Rafe
1
Steam oozed from the lichenous clay-mud walls where the fierce spring sun struck the side of the pit. A light cloud eddied and swirled upward, barely visible, dissipating rapidly. The pit was thirty feet in diameter, dug deep in a clay deposit that formed a small knoll. It drained to the stream below which in turn drained to the Sabine River. From there most of the water ran south to the Gulf of Mexico. Some found its way to the swamps west of the river. Some was caught by one of the myriad, slow motion eddies and trapped in the murky, stagnant bayous. There the fierce subtropical sun sucked it through tangles of brush and cypress, through quiet air heavy with the mystery of undiscovered eons, back to the sky to fall again and moisten the walls and floor of the pit and turn them into treacherous, slippery footing.
The unusually wet winter and fragrant spring rains had erased the stench of summer’s many deaths. Rain would never remove the red taint of the pit’s clay flooring, for the clay attracted the blood spilled on it, held it, and would not allow it to be washed away by water alone. Like lust or hate the tint remained and darkened, an accumulative pigment only time might erase, and then only from the earth itself, not from the hearts and minds of men.
The black stood alone near the eastern wall, the sun behind him. His gaze skipped up the opposite wall to the swaying platform hung from the hoisting winch, then slowly travelled down the wall to the spot on which his opponent would be lowered. He didn’t contemplate, yet, the size or color of the man he would fight and kill. He spent no time on the weapons he might have to face. Such contemplation would be a waste of time, he knew, for the men and weapons against which he found himself pitted always differed to one degree or the other. It was enough to know there would be a man, and the man would be armed. And the man would try to kill him. A small smile, unseen by the spectators ringing the circle of sky above, played about at one corner of his mouth. It would not be he who died. But now was not the time to think of death. Now was the time to concentrate on the spot soon to be filled by the man he would kill.
Had he glanced to either side of the hoisting block—to any spot on the rim of the pit—he would have seen anxious, excited, hungry white faces staring down at him. He had long since given up examining the spectators, ten feet overhead. They did not interest him. His gaze held the spot even when the watchers called his name.
“Rafe! Hey, Rafe. I got money on you.”
“You better be fast, nigger. You gonna have to be fast today.”
Rafe, they called him. Short for Rapha, a biblical name meaning giant, given him by his first white master. Two inches over six feet tall, he was aptly named. A long cruel scar ran down his neck and across his shoulder, through the checked, puckered tribal scars on his thick chest, there to curl under the ribs and disappear around his side to end in a slanting gash halfway down his right buttock, hidden by the loincloth, the only article of clothing he wore. He had received the scar in his first fight when, befuddled by the newness of the situation and distracted by the lusting eyes above, he had let the devil with the red beard get too close. Suddenly aware, he had leaped, spinning away from the curving, flashing knife, not in time to escape entirely, but in time to save his life. Stunned, shaken into sobriety, he had gazed for a moment at the blood welling from him, shook his head to clear the pain and waded in, oblivious to the screams from above. The red-bearded man had died quickly, his knife arm broken and dangling useless at his side, his face turning the color of his beard as the blood collected there, unable to get past the deadly vise of massive black hands on his throat. Later the wound festered and almost killed him, but he escaped that death and, emaciated and worn, lived. He had gone to the pit forty times since then and had not been wounded again. He had killed other slaves like himself, Indians, and three more delicious times, other whites. He enjoyed killing the whites.
His fame spread in the three years he fought and he soon drew crowds from the surrounding plantations, once even a party from New Orleans, complete with top hats on the men and wide, round, low-cut dresses on the delicate white-skinned women, slumming up-country far from the fancy streets and cultured homes. They had brought their own champion, a wiry Delta black with a sentence of death on his head and a promise of life should he win. They came to amuse themselves and bet their money against Ezra Clayton’s slave. The man was armed with a length of ship’s chain. He died with it wrapped around his skull. The fancy crowd sighed collectively and chattered their way gaily back to Freedom Mansion, there to pay off the bets they had lost and drink the rustic cane rum and dance until near dawn.
Rafe was only one of the twenty-five fighters Ezra Clayton owned and trained to fight with machete, saber, knife, axe, pitchfork, whip or chain. They all put on a good show, but Rafe was the favorite. The crowds were bigger and the bets higher when he fought. The towering slave, naked but for the loincloth which barely concealed his manhood from the spectators, could have cared less. He heard neither the shouts of praise nor the taunts.
Little was different on this first day of spring. Nothing but the year had changed. Alone in the coolness of the pit, the one place in the world he could call his own, Rafe waited. The world shrank to encompass no more than the thirty-foot circle, ten feet below the face of the earth. The mossy walls and slippery floor gave him confidence. Here was the only home he could remember with any clarity—the home over which he was the undisputed master. Silently, like some dark and ominous giant, he waited and watched.
“What the hell’s holding things up, Ezra? I’m gonna have to get back to the shop before too long.”
Ezra Clayton, his eyes hidden under the broad-brimmed Panama which shielded them from the spring sun slanting in from the southeast, looked up lazily to stare at the speaker. He saw a tall man, all bones and skin, balding at an early age. Joe Terson, store-and tavernkeeper of Claytonville, wiped his brow for the umpteenth time and fidgeted before Clayton’s relentless scrutiny. “You know how Abigail is, Ezra.” Terson forced a ragged laugh, his hands flapping nervously in front of him. “She’s always on my back about spending too much time out here.”
