And If I Die

by John Aubrey Anderson

  “Well, he said he was tryin’ to get to Louisiana an’ needed a little work.” Roosevelt grimaced. “I hired him to do the yard work at the houses, an’ I let him stay in the cabin here.”

  Missy was listening quietly. She had spent the past few weeks looking forward to their trip to Cat Lake, anxious to be where so many of her favorite memories were anchored. What she was hearing from Red and Roosevelt reminded her of things best forgotten. Her first words were a question. “Where’s Lucas?”

  “He got his leg broke when somebody run over him in—” Roosevelt’s speculations interrupted him. “Have mercy . . . you reckon he would run a man down just to git his job?”

  Each of them thought their own thoughts for a moment and came to the same conclusion. Any man looking for Mose would be sent by the Bainbridges, and any man sent by the Bainbridges would be utterly ruthless.

  “We best take us a look inside,” said Red.

  Roosevelt was trailing as they mounted the stairs to the cabin’s porch, thinking back over the past week. If Lavert was looking for Mose Washington, he hadn’t heard anything during the last few days that would help him in his search . . . nobody at Cat Lake would ever say where Mose was, even if they knew. He said, “’Fore we goes in, I needs to say somethin’.” The other three stopped on the porch, and Roosevelt spoke as if he’d read the Pattersons’ minds, “I don’t know where Mose is at, an’ I don’t know if any of y’all do. What I’m sayin’ is, Mose is as fine a friend as a man could have, but if any of y’all knows, you needs to be careful I don’t find out.”

  Red, for his part, knew if only one person in the world knew where Mose was, it would be the white girl standing at his elbow. He said, “Rose is right. I’m gettin’ on up in years, an’ I seen too many old folks accidentally blab out stuff they didn’t even know they was sayin’. The less I know ’bout Mose, the safer he is.”

  She’d been born and raised across the lake—the crown princess of the Parker family. In June of 1945, she’d been a skinny little seven-year-old with long eyelashes and a short temper—and the target of an assault by a congregation of demonic beings. The demons had set out to kill her, her best friend, and her brother.

  The demon at Cat Lake, the leader of those who purposed to kill the children, chose as his means of destruction a gigantic cottonmouth water moccasin. His plan called for his underlings to harvest their own moccasins and use them to drive Missy to him; he intended to kill her in front of a crowd of people—people who knew her.

  In those days, if you could factor the three “Parker” children out of the mix, Cat Lake’s environs were the picture of peace—its quiet waters were surrounded by rich cotton land, moss-draped cypress trees, and gentle people. However, because children don’t lend themselves to being “factored out,” the folks on the Parker Plantation welcomed all newcomers and visitors with the admonition that they “best watch out for them Parker children, ’specially that black ’un an’ that girl.” Bobby Parker, a typical twelve-year-old, was the group’s acknowledged leader. Mose Junior Washington, eleven years old and fairly easygoing, was the most adventurous. Missy Parker was born tough, spoiled rotten, and followed her own rules.

  On a warm June day, the three kids were playing near the Cat Lake bridge. Missy and Junior were taking turns jumping from the bridge, and Bobby was nearby in their homemade boat when the first water moccasin surfaced near the girl. Local folks still tell the stories about the events that took place in the next few minutes—they call what happened on that Sunday afternoon “The War at Cat Lake.” And that’s what it was.

  Bobby and Missy survived—Mose Junior gave his life to save theirs.

  In the months that followed, what had been a casual friendship between the girl and Mose Junior’s parents became a bond unlike any the people in the Mississippi Delta had ever witnessed. With the Parkers’ blessings, Mose’s wife, Pip, met with the child to pray and study the Bible. Missy confounded the white community by frequently referring to herself as “Mose’s almost-daughter.”

  Missy stopped on the porch and the men waited.

  Under the pecan trees in the front yard, what had been bare dirt was covered with grass. The cats were gone, giving the redbirds, sparrows, and doves unrestricted access to the grounds in front of the cabin; from somewhere in the tops of the trees, a mockingbird warned others of his kind not to intrude into his portion of the world. There’d never been a daylight hour when a person couldn’t hear a bird’s song from the front porch.

