The President's Daughter Read Online Free

stretched in a wide highway of feathery waves, so vast the eye couldn’t take it all in. The heat had reduced everything else to wavelets of sepia and black, and the blossoms, which reached our hips, glowed iridescent, parading in long lines like soldiers to the horizon. With amazing grace, they floated in the sun-spoiled daze of light, at times gathering into small foams of purple as I stood there gazing at my mother’s burnt umber figure, my skirts caught in the stems and thistles.
    Early this morning I had searched for him. I had decided to ask him, beg him, to free me—legally. What if I refused to be transported out of the state like a bale of cotton with the master’s ticket on it, his indigo stamp, but not his recognition? I had saddled up Ripley, an old bay nobody rode, and gone out to find him. I knew I would find him in the saddle at that time of the morning, and I was determined to have it out with him. I had vowed to look him in the eye and force him to see me for what I was, his daughter. The bastard daughter who was trying to say good-bye, trying to get him to call me by my name.
    I found him over by the west frontier, near the stand of woods that divided the rise of the mountain from the first planting fields. There was a birch fence that enclosed a pasture and a narrow bridge spanning a clear-running creek. He had just taken the fence, and he sat there immobile on Old Eagle—a tall horse with wide shoulders and a heavily muscled chest—as still and luminous as a marble sculpture. The light broke all around him, shining in a domelike configuration, reflecting long yellow dashes of light, and enclosing his profile. I screwed up my courage. I was going to ask him to give me my manumission papers as a freedwoman. He could do it. I knew he could.
    Old Eagle shied away as Ripley blocked his path. Both horses were steaming and their flanks touched. I drew in my breath; the cobalt eyes cutthrough me as if to ask how I dared interrupt his early-morning ride.
    â€œMaster . . .”
    â€œHarriet.” He gestured, then waited patiently for an explanation.
    I shivered. I wanted to turn Ripley around and gallop off, but I forced my mount to stillness and trained my eyes level with his. Jade met sapphire.
    â€œIt’s my birthday,” I said stupidly.
    â€œYes, Harriet.” Still his voice carried a question.
    â€œMy last day at Monticello.”
    His horse began to sidestep impatiently, trying to avoid me. It wasn’t Old Eagle, it was my father’s knees doing it. He didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want to talk.
    â€œI don’t want to run, Master. I don’t want to steal myself. . . .”
    For a moment, his eyes seemed to flicker with a recognition or a reminiscence, I couldn’t tell which, as if he had heard this plea, this desperate boast, before. He looked away from me, then, toward the mountains. I stuttered on.
    â€œPapers, Master. I need papers to prove I’m free . . . otherwise I’m a fugitive slave, a criminal.”
You can’t want jour own daughter to be a felon.
    â€œYou don’t need any papers, Harriet. You’re white. You must live your life without them. It’s your only chance. I’ve arranged everything. Petit is coming to get you.”
    â€œBut what about my freedom? Mother promised me I’d be free.”
    â€œYou are free, Harriet. As free as I am. No one will challenge you. No one would dare.”
    â€œBut what if they do? What if they . . . ask?”
    â€œHasn’t your mother told you what to do? That’s her duty.”
    â€œShe said men can’t keep secrets.”
    â€œShe’s wrong. I’ve kept your secret, haven’t I? I’ve hidden and protected all of you all these years. I’ve shielded you from the newspapers and a vicious campaign against all of us by our political enemies. I kept my silence. I didn’t send you all away after the troubles with