Roots: The Saga of an American Family
“Mr. Lea!” When the Englishman loudly and abruptly snapped out the words, almost instantly the crowd fell silent.
“Mr. Lea, we both have such superb birds here, I wonder if you’d care to join me in a special personal side bet?”
Chicken George knew that every man among the hundreds present sensed just as he did the Englishman’s tone of vengeful-ness and condescension behind his manner of civility. The back of the massa’s neck, he saw, had suddenly become flushed with his anger.
A few seconds brought Massa Lea’s stiff reply: “That will suit me, sir. What is your proposition?”
The Englishman paused. He appeared to be pondering the matter before he spoke. “Would ten thousand dollars be sufficient?”
He let the wave of gasps sweep the crowd, and then, “That is, unless you haven’t that much faith in your bird’s chances, Mr. Lea.” He stood looking at the massa, his thin smile clearly contemptuous.
The crowd’s brief exclamatory rumbling quickly faded into a deathly stillness; those who had been seated were standing up now. Chicken George’s heart seemed to have stopped beating. Like a distant echo he heard Miss Malizy’s report of Missis Lea’s fury that the five thousand dollars the massa had withdrawn from the bank was “near ’bout half dey life savin’s.” So Chicken George knew Massa Lea couldn’t dare to call that bet. But what possible response could he make not to be utterly humiliated before this throng including practically everyone he knew? Sharing his massa’s agony, Chicken George couldn’t even bring himself to look at him. An eternity seemed to pass, then George doubted his ears.
Massa Lea’s voice was strained. “Sir, would you care to double that? Twenty thousand!”
The whole crowd vented exclamations of incredulity amid rustling agitated movements. In sheer horror Chicken George realized that sum represented Massa Lea’s total assets in the world, his home, his land, his slaves, plus Chicken George’s savings. He saw the Englishman’s expression of utter astonishment, before quickly he collected himself, his face now set and grim. “A true sportsman!” he exclaimed, extending his hand to Massa Lea. “A bet, sir! Let us heel up our birds!”
Suddenly then Chicken George understood: Massa Lea knew that his magnificent dark buff bird would win. Not only would the massa become instantly rich, but this one crucial victory would make him forever a heroic legend for all poor crackers, a symbol that even the snobbish, rich blueblood massas could be challenged and beaten! None of them could ever again look down their noses at Tom Lea!
Massa Lea and the Englishman now bent down on their opposite sides of the cockpit, and in that instant it seemed to Chicken George that the entire life of the massa’s bird flashed through his mind. Even as a cockerel, its unbelievably quick reflexes at first had caught his attention; then as a stag its amazing viciousness saw it constantly trying to attack others through the cracks in their fence-row pen; and when recently retrieved from the rangewalk, within seconds it had nearly killed the old catchcock before it could be stopped. The massa had picked that bird knowing how smart, aggressive, and deep game it was. For just a split second Chicken George seemed again to hear an outraged Matilda, “You’s crazier even dan massa! Wors’ can happen to ’im is endin’ up jes’ a po’ cracker again, but you’s gamblin’ yo’ whole fam’ly’s freedom on some chicken!”
Then the three judges stepped out, positioning themselves evenly around the cockpit. The referee poised as if he stood on eggs. An atmosphere seemed to be hovering that everyone there knew they were about to witness something to talk about for the rest of their days. Chicken George saw his massa and the Englishman holding down their straining birds, both of their faces raised to watch the referee’s lips.
“Pit!”
The silvery blue and dark buff birds blurred toward each other, crashing violently and bouncing backward. Landing on their feet, both were instantly again in the air, tearing to reach each other’s vitals. Beaks snapping, spurs flashing were moving at a blinding speed, attacking with ferocity that Chicken George had seldom seen equaled by any two birds in a cockpit. Suddenly the Englishman’s silvery blue was hit, the massa’s bird had sunk a spur deeply into one of its wing bones; they fell off balance, both struggling to loosen the stuck spur while pecking viciously at each other’s heads.
