A Dream of Daring (26 page)

The three men Tom had
insulted shot out of their seats and leaped at him.

“Swine!”

“Madman!”

“Traitor!”

Nash reached for his
throat. Markham raised his fists. Cooper lodged the first blow. Tom threw off
their hands and ducked their punches. The women screamed. The sheriff sprang
up, and the deputies and coroner rushed into the fray. The lawmen wedged
themselves between Tom and his attackers.

The sheriff was silently
grateful for his earlier insistence that guns be left with a deputy outside the
meeting so that only the law enforcers were armed. As he and his men pushed and
shoved both sides back, Tom was still defiant.

“Why did you commit
crimes against business, against justice, against morality, against your own
characters? Because you’re clinging to something whose time is up.”

“It’s
your
time
that’s up!” yelled Nash.

“By keeping your slaves
down, you’re keeping yourselves down too. Being masters over men doesn’t
destroy just your subjects.
It destroys you too.
”

“Seditionist!” yelled
Nash.

“That’s treason! Arrest
him!” added Cooper.

“Get back! Get back! Get
back!” ordered the sheriff.

The riled men pushed
forward to break the lawmen’s defense. The sheriff and his men peeled the
attackers off Tom.

The inventor backed away
as he had the last word: “You’re at a crossroads. The new age is at your door.
It needs men to be masters over nature, not over other men. And it requires all
men first to be masters over themselves.”

“Your confounded
device—and your poisonous ideas—aren’t welcome here,” said Cooper. “Either you
leave on your own steam, or we’ll run you out of town.”

“I’ll get my tractor
back, or I’ll make another! The world’s going to change, and you can’t stop
it!”

“Maybe the Yankee needs
schoolin’, Southern style.” Markham smirked, eager to do the job.

“This is sedition,
Robbie! I demand you arrest this man!” Cooper looked suspiciously at his
nephew, who had done nothing to silence Tom. “Or do you
agree
with him?”

Duran paid no attention
to the imposing man who had reared him, as if his respect for his uncle was a
fading memory.

“Arrest him, Robbie! He’s
committed sedition ten times over! If you don’t, then you’re complicit in his
treachery.”

The sheriff backed away
from the pack and pulled out his gun. “Sit down! Sit down! Sit down, or I’ll
run you all in!”

The attackers slowly
backed away.

The sheriff turned to the
inventor. “That’s enough, Tom.”

Tom was astonished that
the sheriff addressed him by first name and in a sympathetic tone. At that
moment, the inventor realized he had an ally. He wondered how many others
thought as he did about the great injustice surrounding them, people who didn’t
speak out for fear of reprisal.

“Everyone, sit down—
now
,”
the sheriff repeated.

With shoves from the
deputies and urging from the coroner, everyone finally did sit down. But they
kept their fiery stares fixed on Tom in the quieted room.

“Let’s get back to the
matter at hand. We’re looking for a suspect,” said the sheriff, putting away
his gun. “Someone who stole the invention, who took pains to cover and protect
it, and who murdered for it.”

The sheriff’s searchlight
eyes swept across the group.

“We’re looking for
someone who was literate and could write the letter
and
had access to
the murder weapon
and
knew the whereabouts of the invention. Who would
that be?”

“No one we know of from
our investigation.” The coroner shook his head.

The sheriff gestured to
the others, one at a time, for their answer to his question.

“There was no one else
with us,” said Cooper, “when Wiley, Nash, and I saw the invention and Tom
explained it.”

“Nobody I know of,” said
Nash.

“I didn’t show the
invention to anyone else,” said Tom.

When the sheriff got to
the women, they shook their heads.

The sheriff turned to the
last man in the group.

“There
is
somebody,” said Markham.

All heads turned to the
overseer.

“Who?” asked the sheriff.

“There was a slave at the
Crossroads who could read and write and saw the invention in the ol’ carriage
house.”

“Oh?” The sheriff tensed,
taken by surprise.

“What?!” Tom looked
astonished.

“And that slave coulda
stole a knife and hid it a-forehand. Miss Polly warn’t too careful. Fact is,
she was lax. They all stole, and they all hid things.”

“Who is this slave who
was literate and who saw the invention? I want to talk to him now!”

