The Triumph of Grace (10 page)

But Caleb didn't run. Just before the appointed hour, as the moon rose over the cypress swamps, Juba called Caleb away and told him to prepare the wagons for the next day's move to the cotton plantations. So Isum ran alone.

The next morning, when Macon Waymon should have been loading his best slaves into the wagon to begin the trek up to his new cotton fields, he was forced to hire slave catchers with their fearsome dogs to track down one single slave who had dared betray him at the worst possible time.

When he should have finally begun to earn back some of the money that conniving Eli Whitney demanded for his cotton-engine invention, Macon instead followed the howl of the slave catcher's dogs as he insisted on joining the search for an expensive worker he had considered to be a prize, but who turned out to be nothing but a treacherous rebel.

When he should have been smiling over plans for his new successful cotton venture, he simmered in humiliation over the defection of a slave he had trusted.

Yes, that was it. He
trusted
his slaves. And well he should, since he was so good a master to them. Other slave owners worried about slave insurrection, but not Macon Waymon. He unabashedly congratulated himself on the contentment and loyalty of his slaves. They respected him. They loved him!

Isum's freedom was short-lived. The sun was still high in the sky when a slave catcher rode into the slave quarters pulling the runaway behind him. Isum, his hands bound and tied with a rope to the back of the catcher's saddle, was forced to stumble and run along in an effort to keep from being dragged by the trotting horse.

Macon Waymon, who should have been settling his slaves in their new quarters at the cotton plantation, put on his coat and rode out to the slave quarters to meet the slave catcher.Juba hung back behind Macon, his eyes on the ground.

"Tie the runaway to the post," Macon ordered Juba. His jaw was hard and his eyes flashed with fire.

Juba didn't move.

"Now!" Macon ordered. Fury rose in his face.

Juba glanced uneasily at the slaves gathered around. Every one of them glowered at him. But Juba also saw his master's face—angry and resolute.

Macon Waymon stepped toward Juba and snapped his whip.

"Now, boy!" he ordered.

Still Juba hesitated.

In a flash, Macon's whip slashed across Juba's arm. Blood ran through his sliced sleeve and down his hand, splattering red on his white man's shoes.

Juba edged up to Isum. With shaking fingers he untied the slave from the horse. He kept his eyes averted from the runaway's face as he bound him to the whipping post. Juba looked at no one, but the fiery hatred around him seared through to his heart.

"Out of my way," Master Macon ordered, and Juba fell back.

Macon wielded the whip with an awkward hand. A kindly master such as he was used to leaving matters of discipline in the hands of others.

One lash . . . two lashes . . . three lashes . . .

The whip sliced across Isum's back again and again. After twenty excruciating lashes, Macon stopped.

"I am a merciful man," Macon said. "Plead for mercy."

Isum twisted his head around so that he could see the white man with the whip. Macon stepped in closer in order to hear the wretched man's plea. Isum spat in his face.

Macon, shaking with rage, jerked his whip up and thrashed wildly across Isum's bloody back.

At thirty lashes, Macon stopped again.

"I am known to be a compassionate man," Macon said in an icy voice. "Now, slave, beg me to show compassion to you!"

Isum, his body ravaged but his eyes still fiery with defiance, uttered naught but a wild growl.

Macon roared with fury. He raised his whip and brought it down again and again and again, beating Isum with savage ferocity. The slaves shrieked and begged for massa to stop, but Macon didn't even hear their pleas. Juba fell to his knees and pleaded with his master to quit the whip. Macon didn't hear him, either.

Finally, his whip already poised for another lash, Macon seemed to suddenly recover himself. He dropped his arm and stared at Isum, slumped at the post. In puzzlement, Macon looked down at his own blood-splattered clothes. Almost against his will, he forced his eyes back to the man who sagged on the whipping post, his back in shreds.

Pity pierced Macon's heart. Isum was, after all, a strong and valuable slave.

Pity, yes, but not remorse. The slave had given him no choice. Even the best of slave owners were required to discipline troublesome slaves. Indeed, when a slave owner was able to dispassionately do whatever must be done in order to maintain control, it merely proved his excellence of position.

Suddenly Isum forced himself upright.

Macon caught his breath and jumped back.

Slowly the slave turned his tortured face until he stared straight into Macon's eyes. In a low rumble of a voice Isum said, "Ever' night when you close your eyes, know it might be de last time. Know dat might be de night your slaves rise up an' kill you all."

Macon blinked back his shock. He looked around at the assembly of slaves he knew and trusted. Not one of them moved. Not one of them spoke. Those slaves should love him. He had been so certain they did. Yet now they stared at him with blank eyes. His wife gave candy to their children at Christmas, yet not one said a word on his behalf. The worst of it was that he knew perfectly well he could not run the cotton plantations without them. He
must
make them respect him! He
must
make them obey!

