The sorry tale done, she let her eyes continue the pleading. She was a good worker, but he couldn't see her destroyed. "If that's your wish, Anne, I'll accept it."
Her face alight, Anne exclaimed, "You send me down to the market in Charleston?"
"Sell you? Absolutely not. But I know a family in the city — good, kind people — who lost their house girl last autumn and are too hard pressed to buy another. I'll simply give you into their care in the next week or two."
"Tomorrow. Please!"
Her fear appalled him. "Very well. I'll write a letter immediately. Go collect your things and be ready."
She fell against him and clung, her face against his shirt. "I can't go back there. He kill me if I do. I just need this dress, that's all. Don't make me go back there, Mr. Orry. Don't."
He held her, smoothed her hair, calmed her as best as he could. "If you're that fearful, find Aristotle in the house. Tell him I said to give you a place for the night."
Weeping again, this time happily, she hugged him, then drew back in horror. "Oh, Mr. Orry, I was forward. I didn't mean —"
"I know. You did nothing wrong. Go on now, up to the house."
Except for five minutes next morning, when he wrote out the pass for the slave who was to deliver her to the Charleston family along with the letter, it was the last he saw of Anne. She thanked him and blessed his name repeatedly as she drove away down the lane.
The following afternoon, Orry rode out to inspect the squares being prepared for June planting. When Cuffey heard the horse, he raised his head in the glaring summer light and gave his owner a long, penetrating stare. Then he turned and began to badger a buck who wasn't working to his satisfaction. Cuffey hit the buck, making him stagger.
"That will be enough," Orry called. The driver glared again. Orry made sure he didn't blink. After ten seconds, he yanked his horse's head so hard, the animal snorted. The look between slave and master had been explicit. Cuffey had been killing someone, and each man knew who it was.
Orry said nothing about the incident to Madeline, for the same reason he had spared her details of Cuffey's defiance that rainy night. Of course Madeline knew Anne had been sent to Charleston at her own request, and why. She was also chief witness to the fall of the next card.
It happened early in June. Cuffey had taken crews out for the summer planting, put in each year in case the ricebirds or salty river water destroyed the early crop. 'High embankments separated each square of cultivated land from those around it. Wood culverts, called trunks, permitted water to flow from the Ashley and from square to square, and drain again when the trunk gates were raised on an ebbing tide. Madeline rode along the embankments, approaching the square where the slaves toiled. The day was clear and comfortable, with a light breeze and a sky of that intense, pure hue she thought of as Carolina blue. As usual when she rode, she wore trousers and straddled the horse; unladylike, certainly, but did it matter? Her reputation in the district could hardly be worse.
Ahead, she saw Cuffey moving among the bent slaves, hectoring and waving the truncheon he carried as his symbol of authority. An older black man working near the embankment did something to displease the driver as Madeline drew near.
"Worthless nigger," Cuffey complained. He hit the gray-haired slave with the truncheon, and the man toppled. His wife, working beside him, cried out and cursed the driver. Losing his temper, Cuffey lunged at her, raising his truncheon. The sudden wild motion frightened Madeline's horse. Whinnying, the gelding sidestepped to the right and would have fallen off the embankment had not another black about Cuffey's age scrambled up the slope, seized the headstall, and let his legs go limp.
The slave's weight and strength together kept the horse from tumbling into the next square. Madeline quickly got control of the skittish animal, but the rescue displeased Cuffey.
"Get back down here an' work, you."
The slave ignored the order. He gazed at Madeline with concern rather than servility. "Are you all right, ma'am?"
"Fine. I —"
"You hear me, nigger?" Cuffey shouted. He had climbed halfway up the embankment and pointed his truncheon at the other black, whose large, slightly slanted eyes registered emotion for the first time. Not hard to tell how he felt about the driver.
"Be quiet while I thank this man properly," Madeline said. "You caused the incident; he didn't."
Cuffey looked stunned, then enraged. At the sound of snickering, he spun, but the black faces below him were blank. He stomped down the embankment, hollering louder than ever.
The blacks resumed work while Madeline said to her rescuer: "I've seen you before, but I don't know your name."
"Andy, ma'am. I was named for President Jackson."
"Were you born at Mont Royal?"
"No. Mr. Tillet bought me the spring before he died."
"Well, Andy, I thank you for your quick action. There could have been a serious accident."
"Glad there wasn't. Cuffey didn't have any call to torment —" With a little intake of breath, he stopped. He had spoken his heart, but it wasn't his place to do such a thing; the realization showed.
She thanked him again. Giving a quick nod, he jumped to the bottom of the embankment; smiles and murmurs from some of the people showed they liked him as much as they disliked the driver. Fuming, Cuffey tapped his truncheon on his other palm. His eye fixed on Andy as he kept tapping.
Andy returned the stare. Cuffey looked away but managed to avoid humiliation by screaming orders at the same time. A bad situation, Madeline thought as she rode on — and that was how she characterized it when she described the incident to Orry later. At dark, he sent a boy to the slave community. Shortly after, a knock sounded at the open office door.
"Come in, Andy."
The barefoot slave crossed the threshold. He wore cloth pants washed so many times they had a white sheen, like his patched short-sleeved shirt. Orry had always thought him a good-looking young fellow, well proportioned and muscular. He knew how to be polite without fawning, and his posture now, straight but at ease, with his hands relaxed at his sides, showed his confidence in his standing with the owner.
"Take a chair." Orry indicated the old rocker beside the desk. "I want you to be comfortable while we talk."
This unexpected treatment disarmed and confused the younger man. He lowered himself with care, sitting tensely; the rocker didn't move an inch one way or the other.
"You saved Miss Madeline from what could have been a grave injury. I appreciate that. I want to ask you some questions about the cause of the mishap. I expect truthful answers. You needn't fear anyone will try to get back at you."
"Driver, you mean?" Andy shook his head. "I'm not scared of him or any nigra who has to push and curse to get his way." His tone and gaze implied he didn't fear that kind of white man either. Orry's favorable impression strengthened.
"Who was Cuffey after? Miss Madeline said the man had gray hair."
"It was Cicero."
"Cicero! He's nearly sixty."
"Yes, sir. He and Cuffey — they've had trouble before. Soon as the mistress left the square, Cuffey swore he'd make the old man pay."
"Is there anything else I should know?" Andy shook his head. "All right. I'd like to thank you in some tangible way for what you did." Andy blinked; tangible was plainly incomprehensible to him, though he didn't say so. "Do you have a garden? Do you raise anything for yourself?"
"I do, sir. This year I have okra and some peas. And I keep three hens."
Opening a desk drawer, Orry drew out bills. "Three dollars will buy some good seed and a couple of new tools if you need them. Tell me what you want and I'll order it from Charleston."