“’Tain’t a
he
,”
Markham explained. “’Tis a
she
. Miss Polly musta learned her ’fore I
arrived here, ’cause she read to the missus and even wrote passes fer the
slaves. She was hidin’ in the shed, curled up inside the old coach that was in
thar when me and the senator was talkin’ about the contraption.”

“Are you serious?” The
sheriff looked incredulous.

“Yup.”

“How could you not have
told me this before?”

Markham shrugged his
shoulders. “Didn’t pay it no mind.”

“Bring her to me right
now!”

“She ain’t here no more,
Sheriff.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the slave with the
birthmark, the one the senator sold that day.”

Chapter
22

The women gasped.
Everyone looked astonished.

The sheriff’s alert eyes
met Markham’s unfocused ones. “Am I to understand that the female slave that
has a . . . connection . . . to the
Barnwells—”

“I’ll not have you
insinuate what you’re insinuating!” Charlotte demanded.

Rachel subtly glanced
down at the neckline of her dress, as if to check that the little birthmark
over her heart was fully covered, then she echoed her mother’s displeasure with
the lawman. “Sheriff, you’ll please not insult us, sir!”

The sheriff looked at the
women, sighed, then turned back to the overseer. “Let me begin again. Mr.
Markham, you told us previously that the young mulatto woman who had the
birthmark that Mr. Nottingham noticed was taken to the docks on the morning of
Miss Polly’s funeral and sold by Senator Barnwell, right?”

“Yup.”

“
She’s
the one who
was hiding in a coach in the old carriage house, with the invention there?”

“Yup.”

“So she had knowledge of
the invention.
And
she can read and write?”

“Yup.”

“This is the girl you
whipped?”

“One an’ the same.”

“Mr. Markham, when you
told us previously that you whipped a slave in the old carriage house, it
appeared you took her in there for the lashing. You didn’t mention that she was
already
in there, hiding.” The sheriff looked exasperated at the sheer
density of the man. “Didn’t you think this might be important to mention?”

“Didn’t occur to me none,
Sheriff.”

Duran rubbed his eyes
wearily. “Never mind. What’s her name?”

“Ladybug.”

“Is that a nickname?
What’s her real name?”

“That’s what everybody
called her. Only name I knowed.”

“Are you saying this
slave named Ladybug, after she was sold, could have later returned to the
Crossroads to kill the senator?”

“Could be.”

“Why was she hiding in
the old carriage house where the invention was? You told us previously that the
slave Mr. Nottingham pursued had nothing to do with the invention.”

“Nothin’ I can see. The
senator and me found the wench in the shed while we was discussin’ the
invention. She was in there prob’ly to slough off her tasks, take a nap,
daydream, somethin’ like that. Then when we come in, she musta tried to hide,
’cause we found her curled up in the old coach that was near the invention.”

“Did she overhear you and
the senator talking about the invention?” the sheriff continued.

“Reckon she did, ’cause
we was talkin’ and she was hidin’ thar.”

“What were you and the
senator saying?”

“Not much. He told me the
contraption was a new invention, a dangerous one, and he wanted me to haul it
away, take it apart, and make the pieces disappear, so they’ll never be found.
He give me two hundred dollars. Said I’d get two hundred more when I finished.
He said it had to be done that night, ’cause in the mornin’ the invention would
be gone. That’s all I know. Then he noticed the girl hidin’. He got mad, pulled
her outta the coach, told me to whip her, and he left. I gave her a few stripes
and left the shed too.”

“Was that just before Mr.
Nottingham arrived and ran into her?”

“Yup.”

“Then after the senator
noticed Mr. Nottingham’s interest in the girl, he decided to take her to town
to sell her, right?” the sheriff continued.

“Seems so.”

The sheriff glanced at
the coroner, who looked puzzled. “Mr. Markham,” said Dr. Clark, “since the
senator sold the girl, wouldn’t it be impossible for her to come back and kill
him? And why would she?”

Markham straightened his
spine and seemed to rise in his chair like a person of importance about to give
a valued opinion.

“Well, let me see. The
senator warn’t no Miss Polly, allowin’ servants to run wild. That day the girl
got her first taste o’ the lash, then she got sold. That musta miffed her darn
good!” He seemed amused at someone’s life suddenly thrown into chaos. “Now,
Ladybug, she’s a smart one. She’s a house servant, so she coulda knowed the
senator was fixin’ to spend the night here. She coulda made her way back that
night to get her revenge on him. She coulda wrote herself a pass and sneaked
away for a bit while her new massa was sleepin’. She coulda maybe took a horse
from his stable. Or she coulda got one from the livery, if the new massa was
stayin’ at the docks that night. Why, she could talk some young buck, a slave
or a free person o’ color, at the livery inta givin’ her a horse fer a spell.
She’s a sweet one when she wanna be. Her favors could go far fer her.”

