Chapter 13

 

Later, the string quartet stopped playing and Clayton signaled for silence. “It's time we gentlemen retired to the study for cigars and brandy. Lila has something special for you ladies in the sitting room.”

On cue, Lila led the women out one door as the men followed Clayton through the other. Buck followed Lila, quickly finding himself the center of attention. Lila took his hand like an errant child. “You'll perturb Daddy if you don't join him and the other gentlemen.”

“I'm your guest, not his.”

She glanced away and said, “I'm sure he won't see it that way.”

“How do you see it?”

“You're a gallant knight and I'm honored by your chivalry but it's misplaced. You should join the other men.”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“You know you are,” she said.

When their hands touched, the same surge of heat raced up his neck as when they kissed in the garden. It didn't stop her flashing hazel eyes from backing him toward the door.

“Uncle,” he said, “One question before I go.”

“If it isn't too insensitive for a lady's ears,” she said with a mock pout.

“Why didn't you tell me yesterday that you're related to Bessie McKinney?”

Lila paused, and then said, “Because we southern ladies are very selective about which secrets we keep, and which we reveal.”

“And which are you keeping?”

Flicking her ornamental fan, she answered his question in her thickest southern accent. “You said one question, Mr. McDivit. That was two.”

“Lila, you are a beautiful and mysterious woman.”

“Mysterious? Whatever do you mean?”

“Just that you're a puzzle I can't seem to solve. I'll join the men now.”

She flicked her hand-painted fan in his face. “You do that, you rogue.”

Buck waited in the hallway until Lila shut the door behind her, listening to laughter inside the room before going to the study where the men had congregated. He wasn't impressed by what he found there. Biting smoke layered the humid study, everyone clutching brandy snifters and half-smoked cigars. Grabbing a snifter from a tray he twirled it in his hand, letting the brandy's poignant aroma waft into his nostrils. He spotted Clayton Richardson and Judge Travis through the smoke and decided to join them.

“Cigar?” Clayton asked.

“No thanks. I don't smoke.”

“Hogg tells me he's made you an attractive offer for the Fitzgerald place,” Clayton Richardson said, his southern accent gone.

“An offer I'm afraid I can't accept,” Buck said.

“Why is that?”

“I don't feel Aunt Emma wanted to sell the island. I'm going to complete the improvements she started, and keep the place in the family.”

“Then I presume you've arranged financing?”

“I have,” he said, hoping no one would see through his lie.

When Clayton glanced at the floor, Buck saw a flicker of Lila in his smile. He realized he could never hate this man, even if he were repossessing Fitzgerald Island.

“Jeff,” Clayton said. “Please entertain Buck for me. I need to see to something in the kitchen.”

Judge Travis nodded and Clayton Richardson disappeared through the cloud of wispy smoke. Richardson's large oak desk resided in an office-like nook at one end of the large study and Travis motioned for Buck to join him. The older man plopped down in the desk's overstuffed chair. Alcohol, Buck soon realized, had put the good judge in a foul mood.

“I need another brandy,” Judge Travis said. “Samuel, get your lazy black ass over here.”

Travis crooked his finger at an old black servant, a man with hair three shades whiter than Hogg Nation's. Samuel quickly responded with a fresh tray of brandy. The Judge took a snifter without a word of thanks, and said, “Clayton's nigrahs are very well trained.”

“Clayton would appreciate your compliment, Judge,” an onlooker said. “It's a long and tiresome process teaching nigrahs anything.”

Several men pushed closer in order to join the conversation. Buck listened in disbelief as ugly racial comments began flavoring the conversation.

“God made them that way,” one man said.

The Judge nodded with a grin. “But it's a boon to us white folk. Otherwise, who else would serve our drinks?”

His rhetorical question brought a peal of laughter from the eavesdroppers as Buck suppressed the urge to punch the Judge in the nose.

Samuel soon returned with yet another tray of brandy snifters. After placing a glass on the desk for Buck, he walked around the big desk, waiting for Judge Travis to take one. When Travis reached for the tray he stumbled, banging his knee into the desk in the process. Everyone was watching but no one smiled. Samuel's jaw was clenched and he bit his lip when the judge's drunken glare landed on him. The old man began backing slowly toward the door.

“I didn't excuse you, Samuel,” Travis said. “Put your tray down and turn around here.”

Samuel pivoted slowly on one heel until he was facing Travis. Everyone in the room had grown quiet, staring intently in the Judge's direction. Samuel's neck was rigid. Sweat began beading his forehead. His head cocked slightly backwards as he stared with open eyes at the ceiling. Something was about to happen, likely distasteful, but brandy had left Buck welded in place. He could only watch as Judge Travis pushed aside Samuel's dark jacket, undid his belt buckle and unbuttoned his pants. In one violent motion he yanked down the old man's trousers and boxer shorts.

Samuel never blinked. He just kept gazing at the ceiling, a look of resigned mortification on his face as Judge Jefferson Travis began prodding his private parts with a ruler he’d found on the desk.

“See now, Mr. McDivit, the entire black race's single distinctive attribute.”

Buck's face flushed red, his blood molten as it surged downward from his face and neck. But the violent scene had immobilized him and his hands continued to drape his sides. Travis wasn't finished. Grabbing Samuel's bow tie, he yanked him forward until the old man's chin banged the desk. Blood spurted from the cut but Travis held him down, not releasing him until he had thumped the old man's head several times with his knuckle. Samuel winced but did not attempt to pull away.

Still holding the embarrassed and injured man, Travis said, “Nothing up there but a head full of rocks. That right, Samuel?”

“Yes sah,” Samuel said.

“Then pull up your pants and get the hell out of here,” he said, shoving him against the bookshelf.

Samuel tripped and dragged down several books on top of his head as he fell. The entire study erupted in laughter as the old man made for the door, still grappling with his pants.

Feeling sick to his stomach, Buck pushed through the crowd and followed him out the door. “You okay?”

“No worse than usual,” Samuel said.

“Sorry I didn't do anything to help.”

Samuel's expression softened. “I know you're Miss Emma's nephew. No kin of hers could be like that herd in there.”

“Thanks, but I'm feeling pretty disgusted with myself right now.”

The old man grasped Buck's hand. “There's no patented way to react to racism. You watch yourself, son. Bad things happen to good people in this county.”

After watching Samuel disappear down the hall, he returned to the sitting room to tell Lila he was leaving. She was demonstrating a particularly complicated knitting sequence and apologized to the ladies gathered around her before excusing herself and hurrying him back outside. Her touch quelled his heightened emotions, sending him racing from a different stimulus.

“Did Daddy insult you?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because he insults anyone vying for my attention.”

“Is that what I'm doing?”

“Aren't you?”

“Then why do I feel like a fly in a spider web?”

“You think I'm a spider?”

“More like a beautiful leopard stalking its prey.”

“And what am I after, Mr. McDivit?”

“You tell me, Miss Richardson.”

With her intense gaze riveting his attention, she said, “Someday, maybe I will.”

“I look forward to that day.” Buck glanced at his watch. “It's been wonderful. I have to go now.”

Lila stood on her tiptoes, holding him in a lingering embrace, reluctant to release her arms from around his neck. When she did, he turned away and traversed the long hallway to the front porch where an attendant trotted off to retrieve his truck. As he drove beneath the dark row of pecan trees, he opened the truck's sliding roof for a little air.

Whisper-thin clouds draped the full moon's golden lunar glow, one of them reminding him of a young woman dressed in stark white. Feeling a sudden chill, he locked all the doors and started for Deception.