The Preacher's Marsh Read online

  “I truly appreciate this,” he said.

  “Just don’t get too comfortable,” Hawkins said. He didn’t smile, and he didn’t offer his hand a second time. “I’ll send a girl around later with some food – I don’t want it said Old Mill turned a man of God away hungry. Don’t mind if they say we turned you away, though. When the sun’s up in the morning, I’ll expect to see you on the road.”

  “I understand,” Gideon answered noncommittally. “Both you and Mr. Walz made your opinions crystal clear. I may be getting on in years, and I may be a yankee at heart, but I’m not a stupid man. If you don’t mind, I’m going to settle in and try to get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  “It has at that, Reverend,” Hawkins said. “It has at that.”

  When he was alone, Gideon settled his belongings and drew forth a worn Bible. There was enough light from the door to see by, and he sat for a long time, reading and thinking, then reading a bit more. The words were familiar and comfortable, and they helped him to relax, and to order his thoughts. He had no intention of moving on in the morning, but he did intend to get out of Old Mill. Those he sought would be in the fields, or living on the fringes of the town, and he wouldn’t reach them by sleeping in the sheriff’s barn, or rotting in his jail – assuming the town even had one.

  Just before sunset, a young girl brought him a plate of biscuits drowned in thick white gravy and a small jug of water. He thanked her, but she scurried back into the growing shadows without a word. Gideon settled back into the straw, ate the biscuits slowly, enjoying their savor. He washed it down with water from the jug, set the dishes aside, and settled back to sleep.

  When the footsteps and hushed voices surrounded the doorway to the barn just before midnight, he was sound asleep.

  * * *

  Gideon woke groggy and disoriented in the darkness. A sound had snatched him from sleep, but it hadn’t repeated itself, and he was caught halfway between wakefulness and dreams. Then someone whispered and he stiffened. He didn’t rise, and he didn’t speak. He listened, wishing he hadn’t left his bags even a few feet away.

  “It don’t seem right, him bein’ a preacher and all. Can’t we just wait for tomorrow?” The voice was high pitched and whiny, and it echoed in the stuffy silence. Gideon slowly rolled to his back, hoping whoever it was couldn’t see any better than he could. He thought he saw a flicker of shadow across the barn door, but nothing else moved.

  “Shut up, Sam,” Sheriff Hawkins growled. “Keep quiet and do as I say.”

  No one else spoke. Gideon watched as they entered. Their shadows followed Hawkins through the shadowed doorway and into the barn, making as little sound as possible. Gideon counted five in all. Five grown men – to do what?

  Gideon drew his knees up to his chest, rolled over so he could reach the strap on his bag, and lurched to his feet. He knew he had no chance to escape so many, but he thought that there was just a chance that if he made it to the door and hit the road running, they wouldn’t follow. It was one thing to beat a man in the privacy of a barn, and quite another to do it in the open street for all to see. There had been hesitation in the one man’s voice, maybe it would be enough to see him through.

  “He’s moving!” one of the men yelled.

  Suddenly all of them were moving at once. Two leaped to block the door and something slid in front of Gideon’s ankle. He tried to leap over it, but was too late and seconds later he was falling. It was dark and so, he didn’t see the floor in time to break the momentum with his hands, or the bag. He hit hard, and the impact sent sparks of pain flashing through his mind.

  By the time he shook off the cobwebs, and the real pain hit, his arms and legs had been grabbed and held tightly. A flame flashed off to one side, flared, and the light bobbed nearer. Gideon moaned, and a man he’d never seen held a lantern high. Five faces melted from the shadows. None were smiling, and the man in the center, just to the right of the lantern bearer, was Sheriff Hawkins.

  “Sleep well, Reverend?” he asked.

  Gideon struggled, but he couldn’t free himself from their grip. Someone leaned down and swung a punch, landing on Gideon’s ribs and driving the breath from him in an instant. He tried to double up, couldn’t manage it, and fought for the breath to scream.

  “You want to bite that tongue if it helps you stay quiet,” Hawkins said matter-of-factly. We got business, but it doesn’t concern the rest of the town. You understand me, preacher?”

