in all of its phases.
At the end of the workday Cora staggered and Nag rushed to steady her. She led Cora back to Hob. The boss glared at their slow progress out of the rows but said nothing. Cora’s obvious madness had removed her from casual rebuke. They passed Caesar, who loitered by one of the work sheds with a group of young hands, carving a piece of wood with his knife. Cora averted her eyes and made her face into slate for him, as she had ever since his proposal.
It was two weeks after Jockey’s birthday and Cora was still on the mend. The blows to her face had left one eye swollen shut and performed a gross injury to her temple. The swelling disappeared but where the silver wolf had kissed was now a rueful scar shaped like an X. It seeped for days. That was her tally for the night of feast. Far worse was the lashing Connelly gave her the next morning under the pitiless boughs of the whipping tree.
Connelly was one of Old Randall’s first hires. James preserved the man’s appointment under his stewardship. When Cora was young, the overseer’s hair was a livid Irish red that curled from his straw hat like the wings of a cardinal. In those days he patrolled with a black umbrella but eventually surrendered and now his white blouses were stark against his tanned flesh. His hair had gone white and his belly overflowed his belt, but apart from that he was the same man who had whipped her grandmother and mother, stalking the village with a lopsided gait that reminded her of an old ox. There was no rushing him if he chose not to be rushed. The only time he exhibited speed was when he reached for his cat-o’-nine-tails. Then he demonstrated the energy and rambunctiousness of a child at a new pastime.
The overseer was not pleased by what had transpired during the Randall brothers’ surprise visit. First, Connelly had been interrupted while taking his pleasure with Gloria, his current wench. He flogged the messenger and roused himself from bed. Second, there was the matter of Michael. Connelly hadn’t informed James about Michael’s loss as his employer never bothered over routine fluctuations in the hands, but Terrance’s curiosity had made it a problem.
Then there was the matter of Chester’s clumsiness and Cora’s incomprehensible action. Connelly peeled them open the following sunrise. He started with Chester, to follow the order in which the transgressions had occurred, and called for their bloody backs to be scrubbed out with pepper water afterward. It was Chester’s first proper licking, and Cora’s first in half a year. Connelly repeated the whippings the next two mornings. According to the house slaves, Master James was more upset that his brother had touched his property, and before so many witnesses, than with Chester and Cora. Thus was the brunt of one brother’s ire toward another borne by property. Chester never said a word to Cora again.
Nag helped Cora up the steps to Hob. Cora collapsed once they entered the cabin and were out of sight of the rest of the village. “Let me get you some supper,” Nag said.
Like Cora, Nag had been relocated to Hob over politics. For years she had been Connelly’s preferred, spending most nights in his bed. Nag was haughty for a nigger gal even before the overseer bestowed his slim favors upon her, with her pale gray eyes and roiling hips. She became insufferable. Preening, gloating over the ill treatment that she alone escaped. Her mother had consorted frequently with white men and tutored Nag in licentious practices. She bent in dedication to the task even as he swapped their offspring. The northern and southern halves of the great Randall plantation exchanged slaves all the time, unloading beat niggers, skulky workers, and rascals on each other in a desultory game. Nag’s children were tokens. Connelly could not countenance his mulatto bastards when their curls glowed his Irish red in the sunlight.
One morning Connelly made it clear that he no longer required Nag in his bed. It was the day her enemies had waited for. Everyone saw it coming except for her. She returned from the fields to find her possessions had been moved to Hob, announcing her loss in status to the village. Her shame nourished them as no food could. Hob hardened her, as was its way. The cabin tended to set one’s personality.
Nag had never been close to