Secret of the Satilfa

by Ted M. Dunagan

  “Me neither,” I told him. “In fact, if we get out of this mess I’ll go to your church with you.”

  “Hey,” Fred spoke up quickly while the deputies were out of the car and preparing to open our doors. “Don’t let ’em make you say anything that is not so! They’ll probably separate us and ask a lot of questions. Just pretend it’s a bad dream and it’ll be over soon.”

  My brother was correct, they did separate us. They took me into a room with no windows and left me locked up in there by myself for what seemed like forever. It just had a little table with cigarette burns all along the edge of it and two cold metal chairs.

  I was sitting in one of them shivering from the cold and from fear when the sheriff came in and closed the door behind him. He pulled out the other chair, breathed a heavy sigh and deposited his huge bulk into it. He didn’t say anything while he took a Camel cigarette out of the packet and tapped the end of it on the table before he put it into his mouth.

  He pulled out a Zippo lighter from his pocket, flipped the lid up with his thumb, and twirled the tiny wheel against the flint causing it to explode into a small flame, which he put to the end of his Camel and began to inhale deeply.

  The smoke twirled around and about his face and floated in the air between us. I was scared real bad, but tried to remember the words of wisdom my brother had given before they separated us. I decided to concentrate on them and do like he said, just pretend it was a bad dream. I also wished my daddy was home right then.

  “You remember where that money is yet, boy,” the sheriff said as he took a long drag on his Camel.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I was just trying to still my trembling knees beneath the table.

  “We know you boys found that money. We heard y’all been traipsing all up and down that creek. Now if you’ll just tell us where it is, we’ll take you home and you can sleep in your own bed. Otherwise, you gonna be sleeping in one of my jail cells tonight.”

  “I don’t know where no money is, sheriff. We looked for it just like a lot of folks did, but we didn’t find it,” I told him in a trembling voice.

  “Listen, boy,” he spat out at me. “I done talked to them two bank robbers and they both say you boys probably got the money. Now you tell me what y’all done gone and done with it!”

  Being accused of doing something wrong that you know you didn’t do is a bad thing, but being accused by a person in authority is even worse, especially when they make it evident they think you are a liar.

  I told the sheriff repeatedly that I had no idea where the money was, and he finally stormed out of the room, and I heard him out in the hallway as he gave instructions to his staff. “I want y’all to lock ’em up. Put them in separate cells.”

  It was about the worst thing that had ever happened to me in my life when a jailer led me down a dim hallway with steel doors with little narrow slots in them to my left and right. He stopped in front of one of them, inserted his key and swung it open. Numbly, I followed his slight push and walked into the steel cage and heard the metallic clicking as the door slammed shut behind me.

  It was dark inside the cell with the only light coming from the moonlight through a barred window up high on the wall. Looking down, I could see the dark outlines of a narrow bed. I reached down and touched the rough blanket on it and marveled at the contrast between it and the soft, smooth quilt on my bed at home.

  I felt the cold sinking into my bones, but I refused to get under that alien blanket. I just lay down on top of it and curled up into a ball, tucking my cold hands between my thighs.

  To go to sleep I used the memory Poudlum had taught me during the misery of the cotton field of how to take your mind to a finer place while your body suffered. I concentrated on imagining I was safe at home, warm and secure under my momma’s quilt, and soon I found a peaceful sleep, even though my body was incarcerated in a miserable place.

  I thought I was having another bad dream, but quickly realized it was morning when I heard the metallic click in the door to my cell. When I looked up I could see the light from the morning sun sifting through the bars of the window up above.

  The door swung open and I heard a beautiful sound. It was the voice of my Uncle Curvin. “Son,” he said as he entered and stood over my bed, “are you all right?”

  They took us to a large room, and I was overjoyed to see Fred and Poudlum. What really surprised me was that Mister Alfred Jackson, the lawyer, was there too. He was in a heated argument with the sheriff.

  “You have overstepped the boundaries of your authority, sir, by locking up these young boys!”

  “I’m the law in this county!” the sheriff countered.

  “I doubt you’ll be come next election,” Mr. Jackson almost shouted. “Now, I demand their release, or I’ll initiate legal action against you!”

  Sheriff Crowe sputtered and puffed out his chest, but in the end he relented and said, “You take ’em and get out of my jail.”

  We were all too happy to accommodate him, and Uncle Curvin took us all over to Mr. Jackson’s office, up a long set of steps that led to the floor up on top of the First Bank of Grove Hill, where we all gathered around a big conference table.

  Uncle Curvin began by saying, “I know y’all are all hungry and want to go home, but they’s something Mr. Jackson and I have to tell y’all first.”

  I was so hungry I could have eaten that table with a little blackberry jam on it. We had missed our supper and had no breakfast, but I was willing to listen.

  Mr. Jackson walked into the room with a big sack in his hands. He didn’t say anything, just turned the sack upside down and big bundles of money came tumbling out of it onto the table. “Behold,” he said. “Here’s the money the bank robbers stole.”

  We all just sat there, bug-eyed, wondering what was going on.

  Mr. Jackson began to explain. “Mr. Curvin, a witness to the bank robbery, found the money, boys. But it was your efforts that enabled him to do so. I’ll let him tell you how it happened.”

