by Rainbow
He rejoined the company he had left just thirty minutes earlier, and barely participated in the conversation for the remainder of the meal. His thoughts were in another direction, in another part of the steamboat.
The Lucky Lady would be docking at Vicksburg tomorrow, and the Seaton woman and her slave would leave. He needed to get his mind back on business because the Lucky Lady would be picking up additional cargo, including perhaps a new shipment for the Underground Railroad. He never knew in advance.
The secret room built into the cargo deck was already nearly full, and Quinn knew it must be miserable for the occupants. The tiny compartment had not been built for comfort but for secrecy and safety. It was, by necessity, long and very narrow so no one could detect a false wall. When it had first been constructed, Quinn had tried it himself for several days to see whether it was livable. It was, but only barely. The heat and darkness were suffocating.
There could be no candles, no lamp of any kind, and the only sanitation facility was buckets. But Quinn had found in the past several years that escaping slaves would—could—abide any discomfort as long as there was hope.
He himself knew. God almighty, but he even knew what human beings could endure without that hope.
“Captain…?”
He shook the mist from his mind as he turned toward the speaker, the Tennesseean.
“Is there a game tonight?”
Quinn grinned. “There’s always a game, particularly when I’ve lost to someone,” he said.
The man smiled back. “You won enough from the others to more than compensate.”
“Ah, but you present a challenge.”
“I’ll try to see I continue to do so.”
“At ten tonight then,” Quinn said. “I have some business to attend to before then.”
The man nodded. “Ten.”
With relief Quinn stood, bowing elegantly to Opal and another middle-aged lady traveling with her husband. “Thank you, ladies, for gracing our table tonight,” he said to both, setting their hearts fluttering. He fastened all his attention on Opal. “I’m sorry your niece hasn’t been feeling well.”
“It is so unlike her,” Opal said. “She’s usually flitting all around. She likes to paint, you know.”
Quinn’s attention was suddenly riveted on her. “No, I didn’t know,” he said.
Opal looked sheepish. She didn’t want to mislead him, but neither did she want to say anything unkind about Meredith. “She’s just an amateur, of course. Never has sold anything. Just likes to dabble at it.”
“Have you been traveling with her long?”
Pleased at the change of subject, Opal gushed on. “Oh yes, years I suppose. Ever since she came home from convent school.”
“Convent school?”
“Saint Mary’s in New Orleans,” Opal continued guilelessly. “Her brother—my niece’s husband—keeps hoping she’ll get married, but she’s turned down all the proposals. She likes to visit though.”
“She does a lot of traveling?”
“Oh yes. But there’s a fine bachelor gentleman in our county, and her brother and I suspect she will marry him soon.”
“I imagine you’ll miss chaperoning her, then? You must be close, traveling so much together.”
Opal fluttered the fan she was holding. “Well…yes. She can be a dear.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “And difficult at times?”
“She can be a bit…headstrong.”
“I never would have suspected,” he observed dryly.
Opal felt guilty. “She really is a dear girl. It’s just that she—” She stopped suddenly. She couldn’t believe she was saying these things to a stranger, to a gambler. But he had such a nice way about him. And he was so handsome.
“Of course.” Quinn nodded, knowing he had probably milked as much information as he could. So she had had proposals. She would have, of course. She was an heiress in her own right, and many of the young bucks had need of money, either because their plantations were draining them or because they indulged in a way of life in which spending money was more important than making it. It was easier to marry it. Money, he reflected, would be the only reason Miss Seaton would be in demand. But then, unwillingly, he thought of that hair. And those lips.
Disgusted at his own thoughts, he wished Opal a pleasant evening and went in search of Cam.
His friend was waiting in the cabin, anxiety showing on a face that was usually blank.
Quinn shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “She wouldn’t sell.”
“Why?”
“Something about the girl being the only one who could dress her hair properly,” Quinn replied. “Properly. Hell, that’s the best reason in the world to get rid of her.”
He went over to a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy, pouring a drink for each of them. Quinn then sat down, putting his booted legs on a chair and gazing into his glass morosely. It was the one drink he allowed himself before playing cards. During the game he drank colored water.
“Damn,” he said, in reply to Cam’s painful silence. The man asked for so little, expected so little. “We’ll get her,” he said slowly. “I promise.”
Cam leaned against the wall. “We can’t do anything on the Lucky Lady.”
“No,” Quinn answered. “But I know her family. Perhaps it’s time I stopped at the Seaton plantation and inquired about the possibility of carrying their cotton. Perhaps by then Miss Seaton will be tired of her. She doesn’t seem the type to stick to anything long.”
“If she does?”
“We’ll get in touch with the Parson. See what he can do.”
Cam nodded. The Parson operated a very successful Underground Railroad station near Vicksburg.
“He’ll find a way….”
Cam sat down heavily, his eyes bleak despite Quinn’s words. He didn’t know why he felt so strongly about the girl he had seen so briefly. But something smothering and heavy settled around his heart.
