The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  "An' youah skeered o' Mastah Jem, aren't you?" Dulcie mocked.

  By the time Claudine returned from her rendezvous, Dulcie had decided she would tell Leroy she wasn't ready to marry but he was welcome to call on her. It was almost an understanding, but she would have time to see if being in love with a man's kisses was as satisfactory as liking the man you might marry. Until she was promised to him, she could still be friends with other men as well. One thing Dulcie knew for certain: She liked the attentions of many men.

  When Claudine and Dulcie rode out of the trees, they spotted Hersel heading quickly for the stables. Then Asa furtively disappeared behind Fellie's cobbler's shop.

  "They're certainly acting strange."

  "Yes'm, Miss Dulcie, dat's a fact."

  "Something's wrong . . . and you know about it! What is it?"

  Claudine shrugged. "Nothin' you 'n' me kin do 'bout it, so I doan tell you an' 'stress you."

  "Claudine! Tell me!"

  "Mastah Jem gwine sell 'bout twenny niggers t'morra.*'

  Dulcie looked confused. There was nothing unusual about Jem selling Negroes. "That has you and Asa and Hersel stirred up? Why?"

  Through tears, Claudine blubbered out, "Ruel ... an* Jothan, dey's—"

  "No!" Dulcie had played with Jothan until she was nine years old, and forbidden near the quarters. He and Ruel were the oldest sons of Fellie and Ester. They were family —certainly not to be thought of as the slaves bred especially for sale.

  "iLige, Zekel, Mag 'cause she cain't breed, Eggar. De res' of 'em's fiel' ban's,"

  "But Jothan and Ruel!"

  "Miss Dulcie, dey's old enuf to be selled, so Mastah Jem gwine sell 'em."

  "He—he can't," Dulcie whispered, stricken.

  "Mistah Spig Hurd comin' in de mawnin'."

  Into Dulcie's mind flashed a picture of Spig Kurd's wagon coming years ago, that time he had hauled off Mammy and her newborn baby. "I'll . . . talk to Daddy," she said uncertainly.

  "Save yo' breaf to cool yo' coffee, Miss Dulcie."

  Dulcie found Jem on the veranda with Wolf, the overseer. She disliked Wolf intensely, a surly, obsequious man who sometimes whipped the field hands, though Jem would not let him touch the higher class servants. Now Wolf rose, touching his hat with one black-nailed hand. "G'day, Miss Dulcie. Ah'Il do what you tol' me, Mistah Moran. Ah sho'ly will, right off. Yes, indeed!" He hurried away.

  Jem smiled affectionately at his daughter. "Did you like your party yesterday?"

  "Oh, it was wonderful! You and Mama gave me the nicest birthday celebration any girl ever had. Didn't you see the jealous faces of the Whitaker girls? And I thought Birdie's cousin Roberta was just going to turn green and expire on the spot. It was perfect."

  Jem laughed appreciatively. "I'm glad you had a good time."

  "Daddy," Dulcie began seriously, "I want to talk to you about something . . . important."

  "I thought you might. Young Saunders asked for your hand?"

  "No, Daddy, it's not about Glenn, it's—"

  "He didn't? The whelp! He asked my consent yesterday. He hasn't been soft-soapin' me so he can trifle with you, has he, Dulcie?"

  "Glenn? Oh, never Glenn, Daddy, he's very sincere. I just didn't give him a chance to say anything. He will, though, sometime."

  Satisfied, Jem sat back and regained his smile. "Then, it must be Leroy Biggs you're wantin' to talk about."

  "Daddy!" Dulcie said in exasperation. "Is Spig Hurd coming tomorrow?"

  Jem's face took on a stem look. "Spig Hurd is no concern of yours."

  "Is it true, Daddy?"

  "Claudine has been talking to you. Well, Miss, it isn*t her place to talk, nor yours to listen to darky gossip."

  "Are you going,to sell some of the children?"

  "Children! The only one under fifteen is Eggar, and he's a poor specimen I'm glad to get rid of."

  "And Fellie's boys? What of them? Ruel is fourteen, and both he and Jothan are fine servants. Why are you going to sell Fellie's sons?"

  Jem, flushed and uncomfortable, tested his reasoning aloud for the first time. "Dulcie, no planter, especially one with a breeding farm, can become attached to his slaves. That's something you'll have to think about. Someday Mossrose will be yours. If you get to feeling they're family, when it comes time to sell them off, you can't do it. YoU've got big money invested and can't get anything out of it until they're sold."

