Chapter Six
After leaving Julianna’s, Drake rode his stallion, Havana, down the dirt road that led to his section of LeVeq land. Each brother owned a portion, but Archer lived at his hotel, and Phillipe and Beau maintained apartments in the Quarter. Raimond and Drake were the only two who’d built homes, even though Drake’s was still under construction.
As he rode, his mind circled back to Valinda. He’d enjoyed being with her today. She was intelligent, caring, and more than a bit surprising. He certainly hadn’t expected her to confront Bascom the way she had, but he supposed that was the hellion part her father disapproved of so much. That she didn’t believe in love gave him pause. He supposed if she’d never seen it or experienced it, she wouldn’t. Were her views shared by her intended? If so, Drake thought the man a loon, to have known her for so many years and not be in love with her. He was admittedly halfway there himself and he’d known her a mere twenty-four hours.
Although she was not to be his, he gave himself permission to imagine how it might be if she were, because fantasy hurt no one. They’d shoot marbles, play checkers and chess, and travel to the Orient on one of Rai’s voyages. He’d want to hear her positions on the political machinations of the day, and take her to the racetrack and the opera. He wondered if she knew how to swim or ride, and if she still liked climbing trees? And, yes, there’d be bed games. She wore her hair in a tight bun that showed off the beautiful lines of her small brown face and the tempting expanse of her throat above her high-necked blouse. He imagined brushing his lips against that soft column until she hummed with pleasure. Were she his, he’d build her not just a classroom but a school, and gift it to her for her birthday or Christmas, thereby showing her what it meant to be loved and adored by a man of the House of LeVeq.
When he came within view of his house, he heard a woman’s screams, followed by keening filled with so much pain he pushed Havana into a full gallop.
It was his housekeeper, Erma Downs. She was on her knees in the dirt by the porch. Head thrown back, tears running down her face, she was wailing as if her heart was broken. Her daughter-in-law, Allie, was holding her and sobbing bitterly.
Dismounting, he ran to her side. “Miss Erma!”
“They killed my boy!” she screamed.
Ice filled his veins. “Who!”
“They killed my boy!” she raged. “They killed my boy!”
His foreman, Solomon Hawk, and some of the freedmen he’d hired to help with the construction of his home looked on gravely.
Drake asked urgently, “Allie, what happened?”
“Daniel wouldn’t sign the contract, so Master Atwater shot him.” Liam Atwater was one of the cruelest former slave owners in the area.
“When?”
“This morning.”
Drake was speechless, then enraged. He calmed himself. There’d be time to let his anger flow later. “Come. Let’s get you and Miss Erma in the house. Where’s your son, Bailey?”
Allie pointed at the wagon Drake hadn’t noticed until then. He turned to see the seven-year-old Bailey sitting still as stone on the seat.
In a shaking voice, Allie said, “Atwater killed him in front of us.”
Bailey’s small, stoic face warred with the abject sadness in his tear-filled eyes. Drake fought the emotion clogging his throat. “Bring him in. I’ll get Miss Erma.”
She went to Bailey. Drake picked up the weeping Erma and carried her inside.
Later, after he left Erma resting in one of the bedrooms, Allie told him the story.
“Daniel didn’t think the work contract was fair. It said he was to work six days a week from sunup to sundown, be responsible for the animals and the tools, and not leave the plantation without permission. That was the part Daniel didn’t like the most. He told Master Atwater, we were free, and when the work was done, we had a right to come and go as we pleased. When the other men wouldn’t sign either, it made Master Atwater plenty mad.”
Drake knew that many former masters were using the contracts to lock the freedmen into a new form of slavery. He’d seen work agreements that outlined pages of tasks the workers were responsible for, and the penalties meted out if they weren’t fulfilled. Very few made reference to what they’d be paid. Some even banned talking during the workday, and demanded the freedmen be subservient in their actions at all times. “Did he allow you to bury him?”
Her tears flowed again and she shook her head. “Master Atwater said anybody defying him would be thrown into the swamp, so they put Danny’s body in a wagon and drove him away.”
She broke down and Drake eased her against him. His eyes closed as she sobbed out her despair. He said, “I’ll file a report in the morning and see if we can’t have Atwater arrested.” He knew he had a better chance of harnessing a rainbow. The Army would do nothing, and neither would the authorities, but he would take the matter as far as he could. In the meantime, he’d try to retrieve Daniel’s body.
Drake rode to the Atwater place accompanied by Solomon. Skirting the house because he knew Atwater wouldn’t allow them on his land, they rode another mile before veering into an area that led to the swamp. The realist in him knew the search would be futile. Between the waters darkened by rotting vegetation and the gators, he’d be lucky to find anything. But for Erma, Allie, and her son, Bailey, he at least had to try. He and Solomon slowly guided their mounts through the thick expanse of soaring oaks and muddy ground hoping to find the tracks of the wagon the body had been transported in. If they could, they might be able to determine where he’d been placed in the water. After an hour of searching through the swamp’s gloom, they found what appeared to be fresh evidence of wheels. They were visually searching the surroundings when two men on horseback appeared from behind the trees. Both were armed. The older man was Boyd Meachem, Liam Atwater’s overseer. The younger, Boyd’s son, Ennis.
From behind the raised rifle, Boyd—whose thin face resembled a skull—grinned, showing off tobacco-stained teeth. “Well, lookee here, Ennis. We caught ourselves some uppity trespassers. What’re you doing here, LeVeq?”
“Came to retrieve Daniel Downs’s body.”
Still smiling, Boyd asked, “Who?”
Ennis said, “He’s gator food by now.”