Die Upon A Kiss by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-04-23T20:39:06+00:00

THIRTEEN

"This is an outrage!" Cavallo stormed as No Chin and Red Waistcoat thrust him and his companions at gunhoint into the farthest stall of Mr. Pickney's barn. "A barbarity!"

"So it is," said January. He wondered if the young man meant the fact that he, a white man, had been mistaken for and treated like a black one, or that anyone had the legal right to treat anyone like this at all.

"This is the United States!" the Milanese went on passionately, falling into French, since none of the Americans was listening anyway. "The land of Washington, of Jefferson! The land that showed all the world the upward road to freedom!"

"Get your boots off, boys." Pickney tossed a length of chain up over one of the low rafters and held out the stout curved shackles attached to either end.

At least, thought January, the stall they were being put into had been mucked out after its last tenancy. That was something. And if the barn was ramshackle in the ex treme, like most buildings erected by that semi-indigent, semi-barbaric class of small farmers known as crackers, at least there was a barn. Many crackers let their horses and mules make do with rude pens and, at most, unwalled shelters, like the cattle and swine that lived at large in the woods. Pickney's house, dimly glimpsed across the gloom of a dung-littered dooryard, differed from the average slave-cabin only in size, and that not by much. The whole place reeked of woodsmoke and pigs.

Under cover of Cavallo's indignation (". . . inspiration for the world of free men, debased by such as you. . . .') January promptly sat on the dirt floor with his back to the single lantern's dim light, slipped the skinning-knife from his boot, and thrust it under the stacks of dirty hay stored in the stall. His skin prickled at the thought of surrendering his last possibility of flight, but to resist, he knew, would have gotten him anything from a beating to a bullet in the back.

Patience, Don Quixote had said, and shufle the cards.

"Rufe!" Pickney shoved the cross-bar of the shackle into place and locked it, thrust a finger in the space behind January's tendon to make sure there was no way he could slip his foot clear. At his call, a small, middle-aged man in the worn osnaburg clothing of a slave appeared from the shadows. "Get these boys a couple blankets and some pone. You." He looked back at Cavallo. "Boots off."

"You go to hell!"

The pistol came up. Ponte moved to throw himself between them and January said in Italian, "Do it, Silvio."

"I will not be chained like a dog . . ."

"Do it!"

Red Waistcoat started forward and Pickney got to his feet, flipping his pistol around in his hand, club-wise. Neither seemed angry, only resigned to a tedious annoyance.

"What are they going to do?" demanded Cavallo, falling back a step. "Shoot me? Eh?"

"They're going to beat the tar out of you for being uppity," January told him.

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