Ezra’s stare held. “You ought to bring her out to Freedom,” he said. “Micara would love to visit with her. She sees so few women these days.” Ezra removed his hat and ran his almost delicate fingers through the full shock of sculpted hair, snow white already at only forty-five years of age. The lord and master of Freedom never seemed to sweat, as if sweating were too plebian, too far beneath his station. His eyes could be seen, now. A light blue they were, so bright they seemed to burn—or freeze—a hole right through a man. Eyes too hard and cold for the soft, run-to-fat body on the spindly legs. But few men looked at the body. Fewer commented on the legs. All the strength a man might need lay hidden in the eyes, hidden and waiting to be brought to bear on anyone so unfortunate as to cross his path.
“I’ll do that, Mr. Clayton. She’d like it. I reckon she’d be happy to visit tomorrow.…” The eyes had done their work. Joe Terson had received the message, explicit and implicit. He and his wife would do Ezra Clayton’s bidding.
“Go and get a drink from the tray, Joe.” Clayton waved a soft hand, the gesture forgiving, bestowing absolution. “Tell Old Mose I said to let you have a chunk of ice. Rum’s mighty tasty with ice.”
Terson smacked his lips at the thought. Ice. His eyes widened and he let himself anticipate the sudden, welcome coolness as he turned. The last time he’d had ice was three winters ago on the morning he’d gone outside to find a thin skim of crystal on the bucket. But then it was winter and cold. Now it was spring and already hot. He scurried toward Mose, the old slave with the creased scar on his head, the legacy left behind by a nameless, dead Creek.
Ezra sipped his drink as he cast his eye over the small crowd ringing the pit and loitering in the vicinity. Only ten on the rim itself, and they were a scruffy, sweating lot of gawking fools from nearby small holdings. More frontiersmen than landholders, really, the type who when the time came would be easy to drive across the Sabine and into Mexico. They would hardly bet enough to make it worth the time. Still, their shouts and yells instilled in the crowds an air of excitement. Later in the year their raucous, frenetic bets called across the pit would stimulate real wagers from the more genteel, and it was from these Ezra would profit.
Four small clusters of three or four men stood scattered here and there within close range of the table and cooling drinks. They were all from Claytonville, there because they knew Ezra Clayton expected them. Timid to a man, vicarious bravery would mount as they watched the brutality below. Their excitement, too, would generate some bets as well as add an aura of middle-class respectability to the proceedings.
A dozen small plantation owners from downriver stood near the wagon that had carried them from the landing. They had come upstream from Burr Ferry the night before and camped out at the landing sheds. Owners of fifty to a hundred acres and a few slaves apiece, they were taking a break from spring planting and their wives. They stood packed together, a convivial gathering, their talk spurred and quickened by the homemade cane rum they carried. From time to time a word from the knot of men broke loose and announced the subjects of their debate. The usual, Clayton thought. Always the usual. Crops and weather, slaves, Indians, women and rum, Mexico and the free land they wished they could get their hands on. And wives. Clayton despised the usual subjects, despised the men who could not break from them. They had no flair, no … what was it Bernard called it?… panache. But never mind. Their bets were more substantial. With luck he’d even be able to separate the big Cajun Beaumarchant, from Duggins, one of the twelve. Now there would be a coup. Beaumarchant! His mouth watered at the thought of the war-battered Acadian giant in his pit. He and Rafe together could take on any dozen men. What a battle that would be!
The sound of a shot and a distant yell to his rear drew his attention. He turned to see Bernard and his group coming over Tree Hill. Another ten minutes and they’d be at the pit and the day could get underway. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. He hoped no one had told Rafe. Part of the bet depended on him not knowing who and what he would face. The frown melted away, replaced by the bland expression that revealed and told nothing. He supposed it didn’t matter as long as Bernard didn’t find out. And Rafe would win in any case. Rafe always won.
His forty-second win. Only eight more and he could claim the promise of freedom Ezra had made. Fifty wins in the pit and a man was emancipated, given a woman, a wagon, two mules, and a boat ride across the Sabine on the stipulation he never again show his face around Freedom Plantation. The thought galled Ezra. He’d never had to make good on the promise, to be sure, and it had seemed a good idea at the time, a cheap inducement to sure death. Ezra decided to be more careful with his promises in the future. Still, he’d gladly pocket the hundred gold eagles and savor the look on François Bernard’s face as his one local rival fumed and rode away, once again, in a fine display of Gallic frustration. It would make a very fine profit for the first fight of the year. And as for the promise of freedom for Rafe—he tucked the unpleasantness away in the back of his head. There was time yet to worry. Eight fights, to be exact. He’d decide later.
“Butkis!”
“Yessir, Mr. Clayton.”
Ezra examined the man’s face as he hurried up. Over fifty, squat and chunky, his red face greasy in the humid air and lined with tiny blue veins, the overseer knew his position was based on his brutality and the utter, dogged loyalty with which he regarded his employer and benefactor.
“Put two more guards on the rim. I’d hate to have any trouble with Monsieur Bernard’s men. The Creek nature is always unpredictable.”
“Yessir, Mr. Clayton. They’ll be here in about five minutes.”
“And lower a dram to Rafe before they get here.”
“Already done, sir. He’s lookin’ fit.”
“All right, Butkis. The guards.”
