American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Beaumont glanced over at Richmond as they walked, thinking at first that his words were meant as an accusation. But Richmond’s expression revealed nothing other than that he had been merely stating a well-known fact.

  “Do you really think Slade was responsible?” he said. “That’s not the way I heard it.”

  “What exactly did you hear?” asked Richmond.

  “That Slade was nowhere around at the time. His involvement was never proven.”

  “Denton, good heavens! My own son was an eyewitness. I know you and he had difficulties over the situation with Veronica—for which I regret my own negligence in allowing it to go on as long as it did. But knowing my son, do you honestly take the word of Elias Slade over Seth’s? Surely you know that Seth would never tell a lie.”

  Beaumont said nothing. It was a strong declaration for a father to make about a son, and exactly as Richmond said, he knew it to be true. He only wished he could have said the same about either of his two sons, or his daughter too for that matter. They walked on a minute in silence.

  “If what you say about Slade is true,” said Beaumont at length, “why did you take no action?”

  “What would it have accomplished?” rejoined Richmond. “Malachi was dead. Who would have done anything about it? You… Wyatt? What authority in this state would have cared enough about the death of a black man to go against what you said? Let’s face it, Denton, you were not kindly disposed toward us at the time. You just said yourself that you considered Slade innocent.”

  “Well… perhaps I was wrong.”

  “Even so, what could have been done? One black man killing another… realistically, Denton, we do not live in a time or place where the same justice exists for white and black.”

  “And you are content even now to let the matter remain, as you see it, unresolved?”

  “Of course not. But nothing will bring Malachi back. And with a war on, there is even less chance that Elias Slade would be brought to justice. My only hope is that the day will come when you will send him away so that he will be a threat to none of us any longer, and then perhaps that you will issue a warrant for his arrest.”

  “I don’t understand you, Richmond. You said yourself that such action would do no good.”

  “My only thought, with an active warrant circulating, his appearance being uniquely identifiable, is that others might be warned of the danger he poses. It is difficult for a man like Elias Slade to hide. A warrant following him around might save others from further evil at his hand.”

  “Hmm… I suppose I see your point. Still, it strikes me as an unusually calm response to something so serious as a charge of murder.”

  “I cannot change the world,” said Richmond, “or Virginia… nor even Dove’s Landing. But at least I can change Greenwood.”

  “Change it… I’m not sure I follow you. Change it… how?”

  “For good, Denton. To bring good to our world in whatever ways God gives each of us to live out his goodness among our fellow men. It is what we are put on earth for—to do good, to learn to be good, and to grow into goodness of character that reflects the goodness of God in human life.”

  “If you say so, Richmond,” said Beaumont in a patronizing tone. “But I hardly see what any of that has to do with Elias Slade.”

  “We each must make a difference for good, for betterment, for change, for justice, wherever we can. I take that to mean in our own corners of the world, not necessarily in the whole world. I cannot live out my convictions anywhere but in my own life. That’s why I freed our slaves and why I now pay our blacks wages—both those who have been with us for years and new blacks that come who want to work. I try to treat anyone who comes to Greenwood fairly and with compassion, white and black alike. It won’t bring Malachi back, or bring justice to Elias Slade. God will have to see to that, just like he will have to see to the ultimate salvation of mankind. But it does allow me to sleep at night with a clear conscience.”

  His neighbor’s words, rather than strike root in the hardened soil of his own conscience, sent Denton Beaumont’s thoughts in a new direction.

  “Do you have new Negroes coming regularly looking for work?” he asked, arching one eyebrow as he looked at Richmond.

  Richmond realized that he had inadvertently said more than he intended. But this was no moment for duplicity.

  “Actually, yes… surprisingly we do,” he replied.

  “That’s odd because we never see anyone wanting work. Where do they come from, these people who come to you?”

  “I don’t know, nor do I ask. If a man asks for my help, to the extent I am able, I try to give it.”

  “But they may be runaways, fugitives from the law.”

  “They may be. But fugitives from a bad law that is in its death throes even now.”

  “But in helping them, Richmond, you break the law yourself. You could be arrested.”

  “In one way, of course, you are right. It is one of the great dilemmas of our time—balancing man’s law with God’s higher law. I make no claim to know how to do so perfectly. Still, I must follow my conscience as it gives me light. And as I say, most of those who come move on anyway and I never know much about their personal circumstances. I offer work to the able-bodied among them, but few take me up on it.”

  “So what they say is true… that Greenwood is a haven for runaways?”

  “I don’t know what they say, Denton. Look around—what do you see? You see what Greenwood has always been, a plantation trying to make ends meet and having a difficult time of it during wartime. If people come along—white or black—whom the war has displaced and who are moving about and seeking a better life elsewhere, I will not turn them away.”

  “Well,” said Beaumont with a forced laugh, “I can use a few more hands. You could send some of them my way… I might even be willing to match your wages.”

  “You… hire free Negroes, or even those who might be runaways?” rejoined Richmond.