  We sat there, stunned, but Uncle Curvin didn’t make us wait long.

  “You boys remember that night of the sleet storm when we all took refuge in the hidey hole? I had to get up sometime after midnight to relieve myself and it had stopped sleeting and cleared off. There was a bright moon and I could see so good I decided to take one more look around the Cypress Hole. I been fishing that hole since before you boys got born, and I can cross those shoals above the deep water blindfolded, even if I am a little bit crippled.

  “After I crossed over the creek that night I found that mark on the black gum tree with my flashlight, the one y’all told me about later, then I found the rope and pulled that sack of money out of the water. I brought it back to the hidey hole and was sleeping on top of it when y’all left that morning. After I found out the sheriff had hauled y’all in I took it to Mr. Jackson, and then we came and got y’all out of jail.

  “Sheriff Crowe and his passel of deputies had been keeping a keen eye on me ever since he seen me bring you boys to the trial with me. I suppose he figured we were in cahoots. So I just left the money in the hidey hole until I found out the sheriff had taken y’all, because I knew if him or any one of his deputies caught me with the money, then it wouldn’t never got back to the rightful owners. I didn’t dare tell anyone, including you boys, that I had the money for fear the sheriff would find out.”

  Mr. Jackson began to rake the money back into the sack, and said, “Mr. Curvin has insisted that you three boys get credit for the recovery of the money and receive the five hundred dollar reward. I will notify the bank of the recovery of their funds, and I’ll also notify the newspaper. I feel sure they will want to do a Christmas story on you boys.

  “Christmas day is Wednesday, day after tomorrow. I know you boys want to go home and get some food and rest, but I’ll be needing y’all back right here to
morrow so you can officially turn the money over to the bank while the paper takes a picture and interviews the three of you. Curvin, can you get the boys back here tomorrow about noon so we can put this incident behind us? It would be a good Christmas present for the community and everyone concerned.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Jackson,” my uncle said. “I’ll get them home, get them fed and rested, and talk to their folks and make sure they’re here.”

  “Fine,” Mr. Jackson said as he stood up and shook hands with each of us. He continued, “Now, boys, I know last night was a traumatic experience for you, but take it as a lesson that life isn’t always fair. However, as you are experiencing now, truth and justice always prevails in the end.”

  It was a joyful ride home.

  “You think dey really gon put us in de newspaper, Mister Curvin,” Poudlum asked.

  “I sure do,” Uncle Curvin replied. “That’s what Mr. Jackson said, and I’ll put my money on him anytime.”

  Fred interjected, “Yeah, and everybody is going to know we spent the night in jail. They’ll be calling us jailbirds, but we’ll be rich jailbirds.”

  Just before we dropped Poudlum off at his house he tugged on my shirt sleeve and said, “You ’member what you said?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said if we got out of de mess we wuz in you would go to church wid me.”

  “Yeah, I said that,” I answered.

  “Well?” he asked as he got out of the truck and stood there in the road leading down to his house.

  “I said it and I’ll do it. This Sunday after Christmas I’ll go to your church with you.”

  I could see him grinning there in the road as we pulled away.

  My momma had a fine meal fixed for us when we got home. Uncle Curvin stayed and ate with us while he filled her and Ned in on all the details of the past two days. “I drove over to the Cypress Hole about dark yesterday to see if the boys were catching any fish. Sheriff Crowe and two of his deputies were hauling y’all off just when I got there. So I went on up to Grove Hill and found out they had ’em locked up. I stayed up there, slept all night in my truck, and the first thing this morning I went to see Mr. Jackson. I had the money with me, took it out of y’all’s hidey hole on the way, and y’all know the rest of the story from there.”

  My momma was horrified when she heard the story. “Lord have mercy!” she said. “And all the time I thought they was over on the creek fishing all night instead of being locked up in the jail house by that sorry sheriff. I’ll guarantee he won’t ever be elected again. The colored folks will all be against him too because he put Poudlum in jail with y’all.”

  “Colored folks can’t vote, Momma,” Fred said.

  “No, they can’t,” she said. But they can sure tell white voters what they think.”

  I couldn’t believe the crowd of folks in front of the bank the next morning when we arrived in Grove Hill. After everybody had gathered around, Mr. Jackson called Fred, Poudlum, and me up next to him in front of the bank while some gentleman with the newspaper snapped photos of us.

  Then Mr. Jackson hushed everyone and proceeded to tell the crowd we were heroes, and rightly so, had earned the five hundred dollar reward to be split between us. He went on to say the money would be invested in our names, and by the time we got ready to go to college there would be plenty of money to pay for it.

  I heard him say all the money from the robbery had been recovered except for forty dollars, which he surmised the robbers had probably spent in their efforts to escape.

  I saw Poudlum cut his eyes toward me, but I kept staring straight ahead because I figured two perfectly good pocket knives and two ruined fishing trips were worth at least that amount.

  The festive atmosphere of the occasion slowly faded and people dispersed to go about their business. Even Mr. Jackson finally excused himself when he said to all of us, “Merry Christmas, boys, and let this be still another lesson for y’all—out of everything bad something good always comes.”

