by Libba Bray
“Steamboats come yesterday, took the white women and children to Vicksburg and other parts, to their people. No steamboats coming for us,” Bessie said, nursing her baby girl, Loree. “Some folks got on a big old barge, but it was so full I was afraid it’d tip over out there in all that river. Good thing we got Remy’s houseboat. Remy’s a Cajun, came up from Louisiana and stayed.”
Henry thought of Louis, his drawl peppered with bayou French. Every time he figured he’d healed that wound, something would come along to pop the stitches of it again. It was what David always feared, that Henry was still in love with another man—a ghost. David. Henry hadn’t spoken to him since they’d made their big escape. Was David worried about him? Was he spending his nights down in the Village with other boys? That thought made Henry jealous, which surprised him. Henry hadn’t felt jealous in a very long time. He usually kept things light, flitting from fella to fella, never committing to just one. But now, suddenly, he wanted David.
“…Anyhow, Remy’s got a houseboat he built himself. He’s real nice to our boys,” Bessie finished, pulling Henry back to the present.
“Anyway, Mr. Will made it so’s we couldn’t leave. So now here we are. Got the National Guard and their rifles to keep us here, make us work for free.”
“And if you refused?” Memphis asked.
“Kind of hard to argue with a rifle in your face,” Nate said. “And if you’re looking for the law to be on your side, well, the Greenville County Prosecutor’s the Exalted Cyclops of the local Klan.”
“Exalted Cyclops. Grand Wizard. Why do all of those Klan titles sound like terrible fantasy novels?” Henry said.
“Nate and I’ve been talking,” Bessie said. “Flood or no flood, we’re heading north. I’ve been taking in wash for Mrs. Stein and saving every cent for train tickets to St. Louis.”
The Timmons boys, Tobias, age seven, and Moses, age ten, clamored for attention, and Memphis got a lump in his throat watching Nate and Bessie with their sons. It reminded him of evenings with his mother and father, when there was music and laughter in their house on 145th Street. Long before Memphis had ever heard of Project Buffalo or the King of Crows or Diviners. He longed for that time again, but you couldn’t go backward. There was only forward.
“Mama, can we go play with Buddy?” Moses asked, and Memphis saw that there was an old yellow hound dog sniffing around the front porch.
“Go on,” Nate said.
“Don’t feed that dog my soup bone, hear?” Bessie called as the boys barreled out the front door. She shook her head. “Those boys dote on that dog like he was their third brother.”
“You, uh, heard any unusual stories around here?” Memphis ventured once the boys were out of earshot. “Stories about strange goings-on?”
“What kind of strange?” Bessie asked, shifting her baby to the other breast.
“Ghosts,” Henry said with a glance to Memphis.
Nate laughed. “This whole country’s fulla ghosts. They don’t bother us none.” Nate wiped his mouth and fingers clean. “But why you want to know about that?”
“Oh, just something we heard. You know how people talk,” Henry said and left it at that.
“I haven’t heard about any ghosts. But my friend Lorena told me something funny just this afternoon,” Bessie said. “She said she overheard Mr. LeRoy telling somebody about these Fitter Families tents been springing up everywhere, at every fair and carnival and circus across the state. Heard tell they’re looking for people. Special people. Diviners.”
“That a fact?” Bill said blandly, flicking a warning glance to Memphis and Henry.
“Heard Mr. LeRoy say that those Diviners are ruining the country. That they blew up that big exhibition in New York City, and there’s a bounty on their heads now. Five thousand dollars for each one captured. It was in the papers just today.”
“New York City. Might as well be on Mars,” Nate said, grinning.
“Where’d y’all say you’re from, again?” Bessie asked.
“N’awlins,” Henry drawled.
“Oh, that’s a fine place, I hear.”
“Yes, ma’am. It surely is.”
They slept on the porch. Bessie wanted to give them the boys’ bed, but Memphis wouldn’t hear of it. “We’ll be fine out here, ma’am.”
