Mandingo

by Kyle Onstott

  Squires was not a hotel at all, only a large boarding-house, functioning as a hotel. The big-busted, florid woman who rocked on the verandah looked the men over as they came up the wooden sidewalk, bordered by weedy grass.

  ‘Jist one left,’ she announced, ‘one room. An’ it ain’t big. One bed fer two of you, and maybe a pallet on the floor fer somebody wantin’ it. Rates up, besides. A dollar and a half a day now, each one of ye. Take it or leave it, I ain’t carin’. Be somebody, an’ you don’ want it. We feeds good. Ever’body satisfied.’

  The men had not spoken. The woman adjusted her hair behind her ears and resumed her rocking, her eyes focused upon a house across the street to emphasize her indifference. There could be but one decision; there was nowhere else to go.

  ‘I reckon, an’ you got a place fer our hosses,’ Hammond ventured.

  ‘Four bits, four bits a day extry,’ the woman declared.

  Hammond accepted her terms and the woman began to call loudly for Royal. Nothing could more belie Royal’s name than his looks when he arrived. Knock-kneed and rachitic, a sunken-cheeked black man with greying hair appeared from the interior of the house.

  ‘Royal, you need tearin’ down,’ the woman began. ‘Whyn’t you come when I call? Don’ say you cain’t hear me. You hear, you comes.’

  ‘Yas, ma’am, suh,’ said Royal unperturbed, and waited to learn what his mistress wanted.

  ‘I go to have Herman tear you down, you hear, you damn black nigger. Royal, you hear me, you. Reckon I kin spare you tomorrer to Herman. He sen’ you back spry or dead, one of the two. Cost me money, havin’ you whup, cos’ me money. But I’m a-goin’ to, so help me.’

  The Negro responded without sign of fear, ‘Yes, ’um.’

  ‘These gen’lemen goin’ into number seven. You take ’em. Take ’em up an’ show ’em. Both in the bed,’ she instructed. ‘Dinin’-room open at five. Better come early, wantin’ the best,’ she called to her guests as they moved away following the slave.

  Hammond, after inspecting the sparse comforts of the room, felt tired. He remounted Eclipse, none the less, and rode back to make sure his Negroes were at ease and fed.

  When he arrived, he found the two mulattoes handing about among the slaves great pans of beef stew. The women had beds to sleep on, the men large heaps of long straw. All were comfortable.

  A single horse was tied to the hitching rack, and a man was surveying his slaves.

  ‘That the owner. Got to talk to him,’ the white caretaker explained to the buyer. ‘I ain’t got nothin’ to do with ’em. They hisn.’

  The man, florid-faced, round-bellied, short of leg, and noticeably bald when he removed his hat to wipe his head, came forward. ‘That one, he look right good. How much is he?’ He pointed toward Phrensy.

  ‘He fifteen hundert,’ Hammond improvised a price, not knowing what he should ask. ‘A right peart one, prime an’ soun’.’

  The man grunted and turned to Lute, felt him through his clothes. ‘An’ that varmint? How much?’

  ‘He cheaper. He only twelve hundert. Jest as good, though not as high up an’ reachy-like.’

  The man grunted again. ‘Right reasonable,’ he nodded knowingly. ‘Sold fer no fault?’

  ‘They warranteed, all on ’em,’ Hammond said.

  ‘Might want one or two of ’em myself, an’ I got friends cravin’ some. Any wenches?’

  Hammond interrupted the women’s supper to show them off.

  ‘Breeders yet,’ the buyer commented. ‘Not many breeders offered. Three on ’em knocked an’ showin’.’

  ‘They all knocked,’ Hammond assured him, ‘though Twinkle here ain’t showin’ much yet.’

  ‘I wants one or two, shore do wants one or two,’ the man said, feeling the women’s arms and lifting their skirts to look at their legs. He returned to the boys, felt them over and threw stones for them to retrieve.

  ‘Wants I should strip any of ’em down fer you to see?’ Hammond inquired.

  ‘No; reckon not. Not this evenin’. Come mornin’——,’ he made tentative plans.

  He turned to Phrensy, asked the slave how he would like him for a master. ‘I treats ’em good, treats ’em all good. Good Christian home. One of my family,’ he promised.

  At length, he took his departure, mounted his horse and rode away, his gross, red face turned over his shoulder, still considering the slaves.

  ‘That ol’ Major Wilkins,’ the caretaker explained after the man had gone. ‘Ain’t got no hands, an’ never had none; no money. A little tetched, I reckon. Always lookin’ aroun’ fer niggers. Coffle comin’ in, he al’ays first to look ’em over.’

