Joseph McNair 
Ara kìí se òkúta
Our body is not a stone.”
A Yoruba saying
It took the better part of a month for Shango to get his workshop ready to open for business. The building, which had been standing vacant for more than two years, needed much work done due to negligence and occasional vandalism. Although he was not trained as a carpenter, he was a skilled wheelwright and took on the repair jobs himself working by instinct and native skill.
He worked day and night until the condition of the building measured up to his expectations. He replaced the broken, leaded panes in the windows. He repaired the three wooden doors and installed new locks. He re-plastered the interior walls and replaced shingles on the roof. He sanded and smoothed the wooden floor. He built an enclosure around the loft for his personal privacy, reinforced the beams upon which it rested and built himself a wooden bed to sleep in and a chest for his belongings. He repaired the door on the outhouse out back and sanded smooth its seat.
Shango replaced the cement mortar in the deteriorating mortar joints in both the double forge, its square interior walls, and the massive chimney structure which supported the weight of the tall chimney rising through the roof of the building. He had to reset or replace the odd brick that was loose or had come apart due to age or crumbling mortar in the three interior walls around the hearth which prevented the smoke from being blown into the shop by drafts or wind and kept the coal contained in the hearth with only minor effort and helped keep a cleaner shop floor.
He inventOríed, cleaned and oiled his smithing tools--the hammers, tongs, bellows, hollow bits and anvils; his swage blocks and mandrels, his farrier tools – hammers, clinch cutters, nail pullers, shoe pullers and rasps and his wheelwrighting tools – the axle gauges, spoke pointers, spoke shavers, tenon cutters and wrenches among others. He made sure there was a place for each of them and each was in its place.
His industry did not go unnoticed. Several townspeople watched him at work and marveled at his tenacity. A few inquired about his plans. Although he responded to them politely, he never stopped his work. He told them only that he was a master smith and intended to ply his trade making and repairing wheels, shoeing horses, mules and oxen, making and repairing all manner of tools and implements. Word soon spread about the mysterious new smith who had walked out of the woods to start a new business in town.
Shango took his meals at the “Last House On the Square” inn, three doors down from his workshop. Old John, the voluble innkeeper, took on the role of his sponsor of sorts, introducing Shango to his regular customers. The old man regaled all who would listen with stories of the deeds of young man’s mother, Maggie, when she lived in Orí almost thirty years before. He claimed that the healer cured his wife of the palsy, restored her beauty and added years to her short life. For that, he vowed, her son would never pay for a meal in his establishment.
Shango, knowing that the innkeeper still grieved for his late wife, tried each time he was at the inn to engage him in conversation, first about the town itself, the people in the town and the town’s history. The innkeeper was more than up to the task. He knew a little something about everything and everyone in the town. While Shango found this information personally useful, he had something altogether different in mind as a reason for drawing the man out.
Shango began to share with him what it was like growing up in his village and with his mother, being careful to avoid certain topics. The innkeeper, delighted by this intimacy, soon began to join him regularly at dinner.
Shango suggested that the man brew a tea made from the lavender flower and mixed with mint leaves. He gave him a bag of the herb that he had packed in his travel bag. He said that this was his favorite beverage and drank it daily. He also noted that the herb grew in the woods and that there was no danger of short supply. Although he made the innkeeper believe that the tea was for himself, he persuaded the man to drink it when they dined together. The innkeeper was so taken with the taste of the tea that he put it on his menu and served it to his patrons. It also had the effect of calming the old man and easing his depression.
Shango soon turned their nightly conversations into inquiries about the innkeeper’s personal history, where he had come from, where he grew up, when he married. He learned that the innkeeper was born and raised in Orí and was the single surviving third child of his parents’ four children. His three siblings had not survived to reach adulthood.
“I grew up hating my Pa.” Old John said in a rare moment of straightforward self-disclosure. “He built this inn, you know, and every member of his immediate family had to work in it. “ He paused, lost for a moment in his memories. After a moment, he continued.
“ He was a mean, severe man whose only thought was about profit. He would not only water the wine but the soup as well. He had no use for my Ma, except has the bearer of his children and a scullery maid. He beat her like she was one of his children. There seemed to no place of value in his life for a woman or the things a woman did. He certainly did not care much for motherhood for he insisted that my mother return to work within days after delivering.
