“A hundred is my price,” Smith repeated. “You say you need a man and have ready cash. You’ll never get a better price than that on a slave good as Sam.”

“It seems like he causes you a lot of trouble, Mr. Smith. You should just let me take him off your hands,” reasoned Magnus, who had grown expert at bartering in the marketplace each year. When Smith moved down ten, he offered to close the deal. “Since we’re only that far apart let’s just split the difference.”

“It is done,” said Smith, though he did not shake. He only rang a bell and instructed the servant who appeared to go fetch Sam Day from out his indigo fields.

* * *

Sam had been taking a much-needed break from work, resting his head on a cool rock in a little gully that hid him from sight, when he heard footsteps approaching his resting place. He stood up and looked around to see Smith’s boy from the house, calling his name.

“What you want with me?” Sam asked, taking up his work so it seemed he had never ceased. He was immediately tired out again, though, and took out his annoyance on the boy.

“Master Smith want you to come round right now,” the boy told him.

“Well, what he want with me, boy?” Sam asked with irritation. “You too thick to know that?”

“He sold you, Sam!” the boy cried. “He sending you away!”

“Boy, stop meddling with me and get from out of here,” Sam barked, raising one of his hands, which was permanent black from the indigo, to shoo the boy off. When the boy left, he went back to the spot where he had been resting and took back up his pillowstone.

No sooner had he laid down again than he heard one of the overseers call out his name.

“I’m coming right there, sir,” Sam answered, wondering for the first time whether what the boy had said was true.

He was on the verge of panic as he approached the overseer, fearing he might be at the start of a trip to another unknown place, where no one knew him and he was only currency in a transaction that satisfied everyone except him.

“What you need, Mr. Paul?” he asked, looking at the overseer.

“It finally happened.” The man whistled. “He finally sold your arse, Sam. Go on up to the house now and meet your new master.” Never an admirer of Sam’s, the other man showed just the hint of laughter at the edges of his mouth, like tiny shards of glass, as he turned and walked away.

The spores of panic in Sam’s head continued to grow, as he began to wish for an alternate fate. “Can I go round and say my good-byes to everybody first?” he called after him. “He can’t just lift me up like that and move me on.”

“Mr. Smith wants you at the house now,” Paul told him again. “Seems to me, if I had a master and he called, I wouldn’t try to do nothing but go find out what he wanted.”

Sam cursed under his breath and glowered as he went up to the back door of the house and announced himself — not that his arrival could have gone unnoticed. Throughout the plantation the news had spread, and eyes watched him from every corner of the land as he mounted the stairs.

Mr. Smith came around about ten minutes later with a tall Negro man, ten years or so older than Day. “Sam, I want you to meet your new owner, Magnus Merian.”

Sam looked at both men standing in front of him, as he comprehended what had transpired. “Oh, good goddamn Jesus why is y’all doing this to me again?” he asked aloud.

Smith hit Sam before he knew it, knocking him flat into the dirt. As he lay sprawled there, Sam knew better than to get up too fast. When he did rise, though, he heard Magnus Merian telling Master Smith, “Thank you, Mr. Smith, but I can manage my own men.” Sam allowed himself to think he might have lucked and found a better master when he heard that, until Magnus approached him.

“Get your ass up and apologize to Mr. Smith,” he said.

He could not believe what was happening and was no longer sure which of the two had actually clapped him. It was as if the entire world had reversed itself, until he could not tell the black man from the white one. It wasn’t surprise at a black master, but that he was used to being deferred to by Negroes because of his powers, and never thought another one would make him bend his head without the use of force. When he looked at Magnus, though, who still had the long memory of slavery and how a certain type was handled in Virginia, he saw something fearful there and made haste to do as he had been commanded.

“I’m sorry, Smith,” Sam said, looking his old owner square in the face. He turned to Magnus and added, “I apologize to you too, Master Merian.”

Looking at Sam then, contrite and confused, Smith was half tempted to offer Magnus his money back. In the end, however, something told him Sam was putting him on somehow, and he was relieved to be rid of the worrisome slave. “It has been a pleasure conducting business with you, Magnus,” he said. “If there is ever anything I can help you with further, please do not hesitate to let me know.”

“Thank you,” Magnus answered. “I imagine everything will go just fine from here.”

Sam had, of course, heard about the Merians long before he left with Magnus that afternoon, but he had little idea of what they were truly like or, more important, how they treated their men. He had never seen a Negro act with a white man as Magnus had with Smith, and he was uncertain and afraid he might do something to upset this new master and get clapped again, so when they left, he followed at a respectful distance until they reached the wagon.

“You climb in and ride back there,” Magnus said, motioning to the bed of the vehicle.

Sam pulled himself up into the wagon and waited for the chains to be secured around him, as they had been the first time he was sold. When Magnus continued on to the front of the wagon and took up the reins, Sam could not hold his tongue. “Master Merian, ain’t you gone chain me?” he asked.

“I hadn’t figured to,” Magnus replied. “You planning on running?”

“No,” Sam said, then added with a hesitant pride, “but I could.”

“As long as it stay at speculation, Sam, we’ll be just fine,” Magnus answered.

Master and slave then began the journey back to Stonehouses.

As they drove through the hill country Magnus was fired by guilt. He wanted to tell Sam that he had not intended to come and tear him from his known life and meant even less to cause him harm. He only wanted to hire his services as an herbman, because his own house had been cursed. As he drove, though, he knew he had miscalculated and could no longer ask for the the man’s help. He owned him now, and if he was going to keep Sam from running over him he would have to be absolute, which, in his position, meant not explaining more than the other needed to know.

“You will like it at Stonehouses,” Magnus said. “Of course, it is only a temporary situation for you.”

“What do you mean by temporary, Master Merian?” Sam asked, in fearful confusion.

“I mean that I intend to make you free after the season,” Magnus said, as he could not force the kind of work he needed from Sam or otherwise coerce the spirit.

“What happen to me after that?” Sam asked. “Where I’m supposed to go, Master Merian?”

Magnus had not reflected on it before, but he knew it would never do for him to set the likes of Sam Day free in Berkeley. The rest of the town, black and white, would surely turn on him. “Well, we’ll figure something out, Sam,” Magnus said, “soon as the harvest is over.”

Each man then was flax-hearted and silent, as they made their way through the country, each wondering what he had gotten into, and what would become of him.

Lord, what have I done? Magnus thought to himself, knowing he had purchased another soul and now owned him and all his burden. There was, he knew, no way to alleviate the consequences of that.

What happen next? Sam wondered as the wagon rolled through the unknown countryside, reminding him of his original trip there, the only time before he had been anywhere other than his natural home.