Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

CD Harper retired as the Executive Director of the Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex and professor of Theatre Arts and Dance at California State University, Los Angeles. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois and St Louis University. He resides in Gleneden Beach, Oregon.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

COVENANT

By CD HARPER

IUNIVERSE, INC.

Copyright © 2010 CD Harper
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6757-1

Chapter One

It was past midnight when Seth Junior arrived back at the big house. After hours of searching for Sandy and the others, he thought how foolish he had been—perhaps even desperate. Still, sleep would have eluded him, so he had searched for the hidden paths and trails on the plantation, realizing that hiding out for at least one night was the easiest thing for slaves to do. They did it all the time. But not his Sandy! He doubted if she knew where those hiding places were. She had no reasons to know; besides, if she knew, she would have told him. Like everything else in their lives, they had no secrets; at least, he couldn't think of any.

He thought of their life and knew their time together couldn't have been better, for her or for him. Their life was pure, as innocent as could be, perfect, he thought, and he delighted in knowing that. She was his life partner. They had grown up together, touching and feeling and knowing each other from the day his daddy brought her into his room. He'd been six or seven and always thought she was younger. He didn't know for sure, but that was the way he wanted it.

The stillness and quietness in the house at that hour certainly was not unusual, but that night was somehow different. It was as if Providence had sucked all the air out of the house, leaving it devoid of life. Normally the air would be filled with energy: quiet and still, but strong and powerful. He could always count on that energy being there, waiting, no matter the hour, the weather, the season. Sandy, his Sandy, was its source.

Now, that energy was missing. That night, he knew, he would not find her sitting on the edge of his bed, looking out of the window, thinking only of him. And the adrenaline, the anticipation that he always felt when he opened that door, was gone too. He realized that, somewhere in the crevices of his mind, he had known all the time; from the moment her horse jumped forward into a full gallop, he had known she would not be there. Why else would he have searched and searched for her?

When he finally opened the door to his room, for a moment, maybe two, he was paralyzed; he felt frightened, saddened, angry, and violated. He had never ever experienced anything remotely like this; consequently, he had no idea what to do.

The room he and Sandy had grown up in, made love in, slept in, dreamed in, talked in, the very room that had been their haven for so many years, had been destroyed. Shredded bedding and mattress feathers from the mattress she had been so fussy about covered every surface. Her shawl, the beautiful green one with brown and gold leaves that he loved to see wrapped around her shoulders, was ripped apart, deliberately and precisely. The drawers had been pulled from the chest and clothing had been thrown all over the room. Even the locked drawers in his desk had been torn open and the contents flung about. Finally, the jewelry box was missing: his mother's box, the one he had forbidden Sandy to ever touch, the one with his daddy's letter and the ripped pages from the Book attached to it.

"Sandy! Sandy!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, at a volume he didn't even know he could produce, hoping she would hear him, wherever she was. He didn't know what else to do. "Where in the hell are you?" It was more of a statement and a resolution than a question. He paused, knowing she would not answer, and knowing, too, that she had taken his mother's jewelry box.

"Clara." He paused. "Clara? Somebody better answer me." He waited, anxiously, impatient, and nervous. He had learned, long ago, to treat his house slaves with respect. He had confidence that nothing would be lost. Sandy, his Sandy, had assured him. But in the back of his mind, he knew his daddy would not have approved.

"Clara. Clara? You deaf? You best be getting your black self out here. What the hell happened here? Somebody is going to get it." There was no answer from anyone, not Joe, not Sam, not Clara. Somehow, he knew his house slaves were gone, too. He had been abandoned. And in the world his daddy had made for him, he had never, ever been without someone within calling distance to address whatever his needs might be.

He was, for the first time, alone.

But he pushed on with more energy and determination than ever; he looked in every room in the house, the bedrooms, the closets, even the pantry, saving Belle's and Abe's rooms for last. He knew that they would be gone, too. Sandy, his Sandy, would never have left them behind.

She had wanted them to be his children, important to him, not his property. They were, after all, the only things he had created and brought into the world. But he had not thought much about them, ever. They had simply been there, like other things on the plantation that his daddy had left in his charge.

His daddy, Seth Hunter Senior, had been the master builder. He had moved his family south, bought the land, and created everything around him. He had cut away the forest, planted the fields, made the land accommodate his desires, and created Covenant Plantation literally from nothing, except the strength of his faith in his daddy's dream and the strong backs and skills of his slaves.

William P. Hunter, Seth Senior's father, had insisted that his dream become the family's raison d'être. Seth Senior had accepted that dream fully and passed it on to his son, Seth Junior, who was to pass it on to his son, who would then pass it on to his son, and on and on. It was written, according to William P., that it would happen in this way that Providence had blessed them all and given them the responsibility to build a new life in a new land that He had provided for a free white people.

Seth Senior made the land and the slaves yield to his own dream, a bigger and more intrusive vision than his daddy's. It became Seth Junior's responsibility, his charge, to continue that vision, perhaps even to expand it. It was Providence's plan; he had only to open himself to its promise. It had been in his granddaddy's death bed whispers, not the exact words, but there nonetheless. And it had been written all over his daddy's face, shining from deep within his eyes.

But now here he was the son of the master builder, the dreamer, Providence's right hand man, the third in the long line of sons of sons, staggering back to his room, heart pounding, confused and bewildered. He needed to calm himself, to make some sense out of what was happening so he could stand tall, like his daddy, and do what he knew his daddy would do, Sandy or no Sandy.

He wanted to collapse, to close his eyes for as long as necessary so that when he did open them, everything would be back in place. Sandy would be sitting on the side of their bed, waiting for him. Clara and Sam and Joe would all be asleep, resting in preparation for the day's chores. And his mother's box would be locked away; protecting the letter his daddy had written to Seth Junior's mother after she had died, the one with the pages attached from the Book his granddaddy said explained everything.

Seth Junior wanted to call Clara again; he even thought about calling Joe or Sam, but knew he would receive no answer. He wanted to pretend everything was back to normal. Maybe Sam was down in the quarters on one of his late-night visits and Joe went with him. Maybe Clara was away too, tending to some mission Sandy had assigned her. Maybe Sandy was down at the stable, making sure her horse was cared for. Maybe, while they were all...