Posy finally understood what she was talking about now. He quickly protested, "I ain't pulled none out, Miss Tucker, ma'am. These feathers just lying here."

143.

"Makes no difference. How'd you like to drop a few feathers and then have some nigger come along and steal them?"

Posy's pug nose wrinkled into a grin. He thought Qaudia was making a joke with him. He said, "I ain't no chicken!"

Qaudia mumbled to herself, "I ain't real sure what you are, nigger. I ain't sure if you're a hen or a rooster."

Then, watching Posy run effeminately through the bushes, Claudia made a mental note to talk to her husband about the strange-looking child when he got back home this afternoon. Tucker had not sold a pickaninny before, and this would be a perfect time to steal one from the Shed. Selby was away from the Star for three days. And the Tuckers could be in the nigger business again.

The printed handbill from Lynn and Craddock that Rachel Selby had read was true. The New Orleans auction house was opening its doors to a wider audience. j Albert Selby learned this for himself in New Orleans when he saw a large poster attached to a board in the foyer of the Hotel LaSalle. He and Peter had arrived after nightfall and checked in for two nights.

Fatigued and dusty from the long trip, Selby did not question the other planters whom he saw in the lobby of the hotel, inquiring why the auctioneers had chosen to alter their exclusive policy. Instead, he and Peter went immediately with a Negro boy, an arrogant quadroon who was elaborately dressed in green-and-yellow livery, and they followed his swinging hips up three flights of Oriental-carpeted stairs to their room. An orchestra played in the lobby of the hotel, its syrupy music clinging to their eyes as they climbed up, up, up the deep-piled steps.

Even in his exhaustion Peter thought that the Hotel LaSalle must be the grandest building in the world. He stood dazed by the edge of the carved teak railing on the third mezzanine, staring down at the palm-filled lobby below him as the prissy bellboy was unlocking the door to their room with a large brass .key. Peter felt as if he were standing on the lofty cliff of some high 144.

mountain gazing down into a mythical valley. The strata of cigar smoke below him looked like variously colored clouds. There were literally forests of palm trees on every landing, their wide fronds fanning out beyond the railings. And the orchestra music continued to drift up from the green valley, played by an ensemble of mustard-coated Negroes seated on a dais swagged with widths of green-and-brown velvet.

Selby had suspected that, unlike his son, Roland, Peter would be thrilled at seeing a big hotel. Selby had been right. Peter was agog at its splendor. And for the remainder of the first evening there, Selby planned every detail as a treat for the impressionable ten-year-old boy. He ordered a zinc tub to be sent to the room, followed by two cisterns of hot water, so that Peter could have a bath before they went down to dinner. Next he showed him how to pull a long green cord to call for a glass of lemonade and have his white suit to be taken away and pressed, all by the same tug.

That night they ate dinner downstairs at a table on the edge of a sea of chattering diners-the women wearing ostrich feathers in their hair and the men's necks cascading with ruffles-and Selby permitted Peter to order anything he wanted from the enormous white menu, all the entrees elaborately scrolled in red ink: doves cooked in olives and lemon and wine, oysters gently fried in bread crumbs and filled with rich cream, shrimp Creole, and gumbos of every description.

The desserts were what enthralled Peter, though, and after gobbling a plateful of a cold sweet called iced Italian cream, flooded with chocolate sauce and toasted almonds and flanked by fan-shaped wafers, Peter was hardly able to climb the stairs again to his room. He collapsed onto the crisp linen sheets of his bed, his stomach full from the good food and his mind dancing with the dazzling sights of the Hotel LaSalle.

But the next morning was when the true excitement began.

At eight o'clock, New Orleans was already throbbing with activity. Colorfully dressed Negresses waddled down the streets, balancing round baskets of crayfish on their heads, shouting to the louvered windows above 145.

them about the stimulating effect that their merchandise would have on a customer's love powers. Black children wearing nothing but the skimpiest of breech-clouts swaggered through the morning crowds, bumping the pedestrians with their trayfuls of glace cherries, orange rinds, lemon pee!, and angelica, these candies sparkling in the sun like an array of Arabian jewels. Old women dressed in black rags crouched on the cobblestones with small paper cones of nuts displayed in front of them on rush matting-pistachios, peanuts, pecans, almonds. Everyone in New Orleans seemed to be selling something-flowers, confections, fresh fruit, seashell necklaces, flasks of perfume-and all the vendors' shrill voices joined in a cacophony that deafened Peter's ears.

