Forty Acres

by Dwayne Alexander Smith

  The Handyman had worked with the client for several years, on countless assignments. The fact that the client wanted Anna tracked told him that there were problems with her husband, problems that might not have a tidy solution. At such a critical time, the last thing that the client would want to see was their current dilemma grow more complicated because of a past dilemma.

  The Handyman had no doubt that a meeting between Anna Grey and Christine Jackson was an unexpected development that the client would be extremely interested in.

  The Handyman drained his cup and screwed it back onto a stainless-­steel thermos. From the passenger seat he hoisted a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera outfitted with a heavy 400 mm telephoto lens. After a glance around to ensure that he wasn’t being observed, he raised the camera to his eye and shot two quick photos of the women. He returned the camera to the seat and grabbed his iPhone from the dash. He opened an app called Shutter Shuttle, which was tethered wirelessly to the Bluetooth memory card in his camera, and quickly found the two photos. Both were perfect, high-resolution shots of the two women conversing on Christine Jackson’s front walk. He typed out a quick email, attached one of the photos, and hit send.

  The Handyman returned his iPhone to the dash, poured himself another cup of steaming coffee, and continued to watch. He couldn’t hear a word they said, but it didn’t matter. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words—or in this case, a big, fat double payday.

  All the Handyman had to do was wait for a response.

  * * *

  Christine Jackson squinted at Anna. “And you say that your husband’s name is Martin Grey? Would that be Martin Grey the attorney?”

  “Actually, yes,” Anna replied with surprise. She did not expect Christine Jackson to know anything about her husband.

  Christine saw the puzzled look on Anna’s face. “I’ve seen him on the news,” she explained. She dragged on her cigarette and sized Anna up through a tendril of smoke. “So what is this about, Mrs. Grey? I’ll admit that I’m incredibly curious.”

  “Well, it’s about our husbands really.”

  Christine expelled a stream of smoke. “Our husbands? I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake. My husband has been deceased for several years now.”

  “Yes, I know,” Anna said. “And I’m very sorry.”

  “Thank you.” The reply sounded sincere. “Now, what is this about?”

  “Some old friends of your husband are now friends with my husband, Martin. And, well, I guess I’m a little worried.”

  Christine’s brow furrowed warily. “These friends, who are they exactly?”

  “Well, Damon Darrell introduced Martin to them. It’s the same group of men who went on that rafting trip with your husband five years ago. Now Martin’s on a rafting trip with them, and he’s completely out of contact. They told me what really happened to your husband. But they lied about it at first. And—I don’t know—I just get the feeling that they’re lying about something more. I thought that you might be able to—”

  “You thought wrong,” Christine snapped. She glanced nervously up and down the block, then fixed Anna with a stare. “Now, you listen to me. I want you to get the hell off my property and never come back. And do not try to contact me. No phone calls, no emails, nothing. Do you understand?”

  Anna felt dazed, as if she had just been sucker punched. “No, I don’t understand. Did I say something wrong?”

  Christine Jackson took a long drag and used the pause to scan up and down the street again. Finally she frowned at Anna and said something chilling. “I have kids, okay? I have two small children. Leave us alone. Please.” Mrs. Jackson’s eyes welled with tears. She flicked her smoldering cigarette onto her perfect lawn, then turned and marched back toward her beautiful house.

  * * *

  The Handyman’s iPhone chimed.

  He set down his coffee and checked the screen. He saw what he was waiting for. Like all of the encrypted emails received from the client, the reply, regarding the photo, was brief and to the point. There were just three tiny words to decide Anna Grey’s fate.

  The Handyman smiled at the message, then flung his phone into the passenger seat and started up the Camry.

  Time to get to work.

  * * *

  Anna’s mind reeled as she headed back to her car. She actually felt a bit muddled, as if Christine Jackson’s sudden shift had jarred something loose in her own head.

  Anna paused at the curb to let a van zip by, then stepped into the street and began to cross. Christine Jackson was clearly afraid, but afraid of what? Did Damon and the others threaten to take away her big house and her family’s comfortable lifestyle if she ever talked about what happened to her husband? Or was it more than that? It almost seemed as if the woman feared for her life. But that was crazy, wasn’t it?

  Anna blinked to clear her head and spotted something odd.

  A gardener on the opposite sidewalk was pointing frantically up the street. The Mexican appeared to be shouting something, but the leaf blower strapped to his back was drowning out his—

  A horn screamed.

  Anna whirled and froze at the sight of a white car bearing down on her fast. In a panicked reflex Anna threw out her hands before her as if she could fend off the speeding car.

  There was a long, smoky screech of tires before the car lurched to stop, the car’s front bumper just an arm’s length from crushing Anna.

  A white-haired old man stuck his head out of the car and hollered, “Pay attention where you’re walking, lady! Are you crazy or something?”

  “Sorry,” Anna said, panting. Her heart was still racing. “My fault. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” The old driver wheeled around Anna and sped away down the block.

  Anna hurried to her car, unlocked the door, and jumped in. She snatched the seat belt around her as if it could retroactively protect her from what had just occurred. For a moment she just sat gripping the steering wheel, allowing the adrenaline rush to fade.