“Yessir!” Butkis saluted and hurried off to the small circle of men squatting around a fire, surreptitiously passing a jug of rum from one to the other. Their muskets lay on the ground beside them. They were a motley, sullen lot with little to be said in their favor save the color of their skin. They were white and could be trusted with firearms.
“Decater … Milo … get your scrawny asses over to the rim. Them Creeks is apt to cause trouble.” The jug disappeared rapidly and he pretended not to notice, passing his attention instead to the muskets. “And get them damned things off’n the ground and primed.”
Decater and Milo jumped from the fire, grabbed their muskets and scurried for the rim. The three remaining guards hunkered down, hoping to go unnoticed. One of them turned a young possum skewered on a spit. Fat dripping from the carcass sizzled and crackled as it hit the coals and sent up jagged tongues of flame.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Milo there found it in one of his traps this mornin’.”
“It a young ’un?”
“Prettiest little possum you ever seen, Mr. Butkis.”
Butkis stepped closer to the fire and drew his cutlass from its scabbard. He grabbed one of the legs and sliced it cleanly from the body. A cascade of drippings hit the fire which flared and sputtered. The overseer thrust the blade through the meat and, blade in both hands, tore off a chunk of the sizzling flesh with his teeth, ignoring how it burned his lips and tongue. He bit into the meat twice more, stripping the useful portion from the bone before swallowing the first bite. Juices dribbled from between his lips and swollen jowls. The three underlings continued to avert their eyes, ignoring the bone Butkis flipped into the fire. The overseer managed to swallow the mouthful without choking before he laughed, belched mightily and wiped the cutlass across his trousers.
“That’s good meat, though I’d sooner cut niggers with this blade,” he announced. “Carve yourselves a morsel and station yourselves near the winch. And keep them muskets cocked.”
The three guards nodded and hurriedly divided the remains of the possum, saving Milo and his sure protestations for later. Each man stuffed his mouth and scrambled off to take up his position and wait nervously for François Bernard. They didn’t have to wait long.
Rafe felt the cane liquor warm and loosen his body. Like a huge cat, he relaxed, slack and limp, resting, breathing deeply, evenly, concentrating on the spot, feeling the blood course through him, holding emotion in check as his father had taught him. His muscles tensed of themselves before he consciously recognized the change in sound. A muffled drum of hooves preceded the quickened voices of the whites above him. The horses stopped, and as if on cue the whites followed suit. They had seen his opponent, who was even now being led to the platform. The conditions of the bet were intact. Rafe did not know whom he would fight or what weapons he would face. If truth were told, he preferred to fight that way. A real warrior faced his opponent with a clear mind. His father had taught him that, too, but he did not remember the teaching.
“Well, I’m changin’ my bet. My money’s on them!” a voice drifted down from the rim.
“Shitfire … me too,” another chimed in.
“Put up or shut up, boys.” The voice was Martinson’s, Clayton’s money-man. “Mr. Clayton stands firm behind his nigger. Two-to-one says he kills them both.”
Them … them both. Rafe shut his ears to the rest and leaned forward slightly in anticipation. So there were two of them this time. What of it? Hadn’t he fought two before? And won? He had fought forty-two contests and lived while others—forty-six others—had died. His mind adapted rapidly to the facts while he shifted his weight, readjusting his stance imperceptibly, ready now for the assault.
The A-frame above and in front of him creaked as it took the weight. Only when he heard the spindle squeak and the chain gnash against the sprockets did he look up.
Two bronze-skinned Creek warriors perched astride the ropes attaching the platform to the chain. Entirely naked—there were no women present for the first outing of the year—their flesh was daubed with raucous designs in red, white and ochre. Their eyes bored into him as the platform descended, jerking and complaining at the weight. Rafe relaxed his hold on the machete and breathed deeply. They would be fast.
The Indians were small men with long dark hair that hung straight down their backs. They leaped to the pit floor before the platform hit bottom, landing lightly, their bare feet skidding ever so barely. Each held a tomahawk and hunting knife. Rafe’s face was a mask as the warriors shuffled their feet to coat them properly. They were smart, these two, calm and probably well-prepared. He would have to be careful.
Micara put the finishing touches—the Dresden lamp moved a quarter-inch closer to the gilt-edged portrait, and the doily straightened for the fifth time—to Crissa’s room. The task completed to her satisfaction, she lit a scented taper, walked thoughtfully around the room to spread the orange aroma evenly, then pinched out the flame and replaced the taper in its holder. The delicate aroma would last.
She stood with her back to the empty fireplace, trying to imagine her daughter in this room again, how she must look after four long years. The northern climate should have done her good. But to come back to Freedom Plantation and spend a life.…
Her hand fumbled for and missed the crystal goblet behind her on the mantelpiece. She turned, her eyes darting fearfully back and forth, to find it farther to the right than she remembered. She grabbed for it and raised the glass to her lips, then stopped when she caught her own image in the mirror.
Wrinkles assailed her. The marks of time and pain ran across her forehead and out from the corners of her eyes, which all too often flowed with tears. A brief, mocking fire burned in those eyes as she put the glass to her lips and took a ladylike sip. She mustn’t take too much, of course. Crissa shouldn’t find her mother, the mistress of Freedom Plantation, unsteady and wobbling in the hall. Unbidden, the eyes welled with hot tears. She twisted violently from the accusing mirror and with both hands shaking, raised the cut crystal and drank deeply, greedily, then stumbled to the hall in search of the decanter.
