Mary Crandall shook her head and then nervously looked over her shoulder at Monk sitting silently on the dirt floor behind them.

Claudia quickly whispered, "Oh, that ain't the nigger you're getting. That one's our fetch-and-carry boy."

Tucker picked up Claudia's words. "Monk there? Oh, no. When you start talking about Monk, you gets into a higher bracket. 'Course, Tommy Joe, if you're willing to spring for another twenty dollars-making it a round forty-there's no reason why Monk shouldn't have a go at your missus. He's real prime stock, that one. Real prime. But he'll cost you."

Crandall's voice was faint but firm. "We goes ahead with the original deal, Tucker."

Shrugging, Tucker said, "You're paying."

Claudia brightly said, "If we hadn't been at the funeral today, I'd've baked us a peach cake or something to nibble on now. But I just didn't have me no time at all today. Not with all the excitement at the big house . . . and me still getting over my woman's ague." She coughed.

Tucker said, "You wouldn't have believed the fine crowd there, Tommy Joe. I'm telling you that-"

A knock on the door suddenly disturbed Tucker. He looked at Monk sitting on the floor and said, "That must be Porkchop. Let him in, boy. Then you go take , yourself a walk. Leave us white folk alone."

Monk slowly rose from the floor.

Mary Crandall grabbed in desperation for her husband.

But Tommy Joe took her frail hand and put it back in her lap. Looking at Tucker, he asked, "You said you got a bed they can use, didn't you?"

Claudia piped up, " 'Course we got us a bed. And I'm real pleased to have Mary use it. But you got to excuse me having no sheet on it. Being up at the funeral and all today, I just ain't had me no time to do no fixing here or 186.

nothing." Looking across the table at Mary Crandall, she asked, "A girl like you understands that, Mary honey, don't you?"

Mary Crandall did not hear the question. Listening to the footsteps on the dirt floor behind her, she was holding her eyes shut and biting her lip.

The black man called Porkchop was in the cabin, and Monk had departed.

Turning in his chair, Tommy Joe Crandall looked at the Negro who would be laying his wife.

Porkchop was older than Monk. But he was also a taller man, bigger and rougher, a more-chiseled-looking specimen of manhood than Monk. His deep-black face was brooding, and a straight line of tightly curled hair sat low over his forehead. He had deepset eyes and an aquiline nose. Although it was night, Porkchop wore no shirt. His shoulders were broad and heavily capped; his stomach muscles formed tight lines into the top of his pants. Standing on the dirt floor of the cabin in bare feet, Porkchop waited with his huge arms hanging at his side.

Rising, Tucker said, "Porkchop here is one hell of a good stud. I know you can count on his spunk taking in your missus, Tommy Joe." Looking at Porkchop, Tucker asked him, "How many gits you sewed so far, nigger?"

"Thirty-two that I knows of, Master Tucker, sir," Porkchop answered directly.

"Well, I want you to make that thirty-three, boy," Tucker said to him, and then, pointing at the ragged blue curtains hanging between the big room and the lean-to, he ordered, "Go in there and strip down. Mrs. Crandall will be in in a minute."

Porkchop walked soberly across the dirt floor toward the curtains.

Still trembling at the thought of having to lie with a black man, Mary Crandall reached for her husband.

But Tommy Joe ignored his wife's panic. He put his hand under her arm, and lifting her from the chair, he slowly guided her toward the curtains.

Standing in front of the curtains with her, Tommy Joe 187.

called into the darkness, "Nigger man, you ready in there?"

A deep voice answered, "Yes, master, sir."

Tommy Joe murmured to his wife, "You don't have to undress till you get in there."

Then Tommy Joe reached into his coat pocket, and removing a wad of yellow cloth, he handed it to his wife and said, "This here is goose fat. Make him grease himself up good for you. He's going to be big."

"He's big, all right," Tucker called from the table. "Fact is, Tommy Joe, why don't you go along in yourself and inspect him? Make sure everything is up to your satisfaction. To see for yourself how good he's hung, so you don't think I'm cheating you on a thing."

Mary Crandall looked at her husband with terror. She shook her head. She did not want him to go with her. But she did pull her husband's ear down to her mouth, and she whispered to him. Then, grabbing the wad of goose fat from his hand, she quickly disappeared into the bedroom.

