"Do what she says," Chad gruffed. "Have a good look, too. Just don't stick your head out the door and say, 'Nobody, master, sir.' Have a real look."

Claudia and Chad Tucker both waited for Monk to leave before continuing their discussion about burying the money.

The sack of money was slowly becoming an obsession to them.

Peter lay on his back on a mossy patch near a tinkling stream, staring up at the stars and wondering what the skies looked like in St. Kitts at night. He was thinking of sugar crops and the harvests and food. What did people eat hi the Caribbean?

Suddenly hearing a noise come from the bushes, he sat up and called into the night, "Who's there?"

No one answered.

He called louder, "Who's there?"

Then, as Peter looked in the direction of the noise, he saw a dark figure emerge from the bushes, the curving silhouette of a female dressed in a short white smock. It was a wench from Niggertown.

"What are you doing out at night?" Peter called sharply at the black girl.

Coming closer to him, she said, "Cooling down."

"It's not hot tonight. And besides, you're supposed to be inside at this tune." He did not like reminding the black people about what they could and could not do, but at this moment he wanted to be alone.

Persistent, the girl said, "It sure seems warm to me, Master Peter, sir."

Like a stranger, he asked, "How do you know who I am?"

When the black girl did not answer him, he asked, "What do they call you?"

"Lilly, Master Peter, sir. I sees you around a lot."

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Standing beside him now, she asked, "Can I sits, Master Peter, sir?"

"Suit yourself."

Slowly sinking to the ground beside him, she said, "It's mossy here, ain't it? Nice and soft and mossy, but kind of damp, too, ain't it, Master Peter, sir?"

"I thought you said you were warm," Peter said, turning to look more closely at her now. She sat so close to him that he could see each small twist of the tiny plaits that covered her head like a series of thick lines of indigo ink. Her eyes were large and heavily lashed. Her cheekbones were high, and the moistness of her full lips shone in the dark. The skin on her long neck looked satin-soft to Peter, and because of the way in which she had pulled the white smock up above her knees, he could see that her legs were well-shaped and textured with the same fine skin.

As if knowing that she was attractive to him, she boldly reached for his forearm, and beginning to stroke him with her hand, she said, "Why don't you just leans back, Master Peter, and keeps enjoying the night."

Peter was caught between desires. He wanted his privacy, yet he felt a growing excitement for this girl. He asked, "Lie back? I thought you said it was wet?"

"Here," she said, quickly kneeling and pulling the white smock over her head. Laying it on the moss for him like a blanket, she said, "Lays on that, MasterPeter, sir."

Peter sat staring at her, looking in disbelief how she was kneeling-entirely naked-next to him on the ground.

Lilly rested her hands on the full curve of her hips and arched her back at him so that he could see the tautness of her breasts. He saw how her chocolate-brown nipples spread into a lighter smoothness.

"Go on," she coaxed, "lay back, Master Peter."

Obediently, Peter sank back onto the girl's smock. Then, lying with his hands behind his neck, he watched as she scrambled to sit facing forward on his legs. She held the heel of one boot in both hands between her knees and called, "Put your other foot on me and push!"

In no time at all. Lilly had pulled off both of his 202.

boots, his socks, lowered his trousers, his small clothes, and' had gently unbuttoned his shirt. And, still not letting him lift himself from the ground, she crouched over his midsection and reached down with both hands to grasp his phallus. Indirectly, she had prepared that, too.

Peter felt more than excitement and warmth in the girl. He was receiving a security from her, from this unexpected meeting-tonight, of all nights. His sexual proclivities in the past had been modest, true, but tonight he felt a special need for this closeness. He had lain with black girls before, but this girl was giving him a sensation that he had never felt before, a complete abandonment of the body. Or did that feeling come only from within himself, his mood tonight?

Slowing her rhythmic dips, she asked, "You about ready to pop, ain't you, Master Peter?"

"Why?" He had never before heard a wench ask such a direct question.

"I just knows," she said, as she eased herself down onto Peter's hardness, and holding him inside, lay on her side and said, "Roll on top of me now. You holds it longer that way."

