Dark Shadows (32 page)

“Don’t you worry about nothin’,” Sheriff Manning told her. “We’ll swing by your place and make sure it’s all locked up tightly for you.”

“No. That’s very kind of you, but like I said before, I’ve taken my valuables. I’d just like the house to be left as it is for when I return. It’s all cleaned up, and I made sure it’s locked. I can’t stand the thought of anyone else going near it just now. You understand, don’t you, Sheriff?” She dabbed her eyes a little more.

“Of course, if you’re sure …”

“Quite sure. Please just remember that I must be informed as soon as you find that murdering black man. I would hate to think of others being put in danger because of him. He’s a horrible, horrible creature, Sheriff.”

“You have my word, Mrs Mallory. The nigger won’t get far,” Manning assured her. “We’ve got dogs out and some of my best trackers with them. We usually get our niggers back, though some do happen to die of their own accord. He won’t last long in this cold weather, I reckon. He’ll freeze to death. It’s more than likely we’ll bring his corpse back. You sleep easy, Mrs Mallory, and don’t you hesitate to come back here anytime.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Madame du Pont stretched out her arm, let her hand grow limp, and waited for the sheriff to kiss it. Once he did, she walked to the door and left.

Jacob, Hendry, and Isaac walked back to Hendry’s house. There had been no new updates from John Manning. The posse would set out again within the hour, he’d told them.

Jacob had another idea, which he wanted to run by Hendry and Isaac. His plan was simple.

Seated in Hendry’s drawing room, Hendry and Jacob explained to Belle what they’d seen and heard. All, without exception, voiced that they were feeling more hopeful because of du Pont’s presence in the sheriff’s office.

They agreed that had du Pont found Mercy’s body, she would not have come forward with such keenness and drama. Instead, she would have tried to draw attention away from herself, not towards herself. They’d just heard about a damned expensive funeral for Eddie Gunn, with four plumed horses, a black carriage, and her in black garb following behind with the new acquaintances with which she’d ingratiated herself!

After a light lunch, the three men were unanimous that Jacob’s plan was sound. They were going to du Pont’s house, and no stone would be left unturned. They would search every inch of the place and wouldn’t come back until they were all of a mind that Mercy had or had not been there.

Before leaving, Jacob sent a messenger with a letter to Stone Plantation, informing Elizabeth that he was not returning this day or the next. It was his civic duty to join the posse searching for Mercy Carver and the missing slave. Mercy was Belle’s dear friend, and he was doing this for Belle. He finished by saying that he would be home before she knew it – but then decided to add, out of a sense of duty, that Elizabeth was welcome to join him in Portsmouth.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Jacob smashed a window on the ground floor, knocking out the remaining shards of glass with his rifle butt. He climbed in, followed by Isaac and then Hendry. They spread out, going from room to room. The downstairs rooms smelled of disinfectant. They had been cleaned thoroughly, yet blood splatter still remained visible on part of the drawing room wall. Jacob rummaged through the desk drawers, but each one contained little more than bills and writing materials.

The men met in the hallway and concluded that as far as the house was concerned, there was nothing to suggest Mercy had been there.

They searched the barns next: nothing. The horse stalls and paddock had been cleared out. Jacob suggested that Sheriff Manning and his men must have taken the horses.

They came to the side of the house. Jacob stopped, noticing the small passageway which led to a door. “We’ll take a look in here. Then we’ll have a look around her land.” He kicked a stone. “Damn it, I thought we’d find
something
,” he said, frustrated.

The basement door was locked. They tried to kick it in, but it was stubbornly strong. After Jacob told the others to stand back, he pointed his rifle at the keyhole. He fired a couple of shots, and the door flew open inwards. They left the door open for light but saw that it wouldn’t be enough once they got down the stairs. Jacob asked Isaac to bring candles from the house.

Jacob and Hendry waited at the entrance. Hendry was first to hear the muffled sounds coming from below. “Jacob, I think there’s someone down there.”

