The Triumph of Grace (9 page)

A
shok, you fool! Git yerse'f off this deck!" shouted Abner.

Pounding rain plastered Abner's black hair slick against his head as he and the Scotsman, Bart, tugged at the knotted rigging.

Grace struggled to obey, but she slipped on the waterslick deck and fell to her knees. Just as she found her footing, another wave pounded against the ship and upended two crates of chickens. They tumbled toward her, chickens clucking frantically. Grace dodged the rolling crates only to slip again and fall flat.

"On yer feet, laddy!" Bart ordered. "Grab a bailin' bucket and get yourself belowdecks!"

Old Quin, his arm wrapped around the rail, held a bucket out to her. Grace managed to grab it as she lurched toward the ladder. She was about to descend down the first step when Collie Steele bounded up from below.

"Belowdecks with the both of ye!" Bart bawled. "Mister Talbot done said you lads was to bail water, so git below and set to bailin'!"

"Not me!" Collie shot back. "I will help you secure the sails up here!"

"Git below!" old Quin shouted from the rail. "That be a direct order!"

"I've had me fill of them bailin' buckets," Collie said. "I'll work topside, like a real sailor, same as you."

As he struggled to keep his balance, Collie inched his way forward across the rocking deck.

One huge wave after another surged and smashed against the ship. The pilot strained at the wheel, turning the ship hard to starboard to meet wave after wave, head-on. As the ship rolled to the side, both Abner and Bart grabbed for the shrouds. Old Quin dropped the buckets and wrapped both his arms around the rail. Collie, perplexed, stopped still in the middle of the deck.

The ship lurched to the side, then it lunged forward. With blinding strength, a tremendous wave smashed across the deck.

And Collie was gone.

Grace's voice rose in a shrieking scream. But her cries were lost in the howl of the wind and the crash of the sea.

"Below! You, Ashok!"

Abner and Bart and Quin all bellowed together.

"Git yerse'f below! Now!"

By late afternoon, the crash of the waves had quieted to heaving billows. By dusk, the sea was nothing more than rolling surges. By nightfall, a fair wind filled the sails of the
Ocean Steed,
and the ship cut swiftly through the water.

Grace sank down onto a barrel flipped upside down next to the rail and stared overboard at the black water. She shivered uncontrollably in her soaked clothes. Collie Steele lay down there in the deep darkness. Swept away right in front of her eyes, he was. One moment he stood in the middle of the deck, and the next moment he was gone.

"It could have been me," Grace whispered.

"Sure, and it could. Could be you tomorrow," said old Quin, who had come up behind her. He looked from the choppy water up to the sails that strained in the wind. "Could be me.Could be any one of us. Or all of us."

Old Quin stood next to Grace and stared out over the sea.For a long time, he said nothing.

"Nature fights agin' us at the very same time it helps us, don't y'see," he said at last. "We never kin know when it will grab hold of a ship and have its way with us."

Grace turned and looked up at Quin's deeply furrowed face, weathered and brown. He always wore a cap pulled down tight over his mop of bushy gray curls. Quin continued to stare out to the endless expanse of ocean.

"Do you believe in God?" Grace asked in a quiet voice.

"I believes in ever'thin'," Quin said. "An' I believes in nothin'. That way I won't be disappointed."

Grace finally found the strength to make her way down the ladder. Where Collie's hammock had hung beside hers was now a gaping, empty space.

The next morning, Captain Hallam summoned the entire crew to the main deck. The men stood in unaccustomed orderly rows. They pulled off their hats—except for Grace who left her red rumal wrapped around her head. With uncommon discomfort, the captain stood before the silent men.

Grace, up at the front, heard the navigator, Marcus Slade, whisper to Captain Hallam, "You must say something, sir."

" 'They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep,' " Captain Hallam intoned. "Our mate . . .ah . . ."

"Collie Steele, sir," Marcus Slade hissed. "His name was Collie Steele!"

"Our mate, Collie Steele—" Captain Hallam said. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I am not a religious man."

