by Beth Hoffman
“Could you teach me to swim today?” I asked.
Oletta shook her head. “Not in the ocean. You gotta learn in a pool or a pond; someplace where the water’s nice and calm.” She handed me a small garden spade. “C’mon, let’s go treasure huntin’. You get to be my digger.”
“Digger?”
“Um-hmm. If I find something, you can dig it up and save me from bending these old knees.”
I took the spade, and we set off along the beach. Nadine took her fortune finder and headed in the opposite direction, while Chessie plopped down in one of the chairs with a magazine.
Gulls flew low, skimming over the waves as they hunted for breakfast. I was fascinated by how they’d take aim, dive, and pluck out an unsuspecting fish. The higher the sun lifted into the sky, the more people showed up at the beach. They slathered themselves with oil and flopped on their backs to broil in the sun like lizards.
Oletta gazed at the ocean and inhaled. “It just don’t get any better’n this.”
“I know this is the same sky that hangs over Ohio, but the sun seems bigger here. Everything seems bigger.”
She pursed her lips and thought about that for a moment. “Maybe your eyes is just more open.”
There were times when Oletta would say something, and the sheer profoundness of it would stun me.
I smiled to myself as I bent down and picked up a seashell. “Do you come here a lot?”
“I try to. Wasn’t all that long ago that colored folks weren’t allowed. Not just at the beach, but on the whole island—unless they worked here. Then one day a group of colored kids got together and came down here to swim. Lord, they was brave. They swam in the ocean and had a gay old time until the police came and hauled ’em off to jail. That started a whole bunch of protests. One thing led to another, and not too long after that, Tybee was desegregated. I been comin’ here with Chessie and Nadine ever since.”
We turned and walked down the beach, Oletta moving her fortune finder from side to side. Sometimes it would send out a crackling noise, and she’d stop and watch with hopeful eyes as I dug through the sand, only to find a tangled piece of wire or a rusty bottle cap. I got a little bored with the whole fortune-finding business, but she was content to plod along, humming to herself.
Off in the distance a few couples were walking along the beach, holding hands and sometimes kissing.
“Oletta, do you have a boyfriend?”
She looked at me kinda funny and furrowed her brow. “Lord, no. I lost interest in men a long time ago. The last man I went out with was real nice, but he talked too much. After a while it got on my nerves. Besides, his name was Scrub Hardy, and it was hard to take a man serious with a name that sounded like a cleanin’ product.”
I eyed her suspiciously. “Is that true, or just some story you made up?”
“It’s true,” she said with a nod. But the twinkle in her eye told me otherwise, which made me laugh.
As I was about to ask if I could go stand closer to the waves, the fortune finder crackled up a storm.
Oletta’s face brightened. “Ooooo-wee, we got something. Dig right there,” she commanded, pointing to a spot in the sand.
I got on my knees and dug a hole, but there was nothing to be found.
“Keep diggin’. There’s something there.”
I plunged the spade deeper, pulling the sand free with my cupped hands. “Nope. False alarm,” I said, squinting up at Oletta.
“You sure?”
I pushed my hand deep into the hole. “There’s nothing here . . . oh, wait.” I flinched as something pricked my finger. I pulled it free from the sand and handed it to Oletta. Dirt and sand fell away as she rubbed it on her dress. It looked like a slim knitting needle topped with a red gemstone.
Oletta raised her eyebrows. “Well, I’ll be. It’s an old hat pin.”
“Oh, my gosh. Oletta, do you think this is a ruby?” I said, touching the faceted stone.
She pursed her lips. “Looks like cut glass to me. Take it over to the water and wash it off, will you? Just don’t go in too far.”
I trotted to the water and gingerly waded in. The foamy surf lapped against my ankles and tickled my skin. After rinsing the hat pin as best as I could, I ran back and handed it to Oletta.
She examined it closely, turning it in her hand. “Well, don’t look like it’s worth much, but it sure is pretty.” She reached up and stuck it through the back of her headscarf. “How’s it look?”
I laughed. “You look like you’ve got an antenna sticking out of your head.”