Jacob’s heart raced. “Mercy!” he shouted. He moved quickly and stumbled down the stairs, but when he reached the bottom, he saw nothing but a black hole. A woman’s muffled sounds were growing louder. He shouted to Hendry, “Where the hell is Isaac?”

Isaac appeared. “I’m here, Jacob. We’re coming down.”

Each man held a lit candle. They turned to see a room about fourteen feet long and ten feet wide. They saw the black slave girls tied and gagged in one of the far corners. One girl was mumbling through the rag gagging her mouth. The cotton was bloodied.

Jacob gasped, feeling tears spring to his eyes. “Holy mother of God,” was all he could mutter.

Isaac undid the gags.

The girl was moaning softly and staring unseeingly. Her entire face was damaged. Teeth had been knocked out, and her jawbone was broken. Both eyes were swollen shut, and her black skin had been torn by what looked like fingernails. Even in the soft candlelight, they could see the red and blue bruising on her ebony face, which had lost all structure.

Isaac took a closer look at the other girl. He looked up in the orange glow and shook his head. Her beating had been more severe, coupled with an open wound on her throat. A dried blood trail completely covered her shabby dress.

Hendry took the live girl outside and placed her on the grass, putting his jacket on top of her freezing-cold body. She cried in silence, unable to voice her suffering properly because of the wounds to her mouth and jaw.

In the basement, Jacob asked, “How long, Isaac?”

“A day, no more,” Isaac told him, after examining the body’s lividity.

Jacob carried the dead girl’s body up the stairs and into th
e
softening light of late afternoon. The sky was grey, with not a patch of blue. His mood was as dark as the sky, his hatred for du Pont as bright as the hidden sun.

He knelt on the ground and was reminded of the last time he and Isaac had laid girls on the grass and tended to their injuries.

“Déjà vu,” Isaac said, reading Jacob’s mind. “Is there no end to du Pont’s cruelty?”

Isaac was with the other girl, who was still breathing laboriously. Her eyes were rolling upwards. She tried to speak but couldn’t utter a sound. He asked her if he could lift her dress. There was no response. He lifted it gently to just above her belly and saw the bruising and distension. Isaac looked at Jacob and Hendry and said, “She’s bleeding internally.” He held the girl’s hand and whispered softly, “Who did this to you?”

She stared at him once more, trying to open her mouth, and then she stopped breathing.

“We know who did this,” Jacob said, standing over the bodies.

“I’ve seen some beatings in my time, but never like this. If I didn’t know better, I would have figured an animal did this.”

“There ain’t no animal that kills for pleasure the way Du Pont does,” Jacob said angrily.

“No, sir, I reckon she enjoyed tearing these women apart.” Isaac looked up to see Jacob wiping his eyes. “We can’t take them back with us to Portsmouth. If du Pont did do this, it means she might have found out Mercy was here.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Jacob agreed. “She more than likely tortured them to get to the truth about who killed Eddie. Their story to the deputy didn’t make sense to me. So who were they covering for?”

“The slave?” Hendry said with a shrug.

Jacob shook his head. “I don’t think so. If the missing slave murdered the two men, why would the girls lie about it? No, they were covering for someone else, someone more vulnerable. I’m guessing du Pont got that someone’s name or description from them, and then she had to shut them up. It has to be Mercy. It has to be.”

Isaac stood and took Jacob by the shoulders. “Are you telling us that you believe Mercy killed the men and then ran away with a slave of her own accord?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Jacob smiled.

The three men decided that they should not accuse du Pont of these murders, for if they did, she would take Mercy down with her and accuse her of the double murder. Mercy would be called a whore, Jacob reminded them. She would become a fugitive, a wanted woman, a woman who had run away with a nigger slave.

Jacob had no proof of anything, yet he
knew
Mercy was alive. She was out there somewhere, and his only mission now was to track her down and bring her home.

He stared at the two dead girls for a moment and said, “We need to bury these girls in the woods. For the moment, du Pont will just have to torture herself wondering where their bodies are and who buried them.”

Isaac creased his brow with worry. “Jacob, she saw all three of us in the sheriff’s office. She looked right at us. I know it was just for a split second, but she’s sure to make some kind of move on us at some point – even if it’s just to make sure we won’t tell anyone who she
really
is.”