My Ma said he changed when my brother, the firstborn died. I don’t know about that. She defended him to us until the day she died. I never knew my oldest brother. He died of the flux before I was born. My eldest sister was a sickly child. She was three years older than me and from my early memories she would have these attacks where she would start gasping for air. She couldn’t lie down and she couldn’t sit up. My mother would help her stand up and keep her still because being still seemed to help her breathe. After hours of this her breath would finally come easy and she would collapse into a death-like sleep.
When my mother died, it was my job to stand with her. I didn’t mind. She and my mother showed me the only kindness I ever knew growing up. My father had me working in the kitchen at four; running errands at six. I did the jobs he, my mother and my sister couldn’t get to. My baby brother was born when I was seven. He died in his crib. My mother, broken hearted, died a month later. That left my sister and me to endure my Pa’s abuse and help him run the inn.
I lived on hatred in those days. There were times when I wanted to burn down this inn with my father in it. But the thought of my sister without a home brought me to my senses. Alas, she herself was not long for this world. She died, a scarecrow of a woman just after her seventeenth birthday. Hard work and her affliction took her from me. That left only Pa and me.
My sister’s death changed me. My fear of my father was replaced by a cold, calculating rage. I was fourteen, then and already my father’s size. There was nothing, no sentiment whatsoever to stop me from plotting his death. By now I knew how he ran the inn. He had forced me, under the pain of the lash, to learn my letters and numbers so that I could help him keep his books. This he taught me himself. Those lessons were brutal. He would hit me each time I made a mistake, and more often fly into a rage where he would beat me until he got tired. Suffice it to say, I was the only one of his children who could read or write.
I had been helping him keep his accounts from the time I was twelve. This was man’s work, he boasted. “Always know where your money is and know how to count your money,” he’d say until I got tired of hearing it. Strangely, the more he came to depend on me, the better he treated me, but even that was much less than kind.
When my Ma died, something died in him too. Even though he mistreated her, he took her death badly. Although he had no real stomach for strong drink, he took to consuming large amounts of our watered wine. Many a night, I was left to run the inn while he slept off his drunkenness. I was kept so busy, I had no time to refine or even act on my plottings. I still hated him, but I grudgingly learned to love running this inn even more. As it turned out, alcohol became my ally.
Tiring of the watered wine, my father started demanding the unaltered better vintages. Over the next three years, I grew to depend on him less and less. He stopped waiting tables, he stopped cooking, he even stopped greeting his regular customers. This was all left to me. For all intents and purposes, I was the innkeeper and I was only seventeen years old
He began to drink when he arose in the mornings and stayed drunk all through the day. Mostly, he stayed in his room. I brought him his meals, which remained largely untouched. One afternoon, between deliveries, he took it in his mind to pick up the new supply of wines from the vintner. He got up out of his bed. He was drunk. He went outside to the barn and tried to hitch the mule to the delivery wagon. When the mule would not immediately comply, he began to beat the stubborn animal. The mule reared and kicked him in the head. He was dead before he fell.
I did not grieve for him, my boy. Perhaps you think me unfeeling, but there were no tears to shed for that wretched, evil old man…” The innkeeper’s face had become like stone. Shango knew that he couldn’t allow the man to stop his tale here.
“What of your wife” he asked. The innkeeper’s face immediately softened.
“Now there, young man, was the sweetest woman the gods have made! She was the sunny day in my dreary, overcast existence. When my Pa died, I was all alone. I was determined, though, to keep the inn going. Having taken over the keeping of the books, I knew there was money to hire help. My Pa was such a miser. I immediately hired a cook and several serving maids. That is when I met my Jen. She came the very same day I let it be known that I was hiring.
Her beauty was an amazing gift, first it usually astounded people and then it relaxed them. I experienced a sort of otherworldly moment the first time I saw her. Time seemed to stand. She had an oval face, the color of dark goldenrod, with exotic golden eyes, thick, full lips and high cheekbones. Her hair was reddish brown and she stood tall enough to look me in the eyes. She was big-boned, heavy-hipped and built up, as they say, from the ground. She was a local girl, but being a farmer’s daughter, her duties on her father’s farm kept her close to home. I knew of her father, but only in passing. He didn’t frequent the inn. Her name was Jen, my Jen!
