Chapter 16: Laws

She was awake when he came back, sitting up and moaning softly in the corner. The sheriff looked at Logan, at Jubilee, and then unlocked the cell. Logan slipped inside, giving her the plate of food he'd bought for her at one of the town's combination whorehouse/taverns. It had a chunk of beef, not too badly burned, and a side of potatoes and biscuits. She took the fork and ate, but he could see her heart wasn't in it. Finally, tired, she put the fork down. "I'm sorry, Papa…Logan," she whispered. "I can't eat. I hurt so much, I don't feel good…"

Logan leaned in close to her. "Try to eat as much of it as you can," he whispered so the sheriff wouldn't hear. "I laced the food with something that'll ease yer pain." Wearily she picked up her fork again. It took her a lot of effort, but she finally choked down the rest of the meal. As she handed the fork back to him, she said, "What's going to happen now?"

He went around behind her and took his handkerchief out of his pocket. Her welts had stopped bleeding, but her back was a mess of dried and crusted blood, and it had to itch the untouched skin. He dipped the handkerchief in the water bucket and carefully dabbed at the blood. She winced, but made no protest. The sheriff watched narrow-eyed, then, when Logan ignored him, the man returned to sitting with his chair tipped back against the wall and his hat pulled down over his eyes.

"Well, the magistrate'll call the court 'gain tomorrow, an' I 'sume the railroad master will be there ta try an' prove that yer his an' yer a runaway. Don't worry 'bout that, there was plenty o' people standin' round. One of 'em will say I bought ya fair an' square, an. It was a verbal agreement, an' everybody heard him say he 'cepted it." He stroked her hair. "The magistrate will say that yer mine, an that'll be the end of it. We can go home."

"My freedom?" Her soft whisper almost broke his heart.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "He ain't gonna give ya papers."

"So I'll still be a slave."

Logan sighed. "Yes, you'll still be a slave." He paused. "Jubilee, I met somebody today. A guy. He says he's from Canada. He offered ta buy ya from me an' take ya north. In Canada yer gonna be a free woman. I thought I'd ask ya what ya wanted."

She sat up so fast her head almost hit his chin. "I'll be free?"

He nodded. "Yep."

She looked excited…and then narrowed her eyes. "Will you be coming?"

He shook his head. "No, darlin'. I'm sorry. I gotta take care o' the ranch an' the horses."

She rested her head against his chest. "No, Logan. I won't leave you. I'd rather be a slave here with you than free with anyone else, anywhere else."

Logan stroked her hair. "It wouldn't haveta be forever," he said softly. "When yer free ya can come back."

"But what if someone recognizes me?" she turned to look at him. "What if they recognize that I'm a slave and they capture me again? As soon as they see the brand I'll be a slave again. And they'll sell me again to somebody who will make me work all the time."

"The stranger says they got a way ta remove the brands. He used ta be a slave down in Louisiana. He got bought an' taken ta Canada, an' set free. He come back here ta take more slaves up there ta be freed."

She shook her head resolutely, and he felt her tears on his shirt. "I won't go. Not unless you come with me. I don't want to leave you."

He held her for long moments, with tears pricking his eyes. She loved him. "Jubilee?" he said quietly.

She stirred. "Yes?" Her voice was sleepy; the medicine must be taking effect.

"You called me…Papa…back there…"

She stirred, tensed. "I won't do so again," she whispered. "I'd been thinking of you as my father, and I guess it just slipped out. I'm sorry if it bothered you."

"No, no," Logan's arms tightened around her. "I'd be honored if you'd call me Papa." He felt her smile.

The quiet was shattered by the sound of the jail door squeaking open, and Hunt walked in. Logan growled angrily.

Hunt smiled, and it wasn't a nice one. "How nice to see you here. Girl, get up." She made a move to obey, responding to the tone almost instinctively, but Logan pulled her back down to sit beside him.

"Get outta here, Hunt," he snapped. "What are ya doin' in here?"

"Heard they'd found the little runaway slave,' he snickered. "I came to testify tomorrow." He snickered again. "Gonna tell them she belongs ta the railmaster, yep, that's what I'm gonna do. She's an uppity little slave, and she needs to be taught a good lesson. He'll teach her what she needs to know about service and obedience on the end of a whip, he will."

Logan's arms tightened around the girl in his lap, hearing her terrified wail and hugging her tight against his shirt. "Go ta hell. Everybody heard me tell that bastard that I was goin' ta pay him a penny fer her, and everyone heard him tell me he accepted."

"You'd be surprised what money can make a man forget," Hunt snickered, leaning in close to Logan and flashing a dollar from his pocket. "Especially when there's a sweet, pretty little reward waitin' for him."

