Chapter Eleven-

As rambunctious as the jamboree proved to be, it eventually had to come to its end, as all parties did.

After the assigned cleaning team finished tidying the interior of the barn, Reverend Brown saw everyone off as he stood by the barn doors, watching church-goers and their friends stroll out of the barn in small groups, going over the night's events with a hearty laugh, a scandalous whisper, or a secretly jealous glance. There would definitely be something for all to discuss, come Sunday.

As the last group of people began to file past, he asked them, "Excuse me, but do you know if those two kids I brought over from town are still around?"

"No, Rev."

"Can't say that I have."

"Maybe they went on, Rev."

"Yeah," he agreed at last. "They did say that they were passin' through, and all. I hope they'll be okay. All right, I'm closin' up the barn. I'll see y'all later. Good night, ya'll."

As the last group bade him a good night, also, he closed the massive doors and followed the trail of people to their carts and wagons.

After a while, the partiers had finally departed, leaving the farm to the quiet night.

A stray strand of hay fell free from the dim loft inside the barn. Something was stirring up above.

May's head emerged from underneath a pile of hay gathered in a corner of the loft, away from the curious. Dewey's head appeared a moment later.

"I think they're gone," May reported as she fully came out of the pile and brushed some straw off her shoulders. "We can come out."

"That was a pretty good idea of yours, pretending you wanted to make out with me up here in the loft so we could hide until the people left. I wouldn't have thought of it."

"Thanks," she said with a hint of frustration, then said under her breath, "I really did want to make out with you."

"Don't mention it," he obliviously continued. "I mean, you sure sounded convincin'. Almost had me fooled. But I know you were just thinkin' of the mission. You knew we needed a place to sleep 'til morning so we'd be bright eyed and bushy-tailed to face the day. Right, May?"

"Yeah, whatever," said the girl, her ardor cooling as fast as the night air.

May waded through the straw until she came to the opening that led outside to the barn's suspended hoist, choosing that place because it had the most ambient moonlight available.

May bent down to grab some hay and noticed an ache in her arm. As she began piling more hay together to make more comfortable sleeping mounds, Dewey crawled over to her.

"Is that what you women call 'nesting instinct?'" Dewey quipped as he began to take off his vest and shirt.

"Ha, ha," May replied. "Ugh, I must have hurt my arm when I passed out in that saloon."

She was about to explain further when she glanced over at Dewey and stopped in mid-speech.

She figured he was worked hard while in servitude, but she never had the pleasure of seeing the results of that hard work up close and personal.

His upper body and torso weren't so much toned, as sculpted. In the moonlight, his smooth skin glowed and he looked, for all the world, like a polished, mahogany statue come to life.

If May had words to say at that moment, they decomposed into a mush of lustfully incoherent gibberish.

"Sorry about that," Dewey said as he took a stretch, allowing May to watch his muscles roll and bundle in intriguing ways. "I should've waited until you were done, but I just wanted to lay down and rest."

"A work of art," she said under her breath.

"Hmm?"

"Uh...I was telling myself...to work my arm," she clumsily fibbed. "When we find my parents, I don't want to get slowed down by injuries."

"Good point, and I'll see if I can find a cart while we're on the road tomorrow," Dewey said.

As soon as he turned around to lay his shirt and vest down on a set aside patch of hay, May saw his back, and the spell was horribly broken.

His muscled back bore the grim advertisement of his servitude, the destructive, haphazard scores of the lash. Time had made the wounds pale and puffy, but their sheer number horrified May.

"Oh, my God! Dewey!" she couldn't help but gasp.

Dewey turned back to her with a start. "What? What's wrong? You hear somethin'?"

"Your back. I'm...I'm so sorry." May bowed her head in both regret at his condition and in shame for reacting thus. It was the life they were born into, after all. It shouldn't have taken her breath away so easily like it had, but it did.

If old wounds like his could shock her this badly, what would become of her when they finally reached her grandfather's mansion, with all the trouble that would entail. The hanged woman in the field still haunted her, sometimes.

"Oh. That," Dewey replied, giving her an understanding smile. "Just some...Labor negotiations that went bad, that's all."

"Your old master...did this to you?"

"Well, he wanted me to do something I didn't particularly care for. You know how it goes. I guess he needed me too much not to kill me. Lucky me."

