Chapter 36: PLAYING TRICKS

It was a different sort of custom than they had played to last season in Charlestown. Tory noticed it even as she juggled pins in her opening business. The island quality and their grand carriages were entirely absent, off to the ball—or at least, the ladies. There were no able-bodied white men of any station present, so it must be true, what Jack had overheard. They were all turned out for the island militia. They would have made Gingerland by now.

That left an audience of mostly brown and black townsfolk from the free colored communities, tradespeople, laborers and children, a smattering of country servants attached to the ball-goers, and the usual curiosity seekers up from the docks. Tory recognized a bluff, grizzled, one-legged English seadog who called himself Salty, and whose chief occupation was trading stories for drinks in the grog shops. And most were in a jolly humor, eager for diversion. The fate of a few unruly slaves up in the hills was no affair of theirs. Or mine, Tory reminded herself, forcing a smile onto her face.

Marcus had cartwheeled all round the stage in his Pierrot rig. Now he made his first appearance in the Punch costume, juggling hoops. Tory couldn’t take hers eyes off the peculiar slope to one of Mr. Punch’s shoulders where the padding sagged, and the paste mask sat at an odd angle; suppose it slid down over the boy’s eyes, blinding him, or fell off his face altogether? Then Punch tossed her a hoop, and she had to concentrate on the business at hand. Toward the end of their routine, Marcus dropped a hoop and Tory’s heart froze, but he caught it up again so deftly on the first bounce, it was possible no one had noticed. Scarcely remembering to bow to the applause, she hurried Marcus offstage to make way for Captain Billy.

Ada Bruce was halfway through her hornpipe when Tory saw a signal from Cybele in her stall by the road. Peeping out from behind their stage, Tory spotted them too, white faces at the back of the crowd, three or four younger men flanking an older gentleman in the type of brassy frock coat favored by deputized officers of the militia. Were they watching for Alphonse? Did that mean they hadn’t caught him? Or were they lying in wait for Jack?

Tory could not bear to watch when she sent Marcus back onstage for the Punch solo. She busied herself backstage, alert to every murmur and titter from the audience, waiting for the collective groan or gasp that would tell her calamity had befallen the boy. But he came skipping off, exactly on cue. And then it was her turn to fling open the curtain and take the stage as Columbine.

"Poor Harlequin was spying on the moon,
Offending fair Diana’s modesty.
Moonstruck, he’s fallen deep into a swoon,
Insensible to earthly cares, and me."

A limp bit of doggerel, this, but she hadn’t had much time to compose it, and it would have to serve. The audience had been promised a recitation, after all. The waning moon would not be up for hours, but she pitched her words to a strategically placed torch, by whose flickering light the outline of the Harlequin outfit was just visible. It was stuffed with straw in an attitude of sprawling torpor at the back of the stage. A rather mangy cocked hat from Captain Billy’s wardrobe rested atop one crooked sleeve, so the figure would not appear to be headless.

"Without his magic bat to keep me safe,
That rascal, Mr. Punch, will try his odds,"

Tory continued, turning full into the pool of torchlight and stretching her arms imploringly to the audience. Then she set her hands on her hips in a saucy gesture.

"I’ll dance the foolish clown a merry chase
And send this boy to plead before the gods."

Marcus trotted out as Pierrot, and somersaulted to his knees at her feet. Tory pantomimed sending him off on a journey, and the boy leaped up, danced a jubilant figure around her, and cartwheeled off. Tory made herself count slowly—take your time, draw them in, that’s what Jack would say—as she turned again to the spectators, marched downstage, and threw up her arms toward the "moon."

"Oh, Goddess! Listen to my hopeful cries,
Your mortal sister! Do not turn away!
For when the gods to mortals close their eyes
All fellows know the Devil, him make play!"

There were hoots of appreciation in the audience for this bit of island patois, and expectations were high for the devil to come. Tory ran to grab two of Columbine’s kitchen spoons from a pile of utensils in a corner, then ran back to the supine Harlequin, clapping the spoons together over him, and waiting, poised, as if for a response.

Then Punch raced in from the other side of the stage, lost his footing, and lurched into the pile of kitchenware with a crash that made the audience jump, then laugh. Punch righted himself, Tory breathed again, and he grabbed up a ladle and a rolling pin, paused to mime a leer in her direction, and the chase round the stage began.

