A Dream of Daring Page 25

  The inventor backed away as he had the last word: “You’re at a crossroads. The new age is at your door. It needs men to be masters over nature, not over other men. And it requires all men first to be masters over themselves.”

  “Your confounded device—and your poisonous ideas—aren’t welcome here,” said Cooper. “Either you leave on your own steam, or we’ll run you out of town.”

  “I’ll get my tractor back, or I’ll make another! The world’s going to change, and you can’t stop it!”

  “Maybe the Yankee needs schoolin’, Southern style.” Markham smirked, eager to do the job.

  “This is sedition, Robbie! I demand you arrest this man!” Cooper looked suspiciously at his nephew, who had done nothing to silence Tom. “Or do you agree with him?”

  Duran paid no attention to the imposing man who had reared him, as if his respect for his uncle was a fading memory.

  “Arrest him, Robbie! He’s committed sedition ten times over! If you don’t, then you’re complicit in his treachery.”

  The sheriff backed away from the pack and pulled out his gun. “Sit down! Sit down! Sit down, or I’ll run you all in!”

  The attackers slowly backed away.

  The sheriff turned to the inventor. “That’s enough, Tom.”

  Tom was astonished that the sheriff addressed him by first name and in a sympathetic tone. At that moment, the inventor realized he had an ally. He wondered how many others thought as he did about the great injustice surrounding them, people who didn’t speak out for fear of reprisal.

  “Everyone, sit down—now,” the sheriff repeated.

  With shoves from the deputies and urging from the coroner, everyone finally did sit down. But they kept their fiery stares fixed on Tom in the quieted room.

  “Let’s get back to the matter at hand. We’re looking for a suspect,” said the sheriff, putting away his gun. “Someone who stole the invention, who took pains to cover and protect it, and who murdered for it.”

  The sheriff’s searchlight eyes swept across the group.

  “We’re looking for someone who was literate and could write the letter and had access to the murder weapon and knew the whereabouts of the invention. Who would that be?”

  “No one we know of from our investigation.” The coroner shook his head.

  The sheriff gestured to the others, one at a time, for their answer to his question.

  “There was no one else with us,” said Cooper, “when Wiley, Nash, and I saw the invention and Tom explained it.”

  “Nobody I know of,” said Nash.

  “I didn’t show the invention to anyone else,” said Tom.

  When the sheriff got to the women, they shook their heads.

  The sheriff turned to the last man in the group.

  “There is somebody,” said Markham.

  All heads turned to the overseer.

  “Who?” asked the sheriff.

  “There was a slave at the Crossroads who could read and write and saw the invention in the ol’ carriage house.”

  “Oh?” The sheriff tensed, taken by surprise.

  “What?!” Tom looked astonished.

  “And that slave coulda stole a knife and hid it a-forehand. Miss Polly warn’t too careful. Fact is, she was lax. They all stole, and they all hid things.”

  “Who is this slave who was literate and who saw the invention? I want to talk to him now!”

  “’Tain’t a he,” Markham explained. “’Tis a she. Miss Polly musta learned her ’fore I arrived here, ’cause she read to the missus and even wrote passes fer the slaves. She was hidin’ in the shed, curled up inside the old coach that was in thar when me and the senator was talkin’ about the contraption.”

  “Are you serious?” The sheriff looked incredulous.

  “Yup.”

  “How could you not have told me this before?”

  Markham shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t pay it no mind.”

  “Bring her to me right now!”

  “She ain’t here no more, Sheriff.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s the slave with the birthmark, the one the senator sold that day.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The women gasped. Everyone looked astonished.

  The sheriff’s alert eyes met Markham’s unfocused ones. “Am I to understand that the female slave that has a . . . connection . . . to the Barnwells—”

  “I’ll not have you insinuate what you’re insinuating!” Charlotte demanded.

  Rachel subtly glanced down at the neckline of her dress, as if to check that the little birthmark over her heart was fully covered, then she echoed her mother’s displeasure with the lawman. “Sheriff, you’ll please not insult us, sir!”

