“It seems to me we got off on the wrong foot,” I say. “I bear you no ill will.”

Mulch pulls his attention from the hilltop and rolls up his sleeve. His forearm is marked with the wound of the whip. “I can’t say as I feel the same.”

I step forward and take the bridle of his horse, who drops his head and nuzzles my chest, docile and affectionate. The more his horse relaxes into me, the more nervous Mulch becomes. It is an effect I’m counting on.

“It’s not good for either of us to keep bad blood going,” I say.

“I saw you,” he says. “I can tell Johnson any time I want and get you thrown out of here.”

I run my tongue along my teeth like I’m distracted by something in my mouth, as if this doesn’t worry me, or hasn’t been keeping me up at night.

“Based on the word of a drunkard overseer he’s already thinking of firing?” I say it casual. Nice and slow. I haven’t got a barns-arse of an idea if it’s true, but he knows I saw the dressing down he got for whipping Jim without permission. And he didn’t report about me stopping Annie’s whipping and slashing him with the whip, which I guess means he’s not sure of Mister Johnson’s reaction. Mister Johnson’d be angry with me, sure, might even fire me, but he’d also be furious at Mulch for taking his anger out on Annie and over-whipping her as he did. Especially after he’d already been warned with Jim.

“I saw you,” he says again. “Johnson don’t keep with slave whoring.”

“You should mind your own business,” I say. “Seems to me, Matthew Johnson doesn’t care for people who overstep.” He says nothing, and I spit on the ground by the foot of his horse. “If you have a quarrel with me, for what I did, then let’s settle it like men. Right now, if you like.”

Mulch scoffs. “Some of us got to work.”

I look over at the slaves toiling in the field and the children waiting to bring them water, and then at Mulch, sitting on his arse. “If you’re too busy,” I say, “name your time.”

He juts his chin out and yanks his horse’s head up, off my shoulder, where it’s been nuzzling. “You’ll know when I’m ready to settle it.” He turns from me and looks back up the hill to Sarah and Thomas leaving the pony in the enclosure.

“Master Mulch, you want us to give the water now?” one of the children asks.

He ignores her, tracking the progress of the two on the hill until they’ve gone down the other side out of view. He wants me to see that he’s got Sarah in his sights. It’s all I can do not to drag him from his horse and pound his head in. He turns to me and smirks, and only then am I aware of my hands curled into fists, my clenched jaw, my heaving chest. I want to rip his face off.