Liberating atlantis a 3, p.6
Liberating Atlantis a-3, page 6
part #3 of Atlantis Series
"I reckon Victor Radcliff wanted his grandson to be a live nigger," Helen said. "Lord Jesus, Frederick, first one of those other field hands you talk to, he's liable to sell you down the river for whatever Master Henry give him. Thirty pieces of silver, I reckon-that's the goin' rate."
"If we're gonna rise up, we'll never find a better time to do it," Frederick said.
"Says who?" Helen retorted. "Way the yellow jack's goin' around, half your army may be dead week after next."
"If it gets us like that, it'll get the white folks we're fighting the same way," Frederick said, which was true-or he hoped it was, anyhow. He went on, "That's not what I was talkin' about, anyways."
"Well, what was you talkin' about, then?" Helen asked pointedly.
"You know that lieutenant, the one who's down sick? He's a Croydon man, from way up north. They don't have slaves up there. He just about told me I had to free myself if I ever wanted to be free," Frederick said.
"Fever must've scrambled his brains," Helen said. "I wish to heaven you would've just dozed off like you should have."
"Most folks from Croydon hate slavery," Frederick went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I hear tell there's even niggers and mudfaces who can vote in the state of Croydon. And Consul Newton, he's from Croydon, too. Everybody knows he can't stand the notion of one man buying and selling another one."
If he'd hoped to impress his wife-and he had-he failed. "Well, la-de-da!" Helen said. "And Consul Stafford, he's from Cosquer, down here on this side of the slave line. He's a planter his own self. He's got a bigger place than this here one, and he works more slaves'n Master Henry ever dreamt of owning. Gotta have both them fellas on the same side to do us any good." Negroes and copperskins in bondage could no more vote than they could fly, which didn't keep them from paying attention to Atlantean politics.
Frederick grinned, there in the dark. "Most of the time, sure," he said. "The Senate passes a law that says all the slaves are free, Consul Stafford can veto it, and nobody can say boo. But suppose we rise up now. Consul Stafford says, 'The United States of Atlantis got to send soldiers over there and put those slaves down.' "
"An' the soldiers come, an' they start killin' niggers an' mudfaces. It's happened before," Helen agreed.
"It has," Frederick agreed. "But I bet it won't happen this time, on account of all Consul Newton's got to do is, he's got to say, 'I veto it,' and nobody goes anywhere."
"He do that?" Helen didn't sound as if she believed it. And she knew why she didn't: "Even white folks who don't like slavery, that don't mean they do like niggers an' mudfaces. The whites down here start screamin' loud enough…"
She had a point. Frederick would have been much happier if she didn't, but she did. He paused a while in thought, listening to mosquitoes buzz and to more distant crickets trill and frogs squeak and croak. At last, he answered, "What we got to do is, we got to fight clean, like it's a war, not an uprising. Can't go killing women and children for the fun of it, the way they do in uprisings." Can't go raping white women for the fun of it, either, he thought. That happened in every slave revolt. What vengeance was more basic?
"Reckon it'd make any difference?" Helen still sounded dubious.
"Bound to make some," Frederick said.
"Reckon slaves with guns in their hands'll want to let them folks go?" She knew which questions to ask, all right.
"They will if their commanders make 'em," Frederick answered. And then, just before sleep took him at last, he added, "If I make 'em." He was ready. Whether anyone else was… he'd find out.
IV
Matthew blew the horn again the next morning. As Frederick came out to eat breakfast and go on to the fields, he looked at the overseer in a whole new way. He had to be careful not to let it show. Matthew took it for granted that he could hit or whip Frederick, or any other slave, without worrying about reprisal. If he realized Frederick didn't take it for granted, he would do his best to kill him right away. And he could, if he got any kind of chance. He had his switch and a knife with a blade long enough to gut a man like a hog. Frederick didn't think he was a coward, either. Life would have been simpler if he were, but no.
There was plenty to eat. Fewer and fewer field hands came out to work, but the cooks went on making as much as they always had. More than one slave patted his belly and grinned after he finished eating. Frederick was surprised Matthew hadn't noticed what was going on and done something about it, but the overseer hadn't. It wasn't as if he didn't have other things on his mind.