I hired Jen as a serving maid. She took charge immediately. She was all over the inn, putting people at their ease, filling their orders with all due speed. She was so pleasing to look at, so bubbly of disposition that I’m sure her very presence increased our patronage by a third within weeks of her hire. I loved her from the moment I saw her…” He paused savOríng that sweet memory.
“When did you marry her?” Shango asked, intent on keeping him talking.
“Well, that took some doing. In fact, it was she who asked me, I was so tongue-tied around her. I remember the night just like it was yesterday. She had been working for me about two months. We had been very busy that particular evening. She stayed later than usual to help the cook and I prepare for the next day’s breakfast.
‘John,’ she said out of the blue, ‘you might as well marry me.” She was arranging the table settings. “ I can help you make this business really prosper. The gods know you really need my help and I don’t fancy waiting for you to untie your tongue to ask me.”
The rest, as they say, was history. We were married by week’s end and we stayed together, loving each other forty-three years. She was my strength, my boy; my good right hand. She helped me build this business and made me better man. I am not rich, but I am comfortable.” And then in an audible whisper, “ I am really lost without her…”
“She has never left you, John.” Shango said quietly.
“What? What’s that you say?” replied the startled innkeeper.
“Sometimes the veil between life and death wears thin and permits one to see through it.” He took on his aspect and the Orísha filled his voice. “Had you not been blinded by your grief, you could see, as I can see, that she has never left you. She is around you all the time.”
“Is it true? The innkeeper asked hopefully, looking about him. “How do you know this?
“Be still and close your eyes,” The Orísha commanded. He sent his spirit into the old man to quicken his perceptions. Old John felt coursing through him a powerful pulsation, a force that expanded his mind and opened his inner eye. The room fell away. A sudden mist thickening into a bank of fog rolled into and over that space, filling it and moved toward him. The fog swirled, took on the shape and contours of the human frame; a female form. What stood in front of him was not a spectral image, but the full, fleshy form of his beloved Jen.
“John, my love…” she reached out and took his hand. It was as substantial as his own. Her yellow-brown face, crowned as it were by thick, nappy reddish braids glowed with ethereal light. Her smile though, was muted and sad. She reached out, drew her husband into an embrace and held him.
“Jen! Is it really you?” Old John whispered. Tears welled up in the old man’s eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.
“I know, my love. But your grief binds me. I must go on. There is much that I must do.”
“What do you mean, Jen? He cried holding her tighter.
“There is no death, John, only life; life in different varieties. I have walked the shadows of earth and played in its illusions. I have learned much about who I am but there is so much more to know. There are worlds to explore…”
“Don’t you miss me, Jen?” The sounds of fear and heartbreak in his voice stood out from other sounds the same pitch and volume.
“Of course I miss you, my love!” Her voice now, a loving caress. “But my new reality is filled with chosen memories of you as I go on with my life. I can travel to you at the speed of thought, look in on you whenever I please. I would fly free but your pain holds me here.
“Stay here with me, Jen” the old man pleaded. “I need you …”
“You need nothing, my love. All that you require is within you. Would you hold me prisoner?”
“Never!” the old man exclaimed, horrified at the thought. “My love for you is such that I want what you want for yourself…” He paused, hearing himself. “Even if it means living without you,” he finished.
“Then let me go! It is through love that I am joined to you, not grief. Love will let me go where I may, do what I must do. I will always come to you when you truly have need of me.”
“How do I let go, Jen?” The apparition pulled herself from his embrace and stepped back from him, but held him still with her eyes.
“Think of me living in another place, but always loving you. Accept that I have gone there and will not come back. Decide to change your way of doing things so that you can live your life without me. Release yourself from any guilt you have about my passing. You did nothing wrong. You were not at fault. You were loving and supporting in your care and treatment of me. Combine those sweet memories of what we shared together with the bitter loss you now feel. Let the energy released in that joining drive you to love more passionately, to share more generously, to live more fearlessly. Be yourself without fear. There is much that you must do in your life before you slip your mortal coil. Know that you have my love always.”
And as quickly as she came, revenant was gone. The sights and sounds of the busy inn quickly filled the space left by the vision.
