The plantation owner reminded Fraser of nothing so much as a wading bird, an ibis perhaps. His nose was beaky, his eyes were beady, and his shoulders sloped as though perpetually weighted by responsibility and its close relative, worry. When Pollard, lash in hand, and lumbered after his employer, Fraser imagined him wringing Harrington’s neck like the cook a chicken’s. But his stance was almost as submissive as Mason’s, even when Harrington’s cultured voice began, “Once again I must remonstrate with you, Sam. Your beatings are rendering the field hands unfit to work and engendering a most unbecoming sullenness in their behavior.”
Fraser sat back in his chair, musing on how economic necessity over-balanced moral queasiness. The dusk thickened into full night, the river sank beneath a burden of shadow, and stars shone above the ancient forest trees that gave Oak Grove its name.
Then, with a ripple of laughter and a rustle of silk, Harrington’s two daughters ran onto the veranda. This time Fraser stood up, even though inwardly he quailed. The previous evening he had endeavored to amuse the young ladies with conversation, but had found it hard going. They were lovely, yes, pale of complexion and bright of eye, but so everlastingly shy and modest, greeting his every sally with giggles, that he wondered how Miss Letitia had managed to affiance herself.
Tonight, however, Miss Letitia and Miss Betsy bobbed only perfunctory curtseys toward Fraser. Their attentions were directed to the carriage that jounced up the drive and stopped before the veranda. Its lanterns swayed, its fine pair of horses jangled their harnesses, and its ebony-skinned minions produced first a set of steps and then a young man, who, judging by Letitia’s blushes, was the fiancé himself, come to spend the weekend.
Harrington, Pollard looming behind him, returned to the veranda in time to accept the young man’s courtesies. “Captain Fraser,” said his host, “may I present Mr. Dabney of Bella Vista, who is to marry Letitia next month. His father has a thousand acres and over a hundred slaves. His property adjoins ours on the west.”
Fraser concealed his smile of comprehension with a polite murmur. To his eyes, three years into their fourth decade, Dabney seemed hardly older than the stripling footman, if of a considerably lighter hue and softer frame. His cravat was tucked close around his plump chin, his collar rose beneath his ears as though supporting his round head, and his tail-coat and trousers were cut in the latest style.
“Charmed,” said Dabney, affecting a deeper voice than God had given him.
Pollard looked the young man up and down and muttered something about a swell-head, quietly, beneath his breath, but not quietly enough. He was the sort of man who would tiptoe with louder steps than a marching army.
Letitia took Dabney’s arm and tried to lead him away, but the young man resisted her, instead bristling up into Pollard’s face. “I should take that comment back if I were you, Mr. Pollard.”
“I meant no harm, Mr. Dabney,” said Pollard, with a bow just taut enough to be mocking.
“Good. Remember that the likes of you never mean any harm. Come along, Letitia. Cato, bring the baggage.” Dabney turned toward the house.
Attempting a flounce with her fashionably narrow skirts, Letitia followed. Her sister on her other side repeated her flounce in an enthusiastic if less practiced manner.
Dabney’s valet mounted the steps, burdened with a several bandboxes. Brushing him aside, Pollard stamped down the steps with another sotto voce murmur, this time about popinjays hiding behind petticoats. He strode off toward his own small house by the hedge.
Dabney’s back stiffened, but Harrington’s hand on the rear buttons of his coat urged him toward the door. Mason held it open. “Dinner is served,” he said, and stepped aside.
“See that Dabney’s men are housed and fed, and help Cato carry his things to the second-best guest room,” ordered Harrington. In the lamplight emanating from the doorway his face seemed slightly gray, and his shoulders sloped even further than usual, and yet the narrow line of his lips softened a bit as he spoke, as though he were about to smile upon the young bondsman, but then thought better of it. “Captain Fraser?”
Fraser stepped past master and slave, out of the darkness into the warm light of the house.
* * * * *
Fraser pushed back from the breakfast table, somewhat dyspeptic. While delicious, the hot muffins and corn batter cakes, rice waffles, hot loaf, flannel cakes, and French rolls, washed down with both coffee and tea, made him yearn for oatmeal and bannocks eaten looking out upon the austere mountains of his own homeland.
