by Joseph Lallo
Jarrad leveled his smoldering gaze again.
“You have three stripes, blind man.”
“I do.”
“You are the only one in your quarters.”
“I am.”
“That is a right reserved for single-stripe slaves.”
“It is.”
“The workshop shall be yours, exclusively, but you will no longer be permitted your own quarters. Your cot will be moved into the workshop. Is that understood?” Jarrad asked.
The final words were a dagger-sharp dare for further objection. Ben wisely did not challenge him.
“It is,” replied the blind man, nodding in deference.
“So be it,” Jarrad said, rising and opening the door. “Have one of the others move your cot for you, and instruct them to bring any tools in disrepair to your new quarters. I shall inspect the results personally. For your sake, you had better hope your skills are sufficient.”
“I am confident that they will be adequate,” Ben said, standing. The master slapped a hand hard onto the old man's shoulder and pushed him back to his seat.
“One last thing to remember. I don't care if you fix every tool on this plantation better than the day it was made. If you don't get that little demon of yours under control, I will find a way to make you pay for it.”
Ben nodded and was allowed to stand and leave. When he was clear, the door slammed behind him. Not three steps later, his footsteps were joined by the light padding of his little shadow. He stopped, and the creature stopped with him. He shuddered, then headed off in the direction of nearest activity in order in enlist aid in setting up shop.
#
Preparing the workshop was little trouble for Ben. It was a task he'd done many times in his life. The shack that would now serve as his workspace and residence wasn't nearly large enough to serve either purpose properly, but he'd hardly expected any better. Whereas the housing for the slaves was simple but solid, the shack was a flimsy excuse for a building, constructed less to keep the elements from leaking in and more to keep the tools from walking away. Putting equipment in the hands of a slave was unavoidable during the course of their labors, but letting them hang onto the more versatile tools during their off hours was an excellent way to lay the groundwork for an escape or an uprising. Thus, Ben's new home was drafty as an open robe, but it had a sturdy door with a key lock. Rather than entrusting the key to him however, Jarrad supplemented it with a brace on the inside, instructing his men only to lock the door when Ben was not inside.
Every inch of floor was utterly littered with scraps of wood, rope, and leather, as well as hammers, saws, vises, pliers, and a dozen other tools. For the better part of a day, Ben painstakingly inventoried, sorted, organized, and stowed each item he found. When he was through he'd managed to unearth a passable worktable and enough floor to place his cot and a chair. Thus prepared, he opened the door and began his new task. Rakes with loose or bent tines were straightened and tightened. A nearly-bald broom had its bristles replaced and lashed securely in place. Shovels were sharpened, splintered hoe-handles were mended or replaced. One by one, each tool was efficiently restored, and, one by one, the slave owner inspected the results. Most were good as new. Many were better.
Satisfied, Ben's new task was left to him without further comment. Unfortunately, there was still the matter of his other task.
In the days to follow, any moment not spent sleeping, eating, or mending was spent devising new methods to capture and secure the malthrope. The procedure was always the same. Ben would find some corner of the plantation away from prying eyes, at which point the little thing would be bold enough to approach him. Then he would pull out what he came to think of as “the prize.” Lately he'd been piecing together any odd assortment of scraps from the workshop into a haphazard bundle. As soon as it was revealed, the beast would fairly scamper up to him for a closer look and a chance to snatch it away. In what was no doubt the most entertaining part for anyone who caught a glimpse of it, the blind man would then try to pounce on a creature a fraction of his size and a multiple of his agility. Each day, the malthrope got his hands on the prize a bit sooner, and Ben got his hands on the malthrope a bit later.
Strangely, he always seemed to catch the creature eventually.
Next, it was into this pen or that, each time with some new attempt at security, and each time with an eventual escape that would bring the whole process to full circle. After a week, Jarrad made good on his threat and cut Ben's meals in half, which added a level of frustrated urgency to the next round, but did little to increase its success.