May didn't think, she just acted on an instinct to nurture, tentatively reaching out and gently touching the criss-crossing scar tissue.

"Oh, Dewey," May whispered. "I wish I could make all of this go away,"

Dewey bowed his head upon contact with her touch. The tenderness was like nothing he had ever felt. No mere dalliance with some anonymous girl he met in his travels, this was truthful, honest, loving, and therefore, frightening.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked."

"Yeah. Nothing you could've done, girl. Don't beat yourself up over it."

May's eyes sparked upon hearing that. She was preparing to go to sleep when a strangely sympathetic, yet naughty notion crossed her mind. She turned Dewey around and held his hand up to her.

"Feel here," she told him as she placed his hand firmly on the region of her chest just above and between her right and left breast. Inside, she felt her heart hammer.

Dewey felt it, also, though the awkward situation had him surprised, to put it mildly.

"Y'know, May, you don't have to have me feel you up to make me feel better, but it does help!"

May had to smile at that as she explained. "No, Dewey. Feel that dip? That dent? It's a scar. Grandpa shot me once. He was cleaning his gun and it went off while I was dusting one day."

Dewey gave a sympathetic whistle and May suddenly felt like a proud veteran in a sad war.

Dewey, for his part, began to soften a bit inside. It was strange, due to her unorthodox action, but a connection suddenly blossomed in him deeply. She understood. She knew what it felt like to endure a family that. He finally, truly, felt like opening up to her.

"My old master was so mean," he told her. "One time, when I was a kid, I heard a song that I loved so much that I sang it for days. Then one day, he beat me up, just for the peace and quiet. Wanna feel where he broke my arm?"

May felt around the offered forearm, noticed a scar, and felt a thick deformation along the bone where the ends healed.

"I got that beat," she said. "Check this out."

May turned her back to him and pulled down one shoulder of her dress, and then the other, bringing her neckline down and exposing her upper back.

"Feel all around there," she instructed him.

Dewey obeyed her, his fingertips lightly roving over the distressing number of tiny divots that peppered the surface of her back.

"Aunt Carolina's ten-year old's birthday party. The theme that year was Manifest Destiny. Guess who was the Cowboy and who was the Indian?"

"That doesn't sound too bad," he shrugged.

"You obviously never heard of arrows before," she said wryly.

"Ouch! Wait a minute. You were the Cowboy?"

May chuckled. "Surprised, huh? Who knew Grandpa was such a kid at heart when it came to children's games. One minute, I'm serving cake to the other kids, the next, he suggests to my mom that I'm to be dressed up like Hopalong Cassidy, and get shot at by the Sioux Nation. I'll give 'em this, some of those rug rats had pretty good hand-eye coordination, because I made sure I was a very moving target before they managed to hit me."

May watched Dewey tense with indignation.

"I can't believe she'd do that to you. What kind of mother was she?"

She squeezed his shoulder, hoping her touch would be enough to calm him and make him understand.

"Don't hate my mother for what she did, Dewey. She tried to make sure that my brothers and I worked as long as we could in the mansion, to keep us safe. But Grandpa had her trapped, and if she didn't let things go the way he wanted, it might have been much worse for me. I know it killed her inside to see that happen to me, but I understand why she had to do it. She had too much to protect back then: my father, little Curtis and Huey, and me. The family Grandpa never knew and couldn't know."

"I wish you hadn't shown me all that. I don't like seein' you hurt," he said with regret.

"I didn't want you to think that you were alone in all this," May said quietly. "I wanted you to know that I'm here for you, Dewey, and that you were right."

"About what?"

"About what you said earlier at the picnic. About living life for today, because we might not have another chance, tomorrow."

"Well," Dewey said proudly. "I do try to live by that particular sentiment-"

"I want to go all the way with you," May said nervously without preamble.

Dewey froze in shock and truly regretted opening his big mouth back at the picnic. He simultaneously felt like someone who was blessed with far more than he could handle, and at the same time, didn't want to do anything that even remotely seemed like he was going to take advantage of her.

"May…Cher, you don't have to do that," he told her carefully, as if trying to talk her down from a ledge. "Besides, we'll make it, somehow. You'll see."

"But that's just it," she countered. "You can't see. None of us can. There were times back there when I thought I'd never see another day, but you were there for me, Dewey. I don't think I could have made it this far without you."

May took a deep breath and summoned the courage to continue.

