A Dream of Daring (15 page)

“If the gingerbread was
sweeter and the meat more tender, how would that help the horses?” she asked.

Jerome spotted the
inventor watching them. “Mr. Tom! This hellcat, she need to hold her tongue!”

Tom sighed as they walked
in his direction. He felt as if he were watching a play unfold from a seat in
the audience. There was no director of the action, he thought, feeling no urge
to assume that role.

“Stablin’ ain’t woman
work. Git back to the kitchen!”

“Why don’t
you
go
to the kitchen? You’re always talking about it. You’re always eating Mr. Tom’s
food. You’re always telling me how to make it better.” She paused, as if
suddenly realizing something. “It seems
you
want to be there.”

Jerome stopped walking,
struck by the words. Tom stared at him, struck by the words too. The three of
them were speechless. Solo had observed something that was obvious, yet it had
never occurred to any of them.

She continued, her voice
showing her own surprise at the notion. “Yesterday you chopped almonds and
added them to the cake batter. The day before you added more onions to the
stew. Today you put herbs in the soup. You do something like that every day.”

“Cookin’ ain’t man work,
Missy!”

“The hog doesn’t care who
cooks it,” she replied.

“’Tain’t done. I ain’t
never seen no man in th’ kitchen.” He turned to Tom. “Ain’t that right, sir?”

“Why, no, Jerome. Men
do
cook.” Tom seemed surprised at the slave’s remark, but reminded himself that
Jerome had seen little of life outside of Indigo Springs. “There are male cooks
in taverns, on ships, in hotels, and even on plantations.”

“The best ones work in
fancy places,” added Solo.

“You little squirrel,
how’s you knowin’ ’bout them fancy places?”

“Men who cook in fancy
places are called
chefs,
” she said. The last word sounded as if she’d
said
kings
.

Jerome listened
curiously.

Tom watched a change
occurring in the two of them. Jerome’s ready grin and sweet-talk were
vanishing; he seemed earnest. Solo’s crusty aloofness had softened; she seemed
friendly.

“Didn’t you ever see the
picture cards in the house?”

Jerome stared at her
blankly.

She turned to Tom. “May
I . . . ?” She pointed to the big house.

Tom nodded.

Like a butterfly, she
vanished soundlessly and just as swiftly returned, holding the stereoscope and
a few picture cards.

She placed the first card
in the viewing slot. “Here’s a famous restaurant in Philadelphia, where people
go for fancy eating.”

The slave looked through
the viewer at an opulent room with a glass chandelier and small linen-covered
tables set with sparkling silverware and flowery china.

She placed another card
in the slot. “These are the cooks who prepare the food for this restaurant.”

Jerome carefully examined
a row of men in white uniforms with white hats standing proudly behind a table
filled with platters of food. There was a black face in the group.

“Say, that be a slave
there in Philerdelfi?”

“I think he’s free,” she
whispered somberly.

They looked questioningly
at Tom. “That’s true,” he said, a touch of pity in his voice.

Jerome peered through the
lenses, studying the image with a childlike fascination. It seemed as if Solo
had stirred something buried under the cool façade that was Jerome.

She lifted the card and
pointed to a caption on the photograph. “It says, ‘Executive Chef William
Roberts and his culinary staff.’ ”

“You kin
read
?”
Jerome seemed as astonished as Tom had been to learn that. The stableman’s eyes
panned to Tom; his eyebrows arched in an unstated question.

“That’s what it says,
Jerome.” Tom confirmed.

“Which one be Mr. Chef
William?”

“He’s the one with the
tall, straight hat. He’s the head of all the cooks. The others have short,
floppy hats, but Chef William’s hat is different.”

Jerome took another look
through the lenses at the man with the hat that looked like a tall, white
crown.

“I can make you a hat
like that,” she said enticingly.

“I thought you couldn’t
sew,” said Tom.

She flashed one of her
rare, brief smiles.

“Here’s another picture
of the chef,” she said to Jerome.

She changed the card in
the viewer. The new one showed a closer image of the leader of the kitchen.
Chef William was alone in the shot, holding a beautifully decorated layer cake.
The man’s proud face and the imposing toque on his head created a regal
presence.

