ain’t so deep inside your body as you thought. No, you’re right there on the surface, where your skin is coming off in burning strips. You’re nothing but the pain itself and you hate it more even than you hate the white man doing the lashing.
“Give her twenty to start with, Mr. Johnson,” Master Edward ordered.
I gritted my teeth. The first stroke cut the air. It didn’t hurt so bad — just stung like a wasp. I thought I could make it to twenty without peeing all over myself.
“Two …”
That one singed. I let out a shriek.
“Three …”
I felt my anger running clean away, hopelessness rising up to meet the next lash.
“Four …”
I let go all over the barrel and my legs. I couldn’t help the tears from coming now. And I couldn’t catch enough breath.
“Five …”
The whip hit bone. I pictured Lily hanging on to that cross of hers. I thought of God. I begged Him for help. I began to recite a verse from one of my favorite Psalms: …
“Six …”
“Please stop, Master Edward,” I moaned. “Please stop.”
“Seven …”
I imagined my whole self was coming off — in bloody bits.
“Please let Morri go, Mastuh Edwood,” Crow shouted. “You whip me instead.”
“Eight …”
I was weeping now. Then I shrieked for help as loud as I could. And I hollered what he wanted: “I’ll go with Mr. Stewart!”
Mr. Johnson stopped, but Master Edward ordered him to pay me no mind and keep on going. What I didn’t realize is that he wasn’t truly punishing me for defying him at all. No, sir, he had another, better reason for hurting me good and he was enjoying this.
“Nine …”
By now I was tugging something fierce at my bindings and crying out to God and Mantis and Papa. And I kept on shrieking for them, but no one would come.
“Ten …”
Crow begged again for Master Edward to lash him instead of me. I knew he was offering himself not just for me, but out of loyalty to my papa. But his voice was far off. Then I heard him grunt. I think Master Edward must have kicked him in the belly. I couldn’t get enough air to scream so loud anymore. Which was damned good, because it meant I’d faint soon. I was hoping that Copper wouldn’t throw water on me to wake me up.
“Eleven …”
Eleven didn’t fall. By turning my head, I could see Mr. Johnson on the ground, his face in the dirt. He was getting to his feet real slow, but revenge was in his eyes.
“Whoa there!” Master Edward shouted. “Just wait a minute, Mr. Johnson!”
I could hear a scuffle and men yelling. When I faced forward again, I saw a shadow crossing in front of me. I thought it was my papa’s.
I must have fainted sure enough, because when I woke up I was facedown in my own bed and Lily was smoothing some fat onto my back.
“Ya gonna be jes’ fine, baby,” she was saying.
I turned to look at her. Her left eye was puffy and nearly closed.
“Can’t see nuttin’ outta mah left one anyways.” She lifted a glass of water to my lips. Crow was there too, standing back from the bed. In a voice hopping with righteousness, the likes of which I hadn’t heard coming out of him in years, he explained to me that Mr. Stewart had dashed down from his bedroom when he heard me screaming and run straight for Mr. Johnson and knocked him hard in the dirt, threatening to kill him if he ever touched me again.
“Ooh, baby,” Lily said, “dat man was rattlesnek mad!”
Crow added that Mr. Johnson had wanted to fight a duel with Mr. Stewart right then and there, but Master Edward had calmed him down and sent him to his cottage. As he was leaving, he apparently gave me one more lash just to be spiteful.
“And Mr. Stewart?”
Lily replied that he’d been here to see me already, had been right where she was sitting. He’d wanted to make sure I was still alive. He had already spoken to Master Edward and was back in his bedroom now.
“What did Edward the Cockerel say to him?”
“He bawled him out at first, for hittin’ Mr. Johnson,” said Crow. “Then they drank some whiskey and ever’t’ing was jes’ fine.”
“And nobody’s told about us?”
Lily smacked my hand playfully. “Now, you hush up and stop frettin’ yousself, chile!”
I woke up Friday morning wishing I could slip out of the skin on my back like a snake and leave it to holler at someone else. One thing was for sure — I was going to have to figure a way out of going away with John the next day and of taking him to Comingtee on Sunday. If I couldn’t, Weaver and the others were just going to have to escape without me. And I sure as hell didn’t intend to get left behind in Egypt with Pharaoh. No, sir.
An hour later, I was already running a fever and slurring my speech like my tongue was made of glue. Crow reckoned it was the whipping. Lily took care of me in her room.
Master Edward had gone back with his family to Cordesville by now. He’d be returning Saturday morning by nine and had told Mr. Johnson that if I hadn’t left with Mr. Stewart by the time he got here I was to be given thirty more lashes. Lily ran to fetch John, who was sitting down by the river, sketching the slaves in the rice fields nearby. She said we owed it to him to tell him how I was doing since he’d clobbered Mr. Johnson something good on my behalf. He came in looking all glum and sat by my bed, with his arms crossed over his chest, not saying a word. I was too weak to say anything mean-spirited to him. Truth is, I liked him looking at me with those clear, sad eyes. I guess everybody likes to feel sorry for themselves once in a while.
He asked Lily if he could be alone with me for a few minutes, so she went back to her cleaning. He felt my pulse and found it racing, then wet a towel with water and laid it cool across my forehead. He said my papa had done that for him once, almost twenty-five years ago, just before making Hyena leave him be. He said he would never forgive himself for getting me whipped.
“You’ve got to stop saying you’re sorry all the time,” I said, smiling.
“In any case, I would never want to force you to come away with me.”
“So you’ll go?”
“I don’t know what to do. I suppose I’ll stay through Sunday, when I have to go to that dinner party at Comingtee with Edward. I pray that you’ll change your mind by then. This is no life for you. You must know that.”
“I know it, but I still can’t go,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand that. Morri, I know it’s a big decision, and I’m willing to wait for you for as long as it takes. I can go back to Charleston and wait there for a few days, then come back here. I can keep coming back. Don’t you see, I can’t just let you stay here.”
I figured that John would hear about our escape soon enough. Whether we got away or not, he’d be freed from his need to help me. “Just wait a week for me,” I told him. “If I don’t send you word, then leave without me. I know it makes no sense, but just do what I ask.”
“Very well, I’ll do as you say — for now. But what’ll you do about Edward? He’s sure to be angry with you for not leaving with me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle him,” I said convincingly, but the truth was I didn’t know what to do to get him to ease up on me. I didn’t want to think about him, so I asked, “What about you? Will you go back to New York when
