Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [257]
“Massa don’t fear no man in de cockpit,” Uncle Mingo told him one night. “Fact, he love to match up ’gainst dem real rich massas dat can ’ford dem flocks o’ much as a thousand birds so dey can pick out maybe dey bes’ hundred to fight wid ever’ year. You see we ain’t got no great big flock, but massa still win plenty bettin’ ’gainst dem rich ones. Dey don’t like it cause he done come up in de world from startin’ out as a po’ cracker. But wid ’nough real fine birds an’ ’nough luck, massa could git to be jes’ big an rich as dey is—” Uncle Mingo squinted at George. “You hear me, boy? Whole lots of peoples ain’t realize how much money can be winned in cock fightin’. I knows one thing, if somebody was to offer me a hunnud-acre cotton or tobacco field, or a real good fightin’ cock, I take de bird every time. Dat’s how massa feel, too. Dat’s how come he ain’t put his money in no whole big lot of land or ownin’ no big passel o’ niggers.”
By the time George turned fourteen, he began his Sundays off by visiting with his slave-row family, which he felt included Miss Malizy, Sister Sarah, and Uncle Pompey no less than his own mammy. Even after all this time, he would have to reassure her that he harbored no ill will over the way she told him about his father. But he still thought a lot about his pappy, though he never discussed it with anyone, least of all the massa. Everyone on slave row by now was openly awed by his new status, though they tried to seem as if they weren’t.
“I diapered yo’ messy behind, an’ you jes’ let me catch you puttin’ on any airs, I still beat it in a minute!” exclaimed Sister Sarah with affectionate mock ferocity one Sunday morning.
George grinned. “No’m, Sister Sarah, ain’t got no airs.”
But they were all consumed with curiosity about the mysterious things that took place down in the forbidden area where he lived with the gamecocks. George told them only things of a routine nature. He said he had seen gamecocks kill a rat, drive off a cat, even attack a fox. But the gamehens could be as bad-tempered as the roosters, he told them, and sometimes even crowed like the roosters. He said that the massa was vigilant against trespassers because of the high prices one could get for even the stolen eggs of championship birds, not to mention for the birds themselves, which thieves could easily take into another state and sell—or even fight as their own. When George said that Uncle Mingo had spoken of as much as three thousand dollars having been paid for one bird by the very rich gamecocking Massa Jewett, Miss Malizy exclaimed, “Lawd, could o’ bought three-four niggers for less’n dat chicken!”
After he had talked with them at length, George would begin to grow restless and fidgety by early Sunday afternoon. And soon he would go hurrying back down the sandy road to his chickens. Slowing down as he passed their pens along the road, he would pluck fresh tender green grass, drop a handful into each one, and sometimes stand awhile, enjoying the stags’ contented gluck, gluck, gluck as they gobbled it down. About a year old now, they were maturing into glossy full feather, with fire in their eyes, and entering a stage of sudden explosive crowing and vicious flurrying efforts to get at each other. “De quicker de better we gits ’em out to de rangewalks to start matin’!” Uncle Mingo had said not long ago.
George knew that would happen when the fully matured roosters already out on the rangewalks would be brought in to be conditioned and trained for the coming cockfighting season.
After visiting with the stags, George would usually spend the rest of