“What did you do to me?” The innkeeper whispered. He looked at Shango; his eyes wide with wonder.
“I merely helped you to see, “ Shango replied. “There is more seeing, more “letting go” that awaits you, but this is enough for this night.”
“It was a gift beyond measure. How can I ever repay you,
“Just be well, my dear friend.
***
Old John’s inn was a popular gathering place, especially at the dinner hour. Shango, through the innkeeper’s agency met several merchants who would be essential in the stocking of his workshop with materials and supplies. On the night before Shango was scheduled to open his workshop, the innkeeper brought a man to his dinner table whom Shango hadn’t seen before. There was, however, no mistaking the man’s occupation.
He was medium height and much shorter than Shango if they stood side by side. His scarred, nut brown face was friendly enough and could have been the face of a farmer or a fisherman, but his hard, rough hands and the corded muscles on his huge arms which flowed out of his oversized shoulders betrayed him. Here was another blacksmith.
“My boy,” Shango couldn’t quite remember when Old John had begun addressing him in that familiar way, “This here is Seth. He is the master blacksmith on the other side of the square. He would have a word or two with you. I will leave you two to your business.
“Forgive my intrusion on your dinner, young sir” the blacksmith began. His voice was soft, steady and respectful.
“Think nothing of it, sir,” replied Shango. “Please sit down and join me.”
“You are very kind.” The blacksmith pulled up a chair. As if on cue, Old John came out of the kitchen with a tray laden with a pitcher of beer and two mugs. He cleared a space on Shango’s table and poured the blacksmith a beer.
“Would you be wanting beer yourself, my boy? He asked solicitously.
“No thank you, John. But I will have more lavender tea, if you don’t mind.” The innkeeper nodded and went back into the kitchen.
“I’ll not take up much of your time, young sir” the blacksmith said, pausing to take a sip from the mug of beer. “There’s been a great deal of talk about the way you have put that old workshop back together. I have heard it said that you are a man of great industry and determination.
They tell me you have done all of the repair work yourself without asking for help. It is also said that you work night and day and hardly sleep. I wanted to meet you and let you know that another good blacksmith is welcomed in this town. There is more work here than the two of us can handle, so I would be happy to send you my overflow if I knew that you were more than a shoer of horses or a pumper of bellows.” He looked directly in Shango’s eyes as he said this.
Shango met his gazed and replied. “Undoubtedly you met the master smith, Tom? My mother’s agent? The one who bought the workshop and equipped it for me?” He sensed no guile in this man. He was just a simple man sizing up his competition. Clearly, he felt no threat from Shango, whom he thought was nothing more than a young upstart blacksmith
“Yes, “ replied the blacksmith, “I did meet Master Tom.” His entire demeanor changed when he spoke of Tom/Ogun. His master must have certainly made a powerful impression.
“ He came to me inquiring where he could purchase smithing, farrier and wheelwrighting tools, iron ore, pig iron, horseshoeing stock and other supplies. That is how I knew that a blacksmith would soon come. I lent him one of my wagons so that he could purchase those tools and several wagon loads of coal for your coal bins. When I heard him inquiring about the wheelwrighting tools, I thought that it might be him who was opening the shop. You are fortunate to have been trained by one such as he. You are also fortunate to be so well equipped starting out.” There was a trace of envy in his voice.
“That was my mother’s doing,” he said without a hint of self consciousness.”
“Well I haven’t met your mother, although there are tales spreading around town about her as well. But I did meet your master. He is a hard man, that one, but an honest man, no doubt. He took time to help me on a job or two while he was around. If you have a tenth of his ability, then you will do well here. He is a man of great skill and cunning.
“That he is, sir”, said Shango proudly. “I apprenticed under him for five years. He taught me well. There were times when I almost hated him because he was so stern, so particular and exacting about the work I did. He made me painstaking and sure. He would accept nothing short of his precise requirements. I bless him today because I have the full range of skills required of a competent master smith.” Shango paused a moment trying to decide if a little boasting was in order. Concluding that a little wouldn’t hurt, he continued:
I can smelt raw ore into useable pig iron in a single day. I can work that iron into rods and from them forge nails and hardware, cast keys and tableware, and fashion all manner of decorative pieces. I can mend pots and pans and make tools.
