Often as not a woman would be waiting for me when I called, sitting with her arms crossed in the middle of the room, mute and blank-faced as a cinder. My man would be sound asleep beside her, half-covered by a quilt, or hid behind a dirty sack-cloth curtain.
“The wind’s up, auntie,” I’d say to the woman.
“Then get you gone,” she’d say. “Gone back down under the river.”
“Get him roused, auntie,” I’d say. “Wake him, or I’ll take him tonight.”
“I’ll wake the marse, that’s who. I’ll wake his hounds.”
I’d say nothing, looking at her as I might at a cow laid in the middle of the road. It was always the same. After another stretch of dullness she’d get stiffly to her feet and walk out of the shack without a word.
I was sixteen years old when I began as a striker, reckless and full of bluster—; I was caught on my very first strike. A foreman and two boys tied me to a fence-post with a length of hemp and laid into me with a switch for a while, but their hearts weren’t in it. They’d heard of the Trade by then, heard of it and feared it, and they had little regard for the master of the house. He came down himself after a time, looked me over indifferently, then dismissed his men. I could smell his anise-scented breath as he examined my cuts. I can’t abide anise to this day.
“You a right fortunate little coon,” he whispered. Then he cut me loose. I learned later he was one of our share-holders.
Once the husband, or the son, or the lover of the cinder-faced woman was roused from the bed, I’d refuse whatever hospitality was offered — a slice of cold scrapple, perhaps, or a wedge of boiled yam— then press a silver ring into his palm, holding it there until his fingers closed on it. I’d remind him that he must have the ring on the first finger of his left hand when my associates came for him, and that they’d come for him within a fortnight. Then I’d have him repeat what I said word for word.
“If you don’t have that ring, they’ll shoot you in the belly,” I’d say. “These aren’t patient men.”
And he’d look me in the face at last, sober and respectful, and swear to me he understood. I did my work well—; I did as right by them, each one, as I was able. Not a one of the niggers I struck failed to turn out for his rendezvous. Not a one of my strikes was wasted.
I began to build a name for myself, in circles. But the more I grew inside that name the tighter it became, and the more I wanted to slip out of it like a cicada from its shell. I was bigger than my name already, and I knew it. I was not yet nineteen years of age.
THE REDEEMER HAD BEEN PARTIAL to me from the start, and had talked to me long and lovingly about the Trade—; in reality, however, the sum of what I knew could have fit into a pipe-stem. One afternoon, when I was sitting with him in his quarters, he leaned back in that high-chair of his and sucked musingly on his pipe. “You’ve been a capital striker for us, Oliver,” he said finally. “Capital.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He squinted at me then. “What’s that you’re wearing?”
“Broad-cloth, sir. A recent cut.” I smiled at him. “They call it a smoking-jacket.”
“Don’t wear black cloth in the morning, Oliver.” He pursed his lips. “Don’t wear evening-dress, of any kind, on any occasion before six o’clock. The French, of course, wear evening-dress on ceremonious occasions at whatever hour they may occur—; here, however, we follow the English custom.”
He shuffled some papers about on his desk. He’d said things of this sort to me before, and I wasn’t too put out by them. “The exception is New Orleans, of course. Follow French custom in that city.”
“I will, sir. Thank you.”
He studied me for a time. “You’ve never been to pick up any of the niggers you’ve struck, have you?”
“No sir,” I answered. My throat tightened with excitement.
He flipped idly through a stack of ledgers. “There’s one by the name of Bosun, not too far down-river. His time is nearly due. Perhaps you and Mr. Kennedy—”
“Not Kennedy,” I spat out, helpless to keep still. The Redeemer looked up sharply from his desk, not so much in anger as in surprise—; his surprise, however, lasted but a moment. When he spoke it was clear that he knew how Kennedy had found me, and what had happened after.
“No—; not Kennedy, of course,” he said.
I said nothing then, waiting for some reference to my disgrace. But instead he struck a match, took another pull from his pipe, and said in an amicable voice—:
“It is strange that it was Kennedy, of all people, who brought you to us. You two are so very disalike.” He looked at me. “Your mother must have been une femme sans pareil.”
“Beg your pardon, sir. I never knew her.”
He nodded at this, his coy little mouth running over with smoke. “Of course, Oliver. Yes. I mean the woman you were—indentured to, when Mr. Kennedy came across you.”
“Mrs. Bradford was never a mother to me, sir,” I lied. “She was the woman who took me and put me to work.”
“She did a good deal more than that, as I understand it,” the Redeemer said warmly. “She fed you, she clothed you, she taught you to read and cipher—”
“She’d been a school-teacher,” I answered, cutting him short. I cleared my throat and continued, if only to keep him from saying any more—: “It was more for her pleasure, sir, than for mine.”
“All right, Oliver—; yes.” He smiled indulgently. “You’d know better, of course.” He made a clucking noise with his tongue, the same noise that I’d often heard Parson make. “Mind you,” he said. “I had no school-teachers to give me my finishing, when I was of tender years.”
“You had Parson,” I said.
To this day I wonder at my imprudence. The Redeemer froze in mid-puff and glowered crookedly at his pipe, as though it, not I, had spoken out of turn. Then he went on cheerfully—:
“You looked like the Dauphin himself when Kennedy brought you in, dear boy. I remember it well. All done up in sashes and chenille—”
“She made good money with that still,” I said hoarsely. “But you know that, of course.”
He raised his eye-brows. “Why the deuce should I?”
“Because you own it now.”
He laughed heartily at this and turned the talk to trifles. We spoke no more about my history, then or after—; but a small, true thing had happened. Out of my shame I’d rebelled, however briefly, and the Redeemer had indulged me.
Two nights later we set out for Bosun’s rendezvous.
THE RAFT WE RODE ON was a modest one, little more than tree-stems lashed to a birch-plank floor. The Redeemer and I were the only riders—; I didn’t know, then, of the years he’d spent flat-boating, and was amazed at his skill with the steering-oar and pole. As we drifted, seemingly without effort, just in sight of Louisiana, he pointed out banks, chutes, and snags to me with a confidence born of a lifetime spent on the river. He took particular pleasure, I remember, in identifying the stars. The commonest constellations were known to me, of course, but the Redeemer mapped out dozens upon dozens across the sky, many of which I’ve never heard of since. One in particular seemed to delight him, a dim cluster to the left of Cassiopeia that he called Herod’s Ladder—: