Chapter 18: Who Is the Savior?
TL: Hanguk
To liberate every slave in this world.
To cleanse this world of every sin.
John Brown, who sowed violence, controversy, and slaughter wherever he went, headed south to Mississippi with his son Owen Brown and his follower Kid.
Naturally, the name John Brown was far too famous, so he wasn't fool enough to do something as stupid as use his real one.
He had built a false identity under the alias Isaac Smith.
The three of them were employees of a company called "Light of the World", which published Bibles and scientific texts, and had come to Mississippi to find more customers.
Having committed this cover story to memory, he boldly began gathering information near Natchez, where the great demon James Sergent made his lair.
Their first base of operations was a shabby tavern in the infamous "Under-the-Hill."
A place where the smells of river water, sweat, and cheap whiskey all mingled together.
The kind of place where truth and lies drifted across the rims of the glasses.
Isaac Smith, that is, John Brown, sat in the corner with his son Owen, silently nursing his drink.
Gathering information was Kid's job; he was young, with a likable face.
Kid bought a drink for a shabbily dressed white farmer at the next table and struck up a casual conversation.
"We're looking for somewhere to supply Bibles. They say the most impressive man in these parts is the young master of the Sergent family. Do you happen to know what sort of man he is?"
At the mention of James's name, the farmer's face lit up.
He quickly brought the drink Kid had given him to his lips and bellowed,
"Impressive doesn't even cover it! Hunts down niggers like he's exterminating rats, a real hero, that one. And now I hear he's even building a hospital where folks who ain't so well-off, like us, can get treated cheap? The man's blessed by God. Oh yes, that he is."
John Brown didn't so much as twitch, glass in hand.
A loathsome hypocrite.
A cold voice rang out inside his heart.
Another man beside them tipped back his glass and added cynically,
"Sure, he's generous, but that fella's truly terrifying. My cousin supplies lumber to that plantation, and he says the inside of the place is quiet like some kind of monastery. Says you can't hear so much as a breath, nothing but the sound of the slaves working. Almost unnatural."
Just then, a middle-aged man who looked like an overseer from another plantation cut into the conversation with a click of his tongue.
"'Course it's quiet! Sergent's the type who breaks a man with a ledger instead of a whip! They say he records every mistake down to the minute and uses it to dole out rations as he pleases. The slaves in that house would sell their own mothers to get in good with their master. And any outsider gets reported the second he's spotted, they say. A genius. A genius like the very devil."
True to his reputation as the most famous man in the region, useful information piled up in no time.
That night, in the cheap boarding house where the three of them were staying, John Brown murmured in a low voice,
"You heard it too, didn't you? That demon's atrocities."
A blaze fierce enough to burn every slaveholder alive flared in his eyes.
"A simple tyrant inspires fear, but that creature has gone beyond fear, to perfect control. A whip leaves wounds on the flesh, but he layers ledgers and discipline on top of it and chains the very soul."
Infiltrating the plantation was impossible.
It admitted no outsiders, and even the slaves were steeped in fear, so breaking into that place would be no different from storming a fortress.
"Father, but there's the hospital."
"Yes. I was thinking the same thing."
At first he'd wondered why on earth a planter would build a hospital of all things, but now its terrible intent was perfectly clear to him.
He had seen countless planters and the trash who defended slavery, but this kind of evil was, he swore, the first of its kind.
"I have seen demons who wield the whip, but never a demon who sets a broken bone only to whip it again! He means to repair the slaves he himself has broken, in his own workshop, and work them until their last breath! How can such a man be called a fellow human being?"
John Brown shot to his feet.
Gazing out the window at the dark Southern sky, he felt a guilt and a responsibility he could not bear, as a human being and as a fellow white man.
"At last I understand. The Lord sent me here for this very moment."
His eyes glittered with burning resolve.
"I, with my own hands, will deliver judgment upon that demon."
The plantation was like a fortress, impenetrable. But the hospital, only just begun, was different.
A place where countless laborers and supplies came and went.
An open space whose defenses were bound to be lax.
"We revise the plan. We will cut off his foul breath not in his stronghold, but in the Tower of Babel he is raising. I will make that temple of hypocrisy his grave."
James Sergent, you die by my hand.
Steeling himself with desperate resolve, John Brown set about finding a way to reach him.
***
January 1857.
The harvest was over, and the plantation now entered the period of reorganization for the next one.
By name alone it didn't sound all that busy, but since all the work left undone during the harvest had to be cleared away, the actual workload was no joke.
This is probably true of every businessman in the world, but a man like me, who's drastically expanded the range of fields he dabbles in, is simply fated to live with the word "overwork" permanently stuck to him.
Opening up new agricultural markets with Rockefeller, keeping an eye on the hospital construction, investing in promising Northern industries, and growing the scale and income of my Southern plantation even further on top of all that.
