There wasn't much of a moon but the light from the bonfire flickered through the clearing enough that the Conagreers could get a good look. The young woman who led them held a silencing finger to her lips and, picking her skirts up to keep them from rustling, she tiptoed in through the shrubs.
"See?" she whispered. "He's still talking ... the big black standing in the middle of the circle. Just look at the way they look up to him ... like he was the Savior hisself, come back a nigger!"
"That's the girl, Star," Mr. Henry said and he was licking his lips with excitement. "You go on back to the house and we'll handle it from here. I don't recognize him right off but I 'spect he's one of Nathaniel's men. That black bastard's been stirring up the slaves from here to Mobile ... and that's a far piece for a man having to sneak his way."
"Just get him out of here before he gets our people riled," she pleaded. "We got a crop coming off soon. You don't
'spose he was the one that got Papa, do you?"
"Likely as not," Mr. Henry agreed but then quickly changed his tune. "We don't know that they got him, now. You mustn't let yourself fret. He's only been gone a week. Still, we'll question this nigger before we do too much. Now, scat. You don't want to see what we're about to have to do."
"You going to kill him?" Star asked. "He's somebody's runaway for sure. Papa says all runaways ought to get killed the minute they step off their place ... shows the rest where to go, don't you know?"
"Don't you worry your pretty head 'bout it, honey," Mr. Henry said. "We'll take care of him, sure 'nough. We got to make him talk a little first, 'specially if he's got something to talk about. He might have seen your Papa, you know. Now, please go home, honey girl. We got to get on with this before they hear us and scat."
Star did not want to leave, with all the excitement that was surely ahead. She glanced back at the big nigger, wondering what he was saying in that soft, melodic purr. None of the words came through ... only the low pitched whisper with the darkies humming a fervent but hushed amen every so often. With a sigh, she pulled in her skirts and threaded her way quietly back toward the main house. She knew the men would do nothing until they had her away from the place.
"What's happen'n, Ma'am?" Martha called anxiously.
"Nothin' to fret over," Star told her personal maid. "Got someone's runaway stirring up the people. Mr. Henry'll take care of it."
"Your Papa's the only man what can do that," the girl answered. "Surely he'll come home tonight."
Grimly, Star shook her head. Her papa had headed out after some undergrounders with the hounds a little over a week ago. Nobody had heard a word from him since. There had been no sign of either he or the dogs and they were the best batch of nigger-hunting hounds in all South Carolina. Star had lost her mother three years before to the grippe. She was now trying to brace herself for the almost sure loss of her father.
Though she loved her father far more than she ever had her mother, she had no qualms over running the Bayard Kent estate. If anything, it would be an exciting challenge. From the day she was born, her father had raised her to be a man. She'd heard from a darky once that he'd wanted a boy something fierce. Well, she hadn't disappointed him. She could think like a man, reason like a man, even work like a man if she had to. She had to look soft and helpless ... it was expected ... but inside, she felt hard and taut like a spring of steel.
Star had the feeling that anything her father could do, she could do just a little better. She didn't exactly wish him dead but she wouldn't mind running the place a couple of years before he left. In that time, she could prove herself, she was sure.
She waited on the veranda for the commotion to start. When it came, she found herself jumping up and down with excitement. It was terrible to be cast in the role of a helpless woman to be sent away from the fun. He was probably dead by now and that would be that. It would take a whopping sized hole to bury that one, though. If he'd been white ... with a white man's brains and soul ... Lordy, what a man!
She sat down but leaped to her feet again an instant later when she saw the Conagreers marching the big nigger toward the house. In spite of what she knew they would say, she hurried down to intercept them.
"Get him off my place!" she cried. "You got no call to bring him up here."
"This ain't no place for a lady," Mr. Henry shouted right back. "Get back in the house, girl."
"But what are you bringing him here for?" she demanded. "You're not supposed to bring him to my house."
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but this here's the only place we got," he said. "You high tail it into the house and you won't know any more than you ever have."
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
He shook his head impatiently.
"Your Pa has a place ... it's none of your concern ... just go!"
"I'm mistress of Conagree," she reminded him furiously. "I should know everything that happens, 'specially when Papa's away."
She wanted a closer look at the black but it was dark and they were all milling around under the big gum tree. The sliver of a moon couldn't make a dent in the thick foliage.
"Send her away!" Ben Donaldson called.
"Can't someone control that filly?" she heard someone remark.
Star fled. The bastards! she thought.
Martha stayed out of her way and so did Bobby Joe. They could tell by her face that she didn't need any sympathy from them. She ran into her room and shut the door before the idea came to her.
There must have been a dozen men down there, all milling around in the dark. If she could put on the pants her Papa had got her to ride in ... and one of his old shirts ... and a hat! She'd need a hat to poke her hair up into.
What could they do if they caught her? Nothing, but maybe send her back to the house. 'Sides, if they had a place to keep prisoners here at Conagree, she ought to know about it! Racing to the closet, she pulled down her riding britches and scrambled into them, then pulled down her dress over them so they wouldn't show. Quietly, she slipped out into the hall and hurried down to her Papa-s room. She wasn't sure why she was sneaking, since there was nobody but the servants to see but she kept walking soft-like anyway.
In Papa's room she found a shirt ... and an old straw that her Papa had worn in the tobacco and cotton fields. Hurriedly, she unbuttoned her dress and climbed into her disguise.
Her heart was thumping fit to bust when she slipped back out into the hall. She took the back steps down, like a common servant, and still she wasn't sure why she was keeping so still. She was mighty glad she'd come the way she had, ll however, when she came around the corner of the house. There, where there was usually a solid wall of stone masonry, there was now a gaping hole with stairs leading down beneath the house. There were hickory and butterfly bushes out a couple of feet but no other camouflage of any kind. The men's laughter boiled up from below.
She hesitated, feeling terribly feminine and vulnerable for a change. To Star it was a weakness and every weakness must be overcome. Reaching down, she picked up a handful of silt and rubbed it into her face. Then she took a deep breath and started down the stairs.
The walls on either side of the steps were stone, cut and chiseled smooth. They felt moist and clammy to the touch. It was dark below her (the steps descending some twenty feet before giving way to a more gradually descending tunnel. The tunnel was no more than six or eight feet long but it turned abruptly to the right and opened up into the hidden room. Star could see the light from that room and braced herself before she reached the turn.
She needn't have worried that anyone would see her for they were all too engrossed in the task before them and it was obvious that their duty was also a pleasure. Star had to cover her mouth to keep from making a sound at what she saw.
They had the big nigger stretched out on the stone floor with his wrists and ankles chained to big iron rings that were set in the floor. There were rings on the walls and even some hanging from the ceiling, high overhead. Star stared curiously at the chains, whips, rings ... all sorts of things that were foreign to her but there was little time to think about them then.
"You'll tell us plenty once them rats run over you for a day or two," Mr. Henry promised. "You sure you got nothing to say?"
The nigger never looked up.
"Don't seem right not to have him feel them buggers when they come," someone else suggested. "Why don't we cut his clothes off so he can feel it proper?"
"Bayard would have," Mr. Henry assured them. "He'da cut them clothes off with his knife and that big old black whip of his woulda brought the red out of that black skin quick enough. I never did see a man that could wield a whip the way he could."
"You're talking like he was dead, Henry," Ben Donaldson said.
"You thinking otherwise?" Henry countered. "Ain't no man could live through this long, once them black bastards got hold of him."
"You think they got him then, for sure?"
"If he was his own man, he'da been home before this, wouldn't he?" Henry reasoned.
Several men nodded.
"Makes sense," one agreed.
"Did anyone check his woman? Maybe he's with her."
"What woman?" someone asked.
"Shet your mouth, man," Henry snapped. "That's nobody's business but his."
"Hmmmmph!" grunted Ben. "I hate 'em, so I hate 'em all. I damn sure don't understand how he can beat one and screw the next."
"He's got a Negress?"
"He's had her for years ... a present from his own pappy, some say. Anyway, she's a high yeller, actually. I saw her once ... a damn good looker with that fine, high-riding kind of ass some of them have. I swear, her fanny just plain rolls down the street when she walks. She could really give a man a hell of a ride if he didn't care what he stuck it to."
Star had just slipped into the back of the crowd when Mr. Henry pronounced her Papa to, most probably, be dead. It put the stamp of finality to her own thinking but it was not really a shock for she had reached the same conclusion, more or less, on her own. The gossip that followed, however, was sickening. For a moment, she wavered, on the verge of becoming sick. She knew that the moment she began to retch, they would all turn and see that it was her. With everything she had, she found to regain her wavering control.
It's a lie, she told herself firmly. Papa's never do such a thing!
It helped. She took a deep breath and the sickness passed. Then the Conagreers began cutting the clothes from the nigger's frame and she felt such dread and anticipation that the doubts about her Papa seemed unimportant.
His broad, black chest was just bigger than anything, with his muscles all separated and sticking out without him even having to flex them. His shoulders were what Papa was always looking for to hoist cotton bales but Papa'd never found any as big as these. They were the kind of shoulders Star looked for but in a white man, but she'd never found them. Her gaze was opening admiring until she realized that they were going to cut away his trousers, too. She almost cried out her objections aloud.
Star had a fairytale notion of sex which ended when the handsome, very strong prince took the princess into his arms. They kissed and lived happily ever after. She'd never seen a man's parts. She'd seen little babies and lots of small pickaninnies but she had never seen anyone who was full grown.
I've got to get out of here, she thought frantically. They'll see that it's me, sure as I'm born, but better they know I was snooping before they strip him than after they get his britches off.
It was too late. Mr. Henry slit up the length of one pant-leg while a man with a yellow beard slit the other side. Before Star could back away they were pulling his pants away. His parts were far larger than she'd imagined.
"He's a long-donged stud, ain't he?" someone commented.
"Yeah, and he must be shriveled up about as much as he can, laying on that cold floor like he is. I reckon he's scared all to hell to boot."
"I'll wager he's twice that big when he's hanging natural," someone suggested.
"And three times that long when he's playing the stud," Henry chuckled. "Someone ought to back the bastard up just to see."
"Not me," snorted the bearded one. "You don't know how many miasmas you'd get from touching it. A nigger's pole is the carrier of pestilence."
Star looked at the captive's face. It was a total blank.
He can't understand what they're saying, she told herself. It's just as well ... poor, dumb animal. Papa always said the only thing they understand is the whip.
"Well, I'm no afraid of the miasmas," Henry said.
Reaching down, he took hold of the limp organ. Star slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out as Henry slid back the foreskin. The moist, vulnerable-looking head of it was purple with a very pronounced ridge. Even in its relaxed state, it was incredible to see.
Henry pumped the taut skin back and forth and Star shivered with excitement as it began to grow. The organ swelled out ... stretched up and then it didn't need anything to support it for it jutted out from his body all on its own, as rigid as a bar of iron.
"Damn! He's more jackass than man, I'd say," Henry commented fervently.
"He'd kill a white woman."
"He's never going to get the chance to try," Henry promised. "Look at me, boy! you hear me talking to you?"
The nigger turned his head away. Although Henry's hand hadn't stopped pumping him for a minute, only the hardness of his organ showed any excitement from the touch.
"Answer me, you bastard!" Henry roared.
He drew back and kicked his prisoner in the ribs. The nigger winced but he didn't cry out.
He must not feel the way a white man does, Star thought.
"Let him lay here a night!" the man with the yellow beard suggested. "He'll be ready to tell us all sorts of things by tomorrow."
"Yeah," someone agreed. "We shouldn't stay down here too long with Bayard away anyway. Did anyone stay to guard the door?"
"Damn!" someone cursed.
"Didn't you shut it? For Christ's sake, I can't think of everything," Henry grumbled. "Who came in last."
"Me, I think," a young man answered. "I didn't know I was supposed to shut it. I've never been here before. Hell, I don't think I could shut it, comes to mind. That was a pretty tricky business you went through getting in."
"Let's go!" Henry snapped.
He had his torch wedged into a metal standard. Since the air was none too good, Bayard had always allowed only one torch. Henry grabbed it up and the men stood aside to let him hurry past. No one noticed Star in their midst. She walked through the short tunnel and up the steps, surrounded by the men.
Stepping into the shadow of the big gum, she slowly backed away as she watched Mr. Henry carefully close the door. There was a ring and a latch down near the dirt. There was some kind of a key that he ground beneath the butterfly bush. Star couldn't see how it all worked but she was sure that, with a little time, she could figure it out. Stepping back to the boxwood hedge that curved around the upper drive, she stayed in the shadow all the way back to the big house.
She had reason to feel smug. She had learned much this evening. She'd caught a rabble rouser and seen to it that he was captured. She'd had her fears concerning her father confirmed ... well, seconded at least, and anything, even death, was better than not knowing. Now she'd have to get on with the business of living.
Star Kent was mistress of Conagree. She would advertise that fact by having her own mark, a star, to identify all the tobacco and cotton that left her father's land. If he did come back, he would know exactly how much she had been able to accomplish on her own. She planned to accomplish much.
She'd also learned that her father was imperfect, she remembered, and she was surprised that the knowledge somehow pleased her. That he hid men away and whipped them didn't shock her in the last. After all, a black didn't feel pain the way a white man would anyway.
That he would show weakness for a Negress, that was something else indeed. She was sure that she would never be so weak.
She changed into her night clothes and stared at her reflection in the mirror. There was no part of her that she wanted to change.
Her skin was a creamy white, always as moist as the morning dew. Her lips were full and impudently pouty when she wanted to be. Her eyes were large and thickly fringed with pupils that were a deep, jade green.
Her breasts were large enough to quiver deliciously when she shivered, yet small enough not to be vulgar, and her petite frame nowhere had a flaw. Still, all of these features were only secondary to the crown of auburn hair that fell in natural ringlets all the way to her waist.
From half a mile away, she could be recognized by the coppery shine of her hair. People as far away as Charleston would mention having heard of the spectacular color of Star Kent's hair.
Why couldn't God make a white man as magnificently as he made that nigger? Why were the only eligible males in the state scrawny little pipsqueaks? They quailed in front of Star. She was twice the man any of them were and she was a woman!
If only she'd been a man, she knew she'd have a build like that nigger. She'd have worked at it to make it so ... they'd said his thing was extra big, too ... said he could kill a white woman with it. Lordy, Lord, but it was something! Just thinking about it made her burn!
CHAPTER TWO
Star went to bed but she couldn't sleep. Fretfully, she tossed as a million nagging thoughts pestered their way through her brain. She could not turn them off. Too much had happened. Too much had been said.
Did Papa really have a mistress? she wondered. He was such an unbending sort of person, I never actually thought of him as being interested in a woman. That's a foolish notion. All men think about that! Still ... a black woman. Good heavens!
Star realized that she was thinking of her father as though he were surely dead, remembering and wondering about how he had been rather than how he was. It was curious how little it bothered her. She'd been very close to him ... as close as anyone could get to a man like that. He'd never displayed any emotion with her but that was not his way. They had ridden together, worked together, talked together. For Star, it was enough.
How could he have touched a black woman? she wondered.
Were they somehow better built than white women? Star had never really looked at them. She knew that the male in the basement was spectacularly put together and she'd seen a few others with that same small hipped, broad shouldered frame. Still, they were not white men ... not even men, actually, but something between apes and the human family. Could man's body have somehow withered as his brain enlarged? It was blasphemy to think of it.
No! Star couldn't accept that. She let her fingers slide down the sides of her body. No black woman looked any better than she. Surely, it was only a lack of well-built white men in these parts that made the black men look so masculine ... or was it? Could it be that black women were more beautiful, too?
Star fretted over the thought for a few minutes and then got up. Lighting the lamp, she carried it over to her mirror. For several moments, she stood there staring at herself as she considered the pros and cons of her argument.
My hair is beautiful, she told herself defiantly. Everybody has told me so. My skin is clear and my eyes and my teeth are both symmetrical and flawless. If I wanted a man ... really wanted one, I could catch him in a minute!
Then what does a man like my Papa need with a Negress, if me and my kind are so perfect? her other self argued. Is it their bodies? Are they more sensual ... or perhaps more free with themselves?
Deliberately, Star pulled up her nighty and squirmed out of it, determined to see the unvarnished truth for herself. Holding the lamp close, she studied every inch of her naked form.
And what's wrong with that? she wondered defensively. What could be more desirable than this? That man in the basement wouldn't need anyone pumping him up if he could see me now. I'll wager he's never seen better!
That started it. At twenty-three, Star had never slept in the nude before but the feel of her own hand, brushing across her flesh, was so delightful that she shivered naughtily and climbed into bed. Her brain was anything but sleepy now.
If I had a man, she considered, one built as big and powerful as that nigger, I'd feel his flesh against me ... maybe let him run hands over my breasts ... Lordy! I'd be tingling all over with excitement.
Her hands grazed over her body, raising trails of gooseflesh across her belly and around each of her breasts. When one hand strayed over her feverish mound, however, she quickly pulled it away and forced herself to stop the sensual play altogether. For a minute, she lay there, visibly shaken and then the tears began to flow.
"Damn!" she whimpered. "Oh, damn!"
She got up and walked over to the chair where her nightgown lay. Then she paused to study her reflection once again in the mirror.
