“No!” Jennifer moved as the thin woman grabbed at the bag. “Please, don’t,” she begged.
“Get back, you white bitch!” The heavyset woman hit Jennifer on the shoulder, tossed her off balance, then seized the purse and dumped the contents into the wash basin. Her chubby short fingers sifted through the contents.
Jennifer saw herself react. She saw herself push off the gray tile wall and jump the big woman. She seized her by the throat. She held up the woman with one hand for a moment, as if she were a lioness in Africa showing off her prize. Then she banged open the metal stall door and, still with one hand, shoved the black woman’s face in the toilet bowl. The water splashed from the bowl as the heavy woman thrashed under her hands, but Jennifer leaned over, pressed her full weight on the woman’s shoulder, and flushed the toilet with her foot. She kept flushing until the woman stopped struggling. Then Jennifer wedged the woman’s bulky body against the back wall of the stall and left her facedown in the blue toilet water.
Jennifer backed off, calming herself with deep breaths, turned to the counter and picked up the contents of her purse, slipping them into her large leather bag. She looked up into the mirror and caught a glimpse of her flushed face and blazing eyes, but then she saw the other woman, the thin white woman, had not run. She had stayed and now was coming at Jennifer with a club in her hand.
Without pausing, without a rational thought, Jennifer lunged forward and hit the woman. She caught her squarely on the bridge of the nose. Jennifer felt the bone crumble beneath her hand and saw a flash of pain in the woman’s dull eyes before her blood spurted out of both nostrils in thick red jets. Jennifer tapped her on the forehead, and the dead woman slid silently to the wet tile of the bathroom floor.
Jennifer stepped over her, straightened her suit skirt, and walked out of the bathroom. She turned away from the conference room toward the bank of elevators and hit the down button. Fright swept through her, leaving her trembling. She leaned against the wall, praying for the elevator to come, praying that no one would discover that she had killed again.
She dug her hands deep into the pockets of her fur coat and felt Eileen’s crystal. Slipping her fingers around the quartz, she felt its strange warmth and at once felt better. Jennifer closed her eyes and concentrated on the quartz crystal, letting its strange calming vibrations smooth her troubled soul.
$100 REWARD
RAN AWAY from my plantation, in Calhoun County, Alabama, a Negro woman named Sarah, aged 17 years, 5 feet 3 or 4 inches high, copper colored, and very straight; her teeth are good and stand a little open; thin through the shoulders, good figure, tiny features. The girl has some scars on her back that show above her shoulder blades, caused by the whip; smart for a Negro, with a pleasing smile. She was pursued into Williamsburg County, South Carolina, and there fled, I will give the above reward for her confinement by a soul driver.
Charles B. Smythe
Norfolk Times
October 6,
He stood away from the dusty dock, away from the crowds, and watched the slave speculators loading the runaways. He stood out of the wind, on the wooden porch of a riverside bar, and watched for women, but there were few of them being shipped south, and those that he saw, he did not want. They were old and beaten down by age and hard labor. Still, he waited. He only wanted one; two would be more than a surprise. It would be a blessing, he thought, and smiled to himself.
On the cold December day, the few slave women he saw wore thin dresses, little underwear or petticoats, and all were barefooted. Small ice balls hung from the hems of their clothes.
He took out a se-gar, struck a match against a post, and fit the corona while he kept scanning the busy river dock.
The slaves were already being led onto the steamer, so as to be safely in the holds before passengers like himself boarded. He watched a chain line of seventy Negroes, men, women, and children, each carrying a small bundle of their belongings, being whipped up the plank, the shouts of the soul drivers carrying clearly on the frosty morning. These slaves were runaways, being taken south to be sold at auction or returned for reward money.
The Negroes walked with their heads bent, making no protests as the whip cracked across their backs. Although he did notice in passing that several of the little ones were silently weeping, he guessed that was more from fatigue than fear. These little pickaninnies had no fear, he realized, because they did not know what waited for them in the Old South. Farther away, other slaves loading goods on the ferryboat began to sing, and their strong voices rose above the snap of whips and the shouts of the soul-drivers.
Poor Ros-y, poor gal,
Poor Ros-y, poor gal;
Ros-y broke my poor heart,
Heaven shall-a be my home.
He smiled, enjoying the spiritual. He had heard it before, sung by the slaves on Sea Island. There were no finer voices in the whole world, he guessed, than the simple voices of black people. God gives each of his creatures some meager gifts, he thought, even his blacks.
Then he saw the woman and he forgot about the spirituals. Standing up, he followed her progress as she approached the docked steamer. He had seen her once before, when he had spent a night at the major’s plantation, and then she had been no more than seventeen But it was her, he knew at once, and his heart quickened. She was in chains, and it appeared she was the sole possession of a slave driver. It was Sarah. She was headed for Calhoun County and Charles B. Smythe. But not, he told himself, if he could stop it.
The soul driver who had Sarah was a pinelander, he saw, poor white trash from Georgia. He was a small man with a yellow-mud complexion, straight features, and the simple dumb look of one baffled by his life. He appeared as if his head had been kicked by a mule. The pinelander would be no trouble, he thought with satisfaction, already feeling the flesh of the beautiful black woman naked in his arms. He moved off the porch and made his way across the crowded wharf to where the pinelander stood with his private bounty.
He’d buy her off the man for the stated reward money and save the man the trip to Calhoun County, if the pinelander questioned him, he’d simply say he was headed south to visit the major. But the soul driver wouldn’t protest, he knew. Not with a hundred greenbacks in his pocket.
He’d have the soul driver deliver the woman to his cabin and chain her there to the furnishings. No one would be the wiser, nor would he be seen with the girl. His mouth watered, thinking of having her, and he picked up his gait, suddenly in a rush to buy his prize.
He waited until the steamer was underway before going down to his cabin, and then when he opened the door to his rooms, he did not see her. His heart quickened, thinking the pinelander might have tricked him, gone off with his money and the slave, but then he saw that she was chained to the bedpost and was sitting in the dark corner of the small room.
The candlelight from the passageway caught only the gleam of her brown eyes. He closed the door behind him and locked them both in the darkness of the cabin.
“Hello, Sarah,” he said to calm her. “You are all right, girl. I won’t beat you.” He did not soften his words. He never treated slaves with kindness, for he had learned they always misunderstood intentions and later thought they had some claim on his affections. He treated all slaves the same, whether he had slept with them or not. “I will unshackle you from the bed, Sarah, and I want you to strip out of those filthy rags of yours, then use the bowl and water on the counter and wash yourself, especially your privates.”
He spoke calmly, not allowing her to notice his excitement. It was best with slave women that they not understand the desire he had for them.