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The King of Crows

Page 22

by Libba Bray


  In the back of Cousin Jesse’s truck, Memphis, Bill, and Henry were nestled among wire-strung cages full of agitated chickens. Their wings flicked Memphis’s and Henry’s cheeks, making them flinch. It was noisy and smelly.

  “Damn,” Memphis said, waving away the smell.

  “Man didn’t have to give us a ride, but he did,” Bill said.

  “Don’t need a sermon,” Memphis grumbled.

  “When a man’s been the beneficiary of a miracle, it changes the way he sees things,” Bill said. “How you gonna fight the King of Crows if you don’t believe there’s any goodness in this world worth saving?”

  They rode in silence for some time until the truck began to slow.

  “I’d take you farther, but I got business this way,” Jesse told them as he let them out on the road about ten miles from Greenville. “Y’all watch out for that river. And stay out of the woods at night.”

  “We heard about the ghosts,” Henry said.

  “Ghosts, nothing. It’s the Klan you got to worry about.”

  It was getting toward dusk. The sun slipped down and swaddled the horizon in softer blues. Memphis was tired. At his side, Henry, too, was lagging.

  “Can we find a place to sit down?” Memphis asked.

  “I’m glad you said it first,” Henry said, grinning. “Hey. There’s a sign for a town, looks like.” Henry hurried toward the black-and-white marker. But when he reached it, he froze.

  “‘N—’” Memphis refused to repeat the insult. “‘Don’t let the sun catch you in this town after sundown.’”

  “What I tell ya?” Bill said, walking down the railroad embankment and into the cover of the impartial trees.

  They camped in a copse of woods. Bill found some branches and piled them up. The wood was damp, and it smoked something awful, but at last it caught fire. They warmed their hands and Bill took out some bread and oranges they’d managed at a little stand on the road.

  “Thought we weren’t supposed to stay in the woods,” Memphis said quietly.

  “Don’t see that we got much choice,” Bill said.

  “I’ve heard about towns like that,” Henry said.

  “Sundown towns.” Bill practically spat the words. “Towns that don’t want black folks, so they post a warning sign, letting you know they’ll be coming for you if you’re there after dark.”

  “Charming,” Henry said bitterly.

  Memphis stared into the fire. “Why are we trying to save this country? What’s it ever done for us?” In his mind, he could still see those words on that hateful sign. “Maybe we should just let it burn. Maybe we should let the King of Crows have it all.”

  Bill let the question sit for a long time. “It’s the only country we got, I reckon.”

  “That’s a bullshit answer,” Memphis grumbled.

  “Only answer I got, too.”

  “I can’t walk down the street with my girl. Can’t even go into some towns.” Memphis flicked a glance Henry’s way. “You can’t walk down the street free, either.”

  Henry’s cheeks burned with embarrassment that Bill knew this about him now, that he liked boys. Bill seemed like a man’s man, like his father. And Henry hated that he could punish himself with shame like this. He was who he was, and he had no intention of not being who he was. So why was he letting shame call the shots?

  “Usedta think I could make a difference,” Bill said. “’At’s how I ended up workin’ for them Shadow Men. Found out real quick they jus’ wanted to use me up and spit me out when my sight was gone and my body weak. But when I look at Isaiah, you and your friends, well… then I git to thinkin’, maybe y’all be the ones to fix it.”

  Memphis found Bill’s answer unsatisfying, though. “Tired of healing things.” Right then, there was only one place for that anger to find release. While Henry lay on the ground and sang a song to keep himself from feeling too lonely and Bill patted the sides of a stump like a drum for accompaniment, Memphis took out his notebook and started to write.

  The earth of Georgia is red

  Red like a wound that’s bled

  And scabbed over

  Bleed again, bleed again,

  And again

  Some wounds just won’t heal

  He wrote until he could barely keep his eyes open and a new poem had been born on the page, one that told of their walk through the Delta with all its ghosts. He was planting his own seeds. When he had finished, he signed it The Voice of Tomorrow.

  “What’re you doing?” Henry asked on a yawn.

  “Starting a revolution,” Memphis joked.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Henry said.

