Crown of Thorns (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “I learned something interesting about Agnes Larrabee today,” I continued. “Her name was mentioned in a letter written by her uncle, Seth Larrabee, to his fiancée, Elizabeth, in England.”

  I thought of the self-righteousness of the letter, part of a lengthy correspondence between the two. Seth was an older man, answering questions of a girl across the ocean, young enough to be his daughter and obviously marrying him to escape poverty in London. A portion of the letter reverberated in my mind.

  . . . Elizabeth, regardless of what others might say about them, I have lived my life amongst them, and they are barely better than animals. It is the responsibility of the superior creature to introduce the inferior creature to the sacrament that will lead their souls to God. Because of it, our family maintains the tradition that the northerners tried to take from us. Some would call this tradition harsh, but it is a matter of practicality. The Bible speaks of slaves who must obey their masters. . . .

  “She kept all her letters, even after moving here to become his wife. When Elizabeth died, her son sent the entire collection to the archives, where I spent the first hour this morning after it opened.”

  “How exciting,” Kellie joked. “The archives. Makes my head spin, thinking of the danger involved.”

  I ignored that. “Keep in mind that forty years ago when she was murdered, Agnes Larrabee was ninety years old. She was born only a few years after the Civil War ended. She was a young girl in the incident that Seth Larrabee describes for Elizabeth in England. While the ownership of slaves was illegal, there were many plantation owners alive who remembered how it was before the Civil War. Some of this generation still felt a moral right to treat their servants merely as slaves who received a daily stipend. It would appear the Larrabee family was no different, as related in the letter written by Agnes’s uncle Seth.”

  “I remember those years well,” Kellie said dryly. “I invested in a horsewhip manufacturing company while fools around me invested in some young whippersnapper named Ford and his newfangled contraptions.”

  “You’re off by decades,” I answered, “The first Model Ts didn’t appear until 1908. By then Agnes was in her thirties.”

  “Oh,” Kellie said.

  “Impressed?”

  “Very. What did you learn about Agnes?”

  “I’ll tell you, as long as you keep in mind I’m reading between the lines of the letter. But I imagine it happened like this back in 1877, a decade after the Civil War ended. . . .”

  **

  The carriage doors were wide open, but the inside of the barn smelled of horses and human fear. Rain threatened, and the humidity pressed down like the darkness of the day outside.

  Agnes stood on one side of her father. Her sister Mary stood on the other. They were seven years old, wearing dresses of starchy material and fanning themselves against the humid heat.

  Their father, Ephraim Larrabee, wore his Sunday best and held a Bible open, facing a black man in rolled-up cotton pants. The black man’s head was bowed, and he cradled a small child asleep in his arms. His son.

  “There is no cause for this,” the black man said. “My daddy and granddaddy bear the mark, and so do I, but we were born into slavery. My boy was born free.”

  “You are welcome to seek employment elsewhere,” Ephraim answered.

  “You know I cain’t, not in times like these.”

  “Then you have answered me. As a member of the Larrabee household, are you prepared to commit your son to the Lord God your maker?”

  “Please, suh, not like this. Anything but this.”

  “Turn the child over.”

  “Suh! Please, no! He ain’t no slave. Abe Lincoln saw to that.”

  “We are all slaves to sin. Be grateful that the Larrabee household is a godly household. The Larrabee mark commits his soul to Jesus, as it did for you and your father and grandfather.”

  “Suh! This child is no slave!”

  “Dare you contradict me?”

  “No suh.”

  “A disobedient servant of this household will be cast out into the world. Turn the child over.”

  The black man cried quietly as he woke his child. He was further humiliated by the presence of Mary and Agnes, who had been brought into the barn to learn that the power of the Larrabee family had not been diminished by the fall of the Confederacy. For the baptism was not about the baby boy’s soul, but about power.

  “Seth!” commanded Ephraim Larrabee.

