Rafe (22 page)

Beaumarchant nodded, dropped the tongs and sat on a log. He always sat when his friend talked to him, for then he could concentrate better, remember the words his friend said.

“There is to be a fight. And he who wins will get much money, much land. Do you understand?”

Beaumarchant thought a moment, nodded.

“Good. It is Ezra Clayton's land that is wagered. He is one who looks down on us and thinks we are dirt. He has a nigger who fights. Who kills white men. This nigger has said he will kill you, Beau.” The giant started to rise, sat abruptly when his friend motioned he had more to tell him. “He has called Beaumarchant and Duggins fools. You he has called a coward and says you dare not fight him.” He paused to let the information sink in, watched as realization came and the massive head swayed back and forth with the slow beginnings of anger. “I have told him you are a brave man and not afraid to meet him. That you will tear him into pieces in front of everyone. Clayton does not believe me, but he will find out. Will you fight this nigger?”

Beaumarchant thought for a moment then reached in the tub and picked out the cooled iron. His terrible visage set, he grasped the ends of a new horseshoe and, barely straining, bent it straight, then tossed it back into the fire. Duggins understood. It had been easier than he thought, and now the asking was over, he didn't feel nearly as bad as he thought he would. He watched as Beau turned back to the forge, picked up the tongs and turned the iron. Thank goodness the Cajun hadn't gone berserk with the mention of a fight, as he might well have. Duggins watched the rippling muscles as Beau pumped the bellows. He went to the giant's side, touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Beau,” Duggins said over the roar of the flames, “you can kill that nigger as slow as you like. Hear?”

The light of the fire reflected on the shiny scar. A semblance of a death's-head grin split Beaumarchant's gnarled features.

Duggins left the shed, stood in the growing heat of the sun, cool in contrast to that of the forge. He smiled. A little less than four weeks. He'd have to buy more slaves, of course. Perhaps from Ezra himself, who wouldn't need quite so many with a quarter of his plantation gone. The thought was amusing. He tried to picture his adversary's face.…

Ezra gazed steadily ahead, lost in thought. Midmorning and the shay tore along the highroad at a run, the horse still fresh enough after an early start from Fort Jessup. Dust drifted back from the two guards riding point. Behind him rode a foursome of well-armed men. Clayton kept his left hand inside his coat where, beneath the cloth, a pistol was aimed at his driver. Between them rested a blunderbuss. Ezra took no chances. Not with three thousand dollars in gold. They rounded a pair of Indian mounds similar to the one at the rear of the pecan grove where he would rendezvous with Patrick Fitzman. He had until midnight to formulate a plan.

The trail split and ran through a small stand of oaks, then wound down into Claytonville. They slowed not at all. The six riders and shay made such a clatter that people came out of their shops and houses to watch. A thin, bony white girl waved from the top window of Black Bedetta's and two of the guards waved back. Patrick Fitzman heard the commotion but didn't go to see. He was busy with Bedetta in the huge white bed.

Dogs yelped and ran for cover. Children squealed at the noise and activity, raced alongside the shay as far as they could. Joe Terson, sweeping the board walkway fronting his store, laid the broom aside and raised his hand in greeting. The shay passed and Ezra ignored him. Inside, Reverend Leahy's new bride lowered a bolt of calico and gazed wistfully at the carriage. Abigail Terson ran to close the door and shut out the rolling cloud of choking dust, cursing Ezra Clayton and his bullies and his money, the likes of which she knew her husband would never come close to having. Money was there for those who already had it.

Ezra frowned when they passed the road cutting south to Burr's Ferry and Duggins' place. Patrick Fitzman was problem enough without Duggins and Beaumarchant. But to everything its own time. Patrick Fitzman first, then Duggins and his half-wit monster.

They passed the last business and headed up the higher ground, at the crest of which Freedom began, leaving behind them a meager stillness to settle with the dust.…

“Empty!!” Ezra shouted furiously. The word echoed back to him, carrying back down the hill to Claytonville, shimmering in the distant heat. He shaded his eyes and peered across his other fields of cotton, cane and food crops all the way to the stark white plantation house gleaming beyond the matched magnolias. All were devoid of life.