"What!?" Logan roared, springing to his feet. "Ya mean someone's paid ya to lie? Who is it?" he snarled.

The sheriff rose out of his seat. "Hey, hey! You're disturbing the peace!" he pointed at Hunt. "You, get going. You." He pointed to Logan, "Visiting hours are almost over." Hunt left, slinking out of the jail, and Logan returned to Jubilee's side.

"He's going to tell everyone that I don't belong to you!" The girl cried hysterically. '"He's going to tell them and they'll take me away and give me to the railmaster, and he'll kill me!" She began to cry. "I don't wanna die, Papa, I don't wanna die!"

"Sssh. He ain't gonna kill ya," Logan said, trying to soothe her.

"Yes he will," she sobbed. "He said so. I tried to run away once, and he slapped me around a bit and then told me if a slave sleeps apart from her master without his permission, he can have her whipped as much as forty times. I can't bear that, Papa, I couldn't! He'll kill me!"

Logan went cold all over. She was right; she wouldn't survive such a terrible whipping. She would die. Her fragile body wasn't made for such harsh punishment. "I won't let it happen," he said. "Ssssh. I won't let it happen. Trust me."

The sheriff got up and pushed his chair into the table. "Time's up, Mister,' he said. "Visiting hours are over." Logan got up, with a last glance at Jubilee sitting on the straw in the corner, and stepped out when the sheriff opened the barred door. He stopped as the man walked into the cell and pulled a set of heavy iron shackles on chains from the wall. "What're ya doin' with them?" he asked, startled. "Yer not puttin' 'em on my little girl, are ya?"

"Sorry, Mister. Rules is rules. Gotta keep slaves from escaping." He snapped one shackle around her wrist, and then reached for the other. Jubilee sobbed as he put them on. The chains were so short as to pull her close to the wall, and she had to sit with her raw back against the wall to get any slack at all in the chains. She wouldn't be able to lie down.

Logan looked anguished, but there was nothing he could do. Jubilee even managed a weak smile as the sheriff closed the cell door and locked it, then took Logan's arm firmly and escorted him to the door. "You can see her in the morning at the magistrate's office," he said. He pushed Logan out onto the step and turned, locking the door of the jail behind him, then walked off, presumably toward his home. Logan looked through the grimy window. Jubilee had closed her eyes, and she was breathing evenly. The medicine had kicked in. Well, at least one of them would get some sleep tonight.

"I got a room for you at de inn." The soft voice came from behind him. Logan whirled. The Cajun had come up behind him soundlessly. "Didn' t'ink you goin' to want to go home an' leave her here."

Logan sighed. "I asked her 'bout sendin' her off ta Canada with ya so she could be free. She said no, she'd rather stay here as a slave with me than as a free woman anywhere else. So I'd say she's declined yer offer."

Remy LeBeau shook his head. "You got to make her come, den," he said firmly. "Dis town don't got much by way o' slaves. She gonna stick out like a sore t'umb. An' she's a pretty little t'ing. Dere's goin' to be people just waitin' for her to be apart from you so dey can do bad t'ings to her."

"They can't touch her once she's mine!" Logan protested.

Remy looked at him oddly for a moment. "You never own a slave before, have you?" he asked. When Logan shook his head, he went on. "Den you don't know what can be done to a slave. Beauty is a curse to a slave, mon ami. You know, if dey fin' her outside your property wit'out a paper from you saying you give her permission an' say where she goin', what she doin', an' how long she goin' be gone, dey can order her to strip, tie her to a tree an' whip her? Law says dey can give her twenty lashes. You can bet dey goin' do somet'ing else to her too. Dey get charged wit' trespassing on your property for dat. Ten cent fine."

Logan turned white. The man went on grimly. "She got a horse, right?" Logan nodded. "Dey see her on her horse an' she don't got written permission from you to be ridin', dey can take her off de horse and give her twenty-five lashes right dere. She go into a store dat sells anyt'ing, even penny candy, without your permission and a note sayin' she can, dey can whip her for dat too. You do some trail ridin', too, I bet. She got her own knife to cut branches back wit', right? Dey gonna give her forty lashes if dey see it on her or see her using it. Dey sees her reading anything, even a street sign, she can get whipped for knowin' how to read. You goin' get fined a hundred dollars if dey catches you teachin' her how to read."

Logan clamped his open mouth shut. "She'll stay on the property with me then," he said, his teeth gritted. "If she wants to go play with her friends in the Indian camp, I'll take her there myself."

