Flash For Freedom! fp-3

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Peeping over a box I watched while Omohundro, by the light of the overseer's lantern, examined a couple of Bradlee's slaves, walking round them prodding and poking. I couldn't hear what was said, what with the churning of the great paddle wheel and the steady murmur and crooning of the slaves, but after about five minutes Omohundro shook his head, I heard Bradlee laugh, and then the three of them moved slowly amidships, where Omohundro stopped to light a cigar. From where I lurked among the bales I began to hear their voices.

  "… and of course I don't blame you, pricin' high," Omohundro was saying. "Reckon your figure is about right, these days, but that wouldn't leave any margin of profit. Still, I'm right sorry; good bucks you have, sub, an' well schooled."

  "Guess I can train a nigger," says Bradlee. "Yessir, I jus' about think I can. Whup seldom, but whup good, my ol' dad used to say, an' he was right. Guess I ain't laid a rawhide on a nigger o' mine this las' twelve-month; don't have to. They got a respect for me, on 'count they know if I do trim one of 'em up, he'll stay trimmed."

  "That's the style with 'em," chips in the overseer. "On'y way, otherwise they git spoiled. Breaks my heart to see good niggers spoiled, too, by soft handlin', like the coffle that Englishman brung aboard."

  "How's that?" says Bradlee. "I hear they's prime; so Potter sayin'."

  "Oh, prime enough — just now. But he don't know how to handle 'em, an' he in a right way to ruinin' 'em, to my way 0' thinkin'. Shame, it is." And then to my horror, he added: "Care to see 'em, gennelmen?"

  My heart stopped beating, and then Omohundro said:

  "Reckon not; he ain't sellin', so he tell me."

  "No?" chuckles the overseer. "I guess he'll be glad 'nough to, come a year or so. Leastways with one of 'em — the uppitiest yaller son-of-a-bitch you ever see. First-rate nigger, too — clean, straight, smart, an' talks like a college p'fessor — oh, you know his sort, I reckon. All frills an' goddam' lip."

  "Uh-huh," says Bradlee. "Educated, likely, an' spoiled to hell an' gone. Got no use for 'em, myself."

  "That kind of fancy fetches a good price, though, once the tar's been taken out of 'em," says Omohundro. "Make valets, butlers, an' so forth — ladies in Awlins an' Mobile payin' heavy money for 'em." He paused. "Think the Englishman knows what this feller's worth.

  "How could he?" says Bradlee. "He tells me he spent all his time in Afriky slave ships, till now. He don't know the value of talkin' niggers."

  Shut up, shut up about my bloody niggers, I found myself whispering. Mind your own business and get upstairs where you belong, can't you. And they would have done but for that benighted swine of an overseer.

  "Talkin' niggers is right — this one of Prescott's sure can handle his gab. Highest-f alutin' smart-assed buck in creation, answers back sassy as be damned. An' what you think Mist' Prescott do, gennelmen, hey? Why, he jus' pats and smooths him! Yessir. Makes a body sick to listen."

  "The English is soft on niggers. Ev'yone know that," says Bradlee. "I'd like to see the buck'd talk back to me; I'd just about like to hear that."

  "Well, suh, you don't have to stir more'n twenty feet to see him," cries the infernal clod. "Here, gennelman, step across this ways — I see Mist' Omohundro kinda interested anyway, that right, suh?"

  I should have strode out then and there, I know, and done something, anything, to keep them away from my coffle. I might have talked them away, or damned their eyes for going near my blacks, or made some diversion. But my consternation had reached the point where I had lost my nerve altogether I hesitated, and then the overseer was up forward, barking at my niggers to rise and let the white men have a look at them. I waited, helpless, for the blow to fall.

  "Where that George?" the overseer was shouting. "Here, you George, ye black varmint, step out when I calls ye!"

  It was like watching a play I had seen before, and a bloody tragedy at that. Randolph, unsuspecting, stood up among his fellows, blinking in the light.

  "That one?" says Bradlee. "Well, he don't look so dam' pert, eh, Omohundro? Good clean buck, too, quadroon, I reckon — why, what's the matter with you, boy? You seen a ghost?"

