Jake Slocum was a man of little sensitivity. He did, however, have pride in one thing: his ability to handle women. From his youth, he had known how to get women to surrender to his attentions. Certain women, that is—and it galled him that he was being denied by Ellen Rocklin.
He had pursued her for some time before she had agreed to meet him, and of all the women he had known, she was the one he prized most. For one thing, she was of a higher class than most of his women. Slocum was a small-time planter, with only eight slaves on his relatively small plantation. He blustered and shoved his way into the small group of prosperous planters who owned the really huge plantations and hundreds of slaves. But he knew they only tolerated him. He had pursued several of the wives and daughters of these men, finding more pleasure in the fact that he was irritating the men than from his flirtations with their women.
Though Slocum was not a handsome man, he was powerful and bold, and some women were drawn to this. He was a large man, six feet two, and weighed 220 pounds. Always dressed in the finest clothing, which he bought in New Orleans, he was an impressive man physically. He had a shock of heavy, slightly wavy blond hair and a pair of aggressive blue eyes. His face was broad and his mouth wide in a sensual way. His reputation as a womanizer was equaled by his reputation as a fighting man. He steered clear of pistol duels, preferring to be known as a bruising fistfighter. It was what he liked best, and he had destroyed many men with his massive fists.
But Slocum was unhappy now, for his conquest of Ellen Rocklin had backfired. He had won her after a long pursuit, longer than he normally gave to most of his conquests, but it had been worth it to him. Slocum had little taste for finer qualities in women, and Ellen proved to be more troublesome than he had expected. She had been adamant about their meetings, controlling them so they never became publicly known. This had displeased Slocum, who wanted the world to know of his victory in charming the wife of a prominent planter, but she had refused to be seen with him in public.
And now, without warning, she had dropped him, which was a severe blow to Slocum’s pride. He had persuaded her to meet him in Richmond, and she had finally agreed. He had taken a room at a third-rate hotel, where the clerk could not have cared less who made their way up the rickety staircase to the seedy rooms on the second floor. He had given scarcely a glance at Slocum and Ellen as they had gone upstairs, but had leaned back and dozed off.
When the door closed, Slocum got a rude shock, for when he came over to put his arms around Ellen as she stood there, she said, “Jake, I’m not coming to you like this anymore.”
He blinked; then anger rose in him. He turned her around, kissed her hard, then said, “Sure you are! You’re as crazy about me as I am about you.”
But she had simply waited until he released her, then turned and said in a sharp tone, “It’s too risky. And I’m sick of these awful rooms.”
“We could go to my place,” he said. “It’s a fine house, and nobody would know.”
“Yes, they would,” she said calmly. “You’ve got slaves and a housekeeper. Word would be out in Richmond the next day.”
“What difference does it make? Who cares what the hypocrites say?”
“I care, Jake.” Ellen turned away from him, thinking quietly for a moment, then added, “You men can do what you please and still be accepted. It’s a matter of pride, how many women you have. But it’s different with a woman. Clay and I are nothing to each other, but as his wife I’m accepted in the best homes in the county.”
“People know you haven’t been a saint,” Slocum growled.
“They may think it, Jake, but they don’t know it. Because I’ve been—discreet. That’s why we can’t meet anymore. At least for a while. You talk too much, and much as I like you, I’m not about to give up everything for you. Now if you want to marry me—,” she said, turning to look at him, but his expression gave him away, and she laughed harshly, adding, “No, you want your fun, but you want me to pay for it. Well, you’ll just have to wait until it’s safer.”
“I don’t have to wait for a woman!”
“For this one you do.” Her face was set, and she adjusted her coat, a beautiful silver fox. “It’s not going to be easy for me. Clay’s not much, but at least he’s safe. He doesn’t need me, but he doesn’t want any other woman either.”
Slocum gave her a rough grin. “Don’t be too sure about that, Ellen.”