“May I get you something, Ma’am?”
Micara turned, startled at the voice behind her. The young housemaid, Julie, waited, caught in a curtsy, an open and knowing smile on her delicate ebony features. Micara slapped her across the face.
“Lady Clayton to you,” she said, her voice rasping viciously.
Julie ignored the slap as best she could. For a moment her eyes burned darkly, but she nodded, curtsied again and corrected herself as befit her position. “Yes’m, Lady Clayton.”
Slapping the young black girl didn’t help. The hurt was still there. Bitterness and burning rage and frustration shook Micara as she stared down at the top of the slave girl’s suitably bowed head. Hate her as she did, it wasn’t the girl’s fault. What fault there was lay with her. She alone had played the fool. Micara turned and fled down the hall and into her bedroom, where she slammed the door behind her and sat, panting, on the canopied bed Ezra had so pointedly avoided for the last two years. The decanter was in front of her on the night table. She stared at it. Could she have forgotten placing it there? Without thinking she reached for the warm red liquid and filled her glass to the brim.
Outside in the hall, Julie rubbed her stinging cheek, then smiled at the thought of the secret that wasn’t a secret, the knowledge of which brought Micara Clayton more pain than a dozen slaps. The black girl straightened her dress, pressing the bodice tightly over firm young breasts, enjoying the pleasure of her own hands as they travelled down her stomach and to her thighs. She would remember the slap the next time she lay with Ezra Clayton and stole the power of his loins from the puffy-faced woman she served. She moved down the hall humming a little tune, underscored by the echoing distant shouts drifting through the hazy trees, coming from the direction of the pit.
The braves split up immediately, one moving to the left, the other to the right. They stationed themselves across the pit from each other and stopped to stare at Rafe, to take the black man’s measure. Monsieur Bernard had taught them well—there was no way Rafe could keep all senses riveted to two spots thirty feet apart. He must see to it, then, that the preliminaries were kept to a minimum and dispensed with hastily. The more time he gave them, the greater their advantage. Hardly thinking, he chose the one to his left and moved toward him lazily, the machete still hanging loosely at his side. The Indian sprang away from him and crossed the pit to stand by his companion. The two conferred briefly in soft, barely heard whispers, giving Rafe the few extra seconds he needed for his appraisal. A few was all he wanted. Like sleek hunting animals they moved again, flowing to either side, stalking the black beast at bay.
Rafe backed to the wall and waited, loose, ready for their next move. “Let the lion attack if he wants to,” his father had said. “You will learn much from this. Then you must threaten but not attack. From these actions you will know all you need to know, and it will be easy for you to kill him.” His father had been right.
The Creeks moved like lightning, pouncing suddenly from both sides. Their tomahawks whistled through the air, one high and one low. But Rafe wasn’t there. As their shoulders moved in commitment to the throw, his foot went behind him and pushed him from the wall, sending him rolling over his shoulder to the middle of the pit where he sprang to his feet, knees slightly bent as the braves rushed to retrieve their weapons, a hint of embarrassment clouding their confidence. Their attack had given Rafe the information his father had promised. The one to the right would go high, the one to the left low. Monsieur’s trick hadn’t worked.
He sprang at them before they could fully recover their poise, his machete whirling in front of him, cutting the humid air in humming chunks. The braves separated, spinning away from him gracefully, their knives flashing behind them as they spun. Rafe stopped before he hit the wall and twisted around to his right, in the direction of the faster of the two. Silence hung over the pit, broken only by the soft pat-pat as the Creek to Rafe’s left slapped his tomahawk lightly against his painted leg.
Rafe now knew all he needed. Without hesitation he leaped toward the one on his left. As the warrior broke across to the center of the pit where his companion met him, Rafe hit the wall, spun from it and headed for them. The Indians, taken by surprise by the rapidity of his attack, stood their ground instead of splitting up. Rafe’s whirling machete accidentally struck flat-edged against one of the tomahawks, knocking the weapon from the Indian’s hand and breaking the machete halfway down the length of the blade.
The charge sent him between the two braves, carried him almost to the wall again. A trickle of warmth ran down his leg. One of the knives had ripped a jagged wound open across the side of his right thigh. His back burned where a tomahawk had struck a glancing blow, ripping from him a chunk of skin and flesh. From above him and as if in a dream, he heard the excited clamor of the crowd as bets changed frantically.
Rafe forced the wounds from his mind and stepped away from the wall. Glistening with sweat, the Indians arced out to the sides and cut back, pressing to the attack, coming in for the kill. Rafe backpedaled, forcing them to come at him at a closer angle. The knives flashed low and high as he had thought they would. His leg went over the low knife, striking the brave in the chest and sending the painted warrior reeling away in a drunkenlike, gasping, slippery fall. Rafe’s torso, low, went under the second knife, the broken machete aimed at the brave’s exposed belly. The blunt end entered the abdomen with an audible pop as skin stretched in and finally burst, ripping to the sides as the broad blade cut its way through the living organs and struck the backbone.
The mortally wounded Creek staggered back and clawed at the hilt as if to draw it from his body. Instead, he turned it viciously in a suicidal grip. His face contorted in silent pain as the blood gushed freely from the gaping wound and he pitched forward, dead.
