Night cloaked the countryside with an inky mantle when Nate cracked the window and listened intently. A cool breeze fanned his cheek. He heard crickets chirping in the garden, and somewhere to the west a bullfrog croaked. After waiting a suitable interval to satisfy himself there were no guards in the vicinity, he opened the window all the way and slipped outside, where he pressed his back to the wall and held the Hawken ready for use. “Come on,” he whispered.
As silently as a ghost Tatu joined him.
Since Nate had already extinguished the lamp in his bedroom, he didn’t have to worry about their silhouettes being outlined from within. Now he crept north along the base of the wall, staying low and hugging the darker patches. He stopped shy of a well-lit room and dropped to his knees to crouch under the windowsill. Once out of danger he rose and beckoned for Tatu to do the same.
In his mind’s eye Nate reviewed the layout of the estate as detailed by Tatu. The cabins where the slaves were housed were located northwest of the stables, a distance of five hundred yards or more. There was plenty of cover but there were also plenty of guards patrolling the property. He wasn’t worried about them so much as he was the dogs. With their keen senses of smell and hearing the dogs would detect scents and sounds the guards would not.
He had to duck under six more windows before he reached the northwest corner of the mansion. Squatting behind a rose bush he glanced at Tatu, and received a kindly smile. He returned the favor, then eased around the bush until he could survey the ground between the house and the shed, then the stretch between the shed and the stables.
Nothing moved.
In a crouch he darted across twenty feet of open space, and knelt in the shelter of a huge tree. Light footsteps to his rear told him Tatu was keeping up. He gazed past the tree, where the grass was dimly illuminated by the glow from a lantern hanging in front of the shed. Earlier he had observed a guard going around to various points where lanterns were hung to light each and every one. Jacques Debussy, apparently, was a thorough man who left little to chance.
He swung to the right, avoiding the circle of light, his moccasins making no noise on the soft carpet of lush grass. Ten yards from the
tree was a bush, and he was nearly there when voices arose at the house and a door slammed shut. Instantly he flattened in the shadows rather than risk going on and being spotted. Twisting, he discovered two men had emerged from a side door and were standing under a lantern while one of them lit a pipe. A yard away lay Tatu, as rigid as a log.
The pair began conversing in French.
Nate had no idea what they were talking about. He waited impatiently for them to move, the Hawken on the ground beside him, his right hand gripping the hilt of his butcher knife. If he was spotted he intended to dispatch them swiftly and silently.
The man with the pipe laughed at a remark by his companion, and together they strolled to the east. Eventually they walked around the corner and were gone.
Upright in a flash, Nate ran for the bush and sank to his knees. Tatu’s hand touched his shoulder and pointed, and he swiveled to see a pair of guards and a dog crossing the garden from south to north. They hiked past a hedge and were swallowed by the darkness.
Every nerve tingling, Nate continued. Without mishap he passed the shed and gave the stable a wide berth. Beyond reared trees, part of a tract of woodland. When he was crouched among the trunks he felt temporarily safe, and turned to his newfound friend. “Are the cabins in these woods?”
“No, sir. The woods end soon. The cabins are in a field.”
Unfortunate, Nate reflected, because it would have made their task so much easier. He rose and stealthily moved to the northwest, moving as an Indian would, testing the ground with the thin sole of each moccasin before placing a foot fully down. With practice a brave could feel twigs and branches underfoot and avoid snapping them, and many of the mountaineers who had lived with the various tribes had developed the same skill.
The woods ended at the border of a well-defined dirt footpath winding like a dust-hued snake in the direction they were going. To take the path would court discovery, so Nate remained in the trees. He traveled over a hundred yards, then drew up short on hearing muted voices and distinguishing vague shapes coming toward him.
Easing to one knee Nate extended the Hawken to Tatu, and after hesitating briefly she gingerly took the gun. He drew his tomahawk and butcher knife and coiled both legs under him.
Soon the shapes materialized into another pair of guards, only these didn’t have a dog with them. They were chatting idly, their rifles cradled in the crooks of their arms, at ease and paying no attention whatsoever to the woods.
Nate debated whether to let them go or to ambush them. If he was smart he would kill them simply because they might pose a threat later. But he wasn’t a cold-hearted murderer and couldn’t bring himself to snuff out another human life unless his own or those of his loved ones were being actively threatened.
His loved ones?
The thought startled him, vividly reminding him that those he had cared for the most were irretrievably gone. Poignant sorrow overwhelmed him, commingled with acute remorse. He had been so busy dwelling on Tatu’s dilemma that hours had elapsed since last he thought about Winona and Zachary. What manner of husband and father was he to so readily forget about those who had touched his soul the deepest? Or was it better that he had this situation to deal with since it gave him an excuse to suppress the tormenting memories until the job was done?
The guards narrowed the distance.
He loosened his grips on the knife and tomahawk, his mind made up. Unless they saw him he would let them live. He became aware of Tatu’s eyes on his back, although he couldn’t say exactly how he knew she was looking at him in anticipation of the moment when he would strike. What would she think when he did nothing? Would she assume the religion she had adopted was a factor?
Tatu had related details of her life in Africa earlier in the day. She had told him about being reared in a large village where her father had been a chief, and how she had been the envy of most of the other women because she lived in the largest hut and her father owned the most goats and cattle. In her tribe the men hunted and defended the village while the women took care of the stock and tended garden plots in a special section of fertile ground known as the “women’s land.” Pride had entered her tone as she told about the excellent bananas, melons, peppers, and beans she had grown.