And so did Henry Barford. The planter looked like a man bathing in hellfire when he came out onto the front porch. Eyes wild, he pointed at one of the cavalrymen guarding the precious wagons. "Where's that lieutenant of yours, the God-damned son of a bitch bastard?"
"Sir, Lieutenant Torrance is sick. He's mighty sick," the trooper answered. "He can't see anybody right now. What's the matter?"
"What's the matter? What's the God-damned matter?" Barford howled. "My wife is puking up this horrible black gunk-looks like coffee grounds-and you ask me what's the matter? Your miserable, stinking lieutenant is what's the matter, that's what! Bringing the yellow jack to my plantation! I don't want to see the lousy bugger. I want to horsewhip him!"
"Well, sir, if it makes you feel any better, he's heaving up black stuff, too," the soldier said. "I don't think he's going to pull through."
"Too bad," Barford said, which surprised Frederick till he added, "I wanted to kill him with my own hands. But I reckon the yellow jack'll have to do. Though why a merciful God would take my sweet Clotilde, too…" He turned and lurched back into the big house.
Sweet? Frederick shook his head. Mistress Clotilde was about as sweet as vinegar. She was the one who'd wanted to give him more lashes than Master Henry. That was just like her, too. Did her husband really believe what he was saying, or was he trying to make the trooper feel worse?
From inside the house, Barford shouted, "I'll sue the government for every last eagle it's got! You wait and see if I don't!"
The cavalryman only shrugged. He scratched his nose, as if to say it was no skin off that organ. Unless the planter came out shooting-or unless the soldier got yellow fever-it wasn't his worry.
"Come on," Matthew called to the field hands. "Grab your tools. The work doesn't go away. The work never goes away. I know we're shorthanded, but we've got to keep at it. Otherwise, the harvest'll be bad, and then we'll all go hungry."
He wouldn't. Master Henry would yell at him, but that was all. The field hands really might go hungry in a bad year. Or Barford might have to sell some of them, which would be almost as rough. Frederick snorted quietly. He had other things on his own mind besides what the master might do after a bad harvest.
"You ain't said anything to anybody," Helen said as they walked out to the cotton field with tools on their shoulders. Hopefully, she added, "You gone and changed your mind?"
"Nope. Not me," Frederick answered. People said stubborn as a Radcliff. By that standard alone, he might have guessed he shared blood with one of the First Consuls. Even Henry Barford had sometimes seemed more proud than annoyed when calling him a hardheaded smoke. But Frederick also had other things than that on his mind. "Sometimes all the talking in the world doesn't do a cent's worth of good. Sometimes you got to show people instead."
Helen clicked her tongue between her teeth. "Oh, Fred, what are you gonna do?"
Burn my bridges, Frederick thought. But that wasn't what she wanted to hear. All he said was, "What I've got to do."
Helen shook her head, but she didn't say anything more, either. Maybe she hoped he would change his mind once they settled down to work. Part of him hoped the same thing: the part that had lived a quiet, pretty easy life all the way up into middle age. Well, his life wasn't quiet or easy any more. By all the signs, it never would be again. And if it wouldn't, why not act the way Sam-son had in the Philistines' temple? What did you have to lose?
He worked for a while, chopping and moving forward, chopping and moving forward. By now he had no trouble keeping up with the slaves working the rows of cotton to either side of him. He methodically weeded till Matthew came along to see how he was doing.
"Going all right, Frederick?" the overseer asked.
Frederick straightened and stretched, though he kept both hands on the hoe handle. "Not too bad, sir."
"Back easing up?"
"A bit." Frederick stretched again.
Matthew nodded, more to himself than to the Negro in front of him. "Told you it would. Whippings are like that."
Yes, he thought of them as nothing more than a rather unpleasant part of plantation routine. And so they were-if you held the whip. If you were on the other end… Frederick's hands tightened.
Some of what was going through his mind must have shown on his face at last. "You don't want to look at me that way," Matthew warned. "You don't want to look at me that way, by God!" He started to raise the switch, then seemed to realize it wouldn't be enough. He dropped it and grabbed for his knife instead.
