Salvation of Miss Lucretia

by Ted M. Dunagan

  “So I figured de family had come onto hard times and had probably dug de gold up long ago, and I started to regret not having come back for de gold a long time before.

  “De only light dat night wuz from de moon, but it was full, and I spotted de pear tree once I got around back. De old tree was like de old house, old, dilapidated, and uncared for.

  “When I found de spot where I had seen dat old man bury de gold, I realized I had made a mistake. I hadn’t brought something to dig wid, and I almost left. But den I noticed a loose board on de fence, just hanging by a rusty nail. It had a pointed end on it and after I pulled it loose I started jabbing it into de ground. It was harder dan I expected, and it must have took me over half a hour, digging wid dat fence paling and scratching de loose dirt wid my hands. But after a while I heard a crunching sound when I pushed wid de stick, and I knew I had done hit pay dirt!

  “I got down on my knees and started digging like a gopher. De only thing wuz, dey wasn’t no coffee can no more. It was just gold. Dat old coffee can had rotted to nothing, so I had to scoop up de gold wid my hands, and it wasn’t long fo’ I counted out all forty-eight of ’em!

  “Now, de next problem wuz dat wid out de coffee can I didn’t have nothing to carry ’em in. I didn’t even have a pocket on my dress. I studied on de problem a little, like you boys does, and soon I had deciphered a solution. What I done was use my shoes. After I took ’em off, I put twenty-four in each one, tied de string together and drapes ’em around my neck, figuring I would just walk on back home barefooted.

  “But just when I stood up, a light come on inside de house! Somebody wuz in de house after all! And den I heard de squeaking of de hinges as somebody opened de back door. Dat’s when I thought I was a goner as I watched the dark shadow of somebody coming down de back steps!

  “It was too late to run, so I just sunk as far down as I could in dat hole I had dug, as dat dark shadow started walking right toward me! But then whoever it was turned and I saw they had a bucket in dey hand as whoever it wuz veered off to de left toward de well. I knew den dat dey was just coming out to draw a bucket of water, so I just kept making like I was a dirt clod till he went back in.”

  Miss Lucretia grew silent and I knew her story was over.

  “So you got away with the gold?” Poudlum asked.

  “Shore did,” she replied.

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I brought it wid me when I wuz sent to dese woods. Den sometime later I reburied it.”

  Poudlum stood up, and said, “Then all we got to do is dig it up, and we can still get back to Mister Autrey’s before dark.”

  “Ain’t dat easy,” Miss Lucretia said.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “’Cause I can’t seem to remember exactly where I buried it!”

  Chapter 15

  The Treasure Hunt

  This was jaw-dropping news to us, as well as devastating, because at first, after hearing Miss Lucretia’s story, I was ready to dig for some treasure.

  “Miss Lucretia,” Poudlum asked, “do you know about where you might have buried it?”

  “Sometimes I think I do. Then sometimes I think I don’t,” she replied.

  Poudlum, in his persistence, said, “What you got to remember is when, where and how. Do you remember any of them?”

  “Oh, yes, I remember when and how, but I just can’t remember where. After Cudjoe came in here de first time I decide I needed to hid ’em fo’ he stumbled ‘cross ’em in de cabin, so it was pretty nigh onto fourteen years ago when I done it. As far as how, well I used a sharp stick to dig a hole, just like I used one to dig ’em up wid. But when it comes to where, things get a little bit fuzzy, and I just can’t picture de spot in my mind.”

  Poudlum looked at me, and said, “We got to find that gold before we leave ’cause she’s gonna need it to take care of herself when she goes back down to where she come from.”

  Of course I agreed with Poudlum, for Miss Lucretia’s sake, but at the same time the thrill of a treasure hunt had my blood boiling. “Did you bury it close to the cabin or was it out in the woods?” I asked.