  Randolph was staring, with his hand to his mouth, at Omohundro, who was stooping to peer at him.

  "What's that? Wait, though — hold on a minute! What's your name, boy? I seen you before somewheres, ain't I — yes! By God, I have!" His voice rose in a shout of amazement. "You're George Rand —"

  In that moment Randolph was on him like a tiger, carrying the big man to the deck, and then falling himself as his shackles tripped him. He was up in an instant though, agile as a cat, smashing a fist into Bradlee's face before the overseer, swearing in astonishment, managed to close with him. They reeled against the bales, locked together, and then Randolph jerked his knees up, and the overseer staggered away yelping, clutching his groin.

  "Get him!" bawls Omohundro. "He's a runaway — Randolph! Stop him, Bradlee!"

  Hobbled by his irons — he hadn't time to get at his hidden key — Randolph half hopped, half ran for the rail, with Bradlee clutching at his shirt, trying to drag him back. Omohundro got a hold, too, but stumbled and fell, cursing; as they tried to grapple him Randolph broke away, and before his irons ftnally tripped him he had covered half a dozen yards which brought him to the big box where I was crouching. He saw me as he fell, and shouted:

  "Help! Help me, Prescott! Fight them off!"

  Such an appeal, addressed to Flashy, meets a prompt response. I ducked back behind cover just as Omohundro came crashing over the bales, clutching at Randolph's feet. The quadroon kicked free, scrambled on to the rail, and was trying to roll over it when he must have realised that he would fall plumb in the path of the great thirty-foot paddle wheel; he shrieked, rearing up on the rail, the overseer's pistol banged, and I saw Randolph's body arch and his face contort with agony. He fell, outwards, and the huge wheel blades came churning down on him as he hit the water.

  I daresay that if I had had a few minutes for quiet reflection it would have occurred to me that the safest course would be to stand my ground, playing the innocent trader amazed at the news that there had been a runaway in his coffle, and brazen it out that way. But I hadn't those few minutes, and I'm not sure I'd have acted any differently anyway. The overwhelming feeling that I had when I saw Randolph's body fall, with Omohundro and Bradlee roaring bloody murder and the whole deck in uproar, was that here was no place for Flashy any longer. I was skipping away between the bales before the echo of the shot had died; Omohundro's bellow to me to stop merely assisted my flight. I crossed the deck in half a dozen strides, and launched myself over the starboard rail in a fine flat dive; there was no wheel on that side, I knew, and when I surfaced in the warm Mississippi water with all the breath knocked out of me the Sultana was already a hundred yards away upriver.

  10

  Even today I can't feel anything but irritation and dislike for George Randolph. If he had only had the sense to keep his mouth shut and act humble for once, he'd never have been confronted by Omohundro that night; the odds are he'd have reached Canada without fuss and embarked immediately on a happy life as a professor at some liberal university, or the leader of a nigger minstrel troupe, or something equally useful. Instead his pride and folly had bought him a bullet in the belly and a grave in the Mississippi mud, as far as I could see; more important, he had put me in a highly dangerous and embarrassing position.

  My wits must have been cleared by the water, for I had the immediate presence of mind not to swim for the Arkansas shore, a mere hundred yards away, but to strike out instead across the stream for the Mississippi bank, which was almost three-quarters of a mile off. I'm a strong swimmer, and the water was warm, so I made it easily enough; by the time I climbed out across a mud bank and plumped down among some willows, the Sultana had stopped at the next bend, but after half an hour she started off again, doubtless to stop at the next landing and start the hue and cry.

  I blasted Randolph bitterly at the thought that I was a hunted fug
itive once more, in the middle of a strange land with only a few dollars in my pocket. The one consolation was that they would scour the Arkansas side first, and I would have time to get inland in Mississippi unmolested. And then whither? There could be no going back south, with the Navy still doubtless on the look-out for me, and it would be madness to try to continue north along the river on foot. But north I would have to go eventually, if I were to reach home again; in the meantime I must find some place to lie up undetected until all the hullabaloo had died down, and I could work cautiously upriver to the free states, and so to the Atlantic seaboard and a passage home.