  Missy looked at the manicured area around the tombstones and said, “Y’all go on in. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  The men went inside, and Missy walked back to the top of the steps and sat down.

  Nothing had changed, and everything was different. The same cypress trees guarded the banks of the lake, their soft clusters of Spanish moss moving like thick tassels of ash-colored hair, conversing with the late-afternoon breeze. The surface of the lake glittered black and beautiful, the birds in the yard were lively and colorful, the coo of a dove offered warmth to her heart . . . and the scene filled her with dread. Red’s words reminded her that, in the vicinity of Cat Lake, abundant peace had been known to portend tragedy.

  In her short lifetime, three men had been shot within fifteen feet of where she sat. All three were, in some way, victims of demonic attacks. All three died.

  She bowed her head. “Lord, please keep me reminded that You’re in control. Amen.”

  When she stepped into the cabin, Roosevelt said, “We was just lookin’ ’round without movin’ nothin’. I don’t see nothin’ different from the last time I was here, ’cept for that big hole in Mose’s chair.”

  Missy looked at the chair. “Rats did that,” she observed.

  “Mm-hmm.” Red peered at the hole though his bifocals. “Somebody just cleaned out the nest.”

  “Well, let’s rummage around and see if we can find anything he might’ve left,” said Pat.

  They didn’t—not so much as a stray piece of paper.

  They were back out on the cabin’s porch, when Pat said, “He left it clean.”

  Missy nodded. “Maybe too clean.”

  “Maybe.” Pat shrugged and turned to Roosevelt. “Where else would he have been by himself?”

  “Nowhere,” said Roosevelt. “He was either outside workin’ in the yards or in the house here. I could walk out on the loading dock any time of . . .” He paused, then looked across the lake. “The shed over at the gin . . . that’s where he went to get the yard tools an’ sharpen the mower blade.”

  The other three followed his gaze. Missy said, “Let’s take a look.”

  The interior of the shed was pretty much unchanged. Red stood outside while the others edged down the sides of Mose’s old pickup.

  On the night Mose fled Cat Lake, Bobby Lee and Mose came to this shed and swapped Mose’s truck for the Mercury left there when Old Mr. Parker died.

  “What was in the truck?” Missy asked.

  “Nothin’,” said Roosevelt. “I cleaned it out myself.”

  Pat nodded. “I went through it too . . . with a whisk broom . . . glove compartment, under the seat, ashtray, everything. The license plate’s at the bottom of Mossy Lake.”

  Missy pulled open the passenger door and wrinkled her nose. “There’s a rats’ nest in the seat.”

  Roosevelt opened the other door, and Pat looked over Missy’s shoulder. When they saw the rats’ nest, the two men looked at each other. Pat said. “Let me get closer.”

  “What?” said Missy.

  “Just a minute,” said Pat.

  He and the big black man leaned into the cab from opposite sides, and Pat lifted the rats’ nest and put it on the floor of the truck. A saucer-sized segment of the seat’s upholstery and the padding underneath it were gone.

  Roosevelt straightened from examining the seat. He shook his head. “That ain’t good.” Pat was nodding agreement.

  “Tell me what ain’t good, Rose” she said.

&
nbsp; “When I cleaned out this here truck, they was a bloody handprint in the middle of the seat . . . one what that young boy made that night.”

  Missy stretched across the seat and sniffed at the hole where the nest had been. “It doesn’t stink bad enough. A two-legged rat put that nest here.”

  Roosevelt pursed his lips and shook his head again. “I should’a washed out that spot.”

  “I missed it too, Rose,” said Pat. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You’d be right to don’t worry ’bout it,” said Red.

  “Yep.” Missy sidestepped back to stand by Red and brushed off her jeans. “What’s done is done.”

  “No, no,” said Red, “not like that. I mean it ain’t in our hands.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the girl. Pat and Roosevelt made their way to the tailgate of the truck.

  Red pointed at the cab of the truck. “That feller was most likely lookin’ for Mose, right?”

