Liberty Hill (Western Tide Series)

by Heisinger, Sonja

  “Yet again, you amaze me,” she told him.

  He cocked his head at the compliment.

  “Do I?”

  “I did not know you could dance like this.”

  He smirked.

  “How else did you suppose I spent my evenings in the city?” he asked.

  She snorted. She could think of a few things, but chose not to let her mind wander.

  “So. This is how you won the ladies,” she said instead. “I always wondered. Not that your face doesn’t recommend you. You look well enough, but wise women know a man needs more than his features to be worthwhile.”

  Now it was Lucius’ turn to snort.

  “There is no need to flatter my past conquests, Miss Brennan. They were not the sort of lot you might deem ‘wise’.”

  “Well, wise or not, I can see that you didn’t woo them with your witty remarks or chivalrous deeds. You simply lured them onto the dance floor.”

  Lucius nodded.

  “Conversation can be so drab,” he shrugged.

  “Can you even recall their names?”

  Trixie. Rosemary. Martha. Penelope. Maria. Anne. Jessie. Colette.

  “A few.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes.

  “But only their first names,” Lucius added.

  “Any woman of class would be remembered by her last,” Evelyn said. “You certainly kept indulgent company.”

  Lucius grimaced.

  “Must we dwell upon it?” he whined. “I do not wish to recall my history of mistakes.”

  “Then you regret your days of philandering?”

  “I do not regret what they taught me.”

  “And what, pray tell, is that?”

  Lucius smirked and dipped his partner low to the ground.

  “How to handle a woman, of course,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  After the women had gone to bed, Lucius and Samuel sat silently beside the fire. Samuel stared into the flames with a concentrated look, while Lucius had a handful of twigs that he was cracking and tossing into the heat. He was too excited to sleep, and besides, Lucius detested his bed. To spend an entire night unconscious was to lose so many precious hours that could be spent in other exciting ways. Anyway, he knew that if he closed his eyes, he would instantly fall into the world of dreams, where Evelyn was sure to haunt him. He would find no rest, for his heart beat wildly just at the thought of her.

  The thought of her. Oh, great God. He could not stop thinking of her! Nor did he want to. He had danced with her! Not one, not two, but three times! The elation that came with such a privilege was almost enough to make him drunk.

  He smiled, for he was a happy man.

  She had danced with others, it was true. First, there was that tall, heavily bearded man with the long hair. What was his name? Ah, yes. Sadie. But Sadie was practically a grandfather among the younger men in American Camp. Evelyn probably reminded him of the daughter he left behind. Then there was Rufus, as small a man as Sadie was large, with bloodhound eyes and a mustache that drooped to his neck. No threat there. There were the two boys, Hawkins and Whitmore, that were likely the same age as, if not a bit younger than, Evelyn; who stared at her with stars in their eyes and lead in their feet, as they continually stepped on her toes. Though she would never admit it, Lucius sensed she was eager to rejoin his company. He, on the other hand, would freely admit he was thrilled to receive her.

  “You got a smile on your face that could stretch to Georgia,” Samuel Davies commented. Lucius looked up to see the man grinning at him. He had not noticed he was being observed. “You thinking about that Miz Brennan, ain’t you, son?”

  Lucius laughed.

  “That’s some intuition you have, Samuel.”

  “Man don’ need intuition to see you wearing the same silly grin you wore when you was dancin’. She a fine woman, sir. A fine woman.”

  “Aye. I’ve never known another like her.”

  Hardheaded. Fiery. Passionate. Stunning.

  “She got a will of iron,” Samuel said. “Set her mind on a thing and she give it everything she got. Trick is gettin’ her mind set on you, ain’t it?”

  Lucius shook his head.

  “You have no idea.”

  Samuel smiled.

  “Seems to me like you’re doin’ right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Woman like that needs to find her own way. You jest keep being in the right place at the right time. Let her see who you is when you don’t think she’s lookin’. She’s got good sense, and she won’t give the time of day to anybody who don’t.”

  Lucius nodded and tossed another twig into the fire.

