by Kyle Onstott
The same night, Meg, struggling to remove his master’s boot, broached, ‘Whenabouts, Masta, suh, we goin’?’
‘When we goin’ whure?’
‘When we goin’ that place, you know, suh, to sell them niggers?’ Meg shrugged in acknowledgment of his ignorance. ‘I ’on’ know whure.’
‘You reckons you goin’ along?’ asked the master with a low chuckle. ‘Well, you ain’t.’
‘I yo’ nigger,’ Meg pouted.
‘I know you my nigger. An’ I takes you along, you goin’ to be somebody’s else nigger; I’ll sell you along the others in Natchez.’
The boy recognized that the white man was joking, but his lacklustre smile of response was tinged with fear. He was not for sale, he knew; but his master’s whims were unpredictable. ‘Who goin’ to jack yo’ boots off fer you, suh?’
‘I got sixteen other niggers to jack my boots. Don’ need you. You stay home here an’ stir toddies fer your ol’ masta. That whut. Ever’body wantin’ to ride along.’ To prove that there was no malice in his refusal, Hammond pinched the muscle of the boy’s thigh until he grunted with pain.
The Sunday before the departure was given over to visiting and to farewells among the slaves. These were not painful. At Falconhurst family loyalties were not encouraged and hardly existed. Slaves born on the plantation knew their mothers, but for the most part were separated from them before puberty. Most of them had never known their fathers, who, in any event, had been disposed of and forgotten before their young were old enough to be concerned about them. Among slaves family pride, unless they knew they were bastards of white fathers, was unknown. The Maxwells, with awareness of these phenomena, deliberately loosened and severed blood ties.
The sales-draft had been fed and worked and massaged and primed not only to bring them into a physical condition to command a high price on the market but also, however incidentally, to enable them to face their fortunes with enthusiasm. They were leaving Falconhurst with no regrets. It was not that they had been mistreated or even thought that they had; they knew of no other kind of treatment than the kind that had been meted them and had nothing with which to make a comparison. They had been adequately fed, sheltered under a leak-proof roof, worked lightly, and, except switchings for childish peccadilloes, never flogged. What better could a slave ask?
To the Maxwells they were cattle, valuable cattle reared and conditioned for sale. It was as unprofitable to abuse Negroes as hogs or horses. The owners took pride in the husbandry, care and comfort of their servants. It was no desire to escape from Falconhurst or their masters that motivated the slaves’ ardour for leaving; rather it was a knowledge, if vague, that there was another world with other people, faces, scenes, activities, away from the plantation, and with this went youth’s desire for experience, adventure.
On the day of their departure, the morning star had hardly risen, when Hammond, hearing a clatter of horse’s hoofs, sent Meg to open the door for Redfield, to care for his horse, and to mix a toddy for him. Ellen helped Hammond to dress in his plum coat for his journey and to pull on his boots. Lucretia Borgia was up, preparing breakfast, and his father met Hammond in the hall at the head of the stairs. Blanche remained abed and her husband did not disturb her. She heard but was indifferent to the bustle in the house.
The Negroes who were to be sold had risen and were gathering in front of the house, along with some others who had got up to see the spectacle of departure. The carriage pole had been removed from the surrey, and shafts substituted, between which there was now hitched a decrepit black mule with a white blaze down its forehead. Florida and Sheba were already in the back seat, calling for Fanny and Twinkle to hasten, else they would be left behind. Hammond had appointed Twinkle to drive the mule. Lucretia Borgia had prepared large parcels of pone for the journey and had packed them into the surrey at the feet of the women.
Hammond consumed a hearty breakfast, Redfield a lighter one, his second, and Maxwell was unable to eat at all. He continued to spout counsel and warnings, all of which he had spoken a dozen times before.
Vulcan had the gentlemen’s horses, and the three Mandingos watched from a corner near their cabin. Doc Redfield shook his friend’s hand and vaulted to Skelter’s back.
On the gallery, Hammond kissed Lucretia Borgia, turned to kiss Ellen, lastly embraced and kissed his father, seeing the tears in his eyes. He mounted his horse and rode around the crowd of Negroes, giving orders and trying to separate those who were going from those remaining behind. He lined up the slaves in a column of twos, Pole and Vulcan at the head. The surrey would follow the men. Pole fell out of ranks to buss Lucretia Borgia, much to the visible displeasure of Memnon.
