Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 08:48:56 -0400
From: John Ellison <paradegi@sympatico.ca>
Subject: The Landing - Chapter 10

This story contains situations and scenes of graphic sex between consenting
males. All legal disclaimers apply. If this topic offends you, do not read
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locations,
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental, although it may be
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Copyright 2009 by John Ellison

Additional works publish in Nifty in the Military Category:

The Phantom of Aurora
The Boys of Aurora
Aurora Tapestry
The Knights of Aurora
Aurora Crusade

The "Aurora" books are a series and should be read in sequence.

A Sailor's Tale

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The Landing

Chapter Eleven


	On the last morning of his life, Captain Tyrone Power Davis, USA,
answered the annoying ring of his alarm clock, and crawled from his bed. As
he always did, he shuffled from his room and down the short corridor to the
latrine. He was aware that the dark pink head of his morning erection poked
out of the slit in his olive drab boxer shorts.
	He entered the latrine and stood in front of the urinal, huffing a
little as he strained to drain his bladder. Finally, his penis shrank a
little and the stream of urine began to flow. He sighed with the relief and
looked down. Without thinking he then reached down to grasp his organ,
feeling the urethra bulge that ran the length of his organ pulsing. As he
absently-mindedly stroked the circumcision scar halfway down the massive
shaft he glanced around the dank, disinfectant-smelling chamber. In a way
he was thankful that none of his fellow officers had put in an appearance,
but also slightly disappointed. He was a tall, muscular, well-built man and
always seemed to draw admiring glances whenever he showered, or stood to
piss.
	As he waited, Ty glanced around the room and was glad he wasn't the
Camp Housing Officer. The two-story frame and clapboard barracks he lived
in was dignified as the "Bachelor Officers Quarters" although it was a
tumbling down wreck. Designed and built in 1944 as temporary to last only a
few years to satisfy minimalist needs during World War II, very little had
been done to bring the place up to code, a dash of paint here, some new
wallboard there, the plumbing and wiring replaced as needed, and a new roof
hammered on. The BOQ was a far cry from the facilities normally offered to
men declared gentlemen, by Act of Congress. Ty sniffed. Until Camp Weed had
been reactivated he doubted that anyone remotely a gentleman had ever
entered the doors!
	Ty's distaste for his surroundings was replaced by pleasure with
the flow of urine from his organ. As relief flowed through his loins he
sighed happily and ignored the presence of a large roach peering at him
from the air vent.
	Having finally drained his bladder, Ty smiled down at his
organ. Damn, he was built and compared to his BOQ mates, all white boys, he
was mammoth. While he was long past the days when he measured his penis, he
was well aware that flaccid it hung five and a half inches over heavy, full
testicles. Hard, he measured eight and three-quarters, and the shaft
thickened to seven inches around. The smooth, bell shaped head also
thickened into a light purple plum.
	As he stood there, Ty debated taking care of business, masturbating
to take the morning edge off. The slit in the wide glans was already
dribbling precum, a sure sign that Little Ty wanted to play.
	He left the urinal and walked to the sinks. He stood back, admiring
his reflection in the mirror over the porcelain sink. He had always been
handsome, the infusion of white blood flowing through his veins softening
his features, smoothing the line of his strong chin and giving him a
lightness of color - a light, delicate chocolate complexion that added to
his beauty.
	Ty had always been a beautiful male, and throughout his
twenty-eight years he'd always drawn admiring glances, mostly from girls,
but sometimes, not often, but sometimes, from his fellow males, and from
some very surprising places.
	As a boy in Boston, later as plebe and then a cadet at West Point,
the bastion of American masculinity, he had seen the sideways glances, the
sub-conscious licking of lips, the widening of the eyes when he stripped
naked, exposing his near hairless body to admiring glances. The looks and
muted sighs told him that he was a desirable male, a male that many yearned
to worship.
	Grinning, Ty ran his hand over his chin. He needed to shave. The
same genes that had gifted him with a sculpted body had denied him a beard,
or almost, and he had no body hair to speak of. In point of fact he shaved