  Gideon nodded. His face throbbed, and his muscles screamed from the tension of being held prone and spread-eagled on the floor of the barn.

  Hawkins spat, and it landed with as sickening splash in the dirt beside Gideon’s face.

  “You come down here,” Hawkins said, “mouthing off about prayer groups and your church folks back home. You tell us how the country has to heal, and how you’ve just come down to ease that suffering. You just wandered on down a few hundred miles of green countryside to walk through the rows of cotton and tell the niggers how Jesus is their savior, and everyone is equal in the eyes of the Lord. That about right, preacher?”

  Gideon could only stare, wide-eyed. His throat was too dry for speech, and someone had gripped him tightly by the hair, preventing him from nodding.

  “We didn’t just lose boys and fathers and brothers, preacher. We lost our lives. We lost our pride. We lost a way of doing things our grandparents learned from their grandparents. We crawled back down here to be kicked like dogs by blue-coated jackasses just looking for excuses to shoot us as war criminals, and we set the niggers free.

  “You ever catch a fish, Reverend? You ever see a fish where the hook was set, and the mouth was ripped – maybe the prong popped through an eye, or sliced a gill, but you didn’t really want the fish? You toss it back in the water, and it flops over on its side, or its back. It swims in circles. It gets the water all bloody and attracts predators.

  “I’ve got news for you, preacher, that’s what happened when we set those darkies free. They looked at us like we were stupid. They wandered in circles, trying to figure out what to do. A few of them got excited, like kids, and tried to take off. Some of them probably made it. The rest, though? You know what they did? They said “Yassuh Boss,” instead of “Yassuh Massah” and they went back to work.

  “It’s their way of life too, preacher. It’s what their parents taught them. It’s what they know. You come in here and start preaching to them about freedom, and standing up for their rights, and being equal? What do you think’s going to happen? There’s going to be trouble. Folks will be hurt. Folks will hurt them. The cotton won’t get picked, people won’t get fed, and it will be your fault.”

  The sheriff hesitated for a moment, then said.

  “I can’t let that happen. I told you earlier, and you should have listened. It’s my job to keep things under control here. It’s my job to see people aren’t hurt, and that things run smoothly. I take my work seriously, reverend, as I guess you take yours. I’ve known your type, and when I sent you out here to rest, I knew you wouldn’t just leave.”

  Gideon tried to struggle again, and Hawkins struck like a snake. He lashed out with one boot and sent it crashing into Gideon’s ribs. There was a sickening smack, and Gideon groaned.

  “We’ve got all the Christianity we can handle in these parts, preacher,” Hawkins said, his breath heavy and his voice gone hoarse. “You aren’t welcome.”

  They fell on him then. His arms and legs were released, and he tried to roll into a ball. Boots and fists struck from all directions. It seemed the more they hit him and the more he tried to crawl away or protect himself, the more frenzied they became. He was reaching for the straw, hoping to dig a hole beneath it and pull himself inside, when something crashed into the side of his head. He saw a brilliant flash of light, and darkness crashed around him, walling him in and the others out.

  TWO

  The sun rose over the cotton slowly, baking away the morning dew. The plants were nearly four feet tall, b
olls thick and white and stalks rough and jagged. Sun filtered down through the leaves to draw what little moisture the soil held out and leave a cracking crust over the ground.

  Workers had been in the fields for hours. The first hint of dawn brought them forth, trying to take advantage of the few hours where the dew softened the plants slightly, and it was possible to pick without butchering your hands or baking your back. That would come later in the day, but the morning, when the cotton sacks weren’t yet heavy and clothing had yet to plaster itself to every body, soaked in sweat and caked with dust and dirt, was the best time. There were few good times in the fields during picking season, so they were savored when they arrived.

  Gideon woke to the sound of voices singing. He didn’t hear footsteps, and he couldn’t see clearly, but he heard the voices. They were low and powerful, raised in rhythmic celebration. For a moment, before the throbbing, screaming pain in his bones and muscles hit full force, and before he realized that he couldn’t see, Gideon thought he might have finally taken the last walk into Glory. Their singing was beautiful.