  “Just telling my story,” Memphis said.

  Bill couldn’t say what it was that woke him, only that he’d come out of sleep alert and uneasy. The fire was out, but there was a glow coming from deeper in the trees. He remembered that they were not too far from a sundown town, and that made him very nervous. That glow could be a cross burning. There might be a whole klavern of white-hooded thugs nearby, just waiting for a chance to egg one another on, to prove to one another that they were men in charge, men who would do whatever it took to stay in charge.

  And here he was with two boys they might use to make their point.

  An owl hooted from some unseen spot. Except for that glow in the distance and the small sliver of new moonlight, it was pitch-dark. Anything could be hiding in those woods. Bill knew he needed to see for himself what was there among the trees. Leaving the boys behind, he moved as stealthily as he could toward the strange phosphorescence and wished for the comfort of New York City’s bright lights. The April chilliness mixed with the damp had brought up a light fog. Bill heard voices. It was impossible to say where they were coming from, how far or near. They seemed to bounce around in the fog. The voices faded, and in their place, Bill heard weeping, a deep, mournful lament. The crying, too, came and went. It changed in tone and timbre, but the pain was always the same.

  Something brushed across his shoulder. Bill whirled around. “Who’s there?” he demanded. He fumbled in the dirt for a rock, just in case. If it came to it, he had his hands. Places had an energy. As a Diviner, Bill knew this. This place was drenched in sorrow and hate and horror. His arms began to shake. He needed to get away. To get back to Memphis and Henry. Didn’t matter that it was still dark; they’d go, walk down the center of the railroad tracks if need be. Safer than here.

  A deep, guttural moaning surrounded him. It gained power, getting louder. Louder still. Bill dropped the rock and put his hands over his ears. The brush—one, two—across his shoulder again. He whirled around and looked up, his mouth opening in a soundless scream.

  Ghostly bodies hanging from the trees.

  Puckered skin where eyes should be.

  Bloated, fingerless hands.

  The keening poured from the ghosts’ mouths on thin ribbons of fog. And in that fog, under this collective hymn of rage and witness screamed into the woods long after death, there were dogs barking and men laughing, there was pleading to no avail, the sound of the land refusing to stay silent.

  It brought Bill to his knees. He struggled to stand. He backed away. As one, the men’s heads snapped up. They spoke with one hissing voice: “Ghosts on the road, ghosts on the road, ghosts on the road!”

  With a cry, Bill turned and ran back toward the camp.

  The next morning, Memphis had to shake Bill out of a deep sleep. The big man woke with a start. He sat straight up, gasping for as much air as he could fit into his lungs. He put his hands to his throat.

  “You all right?” Memphis asked.

  Bill glanced over his shoulder at the perfectly ordinary woods. He looked out at the distant railroad tracks and the sundown town sign looming over them. Who could be all right knowing the things I know?

  “Let’s just keep moving,” Bill said.

  They passed through a small town that had a tiny post office. Memphis tucked the new poem inside one of the Crescent Limited envelopes
he’d kept and marked the front: Care of Mr. T. S. Woodhouse, the Daily News. For the return address, he wrote simply, The Voice of Tomorrow, Somewhere in America.

  BARNSTORMING

  The Harlem Haymakers’ bus kept going past Philadelphia proper and out an unpaved road that led to a muddy parking lot across from an old barn-turned-dance hall. The whole place looked like it might fall down in a stiff wind. The Haymakers peered out through the dirty bus windows.

  “This is the Centurion?” Ling asked.

  “What on earth? That’s just a shack!” Lupe said.

  “I suppose this is why they call it barnstorming,” Alma said. “Come on, ladies. Shake a tail feather. We’ve got paying customers to entertain.”

  “Didn’t know we’d be playing real barns,” Babe said with a shake of her head.

  “Jericho, let’s start unloading this bus,” Doc called.

  The Philadelphia Centurion—which was, as Babe kept pointing out to anyone who’d listen, not really in Philadelphia: “They just flat-out lied!”—hosted a clientele happy on moonshine and illegal whiskey. At the tables, women pulled flasks from secret pockets sewn into their slips; men took them from hat ribbons and hollowed-out books. But the joint was jumping and eager for more. There were several acts on the bill—comics, dancers, singers, and various orchestras. The Harlem Haymakers were listed fifth.

