“Don’t worry about that one,” Miss Bertie said, easing into an adjacent chair. “It was Edgar’s. He wasn’t as big as you, but he spent a lot of time rocking in it.”
Chan smiled at the mention of Mr. Edgar. “I miss him. The two of you were my family.”
Chan recalled Miss Bertie taking just three days off school when Mr. Edgar died suddenly. Some of the kids said she was meaner than ever when she came back, but Chan saw sadness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. He wondered now why he hadn’t done more, maybe a condolence card or a word of encouragement.
But then, in those days he was fighting battles of his own.
“So, Miss Bertie, we’ve spent our time focusing on me. Tell me what you’ve been up to the past sixteen years.”
“Don’t get an old lady started, Channing. I might rattle on for hours.”
Chan laughed. “I’ve got time if you do.”
And off she went.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
It turned out a lot had been going on in Miss Bertie’s life. Chan was sad to hear he’d missed a retirement party in her honor at a ritzy St. Louis hotel eight years earlier, and even sadder to realize he could have easily attended. It was in May, at a time when he was on the disabled list recovering from shoulder surgery.
A run for the Adair School Board ended unsuccessfully a year later, thanks to some underhanded politicking by Lowell Surratt, Jr. “He told everybody that I would be a demanding busybody.” Her anger still simmered.
She lost by seven votes.
“Did you consider running again?”
Miss Bertie tugged at her sleeve. “Well yes and no. I figured there had to be someplace I could help, and if it wasn’t at school, then maybe it was out here.”
“Out here?”
“Out here,” Miss Bertie said with a sweep of her arm. “I ran for a seat on the County Commission. I’m Commissioner for the East District. I was reelected last year for a second term.”
“Has Lowell Surratt had any business with the County Commission? Please tell me he has!”
“Oh yes,” Miss Bertie answered with a chuckle. “You know he lives out on Rustic Lake, right?”
Chan nodded, hoping this story ended badly for Surratt.
“He bought a boat that was larger than lake regulations allow. He asked the County Commissioners to amend the regulations, just a little, so he could use his boat. The other two commissioners were split, so I was the swing vote.”
She paused to let the suspense build. Miss Bertie knew how to tell a story.
“The amendment made sense. Rustic Lake has plenty of room for larger boats. That regulation had been in place for twenty-five years. It was outdated.”
“Yes? And?” Chan sniggered.
“A small change like that would’ve be the correct thing to do. I could take the high road and show that I was one to forgive and forget.”
“So you approved the proposal?”
Miss Bertie nodded her head slowly, but the twinkle in her eyes betrayed her.
“Of course we didn’t approve it, Channing. Rules are rules.”
Chan jumped from his chair with a whoop. She laughed at his makeshift victory shuffle.
“I love happy endings,” Chan exclaimed.
“Now Channing, you shouldn’t delight in the trials of others,” Miss Bertie replied with a wink. “Lowell had to sell the boat. I understand he lost seven thousand dollars on the transaction.”
Chan leaned against a porch rail, still laughing.
“Daddy?”
Lani was watching them through the screen door.
“It’s okay baby,” Chan said, catching his breath. “Miss Bertie was telling a funny story.”
Lani came out and situated herself in the chair with Miss Bertie.
“You’re pretty big to be sitting in someone’s lap,” Chan said.
“I’ve waited years for this opportunity,” Miss Bertie said, pulling Lani closer. “You don’t think I’m going to let her get away now?”
“Ryan fell asleep on the couch,” Lani said. “I’m going to bed soon.”
“How did Lorenzo do?”
“Two hits. The announcer said he is one of the best young outfielders in baseball.”
Chan felt a tug in his chest, a heaviness. He loved Lorenzo and wanted to see him do well.
But still, something didn’t feel right.
He glanced at his phone. No missed calls. No messages.
No one calling to see if he was okay.
No job offers.
Nothing.
Chan glanced at Lani curled up in Miss Bertie’s lap and imagined Ryan stretched out on the sofa, probably snoring over the sound of the television.
His entire life was right here, in Saxon County.
The very place he’d fought to avoid.
###
He put the kids to bed and returned to the porch. A cool northwest breeze rustled the trees. Miss Bertie had nodded off.
What was next? He had never applied for a job in his life. Being a professional athlete had always opened doors, but no more.
He’d seen it before, guys who had nothing outside of the game. One teammate had his dream ended by a badly broken ankle. His signing bonus and salary long gone, he took a job as night watchman in a shoe factory. Late one Wednesday night, he pulled out his revolver while checking a suspicious noise. After determining the coast was clear, he turned the gun on himself. Chan had talked to him four days before.
“Would you ever consider moving back?”
Thinking she was still asleep, Chan was startled by Miss Bertie’s question.
She, more than anyone, knew what life in Saxon County had been like for him.
The hatred.
The verbal abuse.
The fights.
The loneliness.
The heartbreak.
“Why would you ask that question?”
“Well Channing, it’s just...”
“Miss Bertie, you know what I endured here.”
“Yes, I do. It’s... a feeling I’ve had recently, even before your father passed.”
