Two hours had passed, and regardless of his exhaustion from the journey, Selby still was wide-awake. Lying on his feather mattress, he was feeling old and alone when, suddenly, he heard a soft rapping on his door. He feared that it was Rachel coming to abuse him about something that he might have done wrong. Then he heard a voice whisper anxiously, "Master Selby, sirl Master Selby!"

It was one of the servants.

59.

Selby did not chance bidding the servant to enter, but hopping out of bed, he hurried across the plank floor of his bedroom in his nightshirt and cautiously opened the door.

Seeing Mama Gomorrah standing in the dark hallway, he quickly looked up and down the hallway to make certain that Rachel was nowhere in sight, and beckoned the old Negress into his room.

Albert Selby received his second surprise tonight. Mama Gomorrah led a young child into the room behind her. It was the younger of the two boys whom Selby had bought at the auction.

Setting the child on a straight-back chair in the corner, Mama Gomorrah turned to Selby to tell him about her discovery.

Mama Gomorrah tugged at her earrings, the two small silver stars that dangled inside her wild mass of white hair, and began to explain how this child was not a black boy at all. He was a human, a white baby, and she had discovered this because of her silver-star earrings.

Ta-Ta had come from the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Her mistress had been a French lady. Ta-Ta spoke both English and French. The only contradiction between fact and what the auctioneer had promised was that one of the children was not of African ancestry, was not a slave.

The yellow-skinned boy had not been lying. His name was Monkey. He was the Negro of the pair. But the other child was a white baby. He was the son of a Frenchwoman. And Ta-Ta had only relinquished him from her arms when Mama Gomorrah had insisted that no human baby could spend the night in the slave quarters. She had to take him up to the big house.

Albert Selby began asking Mama Gomorrah precautionary questions. How was he to know that Ta-Ta was not being cunning? What proof did he have that this was not a clever ploy of Ta-Ta's to get her child out of slavery and raised as a white person? Many half-breeds passed easily for white people.' Selby also re- 60.minded Mama Gomorrah that it had been obvious that the smaller boy was Ta-Ta's favorite. She could quite easily be lying to help him.

Reaching into her shapeless white dress, Mama Gomorrah produced a rolled piece of parchment from between her sagging bosoms. Selby studied the document hi the low light from a lamp and saw that it was a birth certificate. It was signed by the captain of a French ship named the Therese. The document was dated two years earlier. There was no doubt about its authenticity.

Mama Gomorrah jigged now with excitement to continue telling Selby the story that had been sparked off by her pair of old silver earbobs.

Ta-Ta had known another Negress who wore the same kind of silver stars on her ears. She was a Negress who had been sold to a plantation on St. Kitts many years ago. She was a black woman noted for her cooking. She was called Sugar Loaf.

Selby nodded. He had sold a fat wench called Sugar Loaf to the West Indies. He did not usually sell his slaves, but he did remember a Frenchman who had offered him a phenomenally high price for a Negress who could cook. The Frenchman had wanted an American Negress who was not as familiar with voodoo as the West Indian Negroes. The Frenchman had feared that, through the cooking, the Negroes on his plantation would try to poison him. And one of the most important things that Selby remembered about that cook called Sugar Loaf, apart from her delicious meals, was that she had been sired at the Star in the days that the slaves' ears were still pierced. Sugar Loaf had been one of the last slaves here to receive the silver ear marks. The man who had bought her was certainly French, too. His name was . . . Selby could not remember his name. He would not be able to find it in his books, either, because he had never been good at keeping records. But he did remember that it had been a Frenchman from the West Indies who had bought Sugar Loaf.

Selby listened to Mama Gomorrah and learned that Ta-Ta's French mistress had been named Honore Jubiot. The name meant nothing to him. Mama Gomor- 61.

rah continued by saying that Ta-Ta had told her that Honore Jubiot had later married an Englishman. The Englishman's name was Richard Abdee, but according to Ta~Ta's story, Honore had been unable to live with her new husband. He was too evil. So, she gathered what valuables she could carry from the plantation and fled from St. Kitts two years ago. She had been pregnant at the time.

Honore Jubiot-or Abdee-set sail in 1789 in a French frigate for France, but as it was the height of the Revolution, the captain changed his course to the coast of east Florida hi the hopes of joining a convoy of stronger ships.

