Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (26 page)

On they went, mostly strung out in single file except for
the fourth horse that cantered along beside Yves. Coming toward them, another
group of slavers and their coffle approached, the white men on horseback, their
chattel on foot. Tight-lipped, Yves nodded to the head man. He’d already passed
the file of shuffling men when Pearl’s scream startled him. He turned his horse
hard. If those blackguards had accosted her --.

“It’s Luke!” Marianne shouted.

Pearl was already off her horse and running for the line of
slaves. She threw herself against the tallest man in the line and, shaking and
sobbing, wrapped her arms around him.

A slaver trotted toward them, uncoiling the whip from his
saddle horn.

For Marianne, the chaos seemed to slow down so that she saw
everything all at once, Yves whirling his horse around and spurring it back
down the line of slaves, Pearl hanging on to Luke, the slaver bearing down on
them with his rawhide poised to strike.

The whip cracked over Luke’s head, and Pearl screamed. The
slaver drew his arm back to strike again.

The roar of Marianne’s shotgun broke the action. Everyone
froze, or so it seemed. Strangely cool-headed, the shotgun barrel still pointed
in the air, she said, “The other chamber is loaded, sir. I advise you not to
whip my slave.”

The man struggled with his horse to bring it face to face
with Marianne’s mount. “Get your gal out of my line, lady, you don’t want her
whipped.”

Yves pulled his bay up short. “Pearl, mount your horse.” For
all the fury with which he’d spurred his horse back to the scene, he too was
cool. He turned to the slaver. “We needn’t be unpleasant about this. We don’t
mean to delay you. However, it seems you have one of Miss Johnston’s slaves among
your trophies.”

“Yes,” Marianne said, matching Yves’ unruffled manner. She
lowered her gun barrel. “That man is a runaway from Magnolias. Perhaps you know
of my father, sir. Albany Johnston in St. John Parish?”

The man spat tobacco juice. “Never heard of him.”

Pearl, as yet on her feet, put her hand on Marianne’s boot.
Marianne looked into her desperate eyes, read the silent plea on her face.
Pearl loved this man. Pearl had nothing, no future, no hope without him.
Marianne tried to imagine such desolation. Her own loneliness had never touched
the edge of what Pearl’s face showed.

I’ll save him if I can. That was the message in her eyes as
she returned Pearl’s frantic gaze. “Get on your horse, Pearl, where you’ll be
safe.”

Marianne knew enough of humanity to conceal how much they
wanted Luke back. “I suppose I could relieve you of him immediately,” she said
to the whip-wielding man with all the nonchalance she could muster, “and save
you the trouble of transporting him all the way to the parish.”

The slaver leaned on his pommel and eyed Luke’s height, his
broad shoulders, his erect stance. “Reckon he’s worth more than a few dollars,
a fine fella like him. The reward should be ’mensurate with his value.”

“Of course.” Damnation, she had spent nearly all her money. And
she thought Yves had too.  “I’ll happily write you a note for the reward. You have
paper upon your person, perhaps?”

The man snorted.

A young man rode his horse around the coffle and joined
them. He had yellow hair, freckles, blue eyes and a blue denim shirt. At a
second glance, Marianne decided he couldn’t be more than fifteen, but he
inserted himself into the conversation with authority.

“We don’t know if this slave is yours or not, lady,” the boy
said. “Pardon me for saying so.”

“You saw this woman,” Yves offered in a reasoning tone,
nodding at Pearl, “obviously Miss Johnston’s slave, running for him. That
should be proof enough.”

The first man interrupted. “How much cash you got on you?”
he said to Marianne.

The boy’s face turned scarlet. “We aren’t taking the money,
Horn. Pa told me to bring back twenty, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I assure you,” Marianne put in, “I will write you a
promissory note for the full amount --.”

“No’m. We aren’t selling slaves on the road. My Pa will get
top dollar for every one of them I bring in. They’re going to
Forks-of-the-Road. If ’n you want to buy that one there, then go talk to my pa.
I’m taking all of them to Natchez.”

“We ought to be able to make a deal,” Yves said quietly. He
was not the hot head she’d taken him for. “Our party just left Natchez and are
rather urgently traveling north. Surely we ought to be able to -- come to an
understanding.”

Marianne caught the suggestion – Yves was hinting that he’d
add a bribe to sweeten the transaction. She was willing. But what did she have
to bribe them with?