Between the tumbling and the slapstick, and the breakneck feats, and the exits and entrances, along with Columbine’s periodic cries of "Lo! Harlequin wakes!" to fool Mr. Punch and the audience, Tory lost track of the militiamen in the audience. Once, she heard the hoofbeats of a rider in the road, and relief pumped into her throat so fast, she nearly choked on it. Jack, it must be Jack! But when she stole a look, it was only another man in a military coat, sliding off his mount to talk to his fellows.

Anxiety clung like weights to her limbs and her heart, but Tory pressed on. She didn’t even know what she was doing onstage any more, her business was all rote by now. She only counted the beats until she could finally get off this damned stage and find out what was going on. In another minute, maybe two—

Then she suddenly realized Marcus had missed his cue to return to the stage. Well, it was a lot to ask of the boy, but he’d get there in the end. She pirouetted around the stage a second time, juggling higher, kicking up her skirts. On her third go-round, Punch finally appeared again. He did a handspring, a forward roll and two cartwheels, as if in apology, then dove again for the prop pile, coming up with two spoons and a rusted carving knife. Damn, she'd told him no knives! But he was putting on a hell of a display with it. Tory only hoped his showing off wouldn’t ruin them all. He was chasing her across the stage, to the audible delight of the crowd, when a shout came up from its midst.

"Ho, there! Halt in the name of the Captain-General!"

All four militiamen and both officers were marching through the crowd toward the stage; it was a nightmarish repeat of that day in Basseterre. Tory ran downstage without a backward glance, still clutching her props. Surely Marcus would have sense enough to slip away behind her.

"What, sir, is the pantomime unlawful in Charlestown?" she addressed the officers, broadly, as if she could transform the scene into a part of the play and control it.

"Riot and rebellion are unlawful in Charlestown, Miss," grunted the newly arrived officer of the militia, as he leaped up on the stage. "Stand aside," he commanded her. "I’ll have a look at your little darky there."

Damn, Punch was still lingering upstage. But when Tory moved instinctively to block the officer’s path, and buy an extra second of time, the man shoved her aside and into the grasp of another of the militiamen. who were now swarming across the stage. Scarcely aware of being handled, she was calculating how quickly she might throw off her guard and tumble into the officer before...

But then Punch too was in custody, grabbed from behind by a militiaman who emerged out of the shadows. Tory wrenched herself forward, dragging her guard with her. They must not discover Marcus in Alphonse’s costume, it would look like the ruse it was. What an idiotic idea this was, now they would all be implicated in a slave conspiracy, all of them, and it was her fault. Jack had been a fool to leave it in her hands.

The officer yanked off Punch’s conical hat and tore away his mask. He took one step backward as if from a blow when Alphonse's face, shiny with exertion, tilted up to gaze at him.

"Gentlemen," said Alphonse.

Tory was ready to swoon with relief, but she dared not waste an instant of her advantage.

"Please, sir, be good enough to tell me what the matter is," she exclaimed, half-turning to the curious audience, who were crowding in around the stage.

The officer dragged Alphonse downstage by the shoulder, toward a pool of torchlight, for a better look. But he stopped short of the spot when he noticed the dozens of onlookers’ faces ringing the stage.

"I have information that this fellow is implicated in a rising," he declared. That set the crowd to prattling.

"Where?" Tory demanded, aping surprise. "When?"

"This evening, in Gingerland," the officer responded. "But the conspiracy was discovered in time, and the ringleaders are being dealt with," he added, to the crowd. "No property has been lost. There is nothing to fear."

Dealt with. The words made a sinister pounding in Tory’s head. Where the hell was Jack?

"But Gingerland is miles from here," she protested, in her most innocent and reasonable voice. "And we’ve been playing here since nightfall."

This produced affirmative noises from the crowd.

"Aye, and the little Punch, too!" roared old Salty, drumming his wooden stump upon the ground. "Took after the wench with a roller pin, 'e did. I wanted to see 'ow it all come out!"

"It’s true, sir," muttered the young fellow who still gripped Tory by the shoulders. "They’ve been at it all night. We’ve seen 'em. Him and the lady, and that musical couple. And the lad."