  "Money! But these are people!"

  "Now, don't you get caught up in that error, Dulcie Jeannette! They speak and work like people, but that's where it ends. They're black animals, daughter. Humanlike, but not human. They need guidance and supervision, else nothin' gets done. They have no more responsibilities than—than your saddle horse. Their food is provided, they're housed and clothed. Not a one of them could go out and earn what I give them. Their only purpose in life is to work and breed and live under a white man's guidance. Says so right in the Good Book." , "Oh, Daddy, it never says in the Bible that black people are to be slaves and whites their masters."

  "They're not people, daughter! They're the descendents

  of Ham, marked always by their skin as somethin' less than the rest of us. They haven't got higher ambitions like you and me, and they haven't the means to satisfy them. Thinkin' different will just get you confused and misled."

  Dulcie knew to say another word was to push Jem to anger, but she continued. "Look at Fellie! You've told me yourself how he trained the workers in shoemakin'. No one had to lead him. He's so trustworthy you don't even have a driver over him!"

  "Fellie," Jem said angrily, "has gotten above himself, complainin' to you. I'll—"

  "I haven't seen Fellie! I'm lookin' at it from his viewpoint!"

  "He hasn't got one! Now, you listen to me, Dulciel Fellie is the same as a stallion or bull. D'you see the bull bawlin' after his calves when they're shipped off? Does the stallion kick down his stall if I trade away his colts? They don't even know which is their get, and neither does Fellie."

  "But he does! And Ester knows! Jothan and Ruel have always lived with them!"

  "Lettin' them live like a real family is a mistake I quit makin' years ago," Jem said testily. "These blacks have been bred for sale, and sell them is what I'm goin' to do."

  "Daddy, couldn't you sell a couple of field hands instead?"

  "No, I can't and since you butted in, I'll tell you why. At going prices, I'll get twenty-five hundred to three thousand dollars for two prime field hands. Those two boys of Fellie's will bring five hundred to a thousand dollars more because they're mannersable, and thanks to your mother they can read and do sums. At the slave marts in New Orleans they'll fetch a pretty price from some merchant who'll train them for clerical work."

  Dulcie listened to every word and disliked the sound. "It's all so hard and uncaring. Daddy. Can't you understand—"

  "I do understand the way you feel, but I'm not such a soft fool that a pair of tear-filled yellow eyes can dictate the way I run my business."

  Dulcie blinked hard, looking away. "There's no other way?"

  "None." His vpice softened. "Now go along, Dulcie.

  Have Hersel saddle up Strawberry. Take yourself a nice ride. It'll make you feel better."

  Feeling herself dismissed, Dulcie stood up. Her father rose with her. Her eyes met his again, and he held out his arms to comfort her. But he said, "It's right that you should be compassionate, Dulcie. It's a woman's way. But you're never to attempt to interfere again, hear?'*

  In the cobbler's shop Fellie was bent over a worker, patiently demonstrating how the upper had to be eased onto the sole. Regardless of personal upheaval, he had a job to do, and he was doing it.

  "Fellie, come out here."

  Fellie looked up. "Yassuh, Mastah Jem." To the other he said, "You go 'head an' patch up dem holes 'till Ah gits back, heah?" He joined Jem outside.

  Without knowing he noticed, Jem saw the immense dignity of the man, the self-confident sense of personal worth. His pure-black
GuUah face was lined with grief. He waited quietly for Jem to speak.

  "What's this I hear about you complainin', Fellie?"

  "Mastah Jem, Ah doan complain. You good to me, an* Ah doan say no odder way to nobody."

  "What does Ester say?" Jem tapped his riding crop against his breeches.

  "De same, Mastah Jem. She doan complain nothin* neither."

  "I hear you got the sulks because the boys are leavin* tomorrow."

  Fellie lowered his eyes. "Nossuh."

  "Well, they're going whether you like it or not! You're gettin' too big for your britches! You could be sold, too, if I'd a mind to do it!"

  Fellie raised his eyes to meet Jem's. "Ah ain't nevah complain, Mastah Jem. But dey's somethin' maybe you like to know."

  Jem looked sharply at the tall black man. "What would that be?"

  Fellie's face took on a kind of hopeful, shining pride. "Those boys o' mine pure Gullah. Dey both ol' enuf to start breedin' babies fo' you. Jothan an' Ruel, both 'em. Yassuh. Dey show me las' night. Dey kin both do it fine, Mastah Jem." '^

  "I've got a dozen men of good breed stock right now,

  and that's plenty to service all the women." He turned away.

