Sacred Ground

by Adrienne Ellis Reeves

  “The high school might have its own pool and there’s probably one in the park. I saw some lakes on the map, and of course you know we’re not that far from the Atlantic Ocean.” Gabe glanced at Drew to see his reaction.

  “How far?” Drew’s expression didn’t change but Gabe heard the interest in his voice.

  “I don’t know exactly, but you can look it up on the map when we get to the house,” he said casually.

  After a few more blocks Gabe made a right turn. This was undoubtedly Swinton’s shopping center, with clothing, furniture and other stores, as well as a movie house and several restaurants on both sides of the street.

  A blue sign with an H in the middle of it indicated that Swinton had a hospital.

  A left turn put Gabe on Grayson Road, where he crossed the railroad tracks. The character of the area changed. The houses were farther apart, accommodating sizable gardens and fruit trees. Chickens roamed some yards and four horses looked up from a field as the car went by.

  “Aren’t we looking for an address on Grayson Road?” Drew asked.

  “Yep. Moultrie said it was 305 North Grayson Road.”

  “That means it’s in the country where they’ve got horses and cows,” Drew wailed.

  Gabe looked at the speedometer. “I doubt it’s country in the way you mean it.”

  The road sloped down around a bend and over a bridge shaded by limbs of tall trees, which grew on both sides. Up a little hill and the houses began again, some small, some large, with neatly trimmed lawns. Gabe stopped as a yellow school bus slowed to a stop and the door opened to let out a string of elementary-age students.

  At the light, the bus turned the corner and after another block or two, a church, a barbershop, a hardware store and a variety of other small business establishments filled the streets. As he passed each corner Gabe looked to the right and left, noting that the area was larger than it first appeared.

  The people going in and out of the stores were nearly all black, as were the drivers that passed him and lifted a finger in greeting.

  At the third light, Grayson Road branched right and became North Grayson Road.

  “We must be almost there,” Drew said. “It should be in the third block.”

  On the corner of the first block was the Grayson Community Church, an impressive brick building with a smaller structure at the rear. More houses clustered together in the first two blocks. In the middle of the third block Gabe stopped the car at the curb.

  He got out and walked around to where Drew was already standing. Awestruck, they stood together looking at 305 North Grayson Road, their home for the next three months.

  Chapter 3

  An imposing house occupied the center of the block. Five wide steps led up to the deep porch with its four stately columns. Two large windows on either side of a substantial-looking front door were matched by four smaller ones on the second floor.

  The house gleamed dazzling white in the late-afternoon sun and its glistening black shutters completed a picture that caught at Gabe’s imagination. It had never occurred to him that his great-grandfather’s house would be so grand.

  He wondered who cared for the lawn, the shapely shrubs and the flower beds. The two-car garage was on the left of the house and painted the same white with black shutters on its two small windows.

  Stunning as the house was, Gabe saw that it was just the beginning of the property. Surrounding the lot on which the house stood were acres of trees. The growth was thick and the trees looked tall and healthy. Gabe had no idea how many acres he was looking at but the entire property in its prime condition spelled money.

  “All this is yours?” Drew asked in disbelief.

  “Seems unreal, doesn’t it?” Gabe just looked, trying to take it all in. “But that’s what we’re here to check out.” He felt as bewildered as his brother.

  They walked up the five steps and across the shiny porch to the door. Gabe selected the new key on his key ring and hoped it would work. What an irony it would be if after two days of driving he wouldn’t be able to get in the house. The key grated at first but on the second try the door swung wide.

  He pushed open the screen and stepped into a dark hall. Automatically he felt on the wall to his right and snapped on a switch. Light poured down from a chandelier, revealing a wide hall with hardwood flooring, a winding staircase and a room opening off each side. There were also small tables and a closet.

  Drew went around Gabe to explore the room on the right. “Look, Gabe, he had one of those old-fashioned sofas like Grandma had.”

  “They were very popular in Grandma’s day. It was a sign of class if you could afford one. You see how long they lasted.” There were several chairs that complemented the sofa, as well as tables with heavily shaded lamps.

  “Looks like something from a museum, not a room you’d be comfortable in,” Drew commented.

  “This was the parlor and it was only used for formal visiting. It’s not like our family room. Let’s see what’s across the hall.”

  “This is more like it.” Drew zoomed in on the television that had its own corner, picked up the remote control and pushed the power button. The screen lit up and Drew scanned all the channels. “He’s got cable. Cool,” he said.

  The room was a combination of old, heavy chairs, a massive bookcase, a contemporary love seat, floral draperies that let in the light when pulled and an oriental rug in the middle of the floor.

  The item Gabe liked best was the fireplace. He could imagine how cozy the room would be in the winter with the drapes closed and a warm fire lighting up the place while you looked at some show on TV or read a book or had a conversation with friends while music played in the background. He looked around again. Was there a radio or CD player? If not, he and Drew could get one.

  Opening off from the living room was a dining room with a table and chairs for eight, a china closet and a matching sideboard.