  She leaned her head off to one side and drifted off into deep thought for a few moments, before she said, “For some reason I think it was out near where my goat pen is now. Course, I didn’t have no goats den. I think it was de third year I wuz here when Cudjoe brought me two little kids to start my herd wid.”

  Once again it was Sister Gal who saved the day when she said, “I think I might be able to put my auntie into a trance and make her remember.”

  I was astounded at what she said, and I could tell from the look on Poudlum’s face that he was, too.

  “What are you, the new voodoo queen?” Poudlum asked.

  Sister Gal didn’t blink an eye at the insinuation, and said, “Voodoo is just tricks and illusions to deceive folks. What I’m talking about is a technique my great-granddaddy Lewis showed me fo’ he died.”

  “How does it work?” I asked.

  “What do you call it?” Poudlum asked before she had time to answer me.

  Without any hesitation or evasion, she answered, “It works by relaxing de mind to clear it, and it’s called hypnosis.”

  “Hip what?” Poudlum asked.

  “Hypnosis,” she repeated. “Y’all just watch dis.”

  She turned to Miss Lucretia, and said, “Auntie, I needs fo’ you to relax every bone in yo’ body, just go limp, and trust me completely when I talk to you. Will you do dat?”

  “Well, I ’spose it won’t do no harm,” Miss Lucretia said. “What else I got to do?”

  “You just have to listen to de sound of my voice, concentrate real hard, and do exactly as I tell you.”

  “You wouldn’t do nothing to hurt me, would you, child?”

  “No, ma’am, course I wouldn’t. Now just sit back and relax and listen to nothing but de sound of my voice.”

  Poudlum and I watched in amazement as Sister Gal began to tell Miss Lucretia to close her eyes and imagine she was floating on a cloud.

  We became mesmerized ourselves, as her soft voice said, “Dat cloud you floating on getting softer and softer, and dey is a gentle and fragrant breeze blowing softly cross yo’ brow. You feeling so relaxed dat all yo’ limbs are growing limp and yo’ mind is free and clear.”

  Sister Gal’s voice kept droning on without raising or lowering, and I began to feel so relaxed myself that a slight buzzing occurred in my head, and my eyelids became heavy and droopy. I shook my head and began opening and closing my hands to get my blood flowing in order to snap myself back into reality. That’s when I realized that I had almost fallen under her spell myself.

  “Dat cloud getting softer and softer,” Sister Gal droned on. “Let yo’ eyes close as you sink deeper and deeper into it. It’s warm and cool at de same time, wrapping around you like yo’ favorite quilt, as you softly slip into a place dat’s safe and comfortable.”

  Miss Lucretia’s eyes truly had closed, and her head was lolled over onto her shoulder. She did look real limp to me, almost like she was a rag doll. But evidently she wasn’t asleep, because when Sister Gal asked her what her last name was, she said in almost a whisper, “Lewis.”

  Poudlum and I sat there with our mouths agape as Sister Gal continued with her magic.

  “How many pieces of gold do you have?” Sister Gal asked her.

  “Forty-eight,” Miss Lucretia whispered.

  “What wuz dey in de last time you saw ’em?”

  “Wrapped up in an old flour sack.”

  “Did you bury ’em in dat sack?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What time of de day wuz it?”

  “Early in de morning, kind of still foggy.”

  “Do you remember where you wuz?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Wuz it clo
se to de cabin?”

  “Yeah, it wuz close to where I planned to build a pen fo’ de goats Cudjoe had promised me.”

  “Wuz dey anything close to you?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Tell me what it wuz.”

  “It wuz a big cottonwood tree.”

  “How close wuz you to it?”

  “Seven steps to de south from it.”

  Sister Gal looked at us with a brilliant smile on her face, and a look of triumph in her eyes. Then she continued, when she said to Miss Lucretia, “When I count to five you will wake up and not remember nothing we talked about.”

  I watched her pretty mouth form the words, and when she said the fifth number, Miss Lucretia roused up slowly, blinked her eyes, and said, “Oh, my, I must have drifted off fo’ a spell. What wuz we talking about?”

