by Ted Minkinow
An ink print of a three-story building covered most of that side. The various banners attached to the building read, in combination, “T. Lilienthal, Photographic Establishment, 102 Poydras St. New Orleans.” She flipped the photograph over, and soaked in the image.
A dark, full head of hair was oiled to a shine and combed to the back. Evenly spaced eyes stared—potential energy of nuclear fission—into the camera lens. She saw a younger version of Tom with the same hard “I’ve seen more than anyone should ever see” edge to an otherwise handsome face.
“OK,” she glared into both of their eyes. “If this is some kind of joke you two organized last night then…”
Tom raised a hand, “Cassie, I swear…”
“You better,” she said, though she saw the shock in Jeremiah’s eyes. This leap of faith would take more than subtle nudge. But she had seen this man before. Yesterday…In the bedroom. No way would she let Tom and his pal know about that.
Cassandra returned the photograph to Tom, “So who is this person anyway?”
Tom smiled. “Later. Let’s let Jeremiah finish his story.”
So Jeremiah continued. He described how the man pulled a letter from his pocket and read it several times. He detailed the table with its secret hiding place.
“The guy kept looking over his shoulder like he expected some sort of fight. Oddest part,” Jeremiah slowed the tempo, “was after he hid the letter, and before he vamoosed, I’d swear he took the time to look me squarely in my eyes.”
“Why do you think he’d do that?” asked Cassandra.
Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders.
“How about the Ray Bradbury answer,” said Tom.
Cassandra smiled, though she felt more like crying. “Let’s hear it,” she said.
“Let’s assume this is all really happening.”
“And you were about to assume it isn’t?” said Jeremiah. Everyone snickered, one of those nervous-energy types that blow from the nose. Tom continued.
“You asked who this person was,” he looked at Cassandra, “he’s my great-great uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson Brewton. His parents built this place.”
“I’ll run with this,” said Cassandra. “Let’s say something is trying to communicate.” They were both listening to her and she kind of wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
“And?” asked Jeremiah.
“Well,” she said, “maybe it is not he who is trying to pass the message.”
Tom said, “How can you say that Cassie?”
At least they aren’t laughing at me. Out loud she said, “Jeremiah said that he had the letter in his pocket, right?”
Tom nodded.
“Well then the message must have been for him…not from him.”
“I follow your logic,” Jeremiah said, “but help me understand why the difference matters.”
“What it means is that there is someone else involved.”
Silence.
“He read the letter a number of times because it held something of immediate importance. He hid the letter because he did not want the information or the author’s identity, or perhaps both, falling into the hands of whoever it was that chased him.”
“Makes sense,” said Tom. “To extend your line of reasoning, we can assume that Brewton wants us in on something important; something that either took place or should have taken place.”
Cassandra nodded, then added, “Or your pal Jeremiah just had the granddaddy of all coincidental dreams.”
“Don’t think so Miss Cassie,” Jeremiah said and pointed back at the table.
They saw something both startling and amazing. The letters still sat in the column, neatly circled by the ribbon. But the bundle had managed to shed one of its members. A single envelope now lay on top of the rest, outside the ribbon’s fold.
“Is there a Catholic priest in the house?” Jeremiah said through cupped hands, mimicking a grocery store announcement.
Nobody moved.
“Torch, ah, you didn’t mention anything about poltergeists when I spoke to you the other night.”
“That’s because you didn’t mention anything about coming down for a visit.”
“This Laurel and Hardy act is cute,” Cassandra said. “Why don’t we open the letter?”
Tom nodded and made for the letter with the speed of a man groping for an angry snake rattling out of sight under the porch.
“Mind doing the honors, Cassie?”
She accepted the letter and they could all see it was not addressed. The envelope unfolded into a single sheet of paper on which the message was written. Cassie examined script that flowed in straight, artistic rows. Vast decorative sweeps offset a tight feminine hand.
She cleared her throat and read aloud:
My Darling,
Two frantic weeks since last word from you. I pray earnestly each moment on earth finds you safe. But that I could say my dear love, that all is well. How precious are the times that pass normally, yet when we live them, how less could ever we appreciate them?
I could not in a lifetime of loving you to understand the ills you face. I rue adding to the accumulation, but fiction would betray our honesty. My sweet, there are events; your knowledge of which I am certain is of utmost importance, I fear certain threaten our budding family.
RM has been rooting for information like a hog nosing through a chamber pot. The prey he seeks must surely be you. I am certain he intends harm…for justifications other than good stead with his Yankee employers. Often I glimpse him loitering outside the gates with words crudely inappropriate ready at his lips. I suspect he is the wiser to us.
You must believe when I say RM portends a greater depravity, one that we have discussed at length and that you have steadfastly denied. Why does it choose these troubled times to release unholy filth? There are some aspects of this abomination to which I am more intimate than it would desire.
