Claudia Tucker, every black woman in the world was a goddess.

Driving into her, Monk continued to taunt, "Sure, she's a nigger whore. She's the blackest one I ever seen. The biggest, hottest wench I ever screwed. A big, hot, stinking nigger wench, ain't you, whore? Oooh, feel her pumping crazy for my cock. Feel her getting excited. Feel her getting all excited in that stinking pussy of hers. This nigger wench is getting crazier and crazier excited, ain't you? Ain't you a nigger wench?"

Curiously, Claudia Tucker, too, was being worked up to an excitement by acting the role of a black woman, and she soon began to repeat the words with which Monk was taunting her. She repeated, "Yes. Yes, boy. Yes, I'm nothing but your wench. I'm nothing but your black slave wench. I'm your nigger bitch, Monk, I'm your nigger bitch." She had forgotten about her sickness and her months of abstinence.

"What kind of wench are you?" Monk demanded, staring down at her, his hips driving against her.

"I'm your nigger wench," Claudia panted. "I'm nothing but your no-good nigger wench."

Standing above them, Tucker shouted, "Flip the bitch over on her side. Flip her over on her side." Kneeling to the ground then, he grabbed one of Claudia's fleshy buttocks and began to finger her anus. And with a grunt-and no goose fat-he rammed himself into her.

Claudia screamed, both with excitement and pain, excitement for having Monk controlling her and pain from her husband's blunt jab.

But a second scream shrilled from the trees.

There was a loud screeching behind them, and suddenly a white vision burst out from the dark as the long, greasy coil of a bullwhip curled sharply around Tucker, Claudia, and Monk.

It was Mama Gomorrah.

Bringing the whip back over her shoulder, Mama Gomorrah let it fly at them again as she shrieked, "The sin! The sin!"

But when Mama Gomorrah brought back the whip for a third lash, carrying out a duty ^commissioned to 252.

her by an angel, she realized what she had really discovered.

Mama Gomorrah was a Negro. She could not whip white people. Especially not the Star's overseer and his wife.

Staring at Chad and Claudia Tucker lying on the ground, Mama Gomorrah gasped, "The white-trash ones!"

She turned and ran through the woods calling, "Master Selby, sir! Master Selby!"

When Albert Selby had heard Mama Gomorrah's story last night, and also when he repeated it this next morning to Peter by the stables after breakfast, he confessed, "I always wondered what those folks did in Gomorrah, and now I know. Same as in Sodom. But with a little extra happening up front."

Unlike with his blood son, Roland, Albert Selby could speak freely and openly to Peter about such things, however distasteful they might be. As they stood in the sunshine in the stableyard, Selby asked, "Sonny, I krrow of men buggering one another, too, and I know that thafs also called sodomy, like with a man and a woman. But what do you think is Gom . . ." Selby paused, scratching his goatee, thinking of what the descriptive word might be. "What do you think just the men sinners of Gomorrah did? Do you think one got buggered while another gobbled at his pecker? Things like that do happen, you know," he said, thinking quickly of some of the men about whom he had heard rumors at the Dewitt place.

Peter preferred to be more practical, less theoretical, about the report. He asked, "Do you think we can take Mama Gomorrah's word about what she found the Tuckers doing in the bushes?"

Selby answered point-blank, "What does it matter?"

Peter looked at Selby. Was he in for a surprise from his father-in-law?

Selby said, "This gives us the chance we've been waiting for, Sonny. I've been lenient with that son-of-a-bitch Tucker for long enough. We need him around 253.

here like we need a cattle disease. Now's my chance to get rid of him."

Peter asked, "What do we do about Monk?"

"I think he might pull himself together after Tucker gets out. The man's been a bad influence on that boy ever since he was first sent there. I should've done something about that before now, too."

Peter insisted on being practical. "Who's going to be overseer?"

"Offhand, I'd say we don't need one. You do most of the work around here. But at milling tune we need somebody in the fields. We need a go-between, too, riding from here to the mill in Troy when harvesting really gets hopping. And that's usually the overseer." He shook his head, thinking. "Yes, that puzzles me. Who are we going to get to take Tucker's place?"

"Have you ever thought about a black man?"

