The Master Of Dragonard Hill - The Master of Dragonard Hill Part 11
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The Master of Dragonard Hill Part 11

Continuing to slide down under the quilt, Charlotte reached to take Selby's maleness in her hands. She fondled him until he was hard enough to put in her mouth. She was too old to want an orga"sm herself, but she enjoyed-loved-bringing pleasure to a man who 118.

had been so thoughtful of her over the years. The Rose Room was Charlotte Dewitt's and Albert Selby's private world, a retreat of pleasure where she curled on the mattress between his legs and kept the glow of masculinity alive in his body.

Chad Tucker waited until dark that night before he and Monk set out with the manacles and leg irons for the dark shadows of Niggertown. They were going to take the next two men-Priam and Toby-to sell to the small farmer George Gresham.

Before entering Priam's dilapidated cabin, Tucker paused outside the plank door, and looking up at the sky, said to Monk, "We got us a good moon tonight, boy. We should be able to get through the brush without getting ourselves too tangled." Tucker was in his usual boisterous mood.

This was not Monk's first venture of selling slaves with Tucker. But he was nervous. He always feared that some night they would get caught, that something might go wrong with Tucker's plans.

As Monk stood on the threshold of the old cabin- holding the iron shackles in his hands-Tucker burst in through the door.

The sudden bellow of Tucker's voice brought Monk into the cabin.

The stub of a candle made a small glow against the far wall of the cabin tonight. Monk saw Tucker there pulling Priam up from the dirt floor by a bare arm. In the far corner, Toby knelt next to Betsy's body. Monk saw that she was lying under a blanket.

Tucker yelled to Monk as he struggled with Priam, "Bring me a pair of irons, boy. Quick!"

Monk dropped the equipment to the floor with a clank and moved toward Tucker with a pair of manacles.

Priam defiantly tried to free himself from Tucker's grasp, screaming, "I ain't leaving my woman. I ain't leaving my woman."

Tucker brought his arm down hard against Priam's head, and he fell to the floor. Standing over him, Tucker pulled his whip from his belt and sneered at him, "Make119.

a noise like that again, nigger, and I'll kill you."

Next, turning to Toby-still cowering by Betsy's body-Tucker ordered, "Get your black ass over here."

Toby hesitated, looking at Tucker and then glancing down at Betsy lying under the blanket.

Moving alongside Tucker, Monk asked, "Ain't that the wench who's birthing a sucker?"

Tucker studied the woman's motionless body on the dirt floor. He said to Monk, "Let's see if it is."

Walking toward the corner, Tucker stuck one boot under the blanket and kicked it from the body.

Bending, Tucker looked at Betsy lying on her side. There was a small brown infant with its mouth fastened onto her breast.

Standing, Tucker used his boot again to turn Betsy onto her back.

As he did this, both of Betsy's arms fell limply to the sides of her naked body, and her head hung motionless to one shoulder. The blank stare in her open eyes showed that she was dead.

Bending over her body again, Tucker took the butt of his whip and prodded the infant, who had slipped to the crook of Betsy's arm.

The infant remained motionless, too.

Next Tucker poked the butt of the whip into the infant's mouth and then brought the butt up to his eyes to examine it.

Standing, Tucker muttered, "Hell."

Monk cautiously asked, "What's the matter?"

Wiping the butt of the whip on his breeches, Tucker said, "She's dead. That sucker's been nursing her titty. But he's getting nothing but. . ." He held the butt of the whip to Monk. "That ain't milk coming from her titty. That's . .. blood"

Monk turned away his head.

Looking back at the dead woman and baby, Tucker murmured, "The blood must of choked the kid. A fine mess. Both of them are dead now."

Monk grabbed Tucker's arm and whispered, "We better get out of here. Somebody's going to find out."

"Get out? Run? Run away from two dead niggers?" Tucker shook off Monk's hand in disgust.

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Monk begged, "What if somebody finds out?"

"Boy, I have an agreement to sell George Gresham two prime bucks tonight. I'll be damned if I don't."

"What about. . ." Monk looked at the naked bodies of Betsy and the dead baby lying together on the dirt floor.

Tucker pointed his whip at Toby and ordered, "You, there. Toss her and that kid in the blanket. We'll take them part of the way with us."