  ‘I reckoned he goin’ to buy two or three. Kind of wasted my wind on him, seem like,’ said Hammond in disappointment.

  ‘No, Major won’t buy; cain’t. But he spreads things. He talks,’ the caretaker reasoned. ‘Ever’body, ever’body in Natchez goin’ to know you here with servants fer sale, soun’ an cheap. You ain’t waste no words. The Major good to have.’

  Doc Redfield had saved a seat for Hammond next to his own at the long supper table at Squires Boarding House. Mrs. Kennedy, the woman with whom arrangements had been made on the porch, sat at the end of the table nearest the kitchen, while her wizened old husband presided at its head. The supper party was for seventeen, all men except Mrs. Kennedy.

  ‘Just met ol’ Major Wilkins, tellin’ that they’s a new coffle at Armfield’s at the Forks,’ one small man essayed conversation with nobody in particular in the midst of buttering a biscuit.

  ‘Ol’ Wilkins!’ one laughed.

  ‘Like, all sick. All goin’ to die, come from the South. I’d be afeared o’ ’em,’ a man sitting beyond Hammond expressed a guess.

  ‘No, these from Alabamie or somewhures east, the Major said. Right healthy an’ soun’,’ the small man corrected.

  ‘Any fancies? I’ll have to ride out,’ declared Mr. Kennedy. ‘Bin a-cravin’ me another ’un.’

  ‘No fancies! I won’t have a fancy aroun’, an’ you knows it, Ben Kennedy. ’Nough trouble with Dipsy here,’ Mrs. Kennedy pointed at the mulatto girl circling the table with a dish, ‘without no fancies. You men won’t leave be poor Dipsy, though, Law knows, she ain’t no fancy.’

  ‘Servants is up, seem like,’ commented the little man, with another biscuit.

  ‘They ain’t none offered, savin’ a few, an’ they triflin’ an’ puny.’

  ‘Folks afeared of New Orleans. All the buyers from Louisianie comin’ here, an’ nobody bringin’ ’em in.’

  ‘I’d sell Royal, here, an’ anybody wantin’ him,’ said Mrs. Kennedy, and then qualified her statement, ‘—an’ if I could do withoutn him.’

  A man to whom Royal was offering a biscuit pushed back his chair and grasped the black boy’s leg, felt it evaluatingly, pulled him forward and ran his finger into his mouth. ‘Won’t bring much. Teeth gone, an’ legs crooked. Won’t las’ a month in the cane,’ he expressed his opinion.

  Hammond said nothing about his ownership of the coffle. The boarders at Squires were not slave-buyers, despite their talk.

  Supper over, and travel-fatigued as they were, Redfield wanted to go to the bars and gambling houses. It was for these he had come to Natchez. Hammond joined him, straggling after, limping. The bars were ablaze with lights and mirrors, far different from the tavern at Benson. Nudes adorned the walls. Drinkers were numerous, all kinds of men, men gaudily dressed in top hats with golden seals on heavy chains across their waistcoats, roughly dressed labourers, sportsmen and speculators, all with a hectic, heedless desperation to escape from something that threatened them. Many of them had recently come from New Orleans, refugees from the city’s epidemic. Another packet was expected the same evening, and many expected friends among the passengers.

  As Redfield and Hammond trudged from bar to bar, absorbing the sights and the excitement, they saw the same faces in the mirrors behind the counters. Redfield felt inclined to sit in a game of brag, and Hamm
ond looked on until his partner had lost some twenty dollars and rose to relinquish his chair to a man waiting behind him. While twenty dollars seemed to Redfield a considerable loss, to the milling crowd money had no value. Tomorrow, they thought, they might die. At least they had escaped from the City, and they were concerned with little else. What was money for, if they had it?

  A pallid tout showed Hammond and Redfield the way to Maggie’s, and then disappeared. Maggie was herself buxom and had been handsome when she was half her present age, and the women in her brothel were comely enough. There must have been a dozen of them, but they were too busy to waste time talking to the clients, of which there was an increasing stream. Men were everywhere, upon the lounges, standing in doorways, sitting on floors. Maggie’s was reputed to be the best place in the town.

  The women all were white. Hammond was squeamish about white flesh, and indifferent to the delay. The women had no allure for him. They were not his property; rather, they belonged for some fifteen minutes to whoever would pay for them. Hammond bought a bottle of wine, but the women were all too busy to drink with him and he was forced to share it with Redfield and with a strange man who stood near the table where the wine was served by a sluttish mulatto girl.

