Toby noticed an uncomfortable expression creep across Noah’s face.
“They took him, too, my father, and my mother, in a different boat,” Toby said. “My parents were strong and could work—why not make them slaves? But you should’ve seen how they fought when the slavers chained me. How they beat my parents back while they dragged their little boy away. I fought them as best I could—and my folks must’ve been possessed by some power of God because the clubs that hit them seemed to fuel their efforts to save me. They just kept clawing for me, reaching out to grab me. I was their only concern, pain be damned. I’ll never forget the look of horror and failure in my father’s eyes at the sight of me being loaded onto that boat, the Brig Hayne.”
Toby fidgeted into his chair for comfort. Noah wondered what stories the former slave might tell if he downed an entire bottle.
“That was the ship’s name,” Toby said. “I didn’t know it at the time. I mean, I was born in Africa. I didn’t even speak English. Charlie Stanhope told me later. Toby Jenkins ain’t even my birth name. Charlie Americanized me, if you want to call it that. I think I know the birth name my mother gave me—I think. But I don’t even bother saying it because it’s not who I am anymore. But I’ll never forget the name of that boat. The Brig Hayne.” Toby chuckled and shook his head in disbelief that it all actually happened. But it did. “Set sail from Africa in March of 1840. Arrived in New Orleans and later made port in Charleston on March, 27, 1840. I’ll never forget the date. Slaves have two lives, if you ask me, Noah—the before and after. My first life involved parents, we were a family, we were happy once. My second life? I was born watching the life drain from my father’s face when I became a slave. I think about my father more now that I’m among his ranks, so to speak. I don’t know what he saw in me in those last moments, but I’d like to think it was strength, maybe reassurance—‘I’ll be all right, father, I promise you.’ And my mother—I hope she saw that, too. That was the last day I ever saw my parents. I don’t even know if they’re alive, where they are. Nothing. My one lasting regret is I never got to hug them a final time, and to thank them for raising me right during the short time they had me. And you know what feeling I can’t shake, Noah?”
“I can’t even imagine.”
Toby leaned in, turning angry, and began jabbing the tabletop for emphasis. “I go to sleep every night wondering how my father managed to live without knowing what happened to me. He woke up one morning with a son and went to bed that night without one. What kind of torment was he going through knowing I was in the bowels of that damned boat? Chained like an animal in the hot belly of that ship. They stored us, Noah. Like cargo. There must’ve been five-hundred of us crammed in there. We could barely move.”
Toby calmly unbuttoned the top right strap to his overalls and brought down the fabric to expose the right side of his chest.
“They branded us too.”
Noah closed his eyes, repulsed by the raised pink swirl representing the slaver’s mark forever cresting through Toby’s skin.
“They burned the women—my wife included—under their breasts. No exceptions.” Toby buttoned up. “And that smell, Noah. You smelled death on the battlefield, I’m sure. But the stink of five-hundred hot and frightened bodies mashed together, men and women so scared they can’t help shitting and pissing on each other—that’s the smell of humanity dying. And the disease it all caused. I heard they tossed at least fifty bodies overboard while we crossed the Atlantic. Just dumped them into the sea for the sharks.”
Toby quieted, his lips trembling. “And my father couldn’t do one thing to protect me from any of that. My parents were in one of those boats. They lived that same hell. He’d have given his life to have saved me. I guarantee you he never got a peaceful night’s sleep for the rest of his days—that’s assuming he wasn’t thrown into the ocean. I’m sure there were days he wishes he was. Now I think constantly: How far would I go to defend my boy from the evil that’s out there? The same evil I see strolling by me smiling by day and then threading my noose by night. And I know the answer.”
He finished and smiled at Noah, who snapped back to reality, looking around for the first time since starting his talk with Toby.
“And what would that be, Toby? The answer.”
“It might be different from yours. But I doubt it.” Toby finished his whisky, turning the glass upside down and placing it softly on the table.
“Then say it, I’m curious,” Noah said. “I imagine you’d do anything for him, right?”
“There’s a difference between me saying it and you feeling it. But you’ll find out soon enough. It’ll hit you—bam!” Toby smacked his palms together over the table in front of Noah’s face. The few patrons already bellied up to the bar turned to look at what made the noise and retreated back into their bottles. “Just like that. And when it does, well, then you can come find me and ask me what I’m doing down here.”
“Oh-kay?”
“I’ve got chores to do at home, Noah. I need to check on Sarah and my boy. Am I under arrest?”
“No. Of course you’re not. But they’re paying me to be curious about things I find out of the ordinary. And I won’t lie when I say I find it odd you lingering around here.”
“My homestead was attacked the other evening. Perhaps I came here to learn if what happened at Doctor Richardson’s house has any bearing on my situation. I’m a victim too, Noah. I never laid a hand on any of those men. Not a one. I’ll swear to that in front of a judge and before God.”
“All right then.” Noah stood, as did Toby. “Go do your chores. But please remember that my boss was literally destroyed last night. If you know anything at all—”
Toby held up his hand to hush the deputy.
“Noah, I don’t know who killed Sheriff Cole. I wish to God I did.”