‘You ain’t a-goin’ to have no more of that, boy, is you?’ Doc laughed rhetorically.
‘I gits me a kin’ masta whut got plenty wenches, Masta, suh,’ Pole answered, undaunted as he resumed his place.
‘We goin’ now,’ called Hammond, and the column moved, roughly and out-of-step down the lane, Maxwell and the house slaves waving from the gallery, the Mandingos from their cabin, the stay-at-home slaves chattering and cheering, Redfield cracking his whip at the heels of the moving men.
The pace was slow, the male slaves plodding along on foot, the women following in the surrey with the decrepit mule. Hammond permitted the boys to stop and rest when they were tired, since he did not want them jaded when they should reach Natchez. Redfield was impatient of such delays. After the Widow Johnson, the white whores of Natchez seemed to him a prospect of paradise.
18
Back at Falconhurst, the owner, after his son’s departure, engaged in an hour’s orgy of orders, but succumbed to his toddies soon and left the management of the plantation to Lucretia Borgia. There was little to be done except to see that the Negroes were fed, which was Lucretia Borgia’s task even when Hammond was at home. Cotton was picked and there was little at the season for the slaves to do.
Blanche came downstairs and sat with her father-in-law. He did not restrict her toddies. Besides that, she was happier with her husband away, since she knew that he was not in dalliance with Ellen. She was less jealous of the other slave girls and not at all of Tense now. She resented the distortion of her figure by pregnancy, knew that Ellen was just as big, but did not credit that pregnancy had deterred Hammond from his attentions to the Negro woman.
There was little for Maxwell and Blanche to talk about that they had not discussed a hundred times. Maxwell recounted again the virtues of his dead wife and of the son she had left him, subjects unpleasant to Blanche, since he seemed to imply her shortcomings by his praise of the others. He had no such intentions. She liked better his dissertations about plantation economy and slave husbandry, about which she cared nothing but in which she recognized no criticism of herself. She could lie back in her chair and let her thoughts rove until Maxwell had talked himself out and fallen asleep. Meg was always at hand with another toddy when her glass was emptied.
Tuesday Blanche woke early, and was unable to go back to sleep. She lay thinking of Hammond’s trip and of how she would have liked to be taken with him. She arose, put on her Mother Hubbard, and joined her father-in-law. The day was warmer than any for a long while; otherwise, the same as yesterday, the same talk, the same toddies, the same growing burden in her body, the same dinner, the same ennui. After dinner there were more toddies, until Maxwell resolved to sit on the gallery with his feet in the sunshine, leaving her in the house.
She was aware that she was a little drunk. Her feet were unsteady when she crossed the sitting-room and went down the hall towards the stairs. She threw herself upon her bed.
Suddenly Blanche rose, stood swaying on her feet. ‘Carry here that yaller slut, that Ellen sow,’ she told Tense. ‘Carry her up here. I knows whut I goin’ to do to her. Git her.’
Tense hesitated.
‘You fetch her. I goin’ to whup her, whup that pup of Hammond’s right out o’ her. Fetch her.’
Tense had no altern
ative but to obey her mistress, and went down the hall and down the stairs. Blanche rummaged in a drawer of her dresser and brought forth a long whip, stood beside the window trying to snap it. She was so much engrossed by her efforts to manipulate it that the time did not seem long to her before Tense returned with Ellen, unalarmed and curious.
‘Peel down, you slut,’ Blanche greeted the girl. ‘Tear off her osnaburg, Tense, all ’em. I goin’ to lambaste that big belly o’ yourn, goin’ to cut you up so bad with this snake that no white man ever goin’ to look at you, lettin’ alone pleasure you.’
Ellen stood big-eyed and terrified before her, making no move to comply with the command but not resisting Tense’s efforts to remove her clothes. Blanche waved the whip aloft and brought it down on Tense, struggling with Ellen, who entirely escaped the futile blow. Ellen made no move to escape. To resist her owner’s wife did not occur to her; she belonged to Hammond, and Blanche had the right to use her as she should see fit.
Blanche uttered a low stream of invective as she swung the whip. She was livid with rage. Ellen did not understand Blanche’s words, but sensed the insults to which she was unable to reply. At length she could endure no more. She screamed, and at length sank to the floor, weeping.
