The Black Jacks (4 page)

The cane had just been planted. Plowboys opened deep furrows, and "droppers" inserted three rows of stalks, with one stalk overlapping the other two. Then the "cutters" used cane knives to cut each stalk into three sections. The plowboys came back through to cover the joints with six inches of soil to prevent freezing.

In a fortnight, hoe gangs would scrape three inches of the dirt off the joints, and as the spring sun warmed the earth, shoots would begin to sprout from the eyes of the cane joints. Throughout the spring the hoe gangs would work to keep the weeds and grass from smothering the delicate sprouts.

In autumn, the cane would be harvested before the first frost. The stalks would be stripped of leaves and placed into a cane-grinding hopper. Oxen harnessed to spokes would walk in circles to move rollers which pressed the juice from the stalks. The juice would be boiled in cast-iron kettles until it thickened and formed sugar crystals. The crystals would be skimmed and refined in the mill, while the syrup thickened into molasses. During harvest time, McAllen and his help normally put in eighteen-hour days.

In addition to over two hundred acres in sugar cane, McAllen also grew corn, the basic means of rural subsistence, the staff of life on the frontier. It came to table as roasted ears or bread or grits, mush or pudding or porridge, and even whiskey if one had a still. The pigs, cattle, and oxen ate it as fodder. In the quarters, corn shucks were used to fill mattresses and make chair bottoms. Although the sugarcane had been sowed, McAllen knew there was no time to waste in putting in the corn, and as he rode down the lane he was glad to see the hands hard at work in the cornfields as well as the vegetable gardens. Soon, when the sap was up, it would be time to cut trees and split rails—fences always needed mending, and green lumber was easier to split. The work never ceased at Grand Cane.

The yard of the main house was encompassed by a hedgerow of Cherokee rose. McAllen had planted the cuttings even before the house was completed, and now the thorny evergreens had grown into a natural fence impervious to any large animal's attempt to get through it. The lane ended at the hedgerow, and as McAllen dismounted—handing Escatawpa's reins to Joshua, who would take the horses back to the barn—and passed through the whitewashed wooden gate set into the hedge, he saw Leah on the front gallery. She rose from her rocking chair and stood at the top of the broad steps and waited for him, and the sight of her gave him pause.

She was so beautiful! Today the sky had finally cleared, and the last soft rays of sunlight touched her flaxen hair and made it resemble spun gold. The features of Aphrodite or Helen of Troy could not have been more perfect than those of Leah Pierce McAllen. Her slender form was accentuated by the tight, low-cut bodice of her pale yellow crinoline dress. Her alluring green eyes and seductive ruby lips had ignited a fire of passion in McAllen when first they had met, and though he was aware that he did not really love her—truly love her—any more than she really loved him, the passion was still there. He supposed that Leah ignited that fire in every man. Her beauty was beguiling, a siren song, a promise, a challenge that required a strong will to resist.
I couldn't resist it,
thought McAllen, so
I should not be surprised that other men cannot resist it, either.

He'd read Jonah Singletary's snide comments in the Austin
City Gazette
while away in Galveston, and now, as he paused just inside the gate, he wondered if Leah knew about them. If so, how would she act toward him? And if she didn't know, what should he do? Accuse her straight out, or keep it to himself? He couldn't help being jealous. The thought of Leah in the arms of another man kindled his anger and wounded his pride. But he knew it was foolish to be angry. Leah had cravings no one man could satisfy. She would never change. Having accepted that, he had no one but himself to blame for the suffering he now endured, because it was his decision to maintain this facade of married bliss that fooled no one.

He made up his mind—it would be simpler not to take issue with her regarding her indiscretions. No good could come of doing so. Then, too, he could derive some small satisfaction from keeping her guessing about what he knew and what he planned to do.

Climbing the steps, he smiled at her. "Hello, darling."

She kissed him on the cheek and then, making a face, pushed him away as he tried to put his arms around her. "Don't you dare, John Henry. You're filthy, and this is a brand-new dress. Do you like it?" She performed a graceful pirouette.

"Very nice," he said. It was just like her to fail to ask him about his trip, or if he'd had any trouble along the way.

The fragrance of bergamot reached him. Leah kept herself attuned to current fashion, and that meant nothing but Parisian labels—Guerlain, Pivert, Micheau—on her dressing table would do.
Godey's Lady's Book
was her bible. Leah hired a talented—and fairly expensive—seamstress in Columbia to produce dresses using the
Godey's
hand-tinted fashion plates for patterns. Only the best silks and satins, brocades and velvets were used.