Mister Slade handed the captain an opened Bible. With the men's eyes hard on him, Captain Hallam read, " 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want; He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.' Psalm 23. "

Captain Hallam shut the Bible.

"Collie Steele, into the deep sea and the presence of God we commend your spirit," he said. "Sleep in peace, lad."

As one endless day stretched into another, as her slender arms grew strong and her face baked to a richer shade of brown, as the biscuits Jackie served with cook's endless pease porridge hardened into rocks, and weevils chewed passageways through them, Grace's respect for her father grew. When she was young, Joseph Winslow was sometimes away from home for many months at a time. He always retuned to the African coast strong and sunburned and laden down with wonderful gifts—dresses of silk and lace, and leather-bound books, sometimes with pictures. Always he returned to Africa with tales to tell of exciting adventures and places about which Grace could only dream. In her mind, the life of a sailor was a life of freedom and adventure and excitement and fun. How could she ever have imagined the truth of life at sea? It was incredibly hard work. It was constant danger. It was terrible food and worse water. It was endless days and nights of either raging heat or shivering cold. It was a life of crammed-together loneliness.

"There, now, a thief is what you be! A thief and nothin' more!"

Grace heard the yells long before she saw anything. She was at work sanding out the corner portion of the deck most damaged in the storm, a job she mumbled (but only to herself) must surely be the most loathsome on earth. Her calloused fingers split and bled as the noonday sun beat relentlessly on her back. The men around her had stripped to almost nothing, but of course she had not the luxury to do the same. Instead, she made a great show of how much she enjoyed the heat.

"We will see what capt'n has to say over the likes of you, that we will! And I won't abide no tellin' of lies, neither! That I tell's you straight away!"

Just up ahead, cook Paddy Clemmons dragged Jackie Watson into view. Paddy had him by the ear, and Jackie squalled out his protests loud and long.

"No use to argue with me! I seen you with me own two eyes!" Paddy scolded. "Not hardtack or pieces of fish, neither.No, you has to go fer the captain's own special sausage, you does!"

The very thought of sausage set Grace's mouth to watering.Grace's and everyone else's, too. Good food had grown scarce, which was precisely why stealing it was such an assault on the entire ship.

"What will happen to him?" Grace asked Abner.

"Nothin' good, that's a certainty," Abner said. "Captain won't tolerate thievin' from the galley."

"Specially not thievin' of his own food," Quin added.

At the sound of three bells, Archie led Jackie to the main deck and chained him to the rail. With the full crew ordered to attend, Captain Hallam, his face hard with anger, decreed, "No water for two days, then half rations for one week. No food for three days, then half rations for one week."

Jackie let out a howl.

"May that serve as fair warning to any among you who might be tempted to follow the lead of this young scoundrel," Captain Hallam pronounced. "Thievery will not be tolerated on this ship. The next thief will receive double this punishment.And should anyone be fool enough to attempt it a third time, double again, though it means his very life."

No one dared look Captain Hallam in the face.

"And should anyone have a mind to bring water or food to the prisoner," the captain continued, "the same punishment awaits him."

That night, Grace lay in her hammock as it swung gently with the soft roll of the ship. On one side hung an empty hammock where Jackie should have been asleep, and on the other, an empty space where Collie's hammock had been.Gasping in the heavy air, she panted for breath. Her clothes were looser on her body, yet the bindings around her chest felt more crushing each day. Tonight she feared they would squeeze the life right out of her.

Cabeto! Cabeto! Grace struggled to grasp hold of his image and trace it in her mind. Piercing black eyes that could see clear through to her soul . . . broad nose that flared when he was angry . . . a serious mouth that knew well how to laugh . . . hands strong enough to tear limbs from a tree, yet gentle enough to cradle a child . . .

But Grace's mind continued to return to the young boy on the deck above, chained fast to the rail. All afternoon he had stood in the hot sun and stared out at the wide expanse of water, but with not one drop to moisten his parched lips. All night he would remain chained there through the cold darkness, and tomorrow and tomorrow night, too. How frightened Jackie must be! And how terribly miserable with thirst!

"
Yes, Cabeto,"
Grace mouthed silently. "
I know what you would do."

