“It ain’t for me to say. I hear the preacher sometimes when he comes through here; he says the good Lord set it up this way and reads from the Book that we’s supposed to obey our masters.”
“Yes, the Book says that, but it also says that Jesus came to set a man free.”
“It’s too complicatious for me.”
Silence fell for a while. Then Ruby spoke again. “My Markus is a sweet man, like an apple pie. Sturdy too. Arms like fence posts.”
“Sorry they took you two apart.”
“They sold him in Charleston the same day as me,” she said softly.
“I know. You told me the story.”
“A sad day, for sure. But when I find him, we’ll go for Theo.”
Stella measured her words. Ruby still pined for her man, no two ways about it. But she needed to move on past him, find her another fella before some white man took out after her. Although marrying up with a darky didn’t make it for sure that a white man wouldn’t still push for her, it did make it a touch more trouble; added at least a little anxiousness to it.
“Obadiah still got an eye out for you,” she said. “Even though you ain’t givin’ him much encouragement. He’s a good man too, got money and every thin’.”
Ruby shook her head. “No purpose in that. I got no hankering for any other man.”
“I know that. But a man … well, you need somebody layin’ beside you at night, if you know what I mean. Somebody to protect you from other men’s notions. Girl, if that Mr. Tessier hadn’t already met his Maker, you’d be in trouble right now from him.”
Ruby cut off the cloth. Her hands trembled. “That kind of thing not much heard of on Mr. Rushton’s place up in Virginia. It really happen down here?”
Stella clucked. “You still got lots of child in you, don’t you? ’Course it happen; all the time.”
“I’ll kill the white man who comes for me,” said Ruby.
Stella’s face clouded. “Don’t go talkin’ that way. Get you in lots of trouble.”
“I said it, and I’m leaving it said.”
Stella watched the younger woman for a long minute, then moved to her mattress on the floor. “You keep that kind of talk to yourself. That my advice to you.”
Ruby put up her sewing, dropped another log on the fire, and stretched out on the other floor mattress.
“I still say Obadiah is a man worthy of your thinkin’,” Stella put in.
Ruby rolled to her side and stared at Stella. “He’s least twice my age.”
“That don’t matter. Yep, lots of young bucks here will take up with you if you want. But what they got to offer? Obadiah’s a free man, one with some dollars, a regular trade. And he’s handsome too, big as an ox.”
Ruby thought awhile before she spoke again. The fire burned lower. “I know a darky once who married up with a free man of color, and he came to live with her on the plantation. Gave up his good house because she couldn’t leave hers. Wonder if it could work the other way around?”
Stella raised up. “What you mean?”
“Can a free man take a darky off the plantation?”
“Not if she don’t have her papers, he can’t. You know that. You got to have your pass, or they haul you right back to where you come from.”
“But if a master gives the go-ahead, the darky could keep papers on her, show anybody that came asking that it’s okay, legal and all.”
“I reckon that’s so, but what difference will it make? What you got on your mind?”
Ruby chewed a finger. Even though she’d given him no signs of favor, Obadiah had come to see her seven Sundays in a row. He brought her something pretty every time—a red ribbon one week, a piece of mint candy another, a small hand mirror on a third. “How much money you think Obadiah got?”
“No way to tell”
“Not enough to buy a woman her freedom papers, I expect.”
Stella chuckled. “You fetched a pretty penny, I’m guessin’.”
“Eighteen hundred dollars.”
“Whoo-eee! That be as high as I ever heard of! You best be glad Mr. Tessier be dead. He’d come to you for sure with you costin’ him that kind of money.”
Ruby pulled her blanket tighter. “Men sure got the power in this old world.”
“Nothin’ much to be done about it, I don’t spose. Seems like the Lord set it up that way.”
“Think it’s the Lord?” asked Ruby. “Or just the menfolk?”
Ruby chuckled. “You got some strange thinkin’ goin’ on in your head. Ain’t you listened to the Bible?”
