The Black Train

“I’m sorry you fellas have to do this to one of your own—that’s the way it is. But it ain’t just a lesson to yawl, it’s a lesson to white men, too. We’se doin’ serious work for our country buildin’ this railroad. The Yankees got close to thirty thousand miles of train track but the South ain’t got but nine. Mr. Gast’s railroad is important for the future. We all have to keep our minds on the task.” Morris paused, perhaps only for effect. “Pound him.”

The sledgehammers rose and fell, landing great sickening thuds. The headless body was pummeled, and in a minute it was crushed, every bone in the dead man’s body fractured.

“Axes!” Morris ordered.

Four more slaves stepped up, just as grim-faced as the first. In unison their axes blurred down in scarlet arcs, like a diabolical camshaft. In moments the pulverized body was chopped up into pulp.

“Shovels and hoes!”

The finality now. The slaves hoed the pulp into the soil.

Morris bellowed, “We’re stronger by losin’ this one, and now his useless criminal body will finally do some good, by fertilizin’ this good land which puts food in our bellies! Mr. Gast just done got back from a long trip to Virginia to bring us more rail and ties, so let’s make him proud, and lay a quarter mile plus! Right, men?”

The hundred slaves snapped out of their gloom and cheered.

“Remember, your freedom’s at the end of this track! Right?”

More cheers, more rallying.

“Now take twenty! Then we’re back to work!”

Cutton remained speechless as the ritual ended: the two strong-armers in the field placed Meti’s severed head on a high stake and sunk it in the ground.

Good Jesus…

Morris came down to the track line. “Hey, Cutton. Sorry, I didn’t know you were the squeamish type.” He pronounced the word “type” as “tap.” “But you shouldn’t’ve bailed last night. I dropped five in the whore-mother’s hand’n she forgot all about what I done to that little mulatto girl. And she got me two more girls! I had me plenty of fun.”

Cutton tried to banish the image. “Meti was a fine worker, Morris. What exactly he do? Force himself on a town girl?”

Morris bit off some tobacco. “Between you’n me?”

“Sure.”

“Gave Mrs. Gast’s ass a squeeze, he did.”

Cutton’s gut shimmied. If they cut off his head and tilled his corpse into the field for grabbin’ her ass…what would they do to me?

“Wouldn’t be surprised if she asked for it, though. And that’s between you’n me, too.”

Cutton yearned to change subjects. His eyes flicked to the prominent, long-coated man on the white horse. “I thought Mr. Gast wasn’t comin’ back till tonight.”

Morris shrugged. He glanced up at the severed head on the stake but seemed unaffected. “Got back this mornin’. And he brought four flat cars stacked high with track segments.”

“Iron from Tredegar, I heard.”

“That’s right.”

“A damn sight better than Yankee iron. Costs more, too.”

“Well, Mr. Gast wants only the best for his railroad.” Another glance to the field showed normality returning, even with the staked head looking down at them. Female slaves in cool cotton dresses began to walk back to the soybean rows with their wicker baskets. Morris looked one more time at the head.

Did he smile?

Cutton shuddered.

A sudden shadow crossed them. Cutton looked up…and nearly froze.

“Mornin’, Mr. Gast,” Morris greeted.

The stern-faced man nodded. Salt-and-pepper muttonchops bristled his face. “Morris. It’s a shame about the slave, but you talked it up just right, as always.”

“Thank you, sir. Like you taught me, don’t put ’em down, even when we gotta discipline ’em.”

“Mornin’, Mr. Gast,” Cutton said over his unease. Holy shit, why do I got a feelin’ he knows I fucked his wife?

“Mornin’, Mr. Cutton. How have the track inspections looked in my absence?”

“‘Bout as perfect as I ever seen, Mr. Gast.” His struggled to talk through the dryness of his throat. His heart was pounding. “Gauge is dead-on. We’ve done close to five miles already, and we ain’t even been goin’ two weeks. And the coupling work is perfect.”

“Good, good.” Gast turned his darkened face up to the sun. “My wife mentioned that she spoke with you yesterday.”

Cutton’s heart felt like a rock that had just slid down into his stomach. “I—Why, yes, sir, I did tip my hat to her, yes, sir.”

“She tells me you’re a courteous gentlemen—”

“That’s, uh, right kind of her—”

“—even though you’re from Delaware.”

The moment turned rigid. Then Gast and Morris broke out in laughter.

Cutton almost pissed his canvas trousers, but eventually he got it and laughed, too, however nervously.

“I’m just havin’ some fun with ya, Mr. Cutton,” Gast assured. He looked down at them both. “You men are doin’ damn fine work. Keep it up.”

“Yes, sir,” Morris said.

Cutton added, “We surely will.”

Gast took his horse off, back down the track line where the flat cars laden with rail and ties sat.

But Cutton couldn’t help but notice…Gast’s eyes. Just before he’d ridden away, when he’d looked down—the whites of the man’s eyes seemed stained, off-yellow, like maybe jaundice.

“Is Mr. Gast under the weather?” Cutton mentioned.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

Cutton chewed his lips. “Thought his eyes looked a little funny.”

“Looked fine to me, Cutton, and I got a burr in my ass now.”

“Why’s that?”

“He calls me Morris but he calls you Mr. Cutton. Shee-it.” Does he?

“bet’choo suck his willy ever nat, huh?” Morris bellowed a laugh and slapped Cutton hard on the back. “Let’s go to the whorehouse again tonight. Have us some fun.”

Cutton easily remembered Morris’s idea of fun. He was drenched in nervous sweat. “Maybe. I’ll see how I feel after we’re done with work.”

Cutton looked one more time at the staked head. No one noticed, no one cared in the least. Just another killing of a rowdy slave. He shook his head when Morris offered him a chew.

And noticed something.

Ain’t that the damnedest…

The whites of Morris’s eyes looked a bit sickly. Tinged a pale yellow.

Just like Gast.

He shook his head. Must be the light or somethin’, he dismissed.

“You two!” Morris shouted to the two strong-arms in the field. “Get these slaves back on the line. Time to get back to work.” He slapped Cutton hard on the back again, billowing dust. “See ya tonight, buddy.”

Morris got back to his business. The slaves began to branch off into their assigned groups, and soon tools could be heard clanging.

Cutton mounted his horse but held up a moment. His gaze still hung on the severed head and its yawning dead face. Is this really justice? he wondered. Then the most unbidden inclination told him it was more than that.