“Get an education or run a plantation or maybe have a family.” Alden looked back at his friend. “What do you want, Benjamin?”
“Don’t say a word,” his father commanded, so bent on punishment that he refused to acknowledge Benjamin’s personhood. Or perhaps he couldn’t allow himself to acknowledge that Benjamin had the capacity to learn and lead and love. The realization might destroy him.
He threw the whip at Alden’s feet. “Flog him.”
Alden could no longer stand on that shaky middle ground, betwixt and between. The line was invisible, but it had been traced into the dirt and straw. He had to choose now, between his past and his future, between what he believed to be right and wrong.
Benjamin strained against the shackles again, continuing to struggle even when the fight was hopeless.
Alden buried his hands in his coat pockets. “I won’t flog anyone.”
“You will do it.”
“I can’t flog him,” Alden said. “Benjamin’s like a brother to me.”
“He is not your brother!”
Why didn’t his father understand? If he’d grown up with a Negro boy as his best friend, he wouldn’t be able to whip him either.
His father reached down, snatching it from the ground. “You are a coward.”
And he was right. He was a coward—not because he wouldn’t punish Benjamin but because he was afraid to stand up to his father. He hated slavery, hated the man holding the whip for promulgating it, hated himself for not doing anything to stop men like Benjamin from getting hurt.
His father took off his hat and hung it on the side of the pillory. Then he draped his coat beside it. Grabbing Benjamin by the arm, he tried to force him to stand up. Benjamin fell back against the wooden post. His body had already been beaten, and even in the dim light, Alden could see the bruises spreading across his back.
The whip cracked, snapping over Benjamin’s arms. Across his legs.
A dragon roared inside Alden, an erupting fire. He may be a coward, but he couldn’t allow his father to whip his injured friend, especially when his only crime was to pursue freedom for his life. He’d tried to honor his parents the best he could, but in this, he couldn’t turn aside.
Alden stepped between the men.
“Get out of the way,” his father demanded, waving his hand.
“If you are going to whip him, you must whip me too.”
His father lifted the whip again, fury blazing across his face. Most of the thongs hit the sleeve of Alden’s coat, but one hit his face, the pain searing his skin.
His father dropped the whip, and dust curled around his feet. “Now see what you’ve done.”
Alden covered his cheek with the back of his hand, not daring to reply. He hoped what he had done was protect Benjamin from a flogging he didn’t deserve.
His father pointed him toward the door. “Go back to the house.”
“Not without you,” Alden said. “Mother is expecting us to celebrate Christmas Eve as a family.”
His father swore; then he kicked the whip away from Benjamin before plucking his cloak and hat from the pillory. He and Moses marched back toward the door, leaving Benjamin shackled on the floor.
Alden lingered for another moment. Benjamin didn’t speak, but it seemed his anger at Alden had subsided. Benjamin gave him the slightest nod, the same look that had passed between them a hundred times when they were kids, especially when Alden was called away from their playtime to join the adults while Benjamin was allowed to stay upstairs, surrounded by their toys. He’d been jealous of him back then.
“Your mother is waiting,” his father called from the other end of the barn.
“I’ll come back for you,” Alden promised Benjamin before following his father to the house.
“What happened to your face?” Rhody asked as Alden stepped into the dining room for the Christmas Eve dinner.
“I got hit by a whip.”
His sister laughed, thinking he was making a joke.
