Perish from the Earth

by Jonathan F. Putnam

  Colonel Ferguson’s eyes widened, and his face burst out into a grin. “I knew you were an imposter! I knew it—from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew it. Well, you’ve promised to keep my secret”—he touched his chain—“and I shall undertake to keep yours.”

  Ferguson stepped back and said in a loud voice, “As I said, I wish you good speed, Mr. and Miss Jones.” He winked comically and turned to Nanny Mae to see if she had appreciated the cleverness of his joke.

  She had not. The old woman’s eyes had not left my face. I could not divine her thoughts. She turned to Martha and said, quietly, “I expected more from you, niece.”

  Nanny Mae turned and led a perplexed-looking Ferguson away to the other side of the room. Martha was shaking; for a moment, I thought she was about to start crying. I tried to comfort her, but she pushed me away.

  “I didn’t know what else—” I began.

  “I know. I’ll be all right.” She took a deep breath. “So what did you learn from Mrs. Roman?”

  I told her, but she had no explanation for Pound’s mysterious conduct. Meanwhile, the party swirled around us. There was dance music—a piano only—but the room was too crowded for more than one attempt at a quadrille. Instead, as servants circulated with food and syrupy planter’s punch, Martha and I joined a gay circle with Telesphore and Tessie and an engaging, attractive mixture of like-aged men and women from the nearby farms. I conversed with them from time to time, but my thoughts were elsewhere, on the story of Bingham and Jones that only seemed to be getting murkier by the minute.

  Throughout the evening, I felt sure that Nanny Mae’s eyes never left us from across the room. I still couldn’t figure out her interest in the affair, but I didn’t dare attempt to continue our investigations under her watchful eye.

  Eventually the hour got late, and the guests began to filter away. Colonel Ferguson nodded to us politely as he and Nanny Mae departed—two of the last guests to retire. Martha kissed me on the cheek and took her leave. Then only Telesphore and a few of his male friends remained with me in the ballroom.

  The group of young men was drunk on spirits and the aftereffects of female company. They were smoking cigars and bragging of exploits, real or imagined, with guns or girls (and, sometimes, both of them together). Under other circumstances, I would have gladly joined in the boisterousness, but I hardly felt in the mood.

  Telesphore sidled up to me, and at first I feared he meant to challenge our disguise. But instead he grabbed my arm and said, in a slurred voice, “Come with me, Jones. I promised you amusements.” I was half drunk myself, and I willingly followed him.

  We weaved through a maze of service rooms and emerged out into the backyard of Roman Hall, near the quarters. In a clearing, a huge bonfire roared, casting its light on dozens of black faces in motion. Some were singing, others stomping their feet to music being beat out by two drummers sitting astride metal tubs. Beyond the flames, I could make out two rows of little dilapidated shacks stretching off into the distance.

  “She’s in the third cabin on the left,” slurred Telesphore, gesturing loosely toward where he meant. “I told her to wait up for me. Give me ten minutes, then you follow.”

  At once I felt stone sober. It was a line I had long ago vowed never to cross. “You go ahead if you truly want,” I said. “I promised my sister I’d be up to bed before long. It’s been a full day already.”

  “Don’t be a prig, Jones,” Telesphore said, throwing a sloppy punch at my shoulder.

  I dodged the jab easily. “I’m not—”

  But there was no cause for me to continue the sentence as Telesphore had already departed, weaving an unsteady path toward the third cabin on the left.

  CHAPTER 21

  I awoke the next morning with a pounding headache and a great case of remorse. I contemplated my state as I lay in bed, eyes closed tight against the blinding daylight. The headache came from the final three glasses of planter’s punch, which I should have skipped. And the remorse came from not doing more to stop Telesphore from his vulgar mission.

  His conduct was, to be sure, hardly unheard of in Kentucky. But I thought it belonged in large part to the prior generation. Such despoliation and abuse was assuredly not the way a modern plantation owner treated his own bondsmen. I should have told Telesphore so.