Too late. Frederick swung the hoe in a deadly arc, an arc powered by a lifetime's worth of smothered fury. Smothered no more. The heavy blade tore away half the overseer's face. Blood gouted, astoundingly red in the bright sunshine. Matthew let out a gobbling shriek. The knife fell in the dirt as he clapped both hands to the ghastly wound.
He tried to stagger away from Frederick. Frederick hit him again, this time from behind. The heavy hoe blade bit into Matthew's skull. The overseer crumpled. He thrashed on the ground. Frederick hit him one more time. The thrashing slowed, then stopped. The white man's blood soaked into the thirsty soil.
The slaves working to either side of Frederick gaped at him in commingled astonishment, horror, and awe. "Lord Jesus!" one of them burst out. "What did you go and do that for?"
"We're all in trouble now!" the other one added. He stared at Matthew's huddled corpse. "Big trouble, I mean."
"Not if we grab those guns in the wagons," Frederick answered, more calmly than his drumming heart should have let him speak. "Not if we make all the white folks pay for what they've done to us."
Matthew's dying cries made more Negroes and copperskins hurry over to see what was going on. They all eyed the overseer's bloody corpse with the same look of disbelief, as if they'd never dreamt they might see such a thing. And yet how many of them would have wanted to slaughter him themselves?
"They're gonna kill you," a copperskin said. A moment later, he mournfully added, "They're gonna kill all of us."
"They will if we let 'em," Frederick said. "So let's not let 'em. Let's do some killing of our own-as much as it takes till we're free the way we're supposed to be. The United States of Atlantis are so damned proud of their precious Proclamation of Liberty. But they reckon it stops with white folks. Don't you think mudfaces and niggers deserve their share, too?"
He waited, still clutching the gore-spattered hoe. Their other choice was to kill him now. If they did that, they might convince Henry Barford they hadn't had anything to do with murdering Matthew. They might. Or the planter might decide they had had something to do with it, and were using Frederick's death to cover their own guilt.
Or Barford might be down with the yellow jack himself by now. The way things were going, nobody could guess anything he couldn't see.
"Do you want to stay slaves the rest of your days?" Frederick asked. "Wouldn't you sooner be free?"
They looked at him. They looked at Matthew's body. Flies with metallic bodies-blue, green, brass-were already buzzing above it. "Don't seem like we got much else we can do," a Negro said slowly. "They gonna kill us any which way. Might as well kill some of them before we's dead."
One by one, the other slaves nodded. It wasn't the grand war cry Frederick had dreamt of, but when did reality ever measure up to dreams? He'd made them move. That much, anyhow, he'd foreseen.
"Let's go," he said. "We got to get those guns."
Leaving the overseer's corpse where it lay (though Frederick took the dead man's knife), they marched on the big house.
Frederick did remember to plunge the hoe blade into the dirt to clean it, and to rub more dirt on the handle to hide the blood-stains. He didn't want to alarm the Atlantean soldiers till the slaves got in among them.
He also didn't want to alarm Henry Barford. He didn't hate his owner. He hadn't even particularly disliked Barford till he got shackled to the whipping post and then sent to the fields. But he saw no way to let the planter live, not in the middle of a slave rebellion. Too bad-but a lot of things that happened were too bad.
"What do we say when they ask us how come we're comin' back in the middle of the day?" the copperskin called Lorenzo asked.
"We'll tell 'em a snake bit the overseer," Frederick answered- he'd been wondering about that, too. "Tell 'em he's mighty bad off." He chuckled grimly. "An' he damned well is."
The squat red-brown man grinned in admiration. "You think of everything."
"If I'm gonna run this… whatever it is, I'd better, don't you reckon?" Frederick said. Lorenzo nodded. Nobody else challenged Frederick's right to lead the uprising. Maybe that meant all the field hands thought they could have no one better at their head. Perhaps more likely, it meant they figured he was the one on whom all the blame would land. And it would all land on him. But it would land on them, too. Whites had never shown any mercy to slaves who rose up. In their place, Frederick didn't suppose he would have, either.