  He cried out from the pain, or tried to, but the sound that came forth was a pitiful, spitting mewl. His throat was dry and ached from multiple bruises. He clenched his eyes tightly, and then tried to open them again. All he could manage was thin slits. The sunlight was too bright, and it stabbed into his brain with slivers of light that exploded on contact with his thoughts. His cheek lay on the cool earth, still shaded – for the moment – from the pounding heat of the sun. He pressed his palms into that soil, and tried to lift himself. His shoulders trembled with the effort, and his head pounded. He managed to lift himself only a couple of inches before his arms gave out and he dropped back to the earth. This time his cry was slightly louder, though it burned in his throat.

  He rolled to his back, and tried feebly to sit up.

  Nearby he heard a rustle, and immediately thought of animals, or snakes. He flailed his arms and tried again to sit. This time he got his elbows beneath him. His eyes were sticky, and at first the thought they were just dry. Then he managed to get a hand up to brush across the lids. His face was matted with half-dried blood. His leg felt broken, and when he sat up and put pressure on it he nearly blacked out again. He gritted his teeth and used his sleeve to clear his eyes. They were still swollen, but he was able to make out a little of his surroundings.

  The rustling sound repeated, to his left. He tried to peer over the tops of the cotton plants, but he couldn’t sit up fully. The pain in his leg prevented him from doing more than pushing up off the ground. The sounds drew nearer, and he coughed to clear his throat. The sound stopped.

  “Help me,” he said, the words so soft they were barely audible.

  The rustling began again. Something was moving toward him slowly. His heart pounded. His mind conjured dogs, snakes, gators – all the stories he’d heard and read about swamps over the years returned to him, magnified by the pain and warped by the too-bright sunlight.

  “Who is it?” he called out. “Who…”

  The leaves over him parted, and he saw the face of a young boy staring down at him. The child couldn’t have been more than seven. He was dark as molasses with bright, inquisitive eyes. When he caught sight of Gideon he pulled back sharply. There was no sound for a moment, and Gideon called out again.

  “Help me.”

  The next thing he heard was the pounding of feet and the whipping of cotton plants as the boy crashed through them, running away.

  “No,” he croaked. “Come back.”

  It was only a moment before silence engulfed him again. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder, trying to raise himself to a sitting position. White hot pain flashed from his leg straight to his brain. His back arched his head hit the ground hard. The darkness rose, and he fought it. The green leaves and white cotton bolls wavered and shimmered. He reached up, tried to grab the leaves, and failed. Deep, black nothingness washed over him and flies landed, crawling unnoticed through the drying blood on his face.

  * * *

  When he opened his eyes again, he no longer lay in the cotton field. It was dark, and the flames of a fire danced nearby. His head was pillowed on his bags, and his leg was very stiff. He realized after only a moment that it was bound in a splint. He heard someone humming under their breath, but he couldn’t focus on the tune, or place the voice. It was unfamiliar, but comforting, rhythmic and smooth.

  He tried to raise his head, and the sound of the motion alerted whoever it was nearby. The humming stopped, and before he managed to balance himself on his elbows, a cool, damp rag was pressed to his forehead, and a soothing voice whispered near his ear.

  “Lay down. You aren’t ready. Just lay down and be still.”

  She leaned over him, and he saw her face. She was beautiful. Her eyes were a deep chocolate brown. Her hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and her eyes were deep, wide pools.

  Gideon did as he was told. He settled back onto his bags and tried to make out his surroundings. The fire, he saw, lay just outside a doorway of canvas, or burlap flaps that had been tied back to the side. There was a pot suspended over the flames, and all around him he saw indistinct mounds of cloth and board, bottles and jugs and odd shapes that might have been tools.

  Every inch of his body ached. His head pounded, and if he looked too long at the fire his eyesight faltered, the world shifted, and his stomach lurched. He kept his gaze on the shadows, and on the figure of the woman, moving about with comfortable confidence.

