Rafe (21 page)

“G'wan, get outa' here,” he snarled angrily to those guards left. “I guess you got the rest of the day off. Might jus' as well the white folks rest too, seein' as the damn niggers are.” He stalked into the barracks, face livid.

A Tuesday off! None had seen the likes. For the first hour the slaves hid in their quarters and talked it over. When they decided nothing terrible had happened they came out of their shacks to find the food waiting. Before another hour passed they were full and lazing in the shade, soaking up their good fortune despite their disbelief. The noon bell rang and they listened contentedly. When no one came to take them to the fields they finally believed and settled down to enjoy the unaccustomed idleness. Some slept. Others, mostly younger, filtered away to the creek to swim or to the trees to spend the afternoon making long, slow, lazy love.

“Ah'm skeered, Mistuh Decatuh. It daytime. Somebody gonna come see us fo' sho'.”

“Ain't no one comin' in this neck a' the woods. They all got their own quiet place, or back eatin' white folk food or sleepin'. Yo' mammy same as all the rest.”

“But yo' ain't never ast me ta do nuffin' like dis. Ah's jes' supposin' ta watch yo'. Dat's wha' yo' say.”

“Well, it don't pleasure me to have ya jus' watch no more. An didn't Ah bring ya' the extra peppermint?”

“Sho, Mistuh Decatuh. But Ah's still skeered.”

“Got no call ta be skeered. All yo' sisters already done it. It don't hurt them none when their men done taken 'em. An' it ain't gonna hurt you.”

“Yo' promises ta bring me a purty dress? Yo' swear it?”

“Hell, yes. Now lie down. That's it. Open 'em up.”

“Ma will gimme a lickin' if'n she fin' out.”

“Ah give you one, you don't quit yore jabberin'.”

“Ah ain't ready.”

“Shut up.”

“Eben sissie had two year on me afore it happen ta her.”

“Sissie ain't smart like you are. She don't get no peppermint, neither. Now am Ah gonna have ta slap ya' quiet?”

“Oh, Lawd, Mistuh Decatuh, I'm skeered. I doan wanna, even fo' peppa'… Oh, Lawd …!”

“Dammit.…”

“You tearin' me up. It hurt … stop it … Oh, Lawd.…”

“Shut up!”

“Mammy …!”

“Keep yo' voice down.”

“Mammy … it hurt so.…”

“Goddamn pickaninny slut. Hold still.…”

“He'p me, mammy.…”

“Shut up!”

“Aaghhh … Lawd, lawd … mammy, ma …!”

The scream was cut short as the bones snapped. Decater finished in silence. The sun drifted into the afternoon sky, the lengthening shadows unaware of what they hid. When dusk came the pile of leaves and dirt looked no different than any other natural mound among the trees.

The stifling interior of the shack offered scant relief from the blistering heat still rising from the baked clay floor of the compound. Rafe awoke from a deep sleep. It was almost dark. He'd slept a second day, Tuesday, away. He moved his shoulders gingerly, testing his back. Old Chulem's medicine was good. Only two days of absolute rest and already the pain was nearly gone. He eased himself to a kneeling position, careful not to rub off the poultice slathered over his back. The stillness was broken by scuffled footsteps. Rafe turned to see a squat shadow in the dim outline of the open door as Jomo stepped into the room and squatted down beside the pallet. Rafe tensed, momentarily distrusting the smaller man who had avoided him since the fight. Jomo thrust something toward him and Rafe sniffed eagerly, the odor wakening a nearly forgotten memory. “What's that?”

“Cake.”

Rafe's brow creased, his mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Cake. I saved some fo' yo'.” Jomo held a glob of something white in his hand. He broke the piece and handed half to Rafe. The massive black held the cake reverently, staring at it unbelievingly in the dim light before tentatively dipping a finger in the icing and tasting the almost gagging sweetness of the confection. His eyes closed in ecstasy and he swallowed over and over again as the saliva poured into his mouth. Finally he could speak. “Where in hell you get cake? Hell, the whippin' I got ain't the half of what you can expect if they catch you stealin' white folk's cake.”