As Tucker was talking to Toby, Priam moved behind him. He was going to attack Tucker.

But quickly spinning around, Tucker lashed his whip at Priam, striking him across the face.

Priam fell back to the floor. His face was gashed with blood.

Tucker turned back to Monk, "Come on, boy. Get this Priam nigger in irons first. He's a little jittery, it seems. Then we'll shackle the other bastard. You can come back here tomorrow and mop away any signs we leave behind."

Monk's fingers moved nervously as he worked to slide the pins into Priam's leg irons. Tucker held his boot on Priam's throat as Monk locked manacles on his wrists.

The second Negro, Toby, was frightened and easier to shackle than Priam. And as Tucker stuck the pins into his leg irons, he told Monk to pull the four corners of the blanket over the two dead bodies and tie them securely into a knot.

Next, quickly surveying the cabin before they left, Tucker told Monk, "You don't have to do much here tomorrow, boy. Just make it looks like they run. The whole bunch of these damned niggers were runners. I'll report it tomorrow night to Selby."

Turning to Priam then, Tucker said, "Grab your wench, nigger, and pull. We'll cart her as far as the pothole. There's one over near the road."

Tucker led the way from the cabin, jerking Toby by the arm.

Outside, he complained, "Shit. I thought tonight was going to be easy. We had a full moon and everything. But what do I get saddled with? Two dead niggers. And 121.one with a bleeding face. We'll have to wipe up that, too, so Gresham don't see it right away."

He shoved Toby ahead of him into the night.

Monk followed behind Priam.

Priam moved with difficulty in the dark. Apart from still bleeding from his face, he had to pull the blanket that held the dead bodies of his Betsy and their child. And he did this in leg irons.

The four men continued toward the pothole. There they would drop the bodies where they would never be discovered on the Star.

BOOK II.

Light of Day

7.New Wishes, Old Dreams

Winter had come again to Louisiana, and on this gloomy New Year's Eve the land was shrouded by a starless sky, and a dampness permeated the bones of the people who comprised the vital life force of the Star.

The men and women of Niggertown huddled around the fires in the middle of their dirt-floored shacks. The fires were small and smudgy, built from wet fuel that smoldered more than it blazed, filling the shacks with smoke. The people's eyes watered, and when they coughed, their black bodies convulsed with disease planted deep in their lungs.

Like a cruel beast, the cold winters of America stalked the Negroes' bodies. The biting winds sapped the stamina from their hearty frames. And even those young Negroes who had been born in this country felt their vitality slipping when the first leaves began to fall from the trees in autumn. But with all the difficulties that the Bantu, the Ashanti, the Mandingo, and the Hausa had in adjusting to the erratic climate of Louisiana, the drudgeries of plantation work had to continue, and they clung desperately to the hope that the warm days of summer would return. Yet, in December, the sun seemed as far away as the freedom that they had also once enjoyed in Africa.

A short distance through the woods from Niggertown, Mama Gomorrah had bedded down the small children for the night on the deep wooden shelves built along three walls of the Shed. The wizened old'woman herself crouched in front of a stone fireplace, her whip curled 125.

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next to her on the floor like a tamed python, and the light from the flames shone like fairy lights in her wild, white mass of hair. She was busy tonight sorting through a pile of old tow clothing, deciding which garments were warm enough for the children to wear for the remainder of the winter and which pieces should be cut and resewn into clothes to accommodate their growing limbs. When springtime came, the older children would move from the Shed to shacks in Niggertown and take on the full responsibilities of adult slaves. They would need adequate pants and smocks, not only for the new labors that they would be doing but also to cover their ripening bodies.

A young black boy named Posy knelt near Mama Gomorrah in front of the stone hearth tonight. By some quirk of nature, normal boyhood was bypassing Posy. His face was too pretty and his mannerisms were effeminate. But this soft-mannered boy had a precocious eye for recognizing beauty, and he had gotten his name -Posy-by gathering wildflowers and bringing them back to the Shed or taking them to the big house.

At this late hour, Posy concentrated on the flowers he had collected last summer and autumn from the fields and the gardens of the Star. Having tied their stalks together into bunches of twelve, Posy had hung his flowers to dry on a high rafter in the Shed. Now, as his small, slim fingers picked delicately through the fragile collection, he put the flowers into separate piles-the asters, the daisies, the cornflowers, the dahlias. Next, he redivided them by color. Also, apart from harvesting flowers to dry, Posy had gathered stalks of wheat, ears of corn, even jimson and fireweed, which now all looked crisp and golden and red, perfect ingredients for an arrangement hi some tall vase on a mantel in the big house.