  I heard a noise in the bedroom and opened my eyes. Martha was in front of me, looking fresh and ready for the day, with yellow flowers braided into her hair. I hadn’t told her about what had happened with Telesphore, and I didn’t intend to.

  “Finally!” she said when she saw I was awake. “Tessie’s agreed to take me walking through her favorite meadow this morning. I was checking on you one last time before we left.”

  I pushed myself into a sitting position. My head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. “Listen—when you’re alone with Tessie today, tell her who we are and why we’re here. We’ve got to get moving. We haven’t much time.” It was an injunction meant for myself as much as for my sister.

  Martha agreed and went off, and I rang for coffee and dressed slowly. Eventually I found Telesphore sprawled on a chair in the library. He looked about how I felt, except there was no sign he had been ruminating about what had happened in the shadows of the bonfire last night.

  “Shall we go on that squirrel hunt?” he asked.

  “Absolutely.” I was determined to learn as much as I could today about the Romans.

  We trampled through the oak forest at the back of the Roman estate, rifles in hand, as Telesphore’s treeing dogs raced ahead of us in search of squirrels. The ground was carpeted by acorns, and our quarry were abundant.

  “Your sister is an accomplished conversationalist,” I said as we walked along.

  Telesphore grinned at me. “Don’t think I didn’t spot your game from the moment you arrived, Jones,” he said. “You’re hardly the first man to have reached that conclusion.”

  A squirrel skittered up a tree trunk ahead of us. Telesphore raised his rifle and shot, but he missed badly. He loosed a string of loud curses as he reloaded.

  “I may be the wealthiest, though,” I said.

  “If you speak the truth, then I’m certain my father will be interested to receive your application. It’s what he’s looking for.”

  “How about your sister? What’s she looking for?”

  Telesphore shot again and this time blasted a varmint off a tree branch. One of his dogs eagerly raced ahead to fetch it. “My sister doesn’t know her own mind,” he said as he reloaded. “Fortunately there’s no cause for her to do so. Not with my father and me around.”

  “If I were to buy a farm nearby,” I said a little while later, after I had bagged two animals myself, “I’d need someone to run it. A hard man. Does your father have anyone good?”

  “A mean, weaselly tough named Pemberton runs our head,” Telesphore said. “He was with my mother’s family originally, as the underoverseer. My father hired him away, and it’s lucky he did. Nothing’s too base or too brutal for him. Just the way we like it.” Telesphore spit on the ground with approval.

  Maybe Martha had been right to suspect the overseer of murder, I thought. On a mission directed by Jacques Telesphore Roman. Or, I considered, looking sideways at him now, his eldest son.

  As if reading my mind, Telesphore asked sharply, “What is it?”

  “To be honest, I was reckoning that you’re a much better fellow than my cousin reported,” I replied. “When he wrote about his visit to Roman Hall, he had the highest praise for your sister, and of course your parents. You . . . the notices were tepid.”

  Telesphore threw his head back and laughed. “No offense, Jones, but your cousin was a real prig. Couldn’t hold his liquor or his tongue. Light on his feet. I made you for a far hardier fellow from the start.” He touched the barrel of his rifle against mine, shouldered it, and blasted a squirrel from a tree thirty yards in front of us. I saw another one scatter at that moment, and I took it down.

  As
we shared a celebratory handshake, I scrutinized Telesphore’s manner. There was no hint of guile or guilt lurking around his face. If he was a killer, he was a coldhearted, cold-blooded one.

  On our way back to the house at the end of the hunt, Telesphore said, “Look, there’s our man Pemberton now.” I saw the overseer ahead of us, slouching beside a little shed. “I want a word with him about maintaining discipline among our head. You go on in—I’ll see you at supper.”

  When we reached Pemberton, Telesphore stopped to talk to his man. As I walked by rapidly, I felt sure that the overseer’s eyes followed me.

  Martha was awaiting me in our bedroom with a broad smile.

  “I told her,” she fairly shouted as soon as the bedroom door had closed behind me.

  “Good. What’d she say?”

  “She wants to do everything she can to save Mr. Bingham. I asked her not to tell anyone else in her family, and of course she agreed. But we’ll have to reveal something soon, won’t we?”

