“I have.” Lee took a chair, then reached over Bennett’s desk and took a cigar from a silver box the man always kept there full of fresh smokes. He lit it and puffed on it for a moment. Bennett handed him the second glass of whiskey.
“Cy Jordan died, you know. Our firm now represents Jeffreys Enterprises. Carl will be glad to work with his brother.”
Lee swallowed more liquor, thinking sadly how just about everyone he ever knew before the war was dead now…even Joey. If he could just stop having nightmares about that day, maybe he could get back to living again, but the memory would not stop plaguing him, and he knew the only way he would be able to forgive himself was to be forgiven first by Audra. He had to find her.
“He won’t be working with me. I’ve already talked to him, and he understands and has promised to keep you on anyway.”
Bennett frowned, going to sit down at his desk. “What do you mean? You’re all the family Carl has left, Lee. Surely you’re going to stay here in New York now and come back into the firm.”
Lee studied his cigar. “You’re a good man, Bennett. You’ll do fine on your own. You can take my name off the firm’s title and figure up what you feel my share of the profits should be. I don’t want much, considering the fact that you’ve been doing all the work for four years now. Consider yourself the owner of the firm. I’ll sign whatever papers you want me to sign.”
Bennett sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Lee, you can’t let the war ruin your future. I have a damn good idea how bad it was because I’ve read it all and I’ve seen some of the aftereffects and a lot of the wounded myself, men without arms and legs, men returned from southern prison camps who are nothing more than walking skeletons. I also hear the South is in a hell of a mess, major cities burned—”
“It isn’t just that,” Lee interrupted. “Something happened that I have to try to set straight, if possible. I made a promise to a dying man, a boy, actually. I’m the one who killed him, and I intend to keep the promise I made him.”
“A rebel?”
Lee could see Joey’s face as vividly as if it had all happened yesterday, those trusting, forgiving eyes as he lay dying from Lee’s own bullet. He felt himself breaking out into a cold sweat again, and he finished the second glass of whiskey. “Yeah. A rebel. It’s a long story, and I’m not ready to talk about it.” He sighed deeply. “I am also not ready to come back here, and I can’t keep dangling as an absent partner forever. I’m sorry.”
Bennett studied the tragedy in Lee’s eyes, and his heart went out to the man. “I hope you can get this matter settled, Lee. How about that leg? Will it ever get any better? I noticed you limping. Do you still have pain?”
“Some. The doctors say I probably always will. I took shrapnel in my left thigh. They think maybe whoever took it out didn’t get it all. I’ll probably have to have it cut open again sometime, but I can’t quite bring myself to think about that right now, after all the blood and stink I’ve seen in the makeshift army hospitals in the field. I just might decide to live with it the way it is.”
Bennett rubbed at the back of his neck, thinking about all the good young men who had suffered so in this senseless war. Even Abraham Lincoln had ended up giving his life. “Well, you’re a damn good lawyer, the best. You should get back to work, keep yourself busy.”
“I will eventually. I just can’t yet. I’ve talked to Carl, withdrew most of what had built up in my trust fund. I signed a paper taking myself out of any interest in Jeffreys Enterprises. He’ll probably be contacting you about it. The only thing I wanted was Maple Shadows. I told Carl to keep withdrawing from future deposits to my trust fund until he has taken the amount we agreed I should pay for the place.” Sweet memories swept through him then, of a summer long ago, a lovely young woman with a song for a voice, her hair glinting red in the sun. “I’d like to go back there some day, when I can maybe be myself again, if I even know who that is.”
Bennett leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “What about that woman down in Louisiana you found out had married someone else? I heard Baton Rouge was practically burned to the ground, and a lot of plantation owners are penniless now. I don’t suppose you’re going to try to find out if she’s all right?”
Lee smiled sadly. “That’s another long story. I was among those who invaded Baton Rouge. Audra was there, staying with an aunt because things had gotten too dangerous at the plantation. Her husband had just died about a month before that—stabbed by a Negro with a pitchfork.”