Oletta reached up, ran her fingers over the hat pin, and smiled as if she liked that idea. “Let’s go have some lunch,” she said, resting her arm across my shoulders. “I got to get off these legs for a while.”
When we arrived at our spot on the beach, Chessie was down by the water, dipping something into the waves. Beneath the shade of the umbrella, Nadine was sitting in a chair, sliding beads onto a thin silver wire. “Find anything?” she asked.
“Just this,” Oletta said, easing herself down in a chair and leaning toward Nadine.
Nadine lowered her sunglasses to the end of her nose. “What you got stickin’ outa your head?”
“An old hat pin,” she said, stretching out her legs. “Did you find anything?”
“No, I gave up about an hour ago,” Nadine said, working the ends of the wire with a small pair of pliers. “I came back here and made this bracelet. Here, CeeCee, this is for you.”
“Really? You made that for me?”
“Sure did. Go ahead and try it on. Just slide the two ends of the wires apart.”
The bracelet was made of glass beads in all sorts of colors. It fit perfectly. “Thank you, Nadine. I love it.”
“You’re welcome.” She slid her box of beads and pliers into her beach bag. “Next time I’ll make—” Nadine gasped and sat up straight in her chair. “Oletta, you won’t believe it till you see it. That’s my old neighbor Royal Watson, and she’s in a bikini.”
Oletta jerked up her head. “A bikini?”
Walking through the sand by the edge of the water was a round, busty woman wearing a tiger-print bikini. “Hey, Nadine,” she called, “whatchu doin’ at the beach on a Tuesday?”
Nadine’s lips thinned when she called back, “Even us workin’ folks take a day off now and then.”
Oletta reached over and tapped Nadine’s arm. “Don’t let her get under your skin. She ain’t worth it.”
Nadine’s eyes narrowed as she watched Royal saunter away. “Ever since she married Joe Baker and moved into that new house, she acts like she’s too good for the rest of us. That woman gets on my last nerve. See how she walks? Looks like she’s squeezin’ her life savings between her cheeks.”
Oletta leaned back in her chair and laughed.
Chessie walked across the sand toward us. The legs of her overalls were soaked to the knees, and in her hand she carried a sack that was dripping wet.
“Get your stones electrified, sistah?” Nadine asked.
Chessie eased herself onto the blanket and opened the soggy bag. “Yep, soaked ’em real good,” she said, spreading the stones in front of her.
I leaned over to have a better look. There were seven in all—each was the size of a chubby silver dollar with a primitive-looking design carved on one side. “Where did you get these, Chessie?”
She patted the blanket. “Come closer and let me tell you about Omu.” Her voice grew low and serious, and the lines in her forehead deepened when she said, “These stones is almost two hundred years old. They belonged to my great-great-great-grandmother Omu. She had healin’ ways in her hands and carved the designs on each one of these stones. Omu was born in a village on the West African coastline. It ain’t there no more, but way back then it was called Moboko . . .”
I listened, totally enthralled, as Chessie gazed out across the ocean and told me the story.
On a brilliant, clear-skied day, Omu was conducting a sacred dance in t
he crystal-blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It was a ritual she always did on the morning of the full moon. As the waves tumbled toward her, Omu dipped the stones into the water and quietly chanted a string of secret words. The stones were smooth and wet in her hands, electrified by the mysteries that pulsed in the crashing waves. As she neared the end of her ritual, Omu felt a vibration in the sand beneath her feet. She thought it was the ocean bringing her great power, but when she finished blessing the final stone, the vibration grew ominous.
Omu turned to see a band of men thundering toward her. Quickly she gathered the stones in the hem of her dress and took off running down the beach. But as young and fast as she was, the ghost-faced men soon had her surrounded. Their skin was the color of death, and as they moved closer she could smell their evil stench. As they bore down on her, Omu tossed her magic stones toward the ocean. They spun in the air, and in the brief moment before they fell into the waves, the stones exploded with light and transformed into seven tiny white birds. The birds fluttered their wings and soared high in the air, circling above Omu as she fought off the slave traders. Within minutes she was beaten into bloody submission. Days later she was chained in the bowels of a giant ship that set sail and took her away from her homeland. Week after week the ship grew more bloated with the moans of the dying and those who wished they would die. And when that ship arrived in America, Omu was sold to a plantation owner.