What good does it do to be beautiful? she asked herself. I've never had the chance to use it. If just once I could excite a man and know I'd excited him. If just once I could make someone want me the way I want to be wanted. Oh, God! I'd take a black man ... a purple man ... anything, if they'd only demand it!
She picked up her gown and used it to wipe away the tears.
I'm going to get old and wrinkled and no one in this whole world will know that I was ever beautiful.
She dropped the gown as an idea came to her. The thought was so impossible that it made her tremble.
He was down there and he wouldn't talk to anyone. Who would ever know. She wouldn't have to touch him. It would be enough to see the desire and need in his eyes. What was the harm? She needed it so desperately.
Reaching for her dressing gown, she wrapped it around her tingling flesh, then hurried to the door. She peaked out cautiously, making sure that the coast was clear.
Star had tiptoed around before this night, wondering why it mattered. This time, there was no question. She did not wish to be seen. If there'd been a way, she'd have closed her eyes so that she'd not even have to watch herself. It was all a weakness, one which she would give in to, this once, but never again. Once he looked at her-once she could see the hunger in his eyes, that would surely satisfy this burning need within her.
Blowing out her lamp, she slipped down the back stairs, then paused when she heard a sound at the kitchen door. It was a moan ... or a sigh. Star waited breathlessly, terrified that she'd be seen.
"You stick it in there and you'll get me all bloated, for sure," a feminine voice whispered.
Both the words and the giggle that followed belonged to Martha, Star's plump little maid. The man's voice that answered her was one Star couldn't identify.
"Ain't no harm in that," he teased. "You'll be the favorite once you give them another hand."
"I don't want no babies, yet," Martha pouted. "Can't you just tickle it or something?"
"I could do a whole passle of things ... make you giggle fit to bust ... but I ain't. I'm going to put it in, Martha girl, cause that's where I want it to go."
Little whimpers and mewling sounds followed for a minute or two and then she began to purr.
"Mmmm, kiss my boobies some more so's I won't care," she pleaded.
Stupid little bitch! thought Star.
The maid had told her boy friend no and then turned right around and gave in to him. It was sickening!
Star could tell that they were kissing so she quickly stepped past the door. Glancing in, she nearly gave herself away with a shocked gasp when she saw how close they were. The couple stood, scarcely an arm's length from her. Martha's skirts were bunched around her waist and her bloomers were gone. The man's trousers were down around his ass and his thing was in Martha's greedy little hand. They had not even bothered to hide themselves but stood at the entrance to the pantry, right out in plain sight! Greedily, Martha was stuffing his swollen organ into her crotch.
The sight of such open lewdness made Star sick, yet her own loins burned more than they ever had before. She could never abandon propriety the way the black wench had, yet a part of her coveted Martha's pleasure.
And what right did she have to condemn them? They didn't have a conscience the way humans did. They were innocent, like children. One could hardly blame them if they behaved like any other innocent animal. It was God's will, yet how could he put the same desires in his children? How could she want what Martha had?
Star was shaking before she stepped out into the chilled night air. If anything, the coolness was a relief. She hurried around the corner of the house and stepped behind the butterfly bush. Now, if she could only figure out how the huge door worked.
She found the key. It was rammed down inside a clay pipe which was buried beneath the bush. She hurried over to that part of the wall where Mr. Henry had used the key. Running her hand down the wall, she found the hole and slipped the key inside. The resulting click, when she turned the key made her jump. Still, though she could feel the lock release, nothing happened to the wall. Bracing herself, she gave the wall a push. It moved slowly inward.
I did it! she thought jubilantly.
Stepping inside, she relit her lamp, then hesitated as she tried to decide what she should do. She was afraid to shut the door for fear it wouldn't open again, yet she didn't want to take the chance of leaving it open, either. She looked around for a moment and luckily discovered another hole where the key would fit. Quickly, she tried it and heard a satisfying click though the door was still ajar. Sure that she now had the procedure fully explored, she grabbed the edge of the door and pushed it shut.
Star felt safer once it was done for even if the men returned, she had the key. The nigger was no threat, chained down the way he was. All that concerned her now were the rats that Mr. Henry had spoken of. Cautiously, she descended the stairs and started through the narrow tunnel.
At the bend, she paused. Closing her eyes, she let her hand slip inside her gown and graze seductively over her flesh.
You deserve this, she told herself. This one time, someone is going to want you, even if it's only a nigger.
If there'd been a white man around that was worth going after, she wouldn't be so starved for a little appreciation, she told herself grimly. She'd have been married and having children long ago. Though it was her Papa that had kept telling her she was too good for this man and too good for that, she didn't blame him none. She could only agree that he was right.
Taking a deep breath, she walked on into the room. He was even bigger than she'd remembered. He squeezed his eyes shut and then blinked, blinded by the sudden light.
"Who's there?" he asked.
"So you can talk, after all," she said.
"Perhaps you'll tell me some of the things you wouldn't tell them."
She sat the lamp on a ledge and walked to where he was stretched out on the floor. He stared up at her for a long time.
"What you want?" he demanded.
For the life of her, she could think of no way to answer. She wasn't sure why she had come, herself, now that he'd asked her to put it into words. To parade before a poor, dumb animal was one thing but to talk to him was something else.
"Why were you stirring up my people?" she asked instead.
"They're your people?" he asked.
"Of course," she said. "I'm Star Kent."
"Then God did not create them?" he queried.
"You're crazy," she snapped. "I have a bill of sale for every one of those people that weren't born to me. The others are all recorded."
"It doesn't matter," he answered quietly. "They still belong to God."
"I suppose you're a preacher or something. Is that it?" she asked impatiently.
"Well, all right. I suppose he made the pigs and cattle, too, but all the livestock at the Conagree belong to me. It's the same with the niggers."
"They're people, Ma'am," he told her stubbornly.
"Oh?" she laughed. "If you're a man, tell me, are you affected by the same things as other men are? Do you like to look at beautiful women, of any color? Are you civilized enough to appreciate beauty?"
He gazed at her steadily. "I'm civilized enough that it vexes me when a lady comes before me and I can't cover myself," he said.
"Would you be more disturbed if that lady was pleasing to you?" she demanded nervously. "I mean, if she aroused your interest greatly, would you mind her seeing it?"
He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talkin' about, Ma'am," he said.
Star's smile was serene although her heart and stomach were churning like fury. With shaking hands, she pulled the panels of her robe aside.
"I'm twenty-three years old," she said in a quavering voice. "No man has ever looked at me. I want to know if I'm not beautiful, as beautiful as any nigger gal ... even a high yeller."
"Don't, Miz Star," he whispered.
His voice was so deep and full that, even in a whisper, it filled the room. There was a response ... a warmth that, in those three little words, showed an ocean of concern.
Pity was the last thing Star wanted that night and to receive it from a man that was her own helplessly tied prisoner was unthinkable. When he actually turned his head away, rather than look at her, she felt sick ... even dead inside.
"Don't turn your head away," she hissed. "Look at me. Look at me good! Did you know my Papa had a chocolate mistress?"
Grimly, he nodded, turning to stare at her curiously.
"You know he left my Mama sitting and never gave me so much as a pat on the back but he made love to her! Tell me, what's so good about nigger loving?
What made him go running off to her?"
"He didn't go loving poor Mandy," he said. "He's too mean to love anybody but hisself."
"Then why did he go to her?" Star demanded. "Why did he have her around?"
"He beat on her," the man said. "He needs to beat people, that one. She gived him a son and it came with a club foot cause he treated her so poorly. He near killed 'em both beating 'em. Boy looks just like his Pa 'ceptin' for his gimpy foot and his black blood."
"I don't believe you!" she cried. "I don't believe a single word!"
Star had forgotten her original purpose in coming. Wrapping her robe around her, she reached for the-lamp, intending to leave. It was then that she noticed the rigid, throbbing organ, jutting up from his crotch. In an instant, all of the excitement returned.
"You said all of that to get rid of me, didn't you?" she asked curiously. "You lied ... you even lied about my Papa when that big old thing of yours started swelling. I did that to you, didn't I?"
He scowled up at her for a moment and then turned his head away, making no effort to answer.
"No, you don't!" she exclaimed.
Dropping her robe, she jumped over him and stood so that he faced her. Immediately, he turned away.
"I gave you an order," she laughed. "You didn't obey."
Excitement was churning up inside of her. Reaching down, she turned his head forcibly to face her. When she released him, her hands burned. She had intended not to touch him but once the barrier was crossed, it was not enough.
Shaking with anticipation, she reached down and brushed her hand down over the silky flesh of his cock. The contact with his skin sent a violent shudder through her and her chest heaved with the effort to breathe.
"I want you to look at me," she cried hoarsely. "I want to see you get excited over my breasts and my belly. Look at me, damn you! I'll play with you until you do!"
It was a poor excuse for touching him but any excuse was better than none. She could not keep her hands away.
His cockshead was covered with foreskin except for a puckered hole at the tip. Beneath this softly pliant glove was outlined a thick stalk and bulbous head. Slowly, Star skinned the flesh back until the satin-like, purplish head emerged.
It was moist, tender, and invitingly warm. Her fingers hovered over the smooth flesh; touching, grazing, teasing. Her curiosity seemed boundless, her passion intense.
Squatting there beside him, she held his huge organ in one hand and ran her other hand up over his broad chest. Carefully, she outlined his many powerful muscles. How she wished she could untie one hand and press it to her breast. She wanted desperately to have a man fondle her there.
As she caressed his body with hand and eyes, the tears began to flow for Star had powerful yearnings and her body desperately needed the things her heart yearned for.
"Papa takes what he wants but he never found nobody for me," she sobbed. "I'll go to my grave a virgin and nobody will even care."
Only silence answered her. She sat there massaging his thick shaft and bewailing her sorry fate as though she were completely alone. The man connected to that virile organ was no longer real to her. He was no more than a warm, sensually constructed toy, albeit a favorite toy.
She climbed in between his outstretched legs and played with his balls but one hand continued to cling to his commanding shaft. Though she fondled the black bag of nuts almost absentmindedly, the hand that held his prod pulled his cockshead closer and closer to her.
"I've got a right to know," she whimpered. "It's not like I was some child having to be shielded from the truth. This very night I saw Martha getting it. Everyone from my mare to my maid gets loved ... everyone but me!"
The top of his organ brushed against her belly, having finally reached home. Her entire body jerked at the shock. With wide-eyed surprise, she looked at it and deliberately brushed it over her belly again.
"Lordy," she gasped. "My whole tummy's burning up! What must it feel like down...."
She couldn't finish. Even to think of it was more than her emotions could handle. She stared down at the thick cudgel, slowly working the foreskin up and down the moist, black shaft.
You wouldn't dare! she thought to herself.
Suddenly, she had to know. Closing her eyes tight, she jammed the feverish pole into her crotch!
The rush of sensations that flooded through her were so violent that her strength gave away instantly. Weakly, she fell forward, barely able to keep herself from dropping down on top of him. One hand braced her against his chest while her knees wobbled precariously. Then she gave up and fell flat against him.
"Oh God, how can it do this?" she wailed. "It's turning me into an animal
... like all the rest."
For a moment, it was enough just to feel his cockshead against her smoldering flesh. Her breasts were boring into his chest and her head rested against his powerfully built shoulder. For that moment, it was bliss but an instant later she needed more.
She squirmed against him, rubbing his silky hot flesh into her private parts. It was a compulsive thing, this excitement that possessed her. It made demands that she could not resist. The feel of his body ... the touch of his erotic lovemuscle ... everything about him made her grovel for more.
It was degrading to rub herself against a man who could not return her caress. It was even worse when she remembered that he was nothing but a nigger. And she was the one behaving like an animal. Oh, God!
In an insanity of excitement, she found herself kissing his nipples and chest as she wormed frantically against him. Up and down his pole, she rode. The harder and faster she worked, the more intensely did she have need of him and then ... nothing was enough.
"I'm going to do it," she sobbed. "I'm going to take my own. Who wants to die a virgin, for God's sake?"
She scrambled back on her haunches and then rose above him, squatting down to fit his prod snug against her cunt. It was then that the grim-faced black man finally spoke.
"Don't do it, Miz Star," he begged. "You only goin' to hate yourself."
"I already do!" she wailed and then she literally dropped onto his upraised pole.
"EYIIIIIIII!" she screamed.
In one thrust, she had impaled herself. She felt his huge muscle filling her body like a monstrous, cutting sword. Then it swelled even bigger and gave a sudden jerk. Through the fog of pain and lust, she saw the black man's eyes squeeze shut and his neck and jaw tighten. At that moment, his cum squirted hot and deep into her churning belly.
"Ahhhhhh!" he gasped and though the sound of it was muffled, there was no hiding his tremendous relief.
"What have I done?" she sobbed.
Throwing herself down across his chest, she clung to him and cried. The pain had taken away much of her excitement but there was still an ache of sensuality inside her that could not turn loose of him. She was terrified of pregnancy, terrified of her soul going to everlasting hell, yet her deepest fear was of facing life without this feeling that had possessed her so powerfully. Never again? Unthinkable. Somehow, she must feel more of it. Somehow, she would find a way.
Gradually, she became aware of the man she had used. It was painful to realize that she had made a fool of herself before him. She fought back in the only way she knew how.
"Am I as good as a nigger gal?" she demanded.
With his eyes still shut, he turned his head away.
"You took pleasure in it," she snapped. "Don't pretend you didn't. I felt you breathing hard ... same as me. Your old heart was thumping away something fierce. You went all to pieces when you spent your seed."
She paused but he would not reply. Furiously, she lashed at him again.
"You didn't see me shaking and going all stiff the way you did," she accused. "All I asked was for you to tell me how it was. You owe it to me, damn you!"
His big trunk had gone limp inside of her but she couldn't make herself push away. When it finally dropped and there was nothing more she could feel from him, she scrambled to her feet and grabbed up her robe. Hurriedly, she put it on.
"I ought to whip you with one of my Papa's big whips," she hissed. "I'm going to, yet, if you don't change your ways. If you're still down here tomorrow, I'm going to whip you good. You got to tell me what I came for. You think about that, nigger. Think about it good!"
Grabbing up the lamp, she hurried from the room.
"Miz Star?" he called.
"What?" she hissed.
"You was-good. You hear?"
Star ran up the stairs and pushed open the big door. She didn't breathe until she was outside.
My God, how she hated that nigger, yet already she was wondering how she could .heal the cut of her new womanhood and get back to him. Somehow, she was going to have him again.
CHAPTER THREE
Bayard Kent was far from dead. His chances of staying alive weren't the very best but he damn sure wasn't dead.
"You black bastards!" he screeched. "You'll pay for this. I'll see to getting every one of your stinking hides!"
He was tied to a giant live oak and even through his clothes, the hard scored texture of the bark cut through to chafe at his skin. There were ants, millions of the little red bastards and they stung him, leaving hard red welts to remind him where they had bitten.
It had been this way for most of the five days since they swooped down on him. At first, he'd screamed at them all the time, warning them of the dire things which would happen when his men came. Now it was only when they worried the dogs that he found the energy to care.
His dogs were going crazy, those that were left. They'd trussed them up, muzzling them with strips of cloth and tying both fore legs and aft. The poor dogs were left to twist around helplessly in the dirt while every pickaninny in the place pissed on them.
"You wanna smell niggers," their leader said. "You can smell 'em till you die!"
They were dying, too, one each night and the stinking blacks ate them for their evening meal, roasting them over an open fire like they were a pig or suckling calf. They made great sport of it. There were only three left. Bayard could beat a man but never an animal and his dogs were precious to him. It made him sick, the way they treated them.
Of course, they had worked Bayard Kent over, too, but not as he had expected. A few kicked him that first night and they often spat on him but mostly they depended on words to bring him down. They taunted him about Mandy, his mistress, and about the boy ... that man-loving bastard son of his.
"You ain't man enough to have a son, is you white man?" one surly black demanded. "You got to have one that's a real daisy-do ... one that likes it up the ass, like he was a girl. Maybe that's the way you like it, too?"
If he could have gotten loose, he'd have killed the bastard. Since he couldn't fight him, he wouldn't speak at all. It was hard to ignore their taunts ... hard to hide his hatred for his illegitimate son.
It had been hard enough to have a nigger carrying his own blood and to have the child deformed was even worse. As badly as he had wanted a son, he had not been able to look at that foot directly since the child was born. However, he could have given the boy some kind of better job around the place ... made him a foreman or something that would have set him a bit above the rest if it hadn't been for his uncanny physical resemblance to his father.
Every time Bayard looked at the black copy of himself it was a sickening reminder of his loss. His dream of a son to carry on his name caused him to object violently when Mandy named the boy Barnard and when the child went about calling himself Barnard Kent, Bayard beat him severely. Still, the final insult did not drop upon him but more or less seeped its way in through the years. One day Bayard looked at the boy and realized that he was not a man.
The boy smiled with an invitation that was not masculine. It was not even the smile of a boy. Bitterly, he realized that the deformed black copy of himself was a homosexual.
The band of blacks which held him captive never let him forget that fact. Daily they taunted him until he wished that whatever they had planned for him, they would go ahead and get it over with. It was the waiting that was hell.
It'd been five days since they descended on him at Willows Bend. He'd stopped to water his dogs and take a leak and they came sneaking up on him from all sides. From that time on, life had been a nightmare.
