CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
They take me to an abattoir.
I am leashed and led to the rear of the house, into a concrete block room where the sound of dripping water echoes. The interior was painted with white enamel long ago. Now it is chipped and mottled with mildew. Old bloodstains darken the floor. A discolored blade still hangs in the knife rack above the steel table, and a rusty bone saw dangles from the peg above it. This is the place where animals become meat.
Wyatt explains to Roy that a slave girl doesn’t deserve to use the same bathroom that free people enjoy. He has a final humiliation in mind.
They lead me to a crude shower stall where carcasses are hung. When my wrists are freed from the collar they drop uselessly at my sides and I moan softly at the mixture of agony and relief. I