two or three times a week, and except for small patches of hair under his
arms, and the neat, naturally trim copse of tightly curled hair sprouting
from his pubic mound, he was hairless except for the hair of his head,
which in any case he kept closely cropped.
	As he admired himself, Ty knew that he screamed "SEX". Back home,
before he married, he had never lacked it. Girls all but lay down in front
of him as he walked past. Being a normal, hormone driven male, Ty had
sampled frequently the offered feminine delights. He never regretted
coupling with half the neighbor girls. After all, that's what guys
did. Girls put out, guys happily accepted.
	Growing up in a black neighborhood, Ty had matured sexually and
quickly learned that some things were inevitable and no one minded his
frolicking amongst the flowers. Folks might disapprove, but what the hell,
boys would be boys, and so long as he kept the girls happy (which he did,
masterfully so), folks might shake their heads, but knowing smiles forgave
all.
	Ty was also aware that in the black culture homosexuality, even
immature schoolboy fumbling, was abhorrent, conduct so unforgivable that it
was not unknown for a boy, labeled queer, to be routinely beaten and driven
from the neighborhood, or worse.
	Yet queers existed. Boys whispered of "down lows", gatherings where
boys would satisfy each other's sexual demand, secret demands that could
never be admitted to, could never see the full light of day.
	Ty had always considered himself a man, and when younger could not
help wondering how or why a boy might go with another boy. But they did,
seemingly "normal" boys who would meet in dark, private places.
	Boys being boys, they talked, always about sexual things, about
"blow jobs" and "corn holing"; about "rimming", about "frottage" and acts
that defied description. Ty heard the chatter, heard the sniggers and
chuckling, and knew that had he wanted, he could have had even more sex
than he already was having.
	Knowing, however, was not doing. Ty's culture and upbringing held
him back. Still, he was curious, and one night, two weeks before leaving
home for West Point, he attended a party. There was enough food to feed the
neighbors for a week, booze by the gallon, and something Ty had avoided
until now . . . Pot. A cousin, as handsome as Ty was, told him that a
little pot enhanced sexual pleasure, and although he yearned for it, Ty
knew better than to sneak off into the shadows with one of the female
guests, not with his mother's eagle eye scanning the terrain.
	As it happened, Ty and his cousin ended up sharing a bed. Horny
from a combination of gin, pot and hormones, Ty was mildly surprised when
his cousin reached over to introduce himself to Little Ty. What they did
together at first shocked Ty, but everything they did was so pleasurable
that for the next two days they were inseparable, in more ways than one.
	For Ty, his first queer experience was a memory. It was never
repeated, although he had had offers, offers even at West Point.
	West Point, to Ty, was the ultimate test of his manhood. Like most
boys of his generation, the United States Military Academy was the
pinnacle, the fount of all things masculine and good. Duty, Honor, Country,
the Academy's motto, summed it all up. For Ty, taking the Oath on the Plain
was near orgasmic.
	Ty reveled in the life of a cadet. He loved the competition, the
harshness of training, the camaraderie of his roommates, the discipline,
everything about life at the Academy, and while the strictness of Academy
Regulations and the "Honor Code" were irksome, he never lied, cheated or
stole. He had been raised to be honest and upright in all things and while
he knew that some cadets made a game of skirting the line, but never
crossing it, he never did. The discipline ingrained in him would not allow
him to relax his self control when away from the confines of the Academy.
 	Ty never lost his enthusiasm, his pride, even if he was treated as
a second class citizen, not quite shunned, but close enough. Truman might
have desegregated the military but there was still more than enough
prejudice to go around, and he had long since inured himself to the slights
and mutterings because of his race.
	Coming to West Point, Ty had expected some form of
discrimination. The Academy had been a white preserve from the day it was
founded in 1802. He had expected some forms of racism, and found them,
although, given the strictness and policies of an academy determined to
force gentility into the vulgar masses that made up the bulk of the young
men who swore the Oath on the Plain, the discrimination was covert.
	There had been black cadets long before Ty Davis ever appeared at
