A Matter of Pride

by Jane Gill

  “I was scared to death, sister, just scared to death he was gonna’ ask to take a look in the trunk of that car.” Reverend Parker twisted his hands, still nervous with the memory.

  “So I just start babblin’ and I says, ‘I’m on my way over to Seville. I got to make a house call on a family over there. See, they got a sick baby and, uh, they said they need me to come right away. So, I’m on my way over to Seville, yes, suh. That’s why I is out here so late, you know doin’ the Lord’s business is all. Did I do somethin’ wrong?’ I says. Playin’ the role, you know, playin’ that old role.” He looked at Susan to be sure she understood what he meant. She nodded.

  “So, then he says ‘No, preacher,’ and he takes that cigar out of his mouth and spits off to the side. ‘You didn’t do nothin’,’ he says. ‘I just seen you out here so late and you know, it’s not good for your kind to be out here on the road at night so I had to stop you and see.’ Then he goes on to tell me how sometimes folks out late at night are up to no good and that it was his job to check and see what they’re doin’ out on such a dark night and all.’ So I’m just a noddin’ my head and sayin’ ‘Yassir, yassir,’ over and over and finally he sticks that cigar back in mouth and he tells me to go along and do my business.” He sipped his coffee and found it cold. “You like another cup, Luella?” he asked.

  “Ah, no,” she said almost surprised to be back in the present. “Reverend, that’s really quite a story.”

  “It’s a story that haunts me to this day. It surely does,” he said. “Finally, the Sheriff, he turns and walks back to his car. I’m tryin’ for the life of me to get that key in the ignition but my fingers was shakin’ so bad and I’m just tryin’ to catch my breath, you know? So, when the Sheriff’s big spotlight went out, I rolled up the window. But I figured I’d best wait until he pulled out before I got back on the road myself. So, I set there waitin’ what seemed like forever, and all the while I’m thinkin’ ‘thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus,’ you know? Then, bam! there’s a rap on the window.” When he said ‘bam’ Lu jumped involuntarily.

  “I tell you, I nearly jumped out of my skin,” he said. “And, here was the Sheriff back again! He was no more’n a few inches from my window. So I rolled it back down and he says, ‘Preacher, you need an escort on down to Seville to get to that family?’ I tell you, I couldn’t hardly speak, it was like my voice left me. So, I shook my head ‘no’ and thanked him for the offer, as best I could, and he finally went on back to his car.”

  Lu heard Susan sigh and saw her drain her iced tea glass. The humidity had kicked in, so the outside of the glass was sweaty even though the ice cubes had disappeared.

  “I’m sorry this here’s takin’ me so long to tell,” the preacher apologized. “Probably I should just get to the point, I suppose.”

  “No,” Lu said. “Please don’t apologize. I really want to know everything about that night. It’s not taking too long, not too long at all.”

  “Well after that, why, I come on down Route 17. I was prayin’ like a sinner at the gates of hell itself, I can tell you. My heart was heavy with lies, see?” he said. “Finally, I got over to Brother Nate’s farm, your granddaddy. He didn’t have no phone, so I parked a ways off down the road and walked up to the house. I snuck around back. It was cool out there, and about that time the clouds looked like rain—they just about covered the moon entirely. The bedroom window was open a little bit and I start calling through the window, ‘Brother Nate, Brother Nate,’ and your granddaddy jumped up. I think he was goin’ to get his rifle, you know, so I kept sayin’, ‘It’s me, it’s Reverend Parker.’ Well, the Lord was turnin’ his head away from my lies, I guess, because he seen fit not to let the whole house wake up, and Nate come on outside. I had to tell him the terrible news and how I had his poor little boy in my car.”