  It was a damned tall order and depressing prospect, and I had a grand old curse that night at my folly in being bullied into this fearful fix by Crixus. My one hope was that Mississippi was such a big place, where I assumed news travelled slowly and uncertainly, that I ought to be able to find a bolt-hole; I reasoned that itinerant strangers must be commonplace in the western states, so I might escape remark if I was careful how I went.

  I slept that night among the cottonwoods, and struck due east before sunrise, as I wanted to get away from the river as quickly as possible. And so began three of the most dam' dismal days of my life, in which I skulked through woods and along by-roads, living the life of a vagrant, stopping only at the loneliest farms and places I could find to buy a meal out of the few dollars I had left. The one thing that cheered me was that none of the people I saw paid me any close attention, which confirmed my belief that they were used to all sorts of odd fellows trudging about the country; I tried to speak as American as I could, when I spoke at all, and must have made a passable job of it, for nobody appeared to take me for anything else.

  However, I realised that this could not continue. Soon I would be destitute, and since I've never been any hand at petty theft or highway robbery, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I must try and find work. It's a last resort, of course, but it seemed to me if I could get some employment in an out-of-the-way spot I could lie up and save money for my eventual flight at one and the same time, I made one or two cautious inquiries, without success beyond an afternoon's labour splitting logs for my supper, and I was in despair by the fourth morning, when by sheer chance I lit on the very thing I was looking for.

  I had slept in the woods, and spent my last few cents on bread and milk at a run-down store, when a burly chap on a grey horse comes cantering up, roaring for the storekeeper that he had come to settle his debt.

  "What's the row then, Jim? "says the storekeeper. "Where you off to?

  "Headed west," cries Jim. "I seen my last load o' goddamned Cotton, I can tell you that. It's Calif orney for me, my boy, an' a pisspotful of gold. There's your four dollars, Jake, an' much obliged to ye."

  "Well, that beats all," says the storeman. "Californey, eh? Wisht I could go myself, by thunder. Say, but what's Mandeville goin' to do without a driver, in the middle o' pickin' time?"

  "Do his goddamned drivin' his goddamned self," says the other cheerfully. "I guess I'll worry about him, won't I, all the way to the diggin's. I'm off to see the elephant! Yeh-hoo! It's Californey or bust!" And he waved his hat and thundered away, leaving the storeman scratching his head in wonder.

  I didn't inquire at the store; the less said the better. But I met a nigger up the road, found where Mandeville's place was, and after a four-mile walk came to his imposing front gates. They were made of granite, no less, and the place was called Greystones, an impressive spread of cotton plantation with a fine white colonial house at the head of a tree-lined drive. It looked a likely spot for me, so I strode up and presented myself as a driver in need of work.

  Mandeville was a broad, bull-necked man of about fifty with heavy whiskers on a coarse red face.

  "Who told you I needin' a driver?" says he, standing foursquare on his verandah and squinting down at me suspiciously. I said I had met his former employee on the road.

  "Hub! That fool Jim Bakewell! Ups an' off in the middle o' pickin', cool as you please, to go to Californey. Ifn he ain't any better at diggin' than at drivin' he'll finish up cleanin' out privies, which is all he good for anyways. Triflin' useless bastard." He cocked his head at me. "Reckon you kin drive?"

  "Anything that moves," says I.

  "Oh, my niggers move," says he. "They move, ifn someone on hand to make 'em skip. You driven cotton-hands befo', I guess, by the look o' you." In the surprise of realising what "driving" meant, I overlooked the doubtful compliment. "Where you from, an' what your name?"

  "Tom Arnold," says I. "From Texas, a while back."

  "Uh-huh, the Texies. Well, no denyin', gotta have a driver. Dunno where I get one, this season, ifn I don't take ye. Ain't no slouch of a job, min' — you be th' only white driver on the place. Thirty dolla's a month, an' yo' keep. Satisfy ye, Tom?"

  I said it would, and at that moment a nigger came round the house leading a fine white mare, and a lady came through the pillared front door, dressed for riding. Mandeville hailed her eagerly.

  "Why, Annie dahlin', there you are! Fine, fine — jus' off a-ridin', I see. That's fine, fine." And then, seeing her eyes on me, he hurried to explain. "This here's Tom Arnold, honey; jus' hired him as a new driver, in room o' that no-good Bakewell. Right piece o' luck, I reckon, him turnin' up. Yes, sub."

