The Constable's Tale (11 page)

“Where all the finer people were going,” Talitha added, quickly holding up both hands to promise she would say nothing further.

“And that was that. It’s old history now, but I’d say we Woodyards have done right smart well for ourselves in North Carolina. And without no slaves.”

“Hurrah for the Woodyards,” said Noah.

“I got no idea what kind of man this here Richard Ayerdale is,” said Natty. “But you need to know, Grandson, you got no reason to doff
your cap to him, no more than anybody else you see walking around on two legs.”

“I don’t plan to,” said Harry. “Don’t know that I’d even see him while I’m up there anyhow.”

Talitha said, “Are you going to ask Judge McLeod if he minds you running off like this?”

“Do I need to?”

She straightened up in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, as if to give a color of importance to what she had to say. “You’re not just a private citizen anymore, Harry. You are an appointee of the chief justice of the peace of Craven County. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to check with him, maybe the sheriff, too, before you go off on such an errand?”

Harry looked at his grandfather. His expression had taken a disagreeable turn.

“Talitha, in my opinion, you worry too much.”

“I am only trying to offer my child wise counsel.”

“What if somebody says no?”

“Now, why would they do that?”

“Who knows what cockadoodle reason they might come up with? Carruthers might just want the chance to kill an Indian. Far as I’m concerned, when you decide you need to do something, you go ahead and do it.”

Talitha handed Natty a stern look. But her next words had a mollifying tone.

“Son, I just would hate to see you spoil what we’ve worked for, you especially, how you’ve lifted up yourself and the Woodyard name. I’m so proud of you. Especially after the stumble you took, what has it been now? Ten years ago?”

Natty said, “If you’re talking about what happened between him and that fine young girl Maddie McLeod, she had something to do with that herself.”

From a corner of his eye Harry noticed another questioning glance from Noah. He guessed that before much longer he would have to
talk about what had transpired, the events that had seemed so calamitous at the time but that had sent him down his current path toward respectability.

Of one thing he was sure: he had to save Comet Elijah.

*

He spent the early part of the next day getting ready to go. To burden Annie as little as possible, he packed only one extra set of clothes and little else. He left off his rifle, doubting he would need to hunt. Ordinaries were strung out along the old post road about a day’s ride from one to the next. He did lay out a pair of pistols, along with his knife and tomahawk, as defense against possible bandits.

The rest of the day he devoted to looking over his forest operations, visiting every section of trees then under tap. Getting pleasantly dizzy from the smell of pine sap draining out of the living wood and pooling in tin buckets hanging from pegs. He and Martin talked over when to change the locations of the rigs in case his trip took longer than he expected.

Noah followed close behind, taking down notes. He said he wanted to write something about the longleaf pine, its phases of life and methods of harvesting sap and processing it into tar and pitch. He hoped to make it good enough to be approved by the Royal Society, the association in London he had spoken of before in connection with his father. If the head men approved, they would send his letter to members around the world through their journal. By the reverential way Noah spoke, Harry gathered this would be a great achievement.

“I want to go with you to Virginia, too,” said Noah on their way back to the house. “I’d like to see what other plants and animals live between here and there. I’ll pay my own board if you can furnish a horse.”

“I thought you’d turned your back on your father’s interest in nature.”

“I just don’t care for his blindness to the rest of the world. And, too, I guess things you’re exposed to as a child have a way of sticking.”

“I’d be glad of the company. I’m sure Martin can spare the gray for a week or two.”

After another minute Noah asked if Harry was going to say anything to the judge.

“I’ve given it a good deal of thought. My mother has her points, but so does Natty. I’m not going to put my intentions at risk by giving anybody a chance to say no. Maybe I can even be back before they know I’m gone.”

*

A packet of fresh air moved in that night and with it a light rain. Toby accepted Harry’s touches hungrily in the coolness of their room. But she seemed unusually quiet afterward, turning over directly to go to sleep after they had finished. As Harry began drifting away he pondered the fact that her diary had gone missing from the place she usually kept it, a table beside the spinning wheel in the side parlor. He guessed that if she could find a place to hide a sack of gold coins, she could hide a book.

