47 (3 page)

Master Tobias had been wrong about the stone shatter
ing. It stayed in one piece and so Tobias said that they'd
just leave it there for Holland's gravestone.

They called the horse doctor for Pritchard. After he sur
veyed the damage to the screaming slave's leg the veteri
narian advised Tobias to put Pritchard down.

"That nigger's never gonna walk right again, Tobias,"
he said. "It's no different than I would tell you about a
plow animal."

But slave Number Twenty-five cried and begged the
Master not to kill him. He said that he could do carpentry
work around the cabins and on the house.

"Fs still useful, Mastah," I remember the miserable
man crying. "Don't do me like a dawg. Fs still a useful nig
ger, you'll see."

Tobias told Pritchard that he would think about it on
the ride to Atlanta. He said that he'd be gone for nine days
and when he came back he would make the decision of whether or not to put Twenty-five to sleep.

Before Tobias left that rat-faced Mr. Stewart asked what
he should do about replacing Holland.

"What was his number?" Tobias asked.

"Forty-seven, sir."

"Save that number and give it to Psalma's bastard when
he's ready."

It was the custom on the Corinthian Plantation to give
all field slaves numbers. If they got a name along the way
that was fine but they would be known to Master and the
overseer by number in all of their record-keeping books.

For the first years of my life the only name I knew was
babychile because that was all Mama Flore ever called me.
Her friends in the big house all called me Baby for short,
and if Master Tobias referred to me all he ever said was
Psalma's bastard
with acid on his tongue.

For nine days after the accident that maimed him
Pritchard cried and dragged himself around the yard trying
to work even though his leg must have hurt terribly. At
night he would cry to himself and pray out loud to God to
save him from being put down.

Master Tobias came back to find that Pritchard had
made himself a rude crutch and a toolbox and he hobbled
right up to Tobias's horse and said, "What you want me to
fix up first, Mastuh?"

The sight of Pritchard's pain made Master laugh. I
guess he thought it was funny how a pitiful slave would
struggle so hard to keep his miserable life. Anyway, he let
Pritchard live and in the days after that Pritchard would al
ways say that going lame under that stone was the best
thing that ever happened to him. He ate better and stag
gered around the yard fixing fences and doing odd jobs. And if the Master and Mr. Stewart weren't looking he'd
sleep up in the trees on the south side of the plantation.

I never did understand how a man could be happy
about being crippled but Mama Flore said, "A slave some
times would rather kiss the Master's whip if that kept him from feeling its sting."

And so on my first day as a field slave this broken man,
Pritchard, was there to greet me, leaning on a crutch cut
from a poplar sapling and standing next to a small cast-iron
stove. And even though it was a hot day, and hotter still in
that close room, he had that stove going. He was holding
an iron stick with a rag on one end and with the other end deep in the glowing embers.

"Well, well, well," Pritchard said again. "If it ain't Fat Flore's little puppy dog."

I didn't like him calling Big Mama fat, even though she
was, and I didn't like being called her dog either. But I
didn't say anything because even though Pritchard was lame
he was still a man and I was only half his size and a little less.

"You know the first thing a nigger got to do when he
come out chere to the slave quarters," Pritchard said in a loud voice that made me both frightened and angry. "He
gots to get his name."

"I ain't s'posed to have no name!" I shouted, and this
was true. Master Tobias had said, after his wife Una had died, that I wasn't to be called by any name because I was
going to be a field slave and all a field slave needed was his
number.

"That was before you came out to here." Pritchard
smiled, showing me his brown, broken teeth. I was so scared
that I was moving backwards and didn't even know it until
my back touched up against the wall behind me.

"Mastuh told Mama Flore that she couldn't name me,"
I said, not understanding what it was that Pritchard meant.

He pulled the iron stick out of the stove and showed me
the bright orange tip.

"Fat Flore ain't out here, boy," he said. "It's just me and
you and I got your name right chere on this stick."

When I saw that glowing brand it dawned on me what
Pritchard meant.

He was stripped to the waist because of the heat. And
on his right shoulder I could see the scars from his brand
ing. Every field slave on the plantation had their number branded on their right shoulder. This was the custom ever since Miss Una's great-grandfather had started the farm. The slaves all talked about how much that branding hurt, but because Flore had never been branded, I assumed that it wouldn't happen to me either. That's because I saw myself as different. I lived in the barn and didn't have a place
like everybody else. I saw myself as a kind of young prince
in that big shed -
like Master Turner's daughter, Eloise,
was the princess of the big house.

But at that moment I realized that being put in the slave
quarters meant that I was going to be branded just like all
the other slaves there.

I shouted "No!" and tried to run away, but the wall was at my back and Pritchard was right there in front of me.