"So tell me, John Henry," she said, "did you visit my parents while you were in Galveston? Are they well? What were all the young ladies wearing this season? Did you find General Houston? Did you bring me a present?"

"Of course I did," he replied, working to keep his smile in place. He'd bought her a very pretty and expensive shawl. Or, he thought,
I could give her the copy of the City Gazette. . . .

"Oh, I can't wait to see it. But first I want to talk to you about. . ."

She looked past him, and he turned, and now his smile was genuine, as an old black man, white-haired and bent, shuffled out of the house.

"Roman!" McAllen took him by the shoulders. "You're looking much better than when I left."

"We'come home, Marse John. I'm feelin' tol'able. Tol'able."

McAllen heard Leah breathe a sigh of exasperation, and Roman's eyes, still bright and alert in a deeply lined face, flickered toward her, sly and wise and filled with dislike.

"Roman!" A big black woman filled the doorway, a ferocious scowl on her full-moon face. She wore an apron around her prodigious midsection, and a red scarf on her head. "Roman, I declare! You aint s'pose to be up and about. You gwine get sick all over again, and dis time I aint gwine take care of you." She spared McAllen a glance. "You oughts to tell dis ol' fool to mind me."

McAllen chuckled. "You mind Bessie, now, you hear, Roman? Better take it easy, or you'll have a relapse."

"I'm almighty tired of doin' nothin'," replied Roman. "I been workin' all my life, Marse John, nigh on eighty years, and if I stop
doin'
I'm likely gwine stop
livin'."

McAllen glanced at Bessie and shrugged. "He's stubborn. Always been so."

"He's a mule-headed ol' fool, dats what he is. Roman, you get yo'self in here right dis minute."

"You'd better do as Bessie says," McAllen advised him. "You know how she is."

Roman sighed. "Yessuh, I knows." He looked out at the pecan trees, bare branches silhouetted against the purpling sky. McAllen knew he was suffering from cabin fever. Pneumonia had laid him low for weeks. For a spell it had been touch and go. And while McAllen could sympathize, he didn't want to take any chances where old Roman was concerned. He was fond of the man, who had been with him for as long as he could remember. Through thick and thin Roman had always been there, and McAllen couldn't imagine what the world would be like without him.

"I knows you was comin' home today, Marse John," said Roman. Then he turned to Bessie. "I tol' you, didn't I? Well, didn't I?"

"Yes, you done tol' me. I declare, Marse John, I found dis ol' fool dressed and standin' by his window dis mornin'. He aint tooken his eyes off dat road all day."

McAllen nodded. Like Houston's fiancée, Roman believed he had the God-given gift of "second sight," and McAllen had witnessed too much evidence over the years to doubt it.

"John Henry, I wish to talk to you," said Leah. She was fuming, jealous of Roman, and of all the slaves who worked at Grand Cane, because McAllen thought highly of them all. She, on the other hand, was firmly convinced that his friendly approach was bad for discipline. Apart from that, she knew none of them liked her, with the exception of Ruth, her personal servant, with whom she had grown up. Her father had given Ruth to her when she had married. Ruth's parents, who were also her father's slaves, had been distraught when Ruth left for the Texas frontier, but what did that matter? Her husband's problem, she believed, was that he cared too much what the Negroes thought or how they felt.

McAllen gave Leah a long and ambivalent look which made her uncomfortable. He said nothing. Sensing the tension, Bessie snagged Roman's sleeve and gave it a firm tug.

"You come right back in dis house, Roman. Least you can do, if you won't go back to bed like you oughts to, is to fix Marse John a drink. Caint you see he's come a long ways and needs some refreshment?"

It was a clever ruse and got Roman off the porch, because the idea of doing something useful appealed to the old man. With Bessie and Roman gone, McAllen turned to Leah with a taut smile in place.

"What is it that you want to say to me, darling?"

"It concerns Roman. He's perfectly useless, John Henry. He can't do anything anymore, and he's just. . . well, he's just in the way, that's all. I know you can't sell him. He's a freedman, and even if he weren't, no one would give you a dollar for him, he's so old and decrepit. But at least . . . Why are you looking at me like that?"