Her earrings. She was wearing her pearls. They should be
enough to buy Luke outright, bribery included.

Horn looked at the yellow-haired boy with a raised eyebrow.
“Nothing like ready cash.”

“I said no. Pa’s expecting twenty slaves, he’s getting
twenty. For all I know, he’s already made a contract out for these here.”

“Lots of times, slaves die on the march,” Horn said.

The boy’s ears were as red as his face. “Horn, you want to
work for my pa again, you’ll do as you’re told.”

Horn’s face turned ugly. He hawked phlegm and spat, and
Marianne’s stomach churned. Without looking at anyone again, Horn rode his
horse back to the front of the line.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the boy said. “Can’t help you here on the
road. You go on back to Natchez and see my pa. Harvey Fox. He makes the deals.”

“But, Mr. Fox. Please,” Marianne began.

The boy turned his horse and the coffle began moving.

“Luke!” Pearl cried out. “Missy, I won’t never see him
again. Please, Missy!” The chains of the slaves in front of Luke pulled him
forward, the iron shackles clanking and rattling. His face broke Marianne’s
heart. Love for Pearl, helplessness, and now new hope dashed. Despair painted
his features.

Marianne looked at Yves’ grim face. It was so much to ask.
They were no more than a day and a half from Gabriel. Going back to Natchez
would take at least another day.

“Yves?” Marianne said.

“I know.”

“Gabriel . . .” She didn’t know what to say about Gabriel.

Yves looked at her. “I know.”

He checked that the fourth horse was still with him and fell
in behind the coffle. Marianne and Pearl followed him.

At Washington Road, the rag-taggle caravan turned off, but
Yves continued toward Natchez on the Trace.

“Mr. Yves!” Pearl pleaded. “Dey going de other way!” Pearl
turned her horse to follow Luke.

Yves spurred his mount the few yards it took to catch Pearl.
He reached for the bridle, then took her reins. “They’re going on to the slave
depot,” he told her. “There’s nothing we can do tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll go out
there.”

Marianne pulled her horse up beside Pearl and reached over
to touch her. “Tomorrow, Pearl.”

Pearl nodded and followed Marianne back to their road.

The three made their way through Natchez by gas street lamps
to an inn on Commerce Street. Marianne and Yves took two rooms and ate in the
common area downstairs while Pearl took her supper behind the inn.

“Yves, I have a dollar and a half left.”

He nodded and sighed. “I have nine.” That would be plenty
for their daily needs, but would do nothing to help Luke.

“We only need enough for the reward. Do you know anyone in
Natchez?”

“Yes, but we will need more than reward money.” He looked at
her. “Marianne, did you send out the Hue and Cry?”

“No,” she admitted. She understood: The slave broker would
not accept her word that Luke belonged to her when Magnolias had not even cried
out he was missing.  She looked at the simple, inexpensive dress she wore and
touched her poorly dressed hair. She didn’t look like a rich planter’s daughter
either.

Marianne fingered her pearl earrings. They’d been a gift
from Father on her thirteenth birthday. “There’s a bank in town. They’ll
advance money on my signature, surely.”

Yves shook his head. The Natchez bank was not of the same
institution with which the Chamards did business, nor was it Mr. Johnston’s
bank. Yves explained how long it would take for messages to and from New
Orleans before the bank here would release any funds to them.

Marianne removed her earrings. Yves watched her fingers
slide the slender wires from her lobes, and she felt as if she were disrobing
before him. Her breath came faster as she watched him watching her.

But they had business to settle.

She held out her palm to him. “The pearls then.”

Yves closed her fingers and wrapped his hand around hers.
“You’re a generous soul, Miss Johnston. I honor you for it.” They looked into
each other’s eyes, lantern light bathing them in its soft glow, and Marianne
thought,
Yves -- This is the one I want.

He opened her palm and lifted one of the pearls to the
lantern light. “A beautiful thing, a pearl.” He looked back at Marianne. “You
should always wear pearls.”

She hadn’t known a man could make love to a woman in a
public room. Her breathing wouldn’t settle, her heart wouldn’t slow. He still
held her hand, and his eyes penetrated hers. Did he know she wanted him to kiss
her, to show her -- ?

“My friend is an honorable man. He will hold the pearls as
collateral. You shall have them back again.”

