Deborah Camp (31 page)

His uncle had detailed his planting schedule and had told Blade that Judge Lloyd Mott was interested in purchasing the whole farm outright, should Blade want to sell; then he’d left to live with a half sister in South Carolina. The judge had wasted no time in paying a call and offering to buy the land. Blade hadn’t wanted to sell, and the judge had warned him that he wouldn’t like farming, that he didn’t belong and would have no more success than his uncle before him.

Over the years he and the judge had kept a wary distance from each other, even after he’d signed for the loan and put his land up as security. Blade knew the judge thought he had what he’d always wanted—more land and more power in the county. Blade had never seen it that way until lately. While Julia had been alive, Blade had thought that the judge would allow an extension. The man had a soft spot for Julia, and Blade figured he would extend the loan just to keep Julia around so he’d have someone to read poetry with and discuss what they called “the classics.”

After Julia’s death, Blade had known that nothing would keep the judge from snatching the land the moment it was available. He’d never liked Blade and would rejoice when Blade packed up and left. The old bastard.

Bob’s warm hide slipped back and forth under Blade’s rump. Bees buzzed and butterflies flitted
among the wildflowers growing alongside the road. An aching started in Blade’s heart and grew. He could lose it all. Then where would he go? Would Elise go with him?

His mother had decided to name him Blade at his birth, but by the time he was walking, his Apache grandfather, Graywolf, had decided he would be called Lonewolf because he rarely played with the other children, preferring his own company. It had been like that his whole life until he’d settled in this place and met Julia Lincoln. She had shown him that he wasn’t meant to always be alone. He had liked her company, enjoyed hearing about her work at the school. Sometimes she read aloud to him from Dickens and Cooper. When she had died and her voice had been silenced forever, that was what he had grieved for the most—her stories. His mother had been quiet, speaking in muted, halting tones. Julia, being a schoolteacher and used to commanding a classroom of fidgeting children, had cultivated a voice full of drama and verve. She never failed to hold him enthralled, even if she was talking about something as mundane as the lesson she planned to teach the next day.

During his marriage to Julia, he’d discovered that he appreciated the company of a woman, and when she was gone, he’d thought he’d go mad from the loneliness.

Then a ray of sunshine had pierced his gray existence. Elise. Even her name sounded light and happy and beautiful, just like her. He must have been a blockhead at first not to see that she was a gift and not a curse. He had been blinded by his acute loneliness and had seen only the child as a cure for what ailed him. But resisting Elise was about as easy as resisting one’s own natural urges.

If she left him now, it would be the same as if the sun set, never to rise again.

Approaching the judge’s property, Blade felt a twinge of envy at the sight of numerous field hands dotting the land. The men and women working in the judge’s fields were former slaves, now paid paltry wages and allowed to live in shacks on the outskirts of the property lines. He scanned the fields for Adam, but didn’t see him. Since the boy wasn’t in school, he must be working, Blade decided. Maybe he had chores inside the house.

He returned the waves of some of the field workers as he rode his flashy pinto toward the house. Sliding off the horse’s hot hide, he tied Bob at the water trough. An old black woman sat on her knees by the front flower beds and pulled weeds from around rose bushes and irises. A wheelbarrow was behind her, nearly full of grass clippings, dandelions, chickweed and milkweed. Her white hair was covered with a yellow rag. She smiled at him, showing gray teeth.

“Good morning,” Blade said, touching the brim of his hat as he passed by.

“ ’Day, suh.”

He took the steps two at a time and rang a brass bell bolted on the doorframe. Listening, he heard no footfalls or movement. He rang the bell again. This time he heard a soft rustling, and the doorknob rattled. Slowly, the door opened only far enough to frame Harriet’s face. She looked pale and her eyes were big and watery. There was something different about her face, but it was shadowy inside the house and he couldn’t see her clearly. She wore a pea-green dress, but she acted as if she weren’t decent and couldn’t invite him in.

“I’ve come to talk to the judge. Is he around?”

Harriet shook her head. The meager light played over her face, revealing to Blade the purple tinged skin around her left eye and the swelling of her lower lip. His stomach tightened and a blazing rage licked at his heart and scalded his throat.

