James Nelson - The Blackbirder

As mad with terror as he appeared, he still went about his business confidently, as if having his familiar tools in hand allowed him to forget his nightmare circumstance. He laid his things gently on the deck, ran his eyes over the sails, glanced at the compass. He stepped to the weather rail and facing away from the setting sun manipulated his backstaff, measuring what, Madshaka had not a clue.

The others, the people dragged from the forests by the slave traders, looked on what he did as magic, as some kind of supernatural conjuring, but Madshaka knew that it was not that.

He watched the white man work his backstaff and heave the chip log over the taffrail and stick his little pins in the traverse board and stare at the stars with his nocturnal and he knew that they were just more of the white man’s tools, the kind of inventions that were letting white men run unimpeded all over Africa.

Madshaka knew that the white man was directing their course to Africa, but he did not understand how. And though King James watched the man with a knowing eye, Madshaka suspected that he did not understand it either.

That was good. It was important that he did not.

At last the white man was done. He shuffled over to James, averting his eyes, as if James were some kind of real king, and muttered something that Madshaka could not hear. And then James turned to Cato and Quash and Good Boy and said something, and then finally said, “Madshaka, we gots to wear ship. Get the people to their ropes.”

Madshaka nodded and trotted forward. This was the thing that made him uncomfortable. If the white man had said to him what he had said to James, would he have understood it? He could not “wear ship” by himself. It was an unusual situation for him, to not be master of his environment. He needed James still, as much as he hated that notion.

Twenty minutes later the ship was turned and the white man had disappeared below and the black sailors had returned to their families and their dinners. The last vestiges of light disappeared in the west and along the deck drifted the soft singing of the women, each tribe to its different songs in its own language.

The embers burned low in the portable stove and the wind that blew along the deck and filled the canvas overhead was warm and steady and not a line needed tending. The clans sat together, the women wrapped in the bright-colored silks and dyed cottons they had found in the hold of their prize, the children wrapped in cloth or running around the deck naked or curling up with their mothers, their shattered worlds secure again.

It was a comforting scene, a happy ship. When the sun went down and the manly shouting was done, then the women worked their influence on the people and it was peaceful again.

Madshaka did not know how long he had been sitting there lost in his thoughts. Long enough for James to fall asleep, long enough for the few people on deck to forget his presence.

At last a familiar form appeared on the quarterdeck, a man stepping aft.

“Anaka,” Madshaka called, softly. Anaka was the headman of the Kru. Madshaka’s people. His word was law with them.

“Madshaka?”

“It’s me. Come over here, Anaka, and talk with me.” Madshaka spent so much time speaking in so many languages it was comforting to talk his native tongue. Language was the bond here, the basis of trust.

“How are you doing tonight, Anaka?”

“I am well, Madshaka. Things are better now. The people are hopeful that we will see our homes again.”

“Yes, we will. I can promise you that. And we will be wealthy men.”

“How is that?” Anaka asked.

“This ship, all that is in it. She is full of cargo, you know, worth a great deal. We will sell the cargo and the ship too when we get to Africa, divide the money.”

Anaka was silent for a moment, considering this. To the people on board, the ship meant food, water, a safe vessel, one that did not stink of death. The idea that it could mean wealth had not occurred to them.

“How can we sell the ship?” Anaka asked at length.

Madshaka dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “I have spent many years as a grumete, you know that. I have learned the ways of these white men. I know how such things are done. That is why I tell King James we must take the ship, when he does not want to.” He paused for a moment and then said, “How many Kru are on the ship? Kru men?”

Anaka thought for a moment. “Twenty. About twenty.”

“Hmmm,” Madshaka said, but he did not continue.

“Why do you ask?”

“There is much more money to be made before we reach home, Anaka. Many ships on the ocean, and we have the warriors aboard that we could take them, take all of the valuable cargoes. Just think, after all the suffering we have been through at the hands of the white men, we could return rich, by taking back from them what they have stolen from us. It is a nice thought.”

A nice thought indeed, and in the dim light Madshaka could see that Anaka was thinking about it. “Has King James said anything about this?” the Kru headman asked.

Madshaka nodded. “We have talked of it. He is starting to think like me, that it is a good idea to enrich ourselves before we return. He knows a great deal about the ways of the pirates.”

“But he does not order it.”

“King James is a fair man. He does not want to impose his will alone. He and I have discussed this at length.” Madshaka had to force himself not to smile. Lord, this was so easy! The ship was his to control, standing as he did between King James and the others, the only one who knew what both were saying, the sole conduit for communication.

Anaka was quiet for a long time as he thought about that. Madshaka knew from experience that the thought of easy wealth was hard for any man to resist.

At last he said, “What should we do?”

Madshaka smiled. “We are pirates now, you know? We vote on what we should do. We see a ship, we vote on whether or not we attack. King James will not order it, he wants to be fair, but he thinks like I do that we should enrich ourselves.

“Twenty Kru men, that is a lot, if they all vote the same. And you have influence over the other tribes as well.”

“That’s true.”

“Will you talk to them? You speak other tongues, I know. Tell the others we can make the white men pay for what they have done to us. We can be free again, and we can be rich as well.”

“Yes, Madshaka, I will,” Anaka said, and there was determination in his voice. Anaka was now filled with thoughts of wealth. Anaka would talk to the others.

The headman hurried off and Madshaka remained on deck for a few minutes more, looking around, trying to see if there was anyone looking his way. The after end of the ship was lost in the darkness. No one around but the helmsman, and he was looking the other way.

He chuckled softly to himself. That had gone very well. These others might not think of wealth, but he himself was no stranger to the notion.

He was an ambitious man, had once already worked himself into a position of real power and wealth before his ostensible partners had hit him on the head and sold him to the blackbirder. But he had not forgotten them. Their turn would come.

But first, pirating. By pure chance he found himself aboard a fast ship with a gullible crew of strong young men he could use as warriors. It was not an opportunity to be wasted.

When he was at last certain that no one knew or cared what he was about, he stepped forward and down the aftermost scuttle.

He was prowling now, hunting. He was aware of the power in his arms, his legs, the silence of his step, the strength that was there to be summoned instantly. He had seen lions before and they were the same, soft-footed, powerful. Nothing ostentatious, they did not need to be. When you were truly powerful you did not need to show it.