His last waking thoughts were of what she might be writing in it now.

CHAPTER 11

49: Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.

—R
ULES OF
C
IVILITY

THE RIDE TOOK FIVE AND A HALF DAYS. HARRY LED THEM SOME MILES
out of their way to save money that would have gone to ferries. He skirted the western side of the Great Dismal, and as the morning of the fifth day fell they crossed the Virginia boundary. Or the place he reckoned it to be. The exact location was a matter of disagreement, an issue awaiting settlement in London. Harry was sure only that he had passed into unknown country. Along the way Noah jotted down Latin names of plants and the occasional animal. Now and then he
would point to things Harry would not otherwise have noticed: how the vegetation was steadily changing as they made their way off the tidewater flats and toward the more hilly country in the west.

By the next evening they were only a short distance from Williamsburg, but rather than pressing on and arriving after dark, they decided to have an early supper and stay the night at the ferry-landing inn on the north shore of the York. The establishment, which the owner had fancifully named Heavenly Gate, turned out to be most the luxurious they had stayed in. Their meal of boiled beef and cabbage, though cold, was pleasingly tender and cheerfully served by the owner’s daughter. That night they had a whole bed to themselves.

Back on the road shortly after daybreak the next morning, they came to a pair of stone pillars marking the entrance to a plantation. Its name was etched into one of the rocks.

ROSEWOOD
LEVIUS • QUAM • AER

Harry reined in Annie and stared in silence. He had known their path would take them near Ayerdale’s holdings, but he had not counted on running into the flagship property itself. His thoughts flew to a long-ago night, the one Natty had spoken of. A desperate seventeen-year-old boy stealing away with his beloved.

“Isn’t that . . . ?” Noah began.

“Unless there’s more than one plantation in Virginia of that name.”

“The phrase below is Latin,” said Noah. “It means ‘lighter than air.’ A family motto of the Ayerdales’, I imagine.”

Harry guided Annie between the pillars onto a tree-lined lane that was wide, straight, and long. Vast fields nearly flat as baking pans, some green with clover and some lying fallow, lay on either side, ending in lines of trees.

A mile farther they came to a large white house with a pillared portico. A short distance from that, Harry spotted two horsemen.
They could be seen only from their saddles up, as though standing in a shallow gulley. Both had their gazes fixed on the ground. One was Richard Ayerdale. His hair matted from exertion in the morning damp.

As Harry and Noah drew nearer, the object of their attention came into view. A dark-skinned Negro girl wearing a sack of unbleached homespun was kneeling before them. She must have been ten or eleven years old. Ayerdale got off his horse and began striking the girl across her shoulders with a strip of rawhide. He did not look to be in a temper. The blows were calm and methodical, as if it were some everyday task, like chopping wood.

“Say there,” Harry called out. “Why are you whipping that girl?”

Ayerdale recognized Harry and bade him a cheerful good morning.

“My overseer and I have just come upon this young blackamoor skulking over yonder among some underbrush. She claims her father accidently locked her in their cabin when they were leaving for this morning’s field work. She further states she got out by pushing a plank off and crawling away and was just on her way to the field.”

Then, returning his attention to the girl, he said, “This won’t do. Now, tell me the truth. You were trying to hide out for the day, weren’t you?”

The girl began to speak in a high-pitched voice, but her words were hard to make out because of her ragged breathing.

“You have not got enough yet,” Ayerdale said. “Pull up your shift and lie down on your back.” The girl instantly complied.

“Sir, I really must protest.” This from Noah. “It would be easy enough to find her father and see if he would verify what she has said. In any case, your behavior is entirely out of bounds.”

Ayerdale gave no sign of having heard. He resumed striking the girl as before, except now the blows landed not on her shoulders but on her naked loins and thighs and then her back and flanks as she twisted to avoid them. She screamed and pleaded for Ayerdale to stop. Yet she made no effort to run away.

