The Price of Freedom (21 page)

The thought flitted through his
mind that he could call for her but the truth was that while his mind was
willing his body was weak. He was just too exhausted.

He put the letter on his bedside
table and turned down the wick of the lantern until it went out. The smell of
Deborah on the pillow beside him stirred him in spite of his tiredness and
while he struggled to find the energy to call for her, sleep decided the matter
for him.

Deborah lay in her cot and
listened to her mother’s even breathing.  She was excited that she and
Richard would be going to Town tomorrow for she didn’t know the last time she
had been into Town. 

She had thought that he would call
for her tonight.  She was glad that he hadn’t, so that she didn’t have to
battle with herself as she did every time she gave in to him, but she missed
the warmth of his body next to hers and the strength of his arms around
her.  She missed his intoxicating kisses and his addicting caresses.

Stop it! She scolded
herself.  She did not want to be thinking of him in that way. She wondered
if he had already tired of her.  Had she lasted even less time than
Hattie?  Was it because she did not please him? No, he had said that she
was worth every pound he paid for her.  As if that was a compliment!

So she would keep her part of the
bargain and it would be strictly
business
.  He
was betrothed and he was going back to Carolina in two months.  She was a
slave and he was free.  The only thing she wanted from him was her
freedom.

The next day was somewhat overcast
which perfectly matched Deborah’s mood.  She wasn’t sure why she was
feeling so low in spirits; it certainly wasn’t because Richard did not call for
her last night.  She put on the best dress she had apart from the green
one and met him in the driveway where the stable boy had brought the carriage.

Richard was already seated with
the reins in his hands looking impatient. He gave her a hand up and she took
the seat next to him, making sure that she was as far as possible from him.

“Ready?” he asked and she nodded
but did not reply.

After travelling for quite a while
in silence he asked if everything was all right.

She said yes briefly but did not
elaborate.

Richard was acquainted with enough
women to know that she was lying.  He therefore knew that when she could
not contain herself any longer he would find out.  He almost smiled when a
mile or so down the road, Deborah asked, “Are you regretting our arrangement?”

“What do you mean?”

Did he mean for her to spell it
out? “You did not call for me last night so I wondered if you called Hattie to
come to you instead.”

She couldn’t seriously believe
that! “Deborah the only reason I did not call for you was because I was
incapable of doing anything other than sleeping after working in the fields all
day.”

“Oh,” she replied mollified.

“Were you worried that I had tired
of you already?” he teased.

“I was hoping that you had,” she
lied, “but then you might try to get out of your promise to free me. That’s all
I want.”

“I can’t imagine ever getting
tired of you,” he assured her and raised one of her hands to his lips.

Deborah was not sure why the day
seemed so much brighter than it had before they left, especially since the sky
was still covered with grey clouds.

At breakfast on Wednesday Thomas
brought Richard up to date on what had been done the day before. He was pleased
with the progress of the harvest but said that they needed to start harvesting
the more mature canes that were on the outskirts of the plantation otherwise
they would begin to lose their sugar content.

Nobody looked forward to
harvesting them because the stems were harder to cut and their distance from
the mill meant that they had to wait long periods for the carts to come back
from taking the canes to the mill, which often resulted in a backup of canes to
load.

His uncle told him that it was
easier to burn those canes, but the fire had to be managed carefully so that it
did not get out of control. Then the canes had to be processed the same day
otherwise they would spoil and the juice would be no good. That usually meant
running the mill and boiling house through the night.

"Do you have water out
there?" Richard asked.

"There's a well near the
field and we always have buckets on hand in case we need them. Don’t
worry,
we do this all the time."

Richard finished eating and
returned to his room to collect his hat as well as a large handkerchief in case
he needed to protect himself from inhaling the smoke. Deborah was tidying the
bed which had become disheveled during the night. Would he ever get enough of
this woman? Rather than getting her out of his system she seemed to be getting
further under his skin.

Deborah's heart sped up when
Richard entered the room.

“We’re burning canes today so I
need a kerchief to cover my nose.”

She paused in straightening the
bed just to feast her eyes on him as he dug through a drawer looking for a
large handkerchief.

Richard turned around to catch
Deborah looking at him with blatant desire on her face which evoked an immediate
response in him. She held a pillow in front of her as if in defense but he
crossed the room and took it from her, tossing it on the bed as he pulled her
close.

"You have no idea what you're
doing to me with that look in your eyes," he warned her.

"What look?" She asked
innocently.

"The look that says ..."
he whispered the rest in her ear and Deborah blushed. He kissed her thoroughly
before reluctantly pulling away and saying huskily, "I've got to go.”

For no apparent reason Deborah
began to feel a sense of foreboding and didn’t want him to go, but she could
hardly say so.

"Be careful," she said
instead.

"You sound like a wife,” he
teased. “I’ll be careful,” he promised. “I wouldn’t want to miss tonight,” and
was gone.

As she fluffed the pillows a
letter that was on the bedside table floated to the floor.  She had
noticed it the night before and she was sure that it was the one from his
fiancée.  It had seemed to accuse her as she shared his bed that night.

Picking it up she began to wonder what
she had written.  Had she told him she was missing him?  Shared
intimate secrets?  What was she like?  She was very tempted to read
it but she put it back without giving in to the temptation.

She quickly finished tidying the
bed and gathered up his dirty clothes. She would wash them along with the
dress, skirts and blouses he had bought her in town yesterday. She still could
not believe that Richard had bought her clothes because he hated seeing her in
the same drab slaves’ clothing. She did not know what she had done to deserve
such treatment but she would enjoy it while it lasted.

