“Aye, but Hector hired the man, not Jo,” Campbell protested mildly. “And she couldna well dismiss him out of hand. What’s she to do, then, come and manage the place herself?”
The answer was a grunt as MacNeill shifted his broad buttocks in the saddle. I glanced at Jamie, and found him poker-faced, eyes hidden in the shadow under the brim of his hat.
“There’s little worse than a willful woman,” MacNeill said, a trifle louder than strictly necessary. “They’ve none to blame save themselves if harm comes to them.”
“Whereas,” I chipped in, leaning forward and raising my own voice enough to be heard over the clop and creak of the horses, “if harm comes to them because of some man, the satisfaction of blaming him will be adequate compensation?”
Jamie snorted briefly with amusement; Campbell cackled out loud and poked MacNeill in the ribs with his crop.
“Got ye there, Andrew!” he said.
MacNeill did not reply, but his neck grew even redder. We rode in silence after that, MacNeill’s shoulders hunched just under his ears.
While mildly satisfying, this exchange did nothing to settle my nerves; my stomach was knotted in dread of what might happen when we reached the mill. Despite their dislike of Byrnes and the obvious assumption that whatever had happened had likely been the overseer’s fault, there wasn’t the slightest suggestion that this would alter the slave’s fate in any way.
“A bad law,” Campbell had called it—but the law nonetheless. Still, it was neither outrage nor horror at the thought of judicial atrocity that made my hands tremble and the leather reins slick with sweat; it was wondering what Jamie would do.
I could tell nothing from his face. He rode relaxed, left hand on the reins, the right curled loosely on his thigh, near the bulge of the pistol in his coat.
I was not even sure whether I could take comfort in the fact that he had allowed me to come with him. That might mean that he didn’t expect to commit violence—but in that case, did it mean he would stand by and let the execution happen?
And if he did…? My mouth was dry, my nose and throat choked with the soft brown dust that rose in clouds from the horses’ hooves.
I am already part of it. Part of what, though? Of clan and family, yes—but of this? Highlanders would fight to the death for any cause that touched their honor or stirred their blood, but they were for the most part indifferent to outside matters. Centuries of isolation in their mountain fastnesses had left them disinclined to meddle in the affairs of others—but woe to any who meddled in theirs!
Plainly Campbell and MacNeill saw this as Jamie’s affair—but did he? Jamie was not an isolated Highlander, I assured myself. He was well traveled, well educated, a cultured man. And he knew damn well what I thought of present matters. I had the terrible feeling, though, that my opinion would count for very little in the reckoning of this day.
It was a hot and windless afternoon, with cicadas buzzing loudly in the weeds along the road, but my fingers were cold, and stiff on the reins. We had passed one or two other parties; small groups of slaves, moving on foot in the direction of the sawmill. They didn’t look up as we passed, but melted aside into the bushes, making room as we cantered past.
Jamie’s hat flew off, knocked by a low branch; he caught it deftly and clapped it back on his head, but not before I had caught a glimpse of his face, unguarded for a moment, the lines of it tense with anxiety. With a small shock, it occurred to me that he didn’t know what he was going to do either. And that frightened me more than anything else so far.
We were suddenly in the pine forest; the yellow-green flicker of hickory and alder leaves gave way abruptly to the darker light of cool deep green, like moving from the surface of the ocean into the calmer depths.
I reached back to touch the wooden case strapped on behind my saddle, trying to avoid thinking of what might lie ahead, by making mental preparations for the only role I might reasonably play in this incipient disaster. I likely could not prevent damage; but I could try to repair what had happened already. Disinfection and cleansing—I had a bottle of distilled alcohol, and a wash made from pressed garlic juice and mint. Then dress the wound—yes, I had linen bandages—but surely it would need stitching first?
In the midst of wondering what had been done with Byrnes’ detached ear, I stopped. The buzzing in my own ears was not from cicadas. Campbell, in the lead, reined up sharply, listening, and the rest of us halted behind him.
Voices in the distance, lots of voices, in a deep, angry buzz, like a hive of bees turned upside down and shaken. Then there was the faint sound of shouts and screams, and the sudden loud report of a shot.
We galloped down the last slope, dodging trees, and thundered into the sawmill’s clearing. The open ground was filled with people; slaves and bondsmen, women and children, milling in panic through the stacks of sawn lumber, like termites exposed by the swing of an ax.
Then I lost all consciousness of the crowd. All my attention was fixed at the side of the mill, where a crane hoist was rigged, with a huge curved hook for raising logs to the level of the saw bed.
Impaled on the hook was the body of a black man, twisting in horrid imitation of a worm. The smell of blood struck sweet and hot through the air; there was a pool of it on the platform below the hoist.
My horse stopped, fidgeting, obstructed by the crowd. The shouts had died away into moans and small, disconnected screams from women in the crowd. I saw Jamie slide off in front of me, and force his way through the press of bodies toward the platform. Campbell and MacNeill were with him, shoving grimly through the mob. MacNeill’s hat fell off, unregarded, to be trampled underfoot.
I sat frozen in my saddle, unable to move. There were other men on the platform near the hoist; a small man whose head was wound grotesquely round with bandages, splotched with blood all down one side; several other men, white and mulatto, armed with clubs and muskets, making occasional threatening jabs at the crowd.
Not that there seemed any urge to rush the platform; to the contrary, there seemed a general urge to get away. The faces around me were stamped with expressions ranging from fear to shocked dismay, with only here and there a flash of anger—or satisfaction.
Farquard Campbell emerged from the press, boosted onto the platform by MacNeill’s sturdy shoulder, and advanced at once on the men with clubs, waving his arms and shouting something I couldn’t hear, though the screams and moans around me were dying away into the silence of shock. Jamie seized the edge of the platform and lifted himself up after Campbell, pausing to give a hand to MacNeill.
Campbell was face-to-face with Byrnes, his lean cheeks convulsed with fury.
“…unspeakable brutality!” he was shouting. His words came unevenly, half swallowed in the shuffle and murmur around me, but I saw him jab a finger emphatically at the hoist and its grisly burden. The slave had stopped struggling; he hung inert.
The overseer’s face was invisible, but his body was stiff with outrage and defiance. One or two of his friends moved slowly toward him, plainly meaning to offer support.
I saw Jamie stand for a moment, assessing events. He drew both pistols from his coat, and coolly checked the priming. Then he stepped forward, and clapped one to Byrnes’ bandaged head. The overseer went rigid with surprise.
“Bring him down,” Jamie said to the nearest thug, loudly enough to be audible over the dying grumbles of the crowd. “Or I blow off what’s left o’ your friend’s face. And then—” He raised the second pistol and aimed it squarely at the man’s chest. The expression on Jamie’s own face made further threats unnecessary.