Rich Man's Coffin (11 page)

She was stunning up close, Black Jack thought, as he stood upright.
 
She eyed him up and down with a bemused look on her face, handed his harmonica back to him, and offered him her pipe.
 
He took a drag, tasting tobacco and a hint of something else, as he looked into her eyes.
 
He could not get over her beauty.
 
She had long, shiny, coal-black hair that accentuated the supple young skin of her face, neck, and shoulders.
 
She had a strong, yet delicate face; with high cheekbones, a sleek, slender jaw line, punctuated by a thin, pointed nose that flared rebelliously around the nostrils.
 
On her chin, she wore the faint beginning of a tattoo.
 
Black Jack had never seen anyone like her. He tried to convey his admiration with a broad smile, returning her small pipe.
 
Her hazel eyes twinkled like the stars above.
 
She liked him
, he thought.

The night, save for the distant din of the party within, was quiet.
 
A warm breeze blew gently in from the bay. Small waves rhythmically lapped the shore.
 
The full moon shone brightly in the cloudless night sky, illuminating the sparkling water, sand, and the trees around them.
 
They stood face-to-face in awkward silence for a tense moment. She giggled.
 
Somehow, each of them knew that it would be a fruitless endeavor to speak. Slowly, they tried relating their feelings to one another.
 

Black Jack ran the back of his hand down one side of her hair and over her blouse, which was fluttering gently in the wind.
 
She responded with a curious hand to his shoulder.
 
She thinks I am tall
, he thought. He followed by leaning in to kiss her.
 
As his lips were just about to touch her receptive and willing mouth, a gust blew across the deck and a large wave crashed. The back door swung shut with a
crack
; and she leapt forward clutching at his arms.
 
His heart quickened from her sudden closeness.
 
The tide is coming in
, he thought.
 
As he swelled along with the ocean, she pulled back, took him by the hand, and guided him quickly off the deck into the sand.
 
The two disappeared down a bushy footpath, a set of unfamiliar stars watching over Black Jack’s uncharted journey.

Chapter 8

         
A dark figure sits bow-legged, bent over his folded legs with arms stretched down to shackles binding wrists and ankles, on a wooden floor in an early-American cottage.
 
The swing and sting of the cat-o'-nine-tails punctuates each utterance of the white-wigged gentleman wielding the whip.

         
“It’s your attitude, boy!”
 
Whap
goes the whip.
 
“That’s the problem!”
 
Whap
.
 
“You know that though, right?”
 
Whap
.
 
“Right?”
 
The prim and proper Pontius pauses.
 
Then,
whap!
 
“Right?”

         
The sweaty, lean, half-clad figure inhales with a rush, shudders, and musters a seemingly sincere, “Yes, Sir.”

         
“That’s right!”
 
Whap
.
 
“And we’ve been through this…”
Whap
.
 
“Time and time…”
 
Whap
.
 
“Again!”
 
Whap
.
 
“You are the problem.”
 
Whap
.
 
“You have always been the problem.”
 
Whap
.
 
“I have tried with you, Arthur.”
 
Whap
. “I have never…”
 
Whap
.
 
“Ever…”
 
Whap
.
 
“Had this much trouble…”
 
Whap
.
 
“With anyone!”
 
Whap
.

         
“But, but, Sir…”
 
stammers the young, dark man.

         
“Don’t argue!”
 
Whap
.
 
“I am sick…”
 
Whap
.
 
“And tired…”
 
Whap
.
 
“Of your petty arguments, boy!”
 
Whap
.
 
“I have my limit.”
 
Whap
.
 
“I will only tolerate so much back talk!”
 
Whap
.
 
“We have been very good to you, Jack.”
 
Whap
.
 
“We take very good care of you.”
 
Whap
.
 
“If you were anywhere else…”
 
Whap
.
 
“You know what that would be like!”
 
Whap
.
 
“You’ve heard about other masters, right Jack?”
 
Another pause.
 
Then,
whap!
 
“Right, Alesworth?”
 
Whap!

         
“Yes Sir!”
 
the slave utters, this time feigning a bit more enthusiasm.

         
“Some of your people don’t even get last names around here!”
 
Whap
.
 
“Hell, they don’t even get to stay with their families.”
 
Whap
.
 
“Or have wives!”
 
Whap
.
 
“What if I take your wife away for awhile, Arthur? Will that improve your attitude?”
 
Whap
.
 
The frilly-clothed man hesitates, beckons the bound man’s woman for a cup of water, wipes his brow with a lace handkerchief, and reassures his grip upon the leather crop.
 
The black man lifts his head slightly, ears perking.

         
“Ah, yes!”
 
Whap
.
 
“I see that I am finally reaching you, man.”
 
Whap
.
 
