Nobody's Angel

by Karen Robards

  "Oh, hush up, Sarah Jane, do! You're making me sick!" Mandy, who had as little patience as Emily for Sarah Jane's recently acquired piety, cast her sister a disgusted look.

  "Now that's enough, all of you. If you wish to come with me, you may. If you do not, then you may stay here. But I am going to the auction." Having had quite enough of the discussion, Susannah picked up her skirt, turned, and moved briskly toward the sidewalk.

  "But, Pa . . ."

  "I am bound and determined in this, Sarah Jane. So you may as well stop fussing, because it will not do the least bit of good." Susannah spoke over her shoulder as she stepped up onto the plank walkway fronting the shops.

  Sarah Jane looked as if she meant to say something more. Concluding that further remonstrances would prove useless, she refrained. As they all knew, when Susannah was bound and determined to do something, the earth might move beneath her feet, the sky might rain bolts of lightning down on her head, and the voice of God might call her to account, but still Susannah would go ahead with what she intended to do. Mule obstinate, their father called her on the infrequent occasions he had dis- agreed with his oldest daughter's judgment, usually without much success. And, Sarah Jane reflected unhappily as she followed the bustling form of her diminutive sister, mule obstinate was just what Susannah was.

  2

  "Beaten biscuits! Who'll have my fresh beaten biscuits?" The cry came from a plump farm woman with a cloth-covered basket over her arm as she made her way among the newly arrived spectators.

  "Crabs! Live crabs!" A grizzled fisherman had made a booth out of a wooden crate, which presumably held the crabs in question. He had set it up at the edge of the green on which the auction was being held.

  "Rice! Get yer rice!" Next to the fisherman was an old woman bent over a steaming pot that she stirred intermittently as she exhorted passersby.

  These voices and others rose over the buzz of the gathered crowd, lending a carnival atmosphere to the proceedings. Susannah slowed her pace as she drew nearer to allow her sisters to catch up with her. Emily's eyes were wide, and Mandy's cheeks were flushed with excitement. Sarah Jane merely looked worried, but even had she wished to she would not have been able to renew her protests because of the sheer volume of the activity around them. Enterprising hawkers peddled everything from pecans to hair ribbons at the top of their lungs. People everywhere moved, some leaving, more coming.

  Women in bright cotton dresses and with deep-brimmed sunbonnets on their heads clutched unruly children by the hand as they all strained to get a good view. Gentlemen in long-tailed coats and top hats rubbed shoulders with trappers in buckskins and roughly dressed farmers. Horses were tied to any conceivable hitching post. Wagons and carts with everything from farm implements to crated chickens in the back headed in both directions, clogging the street that ended at the green. A special stockade had been constructed to hold the convicts prior to the sale, and the auction block had been built just to the south of it. Only the week before, a ferry had crossed the Coosawhatchie River to discharge the human merchandise. The convicts had landed originally at Charles Town, the rumor went. From there they had been brought to Beaufort, considered the most prosperous small town in South Carolina, a distinction of which its residents were justly proud. It was hoped that the relative wealth of Beaufort's citizens would make the effort worthwhile.

  As the sisters approached the green, they were passed by two men, one after the other, each with what was obviously a newly purchased servant in tow. The first convict they saw had his wrists bound and was hobbled about the ankles with a short length of rope. He was forced to adopt an ungainly gait somewhere between a trot and a hop to keep up with his new master, to whom he was tethered by a rope that passed around his neck. The second convict had been left unbound, except for the tether-rope around his neck, and followed his new master with his head down and his feet dragging. Both men were unkempt and filthy, and for a moment, a flicker of doubt arose in Susannah's mind.

  "Susannah, they look misused!" Sarah Jane exclaimed almost in her ear.

  "What am I bid for this fine specimen here, a good worker, like all Scots, and strong as an ox?" The auctioneer boomed from the block, extolling the virtues of a stocky man with a shock of red hair who stood regarding the crowd with a cocky grin despite his predicament.

  "Now there's a likely-looking fellow," Susannah said, distracted from Sarah Jane's protest by the activity on the block. A little distance away, a trio of matrons spied the sisters. They waved and called greetings, the sense if not the actual words of which were apparent.