“Oh, I listened. Went to church right on the plantation back in Virginia. Preacher came all the winter, right up to the time we start planting.”
“Then you know what the Book says. The man be the head of the woman, just like the boss be the head of the darky.”
“The Book also says,” Ruby insisted, “that Jesus makes no distinction between slave and free. The preacher didn’t say that. I read it myself in a Bible in Mrs. Rushton’s room.”
Stella raised up and checked around, as if afraid somebody might be listening. “Keep that talk quiet,” she advised. “Does no good to raise such things as that.”
“Does me some good,” said Ruby.
“Just stay shut up about it, that’s all I got to say.”
Seeing that she’d scared Stella, Ruby turned the topic back to Obadiah. “Obadiah never take a wife?”
“None I know of.”
“How’d he get his freedom?”
“Same way as most. His pa—a white man—gave him his papers in his will.”
“His pa must have been a good man.”
“Some white men are.”
“Why they keep us down, then? Why not give us all our freedom? They know it’s not right to hold one people in slavery to another.”
“You be askin’ bigger questions than this old head can hold. You know how it is. They got to have us. What gone happen if we’re not here? The whole place’ll just fall apart. Every farm, every plantation in the South. Then how we gone eat? Who gone put a roof over our heads?”
Ruby sat up. “We do for ourselves,” she offered. “White folks could pay us wages; we’d keep up their places. I hear tell of it up north of Virginia. People works for other people, same as now, but they get to choose where they work, where they live, when they come and go.”
“Sounds mighty scary,” said Stella, frowning. “Lots of things to work out before that can happen.”
“People in the North, the ‘abolutionists,’ are calling for it now.”
“Yes, I heard of them.”
“Folks say they’ll help a darky,” Ruby dreamed aloud. “Runaways and everything. Say that if a runner can get to them, they’ll fix him up right fast. Get him a job in the North, give him a new name.”
“Sounds like a dream to me,” said Stella.
“A good dream, though.”
“Maybe. If you don’t get killed tryin’ to make it come true.”
Ruby lay back down. “Maybe Obadiah got enough money to make a payment on me. Little bit at a time to Mr. York. After a while he could have paid for me, take me home with him.”
Stella laughed. “I ain’t heard of nothin’ like that.”
“Something to ponder,” the younger woman replied. “I’d go with him if he could do something like that.”
Stella shook her head. “You be conjurin’ somethin’. Gone get you in trouble.”
Ruby smiled and closed her eyes. “Might be.”
“Take your care,” warned Stella. “What’s conjured in the night can get mighty dangerous in the light of day.”
“People got choices they have to take,” Ruby said firmly. “Just got to.”
Stella finally lay back down. “Just make sure if you take your chance and fail, you don’t get a whole lot of people hurt.”
Cold fell on the room. Ruby put the covers over her head. “I’ll use what I got on Mr. York if I have to. I been thinking about it. What can h
e do if I run? Whip me? Then I go to the law on him, tell them about the dead man.”
Stella jerked upright, crawled to Ruby’s mattress, and yanked the cover off Ruby’s head. The old woman’s eyes showed white in the shadowy room. “Men die all the time,” she said. “Mr. York and Mr. Cain did what they could for that man at Mossy Creek Bank. The law ain’t gone do nothin’ to them.”
“But they kept his money. What about that?”
“What money? You didn’t tell us about no money.”
“I heard Mr. Cain speak of it. Five thousand dollars. The law could take it from him.”
“Maybe that be true. But you playin’ a dangerous game. White men don’t take to a darky gettin’ too uppity.”
“I wonder what he did with that money—”
“No tellin’.”
“I heard Mr. York say he planned to keep it, least for a time until he could figure out what to do.”
“Mr. Cain agree to that?”
“He argued some, but Mr. York seemed set on it, so he let it go.”
“This be special news,” Stella said, her face turned toward the low-burning fire. “But we got to take care what we do with it.”