Sarah was doing the laundry when
Deborah joined her to wash Richard's clothes and hers. The day was already hot
but there was a strong wind that dispelled the heat and would dry the clothes
quickly.

"Master Richard treating you
real good," Sarah said smiling as she gestured at the new clothes.
"I’m glad.
You happy with him?"

Deborah smiled a little secret
smile and admitted, "Yes, ma. More than I expected to be. And he promised
to free me when he goes back to Carolina,” she confided. “But the mistress
doesn’t know so don’t tell the others.”

“I’m real glad, Deborah!  I
knew he was a good man.”  She hugged Deborah in delight. “Maybe the master
will free me too.” Deborah fervently
hoped
so. Maybe
the master would give her a little money to help them. She still didn’t know
what she would do once she was free.

Turning back to the clothes, she
finished washing them in a few minutes and took them to the drying yard in a
bucket. Without consciously thinking about it she hung Richard's on the line
and spread hers on some nearby bushes. Slaves did not hang their washing with
their master's.

She had spread the last shirt on
the bush, a green and white flowered one of the softest cotton, when she turned
to find Hattie behind her. She jumped in fright as she had not heard her walk
up and was about to scold her for startling her when Hattie said, "I don't
know what you gave Master Richard but you got him bewitched.  He
buy
them new clothes for you?” she asked jealously.

Deborah nodded, feeling guilty and
ashamed since she had scorned Hattie for accepting a shilling after sleeping
with Richard and here she was accepting clothes.  In a strange way, she
felt sorry for Hattie that Richard had moved on from her and she wondered how
she would feel when he went back to his fiancée.

Richard listened as his uncle and
the overseers went over the plans to burn the mature canes.  The area was
about ten acres and was next to a field of young canes which would not be ready
for harvesting until the following year.

The plan was to widen the track
between the older and younger canes to create a fire break to protect the young
canes and provide an access to load the burnt canes onto carts once the field
cooled down and the canes could be cut. There was already a rough cart road
between them but it had become overgrown in the rainy season.

Once the bush edging the field of
young canes was cleared they would start what his uncle called a perimeter fire
which was the quickest way to burn the canes.  He had said that this type
of fire had to be handled carefully since it was hotter and moved faster than
any of the other methods of burning. 

Richard and a crew of about twenty
slaves began to cut back the overgrown bush from the far end of the field and
worked their way down. He was happy that it was not as back breaking as cutting
sugar cane and this allowed them to make rapid progress. A cart followed them
so that they could pile the cuttings into it.

The overseers signaled with the
agreed gun shot that they were ready to start the fire. It was progressing well
and burning away from where Richard and the gang were cutting, when the wind
shifted suddenly and several sustained gusts from the south created a new head
and flames, aided by the wind, reached towards them like hellish hands. The
intense heat caused them to shrink back.

“What’s happening?” Richard
shouted to a slave over the crackle of the flames

“The wind shifted,” he
answered.  “Best get out quick,” he warned even as he ran.

“Run,” Richard urged the other
slaves even as he ran back to help the driver of the cart to control the
panicking horse. The horse reared up and its hoof clipped him on the temple
before it bolted down the track as Richard collapsed to the ground, stunned by
the blow.  The handkerchief, which he had been holding over his nose, blew
from his hand as he lost consciousness.

Thomas had ridden down towards the
track in time to see the slaves run out.

“Where is Richard?’ he asked one
of them who gestured towards the track, coughing. Thomas jumped from his horse
and ran towards the track where he found Richard lying on the ground with blood
trickling from a cut on his head. He picked him up under the arms and began to
drag him out and was relieved to see one of the slaves appear to help carry
him.

Loading him onto the cart, Thomas
anxiously checked to see if he was still breathing and was relieved to see his
chest move.  Once they moved away from the smoke, Richard began to cough
violently before slipping back into unconsciousness.

Thomas didn’t know how much smoke
he had inhaled and how bad the cut on his head was but he didn’t look good. He
swore to God that if he spared Richard’s life, he would give up something that
was important to him in exchange: Sarah.

Deborah saw the smoke in the
distance and once again a nervous feeling came over her.  She tried to
tell herself that the master was accustomed to doing controlled burning but the
feeling would not go away.

A high gust of wind made her look
frantically in the direction of the fire and she was frustrated that she could
not see anything apart from thick smoke that rose in the air, thankfully
downwind from the house.

She
paced
up and down in the yard, unable to sit still and unwilling to examine why she
was so worried about Richard.

It was almost a relief when half
hour later she saw a cart racing into the yard.  She started running
towards it, knowing already what her premonition had told her. As the cart came
to a halt she rushed to it to find Richard lying unmoving in the back, with
blood all down his face and on his shirt.

Her heart froze as she gazed in
disbelief at his still form and everything seemed to slow down around her. She
couldn’t believe this was happening.  Surely Richard could not be dead,
not when she was just beginning to have feelings for him.

Thomas rode into the yard,
shouting for Jethro to help get Richard into the house, even as he jumped from
his horse. Chaos erupted in the next few minutes as Elizabeth and the girls
rushed out to see what was happening and the house slaves appeared in the
doorways.

“Deborah, get some water and
cloths to clean the wound,” the master instructed. “I’ve already sent for the
doctor.  Quick!” he snapped when she still seemed dazed.

She snapped out of it and ran to
the kitchen to boil water and find clean cloths, sobbing in relief that Richard
was still alive.