  Poudlum and I were already busy looking around for something to dig with. Seeing nothing, we decided to use the same kind of tool to dig up the treasure as she had to dig a hole to bury it.

  We reached up overhead and extracted one of the boards in the ceiling of the shed, and immediately set to hacking at one end of it with our knives to bring it to a point.

  Miss Lucretia turned to us, and said, “What in de world done got into y’all?”

  “We need something to dig with,” Poudlum told her.

  “What in de world y’all gonna dig?”

  “We think we might know where you buried your gold,” I said.

  “Iffen I can’t remember where, how is y’all gonna know?”

  “Ask Sister Gal,” Poudlum said as we started toward the goat pen. By the time we had located the big cottonwood tree on the edge of the goat pen, Sister Gal and Miss Lucretia had joined us. The next thing we had to do was figure out which way was south from the tree. I mean we knew which way was generally south, but there was no way to find the exact spot before we began digging. We finally settled on a spot we thought was seven steps south of the tree and decided if we didn’t find anything on our first dig, we would fan out left and right and keep digging.

  Poudlum and I had barely recovered from our horrors in the panther pit, and here we were digging in the dirt again, but the excitement of hidden treasure lured us on. We quickly discovered that digging with our knives and hands on our knees worked the best, and we abandoned the sharpened board.

  The first hole surrendered no gold, so I moved to the right and Poudlum moved to the left, where we continued to dig.

  We were each on our third hole when Miss Lucretia let out a shriek that just about made me jump out of my skin. When we looked up in alarm, expecting to see a panther about to pounce on us, we saw her march to the cottonwood tree, put her back against it and step off seven steps to a spot about two feet to my right.

  “Dig here,” she said. “I done remember dat I was looking straight at dat big loblolly over yonder when I stepped off de seven steps.”

  As soon as she vacated the spot, Poudlum and I pounced upon it with our knives. We had only removed about a foot of dirt before we heard the clinking of metal against metal as our knives plunged into the ground.

  It was an exciting moment when we cast our knives aside and used our hands to scoop out the first few coins.

  “Looks like we done hit pay dirt!” Poudlum exclaimed.

  Miss Lucretia and Sister Gal sat down on the ground next to us and proceeded to clean the coins up as we tossed them out of the hole. The cotton flour sack they had been buried in had long since disintegrated.

  I looked up at Sister Gal, and said, “How many so far?”

  “I count forty-two. Dey ought to be six more of ’em.”

  It took a little more digging and sifting of dirt, but we found the final half dozen coins.

  Miss Lucretia had saved us a lot of digging by finally remembering, but it was the efforts of Sister Gal which had led us to the wonderful treasure.

  When we got back to the cooking shed we cleaned the coins up good by washing them in a pan of water.

  Poudlum held one up close, and said, “Good Lord, this thing is 171 years old!”

  “How you figure that?” I asked.

  “It’s dated 1778! And look at this,” he said as he pointed to the front of the coin. “It looks like a coat of arms and it says ‘Ferdinand’ on it. He must have been de king of Spain at one time.”

  I took the coin and examined the back of it and found a cross and a lion on it. “What you think these things are worth?” I asked Poudlum.

  “Ain’t no telling, but I bet they worth several hundred dollars each.”

  After which he turned to Miss Lucretia, and said, “It looks like you gonna be a rich woman and won’t have to worry about nothing from now on.”

  As she trickled the coins through her hands, she said, “All dat money dey got fo’ selling my family into slavery has done come back to de descendent of de slaves. Praise de Lawd, dey is justice in dis world after all!”

  The look in Miss Lucretia’s eyes was worth more than any amount of money to me, and I knew it was time to take her out of her forest prison for good.

  Evidently Poudlum felt the same way because he said to her, “Miss Lucretia, it’s time to pack up them coins and whatever else you want to take with you and leave this place.”