  He was called back by Fellie's soft, desperate tones. "Mastah Jem, please—" Fellie put out both hands in unconscious supplication—"please, suh! Doan sell mah boys I Dey's good boys—strong! Quick in dey haids! Doan give no trouble! You sees dat yo'seff, Mastah Jem!"

  "I can see you're forgettin' yourself, Fellie." With sharp motions of his wrist, Jem was softly cracking the crop on his breeches again.

  Tears were rolling down Fellie's cheeks. "Ah's afeerd fo' 'em! Mebbe somebody buy 'em what won't treat 'em good!"

  "It's all settled!" Jem stalked away, mounted his horse, and cantered off. Fellie's head sank toward his chest. His shoulders heaved.

  Hersel watched Jem's diminishing figure, then crossed the path. "Ah's mighty took down fo' you, Fellie. It ain't fittin'. Jes' ain't fittin'."

  Fellie, unable to speak, wiped his tears with the palms of his hands and went back to work.

  That evening the Negroes held prayer meeting in the chapel. The sounds of their songs floated in through the dining room window. "I Am Bound For the Promised Land" was followed by an inexpressibly mournful, "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "Go Down, Moses, Way Down in Egypt Land." The noise gradually mounted, with shrieks, shouts, and keening that cut the eardrums like a razor.

  "Good God! Lucius! Lucius!'* Jem bellowed.

  A wizened black man scuttled in from the pantry. "Yassuh!"

  "Shut that window and go tell those darkies to quiet down or I'll lock 'em in the cabins."

  Jem got his quiet, but peace of mind did not accompany it.

  Spig Hurd and Jem had been business acquaintances for many years. He visited Jem occasionally, looked over the stock, and took everything available for sale in the more than twenty-five markets in New Orleans. Buyers congregated there from all over the Deep South, especially from Texas, annexed only fifteen years before and desperately hungry for workers in their sprawling cotton fields.

  On this particular day Hurd and Jem enjoyed sloe gins in the study before going out to load up the slaves Jem had selected.

  Spig asked, "You wouldn't have any quadroons for me?"

  "Happens I do. I've got three in the kitchen that I bought from Old Man Whitaker because his wife was dinging him about them. I didn't buy them for resale."

  "A fancy girl went for over twenty-five hundred dollars a few weeks ago at Joseph Bruin's," Spig said slyly. "Moran, you'd sell your Mammy if she'd bring that kind of money."

  "I did sell my Mammy. You ought to remember, you came and got her."

  The men laughed together. Chatting easily, they moved toward the compound where Jem had left the blacks under guard overnight. Jem bellowed, "Lucius!" and Lucius came running. "Scoot up to the kitchen and tell Violet I want the three little girls out here."

  Lucius was back promptly with three frightened, crying children. "Dese de ones, Mastah Jem?"

  "Yes—^and get that pout off your lip before I give you somethin' to pout about."

  Lucius stood up straight, looking away from the girls. Spig felt them over quickly, lingering over the last one, who, he noticed, was developing early. "How much, Moran?"

  "They'll have to go for a thousand apiece."

  Spig protested, naming imaginary defects. "I don't know if I can get that much for them—be losin' money."

  Jem shrugged. "D'you want them or don't you?"

  Spig looked doubtful. "Well, I'll take 'em, I guess." Both he and Jem stood to make a tidy profit, and both knew it

  The girls wailed loudly. They didn't want to leave Violet, they didn't want to leave Miss Trishy, they were afeered to go in the wagon.

  Jem said roughly, "Lucius, get these younguns into the wagon." He opened the door of the compound. The reek of fear filled the air. Twenty-two blacks of all ages huddled on the floor and on the ticks. Wolf, glowering, stood beside the door with his large whip in his hand. "Didn't have to use it once, Mistah Moran." He sounded disappointed.

  Jem, for all he bred slaves to be sold, always had an uneasiness about this stage of the business. It upset him for his darkies to cry and carry on as if they had human

  emotions. Wolf, watchful, grinning with amusement, hurried them into Spig's large wagon.

  Suddenly a big black shape exploded from the cobbler's shop and flew through the air, knife flashing, to land heavily on Spig Hurd. The knife upraised, Fellie yelled, "You ain't gwine take mah chilluns!" As the knife plunged down toward Spig's throat, Wolf's whip lashed out, caught Fellie's arm, and jerked it backward.