  The sheriff looked at the women, sighed, then turned back to the overseer. “Let me begin again. Mr. Markham, you told us previously that the young mulatto woman who had the birthmark that Mr. Nottingham noticed was taken to the docks on the morning of Miss Polly’s funeral and sold by Senator Barnwell, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “She’s the one who was hiding in a coach in the old carriage house, with the invention there?”

  “Yup.”

  “So she had knowledge of the invention. And she can read and write?”

  “Yup.”

  “This is the girl you whipped?”

  “One an’ the same.”

  “Mr. Markham, when you told us previously that you whipped a slave in the old carriage house, it appeared you took her in there for the lashing. You didn’t mention that she was already in there, hiding.” The sheriff looked exasperated at the sheer density of the man. “Didn’t you think this might be important to mention?”

  “Didn’t occur to me none, Sheriff.”

  Duran rubbed his eyes wearily. “Never mind. What’s her name?”

  “Ladybug.”

  “Is that a nickname? What’s her real name?”

  “That’s what everybody called her. Only name I knowed.”

  “Are you saying this slave named Ladybug, after she was sold, could have later returned to the Crossroads to kill the senator?”

  “Could be.”

  “Why was she hiding in the old carriage house where the invention was? You told us previously that the slave Mr. Nottingham pursued had nothing to do with the invention.”

  “Nothin’ I can see. The senator and me found the wench in the shed while we was discussin’ the invention. She was in there prob’ly to slough off her tasks, take a nap, daydream, somethin’ like that. Then when we come in, she musta tried to hide, ’cause we found her curled up in the old coach that was near the invention.”

  “Did she overhear you and the senator talking about the invention?” the sheriff continued.

  “Reckon she did, ’cause we was talkin’ and she was hidin’ thar.”

  “What were you and the senator saying?”

  “Not much. He told me the contraption was a new invention, a dangerous one, and he wanted me to haul it away, take it apart, and make the pieces disappear, so they’ll never be found. He give me two hundred dollars. Said I’d get two hundred more when I finished. He said it had to be done that night, ’cause in the mornin’ the invention would be gone. That’s all I know. Then he noticed the girl hidin’. He got mad, pulled her outta the coach, told me to whip her, and he left. I gave her a few stripes and left the shed too.”

  “Was that just before Mr. Nottingham arrived and ran into her?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then after the senator noticed Mr. Nottingham’s interest in the girl, he decided to take her to town to sell her, right?” the sheriff continued.

  “Seems so.”

  The sheriff glanced at the coroner, who looked puzzled. “Mr. Markham,” said Dr. Clark, “since the senator sold the girl, wouldn’t it be impossible for her to come back and kill him? And why would she?”

  Markham straightened his spine and seemed to rise in his chair like a person of importance about to give a
valued opinion.

  “Well, let me see. The senator warn’t no Miss Polly, allowin’ servants to run wild. That day the girl got her first taste o’ the lash, then she got sold. That musta miffed her darn good!” He seemed amused at someone’s life suddenly thrown into chaos. “Now, Ladybug, she’s a smart one. She’s a house servant, so she coulda knowed the senator was fixin’ to spend the night here. She coulda made her way back that night to get her revenge on him. She coulda wrote herself a pass and sneaked away for a bit while her new massa was sleepin’. She coulda maybe took a horse from his stable. Or she coulda got one from the livery, if the new massa was stayin’ at the docks that night. Why, she could talk some young buck, a slave or a free person o’ color, at the livery inta givin’ her a horse fer a spell. She’s a sweet one when she wanna be. Her favors could go far fer her.”

  “Let’s say she wrote herself a pass, got a horse, and snuck away that night. Then what happened, according to your hypothesis?” pressed the sheriff.

  “Hmm.” Markham thoughtfully stroked his chin, looking like a man of distinction, except for the two-day stubble of whiskers covering his face. His sudden stature as a man with an important hypothesis seemed to awaken whatever mental faculties he possessed.

