Midnight Rose (14 page)

Lost in her desperate search, she was unaware that Zachary had come into the room. Only when she heard the ominous sound of the door closing did she look up to see him. Fright struck but an instant, for rage overrode trepidation. “Where did you take her?” she demanded.

At first, he was angered to find her snooping in his desk, but then threw his head back to laugh at such outrageous audacity. “You’ll never find her, you little idiot.”

“How could you do it?” she exploded. “Wasn’t it enough you sold off her brothers? Letty was all Rosa had left!”

“Rosa is a slave, and slaves don’t have nothin’,” he said with a sneer. “And it’s none of your business what I do. Now get out of here, before I teach you a lesson you won’t forget.”

“I hate you,” she said coldly, standing her ground. “I hate you for selling Letty. I hate you for what you did to me that night. I hate you for the evil bastard you are. And I wish you were dead!”

He ignored her tirade. Eyes gleaming with lust, he began to walk slowly toward her as he taunted, “Well, now, how cozy this is. Your momma’s gone to truckle up to them holier-’n-thou church ladies, and I saw how you sent Rosa high-tailin’ it out of the house. So now we’re all alone…just like that night.”

She began to retreat as he started to stalk her around the desk. Between clenched teeth, she ground out the warning, “Don’t you dare touch me, Zachary!” Glancing about wildly, she looked for anything to be used as a weapon. “This time, I will tell my mother, and—”

He sensed what she was thinking, cleared the desk with one sweep of his arm. “And what the hell can she do? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. I own her, like I own you, and everything and everybody on this place, and I do what I want to, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.

“All these years,” he drawled, reeling slightly from all the liquor he’d guzzled, “I fed you, clothed you, gave you the life of a princess, and you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me, you snotty little bitch. It’s time you showed some gratitude. Now get over here and give your daddy a kiss.”

“You go to hell!” She forced the words past the constricting terror in her throat, as he moved like a predatory animal.

“You know, sweet baby,” he continued, “maybe we should go together and tell her about us, how I’ve had a yen for you all these years, and now that she’s so sickly with that infernal coughin’ of hers, you’re gonna be nice and give me what she don’t want to. Now you come here, damn you”—his voice rose shrilly—“’cause I been waitin’ long enough to taste your little honey pot.”

He lunged. She didn’t move fast enough, and he grabbed her and threw her to the floor. She fought wildly, but he was big, strong, drunk, and determined. He grabbed at her dress, tore the front, and her breasts tumbled forth. He clutched, squeezed, oblivious in his lust to the frenzied raking of her nails clawing at his face.

“Look at ’em,” he said hungrily. “Like melons, all ripe and firm for the takin’.” He burrowed his face in her heaving flesh, at the same time reaching to grope below. He rolled from side to side on top of her, shoving up her skirt, rendering her vulnerable to the attack of his probing fingers.

“Gonna have it,” he cried, his whiskeyed breath blasting her. He moved to cover her face with wet, eager kisses as he fought to spread her wildly thrashing legs. “Gonna have that honey pot any time I want, and you’ll love it, beg for it, and maybe I’ll even marry you when your momma dies.”

Erin was terrified, helpless beneath him. He was lying to one side, pressed against her thigh, as he forced her legs apart with his knee. Grabbing her wrists with one hand, he pinned her down, assaulting her with his other. She rocked back and forth, horrified, knowing any second he’d have his way with her.

His body was pressing down her other leg, and when he maneuvered to unfasten his pants and release himself, she felt the momentary laxity in his hold. Gathering all her strength, she jerked one arm free, and sent her fist slamming into that giant, throbbing thing that was about to invade her. With a scream of pain, he tore away from her, doubling over in agony.

Erin was on her feet at once. Chest heaving, rage and terror melding together like hot, molten lava through her veins, she towered over him to gasp, “If you ever touch me again, so help me God, I’ll kill you!”

He managed to get to his knees, and fire was in his eyes as he glowered up at her. “Just who the hell do you think you are?” He was nearly choking on his fury. “You dare threaten me? I’ll tell you something, you little strumpet…”

She began to back up toward the door, then snatched up a vase in case he tried to attack again.

