by Gen LaGreca
“Duran, I swear to you, that can all be explained. She’s not a murderer. But her mother and sister will never let the truth be made public about her birth and status as a free woman, so she can’t step forward to tell her story and ever hope to be treated fairly. You must know that Barnwell’s political friends will come to Charlotte and Rachel’s aid. All the power Barnwell had amassed will come to bear to dispose of this defenseless girl, just as he disposed of her father.”
Tom closed his eyes painfully at the thought of Ladybug in the town’s grip.
“In the name of justice, Duran, you can’t deliver her to an angry mob, or to a mock slave tribunal where Barnwell’s friends will sentence her to hang.”
“I’d have to be dead before any mob would get her from my custody. As for a trial, far as I’m concerned, everything will be done to get her one. That would hold with me whether she was free or not.”
Tom believed him. He wondered how many others felt as he and Duran did but were silenced by a small elite trying desperately to prop up an empire built on a fault line and ready to split wide open under their feet.
“Even if she got a trial, tell me, Duran, when the jury is put together from a population outnumbered eight to one by a people it’s enslaving, and when it lives in constant fear of a rebellion, and when the defendant is accused of doing the very thing they dread the most—how can they be impartial? I believe you would be, but you’re not one of them.”
The adversaries looked at each other with a grudging respect.
“In the name of justice, you must let her go and let me help her!”
“Tom, it’s not for me—or you—to decide her guilt or innocence. That’s for the court. And it’s not for me to justify myself to you, so you should know what an exception I’m making to try to give you . . . hope.”
Tom felt certain that Duran knew the matter was deeply personal to him.
“I intend to ferret out the evidence you claim exists, like the birthmarks and the empty casket, to establish the suspect’s status at birth; then I’ll get her all the legal protections I can. I want justice, and I’ll get justice,” Duran said earnestly.
“You’ll get her killed with your well-intentioned—but doomed—quest for justice in this case.”
“I’m afraid you have no say in the matter, Tom.”
“Look, Duran, Rachel is consumed with resentment toward her sister, and she’s determined to thwart your efforts. She’s going to claim her mother is ill and take her for a lengthy trip abroad to recuperate, so you’ll get nowhere trying to reveal their birthmarks. Ladybug will be summarily tried as a slave and hanged, with the help of the Barnwells’ attorney, the judges, and the planters on the tribunal—all of whom are their personal friends. I don’t think you’d want it on your conscience that you delivered a defenseless young woman to a system rigged against her.”
“I have grounds to arrest her, and I will. I have grounds to arrest you too, which you’ve foolishly given me!” A crack seemed to be forming in the sheriff’s marble countenance. He scolded Tom like a concerned older brother.
“Your face tells me you don’t want to arrest me, and perhaps not her either. Shouldn’t you examine an inkling that might be telling you there are extenuating circumstances involved here?”
The sheriff shook his head with more vigor than was necessary to deny Tom’s notion, as if he were trying to shake off his own misgivings. “My only inkling is to enforce the law and carry out justice.”
“But in this case, the law doesn’t carry out justice. It serves a different master. By enforcing the law, you’ll be sabotaging justice and delivering an innocent to the hangman. You’ll never be able to claim you’re a man of justice again.”
The sheriff’s hand stiffened around his gun. “You have a choice, Tom. You can cooperate and coax the girl to give herself up—I think she’ll come out if she hears you urge her—or when we find her, it might not be pretty. Either way, I’m running you both in. You have no choice about that.”
“You’re the one who has a choice, Duran. If you bring Ladybug in to face the rage, fear, and prejudice of this town, you’ll need to replace that figure you pin so proudly over your heart.” Tom pointed to the sheriff’s badge.
Duran involuntarily glanced down at the emblem of the blindfolded goddess of justice on the silver badge he kept so carefully shined.
“You’re at a crossroads, Sheriff. You have to choose between justice and a corrupt law. And Ladybug’s life hangs in the balance.”
