Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(25)

“Glad to,” he says.

“Frank?”

Frank glares. His gun hand twitches at his side.

“You hold that letter way out to your side—the other side. Away from everybody else. I want to see your gun hand the whole time. Jeff?”

“Lee?”

“Best stay well out of my line of fire. I don’t want anything coming between this rifle and that varmint.”

Jefferson closes the distance like a man approaching a nest of angry hornets. Hardwick whispers something to Miss Russell, and she moves behind him. I get the impression he’s protecting her, using his own body as a shield. What makes a man like him do something so selfless?

Jefferson snatches the envelope from Dilley’s outstretched hand and pauses just long enough to glance inside. “This is it.”

“Good. Get back behind me.”

He returns a whole lot faster than he went, keeping his eye on Dilley the whole way.

“Mr. Hardwick,” I say, enunciating carefully. “Release Hampton.”

“Can’t do that. It would be breaking the law. But someone going through the proper channels could arrange to purchase his bounty from me before I sell it to the owner in Arkansas. Arkansas is an awful distance.”

“This letter proves he’s a free man.”

“And I have a bounty that proves he’s a runaway. Who is the law going to believe? A runaway Negro and a runaway girl? Or an upstanding man of industry?”

I think I might hate Hardwick. “Release him anyway.”

“Ah, no,” Hardwick says, smiling. “You’ll have to take that up with the sheriff, since the runaway has been remanded to the authority of the jail.”

“So, let’s talk to the sheriff.”

Hardwick just grins.

“Let me guess—the sheriff isn’t here right now.”

“He’s a man with many duties.”

Part of me wants to storm over and free Hampton by force. But there’s just me and Jefferson with two unloaded guns between us. “This isn’t over,” I say fiercely.

Hardwick’s smile widens. “I would be disappointed if it was.”

I back away slowly without lowering the gun. Before I’ve taken a dozen steps, Hardwick puts his arms around Dilley and Helena Russell, herding them toward the Apollo saloon. The last thing I hear him say is, “A round of drinks for everyone, on me.”

I lower the rifle. My arms are shaking.

“Let’s go,” Jefferson says. “Before they change their minds.”

We hurry around the corner and trudge up the hill, toward Portsmouth Square. The first block passes in silence. Partway up the second block, he says, “You know that rifle isn’t loaded, right?”

“Frank didn’t know that,” I say.

“What were you going to do if he called your bluff and drew on you?”

“My plan didn’t account for him making that choice.”

“Lee!”

“What?”

“Sometimes you need a better plan.”

“But Hampton’s letter was as stake! What if Dilley burned it or threw it into the bay before we could get it back?”

“I don’t know if the letter mattered one whit. Like Hardwick said, who’s the law going to side with? The white man, of course.”

I’m silent a long while. We’ve reached the square before I can admit it. “You have a point.”

“Thank you. I don’t mind going along with whatever you want to do, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put me in the line of fire without a better way of backing me up. And running off half-cocked isn’t the kind of thing that hurts you and me; it’s usually the people we’re trying to help who get themselves killed. We learned that at your uncle’s mine.”

“I’m sorry. It was the heat of the moment.” He’s right. It’s always the most vulnerable who suffer most. I’m lucky Hardwick didn’t take it out on Hampton. Yet.

“Well, give me a warning if there’s more heat coming.”

“I . . . I’ll be more careful.”

Jefferson leans over and plants a kiss on the top of my head.

When we get back to the wagon, Becky, Henry, and Jim are waiting for us. Jim sits on the bench, looking shaken but much better than he did before I ran off. Henry tends to Jim’s wound, wiping the blood from his face. Becky paces on the boardwalk. When she sees me and Jefferson, she demands, “Where’s Hampton? Is he safe?”

“For the moment, but maybe not for long,” I say. I offer a quick accounting of what happened, leaving out the bit about me threatening to shoot Frank Dilley with an empty gun. “At least we got his freedom papers back before Frank burned them.”

“Let me see those,” Jim says, hopping down from the wagon.

Jefferson hands them over, and Jim opens the envelope, checks the letter, then folds it right back up. He slips it into the pocket of his trousers.

“Maybe we should give the freedom papers to Tom?” Becky says. “He’s a lawyer, and he—”

“We have more than a hundred years’ experience with this sort of thing,” Jim says. “But Tom is welcome to take a gander at them anytime.”

“We have to get Hampton back,” Henry asks. “And we have to do it soon. There’s not a prison in the world that keeps a man hale.”