“Will that do it, then, my opinionated planter and picker?”
 
Whap
.
 
“That is it then, I shall remove her from your cabin for a month!”
 
Whap
.
 
“She will take up residence with the Pastor…”
 
Whap!
 
“Who is a decent man without a wife.”
 
Whap
.

         
The Negro begins to strain against his shackles, chains clinking.

         
“And he shall instruct her in the ways of respect and decency.”
 
Whap
.

         
His chains begin to rattle as the collars of the binding irons begin to vibrate.

         
“Will that improve your attitude toward working for this honorable estate?”

         
The leggings and arm irons shake violently and all at once fall from the ebony man’s body as he stands to face his punisher.
 
He pauses to take his wife by her hand and then continues walking toward the Master.
 
As he passes him, he emphatically says, “No Sir!” and bumps his shoulder against the man’s chest.

         
“What is going on?
 
Where are you going?”
 
the Owner shouts.
 
He tries one last crack of the whip, only in vain, as the back of Arthur fades into a cloud of vapor going out the cabin door.

         
“Anywhere but here, sir, anywhere but here.”
 
a husky African male voice replies.

         
Black Jack awoke suddenly on a flax floor mat under a wool blanket in a large room with big, red, wood-carved masks staring down at him from the walls.

Chapter 9

         
His eyes darted around the great room and over the hilly outline of the feminine form lying beside him.
 
He struggled to recall the strange events of the previous night, and how he had come to be here.
 
The still figure lay with her back to him, her profile rising and falling beneath the blanket, framed by the blue mountains he could see in the distance through the window.
 
Her thick, dark hair and smooth, brown skin reminded him of his betrothed back home, and the many mornings that they had shared in their quarters on the estate in Mississippi.
 
His mind raced to tell what was different in the present situation, and it suddenly dawned on him:
 
The light!
 
Good Gawd
, he thought,
it is morning; and no one is moving anywhere in this house.
 

         
Only the throngs of birds singing disturbed the morning air, as the chilly dawn clouds evaporated from the brilliant azure sky.
 
He attempted to remain motionless there on his back as he scanned the magnificent and strange curved carvings that lined the ceiling beams and columns that ran down the wooden walls.
 
He tried to calm himself and put aside the urge to beat the imaginary Master coming through the door to rouse him and his sleeping beauty to complete the round of chores in the darkness before dawn.

         
But it is full daylight!
 
He thought. And all the beauty and calm began to work their spell on Arthur as he realized that for this brief moment of serenity he was free:
 
Free to think his own thoughts, free to ponder the unknown events of the day ahead, and free to choose what to do next.
 
Well, sort of; as he was still faced with the task of making his way back to the shore-whalers and workers. He would need to blend in undetected and eventually join up with a party returning to his ship before the day’s muster.
 
It was a half freedom, a working furlough of sorts, for those going ashore to work the whales.
 
Granted even to the servants on the ship, it had come as an unexpected and pleasant surprise to Arthur when they had told him he could exchange the dirty and smelly confines of the ship’s bilge for the backbreaking duties of the beach.
 
He had likened it to a glimpse of freedom, with close supervision; but he had not imagined the loose comings and goings that he had seen his first day joining the grimy men on the beach.

He had been let go to do what he pleased!
 
Moving from group to group, lending a hand to a boiling pot here, giving a back-wrenching heave-ho somewhere else to sheer an incoming whale, or running an errand further up the beach.
 
He had tried to contain his jubilation; but he had secretly beamed the entire day, with his fellow workers not noticing the curbed enthusiasm of this black-skinned pearl-toothed fellow, until at the end of the day’s work he had become so popular that several of the more boisterous and rambunctious men had shouted out to him, “We are going to the grog shop tonight, man!”

         
It all came back to him, along with the putrid aftertaste of the grog. Lying there with his prior night’s catch, he was now bursting with a newfound excitement and a feeling that was unfamiliar to him.
 
He had never felt as if his actions were his own, or that they could make him feel good about himself.
 
He tried to think about a word he had heard others use on occasion.
 
He thought about a thing he had heard mentioned and discussed rarely among the slaves, and now he thought he must be experiencing it.
 
He thought it must be
pride
.

Yes, Arthur was proud of himself, whether he had felt it before unknowingly, or whether it had just flown through the open window of this Oceanic hut; it felt wondrous to him.
 
He swelled inside, and if the feeling had a sound, it would have been heard throughout the house.
 
The emotion was accompanied by something else.
 

         
Black Jack suddenly felt a strain and a stretching like never before, and the pain that it brought caused him to writhe and turn on his side toward his sleeping beauty. He realized the origin of his discomfort as a certain extension of his body, and it was now jabbing the fleshy protrusions of her motionless form.