Calvin Baker - Dominion

They were all quiet in the purplish evening light as he told the story, and when he finished all said he had made it up. “That’s just another fish tale,” Bastian cried, waving him off. As they stamped out the fire, though, Julius told them to be quiet and listen. Sure enough, they could hear a sound in the trees like a hammer banging against the bark. When they heard it a second time they began to move closer to each other, uncertain what to do.

“We better go see what it is,” Julius said.

“I don’t think we ought to mess with whatever it is,” Bastian warned, not wanting to venture any deeper into the woods. “It’s getting late out here.”

Finally Julius and Caleum convinced him he was only being scary, and the three set out into the nearby forest. “Keep quiet, though,” Julius whispered, “Cause, if it is Mary, they say she always go for noisiness.”

As they walked on a small path in the direction from which the sound had emanated, they heard it again, then a third time in rapid succession. After the last there was a loud scream right afterward, as Caleum and Bastian both jumped back, startled. As they stood there afright, Julius began to laugh at them. He then pulled his hand through the air in a wide arc, after which there was a loud knock. He moved his hand again and laughed as Bastian and Caleum drew close enough to him to see he was holding a length of fishing twine. At the other end he had affixed a branch, which he could pull through a contraption he had rigged and knock it against a tree. He pulled it once more and laughed at them.

Finally, they laughed at the joke as well, as the three friends parted for the week, each taking with him some of the leftover fish. “Y’all be careful of Mary from Canary on the way home,” Julius called good-naturedly, as he went off to feed his master and mistress.

On his way back to Stonehouses, Caleum was in good spirits, thinking Julius very clever and Bastian in need of the lesson. Indeed, Bastian himself was in a fine mood and did not hold it against his friends for showing him up after he had bragged so much on himself. Still, he remained on edge from his earlier fright as he moved through the forests, and even the slightest sounds made him flinch. Even though he had walked through the woods around Berkeley his entire life, he was glad to be out of them when he reached the main road and breathed altogether easier. When he saw a coach coming down the lane he relaxed completely, no longer being alone on the evening road.

When the coach was even with him it slowed down, and he moved out of the way to allow it to pass. The wagon proceeded on a few paces, then came to a stop. Bastian continued walking in the gulch of weeds on the roadside, wondering briefly what had caused the wagon to stop but being otherwise unconcerned.

Once he was spotted, a man he didn’t know called down to him to ask what he was doing out at that hour. “I’m just comin’ in from Turner’s Creek, sir,” he answered.

“Looks like you had some luck,” the man called back.

“Ah, just a little,” Bastian returned.

“Say, can you tell me how to get to the wheelwright’s place? I think I bent a spoke back there,” the man said.

“You just keep headed straight around that bend,” Bastian answered. “Ain’t but two roads through town.”

“Why don’t you hop up?” the man said. “You might as well ride as walk.”

Bastian thought it odd that a strange white man should offer him a ride and declined, not knowing what sort of fellow he might be and not wanting to fall into the wrong hands.

“All the same,” the man replied, flicking lightly at his reins, until his horses started to gallop. The wagon went on until it disappeared around the bend ahead, and Bastian gained the main road again and continued on, already planning the week before him.

When he reached the bend, though, he found the wagon stopped and the man inside waiting for him with his pistol drawn. “Here, put these on,” the man commanded, throwing him a pair of iron bracelets.

“No, sir,” Bastian said. “My people expecting me.”

“Well, I don’t imagine they’ll be seeing you this evening,” the man told him, busting the side of his head with the pistol butt. Bastian blacked out and fell to the ground.

He woke up in the back of the wagon and, it seemed, as far from Berkeley as he had ever been his entire life. He could not tell by looking out of the tarp where they were, or even whether Berkeley was north, south, east, or west of his position. Through the top of the wagon he could see the sky, and it looked to him the same as the one he was used to, but he knew it was not. The only other thing he knew for certain was that it was deep into the nighttime and he was unlikely to make it home that evening.

Nor had he any sense of bearing until the next afternoon, when they stopped for lunch. The man, whose name he had not yet learned, came into the back of the wagon and gave him a tin plate of hominy that had a tiny piece of hog’s fat in it. “It won’t be so bad,” the man said. “You’ll see, one master is just like any other.” Bastian did not say anything in acknowledgment of this statement, and the man picked up a round stick, which was leaned against a barrel in the wagon, and slammed it into the soles of his feet, so that his knees buckled and he nearly lost the plate from his lap. “You answer when I say something to you,” he said.

After he left, the wagon set off again, and, late that night came into a town. As it moved through the streets Bastian felt a great heart’s sickness when he began to recognize where he was. They were in Bertie County, in Knowleston, which is where he and his family had lived before settling in Berkeley.

When they stopped at the other end of the town it was fully night, and his kidnapper left him in the wagon as he went to negotiate terms in the rooming house. When he came back, he led Bastian into a barn with the horses and tied him to a railing, first making sure he had a blanket and straw for a pallet. “Wouldn’t do for you to catch cold,” the man said, before leaving.

About an hour after he was fastened to the rail, a boy of twelve or so came out with a plate of scraps for him to eat. As he refused the plate, Bastian asked the boy whether he knew Goodwin Johnson’s place.

The boy said he did, and that it was about five miles from where they were.

“That’s my uncle. You got to go tell him what happened to me,” Bastian said, recounting his sad adventure.

The boy was terrified when he heard it but promised he would figure out a way to get word out to Goodwin’s place.

Bastian Johnson did not sleep through that night but lay awake in the foul stench of horse sweat and urine, stirring at the first sound as he awaited rescue. The barn door did not open again until morning, and, when it did, it was Harris, his kidnapper, who entered.

“Wake up,” the man barked. “It’ll never do to be a lazy slave.”

Bastian sat up as commanded, and Harris handed him a bar of soap and a pair of trousers. “You clean up and put these on,” he instructed.

“I can’t take you to market like this. Make sure you wash the mess from your face too. The market subtracts for every defect.”

When he saw the bewildered look on Bastian’s face, he sat down next to him on an overturned pail. “You and me going to the Exchange here today, and I need you to be at your best. If you act up, though, I will kill you. I would rather make no profit than get cheated out of fair value. Now, what do you suppose you might be worth?”

Bastian stayed silent.

“I told you about ignoring me,” the man warned.

“I don’t know,” Bastian answered. “I ain’t never been for sale and don’t imagine how you can put a price on a person, though I know some people do.”