Nightjohn

Sarny tells the story of Alice, a field worker who is mentally unstable. Waller made Alice a breeder, but she fought against it. He tied her down in the breeding shed “to make it happen” (43), but the trauma of the experience left her in a worse mental state than before. Alice was caught wandering near Waller’s white house and was punished: She was shackled to the wall of the spring house, stripped naked, and whipped until her back was shredded. Mammy was forced to apply salt to Alice’s back to cause more pain, and Alice was left chained to the wall overnight. Sarny helped Mammy treat Alice’s wounds with grease, and Alice lay silent and motionless for several days. On the night of Nightjohn’s arrival, Alice tried to run away.

To Sarny, running is fruitless, because no one has managed to escape and the slaves have nowhere to go in the first place; Waller also has vicious dogs, trained to track and attack humans. A man named Jim once tried to run, but the dogs caught him in half a day. They attacked him while he hung from a tree, ripping his lower half to shreds and killing him; Waller left Jim’s body there.