The Therese was still at sea when the first pains of labor struck Honore, and after a day and two nights of agony, she gave birth to a son. He was named Pierre, the son of Richard Abdee of Dragonard Plantation, St. Kitts.

The captain of the Therese had been kind to Madame Abdee and her entourage, and on landing in east Florida, had established them in the home of an American captain whom he trusted. They would have been happy there, living in the captain's home, paying for their lodging by occasionally selling a piece of faience taken by Honore from Dragonard.

But Honore had never recovered from her pregnancy. Before the next month had passed, she was overtaken by consumption and soon buried in the marshy ground of east Florida. Ta-Ta was left alone with two children, one who was hers, and the other the son of Honore and Richard Abdee.

Apart from the two children, Ta-Ta had also found herself burdened with the trunkfuls of treasures that Honore had managed to salvage from her home. Before then, Ta-Ta had borne no responsibility larger than counting how many strokes to brush her mistress's hair. Now she had to be resourceful. She had to begin by hiding as much of the Dragonard treasures as she could. Embarking on a long series of midnight forays into the swamps, Ta-Ta had carried bundles over her back- bags filled with silver and gold and precious stones- 62.and buried them in a secret place to the north of the captain's house.

On the last night of these surreptitious journeys, Ta-Ta had taken the yellow-skinned boy, Monkey, with her to help carry a heavy trunk. Rather than leave the baby alone in the house, she had wrapped him in a shawl and hung him from her back. She had successfully buried that last trunk of treasure and began to make her way back to the house with the two boys when she was seked.

Mama Gomorrah told Selby that Ta-Ta had not been able to continue too clearly past that point of her story. Ta-Ta was still suffering from the shock of the six men attacking her, a gang of slave traders who had spotted her and the two boys in the swamp that night.

The most degrading acts of indecency had been performed on Ta-Ta. The slave traders alternated in raping her and probing into her with blunt wooden objects. This brutality had lasted not only for that one night in the swamps, but all through the next day in the coastal village of Crabstone and the following night in a wayside tavern. Still keeping Ta-Ta as the object of their perversion, they finally spirited her and the two boys away from east Florida and took her in bondage to Louisiana.

Mama Gomorrah had not been able to pry the details of the sexual depravities from Ta-Ta. She was still trying to ease the pain of them in her mind. But Ta-Ta had told Mama Gomorrah that the slave traders finally sold her to a woman evangelist, who, in turn, sold Ta-Ta and the boys to Lynn and Craddock in New Orleans.

Selby listened patiently to the story, often having to stop Mama Gomorrah to make her wipe the saliva from her chin and speak more clearly. When she had finished, Selby sat looking at the birth certificate and then to the child who still sat on the straight-back chair in the corner, his small head drooping with fatigue. Selby said in a low voice, "You are to tell no one about this. Understand? You are to keep quiet, old woman."

Mama Gomorrah nodded vigorously. "Yes, Master Selby, sir. I tells no one."

63.Looking back at the slumped body of the boy, Selby continued, "You did right by bringing him to me."

"No human baby is meant to live with us niggers, Master Selby, sir."

SeJby shook his head, studying the tired boy. Such an arrangement would not be right.

"But what's we do with him now, master, sir?"

"Pierre. That means Peter," Selby said, as if thinking aloud.

Mama Gomorrah crouched on the floor in front of Selby, waiting for him to explain his plans. The light from the lamp nickered on her sharp face and made her white hair shine like dewy cotton.

Selby said, "He will stay here in the house."

"But what about . . . ?" Mama Gomorrah nodded toward Rachel Selby's room.

Selby answered, "Nobody has much choice. This boy stays here in the house with us." Looking at Mama Gomorrah, he said, "But not a word of this to anyone, you understand? Not even to Mrs. Selby. Let me explain this to her my way. You keep your big mouth shut, do you understand?"

She nodded.

"In the meantime, we'll move that Ta-Ta wench up here to the house, too. Storky can find work here for her. And you find some place for that yellow sprout."

"He's no trouble, Master Selby, sir. He's nigger to the gut-" Selby nodded, then let his eyes wander backVto the boy sitting on the chair, studying his delicate limbs, how his dark hair fell down to his smooth forehead, his long eyelashes fanned in sleep over his olive-colored skin.

Selby asked, "Did you wash him like I said?" Mama Gomorrah nodded again. "Wormed him and everything, master, sir. But seeing he's white, I ain't got no clothes proper to give him."

