and beard that rounds down and circles the bony point of his chin.
“I’m expected. We’ve come to see a friend,” Missy says, but she’s rubbing her neck and sounds like she’s got cotton in her throat, so I know she ain’t telling the truth.
Stepping out the door, the man chicken-jerks his head side to side, checking the alley. Scars run over the left side of his face like melted candle wax, and a patch covers one eye. The good eye turns my way. “Our mutual friend specifically requested that only the two of you come.”
I squat down, checking the horse’s bad leg, getting myself small as possible.
“And we have. Why, other than my driver boy, of course.” Missy Lavinia laughs, nervous-like. “The road isn’t safe for a woman alone. Surely Mr. Washburn will understand.” Missy pulls her hands behind her back, pushing her bosom up to show it off, only she ain’t got much of one. She’s just square and straight, all the way up and down, big shouldered like Old Mister. “I’ve a distance to return home on the road yet and barely the daylight needed. I’d prefer to conclude our business as efficiently as possible. I’ve brought what I was asked to, exactly as requested…by Mr. Washburn.”
Don’t know if anybody else sees it or not, but Missy cuts a quick nod toward Juneau Jane, like that’s what she was told to bring—her little half sister.
The door opens wide, and the man disappears behind it. A sticky, pricklin’ cold goes all over me.
Juneau Jane ties her horse to the wagon but stands flat-footed in the street, her blue-striped skirt and white petticoats catching the wind and molding to the calves of her skinny legs. She threads her arms and crinkles her nose like she’s got a whiff of stink. “What is this that you have been requested to bring? How shall I be assured you have not offered compensation to Mr. Washburn as payment for a convenient lie?”
“Mr. Washburn needs nothing from me. Why, the man owns all of this.” Missy waves toward the big building and the river landing on past it. “In partnership with Papa, of course. I’d be most pleased to speak with Mr. Washburn alone, but then you’d have to trust that I will bring to you what information I am able to gather. If Mr. Washburn holds the only remaining copy of Papa’s papers, I could burn them right here in this building, and you would never know. I assume you’ll want to see for yourself. I won’t have you questioning me afterward. If you don’t come in, you must accept my word.”
Juneau Jane’s arms go stiff at her sides. Her hands ball into fists. “More freely, I would trust a serpent.”
“As I thought.” Missy holds out a hand toward Juneau Jane, palm up. “Then let’s go inside. We’ll do it together.”
Juneau Jane sweeps past the stretched hand, marches up the steps, and walks in the door. Last thing I see of her is that long, dark hair.
“Look after the horses, boy. Should anything happen to them, I’ll take it out of your hide…one way or another.” Then Missy Lavinia goes, too.
The red door swings closed, and I hear the bolt slide into the hasp.
I tie off the saddle horse, loosen the checkrein and the belly band a notch on Ginger, then find me a spot in the shade along the wall, wiggle into a empty sugar hogshead turned on its side, let my head fall back, and close my eyes.
The long night with not much sleep comes to catch me before I know it.
But so does the dream of the trader’s yard.
That tipped-over barrel turns into the slave pen where I’m carried off from Mama one more time.
CHAPTER 6
BENNY SILVA—AUGUSTINE, LOUISIANA, 1987
The rain finally stops by the time I get home. Sloshing past the hidden garden saint and up the porch steps, I feel guilty for my slightly emotional phone call to LaJuna’s aunt, which I had to let myself into the empty school building to make. Aunt Sarge, whose real name I now know is Donna Alston, probably thinks I am