Jerome scrutinized the
pictures. When he finally put the stereoscope down, the rings around his eyes
showed how tightly he had held the viewer to his face.

“I can make you a hat
like Chef William’s, so you can be the chef of
that
kitchen.” She
pointed to the little cabin behind the big house. “Then I can get out of that
hot, greasy place and be with the horses instead. I can trade places with you.”
She turned to Tom, as if suddenly remembering that his opinion might be important.
“If that’s okay.”

Jerome turned to him too.
Their dark probing eyes stared into his blue ones.

“If the hog doesn’t care
who cooks it, neither do I. Whoever
wants
the job should be the one to
do it,” said Tom.

He and Solo looked at
Jerome. There was a long pause, a furrowed brow, and an intensity in the eyes
of the slave who seemed to be engaged in a new mental activity: making a choice
about his life.

“I reckon that be me.”

Tom looked at Solo. “I
suppose the horse doesn’t care who feeds it either.”

She nodded, and the
matter she had engineered was settled.

The next day, Solo made
Jerome a handsome toque. She had removed the rim from an old top hat of his and
used it as a frame. She lengthened it and covered the top and sides with a
starched white fabric. Sensing there was something important about the hat, she
and Jerome waited for Tom to appear outside the big house to make a little
ceremony of its launch.

Tom wondered about the
change that the affair had brought about in them. Her open hostility and
Jerome’s stealthy defiance seemed tempered. He wondered about the thing inside
them that all the laws and whips of the South couldn’t touch, the thing that
gave them dignity and made them masters of themselves.

“This hat has twenty
pleats,” she said, counting aloud the vertical folds she had placed in the hat.

“Whut them fer?”

“I once read that they
can stand for the number of recipes the chef creates. Some chefs have a
hundred
pleats on their hats.”

Jerome’s eyebrows arched
in wonderment. “Don’t the chef make recipes already there?”

“
Cooks
make
recipes that are already there. But
somebody
has to create them. That’s
how the chef earns his pleats,” she said.

“Tha’ so, Mr. Tom?”

“It sounds reasonable to
me, Jerome. It seems there are pleats to earn in every line of work.” He smiled
at a new, speechless Jerome, who beamed like a peacock about to fan its
feathers.

“If you create more than
twenty recipes, I’ll make you another hat—with forty pleats.” Solo stood on her
toes, raised her arms, and placed the toque on his head. “You are now
Chef
Jerome
.”

“Why, thank you, Miss
Solo.” Jerome bowed to her as if he had been knighted.

From the moment she
placed the toque on his head, Jerome’s nicknames for the girl vanished. She was
no longer a squirrel, a tick, a she-beast, or the like. She was now
Miss
Solo
.

“There’s just one small
matter left, Jerome.” Tom looked at his slave, who had grown a foot taller with
his new hat. “The chef usually gets his hat and title
after
he’s cooked
something worth eating. So when you get around to it, maybe you could make your
way to the kitchen.”

Jerome looked eagerly at
the little cabin behind the house. It was the first sign of genuine interest
that Tom had ever seen him display in anything.

Chapter
10

The Greenbriar courthouse
stood across the street from the jail. Greek columns in front gave the white
building stature, and azaleas blooming along the side gave it color. While the
wall of pink flowers announced a new spring, a prisoner inside faced the
darkest days of his life.

A somber Tom Edmunton
walked toward the entrance. Ahead, Rachel and Charlotte Barnwell lifted acres
of crinoline to climb the front steps. Witnesses, reporters, and onlookers
filled the courtroom that late March day for the beginning of the murder trial
that had jolted the town, snaring two of its sons: their esteemed senator
killed and one of their wealthiest planters accused.

The courtroom was quiet
and the mood solemn as an attendant assisted the town’s respected plantation
mistress, and now its most recent widow, to a seat in the front row. Rachel
slid onto the bench next to her mother. Tom sat behind them, looking on
sympathetically. The unadorned walls of the room were as pale as the women’s
faces.

Two days of testimony
followed.

Prosecutor Will Drew was
a tall, thin man in his forties with unusual, probing eyes on an otherwise
average face, giving him both a forthrightness and simplicity that combined to
inspire trust. He methodically presented the state’s case.

