Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

“The men are all strong hands, no defects. You can look for yourself.”

The trader walked slowly from man to man. He told them to open their mouths and show their teeth. He spent a considerable amount of time assessing their backs and limbs.

“Whip marks?” he said.

The overseer shrugged. “A few. And given only to harden these boys up a bit, to get them ready. They’re not bad, just a little slow to work on account of they never had the right encouragement. Like I said, the master here…”

“I’ll have to take a few dollars off.”

“But these are prime hands. A few whip marks…”

The trader sighed as he leaned to Garney, the smallest boy, and pulled at his upper lip. “My employer doesn’t want trouble selling what he buys. And whip marks make a buyer shy.” He let go of Garney’s lip. “Don’t take on so, boy, there are beautiful homes in the South. It’s a rich land.”

When the trader stopped before him, John saw the man’s confusion. Scratching his temple, he stepped over to Orlett and whispered something John couldn’t catch.

“Yeah, him too,” the overseer said. “Just the same as the others, even if he don’t look it. He’s a good worker, field and house. A few years ago, the master even hired him out for a while to a tinsmith, so he’s got some craft.”

John clenched and unclenched his fists. He could feel the blood pounding behind his eyes, in his limbs and chest; he could feel its heat. To calm himself, he tried to turn the pounding and the heat into a soothing memory of his tinsmithing work, into the rhythmic cutting of tinplate with shears, the steam rising off the solder and drenching his face with sweat. He had never felt so free and alive as when he’d been tinsmithing; even the thick chemical fumes of the work came to his nostrils now as a kind of springtime scent, full of hope. But he could not hold on to the memory. The rhythm of the shears became the pounding in his veins again. He kept his mouth shut tight, for fear of the blood spurting out through his teeth.

The trader shook his head. “There’s folks won’t take him for a nigger. And if he runs, how am I supposed to get him back? A patrol’s not likely to bring him in.”

Orlett squinted up at the flight of a barn swallow. He chewed on his thick bottom lip for a few seconds, dragged a blunt hand along his blood-red ruff.

“There’s something I can do about that. Even if it takes a few dollars off, I don’t mind. I promised the boy a new life, and I don’t want to disappoint him. He’s hankering to travel. No relations, you see. No reason to come running back here.”

“What can you do about it?” the trader asked Orlett.

“I’ll show you tomorrow. Can we settle on the others? I got to run those girls to ground.”

They agreed to prices and the trader returned to the house, presumably to pay the master.

“Chain them with the woman,” Orlett said to the mulatto. “Yeah, him too. We’ll deal with him once we get the girls back.”

Cray grunted an order and they all pulled up the leg chains and hobbled out of the barn.

John thought about running because he didn’t have the chain or iron ball, but things had happened too quickly. Rage and fear confused him. He did not even have a sense of his chances. Besides, there was Caleb and Daney. It ate at him that Daney did not know the truth, and he had come to rely so heavily on Caleb’s advice. He wondered what Caleb would tell him now.

They were put into a dark shed. A dry, musty smell of corn came out of a crib in the corner. In another corner sat the slumped, chained form of a woman.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, John watched the woman raise her head slowly. The old familiar smile of endurance lit up Daney’s broad face. He had never seen so much scorn in it. To his relief, she directed the smile not at him but at the mulatto.

“Here comes the proud man. You proud of yore work, nigger?”

His face, large and ridged as the side of a squash, remained blank. “No’m. But I’m nothin’ else neither.”

Daney’s laugh was terrible to hear. There was wild in it, but frightened wild.

“Nothin’? What kind of devil’s talk is that? Every man’s either gonna be proud or shamed. If you’re nothin’ to yoself, then you shamed, nigger.”

The mulatto turned in the doorway, almost blocking out the light. It cast a thin glow around him. “Mebbe I is, but they ain’t no irons on me, is they?” He slammed the door shut behind him.

“Oh, yes,” Daney shouted, “you’se a free man, free to do the devil’s work! That gonna get you nowhere but the fiery pit!” Tears streamed down her face and hung off her nose and upper lip. Her shoulders shook.

Against the wall, John hunched into himself and hoped she would not notice him. Fortunately Daney calmed herself and started to comfort the boys. All three were bony-chested, their ribs visible just under their coal-black skin. They wore only thin loin cloths, and tears dripped off the ends of their eyelashes and noses as they pressed together, their shoulders turned inward. Daney told them to have faith, that nothing was done yet, that they had to be brave.

“Ain’t I got my girls safe away? They’s always hope. Maybe the master will come to his senses and stop all this foolishness.”

Beside her, Robert, her eldest son, whispered something and her face went rigid. For several seconds she did not move. John was almost glad Daney was chained to the wall because he could not be sure she wouldn’t attack him. But when she finally moved, only sadness moved with her. He felt it wash through the shed in waves.

“They’s no saving yoself by doing evil. Punishment come to all in time. To the white folks too. The Lawd takes care of that. I got no energy for hating him now. They’s much worse around.”

John opened his mouth to tell her the truth, but then an image of Caleb bloodied on the ground stopped him. He doubted that she’d believe him anyway. In the end, he fingered the leather pouch in his pocket, grateful just to be left alone. His mind whirled. He had to clear his thoughts. The master was selling his blacks, including him. This had been done before, a few times, but always locally, never to a trader from the South. Occasionally a black on another farm had been sold down the river, but the master always tried to sell his people in Maryland. This time was obviously different. And he knew from the reaction of the others how terrible a fate it was to be sold into South Carolina or Georgia or anywhere in the South. He had heard of the cruelty of the rice and cotton plantations, of blacks worked to death under the scorching sun. Was this where he was bound? If so, how could he save himself? Then a kind of indignation stole over him. He was not like the others, no matter what Daney said. His pale skin had led him away from the shacks—or so Jabeth had insisted. Surely that paleness would save him now? He looked at his arms. The skin was not black, and yet his hands were cuffed. They were cuffed. The cold weight of the steel returned him to the one question that mattered: how could he save himself?

Bodies slowly shifted, a chain clinked. Some of the men had moved so that Garney could crawl up into Daney’s lap. She laid her cheek against his; their two wetnesses seemed to glow in the dim light. Softly she spoke. “Honey, don’t you fret, nobody but the Lawd know what’s comin’ and the Lawd is promised to deliver us out of our bonds, chile.” She kissed his cheek and he quieted. But she could not hold Garney in her arms, she could not wrap her arms around him because they were chained to the wall.

John could feel the frustrated yearning in her to soothe the boy with the touch of her hands. It flowed through the dark, stale space. It touched his own body, then fell away like a breeze and left him even colder. Now she hummed into Garney’s neck and her bosom rose and fell. The beating of her heart must have added a weight to the rhythm of her song, but neither sound had any ease in it. Her eyes moved too quickly for the heartbeat and the humming. She kept looking at the door, then back at Garney.