Still, they had not actually harmed him. They were waiting for something or someone. That much was obvious. From bits he'd heard, they just might be waiting for the notorious Nathaniel, the very man Bayard wanted most to see.
At night, he watched them gather around their campfire, laughing and joking as though they didn't have a care in the world. Except for their hair and the color of their skin, they might have been a band of carefree gypsies. They danced. They sang. They played with their children and with each other but the depraved, lustful behavior Bayard had always credited them with was not apparent here. Curiously, they seemed almost sexless, like children who have not discovered the game.
There were thirty-three of them, not counting the children. About half were actual runaways waiting for the chance to make it to the north. The rest were Nathaniel's people, Bayard was sure. They were a team that had elected to remain in the south and help others to get away ... no, it was more than helping. These people, if they were his people, preached escape, going from farm to farm to stir up the slaves and fill them with foolish notions.
It was Nathaniel that held them together. No one knew what he looked like or how he managed to travel so extensively but farmers from the Carolinas to Mississippi knew that he was the man they had to find. Though he should have remained solely concerned with his own precarious position, the first time Bayard heard the name spoken, he found himself tense with excitement. The bastard really existed!
In the evening of the fifth day, Bayard watched as the word spread through the camp. Someone was coming. Whoever it was, the news generated considerable commotion. People streamed out of their lean'tos to hurry to the far end of the camp. From his vantage point at the top of the rise, he could see it all.
This is it! Bayard though ominously, yet an almost vicarious thrill ran through him. Their leader has finally come. Whatever they're going to do with me, they'll do it soon. Damned if it isn't a relief!
At least he'd get to see the man he'd been chasing so long. Maybe, once he saw the bastard, he'd get mad enough to figure a way out of this mess. By God, he'd been here so long, he'd quit thinking about the possibility of escape. His limbs and his brain had become petrified. Anger would cure that!
The people swarmed to the center of the compound in a great, milling pack. When the crowd parted, Bayard actually groaned with disappointment for it was not the detested Nathaniel but Mandy and his own bastard son.
Mandy saw him at the same instant he spied her and she winced at the sight of him tied to the tree. She was not without feeling after twenty-five years with the man. Leaving the others, she came to him, her smooth brown legs effortlessly carrying her up a grade steep enough to make anyone else pant with the effort. Mandy still looked like a little girl.
"Ah'm sorry they got you trussed up so," she said sympathetically.
She reached out to touch where the ropes had cut into the flabby part of his gut. He hadn't realized how tender his skin was until she touched it. Even through his shirt and underwear her probing fingers brought a stab of pain.
"It hurts, don't it?" she asked.
"Of course," he snapped. "They've kept me like this for five days. I never tied you this long, Mandy."
"I know, honey pot," she said with compassion. "You never meant to hurt me none. You got that thing inside you trying to burn itself clear on through but you never could help it none. Is there anything I can do?"
He shook his head. "Not unless you can get me out of here," he said.
Sadly, she shook her head.
"I cain't do that, honey," she whispered. "They'd sooner kill me than let you go."
"Why'd they bring you here?" he demanded, "and the boy. Why'd they bring him?"
She smiled. "He ain't no boy no more, Bayard. He been a man a long time now."
"Bullshit!" Bayard snorted. "He'll never be a man."
She ignored the remark as she had a thousand times.
"As to the whys," she said, "I don't rightly know. They rustled us out'a bed in the middle of the night ... said it was our bound'n duty to come."
"They're going to kill me, Mandy," he told her grimly. "I know it, sure as day. They'll make it as long and painful as they can. If you can't help me escape, you've got to help me die before they torture me."
"Ain't nobody goin' to hurt you none till Nathaniel comes and nobody knows where he's at. Don't you be afriad of a little pain, honey man. You always said that whipping purified the soul. You want to be pure when the time comes, don't you?"
He stared into her dull eyes. There was no guile in them, yet he knew that she'd be no help to him. In despair, he turned away.
It was funny how he could know the woman so well, yet remain a total stranger. Every inch of her body he'd had a million times, yet, when she mentioned the soul, he could not imagine her having one.
Mandy'd been about thirteen when she came to him. Bayard was nearing eighteen at the time. It was time to be a man so his father took him along to the auction.
The big, open slave markets of the old days had long since been outlawed but slave selling hadn't diminished any. Sales continued through small, cooperative auctions that moved from farm to farm. On the first Wednesday of every month, the word would spread and by Friday morning, everyone who wished month, the word would spread and by Friday morning, everyone who wished to attend knew exactly where to go. One man would bring his surplus, another the cash. The auctioneer received a percentage of the final bid.
Bayard had found his first auction a widely stimulating affair. To be sure, he'd seen the female body often enough. He'd watched black bottoms squat in the fields to pee and he'd seen black tits pulled out to nurse. What he had not seen was a white hand fondling the black parts.
The auctioneer handled every female they brought to him and the ones with a good build, he stripped down and handled some more. Through it all, he gave a running banter of ribald jokes and risque suggestions calculated to keep his audience at a fever pitch. He went on to jack up any of the males that could be used for stud and though he pretended to do no more than display the merchandise, he got his hands on enough black skin that every customer in sight had a hard-on.
Most of the men pretended otherwise, but though they kept their logs out of sight, Bayard could tell by the fidgety way they sat, rocking back and forth or straightening and slumping back in a definite, rhythmic pattern.
Bayard's papa teased him about half a dozen bosomy females but though he would have liked to have felt them privately, he never let on ... until they ran little Mandy onto the block.
"How about that little snatch?" his father chuckled. "You could raise her up the way you want her."
"I want her," Bayard said. "You what?"
"Buy her, Papa," the boy demanded coldly. "I want her for my birthday present."
"Hell, she ain't even half-titted yet, boy," his father snorted. "If you're going to learn about women, get one big enough to enjoy. "Besides, keeping a black snatch around is bad business in a lot of ways."
"You have one," Bayard reminded his father.
"The hell you ... how did ... shit!" the older Kent stammered. "What business is it of yours, anyway?"
"I want her," the boy repeated stubbornly. "I don't care what you do, Papa. I just want that little darky for myself."
The girl wore a nondescript sack dress and a bandanna around her head, a sign that she'd lived in a white man's house. Household help always kept their heads covered. There was something indecent, to the white man's way of thinking, about a black skullcap of frizzy hair.
Her clothes were nothing but she stood defiantly straight and her eyes flashed fire when the auctioneer pulled her clothing away. She dared not lash out at him, yet she didn't try to hide her anger. It was that anger and defiance that Bayard found exciting. She had a wildness about her that begged to be tamed. Though Bayard had never thought about tying a woman to the bed or beating her, he already knew he had to be a master. It was not enough to be only a son until the day his father would die and leave him Conagree.
Bayard's father looked at the boy a moment and did not question him further. He turned and gave the auctioneer his bid. A few minutes later, the fiery little brown girl was his.
They pushed her off the platform before she could scoop up her clothes. Father and son stepped forward to claim her. She glared at Bayard's father and was on the verge of spitting at him when Bayard stepped between them.
"Get your clothes," he ordered. "You belong to me."
She was so surprised, she swallowed her saliva in one, noisy gulp. Then she whirled about and made a lunge for her things. Though her wrists and ankles were tied she'd been given enough rope that it didn't slow her down.
"That's a flighty one," the father warned. "You should have tied her better 'fore you let her run off. It ain't safe, turning them wild ones loose until you're damn sure of them, boy."
"I'll train her my way," the boy answered stubbornly.
Bayard's jaw was set as he stared at his father. In every facet of his life, his father was in command. Whether it was an order on how to run the farm or a suggestion of what to wear at a neighbor's party, it was all the same. He was expected ... no, stronger than that ... he was coerced into obeying if he expected to one day rule Conagree.
His need to rule was so strong that he would grovel before the man if he had to. Only the largest farm in the state was big enough to suit him and that was the farm that was his right. In the stubborn little black girl, however, he hoped to find an outlet for his pent-up fury. She was a challenge with that stubborn jaw of hers and in this one thing, he could not stand even a hint of direction from his father.
When the girl returned, he snatched away her bandanna and threw it on the ground. Without it, she was bare and brown and savage.
"You ain't takin' me 'less I wanna be took," she hissed.
Bayard laughed and the sound was sharp and hard.
"Bullshit!" he snorted.
He ordered her to put her clothes on and she quickly obeyed, though whether it was because he had compelled her to or not was a mute question. Several men patted the elder Kent on the back with appropriate comments on the worthiness of the son.
"You don't have to worry about that boy!" one exclaimed.
"He's gonna be just like his old man!" another called.
Though their laughter was good-natured, Bayard wished them all in hell. He led the girl to the buckboard and had her climb aboard before he tied her. He didn't have a single word to say to his father all the way home.
"You can't take her to your room, you know," his father warned as they headed up the drive. "We got to respect our women folks. Your Ma can't know nothing about this. You understand? "
"Where should I put her then?" Bayard demanded.
His father shrugged. "You'll have to build yourself a little house ... down by the mill, maybe. She can stay with Bessie and Bill until then."
But Bayard was in no mood to wait. When they pulled up to the barn, he leaped off the buckboard and ordered a stable hand to saddle his horse.
"What you doing?" his father demanded. "You can't be seen with a nigger gal."
Furiously, Bayard hoisted the girl onto his horse and climbed up in front of her. With a silent go to hell to his father, he rode out through the meadows looking for a private place.
Blacks looked up from their labors to stare at the mismatched pair but Bayard didn't care. They were only niggers and niggers weren't people.
"You goin' to stick me?" she kept asking.
"I don't have to tell you nothing!" he hissed. "You just hush and do as you're told."
It had been the branches of a live oak that covered the spot where he stopped that day. She'd jumped from the horse while he was tying it and even with her arms. wrists and ankles tied, she managed to right herself and start hopping away. He'd tackled her with a flying leap that splattered them both against the ground but even then, her fight hadn't dissipated in the least. When she couldn't run, she kicked and when he pinned down her legs, she bit! Bayard couldn't believe the savagery of her defense. It wasn't until she'd drawn blood twice with her strong, white teeth that he jumped to his feet and pulled her up by her scrawny neck!
"All right, you little black bitch!" he hissed. "Ah'm going to teach you respect, by God. Ah'm going to teach you good!"
He'd tied her to the tree then, very much the same as he was tied now only he softened her bite with a gag and spreadeagled her legs out the same as he had her arms. When it was done, he literally ripped the clothes off of her scrawny frame.
"Bite me, will you?" he muttered. "Well, Missy, I'm going to put the bite on you this time. Let's see if you got any blood to flow!"
His cock was full blown as he scampered out of his pants. With no preliminaries, he pushed it up against her cunt and rammed it straight into her middle. His untried youth made him shake like a palsied old man. It was the first time he'd ever pushed his manhood into the soft underbelly of a woman.
"You slut!" he gasped. "You been screwed before."
"Didn't say I hadn't," she snorted.
"Then why did you fight so to protect your precious cunt?" he wanted to know.
"Didn't want no white man muckying me up," she sobbed. "I likes to pick and choose."
His sudden fury brought a flood of excitement rushing through him. Even better than her tight, hot little cunt ... better than her sticky juices lubricating his cock in a voluptuous poultice ... better than everything was the fury and fire of hatred. The need, the deed itself suddenly flashed, full blown, before his eyes.
Pulling out of her, he turned and ran to where his horse was tethered. He jerked his riding crop from the saddle and quickly returned. Without giving himself time to think, he lashed out at her, the thin leather flares cutting hard against her moist, brown flesh.
"Ohhhhhhhh!" she wailed. "You're the devil, hisself!"
"YESSSSS!" he agreed wildly.
His cock throbbed. He struck her again and again and then the thin welts on her flesh began to bleed. Never in his life had Bayard known such intense, violent excitement.
He dropped the crop and reached for her bud-like breasts. Brutally, he twisted them. The girl winced, then sobbed, but she never again cried aloud. Then he rammed his shaft back into her body. She stared silently and hatefully into his eyes.
"That's the kind of discipline you need!" he cried as he slammed against her. "Fuckin' little bitch! No man's going to stick his cock into you again ... nobody but me!"
"Bastard!" she whispered.
He didn't hear for at that moment Bayard Kent's balls began to knot and the sensation was so intense that it was almost a pain. Then the flow burst through.
"EYIIIIIIII!" he roared.
"Damn bastard," the girl sobbed. "Don't give a tinker's damn about a lady's feelings."
Gradually, Mandy had grown to accept her master as he was, even to love him in her way. She never got used to the beatings, never grew to enjoy them as some, weak-willed woman might have but she did care for the man. She felt compassion for his weaknesses and she treasured the times he had shown her kindness. Now that he was trapped, she could pity him the way he had never pitied her.
"You settle your mind," she told him. "I'll see if I cain't get some food. They been feeding you ain't they?"
"I'm not hungry, Mandy," he said. "I'm too miserable to eat. All they have is slop, anyway. You've got to help me, somehow. I've got to get back to Conagree. Who'll run the place with me gone? There's a lot of blacks that'll go hungry without me. These bastards never think of that!"
"Hush," she soothed. "You gotta get your strength back first. You got to be powerful strong to run Conagree."
CHAPTER FOUR
For two days and the better part of two nights, the men did not return to check on the black or to take him away. In that time, he was not fed nor did anyone go near to see if he was still alive.
Star pretended that he did not exist for she was not happy with herself in the matter. The weakness she had shown when she was with him was a noxious thing to remember. She took pains to keep herself too busy to think.
She was all over the plantation. She inspected and directed the chopping, visited the drying sheds, and made numerous small improvements in the running of things that were peculiarly her own. When her father returned, if he returned, she wanted him to know that his overseers had not carried on without direction. The changes would show her hand in every operation so that he would know she'd been in control.
She did something else. She had a brand made, just as her father had. It wasn't as big or as frightening looking as the big brands her grandfather used but slave branding had not been practiced for many years, except on an occasional runaway.
Recently, however, her father had considered reviving the practice for the niggers were getting too cocky to his way of thinking. It wouldn't do to have them forget they were a white man's property. He hadn't actually branded any of his people as yet for on the crucial day he had received word that Nathaniel and some runaways were in the vicinity. Before he set out with his dogs, he mentioned his plan to Star.
"We'll get 'em branded soon as I get back, girl," he told her. "I wager every man in the district will follow suit."
Star's brand was more a crescent than a C with a star to represent her part in it. The smithy had made it up in two irons instead of one so she could "get a good take on every edge."
She carried it to her room and hid it in her bureau. Of all the things that would prove her worth to her father, branding his people would prove it best, yet she wasn't ready for it today. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after ... but not today.
Star kept busy but her thoughts returned to that secret room beneath the house a thousand times each day. It infuriated her that she had wasted her maidenhead on a black man. For a time, she berated herself every time she thought about it and when that became too exhausting an effort she, instead, blamed him.
They were snakes in the grass, all of them, rippling their muscles and sucking in their flat bellys to capture a woman's eye. Papa'd said as much and more ... and there was Papa, too. He'd had a hand in bringing her down as much as the nigger had. If he'd found her a suitable beau, she'd never have given the black man a second glance.
It wasn't too difficult to stay away during the day. For one thing, there were too many people around for her to chance opening the secret door. For another, the day was real and she was real. There was little temptation in reality. It was the night when the doubts arose.
It worried her that he hadn't eaten. As much as she hated him, she didn't like the idea of him dying down there. If they didn't come for him soon, she would have to do something.
That second night she couldn't get to sleep for thinking about him. As the only witness to her night of weakness, she wished fervently that he were dead ... but not here! Why wouldn't they come? They were not barbarous men, after all, but upright, well-bred Christians. Surely they wouldn't let even a nigger starve to death if they could help it.
It was no use. Sometime around midnight, Star threw back the covers and got up. Grabbing up her robe, she headed for the kitchen. She wasn't going to have any dead nigger stinking up her place.
She found some corn bread and a bowl of grits. She went to the big, earthen crock and, spooning aside the cream, she ladled out some milk. She took the ladle along to help with the feeding as she dared not untie even one arm and he couldn't feed himself the way he was.
When she reached the secret room, she at first thought that he was dead for he didn't move at all. The idea of him dead terrified her.
"You!" she called. "Wake up. You hear?"
She edged her way in and gave his foot a tap with her toe.
"Hey, nigger!" she whispered anxiously. "You dead?"
"No," came a weak reply, then he turned to look at her. "Better I was," he added.
"Thank heaven!" she breathed.
She'd held in for so long that her breath came whooshing out of her in a rush. It left her so wilted that she sagged against the wall till her heart quit thudding so furiously against her chest.
"Lordy, don't do that!" she gasped. "You near scared me to death!"
He didn't bother to answer. He had troubles enough of his own. Just the faint smell of cold corn bread made his mouth swim with saliva.
He watched as she set the lantern on the floor and then laid out the food he was to eat. When she turned to ask him if he was hungry, the mournful emptiness of his eyes stopped her.
"You hun...." she started. Then, after a full minute of gaping at him, her voice dropped and she said, "I'm sorry. I thought the men would come. I wasn't supposed to know you was here."