McAllen's expression was stormy. He'd thought perhaps Leah was going to confess her indiscretions in Austin, or at the very least make the effort to manufacture excuses. Instead, she was suggesting that he do away with Roman, of all people!

"I hope you're not serious," he said. He spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and with no inflection.

His tone of voice gave Leah pause. She knew the signs. Her husband's hold on his temper was slipping, and his temper, when unleashed, was a terrible thing to behold. Mortal dread chilled her to the bone. John Henry was acting even colder than usual. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Her conscience tormented her. Perhaps he had heard about. . .

Sudden, irrational anger seized her, and she threw caution—what little she possessed—to the wind. "Perhaps there isn't anything that can be done about Roman," she conceded. "But you
can
get rid of Jeb, and I insist that you do so."

McAllen's eyes narrowed. Jeb was Grand Cane's overseer. He was also a slave. Black overseers were rare but not unheard of, and McAllen trusted Jeb implicitly.

"And why do you insist?" he asked.

"Because he is insolent," she snapped back.

"You mean because he doesn't like you."

"Whether a nigger likes me or not is of no concern to me! But I do expect him to show me the respect which is my due."

McAllen drew a long breath, trying to calm himself. "First it was Joshua. Now Roman and Jeb. I would not send Joshua away, and I will not get rid of the others, either. Jeb is honest and hardworking. The other hands trust and respect him. Besides, I cannot afford to pay a white man to be overseer here. I do not have a thousand dollars a year to spare."

"I think George Taylor would come back for less than a thousand."

"Taylor?" McAllen's laugh had a harsh ring, and Leah didn't like the sound of it at all. "Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Why, John Henry, what do you mean?"

"You know very well what I mean. Don't make me say it."

Leah's cheeks lost their color. "No. Don't say it."

"George Taylor will never again be employed at Grand Cane, I can assure you. He was too distracted to do his job properly. If you see him again—and I am fairly certain that you will—you may tell him that if he is entertaining any hopes of returning, he should give them up. In fact, he would do well to make sure his shadow does not fall upon my property."

Leah stormed past him and reached the door just as Roman emerged from the house with a glass of Old Nash in hand. In a fit of spite, Leah struck the glass from the old man's grasp. Then she fled into the house. Roman stooped to retrieve the glass, but McAllen beat him to it.

"I's sorry, Marse John. I done spilt your drink."

McAllen shook his head. He knew it wasn't the spilled whiskey that old Roman was really sorry about. No, Roman felt sorry for him because he was married to a spiteful, deceitful vixen.

"Well," said McAllen, with a rueful smile. "Home sweet home."

"Yes, suh. I'll get you another drink."

"Don't bother. I need to go talk to Jeb."

It was well after dark before he returned to the main house, having spent more than an hour with the Grand Cane overseer discussing what needed to be done on the plantation in the next few weeks. He went to his study and had a couple of stiff drinks and sat brooding by the fire that crackled in the blackened hearth. When the grandfather clock in the downstairs hall struck midnight, Roman slipped in to find him asleep in the chair. The old man removed McAllen's boots, and McAllen stirred but did not awaken—the long journey and the Kentucky bourbon prevailed. Stirring up the fire, Roman covered McAllen with a quilt he had thought to bring with him. Then he stood there for a moment, gazing with rheumy eyes at the man he loved as he would his own son.

"You be fine, Marse John," he whispered. "Yes, you be fine. De one de Lord made jis for you, she be right nearby. Only you'll walk a mighty long road 'fore you find her. Yes, suh, a mighty long road. But you'll find her, God willin'. Den ever'thing be fine. Jis fine."

With a mournful shake of his head, Roman silently left the study.

Chapter Four

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, and before Leah had risen, John Henry McAllen rode the gray hunter, Escatawpa, down the river road to the town of Grand Cane. As usual, the Seminole, Joshua, was his silent shadow. McAllen had grown accustomed to finding Joshua there every time he turned around and, on more than one occasion, while in pursuit of Comanche raiders, he'd been glad to have the Seminole youth along. Joshua's entire existence revolved around one thing: keeping McAllen out of harm's way. It was a case of quid pro quo—McAllen had saved Joshua's life, and now Joshua was committed to repaying the favor ten times over. McAllen had not proposed such an obligation, and he could not release the Seminole from it, either. He had no way of knowing whether Joshua would ever consider the debt paid in full.