As I stood and dropped the coat on the back of my chair, Carson reached down by his bottle of Jack and lifted a side-by-side stagecoach 12 gauge in the air, “I ain’t nervous if you ain’t.” The old redbone hound momentarily lifted his head again when Carson clunked the shotgun back down on the porch.
“You don’d sound like you from New York. I’s in the Army stationed at Fort Totten back fore the Big War.”
“I’m from Memphis, but I work in New York City now. I’ve been asked to investigate Dr. DeCamp’s involvement in the death of a Lumbee Indian fifty, or so, years ago.” I avoided mentioning gold bullion and was piecing my mission together on the fly.
His dark eyes clamped onto mine, “Investigate?”
“Well, it’s also a personal matter.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair. I thought, ‘That’s it. I’ve worn out my welcome’. I turned to thank Doris for bringing me out there when she mouthed the words, ‘He likes you’.
About then, the old brown possum stirred and took another pull on his Mason jar. He pushed off with the toes of his boots and got a slow rocking motion going, “The first time in my life in New York City, while having a look around, I saw on one set of buildings what I recognized as ancient Tuscarora holy symbols. I thought to myself, there must be a lost segment of my Indian tribe in New York. The symbol that convinced me of that is what the Jews know as the Menorah and the buildings I saw were synagogues. What do you think of that, Woody?”
I was too slow in answering, so he continued, “Fust off, my own pappy, Mr. Washington Revels, worked for Ol Doc DeCamp in that mechanical shop he had over Saddletree way, by the Bear Swamp. Doc come back from wartime all munked up. You knowed he uz blinded in one eye and had some kinda palsy that made him bout quit doctorin.”
Carson reached for his bottle of Jack and filled his pint jar. If he’d noticed I was dry, he didn’t let on. At least, he’d slowed down to sipping the liquor.
“But Old Doc loved all things mechanical; and my father was a good mechanic, too. I don’t know how he arranged to open one of the first Indian Motocycle stores in the country, but I remember how he enjoyed the idea of selling them in Robeson County. He had customers from three states. Doc put up a real nice two-story brick building on his property on Rennart Road. That’s a few miles north of Lumberton off the old Fayetteville Road. Doris probably already told you; eventually he donated a couple of acres to enlarge the nearby Oxendine Cemetery. My father’s buried there. When Doc moved his family back to New York in 1913, he gave the other fifty acres of his land to the Croatan Normal School, which is now Pembroke State College. He donated the property with the stipulation that the school would keep it for their own use in perpetuity.”
Carson sipped his Jack and relaxed into his memories, taking breaks to inspect the pine trees or check on his hound dog. I kept glancing at Doris so I wouldn’t miss any translation tips.
“Doc DeCamp had a nice house on the property, not far from his shop. He lived there with his wife and two children in 1907, the year you’re interested in. They had an older daughter named Audrey, but she was away at school, in Tennessee I think. Amos, a little bit younger than I, and a daughter named Rosalee, about three years older than I, lived there with their parents. Rosalee took after her mother, Miss Marcella, a beautiful woman. She was about the prettiest woman who ever came out of the Big Swamp. Much later, my father told me Doc had met Marcella Berry when they were both growing up on the Shoe Heel, about twenty miles up the river. When Doc got his medical degree up north, he took Marcella to New York City and married her. Of course, that was before I was born, but the family moved back to Robeson County in 1899 when I was five. Doc had been seriously hurt and couldn’t be a surgeon anymore. The sun rose and set on Old Doc as far as my father was concerned. Doc treated us very well.”
Carson paused and pointed to the red flash of a Cardinal landing on a green pine branch. I realized I’d been sitting there like a statue trying to decipher what Carson was saying - not that difficult, having grown up on the Mississippi. But, he did use words I’d never heard. Doris had to tell me a ‘yurker’ was a trouble-making youngster. I reached back to get my notebook from my coat pocket. Carson took another sip and eased back into the world of his youth.