the main gate, appointment in hand, but they had entered a different world
from Ty's. He was never openly confronted, nor was he threatened or
actually beaten by irate cadets, angry beyond reason that a "nigger" had
the nerve to enter the sacred confines of the Academy. There was hazing, as
there had always been hazing, but kept within bounds. Hazing was tolerated
but breaking the acceptable bounds would bring the full weight of Academy
discipline crashing down. Nor was Ty ostracized, or "silenced", an ancient
practice where no one spoke or acknowledged a cadet placed under this form
of hazing. Ty was a jock, a swimmer and a baseball player, and a "Star
Cadet", meaning he consistently stood in the uppermost tenth of his class
academically. He was popular with his classmates, featured on the playing
fields, and could not be ignored.
	Not that there were not muttered remarks as he passed by, or was
mentioned in conversation. Some of his classmates did avoid him, and not
all of them were from the South. He was referred to in some cliques as
"that uppity nigger, Davis", and when, at his fiancé's insistence he went
to book their wedding in the Cadet Chapel, he found that every slot was
booked, although he could have a side chapel, not the main church, and that
only the next day.
	Aware of the discrimination, and subject to it, Ty didn't let it
bother him too much. So long as he maintained his grades, and didn't break
the rules, or run afoul of some TAC, he got on with his life.
	However, what truly bothered Ty during his four years at the Point
was the lack of one of man's most basic needs: sex. There were no female
cadets of course, and even if there had been he would not have been allowed
near one of them. Fraternization was forbidden and harshly punished. This,
coupled with a total lack of privacy made even jacking off near impossible
- at first. Until he reported for duty, Ty had never had the need to jack
off at all. The girls were all over him, almost from the first day his
voice and his balls dropped. But . . .
	Ty learned though, how to get some relief. There were few places to
be alone, but they did exist, and Ty found them. Visiting the sinks during
the wee morning hours was possible, but one had to be very careful, timing
the visits when the TAC was not patrolling. He also had to ignore the
presence of at least one or two other cadets huffing and moaning in
adjoining toilet stalls. Not being a public masturbator, Ty also learned
the technique of the silent jerk. He knew his room mates went at it every
night, or so it seemed, and while he heard little, he always knew when the
deed was done by the low, barely audible sighs indicating that the need had
been relieved.
	As a cadet, Ty had always wondered if some of the guys got
together. As with any closed society, Ty knew that it happened. It was
bound to. The authorities kept seven hundred horny, hormone-saturated
males, eighteen and nineteen years old, cooped up and it had to happen. Ty
knew that he'd had some admiring glances, but never crossed the line. He
also heard the snickers about this or that cadet who was close to another
cadet, closer than the Commandant would have liked. There were also rumors
of secret trysting places, one in the Cadet Chapel. And then there was the
time he'd walked in on his roommates. They were both naked and one was
sprawled on his stomach on his bunk, the other sprawled on top of him, his
hips pumping rhythmically. Ty had retreated quickly and quietly, and never
mentioned what he'd seen.
	While Ty knew of what was going on, he never participated, never
hinted that he would not have minded Little Ty getting some action. He
figured he had enough problems being black in a white environment.
	Everything changed after Ty's Plebe Year. Free of the humiliation
and hazing of Beast Barracks, and a "Yearling", Ty could apply for a
weekend pass whenever he was not on duty or committed to some scheduled
social activity. Since he was not deficient in academics, or walking
punishment tours for disciplinary infractions, he was free most weekends
and several of his classmates had transport, so he would be off to the
freedom and social life of New York.
	His first weekend pass was fantastic. Ty connected with a stunning
blond, who fucked him silly. Several times a month thereafter Ty would ask
for a weekend pass and then either drive down to New York with a classmate,
or take the bus. Once in New York, he would visit the more discreet party
spots where gentlemen knew the female of the species grazed hungrily for
young, strapping, well-hung cadets, and not once during any of his weekends
in the city did Ty have to pay for a room, or a meal, and Little Ty was as
happy a penis as ever existed. The girls flocked to him like bees to honey,
