by Lila Beckham
Visiting with Boone had caused Joshua to be reminiscent. He had been sitting, thinking about his father, remembering him in life. Maybe it was because his father and Boone shared many of the same mannerisms. On the other hand, it could have been the twang in Boone’s voice; their voices were very similar.
Boone had been everywhere under the sun it seemed. He was widely traveled and Joshua’s father had traveled a lot before settling down.
Joshua remembered asking Boone about New Mexico. He wanted to know what it was like there.
Joshua’s father had always said that he had named him after the Joshua tree and when Joshua was a little boy, his father promised to one day take him to see the trees he was named after.
He told him the tree grew wild in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona. They were named after Joshua in the bible, because they looked like a person wielding a sword. Joshua’s young mind tried to visualize them.
On his deathbed, Joshua’s father apologized to him for not taking him to see the trees.
Joshua told him not to worry. One day he would get to see them. He had been dead for 30 years now… Some days, more than others, he missed his father.
Thinking of his father, ultimately led Joshua to think of Josiah Long, Josiah was a self-titled prophet of sorts.
Long ago, Josiah Long had predicted Joshua’s demise at the wheel of a jet-black car.
Joshua was never one to believe in fortunetellers and such, but in one way or another, he had avoided owning or driving a black car his entire life.
Somehow, Joshua felt the wreck was just the beginning of something. Maybe he was supposed to die in the accident. After all, the mustang driven by the Blackwell boy was about as black as they come. Even the boys name had black in it; however, he had lived through it.
While Josiah was alive, many had flocked to him to have their palms read and fortunes told.
When they were in the tenth grade, Annabel Pierce, Joshua’s high school sweetheart, had drug him to Josiah’s ramshackle trailer house off Repoll Road, to have their fortunes told.
Josiah looked at Joshua’s palms, tracing the lines that crisscrossed them and then he shuffled a deck of cards, having Joshua cut them before he spread them out on the roach infested kitchen table.
Joshua had never given much credence to old Josiah’s predictions, even though his father died of the exact cause Josiah predicted he would.
Looking back, Joshua reckoned he had heeded Josiah’s warning by not owning or driving a black car.
At the time of Josiah’s prediction of his father’s death, Joshua was too young to think about death. Besides, his father seemed as healthy as a horse and larger than life, to a young Joshua.
The year after Joshua graduated high school, his father died from lung cancer, just as Josiah predicted.
Joshua now wondered if he had of told his father of Josiah’s predictions, if things would have turned out differently, probably not… Joshua’s father was as hardheaded as he was now, maybe more so.
As an adult, Joshua now realized that even if his father had sought medical help, in the two years between Josiah’s prediction and his death, it would not have changed the results. He could not help but to think about it now and then and wonder what if. What if his father had lived, would Joshua have lived his life any differently.
As he sat and thought about it, he doubted it. He would never know the answer to that question, because there was no way to know. What was past, was past, nothing could change that.
Some people, even very knowledgeable people, could not know the outcome of such a question.
Addison Hayes, an old Monroeville lawyer, once told Joshua that from its inception, a thought was just a process, and that some peoples thought processes were mighty impressive. Joshua reckoned that Josiah’s thought processes were mighty impressive, and intermingled with some higher intelligence. Maybe that was why he could see other people’s lives unfold in front of him.
Undoubtedly, old Josiah could not foresee his own future, thought Joshua, or else he would have foreseen his own demise at the hands of a drunken, heartbroken patron who wanted his fortune told, but told to suit him, and not the fortune he received.
Josiah Long was found stabbed to death on Christmas Eve, back in 1969. It caused a great mourning among his many clients. Folks built a shrine and left flowers and trinkets around his old trailer for months. Fortunately, his killer surrendered the day after the murder, when he sobered up long enough to realize what he had done.
Joshua was glad he did, because if he had remained silent, they probably would not have ever solved Josiah Long’s murder. There was way too much traffic through his house and too many sets of prints to differentiate the killer from the other patrons.