The jury listened as the
prosecutor developed his interpretation of how the crime occurred. He painted
Cooper as a man driven by money and power, who saw a unique opportunity to
amass a fortune through an unpatented new invention and so tried to steal the
device; then when caught in the act, he committed murder to carry out his
avaricious deed. The jury remained attentive as they heard the testimony of
Tom, the sheriff, the coroner, and other witnesses.

Defense attorney Sam
Potter was a short, stocky man in his fifties with graying temples and a deep
voice that suggested wisdom and authority. He endeavored to raise doubts about
the prosecution’s case and to present Cooper’s account of the night’s events.

Potter highlighted the
fact that the murder weapon had not been found and made the point that for all
anyone knew, it could be discovered at a location impossible for Cooper to have
reached in the time available. The invention too had not been located, after it
had been searched for in the radius of the murder site reachable by the
defendant. If it was eventually located farther away, Potter noted, that would
exonerate the accused, who not only was limited in the distance he could travel
on the night of the crime but was also held in custody without bail thereafter.

Potter questioned Nash,
establishing that he knew the nature and location of the invention. Here was a
man who had quarreled with the senator on the day of the crime and who wanted
to court the senator’s daughter but wasn’t favored by Barnwell.

Potter also questioned
overseer Bret Markham, establishing that he was yet another man who had seen
the invention at the Crossroads, a man who lived there and was on the property
the night of the crime. This was a man who was found fully dressed in the
middle of the night after the murder was committed.

Prosecutor Drew countered
by showing that both men saw the invention hours earlier and that there was no
evidence that either of them was anywhere near it at the time of the crime.

Potter pointed out that
the inventor himself was on the premises on the night in question and at the
murder site soon after the victim’s death. Tom arched his eyebrows at the
prospect of becoming a suspect in the theft of his own property.

Potter introduced witnesses
to attest to the defendant’s character, then called Ted Cooper himself to
testify. The defendant gave his own account of his actions and motives on that
tragic night. He maintained that he had arrived on the scene only
after
Barnwell had already been killed. Cooper admitted that he had intended to steal
the invention. “That device had to be destroyed, and I was going to do it,” he
said unapologetically.

His attorney stressed
that the perpetrator had taken valuable time at the murder site to reattach the
cover to the motor, something that never would have been done by someone intent
on destroying the device but only by someone wanting to protect and profit from
it. And that person, the defense claimed, could not be Cooper.

“I’m a Southerner
first
.”
Cooper leaned toward the jury as he fought for his life. “Whoever took that
device is
not
of Southern mind or spirit, but is a traitor in our midst.
By the inventor’s own words, his new machine
will clear the fields of men
.
Think of it. What will happen if tractors work the fields in place of men? What
will happen to our bondsmen? Why, of course, they’ll be
emboldened
.”

Cooper seemed frightened
by his own dire predictions.

“They’ll want to acquire
other skills and jobs. They’ll want to live away from our farms. They’ll want
to be educated. Before you know it, they’ll want to do everything
we
do.” His voice rose, his fist hit the arm of his chair, and his body stiffened.
“They’ll
demand
we set them free! And if we don’t, they’ll storm our
towns and homes, riotous and uncontrollable, and outnumbering us
eight to
one
. I tell you, there’ll be an
insurrection
!”

A buzz shot through the
crowd. The polarizing times and the gathering storm were on everyone’s mind,
and remarks like Cooper’s discharged some of the sparks. The judge struck his
gavel for order.

“If the South knows its
own son, it knows I would
never
want that invention to succeed. I would
never
covet that device, as the killer clearly did. As sure as I’m a Southerner, I’m
innocent
!”

He stared at the jurors. The
faces of those who held his life in their hands were solemn, alert, and
unemotional.

Will Drew cross-examined
Cooper, forcing him to admit that he intended to take the invention, he left
his room in the night to do so, he hitched a horse to haul the device away, he
entered the place where the invention was kept, and he was discovered standing
over the senator’s body with blood on his hands.

The jury listened
intently. After each side rested its case, the trial ended with closing
arguments. The prosecutor presented his in simple terms.