"Clothes are no problem. We can make clothes. The problem now . . ." Selby hesitated. "The problem now is where he's going to sleep. I know. You get one of my dress shirts from that chest over there. One of those 64.linen shirts. Put him in one of them. Roll up the sleeves so it fits. Rip them off if you have to. Just something to give him to sleep in for tonight."

Looking around the large bedroom, Mama Gomorrah saw only one bed. "Sleeps where, Master Selby, sir?"

Selby walked to the child, and gently reaching to him, he said, "You don't look too big, little fellow. I bet you don't kick, neither. How would you like to share my bed for a night?"

The child moved on the chair. Blinking sleepily up at Selby, he saw a face that was not going to harm him. He reached toward Selby with open hands.

Before Mama Gomorrah left the bedroom, Selby told her one more thing. He told her to remove her silver earrings and never to wear them again. He gave her no reason for doing this, but his sternness made her obey. They were to be buried with Ta-Ta's story.

After she had gone, Selby and Peter settled into the same bed. Peter's head sank into the soft pillow, and he immediately fell into a deep sleep.

An hour passed, and a soft flame still glowed on the bedside table. Selby remained awake. He had forgotten about the fatigue that he had felt earlier. He kept nesting pillows around Peter's small head, tucking the sheet under his chin when he threw it off in a bad dream, brushing the long silky hair from the boy's forehead when it threatened to cover his face.

Selby was happy now.

Chad Tucker had come back to his house, and he lay now with his wife in the small lean-to attached to thek cabin as a bedroom. He was still excited about selling two Negroes to Jack Grouse, and laughing about one of them being sick.

But Claudia Tucker did not share her husband's good mood. Not even the money from the sale made her happy. The moonlight shone through the rag hanging over the small window of the lean-to and lit a pouting expression on her chubby face. She said, "You go get yourself caught, Chad Tucker, and then whatll I do for a man?"

65.

"I won't get caught. We just keep that logbook here in the cabin with us, and nobody knows how many niggers are here."

Claudia twitched her snub nose. "You be careful."

Turning over on his side, making the corncob mattress crunch as he moved, Tucker said, "I feel real warm inside knowing you worry about me like that, honey."

Claudia lay motionless beside him. Her pencil-thin eyebrows slanted as she said, "I just don't know what I'd do if Selby finds out and sics the law onto you."

Tucker did not hear what she said. He was thinking again about selling Negroes from the Star. He whistled. "Seventy-five dollars! And another seventy-five in six months' time. And maybe even more if I find me some new buyers."

Oaudia sat bolt upright in bed, and pulling one of the arms of her nightgown back over her shoulder, she said, "You are just selling all the niggers right off this place, aren't you? You are just selling all the niggers, and pretty soon there's not going to be a good buck left in sight. If you're so set on selling niggers, why don't you sell off a few of those black bitches?"

"Aw, honey," Chad said, pulling her back down beside him. "Axe you still upset I sold that Cal buck tonight?"/" ~^ Claudia said sharply, "We had us good times with that Cal buck!"

"But Cal was getting sick, Claudie. Matter of fact, I thought he wasn't going to make it up to the road tonight. He was getting awful sick." Snuggling his hairy body around Claudia's softness, he said, "Don't worry. We'll get us a new buck."

In a weak voice she said, "But that Cal buck, he sure was hung big. I doubt if we can ever find us a buck hung as big as that Cal was."

"Hung big, Claudie, but the rest of him ain't too special."

"Hung real big," she insisted.

"Don't worry. We'll get us a new one."

"Hung as big as that Cal?"

"Hung bigger."

66."And not a lot of stinky old black skin hanging off the end of his pecker like lots of niggers have?"

Tucker agreed. "Not a lot of black skin. In fact, honey, if there is any skin, I'll hack it right off. Hack it right off with the butcher knife just to make you happy."

Turning toward her husband, Claudia asked, "And you'll teach him how to use the hornet. I don't like to be a pig and have everything myself. I loves you, Chad."

"Teach him anything your little heart desires," he said, letting his big hand find its way into the neck of her nightgown. He began to fondle her nipples and then pinched them until they were hard. He reached his other hand up the long skirt of the nightgown until he found the warmth between her plump legs. As he joined his fingers together into a large clump and began to move them in and out of the warmth, he teased, "Feel that new buck poking into your pretty? Feeling him coming to you already?"