There was the big house. There were the wagons with the precious rifle muskets. Without them, the revolt would be stillborn. A couple of troopers dug in the burial plot. If that didn't mean Lieutenant Torrance had died, Frederick would have been very surprised. Too bad, he thought, even though the slaves would have had to kill the officer had he pulled through. Torrance might personally disapprove of slavery, but Frederick had no doubt the Croydonite would have done his professional duty against any rising.
A soldier puffed on a pipe in front of one of the wagons. Sure enough, he became curious if not exactly alert when he saw the slaves straggling in from the cotton fields. "What're you doin' here so God-damned early?" he asked-the very question Lorenzo had foretold.
"You know anything about curin' snakebite?" Frederick asked in return. "Coral snake done bit the overseer, an' he's in a bad way."
"Son of a bitch!" the trooper exclaimed. "I bet he's in a bad way. Those bastards'll kill you deader'n shit."
He might be foul-mouthed, but he wasn't wrong. Coral snakes didn't go out of their way to bite people, as some of the bigger poisonous snakes did. But, like a good many frogs in the south of Atlantis, they wore bright colors to warn enemies that trying to make a meal off them wasn't a good idea. If a coral snake did bite you, you were much too likely to die.
"Whiskey or rum'll make his heart stronger," the cavalryman said as the slaves came up to him. "That and praying're about all I know that can help him."
No, he wasn't suspicious-certainly not suspicious enough. He let the slaves surround him; he couldn't believe they meant him any harm. But what you believed didn't always match what was real. Frederick got behind the trooper and stabbed him in the back.
The white man lurched. He groaned. He tried to draw his revolver, but another Negro clamped a hand on his wrist and didn't let him. When he screamed, more blood than noise came out of his mouth. His knees buckled. A sudden foul stench said his bowels had let go. Down he went.
Frederick grabbed his eight-shooter. "Get his knife, too," he said. One way you got to give orders was by coming out and giving them. If people followed them, you could give more, and they'd be more likely to follow those. Lorenzo took possession of the dagger.
"What do we do now?" someone else asked.
"Let's go get the ones who're digging in the graveyard," Frederick answered. "Doesn't look like they noticed anything goin' on here, and that's good." He stuffed the pistol into the waistband of his trousers and let his shirt droop down over it. "We'll try and do with them like we did with this fellow. Shooting's noisy-we don't start till we have to. Lorenzo, reckon you can let the air out of one while I do the other?"
"Turn me loose," the copperskin said confidently.
"All right." Frederick grinned. "But listen, everybody. If they look like they're gonna pull their guns, just jump on 'em any which way. If they start shootin', they can hurt us bad. Got me?" He waited for nods. As soon as he had them, he nodded at the troopers, who weren't digging much faster than slaves would have. "Soon as we bag them, Master Henry next."
That got everybody moving toward the Atlantean cavalrymen. Frederick might not especially dislike Henry Barford, but some of the field hands did.
"Your poor lieutenant die?" Frederick called as he and the slaves with him neared the sweating troopers.
They seemed willing enough to rest on their shovels for a while. "That's right," one of them said, mopping at his red face with a big cotton handkerchief-cotton that, for all Frederick knew, might have come from this plantation. "Once the fever got a grip on him, he went downhill quick. He was pissing blood and puking up black stuff…" His face twisted in disgust. Maybe in fear as well, for he had to know that could happen to him, too.
"It's a shame," Frederick said. "He was a good fellow."
"That he was," the soldier agreed. "Won't catch me saying it real often, not about officers, but it's the truth with Lieutenant Torrance. Was the truth, I mean."
"Hey," the other trooper said suddenly. "What're you, uh, people doing here, anyway? How come you ain't out there workin' like you have been?"
Frederick told the story about the snakebite again. This time, he didn't stumble even a little. Had he heard the tale from his own lips, without question he would have believed it. Some lies-inspired lies-sounded better than truth.
He thought so, anyhow. To his surprise and disappointment, the troopers didn't seem to. "How come you didn't send one fellow back while the rest of you stayed out there?" asked the one who'd wondered why they'd returned. He was the man Frederick was closer to, leaving the other soldier for Lorenzo.
