by Paisley Ray
“I take offense to that.”
“Offense to what?”
“You implying that any guy that shows interest in me is defective.”
She kept quiet, which I found additionally insulting.
“Fran,” a southern man’s voice called.
Fran was an easygoing nickname. The Francine I knew was far from easygoing.
From behind my back, Campbell Blatt III appeared and settled his tushie onto the seat next to me. Great, we had law firm company. Now the two could yammer their mouths about snore-worthy contractual jargon involving a bunch of people I didn’t know.
He said, “Hey there,” and unnaturally paused.
“Rachael.” For a lawyer type, his memory wasn’t brilliant.
“I’m sure looking forward to something cold after the day I’ve had. Did you get a peek at the suit the Sea Island Coalition has filed against the county?”
“That file was marked confidential,” Francine said.
Campbell waggled his eyebrows.
“You ladies are living near the ‘heirs’ property’ tax-defaulted parcels in question.”
“‘Heirs’ property’ sounds like some yuppie, new money propaganda,” I said.
Campbell lifted his finger to the waitress, and she nodded. “It’s older than the yuppie revolution.”
Francine’s coworker could be so pompous. Like who studied obscure land ownership? “What is it?” I asked.
“Heirs’ property, or what the Gullah call We property, dates back to Sherman’s Special Order Fifteen from the Civil War. Here in the Lowcountry it’s mostly rural land owned by African Americans who either purchased or were deeded allotments after the Civil War.
Francine lowered her voice. “It’s a Gullah thing. There’s a lot of communal living in family compounds on the sea islands around here. Most of the land has water views.”
And the blah, blah, blah began. Resisting the urge to tell Campbell to get lost, I busied my mouth with my drink. This was my time with my roommate, and I wanted to tell her about the supposed lynchings near the Larkin property.
Campbell hooked an elbow over the back of his chair. “The unpaid property tax land defaulted and went up for sheriff’s sale. Now there’s accusations of fraud and questioning of ownership.”
“Eminent domain. Same kinda thing happened to the American Indians out West. The Sioux are still fighting the US government for the Black Hills,” Francine remarked.
“Black Hills?” I asked.
“South Dakota and Wyoming,” she said.
This was not my area of interest.
Campbell pushed his frames up the bridge to the top of his narrow nose. “Mount Rushmore.”
Giving my glass a shake, I rattled the ice cubes.
“The Black Hills are home to six national parks, but the Indians want it back. It’s the longest-running land dispute in the US,” Francine said.
“I have no idea what this conversation is about.”
Campbell took a long sip of his beer, which relaxed his shoulders. “From what I glimpsed, there’s disagreement among one of the Gullah families that happens or happened to own a chunk of nearly forty acres. They’re claiming that there’s been deceit and that unbeknownst to the proper owners, land titles have been transferred.”
Francine’s intern friend was a lawyer type in the making. The way he hung on words, he made some petty case sound like a high-drama Dynasty episode. Francine had mentioned that he was the son of a congressman, and I began to think the saying “politics in your blood” rang true. “This doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“No, not really. But we’ve all met someone who’s in the middle of it.”
“Besides you and Hodge, Francine and I don’t know anyone down here.”
The two took long sips, and I watched as they nearly drained the beverages they held.
“It’s not like a scandalous secret or anything,” Campbell said, staring at Francine for longer than was comfortable. Her face went stiff, and she paid particular attention to the ice cube in the bottom of her empty glass.
I eyed a burger on a nearby table. Finally she said, “Rilda.”
“The root digger?”
“Doctor,” Francine corrected.
My temper flared. “Is that why you had her to the house? To pump her for info to help your firm’s case?”
“That’s defaming my good name.”
Wheels inside my head ground to a halt. Campbell was the one who had recommended we “cleanse” the Larkin house. My eyes darted between Francine and the smug smarty-pants seated next to me. “Whose idea was it?”
