The Book Of Negroes by Lawrence Hill Read Free Book Online

third reason. I wanted to ask Chekura about it, but he kept talking about himself. He said they told him that they might let him go one day soon, but they also warned that if he didn’t mind his orders, he would be sent away with the other captives. Chekura wore a forced smile on his face. He smiled so much that I thought the corners of his mouth would form lasting creases. He smiled even as he told me that his uncle had never liked him, and that he had beaten Chekura often before finally selling him to man-stealers. Part of me wanted to hate Chekura, and to keep my hatred simple and focused. Another part of me liked the boy and craved his company—any conversation with another child was welcome.
    Fanta was often in a vile mood, and disapproved of me speaking to Chekura. She tried to order me to walk beside her, but I usually refused to do so.
    “He’s not from our village,” she said.
    “His village isn’t far from ours, and he’s just a boy,” I said.
    “He works with the captors,” Fanta said. “Don’t tell him anything. Don’t talk to him.”
    “And the food he brings, that I sometimes share with you?” I said.
    “Take the food,” she said, “but don’t talk to him. He is not your friend. Remember that.”
    The next day, while I was chatting with Chekura, Fanta flung a pebble at me.
    “That woman holds her head high,” Chekura said.
    “Her neck is chafing,” I said. “Tell your leaders to release Fanta and the other women from the yoke. They will not run.”
    “I will speak to the others,” he said.
    A day later, Fanta was let loose of her neck yoke, but her ankle was roped to that of another woman. Fanta and I began to walk side by side, but never at the front of the coffle, so we wouldn’t be the ones meeting snakes or scorpions, nor at the back, for fear of being whipped if we slowed the pace.
    “Here in the middle is safest,” Fanta whispered. “This is where my husband would tell me to walk,”
    “What happened to him?” I whispered.
    “When I was carried off, he was fighting two men,” she said.
    “And the village?”
    “Half of it was burning.”
    Fanta pressed her lips together and turned her face away, and I knew better than to ask another question.
    We passed scores of villages. I heard the beating of tam-tam drums, saw buzzards circling lazily in the sky and caught the smell of goat meat riding in the breeze, but there was no rescue. There weren’t even any objections from villagers.
    One day, as we were passing a village, a man was taken from a walled enclosure and led to our captors. He was bound at the wrists, and was followed by children who watched the villagers negotiate with the captors. Finally, in exchange for copper manillas and salt, the captors took the man and yoked him to the last person in the coffle. The children began taunting the new captive. As the clamour grew, some of the bigger boys threw stones and rotting fruit peels at us. A stick flew into my thigh, drawing blood. I gasped and swallowed the cowrie shell that I had been keeping in my mouth for company. I choked as it made its way down, and ran behind Fomba for protection. Fomba did his best to block the flying objects and shouted at the boys to stop. Stark naked, hair matted and filthy, head held angled to the side, hands waving wildly, he was quite a sight. He was hitby a few stones and mangoes before the coffle leaders chased away the boys and hustled us from the village.
    I could not understand why we had been the amusement of those village boys. True, the children of Bayo—myself included—had teased Fomba all the time. But we had never hurt him. We had never yoked him by the neck, or deprived him of food. I had never seen captives passing outside our walled village. But if we had seen men, women and children yoked and forced to march like
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, only worse, I hoped that we would have fought for them and freed them.
    That evening, Chekura brought a calabash of water and some soap made from