“I didn’t expect the news to show up in a place like Greenville so soon,” Henry said as he lay on the front porch and stared out at all those stars. “You think the Shadow Men will find us before we can get to Bountiful?”
“We’ll move on in the morning, maybe see if we can catch us a train at Vicksburg,” Bill said.
“Feels like we should’ve warned them about the dead,” Memphis said, pulling the quilt up around his ears.
“We do that, we call attention to ourselves. I don’t think we should say nothing at all ’bout ghosts,” Bill scolded.
But Memphis wasn’t so sure. Didn’t they have a responsibility? People had to look out for one another, didn’t they? Beyond rules and electric lights and tea dances, wasn’t that, at the very bottom of it all, what made for civilization?
In the cemetery at the far end of Main Street, the cool April breeze caressed the headstones. Here lies. Here lies.
Lies.
The dead rose up from the dirt like wisps of pale smoke. Restless. Hungry. Why were they here? Who had called them into service after so many weeks, months, years, a generation or more moldering below?
They walked for miles. To Mounds Landing, where the levee was weak.
Hungry, they bit into the sandbags.
When Memphis fell asleep at last, he dreamed of the Hotsy Totsy. Gabe was there, still alive and playing his trumpet so sweet that a man from Okeh Records walked right up onstage and offered him a contract. But when Memphis looked again, it was the King of Crows, and Gabe was signing his name. Gabe fixed his burning, empty eyes on Memphis. “You’re next, brother,” he said. And then he raised his trumpet, blowing for all he was worth, holding that one sweet high note for so long that the whole club was going wild, stomping feet and shouting.
“Memphis! Get up! Now!” Bill jerked Memphis awake.
Memphis was awake, but Gabe was still holding that sweet high note. Memphis rubbed sleep from his eyes, tried to focus. It was the fire whistle, not Gabe’s horn. And the church bells were ringing, too.
“What time is it?”
“’Round three AM.”
“What’s going on?”
Nate Timmons burst onto the porch, panic in his eyes. “The levee broke up at Mounds Landing! The Mississippi’s coming to drown us all. We got to get to high ground right away!”
One of Nate’s friends raced along the dirt path in front of the houses giving a warning: “Pack up! Time to get to the levee! Get to the boats!”
“We got to get to the levee,” Nate said.
Henry tied his shoes. “You ever been through a flood?”
“No,” Memphis said.
Bill grunted. “He ain’t from the South. You and me, we know.”
“Boys! Take the family pictures down and put ’em on the boat. Be careful with ’em now!” Bessie Timmons ordered, the babbling baby perched on one hip. The boys scooped up the framed photographs of their grandparents and ran toward their adopted uncle Remy’s waiting shantyboat.
“Mama! I can’t find Buddy,” Tobias cried. “I called and called but he won’t come.”
“We can’t wait for no dog,” Nate warned.
“We can’t leave without him, Daddy,” Moses pleaded.
“Buddy, Buddy!” Tobias yelled and burst into tears. “Buddy…”
“He’ll be all right, boys. He’s a smart dog. He’ll swim to high ground. But we got to go.”
Fat tears rolled down the boys’ faces. They wiped them away angrily. Memphis’s heart ached for them. How often had Isaiah cried like that?
“Hey. Hey, you boys want to hear a story? I know a good one. A real good one,” Memphis said. “But it’s a story I can only tell
on the boat.”
“Why?” Moses asked.
“’Cause that’s the kind of story it is. Come on.”
“I hear she’s coming t’rough!” Remy called from his shantyboat. He was a stout man with black hair and twinkling blue eyes. “Allons!” Remy had built his boat by hand, Bessie had told them, with whatever scrap he could find—discarded timber, tin, chicken wire. It was a little floating house on a barge in the middle of Greenville’s rapidly flooding streets. Rain hit the tin roof, making an awful racket. While Remy, Bill, and Nate steered the boat toward the high ground of the levee and Henry helped keep Bessie Timmons comfortable while she nursed her baby girl, Memphis spun a story to keep Tobias and Moses from missing their dog too much—and to keep them from realizing the danger.
