didn’t even say a word, yet Jimmy dropped to his knees in fear. His entire body trembled with trepidation.
“Pick up the coward,” Holmes growled.
And the guards obliged, pouncing on Ross like hungry wolves before they dragged him to the front of the crowd. Then, just as quickly as they had attacked, they backed away, leaving Ross at the feet of his master, with nothing between the two but a palpable wall of hate.
“Master Webster?” Holmes continued. “Why don’t you tell our guests about the white man’s temple? I think they’d enjoy that tale.”
Webster readjusted his glasses, grinning. “In the nineteenth century, the white man considered his body sacred. It was a divine and holy temple that was not to be defiled by the dirty black man. Sure, it was fine for Massah to sleep with all the good-looking black women of the plantation. Famous men like Thomas Jefferson were reputed to have fathered many biracial children during their day. But if a Negro ever touched a white man for
reason, the slave could legally be killed. Can you believe that? The courts actually allowed it! Of course, that didn’t make much financial sense to the slave owner, so it was rarely done. I mean, why murder someone who is doing your chores? So the white man was forced to come up with a better punishment than death.”
Jimmy Ross gulped, waiting for Master Holmes to make a move. But the black man didn’t budge. He stood like a statue, not blinking, not breathing. Silent. Completely silent. Listening to the words of his friend.
“No one knows where the idea of the post first came from, but its popularity spread across the Southern states during the early part of the eighteen hundreds. In fact, it spread like wildfire.”
Suddenly, without warning, Holmes burst from his trance and lunged in Ross’s direction. The prisoner instinctively flinched, raising his hands to protect himself, but it was a grave mistake.
“You tried to hit me!” Holmes screamed, stopping six inches short of Ross. “You white piece of shit! You tried to hit me!”
“I didn’t, Master Holmes. I swear! I-”
“I don’t give a fuck what you swear! I’m in charge of your sorry ass, so your words mean shit to me! If I say you tried to hit me, then you tried to hit me!” Holmes turned toward his guards. “Get me the post, now! I need to teach this cocksucker a lesson!”
“In fact,” Webster continued, as if he was narrating an evil documentary, “even if the threat was an implied one-a swing that never landed, a tip of a cap to a white woman, or a hand being lifted for protection-slave owners were encouraged to administer this punishment.”
The guards carried a six-foot wooden post, approximately six inches in diameter, to the front of the group and slammed it into the ground. After straightening it with a careful eye, they drove the long peg into the pliable turf with several swings of a sledgehammer. Once it was anchored in the ground, the device was ready for use.
“Now get him!” Holmes ordered.
The guards clamped onto Jimmy’s arms much rougher than they had before and slammed him against the post. Then, before Jimmy could move, the larger of the guards forced Jimmy’s cheek against the rough wooden surface, holding his face against the post with as much strength as possible. And Holmes was pleased by the sight.
While watching Jimmy tremble, Holmes slid in behind him while pulling a claw hammer out of the folds of his dark cloak. The sight of the savage tool brought a smile to his lips. Even though he enjoyed chopping fingers, there was nothing Holmes enjoyed more than the post. The fear. The blood. The disbelief in his victim’s eyes. He loved it! For one reason or another, it satisfied something inside of him that most people couldn’t understand.
The desire to be violent.
Reaching into his pocket, Holmes fumbled for a nail. Four inches in length, silver in color, sharpened to a perfect point. He lifted the tiny spike behind Jimmy Ross’s head, then studied it with a suspicious eye. It was so small, yet capable of producing so much pain. God, it was beautiful. Holmes breathed deeply, thinking of the impending moment of impact. The smile on his face got even broader.
“The post,” Webster said, “was a two-step process. Step one was the attachment phase. In order to prevent a messy scene later, the slave needed to be attached to the post in the most appropriate fashion. According to the journals that I’ve read, there was one method in particular that was quite popular.”
Holmes raised the tip of the metal spike and ran it through the back of Jimmy’s hair, tracing the ridges of his skull, looking for the proper insertion point. Once it was located, Holmes lifted his hammer, slowly, silently. The crowd, realizing what was about to be done, gasped with fear and shouted pleas of protest, but to Holmes, the murmur of shock sounded like a beautiful chorus, only adding to his enjoyment.
With a flick of his wrist, Holmes shoved the nail through the elastic tissue of Jimmy’s outer ear, piercing the cartilage with a sickening snap. Before Jimmy could even yelp in pain, Holmes followed the attack with a swift swing of the hammer, driving the nail deep into the wood, anchoring the ear to the post.
After a moment of shock, Jimmy screamed in agony, then made things far worse for himself by trying to pull his head away from the wood. It was a horrible mistake. The more he pulled, the more flesh he tore, causing sharp waves of pain to surge through his skull. Blood trickled, then gushed down the side of his face. Warm rivulets of crimson flowed over his whiskered cheek, adding gore to the already vicious attack.
And the sight of it was too much for his family to endure.
In the crowd, Jimmy’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Susan, fainted from the gruesome scene. The image of her battered father was simply too much for her to handle. Tommy and Scooter, his two boys, vomited, then dropped to their knees in a series of spasmodic heaves. They had never seen anything that horrible in their young lives.
Unfortunately, the brutal part was yet to come.
With his left forearm, Holmes slammed Ross’s face against the post. “Stop your fuckin’ squirming,” he grunted. “You’re just causing more pain.”
“Okay,” Ross sobbed, willing to do anything to stop the agony. “Okay!”
“I promise if you stop moving, I’ll let you go. I’ll free you from the post.”
“All right, whatever you say!” He took an unsteady breath, wanting to believe the vicious man. “I will. I swear! I’ll stay still.”
Holmes nodded. Things were so much easier to complete with a calm victim.
“Good,” he hissed, “because your squirming is ruining my souvenir!”
From the constraints of his belt, Holmes unsheathed his stiletto, slipping the five-inch blade behind Ross’s head. Then, while calming his victim with words of reassurance, Holmes lowered the razor-sharp edge to the tip of Jimmy’s ear, pausing briefly to enjoy the scene. He truly loved this part. The quiet before the storm. The silence before the screams. There was something about it that was so magical, so fulfilling, that he couldn’t put it into words.
Finally, when the moment felt right, Holmes finished the job. He removed the ear with a single slice, severing the cartilage from the side of Jimmy’s head in one swift slash, like a movie on the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
A wave of pain crashed over Jimmy, knocking him to the ground. Blood oozed from his open wound, flooding his neck and shoulder with a sea of red. That, coupled with his loud screams, caused his wife to break from formation. She rushed to his side, crying, hoping to administer as much first aid as possible, but there wasn’t much she could do.
Her husband was missing his ear, and she didn’t have a sewing kit.
“The second part of this punishment, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, was the removal of the ear,” Webster said. “As a sign of the white man’s power, it was left hanging on the post right outside the slaves’ cabins for several days. Not surprisingly, it was an effective way to get the master’s message to his slaves.
”
Holmes stared at his souvenir, left dangling from the pole like a freshly slaughtered pig. “And that, my friends, is how the Listening Post was born.”
CHAPTER 33
PAYNE
wasn’t sure about Greene until that very moment, but one look into his eyes told him everything he needed to know. The Buffalo Soldier was a member of the Posse.
