extended brief pleasantries to the low whites and once again walked down the line and made an appraisal of us. There was something theatrical about him now, and whereas before he had seemed solemn and reserved, now he was boastful and preening. He reached into his coat and pulled on his suspenders. He would stop, assess a man, shake his head mockingly, and suck his teeth.
And then, having assessed us again, he spoke.
“Villains of Virginia,” he bellowed. “Judgment has now set its blind gaze upon you. Thieves! Robbers! Murderers! Villains who have compounded your crimes by connivance to escape our laws and pass into another land under false and assumed names.”
Again he walked the line, but this time he stopped before one of the men farther down the line to my left. “You, Jackson, talked of murder of your master—but talked too much, boy! You were given up and now must stand before Virginia justice.”
The ordinary man moved down. “And you, Andrew, thought you could make off with some portion of your master’s cotton crop, did you? And when found out, decided you might run.”
Andrew stood solemn and silent. The ordinary man moved on.
“Davis and Billy,” he said, now walking to the other end of the line. “Why, boys, I am told you were well liked. What would send you to murder a good man in the alley and pilfer his property?”
“Property was ours,” yelled out one of these two. “Was the last gift of my uncle, ’fore he was put on the square!”
One of the men in the yellow light cut him off. “Ain’t no yours, boy!”
“Goddamn you,” said the man on the line. “Was my uncle’s! You best not color his name!”
At that the man standing next to him said, “Shut up, Billy. We got enough of it already.”
Another man yelled from the yellow light, “Don’t you worry yourself, boy, we will feed him his manners well enough.”
The ordinary man now walked toward the center of the line.
“You all wished to run,” he said. “Well, by God, I was not constructed to stand against the will of any man, or any niggers.”
The ordinary man walked back toward the wagon, climbed atop its seat, and stood. “Here is what we’re gonna do. You are now in the care of these Virginia gentlemen. They have agreed to give you an allotment of time to go. Outdistance them for the whole of this evening, and freedom is yours. But if they catch you, your whole life is at their mercy. Maybe you’ll make it out and your sins will be wiped. More likely, you won’t make it an hour before justice finds you. Makes no difference to me. I did my service. Time come for you to do yours.”
Then he sat down, took the reins, and the wagon rumbled off.
We stood there, looking around and into the night, looking at each other, for some clue, perhaps waiting, hoping, even amidst our gripping fear, that some jest would be revealed. We were too stunned to move. I looked over at the white men, the apparitions in their wide-brimmed hats, who now stood waiting for us to apprehend the fact of our situation. And then, his patience exhausted, one of these whites broke from the group and walked over to the rough line of us. He was holding a cudgel. He took this cudgel and smashed it over the head of one of the tasking men, now branded renegade. The tasking man seemed in disbelief as it happened, for he made no effort to block the blow. But he screamed out as it took effect, and then crumpled on the ground. The man with the cudgel now turned to the rest of the line and said, “Best to get to getting, boys.”
Everyone scattered at once. I ran too, with one look back toward the fallen man, a dark heap against the greater enveloping darkness that now gathered behind me. I ran alone. I suspect we all did. There was no effort among the Tasked assembled there to cooperate—perhaps among those two brothers, Davis and Billy—but if the terror that struck me when that man was cudgeled struck them, if they had been held under as I had, then likely there was no time for thinking, no time for loyalty.
And so I ran—but neither fast nor, as it turned out, far. Hunger stole my will. The cramps turned my limbs to wood. The night wind cut against me, and now more loping