“Settle your jitters,” Francine said, and I recognized her tone; it was meant to extract a guilty plea from me—like I was to blame, for I didn’t even know what.
“Don’t get all high and huffy. Just answer me.”
“I wasn’t aware that there even was a case until Rilda mentioned it at the house.”
“What exactly is the case?” I asked.
Campbell bit his lip to contain a smirk. He was enjoying this.
Flicking her wrist in a no-biggie manner, Francine rambled, “Rilda’s brother-in-law, husband to her deceased sister, is named on some titles for a chunk of land on Lady’s Island. Working on and off, he managed to pay the subsidized taxes that weren’t more than a few hundred dollars and continued paying even after he was jailed. No one ever thought much of it until this year when some of the Gullah higher-ups discovered that a chunk of land had been sold at sheriff’s auction.”
“Damn, Fran, you got all the scoop. How’d they discover the sale?”
“Word got around that a developer from down in Savannah submitted housing plans for approval at the county permit office. Now she and some locals have been scrambling to set things straight and get the land deed sale reversed.”
“Can they do that?” I asked.
“Maybe, if they can prove concealment or misrepresentation,” Campbell said.
“That seems like a stretch,” I said.
“Their guns are loaded. Rumor is they’re workin’ to get the local historical society to foot the bill and have approached Hickley, Smith and Brisby to take the case.”
“Why would the historical society be involved?” I asked.
“An old slave uprising ended with a lot of men killed on the land in question. The conspiracy is in the history books,” he said.
“So your firm is representing the Gullah?”
“Conspiracy? What conspiracy?” Francine asked.
“The Vesey plot of 1822.”
My heart quickened. “It’s true?”
Campbell gave me a sideways glance and maneuvered a combo tongue-cluck-wink.
Francine signaled the waitress for another.
“This was what I wanted to tell you about. My visit with Forrest. He said slave hangings took place on the Larkin property.”
“That can’t be accurate,” Francine said. “Denmark Vesey was tried and hung along with the other’s in Charleston.”
A beer for Campbell and another cranberry cooler for Francine was delivered. She took a sip, but he ran his mouth. “More men were later convicted. Thirty-five were hung on your island. The Larkin property is said to be the site of their mass grave. That’s why everybody says it’s haunted. I thought you two knew.”
Francine’s eyeballs rolled back and her head bobbed. In two shakes, Campbell was off his stool and onto his feet, where he managed to scurry around me and catch her from behind as she tipped off the stool.
NOTE TO SELF
Free rent, must remember to be more suspicious. What seemed like killer summer lodging deal may have actually been killer lodging.
July 1989
CHAPTER 9
Sho’ ’Nuff
I didn’t relish staying in the Larkin house alone, but what choice did I have? Campbell and I walked Francine to his place, which was closer than my car. Outside his apartment building, her knees buckled, and she rested on the curb. I wou
ld’ve driven her home with me, but when I returned with my car to pick her up, Campbell cracked his door open and said, “She’s resting. Best leave her be for the night.”
I heard her mumble some ultimatum nonsense. “I ain’t sleeping on no burial ground before it’s my time.” From the tone of her voice, I guessed that assuring her that I’d walk around the property and check for headstones wouldn’t sway her. She tended to overreact, and for the time being I knew there’d be no rationalizing with her.
As I turned the car radio down, I reminded myself that I was a big girl and that big girls are happy with their own company. Who was I kidding? Although not hysterical, I didn’t embrace sleeping in the Larkin house alone. Where was Stone in my moment of need? Freaking Paraguay. And Mom and Betts? Graveyard business in freaking Savannah?It was probably for the best that the two weren’t here. If Betts caught wind that she could profit from the Larkin backyard, I wouldn’t be lonely; she’d be bringing in tourists by the busload. Plus she’d gloat about the mamsy pamsy vision she’d spoke of that was turning out to be fairly accurate. She’d probably been to the library before they arrived.