  “You said yourself that times are changing. Once the war is over, things will return to normal. I hope by then you may have come to your senses and see the folly of these absurd ideas of equality. The races will never be equal, Richmond. They were never intended to be. But until then, I will do what I must to get the work done and the crops in.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” asked Richmond, “that things may never return to the way they were… that slavery in this country may soon be a thing of the past?”

  “You mean, that the Union may win and Abraham Lincoln have his way over a subdued and compliant South? It will never happen, Richmond. Our cause is right and our army strong.”

  “Perhaps. But it never hurts to prepare for the unexpected. The Confederate army has taken several drubbings at Grant’s hand these last six months. The day may come, Denton, when you will have no choice but to pay your blacks as free, hired, wage-earning workers.”

  “I will sell Oakbriar before allowing it to come to that.”

  “Sell… I thought you wanted to expand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Brown land… are you not still interested in purchasing it?”

  “Why, have you changed your mind about selling?”

  “No. I was merely curious about your plans.”

  “My plans are none of your—” Beaumont snapped irritably, then stopped himself. “I am sorry, Richmond—I meant nothing by it,” he added. “It is just the pressure of the times.”

  “I understand.”

  “I had three more slaves disappear the night before last,” Beaumont went on. “I must confess, it has put me on edge. You haven’t… ah, seen or heard anything that might help me learn which way they went?”

  “Actually, Denton,” replied Richmond slowly, realizing that he might be walking into relational quagmire, “one of your men, a Mr. Grubs, is here with us.”

  “What! Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “It only just happened. I hadn’t had the chance to tell you yet.
My Mr. LeFleure found him out in the woods and brought him home.”

  “You should have returned him to me immediately.”

  “Sydney did not know where he was from. Nor did I at first. He was unconscious and in pretty bad shape.”

  “Well you know where he is from now. He is a runaway. I will take him with me.”

  “I am sorry, Denton,” said Richmond. “I am afraid I must insist that he remain with us a while longer.”

  “You said you never turn down anyone’s request. Now I want your help, and I want the man back.”

  “It is a little different, Denton. You don’t want my help except to get your own way. To comply with your request would be to break God’s higher law of goodness toward Mr. Grubs. I don’t think I need to tell you that he has been whipped badly. Some of his wounds are deep. He needs time to heal.”

  At last Denton Beaumont’s composure cracked.

  “Who are you to preach to me, Richmond!” he said angrily. “You and your ridiculous notions about God and right. I’ll lay odds you’ve whipped a black back or two in your time! Greenwood wasn’t always a monastery for interfering clerics! Your father and brother were no priests, that’s for sure. I can tell you that firsthand. I’ve seen your brother so drunk he couldn’t stand! Put that little tidbit of family history in your Bible. So don’t lecture me with your high-and-mighty words. I know you too well, Richmond. And if Jimmy Grubs is not returned in two days, I will not follow your example in the matter of Slade, but will issue a warrant against you as a thief. Don’t think I won’t, Richmond. I am still a very powerful man. I can make a great deal of trouble for you.”

  He turned and stormed back to his horse where it was tied in front of the house, mounted, and galloped away more rapidly and in a far more agitated mood than that in which he had come.

  As Denton Beaumont rode away from Greenwood, his mind was racing in a dozen directions at once. He was too angry to place his thoughts in coherent order. Yet gradually as he went he found his brain drifting into a neglected but familiar path. Talk of the Brown land reminded him of his unfinished business with his and Richmond’s mutual neighbor… or, if not their neighbor himself, with his land, and with what he had always been convinced the mysterious Brown had left behind.

  He chastised himself momentarily for blurting out the reminder of Clifford Davidson. But he had divulged nothing. The incident sparked the idea, however, that there might be another way to meet his present difficulties than with additional workers. He had not been successful before, but one never knew when persistence might pay off and yield its long-hidden rewards.

  Halfway to Dove’s Landing, Beaumont wheeled his mount off the main road and galloped along a narrower wagon track, mostly now overgrown, toward the high ridge of land that separated his plantation of Oakbriar from Greenwood.

  Ten minutes later, he slowed and continued on toward the house, for years now unoccupied, which he was certain contained secrets which, if he could just find them, would make him a wealthy man… with no more need for laborers or workers or overseers of any kind, white or black, slave or free.

  He reined and sat for a minute or two on his horse’s back. Everything was quiet. To all sound and appearance, not another soul was anywhere within miles. After the turbulent upheaval of his recent mental activity, he found himself sitting almost trancelike, staring at the wood house and its stone chimney and the overgrown grass and shrubbery around it.

  What had Brown been thinking just before his mysterious disappearance? If he could just get inside the man’s head. But how could a white man probe the mind of an Indian? They thought differently than other people.

  If only his own mind had been more lucid at the time, he told himself for the thousandth time. But the only words and images he was able to call upon were hazy and distorted and weirdly overlaid with dreamy fantasies which made no sense whatever. Of only one thing he was certain—and he had remained certain of it ever since the night of Brown’s strange visitors.

  He knew they had spoken of gold.