Rafe straightened as he heard the scream from behind him. The remaining brave, his shriek of rage echoing hollowly from the walls, launched himself through the air, knife in hand, hate and revenge burning in his eyes. Rafe responded with the only weapon left to him—his hands. His right fist, a massive bony club, struck out like a serpent and met the Indian’s face, the left hand simultaneously blocking the swinging knife arm arcing from above. Rafe felt the blow up to his shoulder blade, his right hand and arm instantly numb. The Creek’s airborne momentum was abruptly shattered with a loud crack as face bones crumbled and splinters drove into his brain. Dead already, the wrenching snap of neck bones followed, and the Creek collapsed to the packed earth, his head twisted grotesquely back.
Rafe the victor, blood streaming from leg and back, stepped away from the dead men and flexed his fingers as the feeling and searing pain returned to his arm, shooting its length in great spasms. Cheers and curses from the blood-sated watchers above broke into his consciousness, but he forced himself to keep his eyes and face down to the dead sprawled to either side of him. Then slowly he turned and walked to the looped chain being lowered into the pit. Praise rained down on him but he remained as mute as the clay-smeared bronze corpses crumpled behind him. As always, only one man would leave the pit alive.
Ezra smiled graciously to Monsieur Bernard, and offered in his most pleasing and infuriating tone to bury the dead braves for the losing landowner. The Frenchman handed Clayton a sack of gold coins and muttering something about letting them rot where they lay, gathered his retinue and stalked off toward his horse. He mounted and rode off furiously, leaving his followers scattered behind.
Ezra waved languidly to his rival’s back, then turned to face the pit in time to see Rafe step from the platform. For a moment their eyes met and held. Master and slave. Rafe sucked the blood from his bruised knuckles. Ezra sipped Jamaican rum from a flask of pounded gold.
2
The pitbucks crowded along the western wall of the compound fence, their black faces sweat-shiny and attentive to the sudden shouts of the whites crowded around the pit sunk into the small knoll some two hundred and fifty yards away.
“Wha’ happen, Jomo?”
Jomo, battle-scarred veteran of almost as many bouts as Rafe, lifted himself up the final foot or two of the rough pole wall and hooked his elbows over the points. The height of the wall, almost twenty feet, put him at about the same level as the crowd, but he was still unable to see, of course, into the pit.
“Tell us wha’s go’n on, Jomo,” another black asked, his voice a husky whisper. “Can yo’ see anything?”
Jomo spat between the posts. The rough tree bark afforded him little purchase and he was forced to bear the weight of his squat, powerful body with his arms and vise-like grip alone. Muscles knotted along his shoulders and neck. “Don’ see nuffin’.” He punctuated with another spit. “Don’ never see nuffin’ from up here ’til they carries ’em out. Dat’s de way it is. But Ah climbs and looks anyhow.”
The guard left behind for compound duty finished his circuit of the outside wall and began another. His name was Booker, but everyone called him Boo. He hated the name. Approaching the west wall, he could make out Jomo up near the top. Racing from the corner to a position underneath the black, he unslung his musket.
“You escapin’, nigger?”
Jomo looked down at the raised musket. Chances were the guard just might be lucky enough to hit him at that range. He put more weight on his left arm, shifting as far as possible behind the stake. No sense in making too good a target.…
“I didn’t hear you answer, nigger.”
“Ah’s jes tryin’ to watch dat ol’ fight, Boo.”
“My name’s Booker, you som’bitch. Mistah Booker. You hear me?”
“Yassuh, Boo. Ah sho ’nuff does.”
“Get your black ass off’n that tree bark. You know you ain’t supposed to be up there.”
The other slaves stepped back to make room and Jomo loosed his grip and shoved off to the rear, dropping lightly to the ground. Boo thrust his musket part way through the six-inch spacing between two of the thick trunks. “I could blow your head off, if I wanted to, boy. Can get me some nigger brains all over the ground, if you got any. You call me Mistah Booker like you’re s’posed to. You got that?”
Jomo grinned broadly, his thick lips parted, revealing bashed and crooked teeth. “Mastuh Clayton wouldn’t be appreciatin’ no guard killin’ off his prized pitbuck niggers, no suh. Ah think he’d take dat unkindly, Boo. Maybe eben put ol’ Boo in dat pit wid Rafe hisself. You like dat, Boo?”
The guard flushed, his face an angry red. His finger tightened on the trigger, but he didn’t fire. Eventually the barrel wavered, then withdrew from the wall. Boo pressed his face into the opening. “You jus’ keep off’n that wall, nigger, or I’ll take the cat to you. Mistah Clayton don’t mind the cat none. He don’t begrudge his niggers their whippins!” With that, Boo stomped off, trying to leave the area before he could hear them snicker at him. He couldn’t move fast enough. “I’ll show ’em. Goddamn their black asses … I’ll show ’em,” he murmured.
No sooner was Boo out of sight than a muffled roar from the crowd filtered through the wall. The blacks hurried to the sunken tree posts which delineated the compound. The poles were placed a little less than six inches apart and were all at least twenty feet tall. The bottom fifteen feet had been stripped clean, leaving a shiny surface devoid of finger- or toehold. The top five feet were still covered with bark, loose and crumbling now, too dangerous to trust with one’s full weight. As if escape wasn’t difficult enough, the final foot of the posts had been pared down and fitted with sharp, iron-capped points, rusted now, hot in summer, cold in the winter. The man who would chance blood poisoning on the rusty caps was brave indeed.