“I warn’t but thirteen year old when that Lum boy went a-missin. Them no-count white boys spread talk bout some lynchin. I aim to tell you straight, them’s the same yurkers that beat that Lum boy so bad. They broked his ribs and put a rope round his th’oat and drug him down the big road hind a horse. All cause he’s sweet on Rosalee DeCamp, and she on he. Poor creeter, they did bout kill im, but Doc DeCamp found him and doctored him right in the back room a’ his motorsickle shop.”
“Lots of white folks didn’t care none what happened to a Indian boy that won’t stay way from a white girl, but they’s some who din’t think he deserved the hangin they say he got. They was rumors a’ those two young’uns courtin so natcherly the law had to ast Ol Doc bout it. That gots tongues a-waggin more. Soon talk got round to, can’t find the body. They too dumb to think, what if they ain’t nary a body to find. Some fool over that Lumberton newspaper conjured up fac’s when he din’t have none. That, right there - bein in the papers, made the whole mess slam true. The whole story uz wrongsididas, I’m tellin you straight. White folks over yonder in town don’t know the truth yet. On the swamp, they do.”
“Pappy say Ol Doc saw onliest one way to get shet a’ the whole mess. Late that week he carry the boy to the train station in Fateville and bought him a ticket to Baltimore - even then, they’s lotsa Lumbees in Baltimore. Doc stuff a fifty dolla bill in the boy’s shirt and tell im, don’t never come back.”
Carson pulled an oversized handkerchief from the bib pocket of his overalls and wiped his mouth before tossing back the rest of his Jack. He laid the cloth across his knee before recharging his Mason jar. The bottle was better than half empty.
“Ol Doc put up wid folks conjurin on him for a right long time. I swanny, that man lived sorry in the world as a cripple mule for years. Doc jus kep his mouf shut. He send his daughter, Rosalee, off to school that very year. When his boy, Amos, went off to that West Point in nineteen hunnert and thirteen, Doc done took all he could took. Him and Miss Marcella bout gave it all away and took off themself. N’ors else to go but New York City. Them white folks say he so chauld bout what he done, he jes up and runned off.”
Doris leaned close and whispered, “Chauld, it’s like embarrassed or ashamed.” She offered me a drink of her soda pop. My quick stop-sign hand and head shake brought a smile from her.
Carson went on, “Everwho said those things forgot bout the dozens a’ babies Ol Doc delivered against nuthin but a slab a’ fatback, or if that ain’t had to be got, fer nuthin. Lums and white folks didn’t know what they’s talkin bout. They mommucked up the story and they pure arnt made a mess a’ the lives of some fine folks sez my pap. He say the Lumbees lost a buddyrow when Doc left. If you don’t think Doc DeCamp wuz a good man, you come see me. Damn skippy.”
“I’m eighteen years old stationed in Queens when Ol Doc got him a bate a’ the whole mess and packed up his fambly and moved to New York City. He tol Pappy don’t breath this story to nary a soul. He never did cept to me. Pap say, got dat, Jack - if he had his druthers, he give those white boys a dost a’ they own medicine, everwhat come, come.”
Carson wiped his whole face with his big red paisley handkerchief and again found the bottom of his Mason jar.
Carson’s eyes were getting red, “So, there you have it, my friend. I hope it was worth your time and patience sitting here on this hot pizer. The only other interesting point concerns the missing Lumbee boy’s grandmother, who had raised him. She lived up on the swamp in a shack that would make my house look like a mansion. But after the disappearance of her grandson, she suddenly had enough money to say her goodbyes and travel up north to live with her daughter.”
I looked at Doris with raised
eyebrows; she pursed her lips and nodded. The time seeming right, I reached down and took the mystery relic from the canvas bag. The sight of the deeply pitted hunk of iron re-animated Carson. He leaned forward, “Whatchu got, Woody?”
I thought to myself, ‘Now it’s unanimous - nobody knows’.
“Carson, it’s a mystery. Some folks feel this is the Roman spear that pierced the side of Jesus on the cross, that Sir Walter Raleigh was told by his Queen to hide it in the New World in the 16th Century.”
“What dem numbers?”
“Those numbers were engraved on it much later. Turns out, it’s a map location in Lumberton.”
Carson slipped his empty Mason jar between his knees, reached and held the mystery hunk of iron reverently in both calloused palms. “You thinks this is the Spear of Longinus, the Holy Lance from John, Chapter 19?”
