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because most blacks were slaves.
As it had back on Charles Gillen's estate, that rankled. He was no subhuman .
. . and if Hayes doubted what blacks really were, let him get a sim instead
of the fancy cook he owned! Soon enough he'd be skeletal, not just lean.
Jeremiah grinned, liking the notion. x
Another party of sims emerged from a side street. This S group was carrying
sacks of beans. Neither gang made any effort to get out of the other's way.
In an instant, they were ] hopelessly tangled. Traffic snarled. r Because
all the sims had their hands full, they could not use their signs to
straighten out the mess. Their native 7 hoots and calls were not adequate for
the job. Indeed, they made matters worse.
The sims glared at each other, peeling back their lips to bare their big
yellow teeth and grimacing horribly.
"Call the guards!" a nervous man shouted, and several others took up the cry.
Jeremiah ducked down an alleyway.
He had seen enough of sims' brute strength on the farm to be sure he wanted to
be far away if they started fighting.
The town did not erupt behind him, so he guessed the overseers had managed to
put things to rights. A few words at the outset would have done it: "Coming
through!" or "Go ahead; we'll wait." The sims did not have the words to use.
"Poor stupid bastards," Jeremiah said, and headed home. i
"Mr. Douglas, you have some of the strangest books in the 1 world, and that
is a fact," Jeremiah sola.
0 Douglas ran his hands through his oily hair. "If you keep excavating among
those boxes, God only knows what you'll come up with.
What is it this time?"
X "A Proposed Explication of the Survival of Certain Beasts in America and
Their Disappearance Hereabouts, by Samuel Pepys." Jeremiah pronounced it
pep-eeze.
"Peeps," Douglas corrected, then remarked, "You know, kremiah, you read much
better now than you did when you started working for me last summer. That's
the first time you've slipped in a couple of weeks, and no one could blame you
for stumbling over that tongue twister."
"Practice,"Jeremiah said. He held up the book. "What is this, anyhow?"
"It just might interest you, come to think of it. It's the book that sets
forth the transformational theory of life: that the kinds of living
things change over time."
"That's not what the Bible says."
"I know. Churchmen hate Pepys's theories. As a lawyer, though, I find them
attractive, because he presents the evidence for them.
Genesis is so much hearsay by comparison."
; "You never were no churchgoing man, sir," Jeremiah said reproachfully.
He started to read all the same; working with Douglas had given him a good bit
of the lawyer's attitude. And he respected his boss's brains.
If Douglas 0t thought there was something to this--what had he called
it?--transformational theory, there probably was.
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The book was almost 150 years old, and written in the ornate style of the
seventeenth century. Jeremiah had to ask Douglas to help him with several
words and complex 0 phrases. He soon saw what the lawyer meant.
Pepys firmly based his argument on facts, with no pleading to un verifiable
"authorities." Despite himself, Jeremiah was impressed
Someone squelched up the walk toward Douglas's door: no, a couple of people,
by the sound. It was that transitional time between winter and spring. The
rain was Still cold, but Jeremiah knew only relief that he did not have to
shovel snow anymore.
Douglas had heard the footsteps too. He rammed quill into inkpot and started
writing furiously. "Put Pepys down and get busy for a while, Jeremiah," he
said. "It's probably Jasper Carruthers and his son, here for that will I
should've finished three days ago. Since it's not done, we ought at least to
look busy."
Grinning, Jeremiah got up and started reshelving some , of the books that got
pulled down every day. He had his -I back to the door when it swung open, but
heard Douglas's relieved chuckle.
"Good to see you, Zachary," the lawyer said. "Saves me the embarrassment of
pleading guilty to nonfeasance."
Hayes let out a dry laugh. "A problem we all face from time to time, Alfred;
I'm glad you escaped it here. Do you own an English version of
Justinian's Digest? I'm afraid the Latin of my young friend here isn't up to
his reading it in the original."
The volume happened to be in front of Jeremiah's face. He pulled it from the
shelf before Douglas had to ask him for it, turned with a smug smile to offer
it to Hayes's student.
The smile congealed on his face like fat getting cold in a pan.
The youngster with Hayes was Caleb Gillen.
The tableau held for several frozen seconds, the two of them staring at each
other while the lawyers, not understanding what was going on, stared at them
both.
"Jeremiah!" Caleb exclaimed. "It's my father's runaway nigger!"
he shouted to Hayes at the same moment Jeremiah bolted for the door.
Pepys's book proved his undoing. It went flying out from under his foot
and sent him sprawling. Caleb Gillen landed on his back.
Before he could shake free of the youngster Hayes also grabbed him.
The lawyer was stronger than he looked. Between them, he and Caleb held
Jeremiah pinned to the floor.
Panting, his gray hair awry, Hayes said, "You told me he was a free nigger,
Alfred."
"He said he was. I had no reason to doubt him," Douglas answered calmly. He
had made no move to rise from his desk and help seize
Jeremiah, or indeed even to put down - his quill. Now he went on, "For that
matter, I still have no
>- reason to do so."
t "What? I recognize him!" Caleb Gillen shouted, his voice breaking from
excitement. "And what if I didn't? He and That proves it!"
,si "If I were a free nigger and someone said I was a slave, S I'd run too,"
Douglas said. "Wouldn't you, young sir? (I'm ; sorry; I don't know your
name.) Wouldn't you, Zachary, regardless of the truth or falsehood of the
claim?"
"Now you just wait one minute here, Alfred," Hayes snapped.
"Young master Caleb Gillen here told me last year of the absconding from his
father's farm of their nigger, Jeremiah. My only regret is not associating
the name with this wretch here so he could have been recaptured sooner."
He twisted Jeremiah's arm behind his back.
"That you failed to do so demonstrates the obvious fact that the name may be
borne by more than one individual," - Douglas said.
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"You see here, sir," Caleb Gillen said, "I've known that nigger as long as I
can remember. I'm not likely to make a mistake about who he is."
"If he is free, he'll have papers to prove it." Hayes wrenched
Jeremiah's arm again. The black gasped. "Can 5 you show us papers, nigger?"
"You need not answer that, save in a court of law," Douglas said sharply,
keeping Jeremiah from surrendering on the spot. He was sunk in despair, tears
dripping from 0 his face to the floor. Once sent back to the Gillen estate,
he 0 would never regain the position of trust that had let him escape, and
probably would never be able to buy his t freedom either.
Hayes's voice took on a new note of formality. "Do you deny, then, Alfred,
that this nigger is the chattel of Charles 0 Gillen, Caleb's father?"
"Zachary, one lad's accusation is no proof, as well you know."
Douglas took the same tone; Jeremiah recognized it as lawyer-talk. A
tiny spark of hope flickered. By illuminating the dark misery that filled
him, it only made that misery worse.
Overriding Caleb Gillen's squawk of protest, Hayes said, "Then let him be
clapped in irons until such time as determination of his status may be made.
That will prevent - any further disappearances."
"I have a better idea," Douglas said. He unlocked one of his desk
drawers,.took out a strongbox, unlocked that. C "What would you say the value
of a buck nigger of his age would be? Is 300 dena,ires a fair figure?"
Above him, Jeremiah felt Caleb and Hayes shift as they looked at each other.
"Aye, &ir enough," Hayes said at last. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]