Walking closely to Selby, Peter remembered the advice he had received-to keep his hand on his money pouch as they moved through the jostling crowd of morning traffic. He gawked at an ebony-lacquered carriage, a gold-and-red crest painted on its door, as it clattered through the people, spreading them in every direction. He laughed at a cart piled high with wooden cages of cackling hens as it weaved slowly past him. He peered down a side street so narrow that clotheslines stretched across it, the laundry gently flapping high above everybody's heads. And in a dark-green doorway Peter saw a pair of the most beautiful mulatto girls he had ever seen, standing side-by-side, batting their long eyelashes at him, smiling behind the black-lace mantillas they held across their mouths with long, carmined fingernails. Selby hurried Peter along.

Finally, reaching a white building with a brass plaque attached to the right side of an arched doorway, Peter saw, "Lynn and Craddock, Auctioneers."

He asked, "Is this it, Father?" Compared to the zestful atmosphere of the streets through which he had just come-an amalgamation of French, Spanish, Moroccan, and all the colonies of the Caribbean-this plain white building looked unimposing, even somber.

Selby had already disappeared through the arched doorway. Peter hurried to catch him.

Beyond the arch, the feeling became more tropical, with a fountain splashing in the middle of a cool court- 146.

yard. Peter immediately noticed that the men standing in this small court were divided into two distinct groups: there were the roughly dressed farmers on the left side of the fountain, and to the right stood a collection of finely dressed men, gentlemen wearing smart cutaway coats and tall pastel-colored hats. Peter felt proud when, without hesitation, Selby walked toward the group on the right side of the fountain, nodding at two or three of the haughty men as he passed.

Peter whispered, "Who are they?"

"Planters," Selby answered nonchalantly, now leading Peter up a wide white-marble staircase edged on both sides with terra-cotta pots of lush greenery.

Lynn and Craddock's might have been changing their policy by inviting farmers to their vente, but Peter was learning that there was still a sharp division in the South between farmers and his own class. Like Selby, he was a planter today, too. He even had a white suit.

At the top of the steps they passed into a large room that had a round window at the far end of it. The temperature was stifling in here, and having just come from the bright sun, Peter could not focus immediately in this vastness-except for seeing a circular shaft of light flooding into the room from the round window, cutting through the clouds of cigar smoke and thick motes of dust. He heard a rumble of voices, and soon he saw all the buyers gathered hi here, a more homogeneous mixture of farmers and planters than had been hi the courtyard.

Peter anxiously whispered to Selby, "Has it started yet?"

Nodding toward the round window, Selby answered, "Probably. The inspection was last night."

"Inspection?" Peter did not want to miss anything.

Selby explained, "To look at what you're getting. Examining their legs, teeth, and what-nots, seeing you're not buying a dud."

Peter looked at Selby. "Did we miss that?"

Selby shook his head. "Didn't miss much. A man doesn't have to worry about the caliber of stock in this place. They don't try to cheat a man." As hard as Selby 147.was trying, he could not eradicate the vision of his last visit here, of the time when Lynn and Craddock had made a mistake and sold him a white boy in an error. Selby had bought Peter in this very same auction hall, but as difficult as it was, he tried to block that memory from his mind. He was telling himself that Peter was his son. Peter was Sonny. Peter was his now.

Anxious to know the complete details of an auction, Peter asked, "But maybe we should have gone to the inspection last night."

"Nothing to worry about, Sonny," Selby insisted, not wanting to go into the specific reason why he had not wanted to bring Peter to an inspection, especially an inspection at Lynn and Craddock, where they specialized in fancy Negroes. Such a gathering was no place for Peter or any other young boy, Selby felt. Too many curiosity seekers flocked to the Lynn and Craddock inspections, men who had no intentions of coming the next day to buy a Negro at all, merely going to the inspection to paw the merchandise. Selby thought that an inspection here was nothing but a carnival of perverts, attracting men who were more interested in the size of a wench's breasts or the penis on a big buck than they were in their working ability in the fields or a house.

Looking around the smoky sales hall now, Selby said to Peter, "Stay here while 1 get us a list." He moved away from Peter, disappearing into the crowd.

As the auction had already begun, the men in the sales hall stood facing the round window. The sales table was set under that window, but from where Peter stood he could barely see the top of the black-silk hat worn by a man standing on a high platform. Peter guessed that he must be the auctioneer, and wanting to see more of him and of the procedures of the sale, he moved forward through the crowd of men.