  Redfield, however, had dreamed all summer of the debauch he would have in New Orleans. This was only Natchez, of course, but he was not to be cheated of his orgy. At Hammond’s suggestion that they wait no longer for women, Redfield demurred.

  ‘I been sleepin’ with that warty widder. Now, I goin’ to spen’ my money an’ buy me a purty, smooth, young ’un, whilst I kin,’ he argued. ‘Course, you got you a young piece; I ain’t wonderin’ you don’t hanker after these.’

  A chubby little blonde touched Hammond on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Honey,’ she said, ‘you mine. I bin a-servin’ an’ a-pleasurin’ ol’ men all evenin’. Now, doggone, I got aroun’. I bin a watchin’ your baby face ever sence you come in, plannin’ how I goin’ to git to you.’

  Hammond shrugged. ‘I reckon not,’ he declined her offer. ‘I ain’t a-feelin’ good.’

  ‘You bus’? That whut the matter with you?’ the girl asked compassionately. ‘Won’t cos’ you nothin’, a purty boy like you.’

  ‘I ain’t bust,’ Hammond denied, drawing out his purse. ‘I jest ain’t a-feelin’.’

  The woman admitted her defeat. ‘Well, I cain’t make you. Come back when you feel like; ast fer Zelda. Won’t cos’ you nothin’, un’erstan’? Who a-waitin’?’

  Redfield pressed forward. ‘I goin’ with you,’ he volunteered.

  The girl looked at the man, then looked toward Hammond and made a sneering face. ‘Well, come on,’ she resigned herself.

  ‘You goin’ to wait?’ Redfield asked and received an assent from his companion. He walked rapidly away with the woman, leaving Hammond yawning, alone.

  Maggie circulated apologetically. ‘I have a lady fer you right away,’ she told Hammond. ‘I’ll have more girls tonight on the packet, plenty of ’em comin’ from New Orleans.’

  ‘I ’on’t want none,’ Hammond told her. ‘I jes’ a-waitin’.’

  ‘You jes’ plagued,’ Maggie assured him, encircling his shoulder with her arm. ‘Needn’t be plagued. None of these ladies goin’ to hurt you. You ain’t used to comin’ to places like this; is you? You young, an’ sweet. I knows.’

  Hammond blushed. He did not know how to deny the innocence with which the woman charged him. Perhaps in part the charge was true, but he felt no embarrassment.

  He heard a familiar voice and looked up to see the protuberant figure and florid face of Major Wilkins, who held a man’s elbow in his grip. He heard the Major say, ‘These, these different. These young an’ prime. An’ cheap, too. Fine lot as ever I see. I goin’ to buy two or three of ’em my own self. They ain’t a-goin’ to las’, I tells you, when folks knows about ’em. Better ride out first thing in the mornin’, you wantin’ to pick ’em over. At the Forks-of-the-Road, Armfield’s.’

  Hammond failed to hear the other man’s reply, but he knew that Wilkins was talking of his slaves, a walking advertisement. He saw Redfield approaching, walking briskly until stopped by Major Wilkins, who grabbed him and led him aside. The Major described the slaves awaiting sale at Armfield’s and again declared his intention to purchase some of them, this time three or four, for his own use.

  ‘I knows,’ Redfield told him. ‘I’m with ’em, don’t own ’em, not exactly, but I’m along with ’em; I’m a-sellin’ ’em.’

  ‘Well, I congratulate you. A fine lot, fine as ever was. I comin’ out tomorrer to look ’em over an’ buy me a few, quite a few,’ the Major declared before Redfield could escape from him.

  To how many persons Wilkins had told his story Hammond didn’t know, but it would do his sale no harm.

  Redfield was satisfied and ready to return to Squires, unable to understand how Hammond could resist the allure of Maggie’s wantons. ‘See that big red-headed one?’ he asked enthusiastically as the two made their way along the lightless street. ‘I’m goin’ to try her nex’ time.’

  ‘I won’er whut that fat Major mean, tellin’ ever’body ’bout our coffle,’ Hammond changed the subject. ‘Reckon, come mornin’, I got to put a notice in the paper.’

  When they entered their room in the dark, Redfield stumbled over an unoccupied pallet on the floor at the foot of their bed. ‘Reckon we goin’ to have company,’ he remarked.

  Hammond removed his clothes in the dark, requesting Redfield to help him off with one boot. He withdrew his poke from his pocket and placed his money under his pillow. He went immediately to sleep, but was vaguely disturbed later by somebody coming into the room and going to bed on the pallet. The new guest whispered curses at a servant who was helping him to undress and who subsequently disappeared.

