A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [114]
The town was thronged with people, horses, carts, and carriages, most of which must have come from the countryside all around. The women had new bonnets and ribbons, and the men wore polished boots and clean gloves. Many people’s clothes had a homemade look, even though the fabrics were costly. He overheard several people talking of races and betting odds. Virginians seemed keen on gambling.
The townspeople looked at the convicts with mild curiosity, the way they might have watched a horse canter along the street, a sight they had seen before but which continued to interest them.
The town petered out after half a mile. They waded across the river at a ford, then set off along a rough track through wooded countryside. Mack put himself next to the middle-aged Negro. “My name is Malachi McAsh,” he said. “They call me Mack.”
The man kept his eyes straight ahead but spoke in a friendly enough way. “I’m Kobe,” he said, pronouncing it to rhyme with Toby. “Kobe Tambala.”
“The fat man in the straw hat—does he own us now?”
“No. Bill Sowerby’s just the overseer. Him and me was told to go aboard the Rosebud and pick out the best field hands.”
“Who has bought us?”
“You ain’t exactly been bought.”
“What, then?”
“Mr. Jay Jamisson decided to keep you for hisself, to work on his own place, Mockjack Hall.”
“Jamisson!”
“That’s right.”
Mack was once again owned by the Jamisson family. The thought made him angry. Damn them to hell, I’ll run away again, he vowed. I will be my own man.
Kobe said: “What work did you do, before?”
“I used to be a coal miner.”
“Coal? I’ve heard tell of it. A rock that burns like wood, but hotter?”
“Aye. Trouble is, you have to go deep underground to find it. What about yourself?”
“My people were farmers in Africa. My father had a big piece of land, more than Mr. Jamisson.”
Mack was surprised: he had never thought of slaves as coming from rich families. “What kind of farm?”
“Mixed—wheat, some cattle—but no tobacco. We have a root called the yam grows out there. Never seen it here, though.”
“You speak English well.”
“I’ve been here nearly forty years.” A look of bitterness came over his face. “I was just a boy when they stole me.”
Peg and Cora were on Mack’s mind. “There were two people on the ship with me, a woman and a girl,” he said. “Will I be able to find out who bought them?”
Kobe gave a humorless laugh. “Everybody’s trying to find someone they were sold apart from. People ask around all the time. When slaves meet up, on the road or in the woods, that’s all they talk about.”
“The child’s name is Peg,” Mack persisted. “She’s only thirteen. She doesn’t have a mother or father.”
“When you’ve been bought, nobody has a mother or father.”
Kobe had given up, Mack realized. He had grown accustomed to his slavery and learned to live with it. He was bitter, but he had abandoned all hope of freedom. I swear I’ll never do that, Mack thought.
They walked about ten miles. It was slow, because the convicts were fettered. Some were still chained in pairs. Those whose partners had died on the voyage were hobbled, their ankles chained together so that they could walk but not run. None of them could go fast and they might have collapsed if they had tried, so weak were they from lying flat for eight weeks. The overseer, Sowerby, was on horseback, but he seemed in no hurry, and as he rode he sipped some kind of liquor from a flask.
The countryside was more like England than Scotland, and not as alien as Mack had anticipated. The road followed the rocky river, which wound through a lush forest. Mack wished he could lie in the shade of those big trees for a while.
He wondered how soon he would see the amazing Lizzie. He felt bitter about being the property of a Jamisson again, but her presence would be some consolation.