Free Song Yet Sung by James McBride Page B

about having to help his cousin’s hogshead shop in Fell’s Point. Conveniently, the task would take him out of the county for at least a week.
    â€”I gave this girl every kindness, the captain said. My late wife taught her to read. And embroider. And dance. No expense was spared in training her.
    Denwood kept his head down, lathering his horse. He understood the situation immediately. Nature’s call. The man wanted his cuddle pillow back. Willing to pay big chips for it. The woman must be a beauty.
    Still brushing his horse, he glanced at the captain. I need a better horse and a bungy, he said. And I want to talk to every colored you got here.
    The captain’s face reddened. I’m not paying you smooth money, he said, so you can poke around my house and ask my business of my coloreds.
    Denwood calmly brushed the horse’s shoulder, noting the man’s tone: my house, my business, my coloreds…. He couldn’t stand the plantation owners. Arrogant upper islanders, dredging the poor man’s oysters, driving down the selling price so that only big volumes could be sold and therefore they got a better percentage, leaving the solitary waterman who oystered on his own high and dry, scuffling for peelers and small crabs.
    â€”Either that or I drive this horse right back up that road, Denwood said.
    â€”They won’t tell you anything, the captain replied.
    â€”Only way to catch a colored is through a colored.
    The captain frowned, frustrated. Like most plantation slave owners, he hated dealing with anyone in the Trade. The dealers, catchers, traders, were low-class and often one step above the law, forging papers, documents, to their favor. But he had heard about the Gimp. The Gimp had caught Mingo, a troublesome, clever slave from a nearby plantation, when everyone else had failed. He’d tracked Mingo for weeks, all the way to Canada.
    â€”This girl got too high, he said. I was of a mind to sell her before this.
    â€”Too late for that now, Denwood said, shrugging. She got kin here?
    â€”Her mother died. Her father was trouble. I sold him off years ago. One of my elderly hands raised her. Fellow named Hewitt. He died when she was fifteen, so I took her inside. With me. To help me raise my son.
    â€”How old is she?
    â€”She’s about twenty now, give or take.
    â€”All the more reason I need to talk to the coloreds, Denwood said, nodding at Lums and Jenny, who reappeared near the smokehouse, pulling a pig carcass inside it.
    The captain hesitated.
    â€”Go on, then, he said. But keep your questions proper.
    He nodded towards the large group of colored men digging near the canal.
    â€”You’ll find the driver Tolley out by the canal. He’ll get you whatever else you need.
    He turned on his heel and left.
    Denwood ambled out to the canal. Twenty minutes later Tolley led him into the smokehouse, where Lums was alone, cleaning ham sides.
    â€”Fella wants to see you, Lums, Tolley said. He departed.
    Lums nodded, silent, his head bowed, glancing at the slight figure who darkened the doorway. Standing next to the rungs of the smoked meat that dangled from the ceiling, his pepperbox hanging from one side and his whip from the other, Denwood looked like a child standing next to Lums, who stood nearly six feet tall and was wide as a house. But it was Lums who was afraid. Mingo had told him all he needed to know about the Gimp. If you say nothing, it’s too much, Mingo had said. He’ll suck any secret out of you like a pump. White man’s law don’t mean nothing to him. He got his own law. If he’s drunk, run the other way. But his word is good. And God amuses him.
    â€”You here to talk about Liz, sir? Lums asked.
    â€”No. I wanna talk about you.
    â€”What I done?
    â€”Nothing. How old are you? Denwood asked.
    â€”Don’t know, Lums said. Close as I can tell it, I’d be about sixty-eight or sixty-nine, I expect.
    Denwood sat, grimacing