After Mary Crandall had gone, Tommy Joe turned to the table and said, "Womenfolks sure can be strange animals, sometimes."

The Tuckers waited for his reason.

Sitting down on his chair, Tommy Joe explained, "You know what my Mary just told me? Mary just told me that she's worried now that a nigger's pestering her, she ain't going to be no real lady."

Chad Tucker tried to smile with sympathy. But Claudia quickly glanced under her chair at the cream churn holding the money. That was her only concern.

Then the three of them sat at the table and waited. The first sound from the bedroom was the rustling of the corncob mattress, and next the sharp gasps of Mary Crandall, which grew louder, until Tommy Joe finally spoke.

He asked, "These niggers take very long?"

Tucker said, "Niggers take all night sometimes. But I told Porkchop earlier today to make this one snappy."

Wiping the perspiration from his forehead, Tommy Joe Crandall said, "That's good."

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Soon, when there was a lull, Tucker called to the bedroom, "Porkchop? You finished in there?"

There was still no sound from the bedroom.

Tommy Joe moved to stand. "Yep. Sounds like it's over. Can't be ..."

The rustling noise suddenly resumed beyond the blue curtains. But this time it was accompanied by voices, indiscernible whispers.

Tommy Joe called cautiously, "Mary? You fine in there?"

Porkchop answered the call. "She's fine, master, sir."

Tommy Joe blurted, "I'm talking to my wife, nigger!"

"She's real fine, master, sir," Porkchop assured him.

Then Mary Crandall called weakly, "Tommy Joe..."

"You fine, Mary?" He was ready to jump from his chair to help her.

She answered, "Fine, Tommy Joe. I'm just . . . just . . ." Then her voice suddenly broke off as she gasped, and next, the sound of her loud breathing filled the cabin.

The bed began to creak rhythmically again, and the gasping grew louder.

Soon Porkchop's low voice began to say the word "yeah" in a deep, regulated tempo. And Mary Crandall's voice joined his-a swoon, a groaning of adulation.

Claudia Tucker sat at the table with her arms folded. She was drumming the ringers of one hand against her shawl. She wanted the Crandalls to hurry and leave so that she could count her money.

Chad Tucker was smiling. He had not suspected that this evening would go so well.

But Tommy Joe Crandall sat at the table in a state of nerves. He feared that his wife was enjoying this ordeal. She usually considered sex to be loathsome. But he could tell by her heavy breathing and the sound of the two voices together and the noise from their naked bodies slapping against each other that she was enjoying the act as much as the black man. And in his mind Tommy Joe saw Porkchop's muscular stomach arched over his wife's pale body, visualizing how her legs were 189.

spread in abandonment, losing herself for probably the first time in her life.

Tucker reached across the table, and patting Tommy Joe on the shoulder, he said, "Relax, Tommy Joe. Relax. Just think about the fine worker you'll be getting hi nine months' time. You can raise it just like you want. Just think about that."

Tommy Joe nodded soberly.

Monk stood outside the cabin in the night.

He could hear through the thin walls of the lean-to that Porkchop was still pestering Mrs. Crandall. He also could tell that she was enjoying herself. No woman who was being raped cried out with such pleasure.

But Monk was glad that he was not in Porkchop's place. He had had his taste of white women. Claudia Tucker had given Monk his fill of white women for the rest of his life. He hoped that Claudia would never recover from her so-called "ague."

Monk could not understand white women. One minute they could not get enough of a black man. Then, the next minute, they threatened to castrate him.

Were black men a threat to white women? Was that why they treated them so badly?

Or were white women really ashamed to admit that they wanted black men for lovers?

Monk did not care now what any white people wanted. He was tired of being ordered around by the Tuckers. He wanted to be with black people. To have a black woman for himself.

A loud gasp suddenly came from inside the lean-to behind him. Turning, Monk glanced through the rag half-hanging on the window, and by the bright light of the moon he saw Porkchop's naked body standing next to the bed. He was gripping Mary Crandall around the bare waist and easing her up and down on his phallus. Mary Crandall clung onto Porkchop's neck as he held her in midair. She was squeezing against his driving hips, trying to achieve the maximum sensations from his rapidly moving body.