Remy shook his head pityingly. "What you goin' to find for her to do fifteen hours a day on your property, homme?" At Logan's shocked look, he sighed. "Law says dat slaves got to be occupied for fifteen hours out of de twenty-four. She sleep nine hours, what she goin' to do de rest of de time? And you can bet dat ot'er man who want her is goin' to be sitting out dere watching your property to see what you get her to do. If she look like she playin' around an' you don't do not'ing 'bout it, he goin' to report you. T'ree reports, an' you gonna get called up. Dey might end up takin' her 'way from you anyway."

Logan threw up his hands. "What'm I s'posed to do?" he said in despair.

Remy said grimly, "You got to make her work when she outside, or keep her inside. Your place got windows?" Logan shook his head. "Den you okay dere. But dere only so many t'ings she can do inside."

Logan shook his head again. "I ain't gonna make her work! She's only fourteen!"

"Den you might as well jus' give her to dis ot'er man now, mon ami, 'cause her fate goin' to be de same. Unless you make her come nort' wit' me an' I free her."

Logan narrowed his eyes. "See here, how do I know yer tellin' de truth?"

Remy didn't say a word until they were at the inn. He led the other man wordlessly through the throng of patrons, all of whom ignored the tall Frenchman and the shorter man. When he was in the room he'd reserved for them, he turned to Logan. "Don' never call Remy a liar, mon ami." He stripped off his shirt and turned around, showing Logan a bare, lean, muscled back seamed with so many white scars Logan couldn't count them all.

Logan couldn't think of a word to say. The Cajun waited a moment, then turned around. "Your girl been lucky so far, she only got a few scars. But if she stay here, if she stay a slave, when she get to my age she goin' to look like me." He pulled his shirt back on. "I'm twenty-two."

He sat down at the table in the room and poured a glass of whiskey, then handed it to Logan. "Here. Drink. Look like you had a shock. You didn' know 'bout all dis?"

Logan tossed back the glass. When he stopped coughing, he shook his head. "Nah. Never owned a slave before. Lived in a free state up north with my wife." He held out the glass for another shot, and added by way of explanation, "She died givin' birth to my little girl."

"Je suis desole," the other man said quietly. "I had a girl in Canada. Name was Marie. She die las' winter in a blizzard."

Logan stared into the glass. "I saw Jubilee by the pump that supplied the railroad workers. She was skinny, an' she didn't have proper clothes, an' the railroad master was beatin' her up fer puttin' water on her sunburned shoulders. I ended up givin' her my shirt." He swallowed the whiskey. "Kept thinkin' 'bout her all day. Wanted ta buy her. Some Indian friends o' mine talked me inta it, an I went back to town the next day to get her. When I got there I seen her hangin' on the whippin' post, gettin' beat." He sighed. "She never spoke a word. Learned a lesson somewheres along the way ta keep her mouth shut. The Railmaster got tired of not hearin' her talk and started whippin' her to make her speak. Hit her five times with a bullwhip before she passed out. She started beggin' after the third one." He swallowed another glass of whiskey. "I told the Railmaster I was buyin' her offa him, and since she was unconscious and not breathin' she wasn't worth much. I tossed him a penny an' threatened him with a knife till he said he accepted the penny for her, an' I cut her down, got her breathin' again, took her home, and went to the Indian camp fer help cause Jonesboro didn't have a doctor would help slaves."

"Slaves are usually treated by horse doctors or another slave," Remy said. "Dey wasn't goin' to help you."

"I found that out," Logan said sourly. "Just now, that guy back there, Hunt? He runs the general store in Jonesboro. Ain't never liked him. There's only one little girl in Jonesboro, the mayor's little girl. She used ta bring Jubilee food when she was hungry. Anyway, Hunt stares at the Mayor's girl like she was a glass o' water and he was dyin' of thirst. Every time Miss Becky gets a new girl he goes for her, and the younger lookin' the better. He said that money can make a person fergit things, an' 'specially when there's a pretty reward waiting for him."

"He want your girl?"

Logan nodded. "He come ta my cabin with some supplies an' a set o' free papers. Said in exchange for them free papers, he wanted me ta tell her ta sleep with him. I threw him out after I paid him fer the supplies an' the papers. I bet…the Railmaster told him…he could have Jubilee…if he…arranged ta 'fergit'…that I paid fer…Jubilee." Logan's words had slurred as he sat there, and on the end of those words he passed out.

Remy took the glass before Logan's forehead could hit the table, then eased the man out from the chair and pulled him to the bed. "Not goin' to get any sleep any ot'er way, were you?" he said to the sleeping man. "S'okay. Remy not going to get any sleep tonight neit'er." He pulled the blanket up over the unconscious man, and settled grimly down to the table to wait for dawn.