, John began to chew.

The overseer watched him closely. But John was more concerned with his nakedness, and he pulled up to the table as near as possible so that Charlotte would not see his lower body. He ate the bacon with increasing appetite and gratefully drank the water that Charlotte held to his mouth. His cheek throbbed with pain, especially when he chewed. The muscles in his face seemed torn. Charlotte gaped at him; sometimes she even missed his mouth with the forkful of bacon.

Finally the overseer told her to stop and to go and get a handglass.

“You might as well have a good look at yourself,” he said. “You won't get the full benefit just staring into a flooded rice field.” He grinned and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

Charlotte returned.

“Hold it up to him,” Orlett said.

At first John was not going to look; he was going to stare right past the glass. But curiosity got the better of him. As well, he did not want to give any satisfaction. He vowed to look and not react.

“I know you know your letters, boy. That's what comes of being an idle nigger.”

The truth was, he recognized some letters and could read a little, but he was not proficient. The master had not wanted any of the blacks taught. But there were enough books around, and the opportunity to look at them, that he had begun to figure out the symbols. One time Jabeth had taught him some of the sounds. But then Jabeth had become frightened for him. “When you free,” he said, “den de readin do you some good. Only trouble for you till den.”

John looked at his face in the glass. It was light brown. Two letters were branded into his right cheek: one was shaped like a snake, the other like two sticks growing out of the ground at opposite angles.

He studied them, confused.

The overseer chuckled. “Me and Cray didn't have time or room for the whole word, but the meaning's clear enough. You do know your letters, don't you?”

He knew that the snake shape made a snake sound. From that, he reasoned out the word. It wasn't nigger, so it had to be the other. But it didn't matter what they'd burned into his skin; he'd get rid of it just as he'd get rid of the tanning. In time. In time he'd get rid of the overseer too. Daney was right about the future. There would be deliverance. But she was wrong to trust to anything but herself to make it happen.

“Well, what do you think, nigger? A new face for a new life. Ain't you going to thank me?”

John had long since stopped wanting to tell the truth about Caleb and the hog. It wouldn't matter anyway. The overseer's hatred went far beyond any simple cause. Some whites were just like that. Evil. There was no sense trying to understand it. What he did understand without trying was that the evil had to be destroyed. And he couldn't do it now. He looked at the overseer and kept all expression from his face.

Orlett belched and pushed back his chair. “Put him in the shed, Cray. The trader'll be here soon. Then we'll be done with him for good.”

The mulatto gripped John hard on the shoulder.

He rose and, without resistance, picked up his leg chain and walked to the door, dragging the iron ball.

An hour later, all the sold blacks were brought into the barnyard. The sun glinted off the barrel of the overseer's gun and off the harness buckle of the trader's horse. The horse neighed and snorted a great breath. The trader dismounted as if his joints pained him. He squinted into the bright sunlight. Almost reluctantly, he studied the blacks, most of whom were crying silently. Orlett had ordered the mulatto to keep the other blacks locked up to avoid any prolonged scenes of farewell. And that extra bit of cruelty seemed almost worse than Caleb's punishment. From somewhere a low wailing of misery, like a dog's howl, drifted on the air.

“The blacksmith will be along directly,” the trader said and paused before Daney. He scratched his head, then took a small pad from his pocket and studied it.

Orlett stepped forward. “I don't know how she managed it, but she got to the old man somehow. Like I told you, he's soft on niggers.”

McElvane scowled. “No, that's not it. I knew she was coming. He told me about her wanting to go and said that I wasn't obliged.”

Orlett raised an eyebrow.

The trader said, “I figure that having her along'll make the trip easier. It won't cost much to feed one more. But I don't think I marked her down here. Must have forgot.”

The overseer cleared his throat and spat. “I don't see any likely market for a old woman past breeding, but it's your business.”

“It is that rightly.” The trader moved along the line and came to a stop in front of John. “What's this?” he said with a wince.

Orlett laughed. “He won't be taken so easy for white now.”

McElvane sighed and scratched his earlobe. “I told you I don't favour violence. A nigger's either good or bad. If he's bad, the violence makes him worse. If he's good, the violence can turn him bad.”

“Well,” the overseer said bluntly, “you've already got your receipt.”

“It's like I told your boss, you can't judge no dependence at all in a man.” The trader hung his head a few seconds and then gathered himself and faced the overseer. “If he weren't a prime number one, I'd leave him and you'd be explaining to your boss why I was asking my money back.”

“I've done you a favour,” Orlett said. “Now if he runs, you'll be sure to catch him.”

“Mebbe so.” The trader screwed up his face.

“Well, your buyer will be awful glad of those letters.”

“Mebbe.” The trader looked toward the road. A horse and rider approached from the village. “Here's the blacksmith now.” McElvane turned and addressed the blacks.

“I've paid tall prices for you and I'll try to see that you go to good owners. But I don't want no trouble on the way. What's going to be done is going to be done and if you're good niggers everything will be fine.” He walked to his cart and removed a mass of chains and shackles. Orlett kept his gun trained on the blacks until the rider dismounted with his tools and began joining the blacks into a coffle.

Daney and her girls and four other women were merely tied together with a rope about the size of a bed cord, which was placed like a halter around the neck of each.

“I'd cuff the mother at least,” the overseer said, “if you don't want trouble.”

“I's goin' with my chillen,” Daney said, some of the old power returned to her face and voice. “Why'd I run off now?”

The trader paid no attention to Orlett. He just watched as the blacksmith methodically fitted each of the male blacks, including the three boys, David, Garney, and Anesto, with an iron collar padlocked around the neck. A chain of iron, about fifty feet long, was passed through the hasp of each padlock, except at the two ends where the hasps of the padlocks passed through a link of the chain. In addition, the blacks were handcuffed in pairs, with a short chain about a foot long uniting the cuffs and their wearers, alternately, by the right and left hand.

Cuffed to Robert, John felt no special wrath in the closeness, nor did their bondage unite them in any way except the physical. He experienced only a dull, low thrum of mingled despair and hatred, the former more powerful until the overseer approached the coffle of women, looked Daney straight in the eye, and announced that Caleb was dead.

“So there's no reason to come back here on his account,” he said as Daney dropped to her knees, pulling her daughters down with her, and covered her face with her hands.

With a surprising show of energy, the trader marched over. “Our business is settled. You go on. You're no help to anyone here.”

Along the chain John felt the tension in Robert's body as he reacted to his mother's wails. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he kept his jaw raised and rigid.