C. Morgan - The Sport of Kings

No, no, no, Scipio wants to scream in frustration and anger — unwind the clock, unspool time — but these eyes, this belly … sweat springs up beads on his forehead and upper lip. He wants to curse every step that brought him to this particular spot. All his effort was for him alone! He eyes her angrily and tries to press back his conscience, but it’s no use. In another instant, the thing is done and they are a pair, Scipio plowing through the woods at a frightful, angry pace; the woman drying her tears and skipping along despite her bulk, her rounds of thanksgiving and gratitude devolving into pleas as she falls back now and again with Scipio saying only, “Keep up.” And when they stop at a burbling spring to drink, she whips off her headrag and falls to her knees, saying, “Praise de Lord for … what dey name you?”

“My name ain’t no consequence.”

She blinks. “I’s Abby and dis baby gone be name Canada when it come. I’s gone live in dere, I is.”

“Listen here now,” Scipio says, “I’ll take you two days and then you got to aim east on your own and walk to Mason County. There’s a man there what got a yellow barn. He’ll skiff you across the river to Ripley. He’ll know you by the password ‘Menare.’ I promise you that’s the truth. But I ain’t going there. I got my own plan to swim that river, and I can’t be shaked from it.”

“I’s gone where you’s gone,” she says.

“You ain’t doing no such,” he growls.

“I is!” And to this vehemence, he doesn’t know what to say, he can only glower at her and then they walk on for another day, she at his heels like a bulky terrier, pestering and questioning him and thanking him again and singing and moaning until he feels sure she’s soft in the head and he regrets her more and more each step of the way. Finally he whips about and, with a finger to her face, says, “Don’t talk, don’t ask, don’t touch! Just follow!”

And Abby does follow, gradually quietening and walking with her forearms cradling her enormous belly like saddle straps to hold it secure. Scipio is at first grateful for her silence, but once or twice as they walk during that second day, he glances back and sees silent tear-trails tracking through the grime on her face. It gives him pause, he thinks of his mother. It slowly destroys his resolve.

That night when they’ve sat down side by side, preparing for sleep under the spread arms of a tree, Scipio takes up his case again, but gentler this time.

“Listen here, Miss Abby,” he says. “In the morning, you got to strike out for Mason County on your own. I aim to swim the river and you can’t swim it with that belly a yours. You hear?”

“I can swim,” she says, staring at him mulishly.

He rears back. “God almighty, gal!” The wick of his impatience is lit now. “You gone and lost your mind? What kind of crazy gal runs off when she needs to be laying in? I planned this escape nigh on three years, choosing the month, the day, the very hour, and I won’t have no crazy gal getting me shot on the riverbanks with Canaan right there in my sights!”

Scipio expects her to begin crying again, an act which seems nearly as natural to her as speech, but she just hangs her head for a long minute, like she’s studying deeply on his words. He begins to wonder whether she’s even understood him when she says, so quietly does he have to strain to understand her, “My mammy name me Abby. I am taken from my mammy when I’m age thirteen. I never forget de day. My mammy she done wrapped up my nubbins in a old linen rag so nobody see em, but de speclator come and he seed I got de age on me and he teared me from my mammy and I never forget, she say, ‘Be good, Abby, don’t give em no cause to whup you,’ and I ain’t never done no such. I never seed my mammy anymore. Well, dat speclator man take me to Lexington and he stand me up on de Cheapside block. He den tear off my woolens and de mens come and look and pinch and de speclator cry me off. Dis one man, he pay twelve hundred dollar for me. Ignorant nigger I is, I thinks how lucky I is, a rich man gone pay dat kind a money for me, he gone take right good care a me.”

Abby stops, she seems not to know what to do with her hands as she speaks, pressing them into her hair now, which is wild and unkempt, her rag long fallen away. She will not look at Scipio, she just rocks her knobby hands into her hairline.

“Well, come find dat white trash man ain’t rich,” she says bitterly. “Don’t know how he paid dat kind a money. He only had him three niggers and only one dem’s my age and he done make me de wife a all three.”

Scipio makes an involuntary jerking motion with his hands. He almost asks her to hush, but she continues on.

“Now, here he don’t make me work in no field like I’s expectin, no, he lock me up in dis quarter, ain’t no bigger dan a root cellar and ain’t got no window. He lock me on dis bed with one chain on de wrist and one on de ankle and den dey come messin with me and sometime de Marster he watch de niggers mess with me and den he mess with me. I don’t know how long I’s livin dere, den I get swole up big and he say, ‘You gone have you a baby, Abby,’ and I got de amazement cause I don’t know nothin and den dat baby get borned. Den he let me out and I gets de run a de place, cause he figure if I got a baby, den I ain’t gone run. And he right. I ain’t gone run.”

She looks at Scipio then and she appears crazy to him and he wishes all over again that he could have avoided her somehow, or left her along the way. Cruel as it is and against his own will, he wishes she were back where she’d come from, but still he utters no word.

She says, “Den I seed he got him a Missus. A Missus! Why he messin with a nigger gal when he got a Missus? I don’t never understand. But dey both am mean as devils. Dey chained de niggermens to dey beds at night and dat Missus she whupped em in de morning with a leather switch out a pure devilment. Forty lashes ever day. Dey ain’t never run, cause de Marster say he kill em if dey do and dey knowed it de truth. De Marster have him a old nigger name Perry and one day Perry say, ‘I’s too old, you can’t make me work no more, I’s got to rest,’ and de Marster, he say, ‘Dat sound all right, you slowin down,’ and when Perry turn away, de Marster crack him over de head with de hoe he holdin and drop Perry stone dead. De Marster make de niggers wait to bury him five days and den without no stone. So us all knowed dat true.

“Now, on dis farm don’t a body never visit, no preacher never come, no family never come, just us all de time shiftin for usselves. Well, I gets a string a babies and when dey six or seven year old de Marster, he sell each em away for de money and I ain’t even say no, see, I pray God dey get sold to a good white man. I knows dey’s lots a good white folk in de world like my mammy’s Marster. He ain’t hardly whupped on his niggers and only when dey deserved it.

“But — but den it finally happen. I gets me a white baby and den de Missus know de Marster messin with me and she open hate on me all de time. She pullin my hair and lashin me and de Marster tell her, ‘Quit,’ but den she just do it when he ain’t dere. It am a misery. Dis bout de time my Sarah die a de fever and I only got William who age six and my white baby, Callie. Den one terrible day I brings de sheets in de house for pressin and I fetch de iron out de fire and I got—” She screws up her lips, her whole body shaking.

“Hush!” Scipio whispers, fear and horror curdling in his belly. “Quit talking now, Miss Abby.”

Abby raises up her eyes. “Oh Lord, dat day I got Callie on my arm and she cryin and William, he complainin like he hungry and needin fare or some such and I leave de iron on de sheet and it burn a big black mark. And de Missus, she see dat mark and her face get real funny and Callie squawlin and den de Missus say, ‘Hush dat nigger chile!’ and den she reach over and pick up dat jingling iron and she strike dat hot iron against my baby Callie so hard she break her head in. I never forget how it jingle. My baby don’t even cry, she only open her broke mouth like she a baby bird, her face ruint and broke in and she gasp just like dat and shake oncet and den she die in my arm. Right dere in my arm. Oh God, Lord — I so pained I runs out de house and de Missus wailin to de Marster what she ain’t meant it and he come a-runnin and a-shoutin.”