"Monk?"

"No. And to be honest, I didn't even give Monk a thought. Funny, too, us being brothers."

Selby did not want to hear Peter say any more on that subject. He asked, "Who were you thinking about, then, Sonny?"

Nodding toward the stables behind them, Peter answered, "Nero."

Selby pulled at Ms goatee, pondering the suggestion. "Not a bad idea, Sonny. It might raise a few eyebrows around here in the neighborhood, having a nigger overseer on the place, but who cares about that? Do you?"

Peter shook his head. "But don't mention anything about this to Nero. First, let me go down to the Tuckers'."

Selby wrinkled his shaggy eyebrows. "Are you going to break the bad news to Tucker?"

''Why not?" Peter asked honestly. "If you wanted to do it, you'd've done it a long time ago."

Selby nodded. "I hate causing an upset."

"Well, I don't. Not when it's to men like Tucker. In fact, I'm looking forward to this visit to Tucker."

"Good. Then I can get on my way. over to Troy to meet Doc Riesen's coach."

254.

Peter's face suddenly dropped. He had completely forgotten that today was the day that the doctor was coming from New Orleans.

Albert Selby had convinced Melissa that he should bring a doctor to the Star for her second pregnancy. In fact, Melissa had been too frail to argue with her father. Every day saw her weakening.

Sensing Peter's concern, Selby said, "Nothing to worry about, Sonny. Just think it's time we start acting like quality folk around here. Can't have niggers bringing all your kids into the world."

"Don't you say anything about Storky!" Peter was trying to pick up Selby's attempt for cheerfulness. They both were worried about Melissa.

Forcing a laugh, Selby said, "Oh, that Storky! I'd rather have a wrestle with a polecat than get tangled with her!" Then, turning, he called over his shoulder to Peter, "Take that whip with you from inside the door of the stable. You might have to use it on Tucker, to finish up the job from last night"

Both men waved good-bye.

The stable was empty, and as Peter saddled and mounted his horse, he tried to put Melissa out of his mind for the moment. He had to complete this job of finally getting rid of Tucker. It would be one more step forward for the Star-Dragonard Hill-and his own family.

Peter had never had any formal confrontations with Tucker, but he always had been able to tell by the brawny man's smirking attitude that he thought Peter was incompetent, not experienced enough to run a plantation; in fact, a sissy. Peter had seen, too, that Tucker's bullying ideas had influenced what Monk had come to think of him over the years. Peter had no intention of telling Monk that they had the same father. He thought such an action should wait.

Peter tied his mare to the chinaberry in front of the Tuckers' cabin and rapped lightly on the plank door. Inside, he heard Claudia call, "Chad! Chad! Think you better come here quick!"

Next, Peter heard the shuffling of boots across the dirt 255.

floor, and then the plank door opened. Tucker towered in the doorway, unshaven, wearing no shirt, only his soiled breeches and boots. Peter could see no lash welts on Tucker's shoulders or chest, but then, his body was covered with a dense growth of black hair.

Peter began, "I would like to have a word with you, Mr. Tucker." He realized now, talking to Tucker, that he was not really that much bigger than himself. Tucker's stockiness and brutish attitude only made him seem bigger than Peter.

Looking at Peter with narrow eyes, Tucker said, "Thought it might be Selby ... I thought it might be Mr. Selby coming down. I thought he would be the one to notice I ain't been seeing to those hoemen this morning."

"Mr. Selby has other business this morning," Peter said.

Tucker snapped, "And so do Oaudie and me! We've got us a sick nigger on our hands! We got us a nigger pretty well whipped up last night. We found his laying in front of the house, and we dragged him out back to tend him. That crazy old coot, Mama What's-her-name, she turned crazy last night, the nigger tells us, and she really lets this particular nigger have a taste of her snake. I don't understand why that old wench is even allowed to have a whip in the first place! Especially when the overseer himself can only use"-he spat-"the hornet."

Qaudia grunted her agreement from the darkness of the shack behind Tucker.

Peter answered, "Yes, I heard about that little commotion last night." Then, looking past Tucker, trying to see in the dark cabin, he asked, "Is your patient better now?"