Slowly, he struggled to his feet; then, leaning against the desk, he made his way around to the chair. “Next time, I’ll be sober, and we’re gonna talk about this, ’cause it’s time you learned which side your bread’s buttered on. You’re gonna find out just how mean I can be. And remember somethin’ else: if you ain’t good to me, I’ll see your momma suffers for it, too.” He fumbled in a drawer, took out a flask. Unscrewing the top, he tilted it up to his lips and drank greedily, watching her all the while.

She shuddered with contempt, and, yes, fear. In that frozen moment, Erin knew there was but one way out of the hell on earth her life had become, for both her and her mother.

She had to marry Ryan Youngblood.

Albeit a deceitful arrangement, Ryan deserved it, she rationalized, in a way. Like her mother claimed, there was a matter of honor involved. He had insulted her by presuming she wasn’t good enough to be his wife, fit only to be a kept woman, a prostitute by any other name. Instead, he would have to marry her, according her all the rights and privileges of a wife. She would enjoy a life of luxury and wealth, bearing, in turn, his children, perhaps a son and heir. Meanwhile, he could take some other woman for his mistress to endure society’s censure.

She would make her position clear from the beginning, and how she also intended to persuade her mother to move in with them to escape Zachary’s mistreatment.

“Don’t worry.” Zachary snickered between gulps of the whiskey. “We’ll keep this from your momma as long as you keep me happy. The way she is lately, I don’t imagine we’re gonna have to bother with her much longer, anyway.

“If you play your cards right,” he continued, “I might marry you, like I said. Now get out of here.” He stopped sneering to command, “And send somebody in here to clean up this mess.”

Erin quickened her steps, and as she reached the door, turned the knob, he yelled, “By the way, there’s no need for you to snoop around in here. You won’t find out where she went.”

She turned to stare at him, wondering what fiendish torment he’d throw at her next.

With a deep scowl, he told her, “The damn wench got away.”

Erin couldn’t hold back a scream of joy. “Thank God!”

“We’ll get her, though,” he was quick to say. “Me and my men are goin’ right back to the North Carolina line where she got away, and we’re goin’ to fan out in all directions and hire vigilantes and slave hunters, whatever it takes to find her.

“She got away.” He paused to snicker. “Next time, you won’t.”

Chapter Nine

After the ugly encounter with Zachary, Erin had taken time to change clothes, hiding the torn dress in the bottom of her armoire. Later, she’d make sure it was thrown out, for it was beyond repair, and she didn’t want her mother to see it
and ask how it happened. Then, she’d gone in search of Rosa, to tell her what she’d just learned.

As she left by the back door and hurried across the yard toward the outbuildings, she could see Zachary over at the barn. Evidently, the reason he’d gone back to the house, after she dared think it safe to go in his study, had been to take weapons from the gun cabinet there. She could see him handing over several to Frank and the other white men gathered. No doubt he was sending out a search party, all the way to the vicinity of where Letty had managed to escape.

Beyond the outbuildings—the kitchen, blacksmith, weavers, brickmakers, and several storage facilities—a path began to wind down toward the creek. She made her way past the nicer overseers’ section—log cabins in a neat row along cleared, smooth banks sloping to the creek. Farther along, the area became almost swampy, with fallen trees and dense undergrowth to the sides of the path. Zachary didn’t allow any clearing, wanting the denseness for a divider between slaves and white workers.

She walked the trail for nearly a half mile, ever on the lookout for snakes. In the summer months, it wasn’t unusual to find a copperhead water moccasin curled up beneath a pokeberry bush. Several slaves had been bitten in the past, and one, a small child, had died from the venomous bite.

Finally, she reached the slave compound, where three dozen or more tiny wooden shacks circled a clearing. The dilapidated porches were clustered with curiously staring children—pickaninnies, Zachary derisively referred to them. She knew most of them had to be less than five years old. Zachary sent children older than that into the fields to do whatever work their strength allowed.