She had started to turn but stopped to stare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t know about your husband and Melora Yancy?” Slocum saw the sudden shock on Ellen’s face and knew he had found a way to bring her to heel. “I thought you knew,” he said casually. “He’s been chasing around after her for a long time.”
“That’s ridiculous! She’s poor white trash!”
“I guess maybe she is, but she’s mighty gorgeous trash.”
“Clay’s got better sense,” Ellen argued. “He’s no fool to chase around after a girl like that. Why, he’s old enough to be her father.”
“And you think men never make fools of themselves over a younger woman?” Slocum retorted. “Happens all the time,” he said, then threw in carelessly, “especially when a man’s been married a long time. His wife can’t satisfy him, so he goes out and gets him a young woman. You’ve seen it happen enough, Ellen. Don’t see why you should be surprised.”
A smoldering rage began to rise in Ellen. She had been filled with hatred for Clay since the night she had gone to his cabin. His rejection had cut her to the bone, but it had never once occurred to her that she was rejected because he had another woman. Now, standing there motionlessly, she began to remember that Clay did make a great many visits to the Yancy place. She had thought it was to hunt with Buford Yancy, but now as she called up a vision of the daughter, she was instantly convinced that Slocum was telling the truth. It was impossible for her to believe that men and women could simply enjoy each other’s company, for she herself never had such simple motives. As she thought of Melora’s youth and beauty, she wanted to kill her.
“You’re wrong,” she said, trying to convince herself.
“Why, honey, he went out in the woods with her for three days! You think they was hunting all that time?” Buford had shot a record turkey and in casual conversation had mentioned to a group of which Slocum was a part that his daughter had been on the hunt. He had said also that Rev. Irons had been along, but Slocum altered the story to rouse Ellen’s wrath, which it did, of course.
“He can’t make a fool out of me!” Ellen grated. She stared at Jake, and he could almost see the workings of her mind. And she did exactly what he had known she would. “Jake, you’ve got to do something! He doesn’t pay any attention to me, but I want him hurt!”
Slocum knew he had his way. He smiled and came toward her. “I’ll take care of it, honey.”
“Don’t fight a duel with him,” Ellen warned. “He’d shoot you dead, Jake.”
“There’s better ways,” he murmured. Then, slipping her coat off, he grinned, saying, “You’re not in that big a hurry, honey ….”
The shopping trip to Richmond was a bittersweet experience for Deborah, with far more of the bitter than the sweet. She and Susanna were joined by Dent, who invited himself along.
“I’ve got a few things to buy,” he said blandly, and it secretly pleased both women, for he was at his best. He kept them entertained all the way to the city, telling tall tales of his escapades at Virginia Military Institute, some of them concerning one of his instructors, Thomas Jackson. “He knows Uncle Gideon well,” Dent said. “They were in Mexico together.”
They shopped in the morning and had lunch at a fine restaurant; then Susanna left the young people and went to visit a sick friend. “Don’t get into one of your terrible arguments,” she warned.
“No chance of that,” Dent agreed cheerfully. “A man would be a fool to argue with anyone as beautiful as this woman!”
“You’re out to charm me, aren’t y
ou?” Deborah asked. She was wearing an attractive dress of gray and pearl stripe, but pulled on a royal blue woolen coat as they got up to leave the restaurant.
“Certainly!” he agreed. “I’ve got fine manners you’ve never even seen. Come along now—we’ve got a lot to see and do.”
All afternoon they wandered the streets of the city, and Deborah had a wonderful time. Dent knew the city like the back of his hand and introduced her to so many people that she lost track.
It would have been well if they had not made their last visit, and later both of them wished they had not.
They were walking down Walnut Street when a crowd moving into a large building of red brick caught Deborah’s eye. “What’s that, Dent?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he said and spoke so diffidently that she knew it was something he didn’t want her to see. She looked at the front of the building as they walked by and saw a poster proclaiming that a firm named Ellis & Livingstone was conducting a sale of Negroes.