“There’s another agent in the area,” Quinn continued, trying to ease the anguish he saw in Cam. “But I don’t have a name. It’s one they keep secret. Everything goes through the Parson. Between them we can get her out.”
Cam’s face was etched with frustration. “She’s so young, and so frightened. If only I could say something…”
Quinn sighed. “We can’t risk the Lucky Lady,” he said. “Not for just one person. I don’t think anything will happen to her with Miss Seaton.”
“Daphne said she seemed ‘kind enough.’” There was a hesitancy, a question, in his voice that sought reassurance. It seemed strange in this big man who was so terrifying in his anger and so gentle in his kindness. It was a miracle, Quinn thought, that the kindness had survived.
He had first seen Cam on the auction block. He was heavily chained, which was unusual. Most traders removed chains, knowing their presence indicated an unruly and troublesome slave. But perhaps the trader knew it would be obvious anyway because Cam’s back was crisscrossed with both old and new scars.
Quinn had been back in New Orleans only four months when he had stopped by the slave auction. He would never know what drew him there for he usually avoided them. His family had several household slaves who, it seemed, had been with the Devereuxs forever, and they had always been more like family than servants.
But he had been frustrated and dissatisfied for reasons he didn’t understand, and he had decided to visit his favorite tavern. It was a trip he took with increasing frequency, much to Brett’s dismay. He had to walk past the slave market to get there. It was then he saw Cam’s defiant stance, and it brought back all the deep agony of his own past. He looked into eyes that glittered with hate and a kind of hopelessness that struck Quinn to the core.
Much to his surprise, he found himself joining in the bidding, which climbed to unexpectedly high levels until there were only two bidders left. Quinn knew his opponent, knew his reputation for cruelty and working his slaves to death. He kept up
ping the bid, until he finally won.
His reward was a look of absolute hatred from his new possession.
Quinn ignored it, ordered the chains removed despite the trader’s warning and asked his new slave whether he had a shirt.
“No…suh.” The “suh” was hesitant enough to border on insolence, and Quinn barely repressed a smile, wondering all the time what in the hell he had done…and why.
That was four years ago, just after he had won the Lucky Lady in a three-day poker game. He had been restless since he’d returned from Australia, only to find his father and oldest brother had died in a yellow fever epidemic. Although Brett said nothing, Quinn knew they had stayed in New Orleans to await word of him, and guilt and self-hate had eaten at him like poison. They hadn’t been the first to die because of him. It seemed everything he touched, every person he loved, suffered because of him.
He was next in line to take over the bank, but he couldn’t bear the thought of staying in an office, of being confined in any way. And he felt immensely unworthy. His younger brother had selflessly worked in the bank while his own foolishness had cost his family a fortune. Brett knew and loved the banking business, and was well trained to assume leadership, so Quinn abdicated and went on a four-month binge of drinking and gambling, trying to submerge eight years of perdition. But they wouldn’t go away, not during the nights when he would awake moaning, or even the days when the sight of a chain, or whip marks, sent his mind whirling back to Norfolk Island.
For some reason, the gods suddenly seemed to favor him after so many years of desertion. He simply couldn’t lose at gambling. He realized part of it was the fact that he now had the quintessential poker face, the hell-earned ability never to show emotion, but it was something else, too, for his luck went beyond capable playing. He won thousands of dollars and then, in one night, the Lucky Lady. But even that didn’t satisfy him. Nothing seemed to sate the restlessness and emptiness inside him.
Until he purchased Cam and decided that Cam’s liberation might be his own.
It had not been easy. Cam was so full of distrust and bitterness and hate that he had challenged each one of Quinn’s overtures. But challenge was exactly what Quinn had needed. He thought about immediately filing manumission papers for Cam, but since the man had no skills and was nearly consumed with hate, Quinn knew that easy option would probably end in disaster. So he set himself the task of making Cam completely self-sufficient. Despite Cam’s bitter resentment, Quinn taught him how to read and write and cipher, and together Quinn and his newly acquired property learned the mechanics of steamboats.
Cam learned with astounding quickness, and each bit of knowledge spurred an enormous hunger for knowledge that overcame his distrust of Captain Devereux. His feelings changed gradually from hatred to suspicion to grudging gratitude to a kind of reluctant acceptance. One year later, nearly to the day of his purchase, Quinn presented a speechless Cam with manumission papers.
“Now you can go anywhere, do anything you wish,” Quinn said, holding out his hand.
Cam had stared at the papers. Quinn knew Cam had never even considered such a possibility. He also knew, from an occasional comment, that Cam had tried, by himself, to escape several times from previous owners, each time knowing that his odds were infinitesimal without help, and that if he did succeed there would be little awaiting a man who knew nothing but manual labor.
And now this white man was offering him the world. A man he had hated and despised and fought. Quinn had seen wetness on Cam’s cheeks, and suspected that for the first time in his life Cam was crying.
Quinn had turned around, realizing how important it was to give him privacy, to respect the pride that he had seen grow day by day.
“I would like to stay with you, Capt’n,” the low sonorous emotion-filled voice said, and Quinn turned back to him, grinning.