"I know there's a good chance I'll probably end up dead trying to get my parents back. But I don't want to die knowing that I could have had something special in my life before then. So I'm saying, I want to have that special time with you. I want you to be my first."

"But, I don't wanna hurt-"

She gently silenced him with a trembling finger to his lips.

"It's okay," she whispered nervously. "I'm…kinda scared, too…but I trust you. So, just for tonight…don't say no."

It was then that she saw the uncertainty again, just like what she saw on board the Plymouth that night before they kissed for the first time. The naked fear that shone behind his eyes. Uncommon, as it was unnerving.

Taking another deep breath, May calmed herself down and attempted to look at things from his perspective.

Perhaps it was too soon for him in this relationship, such as it was. Maybe she was coming on too strong because of her fear of what may come tomorrow. If that were so, then she knew she was clearly in the wrong.

May turned her face away, ashamed of her apparent wantonness.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw myself at you like that. I was just being selfish. I wasn't thinking about how you might be feeling about all this. I'm so stupid. Forget I said anything."

They were alone and everything had felt right. May wanted him madly, but she had overplayed her hand. Was being on the road changing her? Making her wilder and stripping away the moral underpinnings she was brought up to have?

In her failure, her self-centeredness was exposed to him, yet she could still redeem herself, and give him the respect he was due. If she couldn't show him her love in the end, she would, at the very least, show him her maturity.

More shamed than weary, May turned from him to lie down on her mound, but was stopped by Dewey suddenly grabbing her by the wrist.

"What? I-" she started to say in confusion.

As if he feared that she would run away if she moved fast enough, he quickly held her by her waist and kissed her, and didn't stop for a full minute.

When he finished, he looked into her bewildered eyes with conviction and concern.

"I won't lie and say I don't want this," he finally told her, his voice laced with the tint of remorse. "But who am I, May? Some Good Samaritan you bumped into on the street? Don't waste your trust on me, cher."

May stared at him, wondering where this was coming from.

"Why?"

Dewey ignored her, looking away. "Just give your trust to a better man."

May gave him a look of steel. She didn't understand what he was hiding from, or what he was keeping from her, and she told herself that she would confront him on that matter soon enough. But right now, on this night, that didn't matter one bit.

She wanted him. Now. He had already proven his trustworthiness in her eyes, and she now used her intuition and his past actions to be the compass that guided her into the decision she now leapt into.

She leaned forward and kissed him back with as much hunger as he had, and said, looking back fiercely into his eyes, "I found that man."

She took him by the hand, guiding him as they both laid down, settling in the soft embrace of the straw in the serene darkness.

May's mind tried to wrap around the impossibility of the moment. She had dreamed of this. Studied every imagined scenario on it. Talked secretly to her few girlfriends about it. Wanted to even corner her mother and ask her how it was her first time.

But all of it was smoke. Nothing compared to this. This time was her shining jewel.

Adrenaline and anxious energy flavored every fervent kiss, as they panted, moaned, wrestled and grappled in the straw with a speed that bordered on the predacious.

Sometimes, May would desperately break off to breathe, only to have Dewey seize the moment and attack the base of her soft, inviting throat and shoulders with deep kisses and nibbles, like a wild wolf, causing a lusty gasp to cry from her.

Dewey would lock onto May again for a kiss, and have her built-up passion for his touch be so strong, that it felt as though she was trying to consume the very life out of him through her moist French kisses.

His trousers were wiggled and kicked away while he still held a lamprey-like attachment to her lips, and it wasn't long after, that May finally slinked out of her blue dress, like a snake shedding a tight skin, and tossed it aside.

It took everything May had not to sing, as his probing fingers caressed, ran over, and dove into the smooth plains, hills and valleys of her young body. Jolts of sensation flashed through her spine like erotic lightning.

It was struggle for her not to lose herself so deeply, that she couldn't take advantage and record her voracious, tactile explorations of Dewey's masculine terrain. The broad country of his chest, the mountain ranges of his strong shoulders and arms, and, to her hidden, fearful delight, the feel of his marshaling timber.

As the moon silently passed over the night sky, marking the rhythm and measure of their ardor, Dewey panted slyly, "So…want me to kiss that sore arm of yours, and make it better?"

With May's moan in the affirmative, he gradually stitched slow kisses all along her shoulder, then to her tender forearm. And then he left her arm all together.

