Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [268]
“How long all dat take?” asked George, realizing as soon as he had said it what a foolish question it was, and Uncle Mingo’s quick look at him affirmed the opinion.
“Well, I sho’ ain’t got no answer to dat!” George fell silent, deciding not to tell Uncle Mingo his idea until things had returned to normal with Massa Lea.
In the course of the next couple of months, Massa Lea gradually did begin to act more or less like his old self—surly, most of the time, but not dangerous. And one day soon afterward George decided that the time was right.
“Uncle Mingo, I been studyin’ a long time on sump’n—” he began. “I b’lieves I got a idea might help massa’s birds win mo’ fights dan dey does.” Mingo looked as if some special form of insanity had struck his strapping seventeen-year-old assistant, who continued talking. “I been five years gwine to de big chicken fights wid y’all. Reckon two seasons back, I commence noticin’ sump’n I been watchin’ real close every since. Seem like every different gamecocker massa’s set o’ birds got dey own fightin’ style—” Scuffing the toe of one brogan against the other, George avoided looking at the man who had been training gamefowl since long before he was born. “We trains massa’s birds to be real strong, wid real long wind, to win a lot dey fights jes’ by outlastin’ de other birds. But I done kept a count—de mos’ times we loses is when some bird flies up over massa’s bird an’ gaffs ’im from de top, gin’ly in de head. Uncle Mingo, I b’lieves if ’n massa’s birds got stronger wings, like I b’lieves we could give ’em wid whole lot o’ special wing exercise, I b’lieves dey’d gin’ly fly higher’n other birds, an’ kill even mo’ dan dey does now.”
Beneath his wrinkled brow; Mingo’s deep-set eyes searched the grass between George’s and his own shoes. It was awhile before he spoke. “I sees what you means. I b’lieves you needs to tell massa.”
“If you feels so, cain’t you tell him?”
“Naw. You thunk it up. Massa hear it from you good as me.”
George felt an immense sense of relief that at least Uncle Mingo didn’t laugh at the idea, but lying awake on his narrow cornshuck mattress that night, George felt uneasy and afraid about telling Massa Lea.
Bracing himself on Monday morning when the massa appeared, George took a deep breath and repeated almost calmly what he had said to Uncle Mingo, and he added more detail about different gameflocks’ characteristic fighting styles “—An’ when you notices, Massa, dem birds o’ Massa Graham’s fights in a fast, feisty way. But Massa MacGregor’s birds fights real cautious an’ wary-like. Or Cap’n Peabody’s strikes wid dey feets an’ spurs close together, but Massa Howaid’s scissors wid dey legs pretty wide apart. Dat rich Massa Jewett’s birds, dey gin’ly fights low in de air, an’ dey pecks hard when dey’s on de groun’, an’ any bird dey catches a good beakhold o’ jes’ liable to git gaffed right dere—” Avoiding the massa’s face, George missed his intensely attentive expression. “Reckon what I’se trying’ to say, Massa, if you ’grees wid me an’ Uncle Mingo givin’ yo’ birds some whole lotsa strong wing exercisin’ dat we oughta be able to figger out, seem like dat help ’em to fly up higher’n de res’ to gaff ’em from on top, an’ speck nobody wouldn’t quick catch on.”
Massa Lea was staring at George as if he had never seen him before.
In the months that remained before the next cockfighting season, Massa Lea spent more time than ever before in the gamefowl training area, observing and sometimes even joining Uncle Mingo and George as they tossed gamecocks higher and higher into the air. Descending with a frantic flapping of their wings, trying to support their five-to-six-pound weights, their wings grew steadily stronger.
As George had prophesied, the 1823 cockfighting season opened and progressed through one after another “main” contest, with no one seeming to detect how-or-why the Lea birds were managing to win an even higher percentage