  “We probably won’t even get onstage before midnight,” Sally Mae griped as they slipped into their uniforms in a makeshift dressing room made from a curtain clipped to a clothesline. They could hear two comics telling blue jokes to a room that loved every one of them.

  “At least we get to play,” Lupe said, rotating her wrists to warm them up.

  Ling was still a little rattled from her cryptic dream walk. What had Will meant by “change”? Change what? One thing she wished she could change was Evie’s crazy decision to go to Nebraska. It made her sore that, in typical fashion, Evie had made a choice without considering its effect on anybody else. She was selfish. And yet…

  And yet, her rash decision had allowed Ling this time on the road with Alma. In her own selfish way, Ling was greedy for it. And for the hope that she might get Alma to change her mind about the two of them. Ling thought Alma looked so beautiful in her silver sequined dress with the fringed hem, a thick rhinestone headband resting across her forehead just like royalty. She ached to hold her hand, to sit together somewhere, just the two of them. She couldn’t bear the idea that they might never sit side by side like that ever again.

  The Harlem Haymakers watched from the wings as the Thompson Brothers finished a jaw-dropping tap-dance number that saw them hopping from table to table, never once losing a single syncopated step. The crowd roared their approval, stomped the floor for more.

  “Lord, we have to follow that?” Alma said and bit her lip.

  “You’ll be swell,” Ling said.

  “You really think so?” Alma asked.

  “No. I only said that so you’d be quiet,” Ling teased. Teasing was good. It was something people did to show their affection, she’d heard. But what if Alma didn’t think it was funny?

  “That was a joke,” Ling said, cheeks burning.

  “I do know a joke when I hear one,” Alma said, and Ling couldn’t tell if she’d liked it or not. “Oh, golly Moses! I completely forgot—I need a name!”

  “You have a name—Alma LaVoy,” Ling said.

  “A stage name. Something like Queen of the Blues.”

  “Mamie Smith is Queen of the Blues,” Babe whispered as she fit a new reed into her saxophone.

  “See what I mean? All the good names are taken!”

  “You could be the Empress,” Emmaline said.

  “You could be Miss High-Hat,” Lupe said with a roll of her eyes. “That’s accurate.”

  “I am not going to dignify that with a response, Guadalupe,” Alma sniffed.

  Everybody threw out names then, some dirty, most silly, none of them right. After an encore, the Thompson Brothers were taking their last bows. It was almost time.

  “What about the Countess?” Jericho offered.

  Lupe reared back slightly and put a hand to her chest in mock-surprise. “He speaks.”

  “Don’t be mean, Lupe,” Alma chided.

  “Who’s being mean? I like the sound of his voice very much.”

  “The Countess,” Alma said, mulling it over. “I like it. It’s high-class. The Countess is mysterious.” Alma threw a hand across her forehead like a silent film star. “She is the blues. She is…”

  “Talking about herself in the third person,” Jericho said, making Alma giggle and Ling jealous. She wanted to be the one to make Alma laugh.

  “Do you have a name for me, Big Six?” Lupe brushed up near Jericho and poked at him playfully with one of her drumsticks.

  “Mm-hmm,” Jericho said.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Lupe,” Jericho said. “Have a good show. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

  Lupe fanned herself. “Whoo!”

  Alma shook her head. “Don’t start, Lupe. You remember Billy?”

  “And Marvin. And José,” Babe said, rolling her eyes.

  “Charlie. Jenks. Salvatore,” Eloise added.

  “Jealous?” Lupe said, fluttering her long lashes.

  “Save that eyelash batting for the paying customers,” Alma said. “We’re on.”

  The Harlem Haymakers marched onstage single file and took their seats.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, what a treat we have for you tonight. An all-lady orchestra, all the way from New York City! And I hear they play almost as good as they look,” the emcee said and laughed. The audience laughed, too. Ling could see that Alma was irritated. Behind the drum kit, Lupe began to play a beat, drowning out the emcee, who didn’t care to be so rudely dismissed.