  That’s it. Anna was done. She was letting this whole rafting trip mystery spin out of control, to the point where she couldn’t even think straight. Of course it was crazy to suspect that Christine Jackson and her children’s lives were threatened. Whatever Damon Darrell and the rest of his cronies were up to, Anna was pretty sure that it was nothing worth killing over. They were millionaires after all, not murderers. Anna decided then and there that she would stop digging up fuel for her pregnancy paranoia. She’d just wait for Martin to return home, tell him their wonderful news, then never allow him to go on another trip with those men again, period. End of story.

  Anna turned and gave Christine Jackson’s house one final look. Then she turned the ignition and began to drive home.

  * * *

  The Handyman waited until Anna Grey’s departing Prius was a full two blocks away, then he pulled out of his parking space and began to follow.

  The white Camry the Handyman was driving was the most common car on the American road. This precaution, combined with his exceptional tailing skills, made the chances of Anna’s spotting her shadow practically nil. Nevertheless, there was no point in taking unnecessary chances. As long as he stayed within five hundred yards of Anna’s vehicle, the GPS device planted under her bumper would transmit her exact location to the Tracker Map app on his iPhone.

  Even if, by some fluke, Mrs. Grey did detect his presence, she had absolutely no chance of eluding him.

  Moments earlier, when he saw that car speeding toward her, the Handyman feared that his big double payday was lost. He was greatly relieved to see the Grey woman escape death, at least for the time being. The email reply that he had received from the client was inconclusive but still very encouraging.

  Stay very close.

  To the Handyman, “Stay very close” meant that the job profile had shifted from a possible ki
ll to an inevitable one. He had no idea what final moves the client needed to make before pulling the trigger, but the Handyman felt certain that Anna Grey would not escape death twice that day.

  CHAPTER 77

  The stench was so thick and musky that he could taste it. Martin snorted to get the foulness out of his nose but it was useless. Every breath he took came with the nauseating odor of human funk.

  Martin peeled opened his eyes to a blurry kaleidoscope of pale halftones. He blinked, and the shapes became more defined, pale circles and elongated blobs. He blinked again and saw eyes.

  There were faces staring down at Martin. Dozens of dirty, ghostly faces, all watching him.

  Martin groaned and sat up with a start. Bright pain lanced through his skull. He cried out and clenched his forehead with both hands. He felt a prominent knot of flesh near his temple that was tender to the slightest touch.

  Martin heard voices urging him to lie back down and to keep still. He felt bony hands on his shoulders pushing him back down. Beneath him he felt a soft bundle of material that gave off a waft of stink every time he moved.

  Martin blinked again, and the dirty pale faces were still there, only sharper. Men and women surrounded him on all sides. Some young, some old, some middle-aged. They were all withered shadows of formerly healthy human beings. Matted hair, rotted teeth, threadbare clothing sagging on wiry limbs. And they all reeked. Their facial expressions were eerily vacant, as if their minds had been stripped away along with their humanity.

  Martin swallowed to moisten his dry throat. “Where am I?”

  There was a puzzled stir. The dirty pale faces muttered and exchanged glances. Finally, an elderly man stepped closer. His bristled face was drawn, and his frame shaky, but there was a wisdom in him that the others seemed to respect. “You’re in the mine,” he said. “You’re with us.”

  “What? What mine?” Still on his back, Martin glanced around. Then he remembered. He remembered the low, sagging ceiling, the nests of dirty clothes, the shielded security cameras, and that bright red cable hugging the perimeter of the ceiling. He was underground. In the slave quarters.

  “They tossed you in here last night,” the elderly slave said. “I let you have my spot.”

  Martin moaned as he sat up, wincing at another stab of pain. He rubbed the swelling on the side of his head and the memory of Oscar’s gun butt came rushing back.

  “You might have a concussion,” the elder slave said. “Probably better if you stay down.”

  Martin shook his head. “No, I’m all right. I—” Martin suddenly recognized the elderly slave. It was the same old man whose merciless beating had caused Martin to cry out for the guards to stop.

  “You sure you’re okay?” the old man asked.

  “Yeah.” Martin scanned the crowd standing around him. Their number was much larger than he had first realized. Every tortured soul in the slave quarters must have been there, eyeballing one of their former black masters, yet, somehow, Martin did not feel threatened.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Martin said, to no one in particular, “but why am I still alive?”

  “’Cause they ordered us not to touch you,” a tall man at the back of the crowd growled. He was the biggest of the slaves, by far, with the sagging physique of a once formidable man now shriveled by years of bondage. “Otherwise,” he continued, “I’d rip your black ass apart.”

  A majority of the other slaves instantly turned on the big man, hissing at him to shut up.

  The elder slave turned to the bigger man with a chastising stare. “Vincent, you’re a damn fool. He’s not one of them. He risked his life to help us.”

  Most of the other slaves nodded in agreement.