Without questioning her, Peter obeyed, continuing his deep thrusts into her.

She said, "Drives in nice and slow and deep, and it's good for us both."

But regardless of her coaching, Peter felt his excitement increase, and when he felt an explosion building inside him, he quickly pulled out of the girl, letting himself spill all over her stomach.

Raising herself on her elbows, Lilly gasped, "Why you do that?"

"But you might have a baby." His statement was true, he knew, that being his practice from the past, But, tonight of all nights, he was particularly conscious of the fact of insemination. He was already thinking of his father, of Monk, of white men and their black wenches.

Lilly lay back down on her smock and started to laugh at Peter. Her laugh was loud and piercing, sounding like a mockery to him. Next, she reached to a bush 203.

near her head, and ripping off a handful of leaves, began to wipe the thick white puddle from her bare stomach. She said, "Well, that's okay, Master Peter. But we tries again, and you stays inside me. I have your sucker if it happens. But we tries again, because, Master Peter, you hung just like a nigger. Yes, you the first white nigger I ever sees!"

Peter froze. He had heard those words before. A "white nigger." Those were the words that Nero had told him in his story, the phrasing of a black woman talking about his father. The woman called Naomi had said that about Richard Abdee, that he was a "white nigger."

So that was what it meant. To be a "white nigger" meant to have large endowments. Peter asked himself: Are distinctions between men really that base?

Puffing his shirt over his naked body, Peter told Lilly to go. He ordered her to pick up her dress from the ground and leave him alone.

Then, standing with his back to her, he shook the last few drops of seed from the head of his penis, his only patrimony of Dragonard.

Monk had not found anyone lurking in the yard around the Tuckers' cabin. But when he had looked farther-as Tucker had told him to do-be saw Peter and Lilly.

Monk still stood in the bushes and held his hand over the hard bulge in his pants. He had been watching Peter and Lilly making love on the ground.

He had heard Lilly jeering at Peter for pulling out of her before he shot. His eyes had followed Lilly as she covered her body with the shift, and then he had seen Peter shaking the thick white tears from his penis.

The sight of Lilly's firm body had aroused Monk. He had become erect watching her giving pleasure to Peter. It was different from when he had watched Mary Crandall and Porkchop. Lilly excited Monk, but he fought the urge to explode with his hand.

Monk had never made love with Lilly, but he had seen her in Niggertown. He wanted to lay her more than 204.

any other wench, but he did not want her this way; he did not want to shoot his excitement by watching her twisting7and squeezing with a white man.

Monk hated Peter for having the one girl on the Star that he truly wanted. Monk hated Peter for not giving Lilly his come. Monk felt that thick white come was the highest praise that a man could give a woman. Denying a woman that load was to humiliate her.

Peter was a damned fool, Monk thought.

But most of all, Monk hated himself. He had let himself lose his spirit and ambition.

Why could he not have this girl? Did he need Tucker's permission to screw with Lilly?

Standing in the bushes, Monk began to see a new life for himself. Monk had been broken. The Tuckers had broken him. But now Monk saw that he must fight and cheat and lie to get what he wanted on the Star. And one of those things he wanted was Lilly.

13.The Scavenger's Daughter

Six weeks had passed since Rachel Selby's funeral. In those six weeks Albert Selby had continued to visit the Dewitt place. He thought that it would be hypocritical of him to stay away from his true friends.

Charlotte Dewitt had approached Selby in those six weeks about a very curious matter. She trusted her friendship with Albert Selby even to talk to him about "the scavenger's daughter."

Making it clear that she did not want it for the Dewitt place, Charlotte asked, "Am I right in thinking that you have a scavenger's daughter on the Star?"

Albert Selby and Charlotte Dewitt were sitting side-by-side on the edge of the bed in the Rose Room. Selby was preparing to leave for home. It took him a moment to realize what she meant by "the scavenger's daughter."

He suddenly said, "The torture machine. That thing that looks like big iron sugar tongs."