It wasn't until she felt his eager, hot mouth on her body again, a few moments later, and a good deal lower, that shetook a moment from blushing to comment on the situation.

"Well," she said, gasping happily. "At least my arm doesn't hurt anymore."

The morning sunlight flowed slowly across the vast Virginian farmland, touching one particular farm with its warming munificence.

"Those people must've had a real roof-raiser in the barn last night," the farm's owner, John Phillips, mused while he ate his breakfast and read his newspaper in the kitchen of his farmhouse.

His wife of twenty-one years, Dolores, momentarily stopped her intense searching throughout the kitchen to ask, "Really? How d'ya figure?"

"I couldn't get a lick of sleep last night," he answered. "I never heard so many 'Oh, my God's' and 'Oh, Lord, yes's' in my life. Must've been nothing short of supernatural going on in there."

"Well, I knew lending that colored reverend the use of our barn was a good thing, John. Do good to others and good will be returned to you, I always say."

John nodded behind his newspaper. "Mmm. By the way, woman, what are you looking for? Your good looks? I have to say you lost that a long time ago." He gave a horrendously hacking laugh.

"Guess that was about the same time you lost your virility. Must have been an inside job, huh, Limp Dick?" she retorted easily.

Farmer John put down his paper and cracked a lecherous smile at that. "Mmm, you know you make me hot when you're all mean and nasty like that, girl."

"Oh, you. Stop it. You're making me blush," his wife said, waving him off. "I wanted to make a cherry cobbler, but I can't, for the life of me, find that bowl of cherries I set out."

She went over to the open kitchen window and checked the sill again. It was empty and it was becoming more and more perplexing and frustrating to her.

"Where are my cherries?" she yelled to no one in particular, as her husband resumed his reading. "Somebody must've stolen the cherries. Who stole my cherries?"

Across the property, John's wife's voice was carried along in the morning air. Since their farmland was miles away from anyone, her shrill voice blasted strong and clear without fear from any neighbors' reprisals.

Yet ears were nearby to hear her.

Up in the loft of the Phillips' barn, two lovers were enjoying a breakfast of pilfered cherries in a bowl between them.

May cuddled in the depths of Dewey's arms as she plucked a cherry from the bowl and slowly placed it in her boyfriend's mouth. With a chuckle, he gently reciprocated the gesture.

Nude, but coincidentally covered strategically with hay on their private parts and across May's breasts, they comfortably laid on their hay mound, relaxing in each other's company, and lazily pulling loose strands of hay from their hair on occasion.

"Where are my cherries?" they heard the farmer's wife yell off in the distance, but they paid it no mind. Hidden in the barn, and taking advantage of whatever they could find together, they felt like a pair of clever cats who lorded over everything they saw.

"Mmmm...I know who stole the cherries," May said with a seductive smile to Dewey, stroking his chest with a casual, circling finger.

"Good Moaning," Dewey quipped softly.

"You weren't so bad, yourself, stud," May replied.

"You're too kind. And speakin' of studs, I hope we didn't keep Vince awake with all our tusslin' last night."

From far below on the bottom floor, Vince could be heard, saying, "You did."

May dismissed Vincent's complaint, calling out with a playful scoff. "You know you liked hearing us, you hopeless romantic."

"The whole of this county could hear the two of you last evening," Vincent retorted with a cynical snort.

"Aw, don't mind that ol' prude," Dewey told her. "You were glorious last night, cher.

"Aw, thanks, Dewey. I have to tell you, it must have been a full moon last night, because you were such an animal. My back's still sore from all of those scratches you left on me."

She settled deeper into Dewey's embrace, not seeing the uncomfortable glance he gave.

"Well, cher, about that full moon…"

"Hmm?" asked May, not hearing him clearly in his arms.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

"Well, we really should be getting a move-on, and all. If we take the main road this morning, we should be, at least, halfway towards Lynchtree by early evening, with any luck," she said.

"Aw, can't we stay a little longer, cher?"

May popped a few more cherries into her mouth and then stood up, arms akimbo.

"No way, Dewey. We have to get to Lynchtree. I still have my family to save."

Dewey sat awestruck by the vision of May's nubile body radiant in the sunlight that shone through the hoist opening of the loft.

In the dark of night, her body held its secrets in shadow, discovered more by touch than sight. In the clearness of the new day, every wonderful, curvy, feminine detail was open to him, and it became so easy to fall in love with her all over again.