Jomo was such a man. Standing on one of the younger Negroes’ shoulders, he was barely able to get a grasp on the smooth trunk and hoist himself up. Feet wedged between the rough bark and elbows around the lethal points, he could see the crowd moving away from the pit, clustering in small groups and exchanging money. The fight was over. Two men at the winch turned the handle slowly, hauling up the winner. He could see M. Bernard’s party as it galloped away from the small, awkward figure of Clayton. He couldn’t tell if the lord of Freedom was smiling or not. Jomo would have felt more confident in Rafe’s victory if he had not seen the two Creeks as they had been led to the arena. One Indian was enough, but two.…
Jomo scanned the edge of the pit closely, searching for some sign of Rafe. He knew Rafe well, was probably closer to him than anyone else. The two might have considered themselves friends in another time and place, but at Freedom, Jomo knew only too well, a man you called friend one day might be facing you in the pit the next. Better not to have friends. And yet … he and Rafe were the two best fighters old man Clayton had. It seemed unlikely he’d pit them against each other.
“What yo’ see now, Jomo? Is dat big nigger walkin’?”
“Don’t seem fair, sickin’ two on him. An’ Injuns at dat.”
“Injuns is fast an’ mean,” a third voice explained. “Yo’ mark my word. Dey take de measure a’ dat Rafe. Yassuh. Dey sho ’nuff cut dat nigger down to size.” A touch of the wistful tinged the speaker’s voice. A thin, wiry youth with eleven fights behind him, he and Rafe had had trouble between them for some time. Cat hoped to hell Rafe had been wounded. It would slow him up some if they ever had to fight.
A burred head rose slowly out of the pit, followed by Rafe’s huge form. Jomo watched, happy in spite of himself, as his almost-friend stepped laconically from the chain onto the boards lining the edge of the pit and stood there facing old Clayton like he owned the little man. “Jes’ shut yo’ mouf, Cat. Dat nigger jus’ step out, mean and big as ebber he was. Looks like dey blooded him, but he standin’ and puttin’ one foot in front a’ ’nother.” And with that pronouncement, Jomo bounded back to the compound floor and headed for the gate, followed by his fellow slaves.
Rafe walked alone, the closest guard, Decater, some five paces behind him. The walk back to the compound always affected him deeply. Every time he crossed toward the unlikely tree-barricades, conflicting emotions raged in his breast. Each time he had just killed, and today he had killed twice. Except for the occasional white, he didn’t enjoy the deaths he inflicted, saw them as a waste, as crimes against himself. The sun was high overhead now, filling the air with bright heat. Each time the scent of blood and sweat and fear mingled redolently, following him out of the pit and hovering around him in a grim miasma that clouded his senses. Dust puffed from under his feet and caked his ankles and calves. Each time the remnant of his own fear tucked itself away in his gut, waiting for night and sleepless tossing, waiting for a woman, perhaps, who would take it from him, dilute it with sweat and desire. The distant swamp echoed a violent chorus of predator and prey. Each time raw elation surged within him, for it was only during the walk he finally recognized that he was, in truth, still alive. The guard behind him coughed and spat. Each time the sight of the looming wall ahead and the gate designed to close after him filled him with a sense of dread, for he then remembered death always waited. A cloud sliced the sun. The afternoon rain would be on time.
The walk today was worse. He had been touched, wounded. His right arm hung limp at his side, the pain shooting its length and then into the muscles of his back. He flexed the fingers, his eyes clouding with pain, then clearing as the fist opened and closed, opened and closed until the pain slowly faded to a dull throb. His back was worse. On fire, it seemed, where the skin lay in a huge flap, the tissue below it exposed to the clustering flies attracted by the warm, drying blood. Twice he shrugged his left shoulder, the constricting muscles sending up the flies in a small brief cloud that resettled immediately. Sweat poured down his shoulder and into the cut, stinging sharply with each drop. He quit trying after the second shrug. Only clear water would keep the flies away, cool the skin and stop the salt flow.
The wound on his thigh continued to bleed freely. The Creek knife, razor-sharp, had slit the skin and sliced cleanly through part of the bulging muscle. The wound bothered him unduly, adding to the welter of emotion and confusion. Could it be more serious than it looked? Rafe had heard of redmen who coated their blades with snake poison. He had killed twelve of Monsieur Bernard’s fighters over the past three years and the Indians brought the total to fourteen. Bernard surely had cause to hate him and would be happy enough to see Rafe dead no matter what the outcome of the fight. It was a cruel, cheating thing to do, but Rafe couldn’t discount the possibility. Monsieur Bernard was white.
The gate in front of him swung open. Rafe stopped on the threshold. No voice welcomed him; as always, a ritualistic, expectant silence greeted the returning victor. His eyes slowly scanned the familiar compound. Twenty-four black men, black as himself, stared back impassively. They stood arranged in informal order of rank. Jomo, number one pitbuck in Rafe’s absence, stood a little to the front, with Trinidad, Dingo and Cat, the thin, angry one, to his rear and the rest arranged randomly around the compound. The sweet smell of dust and sweat mingled in the air, trapped by the massive walls. In the gum tree over the exercise shed, a mockingbird attempted a complicated melody, breaking off in midstream with an unlikely squawk. The discordant note broke the spell and the men, as if emerging from a trance, shifted positions, relieving tense muscles.
