AllFreeNovel
Share Us
However, an ex-Confederate colonel by the name of Ira Jamison, who has converted his central Louisiana plantation into an enormous prison, may have come upon a profit-making scheme in the exploitation of African labor that outrivals any precedent his peers may have set.
Mr. Jamison rents convicts to enterprises and businessmen whose vested interest is to keep costs low and productivity high. The reports of beatings, malnutrition, and deaths from exhaustion and exposure to inclement weather are widespread.
Mr. Jamison, who prefers to be called 'Colonel,' is a wounded veteran of Shiloh. But his name has also been associated with the destruction of the 18th Louisiana Infantry, who were sent uphill into Union artillery and were unsupported on the flank by the unit under Mr. Jamison's command-
The name on the byline was Abigail Dowling.
Ira Jamison rolled the journal into a tight cylinder and walked into the house, tapping it on his leg, puffing air in one cheek, then the other, conscious each moment of the anger she could stir in him, the control he had to muster not to let it show in his face. He stood by his fireplace, tapping the cusp of the Journal against the bricks, looking out the window at the brilliance of the day. Then, like a man who could not refrain from picking at a scab, his eye wandered to the fissure that cut across his hearth and climbed up one side of his chimney. Had it grown wider? Why was he looking at it now?
He took a lucifer match from a vase on the mantel and scratched it alight, then touched the flame to the rolled edges of the journal and watched the paper blacken along one side of the cylinder. He dropped the pages like burning leaves on top of the andirons.
He sent his body servant to find both Clay Hatcher and Rufus Atkins. A half hour later they tethered their horses in the backyard and walked into the shade of the porte cochere and knocked on the side door. He did not invite them in and instead stepped outside and motioned for them to follow him to the terrace, where his uneaten breakfast still sat, buzzing with flies.
"One of the niggers serve you spoiled food, Kunnel? Tell us which one," Hatcher said.
"Shut up, Clay," Rufus Atkins said.
Jamison stood on the flagstones of the terrace, his fists propped on his hips, his head lowered in thought. The green boughs and bright red bloom of a mimosa tree feathered in the wind above the three men.
"I understand Abigail Dowling has started up a school for freed slaves," Jamison said.
"She ain't the only one. Flower is teaching there, too," Hatcher said.
Atkins gave Hatcher a heated look.
"Flower?" Jamison said.
"Damn right. Teaching reading and writing and arithmetic. Can you believe hit?" Hatcher said.
"Who put up the money for the school?" Jamison said.
"I hear she got hit from the woman runs the whorehouse," Hatcher said.
"Who is she?" Jamison asked.
Hatcher started to speak, but Atkins cut him off.
"Abigail Dowling got the money from Carrie LaRose, Colonel," Atkins said. "Is there something you want done?"
"I've suspected for some time Miss Dowling is an immoralist. Do you know what I mean by that?" Jamison said.
"No, suh," Hatcher said.
"Listen to the colonel, Clay," Atkins said.
"She has unnatural inclinations toward her own gender. I think she has no business teaching anybody anything. She is also trying to embarrass us in the national press. Are you hearing me, Rufus?" Jamison said.
"Yes, sir. To borrow a phrase from my friend Clay here, maybe it's time that abolitionist bitch got her buckwheats," Atkins said.
"Yes, and leave footprints right back to my front door," Jamison said.
Atkins' gaze focused on the river bottoms and a work gang hauling dirt up the side of a levee. The striped jumpers and pants of the convicts were stained red with sweat and clay. Atkins sucked in his cheeks, his eyes neutral, the colonel's insult leaving no trace in his face.
"I reckon we have a situation that requires a
message without a signature," he said.
"Good. We're done here," Jamison said, and began to walk away. Then he turned, his hand cupped on his chin, his thoughts veiled.
