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  After about ten minutes, the cook, Celestino, appeared at the doorway of the galley, a small room cut into the base of the raised bow deck. He was a moon-faced man with a deep voice, a large Roman nose, and a big, frequent smile of perfect yellow teeth. His great bald head was covered by a bright red kerchief. A silver loop dangled from the lobe of his left ear. His skin was only a shade or two darker than the Cuban sailors. Just under six feet, lean and muscular, he wore a smock apron and a pair of tattered pants cut off just above the knees. He stood barefoot in the doorway straddling two large buckets filled with potatoes and bananas. Behind him was a barrel of water.

  “Bring dem sorry niggers over here, Señor Ruiz.”

  Pepe pointed the gun barrel toward the Africans and nodded his head. “C’mon. Breakfast.”

  Celestino handed each tribesman a raw potato, a banana, and a tin cup of water. After they all received food, Pepe waved at them on with the gun. “Walk. Walk and eat.”

  When they had finished eating, Pepe motioned for them to give the cups back to Celestino. Burnah was the last to do this. But instead of handing in his cup, he held out to the cook and motioned for more. Celestino broke out into a great laugh.

  “Hey, boss. Dis here nigger wants another drink.”

  “One cup each is fine.”

  “You hear dat, nigger. The ownerman says you gots enough.”

  Burnah smiled, took the cup to his lips as if to drink, and then held it out.

  “Stupid nigger. I says no.”

  Celestino swung to knock the cup from Burnah’s hand. But Burnah had worked with iron and the forge since he was a boy. His grip was unshakable. Celestino’s hand just bounced off the cup. Outraged, the cook slapped at the cup again, harder. It didn’t. budge. Burnah smiled, slowly raised it to his lips and then held it out again toward Celestino.

  “Contrary fuckin’ African! Señor Ruiz, we’s gots a contrary nigger here.”

  Pepe drew up his musket and walked over to the galley door.

  “What is it?”

  “He wants more water. You says no, so I says no, Now da slave won’t give back da cup.”

  “Oh for the love of Christ, here now …” Pepe pulled at the cup but Burnah would not yield. The sailor at the mast lowered his musket, aiming it at the rest of the tribesmen. Montes walked over from the foredeck, pistol drawn.

  “Burnah, let go of the cup,” Grabeau cautioned. “Give it to the whiteman.”

  “All I want is some water.”

  “They don’t want you to have any more, my friend.”

  “It is only water.”

  ‘Yes, but …”

  Pepe wheeled and cracked a sharp backhand into Burnah’s face and barked, “Shut up! Both of you. Shut up that gibberish and give me that cup.”

  Adrenaline surged through Burnah. He could feel his arms and legs beginning to shake. He turned away from Pepe and leaned forward, trying to dip the cup in the barrel. Celestino quickly pushed him back and drew a knife off the cutting board.

  “Get back, nigger!”

  “Burnah, no!”

  Pepe slapped Burnah and Grabeau. “I said shut up.”

  He cocked the musket and pointed it at Burnah’s face.

  “Now. Give me that cup. Or by the Blessed Trinity you’ll breathe no more.”

  The gun’s muzzle was less than six inches from Burnah’s face. Blood thundered through in his head and body. Slowly, carefully, he placed the cup in the palm of his hand, held it out to the whiteman, and smiled. Pepe swung the gun down on Burnah’s arm, knocking the cup to the deck.

  “I think you need to make an example of this one, Pepe,” Montes said returning his pistol to his belt.

  “Pedro, I think you’re right.” Pepe raised the barrel, touching the end lightly against Burnah’s lips.

  Later, Grabeau told Singbe that the whitemen bound Burnah to the mast with his back exposed and took off his loincloth. Then the young slave trader got a whip and took it to Burnah’s back and buttocks. By the fourth lash, the whip glistened with Burnah’s blood. Burnah kept his head pointed up and bit down on his lip. He did not cry out right away, but by the sixth strike he could not hold back. After twelve lashes the slave trader stopped. Burnah’s back was streaked with blood, his lip was split, and his legs wobbled with weakness and pain. One of the sailors moved to cut Burnah down, but the young slave trader made him wait. He yelled to the cook, who gave him a bottle and a rag. The young slave trader soaked the rag with the bottle’s brown liquid and rubbed it into the bloody wounds. Burnah’s body seized up as soon as the rag touched him, and loud, anguished screams wrenched up from his throat. It was vinegar.