That had been the beginning….
The first step on the road that had brought them both back from a very dark pit.
Now Cam paced the cabin floor, and Quinn watched him sympathetically, wondering at his friend’s unusual impatience. They had both learned caution and patience during the past few years. It was why they were so successful as conductors, why they hadn’t been caught as others had. Of those captured, some had been killed outright. Others were serving terms in prison; several had died there. Because Cam was black, he and Quinn had no question as to what fate awaited him. On the other hand, a long prison term was Quinn’s likely future if caught, yet he knew he would favor death.
“We’ll get her,” he said again.
Cam looked sheepish. “I don’t know what there is about Daphne…”
“You’ve been alone too long, Cam.”
“Maybe,” Cam said. “She’s a pretty thing.”
Quinn looked at Cam speculatively. He himself did not want a deep commitment with a woman. He had been betrayed once, and the result had been disastrous. Maybe Cam was different.
“Aye, she is,” Quinn agreed. “And I swear to you we’ll have her free within three months.”
Cam smiled, a slow movement of lips that still came much too rarely. He nodded. The captain had never disappointed him.
“And our guests below?” Quinn sought to change the subject.
“I checked on them an hour ago. They’re doing as well as can be expected. But it’s mighty miserable down there.”
Quinn also knew that the tiny hidden room was only one of the many discomforts his secret passengers would endure. At Cairo, they would be transported in crates to a river packet that would carry them along the border of Illinois and into Ohio. The Railroad went from there up to Canada. It was a long dangerous journey, and on this particular route they could not take young children. One sick child, one cry, could destroy the whole network.
Daphne combed out Miss Meredith’s hair, once more wondering why her new mistress insisted that such a lovely head of hair be hidden by ridiculous curls and pins. But she was not brave enough to say anything. White people were different, she had discovered, and often did strange things. She had learned long ago not to question, not even to think about the orders she’d been given. Just obey them. If Miss Meredith wanted her head to look like a plateful of sausages, then she would do her best to accommodate. She would do anything to keep from being sold again. Every time she thought of the auction block, she went faint with fear.
She did summon the courage to ask Miss Meredith if she could go up on deck if she was no longer needed. It was a monumental act of bravery, but they would be leaving the boat tomorrow, and she did so want to see that huge gentle man again.
“Of course,” Miss Meredith said with a quick smile.
“Thank you, miss,” Daphne said and darted out the door before her mistress changed her mind.
Once outside, she breathed the fresh air gratefully. She looked up, noticing that the sky was a dark rich blue. Stars were shining brightly, and a full moon hung high in the sky.
She wondered where the man named Cam was.
She remembered the scars on his back, and she hated the man who put them there, the man who owned this boat. She had seen Cam work harder than anyone else, his muscles straining the cheap cotton clothes, his eyes dark and secretive. Until he had talked to her. And then they had been kind.
Daphne knew it was unwise for her to think of Cam. She had no say in matters of love. She was an owned thing. Tears crept down her cheeks and she closed her eyes, willing her crying to stop.
A hand, callused in its strength, tender in its touch, wiped away the drops, and Daphne opened her eyes. He was there.
She hadn’t known until this minute how much she wanted him to be there, how afraid she was that he would be.
“I mus’ go,” she whispered, taking a step back.
“Not yet,” he said, taking her hand. He led her to the back of the boat where stacks of cotton were piled, and he moved forcibly through them until he found a hidden, protected spot.
He guided her down, then sat, h
is large form awkwardly folding itself. But he didn’t let go of her hand.
His other hand traced a pattern on her cheek. “You’re very pretty,” he said finally.
She stiffened, and Cam could feel her withdraw to someplace deep inside herself.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “I won’t hurt you.”
She squeezed up into a tight tense ball. She was afraid of him, of the way he made her feel, of the fact that after tomorrow she would never see him again.
Daphne felt his hands on her and she was afraid they would start groping, as others had, but they did not. Instead, they were comforting. She felt a sudden aching in the deepest part of her soul. She could stand anything, she thought, except to taste tenderness that would too soon be gone.
In a quick birdlike movement, she jumped to her feet but Cam, despite his size, was just as quick.
“Daphne?” he asked.
“Won’t your master want you?” she parried.
There was a short silence. “He’s in the saloon.”
Soft brown hurting eyes went to him. “Don’t you hate him?”
Cam’s hand went to her shoulder. “I hate anyone who keeps slaves,” he said tensely.
“Did he do…that…to your back?”
Cam’s features went hard, his eyes like burning coals. There was no trace of gentleness in him now. He didn’t say anything, but his expression and the tense silence seemed to answer Daphne in the affirmative.
“I hate him too,” she said fiercely. “I hate ‘em all.”
Cam winced. He hated to mislead her about the captain, but it was part of their protection. When the whole business started, he and the captain had decided that Cam would continue to play Quinn’s slave. The stripes on his back were only added proof of Quinn’s firm commitment to slavery.
“I know,” he finally said softly.
Daphne looked around carefully before she put her thought into words. “Have you ever…thought about running away?”
