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By Root 1454 0

he had fled across the last time, he headed toward what he knew was a wider, deeper forest on the other side. He had reached a ravine and was clambering up the far side on his belly when he heard the first sound of a movement in the distance. He lay still with his heart pounding as he heard heavy footfalls approaching and finally the hoarse voice of Samson cursing and shouting, “Toby! Toby!” Gripping a stout stick he had sharpened into a crude spear, Kunta felt strangely calm, almost numb, as his eyes coldly watched the bulky silhouette moving quickly this way and that in the brush at the top of the ravine. Something made him sense that Samson feared for himself if Kunta succeeded in getting away. Closer and closer he stalked—Kunta coiled tight but motionless as a stone—and then the moment came. Hurling the spear with all his might, he grunted slightly with the pain it caused and Samson, hearing him, sprang instantly to one side; it missed him by a hair.

Kunta tried to run, but the weakness of his ankles made him hardly able to keep upright, and when he whirled to fight, Samson was upon him, slamming with his greater weight behind each blow, until Kunta was driven to the earth. Hauling him back upward, Samson kept pounding, aiming only at his chest and belly, as Kunta tried to keep his body twisting as he gouged and bit and clawed. Then one massive blow sent him crashing down again, this time to stay. He couldn’t even move to defend himself any further.

Gasping for breath, Samson tied Kunta’s wrists tightly together with a rope, and then began jerking Kunta along by its free end, back toward the farm, kicking him savagely whenever he stumbled or faltered, and cursing him every step of the way.

It was all Kunta could do to keep staggering and lurching behind Samson. Dizzy from pain and exhaustion—and disgust with himself—he grimly anticipated the beatings he would receive when they reached his hut. But when they finally arrived—shortly before dawn—Samson only gave him another kick or two and then left him alone lying in a heap.

Kunta was so used up that he trembled. But with his teeth he began to gnash and tear at the fibers of the rope binding his wrists together, until his teeth hurt like flashes of fire. But the rope finally came apart just as the conch horn blew. Kunta lay weeping. He had failed again, and he prayed to Allah.

Through the days that followed, it was as if he and Samson shared some secret pact of hatred. Kunta knew how closely he was being watched; he knew that Samson was waiting for any excuse to hurt him in a manner the toubob would approve. Kunta responded by going through the motions of doing whatever work he was given to do as if nothing had happened—but even faster and more efficiently than before. He had noticed how the “oberseer” paid less attention to those who worked the hardest or did the most grinning. Kunta couldn’t bring himself to grin, but with grim satisfaction he noted that the more he sweated, the less often the lash fell across his back.

One evening after work, Kunta was passing near the barn when he spotted a thick iron wedge lying half concealed among some of the sawed sections of trees where the “oberseer” had two men splitting firewood. Glancing around quickly in all directions, and seeing no one watching, Kunta snatched up the wedge and, concealing it in his shirt, hurried to his hut. Using it to dig a hole in the hard dirt floor, he placed the wedge in the hole, packed the loose dirt back over it, then beat it down carefully with a rock until the floor looked completely undisturbed.

He spent a sleepless night worrying that a wedge discovered missing might cause all of the cabins to be searched. He felt better when there was no outcry the following day, but he still wasn’t sure just how he might employ the wedge to help himself escape, when that time came again.

What he really wanted to get his hands on was one of those long knives that the “oberseer” would issue to a few of the men each morning. But each evening he would see the “oberseer” demanding the knives back and counting