Lucretia Borgia heard the screams, located them as coming from Blanche’s room, and burst through the door.
Blanche, surprised, dropped her whip and retreated to the bed, where she lay face down and kicked her heels in the air.
Lucretia Borgia stood just inside the door, arms akimbo. She dared not reveal the indignation she felt.
‘Go an’ call Ol’ Masta,’ she commanded Tense. ‘Tell him to come. Help him climb them stairs. Fetch him.’
‘No, no, no,’ Blanche called from the bed. ‘Not him, not him. Cain’t you see, she nekid. Ain’t nice he should come.’
Lucretia Borgia stood silent. ‘Go,’ she told Tense again. ‘Bring him quick as you kin.’
In the interminable time before Maxwell arrived, nobody moved, except that Lucretia Borgia stooped and flung toward Ellen her dress.
Maxwell surveyed the room, saw the whip, cast carelessly to the floor, the weeping girl on the floor, Blanche on the bed. ‘Carry her out and down,’ he ordered Lucretia Borgia, gesturing towards Ellen.
When they were gone, he walked towards the bed and leaned over it. ‘Whut this mean?’ he demanded of Blanche. When she made no answer except a sob, he repeated his question and added reprovingly, as to a child, ‘It ain’t nice, ain’t ladylike. Now git you up an’ we go down an’ drink a toddy.’ It was the only recrimination that he could offer a white woman. He knew that he could add nothing to the shame the girl felt.
Hiding her face in the pillow, Blanche implored, ‘Go ’way, go ’way, go ’way.’ She was sober now.
Maxwell knew that the incident would not be repeated. He made his way downstairs and ordered a toddy. Rocking in his chair, he was beset by doubts of what Hammond would say about what had occurred. Perhaps, if Ellen could be silenced, he need never know about it.
He drank his toddy and waited for another. His back was turned to the door of the dining-room, and when he heard it open he assumed it was Meg. It was Lucretia Borgia.
‘Masta, suh,’ she said, her lips dry with terror. ‘Masta, suh,’ she repeated but could not go on.
‘Whut ailin’, now, Lucretia Borgia?’ he asked, irritably.
‘She slip it, suh, Masta, suh. She slip it.’
‘Who slip whut? Whure that saplin’ with my toddy?’
‘Ellen, suh, done slip that sucker she carry.’
‘Whut you mean?’ he asked, unbelieving.
Lucretia Borgia repeated the tidings, and asked, ‘Whut I goin’ to do?’
Maxwell got to his feet, while the impact of the information penetrated his consciousness. ‘I don’ know. Put her in Ham’s bed. Is she bad? The sucker alive?’ he asked; and answered his own question. ‘Course not.’
Maxwell followed the cook back to her kitchen, where Ellen lay on Lucretia Borgia’s pallet, exhausted. There was nothing he could do now. He went to the medicine shelf, poured a dose of laudanum, carried it back to the girl, stooped and with his own hand held the glass to her mouth. ‘Tote her up to his bed,’ he again admonished Lucretia Borgia.
Meg followed him back into the sitting-room with his toddy on a tray. It would now be impossible to conceal the afternoon’s occurrence from Hammond. How to mitigate his wrath? He blamed himself for permitting Blanche to drink so many toddies.
‘Tell that Lucretia Borgia, come here,’ he instructed the boy.
‘She up, suh, Masta—with Miz Ellen,’ answered the boy, aware that something, he knew not what, was amiss.
‘When she come down, tell her. Don’ fergit.’
It was a half-hour before the woman presented herself.
‘Miz Blanche,’ Maxwell began directly, ‘did she hurt that Ellen, cut her with that snake?’
‘No ’um, suh. Never touch her at all, hardly.’ Lucretia Borgia knew the white man wanted her denial. ‘Miz Blanche ain’t know how to han’le that whup.’
‘Then it wasn’t no snake that move Ellen to slip that chil’?’ he asked hopefully.
Lucretia Borgia saw her cue. ‘Oh, naw, suh. Naw, suh, Masta. Ellen about to slip it anyways. Wasn’t no snake.’
The man ruminated his tobacco while the woman waited. ‘We ain’t goin’ to tell Masta Hammond when he come home nothin’ about it,’ he concluded.