  “That’s why she likes you,” he told Samuel.

  “She jest want to be treated as an equal, same as everybody else.”

  “You are a student of women, Mr. Davies. Did you leave a lover in Georgia?”

  For a moment, only the fire crackled in response. Samuel did not reply, but stared harder into the flames. Lucius looked at him, awaiting an answer, when he realized the other man’s eyes had begun to water.

  “I apologize, Samuel. I did not mean to-”

  “You fine to ask,” Samuel replied. “You fine to ask.”

  The men sat in silence for a moment, while Lucius regretted the question and Samuel worked up the strength to answer.

  Presently, he took a deep breath and began to tell Lucius his story.

  Adjacent to his owner’s land was a cotton plantation, which belonged to Mr. Emerson, an elderly slave owner whom Samuel had only seen when the old man passed from his front door to his carriage. He was a huge man, weighing near three hundred pounds, with crusty white skin and a scowl permanently etched into his face. He was rarely bothered to leave his house, and in his employ were a handful of men to see to his plethora of slaves. These hired men were in charge of the purchasing, housing, trading, and delegating, while Mr. Emerson reserved the right of punishing. He was a sadistic man who took pleasure in the pain he drew with his hands.

  It was rumored that even his slaves were instructed to spy on one another. Those who were aware of defiance but did not make a report were accused of accessory and handed over to Mr. Emerson for equal punishment. If the fields were quiet too long, Mr. Emerson suspected an uprising and sent for each and every slave, one by one, to receive five lashings by his hand. Out of fear, the weaker slaves would sometimes invent a crime that another had committed and offer them up to be tortured. The stronger ones surrendered themselves as scapegoats, delivering their families and friends from suffering.

  It was into this household that seventeen-year-old Agatha was sold. She was a kitchen slave, and once a week she walked the eight miles into town to purchase food and hire a cart to return, heavily laden, with goods.

  Samuel Davies was a gardener for the Potters, and was out working on their front hedge the first time he saw Agatha. She was a wisp of a girl, with large eyes and sharp shoulders, looking no older than twelve or thirteen. As he watched her walk down the lane, his heart sank, for one encounter with Mr. Emerson could kill a stronger woman.

  Each week he watched for her, wondering if she was still alive. When he heard that first scrape of her foot against the dirt, he ran to the hedge and discreetly peeked through. It was her on the road, every time. He gave thanks to God for sparing her life.

  Agatha took notice of the Potter’s peculiar gardener, and one day she surprised him by approaching the hedge he pretended to trim.

  “Them bushes need your attention every Monday?” she asked unexpectedly, her voice high, clear, and confident.

  He fumbled for a reply.

  “My master’s mighty particular about them, ma’am.”

  Agatha surveyed the ground at Samuel’s feet, where nary a fallen leaf recommended his labor.

  “Is that so?” she inquired. “I think you is spying on me.”

  Samuel was mortified, because that was exactly what he was doing. But Agatha laughed good-naturedly.
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  “Don’t you worry,” she told him. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  For the following weeks, he waited for her and she came to him. She lingered only a few moments, to tease and laugh in such a way that Samuel found it hard to believe she had ever known anything but joy. Some days she slipped a small cake or a bun into the hedge, which he would clasp to his heart and take a relishing bite, expressing just how delighted he was with the small gift. She would giggle and say, “that was the one nobody wanted. Didn’t you see how burnt it was?”

  But it was not burnt. It was brown and beautiful and perfect, just like Agatha.

  Samuel was a grown man of twenty-seven, and he fell in love with this young, unblemished girl. The strength of his feelings frightened him, for he knew that no matter how deeply he longed for her, and how greatly he wished to protect her, prudence demanded he remain behind the Potter’s hedge. He could not touch her, could not seek her company, could not marry her as he did in his dreams.