Last night’s Lucullan banquet had been over-salted by Dabney’s monologue on Pollard’s iniquities, faults that were aggravated by his low social status. By the time the ladies had left the table Fraser was so weary of both Pollard and Dabney, he acceded with relief to Harrington’s request to hold forth with tales of his battles with the French and travels amongst the Mahometans.
Harrington had interjected many remarks and questions, while Mason skillfully poured various wines of no mean quality—the richest Madeira, the best Port, the softest Malmsey wine. The footman also, so far as Fraser could tell from his attentive mien, had listened with interest but was constrained to make no comment. Dabney, sulking to be so far out of his element, had at last left the table to make sure his horses were properly stabled.
This morning Fraser’s companions were only the demure daughters of the house, whispering to each other about frocks and parties, and the portrait of their late mother, taken untimely by Miss Betsy’s birth. None of these ladies demanded his attention, and indeed barely noticed when he left the table.
Fraser walked out onto the veranda and looked about him, at the mist rising off the river and wavering tentatively upward into a fresh blue sky, at the damp sparkle of grass and leaf, at the community hidden behind the cedar hedge, already hard at work.
A bondswoman appeared, clad in a simple muslin dress and a kerchief and apron of dazzling whiteness, all the brighter for contrasting with the mahogany of her skin. Upon her head she bore a basket brimming with vegetables from the kitchen garden. Ah, this must be Venus, the cook, of whom Harrington had spoken such entirely deserved praise. She trod past the veranda, stately as a queen, directing her steps toward the kitchen in its small separate building behind the house.
At that instant two men came running across the lawn from the stable, stumbling in their haste, their eyes wide with alarm and with, Fraser suspected, fear. Venus turned toward them, so gracefully the basket upon her head did not tilt, let alone fall. Fraser stepped down off the veranda onto the gravel of the drive. “Here, here, what’s this?”
“Master,” said one of the men breathlessly. “Master Pollard’s horse done come back to the stables all alone, dragging his reins.”
Fraser was turning toward the house to call Harrington when the man himself came through the doorway. “Alone? You mean the beast’s thrown him somewhere in the fields?”
“Yes, Master.”
“We must look for him,” said Harrington. “He might be injured. Fraser, you’re an expert horseman, if you would be so kind . . .”
“Certainly.”
“Mason!” Harrington shouted.
The footman appeared from around the corner of the house and stopped at Venus’s side. He must have been in the kitchen himself, breaking his own fast, as his brow was bedewed with perspiration and his waistcoat unbuttoned. “Yes, master?” he asked, and polished the toe of his left shoe against his stocking-clad right calf.
“Write and send a message to Mr. Dabney’s father at Bella Vista, asking him to join the search.”
“Yes, master.” Youth and woman exchanged a significant look, and together they disappeared in that subtle fashion of all the bondsmen, appearing more like dark ghosts hovering at the rim of consciousness than human beings.
Fraser hurried back into the house and up the sweeping staircase lined with the powdered heads and laced coats of ancestral portraits. At its top he was confronted with the spectacle of Dabney in his dressing gown, a ha
lf-eaten muffin held to his be-crumbed lips, Cato behind him holding a cup and saucer.
“What’s all this infernal shouting?” the young man demanded, his voice thick with the food in his mouth. Upon Fraser acquainting him with the situation, Dabney shrugged and permitted one corner of his upper lip to turn upwards in a smile. “Well, if the man can’t keep his seat, ‘tis no affair of mine.”
Making no comment on Dabney’s pleasure in Pollard’s predicament, which was no affair of his, Fraser equipped himself with boots and a wide-brimmed hat and within moments joined Harrington in the stables. Every lineament of the plantation owner’s body displayed his nervous tension as the stableboy—one of the two men who had reported Pollard’s disappearance—saddled the second of a brace of horses.
Fraser stopped beside the tall, sturdy bay that stood, saddled and bridled, to one side. “This is Pollard’s usual mount?” he asked.
