A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [88]
About THOSE women? January wanted to say but knew the man—the men, all of them—were actively spoiling for a fight. He managed the bow, but the grin was difficult. “I wasn’t thinkin’ nuthin’, sir, no sir,” he said, keeping his eyes down and reflecting that if he ended up in the Calabozo now, he was in serious trouble. There were those in the city guard who might decide his confession would be the shortest way out of everybody’s problems, and the thought of what they might do to obtain it turned him cold inside.
He backed from the Americans, stepping with all appearance of an accident into the stream of sewage down the middle of the street. Hating himself, furious, knowing he could pick his assailant up and heave him through the nearest shed wall and not daring to raise his hand, he mocked a little jump of surprise, looked down at his boots, and cried, “Oh, Lordy, now my master gonna wear me out, gettin’ my boots all nasty! Oh, Lordy …” He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and began to scrub at the filthy slop.
In contempt, the bearded man stepped forward and shoved him, throwing him full-length in the stream. January caught himself on his hands but rolled and sprawled, flinging up his legs to make the fall look worse than it was. He lay where he was, breathing hard, not daring to look up at the laughing circle of men who had gathered, knowing his eyes would betray him. It’s an alternative to being beaten, he repeated to himself. It’s an alternative to being hanged.
They moved on after a moment, whooping among themselves and shoving each other: “Lordy, Lordy, mah massa gwine wear me out.…”
He heard the whore’s voice, “You sure put it to that black buck, handsome,” and, a moment later, the ringing sound of a slap and the smack of her body into the doorjamb behind her.
“You keep your bitchy eyes where they belong, nigger.”
He got to his feet and moved on, as quietly and inconspicuously as he could. I will leave this place, he thought, his hair still prickling with anger that the only choice he had had was to let himself be struck, to degrade himself in order to get away. The world is wide …
… and contains nothing.
He shook away the old despair. At least most of the world doesn’t contain Kentucky swine with their bellies over their belts and no more reading than Livia’s cats have. A hundred and fifty dollars.
Provided, of course, that he survived this at all.
Past another row of cribs—only a few of which were open—he turned right down an alley, glancing behind him to make sure his erstwhile tormentors were not watching. A drunken Choctaw snored under a straggling cypress tree, naked as Adam without even a blanket to cover him. Someone had taken one of his moccasins, but evidently found it wanting—it had large holes in it—and discarded it in the weeds not far away. The other was still on the Indian’s foot.
Came into town with his loads of pelts or filé, thought January, and spent last night drinking up the profits. He bent, checked the man for signs of exposure, but he was sleeping peacefully. With a shrug, January passed on. In the yard behind the cribs a small group of men were gathered, watching a cockfight. Freed slaves, January guessed, or the men who bought a kind of quasi-freedom from their owners by the day or the week, seeking employment as laborers where they could and preferring whatever sheds and alleyways they could find to sleeping in the cramped slave quarters constantly overlooked by the windows of the whites. A ragged little girl was watching the alleyway—at the first sign of police, the men could disperse leaving nothing but a splattering of chicken blood on the ground.
Whoever had given Shaw the task of running these men down wanted to keep him very busy.
January crossed the yard. The kitchen lay to his right, empty save for a huge mulatto woman nursing a baby while she cooked a panful of grits at the stove. He glanced briefly through the door: the room was alive with roaches