“Do you need help?” he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper and stepping closer to the door. He removed his hat and angled toward her. She was shaking like a leaf in the wind. “Mrs. Mott, I’m looking for Adam. Is he inside with you? Are you two all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice trembling and her words distorted by her swollen lip. “Go away. You’ll only make things worse around here.” She closed the door in his face.

He started to ring the bell again, but his better sense told him he shouldn’t involve himself in what went on between the judge and Harriet. He’d come to talk to Adam and the judge, not to be a marriage go-between.

Standing on the porch, he put his hat back on and surveyed the flat fields. He saw no slight figure with red hair out there, nor did he catch sight of the judge, who usually sat in the shade in his fancy fold-up chair.

“Lots of yellin’ this mornin’,” the black woman said. She yanked at a dandelion and tossed it into the pile behind her. She didn’t look at Blade, although her words were meant for him. “The judge be roarin’ like a bull and seein’ red everywheres.”

Blade studied her shiny black face. Worry pinched the skin around her mouth and eyes. “You know where the judge is now? I need to talk to him.”

“You be lookin’ for the boy, too?”

“Yes, that’s right. Adam … or Rusty. Do you know where he is?”

She raised her dirty, green-streaked hand and pointed to the back of the house. Blade bounded down the steps so that he could see where she pointed.

“The shed or the outhouse?” he asked.

“Them wouldn’t be in the outhouse together, I doan reckon.” She bent to the flower beds again. “During slave times that shed was used regular, but it don’t get much use these days.”

Blade gathered up the pile of weeds and dumped them into the wheelbarrow for her. He tried to remember what was in the shed—some tools, a few grain sacks. He’d seen inside it only a time or two.

“Better git,” the old woman said in a singsong way. “Theys been in there a few minutes.”

She wasn’t suggesting, she was ordering him—warning him! A stone of panic tumbled through him, kicking up an avalanche. Something was wrong … this pretty day had a dark underbelly. His legs couldn’t take him fast enough to the shed. The door was shut, but as he neared the structure he heard a crack and a moan. Rage exploded in him, pumping inhuman strength into his limbs as he grabbed the handle and nearly ripped the door off its hinges. The door popped open, slapped against the shed and slammed shut again. In that instant when the interior was visible to him, Blade saw Adam hanging by his wrists, his back striped red.

With a howl of rage, Blade grabbed a shovel leaning against the shed and threw open the door again. He charged inside and laid the flat of the shovel against the judge’s back, knocking him sideways.

Adam strained to look over his shoulder, tears pooling in his eyes, and he sobbed with relief. “Blade, get me down from here,” he begged.

“Relax, little brother.” Blade stood over the judge, legs spread, feet planted, fists bunched at his sides. The judge stared up at him, still clutching the long leather strap he’d been using on Adam. “I ought to tear you from limb to limb, you old bastard,” Blade growled.

Judge Mott narrowed his black eyes and scrunched up his face. “Don’t hit an old man,” he whined, lifting a hand to shield himself. “I was only disciplining the boy! He was being spiteful … he tried to run away.”

“Who can blame him?” Blade confronted the cowering shell of humanity before him, and disgust blew out his blinding rage.

For years he’d put up with the judge’s crude and rude remarks. He’d turned the other cheek when the old buzzard had treated him like dirt. He’d kept his mouth shut when he wanted to tell the sneaky old snake to keep off his land and away from Julia. Lately, he’d told himself that the judge wasn’t really doing any harm to the boy by making him work hard and learn to keep a civil tongue in his head.

Blade had recalled the harsh lessons of his own youth when his Apache father had taken him out into the wilderness and left him to survive with only a hunting knife, a bow and a quiver of arrows. Unbeknownst to him, his father had kept an eye on him, but he’d been a terrified nine-year-old for the three days and two nights he was left alone. It had been a lesson in self-sufficiency, and not uncommon among his father’s people. Blade had convinced himself it had been a good lesson, but now,
as he stood over a white-livered coward, he knew the only lesson he’d learned during that ordeal was fear and abandonment. And he had never fully trusted his father again.

Elise was right. There were many other ways to teach than through fear, intimidation and pain.

“You’re pathetic.” Blade curled his upper lip and turned away from the lump of quivering flesh at his feet. He propped the shovel against the wall. “Hold still, Adam,” he said, reaching to free the boy’s hands from the leather cuffs biting into his wrists.

