by Kyle Onstott
Hammond stooped to pick up the ring, satisfied with his recovery of it.
‘How she? I reckon you married with her? No way to keep you from,’ Charles went on. ‘Reckon you foun’ I say true when I tell you she pizen?’
‘Yes, we marry. Fergit you not a-knowin’. Blanche, she real well, ’ceptin’ she knocked. She goin’ to have a chil’.’
‘No? Blanche? That real interes’in’!’ Charles’ surprise was not feigned. ‘I hope it not come gotch-eyed, like me.’
Why should the boy consider such a possibility? Hammond disguised his concern at the comment.
‘How my mamma? Seein’ her?’ Charles inquired. ‘Still a-readin’ in the Bible, I reckon.’
‘She well. Leastwise she was, time of the weddin’. Ain’t seen her sence that. Dick’s took up preachin’, let go the law.’
‘Preacherin’ better fer him. Don’ have to know nothin’ jes’ to preach.’ Charles was little concerned. ‘Whut fer you come to Natchez? A new wench?’
‘I brought a coffle across, me an’ Doc Redfield there in bed. They out to the Forks.’
‘Sellin’ good? Niggers up.’
‘Jest come yestiday. Ain’t had time yet.’
‘They goin’ to sell, all right. Ain’t no buyers goin’ to New Orleans at all. All comin’ here. Your niggers ain’t even been near New Orleans? They sell. Right comic, how we met right here in the same room.’
‘Whut you doin’ here?’
‘Refugeein’ from New Orleans. Come up on the packet las’ night. Ain’t hardly nobody left there, all either dead or gone away.’
Charles crawled from his bed and submitted to being dressed by the fat Negro boy, whose name was Shote. ‘Fat as I kin make him,’ he said, ‘an’ still he don’ sell. Money in monsters, if you kin git ’em, but too many jest fat ones. Nobody think fat ones funny no more.’
Hammond noted the change that his brother-in-law had undergone. His face had cleared of its pimples and he had put on weight. His flesh was soft, his contours had rounded. Except for his eyes, one would have called him handsome.
‘I bought me a little humpback with skinny legs, funny-lookin’ imp,’ Charles continued. ‘Didn’t have to give fer him hardly nothin’, hundert an’ fifty; sold him to a gam’ler very next day fer five hundert dollar. He usin’ him for luck. Then I got a zany half-wit young wench. Didn’ know nothin’. Couldn’ talk none. Follow me aroun’ like a puppy, but couldn’t keep no clothes on her. Tear ’em off fast as I could put ’em on. Fellow give her to me. Hadn’t had her a week when a man at the Exchange thought she was funny an’ offered me three hundert fer her. Wanted her a pet fer his boy. I see they is money in freaks an’ monsters, if you kin git ’em. Bethought me of this Shote an’ rode across an’ bought him. Had to pay too much—three and a quarter fer him. He too old. They wants funny ones young. Oh, I kin git four fifty, five hundert fer him any time, but I wants seven hundert. Ain’t he the fattest you ever seen? I laughs jest to look at him.’ Charles patted Shote’s fat rump with pride and a trace of affection. ‘Three years younger an’ he’d fetch a thousand. Somebody goin’ to want him. Better to bring him along than leave him at New Orleans to ketch it an’ die.’
Hammond got into his clothes and struggled with his boot. ‘Kin your Shote help me? I gits worse ruther than better, seems like,’ he said.
‘Course, course. He’p Mista Hammond, boy. Do whut he tell you.’ Charles was his old accommodating self. He was glad to make his peace.
Hammond would not have chosen to encounter Charles, would have chosen to forget him, to charge him off as a cheat and a thief. But the boy’s explanation of his behaviour was pat enough to raise doubts in Hammond’s mind—it was not exactly theft, nor theft from the Maxwells. He had returned the ring at least, at the first opportunity.
Charles, having no purpose in Natchez except to escape from New Orleans and its cholera, would have attached himself to Hammond and resumed their relations as if nothing untoward had occurred between them. He waited for Redfield to get into his clothes and accompanied him and Hammond to the dining-room for breakfast. Hammond’s treatment of the boy was tepid, but he eventually got rid of him only because Charles had no horse upon which to ride to the Forks-of-the-Road.