He was too hungry for lengthy explanations. His eyes strayed back to the food. Quickly, she ladled some grits and brought it to his lips. He lifted his head for each mouthful, though the effort it took was considerable. Eagerly, he ate it all.
She would break off a piece of corn bread, feed it to him with her fingers and then wait until he had chewed it up before she spooned in the milk or grits. It took the complete concentration of both. For some time, neither of them spoke. Then she missed his mouth with the ladle and milk poured down his dusky cheek.
"Ohhh!" she exclaimed.
Automatically, she reached to wipe it away. His skin was so cold!
In shock, she jerked away and frowned. Curiously, she stared at him for a moment, then gingerly ran her palm over his broad chest.
"You're cold as death," she whispered.
Mutely, he nodded his head.
"But you'll die like this," she warned.
His smile was bitter. "That's what they want," he told her.
He was talking about white men ... friends of her father. Star's jaw set stubbornly.
"Not here," she said. "Are you the man my father was looking for? Have you seen him?"
"I never seen him," he answered, "though I've heard plenty."
"Where do you come from?" she demanded. "I've never seen you around here. What were you doing on Conagree? Are you a runaway?"
"I'm a free man from Mississippi," he said. "I'm a preacher. I was only trying to help...."
"Help what?"
"Your people," he answered evenly. "They're sorely tried and in need of the faith."
"And that's all you were doing ... giving them faith?" she asked incredulously.
She was tempted to believe him though the idea was not a particularly pleasant one. If he was truly only a man of God then he was paying sorely for his faith. Furthermore, this would make her a combination Judas and Pontius Pilate, a prospect that was not at all appealing. Even worse, to have to consider her excesses with him while he was helplessly tied left her feeling too wretched to think about.
"How'd you get to be a free man?" she asked skeptically.
"I saved my master's children when his house burned," he said. "He was grateful and set me free."
"And being a preacher, I suppose you think my Papa and I are going to burn in everlasting hell," she said with no attempt to hide the bitterness from her voice.
"Your Papa, perhaps," he said. "Not you."
"Why not me?" she snorted. "I've sinned a lot worse than he. I saw you and went for Mr. Henry. I've kept you a prisoner when I could have set you free. I've used you ... shamelessly. I even demanded that you tell me you liked it!"
He shook his head. "Your Papa got your head all mixed up, Miz Star. Shouldn't nobody have to tell you, you're beautiful."
That terrible need washed through her ... the same need she had felt that other time. Did he mean she was beautiful? Was he trying to tell her so, or could the words mean something else? Somehow, she had to hear it straight out.
"Why?" she demanded. "Why shouldn't I have to be told?"
Impatiently, he shook his head but he would say no more. Again, she'd made a fool of herself for nothing.
How dare he not answer, she thought. He might be a free man and a preacher to boot but he was still a nigger. She glared at him defiantly, then scooped up the dishes and her lamp.
"Go to hell yourself," she muttered.
She rushed back to her room but she couldn't escape that warm, deep voice: "Shouldn't nobody have to tell you, you're beautiful."
Words like that robbed her of the sense of power she'd felt in being mistress of Conagree. They turned her, instead, to a weak, quivering woman. That one, lone sentence was enough to show her the terrible void in her life. Her need to hear more was so intense that it was a full-blown compulsion.
Why did he do it to met she asked herself. If he would say no more, he should not have spoken at all. Oh God, it was unfair!
Her gown was wet from brushing against the dew covered butterfly bush. Miserably, she skinned out of her gown and fumbled through her dresser for a change.
"Free man, my aching toe!" she grumbled aloud. "He's still nothing but a nigger!"
She reached the third drawer when her hand touched the two branding irons. The idea for their use burst upon her at that very instant. It was so shocking a thought that the excitement of it shuddered through her entire frame.
She'd brand him! That would make him hers! Once he carried her brand, he could hardly call himself free.
After the thought came the rationalizations.
He'd taken her maidenhead, changed her permanantly even if he didn't actually rape her. Now she could change him!
Then followed the doubts.
Where? What part of his body could she put her brand so that 'they wouldn't see it the moment they came for him? How could she ever explain?
And more.
Could she do it? Could she actually burn the flesh of a fellow ... human being? Man? My God, that's what she'd thought, she realized. He wasn't a man, after all. She couldn't let herself start thinking that way.
She held the irons in her hand a moment, staring at them. Then she returned the one bearing the C to the drawer. She would use only the star, she decided, the brand that was her very own. For one thing, it was smaller than the C ... scarcely three-quarters of an inch across compared to a crescent close to three inches in length. Even the star would leave a hideous scar on a place like his face.
Laying it beside her lamp, she searched again for a dry nighty and, when she could not immediately find one, she wrapped herself in her robe instead.
I won't be stripping down the way I did last time, she promised herself, but I can't waste all night looking for, a gown.
From the kitchen, she drew a shovel full of hot coals. With the branding iron and her lamp, it was quite a load. When she had managed to open the big door once again, she carried down the lamp and the iron first, then returned for the shovel load of coals.
"I brought you a fire," she said grimly.
"Perhaps it will take away the chill."
"Thank you, Ma'am," he drawled.
He didn't see her put the brand in to heat. While it was in the fire, she picked up her lamp and set out to examine the oddly furnished room.
She circled, looking at whips and irons that were displayed on the walls as though they were objects of great pride. In a small alcove at the end of the room she found a cache of guns and a leg of powder with enough shot to start a minor war. There was a pearl handled revolver she could remember having seen in her mother's bureau many years ago. She picked up the gun and held it, wondering if her mother had ever had cause to use it.
It was odd how little she remembered of her mother. From the earliest time, it had been her father who was her friend. Her mother was a faceless memory, a fuzzy, ethereal shadow floating along behind Star and her father.
Star would never be that kind of a woman ... or that kind of a mother, either. Putting the small revolver back on the shelf, she turned back to face the black.
"So you're a preacher," she said. "Tell me, do you promise my people a place in heaven?"
"Yes."
"That's wrong!" she snorted triumphantly. "You're telling my people that they're the same as me ... and you know perfectly well that is very wrong!"
"In my father's house there are many mansions," he reminded her.
"And they're all for white folks," she hissed. "You got no right turning their heads with your silly notions. You'll get them to thinking dangerous thoughts that will get them into nothing but trouble. That's what comes of a man freeing his slaves, like your master did. You may have good instincts but you ain't fit to think for yourself. My Papa says it's the
"I can think, Miz Star, same as you," he whispered.
His soft, responant voice filled the room with a warm melody that belied all that she said. She stared at him for a moment before his words sank in.
"You're not!" she cried. '"You're NOT the same as ME!"
It was a curious kind of frenzy she threw herself into. It was forced, as though she were purposely girding herself for an imaginary fight.
For some time, she spouted the various maxims of her father concerning the superiority of the white man and the natural inferiority of the black. It was at the very peak of this tirade that she grabbed up the iron and brandished its cherry colored tip around in front of him.
"Hey!" he cried in alarm.
"You're not free!" she screeched. "If you don't belong to anyone else, then you now belong to me!"
Her hand wavered as though she was about to weaken. Then she took a deep breath and rammed the red-hot iron against the dead center of his chest.
"EYIIIIIIIIII!" he roared.
His body twisted with pain until it was contorted with the spasms of his powerful muscles. His cry echoed through the room like a rolling thunder and it cut through the facade of frenzy which Star had managed to erect for herself. With a start, she dropped the iron and stared down at his seared flesh.
"My God! Oh, my God!" she whispered. "Oh, Preacher Man, what have I done?"
She dropped to her knees and pressed her fingers to his flesh, outlining the star without actually touching the tender burn itself.
"I'm sorry!" she whimpered. "I'm terribly, terribly sorry. Please! You have to forgive me."
She reached down and kissed his nipples, gently trying to soothe away the pain. His eyes stayed squeezed shut as he struggled to keep from crying out.
Please, God," she pleaded. "Make the hurt go away! I didn't mean to hurt him."
Frantically, she began kissing his chest, all the way down to his belly. If only she could give him pleasure, perhaps he could forget the pain.
Her ideas of pleasure, at that moment, were not blatantly sexual. She wasn't thinking openly of anything but easing the pain that she had caused. It was not until her lips reached his kinky bush that she realized that there was another way.
His thick trunk lay across his thigh, enlarged but not hardened. Before she could stop herself, she lurched forward and pressed her lips to his genital flesh.
One kiss, then two, and her appetite came suddenly into full flower. His log began to harden. Laying her hand across its growing girth, she slowly skinned it back until she could kiss the head itself.
"Ohhhhh," she sighed. "Oh, Preacher Man, does it feel better? I'll do anything to make it feel better."
He only sighed. She was deluding herself but she blotted away any unpleasant conjectures. His flesh was hard and feverish and like satin to touch. To her lips, it was pure heaven.
She licked his spasming eye, then drew her tongue around the heart shaped ridge that edged his bulbous head. With a shudder of self-disgust, she laid her head down on his belly and gave herself up entirely to an erotic kind of joy.
She let her mouth open to the entire head of his dusky cock. Reaching down between his legs, she began kneading his nuts, rolling them around in the spongy, ample bag. Soon she slipped into the fogged world of sensuality.
"Damn!" she whimpered. "Damn! Damn! Damn!"
She could feel herself sinking into the abyss, yet except for the whimpered cries, she could make no move to save herself. It was too voluptuous, too excitingly erotic a feeling to stop.
"Let me pleasure you," the nigger whispered.
"No!" she cried. "Oh God, I don't know what to do."
"Come here," he urged. "I can do you like you're doing me, if you'll come close."
"NO!"
"Then put him between your legs where you can feel it," he pleaded. "You can't go on loosin' it the way you did the other night. Please, Miz Star, do it while I can still do you some good."
"Don't tell me what...." she sobbed but her bravado deserted her in the middle of it. Hurriedly, she pulled herself up and climbed between his legs.
"I'll just do it a little," she whispered shakily, then, "Ohhhhhhhhhh!"
One touch and she was shaking all over. His head nosed between her feverish lips and pressed hotly into her jam. From that instant on, she wanted him inside.
"Not yet," he warned.
She ignored him. Spreading her legs out, she eased his big hose inside. It was tight, searingly tight, but there was no pain. This time, the penetration did not take away. This time it made her want more!
"I'll go to hell now, won't I, Preacher Man?" she taunted and then her face clouded up and she began to cry.
"My Papa'd never forgive me for this," she sobbed. "He could screw around as much as he pleased but he'd die if he knew I had a black thing up inside of me! Oh, Lordy, how can you fight a thing like this?"
She'd been jiggling slow and easy as she worked against him. Soon the hunger was too intense to be fed by any gentle motions. More and more vigorously did she have to respond. Though it made her feel imcomparably vile, she could not have stopped her lewdly energetic movements if her life had depended upon it.
"Damn you!" she cried. She felt his body stiffen, the same way it had that time before. She knew that, for him, it would soon be over. She was completely shocked, however, when her own soaring emotions suddenly reached their zenith. As his juices poured into her belly, she felt her own body tense and then her throbbing senses finally burst free.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" she gasped, as shocked as she was relieved. "Oh Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!"
She fell forward against him and though she was stunned, she was careful to keep her cheek from touching his seared scar. Hugging his chest to her, she savored the slow, voluptuous letdown that followed. It was the first crest Star Kent had ever known.
"If you were white," she mused warmly, "I'd be so terribly proud. You're so big and beautiful. I'd make you love me, Preacher Man. Truly I would."
"It'd be no great labor," he admitted.
"What would you do?" she asked.
"Get loose, first," he said, "so's I could hold you. Then I'd make you lay like a lady, I would, while I played the man."
"You don't sound like no Preacher Man now," she teased.
"The Lord said to be fruitful and multiply," he countered. "Just you turn me loose and you'll see."
The glow was beginning to wear off and his talk of being freed made Star nervous and uneasy. As soon as she felt fully in control again, ,she got to her feet and slipped back into her robe.
"You think I'm pretty stupid, I guess," she said grimly. "I'm not turning you loose."
"I didn't 'spect you would," he answered.
"I don't like myself much at the moment," she admitted, "and I can't say it helps me like you, either. You don't start it, yet it's because of you that I'm weak. I hope they come for you soon 'cause I don't like having you around. Until they they, I'll see that you're fed."
With that, she took the lamp and her brand and started for the stairs.
"Miz Star," he called.
"I know," she snapped. "I'm supposed to wash!"
CHAPTER FIVE
After Mandy and Barnard arrived, conditions at the camp rapidly deteriorated. The young man caused a considerable amount of dissension and without their leader, they were already confused. The fact that Nathaniel had not returned was cause for a growing concern.
Barnard was soundly despised by everyone in camp. From the moment he arrived, there was trouble and he was the cause of most of it.
They'd called for the pair intending to use them to publicly humiliate the father. If they could get the boy to give it to his father up the ass, it would be the worse insult they could devise. When Barnard arrived, however, he flatly refused.
"Ah ain't no pansy, you bastards," he hissed. "You ain't goin' to make me act like one!"
They tried everything to persuade him but he would not agree. Furthermore, once he realized that their leader was missing, he almost instantly began to covet the job. He started with suggestions for this and that and before long, his proposals had become orders of the most demanding sort.
At first, they laughed at him but this didn't faze him in the least. The more stubborn ones defied him but this he merely ignored. The weaker ones actually began to obey.
They'd been slaves too long. To do what they were told, no matter how unreasonable the request, was a habit too deeply ingrained for many of them to shrug off in a matter of weeks. Within a few days, half the camp had come to recognize the irritable newcomer, not as their leader, but at least as a man temporarily in command.
"We've got us an unbendin', mean, old slave-owner up there," he'd say, pointing to his father. "We're goin' to think up somethin' special for him!"
There was not a man in camp that did not believe him. If anyone could hatch a cruel, painful punishment, it was the wily Barnard.
To the followers of Nathaniel, Barnard's takeover was unthinkable. Even if Nathaniel was dead it was one of them, not some pansy newcomer, who should take over. If for no other reason, it was dangerous having a hot head in command.
After three days, Nathaniel's men had had enough. One by one they slipped from the camp to meet a few moments later down by the river.
"We got to get that bastard out!" Brother Paul announced. "I cain't take him no more!"
"Amen!"
"Amen!"
"We got to throw him to the lions!" he went on. "Amen!"
"Brother Paul? How we goin' do that?" someone asked. "We ain't got no lions."
"It's a figure of speech, Brother John," he explained. "I got an idea as good as a lion."
"Hallelluja!"
"Amen!"
"We got to trap that boy with a woman," Brother Paul announced. "You get the meanin?
Brother Henry snorted derisively. "You ain't trapping him with no woman! I don't care what that bastard says, he don't care for nothin' but boys. Why, I seen him eyeballin' a youngun just last night till I carried the tyke back to his ma."
"All the more reason to get shet of him," Brother Paul answered. "Now hear me out. He says he likes women so tonight we're going to give him one. We're goin' to make him take her right smack dab in front of us all. He says he ain't no pansy. I say he ought to prove it!"
"Hallelluja!"
"Amen!"
"If that don't beat all!" cried Brother John. "That'll catch him for sure!"
"We'll give him his druthers," Brother Paul suggested. "He can take ... Liza or Mary Jane, or he can take his old man, the way we asked at the start. We won't give him nothin' else to choose."
"We gotta get Mandy away from that white bastard, too," Brother Henry warned. "She has him eatin' better'n all of us. Makes me sick the way she toddies to him."
"Don't worry about them," Brother Paul said. "Nathaniel will do the deciding 'bout Kent and poor Mandy don't know which end is up no more. She a sheep, poor soul. We got to lead her into the right."
"Who's going to tell Barnard what he's got to do?" Brother Henry asked. "He's a hard one to push."
"I'll start it," Brother Paul promised. "Just the rest of you be ready to take up the cry. We got to get everyone whoopin' it up so's he cain't worm out of it."
They broke up then, each man taking a different route back to the camp. One by one, they joined the gathering around the campfire. Barnard had them singing, his voice, high-pitched and harsh, standing out from all the rest.
"How 'bout Elijah, Go Down!" he suggested.
They'd just finished a particularly long and vigorously sung hymn and most were busy catching their breath.
There were several moans.
"Leave us be for a spell," one woman begged. "We been goin' at it quite a spell."
"I have an idea," called Brother Paul. "Since Barnard wants to be our leader, supposing he entertains us for awhile?"
"Amen!" several panted.
"I could sing Elijah Go Down, I guess," he said and it was obvious that he was flattered.
"You'd like that one," someone snickered.
The crowd roared. Brother Paul stepped into the merriment wearing a scornful frown.
"Stop it!" he cried. "It ain't fair to a man to put him down without givin' him a chance to set things straight. We gotta be fair. Barnard?" he said, turning to the defiant young man, "since there's a body of us what don't believe too much in you, how about provin' yourself right now?"
Barnard was instantly on edge. "How?" he asked skeptically.
"Well, now, you done told us you don't like men," said Brother Paul. "Supposin' you prove it. Ifn you don't like men, then you must like women."
His friends whooped and the others joined in. The applause was so enthusiastic, Mary Jane jumped right in.
"I'll help," she teased. "It bein' for a good cause."
Everyone roared.
For a few minutes, it looked like they had him but they had not fully appreciated the craftiness of the wily Barnard. He blanched for only a moment, then raised his hands for silence.