Near the end of one particularly hot day, a week before the rakka plants would be showing their first ripe berries, he took his usual position near the far end of the fallow field and fished out a knot of leather and feathers that would serve as the day's prize. No sooner had it been drawn from the pocket of his tunic than it was snatched from his fingers, scrabbling paws retreating beyond arm's reach to inspect the trophy.
“Blast you, you little devil,” growled the blind man in frustration, swinging his walking stick and attempting to lunge at the sound of footsteps.
A clump of earth caught the man's sandal and he lost his footing, tumbling to the ground and sending his walking stick clattering across the ground and well out of reach. It was the last straw, and for a few moments he allowed himself to spew long sequence of remarkably colorful profanities. When he'd managed to regain a bit of composure, he raised himself stiffly to his hands and knees and began feeling along the ground in the direction he'd last heard the rattle of his lost stick.
“Little blighter,” he muttered angrily to himself. The footsteps tapped closer. “Yes, yes. I hear you. You can go back to making a fool out of me soon enough. I've just got to get my walking stick back. I tell you, if I could feel that thing thump you good and hard on the head just once, I could die happy.”
As the blind man continued to mutter angrily, the malthrope watched him, head cocked to the side. This was the first time the old man had ever done this. It wasn't part of the game. Not the one he was used to playing, anyway. He watched and tried to figure out the purpose of it. The man clearly wouldn't catch him crawling around like that. As fun as the keep-away part was, getting led to someplace new—the “in you go” part—was his favorite. It always gave him something to figure out. They'd never get to that part with him crawling around on the ground. It took a few more moments of watching and wondering, but he figured out what the old man was after.
Ben heard the feet suddenly scamper ahead, then the unmistakable sound of his walking stick being dragged along the ground, then snatched up.
“No, no, no. You little monster, you give that—” he began to object, reaching his hand out. His exclamation caught in his throat, interrupted by something it took him a moment to comprehend. The stick had been pressed into his palm. Slowly the old man realized what had happened. “You . . . you've been doing this on purpose the whole time. You like doing this.”
The only sound in reply was the tap-tap-tap of the malthrope's feet as he fairly danced in anticipation of the next part of the game.
“Well, I'm through. No more,” Ben grumbled, using the walking stick to climb to his feet. “My stomach hasn't been full in days because of you. If I'm going to go hungry, I might as well save my energy rather than keeping you entertained.”
Ben made his way forward in the direction he was reasonably certain led to his workshop. The tumble had forced him to lose his bearings somewhat. The malthrope scampered along behind him, then beside him, impatiently waiting for the old man to make his next grab. When none came, the creature ventured closer. Usually, the old man turned in his direction when he made a noise, so experimentally the creature hopped about, thumping and stomping the ground to get his playmate's attention. When that didn't work, he placed his stolen toy in his mouth and stalked closer on all fours, gingerly tapped Ben, then sprang away.
“Enough. I told you, I'm through,” he muttered at t
he creature, which he could plainly hear pacing in frustration. “I'm finished with this game. Why should I waste my time finding new ways to catch you and lock you in a pen when I know you have no intention of staying in?”
The creature's eyes lit up and his ears twitched at the final word. Opening his mouth, he took a deep breath and released it in a squeaky, not-quite-human yelp. “Ih!”
Ben stopped. “What?” he said slowly.
“Ih?” the beast attempted again.
“In?”
“In!” the thing said, excitedly. “In y . . . In yuh . . .”
“So you can talk, now, can you?”
“You! In you guh . . . In you guh . . .” the malthrope attempted, as though saying the first words forcefully enough would give the next enough of a push to cause it to spill out of his mouth.
“Go,” Ben supplied.
“In you go!” it piped insistently, springing about, nodding vigorously. “In you go! In you go!”
The blind man took a slow breath and stiffly crouched, extending a hand. His little shadow crept up, looking at the hand.
“In you go?”
