The boy edged inside, keeping his hand on the doorknob. His eyes darted around like flies on road kill.
“You want something to eat? Drink?” He shook his head roughly. “Didn’t think so. Well, why you here? Crack ya teeth, son.”
“They foun’ my brother.”
“Who chile is you?”
“Francis Station, ma’am.”
I whistled long and low. Francis Station’s son had been missing for years, since Mayor Bradley found out his daughter had been sniffing around him. I can’t say he wasn’t sniffin’ too, but he shoulda known not to let nobody see them together. Heard some white man dragged him from behind one of them machines he used to work on at the paper mill and nobody seen him since.
“Where?” I asked.
“Out the marsh by Runnin’ Jack place. ’Neath that sick-looking poplar tree. I made a mark like they said I was to.”
I sat back in my chair. Dangerous. Jack ran numbers and liquor, but he wouldn’t stand for nobody on his property. I don’t know how the boy got out there and back, ’cause Jack tended to shoot first and never ask questions. They say not to trust crackers who live near Negroes. I had to hope I could get in and outta there quick and not let him catch me.
“All right, chile.” The job in the paper had to wait. Had to hope they’d understand. “I’ll go, but—”
The boy held out his hand, stopping my words. Two Stella coins lay in his palm. “Mama said she know it ain’t safe, so she’ll pay you first. And two more when you get him.”
Sixteen dollars total. Christ rising. I took the coins and patted the boy on the shoulder. “You tell her I’mma go there tonight.”
“Yes’m.”
After he left, I sat there for about an hour, looking at the door until nightfall, the moon and stars lighting up my table. Then I filled my flask, tied the funnel to its neck, got my shovel, and left the house. The tea was still warm where it pressed against my inside thigh. I’d had a swig of it myself earlier and it erased the ache in my joints, gave me a bit more energy. The shovel I tied to the inside of my cape and it bounced silently against my generous bottom as I walked to where the marshland met the dirt.
Outta the corner of my eye, I could see Runnin’ Jack’s place edged up against the marsh, where fireflies dove in and around the reeds. Big ol’ house, but not much to look at with its peeling paint and flaking wood. Barn didn’t look much better. Splintered wheels and broken buggies dotted the backyard. All was quiet, save for the chorus of frog song, making me think this was just gonna be like any other cemetery visit.
Sorry to say it wasn’t.
I managed to find the poplar tree, with its white chalk mark slash pretty easy. It was sick, likely from the rot in the soul of the person who buried the dead here. I loosened my shovel from inside my cape and said a swift prayer that this was gonna be a cakewalk.
A patch of grass lifted away in one straight piece. Underneath, a layer of earth was loose, releasing the smell of rich soil. I scraped it away. Against the black dirt, white bone shined. The boy must have stopped here and run to his mama because the rest of the dig was into harder dirt, like the earth had to make up for the soft dank pluff mud of the marsh just feet away. Glad I didn’t have to come through that way. Charleston was famous for its pluff mud and even binyahs like me lost a shoe once or twice to its sucking hold.
I grunted as the shovel only broke through fingernail-sized bits of dirt at a time, making me use elbow grease I didn’t have. Hot and sweaty, I stopped for a moment, easing my back upright, taking big glugs of the cool air off the marsh. It held the sweetness of life and death, swampy and ocean cool. I lost myself in it and didn’t hear the footsteps approaching.
He tackled me from behind, holding my legs together, and sent me head first toward the base of the tree where it poked through the hard pack dirt. I kept from slamming my face into the gnarled roots of the poplar by twisting my body and taking the knock on my shoulder. The wind flew out of me and I rolled to my back, the shovel thudding to the ground. I heard Jack grab for it and toss it away. His weight felt like a stone where he had me pinned to the ground, pressing his man parts against me like we played night games. His face was weathered, pale skin drawn tight against his skull. Salt-and-pepper whiskers and a beat-up fishing hat covered most of what else I tried to see. But those rabbit gray eyes held me sure as his body.
“What’re you doing on my land?” He growled the question out and its scent reached me, swimming in tobacco and fish grease. His fumbled for something in his pants and my breath caught, but he just pulled out a revolving gun, the kind Army men tended to have. Satisfied I had seen it, he lay it against my belly.
There was something in his face that I knew. I couldn’t place it, but it was there. The shape of his brow, the line of grizzled hair running along his cheek? I saw it, felt it in my spirit. Knew it as sure as I could breathe. Breeze blew up off the marsh, shifting the clouds and letting more of the moon’s smile through to touch his pale face so close to mine. The answer called to me in a memory of blood.
“You a Negro,” I whispered.
“And you’re a witch. Facts neither one of us wants told.” He cocked the gun. “Now where’s that leave us, Miss Prosper?”
I eyed the oiled metal barrel, then frowned. “With you lettin’ me sit up off this cold ground.”
He thought about it, then sat back, freeing my legs. I shuffled to sit up, smoothing my long skirt down. He didn’t help, just watched me with them rabbit fur gray eyes and tapped the gun on his knee.
“Why’re you here?” he asked again.
“To do a job. You got a child buried out here, Mr. Jack and I—”
“You ain’t taking nothing from my property.”
“What? I’m talking about a child. His mama just want to bury him. That’s all.”
He shook his head.
“A boy someone lynched for looking sideways at a girl, that’s all. A Negro boy. Or don’t you care about your own people?”
His eyes stayed on mine and I shivered like ghosts was looking in my face. “I said you are not to take a thing off my property.”
Frustrated, I thumped the ground with my fists. I had nothing, no weapon, and I felt foolish for never thinking to bring one. Never needed to before. “It’s a dead, Jack, a dead! Why you wanna keep a dead here?”
He thought about my question, then he spat out a thick wad of wet tobacco. “Leave ’em be. No good comes of draggin’ up the past.”
As he sat on the cold ground looking down at me, I realized. Whispers said it was white men who had taken them children off over the years to God only knew what kinda fate. And it never occurred to me that someone might use that fact to hide his own sins.
Real fear took me then and I shook with it. “It was you. All this time.” When he didn’t say anything, I yelled. “Wasn’t it?”
“Whites kill coloreds all the time.” Jack worked a finger into his ear, digging. Wiped it clean on his dungarees. “Everybody knows that. I just had to make sure I picked the right ones; ones they woulda gotten to eventually. All I had to do was keep to myself and dig fast.”
I felt tears burn my eyes, run down my face in hot trails. “Why?” I choked on the word. The marsh grass shooshed in the still air.
He shrugged. “I can’t help killin’. I need it… like breathing.”
My heart flipped in my chest. I searched the ground for something, anything, to use to save my life. The tea running through my system would buy some time, but it wouldn’t heal me from gunshot. A flicker caught my eye and I saw the cutting edge of the shovel for a moment as the clouds passed over. Nestled against the marsh reeds, out of reach.