"I'd been thinkin' 'bout that very idea," he began. "I know'd there was some with meanness still in their hearts. I figured a better way to stop the talk. I was, for a fact, going to tell you 'bout it this very night."
"Yeah! Yeah!" snorted Nathaniel's men.
There was derision in their voices but Barnard showed no signs of being perturbed.
"Well?" demanded Brother Paul. "Are you going to do it or not? "
"Oh, I'll take me a woman," Barnard assured him. "I'll take her in front of you all but I want it to be worth my time. Forgive me, Sister Mary Jane, but if I'm going to break my peter in front of you all, it's going to be with my sister, Star!"
The crowd gasped as one. Even Brother Paul was taken back with the shocking originality of the idea. Brother Henry was the first to recover.
"That's easy to say, since she isn't here," he called. "I think you're puttin' it off."
"But she will be here if we send for her," Barnard countered. "We have one of the dogs left and we could send that big old belt buckle her Papa wears. That'd bring her runnin' fast enough."
A murmur of wonder passed through the crowd. There was not a one of them that could see any objections to the idea. They'd stumbled onto the one victim and known enough to make him their prisoner but none of them had thought of going after anyone else. Nathaniel would bound to be proud of them!
"You want to bring the big man down," Barnard went on. "You're not going to do that with me. It's his girl he cares 'bout. He sets great store in her."
Of course, he was right. Everyone in camp realized it.
"Nathaniel woulda thought of that," someone said. "He was always the first to have good ideas."
"You're so right!" another agreed. "With Brother Paul and the others, all we do is wait."
Nathaniel's men had tried and lost. Barnard was more firmly in control now than he ever had been before. He strutted cockily around in the midst of the crowd. With no hesitation at all, he picked out two agile-looking young men and told them to carry the dog and the belt buckle to Conagree.
"What should we do if she don' want to come?" one of them asked.
"Don't you worry none, boy," he laughed. "She'll come with you sure enough."
They were young bucks, eager to have a part in things and they jumped at the chance to have their little glory. Within a few minutes, they were ready to go. Barnard gave them a few, last minute directions and then he called for everyone's attention.
"You all got to be ready to leave, soon as they get back with the girl," he said. "We're goin' to have to move. We cain't take no chances of someone following her. Get ready to strike camp and cover our trail."
"But if we leave here, how can Nathaniel find us?" Brother Paul demanded.
"You all been telling me how smart Nathaniel is," Barnard said with a chuckle. "He'll find us sure enough."
"Sounds to me like you're still trying to get out of takin' a woman," Brother Paul grumbled but the people didn't pay him no mind.
"Take care that the dog's muzzled good," Barnard warned. "Don't want no one but the girl to hear."
"It's set then," Brother Henry said. "They're really goin' to go?"
"'Course it's set, boy," Barnard laughed. "Didn't I tell you so?"
Bayard heard it all. The words cut deep into his gut but he did not cry out. The horror of what that animal planned was too great to waste effort railing about. Somehow, he was going to have to concentrate his hatred on some kind of action.
Where the hell was Mandy? Next time she came around he was going to have to order her to cut him free. That fairy bastard was not going to screw his precious child.
He'd felt revulsion for the boy from the day he saw that crumpled foot. He'd added disgust when he realized the boy would never become a man. Until now, however, he'd never cared enough to hate the pathetic brown caricature of himself. Well, now he did! By God, now he hated him good!
CHAPTER SIX
Star was eating dinner when the raggedly dressed young black sidled in from the kitchen. He was obviously a field hand and had no business in the main house. His simpering grin was proof enough that he was up to no good.
Although his sudden appearance startled her, Star never let on. She scowled at him furiously, instead.
"Get out of here!" she demanded.
Her commanding voice stopped him for a moment. Then he leaped forward and laid Bayard Kent's big belt buckle on the table.
"Papa's!" she gasped. "Where'd you get this?"
"F-from your Pa," the man stammered. "You want to see him, you come with me."
"I will not!" she snapped. "You bring him here to ... no, of course not. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? How do I know you didn't just find this someplace?"
"My friend outside," he answered haltingly. "He got one of your Pa's hounds."
"My Papa's hounds wouldn't go with no nigger," she said. "Is he alive?"
"We got the dog tied," he said, "Your Pa's still kickin', too, if you was meanin' him."
Star took a deep breath and sighed.
"Let me get Martha and Bobbie Joe."
"No! You got to come alone," he warned. "You don't tell nobody nothing!"
"If you're just going to make me a prisoner, too, what's the use of my coming?" she asked. "I couldn't help him."
The young black only shook his head. No one had told him what to say other than the directions he'd already given. For a moment, he thought she'd refuse.
"Will you give me time to change my clothes?" she asked. "It will be cold soon."
Dumbly, he nodded. Before he could change his mind, she hurried from the room.
She would have to go. She knew that she could not live with herself unless she made some effort to save him ... but HOW? First, she'd leave a message for Mr. Henry ... Martha could deliver it. She'd have to find some way to leave a trail. Corn was too heavy, rice too small. Perhaps bits of a bright colored cloth would be best.
She'd need a gun ... the one her mother had would do. It was small enough to hide ... and the Preacher Man. What could she do about him?
While all these thoughts were racing through her head, Star had rushed up to her room and grabbed up her warmest overdress. As her thoughts came into focus, she felt sharp and sure of herself, except when she thought of the Preacher Man. She could not decide what she should do about him. She hoped to return with her father in a matter of hours but what if they kept her a week. The Preacher Man would die in that time. Shrugging away the thought, she called for her maid, who popped up from nowhere at the first call.
"Martha, I need your help," she whispered ominously.
As briefly as she could, she explained what had happened.
"I'll see he gets it," Martha promised. "Just first let me fetch my red dress. I can rip it up into little bitty pieces while you're writing the note."
"God love you, Martha," Star said fervently.
She was able to finish the note before Martha returned. She folded it and put it in the girl's pocket herself. Then she directed the girl to carry on with shredding the material while she went for her mother's gun.
What to do about the Preacher Man? That was the question. Star was so intent on that problem that she was halfway down the servant's stairs before she remembered there was a second man supposedly waiting outside. She prayed that he would not be in sight of the secret door. Slipping out through the back, she peered cautiously around before proceeding to the side of the house.
Nervously, she opened the big door before she remembered that she had not brought a lamp. Furious with herself, she hurried back to the kitchen and grabbed up a candle. It would have to do.
When she finally reached the secret room, she was completely out of breath but her mind was made up. She would have to set the Preacher Man free.
"I'm going to let you go," she said breathlessly.
"What's happened?" he wanted to know. "What made you change your mind?"
"My father's alive," she began. "They want me to go with them but it could be a trap."
"Who?" he demanded.
"I don't know," she snapped. "A field hand brought Papa's belt buckle and one of the dogs. There wasn't time to ask and I don't think he'd have told me anyway."
"You aren't going with them!" It was more of an order than a question.
"I have to," she replied. "I got to try to help my Papa. I'm going to take Mama's gun and I'll leave a trail. Martha's going for help."
"It's too dangerous," he warned. "They'll never set you free."
"Mr. Henry will find me all right. Don't you worry 'bout me. Just you light out of here runnin' before they catch you. I don't care, you understand. I just don't want you dying and stinking up the place in case I don't get right back."
He grinned in spite of himself and slowly shook his head.
"You're mighty kind," he drawled. "You know how to load that gun?"
"You bet."
She took some extra shots and a small pouch of powder, then carefully loaded the gun and slipped it between her petticoat and her dress. She held it in place by cinching in the sash about her middle.
"You won't be safe without someone along," he warned. "Let me follow you."
"No!" she snapped. "You'd only have my head ... not that I blame you ... and you know I have the gun. I couldn't take the chance."
"You said you'd let me go," he reminded her.
"And I will," she assured him. "I slipped down here that first night, dressed as a man. I saw where they hid the key to your chains."
Picking up her candle, she walked to the far end of the room. She had to stand on tiptoes to reach the niche that contained the key. With a sigh, she carried it over and laid it on the floor near his hand.
"You can reach it if you try," she said.
"Don't go alone," he began but she did not want to hear.
"I'm not going to unlock you myself," she cut in. By the time you free yourself and get out of here, I'll be gone. Don't you try to follow me, Preacher Man. Just be glad I'm too weak to let you die.
Quickly, she ducked out of the room and headed up the stairs.
"Miz Star!" he called after her.
"I'm closing the big door. You'll have to find the key in the dark. You'll find it on the same wall as the door. Some time ... when you have a moment ... say a prayer for me."
She scurried back up the servant's stairs, scooped up the pile of rags Martha had torn for her and stuffed them into her skirt pockets.
"Now take that note and skidaddle," she told her dusky maid, "and Martha?"
"Yes, Ma'am?" the girl drawled.
"Maybe you'd better pray for me, too."
"Where you been?" he demanded.
"Putting on the warmest clothes I could find," she answered as sharply. "It's night and I chill rather easily."
"You didn't tell nobody?" he asked.
"Of course not," she snapped. "I want to see my father alive."
He seemed satisfied. "Better hurry," he said. "It's a far piece."
"I hope you have a horse for me," she said. "I certainly can't walk very far."
"You got horses?" he asked eagerly.
Star nodded.
"Certainly," she said. "I'll call the stable boy and have one saddled."
"You got three?" he wanted to know.
"I suppose, though it's no matter to me whether or not you walk," she said.
"We'll take 'em. Just don't call nobody. Tom and me will get 'em," he said.
"I hope they kick your teeth in," she said sweetly.
His friend was waiting by a clump of gum near the barn. The poor dog lay in the dirt at his feet. He was twisting miserably.
"That you, Ben?" a voice called softly.
"Sure thing," he replied.
The man stepped out from the shadows as they approached. He smiled when he saw Star.
"Let the animal go!" she ordered.
When neither man made a move to obey, she reached down and untied the dog herself. He made no move to bite his tormenters but slunk away, whining miserably.
"They got horses, Tom," the first man said. "You think maybe we could take three?"
"My feet says yes," Tom agreed.
"She wanted to call the man to fetch and saddle 'em," Ben confided. "I told her no. She took so long gettin' ready, I was scared she'd gone for help. I don't want to take no more chances."
Tom agreed to take care of the mounts while Ben stood guard. Star prayed that her own mare would down the stranger but it had not been a lucky night. The usually skitterish young mare pranced into her stall like Tom was her own Mama. Not only Moon Beam, Star's horse, but Buck and Jim Dandy, as well, behaved like it was Sunday and Tom was a visiting parson. When he rode up on Moon Beam, Star had had all she could take.
"Get off that horse," she ordered grimly. "That animal belongs to me!"
It was curious how readily the man obeyed. It was an instinctive thing for if he'd stopped to think about it, he would certainly have refused. Instead, he dismounted, handed over the reins and then cupped his hands to offer her a hand up.
"That isn't my saddle," she told him. "You can see I have skirts on. I can't be expected to straddle a...."
"You climb up there ... or ride with me ... or you can walk," Ben sternly warned.
Sniffing with distaste, she accepted Tom's hand up and mounted Moon Beam. It took several minutes to get her skirts and petticoats arranged so that they weren't binding her legs. When she was finally ready, she looked up and saw that they'd taken her reins.
"I'm perfectly capable of handling my own animal," she told them but the men paid her no mind.
There were no swamps on Conagree for the ground was a porous sand. Still, the constant rains left a dense, almost impenetrable forest. There were cypress, festooned with moss, palmettos and gum and bay, and beneath the trees was a spongy groundcover with jasmine, violet and woodbine pooching up from the mossy floor.
In the blank grayness of night, however, much of the beauty was lost. The gnarled trunks were grotesque, the moss threatening, and the small flowers totally lost. Though it was no more than half a dozen miles from the main house to the runaways' camp, it was through a part of Conagree that one could never know well. At night it was wholly unfamiliar and strange.
"How much farther?" she asked frequently.
"Don't you fret," was all they would say.
Both men rode ahead, leading her on Moon Beam. She could not have asked for a better arrangement for she was able to drop the small scraps of cloth with little danger of detection from either one of the blacks. Frequently, she reached in through the buttoned opening in the front of her dress to run her fingers over the cold muzzle of her Mama's gun. It was a reassuring feeling to have it there.
The moon was high in the sky when Star caught her first glimpse of the runaways' campfire. She braced herself, scarcely daring to breathe as they came near but when they rode in there were only a couple of men hunched around the fire.
Quickly, she scanned the camp, trying to figure out how many people there were by the number of lean'tos. Then she saw the man tied to the oak tree.
Throwing her leg over Moon Beam's neck, she freed her skirts and quickly dropped to the ground. Before the men could respond, she was scurrying up the hill to her father's side.
"Papa," she whispered. "Oh, Papa! What have they done to you?"
He looked so old and haggard. She couldn't remember ever seeing him look so bad.
"You shouldn't have come, babe," he told her. "It's a trap. They got terrible things planned."
"It's all right, Papa," she whispered.
Turning around, she made sure that no one could hear.
"I sent a note to Mr. Henry," she whispered, "and I left a trail he can't possibly miss. Just you hang on, Papa. We'll be out of this in no time."
"Star ... Babe ... I got to tell you," he began.
"Come away from there!" Ben called as he and Tom hurried up the hill. "You get on down here where you belong. You got no call to come up here."
"I belong with my Papa," she argued. "That's what I came for."
As long as it had been a contest involving only Star and the two men, it was fairly even. Star might even have considered herself the victor on several counts. Now, however, it was a different tournament. With others around to see, the possibility of being humiliated by a woman gave the men a decided edge. They could not give in to her whims any longer.
They grabbed an arm, each at the same instant, and though Star gave an enviable account of herself, she had no chance to escape.
"How dare you?" she screeched. "Get your hands off me. You're all savages! Ohhhhh! Papa!"
"My God, I'll see you all in hell!" roared her father. "Keep your bloody hands off my child!"
It was Mandy that came to the girl's rescue, though it took time before she saw that it was needed. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she stumbled out of the shack to see what all the commotion was about, then stood there staring after the girl as they drug her away.
"She's a fine looker," she told Bayard.
"Favors you 'most as much as Barnard do."
"Help her! My God, woman, don't just stand there!" he wailed. "Make them leave her alone."
Mandy only shrugged. "Ain't nobody hurt her yet. Here! Sonny!" she called to Ben. "Whyn't you let her be? You only makin' her yelp more. She ain't goin' nowhere."
A crowd had gathered rapidly, once Star began to scream. Although Barnard was one of the last to appear, he immediately assumed command.
"Is everyone ready to move on?" he yelled. "Cain't waste no more time 'round here!"
"We're goin' to waste time, sure 'nough," Brother Paul told him.
His voice wasn't loud but it carried the stubborn sound of authority. Everyone within earshot turned to hear.
"What you tryin' to say, Brother Paul?" Barnard demanded. "We goin' to have time for arguin' later. 'Peers to me, we should get to movin' now."
"You got her here for a purpose," the older man reminded him. "You take care of it now."
"I'll do it!" Barnard answered impatiently. "Soon as we're settled in at the new place, we'll have a real hoop-deedoo."
"You'll go at it now or not at all," Brother Paul snapped. "We gave you a choice a little time back and you sidled right on out of it. This time you're goin' to meet it straight on!"
Barnard glared at the determined elder but he could not stare him down. When he looked around at the others, he realized that they were only the prize. They were not taking sides, one way or the other. Shuffling idly, they stood there waiting to see who would end the victor in this curious contest. Whoever won, they would obey. There would be only humiliation for the loser ... or the one who backed away without a fight.
"Well, 'course I will if we got time," he stammered. "You all don't mind waiting, now do you? We'll need a lookout to make sure."
Ben and Tom had released the struggling Star when Mandy asked. She rushed back up the hill to stand by her father and, while Brother Paul and Barnard argued, she even tried to untie her father's bonds. "Hurry!" he urged.
"I'm tryin', Papa. They just won't budge," she told him. "Who is that young one, the one that limps. Is it that Nathaniel you been looking for?"
"No, Babe," he answered.
"He looks so familiar," she said. "I'm sure I've seen him someplace before. Is he one of ours, Papa?"
"Pay attention to what you're about!" he scolded but if Star hadn't known her Papa better, she'd have sworn she heard him sob. Then, in a halting, misery-filled voice, he tried to explain who the crippled black man was.
"You'll know him soon enough," he lamented. "They'll be tellin' you and tauntin' you 'cause that's why they got you here. He'll tell you he's your brother, Star, but he's no white man, Babe. You can see that. That one's not even a man. I can't tell you 'bout his kind but...."
Star's shocked expression stopped him, then she turned and stared at the nigger woman who'd come to her father's side.
"What'd he call you?" she demanded icily. "Mandy, wasn't it? I heard about you."
"Star!" hissed her father. "Get back to them ropes."
"I always wondered what you looked like," she went on. "You ain't all that great to look at. What you got that's so good that you could pull him away from my Mama?"
The sound of her voice had increased in volume with her anger until it was pouring out of her in a dull roar. Even Brother Paul and Barnard had paused to listen. When Barnard realized what the fight was all about, he jumped into the middle of it with both feet. Star had lost her chance to untie her father.