“Handle! Thirty seconds!” The referee’s shout was barely uttered before both the Englishman and Massa Lea sprang in; the spur freed, both men licked their birds’ disarrayed head feathers to smoothness again, then set them back down on their starting lines, this time holding them by the tails. “Get ready.... Pit!”
Again the cocks met evenly high in midair, both sets of spurs seeking a lethal strike, but failing to do so before they dropped back to the ground. The massa’s bird dashed trying to knock its enemy off balance, but the English bird feinted brilliantly sidewise, drawing the crowd’s gasps as the massa’s bird lunged harmlessly past at full force. Before he whirled about, the English bird was upon him; they rolled furiously on the ground, then regained their feet, battling furiously beak to beak, parting, beating at each other with powerful wing blows above a flurry of slashing legs. Again they took to the air, dropping back again, ground-fighting with new fury.
A cry rose! The English bird had drawn blood. A spreading darkening area showed on the breast of the massa’s bird. But he violently buffeted his enemy with wing blows until it stumbled and he sprang above it for a kill. But again the English bird brilliantly crouched, dodged, escaped. Chicken George had never witnessed such incredibly swift reflexes. But the massa’s bird now whirled forcefully enough to knock the English bird onto its back. He hit it twice in the chest, drawing blood, but the English bird managed to flap into the air, and came down, striking the massa’s bird in the neck.
Chicken George had quit breathing as the bleeding birds sparred, circling, heads low, each seeking an opening. In a sudden blinding flurry, the English bird was overpowering the massa’s bird, battering with its wings, its striking spurs drawing more blood, then incredibly the massa’s bird burst into the air and as it came down sinking a spur into the English bird’s heart; it collapsed in a feathery heap, its beak gushing blood.
It came so swiftly that a second or so seemed to pass before the huge din rose. Screaming, red-faced men were springing up and down, “Tawm! Tawm! He done it!” Chicken George, beyond happiness, saw them mobbing the massa, pounding his back, pumping his hand. “Tawm Lea! Tawm Lea! Tom LEA!”
We’s gwine be free, Chicken George kept thinking. The actuality of soon telling his family seemed unbelievable, inconceivable. He glimpsed the Englishman with his jaw set in a way that made one think of a bulldog.
“Mr. LEA!” Probably nothing else could have so quickly quieted the crowd.
The Englishman was walking, he stopped about three yards distant from the massa. He said, “Your bird fought brilliantly. Either one could have won it. They were the most perfectly matched pair I’ve ever seen. I’m told you’re a kind of sportsman who might care to let your winnings ride on another contest between birds of ours.”
Massa Lea stood there, his face blanched.
For seconds cooped gamecocks’ cluckings and crowings were the only sounds heard as thronged men tried to comprehend the potential of two gamecocks battling with eighty thousand dollars at stake, winner take all....
Heads had swiveled toward Massa Lea. He seemed bewildered, uncertain. For one split second his glance brushed Chicken George, working feverishly on the injured bird. Chicken George was as startled as others to hear his own voice, “Yo’ birds whup anything wid feathers, Massa!” The sea of white faces swiveled toward him.
“I’ve heard that your faithful darky is among the best trainers, but I wouldn’t rely too much on his advice. I also have other very good birds.”
The words had come as if the rich Englishman regarded his previous loss about as he might have a game of marbles, as if he were taunting Massa Lea.
Then Massa Lea sounded elaborately formal: “Yes, sir. As you
propose, I’ll take pleasure in letting the sum ride on another fight.”
The next several minutes of preparatory activities passed almost as a blur for Chicken George. Not a sound came from the surrounding crowd. There had never been anything like this. All of Chicken George’s instincts approved when Massa Lea indicated with a forefinger the coop containing the bird that Chicken George had previously given a nickname. “De Hawk, yassuh,” he breathed, knowing precisely that bird’s tendency for seizing and holding an enemy with its beak while slashing with its spurs. It would be the countermeasure for birds trained to feint expertly, as the previous contest had suggested was characteristic within the Englishman’s flock.
Cradling “De Hawk” in his arm, Massa Lea went out to where the Englishman held a solid dark gray bird. The birds weighed in at six pounds even.