I am an excellent farrier. Ican do any work to prepare or treat the foot of a horse, mule or ox to receive a shoe. I can fit a shoe by nailing it to the foot or by finishing off such work to the foot. I have the knowledge and practice of the craft and I am capable of shoeing all types of feet, whether normal or defective, of making shoes to suit all types of work and working conditions, and of devising corrective measures to compensate for faulty limb action. And, I might add, I have never been kicked or bit by a fractious animal.
I am also a wheelwright. I know the properties of timber and my workmanship is extremely accurate. I can make stout, sturdy wheels that last for years. “
“Tell me, young sir, of your technique for making wheels” the blacksmith interrupted. It was as if the boy dad provided the opening for which he had been waiting.
“Fair enough, replied Shango. “First I take properly aged wood such as Elm and fashion a hub, I open the center with a tapered reamer to receive a metal bearing. I chisel out rectangular spoke holes around the circumference of the wheel. I then carve from woods like ash, the spokes which fasten to a rim of wooden arches that join to form a perfect circle. I then forge an iron hoop precisely matched to the distance around those arches.
I heat that hoop to expand it and coax it on the wheel with my hammer. Finally, I douse the tire with water so that the metal can shrink and bind the wheel. My masterpiece under Tom was to build a wagon with four wheels and a spare in less than a month.”
“Well said!” The blacksmith eyed him with a calculating look. “If your work is as good as your talk, we may fast become business associates.” The blacksmith stood up. “ I have four wheels that I need to have finished in a week’s time. If you can complete this job for me, I will pay you my fee minus my costs and direct all of my overflow wheelwrighting to you. Do we have a deal?
Shango did not have to think before replying:
“Done!”
“Fine,” said the blacksmith. “I will send the wheels over in the morning. Good night to you, young sir and may your business prosper.” He left his beer unfinished.
When the blacksmith exited out the front door of the inn, Old John returned to Shango’s table with a tray holding a fresh pot of lavender tea and a mug. He refilled Shango’s mug and poured some for himself. This was their signal that he wanted to talk. He sat in the chair vacated by the blacksmith Old John was clearly excited.
“Did that go well? He said holding his breath.
“It did, indeed, John. Do I have you to thank for this providential meeting?”
“Who knows, indeed, the ways of the gods.” He said piously, rolling his eyes heavenward. “What did he say, my boy?”
“Master Seth has agreed to send me four unfinished wheels in the morning. If I complete them to his satisfaction in one week’s time, he will send me his overflow custom.”
“Can you do this, my boy?” the innkeeper wondered. “This will not be the only business that will come to your door. I have told many of my friends about you. Be sure that there will be plenty of work that will meet you when you open your doors.”
“ I may need some help, John.” Shango replied thoughtfully. “I will need an apprentice and perhaps a journeyman at some point.
“Wait right here”. The innkeeper stood up abruptly and went into his kitchen. When he returned, he was accompanied by the young boy Who did odd jobs around the inn.
for the innkeeper.
“This is Michael,” the innkeeper pushed the boy forward. “He is a clever boy. An orphan and like me the only surviving child of his mother. He has some experience in the stables. When his mother died, I took him in and let him work with my hostler, Aram, for room and board. I took a liking to him and let him run errands for me in addition to his work with the horses. Aram says he is a natural with horses. He’s good with people, too, respectful, well-behaved. Perhaps you can teach him a trade. If not, I will loan him to you until you can get someone else to help you.”
The boy was about thirteen, small in stature, with the obvious intelligence of the runt of the litter. His eyes stood out like beacons on his brown-black face.
“So Michael, asked Shango, looking the boy over. “Do you want to learn to be a blacksmith? It is very hard work.
“Oh yes, good sir,” the boy blurted out, and then lowered his head looking furtive and shamefaced at the innkeeper.
“It is okay, Michael,” the innkeeper said kindly, “I have known for a long time now that you are not cut out for innkeeper’s work. It is a credit that you’ve worked so hard for me up to now.
“But you, sir, were so kind to me. You took me in, fed me and gave me work. It was only right that I serve you with all my heart.”
“ Well repay me now by working as hard for my friend as you have for me. You may keep your sleeping space here, if needs be. And of course, there will always be a meal for you.
“How long have you been on your own, Michael?” Asked Shango.