Please listen without chiding. I do not understand why I see more than others; I just know more exists to be seen. Of this you must be certain. This knowledge shall be the mortar for our defense, and perhaps also our salvation.
Know my love that our adversary may be impervious to defeat. We face a double-edged sword. It is the primal apostasy that both creates and, I pray, coupled with love makes vulnerable.
I beg you, darling, to believe and to ponder. Surely God will provide the answer.
All of my love,
S
“No,” Jeremiah broke the silence.
“What do you mean no?” Tom said.
“I mean no, you’re not putting me in the middle of some crazy, couldn’t be true horror flick.”
Cassandra smiled at the stab for humor, and understood at least one of the reasons Tom held his friend in such high esteem.
“Jeremiah,” her smile remained, “I wouldn’t dive into that horror flick theory…” She would have waxed on about physical sciences, mathematics, probabilities and statistics, coincidences and every other theoretical reason to justify ignoring that ticklish sensation across her back, but Jeremiah interrupted in a falsely friendly tone.
“Wouldn’t dive? Sister, as far as I can tell we’re already up to our necks. Somebody needs to wake up and smell the JP4.”
“That’s jet fuel,” Tom said.
Sister. She wished Jeremiah would have used any other word; though she knew she couldn’t avoid it forever.
“Why don’t we go downstairs,” Tom said.
They did, and to Cassandra’s dismay, Tom brought the old letter.
CHAPTER 63
Tuesday, July 17, 5:45 pm, Hattie Jackson’s House, Vienna, Alabama
At least Hattie’s potato salad seemed impervious to evil. She would need to rally sufficient energy to set the chicken frying and butter beans boiling…though Hattie thought she could fix the recipe on autopilot.
Dimming echoes from the evening sun whispered that the day would soon fade as Hattie mixed her batter. That task complete, she washed and cut two chickens an
d while expert fingers moved over the birds Hattie gazed out the window over the sink.
She paused for a moment to inspect her hands, knowing what she would see without needing to look. She didn’t always look so old. She remembered the night decades earlier when she fixed the same dinner under similar circumstances. In those days she couldn’t fry enough chicken to satisfy Jerome…though wasn’t that more their private joke than the truth? Hattie couldn’t remember for sure.
They ate one meal a day together, sometimes two...and always Nana Sally was there. On that last day the rendezvous slipped a couple of hours; an adjustment sufficient for Jerome to handle closing down the grocery store alone…because Leland Graves had scared Hattie away.
“Chopping chicken while Rome burns,” she said to her reflection. For all the wisdom of her long life, she could not identify a more vital activity. She had to be ready when Tommy and his friends arrived, and that meant more than cold potato salad, sweet tea, vinegar slaw, and hot chicken. She would share a secret tonight, one hidden for the better part of a century.
But before her guests arrived, Hattie would receive an unexpected visitor.
Date: Undefined, Time: Undefined, Copper Gulch
1
Tilbury did not know where he was…how long he’d been there…or how he arrived. He did know his physical makeup returned to the Corporal Tilbury of his Vietnam days and that the geography of “here” rivaled an acid trip on a time machine—with blurs of past and present melding into a psychedelic reality.
His new universe encompassed a few acres dotted with dilapidated share cropper’s cabins. When he moved away from those huts, the land became a collage of rice paddies and the red clay of Alabama until identifiable earth melted into dark nothingness. The terrain became a metaphor for his consciousness as it slipped into confusion and regained footing at the reset point…the shack.
Marlin made this trip—from the shack to the boundary and back—two times before he tired of the hocus-pocus. He sat on the porch and knew the wait would not last long.
“So Corporal Tilbury,” the singular salutation for Marlin, “I require a special mission.”
Though he saw with but one set of eyes, Marlin’s brain processed the data through multiple and very different filters. In one mental corner stood the mousy janitor paralyzed with fear. The twenty-year old warrior coexisted in the other. This Corporal Tilbury smirked at the NVA officer’s baloney.
2
Leland Graves recognized the janitor’s limitations and remained undecided as to the permanence of this new relationship.
A shadow crossed Leland Graves’s thoughts…a furtive blip that looked a lot like the little janitor. He swatted the thought like a human would a pesky but harmless gnat. The odds of miscalculation were less than zero.
Tuesday, July 17, 5:51 pm, Hattie Jackson’s House, Vienna, Alabama
Hattie closed her eyes…hoping the mechanics of lid movement could clear her brain. She thought about Tommy and his friends. Strength in numbers clichés considered, Hattie wondered if she could really expect relief from sharing the secret…or if she and her sick heart risked isolation from those she loved.
She put down the knife. Not my Tommy…not in a million years. No matter how insane the whole story sounded to him, Tom Brunson would stand beside her.
How often will he visit me in the loony bin?
The doorbell rang and an odd surety glimmered in the brief warning of black ice on a midnight road: Leland Graves waits on the other side of that door. Breathing grew difficult and Hattie gasped through dizziness that blurred her vision. She reached for the knob—could not stop herself—and with an effort turned laborious by dread, pulled the door open. A sliver of porch light found its way through the slit and her eyes struggled to focus on the figure outside.