“Let’s say she wrote
herself a pass, got a horse, and snuck away that night. Then what happened,
according to your hypothesis?” pressed the sheriff.

“Hmm.” Markham
thoughtfully stroked his chin, looking like a man of distinction, except for
the two-day stubble of whiskers covering his face. His sudden stature as a man
with an important hypothesis seemed to awaken whatever mental faculties he
possessed.

“Well, I reckon she
coulda come back here. Maybe she grabbed a knife she already had hidin’ here, a
knife she stole and stashed to do evil with at some time, in some way. She knew
that this was the time. She made noise outside the senator’s window to wake him
up. Then she drawn him into the shed where nobody could see her vile deed, and
she stabbed him. Then she took the invention to make it look like a white man’s
crime fer a white man’s machine, instead of a wench’s revenge against her
massa. When she was through with her mischief, I reckon, she gone back to her
new massa, iffen it was a nice family she was sold to, like the senator said.
Good chance runaways git caught after the massa puts out notice on ’em, so I
reckon she gone back.”

“What would she do with
the device?” asked the sheriff.

Markham crossed his legs
and leaned back as if he were the owner of the Crossroads, entertaining guests
with his stories.

“She coulda hid it in the
woods so nobody can never find it—never!” He looked at Tom and seemed pleased
that his remark gave the inventor a start. “Slaves got hidin’ places in them
woods that we won’t never know ’bout. They disappear fer a while and go to them
when they get the urge, slippin’ away or claimin’ they’re off a-huntin’. They
hide fugitives and bring ’em food too, them slaves. ’Specially the ones here,
with nary a sting o’ the whip. Yup, Miss Polly’s slaves, they took liberties,
they did.”

“And you think Ladybug
would have stopped to put the cover back on the tractor?” interjected Tom.

“She’s a strong thing.
She coulda did it. Cover was on the contraption when the senator and me was
talkin’.”

The sheriff pondered the
matter. “What do you think, Dr. Clark?”

“If the girl is the
culprit, maybe she thought it was worth a couple of minutes and would’ve made a
good case for the
invention
being the reason behind the crime, and not
her
being the reason,” said the coroner. “After she was sold that day, she might
have worried that she could be a prime suspect and so wanted to deflect
attention away from that.”

The sheriff looked
flabbergasted. “You mean we could’ve gotten the case
all wrong
?”

“This could have nothing
at all to do with the invention and everything to do with a slave’s vengeance
toward a new master. Tom’s device could have been just a decoy,” the coroner
said grimly.

Markham chuckled. “Maybe
Ladybug got all you smart folks to go down the wrong trail, Sheriff.” He seemed
to relish the thought of the gentry before him being flummoxed by a slave.

“Who was she sold to, Mr.
Markham?” asked the sheriff.

“The senator, he didn’t
say.”

“I’ll get the plantation
journal.” Tom rose from his chair. “Maybe the senator made a note about it.”

He disappeared into the
library and returned with a large ledger. “This is the current year’s book.”

The sheriff and coroner
rose, took the volume, and thumbed through the pages.

“Here’s the entry,” said
the coroner, jabbing his finger on a page. “It was made on the day of Polly’s
funeral.”

Cooper and Nash gathered
around the sheriff, the coroner, and Tom to examine the page. The women
remained in their seats, looking indignant about the entire discussion.
Markham, having no reason to examine a record he couldn’t read, was the only
man left sitting.

The coroner read aloud
the terse entry:
Ladybug, age 19, sold to Fred Fowler of Baton Rouge, $500.

“That’s Wiley’s
handwriting, all right,” remarked Cooper.

The sheriff looked
around. “Anyone know Fred Fowler?”

The others shook their
heads; none knew the new master who lived thirty miles south of Greenbriar.

“This Fred Fowler was in
Bayou Redbird that morning,” Cooper remarked. “Maybe he stayed in the area
overnight, which gave the slave a chance to write her pass, slip away, and
travel just a few miles back here to do her devil’s deed.” Cooper paused as
further thoughts took shape. “If Ladybug then went back to Fowler, and he
continued his travels north, maybe that’s how she got to dropping the knife at
Manning Creek.”

