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dime if he put your cases in the back of the truck. They ain’t in the back of the truck, are they?”
    Corinne shook her head, sickened by Charlie’s behavior, but not secure enough in her new surroundings to call him out. She dug into her coin purse and found two quarters. She approached the porter and held them out to him. “Thank you.”
    The porter looked past her without meeting her eyes. “Oh, no, Miss. I can’t take your money off you. The gentleman is right. I didn’t earn it.” The look on his face caused Corinne to glance back at Charlie. The old man’s glower served as a warning sign to the porter, and she knew she’d be doing him no good if she insisted. She returned the coins to her purse.
    “You have a good day, Miss,” the man said and hurried back to the station.
    Corinne wondered how a man such as Charlie would have found himself in the Dunnes’ employ. Elijah had seemed to be great friends with Washington and Jones, two of the black soldiers in their unit, playing cards and drinking with them. Corinne didn’t believe he harbored racial hatred, or would condone this uncouth man’s treatment of the porter. She decided she would have some words with Elijah about his employee’s behavior, but for now she would say nothing.
    Corinne picked up her bags. They were heavy, but she was used to moving dead weight. Charlie made a motion to help. “I can manage,” she cut him off.
    “Have it your way,” Charlie said, shrugging as he walked around the truck to the driver’s side.
    Corinne approached the bed of the truck and hefted the heavier of the two bags. The dogs snarled at her in unison. Corinne stopped and fixed her eyes on theirs, one after the other. “I am not afraid of you.” One of them lunged toward her, and in spite of her determination not to show fear, she pulled back. She looked up to see Charlie staring at her, the corners of his mouth turned up.
    “Down,” he commanded, and all three dogs collapsed. “Go on,” he said to Corinne. “They ain’t gonna bother you now. You just got to show them who’s in charge. It’s the natural order.”
    Corinne didn’t respond. She tipped the first bag over the side of the truck and into the bed. One of the dogs shifted, but they all stayed in prone positions.
    She picked up the smaller case. “I’ll keep this one on my lap.”
    “Fine by me,” Charlie said, “but we need to get a move on. The farm’s a good twenty miles from here, and if we miss the next ferry ’cross the river, we won’t get across till past lunchtime.”

FOUR
    Wilson McAvoy took advantage of the empty infirmary at the mill to get out and check on his godson, whose Christian name was Ovid, but who was known around these parts simply as “the Judge.” Locals joked that a man brought before the Judge was just as likely to face the noose for jaywalking as for murder, and McAvoy had to acknowledge there might be a tinge of legitimacy to the jest. Truth was, the man for whose moral upbringing he shared responsibility had grown into a cold-hearted bastard with a twisted sense of justice that had little to do with the law he’d vowed to uphold. The only reason McAvoy felt compelled to look after him was his fond memory of the man’s father.
    McAvoy hesitated before knocking on the Judge’s door. He’d stopped by several times in the two months since the death of Ovid’s daughter, but nearly every time the maid Lucille had turned him away, saying the Judge didn’t feel up to receiving visitors. Wilson couldn’t just walk away, though. A brief feeling of regret caused his shoulders to slump. Hell, Ovid might be “the Judge” now, but Wilson had helped bring him into this world almost half a century ago. He had slapped his ass and then heard his first cry. That he should feel such ambivalence toward the grown man hinted at his own failure to honor his duties as godfather.
    He only wished he’d been around to help with Ruby’s birth, for then he might have