The Bruces had come out from backstage to lend whatever support they could. Marcus stood between them, dressed as Pierrot.

The officer let go of Alphonse, with a huff of impatience.

"Somebody’s eyes are playing tricks," he growled. But he could scarcely dispute the eyewitness account of his own men. "We shall sort out whose in the morning. And you had better make yourself available for further questioning," he told Alphonse. "Who has charge of this enterprise?"

"I do, sir," cried Captain Billy, hurrying forward before Tory could think of any more plausible response. The militia officer sized up Billy Bruce, and seemed to relax a bit.

"I must close you down for tonight, on orders of the Captain-General of the Leewards. Between you and me," he went on, in a much lower voice, "there may be more violence done tonight, before we catch the last of 'em. Best to get all the ladies indoors."

"Capital suggestion, sir. I quite agree," nodded Captain Billy.

It was slow torture for Tory to have to behave as if everything were all right, picking up the props and clearing the stage while the militiamen dispersed the audience from the clearing. Gazing back once toward their campsite, Tory spotted Shadow tethered with the other horses, cropping idly at the green scrub. But she could see no trace of Jack. At last, when the remaining militiamen were standing far off, Tory found Alphonse behind the curtain.

"Are you all right?" she breathed, grasping his hands.

"Yes, yes. I’m sorry—"

"Where’s Jack?"

Alphonse’s dark face furrowed with trouble. "Victoria, I do not know."



"It was never a rising," Alphonse declared, when they were finally alone, and he'd told her how he and Jack had parted. "It was an escape. Since Jack told you the rumor, I owe you at least the truth. But it was never my intention to involve any of you."

"But why?" Tory begged. "After Whitehall? Why?"

Alphonse shifted uncomfortably. "I...owed it. To a friend."

They sat on the floor of the wagon, the lamp very low, the door open to the campsite. Cybele was setting out pallets for those who would keep watch tonight—Captain Billy, Cully, herself. Horsemen passed now and then on the road, and once Tory heard the echo of baying hounds from the mountain. The militia hunting down the last of those who had tried to escape.

"What will happen to them?" she asked uneasily. "The stragglers?"

"Shot, if they run. Sentenced to hang if they are taken. Running off alone is one thing, but if they are caught in a plot—"

"And the others?"

"Most had the sense to return to their cabins. Scores were ready to escape, if it could be done in secret, but less than a dozen chose to fight or run. The rest were able to save their lives. Because of Jack."

Tory closed her eyes against despair. It had been hours.

"He is a white man," Alphonse told her gently. "He will not be shot on sight."

"Unless they mistake his clothing in the dark," she murmured. "Or storm the place he’s being held."

"Paris will let him go before then, he is not a monster. And if the militia captures him, he can claim he was a hostage in a...rising," Aphonse spat out the word. "They will not harm him. But more likely, he has slipped away already."

Tory only nodded at such cold comfort.

"It might have succeeded," Alphonse sighed, almost to himself. "So many of them were determined to go; they had been preparing their hidden escape routes off the mountain for months. After dark, when the masters were all away in town. I had only to provide transport off-island, and safe houses, until they might make their ways to English Harbour to take ship for England."

"England?" Tory echoed. Most runaway were fortunate to get off-island, let alone across the ocean.

"Do you know that a runaway cannot be reclaimed by his master in England?" Alphonse replied. "It is the law. They had only to bide their time in hiding for a few weeks until the shipping lanes reopened and enough shipping came through English Harbour to carry them out of the Leewards. It should have worked."

"Why didn’t it?" Tory asked. "Who would betray them?"

"Jack would not tell Paris, but he told me. A field girl. Venus."

"But, I know this girl." Cybele was standing in the doorway. "Venus. She come see me all the time."

"What for?"

"Why, the same thing you come to me for, cherie. She crave motherhood no more than you, for all that she only a poor slave."

"She has a lover?" Tory asked.

"If that what you call it when a bull put to the cow," Cybele snorted. "Her master lock up the young slave men and women together at night, according to a schedule."

"His great experiment, improving the strain for field work, as he calls it," Alphonse agreed. "It is the worst kept secret in the Leewards."

"But why should Venus betray the others to a master who uses her so?" Tory wondered.