  Called forth from where he had been waiting by a stove with full fire, the uncle of Agnes and Mary advanced upon the black man and his child, carrying a slender iron rod heated to a glowing red.

  “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Ephraim Larrabee droned, “so be this act of mercy carried out as a seal of consecration to the Lord God and his Son, Jesus Christ.”

  The rest of what Ephraim said was drowned out by the wailing of the little boy.

  The boy had been branded. With a crown of thorns.

  His name was Samson Elias.

  Chapter 22

  Pastor Samuel was awake when I knocked on the door to his office.

  “Good morning, Nicholas. Social or business?”

  “I’d like to show you something,” I said. “If there was any way of doing it modestly, I would. However . . .”

  I unbuckled my pants and rolled the waist down several inches. I peeled back the tape that held gauze in place at the top of my buttock. I held my shirt up as I half turned and let Samuel see the results of what had happened the night before.

  He made no comment.

  I patted the gauze back in place, pressed the tape against

  my skin, tucked my shirt in, and rebuckled my pants.

  “You’ve seen that before, haven’t you?” I said. “A crown of thorns.”

  Samuel stood from his recliner and set his Bible on his desk. “That’s a difficult question for me to answer.”

  “I know,” I said. “Especially if the answer is yes. Because then you would be violating someone’s confidence.”

  “Nick, I’ve already done my best to see if it was possible to discuss this matter with you, and the men involved were strongly opposed.”

  “Could you do this? I’m going to tell you what happened last night. I’ll leave the office. Call this person and tell him what I’ve told you. See if that changes his mind. I just want to know if this is what happened to him.”

  “I’ll call,” Samuel answered. “But I can make no promises for what he will allow me to say.”

  **

  “We did it,” Retha said. “We did it!”

  Angel was pushing her in her wheelchair down the sidewalk on a street outside the hospital. The sunshine felt so good and Retha was so happy to be back with Billy Lee, she didn’t notice her pain anymore.

  “We sure did,” Angel said. “The next thing we got to do is get you to that hotel down by the river.” Angel pointed. Their destination was less than ten blocks away. “You can rest there and decide what you want to do next.”

  “I don’t have much money,” Retha said.

  “I got some,” Angel said. “I want to give it to you and Billy Lee as a present.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. And I will. This guy Nick gave me a bunch to help out me and Maddie, and I guess I can give some of it to you. Should be enough to get you and Billy Lee bus tickets, too.”

  “Thank you, Jesus,” Retha said. “Thank you.” She frowned briefly. She’d meant it, thanking Jesus. She had not done it because Junior or anyone else in the church was forcing her to. She felt a lot of joy and it seemed natural to want to share it with Jesus. But that was a direct contradiction to how mad she was at him. Retha wasn’t able to think much about it at that moment.

  Billy Lee gurgled again, loud enough to be heard from under his blanket on Retha’s lap. Retha picked him up and hugged him close, crooning his favorite lullaby.

  In her joy in the sunshine, Retha didn’t notice
a vehicle follow slowly from the hospital parking lot, a new black Cadillac Escalade with smoked dark windows, a recent acquisition of the Glory Church of the Lamb of Jesus, driven at this moment by Elder Jeremiah.

  **

  “He wasn’t in, Nick,” Samuel said, joining me barely a minute after I stepped into the cool and quiet dimness of the sanctuary of the church. “But I expect a call back very soon. I’ll be able to hear the phone from here.”

  “Thank you, Samuel.”

  We stood only a few feet apart. Ahead, up on the wall behind the pulpit, was a wooden cross.

  “Two thousand years,” Samuel said, knowing where my focus was directed. “That’s a lot of time for his message to become a tool of oppression.”

  “Oppression,” I answered, “is a political term. It sounds strange, coming from you. Didn’t Jesus avoid the politics of his day and address his efforts toward the heavenly kingdom?”