Chan leaned forward. “A feeling?”
“Maybe more than a feeling; Channing, are you a Christian?”
“Why? Are you?”
“Well... yes... now. I wasn’t always. Actually it’s only been the last three years.”
“Are you saying God told you that I should move back here?”
Miss Bertie didn’t answer for a moment. In the moonlight Chan could see her searching for the right words.
“I’m saying that... yes, I think God wants you to be here.”
“Well, Miss Bertie, God may be talking to you, but he sure isn’t talking to me.”
“I think maybe he is.”
Chan laughed uneasily.
“No disrespect, but you’re wrong.”
“I’ve been wrong before, but in this case I don’t think so.”
“What’s so different from a decade ago that would make me want to come back?”
A thin smile crossed her lips.
“Harvester Stanley.”
“Why don’t you tell me about Professor Stanley and why you think, or God thinks, I should be here.”
Miss Bertie shifted in her chair. “Have you ever heard of the Grebey Island Negroes?”
“Well, A.B. and the others are living on Grebey Island, but I’m thinking that not’s what you’re referring to.” Chan stretched, tired from the long day. “Besides, people don’t say ‘Negro’ anymore, Miss Bertie. The proper terms are Black or African American.”
“Don’t you think I know that, Channing?” she waved dismissively. “The Grebey Island Negroes were from long ago, before I lived here, they... I think this story would be better coming from Professor Stanley. Why don’t you visit him tomorrow?”
“Maybe I need to do that,” Chan said, yawning. “Right after I meet with Richard Smoot.”
“Why would you meet with him?”
“He did bai
l me out, plus he and Daddy were talking about a deal to buy Grebey Island. I’m going to see how serious he is.”
“Don’t sign anything until you talk to Professor Stanley.”
“No promises Miss Bertie. The quicker we get out of town, the better.”
SEVENTY-NINE
It was a restless night. Thoughts of his father, Professor Stanley, Richard Smoot, and the events of the previous day kept Chan thrashing around for hours. Sleep, when it came, was fitful, and he was fully awake at five. He grabbed his phone and checked his email. Maybe...
Nothing. The only message was the one from the Christian station he thought he had deleted.
I know the plans I have for you.
“Stop it!”
Chan jumped at the sound of his own voice. The house remained silent.
Unable to get the scripture verse out of his head, he angrily punched the mattress several times.
“Either let me know or leave me alone!”
He got dressed, wrote a quick note to Miss Bertie, and slipped out. It was five-thirty. His meeting with Richard Smoot was at nine. Chan had no idea how long it would take to formalize an agreement, but with a little luck, he could visit with Smoot and Harvester Stanley before deciding what he would do with Grebey Island. Perhaps he and the kids could head back to Louisville tomorrow morning.
###
The road was as familiar as an old shirt.
He hadn’t noticed this yesterday, distracted as he was with the funeral. Today, alone, it came back to him, anticipating each dip and turn in the road.
The sun was rising through the bug splattered windshield, making it difficult to see the road ahead. The groans of the old bridge announced his crossing. He slowed to thirty-five and kept to the middle of the unpaved road. Then, the farm house was in front of him.
It looked different. Better. The peeling shingles had been repainted, decorative green shutters added. The yard was mowed, the red outbuildings were well-kept and clean. The driveway was free of weeds. Chan couldn’t imagine that his father had done all this. After Mama’s accident, he’d showed no inclination to spruce things up.
He stopped close to the house and killed the engine. There was movement inside. The back door opened. A familiar face appeared.
“Hello Chan.”
“Professor Stanley, I was going to come see you later.”
Professor Stanley stepped aside to allow him in.
“I’m missing your Daddy this morning.”
“Were you and he close, Professor?”
“I came over most mornings and had coffee with Earl,” he said as they moved into the kitchen. “Since he passed, I just kept coming; keeping the place cleaned up, checking on things. You’ll find everything in order.
Little had changed. Same kitchen table and cookstove. A newer refrigerator, but otherwise the same as when he left.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Thanks, but I don’t drink coffee. I’ll have a glass of water though.”
Professor Stanley took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with ice and water.
“You’ve gotten to know the house pretty well,” Chan said, watching the professor move about.
“Like I said, I’ve spent a lot of mornings in this kitchen since moving back two years ago.”
“What did you and my father talk about?” Chan asked as he took the glass and sat in his old spot at the Formica table. Professor Stanley eased himself into the chair on Chan’s right.
“Well,” Professor Stanley drew out the word as he searched his memory. “We would talk about farming. Your daddy knew a lot about that. We talked about the weather, family, the old days. A lot of time we didn’t talk much at all – we just sat here drinking coffee and looking out the window.”
“Had he been sick, Professor?”
“Not that I could tell, and please Chan, call me Harvester.” The old man stared into his coffee cup before continuing. “Earl had good days and bad. I could tell pretty quickly if it was a bad one. Those days we hardly talked at all.”
“How did you become acquainted?”
The question surprised him. “You don’t know?”
“No sir. Your name seems familiar, but I don’t know why.”
“Did your daddy ever talk about the Grebey Island Negroes?”