Jomo, all five-feet-eight of him, swaggered toward Rafe and spoke to him in the bush dialect common only to the pair. The words slurred quietly, gutturally, hinting of the dark heat of the old land from which they had been taken.
“You fight good, hey, N’gata?”
N’gata. Not quite brother, more than a friend. It was all one man could mean to another here at Freedom. One cannot kill a brother … one must save the life of a friend. But if the bloody-handed spirits bring the face-off, one can kill his N’gata.
Rafe gestured with his head, nodding back in the direction of the pit. “They too fight good, Jomo N’gata. Those two fellas fast like leopards.” He smiled. The sound of the old talk eased the tension further, soothed the jangled nerves.
“But you kill them two fast.”
“The knife spirit, our blood mother, was good to her son, Rafe.”
“Maybe she favor Jomo, too, this summer,” Jomo grunted, his face twisting in anticipation of the killing he loved.
“The blood mother favors none but the dead, N’gata.”
Decater prodded Rafe in the back with the barrel of his musket. “You two niggers quit that mumbo jumbo and talk like ya’ been learnt by Mistah Clayton.”
It was a mistake. His nerves still cat-quick from the fight, Rafe spun about and twisted the musket from the startled guard’s hands. Decater grabbed for it and then froze, his hands tiny claws that started to shake with fear. His milky face went even paler as he found himself staring down the maw of his own musket. Rafe, half-crouching, held the gun ready to fire. Behind him, Jomo spoke, the easy voice soothing, calming, repeating the words of Rafe’s father. “There is no honor in killing a jackal.”
The old saying had the desired effect. Rafe relaxed, rose to his full height, broke into a contemptuous leer, then tossed the musket at the startled Decater’s feet. The gun went off as the small guard jumped into the air. Rafe turned and crossed the yard to the water trough. Jomo and the others followed, laughing in spite of the hollow fear of what the other guards might do in retaliation.
Behind them Decater staggered to his feet as Butkis and his men headed for the compound at a dead run. Decater grabbed his musket from the ground, drew a lead ball from the pouch at his side and rammed it down the barrel, priming the piece with a cap and aiming it at the retreating slave. For a second time the gun was wrenched from his grasp, this time by Butkis.
“What the hell ya’ think y’up to, Decater?” Butkis asked.
“I’m gonna kill me a nigger, goddamit! Gimme back my gun, Butkis. The som’bitch tried to shoot me with it.”
“What’s the trouble, Butkis?”
The overseer turned toward the quiet voice. Decater froze. Ezra had decided to check on the disturbance himself. He didn’t want to lose one of his pitbucks this early in the season.
“Decater here was flxin’ to shoot Rafe, Mr. Clayton.”
“Shoot who?” Ezra asked, his eyebrows arching in disbelief.
“Rafe, sir.”
Ezra turned slowly to Decater. His eyes bored intently into those of the guard, forcing the unfortunate Decater to lower his gaze, shrink back a step and fumble for an explanation.
“Sir … he tried ta’ shoot me. Woulda’ kilt me dead if’n I hadn’t … uh … jumped.”
Ezra examined Decater’s twitching face, his dancing, nervous gestures. It would be easy, breaking this one. The lord of Freedom relaxed, his eyelids hooding the piercing gaze. He looked as if he’d suddenly lost all interest and fallen asleep. “What’s your name?” The voice was almost a whisper.
“Uh … Decater, sir.”
“Decater … Decater …” The name rolled silkily, lazily from his mouth, the lips barely moving. “You look like a weasel that’s just come up with a rancid hen, Decater.”
Decater didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t sound very good. “Yessir …”
“When’s the last time you won me any gold, Decater?”
“Well, I ain’t never … Mr. Clayton …” Decater answered, confused. The man sounded like he was talking in a dream, his voice was so light, so far away.
“I suspect that if Rafe had shot at you, you’d be dead. And if you were dead, then I would have to hang him. And if I had to hang that buck, then he wouldn’t be around to win me any more gold.” The voice stopped, leaving only silence suspended with the dust motes. “I wouldn’t like that, Decater.”
“No, sir.”
“Now, if that buck can take your gun away from you, I have to consider the possibility I can’t trust you with protecting the life and property of Freedom. I might have to find some other way to put you to use.” The bright eyes snapped open abruptly, stared mercilessly and with malicious intensity at Decater, who squirmed in total discomfort. “Perhaps in the pit.”
Decater’s face went entirely bloodless. He struggled to speak but found himself barely able to breathe. Ezra smiled reassuringly, the kind of smile that comes to a man’s face as he guts a fish. “Against which one, Decater? Jomo? Cat? Trinidad? Rafe?”
“I … I jes’ dropped my musket, Mr. Clayton,” Decater finally managed to mumble, the words barely audible. “It went off accidental-like.”
Too easy. Ezra stared into Decater’s eyes, searching for something, anything other than fear. It was a waste of time. The fool was less a man than his niggers. They had a sense of pride, at least. He had never seen fear in any of his pitbucks’ eyes. “You should be more careful, Decater.”
Ezra snapped his fingers, heard the jingle of harness and the creak of wooden wheels behind him as the coachee pulled up. He turned and climbed into it without looking back, sat stiff-necked as the coachee moved onto the river path and toward the gap in the trees. Beyond that gap, the startlingly white mansion loomed, lazing in the noon sun.