Chapter Sixteen
Noah bought supplies and painted the signs to ask for the public’s help in solving what happened on Doctor Richardson’s property.
“We’ll hang ’em up after they’re done drying, Noah. I don’t want you worrying about doing that.” Sheriff Clement had returned to the office where Noah completed the work. “You done enough today. I appreciate you taking the initiative.”
Told you, Harrison, Noah thought, and grinned at Harrison, who stood in the office’s reception area waiting for Clement’s orders. Harrison shrugged and smirked, as if to indicate, Yup, you were right.
“Go on home, be with that little boy of yours. Sleep. Come in late tomorrow. I promise I won’t send Harrison back out to bug you unless it’s an absolute emergency.”
Noah thanked the new sheriff, still not sure what to make of him.
At least he acted professionally today—unlike at the Elkton farm.
Noah left and craved a bed. He kept Wilbur at a fast pace, fearing an amble home would lull him asleep. Noah didn’t want to die by falling off his horse. He hugged his mother, Susanna, upon returning to her home and learning she drew up a bath for him.
“How’d you know?”
“It’s summer. It’s the South. And you perspire when you shave—you’re like your father that way. No wonder you wanted to move up North.” Susanna Chandler, a pixie of a woman whose Southern belle beauty and shoulder-length black hair hadn’t faded into her fifties, stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek.
“Your baby’s doing just fine,” she said quietly, not because she didn’t want anyone hearing, but because pride overwhelmed her as she looked at her son. “And so’s your wife. She’s sleeping. So’s Jake. They’re both in the same room. Go check on them and wash yourself, please.” She exaggeratedly waved her hand in front of her nose. “Pee-yew!”
“Before I do, I gotta ask: How you like being a grandma?”
“Hasn’t really sunk in. Just like you being a daddy hasn’t sunk in yet, I would wager.”
Noah laughed to him
self. “All this talk about fatherhood today.”
“It would seem an ideal day for the topic.” She poked him, indicating silly boy. “Who were you chatting with?”
“I can’t get too into it, but Toby Jenkins.”
Noah explained what he could about Toby’s upbringing and spared her the unease he felt over Toby’s persistent denials of knowledge related to the recent murders.
Susanna kept a poker face. She knew of Toby and Sarah from her husband’s years of dealing with Charlie Stanhope—but she didn’t know them well. Noah couldn’t read whether she approved of a black man acquiring as much land and prosperity as he had.
“That’s nice” was all she said evenly, and accompanied it with what Noah took as a feigned smile, but he couldn’t be certain. He knew she was thinking over Toby becoming a new daddy himself, and finally Noah saw sincerity when she slowly nodded her head and her grin continued upward.
“That really was sweet of him. I hope his little one’s just as healthy and happy as Jake is.”
“Me too.” Noah kissed his mother and then checked on his sleeping wife and child. Jake, his eyes closed, slept swaddled in a basinet next to Natalie’s bed. Noah towered over the little basket and listened to the high-pitched but calm breathing of an infant. He then watched his wife’s peaceful sleep, something Noah needed. He crept out of the bedroom and found the cast-iron, claw-footed washbasin waiting for him in the bath-room. Refreshed, he slipped on a pair of undershorts and retired to the guest bedroom next to his wife’s and collapsed on the soft bed without bothering to crawl under the sheets. He slept from that mid-afternoon until noon the next day.
Chapter Seventeen
Right around the time Noah and Toby concluded their conversation in the Tavern, Brendan was shimmying up a maple tree that stood on the outskirts of Toby’s property. He heeded the “No Trespassing” signs along Toby’s fencing, figuring he was well outside of the farm’s property line.
He owns cornfields, not so much forests, Brendan thought.
Franklin and Lyle earlier had followed Brendan in a two-horse rig whose bed carried a seven-foot-tall ladder, which the big guy placed against the designated maple while the two others waited on the road and minded the horses.
“I’m gonna get,” Lyle said and mounted Brendan’s dapple gray horse. They wouldn’t risk tying the stallion to a tree in the woods only to have it make noise and draw attention. He patted the horse on the side of its neck. “He’ll be waiting for you at my place when you’re done. Don’t worry.”
“I ain’t worried about you.” Brendan glanced into the woods, nudging his head for emphasis. “Can’t you come back to pick me up?”
“Can’t do it. My sister’s coming by train from Memphis to visit.” Lyle didn’t have a sister. He simply didn’t feel like lugging a ladder. If Brendan asked where she was when he went to retrieve his horse, Lyle would say she canceled. Simple as that. In the meantime he had crisp bills from Diggs destined for the whore Becky Johnson’s garter belt while she stripped for him. She’ll take it off and count it before the fucking, Lyle thought. I mean, that’s only proper.
“All right, give her my best,” Brendan said.
“I’ll be sure to tell her.” Lyle cracked a grin and rode back to town.
Brendan turned his attention to the potential catastrophe lumbering from the forest.
“Get back here around five o’clock. Don’t make me wait. I’ll have been up in that tree for five hours. My ass’ll be hurting and my legs sore.” Brendan clapped Franklin on his meaty triceps as he climbed back into the rig. “And remember, if someone stops to ask what you’re doing here when you come back to get me, just tell them you gotta take a piss in the woods.”