"All right, all right. You win," he conceded with a stretch. "It's a good thing you're so cute when you're resolute."

When May walked by him to gather her clothes, he reached out and gave her a playful slap on her backside, eliciting a satisfying squeal from her.

Vincent, hearing the commotion and laughter above him, sighed in frustration.

"Are you mounting her again? For God's sake, man, at least lean her against a wall so she can rest."

The farm receded in the distance as the trio walked past a graveyard on the way back to the main road that was closer to town, engaged in spirited conversation to pass the time.

"Once again, I must congratulate you both on a stellar debate session last evening," Vincent scoffed as he pricked his ears. "May, your use of the Ruth Westheimer Strategy to counter Dewey's bold Kinsey Maneuver was particularly stirring."

Up ahead, May, walking beside Dewey as she led Vincent along by his reins, laughed snidely at his comment.

"That's hilarious, Ken'l Ration. I can see now why horses are called nags."

"I'm hardly nagging. I'm just making a pointed observation," the horse said with a wicked grin.

"That's fair," May retorted. "I think I'll make one, too. Go sit on a thorn bush."

"Why? So I can walk like you are now?"

Dewey, who had walked further ahead to avoid the verbal catfighting, shook his head as they traded quips.

"This is gonna be a long walk," he said to himself.

Unbeknownst to him, however, as he marched up the road, a white square of paper worked its way out of his back pocket from his walk and fell soundlessly to the ground.

May, finishing her talk with Vincent, turned her attention from him to the road ahead and saw the folded paper before her. Giving in to her bibliophilic impulses and sheer curiosity, she reached down and picked the paper up from the road.

Stopping, she opened the letter and read.

They say a working man is only as good as the tools he uses. I live by that. You lived by that, as well, just without you knowing it.

I once told you long ago that if you didn't help me in my new profession, I would have your mother killed, and with that, you would have done your mammy proud. If she were ever in danger to begin with.

Rest assured, boy, your mammy's fine, and the only reason I even desired to tell you this is because I plan to retire soon.

Mister Pewterschmidt's bounty on that half-breed family was so substantial, that I'd be a right fool to pass it up. His wealth will soon make this man abundantly wealthy, as well.

As such, I am terminating your service to me. As I have no need for you anymore, you can most likely return to your mammy's shack, content in the knowledge that she remained safe, even though you helped me work like the devil to round up everyone else.

For that, I am deeply indebted to you. May you ironically enjoy the freedoms that you helped to deny so many others.

Your Former Owner

Capt. Theodore Hunter

May ran the contents of the note through her mind, dissecting the meaning behind what was written.

"Theodore Hunter," she said to herself, finding the sound of those words so familiar in the back of her mind. Then it clicked.

"The Hunter!"

Vincent, who was trying to read over her shoulder, asked, "May? What's wrong?"

A question Dewey, himself, endeavored to ask, when he heard her outburst, as well. He turned around and walked back towards the duo.

When he met up with her and was about to ask her what she said, May balled up her fist and put everything she had into a wild, clumsy haymaker that struck him hard enough to make him see multiple images and stagger back a step.

"What the hell was that for?" he yelped as he favored his sore jaw. "You already got your payback from what happened in the bar!"

May held up the unfolded note to his face. When his disorientation left him, he soon recognized its words, to his deep horror.

"You let that hunter…catch our own people?" May yelled back. "And then you helped that bastard kidnap my family, you lying motherfucker! Where is the hell is he now?"

Shame and fear immobilized Dewey, but his actor's brain, and so, his mouth, ran hell bent for leather to apologize.

"May! May, I'm so sorry. I know I should have told you a long time ago, but…I couldn't. I was so scared of what it was gonna lead to."

"So that's why you couldn't stay away from me," said May, her breathing labored by her screams and her punch's exertion. "You had to tie up your loose ends and round up the stray, huh? For him?"

"No, May, that's not why I stayed with you. I really fell in love with you. I wanted to help you, I swear."

May gave a bitter laugh at her seemingly abysmal naivety.

"I guess Grandpa Silas always gets what he wants, huh? Well, come on then. Let's go. I wouldn't want to cause any trouble."

Dewey was dumbstruck. "What are you talkin' about?"