  "Good afternoon, Eliza, Jane, Virgie!" Susannah called back. Mistresses Eliza Forrester, Jane Parker, and Virgie Tandy were members of the Reverend Redmon s flock, and the sisters knew them well. Smiling, returning waves and greetings, Susannah missed her chance to bid on the man.

  "Going once, going twice, gone to Tom Hardy for two hundred pounds! You can pick your man up over here at the side, Mr. Hardy—and pay your money, too, of course."

  The auctioneer was Hank Shay. Susannah had known him, or rather known of him, in a vague sort of way from birth. He was an itinerant who traveled the Carolina coast, fetching slaves and bound servants impartially from the large port towns and peddling them across the countryside. His sales were notorious, and the Reverend Redmon had been known to denounce him as a hawker of human pain and suffering. He was a large-bellied, bald, and florid-faced man in his fifties, with a voice that boomed like thunder. It was booming now, as he called for bids on yet another unfortunate.

  "Are you going to bid or aren't you?" Mandy prodded Susannah's arm, while Emily, clasping her hands in front of her plump bosom, regarded the goings-on around her with transparent delight. Sarah Jane, on Susannah's other side, looked distressed.

  "Please reconsider, Susannah. These men—they're criminals, remember, or they wouldn't be here. You might buy a thief, or even a murderer!"

  "A murderer!" Mandy's eyes brightened with obvious fascination at this prospect. Susannah felt another quiver of misgiving—until she thought of all the work that waited at home. She would not allow herself to be swayed from her chosen course by Sarah Jane's negativity.

  "Stuff!" she said stoutly. "If the men were dangerous, they wouldn't be offered at public auction, now would they? Over here!"

  She raised her hand and called out as the auctioneer took the bidding up to eighty pounds. Shay saw and acknowledged her bid, while Sarah Jane muttered what sounded like a plea to the Almighty to restore her sister's good sense.

  It occurred to Susannah, as the auctioneer called for more bids, that in her haste not to be dissuaded by Sarah Jane she hadn't spared more than a glance for the fellow she'd bid on. Accordingly, she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck and thus was able to get her first good look at the man on the block.

  He was tall, she thought, comparing his height to that of the auctioneer and the two burly guards who, armed with coiled whips and rifles, stood on either side of the platform. If the breadth of his shoulders was anything to judge by, he was also large-framed, but something, his current dire circumstances or perhaps a recent illness, had rendered him so thin that his clothes hung on him as though they'd been made for a far bigger man. His hair straggled about his shoulders and seemed to be very dark, but it was so matted and filthy that its precise color was impossible to determine. There was a gray cast to his skin, and a scruffy dark beard obscured the lower part of his face. His eyes—like his hair, their color was impossible to determine—appeared sunk into their sockets. As he stared out over the crowd, they seemed to glitter, and his lip curled into what looked like a snarl. His arms hung limply in front of him. The irons that linked his wrists appeared to be weighing them down. His fists were clenched, which Susannah took as another sign of belligerence. This is a bad one, Susannah thought with an inward shiver, and vowed to bid no more on him. Sarah Jane's warning no longer seemed quite so farfetched.

  "Who'll give me a hundred? Come on, now, a hundred! You, Miss Re
dmon? No? You over there?"

  Someone must have raised a hand, because Shay picked up the beat. "I have a hundred. I have a hundred! Will you let this big, strong fellow get away from you for so paltry a sum as that? I . . ."

  "Why's he still got the irons on, Hank Shay?" a male voice called out.

  "Gave you trouble, did he?" A guffaw accompanied this sally from a farmer at the edge of the crowd. From somewhere an object was let fly. It sailed past the convict's head, just missing him, to splatter against the far edge of the platform. An overripe tomato, judging from the mess it made when it landed, Susannah saw. The man didn't even duck, let alone flinch, but his eyes seemed to burn just that much brighter. The curl of his lip grew more pronounced. He emanated waves of hostility so intense they were almost palpable as his head turned in the direction from which the missile had come, and his gaze raked the crowd.