Quietly Grace slipped from her hammock and crept up the ladder to the main deck. She slid into the shadows, where she moved soundlessly along the bulkhead to a spot just behind where Jackie was chained. In the light of the half moon, she could see the outline of the boy. He had crumpled down onto the deck. The guard Captain Hallam had posted over him lay in a circle of lines, his head thrown back, snoring.

Soundlessly Grace moved further down the deck to the water barrel. Carefully she picked up the ladle.

Should anyone have a mind to bring water or food to the prisoner, the same punishment awaits him.
The captain's words rang clear in her mind.
Awaits
her.
The same punishment especially awaits
her.

Slowly, carefully, Grace lowered the dipper into the water barrel. It made the tiniest plink of a noise. Just as carefully she drew it out again. Grace tucked herself back into the shadows and eased her way over to the boy.

"Jackie," Grace breathed.

"Ashok!" Jackie gasped in surprise.

The guard shifted in his sleep and readjusted his position.

"Shhh!" Grace cautioned, breathing her words. "I brought you water. Quickly now!"

She held the dipper to the boy's sun-burnt lips. Jackie gulped ravenously.

The guard stirred and stretched himself.

Grace dropped to her knees and pressed against a stack of barrels.

"Is that you, boy?" the guard asked.

"Y . . . yes," Jackie stammered. "I's . . . I's just lickin' me dry lips."

"Lick 'em more quiet," the guard said. He stretched again and readjusted himself to a more comfortable position on the lines.

Grace sank back into the shadows. She edged to the water barrel, where she carefully slid the dipper back into place.Moving to the ladder, she slipped down to the berth deck below.

"What is you doin', coolie?" a voice growled at her in the darkness.

"Jus . . . taking in a breath of fresh air, is all," Grace said.She pushed her way through the rows of hammocks until she found her own.

Grace's hammock swayed with the rhythm of the ocean swells—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. This time Cabeto's face readily came to her. This time it lay gentle in her mind.

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .

The Good Shepherd. Yes, even now He carried Cabeto high upon His shoulders. Surely, in that lofty position, Cabeto was safe and protected.

Grace believed that.

She must believe it.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me . . .

"Good Shepherd," Grace prayed, "carry me, too. Oh, please . . . carry me, too!"

C
aleb watched Juba remove his white man shoes and carefully lay them on the edge of the rice field before he stepped onto the sodden ground. With his first step, Juba sank clean up to his bare ankles in mud.

Dat man has somethin' important on his mind,
Caleb thought.

Caleb forced his hoe back into the muck. But out of the corner of his eye, he watched Juba pick his way through the field toward him.

Kit, in the next rice field, also saw the driver. He, too, knew something important was about to happen. So Kit also began to work his way over in Caleb's direction. Nonchalantly, of course, but steadily.

"Massa wants to talk wit' you," Juba called out to Caleb."Get yourse'f outta de mud and cleaned up."

Massa!
Kit thought.
What has dat darkie Caleb gone an' done? Somethin' awful good, or somethin' just plain awful!

Either way, Kit's tongue already itched to spread the news.But his gossip would have to wait. Juba said nothing more than that, and Caleb asked him no questions. Caleb simply tossed his hoe over his shoulder and followed the driver out of the field. He waited as Juba put his shoes back on and silently followed him toward Massa's big house.

Macon Waymon leaned back comfortably in a white wooden chair on the sprawling porch of the White Jasmine plantation house. Since he would only have occasion to deal with slaves that spring morning, he decided there was no reason to encumber himself with anything more formal and uncomfortable than his "smallclothes." Though, to be truthful, he did feel a bit embarrassed to be outside the house so casually outfitted. It simply was not his gentlemanly nature to meet with others, regardless of their social status, attired in nothing but a linen shirt, a waistcoat, and trousers covered with no coat at all. Not even on a warm day.

Caleb stood awkwardly before his seated master and kept his eyes fixed on his own mud-splattered bare feet. He had not been this close to Massa Macon since the day the master bought him out of certain death in Massa Silas's swamp.