"What do you think? I'm just going to stay here with you and count my blessings that I'm not there with them? My folks are probably halfway to the plantation by now, and they're gonna die when they get there. But I'm not gonna sit on my ass and let that happen. If I die, I die, but I'm gonna to try get 'em back first. So, let's go, slave catcher. You're still gonna help me get right into the belly of the beast. After that, you won't have to worry about me or your master, and you'll still get to go home."

She stomped over to Vincent, who stood quiet and troubled by the exchange, and reached into one of his saddlebags, pulling out a short length of rope. She tied one end of it around her wrists and tossed the rest of it to coil at Dewey's feet.

"There. It'll be the easiest catch you ever made," she said venomously.

May momentarily didn't know what would happen next, when Dewey reached down and picked up the rope. He tossed it back to her, and then followed it to stand up to her face, his features darkening in angry shame.

"Why don't you get off your high horse?" he yelled at her.

Taken aback, Vincent asked, "What?"

"You think I wanted any of this?" Dewey continued. "I've got a family I wanted to keep safe, too, y'know? I've already lost two fathers and my mamma's all I've got left. I, sure as hell, wasn't gonna lose her, too. Besides, you read the letter. He lied to me, May."

'Would I have done the same?' she thought somberly. 'If so, how far would I have gone?'

She exorcized the thought immediately. She told herself that she wouldn't have done what he did, and she wouldn't weaken and see things his way. He had failed to remember that they all were in this together if they were to survive, and he was completely and wholly involved in the kidnapping of her loved ones. Betrayal would not be tolerated.

"And that made it alright to help that asshole take my family away, or sell us all down the river?"

Dewey rolled up his eyes in supreme exasperation. 'Couldn't she see what I was forced to do?' he wondered.

"What would you have wanted me to do, then, Miss Manners?"

"Say no!" she cried to him, as though it was the simplest thing in the world to conclude. "That hunter's just a man! One man. What's the worst he could have done? Killed you? What were the odds of that not still happening to you? To your mother, or to any of us?"

"And yet, here you are, riskin' life and limb for your people. What if you'd been given the same choice I had? What would you've said?"

"I'd have said no to him, and prayed for my family afterwards, because the price he'd asked for was too high. When the Devil gives you a deal, Dewey, you turn your back on it, no matter what it is, or you'll lose everything you ever loved."

"Nice speech, but you're a liar," spat Dewey. "Comin' all this way from Rhode Island? You proved that you love your family too much to give up on them. You'd do the same thing I did, so all that high-toned talk makes you a hypocrite in my book."

"You're wrong, Dewey. I didn't use you to get all the way from Rhode Island, and I love them too much not to shame them with what you did. So what you did makes you a coward in my book."

The two teenagers stood silent for a few moments. Tension wracking their bodies in the defense of their convictions, weighing all that was said.

Finally, it was all too much for May. She broke the silence with a tortured sob, and hid her face with her hand. She took a weak step back and spoke softly, tearfully, to him, with resignation and certainty.

"You've gotten all your going get out of me, Dewey. My trust, my affection, my help. Hell, I even gave you my body. You were my first. Do you have any idea what that means? You have no idea how much you've hurt me."

She took a deep breath to better control her emotions. "I wish to God I could take it all back now, but you're not getting any more of my time or my dignity. I still have a little of both left to do what I set out to do. If I never see you again…then I'll thank God for it."

May untied her hands and was prepared to walk down the long road by herself, but was stopped by the muscular body of a concerned Vincent blocking her path.

"May, wait. You don't have to go it alone. I'm sure Dewey didn't mean to hurt you. After all, he's just typical of a boy his age. Young and stupid. This whole trip has been an emotional roller-coaster ride from the beginning, I'd wager. Please, let's just talk this out and keep our fellowship."

May heard his pleading words, and for a moment, she stopped to think. And thinking allowed her to count off all the good things she thought she knew or liked about Dewey. She stole a glance at his forlorn self standing off to the side of the road, silent, guiltily introspective and utterly defenseless.

Then she thought of the letter and the myriad of unknown souls he helped to consign to their return to servitude, or death. Dewey was a traitor to his race, no matter the reason, or how logical it sounded in his ears.

Coupled with the horrifying fact that he was complicit in the peril and murder her family now faced, gave her all the impetus she needed to turn her heart to stone.

Let him dine on ashes alone. She had her own destiny to meet and she would show him how one met it. Honorably, clearly, and without much reservation.