“You like spooky stories?” Memphis asked.
“Yes,” the boys said and sat forward. Memphis cast a wary eye toward the fast current eddying at street corners, buffeting the boat. He hoped Remy and Nate were as experienced as they seemed. Church bells clanged out a warning. People flocked into the streets, which were taking on water. Several were trying to save what they could, throwing everything into pillowcases they balanced on their backs. People were desperate for boats. A neighbor waved frantically. “It’s my momma. She cain’t walk too far,” the man explained, and Nate and Henry pulled them both aboard.
There was a sudden crack, followed by a large roar, like a wounded giant going down hard.
“Water’s coming!” Remy yelled.
Memphis and Henry felt true fear then, watching as the full force of the Mississippi rumbled into Greenville fast as a freight train. The river crashed against telephone poles, snapping wires and knocking them into the raging water. Hundred-year-old trees buckled and fainted like tired debutantes. Now the water was electrified and weaponized with debris.
“Remy, you steer straight!” Bessie called, clutching her baby in one arm and gathering her two boys with the other and holding fast. She kept herself tight but Memphis could sense just how scared she was, how scared they all were. The shantyboat hit a current and spun around.
“Hold on! Hold on!” Nate called, gripping the side of the boat.
They could hear the livestock screaming as the water rose up and swept them away. A mule cried out, front legs pedaling against an unbeatable tide. It went under and was lost to the churning flood. Desperate citizens climbed up onto their roofs to escape the wrath. Some of Greenville’s elite, the ones who’d chosen to stay behind, had abandoned their fancy houses and plantations and sought shelter downtown in banks and the top floors of hotels.
The levee, when they made it, teemed with people streaming in from the flood. Carrying little more than the clothes on their backs, they trudged up the muddy embankment. Others arrived in boats carrying what little of their possessions they’d managed to salvage. Nate helped his wife down from the boat. She looked forlornly at the narrow eight-foot-wide earthen dam heaped for miles with refugees and what had been saved from the flood. Memphis, Bill, and Henry dragged pillowcases filled with the Timmonses’ few precious memories from home and dropped them gently onto the cold, wet ground.
As dawn broke, they could see the damage. The devastation was shocking. It was as if they were adrift in a new sea, cut off from civilization. In the camp, babies cried, and some adults wept softly. Others stared, mute.
“Isaiah. Theta,” Memphis said, his heart sinking.
“Yeah,” Henry said, his heart sinking, too. “We’re not getting to Bountiful anytime soon.”
Within days, the Red Cross had arrived and set up A-frame tents. But there were no beds to be had yet, and inside those tents, people were sleeping on the cold, muddy ground.
“I hear there might be as many as five thousand folks here,” Remy said.
On one side of the levee was the flooded Mississippi, drowning everything till all that could be seen were the tops of spindly trees, a few leaning telephone poles, and the pitch of roofs. On the other side of the levee, the National Guard patrolled, walking up and down the bank with their rifles at their shoulders.
“I hear they make us work on the levee and in the camp. Make us do the hard work,” Nate said, following Memphis’s gaze to the soldiers. “If we don’t, they get the Red Cross to hold back our rations until we do. Can’t win.”
Anger coiled in Memphis’s belly, and he vowed to himself that later, he would spit that howl up as a poem. He would document what was happening in Greenville, and he would figure out how to send that poem back to Woody at the Daily News. He would use his voice to give the people of the levee a voice.
By the end of the week, Memphis had sent five new poems to Woodhouse, five dispatches from an America not everybody got to see. But he was worried, too. What if the others had already reached Bountiful while Memphis and Henry and Bill were stuck in Greenville, Mississippi?
