The Going Back Portal

by Connie Lacy

  “Two days,” he said, then turned and walked toward the barn.

  Amadahy held Betsey close, whispering in her ear, stroking her small back. Ginny glared at me.

  “You ain’t poison like Mister Jonah, but you sure do bring trouble,” she said, then headed for the river.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut.

  So it would be blackmail from here on out. Every time I returned, he would demand more gold, threatening terrible violence. My temples throbbed.

  “Amadahy,” I said.

  She waited for me to speak, but I didn’t know what to say. She walked away, carrying the baby on her good hip.

  I decided to return to the time portal before Jonah changed his mind and locked me up again. I hurried around the corner of the house, letting myself into the hut, then quickly stepped through the back door to pick a fig. But I didn’t see one. I bent down, scanning the lower limbs. I walked around the bush, checking every branch, top to bottom. The only figs on the bush were like tiny green rocks.

  I trotted around to the garden side of the shack to another bush. Thank goodness, there were figs there! I plucked one and stepped inside long enough to pop the fig in my mouth and walk through the doorway. But there was no buzzing in my ears. The hut was still there.

  21

  Hearing Betsey’s little voice coming from the field, I dashed for the corn rows, finding the two of them on the far end where Amadahy had been working when I arrived.

  “There aren’t any figs!” I cried. “Only some little hard ones. Not edible, that’s for sure.”

  She struggled to her feet, then lifted Betsey. I followed her down the row. As we neared the shack, Ginny approached from the river, having washed the blood off her neck.

  There was a look of surprise on Amadahy’s face as she pulled branches one way and another.

  “The first crop is gone. There will be no more figs until the second crop ripens.” She pointed at the figlets. “When animals eat them, there are leavings on the ground, but I see no sign of animals.”

  Ginny pushed the dirt with the toe of her worn shoe, a hangdog expression on her face.

  Both of us stared at her.

  “I didn’t know they was s’posed to be for someone special,” she said. “Only ate a few. That’s all there was. But there’s plenty on them other bushes.”

  I rubbed my temples.

  “What’s wrong with the other ones?” she said.

  “The young figs will ripen by the Drying Up Moon,” Amadahy said, ignoring her.

  Not familiar with the phases of the moon in my own time, I had no clue when the Drying Up Moon would arrive. But by the look of those hard figs, it wasn’t anytime soon. Sweat trickled down my back as the full weight of her words registered.

  First, if I didn’t bring those gold pieces to Jonah, he might actually deliver on his threat to do bodily harm to Amadahy or Ginny. Second, if I stayed here, there was a good chance he’d get in touch with his scuzzbucket pal Johnny about using me in his “business.” Third, there was also the possibility that Jonah would lock me up and break my arm, or worse.

  “We will make room for you,” Amadahy said.

  “You don’t understand. He gave me two days to bring more gold.”

  “I will tell him you are sick and cannot travel.”

  I suddenly felt weak standing in the hot sun.

  “Ginny, please bring water,” she said, then turned to me. “Come sit and rest.”

  We moved into the woods, sitting in the shade. Fanning myself with my hand, I closed my eyes, trying to think. I couldn’t hang around the farm for several weeks. Degataga could show up any day now, ready to mete out justice. And no telling what Jonah might do in the meantime – to me, and to the women he thought of as his property. I had to act.

  Ginny returned with a gourd of water. I gladly drank, disregarding the germs. Which made me think of water bottles. Which made me think of Eric, the avid bicyclist. Which made me think of a comment he made – that Jonah should be locked up for his crimes.

  “I’m going into town,” I announced.

  “Mister Jonah ain’t gonna let you ride his horse,” Ginny said.

  “I’ll go on foot. How far is it?”

  “Bout five miles,” she replied.

  “I can jog that far in an hour. Well, an hour and twenty minutes.”

  “Jog?” she said.

  “Run.”

  “It is not wise to travel alone,” said Amadahy.