One blistering-hot night, Omu lay quietly crying on a narrow bed in a slave shack when she noticed a shadowy flutter by the window. She sat up, wiped her eyes, and watched in stunned silence as, one by one, seven tiny white birds landed on the windowsill. Omu rose to her knees and lifted her hand toward the birds. The moment her fingers reached the window, the birds fluttered their feathers one last time and transformed themselves back into her seven magic stones.
Omu hid her stones beneath a loose floorboard by her bed. She believed if she could find a way to reach the ocean, she could soak her stones with enough magic to create bigger birds—birds so powerful they could carry her back to her homeland. But the years passed, and the only ocean Omu ever saw was the one that flooded her dreams.
When Chessie finished the story of Omu, she picked up one of the stones and turned it over in her hand. “These stones been handed down from one generation to the next. When I was a child, my momma told me the story of the stones, and before she passed away she gave them to me.”
“What do the stones do?”
“They tell the truth of things,” she said, leaning so close I could see flecks of gold in her dark eyes. “Let’s see what the stones have to say to you.” She pushed them across the blanket toward me and turned them facedown. “Now, close your eyes, and empty your mind. Feel the ocean waves move through you. Let your heart soar high into the wind till you feel free as a bird. Now, put out your hand and touch each stone. Wait till one feels just right, then go ahead and pick it up. But do it slow, take your time and let the stones speak to you.”
While I let my hand fall across the stones, feeling their smooth, damp coolness, Chessie began to hum. It was a soulful, haunting sound that rolled up from someplace deep inside of her.
I waited a moment and then picked one.
“All right,” Chessie said, “now open your eyes.”
The design on the stone was a zigzagged line inside a triangle.
Chessie looked at the stone and nodded thoughtfully. “That’s Jakuni. It’s a powerful stone. Even when there’s trouble in your life, Jakuni says if you hold on tight and be patient, the sky will clear. Jakuni says you have protection all around you.”
“I do?”
Chessie nodded. “Now, go ahead, pick up another stone and—”
“C’mon you two,” Oletta said. “Enough storytelling. Lunch is ready.”
With our bellies stuffed with lunch and the rhythmic sound of the waves lulling us to sleep, we reclined beneath the shade of the umbrella to take a nap. I dozed for a while but the soft tug of the wind lured me toward the water. With my hat on my head and my new bracelet on my wrist, I headed across the sand.
I waded into the water and stood ankle-deep. The waves licked my skin as I gazed across the ocean and thought about Omu. How old was she when was captured? Was she ever happy again? Was she a slave until she died?
The heat of the sun prickled my cheeks, so I turned and walked along the edge of the ocean with the burning rays at my back. Every so often I’d stretch out my arm and admire my new bracelet, marveling at how the faceted beads took hold of the light and sent it spinning through the air with nothing more than the slightest turn of my wrist.
My imagination took flight, and I began dancing on the edge of the foamy white waves. I imagined Omu dancing next to me, splashing through the surf as droplets of water gathered on her skin, gleaming in the sun like liquid jewels.
“You havin’ fun?”
Startled, I turned to see Nadine walking up behind me. “Hi. I’m having a blast. Look how my new bracelet sparkles in the sun,” I said, turning my wrist in the light.
She smiled. “All of us girls like sparkle. Last week I ordered some pretty glass beads that have specks of silver on the inside. When I get them, would you like me to make you a necklace?”
“Sure. I’d love a necklace,” I said, glancing at the golden chain around her neck. I pointed to the round pendant that held an icy-white stone. “Your necklace is beautiful, Nadine. Is that a diamond?”
“Yes, it is,” she said with pride, lightly touching the stone. “My husband gave it to me for my fi ftieth birthday last year. I haven’t taken it off since.”
She looked at my shoulders and raised her eyebrows. “Oooo, you sure are pink. You got too much sun today. Good thing we’re goin’ home now. Chessie and Oletta already took the cooler and chairs up to the car,” she said, nodding toward our spot on the beach.
