“He’s a problem, sir.”
“How much do you think he would demand?”
“I don’t know, sir. He drives a hard bargain. Perhaps two hundred dollars?”
“What’s the world coming to?” Sully’s father grumbled.
Sully wondered if the man even realized he had echoed the failing Pew.
“We don’t need the bluebellies anyway, sir,” Sully said.
“Of course we need them.”
“For a quarter of what it would cost to bribe Culp, I could hire a gang of good men to ride out there and drive off Bentley,” Sully said.
Of course, he would never allow Bentley to escape. He would kill him, have his revenge, and make sure Bentley never shared Sully’s biggest secret.
Troublesome things, secrets. Much like this business with Captain Culp. Because although Sully had told his father that he’d bribed the captain, he had indeed kept the money himself.
Meanwhile, he doubted Culp would accept a bribe, no matter how big. The man stunk of duty and honor. Which Sully would never be stupid enough to embrace, but which could nonetheless cause him real trouble if his father insisted that he bribe the captain again.
Offering Culp a bribe might even get Sully thrown in jail. Or worse, hung.
But what would Sully say if his father insisted on his bribing Culp again? He could not risk letting his father know that he had kept the money, let alone betrayed the location of his cousin.
“I don’t want to be lumped in with the troublemakers,” his father said. “If you hire men to remove Bentley and word gets back to Culp…”
“It won’t, sir. I’ll make sure of that.”
His father looked at him dubiously. “If I recall, you have your own score to settle with Will Bentley.”
“I did, sir.”
“Isn’t he the one who broke your nose back before the war?”
Sully nodded, hiding his rage. It had always burned him that his father had refused to do anything about that, saying Sully had acted foolishly and earned a valuable lesson that he would be reminded of every time he looked in the mirror. “But that was a long time ago, sir. I have moved past my anger.”
His father looked more dubious still. “Is that why you hired Mr. Gibbs to assault Will Bentley?”
Sully was shocked to the core. He never expected Gibbs to betray him. He’d paid Gibbs plenty to avoid that. “If Roy Gibbs said that, he’s a liar!”
Sully’s father offered an irritating, superior smile. “Mr. Gibbs did not say that. But I am not an idiot, son. Remember that… always.”
“I would never think that you were an?—”
“We’ll see about your old nemesis, Will Bentley,” Sully’s father interrupted. “Tomorrow, I am heading to New Orleans on business. You will be joining me. Someday, far in the future, I’ll be gone, and you’ll need to know how to run this plantation. And that means learning business.”
“Yes, sir,” Sully said, irritated again by his father’s implications. Why, Sully was perfectly capable of running this plantation, business and all, without any help from his father.
“But when we return,” Mr. Weatherspoon said, “you may go talk to Sheriff Rickert and make whatever inquiries you see fit. If you can locate Will Bentley, perhaps we will take Mr. Pew’s money after all. You find out where Bentley is but don’t go stirring up any trouble. Folks around these parts like him. He’s a war hero.”
“War hero,” Sully scoffed.
“Yes, war hero. Trust me, son. You don’t want folks holding your war record up next to his, do you?”
Sully’s face burned with sudden heat. “No, sir.”
“All right. Listen to me, and you might learn a thing or two. You have to be smart. You have to think like a politician. That’s how you prosper.”