But there were people tonight on the Star who were not as industrious as Mama Gomorrah, or as thoughtful as Posy. They were the three people who, among other duties, were directly responsible for the slaves, to see that they had firewood, that it was dry, and that they did not catch diseases. But Chad Tucker, his wife, Claudia, and the yellow-skinned boy who had been sent long 127.

ago to help them, Monk, willfully shirked their responsibilities at the Star. Tonight the three of them were curled together on the same bed in the Tuckers' cabin. Their six legs were interlocked on the mattress, lying limp like the legs of a dozing animal, a curious dog that possessed one pair of hirsute legs, one pair of smooth white legs, and one pair of legs that were the rich color of amber. And as they slept now under the influence of corn whiskey, Chad, Claudia, and Monk were oblivious of the fact that their own stove had burned dead and that the air around them had become cold. The corn husk mattress rustled when one of them moved, but they remained asleep, their thoughts far away in their separate dreams of power.

In wintertime the path between the overseer's cabin and the big house was buried deep in dried leaves, and the bare limbs of the trees formed grotesque shapes against the dark sky. As the wind continued to howl, the trees creaked and the fallen leaves churned into thicker layers across the barren landscape. This New Year's Eve did not appear to be a momentous occasion.

The moon glowed in a dim blotch behind the thick clouds; the big house stood alone and solid, ugly without its decoration of bougainvillea and hedgerows at the end of the driveway. All the lights hi the dormer windows and the upper floor of the house were black at this late hour. In the attic, Ta-Ta lay curled under a gray woollen quilt on her narrow cot. A draft from the rattling window made her shiver, but the rum she had drunk still warmed her soul. And as she lay like a prisoner in this garret room, her mind traveled to the faraway hills and the soft yellow fields of the plantation in the West Indies where she had been happy and young and owned a green dress with a scalloped skirt. She dreamed of Petit Jour and the woman who had been her beloved mistress, Honore Jubiot-a primitive image of her chalked onto the wall next to Ta-Ta's cot.

On the floor below Ta-Ta, Rachel Selby tossed feverishly on her large walnut bed. Her drab hair was twisted into a single plait, which looked like a dead worm that had crawled out of her brain and now was lying lifeless, limp on the crisp white linen of her bed 128.

pillows. Suddenly, jerking her head in her sleep, Rachel would mutter a rude word or an improper phrase. Having less control of her mind in the passing years, she was unable to repress the stream of foul words that -without warning-would spring from her mouth. And worse, she did not think that she was saying anything particularly offensive.

The time was well past eleven o'clock now, almost midnight, and the only sign of light in the big house glowed from the front-parlor window, pouring a token of brightness out into this bleak December night.

Inside the parlor, Albert Selby, Melissa, and Peter were all gathered in front of the blazing hearth. Near this happy trio sat a wooden bowl of apples, a basket of walnuts, a blue-and-white dish of peppermint candies, and a plate of frosted cakes decorated with raisins and glace cherries. This colorful array of treats showed that tonight was a very special event for all of them. Not only was it New Year's Eve, but it was the eve of a new century: a few minutes would see the beginning of the year 1800.

As the ornate metal minute hand on the mantel clock slowly crawled past the Roman numerals of eight, nine, ten, ticking away the last of 1799, an excitement mounted in the snug parlor as the three people tried to think of wishes for their new year.

Albert Selby was comfortably seated in his Dorset chair to the left of the fireplace. A dab of Storky's bread pudding still clung to the red hairs of his goatee, and on the bib of his white shirt was spotted some carrot soup. But nothing could blemish Selby's enjoyment tonight. He thrilled at seeing Melissa looking so happy. He hoped that, with luck, the winter would continue to be good to her. She had avoided catching any colds so far, as well as the flu germ that had been circulating among the girls with whom she was meeting these days to learn numbers and writing.

Melissa Selby was fifteen years old, and in this first bloom of womanhood she was already a polite and well-mannered young lady. Her complexion was creamy, her nose small and slightly retrousse, and her hair long and blond, which she wore in a bow at the nape of her neck.