  "Enough of that now, you boys, or I'll be having you hauled up before the magistrate! I don't take kindly to having my sales disrupted, as you'd do well to remember!" Having dealt with the tomato-thrower and his friends, Shay's angry bawl moderated, and he addressed himself to the farmer and his confederate. "The irons are a precaution, no more. You can see for yourself that this one's big, and he's strong, too, I can vouch for that! He'll be a fine worker for the lucky bidder what gets him! Do I hear a hundred and ten?"

  The bidding continued, but Susannah paid little attention as she had no intention of joining in. The convict looked sullen at worst, ferocious at best, and was definitely not the man she sought. Still, she couldn't help but feel pity for him, just as she would feel sorry for any poor creature who had so obviously been ill-treated. Like a bear that had been baited, he bristled with hatred. But who was to blame for that: the bear, or the one who had done the baiting? she asked herself. She could not condemn him for his fierceness, though it bode ill for his future. Only a fool would buy a bound man who looked as if he would positively relish murdering one in one's bed.

  "He can read and write, the King's own English, too! That should up his price considerable! Some canny buyer will be gettin' a real bargain for a hundred and sixty pounds! Do I hear a hundred and sixty?"

  Shay got it, but the bidder sounded reluctant. This man was not going to sell for as much as Shay wished, it was clear. Indeed, from the ferocious way the convict was scowling at the crowd, Susannah was surprised at anyone having the nerve to bid on him at all. But Shay had said he was an educated man. Was that true, Susannah wondered, or merely one of the auctioneer's devices to drive up the bidding? The convict certainly did not appear educated, though if one looked closely it was possible to discern that his clothes had once been fine. He was dressed in black breeches, now badly torn and stained, an equally deficient shirt that must once have been white, a ragged waistcoat fashioned from what might have been gold brocade, and a pair of flat brogues that were sadly at odds with the rest of his costume. He wore no stockings, and his hairy bare legs were plainly visible below the knee- band of his breeches.

  The red-haired man had been far more prepossessing, and certainly more suited to Susannah's purpose. But something about this one roused her compassion.

  When Shay pushed the bidding up, Susannah stood silent. Mandy and Emily watched the proceedings wide- eyed. From their expressions, it was clear they were pleasantly titillated by the convict's aura of ferocity, but they had no wish to take him on as a family servant. Sarah Jane looked uneasy, as if she really feared that Susannah might be so lost to all judgment as to buy such an obviously unsuitable man.

  "Afternoon, Miss Amanda, Miss Susannah, Miss Sarah Jane, Miss Emily. Ladies, what are you doing here? I could hardly believe my ears when that villain Shay addressed Miss Susannah by name and I saw you were bidding. Don't tell me that the good reverend countenanced any such thing, for I'll not believe it!"

  This greeting, boomed without warning from just behind Susannah's left shoulder, was more than audible. She turned her head sharply, to behold, as she had known she would, Hiram Greer. He was a prosperous indigo planter who had long had an eye on Mandy. As he was nearly as old as their father, and homely and brusque-mannered to boot, none of them had ever given his suit serious consideration, though he was quite wealthy. Mandy, for all her flirtatious ways, had never purposefully encouraged him. But still he fancied himself her future husband and therefore adopted a proprietary manner toward the rest of the family that set their collective teeth on edge. Barrel- chested and stocky, of average height, with thinning, grizzled hair and coarse features, Hiram Greer was a bull of a man in both appearance and manner. Susannah couldn't abide him, although, as he was a leading member of her father's small flock, she had perforce to be polite.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Greer." Though she gave his question no direct reply, he was not the man to recognize and accept a rebuff.

  "Good God, ma'am, when I saw you here with your sisters I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me! Did you know you actually bid on that scum? For you cannot have done it on purpose, surely! But you should realize that if you raise your hand Shay up there takes it for a bid. Fortunate for you that others have topped you, or you might have found yourself saddled with a hooligan you never wanted and your father to answer to for it! Let me escort you ladies away from here!"

  He took Susannah's arm without waiting for her reply and would have pulled her with him willy-nilly had she not jerked her elbow free.

  "You quite mistake the matter, I assure you, Mr. Greer," she said firmly. "I have no wish to move an inch from this spot. Indeed, I am here for the express purpose of securing a bound man."