Yves let go her hands and sat back as if newly aware there
were people at nearby tables.

“Who is this man?” Marianne asked. She put the hand he’d
held in her lap and wrapped her other hand around it as if she could retain his
touch that way.

“William Tadman. He’s a prosperous businessman here in
Natchez. He does a little of everything, I gather. Barber shops, money-lending,
farming. My father and his were together in Paris for a time.”

Yves wrapped the pearls in his handkerchief and buttoned
them into his vest pocket.

“Thank you,” Marianne said. “For this delay. I know we have
to hurry.”

“Yes. As soon as we’ve secured Luke, we have to ride.”

“As fast as you like.”

Yves hesitated. “Have you considered that . . . you should
prepare yourself.” Yves swallowed. “Gabriel may be dead.”

She shook her head. “No. He’s alive. I feel it.”

Yves looked into the fire. “If he is alive, he’s liable to
be a changed man. Weakened. Sick. And . . .”

“I know he’s been sick. That’s why I had to come, to nurse
him.”

“You don’t know him well, Marianne. Gabriel is a proud man.
He’s had to live his life with the shadow of race over him. He’s fought it, and
he’s risen above it. And now this. I don’t know what he will have become.”

Marianne nodded. “Angry. That’s what he’ll have become.”

Yves was silent a moment. “I’m white. I love my brother, but
he may have forgotten that he loves me too.”

If Pearl slept, it wasn’t for long. She’d spent the dark
hours wondering if Luke was awake, too. Could be he was low. He’d been caught.
But what he didn’t know was these good people were going to give him back to
her.

 When she heard stirrings out at the cook house, she lit the
candle and roused Marianne. Pearl wanted to be at the slave market as soon as
it was light.

“Did you sleep at all?” Marianne said around a yawn.

“No, Missy. I don need sleep. I jus needs Luke.”

She left Miss Marianne sitting on the side of the bed and
stepped down the hall to scratch on Mr. Chamard’s door. She entered without
waiting for him to answer. Another gentleman shared a bed with Mr. Chamard, a
huge, snoring fellow. In the light of her candle, the man’s gut was rounded
like a great sow’s belly. Pearl went around the bed to find Mr. Chamard
clinging to the edge of the mattress, so deeply asleep she had to tap his
shoulder twice to rouse him.

He woke with a start. “Ahhg,” he said. He put a hand to his
forehead. “I haven’t slept a wink with this fellow’s snoring.”

Pearl nearly laughed aloud. This morning, Pearl was ready to
laugh. This morning, this wonderful man was going to get her Luke back for her.
She gathered his trousers, his suspenders, his shirt, his stockings, his shoes.

She held the trousers open for him to step into and began
pulling them up his legs.

“I can dress myself,” he whispered irritably.

“Yessir. I knows you can. But it be light soon, and I get
you dressed quick.” She held his shirt up for him to slip his arms in and
helped him tuck the tail in his trousers. When she started in on the buttons at
his waist, he slapped her hands away.

“Now git,” he said. “Your mistress needs you.”

She smiled at him. She would have kissed him if she’d been
allowed to.

“Wait. Light this candle first.”

She did and then hurried back to make sure Marianne hadn’t
lain down again.

Marianne was still on the edge of the bed, but she had her
hair down and a brush in her hand.

“I’ll do dat, Missy.”

Marianne turned so Pearl could sit behind her on the bed.
“Joseph and Hannah, and now you. It’s nice when you call me Missy.”

“Yes’m. We loves you.” Pearl finished the unsparingly brisk
brushing. “But you still gots to get dressed fast.”

“Yes’m,” Miss Marianne said.

Pearl hustled her until she was dressed and out the door.
Downstairs they found Mr. Chamard in the common room.

“We’s ready. Let’s go,” Pearl said.

“Hold on,” he said. “The Forks doesn’t open for nearly two
hours yet.” Pearl was about to erupt in protest, but he held his hand up. “And
we are twenty minutes from the market.”

He pulled out a chair for Miss Marianne. “I’ve ordered breakfast
for us. After we’ve eaten, I’ll walk around to Mr. Tadman’s place.”

Pearl left her bundle with the mistress and found the cook
already scrambling eggs and frying bacon. She helped, if only to speed things
along. If they arrived after the market already had opened, someone else might
spot Luke and buy him on sight. They had to be the first ones there.