  Each week he anxiously watched and listened for the first sign of her on the lane. Their stolen moments were all that sustained him throughout the week, and the vision of Agatha’s smile was the light that warmed him when she was not near. Weeks stretched into a year, and with the passing of time, Samuel began to believe that Agatha’s bewitching sweetness had kept her safe. The other slaves would not betray her, for who could wound such innocence? She was entirely above reproach, even the pretense of it. Mr. Emerson would not lay a hand to her.

  “I made myself believe she and I would grow old together,” Samuel said. “Meeting once a week for the rest of our lives, happy with jest that tiny morsel to sustain our appetite for one another. She loved me. She never told me so, and I didn’t tell her neither. We jest knew, and that was all we needed. It was too dangerous to say the words, you know. Perhaps we were afraid if we did, something might try to tear us apart. Like we was giving the devil permission to destroy something that was so right and pure.

  “There was one time, though, when my Aggie didn’t show, and I jest about flew myself over to Mr. Emerson and crashed through his door in a rage. But one of the other kitchen ladies, Miss Hemp, passed by, and I put on my least guilty face to ask about Miss Aggie. She told me my girl was sick, but she spec’ she be right in a day or two. You can’t imagine my relief, Mr. Flynn. You jest can’t.

  “I got her back, and things returned to the way they was for a short while. She didn’t show up again one day, so I jest assumed she fell ill like last time. When that Miss Hemp came wandering down the lane, I smiled and asked, ‘Miss Aggie under the weather again, Miss Hemp?’ But Miss Hemp jest look at me with tears in her eyes and walk on.

  “As you can imagine, I was desperate to find out what those tears was all about. I ran through my master’s fields till I got to the border between our plantation and Mr. Emerson’s, where I found some of that ol’ bastard’s slaves. I demanded information, so they shook they heads real sad and slow and told me what happened to my girl.

  “It had been quiet on they plantation for around a month or so. No snitching or troublemaking. The slaves was getting nervous because they knew a storm was coming, and no one offered to take the lashing. So finally, some coward snitched on Miss Hemp, said she was stealing cakes. But when the master’s men came to take Miss Hemp away, my Aggie couldn’t bear to let it happen, because she had been stealing cakes and giving them to me. She knew she done wrong, so she volunteered to take Miss Hemp’s place.”

  Samuel grew quiet for some moments, unable to continue. Lucius watched with an aching chest as large, shimmering tears fell from the former slave’s eyes, falling like heavy rain to the dirt.

  Mr. Emerson had the girl brought to him, and he raped, whipped, and beat her until she was hardly alive. She was taken to the slave quarters to recover, and six weeks passed before Samuel saw her again. Her nose and arm had been broken but not set, leaving the girl somewhat deformed.

  She was also pregnant.

  “For the first time and only time, she came to me without the shadow of a smile,” Samuel continued. “And more’n the baby she carried, more’n the bones that poked out of her wrist, more’n her face that had been smashed, it was her broken spirit that tore me up inside. She was my girl, and that evil man had taken everything from her, and from me.”

  He sighed heavily.

  “That was the last time I saw her,” he spoke, his voice gruff. “She didn’t go to town. No sir. She tried to run, but they found her. Mr. Emerson’s dogs sniffed her down and tore her open, and she died right there in the woods. They dragged her back to the plantation and strung her up as an example, with that little baby still inside her belly.”

  He closed his eyes, but after a moment, a faint smile broke across his face.

  “The next time I trimmed the hedge, I found one last little cake,” he said. “I don’t know when she put it there without me knowing, but I knowed it was a message. Like she was telling me some things can be broken, but not everything. No sir. Not everything.”

  Lucius shook his head as he struggled to comprehend the inhumanity of Samuel’s story.

  “What did you do?” he wondered.

  “A slave don’t have too many options, Mr. Flynn,” Samuel replied. “I was still in the Potter’s service, and I done my duty by them till Miz Potter set me free.”

  “And what of Mr. Emerson?”

  “Oh. I suppose you’d wanna know. Slave owners is stupid if they think they can treat their men and women that way. Gets expensive. You got slaves running away left and right, and you can’t catch and trade them all. Some commit suicide once they found, some die after they been punished. They get their ears or tongues cut out and bleed to death or catch infection and die later. But Mr. Emerson loved to see his Negroes’ blood, so he didn’t stop, no matter how much money he lost or how old he got.