And in two months Breckinridge would be sending an invitation to attend Buchanan's inauguration, so I'd need to get ready to leave the plantation for a while too.
At this point I find myself half wondering whether, just as it was in my past life, it's simply my nature to shoulder work right up to the limit of what I can handle.
And what exactly was I doing right now? Why, the long-awaited new-employee orientation.
You could call it the session where we strip the newcomers I'd picked up at the auction the other day of the inefficient habits they'd learned at their old plantations, and instill in them the scientific, cutting-edge Sergent management method.
Of course, I merely sat at the head of the room and watched; the actual staff training was being handled by representatives like Ben and Leo.
"All right, Tom! Whatever way you've been doing things up to now, just forget it completely. There's no need for that kind of inefficient labor anymore, and even if you try it, you'll only drag down the rest of your teammates."
"Sorry? The same... team? S-so you mean the way everyone moves like clockwork down to the minute, even timing the tool changes to the second, that's something you all worked out yourselves, not the Master?"
"That's right. Because this is how you get to knock off early and rest. But keep this in mind, raising your speed can't mean letting the quality drop. Get those two things down for sure, though, and a solid reward will follow."
The fellow who'd been near tears the other day, moaning about being sold off to me, now couldn't keep his wits about him before the feast of new marvels laid out before his eyes.
Starting to sink in, is it, that they'd landed in heaven and not hell?
If you're grateful, then keep working hard to bring in even bigger profits from here on out.
Because that's the road to your own comfort.
Having confirmed that Tom's re-education was proceeding smoothly, I moved on.
The hospital, the other pillar of my enterprise and the greatest shield to secure my future.
How was the training of the staff to be stationed there coming along?
Inside a clean cabin built temporarily beside the construction site, the young woman who'd sworn me her lifelong gratitude at the auction house, Sarah, stood with a blank expression alongside her son Toby.
She, too, was in the middle of having every bit of common sense she'd learned at her old plantation demolished.
"Sarah, I'll say it again, the most important thing is cleanliness."
The one in charge of the training was Marsha, already designated as the hospital's head nurse.
"Before and after you touch a patient, you must always wash your hands, and used bandages have to go into that bin over there, no exceptions. They'll be sterilized over there in boiling water every day. That's the Master's policy."
"But it's still a clean bandage, so why."
When Sarah asked, unable to understand, Marsha recited my teaching word for word.
"The Master says the contamination you can't see is the most fearsome enemy. That a scrap of cloth that looks clean can kill a person. Our duty is to fight that invisible enemy."
Sarah nodded, dumbstruck.
Then Marsha bent down to meet the eyes of Sarah's son, Toby.
"And Toby, your duty is a weighty one too. You have to watch that the water in that copper boiler over there is always filled clean, and that the fire beneath it never goes out. It's the water that purifies the tools the doctor uses, so it's as if the lives of countless people rest in your hands."
"Yes. I'll work hard! Just for letting me stay with my mama, I'll be loyal to the Master my whole life!"
"Thank you, thank you so very much."
Had they ever imagined, treated as property and worked like livestock, that one day they'd be doing work that saved someone's life?
Listening to the mother and son answer, eyes brimming, that they'd do their very best, I turned my back.
This much should be enough now.
The moment I confirmed that the newcomers' orientation was wrapping up successfully and turned away satisfied, a housemaid from the mansion came hurrying over with quick little steps.
"Master, a visitor has come. He says he's an employee of a publishing house that supplies Bibles, and that he'd like to donate Bibles to the new hospital."
Here we go again. What is he, some door-to-door peddler? People like this come around on a regular basis.
I'd dealt with this kind of begging until I was sick to death of it.
This time was obvious too. Approach under the pretext of a donation, then in the end scheme to wring a sponsorship out of me in return.
"Tell him I'm busy and send him away."
"But he seemed terribly earnest, said it was something the hospital truly needs."
Then again, there was no way a housemaid handed a task like this could deal with it on her own initiative.
Wondering whether there wasn't someone more suitable, I looked around, and just then Leo and Ben, who'd come to report after finishing the orientation, caught my eye.
"Leo, Ben. Good work on the new-hire training."
"Not at all, Master."
"There's a Bible-peddling huckster at the front gate. Says he wants to donate to the hospital, but I haven't got the time, so the two of you go hear him out, turn him down appropriately, and send him on his way. Don't drag it out past ten minutes."
Once before, I'd had the two of them chase off a con artist who wanted to sell the hospital some kind of miracle spring water that supposedly cured any ailment just by drinking it.
We don't have time to waste on peddlers like that.
This time too, I trusted the two of them to handle it well, as they always did.
"Yes, Master. Leave it to us."
My interest in the unwelcome guest ended right there.
