Patricia Rice (6 page)

"I've told you a dozen times before that you have no business going to Jas's place," he warned her when he caught up to her brisk pace. She was small, but she was fast.

"That slave trader from Nashville just arrived. Thy father is planning on selling Joshua, and Joe means to sell Roscoe. And I overheard him talking to Howard about selling the youngest girl out there, even though she's not yet fifteen." She shot him a sidewise glance. "It seems there's a large market in New Orleans for young slave girls with white features."

Pace ran his hand over his face and hid his grimace of despair. There wasn't any end to it. There would never be an end to it. And this innocent child had no business knowing what went on in New Orleans. Why in hell didn't her parents keep her home where she belonged?

He knew the answer to that last: because she was the spoiled child of their old age and they might as well try tying a hummingbird as to rein Dora in.

"Why would my father sell Joshua?" he made the mistake of asking. He couldn't think of any reason in the world that this child should know more than he did about his father's business, but he knew she would have an answer.

"He thinks Joshua helped those runaways last week, and that mayhap he helped with a lot of others around here. Thou must get him away, Pace."

"The whole damned world's gone crazy." Pace shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked up a dirt clod. "Everything that happens around here, they blame on the slaves. A fire at the McCoy's? Had to be fugitives. A hog slaughtered? Had to be one of the coloreds. You'd think white men never did anything wrong."

Dora answered calmly, "But Joshua did help them cross the river. The slaves have a whole network that goes clear to Lexington and probably farther. I imagine there's hundreds of them who know Joshua will row them across the river if they can get free. And did thou knowest they're auctioning off the McCoys' farm?"

He did. And he knew what Joe Mitchell meant to do with it. Pace didn't like how quickly those back taxes got called in, either. There was something almighty fishy about the barn burning as well. But he was only one man and he could only fight so many battles at a time.

"I've got someone looking into it," was his only reply.

She turned huge blue eyes up to him. "And the others?"

Pace's jaw tightened. "Your father won't approve of what I have planned. Just tell him to make sure he's with credible witnesses tomorrow night. I'll be at the Christmas ball with the rest of the town. You'll hear about it soon enough."

"Josie has a lot of beaux," she said simply.

With a considerably lighter air, Pace grinned. "None of them as good as me." He stopped in front of the small Smythe farmhouse and pointed at the front door. "Now get yourself in there and don't set one dainty foot out until day after tomorrow. Is that understood?"

Her bonnet fell backward, and for one disconcerting moment, while he stared into the eyes of a child, Pace saw the face of an angel.

Then her cloak flapped as she raised her arm in a gesture of farewell, and she flew inside, out of sight.

He shook his head at the image of a halo of silver curls burned into his eyelids. He would have to quit drinking so much coffee and get a little more sleep before he really started seeing things.

Fingering a small blue feather in his pocket, he whistled back to town.

Chapter 3

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Genesis 28:12

December 1857

The hounds bayed into the night, accompanied by the pounding of hooves. A dozen black fugitives lay panting, exhausted, beneath the huge thicket of briars. Running down the road, followed by the hounds, meant certain capture. Staying here meant praying the dogs wouldn't catch their scent. No other hiding place existed between here and the river. They prayed the dogs would pass them by.

The first hound hit the wooden bridge over the flood-swollen creek. The hidden men held their breaths, sweat breaking out on their foreheads despite the winter cold. The hound howled excitedly.

And then the night exploded into a crackle of gunfire and balls of flame, and the hound turned tail and ran, leaving the wooden bridge to burst into a roaring inferno.

The fugitives dashed from cover and darted down to the river where the boats waited for them.

* * *

Pace spread his wide hand across the small of Josie's slender back and swung her around in a wide circle, causing her crinolines to bell outward in a graceful swoop. She giggled in delight, and he smiled at her ebullience.

He didn't know what it was like to be so easily pleased, but he liked seeing someone who did.

She was only sixteen and too young to court. He was just out of school and not ready for marriage. That was understood between them. There would be time for her to flirt and play while he built a career and saved some money. He couldn't offer her the kind of wealth some of her other suitors might possess, but he didn't worry about that. Josie had a timid soul, and the larger, more boisterous men scared her. Even Charlie with his handsome, gallant ways intimidated one so young. Pace had never quite gained his brother's height or practiced ways with women. He'd been laughed at enough times to know that. He would have the last laugh when everyone realized Josie would choose him just because of those things they thought so amusing.

Josie was an only child. Pace supposed eventually her father's farm would come to her, but he wasn't cut out for farming. He wouldn't mind the land and house, but he meant to live in Frankfort where the laws were made. With her quiet hospitality and easy manners, Josie would make an excellent politician's wife. He had it all worked out. He just needed to tell Josie.

When the waltz ended, he whispered in her ear and she giggled, hiding her smile behind her fan. The crowded ballroom buzzed with conversation, but in one of those sudden noiseless lulls that happened in the best of crowds, the sound of baying hounds intruded.

Several of the young men in the crowd looked up with interest. They were more at home on the backs of horses, following their hounds, than in tight coats and slick shoes on a dance floor. It took only the subsequent sound of the explosion to send them running for the front door.

Josie and her friends frowned as their beaux took to their heels and ran whooping into the night. The adults among them whispered and debated, and several of the older men eased out after the younger ones, muttering words about seeing that the young hotheads didn't get into trouble.

Pace grinned down at the budding young woman in his arms. "Shall we dance, my lady? Or would you have me run to the rescue with the others?"