  “One day, though, he went up against a real strong feller, and he snatched the whip right out of Mr. Emerson’s hand and strangled him. That boy was lynched shortly after, as he knew he would be. But he sacrificed himself for the others, and Mr. Emerson had a daughter and son-in-law who took over the plantation. They wasn’t overly kind, but they didn’t torture nobody. The sacrificing and snitching came to an end, and that was what anybody cared about.”

  “Mr. Emerson’s fate must have pleased you.”

  Samuel adopted a sour expression.

  “Judgment ain’t meant to come from our hands, Mr. Flynn,” he said. “That’s God’s business.”

  “So you would rather that monster still be alive?”

  “I would rather he was never a monster in the first place. I would rather slavery be abolished. I would rather Agatha be here, living and breathing beside me.”

  Lucius found it difficult not to imagine himself in the other man’s place. What if it had been Lucius at that hedge? What if it had been Evelyn in Mr. Emerson’s house?

  “I am sorry for your pain, Mr. Davies,” he said. “I cannot fathom what I would have done should I have been in your position.”

  Samuel received the sentiment with a nod.

  “You can remember that you are free to make a difference, when I was not.” His eyes flashed towards the tent where Evelyn slept. “Watch over her,” he told Lucius. “Throw yourself between her and the monster, if you can. It is what I would have done for Aggie, if I had possessed the liberty.”

  * * *

  The following days passed without event. The ships did not come and the field games continued. The nights were filled with music as Lucius, Samuel, and a handful of other men produced instruments and played for hours on end. There was more dancing, and Lucius often left his post to be filled by the other fiddle player while he took Evelyn as a dance partner. If prodded long enough, she would even sing with him.

  Samuel’s story about Agatha had affected Lucius deeply. He began to take his job more seriously, and not just with Evelyn, but with Adele, Josephine, and Bartholomew as well. He helped them in any way they would allow, remai
ning near and keeping an eye on any suspicious fellow who may venture close by. He laughed with Adele, even coaxed her into a round of cards from time to time. He accompanied Josephine on walks, as the young girl was a tireless worker and Lucius took it upon himself to grant her an escape from her labors. With Evelyn, he offered to lend a hand to an array of chores, but she would not allow it. She said that while stitching, his fingers were too clumsy. While cooking, he was too impatient. While washing, he was not thorough enough. She could do everything herself, and anyway, how was she to get better at anything if someone else did the work for her?

  Lucius suspected she was keeping him at a distance on purpose. And she was.

  She saw the change in him. Who could not? This Lucius was worlds apart from the Lucius from the Steam Rose, yet still the same Lucius who had brought her to this dreary place. She missed New York. She wanted a hot bath, and fabric that was not bleached by the sun, and a decent looking glass, and a glass of blush with thin slices of pork tenderloin, and Beatrice, and healing balm for her cracking hands, and her piano. Oh God, how she wanted her piano!

  It was well that Lucius had experienced a change of heart. All of this hardship had matured him a little, and that was grand. Evelyn was satisfied with the alteration, and she could not deny their evenings together were enjoyable. After a long day in the sun, it was invigorating to caper about and have a jolly time. Lucius was a fine dancer with a strong lead, which she followed easily. But Evelyn recognized that he was beginning to look after her with something terribly close to affection. He had become increasingly attentive, and when they danced, she felt the heat of desire in his touch. She recalled the morning they had spent atop Liberty Hill, where they had shared a brief moment of candor and maybe even something like reconciliation. What had transpired between them was akin to friendship- or perhaps it was friendship- but this? No. This couldn’t continue. She was going to divorce Lucius and leave him in California, and that would be the end of it. Didn’t he remember? He had agreed to the annulment that morning in the hall of the Steam Rose. So why was he looking at her this way? The time would eventually come for their ways to part, and the end would be so much easier if there was already some distance between them.