Griff recalled what Cicero had told him about these peremptory summonses. “Why, Father? What do you want with him?”
“I … I don’t want him. You … you must promise to get him for me … I—”
“Tell me. Quickly, what is it?” A wild urgency colored Griff’s words.
“He … he … he did ...” Suddenly as his lucidity had come, Duncan Stark lapsed into unconsciousness once more.
“Father!” Griffin’s cry held a note of hopelessness.
At four-thirty the next morning, Duncan Stark slipped quietly out of this life. The house servants set up a wail, singing broken snatches of nearly forgotten tribal laments for the dead. Cicero, head bowed and face deeply creased with grief, came to wake Griffin and Bobbie Jean.
“It’s over, Massah. You’se the new Massah now. Ol’ Massah Duncan, he done gone to de angels. I … I’m most sorry, Massah. Oh, de Lawd he done taken up a fine man, a mighty fine man and de worl’s the worse fo’ it.” The depth of his sorrow and the ravages of emotion had deepened Cicero’s Gullah accent until his words could hardly be understood. Large tears ran down the dark cheeks of the major-domo and his thin shoulders heaved with suppressed sobs. With a trembling arm, he gestured toward the door, indicating that Griffin should follow him.
Duncan Stark lay, hands folded across his withered breast, a balm of sweet oil on his ravaged flesh, alone in death and at last at peace. Tears ran down Griffin Stark’s unashamed face, and he worked to compose himself before he spoke. “Send a boy after Reverend Kirkman and set some of the carpenters to … to building a coffin.”
“Already attended to, Massah,” Cicero informed him.
“We’ll have to notify the relatives. The funeral should … should be on Thursday, I think.”
“That would be about right, Massah.”
Griff looked kindly at the old man. “You needn’t call me Massah, Cicero. I know what is in my father’s will. You, Chloe, Livia, Remus, all of the house servants are manumitted at his death. I’m plain Mr. Stark now.” In a flash, Griff thought of how the old family retainer had taught him, only a lad of seven, to bait a hook and the skill and patience of fishing. The recollection warmed a corner of his heart, chilled by the tragedy of his father’s death. “Or just Griffin, if you want.”
White teeth showed brightly in Cicero’s smile. “Mr. Griffin it will be, then. I … I wouldn’t know how to go about bein’ anything than what I’ve always been. Nor could I do other than respect and admire the Massah Stark I serve at any time. God bless ol’ Massah Duncan. I never dreamed … none of us did … that he’d free us.”
“For my part, I’d free you all if any were to ask. Except that the plantation has to operate efficiently and show a profit. Some day … yes, some day Griff let his thoughts drift.
Under the gnarled, black Georgia pines on a low hillside behind the plantation grounds, two pipers skirled a mournful tune at the side of an open grave. The bright yellow box that held the earthly remains of Duncan Stark rested on straps over the yawning door to eternity. Family and friends, over a hundred mourners, gathered about, black and somber gray clothing predominating. The Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Kirkman showed only a bright slash of crimson from the symbolic prayer shawl he wore around the neck of his vestments. That and the tartans of the pipers and a few bedraggled flowers added the only show of color. Even the sky remained overcast as though in sorrow, and rain threatened at any moment.
“A-maa-zing gra-a.ee, how sweet thou art…” Voices joined the bagpipes in the final tribute to the master of Riversend.
“The Lord, in His infinite wisdom has chosen to take to His bosom the soul of our dearly departed, Duncan McCleary Stark. It is for those of us who remain to cherish his memory and give praise to Almighty God. ‘I am the resurrection and the life, sayeth the Lord. He who believeth in me shall not perish but shall have life everlasting.’ The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Reverend Kirkman concluded the funeral service with “Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Amen.”
The minister gave a nod to four Stark cousins, who lowered the casket into the grave. Griff stepped forward and sprinkled a handful of earth onto the box coffin, wincing inwardly at the hollow, final sound of it. Then slowly, he led the procession away to the big house where a large meal was provided from dishes brought by those in attendance.