"For freedom." Alphonse's voice was bitter.

"But they might have all escaped—" Tory protested.

"Ah, but escapes often go wrong," said Cybele. "Plots go wrong every day. But the grand blancs so terrified of a rising these days that any slave who betray such a plot to her master almost certain to be freed for it. How else can a dark-skinned girl like Venus gain her freedom without having to bear a child she no want?"

Tory closed her eyes again. How indeed? How could anyone survive in these beautiful and benighted islands?

"Is it safe for you to stay here tonight?" she asked Alphonse.

"If they had any evidence against me besides hearsay, they would have taken me off that stage when they had the chance. For now, I look more guilty if I run away."

He shifted up to his feet when Calypso opened the door of the Bruces’ caravan, where she had put the younger boys to bed. Stepping to the threshold, he paused to look back at Tory.

"There is...one more thing," he told her, his expression grim. "There are many troops of militia all over the mountain tonight. But coming down the trail, I recognized one man in particular. It may come to nothing, their paths may never cross—"

Tory could not have looked any more stricken. Alphonse had to avert his eyes.

"It was Constable Raleigh of Basseterre."



(Top: Columbina, by Tony Banfield, based on the illustrations of William West. As seen on pennyplain.blogspot.com/)

Chapter 35: THE MERRY GREENWOOD

It was too much to think about all at once; she would go mad. She must solve one problem at a time, Tory told herself, and keep going. Carrying Captain Billy’s coat and hat back to the Bruces’ caravan, she noticed a faint whiff of rum on the damp collar, and had her first inspiration.

"Jack is...indisposed," she told them, leaking just a trace of irritation into her voice. Neither of them had ever seen Jack drunk, but she dare not endanger them with the truth.

"Not seriously, I hope?" chirped Ada.

"Oh, a simple combination of heat and nerves, I suspect," Tory shrugged, in a tone that implied she was putting the best face on it. "But if he’s still, um, unwell by curtain time tonight, I thought you might like to have an extra routine or two prepared. Just in case."

"My dear, we are professionals!" Captain Billy declared. "We shall sing and dance until dawn, if that is what’s required!"

Cybele had taken the other children into town, to deliver some herbal remedies and fancywork promised to some ladies in time for the ball. But Tory saw Marcus under a stand of acacias with an open satchel of props, juggling furiously to an inner rhythm pounding away in his own head. The wiry boy had not grown much taller in these last months, but his trunk and arms and legs, once so thin, had thickened with noticeable new strength. Soon he would spurt up like Cully had, his limbs stretching to their full length. But for now... she stared hard at the boy. Hellfire, it might work.

"That’s fine, Marcus!" she called to him. "Do you know any of the Punch business?"

"Handsprings," he replied eagerly, "tree in a row! Me can somersa’t all round the stage, and juggle the bat and the club. And..." he hesitated for an instant, then his grin widened, "... me roll under you skirt and tief you big cookspoon!"

"Good," Tory laughed. "We’ll have to do twice as much tonight, if... until the others get back. I’ll come out and practice with you as soon as I can. When Cybele returns, ask Calypso to come see me."

She was sorting out costumes when Calypso found her in the wagon.

"Alphonse no return today," Calypso said without preamble at the door. "You know where he is?"

Tory measured her reply. "Do you?"

Calypso shook her head.

"Jack does. He’s gone to find him. Don’t ask me to tell you any more."

Calypso nodded and Tory held up the little Punch costume. "Can you alter this to fit Marcus? Can you do it by this evening?"

Calypso gazed at the little white tunic, with its flounced black edging and dancing bells, and at the short leggings.

"I can. But it no look like Alphonse."

Tory blinked. The alert girl was already a step ahead of her.

"If I tuck it in to fit that boy, it only show off how they be different."

"Can you pad it?" Tory suggested. "A little roll of scraps or straw sewn inside, to fill the chest and shoulders? In the trousers, just above the knees?" A little ox, that was how Jack had once described Alphonse, thickset and powerful in the shoulders and thighs.

"Yes, I tink so."

"Nothing heavy or awkward," Tory hurried on. "Marcus must be able to move. Only enough to—"

"Trick the eye," murmured Calypso, taking up the costume.

