Liberating Atlantis

Frederick had never seen the like, either, and he'd lived on the plantation much longer than the overseer. Were he still back at the big house, he would have come out onto the front porch and asked the soldiers what the devil they wanted-though he would have been more polite about it than that. As a field hand with stripes on his back, all he could do was stand there and watch.

Henry Barford came out himself. He was barefoot and wore homespun wool trousers not much better than his slaves', though his linen shirt was white. He hadn't combed his hair; as usual when he hadn't, it went every which way. He looked like a drunken stumblebum. But the unconscious arrogance with which he bore himself declared him the planter here.

"What in tarnation are you doing on my land?" he shouted to the incoming cavalrymen.

Their leader wore two small silver stars on either side of his stand collar: a first lieutenant's rank badges. He gave Barford a crisp salute. "Sorry to trouble you, sir, but we're bound for New Marseille with a cargo of rifle muskets and ammunition." He waved at the wagons behind him. "Much as I hate to say it, three of my men are down with what looks like the yellow jack."

A low murmur ran through the slaves. The morning sun was already hot, but Frederick shivered all the same. He wouldn't have wanted to take men with yellow fever into New Marseille. What would they do to an officer who let a plague like that get loose in a city? Frederick wouldn't have wanted to find out, and evidently the lieutenant didn't, either.

None of which appeased Henry Barford, not even a little bit. He jumped straight up in the air, as if a scorpion had stung him on the ankle. He let out a wordless howl of fury as if he'd been stung, too. Then he did find words: "You mangy son of a bitch! Take your stinking sick soldiers and get the hell off my property! How dare you bring the yellow jack here?"

"My apologies, sir, but I can't do that," the officer said stolidly. "The men need bed rest, and we happened to see your place here. Yellow fever doesn't kill everyone who comes down with it-not even close. And I assure you that you will be generously compensated for your time and trouble."

"How can you compensate me when I'm dead and buried-if anybody'd have the nerve to plant me?" Barford said. "Go on, get lost, or I'll grab my shotgun and blow some sense into you!"

The lieutenant nodded to his healthy troopers. In the twinkling of an eye, they all aimed eight-shooters at Henry Barford's head and midsection. "Meaning no disrespect, sir, but don't talk silly talk," the officer said. "We're here, and we're going to stay until my men recover."

"Or until you put them six feet under," Barford said. But he made no sudden moves and kept his hands in plain sight. Frederick hadn't thought anyone could make a mistake worse than his in the dining room. If Master Henry made one now, though, he'd never make another. He glumly eyed the revolvers. "Don't look like I can stop you."

"No. It doesn't," the lieutenant agreed. His voice turned brisk. "Now… You won't want me to quarter Jenkins and Merridale and Casey in the main residence, will you?"

"In the big house? I hope to spit, I won't!" Maybe Barford said spit. "What you ought to do is put 'em in tents way the devil away from anybody."

"No," the lieutenant said in a hard, flat voice. "They're good men. They deserve the best we can give them. I suppose your slave quarters will have to do."

"If my niggers and mudfaces come down sick, I'll take compensation out of your hide," Barford said.

"I understand, sir," the lieutenant said. Of course, if the slaves came down sick, he was liable to do the same thing himself. If he did, he'd be in no condition to compensate Henry Barford.

Barford was also liable to come down sick. The officer didn't say anything more about that. Neither did the planter.

"Matthew!" Barford bawled.

"Yes, Mr. Barford?" the overseer said.

"Put up the sick soldiers in one of the cabins. Make sure they've got themselves a wench to take care of 'em. We'll do the best job we can, but you know as well as I do they're in God's hands now." Barford might be talking to his overseer, but he also aimed his words at the lieutenant. If your men die, it won't be my fault, he meant.

"I'll see to it." Matthew turned to the cavalry officer. "Can your men tote 'em into the cabin? They've already been around 'em."

"I'd thought it would be slave work, but…" The lieutenant nodded grudgingly. "Yes, that does seem reasonable. Let it be as you say." He barked orders at his men. They obeyed more readily-certainly more quickly-than slaves obeyed an overseer. And they were all white men, too! Oh, one of them was swarthy and had a Spanish-sounding name, but he remained on the good side of Atlantis' great social divide.

The sick cavalrymen weren't quite so yellow as the trim on their uniforms, but they weren't far from it. The soldiers who carried them from the wagons to the slave cabins didn't look happy about their work. Frederick wouldn't have been, either. Nobody knew how the yellow jack spread. Come to that, nobody knew how any disease except the pox and the clap spread. Handling someone who already had the sickness seemed as likely a way as any, and more likely than most. The copperski

"Somebody's got to do it," the overseer said. "Why not you, Abigail?"

Abigail had no answer for that. In her place, Frederick didn't suppose he would have himself. He would have looked everywhere he could to find one, though. He was sure of that.

Matthew faced the rest of the slaves. "Well, come on," he said. "Get your tools and head on out to the fields. Or do you want to hang around here with the sick soldiers?"

They headed out. The pace left stiff, sore Frederick struggling to keep up. It also left the overseer goggling. Had he ever seen slaves move so fast? Had anybody, since the begi

The yellow jack, maybe?

One of the troopers died two days later. A copperskin and a Negro dug a grave for him in the plot back of the cabins where they buried their own. Frederick and Helen had lain two small bodies to rest there. The lieutenant-his name was Peter Torrance-borrowed a Bible from Henry Barford and read the Twenty-third Psalm over the man's body. The Barfords and their slaves and the cavalrymen all stood around the grave together, listening to the somberly inspiring words and now and then brushing and slapping at buzzing bugs.

"Wish we could go on to New Marseille," a soldier grumbled after the service broke up.

"Well, we damned well can't," a sergeant answered; angry puffs of smoke rose from his pipe. "We've got to stay put till we're good and sure we ain't go

"Don't want to get sick myself, neither," the soldier said.

"You run off, they'll call it desertion and hang you," the sergeant said. "You ain't like the slaves here-your carcass isn't worth an atlantean while you're still alive." The inflated paper money of the war against England lived on in memory.

"I'm not going anywhere," the soldier assured him.

"God-damned right you're not." The sergeant sounded very sure of himself.

But it was the sergeant who fell sick the next day-and the copperskin who'd dug the dead trooper's grave came down with the yellow jack the day after that. The copperskin rapidly got worse. His kind sickened more readily than whites, who seemed to sicken more readily than Negroes. A copperskin with smallpox was almost sure to die, where a man of some other breed might pull through.