  “Ironic, you keep telling me what’s not wise for me to do, since you’re the one risking your life staying with that thug.”

  It popped out of my mouth without thinking. Part of me wanted to take it back, considering the consequences of her leaving him. But the honest part of me knew I’d spoken my true feelings unencumbered by my own survival instinct.

  “Just point the way,” I said.

  “Who do you wish to speak to?” Amadahy said.

  “The sheriff.”

  She pursed her lips, then turned to Ginny. “Go with her.”

  “Yes’m.”

  We set off through the trees so Jonah wouldn’t see us. Ginny led the way until we were far enough from the farmhouse to walk along the rutted dirt road.

  “Let’s jog for a bit,” I said.

  “Too hot.”

  “I need to get there as quickly as possible.”

  “You ever faint from the heat?”

  “We’ll run nice and easy for a few minutes, then we’ll slow down and walk again.”

  “I don’t run ‘cept when I’m in danger.”

  “I’m in danger,” I said.

  “Danger of your own making, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “You’re in danger too, you know. So are Amadahy and Betsey.”

  I lifted my long skirt to knee level and jogged down the road, realizing how ridiculous I must look. She reluctantly followed suit. But it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to eat humble pie. It was one thing to jog in the heat while wearing shorts and a tank top made of breathable modern fabrics, a water bottle strapped to my waist, a sun visor shading my eyes while wearing quality running shoes. Quite another to run while wearing a long skirt and blouse and ballet flats with no water.

  “Okay, let’s walk a while,” I said, slowing my pace.

  Both of us were breathing hard, sweat pouring. She gestured for me to follow her as we left the narrow road for the shade of the woods. But the underbrush hindered our progress, so once we retreated from heatstroke territory, we returned to the wagon tracks.

  “You got a notion the sheriff gonna put Mister Jonah in the jailhouse?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “White men generally stick together.”

  “Not always.”

  “Pfft.”

  We walked in silence for a bit until Ginny couldn’t help herself any longer.

  “I don’t understand ‘bout them figs,” she said.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated. You talk peculiar. And you act peculiar too.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Seem like you can’t do much a nothing, ’cept talk a lot.”

  “You’re pretty good at talking, yourself,” I said.

  “But I know how to cook, how to work the fields, how to feed the chickens, how to mind a baby. You like some rich woman never had to lift a finger!”

  “I know how to microwave a frozen dinner, how to heat up a can of soup, how to bake canned biscuits in the toaster oven, and I can make my own coffee in a Keurig machine!”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking ‘bout. You strange.”

  “I’m from a different place, that’s all. And I do different kind of work than you do. I’m a reporter.”

  “Like for a newspaper?”

  “Like for a newspaper.”

  “Where you come from, they let a woman do that?”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “Where you from?”


  “A city called Atlanta.” It was the perfect answer. In 1840, Atlanta was known simply as Terminus – the terminus of a railroad line. It wouldn’t be incorporated as Atlanta for several more years.

  We walked a while without speaking, the cicadas raising a ruckus all around us.

  “You speak different words, but there’s something else. You talk to me like I ain’t a slave. Same as Miss Amadahy.”

  “Where I come from, you wouldn’t be a slave.”

  “I’d be free?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I oughta go with you when you go home. But then I’d miss Amadahy something terrible.”

  I raised the hem of my skirt and used it to wipe my face and neck but had to quickly tidy my clothing when we heard a wagon approach. A buckboard rounded the bend in front of us, a man and woman seated behind a team of two brown horses. The man wore a hat, the woman, a large grey bonnet. We stepped aside so they could pass, but the man reined in the horses, stopping a few feet in front of us. Now we could see children in the wagon bed, along with some supplies.

  “Morning,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “Don’t recognize you. You new around here?”

  “I’m visiting Mrs. Barnes,” I replied.

  “Mrs. Barnes?” the woman said, her round face suddenly filled with concern. “She doing all right?”