  Before she could say anything, I said, “It’s too late to get back to Mister Autrey’s before dark, Poudlum.”

  “You’re right, but we could make it back to our original camp, spend the night there and then go on in tomorrow morning.”

  I liked that idea because I didn’t want to spend another night in the cabin of the former voodoo queen, and if we got back tomorrow, Saturday, we would be right on time and not cause any undue concern about us.

  “All right,” I told Poudlum. “Let’s see what Miss Lucretia wants to take with her.”

  She considered it when we presented it to her, and then after a few thoughtful moments, she said, “Ain’t nothing I wants to take ’cept my Bible and my gold. Dat way, if you boys ever want to come back you can use my old place for yo’ hunting camp.”

  We put the gold in a pouch she had constructed out of a goatskin, rounded the dogs up, shouldered our rifles and were ready to depart when Poudlum whispered to me, “Maybe we ought to take some of that stuff she kept behind the curtain.”

  “You mean her voodoo stuff?”

  “Uh huh. An occasion could arise when we might could use some of her potion, and who knows, we might want to walk on fire sometime.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt none,” I said. “But we better ask her.”

  But we didn’t have to because it seemed she sensed what we were whispering about. “You boys take whatever you wants. I wills dis cabin and everything in and about it to y’all.”

  We found a stack of old flour sacks beneath the shelves in the corner and used them to wrap the jars with to keep them from breaking before putting them all inside the last one.

  Miss Lucretia took one last forlorn look about, and then we all hit the trail, with Old Bill and Rip leading the way.

  After the remnants of a trail had disappeared and we were walking through virgin forest, I told Poudlum I wasn’t sure I could find the way back to our camp. That’s when Sister Gal took the lead, and said, “Dis is de way I come in. I knows where it is and if we don’t tarry we ought to be there in ’bout two hours.”

  True to her word, Sister Gal led us right into the clearing where we had first camped and there stood our tent. And we knew there was food in it and that there was water in the nearby spring.

  We gathered wood, fetched water, and then feasted on little sausages out of a can.

  As we sat around the fire later we told Miss Lucretia about our lawyer and friend, Mister Alfred Jackson, and all the things he had done for us. And we promised to intercede on her part to him and assured her he would invest her gold and make s
ure she was treated right.

  Just before Miss Lucretia and Sister Gal retired to the tent, with a great deal of emotion in her voice, she said, “Who would have ever thought dat it would be three young chillun’s who delivered me from de clutches of de devil?”

  Poudlum and I stoked up the fire and settled into our beds of pine straw. As my eyelids grew heavy I felt a growing apprehension that a set of eyes were watching us. The last thing I remembered was hoping those eyes didn’t belong to a panther.

  They turned out to be much worse than a panther’s.

  Chapter 16

  The Return

  I thought it was smoke from the fire at first, but then I realized it was early morning fog. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but it was just before doing that, and everything still had a slight haze to it.

  What had awakened me was the scratching of a few strands of dry pine straw which had worked its way under my clothing. As I attempted to extract the itchy straw, the first thing I saw through the fog was the outline of the tent. I didn’t hear any sounds at all because the forest had not come alive yet.

  But I could feel something. I wasn’t sure what it was, just that something was amiss. It was a feeling like when you get caught up in a bad dream and you keep falling and falling, or you can’t find your way out of a dark maze.

  I knew I was awake, but there was still that helpless, trapped in a dream feeling.

  I wanted to do was take refuge underneath my pine straw bed, but instead I forced myself to sit up and look around. I could see the shape of Poudlum’s still sleeping form across the glowing embers of what was left of our fire, and as I looked beyond him, I saw the cause of my apprehensions.

  He was sitting on the ground with his back leaning up against the trunk of a giant oak tree.

  It was Cudjoe! He had come back! And to make matters worse, he had both of our rifles lying across his lap.