“What do you mean?”
Stella turned back to Ruby and took her hands. “I don’t exactly know yet. But a body that knows somethin’ about somebody else holds some power on them, that’s the truth of it. If Mr. York kept this money, he ain’t gone want nobody else to know about it. You already do, and he figures you won’t talk. He’s right about that. I won’t talk neither. A darky with a blabbermouth don’t do too well for too long. But still, somewhere down the road, you never know what might happen, how you could use this, how it might bring some favor to you.”
Ruby watched the fireplace flicker and thought of Markus and Theo, then of Obadiah. “If I marry a free man of color, I surely get a pass to his place for Sunday, even if they don’t let me move in with him. Am I right about that?”
“I expect so. They want you to birth some babies. Probably right eager to give you a pass to marry a free man.”
“My babies born free or other?”
“Babies born to a darky belong to the plantation,” said Stella. “No matter the parent.”
Ruby twisted her hair. A plot formed in her head. She started to say it to Stella but changed her mind. Like Stella said, a darky with a blabber-mouth didn’t do too well for too long. Best to keep her quiet for now.
Chapter Twelve
As soon as he could after the spring planting ended, Hampton York packed up enough clothes for about four days, brought out his favorite horse, and hauled into his saddle right after sunup. Then he set out for a spot right out of Beaufort for some gambling. A number of men always gathered there soon after the crop was in to play cards, watch some cock-fighting, race a few horses, and generally wash off some of the chill of winter with a few nights of hard drinking. York had joined this crew every spring for the last ten years, a group of men of high and low station, some arriving in carriages as wide as a small barn, others walking in with a sackful of clothes slung over their shoulders. Nobody cared much about station so long as a man carried enough money in his pockets to buy his way into a card game or to pay off a wager if he lost on a race.
His spirits high, York rode steady most of the day, stopping only a few times to eat, rest his horse, and stretch. He arrived in Beaufort late, put up his horse in a stable near the edge of town, and headed to an inn not far away. A chill ran through the air as the sun dropped, but York bought a bottle of scotch at the inn’s bar and took it up to the room he rented. He closed the door, then poured himself a glass and slugged it down. After washing up, he slipped into a fresh shirt and pants and a tan frock coat, tucked the pistol he always carried into the coats inner pocket, and headed back downstairs. After quickly eating at the diner next door, he returned to the inn’s bar for another drink. His face warming from the alcohol, he leaned against the bar and surveyed the noisy crowd, noticing a decent poker game going on in the corner.
York grabbed the bottle of Scotch, made his way to the table, and asked if the game could use another hand. The men, four of them in various states of dress and drunkenness, shrugged and said “sure,” and York took his spot in the game. With his first hand in play, he settled back with a big breath of relief. There was lots of strain in handling a place like The Oak, and York was glad he had Josh around to handle things when he left. He could count on Josh for that; always had, always would.
Playing confidently, he spent the next few hours at the card table. Coins clinked as men made and collected wagers. Men cursed or shouted as they won or lost. Liquor flowed fast and loose. A woman with red rouge on her cheeks and black hair stacked high on her head sauntered up to York every hour or so and offered to bring him a drink, but he shook her off.
“I never mix women with card playin’, dear lady,” he said, his words slurred by the liquor. “No way a normal man can give proper attention to both at the same time. See me when I’m finished.” The last word slushed out of his mouth, and the woman grinned. York gave her money for a drink for herself, then studied the cards he held.
He lost that hand but won the next, lost the next two, then won three in a row. As the hours passed the stack of money by his elbow gradually grew larger and larger. Some players dropped out of the game, and new gamblers joined them. York recognized a man every now and again. A young gent named Tarleton sat directly across from him now, a fella with a thick nose and hands and shoulders to match. He seemed a pleasant enough man—from Savannah, he said.