  The Reverend’s eyes were damp with tears, but he cleared his throat loudly and continued. “Now, lucky for us, Brother Nate was always up before the sun, so when Sister Mayetta got up that mornin’ and he wasn’t there, I guess she didn’t think too much of it. Leastwise, she never asked anything about it when me and him came on in early that mornin’. We were all dirty. My good shirt and pants were all rumpled. Nate goes and tells her how I’d had a flat tire and he’d come out to help me change it. I don’t know why, but she never asked any questions. She was a good woman, Sister Mayetta was. She just fixed an extra place at the breakfast table and after we washed up, why we all sat down and had breakfast just like nothin’ had happened at all.” The old preacher shook his head and stared at the shine on his black shoes.

  “‘Course, truth was we’d taken little Jerome out and buried him at the old cemetery over by Lake Gore. That was somebody’s old family cemetery, and we sure didn’t have no right to put him there, but it was off the main road, and we didn’t figure anybody would see us out there diggin’ a grave in the middle of the night. That’s what your granddaddy wanted, was to bury him where nobody could find him. He didn’t want Sister Mayetta or your daddy or Sister Pearl to know that little Jerome was beat to death. He wanted me to swear on my Bible not to tell. He said the women couldn’t take no more scares. I surely didn’t want to add to their grief. So I told him I would keep the secret, but I wouldn’t swear on God’s word. I already done told those lies and I wasn’t goin’ to add blasphemy!” the preacher said emphatically.

  Lu nodded, intent on his tale of that dark night a half century ago.

  “You’re certain it was my uncle?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, I was sure then, and I’m sure now,” he said. “And his daddy was sure, too.”

  “Who do you think killed him?” Susan asked.

  The Reverend leaned back in his chair again and stared off into space. “I always suspected it was some renegade fellas. You know, whites. Maybe the Klan or maybe somebody from the turpentine camp found him and tried to beat outta him what he saw at the camp that night and where they could find Sister Pearl. No way to know.”

  “So my father and Miss Pearl didn’t know?”

  “No. So much pain around here in those days, it just seemed like, well, you know, I knew we couldn’t tell no one what we found, so when we buried Jerome, why we buried the secret, and I’m ashamed to say I buried all my lies in that grave with him. I put that night behind me, and I didn’t think about it for years and years,” he confessed.

  “Miss Pearl said she didn’t know anything about all this until a few years ago,” Lu began.

  He stood up on his stork legs, one hand on the porch railing. “You sure you don’t want more coffee?” he asked.

  Lu declined, but she rose and stood beside him, resting her palm in the center of his back.

  “Thank you for telling me this, Reverend,” she said. “It’s important that we know, especially now.”

  “Thank you, for listenin,” he murmured although he didn’t turn to look at her until she saw he’d pulled out a handkerchief and blotted his eyes.

  She saw Susan wipe tears from her own cheeks with the tips of her fingers. She sat down and gave Susan’s hand a tight squeeze. Words weren’t necessary.

  When the old preacher turned around, his handkerchief was still in his hand.

  “Reverend,” Lu began, “what you’re saying is that my father’s brother, my uncle, is in a different cemetery than the rest of the family? He’s not over at the Masonic cemetery?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied softly.

  “I’ll talk to Martin. Maybe we can have him moved over with the rest of the family.”

  “No, I’m afraid you can’t,” the Reverend said, sliding his handkerchief into his back pocket. “It’s way too late for that. See, back after Sister Mayetta passed, when I finally decided to tell your daddy about his brother, why he wanted to do the same thing, bring Jerome home to where the family was. So me, your daddy, and Martin, we drove out there to see if I could remember where the grave was at. But it was already too late.”

  “Martin already knows about this?
” Lu interrupted.

  “Yes, sure, he knows. He knows the whole story,” the Reverend responded as if he just now was suddenly aware that Lu didn’t know what Martin knew.

  “I’m sorry, please go on. What do you mean, it was too late?” she asked.