  "Is it?" said the lady, and you could see she doubted it. She was one of the tiniest women I've ever seen, somewhere under five feet, although well-shaped in a dainty doll-like way. But there was nothing doll-like about the sharp little face, with its pointed elfin chin, tight lips, and cold grey eyes that played over me with a look of bleak disdain. I became conscious of my bedraggled appearance and unshaven face; three days in the woods make a poor toilet.

  "We may hope he is a better driver than Bakewell," says the lady coldly. "At the moment he looks as though he was more accustomed to being driven."

  And without another word or glance at me she mounted her mare, Mandeville fussing to help her, and cantered off along the drive with the nigger groom trotting at her heels. Mandeville waved after her, his red face beaming, and then turned back to me.

  "That Mrs Mandeville," says he, proudly. "She the lady o' my plantation. Yessuh, Mrs Mandeville." Then his eyes slid away and he said he would show me my quarters and instruct me in my duties.

  As it turned out, these were easy enough; slave-driving is as pleasant an occupation as any, if you must work. You ride round the cotton rows on horse-back, seeing that the niggers don't let up in filling their baskets, and laying on the leather when they slack. Greystones was a fair-sized place, with about a hundred niggers working the great snowy fields that stretched away from behind the house to the river, and they were a well-drilled pack by the time I'd done with 'em, I can tell you. I vented the discontent I felt at America on them, and enjoyed myself more than I'd done Since my Rugby days, when lacing fags was the prime sport.

  Although I had a couple of black drivers to help me, I became quite expert with my hide — you could make a sleepy nigger jump his own height with a well-placed welt across his backside, squealing his head off, and if any of them were short-weighted at the end of the day you gave them half a dozen cuts for luck. Mandeville was delighted with the tally of cotton picked, and told me I was the best overseer he'd ever had, which didn't surprise me. It was work I could take a hearty interest in.

  After the first few days he left me alone to the job, for he frequently had business in Helena, about fifty miles away on the other side of the Mississippi river, or in Memphis, over the Tennessee border, and would stay away for nights at a time. He always went alone, leaving his wife in the house, which seemed damned indiscreet to me. I didn't realise, fortunately for my self-esteem, that while a Southern planter wouldn't have dreamed of leaving his wife unchaperoned in a house while there was a white man there, he'd never think twice if that man was a hired servant living in a cottage fifty yards away. However, she kept out of my way in those early days, and I out of hers.

  Knowing me, you may th
ink that strange. But all my thoughts at this stage were on my own plight; Greystones seemed to be just the kind of out.of-the-way spot I required; it was isolated in the woodland and marsh, and was seldom visited, but even so I had my heart in my mouth every time hoofbeats sounded on the drive, and I kept well out of sight when one of Mandeville's neighbours called. It didn't seem likely that if there was a search going on for me, it would reach this far from the river, and there was nothing to connect the steamboat fugitive with Mandeville's new driver, but even so I kept a sharp eye open at first for any hint of danger. As the days passed, and none appeared, I began to feel easier.

  Another reason why I kept out of Annette Mandeville's way was that I disliked her, and she me, apparently. I had guessed twO things from our first brief meeting: one was that she was an unpleasant, arrogant little piece, and the other that she had her big, powerful husband on a string. He was more than twice her age, of course (she couldn't have been above two-and-twenty), and I've noticed that there are few things that a middle-aged man will go in such awe of as an imperious young wife; he'll face a wounded buffalo, or go headlong into a sabre charge, but he'll turn pale and stutter at the thought of saying, "I'd rather not, dearest." Well, I can understand it, when the wife holds the purse, or is bigger than he, or can get the law on him. But even without these things Mandeville went in awe of her.

  And she knew it, and enjoyed using her power to torment him. She wasn't just spoiled and petulant — she was cruel, in a subtle ways and I say it who am a recognised authority. I saw enough of them together to judge the pleasure she took in fretting and hurting him with her ready sneers and icy disdain; the more eager be was to please her, this man who was so coarse and masterful in other things, the more she seemed to delight in making him uneasy and bewildered.