Tory choked down another wave of unease. This would never work. But it must, she told herself. Their audience would not expect to see anyone but Alphonse in the Punch costume, and Alphonse they would see. She would have to rehearse Marcus carefully in the padded costume, but he already knew how to work in a mask. Still, she must not let him try anything too dangerous that might injure him or give them away; no torches or knives. They were in no position to thrill a crowd, with their two daredevils absent. She had better come up with some knockabout comedy business, to take up the slack. Not that she was in much of a laughing mood.

Calypso retired to her sewing basket, and Tory pawed through the rest of their costumes. At the bottom of the pile was Jack’s patchwork Harlequin outfit, unused since St. John’s. Who among them could fill it? She lifted out the shirt and trousers, held them up, inspected them. She could still make out some faded rusty stains on the right side of the shirt, could see where Calypso’s clever fingers had mended the patches back together. With an effort, Tory forced the image of Jack’s beaten, bloody body out of her mind, and flung the costume into a corner. Calypso looked up, then away. But Tory continued to stare at its twisted rag-doll shape on the floor.

Then she retrieved her Columbine skirt and petticoat. There might be a way, after all, if she could only make it work. She must come up with the performance of a lifetime, for lives depended upon it, a triumph in the art of stage illusion. A quartet for two. If only she played bravely enough. And she reached for her logbook.



Jack kept Shadow to the high road, traveling due east, as they climbed into the foothills surrounding the central cone of Nevis. He knew enough to keep the silhouette of Saddle Hill well to southward, past a distinctive fork in the road Marcus had described, and bore away to the left above a ravine. The higher they climbed, the more relaxed the horse began to feel beneath him. These must be the back roads where Shadow had plied his trade as a cart horse in his former life.

When Jack reckoned they were near the borderlands of the estate he sought, perhaps even on the place, according to the signposts, he gave Shadow his head. Within moments, the animal turned off the high road for a hidden path through the wild scrub, just wide enough for a narrow cart. A path some wainman must have forged to hide his progress until he was ready to appear; Tory had told him how slaves cherished every moment out of their master’s eye. Jack was just as glad to stay out of sight of the main house and mill works now. He had already passed several carriages in the road, trundling down the mountain for town, but could not be sure the people from this place were among them. The sun had already passed its zenith as well, so the slaves were no longer in the fields, but were off enjoying their traditional Saturday afternoon holiday before the Sunday market. But where would they be? To what private place would they have gone to set their plan into motion?

The path wound through the brush, skirting wide, sprawling cane pieces. Most were fallow in this season, or just beginning to be holed and planted, while others boasted green cane as tall as a man, that had been too young to harvest last year. Soon, Jack saw the big house in the distance, and the mill works beyond, deserted at this time of year. Riding on, he passed above flimsy slave cabins, down in a gully. In the still, hot afternoon, he could hear the thin wailing of babies. Surely the plotters would not meet there, in the middle of the day, endangering their children.

The trail gave on to a stable yard, and Jack had to pull Shadow back into the protection of the scrubby woods, away from the cabins, up into the high ground, searching now for watchman’s huts or a patch of provision ground hidden from the estate below. He passed one dilapidated shack and a few tiers of vegetable plots; he must be going in the right direction. Then he came to the edge of a cleared, plowed field on a broad plateau, hidden from below by a dense treeline. The field was planted in all kinds of small food crops, but there was a path through the middle of it. Across the clearing, at the other end of the path and almost hidden in more leafy woods, Jack spied some kind of outbuilding. Long and low, like a barracks. Well hidden. Defensible. That was where he would plot, far away from any overseer’s prying eyes.

But he would have to cross the open clearing to reach it. He might search for hours to find a roundabout path through the increasingly steep and treacherous hills, and the dense woods, but he didn’t have hours to spare. Alphonse could not spare them. Jack reined in Shadow, and sat still and upright, peering across the flat, neat rows of the leafy green tops of root vegetables and long, flowering runners of beans and peas. He could not see any activity in the long, low building hidden in the underbrush, but he could sense it. That was where they were.