  Hammond heard, but didn’t open his eyes. After his long ride, although the mattress was of lumpy moss, the bed was pleasant and he slept well. The sunshine lay in a long patch on the floor when he awoke. Whether it was the light that roused him or the figure moving about in the room he did not know.

  It was a grotesque figure, very black and very fat, bare of leg and foot beneath soiled, brilliant red Zouave trousers. Hammond turned on his side to watch the fat boy, as he fumbled with the brushing of his master’s garments. His motions were slow, mere gestures towards his task, with which he seemed little concerned. The morning was cool and the Negro was not exerting himself, but sweat rolled from his brow down his obese cheeks.

  Hammond lay there watching and listening when, from the pallet, which Hammond was unable to see, came the question, ‘You don’ let me sleep, you know whut I goin’ to do to you? Larrup you, that whut!’

  ‘I ain’t makin’ no noise, suh.’

  Hammond recognized the voice from the pallet and sprang from his bed. ‘Charles! Charles Woodford!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ever’body thinkin’ you dead!’

  The man on the pallet opened his eyes and fixed one of them upon the naked man limping toward him. ‘Cousin Hammon’,’ he said. ‘How you come here?’

  ‘Nev’ mind, nev’ mind how I come. I found you now. Whure my money? Whure my nigger you stole?’

  Charles looked at him blandly. ‘I never stole your nigger or your money neither. Whut you talks about, Cousin Hammon’?’

  ‘You know whut I talks about—that nigger, that money, that ring.’

  ‘Not that Jason whut Cousin Warren give me? Not him, Cousin Ham?’

  ‘Yes, him. Why you go an’ stole him?’

  ‘I never. You knowin’ I never. You heard Cousin Warren tellin’ me he mine an’ do with him how I wants. You right there; you hearin’ Cousin Warren, your own self.’ Charles rose on his elbow.

  ‘Papa never meant that, no sich thing, an’ you knowin’ he never. Whure at your paper fer him?’

  ‘Comin’ from a gen’leman, I reckoned I didn’t need no paper. Cousin Warren never give me none.’

  ‘You knowin’ Papa mean Jason yourn while you at Fal
conhurst. He not yourn to sneak away with.’

  ‘He ought to have said. I thinkin’ all time he mine—like he say. Too late now,’ shrugged Charles with the shoulder raised in the air. ‘I done sol’ Jason. I never knowed he weren’t mine.’

  Hammond remembered his father’s telling Charles that he might have Jason, presumably for the duration of his visit. He was unable to credit that the boy accepted the Negro as a permanent gift, and yet there was no way to gainsay Charles’s contention.

  ‘Well, an’ that money?’ Hammond went on to the next subject.

  ‘Whut money?’

  ‘That, whut I sent with you to your papa. You never took it.’

  ‘Oh, that. I borrowed that offn Papa. It hisn, Papa’s; it not yourn. I borrowed that. I’m goin’ to pay him back one day—when I kin, handy.’

  ‘That my money, an’ I wantin’ it,’ declared Hammond impotently.

  Charles merely laughed. ‘It wasn’ yourn. You givin’ it to me to take to my papa. I jest take it, a borry, offn him, not offn you, an’ come to New Orleans. Always did want to go to New Orleans. You don’t reckon Papa goin’ to do anythin’ about it?’

  ‘He goin’ to whup you, whup you jest like you was a nigger,’ threatened Hammond.

  ‘Let him jes’ try. I through whuppin’. Through! Hear me? Through!’ Charles rose to sitting position in his earnestness, and then reclined, laughing. ‘He got to kotch me firs’, anyways.’

  Whether Charles had stolen the twenty-five hundred dollars from the Maxwells or from his father was a question open to dispute. It was more of the nature of a breach of trust than a theft, in any event. Even if Hammond has chosen to press the charge, Charles’s explanation had taken the wind from his sails. Whose was the money, once it was in Charles’s hands, the Maxwells’ or Woodford’s?

  ‘An’ that ring?’ Hammond pursued. ‘Whut ’came of that? I reckon I givin’ you that?’

  ‘Hell, no! I got that, got it right here on my finger, an’ if I kin git it off. It’s growed right tight.’ Charles struggled with the ring, sucked his finger and twisted the ring loose. He threw it at Hammond’s feet. ‘I was goin’ to give that to Blanche whenever I goin’ to see her. Reckon you goin’ to see her firs’. You take it to her.’