Tom Piazza - A Free State

“The most likely are those I listed on the advertisement I included with my letter. You may call me Mister Stephens.”

“Sure,” Tull said, allowing himself a short laugh at his own expense. “Sorry to presume, Mister Stephens. You don’t think he went to Canada?”

“No.”

Tull studied the man’s face. “Because the mother is still here?”

Stephens looked away and made an indefinite gesture, half raising a hand from the arm of the chair, shrugging.

“You said he played a banjar.”

“Yes.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“I always assumed that Enoch made it for him in the woodworking shop.”

“Where’s that?”

“I’ll have Atticus show you.”

“I want to talk to the mother, too.”

Stephens nodded.

“That’s all right with you?”

“Certainly.”

“They were close?”

“Very.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“He often performed for guests or entertainments. There’s no doubt that he has the banjar and will find a way to perform somewhere.”

“There’s not a lot of places for niggers to perform, Mister Stephens.”

“He is resourceful and intelligent and he will find a way to do what he wants to do.”

“You liked this boy pretty well.”

“He brightened many evenings here.” Stephens looked as if he were going to add something, stopped, pursed his lips, and with a slight shake of his head let it go. He began to stand up, but Tull remained seated.

“We need to discuss terms.”

“Yes, of course,” Stephens said, sitting down again.

After laying out the terms — seven dollars per day plus expenses, plus three hundred dollars reward money, fifty of which was payable immediately and nonrefundable — Tull said, “I assume you want this boy brought back in good shape.”

“I want him brought back. Alive if possible.”

“If possible?”

“Correct.”

“What if he doesn’t want to come?” This was as close as he came to irony.

“I have made myself clear.”

“Actually, Mister Stephens, not quite. You’re telling me you want him dead if it comes to that.”

“Yes.” Now Stephens stood up, picked up a small bell from one of the end tables, and rang it. Within moments, Atticus appeared. “Atticus, please escort this man whither he asks.” Then, to Tull, who was still absorbing surprise at Stephens’s request: “An envelope containing your initial payment and an advance on expenses will be waiting for you when you are finished.”

Tull nodded; no hand was proffered to shake, and he walked out of the parlor with Atticus, leaving his lemonade untouched.

The woodworking cabin was some hundred yards away from the main house, and Atticus walked Burton there without speaking. It was one of the larger dependencies on the grounds, well-tended, shaded by two large trees. Tull ordered Atticus to wait for him outside.

Inside, Tull found a tall Negro, built very solidly, wiping something off his hands with a rag.

“Your name is Enoch?”

“Yes it is,” the slave named Enoch replied. “Sir.”

No “yassuh” for this one, Tull thought. As his eyes adjusted he saw that the slave had features that were about half African and half white, despite his dark blue-black skin. Blue eyes, and intelligent. This was his little kingdom, Tull thought.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may,” Tull said, all politeness. “If you have the time.” This slave wore some kind of green and red scarf around his neck — silk, if he wasn’t mistaken.

“I will answer if I can,” Enoch replied. Well-spoken; he had learned manners somewhere, probably hired out to some city business for a year or two.

“May I sit down?”

“Please do,” Enoch replied. “I hope you won’t mind if I remain standing.”

“Enoch,” Tull said, “I don’t mind if you take one of those rasps you got there and jam it into your ass and file yourself down to a pile of shit. Just answer my questions.”

Enoch made his face a blank. “Yes, sir.”

“You know this boy who ran off, Joseph. Master James says he used to spend a lot of time here. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What can you tell me about him. Start with how he looked.”

“Joseph not a very handsome fellow, I would say,” Enoch began. “Quite dark-complected, almost black as me.” He gave out with a hearty, utterly false laugh that might have fooled some, but not so practiced an operator as Tull Burton. Nothing enraged Burton quite so much as for a slave to think he could fool him by assuming the same ingratiating mask that slaves habitually wore for their masters.

“Let me stop you right there, Enoch.” Tull watched the smile remain on the face as the eyes grew masked and watchful. “You know who I am, and if you don’t anyway you know what I’m here for. You know what I do. Is that right?”

“I have an idea of that, sir.”

“Now when your master tells me that Joseph has light, copper-colored skin, and you tell me he’s black as you, who do you think I’m going to believe?”

“I does my best to be truthful, sir.”

Tull nodded, looking at the man with something that could have been mistaken for tenderness. The “I does my best” was another mask. He was frightened.

“You see this hat I’m wearing, Enoch? Have you ever seen one like it?”

Now the slave was quiet and Tull could feel the fear coming off of him. He said, “No sir.”

“That’s because I made it myself. Cut the hide, cured the skin, shaped it and blocked it. Anything look familiar to you about this skin? It’s got a nice color, doesn’t it?”

Enoch stood motionless and silent.

“Now, I’m not playing around with you, Enoch. You answer my questions straight and I’ll have no complaint with you. I don’t want to hear another lie from you. We looking at the same horse, now?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now about how tall is he.”

“He come up to about here on me.”

Tull nodded. “All right. Would you say he was pretty smart?”

“Joseph smarter than everybody here put together.”

Satisfied, now, Tull said, “He worked with you here in this shop?”

“Sometimes he did,” Enoch said. “He was mainly what you call a house servant. He taken care of Master’s clothes and such. He worked in the pantry seeing after things. But he liked to come down here and he liked for me to show him how things works.”

“What about the banjo. You made him a banjo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You taught him how to play the banjo?”

“I showed him some little things on it, but he taken to it just like some people natchly know to ride a horse.”

“What did this banjo look like?”

Enoch’s eyes were closed, and Tull gave him a moment, then said, “Tell me what the banjo looked like.”

“About like that one over there,” Enoch said, opening his eyes and pointing to a corner of the shop. A crude instrument leaning up against a chair in the corner of the room.

“Get it and bring it here.”

Enoch did so, standing in front of Tull and holding the banjo for inspection. The body was a small, hollow gourd with a side sliced off and a skin stretched over the open part, secured with small black nails. The neck seemed to have been part of a broom, or perhaps a shovel handle, sheared so that there was a flat surface for a fingerboard. Three strings ran the length, secured at the top by roughly cut wooden pegs attached to a flat piece through holes, as on a violin. Another peg, screwed to the side of the neck about halfway down toward the body, kept a short string in tension. Like the others, it ran down to a small wooden piece at the bottom, to which they were tied; they were held above the surface of the skin by another little wooden piece with notches to hold the strings in place. This little bridge was just below the center of the skin.