With one hand, the sheriff kept his gun aimed at Tom; with the other, he reached up for a pair of handcuffs strapped to his saddle. “I serve justice and enforce the law, which are one and the same thing.”
“What if they’re not the same thing at all? Which one do you choose?”
“Enough! Shut up, Tom!”
“If you take us in, you’ll have to exchange your badge for one with a figure that took off her blindfold to wink at power and tip her scales to the politically connected. Which do you want to serve—a goddess or a whore?”
As the sheriff was unstrapping the handcuffs, he looked rattled by Tom’s words. He hesitated in mid-motion. His face looked like a battlefield for his emotions; his brows were furrowed in doubt and his lips pursed in resolve. Then he breathed deeply and made his choice. He completed the motion and grabbed the cuffs. The man who had been ready to hang his own uncle now looked at Tom with the same unflinching eyes. “Mr. Edmunton, you’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice.”
The sheriff raised his voice and called into the bushes. “Jeff! Jeff, come out here.”
Soon the deputy appeared from the hillside and walked toward the sheriff. “I can’t find her yet, but I reckon she didn’t stray far. For one thing, he’s here, and he’s her ticket out.” The deputy pointed to Tom. “And I didn’t hear no rustlin’, so by the time I got in there, she coulda tucked herself in some good hidin’ spot close by.”
The sheriff gave him the handcuffs. “Bind him up and tie him to a tree. Then go back in and look some more. I’ll search with you. Move fast!”
Tom stood in the road by the spot where Ladybug had stopped. Her riderless horse next to him was a grim reminder that she might not be coming back.
“Hands behind your back,” ordered the sheriff.
Tom complied.
The sheriff got back on his mount, his gun still pointing at Tom, while he spoke to his deputy. “I’ll scale the hill and look up there on horseback.” He moved a few paces up the clover field, impatient to climb the hill as soon as the inventor was bound. “Hurry up, Jeff.”
The deputy clicked the handcuffs open and was about to place them on Tom’s wrists.
The inventor’s head dropped, his face no longer visible. He stood disconsolately waiting to be shackled.
Then suddenly in the distance, Tom heard a sound he knew well. His head shot up and his heart pounded with hope.
A rumble rocked the tranquil air like thunder. It vibrated the ground under the men. Then a barrage of sputtering and clanging assaulted the air, the likes of which neither the lawmen nor the horses had ever heard. The lawmen gasped in astonishment and the horses shrieked as an unknown menace suddenly came toward them.
The horse that Tom had been riding ran away. The deputy’s steed took off after it. As Jeff tried to stop it, the frightened animal knocked the manacles out of his hand and sprinted away. The distracted deputy chased after his horse.
The sheriff’s horse bucked and threw him. Before it too fled, the animal stomped the ground a few times in high agitation, while Duran twisted and turned, struggling to avoid being trampled by panicked hooves.
Tom was the only calm figure in the scramble. At the start of the commotion, he grabbed the reins of Ladybug’s horse next to him, held its nose down firmly, and turned the animal around to spare it the scene that jolted its brethren.
Then he looked up the hill at the cause of the bedlam. He saw—coming over the top and rolling d
own the clover field and heading directly at the men and their animals—his tractor. Sitting in the driver’s seat, her expression tinged with fear but wild with exhilaration, was Ladybug.
CHAPTER 32
Tom’s face held the immense relief of a father reunited with a lost child. As the tractor jaunted down the hill, its cheerful bounce and loud clangs made it look to him like a toddler taking its first steps. The new age flashed before him in a split-second rush of excitement.
But his thrill instantly turned to fear. The prototype tractor carrying its stunning driver was going too fast . . . and it had no brake.