Redfield went there directly, while Hammond remained in the city to place in the newspapers an announcement of his arrival with a consignment of Negroes for sale and to buy new clothes for the slaves, in which he believed they would appear better to possible buyers. He made haste with his errands and reached Armfield’s before ten o’clock. Redfield had ascertained that the slaves had been fed to repletion. They sat on benches before the doors of the sheds with nothing to do but wait for somebody to come and buy them.
Hammond’s arrival animated them and the distribution and fitting of garments caused great excitement.
‘Shore you clean?’ Hammond demanded as he handed out trousers and shirts and dresses. ‘Don’ want you should put new trogs on dirty!’
‘Wash yestiday, Masta, suh,’ declared Vulcan, ‘soon as we come.’
The novelty of new clothes delighted the Negroes, who ran from one to another showing them off and exchanging garments in the hope of a better fit. Some of the boys cut capers that aroused a laugh from the others. A few of them who had expected to be permitted to amble about the streets in search of buyers for themselves were disappointed at their confinement in a mere barracoon, but they were none the less comfortable and well fed.
Curious neighbourhood youths and a few men straggled in to make casual inspection of the merchandise, but none had money to buy.
The newspapers with Hammond’s advertisements would not appear before morning, but the owner was already disappointed that the public interest in his slaves was not greater. It was two o’clock before a prospective buyer came.
He was a roughly dressed, stooped young man with a black beard, riding an unkempt, long-haired horse. ‘Hearin’ you got niggers?’ he said to the white caretaker as he dismounted awkwardly, although the slaves were in his view.
‘They hisn,’ the caretaker replied, waving the customer in the direction of Hammond. The slaves rose and lined up for inspection as Hammond had taught them.
The man walked down the line, eyeing the lot individually, stopping occasionally to feel a boy’s muscles. ‘Right likely,’ he commented of none in particular. ‘Right likely. ‘Ginia or Kaintucky?’
‘Alabama,’ Hammond answered him.
‘Right likely,’ the man repeated,’—comin’ from there. Whut’s that one? How much?’ He pointed toward Vulcan.
‘Him?’ Hammond hesitated before naming a price. ‘He eighteen hundert.’
‘Yes,’ said Redfield coming up, ‘an’ worth twenty-five of anybody’s money.’
The man whistled in his alarm at the price.
‘Others less. He the mos’ costive. You shore kin pick a good nigger,’ said Hammond. ‘First thing, fallin’ on the bes’.’
The man examined the other boys and asked their prices, but returned again and again to Vulc. Lute, the cheapest of the adult males, was only a thousand dollars. The man asked Vulcan, Pole and two others to remove their shirts, and Hammond told them to strip down naked. They were prime with nothing to conceal, and he was proud of them.
‘Purty bucks, an’ not a mark on ’em,’ said the man admiringly, running his hand down the back of one. ‘But eighteen hunert? Too much. Give you twelve fifty. Whut say?’
Hammond shook his head dubiously and looked at Redfield for counsel.
‘That a breedin’ buck,’ said Redfield. ‘Some of them others jest as good, you goin’ to work ’em.’
‘I only jest got me three wenches, an’ they all got bucks. Ain’t a-needin’ no breeder, but I likes the looks o’ that one,’ hesitated the man, looking again at Vulcan.
‘I reckon your bucks ain’t as good as this one. Give your sluts to him, an’ he bring you twins—likely. He that strong,’ suggested Redfield.
The man sig
hed, convinced but reluctant. ‘Six months?’ he asked.
‘Cash,’ clicked Hammond, positively.
‘Well, I ain’t got it. Jist ain’t got it.’
The vendor made no reply.
‘Got to go to the bank, I reckon. Bank will ’commodate me. Al’ays have. Keep that ’un fer me; I’m comin’ agin. Name of Bryce.’ He walked towards his horse, mounted it, and rode away.
Hammond was not pleased with making no other sale. Of course, he had Bryce’s word that he wanted Vulcan, but no money had changed hands and the sale was not made. Hammond and Redfield sat around the lot for the rest of the afternoon but there were no more serious customers. Men came, four of them altogether, and looked at the slaves, handled them, but only one asked their prices and he only idly.
‘Wait fer them newspapers to git to workin’,’ urged Redfield, who was in no hurry to have the sale over with and return to Benson. ‘Nobody a-knowin’ we here yet awhile.’