“Empty!” he screamed again, his hands outstretched, his back arched.…

The shay came to a careening halt in front of the house, almost running down a guard who stumbled and fell, rising shakily to his feet only to find himself staring down the awesome maw of his employer's J. Henry pistol. “Where's my niggers?” Ezra asked, his breath coming in furious rasps. The pistol in his hand did not waver an inch.

The guard, usually a surly youngster, doffed his cap. “Suh, they back at the shanties.”

“What the goddam hell they doing
there?
”

“Miss Fitzman.…” the youngster's voice cracked into a higher pitch and he tried again. “Miss Fitzman done declared a holiday and given ever'body yesterday an' today off.”

Ezra went livid with rage. The guard, quaking now, backed from him. “Get Butkis. I want to see him. I'll be inside. You tell him I want him right now.”

“Yessuh!”

“Git!”

The guard leaped away, tripped, regained his footing and scrambled off around the corner of the house. Ezra dismissed his escort, and pistol and satchel in hand, entered the house. The Negro manservant stepped aside as the door swung open then slammed back on its hinges. He recovered enough to bow as Ezra entered.

“Where's the girl?”

“Miss Fitzman an' her mother gone on a picnic, suh. They won't be back 'til later this aftahnoon. They say they be spending the day with Madame Bernard.”

Ezra cursed and started for the library, stopping suddenly to scrutinize the gray-haired servant. The slave coughed nervously, tried, too late, to leave. “Come here,” Ezra commanded shortly. The slave advanced, stood trembling in front of the threatening figure. “I know you.”

“Yassuh.”

“I sent you to the fields, sent you to live with the field niggers. What're you doing in my house?”

The old man lowered his head and answered in a cultured voice. “Miss Fitzman. She found me. Told me to come back here to the house to work like I used to.”

Ezra raised the pistol, pointing it at the manservant. “Take off those clothes,” he ordered, his voice bristling with quiet menace.

“Suh?”

Ezra cocked the pistol. Sweat beaded the servant's brow and upper lip. His white burred head bobbed up and down quickly in acquiescence as he hurried to slip out of his butler's coat and lay it across a chair.

“All of them,” Ezra commanded, jerking the gun under the older man's face. The slave proceeded to remove his other garments; vest, cravat, shirt, trousers and polished shoes. His thin, naked frame shivered despite the humid stuffiness of the hall. Fear was the deepest chill of all. “Now you git back to the field shanties. And if I ever catch you near this house again I'll hang you up by your pecker.”

Tears of shame mingled with the sweat. “Yassuh,” the old man replied weakly. He opened the door and stepped out onto the gallery, his bare feet hardly making a sound on the wooden floor. He went down the front steps and headed for the field shanties, his head bowed to avoid the eyes of anyone he might meet. Naked, he returned to the shanties. No one laughed, not even the guards.

Back in the house Ezra poured himself a glass of whiskey. He removed his coat, stripped away his sweat-soaked shirt and ordered Julie to bring him a wet towel and fresh linen. The lithe mulatto lost no time, hurried up the stairs to Ezra's room, wet and wrung out a towel, found a white shirt and scampered back to the library, nearly colliding with Butkis in her haste.

Butkis started to snarl and cuff her away but Ezra was there watching, his eyes beady with anger. The overseer stepped aside and let the girl go first, silently entering the room after her. Ezra grunted and grabbed for the towel, and ran the wet cloth through the damp hair on his chest, threw it aside. Julie held the shirt for him, then buttoned it. “Get out,” he commanded hoarsely. “Wait upstairs. Pretty yourself. You smell of scullery sweat. I'll be along as soon as I'm finished with Butkis.”

Standing in some semblance of attention, the overseer shuddered inwardly at the way Ezra said “finished.” The girl fled the room, in haste to be as far as possible from what was about to follow. The door slammed behind her, locking the room in silence.

Ezra sat, poured himself some more whiskey and turned his cold, piercing eyes toward Butkis. “Who am I?” he asked, his voice ominously pleasant.

Butkis fidgeted. “Sir?”

Ezra's hand slammed down on the desk. The guard jumped despite himself. “Who am I?”

“Mistah Clayton.”

“You're goddamned right.” Ezra sipped his whiskey, his eyes, calculating, showing no trace of the seething rage just below the surface. “Who pays you, Mr. Butkis?”