  “That cemetery’s gone, Luella,” the old man said. “Long gone. When they put in the runway ‘round about out there, Flagler airport—you know the Navy built a airfield out there in 1947. Well, somehow or another, they bulldozed that cemetery. I suppose they didn’t mean to, and I didn’t know nothin’ about it for years. See, I never wanted to go back out there. Never.” He shook his head. “But there’s nothin’ left of those graves out there. Even the ones that had markers got bulldozed under. We couldn’t even get near the spot when we went out. It’s all gone.”

  “Gone? The whole cemetery?” she asked.

  “Yes, been gone for years now,” he said.

  Lu was dumbfounded. After all this time she learned of an uncle she never knew about, and now to have no way, ever, of even honoring his great sacrifice at a gravesite was incomprehensible. She felt like she had to move, stand up, walk, something. Out of habit, she looked at her watch.

  “I know you got to be goin’,” the Reverend said, rising. “I want to thank you for comin’ over here to see me. It was good to see you again.”

  Lu and Susan stood at the same time. Lu took his hands in both of hers. “I’m sorry, Reverend Parker, I didn’t realize the time was speeding by,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for our family.” She put her arms around the lank, old gentleman. “I’m sorry that I stayed away for so many years. If you’ll pardon me for stealing your line, I think I let my pride get in the way for way too long.”

  The old preacher matched her embrace and held her tight for a long moment, his face warm against her temple. “I know, sister,” he whispered. “It’s all right, now. It’s gonna’ be all right.”

  When he finally released her, she struggled to gain her voice. “Will you give my best to your wife?” she asked.

  “I will when I see her,” he responded, nodding. “She’s been gone some time now, but I’m sure I’ll be seein’ her here pretty soon.”

  Lu could’ve kicked herself. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

  Susan gave the preacher a long hug and again swiped at her eyes. His lips brushed her forehead, “Remember,” he said. “Remember to tell the stories.”

  Fresh tears welled up as she nodded.

  That afternoon when their plane lifted into the sky, Lu saw the beautiful Florida landscape drop away. From the window of the plane she watched as the green spaces grew smaller and the subdivisions and golf courses spread over the land. Her heart was heavy with the echo of her father’s words.

  She turned to Susan, “My father loved Florida. He loved the farm, the sky, the birds and the creeks. In my head I can still hear him saying, ‘This farm’s been in this family for three generations because we stayed right here and we took care of the land! I work this farm like I do so someday you and Martin can have something.’

  “I didn’t understand that for a long time, but I think now I do. Finally, I think I do. He knew Florida was built on shifting sand, like life itself, and someday the land that was his life, the land he loved so much, would disappear. And I think he was afraid that we might forget that it was the land that fed us, that kept us all together, and that without it we might forget who we were and maybe disappear ourselves. And he was right.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  When Zach met them at the airport, he was pretty excited. “Tomorrow morning you need to call Dwight right away,” he said. “He called and left a message that he had some interesting news about the farm.”

  The next morning Lu could barely wait until after 9 a.m. to call Dwight. “I just got home last night, and Zach said you left a message,” she said when he came on the line.

  “Well, we’ve got some really good news. The abstract I ordered on the farm shows a transaction to one Elijah Stovall back in 1867.”

  “That was awfully fast, wasn’t it?” Lu interrupted.

  “Actually, I ordered it before you came down,” he confessed. “I knew you’d be anxious to have as much information as you could. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, that’s great. Really,” she said, delighted.

  “It appears your great-grandfather was one of a very few lucky blacks who were able to buy land under the Southern Homestead Act of 1866,” he said.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Well, as my wife so kindly informed me, it was referred to as the Negro Homestead Bill. Following the war between the states, the purpose was to create opportunities for blacks, and whites, too, to purchase confiscated and abandoned lands.”

  Lu heard the lawyer in Dwight’s voice as he went on. “It was very short-lived because it had a lot of opposition. People said it was a bill passed by radicals and that allowed the Negro to purchase his own land. The feeling was it would break apart what was left of the labor system in the south and, in a short time, the amount of Negro labor available for harvesting cotton, rice and sugar would be reduced by over half.