I squirmed in my chair like I was in the Principal’s office, “A few think it might be a relic of the Crucifixion.”
“Tarnation, it might be from No-ee’s Ark, but it ain’t. What it is, it was a lightnin rod. Look up on that backer barn over yonder. Whatchu see?”
I stood and took a step down from the porch. In the near distance, a small, black-painted tobacco barn shimmered in the sunlight. The twin to my ‘relic’ sat perched at each end of the roof peek. I turned and Carson gave me a kind, patient stare. Doris shook her head with her hand pressed above her eyes. Sally Spit would be disappointed; but at the moment, I was so chauld, I just smiled at them both and slid the lightning rod back into its canvas bag.
Feeling I’d derailed the interview, I sat and picked up my notebook, “So, Carson, Dr. DeCamp…”
“Ol Doc was the fines man round the pocosin cordin to Pap. I hear tell a lot more, later. Prob’ly none yo bidness. Y’all gaw’n, now. I’s a-feelin tired. Hope m’ die if I ain’t.” His head settled back against the rocking chair and he snored softly. The sound stirred his old dog and brought him up the steps to lie on the porch beside his master. I set Carson’s Mason jar down by his quarter bottle of Jack. Doris kissed him on the forehead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Pocosin is the big swamp,” Doris said as she followed me across the pine needles to her Chevy. We rode quietly as she drove out onto the county road and headed back to Pembroke.
“Doris, what’s a pizer? I assume it means porch, but why pizer?”
She laughed, “It’s the Lumbee dialect. Prob’ly came from the Italian, ‘piazza’.”
“Tarnation, y’all got Eyetalians around here?”
She gave me a funny look then laughed again. God, she was beautiful. What a tomato.
Finally, she said, “Woody, I’m sorry Carson shut down your interview.”
“I don’t attach any shame to passing out after drinking twenty ounces of Jack Daniel’s in thirty minutes.”
“Oh, I assure you he didn’t pass out. He decided you had what you needed. I’ve seen him drink two quarts of shine and still be talking when I had to leave. He liked you - he was being polite.”
I didn’t know about all that, unless the ol boy faked the snoring. “Well, it was all helpful, more than I’m even at liberty to say. It was aces of you to take all this time to help me.”
“I wouldn’t have missed the day.”
“I got to say, Doris, I hope your boyfriend knows how lucky he is.”
“You mean, my girlfriend…”
As I picked up my jaw, “That’s what I meant to say.” She gave me that beautiful smile. Was that a pang of jealousy I felt?
“Besides,” she said, “you’ve already got somebody who’s crazy in love with you.”
I just stared at her and breathed through my mouth. There weren’t many she could be talking about. She must have seen the distant light of understanding blink on in my eyes because she smiled and nodded her head.
“Yes, sir, mister, she’s got it bad. I got a hunch you don’t mind so much.”
“Doris, it’s complicated.”
“Uh-huh,” and she squinted at me a little bit.
We turned left onto the five-mile flat straight shot back into town. I told Doris about my plans to visit the old DeCamp farm the following day.
“The property is still owned by the College,” she said, “but I’m afraid you won’t find much to see. The school raised crops on the land for years, but most of it has returned to Mother Nature by now. That’s not a bad thing from a wildlife preservation point of view.”
She was losing me about preserving wildlife, “Sounds like a good idea.”
“I’m sure the creeters appreciate it,” she said with her lovely smile. Hell, I’d fight a woman for her…
“Seriously, Woody, I hope you won’t be disappointed. The DeCamp house and barn burned down ages ago. Only thing remaining is the empty shell of a brick building. Next gale force winds we get, that’ll prob’ly be gone. Someone even stole the heavy plank workbenches a few years back.”
“Even more reason to visit the old place.”
She looked over at me, “Touché. How’re you getting over there?”
“Any place in town to get a car?”
“You want to buy a car?”
“No, I mean rent one.”
“Uh-uh. You better take a closer look when we drive back through Pembroke, but better look fast.” She was ribbing me, but it framed a problem I was just realizing I had.