From his new position Peter could now see not only the skinny auctioneer but also a large raised platform next to him. He saw three Negroes soberly standing on it, two half-naked men and one woman in a long white dress. Their three heads were lov/ered as the auctioneer held his wooden gavel toward them, talking in a fast 148.

voice that Peter could not understand. But he knew that the auctioneer was trying to sell those three people to someone down here on the floor.

But the buyers all around Peter were talking, not listening to what the auctioneer was saying about the three black people. These customers did not seem to be too interested in the auction, but more intent on visiting and laughing with their neighbors. Peter could not understand this. He considered the selling-or buying- of people to be a very serious matter. The men around him were treating this as if it were a party.

From what Peter could see of the three Negroes for sale, they looked healthy. The two men had fine bodies; their muscles were big and all shiny with oil. They wore nothing but long baggy white pants made from the same rough fabric as the dress the woman wore, but all of them looked clean. Peter could not understand why no one was trying to buy them, wanting to take them and give them a home.

Looking at a group of men talking near him, Peter noticed one white gentleman in particular. He was tall, swarthy, and had black sideburns that extended in sharp crescents under his tall white hat. The man also had a tuft of multicolored feathers pinned to the hatband. Peter had never seen such a decoration on a man's hat before. Peter moved closer for a better look. It was then that he heard the tall swarthy man say to his companions, "Numbers one, two, three, four. Don't touch them. Those niggers are from Dragonard."

Peter froze at the mention of the word. Dragonard.

One of the man's companions asked, "Dragonard Plantation?"

The swarthy man nodded. "I hear all the Dragonard stock has been done away with."

Peter strained his ears to hear more. Dragonard was the word that Ta-Ta had whispered to him.

Selby's voice suddenly called out behind him. "Sonny. I thougiit I told you to stay back here!"

Turning, Peter saw Selby pushing his way through the men, waving two sheets of paper at him. "Here. Take your list."

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Not caring about the list or even worrying about Selby being angry at him for leaving the spot where he had left him, Peter could only think about the word the swarthy man had said: Dragonard! He had to hear more about the Dragonard slaves. He had to listen about numbers one, two, three, four.

But when Peter turned from Selby to look to where the man had been standing, he saw that he was gone. The swarthy man with the feathers in his hatband had disappeared.

Coming closer to Peter, Selby held out the list and said, "We're lucky, Sonny. We're just going onto number two now." As usual, he did not remain angry at Peter.

Taking the list, Peter asked nervously, "Number two?" Then, looking down to the sheet, he saw only a few words printed next to it: "Two bucks. One wench." Looking up at Selby, he asked, "1 thought it was supposed to say who's selling them."

"Lynn and Craddock are breaking a lot of rules today," Selby answered under his breath. "I see, too, they've covered their mahogany walls with tarps! Afraid these fanners are going to scratch their initials in them, I guess. But one good thing is that they've stopped serving that blasted sherry. Nobody but women drinks that." Then, studying the list again, Selby said, "But don't worry, Sonny. We haven't missed a thing. They always sell the best stock toward the end. They'll never change that. They try to get rid of the bad stuff first. That's why there's no keen interest now." He nodded at the men conversing around them, showing little interest in the auctioneer.

Bad stuff? Peter thought. Was Dragonard stock bad? Skimming the list again, he asked Selby, "But what if we want something that comes up early in the sale?"

Selby corrected Peter. "Not 'we,' Sonny. You! What you want. You're the one who's doing the choosing today. Not me. And here ..." he said, turning Peter by the shoulders of his new white suit. "Look around that way. That's where the sale's going on. Up there. Not back here."

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Peter turned to look toward the far end of the hall again, but he was really not paying attention to the auctioneer now. His mind was racing with a problem. What should he do? Dragonard? He definitely remembered Ta-Ta saying that word. He distinctly remembered her talking lately about his mother, too. And now he thought that if, somehow, that Dragonard was connected to him and the woman who might be his mother, then he could not very well ask Selby to explain ...

"What's the matter, Sonny? You look peaked. You aren't getting sick, are you?"

Peter shook his head. He mumbled, "I'm fine."

"You look a little pale."

"I'm just trying to ... decide something." Peter was thinking about Melissa. He knew she was not his real sister. She had her own mother.

"Well, you don't have to decide too soon. Like I said, all the good stuff comes later."

"Father . . ." Peter had to ask Selby just this one question. "Father, why are these black people bad?" He nodded to the three Negroes on the sales table. "They look fine to me."

