Free Texas Angel, 2-in-1 by Judith Pella Page B

The older woman was carrying a carpetbag, which she laid on the bed. “Get yourself packed up, Liz.”
    “Why?” Panic surging through her, Elise dropped the sponge.
    “We gotta vacate this place, that’s why.”
    “We?”
    “Everyone, Liz, not just you, so don’t worry.” Mae took on a motherly tone. She was only thirty years old, but her position of authority over the girls and the fact that she was the oldest lent her a certain air. Often she was kind, especially to Elise, but she could be hard as well. If a girl got out of line, her discipline was firm and sometimes harsh. She was like a berry patch—full of sweet fruit but surrounded by thorns.
    “Where are we going?”
    “You do ask a lot of questions, Liz.”
    “I suppose it is a difficult habit to break,” Elise replied with a wry grin.
    Mae allowed her taut lips to curve up at the corners. She didn’t often let more of a smile than that escape because she was vain about the condition of her teeth.
    “Well, Maurry is in trouble, and he is moving us out—lock, stock, and barrel. Well, probably not the barrel, maybe not even the locks. He’s in a hurry. He was in a duel last night and killed the son of a high government official.”
    “Maybe they’ll hang him.” Elise felt no compunction at all for the hopefulness in her tone.
    “It was all on the up-and-up. But the father of the victim holds some loan markers of Maurry’s. He says he will call in the debts unless Maurry leaves town fast.”
    “That wasn’t very bright of Maurry, was it?” Elise said with relish.
    “You know men. Sometimes they think with their trigger fingers and not their heads.” Mae shrugged. After fifteen years as Maurry’s slave, she had been around him too long to be shocked by anything. “I never did think Maurry would be able to hang on to this place. Two years in one place is a long time for him.”
    “He’s only been here two years?”
    “He had a place here when he bought me fifteen years ago. Then he took off—I’m not sure why. Had a place in Natchez for a while, then Baton Rouge, and a half dozen places in between.”
    Elise tried not to think of the irony of her father’s coming to New Orleans when he did. If he had waited two months . . . Elise shook those thoughts from her mind. They didn’t help.
    Instead, she said, “Mae, you’ve been with him all this time?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    The matter of choice was something else best not to think about. Elise grabbed a towel from next to the tub, where she was bathing a contented Hannah. This was all she must think about—that Hannah should always be content like this.
    “I’ll finish with Hannah, then start packing.” It made no difference to Elise if she did what she had to do in New Orleans or in some other place. In fact, she didn’t even pursue the subject of their destination. She’d find out soon enough.
    Saul, the house servant, came up a half hour later with a big trunk. Elise was to stow her possessions—except for immediate necessities—in the chest along with the belongings of the other girls.
    The next morning the trunks and packing crates were taken down to the docks in a wagon. Six of Thomson’s girls and the three slaves he kept as servants piled into two buggies and were transported to the docks on the river several miles south of New Orleans. He had sold off four of his remaining girls to finance the journey. Maurice met them at the dock, looking quite dapper in one of his expensively tailored broadcloth suits. He hardly looked like a man who was on the run. He certainly showed little worry about his future.
    “Well, ladies, we are about to embark on an adventure!” He rubbed his hands together with an eagerness that almost dispelled the cruelty Elise had come to associate with the man.
    “Where we goin’, Maurry?” asked Gina, the young girl who had been whipped for attempting to escape.
    “We are heading for Texas. I have a brother there who has been wanting me