“You don’t understand. I can’t leave her.” I dig at the wood around a nail hammered bent into the bar.

“Yes, you can, because if her father won’t have it, it’s finished. You don’t get the girl.” He points to the rickety wooden staircase at the side of the tavern that leads to a few rented rooms. A woman in a garish dress and with messy hair climbs slowly down, looking over the men at the bar. “You should let someone take your mind off of her,” Ennis says. He tips his hat to the bar whore.

I grab his arm so he’ll stop his jabbering and hat tipping and listen. “I have a plan to get Sarah,” I say, “but I need your help.”

Ennis scratches the back of his head and looks to the ceiling. “Jesus, but she must be something special if she’s worth all this to you.”

My nerves slip into my leg, making it shudder, so I stand. “Will you help me or not?”

“Fine. I will. But after this we go. With or without her. And your plan better not involve her da getting the law on us.”

I lean in close to Ennis and lower my voice. “I have the money to buy her, legal, but the bastard who owns her won’t sell her to me. I need you to pose as a buyer. And I need to find a reason that you want Sarah, and no one else.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. You’re talking about a slave? All this waiting, risking my fortune for a bloody slave.”

The way he’s talking hardens me. I don’t like hearing him call her a slave. It’s what she is, but it’s not who she is, and the word grates in my ears. “I’m taking her with me.”

“No, you’re goddamn not, you daft bastard. If you bring her out there, we’re dead in the water.” His blue eyes darken to storm clouds.

“She can help us. She’s a hard worker and she knows how to—”

“I already told you. There’s a man out there, Hiram Young. We need to take his business.”

Right there I know I’ve missed something important. “You said he’s a cheat and a scoundrel. We’ll take his business sure enough.”

“I never said he was. In fact, I doubt he is. Hiram Young’s a Negro, Henry. They’ll come to us because you and me are white men, and if you bring your slave girl everything goes to shite.”

I’m angry in a way that I can’t explain to Ennis. I can’t explain it to myself, except to say that it’s like he’s not just doing this to Mister Hiram Young. He’s doing it to Sarah. He’s doing it to my child.

“That’s your plan?” I say. “Stealing business from a man because he’s not white.”

“A minute ago, you were happy for us to take his customers.”

“A minute ago, he was a scoundrel.” It’s an ugly thing to see a man who’s had his own neck ground in the dirt trample on another the first chance he gets. “Did hungering in Ireland teach you nothing about treating people right?” I ask.