“Evening Miss Hattie.”
She recognized the voice but her mind failed to conjure a face.
“Sorry to ask, but do you mind if I come in for just a few minutes, I’d like to ask a question or two.”
“Where’s my manners,” she said, but was certain Warren Anderson could see through her bravado. “Of course you come right in and let Aunt Hattie fix you a cup of coffee.”
“I’d appreciate it, Miss Hattie.” Warren followed her into the house and sat down at the kitchen table. Supper preparations were evident. “If you’d like me to come back another time,” he said, but that was as far as he got.
Hattie raised her eyebrows and he quit speaking. She placed a cup of coffee in front of him, poured milk into a creamer, put out the sugar bowl, and sat down.
“What is it you want to ask me?”
Warren seemed thankful that Hattie broke the ice.
“See, Miss Hattie, I was thinking that it might be beneficial to fill in some blanks regarding Marlin Tilbury.”
“What do you mean?” she said, though she knew what the Chief was after.
“This guy is popping up all over…and with what has been happening around here for the last few days.”
Hattie nodded.
Warren paused for a sip. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why he seems,” and Hattie thought he was going to say, “like he’s involved,” but instead she heard, “he’s so odd.”
CHAPTER 64
Tuesday, July 17, 5:52 pm, Brewton-Brunson Mansion, Vienna, Alabama
1
Movies didn’t hold their attention anymore and Jeremiah finally put into words what was on everyone’s mind. “Who is S?”
“Don’t know,” said Tom. “But I know someone who might.”
“Aunt Hattie,” said Cassandra.
Waning sunlight leaked into the living room to wash colors into dim metaphors of darker thoughts running through Tom’s mind. It was not every day that you flirted with the concept of ghosts…and as minutes elapsed since whatever happened in the attic, his scant foundation of acceptance began to crack
“Maybe,” said Tom.
“So,” said Jeremiah, “S might be important, but we have no clue about who it might be.”
Cassandra broke in. “Are you sure that who she is…is important?”
“Wait a minute, Cassie,” Tom said, “how do you know S is a she?”
Cassandra smiled. “Two things.” She had their attention. “First, handwriting.”
“Yea,” said Jeremiah, “girls can tell that.”
“Yes they can. And secondly,” she grinned at Tom, “if your ancestor received this kind of a letter from another man, well.”
Jeremiah burst out laughing.
Tom ignored his friend. “You said her identity might not be important. That’s different from what you claimed in the attic.”
Cassandra nodded and waited for the question to follow.
“Why?”
“Well, I’m certain that we all might be interested in S’s identity. But I think what could be more important is what S is describing. S is frantic, and it appears that it is not for the reason we might expect.”
“Which is?” Jeremiah played the straight man.
“The Civil War of course,” said Cassandra.
Tom said, “You mean the war between the Yankees and the Americans.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway, she made two important points.” Cassandra held out her hand and Tom handed her the letter.
“There was this RM character. She thought he meant bad news. Then she mentions an apostasy.” Cassandra looked up. “Does anyone know what the word means?”
Jeremiah and Tom looked at each other, and then back at Cassandra.
“Why don’t you tell us,” said Jeremiah.
“Not sure myself, but I think it has something to do with turning away from your religious beliefs.”
“Sounds good to me,” Tom said. “But let’s say we’ve got some kind of ghost hanging out here, why would he want us to know about the religious problems of his girlfriend from a century and a half ago?”
“That, I couldn’t say.” She shivered. “How
long has your air conditioner had a thyroid problem?”
Tom realized that he felt uncomfortable too, and that the excitement shrouded the sudden coldness from the forefront of his brain. Cassie’s complaint broke that spell.
“I’m beginning to feel a bit preserved myself,” Jeremiah spoke while rubbing his hands and blowing into them. “Think you might be able to provide some relief here?”
“I’ll check the thermostat,” said Tom.
2
The entity moved toward the people gathered in the sitting room…a familiar structure. Much of the disarray resolved itself into tenuous order in the last several hours. Still, unanswered questions numbered many. One pledge it made without reserve, there would be no second failure.
The black one demonstrated courage the previous evening. And due to his agile mind, they possessed the letter. The note contained the greater measure of clues, the same information that it once considered contrived eccentricities of a beautiful woman.
Tuesday, July 17, 6:03 pm, Hattie Jackson’s House, Vienna, Alabama
“Let me be straight with you, Miss Hattie,” Warren paused to collect his thoughts, “Tilbury is a suspect in Jolly Rogers’s murder.” He saw a protest flare in Hattie’s eyes. “We had him in for questioning.” Warren decided to go ahead and reveal his cards.
“Miss Hattie, we have no evidence to link Tilbury...it’s the little bits that point to him.”
Hattie remained silent.