第304章

There was something sinister about this camp with its ugly shacks, something which had not been here when Hugh Elsing had it. There was a loneliness, an isolation, about it that chilled her. These convicts were so far away from everything, so completely at the mercy of Johnnie Gallegher, and if he chose to whip them or otherwise mistreat them, she would probably never know about it. The convicts would be afraid to complain to her for fear of worse punishment after she was gone.

“The men look thin. Are you giving them enough to eat? God knows, I spend enough money on their food to make them fat as hogs. The flour and pork alone cost thirty dollars last month. What are you giving them for supper?”

She stepped over to the cook shack and looked in. A fat mulatto woman, who was leaning over a rusty old stove, dropped a half curtsy as she saw Scarlett and went on stirring a pot in which black-eyed peas were cooking. Scarlett knew Johnnie Gallegher lived with her but thought it best to ignore the fact. She saw that except for the peas and a pan of corn pone there was no other food being prepared.

“Haven’t you got anything else for these men?”

“No’m.”

“Haven’t you got any side meat in these peas?”

“No’m.”

“No boiling bacon in the peas? But black-eyed peas are no good without bacon. There’s no strength to them. Why isn’t there any bacon?”

“Mist’ Johnnie, he say dar ain’ no use puttin’ in no side meat.”

“You’ll put bacon in. Where do you keep your supplies?”

The negro woman rolled frightened eyes toward the small closet that served as a pantry and Scarlett threw the door open. There was an open barrel of cornmeal on the floor, a small sack of flour, a pound of coffee, a little sugar, a gallon jug of sorghum and two hams. One of the hams sitting on the shelf had been recently cooked and only one or two slices had been cut from it, Scarlett turned in a fury on Johnnie Gallegher and met his coldly angry gaze.

“Where are the five sacks of white flour I sent out last week? And the sugar sack and the coffee? And I had five hams sent and ten pounds of side meat and God knows how many bushels of yams and Irish potatoes. Well, where are they? You can’t have used them all in a week if you fed the men five meals a day. You’ve sold them! That’s what you’ve done, you thief! Sold my good supplies and put the money in your pocket and fed these men on dried peas and corn pone. No wonder they look so thin. Get out of the way.”

She stormed past him to the doorway.

“You, man, there on the end—yes, you! Come here!”

The man rose and walked awkwardly toward her, his shackles clanking, and she saw that his bare ankles were red and raw from the chafing of the iron.

“When did you last have ham?”

The man looked down at the ground.

“Speak up.”

Still the man stood silent and abject. Finally he raised his eyes, looked Scarlett in the face imploringly and dropped his gaze again.

“Scared to talk, eh? Well, go in the pantry and get that ham off the shelf. Rebecca, give him your knife. Take it out to those men and divide it up. Rebecca, make some biscuits and coffee for the men. And serve plenty of sorghum. Start now, so I can see you do it.”

“Dat’s Mist’ Johnnie’s privut flour an’ coffee,” Rebecca muttered frightenedly.

“Mr. Johnnie’s, my foot! I suppose it’s his private ham too. You do what I say. Get busy. Johnnie Gallegher, come out to the buggy with me.”

She stalked across the littered yard and climbed into the buggy, noticing with grim satisfaction that the men were tearing at the ham and cramming bits into their mouths voraciously. They looked as if they feared it would be taken from them at any minute.

“You are a rare scoundrel!” she cried furiously to Johnnie as he stood at the wheel, his hat pushed back from his lowering brow. “And you can just hand over to me the price of my supplies. In the future, I’ll bring you provisions every day instead of ordering them by the month. Then you can’t cheat me.”

“In the future I won’t be here,” said Johnnie Gallegher.

“You mean you are quitting!”

For a moment it was on Scarlett’s hot tongue to cry: “Go and good riddance!” but the cool hand of caution stopped her. If Johnnie should quit, what would she do? He had been doubling the amount of lumber Hugh turned out. And just now she had a big order, the biggest she had ever had and a rush order at that. She had to get that lumber into Atlanta. If Johnnie quit, whom would she get to take over the mill?

“Yes, I’m quitting. You put me in complete charge here and you told me that all you expected of me was as much lumber as I could possibly get out. You didn’t tell me how to run my business then and I’m not aiming to have you start now. How I get the lumber out is no affair of yours. You can’t complain that I’ve fallen down on my bargain. I’ve made money for you and I’ve earned my salary—and what I could pick up on the side, too. And here you come out here, interfering, asking questions and breaking my authority in front of the men. How can you expect me to keep discipline after this? What if the men do get an occasional lick? The lazy scum deserve worse. What if they ain’t fed up and pampered? They don’t deserve nothing better. Either you tend to your business and let me tend to mine or I quit tonight.”

His hard little face looked flintier than ever and Scarlett was in a quandary. If he quit tonight, what would she do? She couldn’t stay here all night guarding the convicts!

Something of her dilemma showed in her eyes for Johnnie’s expression changed subtly and some of the hardness went out of his face. There was an easy agreeable note in his voice when he spoke.

“It’s getting late, Mrs. Kennedy, and you’d better be getting on home. We ain’t going to fall out over a little thing like this, are we? S’pose you take ten dollars out of my next month’s wages and let’s call it square.”