The Water Dancer

The Hounds separate Sophia and Hiram the next day, and for days after, slave traders violate Hiram’s body and destroy his dignity as they examine him for possible purchase. An old man and a young boy are also in the jail with Hiram at first, but their captors presumably kill the old man one night and later sell the boy while his hysterical mother curses them. It is spring when Hiram Howell finally authorizes Hiram’s sale. Blindfolded, Hiram cannot see his buyer, a white man. The hounds dump Hiram into a wagon, and after a long ride, Hiram arrives at his destination: a dark pit. Being pushed into the pit is “a kind of death” (137), like being “lost in an ocean” (137). Down in the dark, Hiram is beset by fears. He worries that he has fallen into the hands of one of those whites who kill the Tasked for fun, pleasure, or experimentation. 

Down in his pit, Hiram loses all sense of time and identity. At first, he is consumed with a vision of years before when Maynard was so bored that he made Hiram assemble the Tasked for a footrace. After everyone was gathered, Maynard forced Hiram to run in the race as well.