‘Mayhap we better arrange a public cry,’ Hammond pondered. ‘They got auctioneers, good ones, in Natchez, like as not.’
‘They charges,’ Redfield objected.
‘Either that, or take down our prices some.’
‘Prices all right. Jest that nobody know,’ Redfield soothed.
The slaves had their meal of the day, and the white men mounted their horses to return to Natchez. Hammond was dejected. They were late for supper at Squires, and men were leaving the dining-room as they entered it. They passed Charles, who had already eaten.
After supper, Hammond, in no mood for fleshpots, went early to bed, whereas Redfield set out again for the saloons, gambling halls and brothels, which had been augmented by the influx of refugees from New Orleans. Hammond felt for his purse, which he had placed beneath his pillow, when he later heard Charles bedding himself down upon his pallet; not that he feared that Charles might try to rob him. Charles was mildly repugnant to him, and he would have preferred him elsewhere, but there was no way to rid himself of the boy.
Next morning, however, Charles was gleeful and talkative. ‘I bought me a special nigger last night. Ain’t never seen one like him.’
‘With my own money, you bought him. With money you stole from me. Good as,’ Hammond modified his indictment.
‘Hell, no! That money gone long ago! Reckon I ain’t got me no money? I been tradin’ niggers an’ bettin’ fights, me an’ Mista Brownlee, ever sence I come to New Orleans. I right well fix’.’
‘Brownlee! You mix up with that snake, Brownlee? Brownlee, the trader?’
‘Mista Brownlee right nice gen’leman, you gits to know him. Right shrewd, too. He was, that is.’
‘Was?’ Hammond asked for clarification.
‘He dead, you knowin’. The plague got him. Come down one day, dead the next. It like that, the cholrie.’
‘Mayhap you knowin’ Neri, too?’
‘Neri, Brownlee’s pardner? Course I know him. Gone west, Texas, I reckon, afore Brownlee die. Some trouble or other, over stealin’ a nigger. ’Bout bust, I hearin’.’
This news, welcome as it was to Hammond, did not console him for Charles’s purchases and profits.
After breakfast, Ham and Redfield rode to the sales lot and waited. In the late morning, men began to arrive and to look over the stock. None found what he was looking for at a price he could afford. All conceded that the Negroes were a prime and likely lot and that the prices were not too high, but they were prepared to buy adult bucks at only five to seven hundred dollars. They knew slave prices had risen, but they were seeking for bargains and were not too particular about health and stamina.
Hammond and Redfield had gone to Natchez for their dinners and had returned to the Forks when, nearing two o’clock, two men, apparently brothers and enough alike to be twins, dismounted from sleek thoroughbreds, which they turned to a mounted yellow groom to hold for them. About forty-five, they were expensively but conservatively dressed in black with highly varnished boots. Well made and agile, they swung across the yard and approached Redfield.
‘The servants yours, suh?’ the slightly taller demanded politely.
‘To say true, they hisn. I’m with ’em though,’ replied Redfield, reluctant to deny ownership.
The man turned to Hammond and said, ‘They tell me you have some right likely boys for sale, suh, if we aren’t too late.’
‘I reckon they’s likely, suh. I ain’t seen better, suh. Like to ’spect ’em, suh?’ asked Ham, inclining himself in a bow as nearly like the man’s as he could manage with his stiff leg. This was a gentleman, Hammond could see, and he did not like to concede that he was not. He clapped his hands and called sharply, ‘Luke! Pole! Lute! Phrensy!’
These boys appeared from the cabins and joined the other slaves in the line-up. ‘Shuck down, all of ye. Give the gen’leman a look at you,’ commanded the master.
The Negroes had begun removing their clothes when the stranger intervened with, ‘Never mind stripping them, suh. I’ll ask to see any that interests me, suh.’
The master did not countermand his command and the slaves continued to remove their clothes until all stood naked. The buyer walked down the line, glancing at the boys, and grunted his satisfaction with them. ‘A good lot, the kind I’ve been looking for,’ he turned to his brother, and then he addressed the owner, ‘Yes, suh; a likely lot, suh.’
Hammond was pleased with the praise. It was easy to perceive that the man was a connoisseur. ‘They right good, I reckon. Good as we could raise ’em, my papa an’ me. An’ biddable. Not a whale on a back in the lot of ’em.’
