Magnus did not feel anything so profound as all that had happened to him, but he told Merian he would take him at his word, as they went to work the fields with the hired men.

The previous days Magnus had worked lethargically, barely keeping up with the slowest man out there, but that afternoon when he worked he produced handsomely, thinking he owed Merian something for all he had given to him, and the only way he could repay him was with good labor. He was not invested in that land, but he worked as though it meant something to him, and as the days passed he found he was beginning to grow attached to the people of Stonehouses.

Still, he did not sleep as well as he was accustomed to. At the end of his first week, when he was finally able to drift off for more than an hour or two, he had a strange dream that was very haunting and disturbing to him. In it he pursued a woman continuously but never caught up with her. He would run faster and faster, but she would always manage to elude him, until he grew frustrated and could not remember why he chased her in the first place. “Go on, you old witch,” he called out in the dream. “I don’t want you no way.”

She laughed at him when he said this and began taunting him. “Even if you did catch me, you still couldn’t get what you want.”

“I don’t want nothing from you,” he yelled at her again, then added, as if she were an animal he could command, “Pass on.”

“Oh, yes, you do,” she countered, raising her skirts up so that he could see all her private parts.

“Man give the meat,

Man give the gravy,

But woman give the milk

And woman give the babies.”

She laughed and dropped her skirt.

“Get away from me, you evil thing,” he called out. She continued laughing at him and ran off again. Despite himself he started to chase after her, even though he understood by then he would never catch up.

He awoke frustrated and understood from the dream that he was meant never to have children. This in itself did not play at his emotions, because he had never been overly drawn to children in the first place and so could not see any shame in not having them. As for women, he had known several at Sorel’s Hundred and the surrounding plantations, but never one whom he would have thought to call a wife. For to tell the truth he could not see the great pleasure in being so intimate with anyone and sharing all your thoughts and time. When he did take a woman, it was because nature could not be suppressed, or when he found one pleasant and thought to spend a season or so in her company — but not longer than that, for it began to weary him. He had no need for children and marriage but preferred his own solitude and thought, when there was the luxury for it, which was but very seldom for family men. That was why the dream disturbed him even more, because he did not think it revealed anything true but was only a deep taunting, and he worried someone had put a root spell on him to make him want what he did not.

After dinner the following day, Magnus was still trying to puzzle out the dream when Purchase asked him whether he would not like to go for some amusement.

“What is there at this hour?”

“I thought you might fancy a game of cards.”

“I don’t have money, but I’ll join you for company if you don’t mind.”

Magnus was not generally one for drinking and the concomitant sins, but he appreciated the offer from Purchase, and thought it might do him well to go out in the air. The two brothers went to the stable then, where they saddled horses and went off in search of entertainment.

The town where Purchase took Magnus was not Berkeley, though. Rather, they rode some five miles in the opposite direction to a small building set off in the woods with nothing else around it. Inside men and women of all stripes and countries milled around, and it was easy for Magnus to see what kind of place he had been brought to, even if he had never been to one before. It was also immediately plain that Purchase spent a great deal of time here, for the proprietor seemed to know him well.

The two brothers ordered drinks from the bar and sat alone with each other, not speaking very much but watching the room in silence. When two men sitting at a card table went off with a pair of the harlots, who had procured their attention beyond what the cards could, a place at the gaming table was free for the first time.

“Would you care to play?” Purchase asked.

“I don’t have money.”

“It is my invitation.”

They sat down with the four already present: a Creole and an Indian, who didn’t seem to know either each other or anyone else there. In addition there was an Englishman and an African woman, who seemed to be partners of some sort or other. When they sat, the woman began the deal, but neither the Creole nor the Indian had very good cards and soon put down their hands. Purchase proceeded to bet with abandon, studying the African woman very carefully, as the Englishman made friendly talk with Magnus. When there were as many coins stacked on the table as he had ever seen, Magnus had sense to put down his cards and watch the other players, knowing that the monies he had already lost were not his but Purchase’s.

Purchase, though, did not seem to care about the coins and continued to put more into the stack in the center of the table, until the Englishman also withdrew and there was only Purchase and the woman left in the game.

By now the men who had sat there earlier were finished with their business and took seats at the bar to watch the card game unfold. “She’ll have his very skin before long,” one of the men said, looking at the cards on the table. At this Purchase cut his eyes menacingly and pulled a pistol from his belt. “Not before I’ve had yours if you keep flapping,” he answered, leaving the gun on the table pointed at the other man. The man who had been threatened was quiet after that, as much from fear of Purchase as the fact that the gun was made of unmixed gold. “It will put a golden bullet in you too,” Purchase said, looking steadily at his cards.

Magnus could tell very little about who had the better hand from the cards that showed on the table, but when the next one was revealed, he saw Purchase’s face slump and the woman begin to glitter. “It’s all right, Sugarloaf,” she said to him. “If you lose I’ll let you stay the night with me in my room.” The Englishman who had been her partner was not pleased to hear her talk so saucily, but he held his tongue, waiting for the last card to be turned over.

Before it could be revealed, though, there was a ruckus outside that spilled immediately through the door of the tavern. Three highwaymen stood back-to-back-to-back, holding guns, and began moving through the room, taking purses from the patrons at the bar. When one of them saw the money stacked in front of the cards, and the golden pistol, he broke away from the others and went to take the bounty from the gaming table. As he held his hand over the pile of money, though, a shot rang out and he fell where he had stood.

Contrary to what Purchase had claimed, the bullet from the gun was made of lead. He and the woman then jumped from the table and rushed toward the door, as the other robbers fired randomly into the bar. In the melee Magnus searched for a way out, before finally discovering a back door and sneaking out into the hushed night air. The scene he left behind was of bloody carnage, and when he found his horse he whipped it into a frenzied gallop, not caring which direction he was going as long as it was away from that place, before he was shot or the authorities descended upon them.

The horse half obeyed and half did as it pleased, until Purchase rode up from the other direction and took the reins, as Magnus drooped in the saddle full of liquor. The jostling of the ride was awful on his head, and when they reached the road before Stonehouses, he climbed down and began walking the horse to the stable, unable to ride any longer.