He watched in mounting horror as the tractor careened down, swerving from side to side because Ladybug was unaccustomed to the steering wheel and prey to a device that wasn’t built to handle steep hills or sudden turns. By driving directly downhill toward the lawmen, Ladybug caught them off guard and saved Tom and herself from capture. Now Tom would have to guide her in driving the device, for if she couldn’t keep the tractor stable and make the turn onto the road on the ridge, she could tumble down to the creek and be—
The sheriff’s steed had run away, following the other two horses and the deputy chasing after them. Duran was left wheezing and pale, his body weakened, his legs unsteady. He looked as if he had taken a hoof to the abdomen and gotten the wind knocked out of him. He rose, faltered a few steps, lost his balance, and fell again.
With the lawmen foiled, Ladybug instinctively tried changing direction to traverse the hill instead of plunging straight down. She was moving away from Tom, who quickly mounted the horse he had held onto firmly during the commotion. He moved along the road they had been taking to town, to meet her as she descended. He shouted directions to her, trying to guide her through the perils of a terrain that he himself had never experienced with the tractor.
He worked feverishly to get Ladybug onto the flat road along the ridge. Once on level ground, they could safely bring the tractor to a stop, get her onto his horse, and escape before the lawmen could resume their pursuit. That was his plan. But the tractor was not obliging.
She obeyed the instructions he fired at her, steering this way and that, avoiding a boulder, a hollow, and a sharp step down off the hill. In a spot with a gentler slope, she maneuvered onto the flat road. He sighed in relief. She had managed to avoid the drop to the creek.
But because the tractor was built high off the ground for working unplowed fields, it tended to be unstable. The bounce down from the hill to the road jerked it off balance. It teetered to one side on two wheels. The jolt threw Ladybug out of her seat. Her hair blew wildly and her legs slipped out the side. She was about to be thrown under the vehicle and run over by the rear wheels.
“Grab the column under the steering wheel!” Tom yelled.
She managed to swing an arm around the sturdy column. Then she struggled to pull herself back onto the seat.
Tom watched in horror as his benign invention was fast becoming a death trap. He tried to get alongside Ladybug so he could pull her onto the safety of his horse, but when he came close to the device, the animal rebelled. It neighed and reared, insisting on keeping its distance from the blaring motor that was spewing exhaust fumes and intermittently backfiring. Tom had to fight with the animal simply to remain behind her.
Just as Ladybug was trying to hoist herself back on and regain control of the steering wheel, the tractor came to the fork in the road.
“Steer to the right. Don’t go down the switchback!” Tom shouted.
The vehicle was drifting to the left.
“Stay right, on the flat road. Stay right! Right!”
It was too late. Before she could change direction, the tractor had swayed onto the jagged switchback with its steep descent and hairpin turns toward the factory and creek.
He needed to slow her down. But what happened next did just the opposite. He heard the gears slip into neutral. Without them engaged and limiting the speed, the tractor began accelerating dangerously.
He agonized. She needed to get the engine back into gear to slow it down. But shifting gears on the downhill acceleration was risky because any abrupt decrease in speed could catapult her off. Which of the three forward gears would he pick to slow her down without jolting the device? As these thoughts tumbled on their own wild, split-second ride through his mind, he decided.
“You need to shift into intermediate gear to slow down.” He had to yell to overcome the engine sounds and their distance apart, yet he tried to quell his panic at the situation by filling his voice with confidence. “Take the turn first. About a full turn of the wheel.”
He stared with a scientist’s intensity and a lover’s worry as she maneuvered her first turn. The wheels squealed with the strain, but she made it—barely—on two of them. She would have to slow down before the next turn, or the increasing acceleration would make the maneuver impossible.
“Grab the lever under the steering wheel on the right. Push it away from you halfway. . . . With your right foot, depress the clutch pedal all the way to the floor. . . .” He rapidly fired instructions, taking a second between each one to let her execute the moves. “Grab the gear shift, the big stick on your left. Pull it all the way out to the left, then move it backward. . . .”
Her face was intent as she listened, watched the road, and glanced down to find the controls.
“Now ease your foot off the clutch. Easy now!”
He heard the gear engage and saw the vehicle slow down without jarring.
“Good!”
The next turn went more smoothly, with Ladybug taking it on all four wheels. “Very good!” he said encouragingly.