  As he rubbed, the young slave trader talked loudly, first to Burnah, and then to the tribesmen on deck. After he was finished, he threw the rag to the deck and ordered the sailors to take the tribesmen below. Burnah was left tied to the mast, his body sagging against the rope, the legs limp, and his back a smeared wash of blood and tatters of skin. Every so often a small, feeble moan oozed out through his labored breathing. This is what the others met as they were brought on deck. After the last group finished eating and walking, the sailors cut Burnah down and chained him below with the others.

  On the second morning, Singbe and four others went on deck for their exercise. Among his companions was Konoma, a member of the Kono mountain tribe. Like many men of his tribe, Konoma had filed his teeth into sharp-looking fangs. Over the years, he had also pushed his teeth against pieces of wood to create a large overbite. The look was much admired by the tribe’s women and considered essential if a man wanted to attract a quality wife. But the whitemen knew nothing of these practices. When they saw the sharp protruding teeth, they were sure Konoma was a cannibal. As a result, while the other four slaves had been unchained from their neck collars and were allowed to walk on deck, beneath the sight of Montes’s musket, the sailors had fixed a ten-foot chain from Konoma’s collar to the mast. He was left there to eat and shuffle from side to side. For his own part, the chaining terrified Konoma. Because of his appearance, he had been flogged repeatedly on the passage from Africa. He never knew the reason for the beatings and thought the whitemen simply took pleasure in making the whip crack against his buttocks and feet. Now, being chained alone while the other four were allowed to walk the deck, he was sure he would be beaten again. He stood nervously with his back against the mast, waiting for one of the whitemen to begin the punishment. Celestino stood at the galley door handing out the rations.

  “Don’t forget the flesh-eater,” one of the sailors yelled.

  ‘You feed him, Juan. I is to cook and to clean, not to risk my life with dese savages.”

  “You’re the cook. You feed the cargo.”

  “Go ahead, Juan,” Ferrer said, laughing, from the ship’s wheel on the raised stern. “I can’t afford to have one of my deck hands eaten, but I can less afford to lose Celestino. No one else among us can cook.”

  “But, Captain …”

  “Go ahead. Do it, man. Unless you are afraid.”

  Juan straightened his back and thrust out his bare chest, and proclaimed, “I am not afraid of any of these animals.”

  Juan walked over to the galley and put his musket down. He stuck a potato and banana in his pockets and dipped a cup of water from the bucket. He then stepped back out on the deck. Everyone else had become still. Konoma sensed that something involving him was about to happen. He straightened and stepped away from the mast. Juan saw this and hesitated. He drew the knife from his belt and held it out in front of him, blade forward ready to slash, and walked slowly toward Konoma. Juan stopped just short of where he thought the chain’s length would reach. He tossed the banana and potato at Konoma’s feet and then quickly put the cup of water down on the deck, spilling most of it with his shaky hands.

  Juan turned and looked up at the Ferrer. “You see captain, I am not afraid.”

  “I see also that you have pissed your pants.”

  Juan looked down and felt his crotch. T
he captain and the others broke into laughter. Red-faced, Juan picked up his musket and motioned to the slaves.

  “C’mon, walk. Walk, you bastards.”

  They walked around the deck for nearly a half hour. The captain’s slave cabin boy, Antonio, sat with his back against the rail and spun a top for the three girls and young boy that Montes had bought. The ship was about twenty miles off shore and a thin gray strip of coastline could be seen from time to time against the edge of the hazy horizon.

  Singbe walked over to the cook to hand in his cup.

  “Hey, Pablo. Dis one here tinks he king of the lot. You can tell by the way he walk.”

  “King of shit, more like it.”

  Celestino laughed. “Hey, king of shit, give me your cup and I tell you a story. Watch dis, Pablo. I going to have a little joke wid da king.”