Bennett made a face. “Good God, what a way to die.”
Lee nodded, puffing on the cigar again. “At any rate, we saw each other again, and we almost…” He rose, walking to a window. “Like I said, that’s another long story. In her mind now I’m just a stinking Yankee who is responsible for whatever bad things have happened to her. Trouble is, she doesn’t know just how responsible.” It was storming outside, and Lee watched drops of rain splash against a windowpane. He remembered another rainy night, down in Louisiana at Brennan Manor…when a woman came to him for comfort while the rain fell and thunder rolled.
“You’re confusing me, Lee. What happened with Audra?”
Lee faced him, and Bennett was startled by the terrible agony in his eyes. “I can’t talk about it now. After I’ve gone to do what I have to do, I’ll explain it all to you, either in a letter or in person. It’s still too hard to talk about. I just thought I’d come by and explain why I can’t come back into business right now. I might even start over again someplace else. It all depends on what happens while I’m gone.”
“You’re going to find her?”
Lee walked over and poured his own third glass of whiskey, and Bennett felt a deep concern for whatever was torturing the man enough to make him down so many shots of liquor so quickly.
“Yes,” Lee answered. “I’m going to fine her. God only knows what will happen then.” He wondered what Audra would think if she knew he still carried that song. The paper was worn and thin, nearly ready to tear at the places where it had been folded and unfolded so many times. He still had not been able to throw it away.
30
“I got orders, missy. No niggers gets on this boat.”
Audra glared at the captain of the steamboat that was heading upriver from Baton Rouge to St. Louis. “I will give you fifty dollars extra—yours to pocket.”
The short, pudgy man grinned through tobacco-stained teeth, wondering at the low, raspy voice that came out of the mouth of such a frail-looking woman. “You don’t understand, lady. They’s a lot of white folks and former slave owners who don’t think it’s right for niggers to be tryin’ to settle on they own. Some niggers tryin’ to git out of Loosiana finds themselves arrested.” His eyes moved over Audra, and he put a hand to her waist. “Now I don’t have to tell you what would happen to a white woman if she was arrested for helpin’ niggers git off on they own. Everybody knows what a white woman who travels with niggers is.” His hand moved toward her breast. “You like them nigger men, do you?”
Audra pushed his hand away and pulled a revolver from her handbag, which she carried by its string over her left arm. She pressed the gun against the captain’s stomach. “I’d rather hang for shooting you than pay for my passage the way you’re suggesting.” With her free hand she pulled down the high, laced-trimmed collar of the dress Wilena had made for her from deep-green cotton sateen. She raised her chin and let the man see her scar. “Mister, I’ve been through hell already, and there isn’t one thing you can tell me that will frighten me off.” She pushed the collar back up, glaring at him boldly. “I offered you fifty dollars. You can either take it, or I’ll go to the steamboat docked beside you and try that captain. If you want him to make the extra fifty dollars, that’s fine with me; but if you touch me again, your insides will be spilling over your belt, and fifty dollars will be of no use to you.”
The man watched her eyes, green fire, they were. The woman meant what she said. He glanced past her at the group of
at least fifty or sixty Negroes, including several children, who waited on the docks with wagons and supplies. He looked back at Audra. “They’ve got too much stuff. I can’t git all that on this boat.”
“You carry passengers and freight, Captain, and you’re empty right now. I already checked with the clerk who handles your fares. You have plenty of room below for the wagons and most of the Negroes.”
The man rubbed at his mouth. “You got livestock?”
“Only a few chickens in cages. We will buy livestock when we get to Kansas.”
He looked her over scathingly again. “Where’d a bunch of niggers get that kind of money? They been raidin’ and stealin’ from poor, burned-out white folks?”
“It’s my money. Now, will you take us on?”
She still held the pistol to his stomach. “All right,” he grumbled, “but you tell them to stay below and out of sight as much as possible. I don’t want people throwin’ stones or shootin’ at my boat.”
