Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (36 page)

Josie began to ride out in the late mornings. The days were
cooler now, and both rider and horse breathed easier in the autumn air. Josie
only once directed Beau south on the river road. She thought she might ride as
far as the Cherleu-Toulouse border, just for a change of scene. When she
reached the peach orchard, no longer fragrant and fecund as it had been when
Bertrand kissed her under the live-oak, she pulled Beau up in the middle of the
road. She gazed at the orchard, then focused on the oak on the far side. So
much more than a kiss, she remembered.

He had loved her that day. She knew he had.

She turned Beau around and rode home. Back at the house,
Josie untied her bonnet. “Laurie?” she called.

The little girl, grown so much that her feedsack dress
skimmed her knees, came padding barefoot into the parlor. “Here I is,” she
said.

“How is Madame? Did she eat her lunch?”

“She jest like when you left dis mornin’. She don’ do
nothing ‘cept sleep all de time. Seem like even her good eye don’ hardly open
no more.”

“Have Cleo bring me a plate, and you stay with Madame.”

“Cleo not gone want to bring you no lunch plate, Mam’zelle.”

Josie raised an eyebrow at her.

“Well, I’s jus’ tellin’ you. She laid up.”

“Cleo’s sick? She’s never sick.”

“Dis not no regular sickness. Dis here from what dat ugly
LeBrec do to her.”

Josie hurried to the bedroom and flung open the door. Cleo
lay on her cot against the wall, her knees drawn up and a sheet pulled over her
head.

Josie knelt and eased the cover down. Cleo’s lip was split
and trickling blood. Her left eye was swelled nearly shut and her eyes were
unfocused. Fine dots of blood oozed where a patch of hair at her temple had
been pulled out. Josie’s throat swelled with rage. She would see that man paid
for this!

Cleo shrank away when Josie put her hand on her shoulder.
“Cleo, it’s me.”

“Josie?” Cleo’s eyes cleared for a moment. “Josie, he hurt
me bad.”

When Cleo began to cry, Josie fought back her own tears.
“You’ll never see him again, Cleo. Never. I promise.”

Over her shoulder, Josie told Laurie to go to Louella. “Tell
her we need hot water, right away. Wait, bring me the brandy first.”

Josie pulled the sheet back up to Cleo’s chin. She lay down
on the cot next to her, wrapped her arms around her and held tight while Cleo
cried. “We’ll wash all the filth off you, Cleo,” she told her. “You’re going to
be all right.”

This was her fault, Josie thought. She should have got rid
of that man months ago. She took a glass of brandy from Laurie. “Sit up a
little and drink this.”

Louella rushed in with a kettle and a basin. “Cleo, why you
don’ tell me you hurt?”

Cleo coughed and then managed another swallow of brandy. “I cut him,
Josie.”

“You cut dat debil? Good fo’ yo, chile,” Louella said. To
Josie, she explained, “She kep’ yo Papa’s razor in her pocket.”

Oh, how Papa would grieve to see Cleo hurt.
I’m sorry,
Papa. I’m so sorry.
Josie swallowed her tears. She would cry later, but now
Cleo needed her.

Josie, with Louella’s help, bathed Cleo and put a soft clean
shift on her. She brushed the dirt and debris out of the long black curls. Then
as Cleo became light-headed and drowsy from the brandy, Josie began to dress
her injuries. She consulted the book of remedies and with trembling fingers
applied a poultice to the bruises, a salve to the cuts and abrasions.

While Cleo slept, Josie searched through Grand-mère’s book.
Near the back she found the recipes for terminating pregnancies. Turpentine,
quinine water in which a rusty nail has been soaked, ginger, or even
horseradish reputedly aborted an early fetus. But according to the book,
pregnancy did not occur instantaneously. It took time for the “miracle” to
occur, and Cleo had been raped only a few hours before.

Prevention. Here it was, in the pages after the
abortifacients. Douching. One could use a vinegar mixture, or a syrup made of
boiled ants. Grand-mère had marked a check next to the vinegar and water
formula. In the margin, she had also noted a tea made from the root of worm
fern to be drunk prior to douching. Ursaline would know what worm fern was.
When Cleo had had her sleep, they would do what they had to do protect her from
LeBrec’s foul seed.

With Cleo safe in bed and the plans made for dosing her with
worm fern later, Josie allowed her anger to take over. She left Louella sitting
with Cleo and strode across the back courtyard to the overseer’s house.