  “I have a plan for that,” I said as I hurriedly wiped squirrel bits off my hands with a cloth. At Telesphore’s suggestion, we’d skinned and dressed a half dozen right in the field to bring home to the cook.

  “What is it?” Martha asked eagerly.

  “You’ll see. Just follow my lead at supper.”

  An hour later, we were sitting around the mahogany table in the company of Jacques and Mrs. Roman, Telesphore and Tessie, and several of their younger siblings. I had hoped to sit beside Jacques but found myself wedged in between Tessie and Martha. Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Telesphore was drinking wine liberally and regaling his parents with an exaggerated version of his hunting exploits that afternoon. Based on the tolerant expressions on his parents’ faces, I guessed they were both well aware of his fibbery.

  “His greatest goal in life is to be like his father in every respect,” Tessie murmured to me. She, too, had been watching Telesphore carry on.

  “There are worse ambitions,” I replied. “Especially given how well your father’s done.”

  “How about you, Mr. Jones?” she said, drawing out the name for her private amusement. “Do you desire to be just like your father? Or perhaps his exact opposite?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out, I suppose,” I replied seriously.

  Tessie broke out into a hearty laugh. I found myself liking her very much. She was perfectly at home in the surroundings of a grand estate, yet she did not seem effete or spoiled. The more time I spent in her presence, the more I actually did want to court her. I had to remind myself that our goal was to enlist her aid to help save another suitor.

  Two house servants were waiting on us—the middle-aged woman the Romans called Winney and a slight wisp of a boy, of ten or eleven years, who walked with a limp. The Negroes shared a common facial structure, and I wondered whether they were mother and son. In any event, the boy seemed new to his task and unsure of himself, and he trembled visibly any time he walked past Jacques Roman or his eldest son.

  As the boy left the dining room, Telesphore called out loosely, shaking his wine bottle in front of him, “Bring me another one of these, boy.”

  “Yessir,” mumbled the boy, his eyes glued to the floor.

  I decided it was time to put my plan into motion. If we were to make it to St. Louis in time to meet Lincoln, we needed to be back on the river by daybreak. Murmuring to Tessie, “Let’s save your artist,” I pushed back my chair and rose, my glass in my raised hand. The conversation around the table came to a halt.

  “I want to thank you, sir, for our reception these past forty-eight hours,” I said, looking across the table at Jacques Roman. “You have sheltered us and fed us and even entertained us, all to a most high standard. We are much in your debt.”

  Our host remained seated, and he gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement.

  “But I fear I must confess we have visited Roman Hall under false pretenses, or at least pretenses that were not altogether forthcoming,” I continued. I felt both Martha and Tessie stare up at me in surprise, but I remained focused on Jacques Roman. He appeared to be contemplating me seriously for the first time since we’d arrived on his doorstep.

  “In truth, my family’s estate, Farmington, and its one thousand acres will soon be my responsibility and mine alone. My father’s heart will give out before the new year, I fear, and I am his only heir. Thus I am in need not of an estate but rather of a devoted, loving wife to support me if I am to prove equal to the great task of succeeding my father.

  “With my dear sister’s counsel, I have been searching far and wide for a woman capable of satisfying this position. My cousin John W. had indeed written glowingly of his stay at Roman Hall, and the feature that most captivated him is one that eluded his reach.” I paused for a deep breath. “It is the feature that has most captivated me as well. I pray, sir, you will not deny it to me, however, and that is the hand of your precious daughter.”

  Finished with my mixture of fantasy and fact, I stepped back and gave a very deep bow toward Tessie. I could see the tips of her ears burning red. As I looked up, Jacques Roman was rising from his own chair to respond to my entreaty, a tight expression on his face.

  But I was never to learn Jacques Roman’s response. Because at the precise moment he pushed back his own chair to stand, the servant boy was passing behind him with a bulbous, olive-green bottle containing Telesphore’s new wine. The bottle was knocked out of his trembling hands and flipped up into the air.

  The boy emitted a terrible bleat and reached out for it, but he grasped only the thin air. The bottle tumbled down to the floor with a heavy, shattering crash.