and so long as he, and the girl, remained discreet, life was good.
	Easy sex was something Ty had come to expect. No matter where he
went, or what post he was assigned to, there was always a woman
waiting. Even after he married he was never faithful. Life was sexual
cornucopia, always available if one was handsome, and built like he
was. Even here, in Butt Fuck, South Carolina, Ty had managed to find some
prime muffin.
	Feeling his lengthening penis, Ty left the latrine and walked to
the showers. He needed to take the edge off and he had to do it now. His
fellow BOQ mates would be crawling from their pits all too soon and he had
to be quick.
	Standing under the showerhead, Ty lathered up, his hand slowly
stroking his mammoth piece of meat. As he always did when he wanted to get
off quickly, he teased and rubbed the sensitive head of his dick,
concentrating on the special spot at the back of the head. As he stroked he
thought of her.
	Louisa Hampton was not beautiful, and made no pretence to being
so. She was handsome, with dark, sable brown hair, a vivacious cross
between Katherine Hepburn and Liz Taylor. She did not pretend to be a
vivacious Southern woman. She had a business to run, owning a stable and a
plantation. They had met one morning when Ty decided to take up riding. He
often wondered why he had, for he'd never ridden before he came
south. Perhaps he was bored. What mattered was that he had walked the short
distance that separated the camp from Hampton Stables. Louisa had taken one
look at him and before he knew it the hunt was on.
	As a neophyte rider, Ty needed an instructor, and Louisa had taken
him on - in more ways than one. At first there was little romance
involved. Louisa Hampton, no virgin, wanted Ty Davis, and two weeks after
the lessons started he found himself in bed with her, in an old cottage
that had once housed the plantation overseer. Ty thought it somewhat
ironic, a black man screwing his nuts off with a white woman in an
overseer's house!
	Not that Ty had much time to think about irony. Out of bed Louisa
was a cool, hard-eyed business woman. In bed she was a wild cat. Ty could
not believe the change. She clawed him, she bit him, she sucked his dick
with gusto, and when they fucked she became almost uncontrollable. Ty had
never met a woman so into sex as her!
	This being the south, they both knew that they had to be
careful. Sex between the races was forbidden. But they could not stop and
told themselves that no one knew of their passion. Ty never bragged in the
"O" club. He did not dare. He doubted that his fellow officers would say
anything. Most would smile knowingly and wink. Not so their wives and he
could imagine one of the harpies, as he called them, sending a note winging
north, to Boston.
	His wife would never forgive him. He knew that. There had been two
close calls before he came south and she had warned him that if he did it
again, she'd leave and take their two boys with her.
	Dismissing unpleasant thoughts, Ty pumped languidly and soon enough
felt the tingling building in his groin. As the ubiquitous loudspeakers
blared Reveille to bring the camp to life his erection thickened, and as
the bugle sounded the staccato bridge he pumped a fire hose stream against
the cracked and chipped wall of the shower. Gasping in pleasure, he
finished off and then returned to his room.
	Ty considered himself a good officer, and as a good officer he was
always with the men in his company at morning calisthenics. As usual he
dressed carefully, first pulling on a jock strap.  This was a most
necessary piece of athletic equipment. Little Ty, unrestrained, had a
tendency to flop and bounce in his sports shorts. This always caused the
sensitive head to rub against the cotton shorts, and before he knew it the
damn thing would be poking its head above the waistband, which not only
made running difficult, but caused a mess.
	Satisfied that his penis was properly restrained and not going to
cause trouble, Ty pulled on some dark green shorts and slipped a matching
T-shirt over his broad chest, Ty left his room and walked toward the drill
field where his men waited. He had a smile on his face for he was thinking
about what he would do with Louisa later in the day. He was also thinking
that there would be no riders to take her attention today. There was some
sort of major shindig going on in town and the white folks would be too
busy to notice that Louisa wasn't there. She'd been invited, of course,
being a member of the most prominent family in the state. Ty had not
been. It didn't bother him that the Post Commander and Adjutant had
been. This was the South after all, and the races did not mix, except in
bed.

