The overseer figured the fates of Joe and Hughes were no different than the dog’s. He examined the body of the slave first, and it did not take long to see that it was without life. The big gunshot wound in the chest probably was responsible, even though there was also a gash on the side of the head, a little above and behind an ear. Tate wondered if someone had clobbered the slave there, but then he noticed a small patch of blood on an exposed root a few inches away. Joe must have hit it on the way down.
Hughes lay a few steps away, and Tate initially assumed that he was a corpse too. But he saw that Hughes was actually breathing, albeit slowly. The blood had congealed around the stab he had taken from the knife. The wound was not a clean one, but Tate thought it might heal in time. It helped that Hughes had gone unconscious on his back. This stroke of luck probably saved him a good amount of blood and perhaps even his life. Tate poured water from a small canister into the injured man’s mouth. Hughes swallowed.
In the meantime, Tate would have to make a few decisions. Their slave-hunting party had been effectively reduced from two to one-Hughes would need days or weeks to recover-and now Tate could account for one of the two runaways he sought. A dog was dead too. Tate wondered about Portia. Had he been on her trail earlier? That was possible, though he had his doubts. And if that was not her trail, whose was it? Where was hers? Perhaps she had split off from Joe much earlier. Or maybe she was nearby, looking at him even now from some hidden spot. This thought forced him to examine his surroundings, spinning around like a slow-moving compass as he studied the area. There was nothing. He inspected the trees too, and there was still no sign of Portia. He did notice, however, that the sun lay low in the west. Twilight would come soon, and then darkness.
Tate determined that he was in no position to continue a pursuit that might very well fail. He did not think it was a good idea to abandon Hughes either. He knew that Bennett appreciated Portia far more than many of his slaves. As an attractive young female, she was a valuable commodity. It occurred to him that much of what he liked about her, though, was her connection to Lucius-and this was a tie that Bennett might now scorn. There was the very real possibility Portia would be caught by somebody else and returned for a bounty, too. Tate knew he was not the only person who could bring her home.
This was the proper course, he decided: save Hughes and let Portia go, at least for now. And so he quit the chase.
Violet Grenier stood on her porch and watched her final guest trudge up Sixteenth Street, turn right on I Street, and disappear from view. It was almost midnight. Clouds obscured the waxing moon. Behind her, inside the house, she could hear Polly straightening the foyer. The girl could be quite efficient late at night, when she knew that only a few chores stood between her and sleep.
Grenier wondered if the senator would turn around and wave as he sometimes did, but she was not surprised when he did not. She knew he was frustrated. He had lingered, waiting for the other guests to leave. When they were finally alone, she had pressed him for information about the president’s meeting with the governor of Maryland and the mayor of Baltimore earlier in the day. She had hoped he would know something about it and what impact it would have on the movement of soldiers as they approached Washington.
The senator was normally a reliable source of information. He was from a Northern state, but he was sympathetic to the Southern cause and certainly had no fondness for Lincoln. His usual talk about committee deliberations would have bored many women, even in Washington. Yet Grenier listened to every word. She never took notes while he was talking, but she often wrote down his observations and comments when he was gone, passing them on to friends in Virginia and points south. Sometimes she was able to do this an hour or two after he first knocked on her door. Occasionally, though, she had to wait until morning before he was gone. The senator was one of her more familiar acquaintances.
On this night, however, Grenier had rebuffed his gentle advances. The day had been long. Although she was often full of energy as the hour grew late, she longed for sleep. Besides, she had already shared her bed today.
Would she see Mazorca again? She knew that she might not. If he actually accomplished his mission, she would be more than content never to lay eyes on him again. Yet she also recognized that she would enjoy more of his company. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to be attracted to a man. The ones she knew nowadays, such as the senator, were merely useful. Mazorca was different. He was satisfying.
Grenier lingered outside her front door, breathing the crisp air. She thought that perhaps she would sit by an open window upstairs as she jotted down a few notes. Then she could sleep and dream.
She had turned around and stepped through her front door when she heard a noise coming from H Street. A group of soldiers shuffled into view, their boots scraping across the dirt-filled street. There were three of them, heading east, and they surrounded four other men who were not in uniform. Grenier could see that these men were prisoners, their hands bound behind their backs. Their mouths appeared to be gagged as well. This detail made her curious. She had seen prisoners marched through the streets before, but they had not been gagged as these were.
As they passed by, about fifty feet from her doorway, none of them appeared to see her. The light from inside her house was weak and apparently did not draw their attention. Besides, they were preoccupied with their prisoners. When one of them glanced up Sixteenth Street, she recognized his face. It was Colonel Rook. She doubted he would involve himself with criminals who had committed petty offenses.
A disturbing thought entered her mind. She looked at the prisoners more carefully, wondering who they might be. Was Mazorca among them? It was difficult to see much in the blackness, and now their backs were turned to her as they crossed Sixteenth Street and continued along H Street. She could not rule it out. As they passed St. John’s Church, Grenier hustled across the street and into the church’s courtyard.
A bush snagged her petticoat. If she had not been trying to move in silence, she might have cursed it. Instead, she quickly pulled it loose, not bothering to inspect the damage, and darted between the columns on the front of the church. Peering around the side, she saw the entourage of soldiers and prisoners about a block ahead of her. As they turned right on Fifteenth Street, she raced into Lafayette Park. If people had seen her running, they might have thought she was fleeing an assailant. Yet the park was empty. Nobody saw her as she flitted through, emerging on the corner by the State Department, a little brick edifice across the street from where she now stood.
From this vantage point, on the short strip of Pennsylvania Avenue that ran between the White House and Lafayette Park, Grenier could see a portion of Fifteenth Street. The soldiers had not yet come around the block, but she could hear their footsteps. She hurried across the Avenue, behind the State Department. Its windows were dark. She sidled along its exterior, turning a corner and moving forward until she came to a spot where she could crouch down and hide as the group came into view.
Rook was in front. She could tell right away that Mazorca was not among the prisoners who followed him. They were too big, too small, or the hair was wrong. She breathed a sigh of relief and scolded herself for embarking on a pointless excursion. Had she really gone this far in order to disprove that Mazorca was captured? If so, it would suggest that she was not thinking straight about him. That was a problem.