What if Alphonse had already taken himself away, possibly off the island? That would explain why he had not turned up this morning. Alphonse knew first-hand what a rising might lead to; the sensible thing to do would be to disappear. But if Alphonse were acting sensibly, he would never have become involved in this plot. What could have induced him to ignore his bitter memories of Whitehall to join another group of plotters? And in that event, what if he were still with them, now? If plantation families were already making their way into town for the ball, the militia might be making its way up the mountain at this very moment. Alphonse had failed at Whitehall by not warning the people in time that they had been betrayed. Jack could not make that same mistake.

Tory’s face swam suddenly into his mind, the way he had last seen her, tense, anxious, biting back words she dared not speak. He wished now that he had held her for a moment, coaxed a smile from her to carry with him now. That had been no way to say goodbye. But he shook off the thought before it paralyzed him. He could never have found Tory again if not for Alphonse. He owed him everything. And he nudged Shadow out of the cover of the trees and into the open field.



"But the Neck be too nearby," complained William Ibo, leader of the field gang. "Ol’ Mas’ take a fishing boat and come find we."

"If he has any reason to suspect you are there," Alphonse replied patiently. "Which he will not. He will assume you have all fled into the bush here on Nevis, and spend all of his time and energy trying to hound you out, again, while you are safe away on St. Kitts."

"Why we all no go direct to English Harbour?" asked Mama Lizzy, the hothouse nurse, sucking on the stem of her corncob pipe.

Alphonse glanced again at Paris, who looked back at him expectantly, like the others, as if he, too, needed to be convinced. Again. Even now, with the time so short.

"The military ships weathering the season there cannot absorb so many recruits, unless it is wartime. Send one or two of your boatmen to find work now, at the Dockyard, and they can help those who follow them later. But dozens of people appearing all at once, without papers and seeking passage or employment, will incite suspicion."

"The sooner away, the better off we be," muttered Paris.

"You will be away, in the safe places I have found for you. In the Neck on St. Kitts and other villages on Antigua, where there are people to help you. The people you place in the Dockyard now can report back as soon as shipping arrives in English Harbour bound for England. Or Cuba, or Jamaica, where there are large enough populations of free people to take you in. If only you wait—"

"We wait too long, already," grumbled William Ibo, and several of the others nodded in agreement.

"It is only a little while longer. And once you are off Nevis..."

A sudden, low thumping on the outside of the wooden wall cut short Alphonse’s plea. Paris sprang to the door and threw the bolt and in tumbled Remus, one of the athletic twins from the boiling house sent to keep watch in the brush, panting out a message.

"A buckra stranger in the woods! Him come this way."

The others were on their feet on the instant, crowding to the high, narrow window that faced the provision grounds, the only means of approach to this hidden storehouse.

"Where?" "Alone?" "Armed?"

The questions snapped at Remus, who could only splutter back that the fellow was on horseback and carrying no weapon that could be seen. The click of a musket sent a charge of ice up Alphonse’s spine. He had never contracted to be a party to murder, but these people were fighting for their lives now, not only their freedom. If they were discovered here in the thick of a conspiracy, it would be the gallows for all of them. He saw Henry, the senior watchman, prop the long snout of the musket on the window sill and sight down the barrel. It was an older weapon, the kind assigned to only the most loyal watchkeepers for scaring off pigs and cattle from neighboring estates foraging in the borderlands. But Henry had cleaned and cared for it and taught himself expert marksmanship. He drew a breath and the others breathed with him, hushed now, watching. The stranger was in sight. In another moment he would be in range.

Alphonse might have peeked out a knothole in the wall below the high window into the field, like the others. But he turned away.

"You do not approve?" Paris challenged him.

"Should we not find out who he is?" Alphonse suggested.

"No white man ride among us today of all days on any innocent business," Paris replied. "We have too much at stake."

Alphonse gazed down at his clenched hands, tensed for the report of the shot. What a hypocrite he was. How could he preach freedom to these people and not expect them to fight for it? What other choice did they have? And yet he was so thoroughly, bitterly sick of the killing...

Henry's finger stretched toward the trigger. But in the instant before he squeezed it, Alphonse heard the fragment of a song, incongruously cheerful, wafting toward them on the hot, still air.

"...and we will go to the merry greenwood
To see what they do there—O..."