  They nodded.

  “He come here an’ snooped around some without nobody knowin’, right? Now,” he pointed to the west, “I ain’t bothered to go to Greenville in a year, but the good Lord come near speakin’ out loud . . . tellin’ me to go today.” Red pointed at Missy and Pat. “An’, I don’t pick up no hitchhikers, but y’all two drove within twenty feet of that same feller, an’ he missed seein’ y’all ’cause I got prodded to pick him up in my car. You wrap all that in what we lookin’ at here, an’ you see where we at.”

  Red’s audience responded to his revelation with blank looks. Missy touched Red’s arm and said, “I’m sorry, Red, but I still don’t see what you see.”

  Red smiled. “Mose been gone for eight years without bein’ found ’cause that’s how God wanted it; can’t no demon, nor no man, find him what God wants to hide . . . not ever. An’ if the bad folks is still lookin’, that means Mose is alive an’ still hid. But . . . you take what we seen today, an’ folks what’s payin’ attention would be lookin’ to see things change.” He took the girl’s hand in his and patted it. “God had Mose an’ that boy behind a veil . . . an’ now He’s fixin’ to lift it up.”

  The faces around Red were no longer blank. Roosevelt rested his hand on the truck and bowed his head. “Lord, have mercy on us all.”

  Pat and Missy were able to avoid looking at each other, but they were both thinking the same thing: Mose needed to be warned.

  Red could see their consternation. “Lemme tell you young white folks somethin’.”

  Missy reached for Pat’s hand. They waited.

  “It ain’t never mattered where Mose was at; if God wanted him hid, he was hid. He could’ve stood in the middle of that bridge yonder for eight years an’ couldn’t no bad folks have seen him . . . an’ if God’s fixin’ to let bad folks or demons peek behind the curtain, runnin’ ain’t gonna change nothin’.” He nodded to himself. “Was I him, I’d be expectin’ to be found, an’ I’d pray that God would git plenty of glory from whatever comes.”

  When Red finished his pronouncement, Missy was trembling, and Pat pulled her close. Red noticed and said, “We better pray.” He and Roosevelt took off their hats and he said, “Father, Yo’ Word says, ‘The Lord is my light an’ my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’ We come askin’ for Yo’ strength an’ Yo’ protection, an’ we begs You, Lord, to let us honor Yo’ name by how we trust You. Amen.”

  Missy wiped her eyes and tried to smile at Red. “I’m still scared.”

  Red nodded, then took a bandana out of his pocket and dried his own eyes. When the cloth was back in his pocket, he took the white girl’s hand in both of his and said, “God’ll be yo’ strength when the time comes.”

  Pat and Missy both repeated, “When the time comes?”

  “Mm-hmm. Looks to me like the time’s comin’.”

  “What time?” asked Pat.

  “Hard to say, I reckon.” The old man seemed distracted. He looked at the setting sun and said, “I reckon I best be gettin’ on to Greenwood.”

  Missy took Red’s arm. “What time are you talkin’ about, Red?”

  “Well, when it comes right down to it, I ain’t for sure . . . but you’ll know when it comes.” He waved his finger back and forth at the two of them. “Both o’ y’all gonna know. God brought y’all all the way to Miss’ippi so’s y’all could know things was gonna happen. Was I you, I’d be on the lookout.” He put his hat on and walked to his car.

  Pat and Missy walked with Roosevelt till they got to the middle of the bridge. They stood by the remains of the old ladder and looked down the length of the lake. The tops of the trees stood still in the warm air; the surface of the water was a black mirror, reflecting clouds turned red by the sunset.

  She leaned forward and looked beneath them. “The float’s gone.”

  “Yessum,” said Roosevelt, “it got too rotten for folks to be on, so I had ’em tear it up.”

  The girl didn’t respond, and Roosevelt murmured his good-byes and ambled away to get his truck.

  Missy thought out loud, “We spent a lot of time on that old float.”

  Pat smiled. “Are you wishing you were a kid again?”

  She shuddered and said, “No, thanks.” All of her childhood memories were not good ones.

