RETIRED TO THE PARLOR AFTER a luscious dinner, Father, Bowden, and I were in mid-conversation when the front door burst open and Knox barged in.

“Bowden, where are you?” he bellowed. Knox’s perpetually laid-back manner had vanished.

Bowden dashed from the parlor to find out what had spun him into such a frenzy. “Knox, what is it?”

“Bowden, you must come quick. The Barry Plantation—it’s on fire. The slaves, they’ve rebelled.”

“Whitney? The kids? Where are they?” I screeched. Anxiety threatened to choke the oxygen from me.

“They’re with me,” Knox said, hurrying out the door.

Bowden grabbed guns from the cabinet. Tossing one to Father, we flew out the door, shouting orders for horses to be brought around.

“Make it quick. Gray, you and you come with me.” He pointed to his overseer and the overseer’s brother.

“Bowden, wait!” I cried, grabbing at his arm. “You can’t harm those people. If only you saw what they went through. It’s—”

“Willow!” he said sharply, cutting me off. “Not now. I know I can’t stop you from coming, so get in the carriage.” He snagged the reins from the slave’s hand.

Saddled up, the men rode out.

“Children, stay here. Clara, please tend to them,” I instructed the pretty house slave who stood on the front veranda, waiting to assist. I hurried the children out of the carriage.

“Yes, Miss Willow. Come on, chillums, let’s see what we can git yas in de kitchen.” She led them away.

I scrambled into the carriage, and Whitney and I were off.

I could see the flames above the trees, and heard their merciless howl as we raced toward them. At the Barry Plantation we raised our handkerchiefs to cover our mouths and noses as the intense smoke muffled our breathing.

“Oh, Lord,” Thomas said as we took in the fire engulfing the house.

The heat from the fire had broken out the windows and flames spilled from them like murderous spirits seeking a soul to invade. The fire in the quarters chewed right through the pitiful shacks like they were dry cornstalks. The slaves must have already fled.

Father and Bowden came around front lugging buckets of water as we pulled in. “There is no way in,” Bowden shouted to Father as we exited the carriage.

I looked from them to the house as a screaming man emerged from the inferno.

“Father?” Whitney murmured.

Art Barry’s agonizing screams as the flames devoured his body chilled me to my core. I could not move. Bowden raised his gun and sent a mercy shot into the man and he dropped to the ground. The master of the plantation became but a charcoal corpse.

As her father’s body burned, Whitney stayed unmoving. I gazed upon this woman who’d dealt with more in her twenty years than most do in a lifetime. The crimson destruction surrounding us was reflected in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Whitney.”

Her face hardened as she said, “I’m not. He got what he deserves. He can burn in hell with his kind.”

I cast no judgment. I knew she would never want to see any human meet their end like this, even the sadistic man fate had given her for a father.

“The only parent I loved lies in a grave.” She turned and strode to the carriage. Grief plucked at me as I followed.

“I sorry, Miss Whitney, for all dat you’ve lost.” Thomas bowed his head respectfully.

“Thank you,” Whitney grimly replied.

“Thomas?”

“Yes, Miss Willow?”

“Why did you stay?”

“I didn’t play no part in dis trouble.” His forehead pleated with growing worry.

“No, I didn’t think you did, but you must have known about the slaves’ plan? Why didn’t you help and run off with the others?”

“Only de good Lord has de right to take a life. The Lord had a plan and he is part of et.” He gestured toward the smoldering body.

“Why don’t you run now, while you can?” I asked.

“Miss, I have nowhere to go. I am an ol’ man, never had a family. Wouldn’t know how to survive on my own.” He shrugged his thin shoulders.

The house was lost. The men joined us.

“I fear I may find we are penniless. Father was never any good with money. We all hated this plantation, but at least we had a home,” Whitney said.

“You all have a home at Livingston. Isn’t that so, Father?”

“That big empty mansion could use some children’s laughter.” He settled an arm around my shoulders and I welcomed it.

“And Thomas?” Whitney asked.

“You and the children are the rightful owners of what is left of your father’s plantation, and that would mean Thomas goes with you. He was with you and is innocent of this mess,” Father told her. “You girls need to be aware, this isn’t going to go down easy. It will spread like pollen in the wind and people will be on the hunt for the runaways. Things like this make people go mad. I need you to keep to Livingston until this ordeal is dealt with. Understood?”

“Yes,” we said.

“Good. We will stay here until this fire dies down. I’ll meet you at home.”

We clambered back into the carriage and rode down the lane and away from the horror that used to be Whitney’s home. I glanced over my shoulder. The slaves had purged all remnants of human existence from the Barry Plantation. There would be no more gruesome brutality here. My thoughts turned to Father’s haunting words: “Things like this make people go mad.” Fear magnified inside of me as I imagined what the repercussions would be for the slaves, if caught. Run, my mind cried mutely into the night.