The days began to run together. She and the children got up each morning, worked until it became too dark to see, then went back to the quarters and their beds of straw and rags. Their nightclothes had been reduced to rags after so many days of wear. Sally Ann threw Sable and the children old burlap sacks to wear over their torn and tattered nightgowns.
Because Morse was from Georgia, he wanted to plant cotton, a crop Sable knew well. Back on the Fontaine plantation, she and everyone else on the place had participated in the planting and harvesting, especially when she was young. Unlike other crops that you planted, weeded and let grow on their own, cotton had to be tended like a child. Sable remembered watching the rows being dug by the men and women, recalled walking behind the mules pulling the plows that drilled the holes for her and the other children to put the seed into. Usually seed was planted in March or April. If the cold spring rains held off, the cotton would start to come up in about a week’s time and then a week later the first hoeing could begin.
Before the first hoeing, the plow went through and moved the dirt away from the plants. Grass, weeds, and the scrawniest cotton seedlings would be hoed out, leaving behind a series of dirt hills positioned about two and a half feet apart. The field workers called the process scraping cotton.
Two weeks later, there’d be a second hoeing, when the mounds of dirt were thrown toward the growing plants, leaving one hardy stalk in a two-foot hill. In another two weeks, a third hoeing would throw dirt away from the plants to kill any grass or weeds between the rows. If the weather and the insects cooperated, the cotton would be about a foot tall by the first of July when the fourth hoeing took place. This last hoeing ended with the six-foot space between the rows being plowed to the depth of a shallow creek, then filled with water. When the stalks blossomed and grew five to seven feet tall, they were ready to be picked.
Sable couldn’t have been more than seven or eight when she was allowed to pick that first time, but even now she remembered how tired she’d been at the end of each day. She also remembered thinking how beautiful the cotton had looked at first, its fat white blossoms glistening in the sun, but she’d soon grown to hate it. She’d been given a bag to wear around her neck that was so long the end dragged on the ground. Many a child stumbled and tripped. Experienced workers like Vashti and Mahti could pick so fast their hands seemed to blur. Sable and the other new children in the fields, lacking the same agility, had to grab each individual blossom and pull, careful not to break the still growing parts of the stalk because broken stalks would not bloom. Bolls that were not ripe would be left until they too blossomed and were picked later.
The children also lacked the adult’s experienced rhythm. Instead of going pick—drop the blossoms in the bag, pick—drop the blossoms in the bag, they had to stop, pull the bolls free and then drop the blossoms in the bag. Most times they wound up having to pick the blossoms up off the ground because they’d missed the mouth of the bag altogether.
When your bag was full you took it down to the end of the row and emptied it into baskets set at each end. One of the adults would stomp down the fluffy white blossoms, then you’d go on to another row and start the process all over again.
Sable dearly hoped to be out of Morse’s foul clutches before spring. She had no desire to spend the months from April to July hoeing from dawn to dusk, or watching her children pick cotton from the end of August on, just so Morse could turn a profit none of them would share.
One morning as Sable bent over her hoe, hacking at some particularly stubborn weeds, Sally Ann came out and stood nearby. She didn’t say anything, just stood. Her presence became such an irritant, Sable finally stopped, looked her way, and asked, “What is it you want?”
“Nothing really. I just enjoy seeing you laboring like a common field hand.”
Tight-lipped, Sable resumed her work, intent upon ignoring her former mistress.
“The fields are where you should have been all along, not sullying my beautiful home.”
“I didn’t ask to be raised in the house.”
“No, you didn’t, that was Carson’s doing. He refused to listen to me.”
Sable kept up her pace, hoping Sally would take the hint and leave, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “I’ll never forgive him for insisting your mother be taken along on our wedding tour.”
Sable didn’t reply.
“I hated her, you know. That golden skin, those golden brown eyes. She had half the White men in the county sniffing around her.”
Again, Sable did not reply.
“What is it about you women that our men find so fascinating? My mama used to tell me not to let it bother me when the men took slave women into their beds, but it did. Still does.”
Sable finally stopped working and asked bluntly, “What do you want me to say? My mother wasn’t given a choice. She was a slave, Sally Ann, remember?”
Sally Ann’s chin rose. “But she refused to be bred willingly.”
“What would you have done in her place? Would you have willingly given yourself to a man just because he demanded it?”
“Of course not, but you women are different, it’s in your blood.”
“What’s in our blood, Sally Ann, is the desire for self-respect!”
Sally wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“We are no different from you. We live, die, smile at our children, grieve over our dead. We are not animals, we are people.”
Sally Ann turned and walked away.
A thunderstorm rolled in that night, awakening Sable and the children with lightning, wind and driving rain. It didn’t take long for the wet to penetrate their hovel. With no way to keep themselves dry, they huddled together beneath their blankets, hoping the violent weather would soon end. As Sable shivered and sheltered the children as best she could, despair rose up and gripped her hard. Would this truly be her fate? she asked as the wind shifted and rain began to pour through the broken slats of the walls. Would she and her children really have to spend the rest of their lives here? Would she give birth to Raimond’s child here? She’d endured much these past two and a half weeks and she didn’t know if she had the strength to take much more.