"She's a pretty one, ain't she?" Barnard cried with feigned delight. "Hello, Sister Star, honey. I'm your brother, Barnard. Papa's told you 'bout me, I 'spose."
"I knew 'bout her," she answered grimly. "I never heard of you."
"But you can see I got the blood, cain't you?" Barnard insisted. "I look more like our Papa than he do, hisself."
He smirked at her and even twisted his face around to let her examine his profile. Even as she glared at him, she knew that it was true. It was fate, catching up with both she and her Papa.
She could feel the hatred around her. She looked around at the dozens of black eyes staring at her from bland, emotionless faces ... yet the hatred was there. Sickeningly, she realized that there was no chance that she or her father could get away from these" people. They would die here, the two of them, as sure as there was a heaven and hell.
Somehow, the thought calmed her. I'll go proud! My father may be weak, but I'm not! she told herself. She sneered back at the simpering face of her brother. She was, no longer, afraid.
"You're still a nigger," she said coolly and, reaching into her bodice, she drew out her mother's gun.
She'd have gotten her brother square in the chest if Brother Paul hadn't whipped up his arm and slammed it against her wrist. Her finger tensed and her one shot cut harmlessly up through the oak branches above their heads.
"My God!" gasped Barnard. "You bitch! You coulda killed me!"
"And been proud!" she answered fervently.
Such a close call left Barnard giddy. As the adrenalin poured into his blood, he went wild.
"You see? See what a bitch she is?" he screamed at the crowd. "Did you all see what she tried to do? Ohhh, brothers! She don't deserve to get screwed straight off. By God! She ... she ... she's got worse comin' to her. I'll bugger her six ways to Friday, by heaven. Let's see how her Papa likes that!"
He was leaping around like a madman, waving his arms and shouting loud and crazy. How much of it was genuine anger and how much was display to whip up his own resolve, there was no way to tell. Whatever the cause, it was made a thoroughly frightening show.
"What's he screeching 'bout?" she whispered to her father. "Is he crazy or somethin'?"
Bayard Kent had other thoughts on his mind.
"Where'd you come by that gun?" he demanded. "Where'd you get your Ma's gun?"
She did not have time to answer for at that moment, Barnard ordered the men to strip her and Ben and Tom grabbed for her arms.
Star screamed. She kicked and scratched and gouged but the more she struggled, the more men jumped in to lend a hand. In a few moments, she stood shivering in the first light "of dawn without a stitch of clothes on to protect her from the early morning chill.
The crowd pushed in expectantly as Barnard scrambled out of his clothes. He was an "it," they were all sure. Would he have the tail of a man or some puny kind of nubbin, fit for what he was?
Through the black hands holding and grabbing for her, she remembered the hands strapped down to the cold, stone floor in the secret room beneath her home. Even in the cold humiliation and horror, Star could see the justice in it and knew that it was right.
Hadn't she stood before her own mirror, bemoaning the fact that no man could see how beautiful she was? Hadn't she cried bitter tears because she would go to her death bed a virgin? She had opened a Pandora box and there was no way to put the good and bad away. She was no virgin now and not only the niggers, but her own Papa would soon know the truth about her. It was justice, sure as she was born.
"Look at that little white bitch!" Barnard screeched.
Naked from the waist down, Barnard pranced wildly about. His hand busily frictioned up and down his half-blown staff.
"Stick 'er!" someone cried.
"Yeah! Anyone can jack hisself off!" laughed somebody else.
"Bend her over!" cried Barnard. "I'm ready!"
"Hell, man, that's like screwing a boy," a man with a scowl roared.
"No, it ain't!" countered Barnard. "I'm givin' it to her the way a dog gives it to a bitch. That's what she is and that's what she's goin' to get!"
"Which hole, man?"
"I don't care," he laughed. "Does it matter?"
Brother Paul would have liked to say yes but the crowd was too excited to be bothered by technicalities. Although there was not a man in camp that liked him, Barnard was getting away with it again and no one was willing to tell him what he was. The man was a lot of things that Brother Paul detested, but "stupid" was not one of them.
Every man in the place tried to help get Star doubled over and turned around. Brother Paul stood by the bound father and watched their behavior with disgust.
There was an expertise with the way in which Barnard worked the girl's tightly puckered bum. He kneaded her ass, rolling the cheeks around in great, wide circles and then he spat on his hand and rubbed the saliva in to lubricate her. It was obviously a practiced ritual, one which he'd done a thousand times before. The sight sickened Brother Paul.
"He's a pansy asshole lover, I don't care what the bastard says," he snorted.
"I'll kill him for this," Bayard Kent quickly agreed.
"What's 'a matter with you?" Mandy demanded. "You done me that aways lotsa times. What's so powerful bad if she gets it once or twice?"
"He's a goddam nigger. That's what! Ohhhhh, my poor baby!" he wailed.
"EYIIIIIIII!" the babe screamed.
Barnard's black cock had pricked through to stab into her bowel and it was not a puny nubbin by any means. Star nearly fainted with the pain. All of the fight went out of her. She was paralyzed as she tried to keep the pain from getting any worse. Every movement, even when she tried to breathe, made the agony more unbearable. When Barnard caught his breath and began to pump in and out of her, she thought she would surely die.
She shuddered with revulsion and it only made it worse. Her bowel was dry with fear, yet he sawed on and on and on. Why couldn't she swoon, as any normal young lady would? Was this the price she was expected to pay or was this a hell in itself? Had she died, perhaps, and dropped into it unawares?
She took a deep breath and tried to relax but the pain was still very much a part of her. The men that were holding her were squeezing her breasts until they ached but it was nothing like the hell her rectum was going through.
Barnard never touched her breasts or any part but her fanny. She could tell by his labored breathing and by the loudness of his grunts and groans that he was very near.
Please, she prayed. Let him get it over with!
"Ahhhhh!" gasped Barnard.
His drives became shorter and more frenzied and then they dissolved into, little more than a frenzied spasm. He dug his fingers into her hip bones until she thought his long nails would cut clear on through. Then he began to grind against her and though the pain was worse than anything that had come before, she knew it would soon be done. With a desperate thrust, she pushed back against him.
"OHHHHHHHHHH, OHH, SHIT!" he roared.
She felt his jizzum begin shitting into her bowel. Oh God, what a relief. Even before he pulled away, she began to feel better. Knowing the end was in sight made it easier to relax, though the cause of the pain was the same.
When he finally released her, she dropped to the ground, too weak to stand alone. Her legs felt paralyzed and numb and a pain lingered on in her behind as though he had left some kind of pessary still inside of her.
"And that's supposed to prove you're a man?" Brother Paul asked quietly.
Barnard chuckled weakly. "I don't have to prove nothin'," he snorted. "I'm goin' to show you somethin', though. If you don't like the way I do things, wait till you see what I have planned for that white-bastard Papa of mine. My Ma says a white man'll do anythin' ... even screw his own."
"We all know that," Brother Paul said grimly. "It's you we don't know 'bout."
Barnard ignored him. Scrambling into his trousers, he ordered Ben and Tom to cut his father's bonds.
"Take his clothes offn him, too," he called. "We'll tie him and his precious Star together ... bellies up! Then throw them into the cart. They can jiggle along together while we find us a new place to camp!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
They tied father and daughter together, roaring with laughter as they cinched their rumps in good and tight. Although Bayard objected vehemently, it was cold enough that the closeness created a welcomed warmth.
They tied each of their legs together, then stood them up and told them to walk. When they fell, the crowd hooted and jeered.
The men carried them to a small cart and rolled them over until they had Bayard lying on top. They packed all their gear in and around them. At dawn, they were ready to go.
"We'll get away somehow," Bayard promised his daughter. "Keep your chin up, Babe."
"We can't get away, Papa," she answered grimly. "They're going to kill us and you know it, Papa."
"Don't you think that way, girl!" he scolded. "I'll get us out of here. Don't you go thinking about it at all."
Star could feel his thickening cock begin to press against her mound. It was a fever in the midst of a chill.
"What am I supposed to be thinkin' 'bout?" she asked.
"Anything but that," he said, unnaware that his condition had become apparant.
"It's not me that needs to control his thoughts," she snapped.
"Star! I ... oh, Babe!"
"I thought it took a black woman to rouse your interest," she teased.
"Don't talk like that," he warned. "You don't know 'bout things, yet. When you're older you'll understand."
"I'm old enough to know what's happening to you," she reminded him. "It's pushing against a very tender spot."
"Don't think about it," he pleaded.
She laughed. "Now you're being ridiculous," she countered. "How can I not think about it?"
"Think how cold it is," he suggested, "and how we can get free. Perhaps you could coax...."
"Supposing you think about those things," she answered coolly. "When you get your thoughts in order, I won't have to worry about mine."
"It's different with a man," he tried to explain.
"My foot!" she snorted.
They hitched Star's own horse, Moon Beam, to the cart. Ben led the animal from the big dapple stallion.
The trail was little used and choppy, which did nothing for Bayard Kent's condition. Although the sun was up, it was still miserably cold for the unclothed pair. In spite of her resolve, Star began to cry.
"I always looked up to you so," she sobbed. "I always wanted to act just like you and be just like you."
"And now you're mad at your Papa 'cause he's a man?" he asked. "No man could be squeezed next to a silky little package...."
"Papa!" she gasped.
"Well, it's true," he insisted. "You're a grown-up girl. A body can't help noticing that."
"You coulda helped takin' on a nigger!" she said.
"That happened a long time 'fore you were born, Babe. It had nothing to do with your Ma. Your Mama was a lady. I respected that."
"Did you beat her?" Star asked. "Wh-what you ... How ... Who said that?" he stammered.
"You like beating people, don't you?"
"What do you know about? ... So! That's how you found your Mama's gun," he said with more confidence. "You stumbled onto the room."
"No, Papa," Star told him grimly. "I followed Mr. Henry and his men one night. There was this black preacher talking to our people and I was afraid he might be one of them rabble-rousers so I ran for Mr. Henry. They caught him and brought him up to the house. I saw them take him down in the basement and tie him down."
"Is he still there?" her father demanded.
"He was till I left," she admitted.
"It was Nathaniel!" he exclaimed. "By God, I got him in my own house. They been waiting for that bastard all week!
It has to be him. What'd he look like, Babe?"
Bayard's cock had gone limp through their argument but the moment she mentioned the man being taken prisoner, Bayard's organ began to grow. It was as though his hatred for the man stimulated him sexually.
Star thought of how she had turned the man free-how she'd actually believed what he'd told her he was. Her face began to burn and she knew that she could never tell it to her father.
"Maybe we can trade," he said. "Maybe we can talk them into freeing us in order to get their precious leader back. They've sure as hell had enough of that Barnard!"
"Papa," Star whispered. "You're doing it again. Please make it stop."
"I'm sorry, Babe," he said. "A man's brain isn't always connected to his other parts. Men can't always control themselves the way women do."
Women aren't as infallible as you think, mused Star but she could not dwell on her own transgression now. Her father's shame was swelling between her legs and his apologies and excuses only made it worse. She could not remember having heard her Papa say "I'm sorry" before in her entire life. It showed a weakness in him which she had never suspected.
Aloud, she complained about his weight pushing her into the floor of the cart and the terrible, bone-chilling cold. Then Mandy came by and climbed up on the cart. Unwrapping her parcel of clothes, she pulled out a carefully folded blanket and spread it over them.
"There you be," she said piteously. "Ain't right to make a body suffer so."
"Thank you," Star whined. "Mandy, I'm sorry for what I said.
Bayard could not look up at the black woman, since he was faced down. Instead, he stared at the edge of the blanket.
"I gave you this," he said grimly, "a long, long time ago."
"It's bread cast upon the waters, honey man," she said.
Hopping off the cart, she strode on ahead to walk with her son. The party moved out of the dark forest and into open meadows where the sun shone. With the blanket to warm them, the whole world looked a little less miserable.
If only her father could control that fever stick between his legs. The way they were tied, it pushed straight into her flesh whenever it came up and it was coming up more and more. She tried to pinch her legs together to keep it away but it only made the feeling more intense when it burrowed on through. She tried spreading her legs (since their legs were tied together, individually, this was a fairly simple matter) but this only caused the head of his prod to tickle back and forth against her most tender flesh for when her legs were spread, her love-lips opened too.
To make matters worse, the warmth of the blankets (or perhaps the shelter from hostile eyes) took away the last of Bayard's physical control. As their bodies warmed, his cock hardened until it was an unyielding, determined bar of steel.
"Back off, Papa," she wined. "It's going to go right on in!"
"I'm off 'bout as far as I can go, Babe," he groaned. "You don't have to tell me where it's headed. I can feel, sure enough."
"Well, you could try," she sobbed.
Both were straining backward but there was very little play. Then Bayard discovered he could move a little better when he worked down, rather than away from her body.
"Is that better?" he asked.
"A little," she admitted weakly.
They said nothing for a time. The wheels turned slowly and the cart swayed from side to side. There were few jolts now, only a monotonous roll. Through Star's body, the excitement of his touch sent waves of sensual fire.
His silky head grazed against her lovelips, scarcely touching them now that he had drawn away, yet the very lightness of his touch brought a flood of warmth to her loins. It took effort to keep from pushing toward that seductive inflamed flesh.
Her juices began to flow, gently at first and then more copiously as her need quickly increased. She held her breath and strained to pull as far away as she could but she could not keep that sensual feeling from enveloping her. Soon, she gave up all attempts to control her emotions, for her senses had gone beyond control. Instead, she concentrated all her efforts on withholding any telltale response.
"You think they'll kill us soon?" she asked with effort.
"Mmmm, I don't know," he said with a satisfied sigh. "I s'pose it depends."
"Try, Papa," she begged. "You're not trying. Talk about something!"
"I-I don't know if I can," he groaned. "You don't know how hard it is until you feel it."
"I am feelin' it, Papa," she complained. "Please try."
"I'm sorry, Babe," he said and his voice sounded dead. "I don't mean...."
"Quit saying you're sorry for everything!" she cried and was immediately sorry she had lashed out at him. "I never heard you say you were sorry in twenty years," she explained lamely. "Now you say it all the time. Papa, even if we got to die, we got to keep our pride."
"I never had my pride frustrated like this before," he explained bitterly. "For a week, they've kept me like this, Babe. For a week I haven't been able to save myself ... or to pay them back ... or even to stop them when they decided to go after you. I never been in a fix where I couldn't take care of what had to be done. You know what it's like to be tied down like this? My muscles ache with hate! They've been all knotted up, ready for something to happen for days ... and nothing happened. Oh, Babe! I got to say I'm sorry. I can't keep from saying it. They got me strapped to my own little girl and I can't even keep my tail out of her. What else can I say?"
His voice was little more than a pitiful whine by the time he finished but when he had said what he had to say, he jabbed his cock upward until half the head was buried in her steaming flesh.
"Papa!" she gasped. "Oh, God!"
"Hang on, Babe," he whispered hoarsely. "Another thrust and it'll be done for you. Once it starts to hurt, that nasty feeling will go away."
His words stung her. Star sucked in a long breath and then she began to laugh.
"How kind of you, Papa," she sneered. "There's just this one, small little problem. It isn't going to hurt."
She could feel him tense. "Babe?" he asked. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm no virgin, Papa," she laughed. "What a curious way you should find out."
"Who touched you?" he demanded. "I'll kill the bastard. Just tell me who!"
"Yes, I imagine you would," she said evenly. "I think you figured to keep me pure all of my life. You certainly never saw to it that I ever met a real man."
"Don't talk like a slut!" he snapped.
Even as he called her a name, he was pushing his prod in a little further. He shuddered when he heard her moan.
"You going to tell me who he is?" he demanded.
"You don't know him, Papa," she said.
"Did you give yourself or did he take it?" he asked.
"Does it matter?"
"It does, to me," he admitted.
Star closed her eyes as a sensuous shiver passed through her. This teasing, erotic nightmare had been plaguing them for several hours, off and on. The relief of feeling him even partially inside of her was overwhelming.
She wondered what he would think if she told him how she had thrown away her virginity and to whom she had spent it on. He'd be furious, of course, but she felt certain it would excite him sexually. As aroused as he was already, it might even make him blow.
For some time, neither spoke, nor did the father push on with his attack. It was enough to be squeezed in against her, to feel her hot, wet flesh shiver with excitement. Her breasts bored against his chest and though he couldn't fondle them, the feel of them was exquisite.
"Ungh!" he groaned as he drove his prod on home. "I can't fight it no more! Since you know 'bout such things now, you should know I've done my best ... Babe? Say something. Say you understand."
What could she say? It was all she could do to hide the rush of feelings flooding over her.
"Papa," she gasped. "Don't talk no more. Just do it!"
"You don't care?"
"Just shut up and do it!" she growled.
She was trembling violently, her needs ignored for too long. Her father's cock was full in her now and that was where it needed to be, yet it was not enough. It had to move and push in a demanding, masculine way. Star needed that. The Preacher Man had not been able to take her. Now her father seemed unwilling to try.
"Do it! "she sobbed.
Slowly he pulled out, then shoved it back where it belonged. The heat of their bodies and the long straining had caused the ropes to expand. With every thrust, he seemed to have a little more room to work. Inside of her, however, was a different matter.
