A Dream of Daring (27 page)

Duran thought of the
others he had investigated: The Barnwell women had an alibi; they were in the
company of friends that night, and he had confirmed their story. The inventor
had an alibi; servants confirmed he was in his room, where they had delivered
pots of tea and fire logs that night. The trails on the other three men—his
uncle, Nottingham, and Markham—had led to dead ends. He had run out of other
suspects.

“We’d better get this
girl,” Duran said, looking grim at the thought of picking up a new trail on a
case three months old. The clock in the parlor chimed three times. With the
mood of the group playing on his nerves, the sounds were magnified in his mind
like a warning that time was running out.

“This meeting’s
adjourned,” he said. “I’ll ride down to Baton Rouge to find Fred Fowler and
bring the girl back to face questioning.”

“If she lives long enough
to face anything!” Cooper snapped. His words stirred the already turbulent air.

The women rose to leave,
their faces grave. Rachel walked up to the sheriff. “Maybe it’s best if you
don’t
bring her back here at all. This whole matter is unseemly, and I think Mother
and I would like to put it behind us.”

“It’ll be put behind us,
Miss Barnwell, as soon as we get to the bottom of it.”

“Any public attention
about this would be dreadful—
just dreadful!
—for our family. Don’t you
think we’ve suffered enough, Sheriff?” Charlotte asked reproachfully.

The sheriff didn’t reply.
He seemed sympathetic to their desire to avoid a scandal yet unable to assure
them that it could be prevented.

“Everyone knows there’s
only one outcome for a slave who killed my father,” Rachel continued coldly.
“So what’s the difference if
we . . . settle . . . the matter there
or bring her back here?”

Tom was stunned. “You’re
asking what’s the difference? Between murder and justice?”

“Now whoever said that?”
Rachel replied innocently. “Why, I declare, Tom Edmunton, you don’t understand
us at all!”

“No, I don’t!”

“The girl must be
hanged
!”
Cooper seized the idea hovering in the air like a ball in play. “We have to
send a
clear message
to the rest of the slaves. And the sooner the
better.”

“Sheriff, you can spare
us any further unpleasantness by taking care of the matter
there
!”
Rachel repeated. “Maybe Nash can
help . . . handle . . . things.” Rachel
tilted her head down, looking up coquettishly at Nash, the way she used to look
at Tom.

Nash hesitated. He smiled
to give her hope but stopped short of saying whether he would commit murder on her
behalf.

“Now see here, all of
you! There will be no talk like this as long as I’m sheriff. I’ll bring the
girl back. If she proves to be a suspect, she’ll be charged and get due
process.”

“Robbie, you know a slave
won’t get a jury trial here. A few local slave owners and judges will hear the
case and decide it for themselves.” Cooper smiled cynically. “They’ll all be
our friends and people Wiley and I got appointed to the bench.”

Among the Southern
states, Louisiana was especially harsh toward slaves accused of crimes,
providing for special tribunals of judges and slave holders to decide their
guilt or innocence rather than giving them a trial by an impartial jury. And
the ominous possibility loomed for Judge Lynch to open and adjourn the court,
especially when the crime was egregious and stoked the planters’ fears of
insurrection.

“The outcome has to be
what it has to be,” Cooper added softly, like a father instructing a son on a
difficult matter, “or else the others will get
dangerous
ideas.”

The sheriff responded
sharply. “We haven’t even
questioned
her yet, and you’re out for blood.
I’ll
handle the matter. And
you
keep out of it.”

“Robbie, how you talk to
me!” Cooper’s face bore the disappointment of a father unaccustomed to being
contradicted by a son.

“
All
of you keep
out of it.”

“Sheriff,” said Tom,
“this woman may be able to lead me to my invention, which I’m most eager to
recover.”

“You can be sure we’ll
question her about that.”

“And what if you find his
confounded invention, Robbie?” asked Cooper.

“If we locate the device,
it’ll be returned to its owner.”

“No, Sheriff, you mustn’t
return it!” cried Nash.

“That thing’s evidence of
sedition. It has to be confiscated, so we can throw the Yankee in jail,” said
Cooper.

“We’ll give him a trial
first, just to make it look good,” added Nash.

The sheriff stared
incredulously at his uncle and Nash.

“Go home!” he ordered.
“This meeting’s over. Everybody
go home
.”

Tom remained while the
others left the parlor. His eyes were distant and his face introspective as he
assessed the situation. He felt an isolation beyond the empty room in which he
stood. He realized there was no one around him—not even the woman he had
loved—who recognized any glory in his invention. The crime now appeared to be
related to a slave’s revenge against a man she had reason to hate, nothing more
complicated. His device, the harbinger of a new age, seemed to be the
accidental victim of a dying one.

Would he ever retrieve
his machine, and would the new age get
its
fair trial?

Chapter
23

As Tom left the big
house, a fragrant whiff of wisteria provided a welcome relief from the stale
air of the meeting. In front of him, standing by their carriage, Rachel and
Charlotte conversed with Kate Markham. The well-groomed women, the shiny black
carriage, and the purple wisteria arching on a bower by the road created a
scene of gentility.