She looked up to see Morse standing in the cabin’s entrance. He yelled over the storm, “Come into the house!”
She and the children ran across the muddy field to the side door.
Inside, Morse told them they could sleep on the kitchen floor.
Raimond stood before one of the windows in his shipping office looking out over the darkening river. It had rained most of the day, but now the showers seemed to be slackening. For days he’d spent every waking hour searching for Sable and the children but turning up nothing. Now he’d started coming back here. He’d thought keeping busy might help keep his mind off his missing family, but it hadn’t worked. He thought about them each and every moment, no matter what he was doing or where he was. The idea that they were still nowhere to be found kept him awake nights; he hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep since their disappearance.
Where the hell were they? he asked for what seemed like the thousandth time. Not even the offer of a reward had turned up anything. He was frustrated, angry, and scared to even think about never seeing them again.
Raimond moved away from the window and went back to his desk. He looked over the manifest for a trip Phillipe would be making in a few days to pick up a full complement of goods from an old trader friend in China. Raimond and Galeno dealt in exotic merchandise like perfumes, spices, and rugs. They catered to the rich because the rich always had money to buy.
A knock on the door caused him to look up. He was caught off guard by the sight of a White woman standing on the threshold. “Are you Raimond LeVeq?” she asked quietly as she shook the rain off her coat.
“Yes, I am. How may I help you?”
He noted that she looked as poor as some of the freedmen. Her dark dress was faded and patched, but her neatly arranged hair and freshly scrubbed pink face showed her to
be a woman of some dignity.
“I came here to tell you where you can find your wife.”
Raimond waited skeptically. The first day he’d posted notice of the reward in the newspapers and on broadsides tacked up around the city, many people had come to his office trying to claim the gold. Not a one had come bearing a true story. He supposed they assumed his distress over the disappearance had rendered him so mindless he would believe whatever he was told and reward them. This woman, whom he studied as he gestured her to a seat, would be the first reward seeker this week.
“Your wife and I met a few months ago,” she said, looking up from her lap. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “She, um, fed me and my kids, over at one of the churches.” She gave Raimond a watery smile. “Your wife is a grand lady, Mr. LeVeq.”
“Yes, she is,” Raimond replied softly. He sensed a truthfulness and a goodness in this woman he’d never experienced with any of the other reward seekers.
“I can’t tell you my name, because they’re kin of mine, but what they did to her—it’s not right. They said they did it because they owe it to the South to make things hard for you Blacks, but Mrs. LeVeq didn’t pay no mind to the color of my kids. She fed them because they were hungry.”
She wiped away her tears. “Anyway,” she whispered, as she extracted a folded paper from her pocket, “here’s the directions that’ll lead you to where she is.”
Raimond unfolded the paper and looked at what was written on it. “If this turns out to be true—”
“Oh, it’s true. They got drunk last night and were bragging about it. Thinking of her suffering just about broke my heart. I gave them a good loud piece of my mind.” She looked Raimond in the eye and said feelingly, “On behalf of my kids and me, we are truly, truly sorry.”
She stood and moved to the door.
Raimond stood also. “Do you know where the other children were taken, the six orphans who were kidnapped?”
“No, I don’t. My menfolk only took your wife and children. The others could be anywhere.”
“Where do you want me to send the reward?”
“I don’t want it.”
“What do you mean you don’t want it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t. I’m just glad I could help her.”
She gave him a little nod of her head and left him standing there, his eyes filled with tears.
The Brats were ecstatic upon hearing the news, but a somberness soon settled over them all as they sat in Juliana’s parlor to plan the rescue.
“Do you think he’s harmed them?” Juliana asked. Beside her sat Henri.
“There’s no way of knowing,” Raimond replied.
Drake looked at a map of the area where Morse had hidden himself away. “I figure we can cover the distance in less than a day, using good strong mounts. We should probably trail a few extra horses just in case.”
Everyone agreed.
Beau asked, “Did the woman say whether Morse was alone?”
Raimond gave a negative shake of his head. “No, she didn’t, so I suggest we go in masked and armed. Let’s see how he likes having the tables turned.”
They rode out at dawn. Raimond used the brutal pace of the ride to try and defuse his red-hot rage. He wanted to blow Morse’s head off and drag the body behind his horse from New Orleans to Charleston, but he’d have to come up with another way to exact revenge. It would not do for him to kill Morse in front of his children.
Last evening when they’d all met in her parlor, his mother had expressed a similar concern. She knew that given the opportunity, Raimond would dispatch Morse to hell without batting an eye. Although she had no quarrel with that, she did not want her grandchildren to see their father kill a man unless it proved absolutely necessary. Raimond agreed.
In order not to be tempted into shooting Morse on sight he’d considered giving his weapons to Drake, but he had no intention of going in unarmed. He’d just have to keep a rein on his anger. He prayed Morse hadn’t decided to pull up stakes and head elsewhere.