"Not much," Tucker grunted. "But my missus here, Mrs. Tucker, she being so handy with medicines and ointments and such, she was able to see to a few of those nasty welts on that poor critter's back."

Behind him, Qaudia said, "During my ague, I learned myself doctoring."

Peter said politely, "You're better now, Mrs. Tucker, I hope."

She sniffed. "Not much."

256.

Peter said, "Well, it's best the sick man isn't here right now. I want to talk to you alone, Mr. Tucker."

"About what?"

Peter held Tucker's gaze, saying, "You see, Mr. Selby and I have both agreed that we can't afford your services anymore at the Star."

"What do you mean?" Tucker asked.

"That we have to ask you to leave."

"Leave? You're kicking me out?"

"You can't kick us out!" Qaudia said behind him.

"Shut up, you," Tucker shouted to his wife; then, turning back to Peter, he continued, "What you kicking me out for? My work? That what's not pleasing you?"

"I said that we agreed that we can't 'afford' you. Please, Mr. Tucker, I know you're a gentleman. Let's leave it at that."

Tucker swelled with anger. " 'Course, I'm a gentleman. I'm white, ain't I? White as you are. And I ain't going to have no crazy old nigger wench going around the place accusing me of wrongdoing, neither!"

"Sinning!" Qaudia shrieked behind him. "Accusing good decent folks like us of sinning. It's shocking the things what that crazy old nigger woman calls us! Shocking! She should be whipped herself!"

"I thought I told you to keep out of this," Tucker shouted at his wife.

Then, facing Peter, he continued, "And affording me is not good enough reason to tell me to go. There's something else to this, so say it!"

Peter held his ground. "I'm afraid that you're going to have to accept that as the reason, Mr. Tucker. Whether you're willing to recognize it or not, I do know this place, if not as well as you, then nearly as well, and I say that we ... cannot... afford ... you!"

"You're going to take my place, aren't you?" Tucker laughed so loud and so near Peter's face that Peter could feel his hot breath blowing on him, "You're going to try to be overseer! Well, if that ain't a rich one! Har, bar, har!"

When Tucker had finished laughing, Peter said, "No, Mr. Tucker, I'm not taking your place. Mr. Selby and I are giving your job to Nero."

257.

Tucker quickly sobered. "To Nero? To that black groom of yours? A nigger?"

"A nigger?" Qaudia yelped. "A nigger taking my man's job?"

Tucker was too horrified by the prospect to reprimand his wife for speaking this time. He repeated her words, "A nigger? A nigger taking . . . my job?"

Peter nodded his head, saying, "Yes, Nero is being made overseer. But Mr. Selby and I realize that it will take you some time to settle into a new home. So we're allowing you one week to move all your belongings from here. To leave the Star."

"One week?"

"Leave our little home?" Qaudia cried.

Peter continued calmly, "Your wages will be up at the big house, Mr, Tucker, when you care to collect them." Then, nodding politely at both of them, he turned away, walking toward his horse.

When the sound of Peter's horse thundered away from the Tuckers' dirt yard, Monk rushed from the lean-to, shouting at Tucker, "A nigger? A nigger is taking your place? A nigger who's not even me?"

Tucker was still too dazed by the idea to listen to Monk. He muttered to himself, "A nigger. Taking away my job from me, and putting a nigger in it."

Holding onto her breasts, Claudia wailed, "And we have to be out of here in a week!"

Tucker turned on her. "I wouldn't stay in this dump a day longer, neither. This dump is not fit for a dog to live in. Just look at the dump they made us live in all these years. Made us live like niggers, so no wonder they're getting themselves a nigger to do their work.... A nigger. I've never heard the likes of it. A nigger. Getting my job?"

Still holding her breasts, Claudia said, "Thank God. Thank God for the money I saved away."

Tucker glared at her, then nodded in Monk's direction.

Looking at Monk, Ciaudia shook her head. She did not think that he had heard her slip of tongue.

But Monk had heard what Claudfa had said, as well 258.

as seen Tucker nod at him. But Monk was not worried about the money now. He knew where that was. He was more concerned about Nero-another black man- becoming the overseer of the whole plantation.

This jolt had even made Monk forget about running away from the Star.

17.Torch