"I'm a widower. Why do you ask?"

She was sitting on a divan now, her hands folded in her lap, her back not touching the fabric. He continued to stand. She paused for a long moment before she spoke, then let her eyes rest on his until he blinked.

"I'm disturbed by the conduct of your employee Captain Atkins. I believe he's molesting one of your slaves, a young woman who has done nothing to warrant being treated in such a frankly disgusting fashion," she said.

Ira Jamison was framed in the light through the window, his expression obscured by his own silhouette. She heard him clear an obstruction from his throat.

"I see. Well, I'll have a talk with Mr. Atkins. I should see him in the next week or so," he said.

"Let me be more forthcoming. The young woman's name is Flower. Do you know her, sir?" she said, the anger and accusation starting to rise in her voice.

He sat down in a chair not far from her. He pressed one knuckle against his lips and seemed to think for a moment.

"I have the feeling you want to say something to me of a personal nature. If that's the case, I'd rather you simply get to it, madam," he said.

"I've been told she's your daughter. It's not my intention to offend you, but the resemblance is obvious. You allow an employee to sexually harm your own child? My God, sir, have you no decency?"

The skin seemed to shrink on his face. A black woman in a gray dress with a white apron appeared at the doorway to the dining room.

"Supper for you and your guest is on the table, Mr. Jamison," she said.

"Thank you, Ruby," he said, rising, his face still disconcerted.

"I don't think I'll be staying. Thank you very much for your hospitality," Abigail said.

"I insist you have supper with me."

"You insist?"

"You cast aspersions on my decency in my own home? Then you seem to glow with vituperative rage, even though I've only known you five minutes. Couldn't you at some point be a little more lenient and less judgmental and allow me to make redress of some kind?"

"You're the largest slave owner in this state, sir. Will you make 'redress' by setting your slaves free?"

"I just realized who you are. You're the abolitionist."

"I think there are more than one of us."

"You're right. And when they have their way, I'll be destitute and we'll have bedlam in our society."

"Good," she said, and walked toward the door.

"You haven't eaten, madam. Stay and rest just a little while."

"When will you be talking to Captain Atkins?" she asked.

"I'll send a telegraph message to him this evening."

"In that case, it's very nice of you to invite me to your table," Abigail said.

As he held a dining room chair for Abigail to sit down, he smelled the perfume rising off her neck and felt a quickening in his loins, then realized the black woman named Ruby was watching him from the kitchen. He shot her a look that made her face twitch out of shape.

Chapter Five

AFTER Willie reported to Camp Pratt and began his first real day of the tedium that constituted life in the army, he knew it was only a matter of time before he would empower Rufus Atkins to do him serious harm. One week later, after an afternoon of scrubbing a barracks floor and draining mosquito-breeding ponds back in the woods, he and Jim Stubbefield were seated in the shade on a bench behind the mess hall, cleaning fish over a tub of water, when Corporal Clay Hatcher approached them. It was cool in the shade, the sunlight dancing on the lake, the Spanish moss waving overhead, and Willie tried to pretend the corporal's mission had nothing to do with him.

"You threw fish guts under Captain Atkins' window?" Hatcher said.

"Not us," Willie said.

"Then how'd they get there?" Hatcher asked. "Be fucked if I know," Jim said.

"I was talking to Burke. How'd they get there?" Hatcher said. "I haven't the faintest idea, Corporal. Have you inquired of the fish?" Willie said.

"Come with me," Hatcher said.

Willie placed his knife on the bench, washed his hands in a bucket of clean water, and began putting on his shirt, smiling at the corporal as he buttoned it.

"You think this is funny?" Hatcher said.

"Not in the least. Misplaced fish guts are what this army's about. Lead the way and let's straighten this out," Willie said. He heard Jim laugh behind him. "I can have those stripes, Stubbefield," Hatcher said. "You can have a session with me behind the saloon, too. You're not a bleeder, are you?" Jim said.

Hatcher pointed a finger at Jim without replying, then fitted one hand under Willie's arm and marched him to the one-room building that Rufus Atkins was now using as his office.

"I got Private Burke here, sir," Hatcher said through the door. Atkins stepped out into the softness of the late spring afternoon, without a coat or hat, wearing gray pants and a blue shirt with braces notched into his shoulders. He had shaved that morning, using a tin basin and mirror nailed to the back side of the building, flicking the soap off his razor into the shallows, but his jaws already looked grained, dark, an audible rasping sound rising from the back of his hand when he rubbed it against his throat.

"He says he didn't do it, sir. I think he's lying," Hatcher said. Atkins cut a piece off a plug of tobacco and fed it off the back of his pocketknife into his mouth.

"Tell me, Private, do you see anyone else around here cleaning fish besides yourself and Corporal Stubbefield?" he said.

"Absolutely not, sir," Willie replied.

"Did Corporal Stubbefield throw fish guts under my window?"

"Not while I was around," Willie said.

"Then that leaves only you, doesn't it?" Atkins said.

"There could be another explanation, sir," Willie said.

"What might that be?" Atkins asked.

"Perhaps there are no fish guts under your window," Willie said.

"Excuse me?" Atkins said.

"Could it be you still have a bit of Carrie LaRose's hot pillow house in your mustache, sir?" Willie said. Atkins' eyes blazed.

"Buck and gag him. The rag and stick. Five hours' worth of it," he said to the corporal.

"We're s'pposed to keep it at three, Cap," Hatcher said.

"Do you have wax in your ears?" Atkins said.

"Five sounds right as rain," Hatcher replied.

WILLIE remained in an upright ball by the lake's edge for three hours, his wrists tied to his ankles, a stick inserted between his forearms and the backs of his knees, a rag stuffed in his mouth. A stick protruded from each side of his mouth, the ends looped with leather thongs that were tied tightly behind his head.

Water ran from his tear ducts and he choked on his own saliva. The small of his back felt like a hot iron had been pressed against his spine. He watched the sun descend on the lake and tried to think of the fish swimming under the water, the wind blowing through the trees, the way the four-o'clocks rippled like a spray of purple and gold confetti in the grass.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rufus Atkins mount his horse and ride out of the camp. The pain spread through Willie's shoulders and wrapped around his thighs, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

Jim Stubbefield could not watch it any longer. He pulled aside the flap on the corporal's tent and went inside, closing the flap behind him. Hanging from Jim's belt was a bowie knife with a ten-inch blade that could divide a sheet of paper in half as cleanly as a barber's razor.

Hatcher was combing his hair in a mirror attached to the tent pole when Jim locked his arm under Hatcher's neck and simultaneously stuck the knife between his buttocks and wedged the blade upward into his genitals.

"You cut Willie loose and keep your mouth shut about it. If that's not acceptable, I'll be happy to slice off your package and hang it on your tent," Jim said.