After the last of the mourners had departed and Griff was at last alone with his wife, it suddenly occurred to him that Ian McBain had not as yet returned. He sent for one of the assistant overseers for an explanation. Simon Wells answered the summons, shifting nervously as he knocked on the doorpost of the library.
“Come in, Wells.”
“Yes, Mr. Stark. What is it you wanted me for?”
“Where is Ian McBain?”
“He should be here any time now, Mr. Stark. We got word he caught that runaway nigger wench. They’re on the road from beyond Thomasville. That’s more’n fifty miles from here.”
“Good. When he gets back, I want to see him immediately. Understand?”
“Oh, yessir. Yes, sir. I do.”
“You may go now.”
For a moment, rebellion flared in Wells’ eyes. He had watched this new master of Riversend grow from a shit-the-pants baby to a boy and then seen him off to the Military Academy at West Point. All well and good, he thought for a moment. But did that make him better than Simon Wells? Did he know anything more about running a plantation? Then the revolt quashed itself and he made a speedy exit.
Four-thirty “lunch” had been served and the dishes cleared away when Griffin led Bobbie Jean to their room down the hall from the master bedroom. Somehow it didn’t feel right to him to occupy his father’s quarters so soon after the funeral. When the door clicked shut behind them, the enamored couple read the passion in each other’s eyes. Dare they? On the day of Duncan Stark’s funeral? Propriety stood aghast at the thought. Their mutual hunger overrode convention. At least to the point of a torrid embrace and ravenous kisses. Bobbie Jean felt the pressure of his rising phallus and thrust herself against it eagerly. Their breathing became ragged and the world seemed to swim. Oh, how desperately they wanted the balm of intimacy and the release of their joined bodies.
Their kisses transmitted this message and fired their desire. A niggling thought cooled Griffin’s determination when he recalled that more friends of his father and several neighbors would soon be arriving for a formal dinner in memory of the well-liked planter. He broke off their passionate embrace.
“Company coming, soon, remember? But … later … after they’ve all gone. Then there will be only you and me.”
“Promise?” Bobbie Jean teased.
“On my honor as an officer and a gentleman.”
“And a Georgia planter?”
“That, too, if you want.”
“Oh, Griff, how can anyone love so much as we?”
“Keep going and our guests will have to wait.”
“That’s it, lash her to that wheel.” The strident voice came faintly to them from the stable yard of the plantation grounds. Griffin frowned and tried to shake it off in favor of the delightful mood of a moment before. Then he saw the pale expression that had washed across Bobbie Jean’s face.
“What is it?”
“That voice. That’s Ian McBain.”
Ire clouded Griff’s face. “I left instructions for him to see me at once on his return. What can he be doing?”
“All right. Everyone step back. I’m gonna flail the hide off this darkie bitch. Maybe it’ll serve as a lesson to the rest of you niggers. No one runs from Riversend. Not while Ian McBain is overseer. Get back!”
The whiplash made a report like a pistol shot.
In the same instant, Griffin Stark sprang from his wife’s arms and bolted out the door. He took the rear stairs two at a time and burst out into the kitchen yard. From there he hurried to the stables, Bobbie Jean in his wake. The scene that confronted him made his blood steam and roil.
&n
bsp; A Negro girl of sixteen or so had been lashed to a large freight-wagon wheel. Her loose cotton dress had been ripped down the back and Griff could see the red welt of the lash across her shoulder blades. Ian McBain stood facing her, the whip in his hand. With an almost spasmodic jerk, he hauled back on the handle and the sinuous braid of leather snaked out behind him.
Involuntarily the girl, it must be Daphne, Griff decided, twisted in a useless attempt to escape the punishment. Her firm, coffee-and-cream breasts swung into view, bobbing with the strain of her muscles. The dark nipples and areolae appeared unusually large. Griff stared a long moment before he took the final six paces to his overseer.
Griff reached out and grasped Ian McBain by the left shoulder, turned the man and pushed his face close to the red-visaged foreman.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Griff demanded, his temper building to rage.
“Keep your hands off me, you whelp!” McBain snarled.