The two men ate in silence. Jomo squatted on the floor, savoring his share slowly and deliberately, careful not to miss a crumb. Years had passed since Rafe had tasted cake. Five years and more since he worked in Lucas Clayton's house and had access to all he could eat of whatever he wanted. He rolled more of the icing around in his mouth, let it melt of its own accord, finally swallowed reluctantly. Jomo saved one large bite for last, stuffed it in his mouth and grinned hugely. “House niggers brung it over,” he said. “Ol' Ezra Clayton gone to Nachitoches yesterday an' dat little girl done taken ober. She say ain't no one goan to de fields 'til de mastuh come back. Jes' lahk grabbin' two extra Sundays. Down amongst de field niggers Ah ken hear de singin' an' dancin'. Dey's whoopin' an' carryin' on lahk yo' nebber seed. An' dem house niggers done brung all de food t'weren't eaten at de party to dem.”

“She done that?”

Jomo nodded. “Trinidad done hear de guards talkin' as how she eben made ol' Butkis back down. Ah lahks to see dat. 'Deed I do.”

“Ezra Clayton ain't gonna stand for that.”

“T'ain't man worry. Ah jes' eats mah cake lahk a house nigger an' keeps mah mouf shut.”

Rafe swallowed the last sugary morsels and licked the crumbs from his fingers. His mind roved back to the pit and later the whipping post. Crissa Fitzman had been there. Did she remember him? Recognize him? And did it matter if she had? Wasn't he just another of her niggers, no matter how kind she tried to be? Was he any more free for having been fed cake instead of beans and greasy rice? And what would be changed if she had seen him? He was still going to have to fight seven more fights, still have to win his freedom the hard way. Damn her cake anyway. He almost wished he could spit it up, throw the churned mess at her daintily slippered feet.

“N'gata?” Jomo asked awkwardly in their native dialect, “why you leap into the pit to face death with he who will try to kill you? Why risk your freedom dream to save the one who may end it?”

Rafe thought of the wolves leaping to the attack and the exhilaration of the fight as he and Jomo matched them steel for fang, blood for blood. He hadn't wondered why. Now the reasons seemed clear enough. “Because it was a good hunt, N'gata Jomo,” he answered quietly, contemplatively. “Anyway, a long time to go before we fight. Six more fights.”

Jomo hesitated, finally found the words. “Ol' Chulem say ‘no.' He saw fang and fang came. And he saw more.…”

Rafe looked sharply at the dark shadow only inches away. “That old man isn't the only one can see. He read bones, I feel things in mine. Come the end of summer, I'm leaving here a free man. A wagon, a woman, a team and a gun. A free man.”

“Conjure man say he see different.”

Rafe struggled to his feet, held his back straight against the pain and walked the few steps to the door. Outside a torch weakly illuminated the compound. Pitbucks lazed in the darkness around the longhouse and near the spring. A huge platter of food, white man's food, nearly empty now, rested near the water tank. The question gnawed at him and he didn't want to ask, but did. “What he see?”

“You bein' free. The next time you go to the pit will be the last time. You won't walk away. And you'll be free.”

Silence hung between them, hung like the stars that reeled dizzily across the night sky and reached for the new day. When morning came, Rafe would be outside waiting for the sun. He moved his shoulders and flexed the stiff muscles in his back. The sooner he started, pain or no, the sooner he would heal and the more ready he would be for whatever came next.

Claude Duggins scratched his coondog's ears and watched the sunrise, staring across the green stalks of young sugar cane stretching out to a far line of cotton-woods in the distance. This was his land. More acreage than any two of the other small farmers.

Small farmers. The thought galled him. Freedom made his holdings appear paltry. Duggins was a simple man. He'd worked hard every moment of his life. Fought in the war and been wounded twice. Mustered out in New Orleans and headed into the wilds of western Louisiana. He'd never see forty again and felt the desperation of wanting to have something, be something more than a one-crop farmer. Lord of a plantation. That was what he wanted. Title. To be one of the gentry despite his calloused workman's hands and grimy nails. He deserved success, but there were always men like Ezra Clayton beating down the heads of those who attempted to rise above their station. Clayton's control of the village businesses assured high prices for everything needed on a farm unless one packed in from Natchitoches. But this was also an expensive proposition, for pack trains supplying the small farmers were always attacked, or met with mysterious accidents. One did well to push profits above a bare subsistence level. And there had been an unfortunate fire the year before. The raging flames destroyed part of Duggins crop, forcing him deeper in debt to the bank in Natchitoches. Duggins cursed the money lost on the pit fight only two weeks earlier. Damn Bernard's Indians anyway. He'd counted on winning, couldn't afford what he'd lost. He looked out across the cane fields where his twenty-five field hands were starting the day's work. Twenty-five niggers, he scowled. Ezra Clayton had two hundred.