“Or she’ll keep her mouth shut and stay in the shadows,” Hendry offered.

Jacob agreed with Isaac. Du Pont lived to be centre stage. She wouldn’t remain in the shadows. She needed friends, and she’d be wondering right now if they’d given her away to Sheriff Manning. Let her wonder, Jacob decided. This was becoming more like a game of chess, and he intended to win.

He said to the others, “I’ve got no idea what that woman will do next, but we’ll let her make her moves. The best way to fight her is to keep our mouths shut. If we don’t give her any reason to suspect us of knowing what she’s done, she’ll be blind. She’ll want to know why we’re ignoring who she really is. When that time comes, she’ll seek us out.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

Mercy shivered. She had never felt cold like this, not even in the coldest London winter, when her grandfather very often spent the coal money on drink and it was colder inside the house than outside.

The air bit into her face, leaving it red and raw with pimples, which she could only imagine must appear horrific to anyone who looked at her. Her eyes continuously streamed and were hurting her, so much so that it was becoming difficult to keep them open. Every breath she exhaled was like a grey fog that lingered in the stillness of night. Now, in early morning, her breath left her mouth like a white cloud. She wrapped a dirty shirt around her face, leaving only her eyes visible. Better to look stupid, she thought, than to freeze to death or have frostbite on her skin.

She and Nelson had been on the run for eight days and nine nights. She knew this because she had marked a small cross on the map with each sunrise. The skies had been kind. They were clear, and the moon was growing. The North Star and great Venus were bright. Their presence had guided Mercy’s path through the Virginia countryside in the long hours of darkness. Mercy believed they had left Portsmouth far behind them. Because of this, she decided to rest at night and travel during daylight hours within deserted, dense woods. 

They slept in thickets, always surrounded by trees, never anywhere near dwellings, even when those would be barely visible in the distance. They had been lucky, for on two occasions they had found shelter in abandoned cabins, and even the horses had been given a respite from the cold by being under the same roof as them.

They ate sparsely now but had all the water they needed from small streams that were like veins running through the land. When Mercy was sure they were in isolated positions, she got the gun and rifle out and practiced shooting, using targets placed in the soil of banks or hillsides. She began from close range and every day put more and more distance between her and the target.

Shooting guns had become an obsession with her. She wanted to be a good marksman, an excellent shot. Guns would kill animals that they could then eat. A gun or rifle would keep her and Nelson safe from any bandits they might come across. Her gun had killed Eddie, and she was alive now because of it. She slept with her Colt under her blanket. She had to be ready for anything or anyone. She was confident, for she had, through practice and determination, become a talented shot.

This morning they came across a small river running through a clearing of tall grass. The water was crystal clear, with a pebbled floor where fish were darting back and forth. She’d catch a few. She’d done it before, and though she wasn’t particularly fond of their taste, they were a good source of nourishment.

Small sheets of ice floated casually along with a soft current, bumping into logs and branches and breaking up like shattered glass. She turned to Nelson, standing slightly behind her, and said, “Nelson, I have to do this. I’m filthy. I have to wash off the grime. I still feel as though I have the stench of blood on me. I’m going in.”

“You gonna freeze to death, Miss Mercy,” he said, shaking his head. “Ain’t no way you gonna come out of there without gittin’ the influenza.”

“I’ve just had influenza. I won’t get it again. I’m going in and so are you,” Mercy said defiantly.

“Nope. I sure ain’t, Miss Mercy. No, sir, I ain’t going in there with no ice and fish bitin’ my legs.”

Mercy rested her hands on her hips and looked at him with determination and authority. “You will so go in. You’re as dirty as me – dirtier even! You need to clean your wounds and wash all that dirt out of your hair. We’ve got soap, and we’re going to bathe and smell like flowers. Then we’ll eat and continue on. You’ll feel much better afterwards, I promise.”

“Nope,” Nelson said again.

“No arguments. I own you, remember,” Mercy said with a mischievous giggle. Nelson looked miserable. He had obviously lived an easier life than she had in the Elephant and Castle!