There it was again.
“Miss Bertie mentioned them, but never a word from Daddy. I don’t know if you were aware, Professor, but Mama was involved in a terrible accident when I was a small boy...”
Harvester placed a hand on his arm. “Your daddy told me. I’m sorry you had to go through such a trying time.”
Chan had a feeling that Harvester Stanley had experienced trying times of his own. It turned out, he had. For the next hour, Harvester enthralled him with stories of the past.
“The New York Times?”
“Yes indeed,” Harvester smiled, “and a dozen other publications. The Grebey Island Negroes were quite the story.”
Chan was on the edge of his chair as Harvester told how Grandma Cora and her young son joined with the Grebey Island Negroes, building a farming operation larger than any in Saxon County. No wonder Daddy was so excited to come back.
“Together, we were the largest producer of cantaloupes in the entire state. We shipped them everywhere, from an old dock on the other end of the island.”
Chan remembered the remnants of that dock, little more than a few rotted posts.
“Watermelons, strawberries, cucumbers, all kinds of truck crops. This island was full of God’s bounty.”
“Why did it stop?”
“That story is even longer, I’m afraid.” Harvester massaged the back of his neck. “And it begins with an evil group of men called The Covenant.
###
“I’m meeting with him at nine.”
They were in the back parking lot of Lighthouse Church, far enough from town to avoid attention. They wouldn’t be there long. Two men from Oklahoma, long-time organizers, were leading the discussion. They went by Amos and Andy. Two locals were also on hand, and Richard Smoot.
“It won’t be easy,” Andy said. “That half-breed isn’t dumb.”
“We wouldn’t be here if you’d gotten the deal done with Earl.” Amos’s tone reflected an impatience with the locals. “You screwed it up. That’s not the way we operate, Smoot. You want your money, you get us the land.”
“After the greeting he’s gotten, I expect he’ll be ready to sell,” a local said. “Bump went to the graveyard and hauled him in just as the funeral was ending.”
The men warily watched a car approach.
“Deputy Stan Slaven,” the second local said. “Don’t worry about him.”
Slaven honked twice as he drove past.
“It wasn’t my fault that Manning dragged his feet,” Smoot said, anger flashing across his face. “The man suspected something wasn’t right.”
“That coon professor got in his head, is what I think,” one of the locals said.
“That’s why we need to move swiftly,” Andy said. “Smoot, get the deal done or we’ll find somebody who will.”
###
Harvester took a deep breath and wiped his face with a handkerchief. Telling the story seemed to age him.
“In the end, six Grebey Island Negroes died, and only one man – one man – went to jail: Granville Dobson, my wife’s brother.” Tears rimmed his eyes.
Chan excused himself and left the kitchen. With the bathroom door closed, he vomited, then sat on the edge of the bathtub, trying to come to grips with Harvester’s account of events from a half century ago.
Aldus Dobson, hung for a murder he didn’t commit.
Thomasena Dobson, Aldus’ mentally impaired daughter, raped and killed; her body dumped in Grebey Creek. Her murderer never apprehended.
Mary Dobson, another of Aldus’ daughters and a close friend of Chan’s daddy, shot and killed while swimming near the levee. The gunman never caught.
Harry Da
vis, farmhand and friend of his Grandmother Cora, ambushed as he returned to Grebey Island from a weekend in St. Louis. His body was left hanging from the bridge, a diamond engagement ring in the pocket.
Herbert Cornish, his house burned to the ground in the middle of the night, his daughter hospitalized for weeks with severe burns. A man named Grover Petty was brought in for questioning, but released.
And Granville Dobson, who left the island soon after his father’s hanging, was serving a life sentence in Jefferson City for attempted murder. “It was too much for Granville,” Harvester said. “He came back looking for revenge, and wound up being the only person convicted for all that violence on Grebey Island.”
Even Harvester’s wife, Charlene, suffered as a result of what her family had been through. “Only fifty-four when she passed,” Harvester said. “I always said she died of a broken heart.”
###
Harvester was standing when Chan returned to the kitchen. He pulled the professor into an embrace.
“I’m so sorry for your losses, Harvester.” The words seemed woefully insufficient.
Chan could feel the old man’s ragged breathing. Recounting the past had taken a lot out of him.
“Your daddy was a good man. I don’t know much about the times when you were growing up, but from what he said, it was hard.”
“With all due respect, Harvester, I don’t think you and I knew the same Earl Manning. In fact, I’m not sure I knew him at all.”
Harvester shifted uncomfortably, sat down, and took a sip of coffee.
“I wish I had some answers for you. Your daddy kept a lot inside. There were days when he was just so sad. About what, I never knew. There was a lot of hurt and fear inside him. Chan, I suspect at some point he had a nervous breakdown.”
Chan slumped into his chair.
“I guess we’ll never know what was going on with my father.”
“Never say never,” Harvester replied. “God has a way of shining light on things.” Brightening, he said, “Besides, your daddy had enough forethought to get in touch with me. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here, and neither would any of those people you saw at the funeral.”
Harvest of Thorns Page 34
