"Boris Wilcox has taken my old job."

Maxwell's mouth thinned and he fisted his hands. "I won't play games with you, Chantz. Boris is an idiot."

He glanced unwillingly toward Chantz's hand again. "We both know that if I'm going to survive this last flood I'm going to need help in getting everything I can out of that damn crop. There is also the levee. We both know soon we'll be face-to-face with that damn equinox. We get another hurricane boiling in from the Gulf and there won't be anything at all left of Holly House."

"I didn't come here to discuss cane or levees."

Chantz drank again, regarding Maxwell over the lip of his glass.

"I'll up your salary, Chantz."

"I don't want your money...Daddy."

"Then what do you want?"

"Louis."

Maxwell frowned.

Tylor turned from the cellarette, decanter in hand, and stared at the back of Chantz's head.

"And Rosie," Chantz added as he swirled the fine bourbon in the glass, lifted it toward the window, and

studied the golden glow of the sunlight through the amber drink. "And Liza. Were you aware she's with child? I hate to think what I might do to Boris should I discover that he harmed her in any way when dragging her kicking and screaming from Belle Jarod. And there's Simon, of course. And Little Clara."

His gaze shifting again to Maxwell's, Chantz said, "I want them all. Right now. I want you to sign their papers over to me... and once that's done, we'll discuss the possibility of my seeing you through this upcoming harvest."

"You're insane," Tylor began, but Maxwell silenced him with a lift of one hand.

"What do you need with a lot of slaves, Chantz?"

"I don't need slaves. I fully intend to release them from their bondage. When they join us, they'll do so as

free blacks."

Maxwell gripped the chair arms fiercely as he said through his teeth, "I'll repeat myself. What do you need with a lot of Negroes, slave or not?"

"To work my plantation, of course. A man can't plant and harvest cane by himself. Can he?"

"I'm not a game-playing man, Chantz. You know that. So why don't you just say what you came here to

say."

"You want my help to harvest that cane or not?"

"You married her, didn't you?"

"As it is, you won't reap enough profit from that crop to see you through winter. Not with Boris spending

more time in his rum than he does in the fields."

"You married Juliette."

"I want them. All of them. Rosie, Louis, and his wife, Tessa, of course. Liza. Little Clara and Simon."

Maxwell sprang and grabbed Chantz by his suit lapels. The bourbon in Chantz's glass sloshed onto

Max's white shirt and the glass shattered on the floor as Maxwell heaved Chantz out of the chair. Teeth

clenched and fists shaking, he stood nose-to-nose with his bastard son and searched his cold eyes.

"Answer me, damn you. You've taken her, haven't you? Juliette? Belle Jarod? You're wearing his ring, Chantz. Jack's ring."

"Yes. I married Juliette this morning."

Chantz peeled Maxwell's stiff fingers from his lapels and backed away. His voice dropped, throaty with fury. The former coolness of his mien transformed into something dark and dangerous, a tumult of emotion that electrified the air.

"You're gonna know now what it's like to watch ever'thing you ever wanted and needed sift through your hands like Mississippi silt. Every meanness you did to me and my mama is gonna come back to haunt you every day for the rest of your life. You reap what you sow, Max. And you've done nothing over the last thirty years of my life but sow neglect and humiliation. You ruined my mama. And you tried to ruin me. No more. I won't allow you to hurt my dignity any longer."

Tylor fell back against the cellarette, knocking the decanters over so Maxwell's fine bourbon poured in a rich golden stream onto the floor. He filled the room with a roar of laughter.

"I- I don't know what's funnier," Tylor managed, gulping for air as he straightened and flung spilled bourbon from his hands. "The look on Daddy's face or the ridiculous comment about your dignity, Chantz. You have no dignity, for God's sake. You've just sold your dignity for the price of a rundown, weed-infested property and a wife who looks at you as nothing more than a workhorse. A glorified overseer. Instead of paying you with money she's gonna spread her legs. I don't know which of you is the bigger whore."

Chantz didn't so much as flinch, just continued staring into Maxwell's eyes. "Do we have a deal or not, Hollinsworth? I want those people and their papers and I want them now. Else you and your cane and your goddamn levee can rot into the river and good riddance."

"You're a son of a bitch, Chantz."

Chantz grinned, just a cold curl of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. "Like father like son, Daddy. Don't you ever forget that."

Liza fell into Andrew's arms and covered his unshaven face with kisses. Together they stood in Belle's library with the twilight sky a wide flush of melon pinks and reds and the gold flame of sun heat cast over the floor. Tears slid down Andrew's face as he pressed his lips to Liza's cheek and whispered: "God oh God, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. I swear I won't ever leave you again, Liza."

Chantz turned away, moved out onto the gallery where Rosie, Louis, and Tessa sat. Little Clara and Simon stood amid the blackberry vines and stuffed their mouths with ripe berries.

Where was Juliette?

They all looked around as Chantz leaned against the gray column, hands buried in his pockets and his coat caught behind his wrists. Perhaps they could sense his mood better than he.

What, exactly, was his mood?

The spiteful pleasure Chantz experienced at watching the shock of his news cloud Maxwell's eyes had burned hotly, but briefly- just long enough to ride his horse to the Belle's entry and face, once again, the astronomical challenge of resurrecting a dream with little more than the sweat of his own brow to help him.

A niggling fear of failure had bothered him. Still bothered him. Along with the acid sting of Tylor's words.

And that made him angry as well. Fighting angry. This was his wedding night and all he could experience as he stood there looking out at a wall of wild growth and listening to the whippoorwills' calls was gnawing frustration. He felt suffocated by it.