  So saying, she lifted her chin and fixed her eyes firmly on the platform again. Shay called for more bids. The convict bared his teeth as if daring someone to buy him. Shay, looking ugly, sent the man a sideways glance that bode ill for his future if he remained in the auctioneer's care. For a long moment no one bid, and then a man near the middle of the crowd raised his hand.

  "One seventy! I have one seventy! A ridiculous price for an educated gentleman strong enough to work like a field hand while he keeps your books! Come on, folks, are you going to let Mr. Renard there get away with robbery?"

  "Renard can have the taming of him! He's got the stomach for it. The rest of us are a mite more squeamish about how we use the whip!"

  The catcall produced a tidal wave of guffaws. Georges Renard was a cotton planter from the up-country, and his cruelty was legendary. Slaves on his plantation were routinely whipped to the brink of death for such sins as what Renard perceived as laziness. Rumor had it that nearly as many who survived died, but the veracity of that was generally discounted; after all, Renard was a businessman, and slaves were valuable pieces of property. Susannah shuddered to think what he might do to a man so obviously bent on defiance as the convict.

  "You'll not buy that one," Greer said, his voice commanding. "Do you hear me, Miss Susannah? I'd not sleep easy, worrying about you and yours, with the likes of that around. If you must buy a servant, I'll choose him for you. There's a man to be put up a little later that I've had my eye on for myself. He's an older fellow, but stout looking, and in for no more dangerous a crime than forgery. I asked. When he's put up, I'll buy him for you. Consider it a gift."

  The munificence of that offer drew a gasp from Emily and a blush from Mandy. It annoyed Susannah so much that she had to draw in a quick, steadying breath to keep from losing the temper that was one of her gravest faults.

  "I thank you for the offer, but I've quite decided on this one," she said, realizing even as the words left her mouth that she had, indeed, made up her mind. She raised her hand.

  "One eighty! I have one eighty!" Shay acknowledged her gesture almost instantly, while Greer's face reddened, and the girls made a collective sound that might have constituted shock, or, in Sarah Jane's case at least, a realized fear. "Will anyone go one ninety? No? What about one eighty-five? No? This is your last chance, good people, for the bargain of the year! Are you going to let Miss Redmon steal him out fro
m under your nose for a measly one hundred and eighty pounds? Any bids? Any bids? No? Then going, going, gone, to Miss Redmon for one eighty! You've made yourself a mighty fine purchase, ma'am!"

  "Oh, Susannah!" Sarah Jane moaned. Susannah wasn't sure that she didn't feel like moaning, too. Already she was having second thoughts. But with Hiram Greer bristling beside her and so many other eyes turning to seek her out, this was not the moment to indulge in them. She stiffened her spine and thrust up her head and marched through the crowd toward the auction block where the convict was being led down. Behind her trailed Hiram Greer, for once shocked into silence, and her sisters. With the sinking feeling that she had let pity and annoyance lead her into making a grave error, Susannah counted out the required amount of sterling to a man who sat behind a table just beside the platform guarding a cash box. The man recounted the cash, then handed her a piece of paper —the Articles of Indenture, she later discovered—and the frayed end of a rope. The other end of the rope was attached to the neck of the man she had just bought.

  Her eyes were wide as she followed that rope to its end.

  3

  The crowd eddied around the auction block, appearing to Ian Connelly as a single colorful, noisy mass. Individual faces blurred before his eyes as he stood like a stone behind the table where Shay's assistant, Walter Johnson, greedily counted the cash that would purchase—purchase!—him, just as he himself had once purchased a horse or a cow. Equally indistinct were the strangely accented voices that rose and fell against his eardrums. Their cadence served as a stomach-churning reminder of the rhythm of the waves that had slapped ceaselessly against the hull of the ship that had carried him from England. His head was pounding, though whether from the stifling humidity, which was like nothing he had ever experienced, or from the effects of the starvation they had finally used to tame him, it was impossible to say. The sun—surely this was not the same sun that gently warmed the Irish countryside or chased away the sober English mists—beat down without mercy on his uncovered head. His legs felt odd, boneless almost, his knees shaky. It had taken every iota of his willpower, first to stand without wavering on the platform and then to make his way down the makeshift wooden steps to the trampled grass. Hatred was what kept him going—black, burning hatred of his enemies, who at the moment constituted most of mankind.