‘No, suh, Masta,’ the woman acceded. ‘On’y he goin’ to see first thing that Ellen ain’t totin’ no chil’.’
‘Course, he goin’ to see that. Cain’t hide that she slip it. Only ain’t sayin’ why, ain’t sayin’ Miz Blanche——’
‘Miz Blanche never do nothin’, never do nothin’,’ Lucretia Borgia repeated to impress the idea upon herself.
‘You tell that Ellen. Tell her not to say to her masta when he goin’ to come—nothin’, nothin’. I talks myself to Miz Blanche. Ellen not goin’ to say nothin’ at all.’
‘Yas, suh, Masta, an’ if you says,’ Lucretia Borgia agreed.
‘I says,’ the master ordained with finality.
19
The coffle reached Natchez by easy stages Friday afternoon, entering by the east road, moving through the wide, dusty streets, busy with traffic, to the Forks-of-the-Road north of the city. Hammond was disturbed by a sense of unhappy augury when the disappearance was discovered one morning of Ace, a mustee slave brought from Briarfield. But he decided to go on to Natchez rather than waste time hunting Ace now. ‘He mos’ likely run back to Briarfield,’ Ham told Redfield. ‘I go get him later.’
The Negroes arrived fatigued and dust-covered from their long journey, but their interest in what appeared to them to be a great city buoyed them. They had never seen so many people.
Hammond had his choice among the half-dozen barracoons, all of which were well-nigh empty. Because his father had recommended it and because it appeared cleanest and most spacious, he chose the slave jail of Armfield and Franklin, a mere stockade, enclosing an open space surrounded by sheds and cabins. A battered sign, ‘Armfield and Franklin, Negroes and Mules,’ sagged wearily from a post before the gate.
A middle-aged Negro woman sat on a broken chair, smoking a pipe, before one of the cabins, and two half-grown children, boy and girl, played in the dust not far removed from her. A crippled male slave, a rail on his shoulder, hobbled across the far end of the area.
Two mulatto men, stalwart but bored, slouched out to meet the Maxwell coffle, and one returned to the best of the houses, immediately inside the gate, to summon the white man in charge, who came rubbing the sleep from his eyes, but, once fully awake, brisk and alert enough.
‘Nice coffle,’ he affirmed, eyeing the Negroes. ‘All healthy, I reckon. Yes, plenty of room fer ’em now, but Mista Franklin shippin’ this week or next from up Washington. These not sold, time hisn come, got to ast you should move.’
‘How is niggers?’ Ham
mond asked.
‘High, high,’ the white man said. ‘Cain’t git ’em, an’ cain’t keep ’em. That ol’ wench a-settin’ an’ them saplin’s, they an’ one ol’ man, him cripp’d, all we got fer sale—an’ others ain’t got hardly no more.’
‘These of mine had ought to sell?’ Hammond said hopefully. ‘I was thinkin’ mayhap that cholrie in New Orleans——’
‘Helps sales,’ the man completed the sentence. ‘Ever’body come here instead. Town full. Of course, I not knowin’ how much you hopin’ of this coffle; but, looks of ’em, they had ought to sell right peart. Nobody got none fer sale.’
Hammond dismounted and handed Eclipse to Phrensy.
‘Got to charge you, though, charge you good. Town’s full from New Orleans. Ever’thin’ up. Four bits a head ever’ day, an’ two bits fer the mule.’ The caretaker by his tone admitted the outrage of his tariff, but went on. ‘We got ever’thin’ though, washin’ places an’ all, chains an’ you need ’em, a good post fer floggin’, an’ we feeds good, all they wants.’
Hammond didn’t haggle about the price, although it seemed to him high. He began showing his slaves to their quarters, instructing them to wash and rest, warning them not to venture beyond the gates of the stockade. The brisk white man and the moping mulattoes helped him in settling the Negroes, who were well contented with what they found.
The Natchez House and the Planters Hotel were both full. Their lobbies were alive with people, the streets under the awnings seething with activity. The packet from New Orleans was due with another consignment of refugees. The desk clerk at the Planters suggested that Hammond and Redfield might by chance find quarters at Squires and directed them there, a block down the main street and another block to the right. Redfield was reluctant to leave the turmoil of the larger hotels, but there was no choice.