Six or seven angry welts crisscrossed Adam’s back. Blade tried to be gentle. He circled the boy’s waist with one arm, holding his weight while he freed one wrist and then started to work on the other.

“Filthy Indian.” The words came from behind him in a voice full of hatred.

He heard movement, saw the fuzzy light shift, and then hot, blinding pain exploded in his head. Stunned, he acted instinctively, crouching on the balls of his feet and swiveling around to confront his attacker. The shovel came at him. He ducked and rolled, and the shovel whistled harmlessly through the air, throwing the judge off-balance. Blade surged up, grabbing the man around the middle and hurtling him off his feet. The two landed hard, the breath forced from their lungs, and scrambled for handholds. Blade ended up on top. The judge’s nails scraped the skin on Blade’s neck as he tried for a stranglehold. He was stronger than Blade had imagined, and his fingers felt like bands of steel. With a grunt, Mott bucked and unseated Blade. Before Blade could rise up off all fours, the judge laid the thick strap across his face.
The sting brought tears to his eyes and knocked him backward. The back of his head slammed against the wall. His ears rang and his vision blurred. He saw two judges advancing on him with straps in hand.

Blade shook his head, trying to get his bearings.

“You’re a dead man,” Mott said, and his voice sounded far away, as if he were down in a well.

Blade saw the shovel come up … slowly, slowly, as if time had spread like strings of molasses. Raising a hand, he told his body to move, to duck, to defend itself, but every effort was laborious. His head rang like a bell, and his lungs burned as he struggled for breath.

“No!” Another voice, shrill as a whistle, cut through.

In a haze, Blade saw Adam moving behind the judge. The boy still hung from one wrist, but he twisted his body and raised his knees. Stiffening his legs out in front of him, he kicked the judge in the shoulders and head, propelling him past Blade and into the wall.

Groaning, the judge slumped and sat down heavily, giving Blade precious seconds to draw oxygen into his lungs and clear his head. His eyes focused on the whipping strap and rage pumped energy into his body. Snatching the strap from the judge’s hand, still feeling the sting of it across his cheek, he lashed out. The strap sang through the air and caught the judge across the chest. Mott squealed and scrambled to his feet, but not before Blade had struck again and the leather had snapped against Mott’s neck and shoulder.

“How do you like the feel of that?” Blade asked, his breath coming sharp and harsh. He caught the man around the throat in one hand and threw
aside the strap as he backed Mott up against the wall. The judge’s eyes bulged from their sockets.

“Let go of me, you scalp-taking heathen!”

Blade buried a fist in Mott’s midsection, doubling him over. A swift uppercut to the chin sent Mott jackknifing up and backward. He sprawled on the ground, his mouth and nose leaking blood.

“You’d better stay down unless you want your teeth hulled,” Blade warned. “I’m taking this boy.” He moved to Adam again, supporting him around the middle while he worked his other wrist free of the bondage. Adam wobbled, but stood on his own power.

“You got no right. He belongs to me.” Judge Mott touched his beak gingerly and winced. “You’ve broken my nose!”

“And if you’re lucky, I won’t break your back.” Blade looked around at the clutter before he spotted Adam’s shirt. It had been torn in half. Ripped from his body, Blade guessed. “Adam, you go get what you want to take with you.”

Adam glanced from Blade to the judge, then ran outside. Blade listened to his footfalls until they grew faint; then he reached down and grabbed a fistful of the judge’s shirt and hauled him roughly to his feet.

“I’m taking the boy and I don’t want to see you around. If you mess with my belongings or my family, I’ll kill you.”

“Your belongings, your family.” The judge laughed, spitting blood that splattered Blade’s shirt collar. “Start packing your things, Lonewolf, because I’ll be taking over your place come the first of the month.” He thrust his face closer. “You don’t have the money to pay me. Julia told me before she died. She made me promise I’d give you more time
to pay, but I’m not cutting you any slack. I was going to let you sharecrop it, but not after this.”

Blade hated hearing him even mention Julia. He tightened his grip and shook Mott like a rag doll. “I’d never sharecrop my own land.” Shoving the judge away, Blade released him.