“My Ma died four years back. I never knew my Pa or my brothers and sisters. I have been with Mr. John ever since.”
“Well Michael, I am about to open up a blacksmith’s shop and I am going to need a hard worker. Are you up to the task?
“Oh yes, sir” The boy was overcome with excitement.
“Well then, John, see to it that he meets me at the shop two hours before cockcrow. Feed him well because I doubt if he will have much time to eat before dinner.
Michael was on hand at the appointed hour, wide-eyed and watching everything that Shango did. He probably hasn’t slept, thought Shango.
Shango took the boy to the forge.
“The heart of the blacksmith’s craft since its beginnings is the blacksmith’s fire. I will teach you as my master taught me. It is not hard for one who wants to learn, for I was your age when I began to learn from him. But you must pay close attention, for your safety depends on it. You will burned and bruised as a matter of course. I hope to help you avoid more serious injuries.
Much care and effort goes into building and maintaining the blacksmith's fire. Tending the fire correctly is essential or the fire will quickly become unusable. Until you have gained total mastery over the fire, you can make only the simplest of objects.”
Shango prepared to fire up the forge. He placed fresh coal on the forge hearth so it could be scooped or raked easily onto the fire. He then placed kindling in the forge’s fire pot. He lit a small torch made of soaked oiled rags wrapped around a stick with his flint and steel. He then took the burning torch and lit the kindling. With the burning kindling in the firepot, he took his bellows and gently blew on the kindling to raise the flames. When the flames became visible, he explained to the boy that the flames were not hot enough to bring a piece of iron to the extreme temperatures needed for forging.
He put down his bellows and picked up a cloth bag resting near his feet. He opened the back and showed Michael its contents.
“This is coke.” He explained. “ Coke is what remains after the oils and impurities of the coal are burnt away in the high heat of the forge fire. Coke is what makes the fire burn hot.”
He began adding the light, porous grayish blackcoke over the top of the kindling little by little. He continued to add more coke as the flames began to lick out. Using his bellows he increased the air blast slightly to encourage the flames to continue working out through the top of the coke. Within a minute or two the red glow of burning coke was visible near the bottom of the fire.
Continuing to add more coke onto the fire, Shango increased the air blasts from the bellows along with it. Within another minute, the bright red glow of burning coke was prominent. He added the rest of the coke in the bag on top of the fire until it mounded up several inches above and around the firepot. He then used his bellows to encourage the fire to grow to full size. He added more coal all around the fire and on top of the coke two inches deep and continue to blast the fire with his bellows.
“Where I have covered the burning coke with coal is called the “heart” of the fire. It is full of loose burning coke. I must keep the fire loose throughout its area so air may freely pass through the coke. In a properly maintained fire the “heart” is able to reach a white hot temperature with the help of an insulating layer of coke and cinders surrounding it and air coming up through the loose mass of burning coke beneath.
He continued to instruct the boy on the proper maintenance of the forge fire for another hour or so showing him the use of the rake, shovel, poker and the bucket and sifter.
The lesson was interrupted at cockcrow, when a man came by with a horse that had thrown a shoe. He wished to travel before the day was over.
Shango led the horse into the workshop. As he walked it in, he whispered soothingly to the horse, talking to it like it was an old friend. He had Michael stand on the opposite side of the horse, holding the reins. When the horse appeared calm, he lifted the horse’s leg to examine the hoof. Still talking to the horse, Shango look closely at the hoof. There were signs of wear and cracking.
He methodically went to each hoof and examined them all. Two other shoes were loose. Each hoof showed cracking or loss of hoof material.
“This horse needs regular care, good sir. I can replace the one shoe, but all need replacing. If you expect to travel with this animal, I suggest that you let me tend to this. I fear that you will cause this horse to go lame if you don’t.
“How long will that take,” replied the man, clearly irritated.
“Since you are my very first customer, I can attend to your horse today, but I fear you won’t be able to travel until tomorrow.
“Very well. I will return at cockcrow tomorrow.” The man left the horse in Shango’s care.
Shango gathered several of his farrier tools from the tool rack and went immediately to work on the horse, talking to Michael as he examined the animal.