Butkis slapped the chastened guard across the mouth, jolting him back to a semblance of life. “Dumb ass,” the overseer muttered. Decater stood with head bowed, the livid handprint standing out on the white skin. Milo, Boo and the others giggled at his expense, enjoying his discomfort. “Boo, you take a meal,” Butkis went on. “Decater here’ll spell you now that he’s got his gun back.” Everyone except Decater exploded into laughter. Decater scowled, turned his back on them and began his rounds, disappearing as rapidly as possible around the corner. “The rest of you boys follow me over to the shanties,” Butkis went on. “Got to make sure the field hands is fed okay. Maybe even grab us a quick ’un. Get that gate, Milo.”
The guards whooped and hollered their approval as Butkis winked and gestured lewdly. This was turning out to be a holiday after all.
Rafe submerged the bucket, filling it to the brim with the cool springwater from the trough. He dumped the contents over his head, dousing himself completely. To his battle-flushed skin the water felt icy. He filled the bucket and repeated the action three more times, shaking the water from his head in great glittering arcs. Jomo alone remained nearby, enjoying the opportunity to relax. Whenever a fight was held at the plantation, training for the slaves not involved was called off for the day. Usually they fought on a Sunday, and as that was a day of rest for them anyway, the respite was nothing special. But Monsieur Bernard had brought his Creeks down on a Saturday, giving Clayton’s pitbucks an extra day of rest.
Jomo squinted at the afternoon sun. Rafe crossed in front of him and onto the rickety porch where a flimsy overhang offered a meager patch of shade. The blood from the wound on his thigh had begun to coagulate and his back was beginning to stiffen. He sank gratefully onto the single, slatted chair and sagged forward, letting the final shred of tension drain from him.
Moments later the small door in the main gate opened and Old Chulem shuffled in and padded through the dust. Old Chulem was the medicine man of Freedom Plantation. He cured the wounds of the body, and of the heart as well. The slaves went to him for everything. Too enfeebled to work, Chulem had the run of both the fighters’ compound and the larger shanty town of the field hands. He went unmolested by the guards. Not a one would strike the withered Negro. Even Ezra Clayton realized the importance of the conjure man to the slave populace: allowing Old Chulem a modicum of liberty about the plantation kept the blacks tractable.
The old man barely managed the single step up to the porch and stood, breathing deeply, gazing at the wound on the thigh. When he finally squatted in front of Rafe, his frail body creaked with the effort. He wasted no time on words, simply drew a pouch from his rope belt, opened it, dabbed his fingers into the fetid depths and withdrew an oily brown glob of herbs, roots and tree sap mixed in bear grease. Ancient fingers spread the wound and worked the mixture in, massaging it into the muscle, loosening the drying blood. A final slather covered the area completely. Old Chulem rose slowly, withered muscles trembling.
“Yo’ leave dat po’tice on ’til mornin’, hear me, boy?” His voice was dry with age but still rang with authority. “Now turn ’round. Let me care fer dat back, too.” Rafe turned, straddled the chair and rested his forehead on the cool wood planking of the shack. “Knife poison ken rot a man sooner’n he can spit. So keep Ol’ Chulem’s medicine over dem cuts. No woman for you tonight, nigger.”
Jomo chuckled. “Ah’ll take his women fo’ him. Don’t yo’ worry none, old man.”
Rafe nearly dozed as the old, expert fingers worked out the stiffness and eased the stinging pain. Sweet euphoria drifted over him. He was alive and finally calm enough to fully realize and savor the fact. Forty-three fights. That’s close to fifty. Gettin’ close to fifty, Rafe, he thought to himself. Only seven to go. Only seven fights left. Then a rifle and a woman, supplies and a boat ride across the Sabine, and the sweet prospect of never coming back. The swamps stretched before him, then the open land he’d heard of. Open land … real freedom …
He realized Chulem was finished and turned back to see the old man staring at him. Had the conjure man spoken? Was he waiting for an answer? To what? What was there to say? There were no answers. Only life, and holding on to it any way possible, day by day, fight by fight. Rafe glanced over at Jomo’s drowsy face. Jomo liked it, enjoyed the violence, the way it felt to stand over a man just butchered and watch the tortured, dying muscles jerk, the clay drink the red juices. And listen to the cheers and shouts of the men and women above. The ignobility of killing for another’s pleasure. Odd thoughts for a slave.
Dammit. Why was Chulem staring at him? Rafe thought of Lord Lucas Clayton, the New Orleans aristocrat who had stared at him the same way before he bought him from the slave market on the docks. Rafe had been only a boy, frightened and determined not to show it. Lucas Clayton had taken an interest in him, and despairing ignorance in any form, saw to his education, made him the pride and joy of the Clayton household. “This is my manservant, Rafe. Speaks better than most white men. Say something for the gentlemen, Rafe.”
I think, goddamit! I can speak better than most whites! Rafe screamed in his mind. I’m not like Jomo and the others, just an ignorant nigger to fight and die for a white man … Old Chulem’s eyes bored into him, breaking the thought. “Why you starin’ at me, old man, conjure man?”
Chulem rubbed his lips and toothless gums with a dirty finger. He spat into the compound yard. “I’se jus’ checkin’ yo’ eyes fer de poison sign.”
“What you see, old man?”