  “Well, I reckon she coulda come back here. Maybe she grabbed a knife she already had hidin’ here, a knife she stole and stashed to do evil with at some time, in some way. She knew that this was the time. She made noise outside the senator’s window to wake him up. Then she drawn him into the shed where nobody could see her vile deed, and she stabbed him. Then she took the invention to make it look like a white man’s crime fer a white man’s machine, instead of a wench’s revenge against her massa. When she was through with her mischief, I reckon, she gone back to her new massa, iffen it was a nice family she was sold to, like the senator said. Good chance runaways git caught after the massa puts out notice on ’em, so I reckon she gone back.”

  “What would she do with the device?” asked the sheriff.

  Markham crossed his legs and leaned back as if he were the owner of the Crossroads, entertaining guests with his stories.

  “She coulda hid it in the woods so nobody can never find it—never!” He looked at Tom and seemed pleased that his remark gave the inventor a start. “Slaves got hidin’ places in them woods that we won’t never know ’bout. They disappear fer a while and go to them when they get the urge, slippin’ away or claimin’ they’re off a-huntin’. They hide fugitives and bring ’em food too, them slaves. ’Specially the ones here, with nary a sting o’ the whip. Yup, Miss Polly’s slaves, they took liberties, they did.”

  “And you think Ladybug would have stopped to put the cover back on the tractor?” interjected Tom.

  “She’s a strong thing. She coulda did it. Cover was on the contraption when the senator and me was talkin’.”

  The sheriff pondered the matter. “What do you think, Dr. Clark?”

  “If the girl is the culprit, maybe she thought it was worth a couple of minutes and would’ve made a good case for the invention being the reason behind the crime, and not her being the reason,” said the coroner. “After she was sold that day, she might have worried that she could be a prime suspect and so wanted to deflect attention away from that.”

  The sheriff looked flabbergasted. “You mean we could’ve gotten the case all wrong?”

  “This could have nothing at all to do with the invention and everything to do with a slave’s vengeance toward a new master. Tom’s device could have been just a decoy,” the coroner said grimly.

  Markham chuckled. “Maybe Ladybug got all you smart folks to go down the wrong trail, Sheriff.” He seemed to relish the thought of the gentry before him being flummoxed by a slave.

  “Who was she sold to, Mr. Markham?” asked the sheriff.

  “The senator, he didn’t say.”

  “I’ll get the plantation journal.” Tom rose from his chair. “Maybe the senator made a note about it.”

  He disappeared into the library and returned with a large ledger. “This is the current year’s book.”

  The sheriff and coroner rose, took the volume, and thumbed through the pages.

  “Here’s the entry,” said the coroner, jabbing his finger on a page. “It was made on the day of Polly’s funeral.”

  Cooper and Nash gathered around the sheriff, the coroner, and Tom to examine the page. The women remained in their seats, looking indignant about the entire discussion. Markham, having no reason to examine a record he couldn’t read, was the only man left sitting.

  The coroner read aloud the terse entry: Ladybug, age 19, sold to Fred Fowler of Baton Rouge, $500.

  “That’s Wiley’s handwriting, all right,” remarked Cooper.

  The sheriff looked around. “Anyone know Fred Fowler?”

  The others shook their heads; none knew the new master who lived thirty miles south of Greenbriar.

  “This Fred Fowler was in Bayou Redbird that morning,” Cooper remarked. “Maybe he stayed in the area overnight, which gave the slave a chance to write her pass, slip away, and travel just a few miles back here to do her devil’s deed.” Cooper paused as further thoughts took shape. “If Ladybug then went back to Fowler, and he continued his travels north, maybe that’s how she got to dropping the knife at Manning Creek.”

  The sheriff looked pensive. “There’s a whole lot of speculation going on here. None of it resting on anything. We need to question her.”

  Cooper didn’t look at all pensive. “Why fuss about the fine points?” His face looked alarmed as the impact of the new information hit him. “A slave killed a master! That’s what this comes down to, doesn’t it?”

  “We can’t let her get away!” said Nash.