She waved a hand to him in victory when a bump in the road took all four wheels off the ground. No sooner did she steady the tractor after that bump than it became airborne again over another one. The wheels of the wobbling vehicle found the ground as her next turn approached.
He continued to direct her. She was handling every obstacle the road put before her. If she could make it to the bottom of the switchback, then they could slow the device to a halt, get her on his horse, and race to town. That was his hope. But quickly it was doused.
Tom glanced behind him to see a new terror. The sheriff and deputy were back on their horses and racing down the switchback.
When Ladybug finished her next turn, she glanced back and saw them too. “Tom!” she screamed. She held the wheel with a white-knuckled grip.
“I see them. Just keep driving.” He tried to sound calm as he rapidly searched his mind for a new plan.
He couldn’t wait for Ladybug to get to the bottom of the switchback. By then, their pursuers would overtake them. He would have to snare her now. Once again, he tried the horse. He snapped his whip and dug his heels into the animal to get it to overtake the invention. But the reluctant beast reared its refusal, and Tom struggled to avoid being thrown.
If he could get out in front of the invention, so the horse wouldn’t see the tractor or hear the full power of its blasts, then, he thought, he could slow down and maneuver next to her.
He jerked the horse off the switchback and onto the hillside. He glanced back to see the sheriff and deputy gaining on them. “I’ll meet you further down,” he told Ladybug.
His new route alongside the switchback was a shortcut down the hill through the brush. He whizzed through the uneven ground with the horse’s hooves slipping on the dusty terrain. He saw Ladybug swerve to avoid an outcrop at the next turn. He heard the ominous sound of metal scraping against rock and saw a large bolt fly into the air. It was one of the bolts that fastened the gasoline tank to the tractor. The tank had rubbed against the rock and was now dangling and about to fall off. Its cap had loosened. He saw a spark—
Without a moment to spare, he drove his horse over a dead tree, circled around shrubs and rocks, then jumped back onto the switchback with the horse now ahead of the device and, as he had hoped, less disturbed by it. Tom slowed down and eased alongside of Ladybug, his arm outstretched to giv
e her a hand.
“Jump!” he ordered.
She had apparently not seen the spark from her seat. Strong-willed and protective of the device that she had gone to great lengths to rescue, she hesitated. “Can we save it, Tom? Can we?”
The sheriff and his deputy appeared behind them, close enough for Tom to see the implacable look on Duran’s face. The lawman yelled: “Halt now! Stop that thing!”
Duran fired a warning shot into the sky.
Tom grabbed Ladybug roughly by the arm and yanked her out of the seat. “Hurry! It’s gonna explode—”
Just then another spark flashed, this one larger and more menacing. It caught her eyes, and she gasped in terror.
The sheriff bellowed behind them, his voice reaching its lowest possible range. “Stop, Tom, or we’ll shoot!”
Ladybug, now galvanized, leaped onto the horse, straddled the animal behind Tom, and hung on for her life.
The lawmen’s guns were cocked and aimed. Duran yelled to his deputy: “Shoot!”
With one violent kick, Tom hit the gasoline tank. It spun into the air as his horse streaked away.
The cap flew off the tank and the gasoline fumes instantly met the engine’s hot air in a torrid dance. Behind the fugitives, the tractor exploded with the force of a cannon, shaking the earth and thundering through the air. The blast sent the lawmen hurling off the road, with their gunshots flying astray. Tom glanced back to see the tractor in a fireball of flames and behind it a gruesome mass of hooves, tails, and animal torsos amid twisted arms and legs on human bodies—all tumbling toward the creek. He heard the men cry out in pain. They were alive, but they looked too injured to continue their pursuit. He figured they’d be stuck there for a while before a passing flatboat came along and aided them.
Tom raced the horse toward town, with Ladybug behind him. On their first ride together, she had rigorously avoided touching him. On this one, she moved her body and legs flush against him, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and pressed the side of her face affectionately against his back as one would clutch a rare treasure.