With a sudden bellow, Macon Waymon lashed out wildly with his whip at the entire lot of terrifyingly ungrateful slaves.The whip caught Caleb in the leg. It got Mose across the shoulder. Macon knocked Old Tempy flat before the slave catcher managed to pull the whip away from him.

The slave catcher aimed his gun at the huddled slaves and ordered them all to their cabins. As they hurried away, they could hear Juba behind them screaming, "No, no! Massa, no!"

When the commotion died down outside, Caleb opened the cabin door. Juba was no longer in the yard. Macon Waymon and the slave hunter were on their horses, riding away toward the Big House, the two dogs loping along beside them.

Caleb stepped outside into the silent courtyard. The cooking pot lay upside down, the last of the collard greens spilled out on the ground.

That's when Caleb saw Isum. His battered body hung from a branch of the oak tree.

A
s morning crept over the horizon, Monsieur Pierre Dulcet rode out to survey his vast new field. Already it was thick with slaves at work planting tobacco seedlings. He looked singularly out of place dressed in a fine silk shirt, coat, and white hose, a lavish plumed hat set on his head at a cocky tilt.

Monsieur Dulcet, a Frenchman of exceptionally fine breeding, was not one to notice individual slaves. But he did take note of Samson.

Samson, like so many Africans reloaded onto slave ships in the islands of the West Indies and sent on to the United States, was less than a perfect specimen. But as a slave, he was no slacker. To compensate for his twisted left shoulder, Samson had contrived a box which he hung around his neck with a strip of fabric torn from his blanket and angled toward his left side. This contraption enabled him to reach for a tobacco seedling with his weakened arm and hold it at the ready. At the same time he dipped low, and with his right hand made a hole in the soft dirt. With amazing accuracy, he dropped the seedling to the ground and in one swift move, secured it in the earth.

The Frenchman smiled at such ingenuity in a slave. Tobacco growing did, after all, depend on patient labor, skilled eyes, and steady hands.

Monsieur Dulcet rode to the edge of the field and called out to the slave, "Samson! Wash yourself. The overseer will give you clean clothes to wear and shoes for your feet. This day you shall accompany me to the city."

In Charleston, Samson followed behind his master, his head lowered as Monsieur Dulcet greeted friends and strangers alike with a charming "
Bonjour."
This was accompanied by a deep and courtly bow and a flourish of Monsieur's feathered hat. Whenever Monsieur Dulcet entered an establishment, Samson stood outside the door and waited for him. Should the errand involve a purchase, Samson hefted the package up onto his head and hurried it over to his master's carriage.

When the sun reached its zenith, Monsieur Dulcet motioned Samson up front beside the carriage driver. "
Le Coton Manoir,"
he ordered.

The carriage driver turned the horses away from the city and down a country lane. They passed vast fields filled with slaves busy laying in cotton seedlings, and a few fields being planted in tobacco. The carriage driver turned up an avenue of oaks that led to a majestic brick Big House lavishly decorated with white painted wood.

A rotund man of indeterminate age, his thin moustache meticulously trimmed, stepped out as the carriage approached.When it stopped, he called, "
Bonjour, Pierre! Comment allez-vous?"

"
Bien, merci!"
Pierre Dulcet responded as he stepped from the carriage. He made a deep bow. "I am most well, Jean-Claude. And you, too, I pray?"

Before Jean-Claude could answer, Pierre turned his attention to Samson, who still sat on the carriage seat. "I shall be occupied for the entire afternoon," he said. He motioned toward a clutch of Negroes who lounged in the shade of an oak grove off to the side of the house. "You are to remain here until I return."

Monsieur Dulcet dashed up the steps to the
Coton Manoir
and followed Jean-Claude inside.

As Samson approached the oak grove, the others turned their eyes on him and fell silent. Samson stopped off to the side and sat on the ground. He waited in silence for the others to inspect him to their full satisfaction.

"Where you from?" a stocky man with a light brown face asked.

"Africa," Samson said, his voice tinged with the slightest note of defiance.

"Why you here?" the stocky man persisted.

"I come with my master," Samson said.

After a moment of silent consideration, a slight man with crossed eyes demanded, "Why?"

Samson shrugged. "Same reason I do everythin', every day of my life. Because Massa tell me to."

The stocky man laughed out loud. "You be a slave, den, sure enough."

Pierre Dulcet had never been particularly homesick for France, but if he had, the cure would have been the
Coton Manoir.
There, he could feel right at home. The décor, the repasts, the ambience—all were pure Parisian. He greeted two other Frenchmen, who were already seated and comfortable.Off to one side, a trio of musicians played softly on stringed instruments.

Jean-Claude noticed that Pierre watched the musicians, and he said with pride, "They are from the symphony orchestra.Charleston has the French to thank for making such a musical treat a possibility."

