Free Sins of Omission by Irina Shapiro Page B

finally closed there was a secret little smile on her face.

 
    February 1686
    Barbados, West Indies
     

Chapter 10
     
    The sound of dirt hitting the plain wooden coffin echoed in Max’s memory as he mindlessly cut the cane.  His back burned with tension, and the cotton shirt he’d been issued was plastered to his back with sweat, but it was still hours until quitting time.  They’d started an hour later this morning, having been herded to the low building that served as a chapel.  Djimon, the boy who’d been flogged last week, had died the day before and a brief funeral was held, followed by burial in the adjacent graveyard.  Djimon’s relations stood together, hands held, as the coffin was lowered into the ground.  Johansson stated that Djimon died of an illness, but everyone knew the truth.  He’d died of infection following the flogging.  Max thought it might have been sepsis, but he was no doctor.  The boy’s mother had applied some kind of salve to the wounds, but Lord only knew what it contained. 
    Several women had begun to sing in their native tongue, the tune mournful and eerie in the silence of the morning.  Johansson ordered them all to work as soon as the first shovelful of dirt hit the coffin, but the pall remained as the crowd dispersed.  Dido had stood next to the boy’s mother, her green eyes narrowed in anger and grief; the color accentuated by the green streaks in her yellow and orange turban.  She’d stared at him again, one eyebrow raised in an unspoken challenge.  What was it she’d been thinking as her eyes met his?  She was a beautiful, proud woman, not meek and frightened like the rest of the female slaves.  The one word that Max would use to describe Dido was “defiant.”  He liked that about her, although her demeanor might be the result of certain knowledge that Johansson would protect her.  Rumor had it that she was his creature, but somehow Max doubted that; she didn’t seem the type to prostitute herself, at least not willingly.  He’d seen Johansson eyeing her speculatively, but it wasn’t a look of possession or even desire, more fear, if Max had to put a name to it.  Truth be told, there was something about the woman that inspired trepidation, but unlike most men, Max found that attractive, or at least he would have had he been free to feel.
    Max hadn’t felt anything resembling sexual desire since he’d been arrested in Cranley, but when he looked at Dido, he felt faint stirrings of arousal.  It felt so odd after all this time that he was almost frightened by the feelings.  He preferred to remain numb; that was the only way to survive.  He was too exhausted to masturbate, much less actually expend energy on sex, not that it was on offer.  He supposed some of the slaves copulated, but there were no white women among the indentures, and the Negro women never interacted with white men. 
    Max stopped cutting cane for a minute, but remained bent for fear that Johansson would notice that he wasn’t working.  He would give his right arm for a pint of cold beer right now, or even a cup of iced water, but the best he could hope for was warm water with dead insects swimming in it.  His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his hands slick with sweat on his machete as he raised his arm and cut a few more stalks.  The machete felt heavy in his hand, the blade glinting in the sunlight as it came down. 
    There were nearly two hundred workers in the field, all wielding sharp weapons.  Strange that no one ever thought to use them to regain their freedom.  How easy it would be to butcher the few men who were in charge, Max mused, but the problem wasn’t overpowering the men.  The problem was the next step.  Killing Johansson and his minions would be easy enough, but the Negro slaves had nowhere to go and would be recaptured by the authorities as soon as they tried to flee, and the indentures had no means of getting back home to Europe unless they