"No!" Alphonse cried, bounding to the window, his entire body a clenched fist of furious strength. He slammed into Henry so hard, the marksman could scarcely hang on to his weapon, as the shot erupted high into the air. The singing stopped outside. Alphonse clambered to the window sill, and saw the familiar straw-hatted figure astride one of the draft horses halted in the clearing, and still sitting upright. Waiting. Then the others were grabbing at him, their faces seething with outrage.

"I know this man!" Alphonse exclaimed, rebounding on them all from the window. "He means you no harm. I stake my life on it."

"And our lives?" spat Paris.

"Yes! Kill me if I lie, but give him a hearing!"

Jack was still waiting outside. The wild shot had neither frightened him off, nor flushed out any unseen confederates from the brush. Everyone looked at Paris, whose eyes narrowed in angry frustration, but he nodded once to Alphonse. The little man stood up in the window and made a motion, and the stranger rode quickly across the rest of the field toward them.

"You are betrayed," Jack told them, when he had hidden Shadow in the underbrush and darted inside.

"At what?" asked Paris. "Tending our provisions on a Saturday afternoon?"

"The planters know of your plot here. They’re setting a trap. After they send their families to the ball, the island militia is coming back here to surprise you in the act. All of you."

A murmur of alarm rippled through them, but Paris’ scornful voice carried above the rest. "They nevah know to come here."
Turning to Jack, he added, "But you do." And he glared at Alphonse.

"Alphonse would not have confessed your plot to God Almighty on his deathbed," Jack retorted. "I found my own way here."

"A spy!" cried Remus. "Ol’ Mas' send him here to trap we!"

William Ibo, heavily muscled from the field, took a menacing step toward Jack. Henry was quietly reloading his musket.

"Hear him out," cautioned Alphonse. "You may kill us both if he lies, but you are all in grave danger if he tells the truth."

"What you hear?" demanded Mama Lizzy.

And Jack explained about the three men in the tavern, the blustery, impatient fellow, the reasonable, but sinister one, and the older fellow, melancholy and cultured, who must have been the owner. "I only wish there were some other way," Jack mimicked the man's weary voice. "Paris is like my own son."

There was absolute silence in the close, dark little room. Paris was staring at Jack with a molten mix of defiance and despair.

"If he keep his son in chains," Paris whispered in a voice as dry as scrub.

"Him be Ol’ Mas’ to the life," whispered another, staring at Jack.

"And Justice Shepherd," nodded William Ibo. "And the manager from Dunbar’s."

The plotters began to exchange uneasy glances.

"Who betray us?" Paris demanded.

"It doesn’t matter, they’re on your trail now," said Jack. "That shot won’t make it any harder to find you. You must disband—"

"No!" seethed Paris. "It be a plot to break us up! Because we be too strong. But they no keep us here, not any longer!"

There was some agreement with this show of defiance.

"It’s the island militia," Jack repeated emphatically. "Scores of armed men. Whatever you’re planning, you can not win. If you are found here together, you are all dead. Your only hope is to get back to your houses before—"

"Why should we trust the word of a white man?"

"Why would he risk his life to come here if he were not in earnest?" Alphonse countered.

"To defeat us!" cried Paris. "To destroy us!"

There were more voices seconding Paris’ now, and still others raised in anxiety and doubt.

"We are not a mob." It was Alphonse’s clear voice piercing the hubbub of confusion. "Leaders from all the gangs are present— house, field, kitchen, mill, boiling-house. We must vote what to do."

"I vote to stand and fight!" declared Paris.

"Fight?" echoed Alphonse. "This is not a rising!"

"Two years of my life I give to this plan. I work and study every day to free us from this place," Paris countered. "For what? Must I bide the rest of my life in Ol’ Mas’ house? Do all his bidding, fetch and carry, feed on his scraps like livestock? The son he treat like a dog? And all the time, I dress him in his fine cloting, watch him fatten on my provision at his table, hear how he speak to his guests about the right of a man to choose his master, profit from his labor, live like a man. But I be noting in this place. I have noting. My labor come to noting. Evahting belong to Ol’ Mas’ until the day I die. And I say sooner bettah than later. I no go back to live like a dog. I rather die."

"And how many others must die for your pride?" muttered Jack.

Paris’ clenched fist smacked like a shot across Jack’s face. "Buckra know noting about it!"