I waved the two of them off in encouragement and headed for the study, where paperwork was piled up like a mountain.
***
Owen, John Brown's son, knocked on the hospital's door on the pretext of donating Bibles, just to feel James out for the time being.
Placing Bibles in a newly built hospital was an utterly commonsense thing to do, so it wouldn't arouse any suspicion.
If it went well, he could carve out a route to reach James in a single stroke; if it didn't, he'd simply look for another way.
He left the wagon loaded with a large quantity of Bibles, which would vouch for his identity, and waited for someone from the Sergent plantation to come out.
His famous father might be another matter, but there was no way his own face was known, so as long as he stayed as calm as possible, no one would recognize him.
Sure enough, the two black men who appeared to be James's slaves bowed their heads without paying Owen's face the slightest mind.
"You wish to donate Bibles to the hospital? That's a truly kind offer, but Master has already found a supplier for Bibles."
"Ah, now, don't be like that. I know it's a bother, but won't you ask just one more time? Even if it's not for this hospital, surely there'll come a day when more Bibles are needed. You'd never lose anything by taking them."
One of the young black men paused for a moment at Owen's words, then let out a sigh as if troubled.
"Hmm... you're so insistent it puts us in an awkward spot."
The young black slave gazed steadily at Owen's face for a moment, saying nothing.
He wondered whether he'd made some mistake, but his performance as a Northern publishing-house employee had been flawless.
It had been needless anxiety after all, it seemed; the young slave smiled as if it were nothing and went on.
"Our Master is so busy he's reluctant to meet outsiders. Especially since there's been no end of people coming around on business like this. Pardon me for asking, but in which region has the 'Light of the World' publishing house mainly operated?"
"Mainly in Ohio. This time we've come south to bring the Lord's word to the devout people of the South as well."
It was a prepared part of his cover, so the answer shot right out.
"Ah, Ohio. Then perhaps you know Reverend Anderson as well? A very devout man who distributes Bibles along the river."
Anderson? Like hell I'd know someone like that.
But this was such a small industry that saying he didn't know the man might blow his cover on the spot.
Owen dodged as naturally as he could.
"Mm, a truly devout man. I've heard a great deal about him, though sadly I've never had the chance to meet him in person. We're both too busy earning our keep."
"I see. The people doing noble work really are different."
Seeing the young man's reaction, Owen was certain he'd pulled the wool over his eyes.
There was no way a college-educated white man like himself couldn't fool one black slave.
There'd been no need to be tense in the first place.
Sure enough, the young man pointed to the large mansion visible far off, his face the very picture of complete trust.
"Since your identity's clearly in order, I'll go pass word to the Master. Would you wait inside for a moment? Right this way."
Done. If they're this easy to fool, black folks really are short on education after all.
As Owen cheered inwardly and nodded, the young man turned to the burly man who'd stayed quiet all this time and said,
"Ben, let's show our guest to Room 32."
'Room 32? The mansion's got that many rooms? Just like a rich bastard, living it up in a place that big.'
Figuring it must be some reception-room number inside the mansion, Owen made to follow Leo without much suspicion.
At that very moment.
Whoooosh! Crack!
Along with an eerie sound of something splitting the air behind him, a dull impact slammed into the back of his head.
"Gurkh!"
The world flashed white.
Unable to even get out a proper scream, Owen's body pitched straight forward.
The dirt ground rushed up at him through his blurring vision.
In the shock and pain of an attack he couldn't comprehend, he barely managed to turn his head and look behind him.
The black slave called Ben stood over Owen, expressionless, a heavy cudgel in his hands.
"How did you know, Leo?"
The voice of the young man called Leo bored into his ears as his consciousness flickered.
"He disguised his manner of speaking and his choice of words, but he couldn't hide how he phrased things. No white man in the South would ever use a polite expression like 'I know it's a bother' with us. That's the hypocritical phrasing of the Northerners. Still, just to be sure, I tested him once more, and didn't he fall for it beautifully? There's no such person as Reverend Anderson to begin with."
Leo began searching the fallen Owen's body.
A revolver came out from inside his coat, followed by a memo he'd hastily scribbled while observing his surroundings during the wait.
Having skimmed the contents of the memo, Leo gave a sardonic smile.
"Just as I thought. An out-of-towner who came with some other scheme in mind. A pest who'd do harm to the Master."
Hearing those words, Owen wrung out his last strength.
"You, you idiot niggers!"
You can't even recognize the savior who came to rescue you, and you raise your hands against him in violence; that's exactly why you can't escape the lot you're in.
"Listen... we, we came to save y–"
Before he could even finish, Ben's boot ground mercilessly into Owen's face.
Crack!
Along with the horrific sensation of his nose bone splitting, something seemed to flash, and then Owen's consciousness sank straight down into deep darkness.
*****
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