  Telesphore Roman flew into a rage.

  “Goddamn you, boy!” he shouted. “Look what you’ve done!” He grabbed the trembling boy’s smock and pulled him close.

  The woman called Winney, her face blanched, rushed toward them, crying out, “It was an accident, Master Telesphore! He didn’t mean—”

  Telesphore lashed out, hitting her violently in the mouth with the back of his hand. She was sent sprawling across the floor. Meanwhile, the young master rose and dragged the boy from the room. Telesphore’s boots crunched on the broken glass shards as he dragged the barefoot boy through them.

  “You need educating!” he was shouting at the boy as they went. “Pemberton? Pemberton! Prepare the pegs! I’ve a boy in need of correction.” A door slammed. From the corner, Winney was sobbing quietly, her hands covering her face.

  “Do something, Daddy,” cried Tessie.

  Jacques Roman had watched the scene with a placid expression on his face. He merely shook his head. For her part, Mrs. Roman sat very still, her hands folded in her lap, staring at the center of the dining table. The expensive lace atop her head remained perfectly motionless.

  “He’s being needlessly cruel, again,” Tessie said. “I reckon it’s why we’ve had so many bondsmen try to run off lately.”

  “He’s learning how to be his own man,” Jacques Roman said. “I will not interfere.”

  “But he’ll kill him,” cried Tessie. “Or maim him even worse than last time. You can’t let him act this way.”

  “You understand nothing, child.” Jacques Roman’s calm was undisturbed. “Insubordination can never be tolerated. The boy needs correction. The lash is all these creatures understand.”

  You may be wondering of my own emotions at this moment. I would be lying if I claimed that the slaves of Farmington were never corrected—by our overseers, exclusively, and always outside the presence of my father or other members of the Speed family. And yet I agreed strongly with Tessie Roman’s words. Telesphore was being cruel.

  “If you won’t interfere, I will,” I said to Jacques Roman. “Come with me, Martha.”

  CHAPTER 22

  My sister and I followed Telesphore’s route toward the rear of the great house. Tessie Roman appeared at our side as we hurried along. We could hear the sounds of shouting getting louder as we went.

&nbs
p; “He loses all control when he drinks,” Tessie said, her voice half caught in her throat. “And when he’s trying to impress our father.”

  “He’ll do neither if I have anything to say,” I said.

  “Listen, Tessie, this is our one chance,” Martha whispered urgently. “If you want to come away with us, to help Mr. Bingham, it needs to be now, during the commotion. Do you ride?”

  Tessie turned to her. “Of course.”

  “Can you find the way to the Commerce levee through the dark? That’s the nearest steamer landing, isn’t it?”

  “It’s about five miles west-northwest, and yes, I can get us there. More than likely, there’ll be a northbound packet leaving this evening.”

  “Meet us at the levee, Joshua,” Martha said, “after you’ve done what you can.”

  We were at the back door. Outside in the dark night, I could see several torches blazing and a scrum of bodies moving about.

  “Go to our room and retrieve my purse,” I said. “Be quick about it. Then take both the horses to the levee. I’ll manage to get there on foot.”

  “I’ve one thing to gather too,” said Tessie to Martha. “I’ll meet you back here, and we’ll ride together.” She hurried down a side corridor.

  “Be safe,” Martha said as I gave her a quick embrace.

  “You too.”

  I took a deep breath and pushed open the back door.

  An awful scene greeted me. In the clearing in front of the quarters, where the bonfire had burned the prior night, four wooden stakes had been driven into the ground in the shape of a rectangle. The young boy lay on his stomach amid them, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. His shirt had been ripped from his torso so that he was naked to the waist. Blood trickled from the soles of his feet where he’d been dragged across the remains of the broken wine bottle.

  The boy’s legs were spread wide and each one was tied by a rope to one of the stakes. Pemberton was at work on his right arm, securing a rope tight around his wrist and pulling it roughly toward the nearest stake. When he tied down the other arm, the boy would embody a prostrate, helpless X in the center of the pegs. A pitifully easy target.