A little unnerved, I considered turning around and going back to Beaufort, but crashing at Campbell’s place wasn’t an appealing option. I found his know-it-all company annoying.
Steering my sporty yellow Volkswagen into the carport, I turned off the ignition, then clunked my head on the steering wheel and let it rest there. A roommate of mine from school lived in Bluffton. With traffic and stoplights, I estimated her house to be an hour commute from Beaufort. Doable while running the gallery? How are you going to swing that?the inner me asked. Pick up the phone and say, hey, the house I’m living in is full of ghosts of executed slaves. Mind if I crash at your place until they’re removed by the local root doctor?
Then it hit me. I needed Rilda to come back. If she performed a cranked-up Gullah exorcism with her trinkets and potions, maybe Francine would return and we could put all this nonsense behind us.
No time like the present, I told myself, and took off toward the water. Even though her accent was hard as hell to understand, and our last encounter hadn’t ended on the best of terms, I felt compelled to secure the local mystic’s services. Francine had said that her cottage, under a mile away, was unapproachable by vehicle since there wasn’t a driveway, but that the path at the water’s edge led there.
Early July, the days stayed light well into the evening, so it wasn’t like I had dark to worry about, and I wasn’t in any sort of rush to go into the Larkin house. A stretch of my legs was a good excuse not to.
The marsh covered the bottom half of the water reeds, and I watched a gray heron walk with a jerk motion as it navigated the shallows in search of an evening snack. All around me insects buzzed and hummed a racket as I followed crushed grasses that ran parallel with the creek. At high tide, the water behind the Larkin property was deep enough for small craft, but at low tide, any boat bigger than a flat-bottom skiff would become stranded. To the west, water levels rose, and in the direction of Beaufort, there was a boat launch and a local marina. Eastward, to my right, the trees thickened, and the salt marsh pooled into pond-size bodies of water that only connected when inclement weather surged salt water from the Port Royal Sound and Coosaw River inland.
That was the direction I walked. I’d seen Rilda headed that way once, and I knew from Campbell that the Gullah land plots mentioned in the suit were north of the Larkin property. I checked the compass on the bracelet I wore. A present from an FBI friend of mine, it wasn’t like a proper compass, more of a symbolic gift to make sure I stayed on track, but I figured as long as I used it to guide me and kept sight of the water, I’d be fine.
As my feet toppled along the narrow dirt path, I was hyperaware of my heartbeat. As much as I loved the sights and sounds of nature, I knew that alligators and a slew of creepy venomous crawlers had been here first. I didn’t want to stumble upon anything reptilian in a surprise meet and greet kind of fashion. With a hustle in my step, I kept watch over my feet and along the water’s edge. A cluster of maples, tupelo, sweet gum trees, and loblolly pines provided dense shade overhead, and as we pushed inland under the dense tree canopy, the temperature dropped. Hearing my breath quicken, I told myself that there was nothing to fear. Francine and I had no real proof of anything. Probably folklore aiding our imaginations, which Mom, Betts, and Rilda had only fueled.
Exiting the woodland, I entered a clearing and jumped when field mice scurried from beneath a decaying log. Beyond a still pond, a chime noise drew my eye to a one-story ramshackle shanty tucked among the trees. On the shore was a skiff I thought I recognized, but then again, small metal boats with row seats all looked similar. A handful of yard chickens pecked at the ground on the side of the building. Tin foil hung off the limbs of a small ornamental tree whose branches butted against grayed and splintered siding. Off-center to the porch, a blue-glass bottle tree threw light in an aura of movement.
I didn’t see anyone and wondered if I had the right residence. A start trickled fear inside of me. I knew how southerners felt about trespassing and guns, so I crossed my fingers, hoping a trigger-happy Second Amendment enthusiast wasn’t aiming at me for target practice. The open jawed alligator skull that sat next to the front door gave me a hunch that this was the right place. Purposely clomping my feet up the porch steps, I couldn’t help but notice drying herbs that decorated the porch ceiling like wasp nests. Next to a couple of well-used rockers, wire crates stacked waist high held hollowed-out gourds, bird nests, sticks, and twigs. “Hello, Rilda?” I called as I knocked on the tattered screen door.
