Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [275]
Then they were shaking hands. “Mr. Lea, I’ll be very frank, as one gentleman and gamecocker to another. I’ve recently lost my trainer. The road patrol stopped him without a pass the other night. Unfortunately, he tried to run and was shot, badly. It’s not likely he’ll pull through.”
“Sorry to hear it—for you, I mean, not the nigger.” Massa Lea cursed his confusion, guessing at what was coming. The aristocrat wanted Mingo.
“Of course,” said Jewett. “So I find myself needing at least a temporary trainer, one who knows at least something about birds—” He paused. “I’ve noticed at our cockfights you’ve got two of them. I wouldn’t think of wanting your experienced older one, but I wonder if you would entertain a fair offer for the other, the young one who’s sparkin’ one of the gals on my place, my niggers tell me—”
Massa Lea’s astonishment mixed with fury at this evidence of treachery by Chicken George. He sounded choked: “Oh, I see!”
Massa Jewett smiled again, knowing he’d drawn blood. “Let me prove I’m not wishing to engage us in bargaining.” He paused. “Would three thousand be all right?”
Massa Lea was staggered, not sure if he had heard right. “I’m sorry, Mr. Jewett,” he heard himself say flatly. He felt the thrill of refusing a rich blueblood.
“All right.” Jewett’s voice tightened. “My final offer: four!”
“I’m just not selling my trainers, Mr. Jewett.”
The rich gamecocker’s face fell, his eyes had gone cold. “I understand. Of course! Good day to you, sir!”
“The same to you, sir,” said Massa Lea, and they strode away in opposite directions.
The massa returned to the wagon as quickly as he could without running, his rage rising. Uncle Mingo and Chicken George, seeing his face, sat with their own carefully blank. Reaching the wagon, he brandished his fist at George, his voice trembling with fury. “I’ll bash your brains in! What the hell are you doin’ over at Jewett’s—tellin’ him how we train chickens?”
Chicken George turned ashen. “Ain’t tol’ Massa Jewett nothin’, Massa—” He could hardly speak. “Ain’t spoke nary word to him, never, Massa!” His total astonishment and fright half convinced Massa Lea. “You tryin’ to tell me you’re goin’ way the hell over there just to tomcat with Jewett’s wench?” Even if it was innocent, he knew how every visit exposed his apprentice trainer to Jewett’s cunning, which could lead to anything.
“Massa, Lawdy mercy—”
Another wagon now was pulling close by, with men calling and waving to the massa. Returning their waves, Massa Lea slitted his mouth into a smile and went clambering up onto the fartherest edge of the wagon’s seat, snapping at the terrified Uncle Mingo out of the corner of his mouth, “Drive, goddammit!” A knife could have cut the tension during the seemingly endless trip back to the plantation. Nor was the tension much less taut between Uncle Mingo and Chicken George during the rest of the day. That night a sleepless George lay in a sweat of anticipation over the punishment he knew was coming.
But none came. And a few days later the massa said to Uncle Mingo, as if nothing had happened, “Next week I’ve got a bid to fight birds just over the state line in Virginia. I know that long ride wouldn’t do your coughing spells any good, so I’ll just take the boy.”
“Yassuh, Massa.”
Uncle Mingo had long known this day was coming; that’s why the massa had trained the boy to replace him. But he hadn’t dreamed it would come so soon.
CHAPTER 93
“What you thinkin’ about so hard, boy?”
After more than an hour sharing the wagon’s seat and watching the warm February morning’s fleecy clouds, the dusty load stretching ahead, or the monotonously flexing muscles of the mules’ rumps, Massa Lea’s sudden question startled Chicken George.
“Nothin’,” he replied. “Wasn’t thinkin’ ’bout nothin’, Massa.”
“Somethin’ I am’t never understood about you niggers!” There was an edge in Massa Lea’s voice. “Man try to talk to y’all decent, you right away start acting stupid. Makes me madder’n hell, especially a nigger like you that talks his head off if he wants to. Don’t you reckon white people