“Fine. They will do whatever you want. Just get us to St. Louis. If you will take us on from there along the Missouri to Independence, I will give you yet another fifty dollars in addition to the regular fare.”
The man glanced around as though worried about who might see him. “All right, but tell them to wait till dark, then get on board fast as they can. They’s men that watches the docks. They don’t like losin’ their cheap labor, and they’ll do anything to keep the niggers from leavin’, let alone bein’ angry that them people thinkin’ they can just go off and own land and all. It ain’t right.”
Audra shoved her pistol back into her handbag. “There are a lot of things that aren’t right, Captain,” she said, holding his eyes boldly. “I used to be one of the wealthiest woman in Louisiana, and now I am reduced to this. If you don’t want to do this for the Negroes, then do it for people like me and the rest of the South, white people who need your help.”
The man seemed to soften a little. “Show me the fifty dollars so I know you ain’t lyin’.”
Audra’s eyes displayed disgust. She reached into her handbag and pulled out the bills. “Federal greenbacks, not Confederate money. You’ll get it when we reach St. Louis, not before.”
The captain adjusted his hat nervously. “All right. Come back tonight at midnight, but not here. I’ll move my boat upriver to the docks of the burned-out warehouses and pick you up there. They don’t watch that area as much. Right now just git the hell out of here. Make like I turned you down, or I won’t have a boat to take you in.”
Audra had no choice but to trust the man. “Fine. We’ll meet you at midnight.” She turned and left, telling Joseph and Elijah and the others that the captain had turned them down and perhaps they should make camp for the night. “We’ll hole up at the abandoned warehouses tonight where we won’t be in anyone’s way. We’ll try again tomorrow.” She would tell them the truth later. This was her family now. Besides the thousand dollars Albert had paid her, she had managed to make even more money by selling a few items from the two plantations, buggies, a few of the livestock that had not run off, even some valuable jewelry she had salvaged. It was enough to pay their passage, which would make the trip to Kansas quicker and easier.
She wished they were not leaving so late. Here it was September already. Sometimes, she’d heard, winters could be harsh in Kansas, but she was determined not to wait out another winter here. It was becoming too dangerous. Bands of whites had been forming, men who rode out at night and harassed and brutalized Negroes, especially those who were trying to get out of the state. Some were arrested, their valuables and money confiscated. Poverty-stricken terrorists, fearing the loss of cheap labor, were forming mobs to discourage Negroes from fleeing. Some of the threats and whippings and murders were carried out by men who were angry that the Negroes seemed to be the reason for all the devastation in the South.
Everything Audra had feared and predicted would happen if the Negroes were freed was coming true, only it was all much worse than she had imagined. Her “family” of Negroes lived in terror of being the next target, and she was anxious to get them out of the state and to a free state that was so far welcoming homesteaders, even Negroes. She could only pray that the bands of white marauders and “nigger-haters” would not follow and cause trouble even in Kansas. Poor Toosie was not having an easy time with her pregnancy, and she should not be traveling, especially to a place where the winter could be much colder than anything she was used to; but they had no choice. To winter it out back at the plantation was to invite more trouble, and they had had their share of trouble with March Fredericks’s attack, let alone hearing stories of what had happened to Negroes at other locations.
Getting everything sold that she could to raise money, then buying enough supplies for their journey, had taken more time than she had supposed. The biggest problem had been finding the supplies, as there was not much of anything left anywhere. She had been forced to travel to several different cities to get everything, and even then she had to convince sellers that the supplies were for her “white” family, not Negroes.
Wearily she walked beside the wagons as they made their way along the docks toward the shell-like buildings that used to be warehouses. What was left of the supplies in those buildings had long ago been looted, by both Federals and citizens of Baton Rouge who had lost everything. She had no idea what kept her going, except the knowledge that she had to get Toosie and the others away from here. Until they reached their destination and decided where to homestead, these people needed someone who knew how to deal with white people. Long years of bondage had put the fear in them, leaving them all, even the strongest of the men, too timid to deal with men like the captain of the steamship. Audra had vowed not to leave them until they were safe in Kansas, but even then she was not sure what she would do, if she would ever leave. In some ways she had grown just as dependent on Toosie and Wilena and the others as they were on her. They all needed each other.