Refugees from all over the flooded Delta were coming to the eight-mile-long levee. It was a tent city as far as one could see. They’d gotten to work putting up lights and building a mess hall and a tent where relief workers handed out dry clothing. Barges with latrines floated beside the levee. And every day, supply boats arrived. It was the job of the colored refugees to unload the food, water, medical supplies, piping for plumbing, and clothing and haul it into the camp if they wanted their Red Cross rations. Anyone who refused was denied food and water or threatened with the end of a rifle. Worst of all, they were trapped; the National Guard issued the passes for leaving the camp. The powerful men of Greenville—politicians and the men who owned the land, the mills, the factories—had made certain that only white people were given those passes to come and go.
“They won’t let us leave. They won’t let us eat unless we work night and day till we can’t work no more. And if we refuse, they might shoot us,” Nate said, his jaw tight.
“They don’t want us leaving Greenville. They don’t want to lose their workers,” a skinny man said.
“There’s not gonna be a crop next year. Too much water. The river seen to that,” Remy said.
“I just want to wipe the slate clean, start over up north,” Nate said.
The skinny man shook his head. “They know it, too. That’s why they won’t give us no passes. Every time we try ’n’ step up, they push us back down.”
That evening, after the work was finished and a meager supper consumed, Bessie Timmons called excitedly, “Hey! Come look at this!”
Someone in the camp had managed to save an upright piano. It sat on a couple of two-by-fours. People crowded around, testing the keys. It wasn’t in tune, but it wasn’t badly out of tune, either. After all the kids had given it a go, Henry asked, “Say, do you mind if I play a little bit?”
A woman sorting through a sack of clothes obtained from the relief tent shrugged. “Belongs to everybody in the camp, far as I can tell.”
With that, Henry sat down to play. He’d missed the piano, and music poured out of him. Everyone gathered ’round to hear. They had need of distraction from the misery of the flood and the conditions in the camp, the fears of sickness and the worry about what was next.
“Say, that’s pretty good. What’s that called?” Bessie asked.
“It’s one of my songs,” Henry said, blushing a bit with pride. “It’s called ‘Because You’re Mine.’”
More people drifted over. While Henry played softly, Memphis regaled everyone with a story.
“You ever heard about the Voice of Tomorrow?” Memphis asked.
“What’s that?” Tobias said, scrunching up his face.
“More like, who’s that?” Memphis said.
“Who’s that?” Moses echoed. “Is he here? What’s he look like?”
“Who said it was a he?”
“It’s a girl?”
“Didn’t say that, neither.” If Isaiah were here, he’d tease Memphis for not talking “proper,” the way Memphis always fussed at Isaiah for it. But why? Why shouldn’t they talk any way they wanted? Memphis had seen it al
l his life—men talking free and loose in the barbershop then talking “white” on the streets. He’d fallen right in, hadn’t he? Even in his own poems, he’d laced up his language tight. No more. He didn’t care what they thought. He would please himself first.
“The Voice of Tomorrow can be anybody. That’s the point, see. You never know. Could be right here in this camp. Could be you.” Memphis pointed at a little girl in braids. “Or you.” He pointed to her brother. “Or skinny Moses over there, scratching at that mosquito bite on his knee.”
The children giggled at this and teased Moses, who rolled his eyes. But from his lopsided grin, it was easy to see he was pleased to be called out by Memphis. The adults had come over to hear the story now. Looking at these good people Memphis had come to know, he thought about the danger they were in, not just from the flood. He didn’t want to scare them. But he did want to warn them so they wouldn’t be caught unawares if the dead came calling. They deserved to know.
“See, the Voice of Tomorrow has to fight the evils of the world. There’s a man in a tall hat, goes by the name the King of Crows.”
One of the kids cawed, and this set off a round of cawing until Nate told everybody to “hush up now and listen to the man’s story.”
“How come he’s called the King of Crows?” Moses asked, giggling. “That’s a funny name.”
“Crows are messengers from the land of the dead. They can bring messages from spirits, from the ancestors. The land of the dead is where the King of Crows works his magic to unleash it on us out here.”
A little girl pursed her lips. “There’s no such thing as a land of the dead.”
“Yes, there is, too. And it’s a place you don’t want to be. That’s why you should never make a deal with the man in the hat.”