“‘Yessir,’ I said, looking up from the engine shaft that I was trying to fit to the Black Duck.
“‘You Walker John?’ one of them said.
“‘Yessir,’ I repeated.
“‘We’re FBI and we need your help to fix a boat. They say you’re the best in town.’
“‘What’s the problem?’ I said, as I stood up.
“The older man left his companion at the door and walked towards the open back of my shop, the part that looked out on the harbor.
“‘Come with me,’ he said motioning me to follow him.
“They took me out in the harbor to a large white yacht, about a seventy five foot ocean going rig, that was moored near the slave monument off to the side of the channel. Around it several small boats were milling, first running up and then slowing and coming back along the side of the big craft. The smaller boats had Coast Guard markings.
“I climbed the boarding ladder at the side of the yacht and I was ushered aboard and into the company of a Navy petty officer, in full uniform. I noticed several Senators, one of them the famous Congressman Barr from down in one of the southern states, were sitting in the yacht saloon.
“The officer said, ‘We need you to get our engine running so we can get back across the Bay to Washington.’
“I was told that the engine had begun to run rough with a lot of black smoke coming out the exhaust. They had to shut the engine down. A team of mechanics had been requested, but its arrival would be some time from now and they were in a hurry.
“I went below. First of all, I got to say I was amazed at the shoddy maintenance. Some of the wiring was hanging bare of sheathing. I went right to work and patched with tape the wires and reinserted them into their places in the ceiling and along the walls. I checked out the engine and found that the oil was very low. The engine had not been lubricated properly in several hundred running hours. Also this was a large gasoline system consisting of two engines, and I found several loose fuel connections which I repaired. What had caused the black smoke was probably a combination of overheating and poor carburetor adjustments due to lack of attention.
“I put the engines into idle and adjusted the fuel mixtures. The engines sounded smoother and the revolutions on the tachometers were steady. After the engine began running, two men came down the ladder and greeted me. One was the same petty officer and the other, the bigger of the two, a man with a mustache and a solemn expression, asked me what I had done to repair the engines. He said he was the captain. I explained my actions and that I thought that the engine was now in good enough repair to take them back across the Bay. The captain smiled and nodded his approval.
“We went upstairs. At the top of the ladder, Congressman Barr, a heavy set man in a blue striped cotton suit came over, his hair white and his face wrinkled in a grin.
“‘I’m Congressman Barr. You get her fixed, Captain?’ the Congressman asked, twirling the ice in the drink in his right hand.
“‘Yessir,’ he said.
“‘I see you got your helpers here too,’ Barr chuckled, as he reached over to me and patted my shoulder. He said to me, ‘Now this is something that you could learn to do, boy. I got a lot of work down where I come from in fixing these boats for the tourists. You get some of this government money for training and go listen and learn how to do it.’ He pinched my arm. I nodded.
“I remember checking the faces of the FBI types who had brought me out to the yacht, wondering if they were going to introduce me to this Congressman, inform him that I was the mechanic who had just saved the yacht, wondering if they were going to thank me. Then as I looked at the passive faces I realized that I probably wouldn’t even get paid.”
“Did you?” asked Charleston.
“No,” grinned Walker.
He went on, “As we stood on the deck waiting for the ride back to shore, I looked over to the shoreline, where I could see the steeples of the churches and the round top of the courthouse. I heard a distant roaring noise like a storm and saw a large helicopter rise into the sky. Immediately beside it, another helicopter which had been waiting further off on the horizon closed in. Then the two of them gained altitude and headed off towards Washington.”
From outside the hospital window, Harry heard the heavily amplified and distorted sound of a piano drift through the glass. To Harry the ultimate melody was also confused, the piano notes being what he understood as one song, but overlaid with louder human voices chorusing another completely different song. On top of that, to add to the confusion, the first harmony was interrupted further by other voices, other words, each trying to drown out the other, the waves of noise moving higher and higher in pitch.
Harry glanced out through the fixed glass panel and spotted the source of the music, a flat bed truck. Its bed was covered with a red and white canopy and held several guitarists, a drummer, and a seated player bent over a dilapidated upright piano. The truck’s nearness to Reverend Blue’s contingent indicated that Blue’s church had probably hired the music. Their moniker, Mel Mellow’s Music, was imprinted on the fringe of the canopy.
“Here, you can’t get up,” someone said behind Harry. He turned to see the old man clambering from the bed. Walker approached the window and stood against the pane next to Harry, his face coming alive with the celebrations below. He raised his right hand to wave to some of the people he recognized in the crowds below.
