13
The scariest thing about a diamondback was not the venomous fangs, but the rattle itself. The rattle meant only one thing — the diamondback saw or heard you before you saw it. The rattle meant the snake was upset, frightened, ready to protect itself. If you were lucky and saw the snake soon after hearing the rattle, you could move away, give it plenty of room. But when you heard the rattle but couldn’t find the snake, well, that was the scariest part.
After hearing two rattles but no sightings, the team was on edge. They took a water break and rested on the trunk of a fallen oak, listening for snakes. Dr. Gilfoy took a drink, wiped his mouth with a sleeve, and saw something in a pile of rotted timbers thirty feet away. It had the glint of metal. Holding a shovel, he walked to the pile and moved some debris. Carefully, he picked up a two-foot section of cut board partially rotted and covered with mud.
“It’s a hinge!” he announced with excitement. The other five quickly gathered around to inspect it. They had found the first sign of civilization.
“A three-inch butt hinge for a door,” one said.
“Antique cast iron,” said another.
“Could it be a cabinet hinge?”
“No, not at three inches. It’s too big.”
“Steeple finial. Definitely a door hinge.”
“How old?”
“A hundred years.”
“Yeah, early nineteen hundreds.”
They passed it around so everyone could touch and feel it. A rare diamond would not have been more precious.
Dr. Sargent said, “Well, we now know that a hundred years ago there was a dwelling close by and it was advanced enough to have butt hinges on its doors.” He pointed and said, “If you look at the tree line there you’ll see that the terrain rises. Lovely said the cemetery was on the highest part of the island. If the houses were around here, might the cemetery be up there?”
“I like it,” Dr. Pennington said.
“Let’s give it a try.”
For an hour they hacked and cut a trail to the top of a slight elevation and stopped at a small clearing choked with weeds and thick scrub brush. Lovely had said there were no trees in the cemetery. The gap in the woods might possibly be the site. They cut and cleared for another hour, found nothing, and stopped for lunch.
Dr. Sargent walked behind a thick tree to relieve himself. In a grove of saplings he noticed a row of indentations, all covered with grass, each about two feet from the next. Lovely had said there were no headstones to mark the graves because there were no stones or rocks on the island. Each grave had a small wooden cross with no name on it.
Sargent said, “I think these might be graves.”
The dig was on.
14
With ample sunlight left, they decided to call it a day and return to camp. The last thing they needed to worry about was getting lost in the dark. They left their chain saws, shovels, and other tools under a tree with a bright blue tarp over it. They kept the machetes and handgun to deal with the diamondbacks. Dr. Gilfoy had a small can of orange paint and sprayed trees along their return route. Now that they knew the way, the walk took thirty minutes.
They were worried about Lovely making the trek, but she insisted on being at the gravesite if bones were found. They were under her strict instruction not to remove anything from the graves without her being present. Otherwise, the spirits would be upset.
After a round of beers, they dined on canned beef stew and cheese crackers, then moved their chairs closer to the campfire. It was not yet 8:00 p.m. and too early for bed, though they desperately needed sleep. They had joked all day about the panthers disrupting their night. Surely they would leave them alone tonight.
Dr. Gilfoy asked the African American archaeologists about other slave burial projects they had worked on, and this led to several stories. Dr. Sargent had been involved in perhaps the most famous discovery. In 1991, in Lower Manhattan, a contractor was doing site work in preparation for the construction of a new federal courthouse and discovered the graves of several dozen slaves, all in wooden caskets. Controversy erupted on all fronts and construction was delayed. Archaeologists descended upon the site and more graves were found. In all, historians estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 African Americans were buried there, not in a mass grave but in individual coffins. Some were freed blacks but most were slaves. Half were children, evidence of the high mortality rate. A total of 419 caskets were relocated, with names, and a monument was erected in memory of their lives. The federal courthouse was built elsewhere.
Lovely told the story of her father’s death and burial. It was in her book and all of those around the fire had read about it. Jeremiah died in 1948. His body was placed in a casket built by his brother, a carpenter. She would never forget watching it lowered into the grave.
Like all the others, it faced east, toward the ocean, toward home in Africa.
“We’ll find it tomorrow,” Sargent promised.
15
The night was still and peaceful, uninterrupted by storms or wild animals. They were up at sunrise and eager for a long, productive day with their shovels. Breakfast, again, was oatmeal and fruit, with plenty of strong coffee. The plan was for Lovely to leave early with them and supervise the opening of the graves. If she needed rest, half the team would accompany her, Diane, and Mercer back to camp.
In the woods, she was stunned and saddened by the destruction. She mumbled over and over, “I can’t believe this.”
They stopped at the pile of timber and debris. Dr. Gilfoy showed her the hinge and the piece of the door it came from. “Could the village have been around here?”
“I don’t know,” she said, bewildered. “Everything is so destroyed, so different.” She thought a moment as she looked around. “Maybe. Yes, our homes could’ve been here. The cemetery should be that way.” She pointed in the right direction.
When the trail began its slight ascent, Lovely struggled to keep her balance. She leaned on Mercer and her cane and made every step count. Three of the archaeologists walked ahead of her, guarding the trail and looking for snakes. The other three walked patiently behind.
Lovely had made a list of her ancestors who were buried on the island. There were seventy-three in all, though some were buried in different places. A great-uncle had split with the family over a romance and moved away from the village. He and his people had their own little cemetery. As a child, she had known of other small burial grounds around the island. Two hundred years earlier the dead were buried in shallow graves with no caskets.
They stopped where they had worked the day before, in the clearing where the weeds and vines and saplings had been cut away. “We found some graves here,” Dr. Sargent said. “Does anything look familiar?”
She was shaking her head and wiping her cheeks.
“We have to start somewhere, Lovely.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing is the same.”
They removed the blue tarp and gathered their shovels and tools. The tarp was strung up to provide shade from the sun and Lovely took her place under it. She was overwhelmed and emotional and they left her alone.
The row of low spots in the earth seemed like the best place to start digging. Within half an hour they found bones, too small for an adult, and not intact. The skull was crushed and the feet were missing. They were less than two feet from the surface and there was no sign of a casket. Lovely backed everyone away and knelt beside the grave. Without touching the bones she held her hands over them, closed her eyes, and mumbled a prayer. She looked at the other indentations and said, “I remember now. The graves of the children, buried long before my time. Back when they didn’t use caskets.” She stood, looked around, and pointed. “Not long after Nalla died, a fever came to the island, killing most of the children. They buried them here, in a row, in shallow graves because they were in a hurry.” She pointed again and continued, “My people are over there, in that corner of the cemetery.”