Upon arriving, they found that Walters had indeed returned. He stood face to face with a tall, scrawny man with a sunburned complexion, disheveled hair, and missing teeth. From the postures of the two men, Williams could tell that Walters was ferociously rebuking the unkempt man.
As the cart pulled up, Walters ceased his verbal battering of the unfortunate man long enough to greet Williams and company. “Any success on your hunt, Colonel?”
Williams shook his head. “Unfortunately not. We tried to see if she had passed by the bridge on the edge of town, but there are no clues that she has.”
“Well, my men are still searching out east. They hadn’t found anything when I left them ten minutes ago. I just got back here myself and was questioning Neol about this woman’s disappearance. So far, he hasn’t been too forthcoming.”
“I’d a-gladly tell you all that you wanted to know, Mr. Walters,” replied Neol. He spoke with a thick country accent that had a slight lisp due to his missing teeth, “but you ain’t let me get so much as a single word in.”
“Quiet, fool!” Walters bellowed, raising his right hand as if he were going to hit the slave. “You only speak when I ask you questions, is that understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Walters,” Neol responded automatically, dropping his eyes to the ground.
“Now, explain to me how it is that you mishandled your duties and let that cursed woman escape!” thundered Walters.
“Well, sir,” Neol said hesitantly, clearly searching for just the right words that would appease his master’s vast anger to some degree, “I was a-standin’ guard just the way Tyrone and you has taught me, and the woman said that she needed to visit the bathroom. Well, I a-told there weren’t no way that I was about to let her get out of that there place because Mr. Walters had given me strict orders that she was to remain right there.
“Well, she done got this horrible, sad look in her eyes, and I thought she was break down and bawl right there on the spot. ‘Please, sir,’ she said in a sobbin’ voice, ‘let me go. I will be back quickly, but I must go now.’ Then she gave me the most pathetic look I’ve done seen since that time when I was a kid and my puppy wanted some extra food from me. Man, that was a good dog, was old Pontrus. Why, did you know that he…”
Walters glared at Neol in a way that made it clear he was not interested in the exploits of “old Pontrus”.
“Anyway,” continued Neol, “I guess you could say I got a soft side for ladies, especially ones that’s gotten themselves in trouble. I knew this woman was in some sort of awful pain because I’d a-heard her bawlin’ all through the week. So, I figured I could be nice for once and do her a favor.
“Well, I go to unlock the door, pull it open, and the next thing I know, wham! I get hit in the back of the neck with some sort of devilish punch. It must-a knocked me out cold, ‘cause the next I remember is wakin’ up on the ground with a terrible pain in my head and the woman I was a-supposed to guard gone!”
“And that’s when you immediately took off after her instead of notifying someone of her escape?” queried Walters, his anger in no way appeased by the story.
“Well,” Neol hesitated, “yes, sir, I – I didn’t know quite what to do. Ain’t never had no one escape on me before. I quickly went towards the creek ‘cause I figured if I was a-runnin’ away, that’s the route I would-a taken. There, I saw her foot marks in the mud, and I jumped on over and started sprintin’ after her.”
“How long were you searching before Tyrone found you and sent you back here?”
“I don’t rightly know, but it must-a been no more than an hour or so.”
“Which means she had nearly a two hour head start,” muttered Walters to himself. He shouted out to one his nearby servants to come take charge of Neol. “Put him in the cell that previously held the crying woman,” he ordered, “and see to it that he does not escape. I will deal with him later.”
The slave nodded and led the loquacious Neol away.
Walters turned to Williams, who had just finished explaining what had happened to Alejandro. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, gentlemen,” Walters said, “but Neol clearly hasn’t done job well. If he had been a little more astute, none of this would have happened.”
“There is not much that he could have done,” Alejandro countered with Williams translating for him. “My wife is very clever at getting her way. If she had not succeeded with Neol, she would have waited and tricked another of your guards.”
Walters responded, “Well, if you say so. Now, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take care of some other business affairs. You may show yourselves off of my property. Please understand that I mean you no ill intent when I say that I never wish to see you again.”
He turned and was about to storm off when Williams called after him. “Mr. Walters, what about the paperwork for this missing woman?”
Walters spun around slowly. “What about it?” he asked menacingly.
“You had promised,” answered Williams calmly, “that you would write a letter to your lawyer asking him to write up papers that would transfer the services of this woman to me.”
Walters rolled his eyes slightly. “True,” he said through clenched teeth, “I did. Well, if you will follow me to my office, I will write the letter; you can take it to my lawyer. He’ll take care of it from there.” He walked into the building and Williams followed him in.
Five minutes later, Williams emerged alone with a sealed envelope that indicated Walters’ lawyer as its recipient. Climbing on the cart, Williams let Roderick drive back to town. In town, they stopped briefly at the lawyer’s office, which was a block north and a block west of the road that ran over the eastern bridge.
Upon returning to the cart, Roderick asked, “Where to now, sir?”
“Home to Providence,” replied Williams, “just long enough to organize everyone into search parties. We are going to search for this woman for as long as it takes to find her.”
“And do you think that we’ll find her, sir?”
“I do, but it may not be easy. I’m going to working out the details of how the search is going to work as we ride back to Providence.”
Roderick snapped the reins and made a clicking sound to the horse pulling the cart, and the horse sprang forward, pulling the cart behind it all the way to Providence.
The sun was sinking nearer to the horizon by the time the cart arrived back at the south gate to the estate. There to greet it stood Jayson and José.
Jayson smiled warmly, “Welcome, home, Dad. I didn’t expect to beat you here. What have you three been up to?”
Before Williams could respond, José said excitedly, “Colonel, there is another guest, but perhaps I should let Jayson tell you more about her.”
“Another guest?” a perplexed Williams asked. “Do you mean Darla?”
“No, Dad,” answered Jayson, “it’s a runaway slave who came here seeking you in order to be bought out of slavery. I didn’t know you did that sort of thing. What have you been up to these past few weeks?”
“I’ll tell you more about it later,” Williams replied. “Right now, I want to talk to this runaway slave. Where can I find him?”
“I’ll take you there right now,” said Jayson. “Oh, and Dad, it’s not a him; it’s a her, a tall, slender, Cuban woman.”
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