Madame LeBrec met her at the door. The children, a boy of
six and a girl about two, clung to their mother’s skirts and peered at the
Mademoiselle. “
Bonjour
, Mademoiselle Tassin,” she simpered. “How kind of
you to come calling.”

Josie read fear in the woman’s eyes. Then she knew.

“I’ve come for your husband, Madame.”

“Likely you heard about that gal cutting my husband this
morning. She cut him bad, she did.” Madame LeBrec hurried on. “He’s had trouble
with that one before, he told me he did. She’s a sassy one, always unsettling
them others and thinking she can flirt her way out of trouble.”

Josie looked at her coldly. How many times had this woman
covered up for LeBrec?

“I seen her myself,” the woman said. “Swaying her hips at my
husband. She’s a bad one.”

“Where is he working today?”

“He’s a good man, my husband is. You won’t find a better
overseer anywhere. It’s just the girls are after him all the time. You seen
yourself what a fine looking man he is.”

Josie eyed the two children. Yves and Sylvie, she remembered.
And Bettina, the mother. The children both looked like their father, handsome
children, whose big eyes took her in as if she were an avenging goddess. She
was sorry to frighten them, but she meant to see their father as soon as
possible. Kindly, she asked the boy, “Do you know where your father is working
today?”

“He said at breakfast he’s gone be down in the south fields,
at Coon Corner. Another day, he said, I can go with him.”

Madame LeBrec changed her tone. “That’s a long walk,
Mademoiselle,” she warned, her tone pitched to be intimidating. “Too far for
you to go. Why don’t you wait until this evening? My husband can come see you
at the house after supper.”

Josie didn’t bother to answer. As she marched toward the
stable, Madame LeBrec called after her, “You can’t believe nothing that slut
says.”

Josie told the stable boy to saddle Beau and sent another
child to find Elbow John. With John trailing behind her on a mule, Josie rode
out to Coon Corner.

When she spotted LeBrec sitting on his horse, watching the
slaves work the cane, her anger burned. He’d never touch another girl on
Toulouse. She only wished she could cut off the offending member so that he
never touched another woman anywhere.

White hot in her anger, Josie remained in control. She spurred
Beau into a gallop and charged at LeBrec. At the last second, she reined Beau
in sharply, spooking both LeBrec and his horse. While LeBrec pulled on his
horse’s reins, Josie sat her saddle in regal composure.

The razor slash crossed LeBrec’s cheek from nose to ear. As
LeBrec cursed his horse and whipped him across the face, Josie noted with
satisfaction that the wound had bled through the clumsy bandage.

“What the hell did you do that for?” LeBrec said angrily.

“To get your attention, Monsieur.”

He glared at her. “What kind of game you playing?”

His surly manners wouldn’t matter after today, Josie
thought. “You will pack your things and be off this property by nightfall,
Monsieur.”

“The devil you say. I don’t take my orders from no gal. I’ll
straighten this out with Madame Tassin.”

He whirled his horse and whipped its flanks. Josie’s impulse
was to race him back to the house, to beat him to her grandmother. But she
didn’t. She nodded to the slaves who had stopped to gape at the scene. Then she
trotted Beau back toward the house, Elbow John following behind.

When she rode into the back courtyard, LeBrec’s lathered
horse stood in the sun near the back stairs. “A disgraceful way to treat an
animal,” she said to Elbow John. “Tie him in the shade and give him some water.
Then come to me in the house.”

Inside, Grand-mère had LeBrec pinned to a chair with her
gaze. Her speech was excited and she jabbed her finger at him. Neither Laurie
nor LeBrec could understand her, but Josie didn’t need to.

She put her hand on Grand-mère’s shoulder, quieting her.
“Don’t concern yourself, Grand-mère,” she said. “Monsieur LeBrec is under the
impression I have no authority. Now he will understand otherwise.

“Monsieur, I tell you once more. Collect your belongings and
your family. I will write you a draft for the money owed you, and you will
leave Toulouse before nightfall.”

“Now see here…” LeBrec began and looked to Madame. She said
nothing, but the look of glee in her eye told him he needn’t appeal to her.

“John,” Josie said as he came up beside her, “if Monsieur
does not leave willingly, you will have Old Sam and his sons ready to help him
on his way.”