There it was. The evil she had heard about all her life; that her father had devoted his life to destroying; that her teacher Charles G. Finney had spoken against with great passion.
“I want to go inside,” she said impulsively.
Dent tried to dissuade her. “It’s mostly men, Deborah. You’d be very uncomfortable.”
“Dent, I’m going inside.” Deborah’s lips were tight, and her head was held high in a stubborn gesture. “You can come with me or not.”
Dent followed her reluctantly into a large room where the sales took place. He had been there many times, but now he was apprehensive. He was also on the defensive, for he knew her feelings and was aware that the slave market would only harden her views.
The room into which Deborah stepped was about fifty feet square, and it was bare of all furniture except for a few scattered chairs and benches. The whitewashed walls, which were about twelve feet high, picked up the light from the mullioned windows. A pair of steep staircases made of rough oak led to the floor overhead, and a single door at the back led, apparently, to some sort of holding room where the slaves were kept until they were brought out.
Two classes of people were in the room, and Deborah at once recognized that they might have been beings from two separate worlds! There were many men in the room who were dressed in dark suits and wore broad-brimmed hats. They were walking around smoking cigars, talking to one another and examining some of the second group—slaves who were either standing or sitting on benches.
As Deborah moved around the room, she saw many of the planters give her a startled look; more than one of them made remarks of some sort to the other men but, seeing Dent standing behind her, kept their remarks muffled. Dent himself was unhappy and kept his chin high, ready to resent any sort of insult.
At the front of the room was a small raised platform, occupied by the auctioneer, who was watching a woman mount the three high steps. She was wearing a red dress with a white apron over it. When she got to the top of the platform, the auctioneer began the bidding.
“Here now, look at this prime specimen, gentlemen! Only nineteen years old and never had a sick day! She’s healthy and ready to breed, so what am I offered?”
The bidding started at fifteen hundred dollars but rose rapidly. The young woman was a mulatto and very pretty. She dropped her head as the bidding went on, and once a man stepped up to the platform and took her jaw, forcing her to open her mouth while he examined her teeth. He ran his hand over her body, then stepped down and raised the bid.
The woman was sold for forty-two hundred dollars. And Deborah heard a man close to her say, “That’s Bartlett from New Orleans. He buys the pretty ones up for the bawdy houses there.”
Slightly sick to her stomach, Deborah stood there watching. She saw a child sold to one buyer. The mother, who was sold to another, fought to keep her little girl but was cuffed into submission, and the little girl was picked up bodily by a tough-looking man and carried out of the building screaming.
“Take me out of here, Denton!” Deborah whispered. She swayed, and he took her arm quickly, holding her firmly as they left the auction house. When they were outside, she said, “I want to go home.”
Dent said quickly, “It wasn’t something for you to see,
Deborah. I shouldn’t have let you go in there.”
“Would it not go on if I didn’t see it?” Deborah asked. They walked along the street, not speaking. She was almost beyond thought, so revolted was she by the terrible sight she had just witnessed. As for Dent, he was well aware that what had just occurred could be death to their relationship.
They found Susanna waiting for them, and she took one look at Deborah’s stricken face, then asked, “What is it, child?”
“I—went to the slave auction.”
Susanna glanced at Dent, who was stiff-lipped, and said, “We’ll go home now, Dent.”
“You two go on. I’ll come later.”
He accompanied them to the carriage, handed them in, and nodded as Susanna spoke to the horses and they left him at a fast clip. The day had turned sour for Dent, all the more so since—before the incident at the auction—he had seen a warmth and acceptance in Deborah that he had sought ever since meeting her.
Frustrated and angry, he turned on his heel and made his way to the Water Hole, a favorite haunt of the young bucks of Richmond. He found several of his cronies there and almost at once began to drink. He was not much of a drinker as a rule, but the whole group was excited, two of them being in the militia and expecting to be off to war soon. They sat around blackguarding the North until a poker game claimed their attention. Dent was a good card player, and he sat there for several hours, not realizing how much he was drinking. Finally he noticed that he was losing hands and laughed, “You boys are pretty sharp. You know the only way to beat me is to get me drunk!” They protested, but he took his winnings, stuck them in his pocket, and left the saloon with a promise to come back and let them have a chance to win some of it back the next day.
