CHAPTER SEVEN — THE PRICE OF A NAME
The overseer’s name was Warren Pike, and Elijah knew the sound of his boots better than the sound of his own footsteps.
Pike had worked for Silas Whitmore during the years when the pottery shed operated day and night.
He had also been the man who took Elijah away when Silas sold him.
Elijah saw no surprise in his expression now.
Pike had always expected him to return.
The only uncertainty was what the overseer intended to do with him.
Catherine stepped onto the loading platform between the two men.
“Elijah belongs to the estate I inherited.”
Pike smiled.
“Then you should be pleased that I came to recover your property.”
“I didn’t send for you.”
“Your uncle did.”
“My uncle cannot give orders in my name.”
Pike folded the whip once around his wrist.
“Men have been taking his orders for twenty years.”
A merchant carrying an empty crate stopped nearby to watch.
Gabriel took one step toward the loading platform and stood beside Odessa.
Shaw appeared behind the overseer, his face pale with irritation.
“I want this dispute off my premises.”
“Then refuse these goods,” Gabriel said.
Shaw glanced at the yellow bowls.
“I have not agreed to anything.”
Elijah watched him calculate his options.
Shaw wanted the bargain without the questions, but he wanted his reputation even more.
Pike moved toward Elijah.
“Elijah, get in the wagon.”
Elijah held his ground.
“I’m here because the bowls are dangerous.”
Pike laughed.
“The bowls do not concern you.”
“They concerned my father when you made him dig more pigment after the children became sick.”
The overseer’s expression flattened.
“You ought to remember what happened to your father when he refused his work.”
Odessa drew a breath beside Gabriel.
Catherine saw her hands begin to shake.
“What happened?” Catherine asked.
Pike looked at the heiress as though she had asked an impolite question about supper.
“Ben Carter was punished for disobedience.”
Elijah answered before Catherine could speak.
“He died in the work shed with fever after Pike kept him there for three days.”
The loading platform became very quiet.
Catherine remembered her father telling her that a laborer had died after falling from a wagon.
She had never asked the man’s name.
Pike reached for Elijah.
Catherine seized the overseer’s forearm.
“If you touch him, every buyer standing here will see you assault a man under my authority.”
Pike looked down at her hand.
“You are making an expensive mistake.”
“Then put the price on your employer’s account.”
She was frightened enough that her voice sounded strange to her own ears.
Pike removed his hand from the whip and stepped back.
Shaw exhaled, then turned to the driver.
“Unload nothing until the ownership dispute is resolved.”
Gabriel raised his voice.
“And set aside the bowls that have already been sold.”
Shaw’s head snapped toward him.
“Nothing has been sold.”
“Then you will be relieved to have no customers to warn.”
Shaw’s assistant, who had been standing in the warehouse doorway, coughed.
“Mr. Shaw, the yellow dishes went to the hotel on Cherry Street yesterday.”
Shaw spun around.
“You were told those were decorative samples.”
“They were delivered as breakfast bowls.”
A groan went through the bystanders.
Catherine looked at Elijah.
He was staring at the warehouse assistant, not the overseer.
The problem had already escaped Whitmore.
Pike saw it too.
He stepped away from the platform and walked toward the waiting horses.
Elijah called after him.
“Tell Ambrose that the shipment is not hidden anymore.”
Pike did not turn.
He rode away before sundown, leaving the whip hanging at his saddle.
Shaw ordered the warehouse doors shut.
Gabriel insisted that the hotel be warned that evening.
Catherine offered to go with him, and Odessa said she would come too.
Shaw watched them leave with the expression of a man whose bargain had become an illness spreading through his accounts.
Elijah remained beside the loaded wagon.
For the first time in years, the overseer had walked away from him without getting what he wanted.
Pike would reach Whitmore before midnight.