“Yes, it is,” said Harrington.
Fraser was not surprised to see that the beast was of good, although not excellent, quality. He breathed in heavy snorts, his foam-flecked mouth working around the bit, his eye rolling. Murmuring soothing words, Fraser stepped closer.
Now the reins were looped loosely around a hitching post. But they had been dragging, as the men reported—their ends were muddy and creased. How fortunate that the horse had not tripped himself up and broken a leg in what had obviously been a mad dash for home. The question was, what had provoked him into such exertions?
Fraser ran a hand over the animal’s steaming flanks and then inspected his fingertips. Tiny seeds, glued together by the horse’s sweat, clung to them. “Boy,” he called, and the stableboy looked around. “Where can be found plants with this sort of seed?”
“In the slough where the branch meets the river, master”
“In the marsh where the stream runs into the river?” Harrington translated. “Is that where the man is to be found, do you think?”
“I think that is where we should begin our search.” Fraser was just returning the reins to the post when the angle of the saddle caught his eye. He tilted his head assessingly, then clasped the edge of the saddle and joggled it. It slipped loosely to the side, and would have fallen beneath the horse’s belly had he not caught it.
“What is it?” asked Harrington, stepping closer to inspect the evidence.
“The saddle is loose. Surely Pollard would not have set off without making sure ‘twas tight. Aha!” Fraser unbuckled the straps and pulled the saddle free. “Look. One of the perforations in the girth-strap has broken through to the next one. He could have tightened it properly, not noticing the perforations were almost conjoined, and the movements of the horse completed the break.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Fraser’s index finger indicated how the enlargement of the perforation had been caused by a knife-cut, not the jagged edge of wear.
“Ah,” said Harrington.
Fraser carried the saddle through the open doorway of the tack room and set it on a the first empty stand. Something caught his eye, a gleam where the cobblestone floor met the planks of the walls. He reached down to the shadowed intersection where the daily sweepings had accumulated, and picked up a brass button.
He carried this suggestive item to Harrington. “This has lain here only a few hours.” Fraser’s thumb stroked the smooth metal surface, demonstrating how the merest few grains of dust dulled its luster.
Silently Harrington took the button from Fraser’s hand and placed it in his pocket. The lines in his face deepened from creases into crevasses as he took the reins of his own horse from the attending stable boy. “See to Pollard’s horse, Gideon. Mind you wipe him down well.”
“Yes, master.” Gideon, his own dusky features set in every indication of deep thought, proffered the reins of the second horse to Fraser. He mounted and turned with Harrington toward the river.
A glance toward the main house showed Mason handing a white square to a small boy, who trotted off westwards, and not a sign of Dabney. Fraser pressed his heels to the flanks of the fine specimen of horseflesh Harrington had entrusted to him—his reputation as a cavalry man had preceded him—and the beast stepped out, attempting in his high spirits to prance sideways until Fraser brought him securely under control.
But this he did instinctively. His mind was turning over the thought that not only had the slave Mason been taught to write, he had been taught to write well enough to be entrusted with the proper conveyance of a message. This made him a more valuable servant, certainly, and yet at the same time was a risk. Fraser glanced at his companion, but Harrington’s keen white face shadowed by the hat-brim indicated nothing save his concern for Pollard’s predicament, now seen to have been no accident.
The plantation owner led the way past the small log houses behind the cedar hedge. Chickens scattered, squawking. Little children, wearing no more than a shirt, picked insects from the leaves of tobacco. Others squatted in the dirt, using their fingers to eat a pottage of beans and grain from wooden trenchers. A man in the field hand’s uniform of loose shirt and trousers sat upon a pile of bricks, the same russet as the main house, polishing a hoe into cleanliness while his bare feet remained coated with dust and chaff.
Once in the open fields, Harrington urged his horse into a canter, hurrying toward a line of trees rising on the horizon. Beneath the eaves of those trees, the brown dusty track became a brown muddy one. Fraser reined in and leaned precariously to one side, squinting in the sudden shadow. “Those hoof prints are very fresh.”