"I'll come directly to the point," Macon said, looking up at his slave. "What do you know about cotton?"

Caleb stared harder at his muddy toes. How could he answer such a question from the white man? The truth was, he knew absolutely nothing about cotton. Except that it was a crop slaves hated to hoe, and hated even more to pluck out of its razor-sharp hulls.

Macon Waymon let out a short burst of laughter. "Never mind. It doesn't matter in the least. My new overseer knows everything there is to know about how to grow cotton. What do you know about machinery?"

" 'Chinery? I don't know nothin' about dat, Massa," Caleb mumbled.

Macon raised his bushy eyebrows. "No?" he said. "That's not what Juba tells me. Juba tells me you can make a purse from a sow's ear."

Caleb looked up at Macon Waymon in genuine puzzlement."No, sir," he said. "Not me. I never made nothin' from a sow's ear."

Macon barked out a loud guffaw. "Well, never you mind, boy. It is no sow's ear that causes me concern. It is a cotton engine. A cotton gin."

If there was one thing on which Macon prided himself, it was the civilized way he dealt with his slaves.
A different kind of slaveholder
is the way he referred to himself. He was a reasonable, rational man, and endlessly kind to his slaves. Why, he allotted each adult an entire peck of corn every week for a food allowance, and a pound of pork each month, as well.Never mind that it was the pig's feet and ears and stomach they got, and that plenty of fat was squeezed into their allotment.Meat was meat.

Every one of his slaves had a blanket to wrap up in against the cold, since they all slept on the drafty floor of the slave huts. Macon made certain they had the tools necessary for their work assignments. Good workers like Caleb and Juba, he rewarded with special privileges: they could hunt turtles and muskrats in the swamp as well as any other wild game they could find, they could fish in the rivers, they could grow vegetables in garden plots.

Oh, and each Christmas, Macon's wife Luleen called all the slaves together in front of the big house. There she generously handed candy around to all the slave children, chickens to the women so they could cook Christmas dinner, and a fresh item of clothing to each slave on the plantation. (Not shoes, of course. Shoes were an extra special reward for a chosen few.)

Macon Waymon said, "An enormous amount of money waits to be made in cotton." Excitement bubbled up in his voice. He still talked to Caleb, but his eyes had drifted past the slave and out toward the cypress swamps.

It was to Macon Waymon's great benefit that Eli Whitney had delayed his decision to make application for a patent for his cotton gin. Fortuitous, indeed, that Whitney and his partner, Phineas Miller, decided it would be far more advantageous for them to first install their own machines at plantations rather than make them available for sale. That way, the two men figured, they could collect up to half the growers' profits as payment for the use of the machine and they themselves would benefit greatly before the invention ever went on the market. The patent could come later.

Back when Macon had nothing but rice fields, with not a boll of cotton to gin, he had readily agreed to Eli Whitney's terms. Even at that time, they had seemed exorbitant and profit- taking, and that had infuriated Macon from the beginning.Yet he had still agreed because he felt he had no choice.His entire plan rested on access to the cotton gin.

With Samuel Shaw's money, Macon Waymon purchased five struggling plantations—all of them already planted in short-staple cotton, as it turned out—and registered them in the name of Mister Samuel Shaw.

Overjoyed, Mister Shaw was immediately eligible to run in the next South Carolina election.

Overjoyed, Macon Waymon discovered a warehouse filled with newly harvested cotton on each plantation. He was assured that he should be able to quickly clean it all with the help of the wondrous new cotton gin—if he had the right person at the wheel, that is.

Macon Waymon stood up and adjusted his crisp shirt, then smoothed his white linen waistcoat over it. "A new day is coming," he announced to Caleb. "And you, boy, will be a part of it!"

"Yes, Massa," Caleb said. He stepped back uncertainly and shifted his weight to his good leg.

"No more mucking through rice fields for you," Macon said jovially. "And no cotton picking, neither. I want you to be my man on the gin. You think you can manage that? You think you can run my cotton engine for me?"

"Yes, Massa," Caleb said, although he had not the faintest idea what a cotton engine might be.

