Prentice Alvin

Cavil stood transfixed, watching her. What had only been a brief thought of evil in his wife's bedroom now became a trance of lust. He had never seen anything so graceful as her blue-black thighs sliding against each other, so inviting as her shiver when the water ran down her body.

Was this the answer to his fervent psalm? Was the Lord telling him that it was indeed with him as it had been with Abraham?

Just as likely it was witchery. Who knew what knacks these fresh-from-Africa Blacks might have? She knows I'm here a-watching, and she's tempting me. These Blacks are truly the devil's own children, to excite such evil thoughts in me.

He tore his gaze from the new girl and turned away, hiding his burning eyes in the words of the book. Only somehow the page had turned– when did he turn it? –and he found himself reading in the Song of Solomon.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes

That are twins, winch feed among the lilies

“God help me,” he whispered. “Take this spell from me.”

Day after day he whispered the same prayer, yet day after day he found himself watching his slave-women with desire, particularly that newbought girl. Why was it God seemed to be paying him no mind? Hadn't he always been a righteous man? Wasn't he good to his wife? Wasn't he honest in business? Didn't he pay tithes and offerings? Didn't he treat his slaves and horses well? Why didn't the Lord God of Heaven protect him and take this Black spell from him?

Yet even when he prayed, his very confessions became evil imaginings. O Lord, forgive me for thinking of my newbought girl standing in the door of my bedroom, weeping at the caning she got from the overseer. Forgive me for imagining myself laying her on my own bed and lifting her skirts to anoint them with a balm so powerful the welts on her thighs and buttocks disappear before my eyes and she begins to giggle softly and writhe slowly on the sheets and look over her shoulder at me, smiling, and then she turns over and reaches out to me and– O Lord, forgive me, save me!

Whenever this happened, though, he couldn't help but wonder– why do such thoughts come to me even when I pray? Maybe I'm as righteous as Abraham; maybe it's the Lord who sent these desires to me. Didn't I first think of this while I was reading scripture? The Lord can work miracles– what if I went in unto the newbought girl and she conceived, and the Lord worked a miracle and the baby was born White? All things are possible to God.

This thought was both wonderful and terrible. If only it were true! Yet Abraham heard the voice of God, so he never had to wonder about what God might want of him. God never said a word to Cavil Planter.

And why not? Why didn't God just tell him right out? Take the girl, she's yours! Or, Touch her not, she is forbidden! Just let me hear your voice, Lord, so I'll know what to do!

O Lord my rock; Unto thee will I cry, Be not silent to me: Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them, That go down into the pit.

On a certain day in 1810 that prayer was answered.

Cavil was kneeling in the curing shed, which was mostly empty, seeing how last year's burly crop was long since sold and this year's was still a-greening in the field. He'd been wrestling in prayer and confession and dark imaginings until at last he cried out, “Is there no one to hear my prayer?”

“Oh, I hear you right enough,” said a stern voice.

Cavil was terrified at first, fearing that some stranger– his overseer, or a neighbor– had overheard some terrible confession. But when he looked, he saw that it wasn't anyone he knew. Still, he knew at once what the man was. From the strength in his arms, his sun-browned face, and his open shirt– no jacket at all– he knew the man was no gentleman. But he was no White trash, either, nor a tradesman. The stern look in his face, the coldness of his eye, the tension in his muscles like a spring tight-bound in a steel trap: He was plainly one of those men whose whip and iron will keep discipline among the Black fieldworkers. An overseer. Only he was stronger and more dangerous than any overseer Cavil had ever seen. He knew at once that this overseer would get every ounce of work from the lazy apes who tried to avoid work in the fields. He knew that whoever's plantation was run by this overseer would surely prosper. But Cavil also knew that he would never dare to hire such a man, for this overseer was so strong that Cavil would soon forget who was man and who was master.

“Many have called me their master,” said the stranger. “I knew that you would recognize me at once for what I am.”

How had the man known the words that Cavil thought in the hidden reaches of his mind? “Then you are an overseer?”

"Just as there was one who was once called, not a master, but simply Master, so am I not an overseer, but the Overseer.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because you called for me.”

“How could I call for you, when I never saw you before in my life?”

“If you call for the unseen, Cavil Planter, then of course you will see what you never saw before.”

Only now did Cavil fully understand what sort of vision it was he saw, there in his own burly curing shed. A man whom many called their master, come in answer to his prayer.

“Lord Jesus!” cried Cavil.

At once the Overseer recoiled, putting up his hand as if to fend off Cavil's words. “It is forbidden for any man to call me by that name!” he cried.

In terror, Cavil bowed hishead to the dirt. “Forgive me, Overseer! But if I am unworthy to say your name, how is it I can look upon your face? Or am I doomed to die today, unforgiven for my sins?”

“Woe unto you, fool,” said the Overseer. “Do you really believe that you have looked upon my face?”

Cavil lifted his head and looked at the man. “I see your eyes even now, looking down at me.”

“You see the face that you invented for me in your own mind, the body conjured out of your own imagination. Your feeble wits could never comprehend what you saw, if you saw what I truly am. So your sanity protects itself by devising its own mask to put upon me. If you see me as an Overseer, it is because that is the guise you recognize as having the greatness and power I possess. It is the form that you at once love and fear, the shape that makes you worship and recoil. I have been called by many names. Angel of Light and Walking Man, Sudden Stranger and Bright Visitor, Hidden One and Lion of War, Unmaker of Iron and Water-bearer. Today you have called me Overseer, and so, to you, that is my name.”

“Can I ever know your true name, or see your true face, Overseer?”

The Overseer's face became dark and terrible, and he opened his mouth as if to howl. “Only one soul alive in all the world has ever seen my true shape, and that one will surely die!”

The mighty words came like dry thunder and shook Cavil Planter to his very root, so that he gripped the dirt of the shed floor lest he fly off into the air like dust whipped away in the wind before the storm. “Do not strike me dead for my impertinence!” cried Cavil.

The Overseer's answer came gentle as morning sunlight. “Strike you dead? How could I, when you are a man I have chosen to receive my most secret teachings, a gospel unknown to priest or minister.”

“Me?”

“Already I have been teaching you, and you understood. I know you desire to do as I command. But you lack faith. You are not yet completely mine.”

Cavil's heart leapt within him. Could it be that the Overseer meant to give him what he gave to Abraham? “Overseer, I am unworthy.”

“Of course you are unworthy. None is worthy of me, no, not one soul upon this earth. But still, if you obey, you may find favor in my eyes.”

Oh, he will! cried Cavil in his heart, yes, he will give me the woman! “Whatever you command, Overseer.”

“Do you think I would give you Hagar because of your foolish lust and your hunger for a child? There is a greater purpose. These Black people are surely the sons and daughters of God, but in Africa they lived under the power of the devil. That terrible destroyer has polluted their blood– why else do you think they are Black? I can never save them as long as each generation is born pure Black, for then the devil owns them. How can I reclaim them as my own, unless you help me?”