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But apart from her physical attributes, one's attention was first attracted to her warm personality; then he would notice the developing feminine contours of her body. Melissa was not rushing forward into adulthood. She was too busy learning reading and writing, the lessons that she had been denied earlier when there had been no schoolmarm to visit this remote area. Melissa's ambition now was to do everything possible to help her father. She knew how hopeless he was with his ledgers, and wanting to be his right hand someday, she had chosen this way to start. She was observant enough to see already that Chad Tucker was neglecting his obligation as overseer at the Star. But how long would she have to wait to correct that problem?

Apart from her school learning, Melissa was showing an aptitude with a needle, having graduated from eleentary quilt-piecing to the more intricate labors of embroidering and lacemaking. But most of all Melissa loved to spend hours in the kitchen. Storky was teaching her how to preserve melon rinds, knead and bake bread, even how to put up apple-and-raisin chutney.

Selby was delighted in Melissa's appreciation of do mestic values. Although his daughter showed no interests for life in a parlor, Selby did not care. And as Rachel seldom ventured downstairs from her sickroom these days, there was less and less interference into the lives of these three people.

As for Peter, Selby could hardly believe that the boy was now about the age that Monk had been when Selby had first brought the two boys and Ta-Ta from New Orleans almost ten years ago. Since then, Peter had learned quickly, falling easily into the pattern of life here at the Star. Now reaching Selby's ear in height, Peter promised to be a tall and slim man. Selby knew that the boy's body would be wide in the shoulders, too, and that he would have a slim waist. Although it was still too early to tell what final appearance Peter's face would eventually take, Selby knew that he would be handsome.

Peter's skin was dark, his hair was silky black, and his eyes were as blue as ever. A line of pubescent black down now covered Peter's upper lip, though, and his 130.

cheeks were blemished with youthful pimples. But his nose was straight and narrow, his dark eyebrows balanced into two neat lines. And those glowing cornflower-blue eyes had a genuine honesty to them.

But Peter's hands did not match his arms yet. They were too large and awkward for his maturing limbs. His feet were also big and often clumsy, not moving fast enough for the strength that was gathering in his long legs. Selby had noticed with further amusement how, lately, Peter was trying to hide the size of his genitalia, dressing first on the left, and then on the right, never quite finding a comfortable position for the new bulk of his masculinity. But realizing that Peter would also overcome that discomfort, Selby privately forecast a fine maturity for the boy. He already felt that Peter would do justice to both him and the Star in whatever capacity he would eventually take here. Selby had put the fact out of his mind that Peter had come to him from a vente table in New Orleans.

At this moment, Melissa was urging Peter to make his wish for the New Year. But she warned him not to say it aloud, because, if he said it, his wish would not come true.

Peter's tongue was as awkward as the rest of his body these days. He asked in the wavery voice that was neither child's nor man's, "But what if what I want is something that somebody has to know about so I can get it?"

Slapping playfully at him, Melissa said, "Oh, leave it to you to make things difficult!"

Peter turned to look up at Selby sitting in the chair. "But it's true. How is Father going to know what I want?"

He still caUed Selby Father.

Covering her ears, Melissa warned, "Don't say it! Don't say your wish!"

Selby took Peter's side in this argument. "Yes, Melly. What if Sonny wants something that I've got to know about?"

"Okay, stick together, you two," Melissa said, spreading the full skirt of her pink-candy-striped dress around 131.

her on the carpet. "But I'm not going to tell you my wish!"

"Who cares!" Peter grumbled.

Putting his hand on Peter's shoulder, Selby asked, "Now, what is your wish, Sonny?"

Throwing out his chest and shutting his eyes, Peter said, "I wish ... I wish ... I wish that I could have my very own groom!"

"And so be it," Selby said. "And not only shall I buy you your very own groom, but I'll let you pick him out yourself. No old trumped-up cotton-picker for you, Sonny! In fact, we'll go to New Orleans to choose him. How does that sound?"

Before Peter had time to thank this man whom he had come to call Father, Melissa began waving her hands at the both of them to be quiet. Then, as the mantel clock began to sound bong, bong, bong, Melissa closed her eyes, and crossing two fingers on each hand, she made her wish to herself.

It was now officially the year 1800.