“There’ll be no darkies flogged on my plantation, McBain.”
“Your plantation, is it? Piss off, Mr. West Point Sissy Stark.”
Griff’s thick, square fist came up from nowhere and crashed soundly into McBain’s jaw. The heavy-shouldered overseer rocked back and started to swing the whip at the young man who had become his employer. He learned his error too swiftly to have time for regret.
A knee came up into his crotch and agony exploded like ball lightning. McBain gusted out his breath and rapidly bent forward in an attempt to sooth the misery of his groin. Griffin Stark hit him twice then. A solid right to the temple and a left in the center of his forehead. McBain rocked back on his heels, dropped the whip and started a slow turn to the right. Griff closed on him again and smashed scarred knuckles to the base of the overseer’s skull.
Solid bone gave off a hollow sound and McBain dropped to one knee. Griff watched his enemy closely, though confident the fight had left him.
McBain showed remarkable ability to recover. He leaped up and forward at Griff, a wicked, six-inch blade in his fist, the edge reflecting silver-blue from the leaden sky. Beyond reason, he bellowed out the thoughts that burned in his head.
“It’s your turn now, you snot-nosed brat. I did for that old bastard, Duncan, and I’m going to finish with you.”
Chapter Three
FOR AN INSTANT, shock and disbelief froze Griffin. Could McBain mean what he said? Sudden conviction raddled the young army officer.
Then blind fury burned through his revulsion. As McBain charged, Griff side-stepped. The blade whistled past and Griff smashed down on McBain’s exposed forearm. New pain radiated through the overseer’s body, assaulting his brain, slowing him, so that he left himself exposed to the pummeling fists that Griff directed into his kidneys. McBain grunted, stumbled forward, and half-turned.
Griff pounded his face, a flurry of rights and lefts ended at last with a long, looping uppercut that cracked teeth and snapped back McBain’s head. He hit the dusty ground with a solid thump.
“Get a rope,” Griff commanded, his voice the sound of doom.
“No, Griff,” Bobbie Jean protested. “You can’t do it that way. There are courts and laws in Georgia.”
“You heard him. He murdered my father. Out here, so far from Atlanta or Macon, we have to be our own judges and juries. His own words confirmed his guilt. I say we hang him here and now.”
“Miz Stark is right, Mr. Griffin,” Simon Wells offered in a whining voice. “You just can’t go takin’ the law in yo’ own hands. What say we take him in to Valdosta to the sheriff?”
“We will,” Griff shot back. “In a pine box. Someone get that rope.”
At the fringe of the crowd, Cicero hurried to comply.
By the time he returned, Ian McBain had recovered consciousness. Groggy, his face streaming blood, he shook his head to clear the fuzz from inside and looked upward, eyes askance, toward Griffin Stark. At first the muttered words of the slaves and his fellow whites made no sense. Then understanding came and he blanched in terror. A broken wail came from his mangled lips.
“Ooooh, nooo! Please not that. Please don’t hang me!”
“You murdered my father.”
“No, I didn’t. Believe me.”
“Your own words say otherwise.”
“I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Give me the rope, Cicero.”
“For the love of God!”
“You’d better hope He does, you’ll be meeting Him soon enough.” Griff began to fashion a knot.
“Griff, please,” Bobbie Jean begged her husband. “Don’t let his death be on your hands. Even if … even if he did kill your father, that doesn’t give you the right to hang him in cold blood.”
“Do you really believe that, Bobbie Jean? What if it had been me and the job had been left to you to do?”
Misery replaced the petitioning expression on Bobbie Jean’s face. She wrung her hands, twisting a lace handkerchief. “That’s unfair, Griff. It’s not like … Oooh! I suppose it is. He was your father and he’d become a dear old man to me. I … expect you will do what you think you should.” She turned away, hands at her side now, pressed against the stiff fabric of her hooped afternoon dress.
Griff remained motionless for a long moment, his eyes intent on her costume, studying the gay print of small blue flowers and green leaves. Then his hands resumed shaping the knot. He looked once more at Bobbie Jean and his fingers faltered.