She knew which shack was Rosa’s. She had been there so many times in younger years to play with Letty. Back then, she hadn’t paid any attention to the pitiful way the slaves lived. Now it leaped out at her like a cat after a field mouse, to painfully grab all her senses. She saw the shabbiness—rough-hewn log shacks, the roofs speckled with bits of trash and rags that had been stuffed into holes to try and keep out the rain. Doors hung open to give as much air as possible in the sweltering heat, because there were few windows—Zachary’s only offering for insulation against winter chill. As she approached Rosa’s cabin, it was impossible to tell where outside ended and inside began, for the floor was just dirt, a coarse, yellow, sandy kind of soil.

As she walked in, she was blasted by the heat of the open hearth. Rosa, trying to focus on something besides her troubles, was busy checking a stewing opossum. The heavy air was pungent with the smell of smoke and melting animal fat.

Hearing her come in, Rosa swung around to cry, “Did you find out where he took her, where he sold my baby girl?”

“No, I didn’t,” she responded quickly, wanting to just get it over with, “because it looks like Letty escaped.”

At that, Rosa fell to her knees and began to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving. A few women who had gathered outside when they saw Erin come into the compound heard and quickly rushed in to join the frenzy.

Erin stared in wonder, unable to figure out what they were so happy about. Didn’t they realize the perils Letty now faced as a runaway slave? Not only was Zachary organizing a hunt, there were also ruthless vigilantes about, who made a living tracking down the fugitives, using trained dogs to flush them out of hiding. Letty wouldn’t know who to trust, because informers were generously rewarded by enraged slave owners. She had no money, no friends, only the clothes on her back, and she was out there somewhere in the wilderness between Virginia and North Carolina, scared, hungry, and lost.

To be captured, Erin had heard, was even worse. Some runaways were punished by having a portion of one foot brutally hacked off with an ax, and, at the very least, were mercilessly whipped. Yet, despite all the grimness, the women were rejoicing.

In the middle of it all, Ben came running in to pull Rosa to her feet and give her a big bear hug in shared jubilation. He was barefooted and shirtless, his baggy, ragged pants tied about his narrow waist with a piece of rope. Unlike other plantation owners who made an effort to keep their slaves in adequate clothes and shoes, Zachary didn’t care. The women wore clothes made from burlap feed bags, and many of the children just ran around naked in the summer months, like the ones now gathered in the doorway, curious as to why all the grownups were shouting and crying.

Ben’s face, still pitifully swollen, spread into a relieved grin as he called to Erin, “It’s God’s blessin’, Miz Erin. Oh, thank Jesus, she was able to get away.”

Before she could ask why on earth they were all celebrating, Tulwah appeared, as he had a habit of doing at odd times and places. He was a free Negro, much to the dismay of people like Zachary, and had the papers to prove it. Despite the heat, he was attired in his usual purple-and-red woven robe. His feet were bare, but he wore gold rings around his toes. A leather thong around his neck held tiny bags of foul-smelling herbs and weird-shaped charms. Erin thought she saw a dried chicken foot among them and shuddered.

He looked about suspiciously, and when he saw Erin, he frowned. Ben was quick to assure him, “It’s all right, Tulwah. Miz Erin won’t say nothin’. She’s the one what brought us the news about Letty.”

Tulwah remained skeptical, crossed the tiny cabin to put an arm about Rosa and whisper something in her ear. She nodded, looked pleased over whatever he’d said. Then, with another wary look at Erin, he left as quietly and quickly as he came.

Exasperated, she asked of no one in particular, “Will somebody please tell me what’s happening here? Why are you all so excited? Don’t you realize what Letty has done? She’s now a fugitive, the same as an outlaw, and they can shoot her if they want to, and—”

“They always could, Miz Erin,” Ben interrupted. “Don’t you know that nobody cares if a slave gets killed? But what you got to understand now is that Letty has a chance to be free. Once she gets in touch with the Free Soil workers, and…” His voice trailed off at the admonishing gasps exploding all around him in the tiny one-room shack.