No one spoke. The bewildered and shocked expressions on the Negroes' dark faces said enough. Rosie's eyes were red and swollen from crying. Tessa clutched at Louis's big arm as if she expected to plummet off the edge of the earth just any minute.

Finally, Rosie shook her head and pressed her plump hands together at her breasts. "Lawd lawd. Never thought I'd see the day I was free. Lawd have mercy. Wokes up this mo'nin fetchin' Tylor his coffee and wonderin' what I be fixin' Massa Max fo' his suppa. Now you tellin' me I gots a house yonda I can call my own and a fine plot of dirt as well- all fo' doin' nuthin' but what I done befo'."

Tessa straightened and her eyes widened. "I can be havin' a baby now, Louis. A little chile I can hold in my arms and knows for a fact he won't be wearin' no stripes on his skin from a whuppin'."

Louis shifted and turned his eyes up to Chantz's. Still, he said nothing, just curved his lips in a quivering smile that made Chantz walk away, back into the house.

Liza and Andrew were no longer in the library.

Then he heard Liza- womanly giggling from the rooms at the top of the stairs, followed by Juliette's huskier laughter.

His wife's laughter.

Andrew moved up behind him.

"I don't know about you, but I need a drink, Chantz." As Chantz looked around, Andrew lifted a champagne bottle and two glasses. "I think a toast is in order. Several of them, by the looks of you." As Chantz looked again toward the top of the stairs, Andrew grinned. "There will be time for acquainting yourselves later. I think we should talk."

Reluctantly, and with a last glance up the stairs, Chantz followed Andrew out the back door where they sat on the rotting gallery and looked out at the rows of crumbling brick houses once used as slave quarters. Beyond those rose the tall, vine-covered sugarhouse chimney and the dilapidated roofs of the storehouses. And beyond that, fifteen thousand acres begging to be planted with sugarcane.

Andrew poured them each a glass of champagne, handed one to Chantz, and smiled into his eyes. "Here's to Belle Jarod, my friend. You'll be the envy of every man in Louisiana now."

Chantz looked down into his glass, watched the effervescent spray dance in golden bubbles over the top.

"Or a laughingstock," he replied simply, then drank, hoping to swallow the tight knot of anger rising up his throat.

Andrew leaned back against the column and drank as he regarded Chantz closely. "I was hesitant to mention this, Boudreaux, but you don't exactly look like a man who was just married to the finest plantation in this or any state."

"I didn't marry this damn plantation, Drew." He looked into Andrew's dark eyes and said more forcefully, "I married Juliette."

"One and the same, Chantz." Andrew stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles. "Remember when you and I would boat down the river at night, sit there in the dark, and look up top of that cypriere and stare at the Belle. She shone in the night like a star cluster. We'd sit for hours trading tales about what we'd do if the Belle were ours. Now she's yours and you look like a dying calf in a hailstorm."

They looked out over the vast land that would have to be turned over completely by January if they had any hope of harvesting in October. The impossibility of it closed around Chantz's throat. What would happen when the reality sat in? Juliette believed him capable of working miracles- of saving her father's dream. What would happen when she discovered that he was just as human as the next man?

"We're a right pair, aren't we?" Andrew shook his head and set his glass aside. "I've turned my back on my father for his involvement with paddy rollers. While I can't blame him completely for what happened to India, I cannot simply ignore the fact that he would be involved with the virtual crucifixion of individuals who are attempting to lessen the plight of a group of people. The irony of it is, I haven't got a damn thing I can offer Liza now. Except me."

"That's enough." Chantz looked at his friend askance.

"You're a fortunate man, Drew. Liza loves you very much."

"I declare I detect a thread of envy in your voice."

Chantz shrugged, sipped his champagne before saying, "Have I thanked you yet for the suit and broach?"

"Several times."

"And for standing up with me?"

"Yes."

"A shame my mother refused to join us."

"Emmaline is stubborn. You know that. Regardless of her anger over this marriage and her feeling that you've been disloyal and are headed for a life of hell..." He laughed. "She'll come around because she loves you. Give her time, Chantz."

They sat in silence while the last threads of gray twilight succumbed to darkness. One by one the stars came out, twinkling like a breath-blown candle flame. Occasionally murmurs of conversation drifted to them from the upstairs windows and the ache in Chantz's body expanded.

Jasper, Custis, and Gaius wandered up from the fields, looking tired and sad and lost without India. Jesu perched on Gaius's shoulder, not having made so much as a squawk since their laying India in the ground. Eventually they were joined by the others, all who appeared as lost as India's family. The idea occurred to Chantz that the people clustered together like survivors adrift on a raft had never been off Holly Plantation but for the occasional jaunt into town when Maxwell was feeling particularly generous. Little Clara climbed on Chantz's lap and smiled into his eyes, her own twinkling like bright, star-kissed buttons.

"Granny say it time fo' you t'be makin' a baby with Juliette."

Chantz lifted his eyebrows. "Your granny talks too much."

"My granny say you done set us free. That I ain't gots to fetch Massa Tylor's rum no mo' or rub his

stanky old feet. Is that a fact or is you just pullin' my leg agin?"

"It's true, Little Clara. No more rubbing Tylor's feet."

"You still gonna bring me ho'hound, ain't you?"

"I am." Chantz nodded. "Every day, I promise."

Little Clara looked at Simon where he stood in the dark, his bullfrog tucked under his arm. "You heah

dat, Simon? No mo' stanky feet and ho'hound too. I 'spect life can't get much better'n dat."

Rosie lumbered by and swatted at Clara.

"Git on, now. You still gots my hand on yo' backside if'n you don't watch out. Lawd, what is gonna

become of that chile, I jes don't know."