"You're tight!" he groaned. "My God but you're tight!"
He spread his legs, in order to spread hers and though it curtailed his thrusts, somehow, every plunge was still potently sensual. Straining back and down as far as he could, he worked his cockshead in and out of her weeping lovemouth until he was shaking all over with excitement. With a deep sigh, he buried himself again.
She pulled their legs closed then, trapping his log deep within her. She held him there as tightly bound as though he were gripped in the jaws of a mighty vise. Then, working her legs up and down against each other, she ground herself against him. Her lips clung to his flesh each time he pulled away. Beneath the warm coverlet, he could smell her needs mingling with his own. Their combined odors burned erotically into his brain.
Who else had made love to her, he wondered. Were they any better at it than he? As his mind slipped into a sensual fog, he began to wish that he could make love to her without the inhibiting bonds.
"I could make it good for you," he whispered. "If we ever get away from here, Babe, I'll show you how wonderful it can be ... nobody else ... just you and me. You'll love the way I can make you feel."
"Yes, Papa," she whispered huskily.
"I'll never ask who he was," he went on. "We'll forget that it ever happened."
"Mmmmmmm," she purred.
"You will forget, won't you?" he pleaded.
"Just do it!" she cried impatiently.
It was enough. She wanted him. She liked the way he made her feel. Ecstatic with excitement, he stabbed his shivering prick into her depths. He'd make it good for her, by God. She'd know that he was best.
Bayard had not been able to face his daughter until now. With doubts erased and his manhood reaffirmed, he searched out and devoured her lips. His tongue stabbed hotly into her wet cavern. When she returned his voracious caress with a stabbing attack of her own, he was beside himself with excitement.
His ass humped in a frenzy of thrusts and Star worked wildly against him. Her juices flowed so copiously that her honey ran in rivulets down the crease in her ass.
"Rub it in," she begged. "Rub it harder."
"I am! I am!"
Her cunt was straining forward, rolled up as far as it would go. Frantically they ground together, then stabbed again and again.
"I'm so hot, Papa," she whined.
"I know," he groaned. "I want to eat that sopping little snatch so bad I could die for it."
"Yessssss," she whispered dreamily, "and I'd suck your big, black cock un...."
Bayard Kent was hot but not so hot that he couldn't hear that word black!
"Wha...?" he started to cry but at that instant, his balls gave a mighty jerk and then he blew.
"EYIIIIIIIIII!" he cried.
His hot, sticky jizzum poured into Star's belly. His juice seemed to trigger her own deepest emotions for the excitement began to swell up around her and, an instant later, it burst into a violent release.
"AHHHHHHHH!" she sighed.
The relief was overwhelming in a voluptuous, sensuous way. For several minutes, she could do nothing but savor the warm pulsations of pleasure.
"It's over," she whispered at last. "Thank heaven."
"Babe," he panted. "It was a black man, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Papa," she said.
"He raped you and you couldn't tell," he insisted.
Star laughed. "It was rape, I guess," she admitted. "Only it was me that did the job."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Before Barnard found a new place to camp, Bayard had berated his daughter for her sluttish indiscretions at least half a dozen times ... and he'd screwed her every time.
Barnard stood by the cart, issuing directions. He told them where to tamp down the weed and where the fires should be build. He sent two men to look over the countryside and one to retrace their steps to check the trail. For a young man who'd never been on the trail in his life, he was doing very well.
He waited until he had everyone's attention before he pulled back the cover that sheltered his father and sister. He found the girls legs were smeared with cum.
"What'd I tell you?" he cried triumphantly. "Ain't it just the way I said?"
"Don't see why her Pa gets all the fun!" someone yelled.
The crowd roared.
"Yeah! When do we get a turn?" a young buck in front demanded. "We're as good as Bayard Kent!"
"Ben and me are first!" Tom warned. "We took all the chances getting her here."
Barnard watched the men argue, a broad smile spreading across his face. Soon he raised his hand for silence.
"You help the women and them with families. Get their lean'tos up and then you can all have a piece of her," he promised. "I think her Papa'd get a real charge out of that."
"They'll kill you," Bayard whispered to his daughter.
"What does it matter to you?" his daughter snapped. You seem to think I'm ruined anyhow. It ain't so bad when my own Papa does it ... but a nigger! Pshaw!"
They had reached an impasse. For a long time, neither said a word. The men had hurried off to help set-up camp and they were left alone.
"They ain't human!" her father finally hissed.
"I know that!" the girl cried. "Why do you think I used him? You think I could go up to a white man and ask him to give me a little so I could know what it was all about? 'Sides, when I did it, I'd just found out that you'd been having a nigger woman real regular. I was mad enough to do 'bout anything!"
"I don't hate you, Babe," he said. "You know I don't. It's just that I got powerful feelin's about black men. It's some different with their women. I...."
Star had begun to cry. Miserably, he pushed the hair out of her eyes with his cheek.
"Do we have to argue now?" she sobbed.
"Course not, Babe," he .whispered compassionately. "I'm sorry."
"Papa, they're coming," she warned. "See 'em?"
"Be brave," was all he could say.
There were six of them, with Ben and Tom in the lead. They were laughing and carrying on like they were roaring drunk.
"Now, you boys got to be real gents," Barnard warned them with mock severity. "This here's my sister, you know, and I don't let her go out with no accounts."
"How's a gent supposed to act, Brother Barnard?" one asked.
"Foolish man!" cried Barnard. "A gent say, 'please' before he pokes his old peanut in and then he say 'thank you' each time he roll it around!"
The entire group convulsed. Barnard hopped up onto the wagon and untied their bonds. One by one, she was freed from the pressure of her father's body. Two men helped him up and retired him to one of the corner poles at the back of the cart. Then they pulled Star out of the cart and made her stand.
"Better take her off 'round the other side of those trees," Barnard warned. "There's no sense upsettin' the women folk with this."
"Can't we stick her in front of him?" Tom pouted. "I wanta see the way he looks when ah'm beatin' her with my big, black billy."
None of the men had noticed the tall figure striding out of the edge of the forest. Star saw him the moment he appeared but she was the only one who did. Instantly, she began to hope that he would somehow rescue her. In spite of everything she had done to him, she had let him go. That surely would count for something.
It took every ounce of her will to keep from giving him away. He was a head taller than all the rest and he wore a black shirt and black pants where all the rest were in dirty grays. He stood off a ways for awhile, watching and listening until he knew what they had planned. Then he stepped forward and said the word.
"Afternoon, gents," he said.
"Who are you?" asked Barnard.
"Nathaniel!" exclaimed Tom and Ben in one breath.
Tom raced out to spread the news. From one end of the camp to the other, he cried, "NATHANIEL'S BACK! HE'S HOME! HE'S HOME!"
The people poured out of their tents and there wasn't a one who wasn't wearing a broad, happy grin on his face. While Nathaniel waited for them to gather around, he reached into the cart and pulled out Mandy's blanket. Without a word, he wrapped it around the girl's body.
"They were going to...."
"I know," he said. "I heard." Brother Paul was first to reach the leader. Brother John and Brother Henry were right behind. They threw their arms collectively around him.
"We thought you was dead for sure, this time," Brother Paul confided.
"It's been a nightmare 'round here since you been gone," Brother Henry announced.
Brother John snorted. "We even had a pansy try to take over your job."
"That ain't so!" cried Barnard who was quick to see how things stood. "I only did what those do-nothings wouldn't do. Somebody had to get things started."
Nathaniel turned to the newcomer and smiled. "And I thank you, Barnard Kent," he said.
"You know me?" the young man asked incredulously.
Nathaniel nodded. "I've known your Mama for years.
"Yes ... well," stammered the young man, "you see, my Papa wandered in here some time back. They managed to catch him but instead of doin' anything with him, they just let him stand there for a week. Then they sent for Ma and me, and I decided to make him pay."
"Was it your idea to go after the girl?" Nathaniel asked. "Yes."
"Then, indirectly, I have you to thank for my freedom," he said.
Barnard puffed up like a rooster about to crow.
"Since she was my prisoner," he said, "I just gave her to my-uh, your men, here. I figure that's what the white men do with any nigger girl that looks good and ain't good for anythin' else."
Nathaniel nodded. "That's what they generally do, all right," he agreed, "but I can't let you do that with Miz Star."
"Why?" Barnard demanded.
"'Cause Miz Star belongs to me," the big man said.
Barnard frowned and stuck out his jaw belligerently.
"How do you figure?" he asked. Though his friends were jabbing at him, trying to get him to calm down, Barnard was determined that, in this matter, he had to win. One look at Nathaniel and the reception his people had given him told Barnard that there was no longer any chance to lead but he would not give up the chance to take over the number two spot if he could possibly help it. He instinctively knew that his only chance was to stand up to the leader and show him that he, Barnard, had more guts than the rest.
"Tell me," he demanded. "How could you claim to own her?"
"She's my woman," Nathaniel told him.
Star glanced grimly at her father. His jaw was tight set.
"She's anybody's woman that wants to take her," said the young man. "I had her, too."
Nathaniel, was tiring of Barnard's foolish banter. He motioned to one of his men.
"Make me a shelter," he said. "Put the girl inside and see that she's tied. I want her comfortable but don't take chances on her gettin' away."
Nodding that they understood, Brother John and a younger man reached for the girl. Nothing could have embarrassed or infuriated Barnard any more than being ignored.
"You didn't answer me!" he roared. "Prove that the girl is yours or leave her alone!"
Nathaniel smiled. "All right," he said with resignation. "Let's say I have the greatest score to settle. This woman tried to own me. I mean to own her, instead."
As he talked, he deliberately unbuttoned his shirt and, through it all, he stared at the irate Barnard. When he suddenly spread it open, the young man was caught unaware. He gasped, in spite of himself, at the sight of the livid star.
Barnard completely forgot himself for a moment. Reaching out, he touched the scarlet flesh and a pain shot through him as though the wound was his own.
"That bitch did this to you," he whispered. "How could she mar such perfection? Oh, my God!"
Nathaniel let him look for a moment, then he turned and walked over to the cart.
"I wear your daughter's brand, sir," he said. "I reckon you're the one who put such notions in her head."
"And you're the one she screwed," spat the white man.
Nathaniel only smiled. Rebuttoning his shirt, he called for his people to gather round.
Star glanced at her father as they led her away. His cock was rigidly erect. How hate could do such a thing, she didn't know but that it did arouse her father, she was absolutely positive.
The men put together a quick shelter against a big gum tree. One of them drove a thick stob into the trunk and tied one of her wrists to it. Then they made her a pallet on which to lay. Soon she was alone for everyone had gone to listen to their leader.
She could see him out the front of the little shelter. He stood so big and quiet as they gathered around him. When he spoke, his voice was soft and very low. "Whose people are you?" he asked. "Nathaniel's people!" they cried. He said nothing for a long moment and then he shook his head.
"No, you're not!" he scolded gently. "You're the Lord's people. You got to remember that. If, someday, Nathaniel go out and he don't come back, you can't sit around waiting for someone to tell you what to do. You do that and the first miscreant that walks in shoutin' orders ... you're just rightly goin' to follow. You follow the Lord, ain't nobody goin' to push you around!"
"AMEN!"
"You got to fight the wrong ... not each other," he told them. "AMEN!"
"You don't just study the gospel. You live it!"
"Halleluja!"
"AMEN!"
So he was a preacher! The same people who'd been shouting at each other and fighting over everything were now jovially laughing together as though they didn't have a problem in the world. There had been fear and worry and indecision over what to do but with Nathaniel back, all the fears and the worries were gone.
How could a man accomplish so much if he was not a man? She wondered. She had heard her own father make less sense when he was talking to the Conagreers. Could Nathaniel really be subhuman when he talked like that? The man's intelligence was so obvious and his physique so superior, she could not help but think of him as a man ... and, if a man, what of the whole pyramid of ideas her father had taught her? Could they have whipped and beaten and even owned slaves that were really men?
Distressed, she watched and listened. It wasn't what the man said as much as the soft, gentle way he said it that mesmerized prisoner and followers alike. There was something restful ... actually relaxing about his voice. One could not fight its effects for very long.
There was another effect this man had on her. The more she watched him, the more she wanted the day to end so that he could come and lay beside her. What if he punished her by not touching her? After all, he was a preacher. The idea was too-bleak to contemplate.
Her idle, erotic musings came to an abrupt end when two black men rode into camp. Their horses were badly winded and they rode at such a pace that they nearly ran down a couple of children.
"IT'S WAR!" one of them cried. "They's goin' to fight!" yelled the other.
"Who? Where'd you hear it?"
"Over to Ridge Springs, just beyond the far hill. Kale and me was scouting 'round, like you told us and ... Nathaniel!" he cried. "Thank the Lord you're here."
"Oh, Brother Nathaniel!" exclaimed the other. "It's all true. You got to tell us what to do!"
Calmly, Nathaniel called for silence.
He made the two men dismount and sit down.
"Someone bring them some stew," he suggested. "They need something sturdy under their belts. Now, tell me, Kale. Where'd you hear the news, and how?"
"Well, sir," began the winded rider. "We kept to the willow thickets, following the creeks till we come onto this farm. Had a bunch a the peoples' shacks out back so that's where we put in. We was talkin' to man called hisself Uncle Moe when the big white ass sacheted on up and we hid out in a shed."
"I always treat you niggers right, ain't I?" he asked.
"Sure 'nough," they telled him.
"Well, them sons-of-bitches up north done passed a law says I cain't feed you no more or give you a place to sleep less'n I got the money to pay you wage. You people goin' to starve less'n I go to war for you."
"They all begged him not to let 'em starve and they promised they'd help him if he had to go to war. Robin and me figured this was what you was 'pectin' so soon as he left, we hightailed it on into town.
"Kale bought you a paper, Nathaniel. Near got hisself killed when someone wanted to know where he come off havin' money of his own. He thought real quick and told 'em he was out to get it for his master. They didn't ask nothin' more. Soon as he got back, we hightailed it back to camp. I swear, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life as I was you, Nathaniel. We been a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off since you been gone."
"We was wonderin' what they'd do 'bout this, with you gone and all," Robin was quick to agree.
"Will we fight?" asked Brother Paul.
"Those of us what feel the need," Nathaniel answered. "Yes, we got to do what we can. Where and how ... we'll have to think 'bout that. At least we have an out and out enemy now and we got someone on our side."
"He's the worst enemy we got," Barnard said as he pointed to his father. "No one's mussed a hair on his head."
"Yes," Nathaniel agreed, "of all the evil white men I've heard tell of, he's 'bout the worst."
"We gotta kill him," the young man demanded.
"Amen," came the people's fervent reply.
"It's gotta be mean, with lots of hurt. We got to draw that bastard's blood," cried Barnard.
"No!" Nathaniel boomed, firmly vetoing the boy's suggestion.
"Why not?" spat Barnard. "Do you know what he's done to my Mama? "
Nathaniel only shook his head. Holding up the paper, he turned it around to show the people. At the top were the words, PRESIDENT LINCOLN DECLARES WAR ON 'CEDED STATES.
"I'll think 'bout this man," Nathaniel told them and he glanced meaningfully at Bayard Kent. "I'll let you know what I decide. For now, we got to know all we can. Got to have men willing to go out and listen and look in all directions. How many of you will go?"
There was much bustle in camp after that. Meals were hastily eaten and rations of food wrapped in rags for the scouts' trail lunch. Those who had a horse to ride got an early start. Others headed off in every direction on foot. They were all somewhat north of their home country and the towns around were strange. To be found walking on the road with no note of explanation was dangerous for any black man. In the middle of the afternoon, there were few places one could hide. There were creek beds and a few drainage ditches where the farms channeled off the excess rains. There were thickets and small groves of trees with a lot of dangerous open space in between.
"I'll head south," Nathaniel said but a dozen men shouted their objections.
"You been walkin' all last night," they reminded him.
"You got to show us the way," an old lady told him. "We can't go alone no more."
He could not fight the logic of their argument, or the weight of it for that matter for everyone had jumped on him the moment he mentioned taking part. With his hands shoved grimly in his pockets, he watched the men go.
One of the women had spooned up a plate of stew for Star. When the girl wouldn't eat it, she showed the still-filled plate to Nathaniel himself. With a smile, the big man took the plate and walked to where Star was tied.
"You didn't eat," he said quietly.
"I wasn't hungry," she told him.
"Why?" he asked.
"It's been difficult since I left Conagree," she admitted.
"Barnard?" he wanted to know.
"Partly. Him and Papa, too," she said grimly.
"Don't you worry 'bout him," he said. "He ain't goin' to be around long. He won't bother you no more."
"You aren't going to kill him?" she demanded.
"I can't think of nobody what deserves it more," he admitted.
"But you can't!" she argued. "He don't know no better. He just does like his Pa done before him."
"That don't excuse him none," he said. "Did you hear, we got us a war?"
He was obviously trying to change the subject. Lifting a spoonful of taters and soppy, he was pleased to see her dutifully open her mouth.
"In a war, you got to kill the other side till they either give up or they kill you," he said. "I don't guess you could get much further on the other side than your Papa is from me. Ain't no way him and me could be on the same side."
"But you can't kill him," she objected. "It killed him enough when I told him 'bout you and me."
"He let me know 'bout that, sure 'nough," Nathaniel laughed. "Whatever possessed you to tell?"