  I considered her question carefully before answering.

  “She stays busy.”

  The woman eyed me closely.

  “Isham was my cousin,” she said. “Still hurts me that he’s gone.”

  I looked down, uncertain how to reply.

  “I’m Ida Berryman. This is my husband, Eli.”

  “Kathryn Murray.”

  One of the horses whinnied and Mr. Berryman adjusted his grip on the reins.

  “We need to get on home,” she said. “Please give my regards to Mrs. Barnes.”

  When the wagon passed by, the four children dangling their legs from the rear of the bed waved at us. I waved back. It was a welcome reminder that there were decent people living nearby.

  As we continued on our way, I mulled over the brief conversation with Mrs. Berryman. I wasn’t sure what to make of her interest in Amadahy.

  “Almost there,” Ginny said, stopping in the shade of some tall pines.

  By that time, I was questioning my sanity. I was lightheaded and smelled like I’d come in from a long run and desperately needed a shower. I also feared I was grasping at straws hoping the sheriff might see things my way.

  The trip had taken a lot longer than I figured and my throat was parched.

  “Remember,” she said, “if you talk to me, you gotta act proud-like.”

  Danielsville was nothing like my twenty-first century mind expected. We passed a dark brown, unpainted house on our right, then there was a sizable garden and another wooden structure with a hand-painted sign that said Pulliam Dry Goods, Barber & Dentist. Beyond that was Long’s Saloon. No swinging doors like in a western, just a door standing open, a bar visible in the dark interior of a plain wooden building with two horses tied out front. Across the dirt road was a smaller building with a sign in the window that said Sheriff. There were two other buildings, one of them made of logs. And that was it.

  Feeling anxious, I moved closer to Ginny, but she quickly stepped away, silently reminding me that in 1840 a white woman wouldn’t walk with a black slave like they were bosom buddies. She followed two steps behind me as we crossed the road to the sheriff’s office.

  “I’ll wait out here,” she whispered and sat down on the wooden porch.

  My hand trembled as I turned the knob.

  “Can I help you?”

  It was the booming voice of a wiry man in the process of putting on his hat.

  “Are you the sheriff?”

  He replied by patting a silver star on his breast pocket. His face was like leather, and, although he didn’t stink as bad as Jonah, he did smell like he needed a bath. But then, pretty much everyone smelled like they could use a bath except for Amadahy, who must bathe every day in the river.

  “My name is Mrs. Kathryn Murray. I’m not from around here so I don’t know your name.”

  “Ezra Moon. You visiting someone? Passing through?”

  “I’m a distant cousin of Mrs. Barnes.”

  He eyed me closely. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve come to report a crime.”

  “That so?”

  “A murder.”

  Which got his attention.

  “Who’s the victim?” he said, hanging his hat back on its hook.

  He motioned for me to sit in a ladder-back chair in front of his desk while he settled into a sturdier chair behind it.

  “Isham Barnes,” I said.

  He scratched his forehead before responding. “Isham Barnes disappeared last year. What makes you think, all of a sudden, that someone murdered him?”

  “His brother killed him to get the farm.”

  “Miz Murray, I know for a fact Jonah ain’t exactly the most upstanding citizen of Madison County. He drinks too much. He gambles too much. He’s a regular customer of the less reputable ladies on the outskirts of town. And he ain’t exactly well liked. But I’d be careful if I’s you, calling him a murderer.”

  “He is a murderer! And he beats Isham’s wife and the slave he bought from Mr. Wheeler.”

  He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Ain’t a crime to beat your wife. And it sure ain’t no crime to beat your slave.” Then he stood, retrieved his hat and put it on his head, adjusting the brim. “I gotta make my rounds.”

  “Aren’t you even going to investigate?”

  “You show me some proof there’s been a murder, I might consider it.”

