Renegade by Caroline Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

when he was being teased. “Maudlin-drunk. Defensive-drunk?”
    “Shut up.”
    His friend poured himself another drink, and Mac shifted lower on the bench. “So, what’re you thinking about?”
    Mac didn’t answer for a long minute; he stared at the women across the way. He took a deep breath and held it. When he finally released it, he felt some of the antsiness leave, too. “You ever think it might be time to quit?”
    “Quit drinking?”
    “Quit the business.”
    “Quit sailing?” Robert couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.
    Mac scowled at his friend. Quit the sea? “Don’t be stupid.”
    “Ahh.” Robert drank the rum, and picked up the bottle again, pretending great interest in the label. “Then you’re talking about the other business.”
    “Yeah. No. Hell, I dunno.” Mac closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of the rough wood behind his head. “I keep thinking how lucky we—you—have been.”
    “Your neck is just as much at risk as mine, Captain .” The title made Mac snort quietly. It was true; the Polaris was his, and he captained her, but he’d never wanted to be a leader. He didn’t have much use for men who told others what to do, and didn’t want to end up like them. He and his crew were a team. He was theirs as much as they were his.
    Mac ran that last thought through his head again, and it didn’t sound any better. Maybe he was drunk.
    “Maybe.” He drummed the fingers of one hand against the table. “But they’d at least give me a trial. You, they’d string up as soon as someone pointed a finger at you.”
    Neither of them had to ask which they the other meant. It wasn’t a secret that Mac didn’t much like the men who made up Charleston society. He wasn’t even especially close to his own brothers anymore. He lacked patience in general, but particularly when it came to a bunch of sons of bitches who thought they had the right to lay down laws on their fellow man. Mac didn’t like being told what to do at the best of times, and being told what to do by a bunch of old, bitter ex-Rebels didn’t suit him too well. They’d lost, and they’d lost their rights to force anyone—including Mac—to do their bidding.
    “The Army—”
    “—Would’ve given you trial, yeah. Probably. Maybe.” Mac sighed. “But the Democrats…”
    Since Rutherford Hayes’ election, the Republicans had backed out, leaving South Carolina to the same damn ex-Confederates who ruled her twenty years ago. Black men had a few measly years of freedoms, but groups like the Red Shirts and the Klan were going to make sure they lost what little rights they’d earned.
    “Damn Hayes for knucklin’ under.” Robert was right. The South had lost the war, and a mere twelve years later, the occupying North was backing out. The Army was going home, and leaving the governing to the states. The people of Charleston were rejoicing, claiming that the North had capitulated after all. “Sayin’ that we’re all one country again.” Mac could hear the bitterness in his friend’s voice. “That’s bullshit.”
    For twelve short years, the South had been an occupied country, controlled by the victors in the war the Southerners had lost. The US Army made sure that the South followed federal laws, and it angered the hell out of the ex-Confederates. Hell, it’d angered Mac.
    But it also meant that black men like Robert had rights he wouldn’t have dreamed of when growing up as a slave. They both knew that once Hayes pulled the Army out, those rights would disappear; there’d still be laws, but no one in charge would enforce them. The Freedman’s Bureaus wouldn’t be able to stand up to a bunch of determined bigots.
    Things were changing, and as far as Mac and Robert were concerned, it wasn’t for the better. When the Republicans had been in power, the South had been ripe for the plucking. The people desperate for the luxury goods they’d missed out on during the long war years. Men like Mac—men