When “Pit!” came, bringing the anticipated rushing impact, somehow instead of either bird taking to the air, they exchanged furious wing blows and Chicken George could hear “De Hawk’s” beak snapping after a proper hold ... when somehow amid mutual buffeting an English spur struck in savagely. The massa’s bird stumbled and its head dropped limply for an instant before it collapsed, its opened mouth streaming blood.
“O Lawd! O Lawd! O Lawd!” Chicken George went bolting, knocking aside men in his lunge into the circular cockpit. Bellowing like a baby, scooping up the obviously mortally wounded “Hawk,” he sucked clotting blood from its beak as it weakly fluttered, dying in his hands. He struggled to his feet with the nearest men drawing back from his bawling anguish as he stumbled back through the crowd and toward the wagon cradling the dead bird.
Back about the pit a gathering of planters were wildly back-slapping and congratulating the Englishman and Massa Jewett. All of their backs were turned to the stricken, solitary figure of Massa Lea, who stood rooted, staring down with a glazed look at the bloodstains in the cockpit.
Turning finally, Sir C. Eric Russell walked over to where Massa Lea was, and Massa Lea slowly raised his eyes.
“What’d you say?” he mumbled.
“I said, sir, it just wasn’t your lucky day.”
Massa Lea managed a trace of a smile.
Sir C. Eric Russell said, “Concerning the wager. Of course, no one carries about such sums in his pocket. Why don’t we settle up tomorrow? Say, sometime in the afternoon—” He paused. “After the tea hour, at Mr. Jewett’s home.”
Numbly, Massa Lea nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The trip home took two hours. Neither the massa nor Chicken George spoke a word. It was the longest ride Chicken George had ever taken. But it had not been long enough, as the wagon pulled into the driveway ...
When Massa Lea returned from Massa Jewett’s during the next day’s dusk, he found Chicken George mixing meal for the cockerels in the supply hut, where he had spent most of the hours since Matilda’s screams, wails, and shouting during the previous night had finally driven him from their cabin.
“George,” the massa said, “I got somethin’ hard to tell you.” He paused, groping for words. “Don’t know how to say it hardly. But you already know I ain’t had nowhere near the money folks thinks I did. Fact is, ’cept for a few thousand, ’bout all I own is the house, this land, and you few niggers.”
He’s going to sell us, George sensed.
“Trouble is,” the massa went on, “even all that ain’t but roun’ half what I owe that goddamned sonofabitch. But he’s offered me a break—” The massa hesitated again. “You heard him say what he’d heard about you. And he said today he could see how good you train in both the birds fought—”
The massa took a deep breath. George held his. “Well, seems like he needs to replace a trainer he lost over in England awhile back, and he thinks bringing back a nigger trainer would be fun.” The massa couldn’t look into George’s disbelieving eyes and became more abrupt. “Not to drag out this mess, he’ll call us square for all I’ve got in cash, a first and second mortgage on the house, and using you over in England long enough to train somebody else. He says no more’n a couple of years.”
The massa forced himself to look Chicken George in the face. “Can’t tell you how bad I feel about this, George.... I ain’t got no choice. He’s lettin’ me off light. If I don’t do it, I’m ruint, everything I ever worked for.”
George couldn’t find words. What could he say? After all, he was the massa’s slave.
“Now, I know you’re wiped out, too, and I mean to make it up to you. So I pledge you my word right here and now while you’re gone I’ll take care of your woman and young’uns. And the day you get home—”
Massa Lea paused, sliding a hand into his pocket, withdrawing it, and holding a folded paper that he unfolded and thrust before Chicken George.
“Know what that is? Sat down an’ wrote it out last night. You’re looking right at your legal freedom paper, boy! I’m gonna keep it in my strongbox to hand you the day you come back!”
But after momentarily staring at the mysterious writing that covered most of the square, white sheet of paper, Chicken George continued struggling to control his fury. “Massa,” he said quietly, “I was gwine buy us all free! Now all I had gone, an’ you sendin’ me off crost de water somewheres ’way from my wife an’ chilluns besides. How come you can’t leas’ free dem now, den me when I gits back?”