Josie gave him a small, thoughtful frown, then flinging aside whatever stray thought had caused her to wrinkle her pretty forehead, she threw her arms around him again. "Let us dance, sir. I'm certain any man who dares brave a ballroom of disappointed women is more to be admired than an entire flock of hotheaded sheep."

Pace danced her into the center of the ballroom, leading the crowd into resuming the festivities, making it impossible for anyone to believe later that he had anything whatsoever to do with the successful escape of thousands of dollars' worth of valuable slaves from an irate trader.

* * *

"Mr. Smythe, you are too old for walking in a winter rain. I'll not mince words with you. Your lungs aren't as strong as they used to be. They've caught an inflammation. You need to rest, drink lots of liquids, and keep warm until the inflammation goes away. If you go outside again, it will be the same as suicide."

The doctor tucked his instruments back in his bag as he scolded his patient in a stern voice. He turned to the two anxious females hovering in the doorway behind him and left instructions for nourishing broths and orders not to let the fire die down in the bedchamber. As soon as the doctor walked out the front door, John Smythe struggled for a sitting position and reached for the pen and paper at his bedside.

"Papa, no!" Dora rushed in, taking the utensils away from him. "Thou must rest. Lie back and close thy eyes while Mama fixes the broth. If thou wishes something done, let me do it for thee."

Coughing, John leaned back against the pillows, not willingly, but because he was too weak for anything else. "Thou must send to the Elders, ask that a strong young man be sent to work for us. We will pay him what he is worth. There is still much yet to be done."

Dora knew they had little money for wages. What little they had went toward helping those who had nothing. She also knew she wasn't physically strong enough to round up cows, keep them milked, mend the horses' harness, and all the other labor involved in running a farm. Mama Elizabeth could do these things, but Dora understood what Papa John left unsaid: his wife was as old as he was. He wouldn't risk her health, too.

Dora penned the note as instructed, held it for her adopted father to sign, and set off with heavy heart in search of someone to carry it across the river.

She was frightened. She couldn't deny it. She had seen enough illness and death while helping Mother Elizabeth in her rounds of nursing. Papa John's gray pallor and rattling cough were symptoms of a grave disease that few ever survived, not in the cold of winter, not at his age. All factors were against him. She felt the cold chill of the winter wind clear to her bones as she tried imagining life without the kindly old man who had brought her out of death. Tears filled her eyes at the thought of that big breakfast table empty of his hearty laughter or gentle questions. Her imagination failed beyond that. Papa John shared the generous width of his heart and soul with her. Without him, she would be nothing.

Her gaze focused inward and not on the people of town as she hurried toward the livery and the man who carried messages. She was slow to notice the small groups of people gathered on corners, talking and gesticulating. Not until someone shouted, "There's one of them now!" did she even look up.

Dora's heart nearly stopped in her chest as every pair of eyes on the street turned to her. It fluttered again in terror as she tried to imagine what she had done. She could read accusation and condemnation in their expressions, and the nightmares of her childhood made her shake. She wasn't a good person. Everyone must know that. Everyone must know that Papa John was dying for her sins. It was all her fault. If she hadn't left the gate open, the sheep would never have got loose, and Papa John would never have fallen in the creek. If he died, she was a murderess. The whole town knew it.

Consumed with guilt and mental anguish, Dora forced her feet to continue on their path. She would do as told. She would send the message. Maybe God would forgive her if she did everything that she was told for a change.

She couldn't let Papa John die. He was good. She was bad. She should be the one to die.

"She was in the store buying gunpowder just the other day! She's one of them, I tell you! She blew up the bridge! Her and that Bible-toting family of hers. Let's show 'em what we think of Yankee abolitionists around here!"

A rotten apple flew past Dora's nose, startling her so much that she stopped to follow its course. A squash that had turned soft on the vine smashed against her back. A broken piece of brick glanced off her bonnet, striking hard enough to draw pain. Crying out in surprise and holding her hand to her head, she looked around to see who did this, but women quickly disappeared into stores and houses. Only men and rowdies remained on the street.

Feeling as much fear as guilt now, she hurried on her errand, hoping they would let her by. She hadn't heard about the bridge. She didn't know what had them riled. If she gave it thought, she might have guessed, but she wasn't thinking clearly. She just wanted to run and cry and go home to the safety of her papa's arms, but she had to take the message to the livery first.

They waited at the alley for her. She recognized some of them, all boys not much older than she, some even younger. When they had a chance, they called her names, pulled at her bonnet, and tried to put snakes down her dress. Ignoring them usually worked, but this time they had a meanness to their torment, and she could see their older brothers gathered at the general store, making no show of stopping them. If she wasn't so terrified, she'd cry.

She froze like a doe caught in a lantern light. Her early years of terror had taught her the uselessness of fighting. Years of Quaker preaching had taught her violence didn't solve problems. Papa John would be terribly disappointed if she resorted to violence. She never wanted to disappoint him ever again. She knew no other escape, so she kept the rage and fear inside, where it hurt only herself.

"My daddy's dying, I have to send a message to the Elders," Dora said with as much dignity as she could muster while she shivered.

"What's the matter? One of them niggers cut your daddy's throat for helping 'em? And what you been doin' with 'em while he's hidin' 'em, huh? What does a nigger-lovin' Quaker gal do with niggers when she's got 'em all to herself?" His laughter and those of the others crowding around her was lewd, but Dora had no understanding of their insinuations.