  Amadahy’s account of burying her husband came back to me. How she’d dragged his body on a handmade sled behind the horse. How she dug the grave herself, covering it with rocks. But telling the sheriff the body was buried in her family burial ground might implicate her, not Jonah. Isham’s body would be badly decomposed by now. And even if it weren’t, a bump on the head or water in the lungs wouldn’t point to Jonah. It could just as easily point to Isham’s wife as the killer. Especially in a time when a white man’s rights far outweighed an Indian woman’s rights.

  He crossed to the door.

  “Jonah Barnes forced Amadahy to marry him!”

  “I’m sorry Miz Murray, I don’t have time for anymore of your gossip. I got…”

  “It’s not gossip, Sheriff! I’m telling the truth! He threatened to send her to Indian Territory in Oklahoma if she didn’t marry him. And he forces her into his bed. He hits her, kicks her.”

  “She could leave him if she wanted.”

  “To go where?” I cried, keeping Degataga’s offer to take her to the Great Smoky Mountains to myself. “He killed her husband to get that farm and now he forces her to do all the work!”

  He ignored me, reaching for the doorknob.

  Desperation got the better of me. “What if I contribute to your re-election campaign?”

  He turned to face me.

  “I’ve got a gold nugget,” I said.

  “And you’d give me that piece of gold so I’d…”

  “So you’d at least investigate Jonah for killing his brother and stealing his farm and forcing his wife into servitude.”

  “Servitude? Where’d you say you was from, Miz Murray?”

  “DeKalb County.”

  “Is that how things is done there?”

  “I…”

  “You got that gold nugget on you?”

  It suddenly occurred to me I might’ve fallen down a rabbit hole I couldn’t climb out of.

  “The gold piece?” he said, extending his open palm.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I reached into the pocket of my skirt and handed him the one nugget I’d held in reserve, in case Jonah required a little more persuasion. He put it between his teeth, biting down hard, then inspected the tooth marks.

&nb
sp; “Even if I don’t believe your story, I do believe this here is real gold.” He dropped it in his vest pocket, then touched my arm with his left hand. “I’m arresting you for bribing a public official. If you’ll kindly step this way.”

  “It wasn’t a bribe!”

  “If you don’t cooperate, Miz Murray, I can use force.”

  He was well built, armed with a gun and had a dead serious expression on his face. I reined in my fight or flight instinct, deciding not to risk getting shot trying to escape. He escorted me to one of two jail cells along the back wall and locked me up.

  “Sheriff Moon, it wasn’t a bribe.”

  “What do they call it in DeKalb County when a good-looking woman tries to pay the sheriff to investigate a man she don’t like?”

  “But you can’t lock me up like this.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not from…”

  “Don’t matter where you’re from. You break the law, you pay the price.”

  He put the cell key in the same pocket he’d dropped the gold into and walked out, locking the door behind him.

  My hands gripped the iron bars, shaking them in an absurdly futile gesture. What I really wanted to do was scream. But I settled for a pointless wrestling match with the bars holding me prisoner. They didn’t budge.

  I did a quick scan of the cell, realizing there was only a small high window with bars. No hope of escape. I paced six feet one way, then six feet the other. That’s all the space I had. Then I cursed. Loudly. Which is when I heard Ginny’s muffled voice.

  “I gotta go on home,” she called out, waving at me through the blurry window at the front of the building. “I’ll tell Miss Amadahy.” Then she was gone.

  I resumed pacing. But it was stifling inside, even with no glass in that high cell window. I was used to air conditioning and ceiling fans. This primitive jail didn’t even have electricity. God, for a drink of water, I thought and collapsed on the cot.

  By the time the sheriff returned, I’d drifted off to sleep. The slant of sunlight told me it was suppertime. My stomach confirmed it. But my first priority wasn’t food.

  “I need water,” I said.

  He hung up his hat before sauntering over to a keg behind his desk and lifting the lid. He filled a tin ladle, passing it between the bars. Another communal cup, but I no longer cared. I drank every last drop and asked for more.