He had been a tall and hale man before his accident. But
now he was bent and misshapen as if the damage done to his
leg had gone all throughout his entire body. He was light-
colored compared to Mud Albert or Fred Chocolate, Mas
ter Tobias's manservant. I was darker than Pritchard too.

"Don't do it!" I cried.

He dropped his crutch and reached for my arm but I
ducked away and ran off into the long cabin. When I saw that
I left him by the only door I realized that I was trapped.

"It's better to come and take it like a man, Forty-
seven," Pritchard said in a scary voice. "Because if I have
to fight with you, you gonna get all beat and bruised on
top'a bein' branded. Take it like a man and it will only hurt
like hell."

He picked up his crutch and grinned. I couldn't under
stand why he was so happy at the thought of causing me
pain.

I was miserable then. The numbers on the end of that
brand were smoking in the hot air. And I knew that if he marked me I would have lost any chance I ever had to be the prince of my dreams.

"Please don't do it! Please don't do it!" I shouted.

"I got to do it, boy," Pritchard said with that sickening
grin on his lips. "It's my job to brand all the new niggers."

Pritchard moved with the shamble of a dead man, tak
ing a step with his whole leg and then dragging the other.
He was hunched over too. And he had a smile on his face
all the time but you knew he wasn't thinking about any
thing funny. He moved in my direction and I inched away.

"I got to burn these numbers in your shoulder boy. Got to. That's my job. Here all this time you been layin' up in
the barn, huggin' on Fat Flore an' eatin' corn cakes while
us niggers be out here eatin' sour grain and strainin' in the cotton fields. Now you gonna know what it's like to sweat
and strain and hurt."

"It ain't my fault that they made you work so hard
out here, Pritchard," I said. "I din't want them to do that
to you."

"I seen you laughin' at me, boy. While I was carryin'
them bags'a cotton, while I be hobblin' around on this
broke down leg."

He took a step toward me and I took a step back.

"I never laughed at you," I pleaded. "If I laughed it's
just because I was playin'."

"You ain't gonna play no more, niggah," he said as he
crept forward. "After I burn these here numbers inta yo'
flesh you gonna know what it's like to be a nigger-slave
workin' sunup to sundown until you vomit up your guts
and die."

As he said these words he took a quick step and threw
the crutch at me. I tried to get out of the way but that
twirling stick got between my legs and I went down. Be
fore I could get to my feet again Pritchard was on me. He
got both of my wrists together in one big hand and he
lifted me up off of the ground. When he pulled me up next
to his face I could smell his rotten breath.

"Fma burn that numbah so far into you," he said, "that
after you die they gonna find it burnt into bone."

He dragged me back across the room and no matter how
hard I struggled I couldn't break his grip.

When we got back to the iron stove he dropped his
crutch and pressed the iron, which had cooled, back into
the red embers.

"Please don't do this to me," I begged. "Please don't.
Please."

"Fma burn you good, boy," was his reply. "Fma burn
you good."

I screamed and pulled and kicked and bit trying to get
away from that iron. But try as I would Pritchard got me
down on the floor, pulled off my burlap shirt, and held my
arms down with his knees. Then he pulled that poker out of the fire and said, "Here it come," and then I felt a pain that I had never imagined a person could feel. It went all the way through me and I yelled and then I passed out for
a short while.

I would have rather stayed unconscious but the pain in
my shoulder was so great that I woke up crying. I wanted

to touch the wound but it was too sore. Pritchard was say
ing something but I couldn't make it out because the pain wouldn't let me know anything else.

But then Pritchard yanked me up off the floor and
yelled, "You bit me, niggah! Bit me on my arm!"

I heard him but somehow it didn't make sense. I was
the one who hurt. How could anything he felt be so bad?

"Little bastard," Pritchard said. "Just for that I'ma brand
you again. See if'n you bite me this time."

He pulled the brand out of the fire again and when I
saw it I screamed louder than I ever had before, or since.
Pritchard threw me on the hard floor and then held me
down with his knees again.

"Here it come," he said, but the brand never touched
my skin.

"Get up from there, Twenty-five!" a man shouted.

It was Champ Noland.

Suddenly Pritchard was gone from on top of me. I heard
the iron fall on the floor. I sat up and saw him backing
away, brandishing his crutch. Then I saw Champ. He was
very tall and powerful with a handsome black face except
for a scar that ran over his right eye and back toward his ear.

Champ picked up the brand and put it back on the
stove and then he went for Pritchard.

Pritchard was in for it because everyone on the planta
tion knew that you didn't mess with Champ. He was strong
and fast and didn't even know what the word
pain
meant.