Yellow Wife

Pheby recalls another time when a woman was taken from the plantation. One of the white men who worked for Jacob Bell dragged her to the whipping post and pulled out her tongue. Pheby wonders what the future has in store for her.

In the wagon, another woman who had delivered a stillborn baby just before being taken from the plantation suffers from blood loss and pain. The wagon joins others filled with enslaved people, and Pheby and the others are affixed with iron collars and chains. They march for eight days, unsure of what awaits them. One white man attempts to rape Pheby. She throws up on him, and he slaps her and leaves. Finally, they arrive at Lapier’s Alley where Pheby can smell the stench of death in the air.

At the jail, the men and women are separated. They are forced into a small holding cell with no running water, food, or facilities. A woman in the cell with Pheby tells her that this is where they will wait before they are sold; she has been here before. Pheby confides that she has been told that she will be whipped for aiding an enslaved man to escape, but her cellmate informs here that it is far more likely that she will be sold into sex work than beaten.