  “She could knock off her new massa too.” Markham’s voice sounded as though he was disturbed by the prospect, but his face carried a subtle smirk. “That bad apple could give other slaves ideas.”

  “If she’s a troublemaker, she could be emboldened by thinking she got away with her crime. Why, she could start an insurrection!” said Nash.

  He and Cooper looked as if the fear they kept bottled in the cellar of their minds had suddenly popped out.

  “She’ll pay for this!” added Cooper.

  “Quiet!” ordered the sheriff. “Hold your tongues!” His command had the brief calming effect of cold water splashed on feverish faces. “There’s no proof yet at all. Just lots of questions to be asked. Now, let’s continue.”

  He turned to Markham.

  “What about the note delivered to Mr. Edmunton the night before the . . . sentence . . . was to be carried out?” The memory of the worst day of his life seemed to shake the sheriff. His voice broke for a moment, then steadied again. “How do you explain that, Mr. Markham, if the slave was in Baton Rouge?”

  “Well, Ladybug, she coulda read about the trial in them newspapers they get in Baton Rouge. She coulda got the Yankee’s name”—he gestured to Tom—“and wrote him the note. Maybe she got friendly with a free man o’ color, or even a white, workin’ on the ships that dock at our port and down thar in Baton Rouge. Maybe Ladybug got one o’ them to deliver her note.”

  “That’s more speculation,” the coroner commented. “Even if she’s a vixen who can manipulate a man to do her bidding, why would she take a risk in writing that note? Why would she want to save Mr. Cooper, a planter, from the hangman?”

  As he heard that last word, Cooper studied the sheriff as if searching for a hint of weakness that he might use to his advantage later. But the sheriff’s face held firm. Any remorse he might have felt seemed to have passed.

  “Could we have here a slave with a conscience?” the coroner added.

  “Maybe a slave with a conscience is no more surprising than the many free folks I’ve known without one,” the sheriff replied. “I’ll find out soon enough. I’m going to Baton Rouge.”

  He walked up to the women sitting on the couch and spoke softly. “Mrs. Barnwell, do you know something abou
t this girl, Ladybug, that you haven’t told us?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “I also know nothing, Sheriff, because there’s nothing to know,” said Rachel, flashing an angry look at the sheriff.

  “I’ll have you know I most emphatically resent your insinuations about my husband!” added Charlotte.

  The sheriff was unmoved. “When I get back, I’ll be paying you a visit, ma’am, so we can talk, just you and me, in private.”

  “You know what I think, sir? I think you’re harassing me,” Charlotte said indignantly. “I believe you’re unfit to be sheriff.”

  Duran looked startled at the veiled threat from a member of the all-powerful class that ran the town.

  “Sheriff, you’re upsetting my mother!” Rachel looked around the room for help and turned to an obliging figure. “Isn’t there something you can do . . . Nash?”

  Two faces in the room reacted to the name Rachel uttered. Tom looked resigned to a prospect he had lately come to consider possible. Nash looked delighted at a prospect he had feared was impossible.

  “We’ll just see, Rachel, dear,” Nash said, rushing to the women like a crusading knight. He looked scornfully at the sheriff. “We’ll see what can be done about the abuse of power that seems to be occurring.”

  “A slave killin’ a massa! I hear ’bout cases where they kill overseers too,” mumbled Markham. “You take guns and whips to bed with you, and it still ain’t ’nuff against that trash.” He looked around nervously as if expecting an attacker to appear from behind the drapes or beneath a table.

  “A slave killing a planter who might be her—” Cooper looked shocked. He glanced at Charlotte and caught himself before uttering the unmentionable.

  The coroner too looked apprehensive. “There could be another dimension . . . a personal angle . . . to this case that we hadn’t considered.”

  Duran thought of the others he had investigated: The Barnwell women had an alibi; they were in the company of friends that night, and he had confirmed their story. The inventor had an alibi; servants confirmed he was in his room, where they had delivered pots of tea and fire logs that night. The trails on the other three men—his uncle, Nottingham, and Markham—had led to dead ends. He had run out of other suspects.