“The captain will pick us up tonight at midnight by the abandoned warehouses,” she told Elijah quietly. “Don’t tell the others until later. I want them to look dejected and discouraged. The captain thinks the wrong kind of men are watching. He wants them to think he turned us down.”
Elijah nodded. “You don’ have to do this, Miss Audra,” he told her for probably the hundredth time. “It’s too dangerous for a white woman.”
“We’ll be all right, Elijah. God took everything else away from me. He won’t take this. We’re going to make it to Kansas. I feel it.” She put a hand on his arm. “You will all have your own homes and farms. With what money I have left when we get there, we’ll buy some livestock. We’ll build our own little town, and I’ll open a school.”
Elijah grinned. “Maybe we call our new town Brennan. Brennan, Kansas. How about that?”
Audra smiled in return, and Elijah thought what a rare sight it was. There was a time when he never would have dreamed that the young, spoiled Audra Brennan he had known before he was sold off by her father would be selling Joseph Brennan’s plantation to raise money to help Negroes start a new life, let alone risk her own life and honor by going along with them and teaching their children. The war had certainly changed people, some for the worse, but some for the better. He watched her eyes begin to tear.
“That would be wonderful, Elijah! Brennan, Kansas.” She squeezed his arm. “We can do it! I know we can do it! I haven’t had this much hope in a long time.”
Elijah’s smile faded. “Hope is somethin’ we knows all about, Miss Audra. For a long, long time it was all we had, hope that some day we’d be free, no matter what the cost. It feels good, Miss Audra, and God will bless you for helpin’ us. If Joey was here, he’d be doin’ the same thing.”
The pain of Joey’s death stabbed at her heart again, and Audra turned to keep walking. “Yes. He would.”
Brennan, Kansas, she thought. She liked the sound of it. Joey would like that, too.
Lee halted his horse in front of the makeshift c
ourthouse in Baton Rouge. There was at least some new construction going on, but so far the devastation he had seen was overwhelming. What haunted him the most was what he had found at Brennan Manor, a gutted mansion, a couple of graves that did not look very old, and a few families of trashy-looking white people squatting in what was once the slave quarters. None of them knew what had happened to Audra or Joseph Brennan, and none of the Negroes who had belonged to the plantation were anywhere to be found.
Who was in those graves? If one of them was Audra, he had nothing left to live for. He had been sorely tempted to dig them up, but he wouldn’t have been able to bear looking at his once-beautiful Audra rotting away, and the bodies were probably decayed too badly, anyway, to tell who they were. The whites there said they had no idea where anyone had gone, but because of a horrible stench that came from an old well they had uncovered, they found the decaying body of a man.
What man? Someone had thrown his body into that well to hide it. What in God’s name had happened at Brennan Manor, and where was Audra? His only hope was that someone at the courthouse would have some kind of records. Maybe Joseph Brennan had sold the place and moved on. Or was it Joseph’s body in the well? Maybe the Negroes had murdered him and Audra both, then fled the law, if there was any kind of law right now in Louisiana.
He dismounted, tied his horse, and behind it a pack horse. Ugly memories plagued him being here. It was like coming back into the war, for the town remained burned out. He had stopped to ask a group of young white boys where he might find some records of land sales, and they had directed him to this church, one of the few buildings left untouched the night Baton Rouge burned. Those boys still followed him, and he felt uneasy. He was taking a chance coming down here so soon after the war, although other northerners had already started filtering in, men with money, ready to buy up the South and gather in the victor’s spoils. It irritated him that on top of all the horror these southerners had already experienced, they would now have to put up with the humiliation of being raped by swindlers and the greedy wealthy from the North who would come down here and take advantage of people who had been stripped of everything they owned. The young men who followed him now probably thought he was one of those who had come to buy up land.
Tender Betrayal Page 42