"
Magnifique!"
Pierre exclaimed.

"Indeed, Charleston has many reasons to be grateful for our presence," Jean-Claude continued. "My own dear wife, Simone, rejoiced when the first of the French dressmakers finally brought fashion to this fair city."

"Have you seen the most recent contribution of the French?" asked a droll fellow by the name of Gaston. He handed Pierre Dulcet a fresh-off-the-press copy of the French newspaper,
Le Patriote Français.

Pierre glanced at the pages and said with a smile, "I see you still write about Monsieur L'Enfant, even though President Washington dismissed him from his appointment to develop the area around the proposed Capitol and White House on Pennsylvania Avenue."

After a few embarrassed harrumphs, Jean-Claude moved the subject away from the unpopular Frenchman. "Read about the homeland, Pierre. Who can say what will become of France? The revolution, it goes badly."

"
Oui.
And who is this new officer from Corsica?" Pierre asked, pointing to a short item in the newspaper. "This Napoleon Bonaparte?"

"No one of interest, most likely," said Gaston with a sigh. "And yet, with the officer class in France so completely decimated, even this one must be worthy of some notation, however slight."

"Come, come!" Jean-Claude interrupted. "Let us speak of relevant matters. Have you begun to plant the tobacco crop in your fields, Pierre?"

"
Oui, oui,"
said Pierre. "It brings me great pleasure to gaze out across my land and watch my slaves at work in the fields.And I tell you, it will not be long before the land is carpeted in a healthy new growth."

"Well, with revolutionary France officially at war with England, and with America claiming neutrality, the tobacco market should at long last open up for you," said Alain. He always had been a pragmatic soul. "As each of us well knows, every Frenchman is eager for American-grown tobacco."

"
Oui,"
said Pierre Dulcet with a sigh. "But it does crush my heart to hear you speak of revolutionary France."

For a Frenchman of Monsieur Dulcet's aristocratic background, life was far safer in the United States of America than in his homeland, where no one could be quite certain anymore who was friend and who was foe.

"You are aware that King Louis XVI went to the guillotine, are you not?" said Gaston. He shook his head sadly. "Paraded through the streets, he was, the drums rolling. Yet he never lost his courage."

"
Épouvantable!"
said Pierre. "Dreadful! And yet I would beg to disagree with you on one point. I believe that King Louis most certainly did lose his courage . . . step by step. It was his decision that the Constitutional Assembly should abolish slavery in France last year, was it not?"

"Well, I for one say
vive la Republique!"
announced Alain."The royalty lived in far too opulent a manner . . . bread was much too expensive, and so the masses starved. Half the population had no work and no pay, and the king brought that ridiculous queen over from that ridiculous country. To my mind, all of France has lost its sensibilities."

"Your massa be French?" asked the light-brown, stocky man.

"Why you care 'bout dat, Dutch?" demanded Brister, which was the name of the small man with crossed eyes.

"Because dat king of France just got his head lopped off is why," said Dutch. "Dem French peoples wants liberty, like in dis country here. Dey wants freedom like folks in dis place has got."

"Liberty!" Brister spat. "De white man loves to say dat word!"

"Loves to say it for hisself is what you means," rumbled a large man speaking for the first time. His voice was sharp and angry. "De white man don't love to say it for us."

"No," said Samson. "Not for us."

"Not unless we lops off de white mans' heads and takes his freedom for ourself," said the angry man. "Not unless we does dat."

"It is good to be in this country that was established on the principles of freedom," said Jean-Claude. He lifted the crystal wine glass to his lips and sipped appreciatively. "This country is not like France. It is not like Europe at all. America is a shining land of equality and opportunity, an example to the entire world."

"Not everyone would agree with that sentiment," Gaston said. "It is true that no titled nobility dominates American society. It is also true that no pauperized underclass threatens it from below. But to the claim of freedom for all . . . well, one must acknowledge the notorious exception of slavery."

"That is an unfortunate economic necessity of our times," Alain interjected. "Do you not agree, Pierre? Surely you could not conduct your own business of producing quality tobacco without the assistance of—what?—one hundred slaves?"

"You are entirely correct," said Pierre. "The number has now reached well over one hundred. And while I treat my slaves well, I do not make pets of them. They are
outils.
Tools.The same as plows and plow horses. I could not operate my plantation without them, yet it is essential that they know their place and keep to it."

"Even the great American patriot Thomas Jefferson would agree with that sentiment," said Alain. "He looked at the bloody horrors of the slave revolt in Saint Domingue, and he proclaimed it a perfect example of what happens when Negroes are allowed to govern themselves."

"Ah, yes," said Jean-Claude. He clucked his tongue and shook his head slowly. "And a horrific example it is, too!"