“My master, Tom/Ogun, taught me to always me check the horse's leg, foot and hoof. If necessary, cut away any excess hoof growth and ensure that the horse is balanced correctly. “
He did this, looking closely at each leg and foot. Then, moving from front to back and then from back to front, Shango began removing the shoes on each of the horses feet. He was quick and efficient. Continuing to instruct the boy he said:
“The clinches of old nails must be cut or straightened to remove the shoe. Clinches are the parts of the nails visible on the outside of the horse's hoof after it is shod.”
He allowed Michael to look at the clinches as he held up the horses foot.
“You can see that they are folded down against the hoof to help clamp the shoe to the hoof. If you try to pull the shoe off without doing this, it will not only be more difficult to remove, but the walls of the hoof may be injured. “
He took a small hammer and tool called a clinch cutter and placed the blade edge under the clinch. He tapped it lightly to straighten it. He then placed another tool called a shoe puller under the shoe at the heel and push down toward the toe to remove the shoe. He carefully repeated this process on each foot.
With the shoes removed, he took a hoof pick and cleaned the debris from the bottom of the each of the hooves and along the grooves on the sides of the “frog”, located at the heel of the foot and forming a "V" into the center of the sole.
He, then, trimmed the hoof walls to remove excess length, rasping smooth and level the bottom of each foot. It was now about mid morning.
“Tie the horse to a post, Michael. We must tend our forge fire.”
Shango checked the forge. The coke in the fire pit was still glowing red. He raked more coke from the coal burning around the forge onto the heat of the fire. He then went to his storage bin and selected a pig iron bar from his shoeing stock. He took the bar and pushed into the heart of the fire and heated it. When the bar was white hot, he used his tongs to pull it out and took it to his anvil. He pounded on the white hot metal with one of his many hammers, making it bend. He then reheated it and resized ituntil the shape of the shoe was attained. He made the necessary creases in the shoe, marked the spots for the nails and carefully punched the nail holes.He quenched the shoe in the quenching pit and laid it out to cool. He repeated this entire process three more times.
Shortly before noon, a mule-drawn wagon arrived at the side door of the shop. The driver, a wiry, weasel of man of medium height with shifty eyes and whose brown hairless pate reflected the sun like copper, jumped down and approached Shango, who had come to the door. He wore a farrier’s leather apron.
“You are a young one,” he said appraisingly. Before Shango could reply he said quickly:
“These are the wheels sent over from Master Seth’s shop, young sir, delivered as promised. He told me to tell you that he expects them finished and returned to him in one week’s time… as agreed.”
Shango heard the doubt and the challenge in the driver’s voice. He did not respond. He and Michael began to off load the wheel kits, for the wheels were in pieces, while the driver watched. When the off-loading was complete he turned to the driver.
“Tell your master that wheels will be finished in less that a week. I will send my apprentice to tell him when he can pick them up. You can tell him also that I will hold him to his word about the overflow. It is obvious to me that with workers like you, there will be much overflow to be had.” He turned his back on the open-mouthed driver, dismissing him, and went back to his work.
At cockcrow the following day, the owner of the horse picked up his newly shod animal. He remarked that the horse seemed to have more spring in his step. Shango advised him to bring the animal back after the journey and there after every six to eight weeks. The man paid him handsomely and told Shango that he would spread the word.
Shango turned his attention to the wagon wheels. He had found fault with hubs that came with the wheels, as well as the felloes, rough hewned as they were with an axe. He smoothed the hubs with a chisel, satisfied that they had strong cross-grained fibres, which would not split when under strain.The hubs finished, Shango attached iron bands on each to give them added strength. He heated these bands in the forge to a dull red and then hammered them onto the hub. They were then plunged into the cold water of the quenching pit for shrinking.
Having marked out the places where the spokes were to be fitted into the hub, Shango then cut the holes, and chiseled them out. He had to reshape the spokes with a drawknife and spoke shave to have the maximum of strength with the minimum of weight. He then drove each into the hub with a sledgehammer, not straight, but at an angle to give the right amount of dish. He marked the ends of the spokes for the shoulders and tongues, which would fit into the felloes, that part of the rim where the spokes are inserted and which were curved to take two spokes each. He smoothed out the felloes and then put all of the wheels together before fitting on each the iron hoops.