  “Let a man finish!” he barked into the microphone, making it squeal with noise.

  “I try, but they never do,” Lupe said, giving herself a rim shot. The women in the barn-turned-nightclub cheered at this, and there was nothing for him to do but turn it over to Alma.

  “Please welcome the Harlem Haymakers, led by Miss… uh…” He looked over to Alma.

  “The Countess!” Alma said, curtsying. Ling felt nervous for all of them. She’d freeze in the glare of all those lights.

  But Alma shone. “Good evening to you all. We are the Harlem Haymakers, so I hope you’re ready to make some noise out there tonight! This is a song we brought all the way from New York City. It’s called ‘Sweet-Talk Me, Daddy, Like You Used to Do.’ Let it fly, ladies!”

  The Harlem Haymakers launched into a swinging jazz number. They were good. Really good. Ling enjoyed seeing the doubt on people’s faces turn to surprise, followed by delight. Alma sold it for all she was worth, and when she broke into her dance, she was every bit as talented as the Thompson Brothers, who watched her from the back of the club, shouting, “Whoo! Get hot! Stomp it, Countess!”

  Ling had lived her whole life in the roughly six blocks of Chinatown. She loved those streets and the people on them. But being here in the Centurion with Sally Mae and Sadie’s trumpets blowing loud and Lupe grinning while she kept wild time, with Alma’s shoes tapping out a beat on the rough-hewn wood stage and the whole barn shaking from unrestrained joy, made Ling feel alive in new ways. There was a whole world out there she didn’t know about. It was high time she did.

  But first, she and the Diviners would have to save it.

  Folks at the Centurion told them about a boardinghouse out on an old farm road that welcomed TOBA performers, and once they’d secured lodgings, with the girls taking up two rooms and Doc and Jericho taking up another, everybody stumbled toward bed, half-dead but still vibrating from the night’s success.

  “Good night, Farm Boy,” Lupe said and blew Jericho a kiss.

  “Good night,” Jericho said, blushing.

  In his room, he dropped to the floor and did one hundred push-ups without stopping.
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  “Damn. You’re not even breathing heavy, brother,” Doc said. “You some kind of super man?”

  “I eat my spinach,” Jericho said, shaking out his arms. His body felt good. Strong.

  “Good thing. There’s a lot of road to cover between here and—Where’d you say you and your cousin were headed?”

  “Nebraska. To see our sick aunt,” Jericho repeated.

  “Sick aunt. Riiiight,” Doc said. He shook his head as he lowered it to his pillow.

  Jericho lay in his own bed and stared at the ceiling. He wondered if the others had made it out of New York okay. If they’d found one another and were now on their way to Bountiful. He wondered about Evie. If she missed him. If she was thinking about him the way he was about her. She’d been pretty insistent on rescuing Sam. After what Jericho had told Evie about Marlowe’s operation, he figured she’d head straight to Hopeful Harbor, and that had him worried. If Sam was there, that meant Shadow Men. The thought of those Shadow Men capturing Evie and Marlowe attaching her to the Eye was unbearable to him. In his memory, he saw Anna Provenza strapped into the machine as she peered into some other dimension, moving from ecstasy to terror. He heard her desperate final screams as the Eye pulled the life from her.

  He was getting riled up, and his serum-enhanced body began to respond with a faster heartbeat and heightened senses. He could hear the girls in the next room—“Anyone seen my Madame Walker’s Tetter Salve?” “Here. Just use mine.” He could sense their heartbeats somehow. It frightened him. He felt trapped in his own body. He needed to get rid of some of this wildness inside. Jericho bolted out of bed, down the stairs, and outside, breathing in lungfuls of cool, crisp air. And then he was running off toward the wooded field out back. Under the huff of his own breath, Jericho could hear everything hiding in the night. The slithering of small creatures in the brittle grass. The pecking of birds in the nest. The groaning of spring-hungry trees as their new growth stretched against the confines of the chilly April ground. It was all beautiful to him. His body began to calm. He felt at one with the creatures and the trees and the night.

 

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