  She returned to his side with a cup in her hands.

  “Drink this,” she said. “It’s tea – and herbs. It will help the pain in your head.”

  Gideon started to nod, thought better of it at the first stab of pain, and let her bring the cup to his lips. She turned it up and poured just a small amount of the warm liquid into his mouth. He felt it trickle down his throat, but he was too numb to taste it. Whatever was in the concoction, it warmed his mouth, and then his throat, and within moments, he felt a tingle of sensation in his chest. He took several more sips, and was surprised to find that, with some effort, he could speak.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  “Well, that depends,” she answered with an enigmatic smile. “If you was to walk straight out the tent here and keep going, you’d be as close to nowhere as this ol’ Earth has to offer. That’s what they call ‘The Great Dismal Swamp,’ and most folks who wander in there too deep don’t come back. If you walked around back, you’d see a bunch of trees, and if you kept going straight, you’d hit cotton. From there, that’s about all you can see.”

  “The sheriff…” Gideon said. His mind was clearing, and as memory flooded in, shadows forms, lantern-lit faces, and swinging boots filled his thoughts. He closed his eyes and winced, and she raised the cup to his lips again.

  “He don’t come here,” she said soothingly. “He don’t come into the woods, and he don’t come any nearer to the swamp than he has to. Probably thinks your dead. You was close, layin’ out in the cotton. If Elijah hadn’t found you, you’d be there still, likely snake bit and feedin’ the buzzards.”

  “Elijah?” he said. “Elijah came to me in the cotton?

  She laughed loudly and stood.

  “No prophet came for you, preacher man. Elijah is Sarah’s son. He was pickin’ cotton and found you sprawled halfway across his row. He ran to his momma, Jesamina, and she came and fetched me. We hid you in the shade and moved you here as soon as we was sure no one was looking.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “But why? Why would you help me?”

  “You needed helpin’,” she answered. “That’s all there was to it, start to finish. We couldn’t leave you out there in the cotton attracting coyotes and buzzards – we have work to do. That cotton ain’t goin’ to pick itself.”

  “Thank you,” he repeated.

  He reached out weakly, and she placed the cup in his hands. He sipped slowly, letting the warm tea roll down his throat. The aches in his body throbbed,
but it was a throb of life. Where he’d been numb before, the warmth seeped in and brought his flesh back to life.

  “Your leg’s cracked,” she told him. “We put a splint on it, and tied it up, but it’s not going to hold your weight for a while.”

  She turned, grabbed a stick that leaned against the tent near the door, and dropped it beside him. It had a crook in the top, and about a foot down from this the stub of a branch protruded.

  “You can use this for a crutch,” she said. “Elijah found the wood, and I cut it to fit.”

  “I owe you my life,” he said softly. “Would you tell me your name?”

  She smiled at him and tossed her hair in a very girlish manner. He smiled back, though it was difficult to find humor through the pain.

  “Desdemona,” she said. “Desdemona Eyre. I’ve lived near her all my life. I was born to parents owned by the Pope family. It’s Pope cotton we found you in – we work their fields.”

  “But,” Gideon tried to focus his thoughts, “you don’t have to work for them now.”

  “We have to eat,” she said. Her eyes flashed. “We don’t live on their property, and we don’t call them ‘Massa’, but we’ve got to work. There are children to feed. Mr. Walz up at the General Store sends a wagon out and we buy what we can from him, but without the grain and vegetables Mr. Pope gives us, we’d starve.”

  The name Walz caught in Gideon’s mind.

  “I met Mr. Walz,” he said, grimacing in pain. “He and I don’t se eye to eye, it seems. The sheriff isn’t fond of me either. I’m certain I was meant to die, or to crawl out to the road and find my way back to Illinois.”

  “You must have done something to rile them,” Desdemona said. “Mr. Walz, he don’t let colored folk near his store, and he don’t talk about how he sends supplies our way, but he’s never hurt anyone. At least not here. Sheriff Hawkins is different – that one has a pocket full of mean and he’s looking for someone to spend it on.”