  “This looks almost like the china closet we have only it’s bigger.” Drew traced the wood framing the door and Gabe knew he was thinking of their mother and how much she had treasured the dishes given to her from her family. She’d said once or twice that someday those pieces would belong to Gabe’s wife or Drew’s wife. She was keeping them for her daughters-in-law.

  Gabe moved over to stand next to Drew. “Our great-grandmother probably has some china in here that was passed down to her. Just like Ma.”

  The dining room led into the kitchen, which had a wide window over the sink. Gabe pulled the shade up to reveal a large room painted a soft yellow. It held an electric stove, a large refrigerator, a dishwasher, a kitchen table with four chairs and a small TV on a bar.

  A stall shower and toilet had been put in at the end of the hall near the back door. The washer and dryer were nudged into a corner separated by a partial wall from the bath facilities.

  “All the bedrooms must be upstairs,” Drew said. “Looks like they put one down here just for convenience.”

  “When Great-Grandfather built this house it was thought proper to put bedrooms on the second floor if you could afford a two-story house. The downstairs was public but the upstairs was private. Just for the family.” Gabe counted the steps as they went up. “It’s only sixteen steps. That won’t bother you.”

  “’Course not,” Drew shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”

  Of the four bedrooms they saw, one had been turned into an office. There were files, maps, crowded bookshelves, a desk and a chair or two. All the rooms had clothes closets, dressers, big double beds, tables with lamps and knickknacks. The large bathroom had a long tub with claw feet.

  Everything was of good quality and Gabe was impressed, yet always in the back of his mind he heard Jasper Moultrie say that he was to examine each room of the house closely. Otherwise he’d never find what Ezekiel Bell had left for him to discover.

  When they explored the backyard they found a paved area which led to a neat shed that Gabe surmised held the lawn furniture.

&n
bsp; A garden plot ran half the length of the garage.

  “What’s all that stuff?” Drew looked at a few shoots pushing through the soil.

  “Maybe you can find out and tell me,” Gabe said, “but I’m impressed. Maybe Great-Grandfather had someone take care of it, because what could a man who’d been one hundred when he died a few weeks ago do with a spade and a hoe?”

  By unspoken consent they walked beyond the garden to where a wire fence closed in the rest of the land. The heavy six-foot fence was topped with barbed wire.

  “He lived in this little old town almost in the country so what’s with all this barbed wire? I don’t get it. I think he must’ve been crazy. What’s in there other than those trees?”

  The expression of bewilderment on Drew’s face was so much like their mother’s when something hadn’t made sense to her that Gabe had to swallow several times and question himself once more if he’d done the wise thing or if he’d been a little crazy, too, like Ezekiel, at whose command he now stood here with Drew.

  There was a gate wide enough for a tractor or a truck to drive through. Gabe searched among his keys and found one that fit.

  “Let’s go in and see if there’s anything other than grass and shrubs inside,” he said as he unlocked the gate and pushed it wide. There was nothing but grass, low shrubs edging the space and wildflowers. Drew went one way and Gabe went the other but it was the same all over with slight depressions here and there. They covered the space then met and sat down on a rough wooden bench that stood on the right side of the cleared plot.

  Birdsong and soft breezes blowing through the woods were the only sound in the late-afternoon air. Yet there was no sense of isolation. In fact, Gabe glanced around once or twice, so strongly did he feel the presence of someone.

  Probably it was Great-Grandfather, who’d surely sat on the bench many times contemplating his land.

  “It’s like he had his own private park,” Drew said, eerily echoing Gabe’s feelings.

  How could she have been so clumsy? Makima Gray was disgusted with herself. Mama used to say to let Makima do it because she didn’t drop things or stumble or spill food even when she was a little girl. All her life she’d been naturally agile and careful.

  She didn’t know how to explain what had happened. In the restaurant, she’d glimpsed at the tall man in the black jacket behind her in the line. He’d been talking to the teenage boy in front of him. He’d also been staring at her.

  The small area she usually sat in had been crowded and thoughtlessly she’d turned to its opposite side when disaster struck. Her long shoulder bag had hit against a chair, upsetting her balance, and the young girl behind her had knocked her elbow with a muttered “Sorry,” as she went by.

  One dish slid off the tray before she could catch it. Feeling like an idiot, she’d looked up to apologize and met the startled glance of the tall man whose black jacket was now decorated with her potato salad.

  Thoroughly humiliated, she heard herself babbling on and on as she wiped at the salad with napkins a lady handed her.

  The man had stood, tense and silent, until someone relieved him of the tray he was still holding.

  He grabbed her hands to stop her dabbing at the stain, refused her offer to clean the jacket and stalked away.

  Every time she thought of the incident she mentally kicked herself, again. Thank goodness it had happened in Florence, not here where everyone knew everyone else. Otherwise she’d never live it down.

  It was time to get on with her work and put her personal misadventure behind her. As it was, she’d lost her appetite for what was left of her meal and had left the restaurant immediately. She didn’t want to run into him in the parking lot. He was probably on his way to Florida and she’d never see him again.

  She thought she hadn’t noticed his features but as she drove home she found that his broad jaw, firm mouth, wide forehead, expressive dark eyes and heavy eyebrows had painted a picture in her mind. He had cinnamon-brown skin and his fingers were long and well shaped.