******

	Miss Louisa Hampton sat on the porch of the plantation house,
sipping her morning coffee, and watching the rising sun brighten the sky
above the stand of pine trees that bordered the paddock. The three black
grooms, Moses, Elijah and Samuel, had let the horses out of the stable, and
they now sat on the top rail of the white painted rail fence that marked
the enclosure, keeping an eye on the horses as they grazed or trotted
across the grass. As she always did, Miss Louisa beamed with pride at her
horses. There were fourteen of them, all products of careful breeding, with
close attention being paid to blood lines, sires, and dams, and Miss Louisa
was an expert breeder. She had excellent sense when it came to horses, and
her stud produced some of the finest riding horses in the South.
	`As well bred as I am,' she thought caustically. `Not that it does
me a fuck of a lot of good!'
	Miss Louisa was the product of very good breeding, and her name was
famous. She was descended from the brother of General Wade Hampton,
arguably the wealthiest man in the state, perhaps the South, who before the
War owned seven plantations, and three thousand slaves. He had been so
wealthy in fact that he recruited, equipped and paid for Hampton's Legion,
six companies of infantry, four troops of cavalry, and a six-gun battery of
artillery. The Legion was equipped with the finest armaments that Enfield
and other English arms makers could provide. He presented it all to the
Confederacy and, in 1862, the Legion was integrated into the Confederate
Army; the Cavalry element designated the 2nd South Carolina Cavalry, the
artillery converted to horse artillery and renamed "Hart's Battery" after
its then Commanding Officer and the infantry, while retaining the
designation "Hampton's Legion", eventually became a part of John Bell
Hood's "Texas Brigade".
	The Legion had a splendid record and fought in every major battle,
from First Manassas, where Colonel Wade Hampton was wounded for the first
time, Gettysburg, where now Brigadier General Hampton was wounded again, to
Petersburg.
	The war had cost Wade Hampton a son dead, Thomas Preston, and
another, Wade IV, severely wounded. It also cost him his slaves and
plantations, including his boyhood home, Millwood, outside of Columbia,
which had been destroyed, the house and outbuildings burned to ashes by
Sherman's arsonists.
	Louisa was more than aware of her ancestry, her lineage and her
traditions. She was also aware, painfully so, that having a famous ancestor
and impeccable breeding didn't mean much when it came to finding the cash
to make the payroll, buy the feed that fed her horses in the winter months
when grass withered and turned brown, or slap a fresh coat of paint on the
big house and outbuildings.
	Fortunately for Louisa, she had inherited her ancestor's sense of
horseflesh. While the riding stables drew income, her primary interest was
breeding horses, and exhibiting them in equestrian events whenever she
could. Her success was marked by trophies and ribbons in the tack room.
	As she watched her horses nibbling and gamboling, Louisa nodded
that two of the mares were in foal. She already had buyers for the unborn
colts, and the infusion of cash would be a godsend. While the riding
stables were always busy during the tourist season, the winter months were
slow. She thanked God that the army had purchased another parcel of land -
needing to build officers' married quarters. The money would keep Hampton
Place and the stud going until the summer tourist season began, and the
boats from Charleston would again come upriver.
	Thinking of money, Louisa wondered if she should emulate Middleton
Place, opening the place for tours, for a modest fee, lunch included. She
would need a restaurant and the old ballroom was sitting there, unused for
fifty or more years. The room, huge, and decorated in the highest 18th
Century style, was empty. She would need a cook, or chef, and the kitchen
would have to be expanded, and tables and other equipment purchased. She
wondered what rate of interest Mr. Docker, manager of the bank in town,
would give her. If he proved difficult she could always speak to the bank
in Columbia, where the Hampton name was still honored. Louisa was fully
aware of the power of the Hampton name, and never failed to use it, for she
was a woman of the South, outwardly sweet natured, and presumed to have the
business sense of a goose.
	Louisa snorted at the thought! She was a very good businesswoman,
and knew it. And if she used her feminine wiles to her advantage her
conscience did not bother her at all. She was a Southern woman, a "Steel
Magnolia" who used her femininity to good advantage.
	Thinking of this, Louisa smiled. She was a Southern woman,
supposedly raised to be a lady, soft spoken, genteel, who outwardly paid
homage to the Code, to the customs and traditions of her class.
	It was all so easy, really. What few knew was that Louisa Hampton
was in many ways the direct opposite of what people thought her to
be. People expected her to maintain her plantation, which she did, but with
a hard-headed business sense, much to the distress of the men she did
business with. No man had yet got the better of her in a deal, and she
would be damned if one ever would. She knew that she was safe from
condemnation, for no man, at least those presumed to be gentlemen, would
dare say a word against her. She was a lady, after all, with an impeccable
reputation, and while some of her machinations were shadier than some might
like, the Code protected her.
	Louisa had, on more than one occasion, to be thankful for a system
that protected her, no matter what she did. No man she did business with
would ever, under any circumstances, speak ill of a lady, at least not
publicly, or even when with his peers. He might growl and snarl in the
privacy of his home, but if he spoke disparagingly of any lady publicly,
the grande dames who ruled society in Charleston and Columbia, in Savannah
and Atlanta, would deliver a stinging condemnation. The men were expected
to be gentlemen, and to speak ill of one of "their own" would bring a
declaration by one of the ladies that he was not a gentleman. This would
mean instant ostracism, for no gentleman would do business with man who was
not one of them, unless he was a Yankee, or a foreigner, from whom one was
forced to overlook bad manners and coarse language.
	The same code also prevented Louisa from the biddies as they sipped
their tea or vintage sherry, from reminding everyone that she was 38 years
old, and a spinster still.
	There were, however, certain disadvantages to following the
Code. While it might protect her from some things, it would condemn her
with the speed of light if her relationship with Captain Davis ever became
public.
	Louisa shuddered at the thought. They had been very careful, very
discreet, but . . . one word, one hint that she was sleeping with a black
man and God only knew what might happen. She would be hounded from her home
at the very least. Ty, well Ty had to know that the Klan was still strong,
and still unrelenting. This might be the third quarter of the 20th Century,
and there hadn't been a lynching or a whipping in years, still . . .
	She saw Moses approaching the verandah. She knew that she had
nothing to fear from him. He was "Hampton people", and in fact had been
born on the plantation. The stocky, bow-legged black man had been her
childhood playmate, and would never betray her. She was as sure as that as
she was sure that Moses knew why she went riding in the pine woods. The
Negroes always knew.
	Louisa was not so certain of Elijah or Samuel. Although they had
worked for her for going on ten years, they were not Hampton people. They
were Overbridge people, and owed her no allegiance. Of course, they might
comment to their own kind, they knew that the Klan, still strong, would
brook no vile gossip about a white woman. Fear would keep the grooms'
mouths firmly closed.  ******