  “Exactly. But the oppressors don’t care. The Bible’s like anything else good that God’s given us. It can be misused tremendously. It wasn’t that long ago that the oppressors used the Bible to argue for slavery. Our Western culture is based on a biblical interpretation to use the environment as we see fit. And plenty use the Bible to argue a woman’s place in the world.”

  “It has given them great power,” I agreed, “being able to argue that God is on their side.”

  “Wrong!” Samuel’s voice was so sharp, I snapped my head

  to look at him. “The Bible gives them no power. They begin with power and use their interpretation of the Bible to enforce it. The powerless aren’t in a position to do anything about the interpretation, for they aren’t allowed to disagree. That comes with being powerless. Simple as that. It wasn’t the slaves who ended slavery. But it wasn’t the Bible that kept them as slaves.”

  His voice gentled. “This is something I’ve fought all my life, Nick. But it isn’t a fight I can fight with the weapons of the oppressors. All I can do is follow the example of Jesus. He didn’t call forth the crowds to overturn the corrupt religious establishment or the Roman occupation. No sir. Jesus was always concerned with what we should do to take our place in the heavenly kingdom. Looking back, he had the right priority, for what he preached is still with us, long after the Romans and the corrupt religious establishment he fought have gone. It was simple folks believing and living according to that belief that changed things.”

  I gestured at my back. “You’re telling me I shouldn’t stop the men who did this?”

  “I’m telling you that stopping them and a hundred like them isn’t going to do much good if your own heart isn’t right. You can spend your whole life fighting for Jesus, Nick, but in the end it’s going to be the love in your life that matters. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 13.”

  The phone rang from his office.

  “Think about your life, Nick. You’ve taken from God by accepting a faith in his love. But what are you giving of yourself? To anyone?”

  Samuel patted me on the shoulder and shuffled toward the ringing of his phone.

  **

  From behind bushes that screened the view of his car from Retha and Angel and Billy Lee, Elder Jeremiah accelerated out of an alley and jammed the brakes to stop on the sidewalk, blocking

  the forward progress of Retha’s wheelchair. The bumper of the Escalade narrowly missed the wheelchair as it settled on its springs. Elder Jeremiah was out of the car and in front of the wheelchair before Retha or Angel could react.

  With his black suit, pale skin, dark beard and dark hair, he was a tall specter suddenly appeared in sunshine. Retha stared at him in horror, Angel with a clutch of cold fear. Angel told herself the giant had never seen her before. That she knew him but he didn’t know her.

  Elder Jeremiah took advantage of their temporary paralysis. He scooped Billy Lee from Retha’s hands. “You want this baby,” he said in a low voice, “you’re gonna have to get in the truck and stay with him.”

  He spun around, taking Billy Lee with him. He vaulted back into the truck behind the steering wheel, then lowered the front passenger window directly in front of the wheelchair. “Back door’s open,” he said, leaning across Billy Lee where he’d set him down on the new leather of the front seat. “You’ve got five seconds to get in or I’m gone with your baby.”

  “I got to go,” Retha said to Angel. “I got to go. I can’t leave Billy Lee.” She struggled out of her wheelchair.

  “Not without me,” Angel said. She jumped into the backseat with Retha. Much as she feared the man, Retha and Billy Lee needed help. In her backpack, she had the stun gun. She’d use it when she could.

  “Who’s this?” Elder Jeremiah demanded as he gunned the Cadillac into a traffic opening. He had tilted his rearview mirror to keep an eye on the two in the backseat.

  “Grace Louise,” Angel said. She sat on the passenger side, with Retha directly behind Elder Jeremiah. “I’m Retha’s friend. You better stop and let us out.”

  “I’m letting you out at the next light,” Elder Jeremiah answered. “This business is none of yours.”

  “Good,” Angel said. “It will give me a chance to scream for police. Plus, I’ll have a chance to get your license plate. So maybe you oughta let Retha and the baby go with me.”