Charlotte shrugged her thin shoulders, continuing to repin the coronet of braids around her head. "I don't know what it looks like. I just know that it's called 'the scavenger's daughter.'"

"That's what some men call it. But I call it the sugar tongs. That's what it looks like to me. Sugar tongs. But big enough to clamp a man in it."

"You have one on the Star?"

"There used to be one there. It belonged to that old cuss Peregrine Roland. He bought it from England when 207.

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he first started keeping slaves here. He used it for punishing them. I remember it has 'Liverpool' stamped on it. That's where they made them."

"Would you be willing to part with it?"

"Now, what would a little lady like you want with a thing like that?"

"Don't misunderstand. It's not for me, Albert. But there's a certain man nearabouts who doesn't want to approach you personally to buy it."

"Why the hell not?"

She shrugged again. "I suppose for the simple reason he's not. . ." She searched for the correct words. "He's only a farmer."

"A farmer? Does he come here?"

"Oh, no, no, no. He's not one of our guests. Mercy, no. But I promise you, Albert, he approached me most discreetly and gentlemanlike. And he asked if I would put the proposition to you. He said he's willing to pay as high as fifty dollars for it."

"Fifty dollars? For that old rusty thing? Who is this farmer?"

"Don't press me, Albert. Please. That was one of his stipulations. But he assured me that if you do find out someday who he is, you'll understand his reason for wanting it."

Selby, sat on the edge of the bed, shaking his head. "The scavenger's daughter. 1 plumb forgot about it being on the Star. Sure, I'll sell it to him. And I'll tell you what, Charlotte. You can keep any money you get for it. Buy yourself a fancy new dress."

"Albert, no!" she protested.

"I insist. Or I won't sell it."

Charlotte Dewitt finally agreed to accept the money for a new dress, and the next day Albert Selby delivered the scavenger's daughter to the Dewitt place.

Selby then more fully explained that the scavenger's daughter was the opposite of a rack. It pushed a body together instead of pulling it. A person's legs were pressed up to his stomach, his hands clenched in front of his chest, the head pulled forward by an iron neckband. A body could be pulled tighter and tighter into a ball when pressure was applied. A man's bones could 209.

be broken by total compression of the screws. And, as that was happening, blood spurted from his mouth and nostrils, as well as from the ends of his fingers and toes, and his chest also burst.

Standing alone, though, the scavenger's daughter looked harmless. It looked, as Selby had described it, like a big pair of iron sugar tongs-but with an iron collar for the neck, one grip for the hands, and two grips for the ankles at the end of each "tong."

The buyer of the scavenger's daughter remained anonymous for the moment.

In those last six weeks since Rachel Selby's funeral, Peter had not spent any mornings-or afternoons or nights-in the stables.

Since he had been sixteen, Peter had taken his wenches to the hayloft there for pestering. But he had not even been doing that lately. He had been avoiding Nero.

This late morning, when Peter was leading his mare out from the stall for an overdue ride, Nero called to him, "Ain't heard you pestering no wenches at night lately, Master Peter."

Nero was trying to follow the advice that Albert Selby had given him a few weeks ago. Selby had told Nero the complication of the Dragonard story, and he had suggested to Nero that he should try to forget about Peter's connection with it. To act natural with Peter and pretend as if nothing had happened. Nero had said that he was not very good at pretending, but promised Selby that he would try. He liked Peter.

"I've been taking it easy." The clipped tone of Peter's voice did not invite conversation.

But Nero persisted, keeping his voice light and friendly. "Ain't gone and caught yourself the pox, have you?"

"Wouldn't know what it felt like if I did."

"Your pecker stings when you piss, that's what!"

The mention of venereal symptoms made Peter alert, not that he had been feeling a stinging sensation when he urinated, but because he had never heard any such diagnosis before. He asked, "You had the pox, Nero?"

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"Not me, Master Peter. But I knows. You must remember me telling you I worked for Mistress Naomi."

Peter's head dropped. "Oh, yeah. That." He turned to go, the horse following behind him without its harnessing.

"Master Peter?" Nero's voice was firm, no fawning voice of a black slave.