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She would only have made his life more miserable than it already was. She would have scorned him each day she was with him.
His thoughts were brought to a halt as he came close enough to the plantation to see that his two-storied home no longer loomed up into the sky like a sentinel. Instead, he saw clouds of smoke rising upward, black and ugly.
He shifted his gaze and noticed puffs of smoke coming from other places on the plantation grounds. He knew they had to be the outbuildings.
A thought came to him that made him feel as though he was going to vomit. The tobacco plants!
If they had been burned, his profits for this season were a part of that smoke rising into the sky.
The loss of his wealth was much worse than losing his home. He had grown to despise every inch of the mansion because it represented all that had gone wrong in his life since he’d come to Florida with his brother and wife.
Losing his tobacco and whatever profit he could have gotten from its sale meant that he had no money to take him far, far from this godforsaken place that had brought him nothing but heartache!
He wondered again what had caused the fire. The most probable answer made him so angry, he could hardly stand what he was thinking.
The slaves! They had surely not only fled to their freedom but also set fire to everything they thought was precious to Hiram!
“Including the tobacco,” he shouted to the sky.
He had been stupid, leaving them to themselves for so long. Why, he should have known they would see his absence as a rare opportunity to do as they pleased.
“I’ll search to the ends of the earth for you,” he cried to the heavens, waving a fist.
He sank
his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode harder toward the smoke. Each breath he took was now filled with smoke, and he could see the total devastation on all sides of him.
His heart sank as the worst of his fears was realized, for there was no sign of the tobacco crop.
He glanced over at where the slave quarters lay in ash. As he suspected, his workers had fled, but were they responsible for burning everything? Or had they fled after someone else did the dirty deed?
He doubted that he would ever know the true facts about the ruination of his planation. And for some reason, it suddenly no longer mattered!
His eyes lowered as he drew rein and stopped his mare. “The entire world is against me,” he sobbed. Then he lifted his chin and again looked around at all that had been taken from him.
Surely he was wrong to cast the blame on the slaves. He just could not envision them being audacious enough to do this.
Could it have been Colonel Fred Cox? Fred had sent Hiram away, refusing to help him.
Could Colonel Cox have done this out of pure spite? He had spoken more than once against slavery, knowing that Hiram’s whole world centered around it.
Or had Lavinia returned and seen all of her belongings destroyed, then set the place afire out of revenge?
Or…had Indians come on his property, set it ablaze, and enjoyed watching everything burn? Had they taken the tobacco with them, to use themselves? It was no secret that Indians loved tobacco.
No matter who, or why, the fact remained—it had been done and now Hiram owned nothing!
The land was worth nothing to him without a home, its crops, and someone to share it all with!
He dismounted, feeling cold and lifeless, then started to get back on his horse again. It suddenly dawned on him that there was no point in staying at a place that was no longer useful to him.
He didn’t have the strength, or desire, to rebuild. And he most certainly couldn’t do it alone. He knew no one who would care enough to help him.
Suddenly he felt a presence nearby.
He stepped away from his horse and turned, looking quickly at a huge live oak tree that had somehow escaped the flames.
He gasped and took a shaky step backward when he saw in its branches the white panther he had heard so much about. Its white color seemed to glow in the sun that had broken through the cloud of smoke. The rays of the sun seemed even more brilliant today than usual.