‘No difference, that, suh,’ said the man walking again slowly down the line. ‘They will do what they’re told, never doubt, suh. And clean backs won’t last with my drivers. Cain’t keep them from using the whip, suh; sometimes too hard. Since I never sell one, a few scars don’t hurt. I grow sugar.’ he explained. He stopped before Lute, reached down and felt of his thigh, pulled him forward out of the line. ‘That’s one,’ he said. Next he chose Vulcan; when Hammond told him that Vulcan was spoken for, although no deposit had been made on him, the man returned him to the line. Hammond would have sold the boy, if the man had insisted.
‘No difference, suh. One about as good as another. All sound and likely,’ said the man, choosing another. ‘Two is all I aimed to buy, all I need; but these are so good,’ he mused, pulling forward two more of the Negroes.
Having tentatively selected four, he went over them carefully looking for possible ruptures, broken or crooked fingers and toes, missing teeth. He could find nothing wrong. He ran the boys and told them to jump. He was satisfied.
‘Why so many?’ asked the brother. ‘You need only two?’
‘Right now, yes!’ said the buyer. ‘But next year, who knows? Don’t find this kind every day. All young and sound.’
‘Cane uses ’em up,’ admitted the brother.
‘Yes, and most growers figure seven years for a nigger. Mine last me about eleven or twelve. I’ve got one that’s been working fifteen year. But he was sound and young to begin. If Papa failed to teach us aught else, he did say, and proved, that it pays to get stout niggers and work ’em hard. Cheap niggers are cheap niggers.’
The fraternal colloquy delayed the transaction until the buyer turned to Hammond with, ‘This four, how much do you want for them?’
Hammond hesitated, adding on his fingers, ‘I reckon ’em at fifty-four fifty fer the lot,’ he hazarded at last.
The buyer puffed out his cheeks dubiously. ‘Niggers are up, I know, suh. Good demand, suh. I suppose your price is all right, figured by the head, and you can get it. But——’ he hesitated. ‘I considered that if I take four they would come a little less—less by the head, that is.’ There was no disparagement of the stock.
‘They worth it, ever’ dollar,’ Redfield interposed and would have said more but for Hammond’s interruption.
‘I don’ know,’ pondered the owner. ‘I might, jest might, make it fifty-two fifty fer the lot.’
‘How about five thousand; twelve fifty a head? I’ll give that much, suh.’ He implied, but did not assert, that he would not give more.
Hammond had made no sale all day and was over-anxious. He paced the lot slowly, head down, considering. He looked up and demanded, ‘Cash?’
‘On the barrel head!’ said the man. ‘I’ll give you my cheque on the Natchez bank and leave the bucks until you cash it. Have to ask you to feed them a few days anyway, until I start home. I live over beyond Baton Rouge and am staying here with my brother.’
It was agreed and the principals retired to the little office to exchange the cheque and the bill of sale.
‘Put on your trogs an’ git you inside,’ Hammond said sharply to the remaining slaves. ‘You,’ he turned to Lute, ‘you an’ you otherns sol’. Anybody come, you stay in there. Don’ crave you aroun’ bein’ looked at, spilin’ a sale. Your new masta come fer you two, three days.’
The afternoon was waning, and Redfield was impatient to eat his supper that he might go to the Globe and the Woodbine, later to Maggie’s. No more buyers could be expected and, having made sure that his Negroes would be adequately fed, Hammond was ready to return to Squires boarding-house. He and Redfield had started across the lot towards the horse-rack, when the little bearded man arrived to complete his purchase of Vulcan. Hammond had abandoned his belief that the boy had been sold. It was necessary to return to the office, receive the man’s money and give him a bill of sale.
When called out for transfer, the big Negro dropped to his knees and grasped Hammond about the legs, weeping. ‘I knowin’ I got to go like Masta say,’ he blubbered, ‘on’y Masta so good an’ Ol’ Masta so good. Won’ never have good masta like that agin.’
‘This gen’leman, your new masta, goin’ to be good to you an’ you mindin’ whut he goin’ to say. You do ever’thin’ jest like he tellin’ you. He feed you good, ’n ever’thin’.’
‘Yas, suh, Masta, suh,’ Vulcan agreed.