Harry had never seen a child flogged this way. But harsh measures against Craven County’s growing population of Negro slaves were not uncommon. He disliked seeing such things but had come to know they were outside his power to stop and that interference likely would result in worse punishment for the victim. But Noah lacked the benefit of this understanding. He got off his horse and took a few belligerent steps toward Ayerdale, fists clenched. At that, the overseer made a show of pulling out a pistol and aiming it at Noah’s belly.

“Take just one step closer and I will make sausage meat of you,” he said in a voice full of purpose.

“Get back on your horse, Noah,” Harry said. “We’re leaving.”

They heard more screams as they made their way back toward the lane. Harry resisting the impulse to ride back and shoot them both. Finally, the cries subsided into choking sobs and groans. They looked back to see Ayerdale and the overseer cantering toward them. Ayerdale still in a jovial mood.

“She meant to cheat me out of a day’s work,” he said. “And she has done it, too.” He looked around at the overseer, grinning as if he had just made the best joke. “But never mind that. I am surprised to see you here, Master Woodyard. And your friend. Burke, isn’t it?” Ayerdale touched his forehead with his crooked index finger, as if doffing an invisible cap. Under the circumstances it seemed more a taunt than a sign of respect. “Might I inquire what brings you gentlemen to Virginia?”

“I am chasing whoever murdered the Campbells.”

“And you believe you might find them here on my plantation?”

“As you recall, I found a Freemason’s badge on the floor of the farmhouse. One of our New Bern merchants believes an acquaintance in Williamsburg may be able to identify the owner.”

“Williamsburg is that way,” said Ayerdale, jabbing his finger northward.

“I recognized the name of your plantation as we rode by and thought we might pay our respects. But I see you are busy.”

Ayerdale affected a warm smile. “Well, welcome to Rosewood. Since you’re here, won’t you stop over for a small beer and bite of breakfast? I’m afraid you’ve missed the delectable Miss McLeod. My fiancée took the phaeton into Williamsburg yesterday. I will be joining her there on the morrow.”

If Ayerdale’s aim was to aggravate Harry by calling Maddie “delectable,” the shot landed true.

“I would be shy of trying the food at this place you call Rosewood,” said Harry. “I’m afraid that after tenderizing one of your blacks with a whip, you might roast her for supper.”

Ayerdale’s handsome features took a puzzled shift as he seemed to consider whether the jest was meant in good humor or bad. He made up his mind and his face turned sour. “Here in Virginia, sir, such a remark would invite a contest of honor. Since you are a friend of my beloved, I will not press the matter. But I advise you to look after your tongue, lest you part with it in a way you would not find amusing. Now, please get off my land.” He wheeled his horse roughly and galloped away, the animal protesting with a coarse whicker. The overseer gave them a backward glance as if fixing their faces in memory.

“You continue to astound me,” Noah said as they continued toward the gate. “And there is nothing wrong with your tongue. It would be at home in the drollest of company.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as being smart with words,” said Harry, basking in Noah’s approval.

“Maybe you just need the right inspiration. Human bondage is a powerful muse.”

“I’ve heard Natty say he’d rather go back to living in a swamp than buy another man’s life. I feel the same way.”

As they regained the postal road, Harry wondered if Maddie had any idea what sort of a man she was to marry.

CHAPTER 12

37: In Speaking to men of Quality do not lean nor Look them full in the Face, nor approach too near them at lest Keep a full Pace from them.

—R
ULES OF
C
IVILITY

WILLIAMSBURG LOOKED MUCH LIKE NEW BERN, EXCEPT OLDER AND
cleaner. No animals in the streets, which, though about the same width as the ample avenues of the North Carolina town, were better kept. Shops were shuttered and the streets nearly deserted, it being a Saturday. Harry guessed people were at home or off on diversions.

He fished from his pocket the card du Plessis had given him and looked at the name written on the back, fixing it in his mind.

Thomas Bannerman

They were passing an enormous brick building, larger than any structure Harry had ever seen and surrounded by at least an acre of lawn. A man trimming bushes said it was the governor’s palace. “Bannerman’s store is over there,” he said, making a vague gesture toward the northeast. “But he ain’t going to be in today. Most everybody is off to the horses. Excepting me, that is.” He added with a smile that uncovered several missing teeth, “Me good woman hath laid down the law.”