  There was no getting away from it. The man she’d made a fool of herself in front of had been very attractive.

  She wasn’t supposed to be on duty on Saturday, which was why she’d gone to the morning conference in Florence, but when she’d arrived home, Stanley Worden, a volunteer, had called to ask if she could fill in for him.

  “The only scheduled activity is an extra quilting bee. It seems the ladies were a little behind on their present project. They promised to be out by six. Can you do it, Makima?”

  Stanley was usually dependable and she thought working at the center might help take her mind off Florence so she’d agreed.

  She took a folder from her bottom drawer, one of many numbered from one to ten. All were entitled Grayson Medical Clinic.

  She was working on number ten. Perhaps with recent events the tide had turned and she wouldn’t have to go on to number eleven. This was her goal and her daily prayer.

  Her project had begun three years ago. Her youngest sister, June, eighteen years old, had been coming from Orangeburg where she and three friends had gone to watch a football game at South Carolina State. A drunk driver had hit the car on the passenger side where June had been sitting. Everyone else had minor injuries but she had suffered the full brunt of the impact.

  The only local facility for such trauma had been the volunteer fire department, which did its best to stabilize June so she could be taken to the hospital in Swinton. The multicar midnight freight train delayed them still longer and June’s life had ebbed away by the time they arrived at the hospital.

  Since that day Makima had made the establishment of a medical clinic in the Grayson community her priority so no one else would lose a life because the hospital was thirteen miles away on the other side of the railroad tracks, and where emergency care would be available twenty-four hours, seven days a week.

  Her work had been tireless.

  “Don’t you think that’s too big a project for Grayson to take on?” Gerald Smalls had asked when she’d sought his help.

  Gerald was well-meaning and pleasant, but Makima knew he rarely volunteered for hard work. That hadn’t kept her from asking. He was well liked and had a lot of friends.

  “It’s a big project, Mr. Smalls,” she’d replied. “All I want you to do is talk to your friends about it. We need to spread the word so when we have the first big rally, hundreds of people will come. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Be glad to, and I’ll get my wife to talk it up, too.”

  The first rally was held three months after June’s death. Her father, Arthur Gray Jr., recalled how his father had settled in the rural area of Swinton at the turn of the century, arriving from Mississippi with his wife, Ruth.

  “They were looking for a better place to make a living and raise a family. They believed in hard work and used their money wisely. They bought land when they could, educated their children and helped many other people who came here. This community was named Grayson after them and it grew and prospered. Now because of this tragedy, we have an opportunity to do what they did. Working hard as a community we can give Grayson its own medical clinic so that our people won’t have to go into Swinton for every health need, especially our senior citizens who don’t always have rides.”

  Makima had asked business leaders, ministers and teachers to speak. After all the questions had been asked and answered, she closed the rally with comments from the families whose children had been in the car with June. She’d asked her mother to speak but wasn’t surprised when she said she couldn’t.

  A second rally had been held four months later and this time her mother had been the first to speak.

  “I want to thank you all for coming out this evening. This is a special day. I want to show you the first large deposit of money for the Grayson Medical Clinic. Here is the check from the insurance company.” She waved it in the air as the filled auditorium exploded in applause. When it was quiet again she explained the mon
ey would be put in a certificate of deposit so it could be earning interest during the time it would take to pull the project together. “This is our seed money and we have faith in God that He will water this seed until its work is finished.”

  So much had happened since that day. Some of the grants Makima had written had paid off. Foundations had made some contributions and in Grayson itself, many organizations had held fund-raisers.

  The reason she’d gone to Florence had been to speak to a possible donor following the public-health conference. Not only had the donor made excuses for refusing to give funds to the worthy cause, he’d also had the nerve to flirt with her. It’s no wonder she’d been easily upset at the restaurant.

  The remaining hurdle for the project was land. She wanted a piece of Mr. Zeke’s property. She’d spent many hours with him and Miss Sarah, his wife, before she’d passed away. Miss Sarah had often called her “my little girl,” and had given her the run of the house.

  As a child, Makima had followed Mr. Zeke around, and when she grew up they’d spent time together when he was working on one of his many projects. He’d explained to her how he’d fashioned parts of the house and how he loved working with wood.

  When she’d started her drive for the clinic, she’d asked if she could use part of his property. “I have a feeling this is where it’s supposed to be,” she told him.

  “We’ll see,” was his answer.

  As the months went by she became deeply involved in the legal and medical requirements for a clinic, necessitating long conferences with a number of people in the business, and visiting the kind of clinic she thought would be appropriate. Many other community people helped, but she was the prime mover even though there was a board made up of Grayson residents.

  Occasionally she’d talk with Mr. Zeke and mention the land she wanted to buy for the clinic. “The land’s not going anywhere,” he’d say.

  The last time she’d spoken with him was a few weeks before his death. He hadn’t been ill and that time he’d said, “It’ll be here.” His death had been a shock to her and the rest of his friends. She’d been prepared to give him a down payment on the land and to get something in writing for the two of them. Now it was too late.