“Yes, in you go,” Ben said flatly. The creature placed his wrist in Ben's hand. The old man dropped his head and sighed in frustration at the lost hours. “I've been going about this the wrong way. Come on, you clever devil. Let's see if we can find a better game.”
#
“All right,” Ben said, when he reached the pen that despite all attempts had not been able to keep the creature locked away for more than a few hours at a time. “In you go.”
When he failed to hear any sounds to suggest he had been obeyed, he pointed and repeated himself. “In you go.”
His shadow glanced up at the hand, then climbed to the roof of the pen, pulled open the hatch, and dropped inside. Ben grinned.
“Now, the sun is going down, there,” he said, pointing to the west. “It will be dark. You stay in until the sun comes up, there.” He pointed to the east. “Understand?”
“In?” it asked from within the pen.
“In. All night.”
“In,” it replied resolutely.
“Good. I will be back when it is light. If you are still in, I will give you something.”
“In,” it repeated with vigorous nods.
“Right. You had better be inside when I come back tomorrow,” Ben said, closing the hatch and bracing it.
The malthrope watched him go, then sat on the floor of the pen and waited. For a time, the half-understood promise of reward and the simple joy of another creature acknowledging him with something beyond casual cruelty was enough to keep the dark memories at bay.
Nights are long, though, and loneliness is an emotion that will not easily be pushed aside. Sleep was slow to come and quick to depart. Each time he jolted awake, the creature cast a hopeful glance to the eastern sky for some hint of light. Each time, he saw only stars, and, finally, not even that. The beast's sharp eyes squinted in confusion at the field of black where the familiar points of light should be. The wind was howling and gusting, rattling at the slats of his pen and whipping at the crops. Then, as if they had been waiting for him to wake up, the skies opened and rain came pouring down.
One of the things that made this region so lush and green, the key to making it home to so many farms and villages, was the rain. In other places, rain could come down in any number of ways. Fat, hammering drops. Fine, settling mists. Torrential downpours or irregular sprinkles. Here, it almost always came as a gentle, constant shower. It was as though the heavens wished to be sure that every patch of ground got its fair share, so they provided a steady and even flow without relent, and it would persist for hours. Rain poured between the slats of the pen and doused the little creature to the bone. No amount of scampering about the roughly built shelter/prison was able to yield a dry patch to curl up and ride out the storm. Drenched and miserable, he looked to the east again, and let out a moan of dismay.
#
In his shack, Ben woke to the sound of rain. He was pleased to discover that, though they may have cared little about the wind, the owners of the plantation knew enough to keep the rain off of their tools. The roof was perhaps the only fully intact part of the entire structure. At least he would be dry. For the most part, anyway. Here and there a gust of wind forced itself through the drafty walls and brought a spritz of water with it. Rather than wake up with a damp blanket, and no doubt catch his death of cold, the old man reluctantly climbed from his cot to shuffle it a bit farther from the wall.
“First thing in the morning, I see where the wind is getting in, and see what I can do to fix it,” he muttered to himself.
Once he was satisfied that he was out of reach of even the most motivated leaks, he rolled himself onto the canvas of the cot and lay his head upon the bundle of cloth that served as a pillow. The instant sleep began to claim him though, a scratch at his door shook him from his doze. For a moment, he dismissed the noise, assuming it was a bit of bramble or an errant tree branch broken free by the wind. When it turned to an insistent hammering on the door, Ben groggily hoisted himself to his feet again.
“What is it? Whoever it is, haven’t you got the sense to stay out of the rain?” he grumbled, removing the brace from the door and easing it open a crack.
Even the whisper of an opening brought a veritable stream of water spattering to the ground by the door. It also brought a sudden pressure as something heaved itself desperately at the opening and scrabbled to get through.
“What in blazes?”
“In! In!” the malthrope squealed, trying his very best to wedge his head through the tiny opening.
“No, no, no! Out you go!” Ben growled, nudging the thing’s nose with his foot as he forced the door shut.