“I’ll make a deal with you. You make a fire and start heating up those beans. I’ll bathe, and then when you come out of the river, you’ll have a nice warm fire and something hot to eat. Doesn’t that sound good?”

“All right – but I don’t like it. I reckon we could die in that there water.” He moaned again.

Mercy stepped on the pebbles on her way back to the shoreline, hurting her feet on the odd jagged stone. The embankment was rocky, but just behind the rocks stood rushes and bushes as tall as she was. Behind them were fir trees that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Their camp was set just a stone’s throw from this river but was well sheltered from the forceful wind.

Her hair was dripping wet and clean, and it covered the entire top half of her body like a black blanket. Stepping onto the rocky bank, she grabbed her bodice, tucked the dollar bills into the bodice cups after she’d fought to get it back on, pulled on a clean shirt, and buttoned it up to her neck. She pulled up the trousers, tightening the braces, and then finally sighed with relief after donning the thick woollen jacket.

When she reappeared, the fire was just beginning to rise and give out some much-needed heat. She walked to the packhorse, retrieved her hat, and, after pulling her hair back into a topknot, stuck the hat on. She smiled at Nelson, whose face was filled with undisguised disapproval. Mercy stared right back at him, undaunted.

“Before you say anything, Grandma Sylvie always told me that a person’s soul left through the top of the head and cold air filled a body by entering through the top of the head. So that’s why my hat is covering my soaking wet hair.”

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Nelson told her moodily.

“You don’t have to. You’re like my grandma. She was an open book. I could tell exactly what she was thinking just by looking at her face – and I know what
you’re
thinking right now. Now take the soap and off you go. Don’t come back till you’re clean. I mean it.”

Mercy stirred the beans. She was agitated and hated not knowing exactly where they were. She was well aware that they were slightly off course. She couldn’t detect the big rivers’ pungent smell at all now, and the terrain had changed from flat to rocky. She believed they were now far enough away from Portsmouth and any search party that might still be looking for them, but she couldn’t be certain. How far would Virginia go to find a runaway slave, especially one who’d probably already been found guilty of murder? Would they be hunted whilst still inside the state of Virginia, even the most northern part? The Metropolitan Police in London had wanted posters printed and placed all over England when hunting criminals. Was it the same way here?

She looked at the map she had found along with the other papers in du Pont’s house, and she had to squint, focus, and refocus until she found her starting point. The map was probably more than fifty years old. The paper had turned yellow; the writing and all the important names of towns had faded. It had been folded so many times that there were open slits on every crease, which made names and words disappear completely.

She drew her finger along it on the right-hand side, pushed it upwards, and found her starting point: Portsmouth. Her finger glided across to Norfolk and then upwards to the great inland waterways and islands of the Chesapeake Bay Estuary. She had hated that part of the journey. Had she been there under any other circumstances, she would have thought it beautiful. Being a fugitive, she had instead found the highly populated waterways both dangerous and worrying.

Mercy shuddered. She had found it necessary to shackle Nelson and lead him like a dog. They had gone through turnpikes and over toll bridges. They had boarded a small packet boat in one of the bays, and it took them across a narrow stretch of water to another island. Once there, Mercy had flicked her eyes over the other passengers waiting to board an even bigger packet boat, which would take them over a wide stretch of water in the bay area. There had been no sign of a sheriff or anyone else displaying interest in her or Nelson, but there
had
been too many people around for Mercy’s liking.

They had managed to find a quiet spot devoid of hordes of travellers and had boarded the last boat of the day, which held no more than a few stragglers. The boat crossed the Hampton Roads, also noted on the map as being called Tidewater, a part of the Elizabeth, James, and Hampton rivers. Mercy had closed her eyes, breathing in the fresh air, and was immediately reminded of Jacob and her night-time conversations with him on the
Carrabelle
’s deck.
Dear God, I miss you, Jacob
, she thought.