Spoon by spoon he coaxed the possum stew down her until she'd emptied the entire plate. Through it all, she continued to beg for her father's life. She never even noticed that she ate.
"Turn him loose," she pleaded. "Have your men take him far away so you'll have plenty of time to escape. Then turn him loose so he can start the war with a fair fight. I let you loose, Nathaniel. You must do the same for him."
"Yes'm," he whispered.
"Don't yes'm me," she pleaded. "Be my master."
"Master?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes!" she said with growing excitement. "I used you, Nathaniel. I want you to use me. Take me to Congagree ... up to my father's room ... the master's room, Nathaniel. I want you to lay me on my Papa's own bed. I want you should take off my clothes, and yours, then I want you to make love to me."
Nathaniel stared at her for a moment and then he nodded his head.
"That sure 'nough is what I gotta do," he said.
CHAPTER NINE
When Star had finished the bowl of stew, Nathaniel went back to his people. There was much to do. By nightfall, the reports began to come in from the various scouts. All agreed with what Robin and Kale had heard.
"They're forming armies," one reported. "They even got nigger people fightin' for 'em. 'Course they're mostly there to tend the white folk's needs whilst the whiteasses carry the guns and march in the nice straight lines. You don't see no black men ridin' up on them fancy horses, but, on the other hand, there's whites a'walkin', too, up 'round Johnston and Ward."
"I seen 'em marching with axes and woodstocks at Batesburg," another said. "They ain't even got guns but they're out there gettin' all set!"
"They'll get 'em soon 'nough," Nathaniel said. "We got to get 'em, too. The ones of you want to head up north and join up with Mr. Lincoln's army, get your things together and we'll get started tomorrow. Ones of you that can slip back in with the people without being missed can wait till we send word what you should do. You women what got a home better get back to it. The others can go with us."
"You still ain't said what you're going to do with him," Barnard reminded him bitterly. His jaw was set as he pointed to his father.
Nathaniel sighed. "He got to die, sure 'nough," he told the younger man. "No!" cried Star.
Though the men spoke in conversational tones and though they were a hundred yards or more from Nathaniel's lean to, the low, fully quality of their voices carried far. At the sound of Star's sudden outburst, Barnard turned to glare at her.
"Her, too," he said grimly. "You got to kill her, too, and I ought to have a part in it."
"You tend to getting your Ma ready," Nathaniel said sternly. "You got to decide where you're going to go. I'll do the decidin' 'bout them. Brother Paul, I want you should get Ben and Kale to saddle up three horses and hitch up the cart. We got things to do that'll take most of the night. I don't want nobody else to come along.
"You mean you don't want him," Brother Paul snorted.
He jerked his thumb toward a furious Barnard.
"I mean him or anybody else," corrected Nathaniel.
Barnard glared from one man to the other. "You're goin' to take my Pa and my sister ... and she's my prisoner, too, you 'member ... ," he said. "It's me should figure what's to be done with them."
"Vengeance's mine, the Lord tell us, boy," Nathaniel reminded him. "We got to have justice but what you're thinkin' 'bout is revenge. Better you leave this up to me."
"And I never know? " Barnard cried.
"'Course you know, once it's done," Nathaniel promised. "I'll tell you 'bout it then."
They saddled the horses and hitched up the cart. Bayard Kent was laid in the back with Brother Paul tending reins.
Nathaniel lifted up Star with him on Moon Beam, letting her ride sidesaddle in front of him. Barnard did not look happy but he said no more. Star stared at her half-brother, still unable to believe that anyone could look so much like her own father. She didn't try to argue until they were well away from the camp.
"Don't kill Papa," she pleaded. "I don't care if I never see him again but I can't think it was you that killed him. Don't even order it, please?"
"I ain't going to kill him," Nathaniel said.
"Thank God!" she exclaimed. "Preacher Man, you goin' to take me to my Papa's room?"
"Yes."
"'Cause you hate Papa and me or 'cause you like me?" she had to know.
He smiled but didn't answer.
"Please," she begged. "I know now that I did wrong. On account of me you suffered plenty. I'm sorry but I didn't think 'bout you then the way I do now."
"Oh?" he questioned quietly.
"No, I didn't really think you were a man, you know?" she tried to explain in a rush. "My Papa always said niggers were more like mules than men."
"He said that," Nathaniel noted.
"It was the way we were taught but I saw for myself it wasn't true," she told him.
"How'd you see that?"
She sighed and snuggled in against him. "It's the way you stay so calm ... the way you lead your people without yellin' and shoutin' and such. You make more sense than my Papa ever did ... and...."
"And?"
"Well, you're bigger, in all the nicest ways and...." She hardly knew how to put it in words. "You make me shiver just to look at you. I'm sure I wouldn't shiver none over a mule!"
Nathaniel snorted but he was obviously pleased.
"I'm pig-headed as a mule sometimes," he admitted.
Star twisted around to face him. Fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, she finally managed to open it up enough to see the star branded on his black chest. It was still a fiery red but it was beginning to scab over.
"Does it hurt much?" she asked.
"'nough," he admitted.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I was sorry the minute I did it."
He shrugged. "You the one what's goin' to have to look at it," he said. "Far as I can see, you put it there permanent. You're goin' to have me 'round for keeps."
"Promise?" she asked eagerly.
"You won't think it's so nice once you find yourself a fancy beau," he warned. "You won't like it when I come sidlin' around then."
"I don't want no fancy Dan," she said happily. "I don't want anyone but you, Preacher Man."
He laughed but the sound was hollow. "I'm too big to hide and too black to be master of Conagree."
"You won't be too black after the war," she exclaimed. "If the south should win, we could move north. They figure a nigger's good as anybody up there."
"You let me worry 'bout that," he scolded playfully. "Now, you hush. We got a long ride ahead."
He held her against him with one massive arm and, digging his heels in the animal's flanks, he urged Moon Beam up with the other men.
They stopped only once to rest. While Star wrapped a blanket around her father, Nathaniel called his old friend aside. Cautiously, they walked in silence until they reached a noisy brook.
"What we goin' to do with 'em?" Brother Paul asked. "Why don' we just kill 'em here and save the long ride?"
Nathaniel shook his head. "I'm takin' the girl home," he said. "I ain't killin' her."
"Why not?" his friend demanded.
Nathaniel shook his head. "I owe her," he said. " 'Sides, I can't speak for the Lord and then bloody myself up. Bayard Kent got to die but it ain't goin' to be by me."
"How then?" Brother Paul asked. "You want one of us to do it?"
Nathaniel shook his head. "One of his own'll do it for us," he said. "Now, just you listen. I'm goin' to tell Star that you're takin' him south so our people will have time to strike out 'fore he calls for help. When we get to Conagree, you pretend to go on but soon as me an Star get inside, you circle on back and wait for me out by the stables. You understand?"
Brother Paul nodded. They shared a cold bun and a sip of water, then headed back toward the others.
"Papa's sure you're goin' to kill him," Star confided when they were again on their way.
"He'll find out soon 'nough," Nathaniel said. "I'm sendin' him on south so my people will have time to get away 'fore he can set out after 'em."
"Where will you go?" she asked.
"To Mr. Lincoln," he answered without hesitation. "Wherever he sends me after that."
"Would you take me with you, Preacher Man?"
"No, Star."
"Will you come back to me?"
"If we win," he said after some thought. "If we could all be the same, like they say, I'd come. Would you wait?"
"Of course!"
"You'll have to stand by while your Papa chains other black men to his hate pit. You'll have to see him beat them the way he would'a done to me."
"NO!" she cried. "I won't let him! I promise you, no one will ever use that room again."
"How you goin' to stop him?"
"I'll have it cemented shut!" she exclaimed. "I'll make it so no one can ever open that door again."
"You can do that?"
"I can, Preacher Man, and I will!" she said fervently. "No one will ever step foot in there again."
"No. Leave it be!" she cried.
He nodded, a faint smile spreading across his lips. They had reached Conagree. Soon they turned into the long drive that led to the main house.
The trees were old and so huge that they made a canope over the road. Through the tunnel of their limbs, Star saw the big house waiting for them. It was a sight that never failed to thrill her.
"You got to win, Preacher Man," she whispered. "There's no one else big enough to run the Conagree."
"Brother Paul, Kale, Ben," he called quietly. "Take the cart on south until sunrise. Then dump him near a quiet spot on the road."
"Alive?" asked Kale incredulously.
"Alive," he echoed in a warning tone. "Take care they do as I say, Brother Paul."
They nodded to one another and then Nathaniel and Star rode on alone. It was quite dark and a bit chilly but Star didn't notice anything but the warmth of Nathaniel's arms.
They rode up the long drive in silence. Even the owl in the big gum did not ask "who." When the drive opened up into the big front yard, everything about them was strangely still.
"There's not a lamp lit," Star remarked. "Martha always keeps one at my window when I'm not at home."
"They all may have run, without you and your Pa here to hold them," he suggested. "The news has unsettled most everyone.
He reined up in front of the tethering pole and dismounted. Soon as he'd tied the horse, he helped Star to dismount. Together they climbed the large, curved stairway that led to the front door.
Nathaniel tried the door and it opened. Cautiously, Star peered inside. "Anybody home?" she called. There was not a sound. She glanced quickly up at Nathaniel and then slipped on inside, pulling him in after her. She hung on to his hand for all she was worth.
"They're gone," she announced suddenly. "I can feel it. There's not a soul about."
"They're in the shacks with the people, likely," he told her. "We'll set out a lamp or two and they'll skidaddle right back."
"I don't care," she said and then she laughed. "I don't even want them here right now."
He grinned. "Which room is it?" he asked.
"First one on your right at the top of the stairs," she answered breathlessly.
In one smooth lunge, he scooped her up in his arms and sprinted up the stairs, taking three and four steps at a time. He seemed almost triumphant as he burst into her father's room.
The moonlight shining through the window was the only light in the room but it was enough to show him the huge, raised bed against the far wall. His chest heaved as he carried her to that bed. It wasn't the effort that had winded him but the excitement of expectancy.
"This time, I ought to tie you," he said with feeling. "I ought to show you what it's like, wanting to touch someone so bad it gets you all sick inside and you can't move an inch to satisfy the itch."
"Tie me," she suggested. "So long as you're free to love me, I don't care. You know how it hurts to want someone to touch you and they can't?"
Impatiently, he shook his head. He sat down beside her and reached to unwrap her blanket. When she tried to help, he pushed her away, stood up, and pulled one edge sharply upward. She rolled out of it like a moth, shedding its cocoon.
"You wanted to be told you were beautiful?" he said. "Yes?"
He grinned as he looked her over carefully. "You are," he said finally.
"That's not so important now," she told him breathlessly. "Tell me how I feel!"
Roaring with laughter, Nathaniel began climbing out of his clothes.
"Make down that big old bed, woman," he ordered. "I'm goin' to sleep between clean white sheets, the way a white man does, at least for tonight."
Hurriedly, she obeyed. By the time she'd climbed back in her father's bed, he was ready to join her. His huge black body moved with the grace of a mountain cat. It took Star's breath away just to look at him.
He paused, just above her, to look at her full white breasts and the pale little nipples that crowned them. When he finally reached down and grazed his fingers over her spongy flesh, Star cried out at the excitement of his touch.
"Nnnnngh!" she whimpered.
He looked into her eyes and frowned. "I didn't hurt you," he said.
"No," she admitted. "I've just waited too long."
"To be touched?"
"There ... yes," she admitted. "You were tied. You couldn't touch me before."
He kissed her then, tenderly, yet the excitement generated by even so gentle a caress was frightening. When he finally released her, both of their hearts were threatening to burst.
He slid down beside her, his hands taking possession of every part of her body. She floated in sensual ecstasy as he explored her shivering flesh.
"I thought I'd die for the want of those hands," she declared. "I dreamed of them near every night."
"The hands can't do what the mouth can," he teased.
His lips began a fiery trail down her neck. She was shivering all over before they reached her breast. Around and around they nibbled and all the time his fingers were doing things to her belly, pulling the hairs around her crotch until she wanted to scream for more.
His silky flesh grazed over her and then his tongue slid through and trailed along until it reached her tightly knotted nipple. When he pulled her into the smoldering inner part of his mouth and began, gently, to suck, she cried out her excitement for all to hear.
"It's so good ... so good ... so good!" she wailed. "Don't go off and leave me. Don't ever go! It ain't fair!"
"Ain't much that is fair," he told her.
He kissed her nipples, even nursed them each for a time, then moved on. As he kissed his way down to her belly, she became very, very still.
His fingers teased her puffy love-lips but he did not invade her inner core. A shiver passed through her as he tongued her navel and, as he worked lower, she quit breathing at all.
Across and over and down he worked, never letting her body guess where he would nibble to next, yet growing within her was an insatiable desire for him to kiss that one, special part of her.
And he did! Oh God, he did!
He nobbled right on into her forest and then his warm, feverish mouth was pressing against her love-lips.
"Ohhhhhh!" she gasped breathlessly. "Ohhhhhh!"
But he was far from done with her for a moment later, she felt his tongue quivering against her puffy folds. Then it slithered through, parting her two throbbing lips to search out, and find, the very core of her passion.
"Eyiiiiiiii!" she wailed ecstatically.
His quivering, wet caress transported her into a fog of excitement. She burned with fire, seethed with erotic need. When he tongued his way on down her furrow to stab into her smoldering cove, she arched up her loins and opened herself to him in total commitment.
But he backed away. Raising up over her again, his smile was warm and tender and so inviting that she raised her arms to him.
"I need you," she pleaded for her entire body ached the moment he drew away. "Hold me close to you, please?"
He held her as she had asked and she was amazed at the gentleness of his caress. He was big enough to crush her with his weight alone, yet he treated her like a fragile flower. When his hands fondled her body, it was with this same, infinitely tender touch. It was a touch that made her feel beautiful ... even worshipped, if that be possible.
She didn't have to ask if she was beautiful now. His touch told her so and it was more than enough.
"It won't take long," he whispered.
"What?"
"The war," he explained. "They'll see the right and it'll all be over real soon."
"I hope so," she whimpered. "I can't bear the idea of you gone."
He kissed her and now they were burning, demanding kisses. She answered with all of her long buried passions.
"Take me, Preacher Man," she begged. "I been waitin' far too long!"
He rolled over on top of her, careful to brace himself away from her small body. She was so anxious, she reached down and grabbed up his cock with both hands. "Let me!"
She stuffed his huge trunk into her cove, pushing it into her with all of her might. Nathaniel laughed at her ineffectual attempt and was pleased by her eagerness. Pulling her hands away, he slowly pushed on into her core.
"Ohhhhh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, yes! Now hug me! Hold me close!"
When he held her as she had asked, she felt complete. She'd thought it was her breasts and loins that needed a man's touch but they were no more important than the need to be held. Only when she was encircled in his massive arms, did she truly feel secure.
His pole pistoned in and out of her and his tongue stabbed erotic messages into her mouth. Often, he bent his head to nuzzle or suck at her breast-flesh but always there were his arms ... encircling, enfolding ... making her feel that she belonged.
The silky flesh of his torrid cock slid smoothly in and out of her, riding on the juices of her own excitement. She gripped his ass with her legs, his broad shoulders and neck with her arms and his pole with her own, hotly churning membranes. She would cling to him, keep him with her forever for she could not bear to let him go.
"Easy," he warned but she wouldn't hear. She must hang on to him at all costs.
Squeezing him to her with all of her might, Star pushed them both too far. With a groan, he felt his balls begin to knot and he knew it was too late.
"Star!" he gasped.
The excitement was too much for the long unloved woman. When his pole jerked inside of her, her own passions exploded.
"AHHHHHHHH!" she wailed.
When the first volley of cum shot into her, it caught her crest and catapulted it even higher.
"EYIIIIIIII!" Nathaniel roared.
Their cries of ecstasy merged. Together they soared into a sensual abyss.
Then he held her in his arms until she was fast asleep.
"That you, Nathaniel?" called Brother Paul.
"Yes, keep him quiet now. We're goin' to carry him on up to the house."
"You goin' to leave him?"
"Don' you worry 'bout him," he said.
Robin and Kale carried Bayard Kent between them. Brother Paul walked along beside, keeping his broad black hand over the victim's mouth. They followed the hedge up around to the side of the house. By a big butterfly bush, Nathaniel paused and motioned for his men to wait. Quietly, he searched for the key.
The men's eyes grew large as the big door opened. Pausing to light his lantern, Nathaniel led them on down the stairs and through the curved tunnel. He had them wait while he hurried up and shut the door.
"You can turn his mouth loose now," he said. "Ain't nobody goin' to hear. Lay him down there and we'll chain him up like they done me."
"But they'll find him," Kale objected. "This is his own house."
Nathaniel grinned. "His own daughter's goin' to seal up the big door. She promised she ain't even goin' to peek in."
"Can you be sure?"
The big man shrugged. "Not often a man gets to test his woman," he said. "If they see him out 'n around, then you got to kill them both. If he stays put, you leave her for me."
"You're a Goddam nigger bastard!" Bayard Kent hissed.
"Yes, sir, and I'm master of Conagree," Nathaniel told him. "Soon as the war's over, we'll all be the same, anyway."