“In you go! In you go!” the creature whined from the other side of the door, ramming against the solid planks with all of the force his spindly frame could muster.
The creature may not have been very large, but he was determined. The rattling had dislodged the brace from where Ben had left it, and as the blind man leaned low to reach for it, one last clash shook the door just enough to rob him of his balance. The old man tumbled down, the door flew open, and the malthrope exploded into the shed. By the time Ben managed to get the door shut and braced again, he was soaked and muttering a fresh batch of profanities from his seemingly bottomless supply of them.
“Where are you, you little devil!?” he hissed.
Ben held still and tried to listen past the rattle of the walls and patter of the rain. There hadn’t been the clatter of tools when the thing had burst inside. Thanks to the need to use every last morsel of space within the shed for storage, the only place a beast might be able to hide without disturbing a crate of tools or a pile of materials was a cramped little corner beneath the old man’s cot. He crept a bit closer and crouched low, listening. Sure enough, there was panting breath and the drumming of a panicked heart. Working out as best he could where the creature’s tail ought to be, he raked his fingers across the earth and managed to grab it near its base. With the beast firmly in hand, he hauled him out into the open. The creature didn’t even struggle.
If Ben had his vision, the old man would have been treated to a truly pathetic sight. The little thing was drenched from head to toe, robbing him of his fluffiness and revealing how scrawny and gangly he really was. His paw-like hands were caked with mud from his escape, and more of the stuff smudged his rags and matted his fur. The beast twisted his head and looked up at Ben miserably, water dripping in a continuous stream and pooling on the floor. Even without seeing, Ben could feel that the little thing was chilled to the bone and shivering. He found himself feeling a dash of pity in spite of himself.
“We’ve had very little luck keeping you in that pen of yours,” Ben reasoned out loud. “And we’ve had very little luck keeping you out of the grain storehouse. If I toss you out, you’ll just burrow your way into this place, or pry up a piece of the roof, or some other destru
ctive bit of ingenuity, and then I’m stuck fixing it . . . so, tonight . . . if you don’t make a nuisance of yourself . . . and you don’t touch anything . . . I’ll let you stay in here.”
“In?” the creature said hopefully.
The old man lowered his unwelcome guest to the ground, but as soon as the malthrope's paws touched the damp floor, he tried to bolt for the cot again.
“No!” Ben scolded, yanking the tail. “You stay here! Out in the open. Where I don’t have to crawl around to get you. You understand? Right here!”
Each time he said the word “here,” it was punctuated by a sharp downward point of the free hand. The malthrope watched his finger.
“Here?” his guest asked, head cocked to the side once more.
“Stay here,” Ben said with a nod.
“Shtay here,” the malthrope attempted, mimicking the motion more successfully than the phrase.
“Yes,” Ben said. “And you do not touch anything. No games, no snatching things away. No touching.”
“No-touching.” The phrase was spoken as a single word.
Ben slowly loosened his grip. The creature didn’t run, instead crouching on the ground and lightly shaking away some of the water still clinging to him.
“Good. Now don’t make me regret this decision too badly,” he remarked, easing himself back into the cot.
The creature watched, tail swishing back and forth, as the old man drifted to sleep again. Then the little thing curled up and released a contented sigh through his nose, falling asleep for the first time in too long without the blackness of solitude heavy in his chest.
Chapter 7
A wise man once said that if one does a job well enough, one will be doomed to do it forever. Ben had more than justified his room and board with the quality of his repairs. So much so that once the rakka berries were beginning to ripen and his skills were once again needed in the fields for training, each night he found hours of work awaiting him. Farm equipment, clothes, and all manner of other things were heaped at the door of his shack, each in need of repair. The toll was a high one. Days spent baking in the sun, teaching the new slaves the finer points of finding, fetching, and processing berries, followed by evenings working his fingers raw mending things would have taxed the heartiest of workers. And Ben was not a young man.
