Mark Townsend - White captive

"I-I-I think I hear them c-comin'," Stitch, who had been sullenly reflecting on his missed chance last night, suddenly exclaimed. "T-T-There's a c-c-car."

The others jumped up and rushed to the window expectantly. They had been waiting patiently all morning for whoever they were supposed to meet. Susan had heard them quietly discussing a plan of some kind where the word riot had come up often, and she had begun to wonder then if they really were just ordinary hoodlums, or something much more dangerous. What ever it was that they had in mind, it seemed to be something very important to them. Duke had been nervous and on edge all the while they had been waiting, as though he were afraid of something or someone… perhaps, she would learn the answer soon now.

"It's about time," Duke growled, looking at his watch. "They's over two hours late."

The low roar of a car engine could be heard coming up the road, and then turning into the short dirt driveway that led to the shack. It stopped, and the sound of two doors being slammed could be heard from the outside.

"Hot damn," Shorty sudden slapped his knee and grabbed his stomach in laughter, "He's done brought Jodie with him. You gonna ketch hell ovah this lit' honky chick now, Duke."

Susan turned from the fireplace where she had kept her head down looking into the blazing logs, when she heard the loud laughter and the words that Shorty was throwing at Duke. She felt his eyes turn to her for a moment and then look back out the window.

There were two pair of steps coming across the porch, and then the door opened. A tall lithe mulatto negress entered first, and seeing Duke, rushed to him and threw her arms around. She held him for a moment, and feeling no response, backed off with a puzzled expression on her face.

"What's the matter, baby, don'cha recognize me?" she asked quizzically.

"That isn't the reason, is it, Duke?"

A second well-dressed negro, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and sporting a small goatee, entered behind her and nodded toward the confused Susan, who still sat huddled beneath the blanket.

The negress turned her head, and for the first time saw the cowering white girl before the fireplace. She stood still for a moment, her hands on hips, and glared down at her from across the room. She was a striking thing, as a really good-looking negro woman can be, with long flowing jet black hair that glistened down over her shoulders, and fiery black eyes that burned through Susan like two hot belching volcanic craters smoldering before eruption.

"Who's the honky bitch," she hissed through her tightly clench teeth, a quick rising hatred in her voice.

"She ain't nobody," Duke suddenly defended. "I brought 'er here to keep us company while we plan the thing. That's all."

The others snickered. It was obvious they were enjoying the position Duke had been put in by the unexpected arrival of his girl, and also the thought that perhaps it would free the white girl for them to enjoy again as they had last night.

Susan sensed this, and she could see the imbiced a certain tenenly brightening as the thought penetrated his mind. He had sulked all morning after Shorty refused to let him ravish her battered body, but she knew he had not given up by any means. She had caught his eyes flickering over her with an undisguised lust in them when he had thought no one was looking, and she found herself trembling each time he did. She remembered him masturbating over her broken and exhausted form last night and shooting his lewd sperm across her naked breasts, as she had lain helpless and beaten on the bed. God help her if she ever were at his mercy without Duke to protect her.

"Well," the negress sneered with cocky self-assurance and started with a swagger across the room toward Susan. "I just gotta see what this little honky gal's got that I ain't."

Susan cowered back against the wall next to the fireplace, as the girl reached down grabbing the corner of the blanket and ripped it from her shoulders, exposing her tattered gown to the eyes of the others in the room. "Well, looks like somebody's been havin' some fun, and it better not be you, Duke, baby," she half snarled as she saw the condition of the cringing Susan's dress.

"Leave 'er alone," Duke growled from the window where he was still standing. "I do what I like, ya hear. Nobody tells me what I can do or cain't do."

"Stop it, you two," commanded the well-dressed negro. "We've got more important things to discuss now than who gets lover boy here."

Susan held her breath as the angered negress towered over her, still holding the blanket in her hand. She glared down at Susan for a moment with the most intense contempt she had ever seen in any human's eyes, and then suddenly threw the blanket back at her, and turned away.

"Ain't no honky bitch got what I got anyway," she said, walking seductively across the room and placing her arm in Duke's. "He's my man, and he's gonna stay that way, ain'cha honey?"

"Aw, shut up, and let's get to work," Duke said, ignoring her question directly. He turned to the other negro, "Did ya bring the bread, man?"

"Yes," the new arrival answered, raising the briefcase he carried in his hand. "But," he hesitated, "there are some things that have to be settled first, some very important things."

"Then let's git with it," Duke said, walking toward the table. "We got some questions for you too."

Susan watched them pulling chairs up to the rickety wooden table that stood in the corner away from the fireplace, and preparing for what evidently was to be an extremely important meeting. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of conflict between Duke and the man who had just arrived. Duke had greeted him with a cold reserve that she hadn't noticed he possessed before. He could be cruel, yes, but the reserve was something else, and she was certain she could detect a little fear mixed in his almost contemptuous manner toward the man.

The man was educated, there was no question about it from the way he dressed and spoke, and perhaps, this was the element that Duke feared the most. He obviously did not know about the world beyond the power of strength, and maybe he could feel himself being bypassed, even by those of his own kind.

This was something new to many negroes, she thought as her mind raced back in retrospect, remembering things her father had said – things she had never absorbed before because she had never been directly exposed to them. She could remember him talking about the sudden push for educating the negroes, and how this was creating a gap among their own people, the educated and the ignorant. This gap began to breed suspicions among those like Duke who had learned to live on strength and cunning alone.

Perhaps, she reasoned, Duke had his place too, by virtue of the fact that he had developed such animal cunning and physical strength. This was his education of survival that was older than the human race itself. The new university breed, the lucky ones who had escaped the ghetto, or had never been born there… they knew about the ways of the law and how it could be used to accomplish the same purpose with greater effect than the strength of old. Their movement, her father said, was much like the American labor movement and the rise of unionism. It hadn't been many years since union organizers were treated as criminals and jailed for trespassing on company property. Now, they had their own laws that protected them just like the negroes that benefited from the new civil rights laws.

But, as with the unions of yesterday, opportunists were always there to exploit the great unrest smoldering beneath this kind of social movement for their own fortune and power. These were the new breed, like the well-dressed man sitting at the table now, she thought. The university ones, who had nothing to lose because they had already passed the barrier. They already had their position in either world and could use those still attempting to climb up from the ghettos with impunity and disregard. They were expendable and exploitable because they worshipped their educated leaders, and if a man could boast of this, they asked nothing more from him. They're like lambs being led to slaughter, Susan thought, as she studied the man with the horn-rimmed glasses with a renewed interest.