  His memory of that single fact was no dream. And to find where Brown had hidden it had taken hold of his youthful passion and possessed him. He had nearly given up the search in recent years. But it had to be here. And he needed to find it now more than ever.

  Beaumont dismounted and walked toward the house.

  Some time earlier Chigua had walked rather than ridden up to the Brown house. She had just put the restored skin back up over the mantelpiece when she heard the approach of a rider outside.

  With the instinctive stealth of her race, she crept to the window, and after a quick peep, though she did not recognize the man sitting on his horse in front of the house, she hurried noiselessly to hide.

  Denton Beaumont entered the house almost on tiptoe. The quiet spirit of antiquity had infected him while outside. Even the greed in his heart, which was his only reason for being here, could not prevent the mystery of an ancient people having a profound effect on him.

  He glanced about. The house was empty and quiet, yet… something odd was in the air. He felt… was it a presence?

  For the briefest moment, even self-assured Denton Beaumont shuddered from the spooky sense of not being alone. If Brown was dead, which he more than half suspected, had his ghost come back to haunt the place?

  Or was it the ghost of another… come back to accuse him for the dark secret he shared with no other.

  He turned and spun about, almost as if expecting to see someone standing staring at him.

  Quickly he chastised himself for being afraid of his own shadow. He shook himself out of the uncomfortable reverie that had come over him, and began to walk about. It was uncanny, he thought again, how well-kept the place was. There were no signs of decay or mildew or mice or rats or cobwebs or dirt.

  But why shouldn’t it be kept up? Richmond owned it now, though the reminder galled him. He was probably keeping it tidy in hopes that Brown would come back to claim it. It was how Richmond thought—loyal to a fault with his ridiculous notions.

  Another brief shiver coursed through him. Unconsciously Beaumont moved in the direction of the fireplace, though it had not been used in years, as if somehow heat might be radiating from it. As he approached it, however, his eyes were diverted by the colorful painting, apparently on an animal skin of some kind, hanging above it.

  How could he have never noticed it before!

  Surely it had been here for years. Yet suddenly on this day the images painted across the pale skin leapt vividly out at him as if he were laying eyes on it for the first time.

  He walked closer, eyes squinting in the subdued light of the room. He took in the strange words at the top of the skin, though they conveyed nothing to his brain, then let his eyes drift down to the white and red trees, and then to what were apparently six gold circles beneath them. Finally his gaze came to rest, first at the one lower corner, then the other.

  Suddenly his eyes shot open and he stood staring with mouth gaping open. He knew those odd-looking symbols of dots and lines. He had seen them before!

  It was the clue he had been waiting for!

  He turned and raced from the house in a frenzy of excitement. He had to get back up here without delay.

  From the next room, Chigua heard the footsteps running across the floor followed by the slamming of the door. She waited until they were followed by the retreating sound of galloping hooves down the hill, then slowly crept from her hiding place and hurried back to Greenwood.

  When Denton Beaumont arrived back at Oakbriar, intent on racing straight back to the Brown place with the paper he hoped would finally unravel the mystery and lead him to what he was now convinced were the untold Indian riches that Brown had hidden years ago, he was met by his wife with the unwelcome news that during his absence an urgent telegram had arrived. He took it from her and read it hastily.

  He was to return to Richmond immediately. A Union force 100,000 men strong under General McClellan was sailing down the Potomac and w
as anticipated to march on Richmond from the west. They were expected to assault the city by the middle of June. An emergency session had been called to discuss strategy for evacuation of the government if it came to that.

  Inwardly cursing his foul luck, Beaumont crumpled the paper in his fist and went upstairs to his study. He had to think.

  Twelve

  Upon her arrival in Richmond, Veronica went immediately to meet Congressman Wyler at his office, which was down the hall from her father’s. Holding the letter from Garabaldi, she was shown inside.

  “Hello, Mr. Wyler,” she said. “I am Veronica Fitzpatrick. Mr. Garabaldi in Washington asked me to deliver this to you.”

  She handed him the envelope. Wyler took it, looking puzzled.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I, uh… did not expect, that is… how do you come to be associated with Garabaldi?”

  “I only just met him,” replied Veronica. “But as my parents live in Richmond, I told him I would bring it to you. My father is Senator Beaumont.”

  “Ah, Beaumont… you are his daughter—I have heard him mention you. I see… I see.”

  “How is your wife, Mr. Wyler?”

  “My wife?”

  “He said your wife was ill.”

  “Oh, my wife… yes, much better, thank you. Yes… quite—she is doing better. Well, thank you very much, Miss Beaumont—”

  “It is Mrs. Fitzpatrick, now, Mr. Wyler. I am married.”

  “Yes, of course… Mrs. Fitzpatrick. As I say, thank you very much. When do you return to Washington?”

  “In two or three days.”

  “I wonder if you would be so good as to take a bottle of wine back to Mr. Garabaldi, with my compliments?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have it here in a drawer of my desk.”

  He pulled out a drawer and took out a bottle of wine and handed it to her.

  “You are certain you do not mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  Veronica left the office a minute or two later and, following Wyler’s directions, walked down the corridor and into her father’s office.