Thinking of all that my family and I had been through with not even the support of each other to lean on pushed aside some of the despair welling inside of me. Anger took its place. Before long, my jaw ached from clenching it.
“Pa? Are you going to be all right?” Zadok asked.
The sun had finally begun to set, bathing the rolling countryside in reds and purples. The bruised appearance of the landscape mirrored the ache coursing through my insides.
Was I going to be all right? I didn’t know. But saying as much wouldn’t have done Zadok any favors. So, I lied.
“I will be soon, son.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Your mother.” I decided to take a small chance. “Someone killed your mother at the Soiled Dove, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” Zadok put his head down. “It was a. . customer. . as Ma used to call the men. He was drunk and. .”
I let go of his hand, and placed an arm around his shoulder. “It’s all right. I don’t need you to tell me everything about that night. I just wanted to know if my suspicions were accurate.”
I felt him relax slightly.
“Do you remember what happened to the man who killed her?”
He nodded. “The sheriff gave him ten lashes and ordered the man to pay restitution to Omri for damaging his best worker for future money lost. Omri is the owner of the Soiled Dove.”
I felt sick again, bile creeping upward. I managed to swallow it back down. My throat burned. One of the last conversations I had with Ava came to mind. “What if that had been Lasha?” she had asked me when referencing a whore who had been beaten by a soldier.
At the time, Ava had been making a point about the women working our camp. Lasha had not made the decision to enter that life easily, or selfishly. She did it to care for our children. Pressed with a tough decision, she gave herself away like a piece of meat so that Myra and Zadok could survive. Did that make her a whore? Gods, my head spun just from thinking of that word in association with my wife. Or did it make her a dedicated mother whose unselfishness continued to shine even in the darkest of moments? Did it just prove that she had been every bit as remarkable of a woman as I always knew she was?
“How much restitution did you and Myra receive?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing!” I said, louder than intended, causing Zadok to jump.
I cursed softly. Ten lashes and restitution for Omri. Nothing for my kids. A cattle thief would receive harsher punishment. Is that how everyone viewed Lasha for what she had become? Worth less than cattle?
“What happened to you and Myra?”
“Omri let us stay in the room for another week. But that ended when he brought in another worker. When she arrived, he kicked us out. We asked if we could keep sleeping behind the stairs, but he told us no.” He paused, head hanging. “Omri said that in a couple of years if we were still around, he’d give us a room of our own if Myra was interested in working for him. Said she had much of Ma’s look, and customers always paid more for satisfying their curiosity about the exotic.”
Omri had not been the owner of the Soiled Dove when I left town. Stranger or not, I hated the man. I thought about having a talk with him, but knew that I couldn’t trust myself. The last thing I wanted to do was get arrested for killing him and abandon my kids all over again. Besides, I was more interested in seeing Myra at the moment than avenging Lasha.
“What did you and Myra do next?”
“We tried to find work, but no one was interested. We were getting pretty bad off again, sleeping where we could, eating whatever food we could steal.”
He looked ashamed. I couldn’t fault them. Sometimes you did what you had to in order to survive.
He continued. “Eventually Jareb offered us the jobs we have now.”
“I didn’t think he would still be alive. He was old when I left.”
“What? Oh, wait. You mean Jareb Senior. No, he died. Jareb Junior took over everything his father owned.”
I grimaced. Jareb Junior had a year on me. Unlike Jareb Senior, Junior had been a donkey for as long as I could remember. I had put him in his place a couple of times when we were children and I caught him picking on Ava. He had backup for our last fight. I was not successful in defending my sister that time.
That’s when Ava’s powers first manifested. It was also how I discovered my resistance to sorcery, as the only way to stop my sister from killing Jareb and his friends, was to hold her tight until she calmed down. It took weeks for them to recover. Pa had to do a whole lot of explaining so the town wouldn’t lynch and burn Ava as someone possessed with a demon.
I grunted. Of course Ava had wanted to avoid Denu Creek.
Anyway, Jareb junior didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d change with age.
But, ten years was a long time.
We left the road a couple miles from town and walked the path leading to Jareb’s house as the sky continued to darken. The first stars began to appear in the clear night sky.
“I thought we were going to see Myra,” I said.
“We are.”
“Oh. Is it common for her to work through dinner like this?”
“Every night. If we’re awake, we’re working. Myra in the house. Me in the barn or fields. Sometimes we’re even woken up in the middle of the night if something needs doing.”
I frowned. “That seems harsh.”
He shrugged. “When we became indentured to him, those were the terms he offered. At least we have food and a place to stay.”
My eyes looked at his bare feet. “But not shoes? Or better clothes for that matter?”
“Jareb said money is tight. Maybe he’d get me some shoes next season.”
I eyed the three-story home with columns and a wraparound porch. Light from oil lamps shone brightly in each window. Two burned on the porch near the door. Using such a large amount of oil served no other purpose than to flaunt the fact Jareb had the money to burn it. Money he could be using to buy shoes for my son.
As a boy, the house had seemed enormous to me. As an adult, it was still impressive.
“Yeah, I bet Jareb’s hurting for coin,” I muttered.
“What was that, Pa?”
“Nothing. Do you know the terms of your contract?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got eight more years to fulfill, but there is a buyout in year five if we manage to scrape together the coin to take advantage of it.”
“So, he pays you too?”
“No, sir.”
“Then how does he expect you to afford to pay the buyout?”
Zadok shrugged. “It’s the same terms he’s offered the other servants.”
Servants? I’d have called them slaves.
“How much is the buyout?”
“Forty gold pieces.”
I staggered. “That’s over two year’s pay in the army. I guess it’s good I’ve been wise with my money.”
“That’s actually the amount for each of us.”
I spat, brows furrowing in anger. With contracts like that it seemed Jareb indeed hadn’t changed at all. I’d be able to cover their buyout though I’d have only a little left.
But, at least I’d have my children. I could figure out the money problem later. Making us a family again was most important.
We reached the steps to the porch. I took them two at a time while Zadok pumped his legs to keep up. My palms actually began to sweat, nervous to see Myra again.
Zadok knocked.
“You can’t just go inside?” I asked.
“They don’t let the field workers in the house.”
The door swung open.
“Yes, may I-”
“Myra!” Zadok shouted, grabbing her hand and pulling her onto the porch.
Zadok began speaking so fast and with such excitement that it was hard for me to make out half of what he said. Myra understood though. She wore the same look of shock that Lasha would get. Same dark eyes, brightening in recognition. Same pursed lips as if ready to speak, but unable to find the right words to say. The short hair worn just as Lasha had only added to the eeriness I felt looking at my daughter, not seeing the little girl from ten years ago, but the young woman she was becoming.