"I know that when the militia gets here, people will die!" Jack spat back, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. "Don’t sacrifice yourselves like pigs. Think of your children—"

"Our children belong to Ol’ Mas to use as him please!" hissed Mama Lizzy.

"And our women," cried Remus.

"But will they be any better off without you? Don’t abandon them to make some futile gesture." Jack pleaded. "Your plan for today is exploded, whatever it was. You can’t save it. But you can still save your lives if you act quickly."

"I have seen what happens," Alphonse agreed. "Every man will have a musket or a pistol. Most will have horses. They are so afraid, they will run down anyone at all, man or woman or...child. They will not ask questions. Whoever is not shot now will be hanged later. I have seen it all before."

"And I see enough of this life to know I nevah return to it," declared Paris. "Who is with me?"

"Me bring too many of you into this world to see you shot down like dogs," muttered Mama Lizzy. She clamped her few remaining teeth onto her pipe and strode to the door.

"Me got a wife and pickneys to tink of," murmured William Ibo. "If we run off togeter, it be wort the risk, but me no see them killed for no reason." He shook his head. "Me go back to me cabin."

"Me fight!" cried Remus.

"And me," added Henry, cradling his musket in the crook of his elbow. "Not all the dead be black when this day ovah."

Most of the others elected to return to their cabins and slunk off through the underbrush without further delay. A few still wished to attempt an escape, and Alphonse lingered among them, describing the hidden bay where the boat would come and the safe houses to search for across the Narrows on St. Kitts. Jack waited in quiet agitation at the door, while Paris and his handful of defiant followers made their last, hasty plans. Then the door creaked open, and a breathless William Ibo poked his face back inside.

"Horsemen!" he hissed at them all. "On the Upper Round Road, only half hour away!" And then he was gone.

Jack caught Alphonse’s eye over the ensuing commotion. Those few still determined to flee thundered out the door, and melted into the bush. Alphonse grabbed his hat. But as Jack pushed the door open for them, Paris’ voice split the charged air behind them.

"Don’t go yet, buckra."

Jack turned at the door to glance back. Henry, the marksman, was standing with his musket leveled at Jack’s midsection.

"Do not be a fool, Paris," Alphonse hissed. "He came to warn you."

"And he still useful to us, Belair. His militia maybe no shoot so fast if we have a buckra hostage."

"It’s not my militia," Jack pointed out. "I doubt they’ll hesitate on my account."

"We see," shrugged Paris. The musket clicked again.

"But what use is a hostage?" protested Alphonse. "There are too few of you to fight. You cannot make demands."

"But we be heard, if only for a short time. Others will hear what we do. We will die like men, not dogs."

"Fair enough," agreed Jack. "If Alphonse goes now."

Alphonse turned to frown up at him.

"One of us must get back to the others," Jack muttered to him, "and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be me."

"He’s right," Paris said to Alphonse. "You honor your pledge. But this not your fight any more. Go." He nodded toward the door.

"But this is nonsense," Alphonse fumed. "The only useful hostage is one your enemy cares about keeping alive. Jack is only a player. He has no value to them, or to you."

"But for his white skin. It be very funny how they can nevah bear to see any harm come to one of their own."

"If there’s no performance tonight, we'll all be under suspicion," Jack whispered to Alphonse. "Tory can't do it all by herself."

"Oh, hellfire," muttered Alphonse, and pushed out the door.

He suffered Jack to set him up on Shadow’s back, to exchange their last, hasty, covert words. Hugging tight with his short legs, and leaving very little play in his grip of the reins, Alphonse kept upright as the horse carried him across the open ground and back to the hidden trail. Jostled along in the underbrush as the trail wound down its long, slow descent, he was roundly cursing every misfortune that had brought him to this day when Shadow whuffled and hesitated. Muted noises came from a gap they were passing in the scrub.

Alphonse peered into it and saw that they were on a wooded ridge some little way above an open road. A troop of militia was passing in the road below. And what Alphonse saw in their midst made him pull up and drag on the reins with all of his strength.

But Shadow only shook off this annoyance, and continued his dogged descent down the trail in an irritated trot, so that it was all Alphonse could do to keep his seat. It was beyond his power to turn the obstinate beast around. There was no way to warn Jack now.


(Top: Plantation Slave House, Surinam, 1839. Image Reference BEN-C, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library)