  Celestino took the cup from Singbe’s hand. Singbe turned to go but the cook grabbed his wrist.

  “See dat?” he said, letting go of Singbe’s wrist and pointing to the land. “Dat’s wheres you going. Understand? We go from Havana to dare. Puerto Principe.”

  Celestino pointed down the horizon, then to Singbe, and then up the horizon. Singbe looked at Celestino.

  “You go dare. Puerto Principe. Four days.” Celestino held up four fingers. “Four days.”

  Singbe slowly pointed to himself and then toward the coastline.

  “Dat’s right, you dumb fucking king of da shit. And den you knows what’s gonna happen to you when you get dare? Huh?”

  Celestino picked up a fat-bladed kitchen knife and drew it across his own throat. “Ssssskt. Like dat,” he said, and slapped the knife hard on the cutting board.

  “Den chop, chop, chop. Like dat.” He pulled the top of a barrel and tipped it toward Singbe. “Den deys gonna make lunch outta yous all. Like dat.”

  Singbe looked at the barrel of dried meat and then quickly back to Celestino. Celestino laughed. He pointed at Singbe with the knife and then to the meat in the barrel.

  “Chop, chop, chop, Señor King.”

  Singbe staggered back, understanding.

  Celestino laughed harder. He reached into the barrel, grabbed a hunk of meat, and bit into it.

  “Mmmm-mmm! Fresh nigger!”

  Singbe had heard ‘nigger’ enough to know it was the whiteman’s word for the tribesmen. He turned and saw the sailor with the musket laughing, too. Singbe’s knees buckled and he fell to the deck. The cook and the sailor laughed even harder.

  Grabeau stared into the hold’s oily darkness and tugged at the small beard on his chin.

  “This cannot be true.”

  “I tell you it is. They laughed and laughed when they saw I understood.”

  “It is not that I doubt your words, Singbe. But to take us across the sea, to starve us and beat us and make us lie in our own shit and piss. And for what? So they may eat us? Are you sure that is what they were saying?”

  “That is why they fed us so well while we were in the cage in the city of whitemen,” cried Bia. “We all regained our strength and the weight we lost on the first voyage.”

  “But still, to eat us,” Grabeau persisted. “This cannot be. The man who drives this ship has an attendant boy who is black, a slave. He speaks the whiteman’s language, but he is still black. Why have they not eaten him? And what about the black men we saw in the city who were slaves to whitemen. They wore clothes as the whitemen do. They carried the whiteman’s goods and tended to their animals. They were slaves, not livestock being fattened for a meal.”

  “Perhaps there are different tribes of whitemen just as there are different tribes among the blacks,” said Burnah. “After all, the Milawasi in the far south are said to be cannibals. Perhaps we are being taken to a tribe of whitemen who are also cannibals.”

  “Whatever the reason, I would rather fight these whitemen now and risk death by the gun than be led to slaughter.”

  “I agree, Kimbo. I have been saying we fight these men all along. Now, even those of you who would not take up this fight, now will you reconsider?”

  “I say that perhaps Singbe has invented this tale to get us to fight the whiteman.”

  “Keep your voice down lest the children hear. Who is that speaking?”

  “It is I, Kinna, a Mendeman like yourself, Grabeau.”

  “Kinna, if Singbe says this is what happened, then it is fact.”

  “I do not speak untruths, Kinna. If you wish to challenge my honor …”

  “What will you do, Singbe? Fight me from across the aisle while we are both chained at the neck? All I am saying is that you have been urging us to rise up against the whitemen since you were brought to the cage in the city. I, too, want to be free, but I do not want to be dead.”

  “Do you wish to be an evening meal?”

  “It is true, Singbe was urging us to rebel even before we were brought to the city,” said Kimbo. “All during the voyage from Lomboko he spoke out against the whitemen, too. He was even beaten for standing up to the yellow-haired man. But during all that time he never uttered an untruth to change our hearts. Why start now?”

  “Because this may well be our last time on a ship,” said Kinna. “And a ship is the only way we can get back to Africa. So he invents this tale of cannibalism.”