  A young man peeled from the crowd to stand over Martin. He appeared meatier than the rest and his clothing, which included a Seinfeld T-shirt, wasn’t as worn. “Don’t listen to Vincent,” the young man said to Martin. “We all know what you did—or at least tried to do. I’m Louis Ward, from Southdale, Minnesota. Been here three months.” Then Louis did something that caught Martin off guard. He stuck out his hand.

  For an instant Martin couldn’t move, the moment too surreal to digest. When he finally reached up and grasped Louis Ward’s hand, the hint of a grateful smile appeared on the slave’s face.

  The elderly slave offered Martin his hand as well. The frail man’s hand felt like a bundle of twigs in Martin’s grasp.

  “I’m Otis Rolley,” the old man declared, with a surprising amount of spirit. “Used to live in Fairbanks, Louisiana. Louis has the least time here and I have the most. Sixteen years.”

  Martin shuddered at the number. For a man to lose so much of his life to a place so horrible was unimaginable.

  A middle-aged man stepped forward next. He was balding and his left eye appeared dull and lifeless. He spoke with a slight southern drawl. “I’m Robert Moore, from Sandy Spring, Georgia. I figure I’ve been in this hellhole for seven years and three months. Kinda hard to keep track.” When Robert took Martin’s hand, he didn’t shake, he just gave it a firm squeeze.

  Several more of the slaves felt the need to break away from the crowd and introduce themselves to Martin. Some shook his hand, some patted him on the shoulder, others just said their piece and retreated back to their spot. Martin didn’t understand it exactly, until a woman wearing a tattered dress stepped forward. She appeared to be in her early thirties. Even the crust of years of hard labor couldn’t hide the fact that at one time she had been very pretty.

  “I’m Helen, from Far Hills, New Jersey,” the woman said. She tugged forward a boy who Martin judged to be about thirteen. “And this is my son, Aaron. He was born down here.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “Right in that corner over there.”

  Unlike the muted faces of his fellow slaves, the teenage boy wore a tight, puzzled look worthy of a caricature. “Aren’t you scared?” he said. “They’re going to kill you, you know. Just like they did that other man.”

  “Aaron!” the boy’s mother snapped as she yanked him back into the crowd. An awkward silence settled over the room.

  Martin understood. The slaves weren’t thanking him for risking his life; they were thanking him for sacrificing his life. He was going to die. He was never going to return home from this trip, never see his wife again . . . just like Donald Jackson.

  Martin turned to Otis. “Donald Jackson? Is that who he means? Did they bring him here too?”

  Otis nodded. “They did. But he was in far worse shape than you. Shot. Bleeding badly and barely alive. Then they came and took him away.”

  Hearing the description of Donald Jackson’s injuries sparked another image in Martin’s memory.

  Alice.

  “There was a girl whipped last night,” Martin said to Otis. “She was left in the barn, badly hurt. Her name is Alice. Do you know what happened to her?”

  Otis frowned. “I do.”

  “Is she dead?”

  Martin had no rational reason for caring so much about a girl whom he hardly knew when his own life was in jeopardy, but he did. It was as if his and Alice’s lives were bound, somehow. He had this crazy, illogical feeling that as long as Alice lived, there was still hope.

  Instead of answering Martin’s question, the old man turned to Louis. “Help him up.”

  Louis extended his hand and tugged Martin to his feet. Martin felt a throb of pain behind his eyes that dissipated quickly.

  “Come,” Otis said.

  The crowd parted as Martin followed Otis across the space. As Martin stepped over rows and rows of tightly spaced sleep areas, he realized something odd. The awful smell that had stung his nose only moments ago was now barely noticeable.

  Otis paused over an elderly woman who was seated on the ground cradling the hand of a sleeping woman.

  It was Alice. Her face was so calm and still that she almost appea
red to be dead.

  “They brought her down with you,” Otis explained to Martin. “She has a dangerous fever. My wife cleaned her wounds but—” He frowned. “Like I told you, I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen men die from less severe whippings.”

  Martin winced with guilt. He rubbed his right palm against his pant leg to erase the sudden sensation of the cowskin handle in his grip.

  “She’s a strong girl,” Otis’s wife said.

  Martin looked down and saw the old woman mopping Alice’s brow with a soiled rag. Alice moaned and rocked her head before settling back into a calm sleep.

  “What do you think?” Martin asked the old woman. “Is she strong enough to make it?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman replied with a doubtful shake of the head. “That all depends.”

  Martin was almost afraid to ask. “Depends on what?”

  “Rest.” The old woman uttered the word as if it were holy. “She needs lots of rest. If they don’t make her work too soon, I think she will have a very good chance. But only if.”

  Martin stared at Alice’s unconscious form. “Well, they wouldn’t try to make her work in this condition. Would they?”

  The old woman’s eyes fell as she went back to mopping Alice’s brow.

  Martin turned to old Otis and the group of slaves who had trailed them to Alice’s bedside. Martin’s eyes burned with the question, but the only response he received was a wall of bleak stares.

  A loud metallic clacking sound drew everyone’s attention to the chamber’s door. The thick steel groaned open and four uniformed guards entered fast and flanked the doorway. They were trailed by their leader, Roy, the same man who’d given Martin and Damon a tour of the mine only a day earlier.