  “Just a second, Lu, I want to look at my notes again.”

  She heard him turning pages, and then he came back on the line. “Now, the thing was, there was a Freedmen’s Bureau that might have been involved. They were also short-lived, only from about 1866 to 1869 or 1872, I don’t remember now exactly what Faith told me.” He chuckled.

  “So, my great-grandfather would have gotten the land from them?” Lu asked.

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “The Freedmen’s Bureau was charged with distributing land, often in 40 acre tracts. They didn’t necessarily purchase the land and sell it, but often facilitated land transfers. In other words, they used an agent to transfer the land. I guess they were able to help get land set aside for colored schools and to start communities, too. But, if you want to know more about that, you’ll have to talk to Faith or get on the internet, I’m not a reliable source on history.”

  “You can bet my Susan will jump on that!” Lu said. “But we still don’t have a deed, right?”

  “That’s why I wanted to call you right away,” he said. “Look, finding an old handwritten deed—I’m sure it would have been hand-written—would be nice for you and your family, but it’s not necessary. It’s a matter of public record that your great-grandfather owned the farm, and that’s what we need.”

  She was elated. “That’s really great news. I’ll let Martin know right away.”

  “Don’t hang up, yet,” Dwight said. “I need to ask you what you found out about any uncle you might have had. We have to clear up the possibility of any other heirs to the farm.”

  “Oh,” Lu said. “Well, I saw Reverend Parker before we left. Apparently, well,” she hesitated, his story still haunting her. “Apparently back in1946 he was called to identify the body of a young boy who’d been murdered—and it was my uncle.”

  “Will he swear to that, do you think?” Dwight asked.

  “I’m certain of it,” she said. “I have his address and phone number if you need to contact him.”

  “Absolutely,” Dwight said. “I’ll get a hold of him right away.”

  “Dwight, have you thought any more about what we should do about Miss Pearl?” she asked.

  “Actually, now that we have the abstract, I’m ordering a survey and I’ll go out and see Miss Pearl and Jerome to see exactly where the four corners of their land is located,” he said. “Once we have that, you and Martin and I can talk about putting that land in a trust or giving her and Jerome what’s called a ‘life estate’ in that five acres. Of course, you could just quitclaim it to her and Jerome outright, too. You all will have to make the decision of what to do, but I’m confident something can be worked out. Once we have the survey back, I’ll e-mail you and Martin some options to consider, and then we’ll talk.”

  “That’s wonderful,”
she said. “You have no idea what a relief this is.”

  “Yeah, I do. Faith was dancing all around the living room when I told her. She’s so happy for you,” he said.

  “Give her my best.” Lu chuckled.

  She hung up the phone and immediately punched Martin’s number in. She wanted to share the good news. There was no one home, so she left a message telling him that Dwight found a record of the land purchase so finding the actual deed wasn’t necessary. She said that Dwight would send a letter explaining everything. A part of her wanted to talk to Martin and relate what she had learned on her trip from Miss Pearl and from Reverend Parker, but another part of her was relieved that no one was home. She wasn’t quite ready to speak to Martin in person just yet. She wanted to digest the stories she’d heard. Stories that, because Martin had been loyal to his family and his roots, he already knew.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was early Sunday afternoon when the phone rang. Zach was still out on the golf course and Lu was looking forward to a couple more hours to herself. She had been putting off placing a call to Martin and was a little resentful that he hadn’t bothered to return her call about the deed.

  “Hello,” she said. There was no response, but it sounded like someone was there. “Hello?” she said again.

  “Hello, Aunt Luella?” a child’s voice asked hesitantly.

  “Yes,” Lu said. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Ashanti,” the little girl responded.

  Lu’s heart took a leap of delight. In the past few weeks Ashanti had come to mind often. Lu even entertained the idea that once all this was over she might have the opportunity to get to know her little niece better. She so resembled Lu’s mother that she ached to put her arms around her.