The sheriff looked
pensive. “There’s a whole lot of speculation going on here. None of it resting
on anything. We need to question her.”

Cooper didn’t look at all
pensive. “Why fuss about the fine points?” His face looked alarmed as the
impact of the new information hit him. “
A slave killed a master!
That’s
what this comes down to, doesn’t it?”

“We can’t let her get
away!” said Nash.

“She could knock off her
new massa too.” Markham’s voice sounded as though he was disturbed by the
prospect, but his face carried a subtle smirk. “That bad apple could give other
slaves ideas.”

“If she’s a troublemaker,
she could be emboldened by thinking she got away with her crime. Why, she could
start an
insurrection
!” said Nash.

He and Cooper looked as
if the fear they kept bottled in the cellar of their minds had suddenly popped
out.

“She’ll pay for this!”
added Cooper.

“Quiet!” ordered the
sheriff. “Hold your tongues!” His command had the brief calming effect of cold
water splashed on feverish faces. “There’s no proof yet at all. Just lots of
questions to be asked. Now, let’s continue.”

He turned to Markham.

“What about the note
delivered to Mr. Edmunton the night before
the . . . sentence . . . was to be
carried out?” The memory of the worst day of his life seemed to shake the
sheriff. His voice broke for a moment, then steadied again. “How do you explain
that, Mr. Markham, if the slave was in Baton Rouge?”

“Well, Ladybug, she
coulda read about the trial in them newspapers they get in Baton Rouge. She
coulda got the Yankee’s name”—he gestured to Tom—“and wrote him the note. Maybe
she got friendly with a free man o’ color, or even a white, workin’ on the
ships that dock at our port and down thar in Baton Rouge. Maybe Ladybug got one
o’ them to deliver her note.”

“That’s more
speculation,” the coroner commented. “Even if she’s a vixen who can manipulate
a man to do her bidding, why would she take a risk in writing that note? Why
would she want to save Mr. Cooper, a planter, from the hangman?”

As he heard that last
word, Cooper studied the sheriff as if searching for a hint of weakness that he
might use to his advantage later. But the sheriff’s face held firm. Any remorse
he might have felt seemed to have passed.

“Could we have here a
slave with a
conscience
?” the coroner added.

“Maybe a slave with a
conscience is no more surprising than the many free folks I’ve known without
one,” the sheriff replied. “I’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to Baton
Rouge.”

He walked up to the women
sitting on the couch and spoke softly. “Mrs. Barnwell, do you know something
about this girl, Ladybug, that you haven’t told us?”

“Certainly not!”

“I also know nothing,
Sheriff, because there’s nothing to know,” said Rachel, flashing an angry look
at the sheriff.

“I’ll have you know I
most emphatically resent your insinuations about my husband!” added Charlotte.

The sheriff was unmoved.
“When I get back, I’ll be paying you a visit, ma’am, so we can talk, just you
and me, in private.”

“You know what I think,
sir? I think you’re harassing me,” Charlotte said indignantly. “I believe
you’re
unfit
to be sheriff.”

Duran looked startled at
the veiled threat from a member of the all-powerful class that ran the town.

“Sheriff, you’re
upsetting my mother!” Rachel looked around the room for help and turned to an
obliging figure. “Isn’t there something you can do . . . 
Nash
?”

Two faces in the room
reacted to the name Rachel uttered. Tom looked resigned to a prospect he had
lately come to consider possible. Nash looked delighted at a prospect he had
feared was impossible.

“We’ll just see, Rachel,
dear,” Nash said, rushing to the women like a crusading knight. He looked
scornfully at the sheriff. “We’ll see what can be done about the abuse of power
that seems to be occurring.”

“A slave killin’ a massa!
I hear ’bout cases where they kill overseers too,” mumbled Markham. “You take
guns and whips to bed with you, and it still ain’t ’nuff against that trash.”
He looked around nervously as if expecting an attacker to appear from behind
the drapes or beneath a table.

“A slave killing a
planter who might be her—” Cooper looked shocked. He glanced at Charlotte and
caught himself before uttering the unmentionable.

The coroner too looked
apprehensive. “There could be another dimension . . . a
personal angle . . . to this case that we hadn’t
considered.”