“This case is about a man
who encountered a new invention, who learned it was not yet under patent
protection, who recognized the potential worth of it, and who seized an
opportunity to steal it in pursuit of riches. Driven by his own obsession for
wealth, Mr. Cooper was tempted that night, and he crossed a line. When Senator
Barnwell caught him in the midst of his vile act, he crossed another line. Once
he slipped into the quicksand of evil, he could not extricate himself. He
descended still deeper. This is why he plunged a knife into the chest of Wiley
Barnwell!”

He paused to allow the
jurors to digest the words.

“Whether any of us
approves or disapproves of the invention or wonders what it can or cannot do or
what it will or will not lead to,” he continued, “we’re
not
here to
judge the device. We’re here to judge one thing only: Who killed Senator Wiley
Barnwell?”

He pointed to Cooper each
time he mentioned him. “It is the
defendant
who was staying overnight at
the Crossroads and had the opportunity to steal the invention. It is the
defendant
who schemed to steal it. It is the
defendant
who hitched a horse to haul
it away. It is the
defendant
who returned to the Crossroads to reoccupy
his room. It is the
defendant
who felt it safe, with everyone asleep in
the dark of night, to check that his victim was indeed dead and wouldn’t
recover to name his attacker. And, members of the jury, it is the
defendant
who was caught standing over the senator’s body, his hands stained with blood.”

Drew paused to move his
eyes across the jurors, then returned to his seat.

Cooper’s attorney rose to
give the closing argument for the defense.

“The prosecution would
have you believe this is an open-and-shut case,” he told the jury. “But look at
all the reasonable doubt we’ve exposed for you. First, the circumstances: Why
would a man
return
to the place where he had earlier stabbed someone?
And where’s the murder weapon? And the missing invention? Finding them might
shed an entirely different light on the crime. We also know that there were
other men besides Mr. Cooper who knew about the invention, knew of its
whereabouts at the Crossroads, and could have had access to it as well.”

He studied the faces of
the jurors, one by one, as if wanting to imprint his perspective on their
minds.

“Beyond the
circumstances, I call your attention to the man himself. We’ve established that
the murderer went to considerable lengths to protect the invention, to put a
heavy cover on the engine at the scene of the murder, an act that would delay
his escape and increase his risk of being caught. The perpetrator had to have a
compelling reason to want that cover on the engine. The reason can only be that
he
valued
that device. He wanted to protect it, to develop it, and to profit
from it.”

Potter searched the
jurors’ faces for an indication, a clue, a nuance. There were none.

“This is a case in which
the
character
of the man accused precludes him from having the
motive
to commit the crime. Mr. Cooper is a son of the South. We’ve presented solid
testimony to establish his loyalty to our cause in words and deeds. Mr. Cooper,
by his very character, could
not
be the thief who wanted to profit from
the invention. That means he could
not
be the man who murdered Senator
Barnwell.”

At the end of the closing
arguments, the jurors departed the courtroom as expressionless as they had
arrived and had remained throughout the trial.

After two days of
deliberation, the jury announced that it had reached a verdict. It returned to
the courtroom that was once again packed with witnesses, reporters, and
townspeople eager to learn the outcome.

“Foreman of the jury,
have you reached a verdict?” asked the judge.

The foreman stood up.
“Yes, we have, your honor.”

Cooper rose to face him.

The eyes of Tom,
Charlotte, Rachel, and the dozens of others present were pulled to the two men
standing.

“How do you find the
defendant?” the judge asked.

“We find the defendant
guilty
.”

The crowd gasped.
Charlotte’s head fell in a sudden release of two months of tension. Rachel
stared numbly ahead. From his seat behind them, Tom’s arms curled around the
women in comfort. The inventor closed his eyes, feeling relieved that justice
had been done. But would he ever see his tractor again?

As two guards flanked
Cooper to escort him back to jail, the prisoner whirled to Tom, his eyes
hateful, his voice a subhuman snarl. “One day, when you find that wicked
device, you’ll
know
I was innocent!”

The guards cuffed his
hands. “You’ll
all
know!” He bellowed to the room at large.

As the guards pushed him
toward the door, he delivered a parting shot to Tom: “Fate won’t allow a
patriot to die while a traitor lives. Fate will avenge me!”

That fate was to be
tested presently. Two days later the judge pronounced the sentence: Theodore Cooper
would hang by the neck until dead.