Fitting the iron hoops or tires was a skilled operation and Shango had to ensure that the fit was neither too loose nor too tight. The wheel was set up over the quenching pit. The Shango took out a strip of iron, which he had already curved by heat and punched with nail-holes, and laid it red hot on top of the wheel rim. As the hot iron burned into the wood, he punched in big rose headed nails, and then turned the wheel round into the pit of water. While the newly fastened hoop was cooling, the same operation was repeated on all of the wheels. He finished the job by dusk and sent Michael to Master Seth’s shop to tell him that the wheels were ready and that he could pick them up on the following morning.
Master Seth himself came to pick up the finished wheels. He inspected each wheel with a practiced eye. He also noticed that there were at least four horses waiting to be shod.
“Well done, master smith.” He said this without condescension, for the work spoke for itself. “ You are better than your word, young sir. Two days for four wheels of this quality is indeed master’s work. But if I am to send you my overflow, with the work you will attract on your own, surely you will need some more help. Let me send you one of my journeyman smiths…”
“With respect sir, if that smith is like your farrier, I would do better without.”
Seth laughed aloud, the first sign of humor Shango had seen in the man. “Basil told me what you said about him. You did not make a friend of him that day. But you are quite right. He is more of an obligation than a worker. No, young sir, I will send you a journeyman worthy of your industry. One who may even keep up with you. Believe it or not, I have several like that.” He smiled.
“Thank you, Master Seth, but I don’t believe I can pay him as yet. My business so far will not support another smith.
“But mine will. There is room in this town for both of us and neither of us can meet the demand. I will continue to pay his salary until such time as you can do so yourself. It is just good business on my part to do so.”
“If that is your wish, good sir, then I am grateful. Please make sure, though, that he is nothing like your farrier.”
“You will be pleased, master smith.” They loaded the wheels onto the wagon together. As Seth drove off he called back to Shango:
“Expect young Timo on the morrow. He will be provisioned and he already has a place to stay.”
Shango went back to shoeing those horses. He smiled to himself. Things were indeed beginning to look up.
Juneteenth
"The people of Texas are informed…
The three hundred year outrage -
Shameless theft of human beings
From Africa's slave & gold coasts,
From her steaming interiors;
Relentless debauch and pillage of
A continent whose people were all
Converted into goods & commodities
Subject to ravage & devastation.
Black men & women, farmers,
Miners, workers of bronze, smelters
Of iron ore, warriors, teachers,
Workers of magic, wives & mothers
Traded for seed grain, livestock, rum,
Whiskey, ivory, & guns.Nobody knows da trouble ah seed;
Nobody knows my sorrow...Nations pulled up by the roots,
Human capital sacrificed to the
Foul breathed gods of greed,
A continent underdeveloped,
Stripped of its greatest treasure
Packed like edible herrings
In their own oily vomit & feces
In the stinking holds of slave ships
Men and women who died horribly
& in droves -Amazing Grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me…Where was that grace that saved old
John Newton from his slave-stealing guilt?
Where in the African soul were those
Inhering godly gifts? Who more needy
Of grace than those whose dark skin alone
Put them at the point of death.
For the African there was no grace
But neither was there guilt!The jealous and capricious god that
Saved John Newton turned his face from
the dehumanization of Africans -- not in
Impotent anger but in feckless denial;
Refused to mete out old testament
Vengeance against his iniquitous
Worshipers who brutally annulled
The sacred union of the African &
His deities…Ah been 'buked and Ah been scorned;
Ah been talked about sho' is you born!Red-handed zealots who in his unspeakable
Name murdered the African's culture,
Suppressed his language & selfhood;
Severed his lines of familial descent with
Onerous toil & indenture without end;
Caused bloody African sweat to run
In rivulets, & potent African blood
To be spilled; to soak, saturate & fructify
American soil.A nation built, an empire raised on the
Scarred & bent backs of exploited black labor;
On men & women reduced to breeding stock;
On families split & sold; on mothers debased,
defiled & degraded until June 19, 1865, when
General Gordon Granger, like a spectral paladin,
pale as a sheet in the moonlight & at the head
Of a motley legion of white Texas troops
Swept into the city of Galveston & issued
Executive Order Number 3, the much
Belated enforcement of emancipation,
From an equivocating U. S. president
Proclaiming slavery dead in Texas;
& all slaves finally free.