Behind the house, a scene
of violence was playing out. From the gallery Tom heard the snap of a whip and
a victim crying out in pain. He rushed to the back of the porch, where he saw a
man who had rearmed himself after the meeting and who lacked the self-control
to wait until the guests had left to launch his attack.

“Shut up! Shut up! You
good-fer-nothin’ snitch!” Furious, Markham towered over Farley.

Tom leaped off the
veranda and jumped on Markham. The overseer broke away and in a fit of rage
lashed the whip at Tom, leaving a burning slit across his cheek, from which
blood trickled down his face. Markham gloated at what he appeared to see as one
of the more pleasing moments of his tenure at the Crossroads.

Tom wrestled the whip
away from him and gave the overseer two swipes across his knees. Markham fell
to the ground, groaning.

The three women rushed to
the back of the house to see what the commotion was.

“My God!” gasped
Charlotte.

Tom stood with his face
swelling where he’d been lashed. He brandished the whip in his hand, hovering
over Markham. He could have struck the man repeatedly with it. Instead, he
called out Jerome’s name, and the slave, who was investigating the operation in
the nearby kitchen, heard and walked toward Tom.

“Take Farley away. He’s
coming home with us.”

Farley’s shirt had
several tears from the lash, but Tom had intervened before the damage was
extensive. Jerome put a reassuring arm around Farley’s shoulder.

Markham rose to his feet.
“Who do you think you are, Yankee? You can’t take my field hand!”

“Who do you think
you
are, beating up a man for speaking the truth?” said Tom.

“He ain’t no man. He’s a
slave.”

“He spoke the truth, and
you lied. If anyone should be whipped, it’s
you
.”

Now in Tom’s protection,
Farley apparently felt it safe to look at Markham with dark, shining eyes
filled with contempt, too probing for Markham’s comfort. “Get back to yer
cabin!” he roared.

Farley looked at Jerome.
Jerome looked at Tom.

“Get the wagon, Jerome.
You and Farley get in. I’ll be right there.” He took out a handkerchief and
wiped the blood from his face.

“That’s slave stealin’,
Yankee. I can shoot you fer that,” said Markham.

“Go on, Jerome,” said
Tom.

Suddenly, Markham reached
for his gun. Before the women had time to gasp, Tom snapped the whip over
Markham’s hand, and the gun dropped.

“Pick up the gun,
Jerome,” said Tom.

“Yer givin’ a slave a
gun!” yelped Markham, his wrist beaded with red where the whip sliced it.

Jerome calmly picked up
the gun and gave it to Tom. Then he escorted Farley away.

“Tom! Whatever are you
doing?” cried Charlotte.

“I’ll bring Farley back
after Markham is gone.”

What do you mean,
gone
?”
Charlotte bristled.

Tom turned to Markham.
“You’re fired! Take the money Barnwell gave you to destroy my invention, and
clear out. Now.”

“Yer not my boss! Mrs.
Barnwell, you see him stealin’ yer field hand. I was jus’ defendin’ yer
property. You can’t let him get away with this, ma’am.” Markham pled his case
to the new owner of the Crossroads.

“What on earth do you
think you’re doing, upsetting us all like this, Tom Edmunton?” Rachel crossed
her arms in indignation.

Markham shot a hopeful
glance at the young woman.

“I gave the field hand my
word that he wouldn’t be harmed for speaking the truth.” Tom replied.

“You don’t have to keep
your word to a
slave,
” said Rachel.

“But if
he
told
me
the truth, why would my word to him be anything less?”

“The overseer handles the
slaves. We don’t interfere, and we didn’t give you permission to interfere
either,” Rachel continued, her mother nodding in agreement.

“Don’t you care to
protect a man who spoke the truth in the case of your father’s murder, instead
of the man who lied?”

Rachel’s eyes flashed
angrily. “Let me tell you something, Tom. My father was a kind master. He
treated the slaves like his own children. But he knew when punishment was
necessary, and he didn’t flinch from it. Will you ever be the man that he was?”

“No, I won’t.”

“You have to stand up to
the slaves.”

“Do you really think it’s
a good idea to be at war with your workers—or to treat them like children?”

“That’s not how we look
at things. Mr. Markham knows how to keep the . . . workers,
as you call them . . . in line.”

“Your Aunt Polly wouldn’t
approve of what he did. He has to go, Rachel.”

“No.”

Tom looked at her in
disbelief. “You want him to stay? After he pulled a gun on me?”

“But we can’t do without
him! Have you forgotten in your arrogance that you and your invention got us
into this mess? It ripped my poor father away from his family. And it foiled
our plan for Mr. Cooper to buy the Crossroads. You know, Mother has spoken to
him since he was released from jail, but he’s no longer interested.”

“That’s correct.”
Charlotte scolded Tom: “Mr. Cooper isn’t buying the Crossroads because
you’re
managing it, and he refuses to deal with you.”

“You mean he’s not buying
because I won’t give him a loan with no collateral,” Tom retorted.

“After you chased away
our buyer, you now want to leave us without an overseer too?” Rachel snapped.
“After your foolhardiness led to Papa’s death, don’t you owe us some respect?”

