“Thank you,” she says.

The boy takes her hand again, and this time, as they climb the steps, he leaves off from yanking at her.

Mister Johnson is staring at me and I feel myself go red. If he couldn’t see my interest in her before, he sees it now in the flush of my face.

“I believe in rules, Mister Taylor. Rules allow for the clear running of a business. I have a rule that punishment or mercy is doled out at my discretion, which is something Ralph Mulch seems to have forgotten.” He glances toward the fields where a short man strides past the stables toward us, followed by the Negro man Mister Johnson sent to fetch him. “To you, I would say, I do not allow bed warmers on my plantation.” He takes a step closer. “It is an ungodly practice, and here we honor God.”

I haven’t got an idea in heaven how to respond to that. I can guess what he means by a bed warmer, but as I try to corral my thoughts to give an answer, he turns his attention to the overseer who’s come up beside us. We both notice the whip in the man’s hand.

Mister Johnson is bristling with anger. “What is this I hear about a whipping, Mulch?”

“It’s that Jim you picked up in the fall. He’s getting lazy. Covering less ground than he should.”

“Didn’t he break his arm felling trees on the new land I’m cultivating?”

The man shrugs. “Cotton don’t care about that, Mister Johnson. The ground ain’t going to hoe itself.”

Mister Johnson draws himself up to his full height, a head taller than his overseer. Stepping close, he looks down his nose at his hired help. “Before you damage another man’s property, you should check to see that he wants it damaged.” The overseer starts to say something, but Mister Johnson speaks over him, silencing him. “Suppose I’d wanted to loan him out tomorrow. Are you prepared to reimburse me the lost revenue?”

“He wasn’t hardly working, Mister Johnson, and if he gets away with it—”

“I decide who gets whipped and when and how many lashes. If you want a future at Jubilee you will abide by my rules. Now get him off the tree and get everyone back to work.”

Chapter 11

Sarah

Maple’s got me cleaning up after her in the kitchen house instead of in there serving dinner. I don’t mind. It gives me a chance to make up a numbing tonic and sneak down to the field slave huts.

Jim’s stretched out on his stomach across a pallet, moaning. His shirt’s off and red stripes cross his back, oozing pus and blood. One of the water boys sits beside him shooing flies away from his wounds.

“I cooked you up something,” I say

Jim turns his head slow, like rolling a boulder, to see who’s talking. Since that day we came in here on the back of a wagon we hardly said two words to each other. “I ain’t hungry,” he says.