As the people below on the lawn saw the old man up in the window, their singing increased in volume. Harry could recognize the bouncing rhythm of the old Confederate marching song, “Maryland My Maryland,” as the front line of the Reverend’s bustle dressed women and men all alike in staunch overalls rocked back and forth, formed up like soldiers, singing,
“The despot’s heel is on thy shore,”
Across the hill covered with white and black children who were laughing and playing together oblivious to the passions of their elders, the black adults sang as loud as they could to compete, to drown out the music coming towards them from only a few feet away, their own choir building a strong verbal bar of melody as they swayed back and forth, hands clasped with each other in an unbroken line of humanity, singing the old slavery refrain,
“We shall overcome some day”
Chapter 19
Friday August 6, 12 noon
Walker obviously relished the opportunity to tell his story and in his own way. Before he continued, he told them that he had spent so many hours talking to a muskrat he had made into a pet out in the Wilderness, he’d forgotten what it was like to talk to a human face. That brought a laugh from everyone except the sheriff.
Walker began again. “We were all set that summer to have a good regatta. Then General Store burned down. That happened at least two or more weeks before the second fire, when the Terment cannery in town went up.
“I watched the fire trucks roar out of town that night and decided like everyone else to go look at the fire. I had been working on the carburetors of my engine all day anyway and wanted to test my adjustments. So when I heard the second fire alarm, I quickly put the carburetors back together and bolted them to the intake manifold. Then, I started out into the harbor with my boat. I figured to see the fire from the water.
“From the direction the fire trucks had gone, I knew the fire was out toward Allingham Island where Jake Terment and his father lived or even as far as the Wilderness Swamp. I decided to cruise out of the harbor and around to the Nanticoke River, then look for the glow in the sky.
“When I started out the harbor it was pretty dark and my light was running ahead of me, showing off the slight waves and the lack of wind. I could not run too hard in the coming darkness so I spent most of my time accelerating the engine trying out the carburetor at the lower revolutions.
“After a while I saw the tourist boat coming along the edge of the Bay and ready to turn into the harbor. I slowed down and then drifted with the engine off to watch and listen. She’d come over from Baltimore on a cruise and the
y people on board would sleep on her. The cruise went along the Eastern shore and usually come into River Sunday about ten PM or so.
“I could hear the music on board. They had a band playing on the rear deck and I could see the couples dancing. I watched the black bartenders and waitresses taking the drinks around. Seemed like several bottles of champagne were being opened and many glasses being filled. Lots of laughter too and the sounds came out over the water, following the reflected light to the edge of my racer. They could not see me out in the darkness but I could see them real well.
“Then the tourist boat went on by and into the harbor. I continued to watch her for a while and then after the noise died out, all I could hear was the slapping of the waves against the hull of Black Duck. I turned on the engine and headed back the way I was going. I had not drifted too far so I was still pretty close to the Bay.
“Now my boat went out into the chop. Far off I could see the lights of a large oil tanker heading down the Bay from Baltimore. Those sailors were probably settling down for the night. I could not make out her details but I knew from the distance between the forward and stern lights that she was very large. I felt small, my boat bouncing along on waves that would not even be felt by the big craft.
“To my right was the old fort and the buildings for the tourists. I knew that all the structures were closed now and except for one or two lights up on poles, I could spot no life in there. I suspected that a few nighthawks might be diving at bugs around those lights. They would be too far in to shore for me to see. I had to be pretty far out as you know going around that point of land because the water was very shallow and I did not want to tangle up my propeller in the weed.
“As I came into the mouth of the Nanticoke I had only starlight. I proceeded in the darkness slowly hoping that I did not run aground. Now off to my right were the skeletons of the three and four masted schooner wrecks that had been left there so many years ago. The hulks were glistening in the starlight and I could make out the tall masts and some of the hull timbers of the big ships.
“I began to run more carburetor tests. I took notes in my book on various mixtures and was beginning to get a feel for the adjustments. Everything was going as I had expected. Then suddenly I thought that I saw a small rocket going off far in the distance up the river. This would be best described as seeing what kids set off at the Fourth of July, a simple shooting star sent up from the shoreline and then after arcing in the blackness, tumbling back down and fizzling in the water. I looked hard into the night but I didn’t see anything more. However, it puzzled me, because I am not one to see things that are not there. I slowed the boat to a stop and with the engine idling, I looked hard at the far shoreline. Then it happened again. I saw another rocket and then another. I began to realize that these were not rockets, but pieces of burning wood being thrown into the air.
“The cause of this activity was on the right shore of the Nanticoke. It was maybe a two mile run upriver for the Black Duck. I pushed up the throttle and headed there, my search light unfortunately not doing much good and therefore I could see only a few feet ahead of the bow. I could not go very fast because I could not see anything in the water. Even at a slow speed I might hit a floating piece of timber and hole my boat before I could stop. Yet I didn’t want to stop. I was curious to see what was on fire.
“Now as I got closer I could see the flames. The boards were being sent heavenward by the force of the hot fire. That fire was like a volcano. Trees were on fire, too. I could finally see that it was the old cannery where the General Store was housed. I figured that the building didn’t have much chance to survive with the height of those flames.
“As I came up to a point offshore and out of the range of the flaming boards that were splashing into the river in front of me, I could see the fire trucks. Some were still arriving. The fire lit up the center of my landscape with the absolute black of the night on both sides and only whitened by the rising smoke up above me. The fire trucks sirens could barely be heard against the roar of the flames sucking at the dry wood of the disintegrating building.