For years she enjoyed her tranquil existence, and then the first of two disruptions occurred. On the scene came devout missionaries, men of God who had done their fire-and-brimstone best to convert the natives to Christianity. Some adopted the new religion, which caused rifts in families and between former friends as the two factions treated one another with derision and contempt. The missionaries aggravated the disputes by branding those who failed to convert as vile sinners doomed to a fiery eternity in Hell. Tatu was one of those who adopted Christianity, although as she admitted to Nate, she never stopped praying to the old gods just in case she had made a mistake.
Not a year later fierce raiders swept down on the unsuspecting village one stormy night and wiped it out of existence. Those not taken to be sold on the slave market were ruthlessly slain; old men and women too feeble to make decent slaves, the young children who would make poor workers, and the ill ones were butchered like so many defenseless cattle.
Tatu was taken to a remote cove on the coast where she and many others were hauled aboard a mighty sailing vessel and lowered into a dank hold where they were kept for the duration of the Atlantic crossing. Their rations were meager, barely enough to sustain life. They were denied clothing and heat and compelled to huddle together to keep warm. Fully a third of the captives perished before reaching America.
Nate could readily imagine the sheer horror of her grueling ordeal. He admired her courage and perseverance, and found himself despising the slavers with a heated passion. In his estimation, to treat other human beings like animals was the most vile of practices, and he was determined to do whatever he could to help Tatu and Sadiki.
The two guards strolled on by, talking about a certain woman who worked at a bawdy house in New Orleans who was renowned for her amorous nature and athletic prowess under the sheets.
He waited until they were gone before advancing. The closer he and Tatu drew to where the cabins should be; the more wary he became. There were bound to be more guards near the cabins, and more dogs.
A minute later he spied four points of light up ahead, and slowed. The lights were lanterns hanging from high posts to the north, south, east, and west of a row of squat ramshackle cabins situated in the middle of a wide field.
The layout, probably arranged by Jacques Debussy, was perfect. There was no way the imprisoned blacks could cross the ring of illuminated ground surrounding the cabins without being seen by one of the two pairs of guards, each with a brute of a dog on a leash, who were constantly patrolling the perimeter of the lighted circle.
He padded up to the last of the trees and knelt to study on the problem of reaching those cabins in one piece. If he was to somehow extinguish one of the lanterns, the guards would converge on the run and perhaps unleash the dogs. Yet it would be impossible to get to Sadiki across that ring of light otherwise. A hand fell on his shoulder.
“What do we do, sir?” Tatu whispered, the words barely audible.
“I don’t know,” Nate admitted. He watched the guards for a while to learn if there was ever a time in their circuit when both pairs were briefly blocked from sight by the cabins. Now and then one of the pairs would momentarily disappear on the far side of one of the buildings, but never both pairs simultaneously. When one pair was to the east of the cabins the second pair was always on the near side. He frowned in frustration. There was simply no way he could do it.
Tatu must have reached the same conclusion. “Tatu could lead them away, sir,” she proposed.
“It’s too dangerous,” Nate responded.
“We must save Sadiki.”
“I will think of something,” Nate said, and gazed thoughtfully at the structures. He heard the rustle of movement and turned just in time. Tatu was about to dart off into the undergrowth. “No,” he whispered harshly, grabbing her wrist.
“We must save him,” Tatu reiterated, her voice quavering. “Please. This is the only way.”
“The dogs would catch you in no time,” Nate told her. “Your sacrifice would be in vain.”
“Tatu love Sadiki.”
The frank declaration touched Nate deeply, reminding him of his own abiding love for Winona. He would gladly have given his own life to keep her alive, and he sympathized strongly with Tatu. A desperate idea occurred to him and he glanced at the cabins. “Are the slaves chained?” he asked.
“No, sir. But the doors are locked and there are no windows.”
“Which cabin is Sadiki in?”
She pointed at the third one.
“All right. Take this to protect yourself.” He drew his butcher knife and held it out, hilt first.
“You have a plan?” Tatu asked, gripping the weapon firmly.
“Root hog or die.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind,” Nate whispered, and took the Hawken. One pair of guards was now to the south of the cabins, one to the north. He lowered himself onto his elbows and knees and crawled toward the illuminated area, directly toward the nearest post. The high grass and weeds concealed him adequately for the time being. He felt Tatu bump his heels as she followed.
Demonstrating the boredom typical of men who had performed the same duty countless times without incident, the guards to the north ambled steadily closer. At the end of the leather leash in the hands of the shortest man stalked a fine muscular mongrel that appeared capable of going head-to-head with a grizzly bear. It was nearly as big as Samson.
Nate parted the grass in front of him with the rifle barrel, never moving the grass more than was absolutely necessary. It would be a fluke if one of the men noticed. And since the breeze was blowing from the northwest to the southeast, unless it abruptly changed the dog would be unable to smell them. As he drew within fifteen feet of the post he heard a woman sobbing in one of the cabins, and then he heard the approaching guards speaking in English.
“—fit to be tied, from what Otis said.”
“I’m surprised Rhey didn’t slap her around some to teach her respect. He’d never let a man talk to him that way.”
“Husbands let their wives do things they’d never tolerate from anyone else.”
Nate halted, all attention, his mind racing with the implications of their statements. Could they be talking about who he thought they were?
“Not me,” said the other guard. “If my wife were to try to boss me around I’d slap her silly.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re not married.”
“What do you mean?”
The pair were almost to the post, their soiled clothes and bearded faces clearly revealed in the lantern’s glow.
Nate couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He pressed the Hawken to his right shoulder, and had started to take aim when the dog suddenly spun directly toward his hiding place and vented a savage snarl.