	Moses paused at the bottom of the steps that led to the verandah
and nodded his head. "Mornin', Miss Louisa."
	"Good morning, Mose. A wonderful morning," she answered, her voice
soft and low.
	Moses smiled inwardly. `She's seein' that black boy today,' he
thought. `At least he keeps her happy. But she sure is playin' a dangerous
game.'
	He had known what was going on in the old overseer's house almost
from the first time Louisa had met the captain. He had said nothing, and
would say nothing. What she did with her life was not his concern, and he
never gossiped. He also kept the other grooms in line. He had seen them
darting glances at Miss Louisa every time she went riding. They suspected
that she was seeing someone, but so far they only suspected. It had
happened before, and they were not surprised. Miss Louisa was a woman and
like all women had her needs, as men did, and there had been other men.
	"You goin' to the barbecue, Miss Louisa?" Moses asked.
	Louisa had quite forgotten all about the day's upcoming events. She
had been invited to the de Marigny barbecue of course. She could hardly not
be. She was a Hampton after all. She had also been invited to the dinner
and ball that evening. The stiff, cream-colored, engraved invitation sat on
her mantelpiece in the drawing room, and she had already unearthed a
costume, an emerald green, ball gown adorned with seed pearls, a bustled
creation made for her great aunt in Paris in 1912. Great Aunt Margaret had
perished when the Titanic went down. Her trunks, sent by a different
steamer, had been stored, unopened in the attic ever since.
	"No, Moses. It's for the town folk," Louisa replied as she stood
and regarded the horses. "They look chipper today."
	"They need a good exercising, Miss Louisa," Moses responded. "They
gettin' fat, what with no riders."
	"Take them for a good run, except for the mares. I don't want mares
in foal trotting or running, Mose, and I doubt we'll have any riders
today."
	Moses nodded. Mares in foal were delicate, and apt to drop their
foals for no reason at all. A gentle walk would keep them fit enough and,
as Miss Louisa had said, there had been no riders at all that week. It was
always the way in winter. He nodded and turned to tell Elijah and Samuel
that they'd be riding this morning when Louisa spoke.
	"I shall go riding later in the day," Louisa told the groom. "After
luncheon. Please have Thunderer ready."
	"Yes ma'am." Moses returned to the paddock, thinking that today
would be a good day for Miss Louisa to meet her beau, what with all the
quality folk at the barbecue. While he was curious as to why only one horse
had been asked for, Mose would never mention it. Miss Louisa doin' the
nasty with a colored man was her business, although he knew that they were
playing a dangerous game. One word, one hint to the Klan . . .
	Mose told the other two grooms of the plans for the day, and told
Samuel to make sure that he had Thunderer, the black stallion that Miss
Louisa favored, ready for 1:00 o'clock.
	Moses then turned to return to the tack room. There was some
leatherwork that needed doing. He did not see the gleam that came into
Elijah's eyes. He was not as stupid as some folk thought he was, and the
absence of an extra horse could mean nothing, or it could mean something.
The man pumping Miss Louisa could easily walk over to the stables, or
anywhere on the plantation, as the Army camp was barely a mile through the
woods, woods traced with riding trails.
	Nodding to himself, Elijah went into the tack room and found the
keys to the pickup.
	Driving away from the paddock, Elijah grinned. One of the problems
in his life was about to be solved. His house had been damaged in the riot,
and his wife was harping on and on about having it fixed up. Miss Louisa
didn't pay all that much and he had little money for repairs, but knew
where he could get the cash to put up some pretty wallpaper in the parlor.
	Daddy Smith had offered two hundred dollars for information about
Miss Louisa's doings, and Elijah had to go into town to pick up a load of
oats, and the road went right past the Smith shack.