"Feeling you in my pretty, Chad. Feeling you there, and"-she paused to think-"feeling you poking around in my pretty, and I'm ready to take our new buck in my mouth. I'm opening my mouth wide right now, and..."

The moonlight showed Claudia lying with her legs spread apart and her head resting on the pillow with her mouth open. The nightgown was bunched around her waist.

Chad lay on his side facing her. The hair on his broad shoulders and back glistened in the soft light like fur. As he kept moving his clenched fist in and out of her legs, he moved his other hand from her breasts and grabbed for his bull-like penis. He moved that hand back and forth now, too, causing his scrotum to slap against his hirsute thigh as he joined Claudia in her idea about a new black man. "That's the way, honey. You open your mouth big and wide for our new buck. Go on ... maybe you won't be able to take the new prick because it's so big."

Claudia began to breathe through her open mouth. "His big nuts are resting on my chin now, Chad. I feel them there."

"That's right. His nuts are pressing down on your 67.

pretty little chin while you're taking Mm in your mouth and I'm on top of you humping away. Feel me humping you hard?"

"I feels you humping me, Chad. You're humping me, and I'm sucking that new black pecker, and his nuts are pressing against my chin, and ..."

Chad Tucker now began driving his hips as he lay beside his wife, and protruding his wide buttocks, he said, "And that new buck's got the hornet in his other hand, ain't he, honey? Just like Cal used to do with the hornet."

"Just like Cal," she said. "Me sucking him and him paddling you with the hornet while you're driving your fat dick into me. Drive your fat dick into me, Chad. Drive your fat dick into me."

Together Chad and Claudia Tucker lay like this in the dark of the lean-to built onto their cabin as a bedroom, sharing a vision of the Negro who was to replace the slave sold tonight to Jack Grouse.

3.The Sting of the Hornet

The next morning, when Rachel Selby heard that one of the children her husband had brought home from New Orleans was a white boy, she said, "Then send him right back where he belongs!"

Albert and Rachel Selby were sitting alone at their breakfast in the dining room. Roland had gone to Troy for liniment, and Melissa was dragging Peter around the house like a doll.

Selby answered his wife, "I'm afraid we can't send the boy away, Rachel. We don't know where he belongs."

Ladling a spoonful of creamy mush into her mouth, swallowing it as if it were poisonous, then daintily dabbing her pale lips with a stiffly starched napkin, she said, "Then how do you know he's not just one of those light-skinned pickaninnies? What makes you so sure he's . . . white?" She grabbed for her cup of coffee.

"There are papers," Selby said with a taint of smugness. "There are legal papers."

"Papers? Then let's see those papers."

Selby looked down the length of the table at his wife. He said, forcing himself to be firm, "Rachel, I told you there are papers. I also told you the boy is white. Are you saying now that your knowledge of niggers is better than mine? If you are saying that, then there is no reason for me to go out to the fields anymore. I'll stay here in the house, and you can take charge of the field hands and the crops and the running of this place." He knew what he had said was not all true. He seldom went to the fields anymore, and he had 68.69.long ago lost interest in the actual running of the Star. But he did know that Rachel was terrified of the world outdoors and would rather die than to deal with the field hands. She was frightened of Negro males.

She argued stubbornly, "If that child is as white as you claim he is, why would a decent parent abandon him? Unless his parents aren't decent and he's . . ." She forced herself to continue. "Unless they were not even . . ." Her black eyes glared from under her ragged brows. ". . . not even joined in wedlock!"

"Could be, Rachel. Could be. I've heard of such things happening to white folks."

"Well, what does that make him?"

"Are you condemning a child? A human being not even grown yet, Rachel?"

She snapped, "Then what do you have to say about her? That wench you brought home for you daughter's companion?"

Selby answered calmly, "That Ta-Ta wench solves the problem about who takes care of the boy, doesn't she? The child will be no extra burden on you, and we can't truthfully say that we don't have room enough in the house for her, too."

Rachel threw her napkin down on the table. "You go all the way to New Orleans to find a companion for your daughter and then come back home with a slopper for somebody else's .. . illegitimate child! Albert Selby, I've never heard the likes of it."

Selby nodded his head toward the sound of Melissa playing with Peter in the adjoining parlor. He said, "Doesn't that mean anything to you? Just listen to little Melly laughing. I haven't heard her..."

Stopping, Selby looked at the two children as they came through the tasseled curtains hanging from the arch separating the two rooms. Melissa was leading Peter. He was already her new playmate and friend.