Squawking followed by chicken feathers flapping drew my attention to the corner of the house. I called out again, “Anyone home?”
“Eh,” a voice said from behind my back.
Spinning around, I stumbled on the edges of a sisal doormat.
Holding a rusted watering can in one hand and a small burlap sack in the other, Rilda was dressed in the same knee-length top and pant outfit as the last time I’d seen her, only a different color, with hand-sewn beading around the neck and the sleeve edges. The heavy beaded necklaces around her neck rattled as she walked toward me. “Been expectin’ ya. Tell me ’bout it.”
A therapeutic sigh heaved out of my chest, and I found my fingers toying with the eye of Horus charm necklace I wore. It had been a gift from a New Orleans voodoo descendent, and I figured it would put me in good standing with Rilda. “Francine won’t come to the house. She thinks we’re living on a graveyard.”
Rilda pursed her lips, and I wasn’t sure if she was tracking with me.
“Could you come back to the Larkin house and finish what you started? I can pay you, cash.”
Her facial expression I found unreadable. Setting the water can down, she climbed the few steps and settled into a rocker. “I be very busy. You have your mama and Betts cleanse. I ain’t got time to differ with dem two.”
“They’ve left.”
She contemplated me with curiously and motioned a hand to the other rocker.
“Listen, I don’t like Betts much, but she’s my mother’s friend, and I, you know, tolerate her. They claim they have powers, but not like you.”
“What you sayin’?”
“Francine says we need an expert in these matters, and that’s you.”
“Eh,” she chuckled. “What you think?”
“You know this place, the history. I think I want things normal.” I didn’t mention the bigger fear I harbored. If Mr. Larkin came back, and his house and shop were all screwed up, word may get back to the dean at North Carolina College, and my scholarship could be revoked.
“This land don’t take kindly to strangers.”
Rilda’s place, like the Larkin home, was remote. Without neighboring homes, hers didn’t even have a discernable driveway. And just like the house we stayed in, her land ended at the water’s edge. In the distance, above the ripples, we both watched the sky darken. I felt a warm pi
ng in my dodgy shoulder and began rubbing it.
She selected a hulled gourd from a stack. “You an artist?”
“No, I don’t paint.”
“In the house, dem paintings.”
“Mr. Larkin’s.”
Digging in her pocket, Rilda removed the lid from a metal cylinder container labeled “apricot kernel oil.” Setting the cap on the side table, she poured a portion of the contents into the gourd. Reaching above her head, she added some dried herbs that had been strung on nails and dangled by their stems above us. She used a tool that resembled a wooden pestle to mash the mixture.
“Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“Someone I met said something about a slave rebellion a century ago. Is it true?”
She stopped pulverizing the ingredients.
“I mean I know what the history books say about the Vesey rebellion in Charleston, but were men that had been involved hung on this island?”
Staring into her eyes, I wondered if I’d crossed the line and been insensitive to ask. I tried to imagine how I’d feel if my ancestors had been hunted and stolen into slavery.
She began swaying in the rocker, and I listened to its wooden legs groan against the uneven porch planks. With closed eyes she spoke. “The uprising was big, real big. Scared da buckra. The only way they knew to stop what had started was to reverse da fear.”
“So it’s true.”
She kept rocking.
“Where are the graves?”
Her eyes sprang open, and I watched her fingers unfold from the grip she held on the arm of the chair. Pointing to the trees I’d passed through to come to her, she began saying, “On a still night you can hear their screams echo as the darkness coerces their confessions. Under a full moon, dem souls whisk the breath outta a man.” She angled her chin upward. “Out there, thirty-five red maples by day, by night they be the lost souls of the men.”