  It was all over in seconds. Not a Negro moved. Fellie lay in the dust, and Spig Hurd, cursing and pulling out his gun, scrambled to his feet. Fellie's sons, Ruel and Jothan, sat staring down at the floorboards of the wagon, their eyes dry as stones.

  The whip cut open Fellie's shirt. "Get up from there, you black son of a bitch!" said Wolf. Fellie stood, fear in his eyes.

  Spig's pistol was pointed at Fellie's head. His face was white with fury. His eyes glittered. "You gonna do some-thin' about that, Moran, or do I get to blast his Goddamned head off?"

  "Ease that sidearm back into your holster, Hurd," Jem said curtly. "He's my nigger, and he's worth a lot. I'll tend to him my way."

  Spig bolstered his gun, standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt. "I'll stick around for the show. It better be damned good, Moran."

  "Wolf, tie Fellie to that tree. Good and tight, so he won't slide down and ruin himself. Peel his black hide from his neck down to his heels."

  Wolf smiled hugely. "Yes, sir, Mistah Moran!'*

  Fellie could beg mercy for his sons, but never for himself. With no outward show of emotion, he walked to the tree and tamely submitted as Wolf tied him by the wrists so that he stood on tiptoe. He held himself as proudly as he could, knowing that before the overseer was done the pain would be past mortal endurance.

  Wolf stood back, his whip ready. "You say peel him?'*

  Spig said, "You niggers there in the wagon! You watch this, just so's you don't get any ideas about yourselves!"

  "Fifty lashes. Wolf," Jem said, "No more, no less. I want to hear you countin' 'em. You touch his balls once, and you get the same."

  Wolfs unpleasant smile dimmed. "Hell, Mistah Moranl Nuttin' 'em is half the fun!"

  Jem said nothing. Wolf laid the whip on leisurely, expertly, chanting, "One. Two. Three. Four. . . ."

  Fellie bore the first strokes in breath-held silence. Then the lash struck him as he was drawing breath, and the breath became a sob, until his sobs turned into harsh anguished pleas. "Don't sell—mah boys!" Soon the cries became indistinguishable moans of pain. The Negroes in the wagon cried out with him. Still the whip went on, cuts crisscrossing cuts as Wolf counted slowly, monotonously, "Twenty-five. Twenty-six. . . .'*

  Dulcie and Claudine, upstairs in the sewing room, heard Fellie
's screams and the keening of the others. Dulcie looked out the window, gasped, and drew back.hastily, her insides churning at the bloody sight. Wolf—and Daddy standing there with his arms folded, letting him—and Spig Hurd, grinning. . . . Fellie, who loved children black or white as if they were all his own. And his sons being taken from him.

  She started for the door, then stopped. Her father had said not to interfere, and when he had spoken, he had meant it.

  The anguished sounds went on and on. Fighting nausea, her throat tight with pain, she whispered, "Oh, Claudine!'*

  Claudine moaned with every stroke of the whip. "Miss Dulcie, it ain't fair. Never was a better man made than that Fellie. He's the bes' nigger yo' daddy'll evah have."

  Suddenly the counting ceased, and Dulcie went to the window. The bloody whip hung limp from Wolf's hand. Her father and Spig Hurd were talking. Then the loaded wagon rumbled away, and Jem disappeared around the side of the house. "Two of the field hands are taking him away."

  Claudine edged nearer.

  "He must be still alive. They're taking him to his cabin.** She thought for a moment. "I'll go see if I can find Mama."

  Her parents' bedroom door was closed. If her father was in there, she didn't want to knock. She went to the kitchen. The servants' backs were turned to her, though no one looked busy. "Violet, where is Mama?"

  Huge Violet, tears streaming down her round cheeks, wailed, "She run up an' lock herself in her bedroom, Miss Dulcie."

  "Violet, hush. Mr. Jem will hear you I All of you stop cryin'. It will only make things worse."

  "Miss Dulcie, Fellie gwine diel" said one of the younger girls.

  "Oh, he will not!" Dulcie said staunchly, hoping it was the truth. "Stop snifflm'. He'll be all right in a few days." Again she hoped she was right. She had never seen anyone who had been badly whipped. How long did it take to get well?

  Jem was sitting in his study, rocking in his chair with considerable agitation. He held a tall glass half full of neat whiskey. But the glow, the mellow, relaxed feeling, wouldn't come to rub out what had happened, what he'd had to watch. Damn Fellie! Damn Spig Hurdl Danm the blacks! If he ever had to whip another slave, he'd sell every last one of them.