Selby looked quickly around him before saying, "There's a lot of stories going around here today, Sonny. A lot of malarkey stories and a lot of true ones. But I just heard why they're letting in these dirt farmers. See, there's been some rioting down in a place called the West Indies ..." Selby stopped, seeing a familiar face in the crowd. He called, "Joshua Domitt! I'll be damned! Good to see you, Josh! . . . What?" Selby moved to listen to his old friend's question.

By himself again, Peter turned to look one last time for the swarthy stranger. But he was gone. Then, looking at the auctioneer, he saw that lot number three had finally been sold and now the auctioneer was beginning to extol the working competence of the next lot- number four-and the auctioneer was shouting that he certainly expected a larger price than what he had received for the previous lot.

Lot four consisted of three Negroes, all males, two stocky laborers and one tall, handsome man who looked 151.

refined enough to work in the house, or, as Peter instantly thought, a groom!

A voice near Peter called snidely to the auctioneer, "Where these troublemakers from, mister?"

The auctioneer ignored the question, opening the bidding at two thousand dollars.

A wave of laughter spread across the smoke-filled room at the high price set for these three Negroes. The amount would ordinarily be a bargain.

"Seven hundred and fifty is all I'd pay for trouble," shouted a voice behind Peter.

Trembling now, Peter knew that he had to do something. And he had to do it fast. An inexplicable compulsion made him shout, "One thousand dollars!"

The youthful crackle of his voice attracted the eyes of the men standing near him. Peter felt a hot flush rising in his cheeks, but drawing a deep breath, he repeated firmly, "One thousand dollars."

It was then that he heard Selby gasp behind him, "Sonny? What in tarnation are you doing?"

From the platform, the auctioneer called, "Is that your son, Albert Selby? Does the Star stand behind his bid?"

Peter turned to look at Selby.

With all the eyes in the sales hall upon him, Selby called back, "Yes, I'm the boy's . . . father. The Star's behind him."

The auctioneer then began to call one thousand dollars once, one thousand dollars twice ...

Selby whispered to Peter, "Sonny, do you know what you're doing?"

Peter answered, "You said I could pick." He could not look Selby in the eye.

"But, Sonny, you don't know a damn thing about those West Indian niggers."

The sharp sound of the gavel closed the sale.

Thus Peter had bought his first African slaves, the three black men from the Dragonard Plantation in the West Indies.

It was the second day that Selby was away from the Star, and Posy sat now by himself in the Shed.

152.

The weather was too warm for a fire this afternoon, and the coals of the fieldstone hearth lay in an ashy gray heap.

Crouching on the floor in front of the hearth, Posy examined the chicken feathers he had collected for Mama Gomorrah, which now lay on the edge of the hearth in front of him. He had used berries to dye five of the feathers red, and a pot of indigo to color the other six blue. Mama Gomorrah would use them to make her voodoo pouches.

Hearing a noise behind him, Posy turned to the door to see if it was Mama Gomorrah returning. But instead he saw a man standing in the doorway at the far end of the large room. He knew that the man's name was Chad Tucker.

Rising to his bare feet, Posy smoothed his white smock over his legs and called, "Mama Gomorrah ain't here, Master Tucker, sir."

Tucker ambled through the door. "You called Posy?"

Posy nodded, seeing a black man follow Tucker into the Shed. He knew his name, too. It was Monk.

The Shed was one of the few outbuildings on the Star that had a board floor, and as Tucker's boots made a clomping noise across it, he called to Posy, "Shuck off that dress you're wearing, nigger. I want to take a look at you."

Posy stared at the big white man.

Tucker shouted, "Ain't you got no ears? I said strip!" As Tucker stood waiting for Posy to obey, he looked around him at the room, dimly lit by the daylight pouring through three small windows in a row. He saw the rough-board beds built onto the other walls like three levels of chicken roosts-and called "roosts" for the pickaninnies-and he also saw a neat line of wooden bowls on a long shelf. Although the Shed was rustic and crude, everything was clean and tidily arranged. Chad Tucker seldom came here, as this was Mama Gomorrah's undisputed territory.

Mama Gomorrah was a shrewd woman, and having seendong ago that Posy would not grow into a normal slave for the Star, she had not taught him the same obedience as she had the other children. She knew that 153.

only the passage of time would prepare a misfit like Posy for a role in plantation life.

Posy stared dumbly at Tucker and then looked at the painted feathers lying on the hearth behind him.

Tucker called to Monk, "You stand there in case the brat tries to make a run for it." Moving toward Posy, Tucker sneered, "I'll show him how to strip. Then I'll see for myself what this brat has."

Lunging forward, Tucker grabbed for the child.

Posy kicked his bare feet and clawed his sharp fingernails at Tucker.