“Pollard?” Harrington asked, leaning not quite so precariously.
“Quite likely so, yes. There are two sets—see how the tracks are curved in the direction the animal was walking? At least, he was walking when he faced toward the river, but running when he returned. Those tracks are much further apart, and overlie the earlier set, obliterating many of them. Obliterating many prints of bare human feet as well. Do the slaves come here?”
“Yes they do, to hunt and fish and gather reeds for bedding and baskets. Pollard is obliged to patrol the area, making sure the slaves carry out such activities on their own time, not mine.”
“They hunt?”
“With snares and the like. Of course they are not allowed to carry firearms.”
“Of course not.”
Ducking an overhanging limb, Harrington urged his horse onwards. The moist warmth of the river rose around them. The hooves made louder and louder plops as the ground grew boggier. Then they broke through the belt of forest and into the sunlight. Before them lay an expanse of marsh, rushes and reeds trembling in the still air and pools of water glinting. White birds broke cover and flew upwards, calling raucously. A flying insect made a determined sortie into Fraser’s ear and he batted it away.
To the left the pools grew larger, joining together, and drowned the trees and water grasses in the expanse of the river. To the right the trail ran away into the marsh. The hoof prints turned to the right, heading toward a grove of willows. Fraser guided his horse in that direction and found himself in the lead. The odors of rotting vegetation and stagnant water enveloped them.
Suddenly Fraser’s horse started violently, corkscrewing fit to tie himself into a knot. Only Fraser’s hard-earned skills kept him in the saddle. Behind him Harrington’s horse lurched backward, the skittishness contagious.
“Whoa, whoa,” Fraser murmured, stroking the animal’s shivering neck. Once the animal had quieted, he handed the reins to Harrington and climbed down from the saddle, his boots meeting the mud with a soft squelching noise. He took two, then three steps forward, just into the dappled shade of the willows.
There beside the trail lay a huge brownish-black serpent, sinuous and sleek. Fraser’s steps backward were performed with much greater alacrity. The creature did not move at all. Stopping his retreat, he peered closely at it.
Before his eyes it was transformed from a serpent to a branch. He exhaled. Was it this illusion, almost perfect in the flickering
light and shadow, that had frightened Pollard’s horse? Add the beast’s unexpected gyration to an abruptly loosened girth-strap, and no one could have kept his seat.
Again Fraser approached the branch, and this time stooped down to inspect it. “Interesting,” he said to Harrington, who inched closer. “This fell from an oak tree, wouldn’t you say? How came it here, then, amidst the willows?”
“Washed by the spring floods, perhaps.”
“I think not, Mr. Harrington. The rushes beneath this branch are fresh and green, newly-cut, and there is hardly any mud upon it. And look here!” Fraser indicated one end of the branch, where it curved upward and expanded into the very image of a serpent’s head. “Here is a bit of twine. This branch has been but recently placed here, perhaps to secure a snare or fish-net. As for Mr. Pollard . . .”
The path was a jumble of footprints and hoof marks, some of them now filled with water. Save for one patch, smoothed and hollowed, with the clear print of a human hand beside it, each finger a furrow in the mud.
“He fell there.” Harrington’s words dropped heavily into the damp hush, stirred only by the irritable thrum of insects.
On the opposite side of the muddy path, a trail of matted rushes and reeds led toward the water. A trail, Fraser estimated, made by a heavy weight that had broken the slender stems. Some of them struggled back upright, still green, as Fraser brushed by them. Others displayed smears of a substance too rosy to be mud.
Pollard lay at the edge of a pool of water dark as a Nubian’s eye, face down, arms outstretched. His cowhide lash lay at his side. But this day the blood upon it was his own, leaking from a grievous wound that had knocked one arc of his skull inward. Here the flies gathered.
Fraser took off his hat, partially from respect, partially to wipe his brow. Still his sweat trickled into his eyes and down his collar. “I have found him,” he called. “He is dead.”
“So I feared,” Harrington replied. “His fall has broken his neck, I expect.”
The Muse and Other Stories of History, Mystery, and Myth Page 18