  This was where she’d had her first experience with demons. Junior was on the float when he stopped the water moccasin from killing her. No sooner was she safe, than Junior intervened to take a snake strike meant for Bobby. When the battle was over, her daddy and A. J. Mason brought her friend up the ladder. She watched him die minutes later, right where they were standing.

  Pat said, “Sorry, hon. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shhh, shhh . . . it’s okay. I spent a million summer days playin’ on that float with Bobby an’ Mose Junior—built it ourselves.” She smiled. “We tore up a pretty good cotton wagon to get the lumber, an’ when our parents found out about it, they tore up our backsides. A few months after Junior died, I knelt in this very spot with Mose an’ prayed to receive Christ, an’ I got to watch you do the same thing . . . prayin’ right here with Emmalee.”

  “And I proposed to you here.”

  “An’ it was wonderful.” She traced her fingers along the railing, remembering Mose’s words. “We called it a memorial bridge after Junior died . . . I guess that’s even more appropriate today than it was then.” She smiled again, more softly. “It would be a shame to let that all sift down to one horrible memory.” She looked up at him. “It’s a wonderful place.”

  He agreed. “It’s certainly special to me.”

  She took a deep breath. “Do you think Mose is in danger?”

  He thought for a moment, frowning. “I think we should assume that he is, yes.”

  She took his hand. “Are you as scared as I am?”

  “Yes . . . and no.” The gin’s pigeons made a last sweep over the lake before going in to roost. Pat looked around him; the treetops stirred, water rippled around the bridge pilings—the clouds overhead were changing from red to dark gray. “God always does what’s best for us.”

  Missy was twirling a strand of her hair; her eyes were looking without seeing. “Mmm.”

  He looked out at the lake. “Do you think God brought us here so Red could warn us?”

  She didn’t hear him. “What’re we gonna do?”

  “Well, the second thing we need to do is get back to Texas.”

  “The second?” she said.

  Bobby Lee opened his back door and looked out. “Wonder where the kids are.”

  Susan was pulling a roast out of the oven. “They were standing on the bridge the last time I looked.”

  “Yep. They’re still there . . . an’ look at that.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Well . . . they just got on their knees.” He watched the young couple for a few seconds then said, “Looks like they’re prayin’.”

  Susan looked over her husband’s shoulder. “Hmm . . . right in the midd
le of the bridge.” She tossed her pot holders on the counter. “If they need to stop where they are and pray, then you and I should be doing the same.”

  Pat and Missy walked off the bridge hand in hand and met her parents at the back door of the big white house.

  During supper, Pat, who normally carried the conversation, spoke only when spoken to. Virginia Parker cooked a dozen extra rolls for him; he took one and ate half of it. Susan Parker watched her daughter push her food around on her plate and worried that youngsters had been arguing. Bobby Lee talked some about the farm and gin, then swapped to baseball; he came close to talking to himself.

  After an exceptionally long lull, Missy said, “Pat an’ I are going back home in the mornin’.”

  “Well,” Susan said, “knowing that beats the living daylights out of thinking you two are fighting.”

  Her grandmother pushed her plate back. “Well, I guess that explains why Pat’s acting like this is a funeral instead of supper.”

  “Sorry.” Pat winked at her. “I’ll do better next time.”

  Granny was tapping the edge of her plate with a fingernail, looking at Missy. “And I suppose it’s safe to assume that this has something to do with Mose?”

  Missy picked up her coffee cup and walked over to open the back door. After checking outside and satisfying herself that no one outside could hear her voice, she refilled her cup and brought it back to the table. “Yessum, it sure does.”

  The aliases of Moses Lincoln Washington and William L. Prince Jr. were known to fewer than a dozen people—their whereabouts, to half that many. None of the Parkers knew where the two men were, and by unspoken agreement, they never broached the subject with Missy. Over the past eight years, Missy spoke of Mose every now and then, but no more than any close friend might. No one ever said it, but the girl’s parents and grandmother all knew if they wanted to find Mose they’d start their search near the girl.