  “It may well be the last time we are on a ship, Kinna. And we do need a ship to get back to Africa. But, I swear to you they mean to trade us to man-eaters.”

  “I believe the Mendeman. I believe we should rise up.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Yaboi. I am a hunter from the Timmani tribe. I was captured in a battle with the Mandingos of the north, taken as a slave, and sold to a Mende farmer, Qwualimah. He sold me to a whiteman who brought me to the slave island where I was sold again and brought here. I have no love for the Mende, and I never spoke to Singbe before we came on this ship. But I saw him talk to the cook. I saw the cook draw a blade across his throat and then point to a barrel filled with meat. And I saw Singbe fall to his knees with fear. I believe he speaks the truth.”

  There was a long silence. The sea sloshed thick and heavy against the hull. The muted sound of the huge canvas sails rippling the choppy night breeze drifted down through the open hatch.

  “So, what should we do?”

  “They only take us up five or six at a time. The whitemen all have guns. Anyone trying an ambush would be killed.”

  “We would not be fresh, but dead meat is meat all the same.”

  “Singbe, do you have a plan? Do you have a plan that will not get all of us killed?”

  Singbe stared into the pitch darkness. The only plan he had ever considered was using their superior numbers to overwhelm the whitemen. A few tribesmen might be killed in such an effort, but it was a risk he believed they needed to take, and he thought many of the others would make such an attempt. But the way they were being brought on deck now, five or six at a time by three or four men with guns … it was suicide.

  “We need to surprise them,” he said finally. “How we do this I am not yet sure. But we must find a moment, and soon.”

  Singbe watched the sailor and slave trader the next morning when they came. One unlocked the neck chain from the wall and drew it back enough to let the first five or six tribesmen sit up. The chain was then reattached to the wall and the ankle clip of each man undone. They were sent up the ladder where they were met by the other slave trader who held a small gun. When all were on deck, they were fed, walked around, and brought back down in the same fashion and locked down. There wasn’t much opportunity here. They could try to overpower the whiteman and take his gun. But the other whiteman would shoot before keys could be grabbed and anyone could unlock themselves. And the men from above could fire into the hold. Even if Singbe waited until he and a few of the tribesmen were on deck, with their manacled ankles and the whitemen keeping their distance, a surprise attack would be difficult. It would be a bloody affair no matter what, and he wasn’t sure they would even be successful.
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br />   Singbe walked along the deck, eating his potato and looking out to the horizon. The sky had grayed over and the thin outline of land was no longer visible. Some of the others had talked about jumping over the rails and trying to swim to the shore. But who could swim that great distance with iron on their legs? And even if they could make it to shore, how safe would they be in a land of cannibals?

  A sharp pain bit into his heel. He stopped and lifted up his foot. A long black splinter of wood, wedged between the deck planks, stuck out slightly. Singbe rubbed the arch of his foot lightly against the shard. It was hot. Hot from the sun. It was not wood at all but metal. A nail.

  “Move along, nigger.”

  Singbe felt the musket butt press lightly into his back. He started walking. He could hear the sailor behind him, but didn’t know if the man had seen the nail as well. The urge to look back boiled in his body. He took another small bite out of the potato and chewed it slowly. They changed direction at fore-deck. Singbe looked up casually, glancing at the spot, but he was too far away to see if the nail was still there. He would have to wait until his steps took him back to that part of the deck. He looked down at his feet making sure he wasn’t walking too fast or too slow.

  As he turned the corner near the galley door, he could see it. Twenty feet away, thick and black. He needed a way to bend down and pick it up without looking suspicious. At that moment he saw Konoma, chained to the mast, sitting on the deck, drinking slowly from his cup of water.

  Singbe caught Konoma’s eye. He brought his fist up and to his throat and then jerked it down slightly. Konoma watched as Singbe did it again, this time also opening his mouth as if to scream. Konoma turned his hands palm up and shrugged as if to ask a question. Singbe repeated the gesture. Konoma nodded and stood. He faced the mast and let out a nervous sigh. Then he brought his hands up to the chain, pulled hard, and let out a loud frightful scream.

  “The cannibal!”

  “Je-sus!”

  The sailors raised their guns. Montes moved in slowly.