“Did he…did he still mess with you?”

Reenie grinned, her false teeth eerily large and white. “Sho, honey. Ain’t nothing change. Ain’t nothing gone ever change about that, I reckon.”

So different from what she had with Drayle. She loved him. He loved her. And even more, he was good to her. Hadn’t he fixed the leaky cabin roof that was dripping on his children’s heads? hadn’t he given the slaves Sunday mornings off when she told him about their secret worship meetings? hadn’t he rubbed her feet countless times when she was tired from cooking all day? hadn’t he protected her after she was attacked on the ship?

“Sir’s daddy took my own mammy before she got her first blood. She give him three childrens before he died. He weren’t yet cold in the ground when the missus had my ma whipped in front of everybody. As a punishment for her sins, she called it. Not long after, my ma disappeared. Just up and disappeared while we was working in the fields one day. None of us knowed what happened. Maybe she run off. Maybe she was sold off by the missus in the middle of the night. Maybe she dead.”

Lizzie tried to picture Reenie’s mammy. Such things were possible. A proud woman, tall with Reenie’s stiff back and long neck, rose in Lizzie’s mind. Like Reenie, she would be so strong that even a beating couldn’t break her. Some folks couldn’t be broken. Lizzie didn’t believe a woman in her right mind would just “up and leave” her children.

“Us wasn’t treated right, but the missus kept us on. Me and my two brothers still live in the same cabin Sir’s daddy built for my ma. When the missus got married again, her new husband decent enough. At least he ain’t go messing off in the slave cabins, and I reckon she would shoot him dead if he did.”

“But his son…”

“Made us call him Sir when he was still a boy right after his daddy died. Only took one beating for the whole lot of us to get the hang of it. I been calling him Sir ever since.”

Reenie picked up the bird in her lap and stretched out a wing. She pulled at the feathers along its edge.

But Lizzie didn’t feel like pulling feathers anymore. She took one of the birds that had already been plucked and cut through its neck with a small, sharp knife. She removed its head and pulled out the bloody gullet and the windpipe. She kept digging, and she was only satisfied when she had hooked her fingers into the lungs, pulled them out, and tossed them into the dust beside her.

NINE

Nearly a week after the dinner, more than ten days into the collective breath holding that had been gathering pressure since Mawu issued her challenge, the colored barber arrived to line the white men up in chairs along the porch of the hotel. The barber visited the resort once or twice a week. Some of the men wore beards, and would have the barber trim them after their haircuts. Others such as Drayle preferred a more clean-shaven look, and the barber would use a straight razor over their faces. This barber had a sterling reputation for keeping his razors sharp.

The barber’s daughter typically helped him. She worked as a maid in the hotel, but whenever her father visited she would come outside to assist. She’d wheel a tray onto the porch and open the leather carrying case holding his tools. Straight steel razors. Brushes. Scissors. Two leather strops. Cup and soap. She would moisten the bar of soap in the bowl of hot water so the lather would be ready to spread. Or she would hold the brass shaving bowl at the man’s neck if her father requested it.

She was a prettier and fatter version of her father, with softly rounded cheeks and light brown eyes. She had the kind of skin that came alive in the heat, glowed like a smooth dark stone. She kept her hair bound in a dirty rag, as if to diminish her beauty so the white men would not notice.

The white women had left early that morning to go bathe in one of the resort’s five mineral springs. The men stayed behind to be trimmed and shaved, and those who were not patiently waiting for the barber to service them had ventured out on the fifty-four-acre property to hunt for passenger pigeons. Except for the steady toil of the servants inside, the hotel was quiet.

Sweet was in her cottage repairing pants. Back on her plantation, she was considered a wizard with a needle and thread. So her master had given her several pants belonging to men staying at the resort. Reenie was in the private room of the hotel’s manager, waiting for him to return as he had ordered her to do.

Lizzie and Mawu stood at the well near the hotel pumping water into pails. Every few minutes, a hotel servant came out with two empty pails and carried two more full ones inside. His task was to empty and refill the washbasin in each room with fresh water. The two slave women had been instructed to help. Even among the most free-thinking of whites at the resort, no one seemed to relish the sight of the colored visitors idling. It was recognized that their primary duty was to their rightful owners, so the slaves tried to appear busy at all times. Lizzie and Mawu had been caught sitting under the tree in the shade, trying to escape the heat, when the manager ordered them to the well.

The two women could hear Drayle and Sir chatting on the porch. They had seen the ritual enough to know what was happening. The daughter was lathering the soap. The barber was stroking the razor across the strop. Back and forth in long even strokes, they could hear the whisking sound. Then silence. Then metal against leather again as he worked to keep the razor sharp.

“Sho, Mr. Drayle. I bought a slave before. They learn under me the barbering business.” The gray-haired barber was speaking exaggeratedly, as if he were not accustomed to the southern way of speaking but was making every effort to imitate it. They could tell when he was talking because air slipped through his teeth with a whistling sound.

Lizzie and Mawu strained to hear what they could. Mawu kept edging closer to the porch until she was crouched just beneath it. Lizzie continued to pump. It was hard to hear over the squeak of the pump, and she did not want to get in trouble. But Mawu changed the air around Lizzie, made her do things she normally wouldn’t. She stopped pumping.

“How do I know you’re going to treat my Philip right? he’s a right good hand, and I treat him better than most. What are you going to do with him? he doesn’t know anything about city living,” Drayle was saying. “He’s a horse man.”

Lizzie heard the words, but she was not sure she believed them. Was it possible the barber was trying to buy Philip? Mawu waved at her, then crouched down and disappeared beneath the porch. Lizzie looked at the back door, and ran over to the dark space beneath the porch to join Mawu. She crawled under it and followed. She looked behind her and saw the hotel servant come out of the back door. He put his hand to his eyes. He set down the empty pails and grabbed the remaining full ones. Then he went back into the hotel.

The ground was hard and dry against Lizzie’s knees. She placed a palm against it to steady herself. Sunlight peeked through the cracks of the porch. She looked up. She could just make out their silhouettes.

“You right, Mr. Drayle. I couldn’t never treat him good as you. I ain’t rich and powerful like you-”

Lizzie and Mawu waited tensely, listening to the dull scrape of the razor gliding across a face.

“Well, how can you afford his price? I don’t get how you can afford to just throw away that kind of money and get nothing in return,” Sir said.

“Oh, he’s getting something,” Drayle said. “Philip is a first-class nigger.”

“That nigger is liable to run off and leave you,” Sir added, ignoring Drayle’s comment. The last couple of words were muffled as if the barber working on him had placed a hot towel over his mouth.