  After he was gone, Poudlum asked Uncle Curvin, “Mister Curvin, what you ’spect Mr. Jackson meant by dat?”

  My uncle thought for a few moments before he responded. When he did, I knew he was right. “What I think, boys, is that the bank robbery was bad, but the fact that y’all can all now go to college is good.”

  Poudlum tilted his head back for a moment before he said, “Uh-huh, I ’spect you right about dat, Mister Curvin.”

  After mine and Poudlum’s mommas emerged from the Piggly-Wiggly laden with oranges and nuts for Christmas, we all loaded up and headed back toward home.

  My brother Ned had cut us a Christmas tree and we watched that night as Momma placed some teacakes under it for Santa Claus. I noticed she had a smile on her face like she knew something we didn’t when she shooed us all off to bed.

  The next morning, Christmas Day, I realized she had known something we didn’t after a pair of strong, familiar arms pulled me out of bed, and I received the best possible Christmas present in the world. From all the way across the great Pacific Ocean, and across the continental United States, my daddy had come all the way home to Alabama for Christmas.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Black Angels

  I had never seen a coconut before. It was the largest nut I could ever have imagined, and I quickly found out it was a different kind of nut. It was almost as difficult to crack as a black walnut, but it had delectable juice inside it surrounded by an abundance of sweet meat. It taught me there were many great wonders in the world just waiting for me to discover them.

  But my father had brought us something much more important than coconuts. He had brought us opportunity and hope for a better life through his sacrifices and hard work. He had saved a great deal of money and I knew our lives were about to change.

  Immediately after Christmas we began packing things into the new pickup truck he had driven home. Soon we would be on our way to a new home and my daddy on to his new job with the State of Alabama.

  But first I had a promise to keep. On the Sunday following Christmas Momma starched and ironed my white shirt and I left early walking over to Poudlum’s house.

  Poudlum and his brothers and sisters were all loading onto the back of his daddy’s ancient pickup truck when I arrived. As we rode along, I thought what a stark contrast I must have made, riding along Center Point Road towards Coffeeville with my white face among the dark ones.

  I had seen the outside of the church before when Uncle Curvin and I had picked up Poudlum there, but I had never seen the inside.

  Poudlum escorted me in with his arm draped over my shoulder while colored folks nodded greetings on each side of the aisle, some of them saying, “Hey, Mister Ted.”

  “Tell ’em to quit calling me that, Poudlum,” I whispered to him.

  “But dat’s who you is,” he whispered back.

  I resigned myself to it and slid into a pew with Poudlum. It was as hard as the ones in my church.

  I heard the doors close and it got real quiet inside that church. It was hot, too, and they had fans like we did, squares of hard cardboard with pictures of Jesus on them, stapled to oversized Popsicle sticks. As I cut my eyes around I could see colored faces fanning all around me.

  We didn’t have a choir at my church, but they did at Poudlum’s. They came silently marching in, wearing black robes and hats with lots of flowers in them, and seated themselves in a row of chairs to the left of the pulpit.

  There was no piano or organ; they just began a melodious humming until everyone was completely settled. And then, on some unrecognizable sign, they broke into a song about Jesus, love, salvation, and absolution. The tiny hairs on my arms and neck literally stood on end while they sang “Deep River” and “Steal Away.” They sang like angels, beautiful and haunting like nothing I had ever heard before, like something not from this world.

  The choir
kind of wound down and the preacher took the pulpit. He was a large man, and with a voice to match as it boomed across the congregation and reverberated off the walls when he said, “Praise de Lawd, we fixing to have church here today. If de devil be anywhere close by, he needs to tuck his forked tail twixt his legs and hightail it on out of here, ’cause Jesus is wid us!”

  “Amen, brother!” someone shouted from the back of the congregation. I was shocked when people from all over the congregation began talking back to the preacher. In my church everyone sat quiet and didn’t utter a sound, but not here.

  “Praise Jesus!” someone called out across the aisle, and up in front of me, a lady with a hat as big as a cotton basket cried out, “Amen, tell it brother!”

  It was that way throughout the entire service. Folks would get carried away and participate in the sermon from right out in the church. And that big preacher didn’t seem to mind; in fact, I believe he encouraged their participation.

  But he still dominated the service. He held his large hands up in a signal for silence and said, “Before we gets into de sermon, I want to recognize our visitors.”

  He recognized some folks from over in Georgia who were visiting their family. Next he pointed out some children from down in Mobile who had come up to visit with their grandparents.

  Then, to my horror, he said, “And we got us a special visitor wid us today. He a friend of the Robinsons, and from what I understand is a friend of all us colored folks.”

  He chuckled, and said, “Just look around, he won’t be hard to find. He’s over on de third row next to young Mister Poudlum. Let’s everybody make Mister Ted welcome!”

  Black hands reached out to touch me, pat me on the shoulder, stroke my blond hair, and those who couldn’t reach me called out to me. I was greatly relieved when the preacher said, “And now, the sisters in the choir are going to treat us to their rendition of that old spiritual ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain.’ Everybody join in.”

  Go, tell it on the mountain,