She held LeBrec’s furious eyes until he backed down. He
slapped his filthy hat against his leg and stomped through the parlor and out
the back way.

Only then did Josie allow her knees to tremble. She walked
around the rolling chair and sank onto the settee. Now she would have to face
Grand-mère’s scolding. What did she think she was doing? Grand-mère would say.
What were they supposed to do without an overseer, and the cane nearly ready
for harvest?

Josie braced herself and looked at her grandmother, resolved
to hear her out before she explained. But instead of scowling, Grand-mère’s
crooked mouth pulled up and her eyes gleamed approval.

She pointed her hand at Josie and, distorted as her speech
was, managed to make herself understood. “'Stress . . . Toulouse,” she said.

As the sun sank to the treetops, LeBrec crossed the rope
over and through the chairs, beds, and boxes in the wagon and then pulled it
taut. His movements were efficient and unhurried. The only sign of the fury
inside him was in the depths of his dark eyes. He ignored the cluster of
colored men with Elbow John who looked on in silence.

On the porch, Madame LeBrec stood straight with tears
streaming over her cheeks. Yves held himself like a little soldier next to her;
Sylvie clung to her skirt, her thumb in her mouth.

His wife and the children would have to sleep out of doors
in the cold tonight, like vagrants, LeBrec fumed. The miasma of the evening
air, who knew what that might do to Sylvie, and her just getting over a cough.
That bitch, Josephine. Not even to give them ‘til morning. If Sylvie got sick
again …

He touched the fresh bandage Bettina had put on the slash.
It had bled through again, and it hurt worse than the toothache. He needed
stitches, but that would have to wait.

LeBrec pulled the oat bag off his horse’s nose and tossed it
in the wagon. It belonged to Toulouse, but so what. She’d paid him his wages,
but money didn’t begin to cover what she was doing to his family. They were
likely to be homeless for days, at the least. He’d find work in Baton Rouge –
they’d never go hungry, he’d take care of that. But they were scared, and that
was her fault.

Hers and that high-toned colored girl. Cleo, Cleo with her
uppity airs. For all her better-than-you looks, she was nothing but a slave.
And she wanted it, just like the rest of them.

He cinched the saddle on his horse too tight and the mare
shuffled its feet and grunted. LeBrec hadn’t had a drink all day, not even for
the pain in his face, and the top of his head felt as though it might blow off.
Controlling his frustration, he loosened the cinch and started over. He’d set
up camp, build a fire an hour or two up the river. Once the kids were settled
in, then he’d have a drink.

LeBrec loaded his family into the wagon. “You first, son,”
he said. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll help your maman with the
mules. Climb on up there.”

He held a hand out to his wife. “Bettina.”

She wiped her eyes and took Sylvie’s hand. “I’m coming,” she
said.

LeBrec lifted Sylvie in to sit next to her brother. Then he
helped his wife climb up and handed her the reins. “That mule’s too old to give
you any trouble, Bett. Just let him follow me on the mare.”

All this time, Elbow John, Old Sam and his sons Etienne and
Laurent stood nearby, their arms folded. They offered no assistance, and LeBrec
added their witnessing of his disgrace to his list of grievances.

LeBrec mounted the mare, clucked to the mule, and pulled
out. He felt the slaves’ eyes on his back, and shame and rage boiled within
him.

“She’ll pay for this,” he muttered.

Three nights later, in the dark of the moon, LeBrec rode the
mare back downriver to Toulouse. He hitched the mare to a bare hickory tree and
spoke soothingly to her. As he made his way on foot through Sugar Hollow, the
prime field on the north side of Toulouse, the chorus of crickets resumed. The
cane waved over his head, nearly ready for harvest, but LeBrec had a better
target in mind.

At the edge of the quarter, he stopped and listened. No
child crying in the night, no low chuckles from the porches. Everyone slept.

The near-finished refinery loomed darker than the night sky.
A pile of boards lay nearby, cut and ready for Old Sam to have the crew lay on
the roof in the morning.

 LeBrec collected kindling from under the saw pen, pulled
moss from the nearest oak, and built a pile against the sugar refinery’s wall.
He pulled his flints from a pocket and struck a spark in the moss. He nurtured
the small flame and fed it more kindling.

The fire grew and glowed, its orange light gleaming on the
three-day beard, the dirty bandage, and LeBrec’s mad black eyes.