Horrible Harvest

With nary a smidge of confidence we’d avoid finding ourselves grave deep at the other end of Tate’s plan, I moved past him and rambled to the house, up the stoop and in front of the kitchen door.

Tate tapped on the solid oak door with the barrel of his gun. Seconds passed ‘fore the door was pulled open by a black woman standing naked as a newborn. She stood in a pinch, trying like hell to cover one naked part of her with another. Her eyes was fixed on the ground.

“Master’s down to dinner. He ain’t receiving no visitors – ”

“Bailey, girl, look up. It’s me – Tate.”

“Can’t look up,” she answered. “Master says I ain’t worthy to look nobody in the face.”

Tate sighed. “Step back, girl. Let us pass.”

“Can’t. Master says he ain’t to be disturbed during his suppers. This is his time for peace and reflection, he says, and can’t nobody be allowed to jump in on that time.”

“Run tell master there’s a plot afoot to assassinate him. Tell him I’ve captured one of the conspirators. Tell him he’s going to want to meet this fella.”

She raised her chin just a tick and took a peek at me. “You come to kill Master Miller?”

I looked to Tate for direction.

“Don’t ask questions, girl. Just run tell Master Miller what I said.”

She rested her eyes on Tate. “You ought not get into this fella’s business if he come to kill master. You oughta leave him to his work, is what you oughta do.”

I give her a smile. “I ain’t done yet,” I said with a wink.

I seen the color of hope flush her cheeks. Quick as a cat she turnt and run to the hallway at the other side of kitchen.

Me and Tate planted ourselves on the stoop. “Where’s her clothes?” I asked.

“All who serve as Master Miller’s domestics are deprived clothing. He fears they could and would conceal weapons if they are granted attire.”

“Are you allowed clothing?”

“I am not a domestic. I am considered one of his military aides. He finds great satisfaction in dressing me in a Confederate uniform because he feels it humbles me and serves to remind me that I am a being of consequence, but only that of which he determines.”

Bailey reappeared with a uniformed soldier following close behind.

“What’s this about, Tate?” the soldier asked.

“A plot, Mr. Monroe. Against Master Miller, sir.”

The soldier eyed me. “And this is one of the conspirators?”

“Yes, sir. He is, and believe me, sir, Master Miller is gonna want to have words with him. He is well known to the General.”

The soldier took a long pause as he looked me over. “I know you, boy?”

I give him a look back. “Could be. I know a lot of fellas. Could be you’re one of them.”

The man turned his face just the tiniest bit, and it come to me. We knew one another. He run with Daddy at one time. Back before the war when Daddy was going around as Marcus London.

“Something rings familiar about you. Can’t place you. Seen you before for sure, but I sure as shit can’t place you. I known a world of no-accounts and devil-makers in my time. You gotta be one of ‘em.”

“I most likely am. Always known for the devil in me.”

He give me a quick slap. “The devil will hang tonight, boy.” To Tate. “Bring him in.” To Bailey. “Fortune shines on you, girlie.”

“Sir?”

“You done good, Bailey-girl. I’ve got a reward for you, and Ima stick it between them juicy thighs of yours. Drive a man wild, you will. Walking around naked. Shaking your bits about. You and me, we’re gonna have some special time tonight.”

“Master don’t allow clothes – Mister – I ain’t meant to drive no man wild. ”

“You ain’t meant it, but there’s parts of me that just run wild on their own, girlie. You ain’t got to go all squirrely on me now. We’ll have us a good time taming them parts.” He let out a laugh that sounded like it was being dragged across sandpaper.

I seen the white of Tate’s eyes turn red. He stepped forward with the intent of beating the soldier to near death. I quick put my foot in front of him and leaned into him to hold him in place.

“My daddy was a one-eyed fella named Marcus London. That’s how you knew him, anyhow.”

Monroe stiffened and turned to me and Tate. “Your London’s boy?”

“I am.”

“Holy shit, son. The youngest one? Met up with you a few year back.”

“You did.”

He looked me over, shocked all to hell. “They’d said you’d growed bigger by two, but you’re three times the size you was the last time I seen you. How’s that possible?”

“I don’t question it. I just grow.”

Monroe snapped his fingers. “The letter? That’s you?”

I turned severe at the mention of the letter. “It is.”

“Then you’re the abomination the General has been going on about – you and that boy of his.”

“I am.”

“Well, ain’t this a small world? I once run wild with your daddy, and now I’m running with the man who’s on the hunt to put you down.”

“You should pick better sumbitches to run with.”

“Both fellas have put treasure in my pocket, so I am just fine and dandy with my choices. Tried to get ol’ London to join up with me, but I forgot he had a history with the General.”

My heart skipped to a stop “You saying Daddy’s alive?”

“Hell, yes, he’s alive. Can’t kill that old cracker. He’s tough as sun beat leather. Heard he’s selling troop movements to both sides. He’ll get himself embedded with a camp here and there as a cook or livery laborer. Works for rations. Don’t nobody think he sees much on account of his one eye, but he sees all and hears all, your daddy. He’ll move up the lines to the other side, sell off what he knows, and set out for a new camp to take up with.”

“That don’t bother you – that he’s spying on Confeds?”

“I ain’t never gonna fault a man for finding profit. Sides, it all evens out, the way he’s trading secrets from one side to other and back again. Anything that can make this war hang around is fine by me. I’ve never lived higher on the hog. I got piles of money and more fancy maids than I know what to do with – Course, female delights don’t mean much to you, do they?”

He grabbed Bailey at her elbow and drug her to the back of the kitchen. “You tend to the abomination, Tate-boy. Ima serve up Bailey-girl her reward.”

Bailey put her free hand over her mouth.

Tate weren’t nothing but flames of rage. I put near all my weight into him to hold him back.

“You’re going to want to come with us,” I said.

“Is that so?” Monroe snickered.

“It’s so.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I’m going kill your general.”

Monroe give me his hardest look yet and released the girl before approaching “You’re just like your daddy, boy. He’s full of himself, too. This here house has got a dozen or so of General Miller’s men upstairs. Having themselves good times, and them good times is because of the General. They’re all fat and happy because of him. They’d die for him, and they sure as shit have and will kill for him.”

Bailey snuck back to the counter and took up a carving knife. Quiet as a mouse she stepped. Toward the cracker that thought himself her reward. If he didn’t have eyes on me, he’d know’d she was coming for sure, but he was a dumb sumbitch that didn’t never learn to watch his back.

“You’ll get your chance tonight,” I said.

“Chance for what?”

“To die for your general.”

Monroe cocked an eyebrow and laughed his sandpaper laugh. “You gonna kill me, are you, boy London? Huh? You think you got it in you to kill ol’ Emanual Monroe?”

“I got it in me, but it ain’t me you gotta worry about.”

“Then who – ” The knife stuck up in him at the small of his back. He grunted and took in a deep inhale, and that breath stayed in him. The pain of it all, the surprise of it all, it all just locked him up. That air stayed stuck in his lungs until it went stale. He twisted himself around, bending his right arm backwards, grasping for the handle of the knife that still found purchase in his back.

Tate lunged forward and placed his hand over Monroe’s mouth. He grabbed at the handle of the knife and wiggled it free from the soldier’s back. Without another thought, he placed the blade to the cracker’s neck and sliced from one side to the other. I half expected the cracker’s head to fall clean off.