Her eyes watered with the pain of losing him. She wiped the tears away with an angry scowl. This was no time to be feeling sorry for herself. She concentrated once more on the map, remembering the fear she had felt on those crossings. It had crept into her veins, making blood race to her heart, which in turn thumped so hard she was left breathless. There had been so many people milling about, going here, there, and God knew where. They had gotten close to the town of Hampton, where there would have been hot food, but she had refused to go near its centre.

Mercy had believed that taking the coastal route, with intermittent water travel, was the best and quickest way to arrive at the next state, which was Delaware. But she had not taken into account that it was probably the most dangerous route
.
There was, she had eventually come to believe, only so many crossings and harbour towns, and they would have been caught at one of them; she was sure of that now.

They had rested on the outskirts of Hampton that night, although sleep had been as elusive as a hot meal. At first light, they rode the eight miles to Newport News, and that was where she’d seen the wanted posters in full view of everyone coming off and going on the packet boats. Her eyes had scanned the board plastered with posters. She saw Nelson’s first.

wanted dead or alive

Dangerous slave who goes under the name of Nelson Stuart wanted for the murder of two men. One of the murdered men was of his own colour and a slave, the other a white overseer. He is of thin build, 5' 11" in height, and is owned by Mrs Margaret Mallory, from Portsmouth, Virginia. He is to be approached with caution and brought to the nearest sheriff or marshal, dead or alive. Reward: $1,000.

Mercy had stared at it, noting the pathetic and inaccurate drawing of Nelson’s kind face. The image looked like any other black man in Virginia, or in the world. It was a caricature, an ink drawing of a round head with a wide nose and full lips. It was not the kind, thoughtful, and gentle soul she had come to know. That poster had insulted her.

She had then found her own likeness on another poster, which was much more detailed and sympathetic.

missing

Miss Mercy Carver, beloved friend and resident of Stone Plantation, Portsmouth, Virginia. Lost since December 28, 1860. Mr Jacob Stone will pay a handsome sum of $5,000 as a reward for anyone who brings her alive to any sheriff or marshal.

Mercy had felt her body tremble at the sight of her name. She had believed that they’d already travelled far, yet she and Nelson were still being hunted – unconnected, but both hunted all the same. They had taken the first boat westward from a harbour in Newport News. The last town they had skirted was Smithfield, where she bought some supplies. From there, they had headed northwards, always avoiding populated areas and stopping to rest only when necessary. Mercy was annoyed with herself for not taking the time to truly study the map. She had made so many mistakes in such a short period. If she weren’t so cold or miserable, she’d find it funny, for so far they had travelled east, north, west, and were now slightly north again, yet still within striking distance of Portsmouth! Blimey, she thought, she wasn’t a good navigator. She wasn’t even that good at following stars. Thank God she had steered them in the right direction, for had she taken one more wrong decision, she and Nelson might have ended up going south and straight back to Portsmouth itself.

She stared without seeing and unconsciously stirred the pot of beans dangling from a wooden spit above the fire. That fire had promised much but had, after many attempts to revive it, dwindled into not much more than a pile of ash blowing in the wind, with only a hint of flame left. It was a pitiful fire, she thought. It was not warm and welcoming and hardly produced enough heat to steam the beans.

She looked up and lifted an eyebrow in amusement. Nelson had returned and was desperately trying to dry his wiry curly hair, which was as wide as it was long. She laughed. “You may as well stick your hair in the fire if you want to dry it,” she told him. “It’s the worst fire I’ve ever seen.”

“I got lots of hair.” He pointed to Mercy’s hat. “But all that wet hair stuck under Mr Eddie’s hat ain’t never gonna dry,” he told her.

Mercy smiled at his earnestness, but she had no time to discuss her hair further. “I say we bypass towns from now on. We’ll eat like the pioneers did. We’ll trap rabbits or catch fish. And I’ve decided to go a bit more to the west. What do you think?”

“I don’ know, Miss Mercy. I ain’t never been north of Portsmouth ’fore now,” Nelson told her.

Nelson didn’t like the sound of going west, but he would go where she went and would never let harm come to her. He’d promised her and the good Lord. “Ain’t no freedom in the west, Miss Mercy, but I sure didn’t like the way them men looked at you on that boat.”