"Fine, fine!" Macon exclaimed. "Tomorrow I will move you upland to the biggest of the cotton plantations. You and Juba and a wagonload of my best slaves will go along with me. I chose every one of you special."

Macon sat down again and leaned back in the porch chair.He folded his hands across his stomach and heaved a satisfied sigh.

"Be proud you are among the chosen, boy," he said.

Proud? Caleb, his jaw set and fire burning in his soul, fixed his dark eyes on the grinning white man.

My massa, he dares call hisself,
Caleb thought.
Ruler over me.
My owner. Dat's what he thinks, but he don't know nothin'.

"Dat Juba be leavin' here. We can all be happy 'bout dat!" Kit crowed to the slaves gathered around Tempy's bubbling pot of pork fat and mustard greens. "Soon that traitor be gone away from us!"

News spread fast through the slave compound. Caleb wasn't even back from the big house, yet already everyone knew that Massa Macon would soon move a wagonload of slaves away from the rice fields. And they knew the driver would be included. Juba was not popular with the slaves. Too many backs bore scars from his whip. Certainly Kit's back did.

"Juba be just de same as a white man," Kit said bitterly. His face twisted at the driver's name.

In truth, Juba's whip wasn't the only reason for Kit's resentment, or even the greatest reason. Kit was jealous. The driver got to carry a whip, and he got to bark out commands to the other slaves. Sometimes he was even allowed to carry a gun— officially it was to shoot at the swarming flocks of rice birds, though it wasn't beyond Juba to use it to force obedience from the most resistant slaves.

"I wants to be a slave dat wears white man shoes, too!" Kit muttered under his breath.

By the time Caleb limped into the slave quarters and dished himself up a steaming bowl of mustard greens and pork fat, the talk had turned to the well-worn argument between those who thought it wisest to do the master's bidding and those who held to the dignity of resistance at all cost.

"It be easier on us to let massa think he be the massa," said Kit. "We knows how to make him pay."

"Dat be coward talk," Mose snarled.

"No, it ain't!" said Kit. "We breaks his hoe so we can't work. We steals what he has and makes it our own. We goes to de job, den we takes it nice and easy. Fight with a soft white hand, dat be what we do. An' we keeps our black iron hands clenched behind our backs."

"You mean, keep our black hands helpless in chains," Mose said in a voice hard as steel. "What we should do is burn down de massa's barns. Dat would show him our power!"

Isum, a hulk of a man who sat uncomfortably on a toosmall tree stump, finished off his third bowl of greens and fat and wiped his mouth with the back of his calloused hand. He stretched out his long legs, first one and then the other. Mose had just launched into a descriptive story of the fiery destruction of massa's barn when Isum stood up.

In a voice that rumbled deep, Isum said, "Kill de white man."

All talk stopped. Mouths fell open and terrified eyes stared at him.

"We be de children of Africa," said Isum. "We knows how to poison a white ghost of a man."

Quiet enveloped the slave yard. Even Mose found that words had left him.

"Take a cassava from Caleb's garden patch," said Isum. "Fry it crisp and light. Just a short time over de fire, not enough to kill de poison in it. Prudy works in de kitchen at de big house.She can lay de cassava on de white man's dinner plate beside de meat and pour it all over with gravy. By de time . . ."

"No!" said Caleb. "Run if you wants to, Isum. Join a rebellion if you wants. But we do not murder. We are not white men!"

Mose, his face twisted with blind hatred, turned on Caleb."You be no different den dat traitor, Juba," he spat. "Now de white man got hold of you too!"

"Caleb be right," said Tempy. "We not be killers. Our bodies be weary, but our souls—dey be clean."

Isum spat on the ground. "I will not live under de white man's whip," he announced. "I know de swamp. Tonight, I will run from dis place."

Caleb stared at Isum. How much that proud African man reminded him of his own brother, Sunba. The master wouldn't let Caleb call his brother by his real name anymore, though.He had to call him Samson. The white man took his brother away and shot him dead. A fury Caleb hadn't even known existed in him boiled up and blinded him in rage.

"I will go with you, my brother," Caleb said to Isum. "I will run, too."