“You, sir.”

“Who feeds you?”

“You.”

“Who?” Ezra barked.

“Sir,” the overseer amended.

“Whose land is this?”

“Yours, sir.”

“Whose niggers?”

“Yours, sir.”

“Then why the goddamn hell aren't they in the fields?”

“Miss Fitzman.…”

“Damn Miss Fitzman! There's only one law here, my law. Only one word, my word. Only one say so, mine. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ezra sighed, sat back in his chair, satisfied he'd put the fear into Butkis. “Very well, Mr. Butkis. It's a short while before noon. I want my darkies in the field within the next hour and I want them there and working until nightfall. Come morning I want to hear them back at it when I get up. And you tell those bumpkins that call themselves guards to lay the whip on. They had nearly two days of extra rest and I expect them niggers to work twice as hard for four, and they'll work Sunday to boot. You tell 'em that. And you tell 'em I'll personally be out and around. Every cotton plant, every corn plant I see chopped up, they'll pay for with sweat. You tell 'em that, too. Now get out of here. I'm tired.”

Butkis started toward the door. He hesitated, turned back to Ezra. “Mistah Clayton?”

Ezra finished his whiskey, poured another. “Now what?”

“I hate to tell you now, but we got some trouble.”

“What?”

“One of the field hands, a little girl, is missing. The niggers, they're kind of upset they can't find her.”

“What happened?”

“Well, yestiday, things was kinda lazy like with the niggers not bein' in the fields.…” Ezra scowled, Butkis hurried on. “I was headin' over to the river to check on my men there and noticed Decater sneakin' off into the woods. Didn't give him too much thought, but did ask myself, why ain't that roister with the others? Well, sir, I didn't have no answer, but then it weren't much none of my business, him having the day off an' all. So I went on to the river. Now when I come back, I heard a bunch of noise. A girl callin' out. I follered the noise, keepin' outta sight an' come upon Decater with one of them little pickaninnies from the field shanties. Lornie May's girl, I guess, the one they called Beulah. Couldn't be more'n twelve or thirteen.

“Anyway, ol' Decater was outta his drawers an' she was too. He's makin' her diddle him, but then he's want-in' more, wants to put it in. Well sir, she commences to squawk an' holler with him climbin' on her. She jus' weren't ripe for it. He jabs it in an' it hurt her so she screams an' carries on an' afore I know it, he grabbed her neck an' slammed her head down so fast I can't do nothin'. She was quiet then, an' he finished his job and rolled off'n her.

“All of a sudden-like it dawns on him she ain't makin' any sounds a'tall. Dead she was. He git all scared and covered her over with leaves an' the like, pulled on his drawers an' hurried off. Me, I'm thinkin' this sure is somethin' but I don't dare say nuthin', 'cause I figger them field niggers ever find out, Decater's life won't be worth swamp water. Anyway, the niggers are all fired up, an' I figgered you oughta know why.”

Ezra drained his whiskey, turned to look out the window. Decater's life
wasn't
worth swamp water—or much of anything else—and for the first time that day something was going right. He smiled, the plan full-blown in his mind. Decater was going to play an important role in the continuing success of Ezra Clayton and Freedom Plantation.

“Very good, Mr. Butkis. A delightful recitation. Check outside the door, then come back and sit down.” Butkis hurried to do as he was told, turned to see his employer set out a glass of whiskey for him. “Sit down, Mr. Butkis. We have some talking to do.…”

“Beaumarchant? Yo' mean yo' goana fight farmer Duggins' man?”

Rafe ignored Cat and concentrated on the red beans, rice and pork filling his wooden bowl. Grease seeped from the corners of his mouth, ran down his chin. He wiped it away with a hastily raised forearm and continued eating. Flies began to swarm and cluster on his arm. He ignored them as well.

“Dat scar-faced Cajun? Hell, he ain't eben human.” Cat squatted in front of Rafe, knowing Dingo, Trinidad and several of the others were close enough to overhear. “Ah knows dat white man. Ugly as sin. Got a face dat would souah milk.”

“I ain't fightin' the way he looks, boy. Looks don't count.”

“If yo' was, an' if dey did, yo' be dead already. If'n looks was killin', dat man could nail yo' ass from a mile away.”