Read Online Deserter by Paul Bagdon - Free Book Online Page A

overseer—under strict orders from Jake’s father—had doused him awake with a splash of tepid water and put him back to work. A hand working alongside the boy offered him a misshapen, falling-apart woven straw hat that was already sopping wet with sweat—Negro sweat. Jake had thanked the laborer but turned the offer down. After passing out a second time, Jake wore the hat, Negro sweat and all. It kept him on his feet the next day and a half.
    He remembered the heat as an evil force—more evil than the stingy cotton bolls that tore his fingertips and left them raw and bleeding. More evil than the powdery dust and grit that fouled his eyes, his throat, his nose, his ears, that made a deep breath impossibleand generated an unquenchable thirst that refused to yield to the scoops of water a boy brought around every couple of hours. The sun had pounded at him—at all of those in the fields—relentlessly, without mercy. Jake staggered, sweated, puked, and picked—for two eternal days he dragged his sack up and down the symmetrical rows of cotton plants, hating each one a bit more than he hated the plant before it.
    Todd St. David was carried back to his mansion bedroom the morning of the second day, his skin sallow, dry, all its moisture gone, where he stayed in his bed for almost a week. Jake finished his two days.
    He remembered his conversation with his father the evening of the second day.
    â€œLong days, Son?”
    â€œYessir. Real long. One of the hands gave me a hat. At first I didn’t want to wear it. Then I did.”
    â€œSo I heard. That boy went without a hat for the rest of the day, you know.”
    â€œYessir.”
    Jake’s father sipped at his bourbon and branch water. “What do you think of that, Son?”
    â€œIt was nice of him, Pa. Thing is, they’re used to it, used to picking all day, the heat, the dust, all that. Still, it was awful nice of him.”
    â€œUsed to it, Jake?”
    â€œSure. Todd’s pa said slaves have thicker skulls and smaller brains and the heat can’t penetrate as much as it does on white people. And their skin—it doesn’t get as hot as ours does. He said they like it out there, singing and carrying on.”
    Mr. Sinclair considered for a moment. “You ever listen to the words of those songs the hands sing, Jake?”
    â€œWell . . . some, I guess. They’re sure not happy songs. A couple are about dying and being carried away to heaven. There’s one about a river that’s cool and sweet, too.”
    His father leaned forward in his chair, closer to his son. “It’s my belief that those Negroes suffer from the heat and dust as much as a white person, Jake. That they experience the same pain you did, the same muscle ache, the same thirst—everything.”
    â€œThen why do we put them out there, Pa?”
    â€œBecause the cotton must be picked, Jake. Because someone has to pick it. And because they’re slaves. Slaves are supposed to sweat for their masters. The Bible tells us that. The South didn’t invent slavery—it’s been around for thousands of years, and it’ll be around for thousands more. And—our way of life has its roots in slavery, Son. The South as we know it was at least partially built by slaves. We need them, just as they need us to look after them, feed them, keep them safe.”
    â€œKind of tough on the slaves, though,” Jake observed.
    â€œMaybe,” Jake’s father said. “But it’s not your place nor mine to question the Bible, Son. What is, is.” He looked into his empty cut-glass tumbler. “I believe I’ll have another toddy this evening,” he said, holding the glass out to his son.
    When Jake returned with the drink he handed it to his father and took his seat. “Todd’s pa says slaves are animals—maybe a step up from a horse or a dog, but not people like we are. Is that true,