Massa Lea’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need you tellin’ me what to do, boy! Ain’t my fault you lost that money! I’m offerin’ to do too much for you anyhow, that’s the trouble with niggers! You better be careful of your mouth!” The massa’s face was reddening. “If it wasn’t for you bein’ all your life here, I’d just go ahead an’ sell your ass!”
George looked at him, then shook his head. “If all my life mean anythin’ to you, Massa, how come you’s jes’ messin’ it up mo’?”
The massa’s face set into hardness. “Pack whatever you intend to take with you! You leave for England Saturday.”
CHAPTER 104
With Chicken George gone, his luck gone, and perhaps his nerve gone as well, the fortunes of Massa Lea continued to decline. At first, he ordered L’il George into full-time daily care of the chickens, but toward the end of only a third day, the massa found some of the cockerel pens’ waterpans empty and the chubby, slow L’il George was sent fleeing with dire threats. The youngest boy, Lewis, nineteen, was next transferred from field work to take on the job. In preparation for the season’s several remaining game-cocking matches, Massa Lea now was forced to take over most of the prefight training and conditioning chores himself, since Lewis as yet simply did not know how. He accompanied the massa to the various local contests, and each of those days, the rest of the family gathering in the evenings awaited the return of Lewis to tell them whatever had happened.
The massa’s birds had lost more fights than they won, Lewis always said, and after a while that he had overheard men openly talking that Tom Lea was trying to borrow money to make bets. “Ain’t many seem like dey wants to talk wid massa. Dey jes’ speaks or waves quick an’ keeps goin’ like he got de plague.”
“Yeah, de plague o’ dem knowin’ now he po’,” said Matilda. “Po’ cracker’s all he ever been!” Sister Sarah snapped.
It became slave row’s common knowledge that Massa Lea had taken to drinking heavily, almost every day, between his shouting matches with Missis Lea.
“Dat ol’ man ain’t never been dis evil!” Miss Malizy told her grimly listening audience one night. “He hit de house actin’ jes’ like a snake, hollerin’ an’ cussin if’ n missy even look at ’im. An’ all day long when he gone, she in dere cryin’ she don’t even never want to hear no more ’bout no chickens!”
Matilda listened, emotionally drained from her own weeping and praying since her Chicken George had been gone. Briefly her glances reviewed their teen-aged daughters and six strong grown sons, three of them now with mates and children. Then her eyes came back to rest upon her blacksmith son, Tom, as if she wished he would say something. But
who spoke instead was Lilly Sue, Virgil’s pregnant mate, who was briefly visiting from the nearby Curry plantation where she lived, and fear was thick in her tone. “I don’ know y’all’s massa good as you do, but I jes’ feels he gwine do somethin’ terrible, sho’s we born.” A silence fell among them, no one being willing to express their own guess, at least not aloud.
After the next morning’s breakfast, Miss Malizy waddled hurriedly from the kitchen down to the blacksmith shop. “Massa say tell you saddle his hoss and git it roun’ to de front porch, Tom,” she urged, her large eyes visibly moist. “Lawd, please hurry up, ’cause de things he been sayin’ to po’ ol’ missis jes’ ain’t hardly fittin’.” Without a word Tom soon tied the saddled horse to a gatepost, and he had just started back around the side of the big house when Massa Lea came lurching through the front door. Already red-faced from drinking, he struggled up onto the horse’s back and galloped away, weaving in the saddle.
Through a half-opened window, Tom could overhear Missis Lea weeping as if her heart would break. Feeling embarrassment for her, he continued across the backyard to the blacksmith shed where he was just starting to beat a dulled plow point into sharpness when Miss Malizy came again.
“Tom,” she said, “I ’clare seem like massa jes’ win’ up killin’ hisself, he keep on like he goin’, man nigh onto eighty years ol’.”
“You want to know the truth, Miss Malizy,” he replied, “I b’lieve one way or ’nother dat’s what he tryin’ to do.”