"I'm sorry, Vincent, but this is too important for me," she told him in a breaking voice while she patted his broad neck comfortingly. "And it's way too dangerous to do this with people I can't trust. But thank you, Vincent, for all your help. If it's any consolation, you were a better ride on the road, than he was off it."

She turned to see a crushed Dewey one more time, and then she quietly ran off down the road, lest he see her break down completely.

The boy and the horse sadly watched May receding at a fair pace, having stopped jogging after a number of yards, and was now walking with purpose farther and farther up the cemetery road.

"Why are you standing there?" Vincent hissed at him with reproach. "You know it's a fool's errand. Go after her, you idiot."

"I wanted to make up for what I did by helping her get her folks back, Vince, but I knew I'd wreck everything by keepin' things from her, and I did," Dewey said with a heavy, heartbroken sigh. "Now, she don't want to have anythin' to do with me. I was tricked by that bastard, Vince. Bad, but I didn't think it was gonna be this bad."

Vincent kept his eyes locked worryingly on May as she grew smaller in the distance, but he spared Dewey a condemning glance.

"Well, it certainly looks as though someone on this trip has grown a pair. I'll tell you what. If she ever makes it back, and you're still sulking on this road, I'll ask her if she can lend them to you," Vincent said with dry disdain.

Distractedly, Vincent found himself pricking his ears again. This time, he consciously listened.

Although the horse couldn't make it out, somewhere, something was making low noises in the grass.

"Don't look back," May chanted for the eighth time since walking past more of the crooked, yet resilient wrought-iron fences of the graveyard that spanned both sides of the road and seemed to stretch for about a mile or more without any intersection in sight.

It was quiet along the road. With her footsteps being the only thing heard and the headstone-speckled hills the only sight, the walk was both calming and eerie.

Feelings of betrayal and righteous anger were her fuel now, even though she had no idea what to do if she ever managed to get to the plantation. But she told herself that she would carefully cross that bridge when she came to it.

Dark, ugly thoughts about Dewey, as dark as the crows and ravens that rested on the burial ground, crowded her mind, making it more of a maelstrom of conflicting emotions than normal.

She hated this Theodore Hunter for stealing her family away. She hated Dewey for the secrets he kept from her, and she hated the boy for the love he elicited from her. She felt so weak and foolish to trust in him or her emotions.

The clear shots of firearms that rang from behind her, stripped all memories of the last few minutes away, as May spun around to face the dire sound with her heart in her throat.

With eyes bleary from crying and the sheer distance before her, May had some trouble focusing on what was happening back up the road.

Wiping her eyes clear, she could still make out the white, equine body of Vincent rearing fearfully away from the silhouette of one person, while two others closed around another body in the center.

Dewey?

When the two figures rose again, the central figure was lying sprawled in the dirt.

"Damn it, Dewey," May whispered anxiously.

She had thought of running blindly back up the road to thwart whatever trouble was befalling her friends, but the gunfire she heard earlier made her think better of it.

Yet, despite her heated words to Dewey, she couldn't fight the impulse to worry about him, even fear for him. They had faced death together, and turning her back on him now pricked at her conscience with a white-hot needle, as she desperately looked around for some way to get in closer to see what was happening.

She soon found it.

A few feet back, a section of fence was dislodged by settling earth below it, creating an opening in the otherwise near-uniform length. Running to it, May squeezed through and then began trotting cautiously among the tombstones, monuments and old trees, back towards the fray.

Moving closer now, she could see through the bars of the fences, the two figures load what was clearly a badly beaten and senseless Dewey, into a waiting horse-drawn cart.

Vincent was nowhere to be seen. It looked as though the horse had managed to escape being shot, for which May was grateful.

Stopping at a wide headstone, she hid behind it and focused her sight on the assailants, who, to May's dawning surprise, looked strangely familiar to her.

True, they wore different clothes and carried ample firepower on their person, but there was something she could almost remember about the way they carried themselves.

The cocksure way the smallish man in the closecut hair and perpetual scowl, who scared off Vincent, walked, that bordered on the farcical.

Or the way the other two who had lifted and carried Dewey to the cart, pulled and struggled with the relatively light load as though they were bickering amongst themselves as to who should have been given the honor to dump him in first.

The scowling man looked about, across the cemetery and down the road, as though he wanted to make sure that they were undisturbed.