The struggle wasn't all one-sided. He'd gotten Clayton's goat right enough by organizing the other small farmers to protect and assist each other through hard times, natural or man-caused. The association helped, but not enough. Despite his efforts, Duggins was still behind. He needed money and no bank or man would lend him any more on his land or crop. Of course if he managed to acquire more land … to double what he had. … Clayton's land with its crop of cotton nearly on the bud would be more than enough to pay off his debts and then some. He'd even be able to afford a woman. Yessir, travel to New Orleans and find himself some pretty little minx eager for plantation life. Claude Duggins would be somebody. To hell with his neighbors then. He'd show Clayton—and Bernard too—a thing or two about gentry, by God.

A slight breeze sprang up from the north and Duggins turned gratefully into the vaguely cooler air. A work song, sung by one old woman and taken up by the other slaves, drifted from the fields. Behind him the clank-clank of hammer pounding iron rang clearly in the morning air. The farmer smiled, remembering the bet he had forced on Ezra. Gotten his goat then, too, makin' him bet his land on a sure loser. Beau would tear Clayton's nigger apart piece by piece and then look for another one.

Beaumarchant. A good man, once. Duggins felt a pang of guilt at the thought of his giant Cajun friend. They had fought together under Andy Jackson in New Orleans. Duggins was wounded in the leg and Beau carried him to safety as the British neared the breastworks. Carried him like a baby, by God, not even working hard. Mortars and cannon turned the air into a corner of hell, raking the ground and tearing up trees and men. A shower of screeching rockets rained down on them and a burning fragment spun into Beau's face, searing the left side and cracking his skull. Somehow he lived, crawled on with the unconscious Duggins in his arms, an animal whose muscles had told him where to go.

The fire that burned the Cajun saved him, for the wound was sterile. And Duggins, game leg and all, nursed the friend who had been transformed into a grotesque mockery of a man, a silent, childlike brute. When the time came, Duggins took out in a wagon full of goods needed for farming. Beau rode quietly at his side, a massive dull-witted mountain, stronger than any man Duggins had ever known. He brought Beau along not out of gratitude nor a sense of duty alone. Western Louisiana was rough, dangerous country and more than once as the farm took shape and the first crop went in the ground, his friend's terrifying strength made the difference between success and failure.

Duggins had not told Beaumarchant of the bet with Ezra. Nor had he ever taken him to see a pit fight at Freedom, for being near a fight drove Beau into a wild, uncontained fury. Ezra's guards would have shot him down, as well they should have, for there was nothing else could stop him. So Duggins went alone or with friends, leaving Beaumarchant behind with instructions to watch the slaves lest any be of a mind to escape. Beau was good for that. His presence alone cowed even the most recalcitrant black.

Hesitation was more dangerous than haste. Duggins wiped the sweat from his face and neck. Tiny droplets still glistening in his beard, he walked toward the open barn. At the end of a line of stalls Beaumarchant labored over a glowing forge. The heat outside was nothing compared to the area around the forge, but the Cajun little seemed to mind. Naked but for a pair of faded cloth army trousers, he lifted a glowing red bar of iron from the fire and lay it across the anvil, took up a short-hafted hammer and began to shape the vibrant crimson metal. Bits of incandescent iron like tiny meteorites scattered upward and out with each ringing blow. Fire danced in Beaumarchant's dull eyes and lit his scarred face, giving his disfigured features the altogether incarnate appearance of a massive mountain troll at labor over the fires of hell. Having once been scalded by brimstone, he had returned to the flames that had broken his mind and puddled half his face.

He thrust the iron into a tub of water. A voluminous cloud of steam erupted from the bath and enveloped the giant form in an eerie drapery of ghostly gray.

“Beaumarchant,” Duggins said softly as if uneager to disturb the brute. The Cajun glanced up, smiling and happy to see his friend. The smile was only half a smile for the left half of his face was frozen in a shiny red and white scar that didn't move. “Beaumarchant. I must talk with you.”