In many ways, this thundering ride reminded him of the time when he, Galeno and some of the Brats had ridden to rescue Hester from the slave catcher Ezra Shoe. Raimond’s brother Gerrold had been with them that day. Raimond still grieved over the loss of his sibling and knew that had Gerrold not died in the war, he’d be riding at his side now too. It saddened him to know that Gerrold would never meet Sable or watch his children grow. Cullen’s serious, watchful ways reminded Raimond very much of Gerrold. He believed they’d have gotten along well.
The LeVeqs arrived at Morse’s plantation just past dusk. Raimond used a spyglass to scan the area. “I see a field and some ramshackle quarters but there’s no sign of Sable or the children.”
“Do you see any horses or wagons that might tell us whether he’s alone?” Drake asked.
“No, just one wagon. No horses that I can see. Ah, but we’re in luck, gentlemen,” Raimond declared triumphantly. “There’s our friend Morse coming out of the house now. He’s heading to”—Raimond paused a moment—“the privy. Has a newspaper in one hand and a lantern in the other.”
Raimond retracted the spyglass. “Drake, how about we pay him a visit. Archer, take Phillipe and Beau and go see if there’s anyone in the house. And be careful. No firing of weapons unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
They all dismounted and tied the horses in the tall weeds and wild vegetation before making a cautious dash across the cleared field surrounding the house. They then splt into two groups. Drake’s moved quickly to the back door of the house while Raimond and Archer headed for the listing plywood privy, set off to the left.
Once Raimond saw his brothers entering the house, he and Archer quietly counted to three, then kicked over the lightweight structure.
The seated Morse didn’t know whether to be angry or terrified, and settled on terrified as he met Raimond’s iron stare above a drawn rifle. “Get up!” Raimond barked, his temper rising.
Visibly trembling, Morse stood with his pants still around his ankles. His legs glowed palely in the lantern light.
“Where are Sable and the children?”
“At least let me pull up my trousers.”
“Answer me!” Raimond snarled through gritted teeth.
Morse jumped in response to the power in Raimond’s voice and stammered, “In the quarters, in the quarters.”
Just then Beau joined them. “We found a woman in the house, but no one else.”
Raimond kept his eyes and weapon trained on Morse. “Tie him up, and take him into the house. I’ll return shortly.”
Inside the small cabin, under the sputtering light of a candle stub, Sable passed a pot of collards to Hazel. Using her hand because they had no utensils, Hazel scooped up a palmful of the greens and brought them to her mouth. Sable paused before passing the pot to Cullen. For a moment she’d thought she heard Raimond calling her name. Blaming it on her imagination, she handed the pot to Cullen.
But Sable heard it again, and this time the children did too.
“That sounds like Papa Rai calling,” Blythte said excitedly.
They ran outside, and saw a man dressed in dark clothing walking toward the cabin. Sable recognized him instantly and her heart began pounding so furiously she could barely breathe. Forgetting all else, she began to run, screaming, “Raimond!”
The children began running too.
“Raimond!”
He scooped her up and held her so tight she thought her spine would break, but his presence filled her with so much happiness, she didn’t mind the pain. It was over, it was over!
Raimond rocked his wife in his arms for what seemed an eternity, kissing her, holding her, whispering her name. He’d found her!
Wiping her eyes, Sable stepped aside so Raimond could have a hug-and kiss-filled reunion with his daughters. Cullen stood off to the side, silently watching and waiting, reminding Raimond of a soldier awaiting review by his commanding officer.
Raimond turne
d to him and held out his arms. Cullen ran to him at once. His fierce embrace put more tears in Raimond’s eyes.
Cullen whispered through his own tears, “I let you down, I didn’t keep Mama and the girls safe.”
Raimond squeezed him tighter. “You did fine, son, and I am very proud of you. Don’t ever doubt that. Ever.”
Sable wiped away more tears of joy. She’d prayed every night for this moment, and her prayers had finally been answered.
Raimond turned back to her. “Did he abuse you?”
She knew what he meant and answered truthfully, “No. Cullen and I each took a knock on the head the night his friends raided the orphanage, but we’re both fine.”
She was so happy to see him.
He was so happy to find her alive and well.
Blythe asked, “Papa Rai, can we go home now? I’m very hungry.”
Raimond smiled down at his youngest. “As soon as we finish here, sugar plum, I will take you home and Mrs. Vine will feed you whatever you like.”
With all the bluntness of a child, Blythe added, “He’s been real mean to us.”
“Well, he won’t be mean to you anymore,” Raimond promised.
“You gonna whip him?”
“Yep.”
“I told him my Papa Rai was gonna whip him,” Blythe said proudly.
Sable had no idea when Blythe and Morse had had such a conversation, but it would be something to ask her about and laugh over later, once they were safely home.
Back at the house, the Brats had tied Morse to a chair. Sally Ann sat beside him. It was hard to determine which of the two looked more furious.
Sable shared long hugs with her brothers-in-law. “Thank you for helping Raimond find us. I can’t wait until we reach home.”
“You can’t take them anywhere,” Sally Ann snapped. “Sable signed a contract.”
Raimond looked to Sable, who said, “Raimond, meet my former mistress, Sally Ann Fontaine.”
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