He made his way down the street, walking carefully, for he was at that stage of drunkenness when the earth is somewhat unsteady and the curbs do not remain stable. Suddenly he remembered that he had no way to get back home, since Susanna had taken the buggy. Have to stay in town tonight, he thought and made his way to the Harley House. The room clerk looked up, a smallish young fellow named Dixon Morgan.
“Need a room for the night, Dix,” Dent said. “Got stranded with no way to get home.”
“Your father’s in the bar, Dent,” Morgan said. “He came in for supper with Taylor Dewitt and some others. Expect he’ll be heading out pretty soon.”
Dent stood there irresolutely. He didn’t want any company—especially his father’s—but he didn’t want to spend the night in a hotel room either. “Thanks, Dix,” he finally said. “You just missed a customer.”
He entered the bar, a large room with what was reported to be the longest and finest bar in the South along one wall and tables in the center. White-jacketed bartenders and waiters moved about serving the customers, and Dent spotted his father at a table with several of his friends. He walked over, and when his father looked up with surprise at seeing him, he asked, “Got room for me when you go home?”
“Sure, Dent,” Clay said. “I brought the small wagon in. Be ready to go pretty soon.”
“Take a seat, Dent,” Taylor Dewitt said. He had noticed that Dent was speaking in that careful way that a man will use when he’s been drinking and is aware that his speech is slurred. “Saw you squiring that Yankee girl around this afternoon.” A grin scored his thin lips, and he winked at the others. “First thing you know, she’ll have you converted. I can just see you now going around the North giving lectures on the horrors of slavery!”
A laugh ran around the table, and several of the men offered ribald suggestions to the younger Rocklin. Dent managed a sour grin but said only, “Seems like you fellows have all the answers. Maybe you ought to hunt Jefferson Davis up and tell
him how to get the Yankees out of our hair. Or maybe Abe Lincoln.”
There was a congenial air around the table, and Dent had taken no offense. But suddenly a voice said loudly, “You Rocklins don’t have much luck with your women, do you?”
Dent turned to find Jake Slocum grinning at him, and it was not a pleasant grin. At first he thought he had heard the man wrong, for his hearing was fuzzy. His senses were drugged with alcohol, and sounds came to him hollowly, as if he were in a steel drum. But as he focused on Slocum’s broad face, he saw that the man was deliberately provoking him.
“Keep your mouth shut, Jake,” he said angrily. The frustrations that had been boiling in him all evening suddenly rose like a tide, and he glared at the huge man with anger in his face.
He did not know that Slocum had been pushing against Clay for some time. Never offering a direct insult, but so insolent with his words and expression that Taylor had said, “Jake, you’re offensive. Either straighten up or go find some other crowd.” He had gotten a rough glance from Slocum, who had said only, “You’re not president of anything, Dewitt.”
Taylor had gone to the bathroom with Bushrod Aimes and taken occasion to say, “What’s Jake up to? He’s got some kind of wild hair.”
“Dunno. But if he says much more to Clay, it’ll mean a shooting.”
Slocum had prodded Clay Rocklin steadily, determined to start trouble. But he was smart enough not to let it become a shooting affair. He was aware of Clay’s skill with a pistol and had no intention of dying for any woman. He wanted to use his fists on the man but had had no success in stirring Rocklin. Clay Rocklin was a steady man and was hard to provoke. But Slocum was determined that the provocation would come, so that when he smashed Rocklin beyond recognition, no one could accuse him of being the instigator. Now, however, he saw in young Dent Rocklin a new opportunity.
“What’s the matter, Dent?” Slocum asked. “You can’t get that Yankee girl’s attention? I did a little better than that with your ma! Maybe I better give you a few lessons—”
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 30