Smiling disdainfully, Monk turned away from the 190.

window. The sight both amused and sickened him. He laughed at the way in which the white woman no longer showed any signs of fright. She was completely giving herself to Porkchop. She probably had never had such a thrilling experience before in her life. But Monk was repelled when he thought how he himself had satisfied Claudia Tucker in such a way-only to be threatened later with castration.

Looking up at the sky, Monk wondered if he ever could escape from this tyranny.

12.The Patrimony ofDragonard

On the next few days following the funeral, Melissa noticed that Peter was acting strangely, avoiding contact with both her and her father; even when Storky or Nero tried to talk to him, Peter shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Melissa finally confronted Peter on the third day after the funeral. She approached him when she saw him sitting in the parlor staring at his feet. She asked, "What's wrong, Peter? Was it that big a shock?"

He looked at her, his bright-blue eyes glaring out from under the fringe of black hair that had tumbled over his forehead. He snapped, "What do you mean?"

"About Mother!" Melissa answered with equal spark. After the funeral Melissa had quickly gathered her wits about her again and now was back into a schedule of work.

Although Melissa spent little time applying creams to her face or curling her hair with hot irons, she had a natural comeliness that fed on fresh country air, good sleep, and hard work. Melissa's hah- had become more sandy than it had been when she was fifteen, but she still wore it tied at the nape of her neck in a ribbon. She had the common sense to make the bow smaller than in her girlhood, though, and she dressed plainly now to suit her chores around the house.

Melissa had learned to work in the kitchen beside Storky, and in order not to be pressured by the bossy Ashanti woman, Melissa had developed a mettle of her own, a single-mindedness not usually found in young Southern ladies, even in this territorial wilderness.

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But Melissa was not dogmatic and overbearing around the house like her mother had been. She was just firm when she had to be, and now, seeing Peter in such a feckless state, she decided that this was one of the moments to take things in hand. Sitting down beside him on the sofa, she said, "Peter, please! If there's anything you want to talk about, let's talk.

Looking away from her, he said, "No! If I talk, I want to talk to your father."

"Then talk to him. He's only in there!" she said, pointing toward the closed door of Selby's study.

"I will. I will. Don't worry."

But having had enough of his peevishness, Melissa gathered the skirt of her black-muslin dress, saying, "Well, you better talk while you can. You know how much time Father has to spend now with Judge Antrobus straightening out Mother's papers." Rising from the sofa, she walked quickly to the door of her father's study, and rapping sharply, she called, "Father! Peter wants to talk to you."

Seiby called from behind the closed door, "Send him in. Send him in."

Melissa opened the door, and turning to Peter, she said, "And don't come out till you're smiling."

He glared at her from the sofa.

But Melissa was determined. As she walked away from the open door, she said, "It can't be all that bad." Then she disappeared.

Peter now had no choice. Slowly rising to his feet, he ran his fingers through his rumpled hair, quickly trying to decide now how he was going to break the subject of Dragonard to Selby.

Slowly, with his head bent, Peter entered the study.

Selby was seated at his rolltop desk against the far wall, and pointing to the chair next to him without looking up, he said, "Come in and let's hear what you have to say, Sonny."

Closing the door, Peter shuffled over to stand beside Selby's desk.

Fumbling with papers, still not turning to look at Peter, Selby asked flippantly, "Tired of sitting, Sonny?"

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Peter blurted, "I'm tired of living a lie!"

"Then sit down and tell me about it." Selby showed no alarm.

Peter shouted, "Maybe you better tell me about it. Maybe you better tell me how 1 got here. Maybe you better tell me exactly who Ta-Ta is. Is it true that my real mother left her house in St. Kitts because my real father drove her away? Is it true my real name is Abdee? I've been hearing things that seem to have some kind of connection to me! And I've been wondering if somebody's keeping something from me! What don't I know? What don't I know?" His face was red with anger.

Selby's swivel chair creaked as he turned to look at Peter. His voice remained calm as he said, "Sonny, I think you better take a load off your feet and tell me exactly what you've heard."