“I sat offshore and watched for a while as the ladders went up. Men with hoses were running out into the shallow water to get siphons started to the truck pumps. Fortunately the fire was near the Nanticoke River, an endless supply of water. Unfortunately even with the whole river, that fire was so much out of control that it seemed to me unlikely that the firemen, especially such a small force as the River Sunday volunteers were going to be able to conquer it or much less save any vestige of the building.
“Then the firemen began to put water from the river on to the flames. Up to now it had been the water they brought with them in their truck tanks. The water seemed to be swallowed up with no effect at all on the inferno. The flames were so great, maybe fifty feet into the air, and the hose water, small streams that went not more than twenty or so feet into the flame throats, that I didn’t expect to see any change in the destruction.
“Inside I could see shapes of machines silhouetted against flames. These were the old boilers and steam equipment left behind when the cannery production was abandoned. I was right about the force of the flames. For more than an hour I watched from offshore, alone out there with all the world no more than a hundred yards in front of me yet not knowing I was a spectator. I suspected the fire would win and I was right.
“The fire slowed down and was less noisy as its dry wood tinder was used up. I began to hear the police cars coming and going on the nearby highway. Also I heard the dismal sound of the River Sunday ambulance. I wondered who could have been hurt and felt sick to my stomach at the thought that anyone might have been burned in all that fire.
“I ran my boat in along the shore. Other small boats had come along now and I was no longer alone. Then I nosed in the craft a few hundred feet down from the fire area, moored it to some trees and waded ashore. Even at that distance the air was full of the smell of the burning wood. Burned out ash floated in the air and landed on the deck of my boat.
“I heard one of the firemen saying as I come up among the brush on a little path up from the mooring. ‘Goddamn,’ he said, ‘I never seen so many of them. They all come out with a fire. Like insects running from the old wood. Only time I ever see them run.’
“I thought he was referring to insects or rats. Then I noted that he was looking straight at me and laughing. He was talking about me. I did not know the man. I had no business with the firemen. My area of Mulberry had few fires. I had been used to talk of this kind by the whites, but I must admit, I had been spoiled and had not heard much of it in my presence since I had opened my outboard shop and had so many whites coming in for service on their engines.”
“At any rate, people, especially folks of color living in Mulberry, were tense after the General Store fire. Also, my white customers didn’t talk the same way, some even sounding like they were apologetic. I became aware of my being black and that they were white and relationships became strained. However, I kept my mind on my work and after a week or so, things began to get back to normal.”
Walker stopped talking. A State Policeman, Harry recognized him as the scuba diver who found the wreck of Black Duck, had appeared at the hospital door. He spoke quickly. “Sheriff, they’re pushing and shoving out there. The crowd has grown to over a thousand, some of them from out of town, and they are holding up traffic. We got to do something.”
“Can you get any more men from the barracks?” said the sheriff, standing up.
“No.”
Sheriff Good said, “The Governor told me he’d send in a company of Maryland National Guard as soon as he could.”
“Yeah, well, get him to hurry up. This crowd could spread to the downtown area. It’s only three blocks,” said the trooper.
“I better go out and wave the badge,” said Good.
“In my opinion, Sheriff, it’s beyond that now,” the trooper said, very excited and twisting open the snap on his holster that restrained his automatic p
istol.
Harry rushed downstairs to see the crowd for himself. As he stepped outside the sun hit him and also the sound and smell of the mass of people in the courtyard. On both sides of the grass plot the numbers of persons men and women of all ages and the many children had increased by hundreds He looked out at the street and more people were arriving. On the street the town police were trying to direct the traffic which passed by slowly as drivers gawked at the activities.
He looked to his right and saw that Reverend Blue had climbed up the platform and was preparing to make a speech. Harry started towards that side of the area so that he could hear. As he did he saw Annie coming towards him, her pace steady and her arms swinging.
“The boat’s still missing,” she said as she drew near.
“Who’s doing all the looking?” Harry said. “Cheeks is here.”
She said, “Town police and Marty Sol. They’re searching the racing teams, trying to see if it is hidden in one of the trailers. The idea is that Walker John has a lot of old friends among the drivers and mechanics. Maybe someone who is trying to help the old man has taken it and hidden it somewhere.”
“Those guys are loyal to each other,” Harry said.
She nodded and said, “The drivers I’ve talked to say they’d just as well sink it as to let the law keep it.”
Harry heard applause. Up on the platform, the Reverend held up a newspaper which looked to Harry like it had very old newsprint, faded and brown. Blue pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and adjusted them on his eyes.
Harry and Annie moved closer. The people had turned their bodies away from confronting the black group across the hospital lawn. Harry noted the eyes of the onlookers and how the few who noticed him and Annie stared at them with suspicion. People in this group knew Harry and Annie were newspaper people. From the looks in the faces, even of the children, Harry knew also that he was considered an enemy, not of the faith, not reborn, as though any of the dogma they believed in, the words of their preacher, would be reported in a sacrilegious and blasphemous way.
Powerboat Racer (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 3) Page 25