  “Changed my mind.” Elder Jeremiah hit the electric locks and engaged the child safety button to prevent them from disengaging the locks. “It’s why I got the baby in the front and you in the back. So’s you won’t try nothing foolish. Including jumping out at the next light.”

  Retha hadn’t said a word. She was just staring down at her lap in total defeat.

  “Tracking you was as easy as shining deer,” Elder Jeremiah continued. He rarely spoke in the presence of his older brother, content to let him do the talking. So away from him, he talked freely, as if to make up for his voluntary muteness around Shepherd Isaiah. “The fool you gave Billy Lee to called the house looking for you. Elder Mason took his number, and Shepherd Isaiah put a private detective after him, so it didn’t take long to put all

  of this together. Imagine our surprise when we found out that the fool had taken a baby to the hospital. Shepherd Isaiah sent me there to wander around like I had official preacher business and sure enough, there was Billy Lee. I knew you’d get there sooner or later.”

  They were off Calhoun Street and onto the bridge over the Ashley, heading away from Charleston, retracing the route that Retha had walked in agony two nights earlier.

  “All I had to do was wait and watch. Thought you was smart stealing him away, didn’t you? Well, it didn’t work. I’m bringing you back home to Junior where you belong.”

  “Mister, if she don’t want to go, this is kidnapping,” Angel said in the absence of a protest by Retha. She didn’t dare use the stun gun while the man was driving. “And I’m her witness. So stop this car and let us out.”

  “Kidnapping? It’s the will of the Lord Jesus that a wife belongs to her husband and the church. She’s a lost sheep and I’m taking her back to the flock.”

  “Retha?” Angel asked, an edge of uncertainty in her voice. “Say something here. Retha?”

  **

  “I’ve got your answers,” Samuel said.

  He’d found me in the sanctuary, staring at the front of the church, thinking about what he’d said to me.

  “He won’t let me share his name, but he said it was okay for me to tell you it happened in the same way.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That’s all I needed to know. That it was the same people behind the branding. Someday I hope you’ll be able to tell your friend the police have the men who did this. Then he can step forward as a witness and make sure those men are punished.”

  “Whoever they are, Nick,” Samuel said, “stop them. You have the power to do that. Just like it was men and women

  with power who stopped the oppressors who used God’s Word to inflict slavery upon the powerless. But that’s the earthly

  kingdom. Remember to find you
r place in the heavenly kingdom, too.”

  **

  I rang the buzzer at the address that Jubil had decided in the end to give me. The house was only four blocks from where Angel lived, no different in weather-beaten boarding and sagging doorframes from the houses on each side.

  What was different, however, was a security setup that would rival any half-million-dollar home. I noticed a small video camera with its unblinking round eye focused on the steps that led up to the door. Bold decals proclaimed the eternal vigilance of a local security company. And after about a minute’s delay,

  I heard the sliding of one bolt, then another, then another and another. Finally, the door swung open.

  The black man peering downward at me might have been anywhere from his late teens to early thirties. His storklike skinniness matched an angular face that was hidden by dark glasses and a nylon ball cap, with the tight curls of his hair elevating the cap well off his skull so that it seemed to float above his head.

  “Guthrie Klingman?” I said.

  “Don’t bother—” he waved away my handshake—“I don’t do social contracts.”

  “I’m–”

  “Nicholas Barrett,” he said. Not coldly, but with no smile either. I nodded, surprised he knew.

  He read my face correctly.

  “If I didn’t know your face,” he said, “the door would still

  be closed.” He looked both directions, blinking at the light of day. “And I don’t talk with the door open either.” He pointed inside.

  I stepped past him. Behind me, he slid all the bolts back into place.

  The windows had been covered on the inside with tinfoil—

  a poor man’s drapery, but very effective for privacy. The front room was dim and smelled of stale cigarettes and cat urine. I understood the source when I noticed a thin Siamese scratching sand in a litter box at the end of the hallway. It darted away, and

  I saw dozens of cigarette butts in the sand, as if thrown there from the nearby working bench.