“But what if I don’t have to go?”
“What?”
“I might not have to urinate.”
“Franklin, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have to go. That’s your excuse for stopping to get the ladder and me.”
“Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense.” Franklin replied as if it didn’t and looked down the road for a few seconds before turning back to Brendan. “So how much water should I drink before coming back?”
“What?”
“I figure I won’t forget the excuse to piss if I actually gotta take one. Therefore I should drink something, right? Hey, I could hang out at the Tavern and drink beers.”
“No!” Brendan blurted it loud enough so that his voice traveled. He shook his head as if to rid it of an unpleasant thought and then smacked the driver on his leg to get his attention.
“Jesus Christ, Franklin, you can’t even put your pants on right when you’re sober. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna risk you forgetting to come get me when you’re drunk. Look, if it makes you happy, drink all the damn water you want. Just remember to be here at five and don’t say a goddamn thing to anyone.”
“Except I gotta go take a piss in the woods.”
“Right! That’s what you tell them.”
“No, I mean I gotta take a piss now.”
“What? Why didn’t you piss when you were in the woods five minutes—never mind, just go.”
Franklin watched the pretty birds while walking into the woods, leaving Brendan to fume for five minutes by the road, worrying about the myriad of things that could go wrong with Franklin even tangentially involved in any scheme. He regained his composure when Franklin finally left.
He used the ladder to climb the tree’s base, using his upper body strength and young legs to pull and push himself up to the higher limbs. The gunshot wound to his shoulder ached but didn’t hinder his progress. He dressed in brown, if only to crudely blend with the bark. He’d walked far enough into the woods so that road travelers could not spot the ladder against the tree. Brendan opened the satchel he’d slung around his shoulder to retrieve a length of rope. He whipped it around the tree and caught the cord when it returned. He sat like an L and fastened himself to the tree as a precaution because falling from this height could kill him.
The bright green leaves provided ample shade from the sun and nosy passersby who might spot him from the road. He appreciated most the expansive circle of leaves wreathing—not obstructing—his line of sight to Toby’s farmhouse and barn. He relished the clear view of the barn’s rear, and from his perspective, the left side of the farmhouse and the fields surrounding it. Cornstalk tassels sprouted above the thick green leaves and swayed with the warm breeze, creating a rippling hazel sea. The sight engendered in Brendan serenity he’d not felt for some time, and which would dissolve upon reminding himself that he and his friends would again be called upon to murder the man he stalked.
He uncapped the canteen he’d slung over his shoulder and satisfied himself with enough water without going overboard as he’d need to make it last. He kept his Colt holstered. The satchel that held his rope proved most important for it contained an eight-inch-long brass telescope he’d pilfered from a fallen colonel on the Fort Wagner battlefield. He caressed the sleek wooden barrel and looked through the eyepiece and Toby Jenkins’s farmland came into grainy view—yes, the lens had some scratches, but it was better than nothing.
No movement on the farmstead. The long dirt path leading from the road split and opened into wide dusty circles both in front of the barn and house, as both areas saw constant traffic of wagon wheel, hoof and foot. Brendan stowed the scope in the satchel and pulled out a red apple.
Nice up here, he thought. A man could get sleepy. He thought about it. The rope provided a safety net. But Diggs wasn’t paying him to nap. So he whiled away an hour eating apples—he brought five—and shifting where he sat to ease the pain building at the base of his spine. He’d occasionally glance at the lifeless farm. It got to the point where he pulled his Colt and pretended to shoot the crows that flew by.
Playtime ceased when he heard the unmistakable clanks of a wagon rumbling down the trail from
the road. Toby Jenkins came home. He pulled in front of the barn, hopped off his perch, and opened the wide doors. Toby returned and led inside the two horses pulling the wagon. He exited minutes later, walking the two horses to the expansive paddock where they could join the one that already roamed.
It’d be inhumane to leave those horses in the barn on a day like this, Brendan thought. In line with Brendan’s thinking, Toby lowered into the well the new bucket he bought a few days prior and made several trips back and forth to the pen to make sure the troughs overflowed with water. The horses drank as Toby poured.
What’d he buy? Why’d he go into town? Brendan thought. Shit. I should’ve paid better attention to what was in the wagon bed!
He retrieved the telescope after Toby closed the barn doors and walked into his house.
Hours went by. Brendan thought Toby might harvest some of the corn—the ears looked ripe—but figured the heat was too much for him. Even the horses dreaded it and walked to the far side of the pen where trees stood behind the fencing and took shelter in the shade.
What’s he got going on in there? Maybe the bastard’s napping. Brendan suppressed his envy. He had no idea he’d get so tired sitting in a tree, and the more he stayed the more his back ached. The sun shifted its position as the day dragged.
At least I’ll be able to head home soon, I think. Brendan kicked himself for forgetting his pocket watch to better track time. He spaced out the day by judiciously drinking from his canteen and eating apples.
Toby appeared from the back of the house. The sight of him gave Brendan a rush.
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