“Rachel, I don’t know
what killed your father. All I know is he made a deal to kill my invention, and
he treated a slave pretty badly, a slave he sold, who might be related—”

“Oh, sweet mercy! What a
horrible thing to say!” Rachel’s reproaches fell on a man who no longer was
weighed down by them, a man whose face now was free of guilt for the death of
her father.

Tom turned to Charlotte.
“Mrs. Barnwell, I have a capable overseer, Nick Bergen, whose brothers are also
overseers. I think one of them is available for hire. He could come here
temporarily, and if you like the job he does, he could be your man. If he’s
half as good as Nick, he’ll give you a fine crop. And he’ll treat the slaves
well too.”

“I’m not interested in
the least! Mr. Markham will stay. You have no right to fire him against my
wishes, no right at all!” replied Charlotte.

“That’s true, Mrs.
Barnwell, I can’t fire Markham, but I can withdraw my loan offer to get you
through the growing season.”

“What!” yelled Rachel.

“I don’t give loans to
pay for the likes of Markham.”

“Lord in heaven! How
could you? That’s blackmail, pure and simple!” Charlotte put her hand on her
heart, and her eyes rolled to the sky in despair. “Besides, if Mr. Markham
leaves, then we’ll lose his sister too, and God knows, I haven’t a clue how I’d
manage without her.”

“Miss Markham is certainly
welcome to stay. I have no quarrel with her whatsoever.” Tom bowed his head
graciously to Kate.

“My sister’ll stick with
her kin. That’s how we do things here, Yankee.”

“Certainly she’ll leave
with her brother,” Charlotte said to Tom, “after you humiliated and degraded
him. If he’s fired, she’ll go too.”

“No, I won’t!” uttered
Kate.

“What in tarnation,
Katy—”

“Hush!” Kate ordered, and
the man twice her size was silenced.

Charlotte and Rachel
looked astonished.

Kate reassuringly placed
her hands on Charlotte’s. “Mrs. Barnwell, trust me, you’ll be much better off
without my brother. The servants were fond of Miss Polly. She treated them
kindly.” She cocked her head in displeasure toward her brother.
“Bret’s . . . sort . . . doesn’t belong
here.”

Kate’s comforting tone
calmed the widow. Charlotte’s anger was cooling; she looked thoughtful.

“I’ll help Mr. Edmunton
and the new overseer get your crop planted, Mrs. Barnwell. Believe me, I can
get in the field myself and manage the gangs if I have to,” Kate added, her
cheerful self-confidence sweeping away Charlotte’s desperation.

“As for you, Bret,” Kate
said sternly, “before Polly Barnwell’s even cold in her grave, you’re trying to
make trouble here! I’ll give you the two hundred dollars, and you can clear out
before sunset. If you’re smart, you’ll take it and find another line of work.”

She turned to Tom. “The
furniture in Bret’s cottage belongs to Miss Polly. He came with nothing and
will leave with nothing. Only the clothes—and the weapons—are his.”

The women were
speechless.

Tom smiled. “I guess that
settles it.”

Charlotte sighed wearily.
“Okay, Tom. I’m in too much need of your help and your loan to argue.” She
turned to the overseer, whose mouth was agape and eyes were bulging in utter
dismay. “Mr. Markham, I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

“But . . . but
Mrs. Barnwell—”

“The decision is final,
sir.”

“That ain’t right,
ma’am!” Markham growled at Charlotte.

The new mistress of the
Crossroads silently stood her ground.

Finally, Markham shrugged
resignedly, then turned to his sister. “Get yer stuff together. Yer comin’ with
me.”

“No, I’m not! I’m going
to stay on here and help Mr. Edmunton and the Barnwells.” She turned to Tom.
“I’ll be sure he clears out before sundown.”

“Katy! How could you
desert yer own kin?”

“And you can leave Farley
with me, Mr. Edmunton. I assure you he
won’t
be harmed.”

“I’ll do that.”

Tom trusted the woman who
seemed more like his own kin—in sentiment, if not in blood—than like Markham’s.
He called to Jerome, who was waiting in their wagon at the front entrance.
“Bring Farley to Miss Markham.”

Farley walked toward
Kate, who flashed him a kindly smile. “You stay here with me tonight and help
the house servants.” That seemed to allay his fears.

Kate turned to her
brother and pointed in the direction of his cottage. “Go now. Pack your things.
Find a laborer’s job that keeps you away from the slaves. You have enough
trouble managing yourself, without having to handle them.”

Markham walked up to Tom
and held out his hand for his gun and whip. Tom appraised him thoughtfully,
then decided to give him the weapons.

Markham grabbed them, his
eyes filled with hate.

He turned to gape
petulantly at Charlotte, giving her a start. “This soil here’s been planted
with my sweat. You wronged me, ma’am. You done me wrong!”

“Is that
a . . . threat . . . Mr. Markham?”
Charlotte’s voice was reduced to a whisper.

Markham didn’t reply. He
turned to Tom.

“You don’t belong here,
Yankee. You’re the one should be clearin’ out. You’re gonna pay fer this.”