She must’ve seen my thousand yard stare, “Say, take my car and bring it back tomorrow. My bungalow’s just across North Odum Road from Sampson Hall. I never take the car to work. It was there this morning because I’d gotten the idea to introduce you to Carson Revels after we talked on the phone the other day.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I didn’t know what you were up to, but I knew Carson would. Now that you have his seal of approval, I know it’s got to be good for the Lumbees.”
“You can sure put the weight on a man’s shoulders, Doris.” I wish she would put her weight on me. That’s it - I’m certifiable. I needed a drink.
It was after one o’clock when Doris and I drove into the Sampson Hall parking lot. Gina left a message for me with the girl at the library front desk; she had taken a cab to the Overton Hotel. Doris gave me her address and home phone number and I thanked her again. When we shook, she used both hands. I slapped myself around mentally. My train of imagination had departed the station with this dish. Too late; I saw in her face she had employed her x-ray vision to read my lustful thoughts.
The Overton Hotel parking lot sat at the rear of the building. As I drove the borrowed car around, I spotted the ‘Rork Bar’ sign over the entrance on the cross street side.
I stood in the door and sized up the joint as my eyes adjusted to the interior light. George Jones sang about his pappy’s corn liquor on the jukebox, and I was spitting cotton. A few small tables crowded together to the right and a single pool table filled the space to the left. The bar sat straight ahead.
Ahead I went, “Hey, bo, you got any cold Krueger Ale? No? Gimme a double Jack Daniel’s, neat and a bottle a’ Pabst.” I laid two singles on the bar. He picked one up and returned fifteen cents. I grabbed the coins and tapped the ace - keep the change. A man could get used to those prices plenty fast. I set my drinks on a table and sat with my back to the wall. The cold sweat beaded on the Pabst bottle as I lit a pill.
A hairy-armed palooka walked over carrying his cue stick. “You wunna them faggots from the Indian school,” he asked? “I notice you gotcher fancy porch cover on.” I glanced down and thought, ‘What’s wrong with my necktie’?
“Get lost, Mac. Go play your game.” I took a long pull on the cold beer. It cleared my head. An odd thought of how nice it’d be to take my shoes off popped into my mind.
Man Mountain blurted, “Screw you, boy. You wanna play games?” I’ll be damned if he didn’t break the pool cue over his knee and stand there with a jagged piece in each hand.
“Yes, games are good,” I went to my feet, skinned my .4
5 automatic from its shoulder holster and racked back the slide with my left hand, catching the ejected round. I held up the bullet between my thumb and forefinger, “This bullet has your name on it.” I dropped the round in my coat pocket and leveled the hog leg’s half inch hole on his gaping mouth.
“Now, the game is, you get to place a bet on whether your name is on one of the other eight bullets in this magazine. Play or Pass?”
No response. Downright poor sportsmanship. “I SAID, play or pass?”
“I’ll pass, mister. I didn’t mean nothin.”
“Barkeep, what’s he owe you for the cue?” The bartender said the stick was his own.
“Well, dog nuts, you’re even stupider than you look. Now, get!” He and his partner headed for the great outdoors, scrambling faster than cats trying to cover crap on a marble floor.
I sat there a while and thought about Gina’s Brooklyn accent I found so exotic and, yes, sexy. She had been the sister of my best friend who’d been shot and killed in Korea. I moved to New York in ’53 and she became like my own sister, then my secretary. I didn’t immediately have the words for what she was to me now, but I knew I’d take a bullet for her. What a sweet kid and what a dish she’d grown up to be. She was probably the most beautiful dame I knew.
The Brooklyn accent, remember? The same accent wasn’t particularly attractive in others. It was disgusting in some of the slime balls I had to deal with. Pushing my dead soldier across the bar, I told the little guy with garters trapping his shirtsleeves to hit me again. I threw a leg over the hardwood stool and lit a lucky with my First Marine Division lighter. Gina was the most beautiful skirt I had ever known.
Back in my room I rang up Gina and told her I was going to take a shower and lay down for a few minutes. We agreed to meet in the dining room at six.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Case Of The Lumbee Millions (Woody Stone, Private Investigator, Series) Page 13