May took everything in, keeping as quiet as the grave she crouched behind. Her mind tried to come up with scenarios to save Dewey, each one more tragically foolhardy than the last.

In fact, May was so deep in rumination, that she didn't know that she was leaning too hard against the top of the tombstone she was peering over. The slab, and May, fell over with a loud thud.

Across the fence, the small, scowling man was about to mount his horse, when he heard the sound of marble on sod and looked past the nearby section of fencing, into the graveyard, to see a black girl trying to extricate herself from off the wayward grave marker. His face looked like a smiling hatchet when he grinned at his improbably great fortune.

"Hey, you knuckleheads," Joe called out to his comrades behind him. "Look at this! We get ta bag a double-header today!"

"Oh, boy! Oh, boy!" said Murray, gleefully.

"You want back up?" asked Garry after closing the rear panel of the cart's bed.

Joe mounted quickly while keeping his rapacious eyes on a fleeing May.

"Nah! You two keep that guy on ice," he ordered them. "This won't take long."

May cursed her bad luck and lapse of good judgment in coming back to investigate, as she ran further into the depths of the cemetery, zigzagging between the graves and weathered, angelic monuments, until she found and hid behind an ancient mausoleum that dominated a rise that gave her a good field of vision.

Leaning against the back wall, she tried to catch her breath, and contemplated how seriously unlucky this all just became. Of all the people to have a run-in with, it had to be those three detestable slave catchers. What were the staggering odds that those violent clods would track them?

Whether by accident or diabolical design, May only knew she had to keep her distance from them. They could still be holding a grudge from their time on the Plymouth.

She snuck past the side of the building, and gave a peek from around the corner ahead, looking back out from where she ran, and hoped that the relatively high fence could keep The Three Stupids from coming in.

Upon seeing Joe and his horse fly over the fence in a leap that would have made The Headless Horseman proud, that hope died in May's heart as she ran back to the rear of the building.

Looking beyond the masoleum, May could see only rolling, green hills dotted with headstones and little else. With such a lack of cover, running out there was folly, but she knew she couldn't stay exposed here for long, either.

Desperately, she looked out again, but this time she noticed a detail she missed earlier. There was an old oak shielding several graves in its broad shade. If she could somehow make it to that tree, she would be that much safer.

Hearing the slow, approaching sound of hoof beats on the grass, she used that to give her the motivation she needed to break though her fear and run the course to the oak, working to make sure she kept the mausoleum between herself and the slave catcher.

The tree was so close now, so tantalizingly close, and she fiercely fought the urge to look behind her as she ran, but eventually, she reached the tree and scrambled around it.

With her body shaking from fear and exertion, May peered around the bulk of the oak back to the mausoleum, to see the horse finally appear and walk aimlessly around the back of the building, riderless.

"Where did he go?" she whispered to herself, before she gave a horrified shriek, as a hand gripped her shoulder from behind, spun her around, and pushed her up against the tree.

Standing in stern triumph in front of her, was the leader of The Three Stupids.

"So, you didn't think you'd see us again, did ya," Joe growled in angry satisfaction. "Well, now, we even the score."

May could see the made fist straining the leather glove he wore as he slowly, one could say, lovingly, raise it to strike her down.

She bolted off to the side, but in a flash, Joe kicked his foot out and tripped her.

May crashed hard into the turf, but recovered enough to turn around in time to see Joe pounce on top of her, bearing his weight down upon her squirming body to pin her.

"Now where were we?" he asked snidely. His positioned legs and one hand held her down, while he prepared to beat her with his free hand, now turned into a wrecking ball of a fist.

May struggled and fought vainly for non-existent leverage, but, in the end, she knew she was trapped. Dewey was incapacitated, or worse, and Vincent, for all intents and purposes, had fled the area. She was alone, as she had always feared.

She didn't know why she said what said next. Perhaps it was nerves due to her fear, or maybe she just didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her helpless and it was actual bravado on her part.

Whatever the reason, May finally stopped squirming and asked the bounty man with a nervous smile, "Wait! Wait! You wouldn't hit a girl with glasses on, would you?"

Joe paused for the briefest moment before reaching into a jacket pocket, pulling out a pair of wire spectacles and putting them on with gusto.

"You bet your ass, I would," the man said.

May was mercifully knocked unconscious by the first two blows.

But Joe didn't finish until his fifth.