Although his mind felt clouded by liquor, York still paid good attention to his cards, busily watching and evaluating the men around him. Young Tarleton did okay with his cards. York found him unusually quiet for a gambler, almost unnaturally so. Every now and again York caught Tarleton staring at him, as if he wanted to peek inside his head. Although it made him feel a little uncomfortable, York passed it off as Tarleton’s effort to read his opponent’s face for gambling purposes.
As midnight approached, York spat into his liquor glass, nodded to his playing partners, and announced he needed to give it up for the night. “I rode a long ways today,” he said to explain. “Not so young as I used to be.”
The men laughed, complained some that he was taking too much of their money, but then took a break from the game so he could collect his winnings and leave. A minute later, York left the table, slipped a chew into his cheek, and headed upstairs toward his room. About halfway up the steps, he heard someone behind him and was surprised to find Tarleton in his wake.
“Hang on there,” said Tarleton.
York stopped and studied the young man closer. Not more than twenty-five or so. Dressed in black pants, a white shirt without a ruffle, and a dark green coat that tapered at the waist before flaring out and down to the back of his knees. A scarf the color of the coat hung around his neck. Not a rich man, but not a poor one either, York decided.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
Tarleton looked around, then back at York. “Got a question for you.”
“Okay.” York’s eyes clouded a little, and he realized just how tired he truly was.
“I’d rather not talk here,” said Tarleton.
York’s suspicions rose; he sobered up fast. “Why not?”
Tarleton nodded toward the door. “You’ll see. Let’s go outside.”
York lightly touched the pistol in his pocket. “I won fair and square back there,” he said, tilting his head toward the poker table. “Everybody in the room’ll say that’s so.”
“I’m not talkin’ about cards,” said Tarleton, his eyes on York’s hand where he had touched the hidden pistol. “I’m talkin’ about Mossy Bank Creek.”
York tensed tighter than a bowstring. Now he was the one who glanced around to make sure nobody had heard. When he saw no one, he faced Tarleton again. What did the man know? Was Tarleton the man he’d shot at?
Tarleton waved his hand toward th
e inn’s front door. “Let’s take a walk.”
“I don’t know anythin’ about Mossy Bank Creek,” York claimed.
“You bluff well,” the younger man replied, “but I know otherwise. And unless you want everybody else in this inn to hear what I’ve got to say, you’ll come with me and you’ll do it right now.”
York grunted but stayed calm. Tarleton hadn’t brought the sheriff with him. That meant any claim he presented on the money must have some stain on it. Otherwise, why not get the sheriff before he talked to him? He wondered if Tarleton planned to kill him. But if he did he’d never find the money or ever know if York had it.
He tried to figure how tough Tarleton was. Although not a large man, Tarleton appeared real solid in the chest and shoulders. The two of them might come out pretty even in a fight. He had experience on his side to match Tarleton’s youth. Could he depend on his experience to get him through?
Not seeing any option, York finally nodded. “Lead on.”
Tarleton quickly led him outside. On the street he turned left and walked toward the stable. York wondered if Tarleton had a friend waiting for him there … somebody to ambush him, put a knife to his throat, and demand that he tell where to find the five thousand dollars. Tarleton shoved his hands into his pockets and moved into the stable with York at his heels. Then Tarleton stopped, lit a lantern, and held it up as they continued to the back of the barn. A couple of horses nickered as they passed.
“Quieter in here,” said Tarleton, taking a spot by a hay bale. “Warmer than outside too.”
York searched the dark past the glow of the lantern but saw no one.
“It’s just me and you,” said Tarleton, evidently anticipating his suspicion. “No need to get any more fingers in this pie if we don’t have to. Know what I mean?”
York grinned but not pleasantly. So … Tarleton figured he had the money and didn’t want to share it with anybody.
Tarleton hung the lantern on a post by his head and propped his booted foot on the hay bale. “No reason to hide nothin’,” he started. “I’m the man you shot at down at Mossy Bank. You winged me in the thigh, but that got better. I been lookin’ for you since.”
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