The Known World - Edward P. Jones [102]
“Marse,” Stennis said, “we could stand fifty dollars but I don’t think we could stand much more.”
Travis shouted, “Seventy-five dollars. For the sake of God in his heaven, Darcy. Don’t let your nigger cheat me. Don’t let a nigger do white folks’ business.”
“Then fifty dollars it is,” said Darcy, and he sniffed on the beaver feet again.
“Shit! Then ten dollars for the mule,” Travis said.
“What mule?” Darcy said.
“That one right there.” Someone in the back of the large wagon shifted and Augustus heard the chains move. The child coughed again.
“You can give me that for free, Harvey. I don’t think that’s much of a mule. Does he sing and dance in the moonlight?”
“Don’t pee on me that way,” Travis said. “You can say like you done in the past that I don’t know nigger flesh. I’ll leave you safe with that one, but I do know my mules and horses. I do know them, Darcy. I want ten dollars. I deserve ten dollars.”
“All right, Harvey. But that mule had better hold up. He’d better be worth every penny, cause if he ain’t I’m gonna sic the law on you.” Darcy laughed and right away he was joined in the laughter by Stennis. Then Travis laughed, followed by Oden. Stennis reached down between his knees to the floor of the wagon and brought up a strongbox. He unlocked it with a key on a string around his neck, took out some coins and put them in a tiny sack and tossed the sack to Travis.
Darcy told Augustus to get down from the wagon and Augustus said no. “I’m a free man, mister.”
“Yes yes yes. Happy Christmas happy Christmas. Now get down from there.”
Augustus said he would not.
“Stennis,” Darcy said, “why are we threatened on all sides by the incorrigible? Why do they threaten us every which way we turn? Have we displeased our God in some fashion?”
“I don’t know, Marse. I done studied it and studied it and I still don’t know.”
“But, Stennis, you would agree that we are threatened on all sides?”
“Thas a true statement of what you talkin bout,” Stennis said.
Travis holstered his pistol and dismounted and then Oden dismounted, still pointing the gun at Augustus. But before either of them was well settled on the ground, Stennis had jumped down from the wagon and over to Augustus in one effortless motion. He pulled Augustus from the wagon and began pummeling him.
“Don’t bruise my fruit,” Darcy said. Stennis and Travis dragged Augustus around to the back of Darcy’s wagon and soon he was chained to the black man nearest the end of the wagon. Augustus wanted to say again that he was a free man, but he was in too much pain, and the words would not have come through anyway because his mouth was full of blood and no sooner had he spat some out, his mouth filled up again.
Stennis unharnessed Augustus’s mule and tied it to the back of the wagon.
“I will now,” Darcy said to Travis when he and Oden were back on their horses and Stennis was back on the wagon beside him, “I will now allow the wind to take me and mine away.” Darcy pulled the pelts tighter around his neck. “Oh, to be in Tennessee. That is my dream, Stennis.” “Thas mine, too.” “I call on God to grant me my dream, Stennis.” Their wagon had two horses and Stennis took up the reins and without a word the horses started going and the mule came along and as quick as anything the wagon had disappeared.
It was nearing eleven o’clock. Barnum looked down to where Augustus had gone and said, “You oughtna done that, Harvey. You know you shouldna. You know that and I know that.” He turned to Oden. “Even Oden know that.”
“I don’t know no such thing,” Oden said.
“Then you should. Both yall shouldna done that. Why?”
“That is not it,” Travis said to Barnum. “It is not why he and I are doin it, but why you aren’t doin it. That is the question for all time. Why a man, even somethin worthless like you, sees what is right and still refuses to do it.” Travis hawked and spat in the road. He said, “That is all the question we ever need to ask.” He was silent for a few moments. Then he said, “All right now,” and he handed a $20 gold piece to Barnum and tossed another