Tobias pulled on his dogs' collars and dragged them back down the path toward his house. At every step one of the four hounds would turn and growl at us. You could tell that they could feel our flesh rend under their sharp teeth.
"I thought you said nevah t'say mastuh?" I said when Tobias was gone far enough away.
John smiled easily and I could tell that he was again the same confident young man I had met earlier that day.
"When I talk to somebody like I talked with Tobias," he said, "it's like a joke. To me Tobias Turner is nothing more than one of those dogs are to him just a mad beast at the wrong end of the chain. But when you say master and when you say nigger you are making yourself his dog and his slave."
"I am his slave," I said.
"Not anymore," Tall John said.
It's funny what one word can tell you. When Tobias called John son I knew that he intended to steal him from Pike and keep him as one of his. And when John said the word any I knew that he wasn't one of us, the slaves, but
something different, something that neither I nor anyone I had ever known had met. I knew right then that the runaway Lemuel, now calling himself Tall John, was something like an angel, or a devil. But whichever one he was I knew that I wanted to be his friend.
7.
"He says which?" Mud Albert asked me.
For the third time I explained what Master Tobias had told me concerning Tall John.
"For this niggah here?" Albert said.
"That's what he said," I answered for the third time also.
"What they call you?" Albert asked the strange colored slave.
"Tall John."
"Tall John? Why ain't they called you Skinny John or Copper John or just John?"
"Tall," John said as if he were considering the word for the first time in his life. "Tall… is a funny word, you right about dat. I mean you could have a tall flea as long as he taller den alia the other fleas. To you an' me dat flea ain't no mo' den a tiny midget but to alia da othah fleas he be like some kinda king."
Once again Tall John was talking like a whole different person. I came to understand that he spoke one way to white people, another way to slaves, and still another way to me when we were alone. In this way John hid his true nature from everyone but me.
"King flea," Champ Noland said, and a few of the men laughed at the outlandish idea.
"So now you want us to call you King John?" Billy Branches, slave Number Thirty-nine, asked.
"I's jes' talkin' 'bout tall right now," John said. "Fas jes' sayin' that if a flea could be tall den why cain't I be?"
"But dat flea you supposin' was taller den the othah fleas," said Number Seventy-five, also known as Black Tom. "I see a lotta men here taller den you."
John's eyes got big and then he rolled them around the room to check out Black Tom's claim. He looked so foolish that many of the men started laughing. I felt a grin come across my own face.
I had only been out in the slave quarters for a few weeks. In that time I had never heard general laughter among the men. Sometimes, before we were chained to our bunks, the men would gather under lamplight and talk in low tones about mundane events of the day. But hearing John brought lightness to our hearts.
"I don't like to conta'dict you, suh," John replied after rolling his eyes some more. "But I done spied around myself 'n I do believe that I am the tallest person hereabouts."
John's outlandish claim brought loud protests from the men.
"Dat nigger's crazy," one voice shouted.
"Dat's a lie!" another indignant man said.
There was a great deal of shouting but as angry as the sounded they were still having a good time.
"So says you," John said in response to the doubting mob of slaves. "But let me pose you dis…" He held up one finger and the whole room went silent. "If you sees a wood barrel stand up to here…" he held his hand at the level of his diaphragm "… would you call dat a tall barrel?"
"No," somebody said. "Dat's jes' a regular barrel. It'a have to be up to here to call it tall."
The man, Number Nineteen, held his hand shoulder high to show what he meant.
A few of the men grumbled their agreement with Nineteen.
"All right den," Tall John said. "Now what if you see a blade'a grass come all the way up to my chest? Wouldn't you call dat a tall blade'a grass?"
"Sure it is," a voice from the back said.
"Uh-huh," Champ Noland agreed.
A few of the others had to admit what John said was true.
"Now look here," John said then.
He went to stand next to Champ Noland, who was the tallest and broadest man on the whole plantation.
John came up to about the middle of Champ's neck but he was so skinny that it would have taken four of him to match the big man's girth. Everybody in the room could see that Champ was more like a squat barrel where John was tall like a blade of grass.
The men broke out laughing and I was proud that I was the one who found Tall John and brought him into our midst.
But even then I wondered at the many faces of my new friend. In front of the master he was a cowering slave wanting nothing but the master's approval. With Albert and the rest of the slaves he was a wise-cracking joker outthinking us but at the same time making us laugh. When we were alone he sounded like an educated white person from some far-off city like Atlanta or Charleston. But not only that when we were together John acted as if we were always meant to be friends.
When we were walking toward the slave quarters after seeing Tobias, John had said to me, "I'm glad that we found each other at last, Forty-seven."
"How do you know my name, boy?" I'd replied.
"I've known who you were since before you born, son. All this time I've been doing your job. Pretty soon now I think you'll be doing mine."
"Well," I'd said, "seein' that we's both slaves I guess one thing's the same as t'other."
John laughed out loud and slapped my arm. Then we got to the slave quarters, where he told us about the barrel and the blade of grass.
"Okay," Albert said, finally, after much laughter about John's riddle-like argument. "Time to hit the hay. I'm gonna move Champ over to bunk with Thirty-two and I'm gonna put Number Twelve and Forty-seven in the same cot." "Why you wanna do that?" Seven, who we also knew as Charlie Baylor, asked. "Forty-seven and this new boy is small. It'a make more sense to put them with big men like me so we could have some room when we tryin' t'sleep."
"Sleep is the last thing you need, Charlie Baylor. Every time I sen' some'un to look for you they find you nappin' under some cotton bush."
The slaves all laughed then. I could see in Charlie's face that he didn't like being made fun of but I also knew that Mud Albert was free to say anything he wanted as long as Champ Noland was there to back him up.
So John and I were given the lower bunk nearest Mud Albert's brass bed. Champ went around chaining everybody to the bolts in the floor. After a while Mr. Stewart came in to check our chains. All he did was go to the foot of each cot and shake the chains. He didn't even notice that there was a new boy in the cabin.
After Mr. Stewart was gone Albert snuffed out the lanterns and so there was only one candle for light. He took this candle and came to sit next to our bunk. "Tall John is it?" he asked my friend. "You bettah believe it, brothah," John replied. His smiling teeth flashed in the flickering light.