47

"What's this?" the irate slave master said in a voice so frightening that I almost fell down from the weight of his words.

"He done arrested me, mastuh," the runaway slave Tall John said. He no longer sounded like the mischievous child I had met. "Arrested'ed me even though I wanted to run. He dragged me out the bushes and said that you was the mastuh and I bettah heed."

John let his head hang down and his jaw go slack. He stooped over and brought his hands together as if he were pleading. I had to blink at him because he no longer seemed to be the boy I had met less than an hour past.

Tobias, who was never at a loss for words in all the seasons I had known him, went silent and furrowed his brows. He looked from the runaway to me, and back again.

"Is that so, Forty-seven?"

"Yessuh," I said. I would have said so no matter what he had asked. I was so frightened of the slavering, snapping jaws of those hounds that all I could do was nod and say yes and hope that those big teeth didn't tear out my windpipe.

"Who are you?" Master asked the bronze cast boy

"They call me Tall John, your honor, suh. I was found in a cave near the Paradise Rice Plantation in South Carolina. They speculate that my mama must'a had me but then threw me down there so that the mastuh didn't kill both me an' her."

"You not Andrew Pike's runaway nigger from the Red Clay Plantation?"

"No, suh. Uh-uh. Naw. The Paradise Plantation burnt down and I was on a raft with Mastuh hisself tryin' to get downstream. But he got a terrible grippe and died and I been wanderin' in the wilderness evah since."

If I hadn't heard the boy describe Pike I would have believed his whopper. But as it was I kept quiet because I knew that what was going on was far beyond my control or understanding.

"So your master is dead and his plantation is burned down?" Tobias asked.

"Yes, suh."

"And how did the plantation burn down?"

"I think it was abolitionists," John said, bugging out his eyes. "Abolitionists and maybe injuns too. They burned down the master's house with all'a his family and then took the slaves and run. But I stayed with my mastuh because you know I loved him because he treated us slaves so good."

I had never seen a slave grease a white man like that. The lie was so bold that I was sure that Tobias was about to release the hounds to tear us both to shreds.

"What was your master's name, boy?"

"Joe," John said. "Mastuh Joe."

This brought a smile to the Tobias's lips.

"Joe?" he said. "Joseph. Did he have a last name?"

"I jes called him Mastuh Joe, Mastuh. I stayed with him until he died and then I wandered off in the woods lookin' for a farm to work on and a mastuh to keep me. But I been lost all this time until I come upon Mr. Forty-seven here. I was so scared that I wanted to run but he tole me that you was a good mastuh and that I needn't be ascared."

"You know it's my duty to try and find your master and return you to him, don't you, son?" Tobias said.

The only word I had to hear was the last one son. When Master Tobias uttered that word to a colored person it was a sign of affection. That meant that the slave he addressed was now his property.

"Mastuh," John said with deep-felt awe in his voice, "if you could bring me back to my mastuh an' his big house I would kiss your feet an' pledge my life to you."

Tobias swelled up when he heard these words. Every plantation master wanted to be loved by his slaves. He wanted them to look on him like their daddy. John had greased Tobias so well that he assured himself a place on the Corinthian Plantation for the rest of his natural born days.

Whatever effect John had on Tobias it was the opposite for those bloodhounds. They doubled their efforts to get off from the master's leash and then they started braying as if they had caught the scent of a wounded deer. Tobias yanked hard on their collars and yelled at them and made them heel. But still you could see their evil eyes looking hard at the both of us poor souls.

"Forty-seven," the master said when his dogs went mostly quiet.

"Yessuh."

"For the time bein' we gonna give this boy here Nigger Ned's numbah and he's gonna sleep in the men's cabin."

"Yessuh."

"You tell Mud Albert that I will call to see this slave up at the big house latah on and that I don't want him molested by any of the rough element out there undah his charge. And I don't want him branded at least not yet."

"Yessuh," I said for a third time.