Side by side we wandered through the sand, talking and examining seashells along the way.
“We’re just about ready,” Oletta said, brushing sand off her fortune finder while Chessie closed the umbrella. Nadine handed me the blanket, swung her beach bag over her shoulder, and we headed for the car. Oletta and Chessie lagged behind, laughing and kidding each other like schoolgirls.
I followed Nadine across the beach, around a windswept dune, and down a narrow path. Just as we passed beneath a shady stand of trees, a man wearing a cowboy hat stepped from the shadows. He raised his hand and a click sounded. A silver blade flashed in the sunlight.
Nadine gasped. I froze.
He moved toward Nadine, his eyes ferocious with something I’d never seen before. “One word, one move, and I’ll cut your throat.” He reached out, took hold of her necklace, and ripped it from her neck with so much force that she lost her balance and fell in the sand.
His eyes fixed on me, round and wild. A nameless horror clawed at my throat. I was so terrified I nearly shook clean out of my skin. The blanket slid from my hands. Then his eyes darted back to Nadine.
“Gimme the watch,” he said, pointing the knife at her nose with one hand while he shoved her necklace into the pocket of his jeans with the other.
Nadine fumbled, her hands trembling as she tried to loosen the clasp.
“Hurry up, you stupid nigger,” he growled, shaking the knife in her face.
Nadine freed her watch from her wrist, and he reached out and yanked it from her fingers.
“One sound and you’re dead,” he said, glaring at us with so much hate that my arms went weak in their sockets. He took a few steps backward and looked over his shoulder. From the corner of my eye I saw Chessie moving through the sand like a barge, spinning her bag of stones at her side. She stepped from the shadows and stopped, the whites of her eyes bright.
A glint of sunlight sparked off the knife’s blade. He smirked, moving toward Chessie, step by slow step, like a lion eyeing his prey. But Chessie just stood there as solid as a mountain, staring down at him as she spun her bag of stones. Oletta appeared behind Che
ssie, her eyes wide and her fortune finder poised over her head like a weapon.
There came the sound of a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh as Chessie spun the bag faster and faster. His eyes flashed from left to right, and just as I thought he was going to turn and run away, he aimed the knife at Chessie’s throat and lunged. She stepped to the side and walloped him with her bag of stones, right across his face. She hit him so hard a sharp crack sounded. His hat flew off and he let out a howl of agony and fell over, landing on his side in the sun-dappled sand.
He writhed back and forth with his hands over his face, groaning and moaning as ribbons of blood oozed from between his fingers.
“Let’s go!” Nadine said, grabbing the blanket and taking hold of my arm.
We raced down the path, around a pile of canoes, and headed for the car. Oletta and Chessie thundered behind us, the panting of their breath loud in my ears. Everyone piled into the car as Nadine fired up the engine, and when we reached the highway, she was driving so fast my eyes began to water.
Oletta called out through the buffeting wind, “Nadine, stop at a gas station so we can call the police.”
“What do you think the police will do?” Nadine yelled through the wind. “You think they’ll take the word of three colored women over the word of a white man?” Her jaw hardened as she tromped on the gas pedal and rocketed down the road.
Chessie turned in her seat. “Nadine’s right. Ain’t no justice to be done.”
Oletta nodded and put her arm around my shoulders. I sunk low into the seat and watched the landscape spin into a blur. My stomach was in knots, and I closed my eyes, leaned against Oletta, and hoped I wouldn’t get sick.
When we arrived at Aunt Tootie’s house, Oletta ran to unlock the back door so Nadine could phone her husband at work, while Chessie and I unloaded the trunk in slow, foggy movements. As we carried the cooler toward the house, I couldn’t wipe the image of the man’s face from my mind—how his lips curled when he’d sneered at Nadine, and how his eyes had narrowed to slits of pure hatred. I thought about all the scary stories I’d read where evil-eyed villains left me paralyzed with fear in the wee hours of the night. Yet, no matter what they did or threatened to do, I always knew I could close the book and make them go away. But the man at Tybee Island was real, and what he did had changed my view of the world. Forever.