“Wells, you are fired. Gather your things and get your ass off this property by sundown. If you are seen after that, my orders will be to shoot to kill. Cicero, have some field hands help you bind this miserable animal’s hands and feet. Chuck him in the unused smokehouse and padlock it shut. In the morning we’ll take him in to the sheriff. Let the law hang him.”
The old Negro gusted out a pent-up sigh. “Bless you, Mr. Griffin. You is a wise Massah after all. That’s the way yo’r father would have handled it.”
Tears filled Griff’s eyes, though they did not spill over. Cicero’s words warmed him, gave him hope. Suddenly vengeance tasted bitter in his mouth.
But then, had he hanged McBain, would it have tasted any worse?
He came to her in the coolness of late evening. Heat and humidity had kept the covers turned back and Bobbie Jean lay on the bed in her shift, her breasts moving gracefully with her soft breathing. Griff stood over her and beamed down on her, admiring her courage and strength of will.
“I’m proud of you, Griff,” she said forcefully, raising her arms toward him.
He bent and embraced her; Bobbie Jean’s slender arms encircled his neck. With a growing urgency, he nuzzled his lips in the hollow of her throat. He sensed his manhood stirring, expanding. Tantalizingly he prolonged the tempting feeling. He brushed his cheek against hers, found her lips and they kissed, sweet pressure against his strength. Her teeth parted and he probed his questing tongue deep into her mouth. They sparred a while, matching thrust for parry. His heart beat faster, an echo of her own excitement.
His hand brushed against one firm breast and she shivered. Slowly, teasingly, he removed her shift. Her pale honey complexion glowed in the soft lamplight. He looked upon her loved and remembered glory and leisurely removed his coat, shirt, and trousers. Her gaze fastened upon the rugged shape of this man she so dearly loved, and without shyness or fastidious revulsion, rather with eagerness, she let her focus wander lower to the stridently demanding bulk of his maleness. Bobbie Jean wet her lips. Her excitement grew.
In a languid, controlled motion, Griff entered the bed and poised himself above her fevered body. Her hips rose in anticipation.
And then … oh, then they joined in blissful communion with all the gods of the earth and sky. Martial rockets exploded in their heads, keeping time with the primal surge of their commingling. A chamber orchestra seemed to be playing somewhere, a triumphal passage by Beethoven or the jubilant celebration of Bach. All things became as one, while past, present, and future merged into one eternal now.
In the real world, time passed fleetingly until they rose on crescendos of splendor and fragmented into paradisiacal splinters, only to subside gradually into a wholeness that they never before had shared. In the hiatus that followed, Griff thought of what must be done.
It would take several days to complete the business of the plantation and select a competent overseer to function in his stead. He thought, too, of appointing an executor to monitor the business of Riversend. Once these had been accomplished, though, he would have to return to duty. His pay and the accommodations provided would not allow him to bring Bobbie Jean along.
How ridiculous that thought was, he suddenly realized. As Master of Riversend, he could afford any lodgings he desired. Why not? In the morning he would ask her.
“Darling, there are soon to be three of us,” Bobbie Jean informed her husband one frigid evening in February, a year and a half later. Winter had settled in once more on the Potomac and the snow-laced winds howled and streamed through the cracks around windows and doors.
“What’s that?” Startled, Griff looked up from his bound volume of notes, a puzzled glint in his eye.
“I said that we will soon be three. I’m … we’re going to have a baby.”
“Th-that’s marvelous. I don’t believe it! I’ve got to tell everyone. Let’s hurry over to Damien’s. He’ll be astounded.” His face fell. “Are you sure? No doubt?”
“None. I’ve suspected for over a month. The doctor confirmed it this morning. Oh, won’t it be wonderful. The two of us and our son living here so close to the pulse of the nation.”
“No. This is no place to bring up a child.”
“But … darling.”
“I mean it. I’ve, ah, thought of something else. This is not the place for you, in your condition. Too many rowdies, too much hustle and excitement. Making a baby calls for peaceful thoughts and lots of contemplation.”
The Confederate Page 4
