“Shall I leave now, sir? I’ve found the lantern.”
“D’you now? A lantern, was it? And nothin’ else?”
“On my word.”
Color was climbing high in Falcon’s neck and face. His exhalations were loud, pursive, and again he pressed his palm against his middle, as though mashing down some deep, recurring pain or intestinal burn he’d somehow learned to live with. His face ritched left in a frown. “You weren’t heah to murder me in my sleep and jump ship?”
“No! Of course not, sir!”
“Six men tried that tonight on shore. Not an hour ago, Mr. Calhoun.” His glass empty, he took the jug from me, lifted it and splashed more rum straight down his throat, his whole body shuddering for a second; then his eyes gave me a rum-soaked glare. “I was unarmed, ’cept for these boots I’m wearin’. D’you like ’em?”
“Yessir, and fine boots they are, Cap’n.”
“Naw, you don’t truly see ’em, boy.” He lifted one foot, pointing the toe toward me. “You’re not supposed to! That’s the point of boots like these. The toes are reinforced with steel plates. I’m not a big man, as you may have noticed, and as a lad I was bullied by taller boys. ’Deed, I was. Nary a day passed in my childhood that somebody didn’t single me out for a beatin’ or some cruel jest. Nearly broke me mum’s heart, that did, but I’ll tell you true: Nowadays when I kick a swab’s shins he seldom walks again. I advise you to fix yourself a pair of such useful boots for the voyage back. Have you got a pistol?”
“Nossir.”
“Then we must find one for you.” From among the contents of his chest Falcon selected a 45-percussion Kentucky pistol. “Lovely, isn’t it? I’ve adjusted the sights, added precision rifling in the barrel, and damned if this beauty don’t feature one of my own concoctions. See how heavy the handle is? There’s a magnet inside. It locks down the trigger so no man kin fire it, or snatch it from you, who isn’t wearin’ magnetized rings such as I wear, even when I sleep.” Falcon unscrewed from his third finger, right hand, a metal band, pushed it on my finger, then snapped around my waist a holster of his own design. “You’ll notice,” says he, stepping back to study me, “that spare ammunition fits into three pouches on the sides and the small of your back. The holster has a thumb-break snap, so you kin draw back with one smooth motion to push away your blouse. From now on you’d do well to follow a formula I’ve developed. Every few seconds pat yourself: knife, guns, keys, in that order, to make sure you’ve got everything. A light touch now and then is all it takes; then it’ll become instinctive. I’d advise you not to let any of the blacks get too close when we bring ’em on board—’specially the women. They’ll get right up in your face — they love to do that when talkin’—so keep ’em at arm’s length, with your holster facin’ away from ’em. Don’t eat or drink anythin’ they give you. If you have to shoot one, use small shot ’stead of ball. ’Tis a wee bit more merciful. And when we bring ’em up from below for exercise, work in pairs — Cringle and Meadows, for example. Squibb keeps an eye on Fletcher. And you and me watch out for one another.” His eyes slid up, blinking. “You’re not gonna blow your damned foot off, are you?”
“I think I’ll get the hang of it. But, Cap’n, why do I need all this?”
He began to undress slowly, the moonlight and candles doubling his shadow against the wall. Falcon’s buttonless blouse gave him trouble when he tried pulling it over his enormous head; its collar caught under his beard, leaving him hooded for a moment (I believe I could have shot him then, and I even pointed the pistol at his head to see how this might feel) with both his arms helplessly in the air. “Give me a hand here, Mr. Calhoun. I hope you can see that I trust you. I need a colored mate to be my eyes and ears once the Africans are on board. Same with the crew. I want to know what each man’s thinkin’.” Against my better instincts to gun him down right there, I helped the skipper pull his shirt free. Now he was dressed for bed in his nightshirt and steel-toed boots. “Once weekly I’ll want a full report. If there’s any talk, you’ll tell me.”
“Be your Judas?” I asked. “A spy?”
His eyes filled with hurt, slipped to a corner of the room, as if the correct word he wanted was there. “Nay, a friend! I need someone to keep his eyes open and tell me of any signs of trouble.” He lay back on his bed, drinking straight from the jug now, and began bellyaching more to himself than to me about his officers, bitterly relating personal things about each I never dreamed of and did not wish to know. He was clearly breaking confidences, betraying every one of them in a voice so venomous I wanted to cover my ears. I felt uncomfortable. More: I felt unclean as he described in detail all the dirt and gossip, weakness and shortcomings, of every mother’s son on board. Everyone, it seemed, had a secret. A shadow. A buried past so scandalous that I was nervous for the rest of the night. Why was he saying these things? I could only speculate that something was seriously wrong with the ship — he never specified what — and his solution was the oldest and simplest in the world. Divide and conquer. Poison each man’s perception of the other. By making me hear of each man’s faults (I had no choice) he subtly compromised me, made me something of a betrayer too, and I sighed and shut my eyes, thinking of Isadora, who would say these things were sent to try us. Moments later he was asleep. I leaned over him, wanting to empty into his head the pistol he’d given me, but found myself transfixed by the crude ring twinned on his left hand and mine, as if, heaven help me, we were married, and the very thing I’d escaped in New Orleans had, here off the unlighted coast of Senegambia, overtaken me.
Sleep and I were strangers that night. All that evening, moaning and sharp cries such as only Negro women can make drifted on the wind from the warehouse, where Africans living, dying, and dead were thrown together. Hoping to steady my thoughts, twisted worse than rigging after a storm, I shook awake Squibb, there on deck, and asked him about our cargo. Sailors, I know, can be careless with the truth, but he told me the first caravan of Allmuseri were being separated for the morrow’s sale: husbands from their wives, children from their parents, the infirm from the healthy, each parting like an amputation or flaying of skin, for as a clan-state they were as close-knit as cells in the body. “First, Ahman-de-Bellah will have his people shave off their body hair. That’s the first humiliation, makin’ ’em smooth as babies from the womb, like mebbe they was born yestiday. He’ll have them bathed, soaked in palm oil to make their black hides glisten like leather, then they’ll get a feast to fatten ’em for tomorrow’s buyers.”
In the darkness I said to the shadowy lump he was on deck, “Like cattle?”
“Like Allmuseri,” he replied. “They’ll get what Africans are used to eatin’. Roots like, cooked green or else dried and made into flour, then mashed or stewed into porridge. They’ll get a tasty sauce with it too, and probably some honey beer made from maize to wash it down.” He lifted his hips a little, then broke wind gently, a faint ripple of sound as if he’d tightened his sphincters to soften the sound of it. “We should eat so well, darlin’.”