Slowly, but predictably, Joshua felt wheels had been set in motion, for something, but he was not sure for what. He peeled off his uniform shirt and jeans, took a long hot shower, and then began to shave. His reflection in the mirror was that of a stranger staring back at him.
His eyes were bruised, his nose swollen, and the knot on the side of his head was sore as a risen boil, but he knew he would live through it, and he would heal.
Joshua put on a clean pair of jeans and a fresh shirt and headed for the door. He had decided to drive down to the café in Wilmer and get himself some supper.
He grabbed his hat off the hook as he went through the door, but when he reached the highway, he sat there several minutes, mulling his decision.
Joshua knew the café would be crowded with regulars, especially with it being a Saturday night. He did not want to have to explain his injuries, nor did he want to deal with the whispers he would hear behind his back.
Joshua turned right and drove four miles over the state line into Mississippi, to the truck stop. He hoped being out of uniform, he would go unnoticed and blend in with the truckers there.
The Four-Mile Truck Stop was relatively quiet when he walked in. There were several truckers seated at the counter, and Jenny, the waitress, was serving up fresh coffee and a bright-eyed smile.
“Be with you in a minute, Hon,” Jenny cooed as he walked through the door. He walked to the left and took a seat in the last booth.
“What brings you to my humble digs,” a voice from behind the counter asked.
“I just come to see your pretty face, Maggie,” Joshua replied, as he took a seat in a corner booth. He preferred the corner so he could keep his back to the wall.
Many would not recognize him out of uniform; Maggie was an exception. She had known him far too many years not to know him, in or out of uniform. She came from behind the counter, brought him a cup of coffee, and sat down across from him.
“I ain’t even going to ask what happened” she said softly, “Done heard about it earlier today. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Me too, Maggie; it could have been a lot worse.”
“You just tell me what you want to eat; I’ll see to it that you eat in peace.”
“Thanks Maggie, I greatly appreciate it.”
Good to her word, when it was ready, Maggie brought him his steak and potatoes and then whenever he needed anything she was bringing it before he even knew he needed it. No one else bothered him and he took his time and enjoyed his meal. Joshua paid the tab and left, leaving a hefty tip on the table.
The drive back to the state line was uneventful, but as he crossed the Escatawpa River, he thought of Hannah, Willie, and Lacey. His thoughts of them were forever interwoven with that crossing.
The light of several campfires flickered along the riverbanks and he thought of the days of his youth.
The river had always been a hangout for him and his peers too, although nowadays, the crowds that hung out there were rougher and into more than had ever occurred to him and his friends.
The same river flowed behind Joshua’s house. His house was once the overseer’s cabin of the old Caledonia Plantation, and the bridge he had just crossed had not always been there. Long ago, the only w
ay to cross the river into Mississippi was by ferry. There was once a ferry landing right where the bridge now lay; the Moffett’s owned it. Moffettville was named for them.
When he was a young boy, old Missus Christopher, who lived behind his mother and father in Fairview, had told him the story of Caledonia and the Moffett’s.
She told him how they were murdered and the plantation destroyed near the end of the Civil War.
The perpetrators were the notorious Copeland Gang. They robbed the plantation of everything that was of value, slaughtered the entire family, and then, burned the plantation to the ground. Allegedly, for the families failure to turn over the Confederate Gold they supposedly had.
The story was that they had hidden it and did not give it to the Yankees during the war.
Missus Christopher also claimed the ghosts of the Moffett family still inhabited the land surrounding their burial place, which was in the family cemetery on the grounds of the plantation.
Joshua knew it to be true. He had explored the cemetery and he had seen and heard the Moffett’s ghost and their slaves ghost himself. They were there on the land and around his cabin…
Before Joshua reached the turnoff to his road, he decided he would not go home but instead ride down to the Ala-Miss Club and look around.
The club sat just across the Alabama - Mississippi State Lines, near where the new interstate crossed.
The Ala-Miss Club had opened its doors in the spring of 1973. It was a favorite hangout for many from the lower counties of both states. It was also one of the rowdiest honkytonks around.
The club was laid out with fence rails, sawdust floors, and wooden benches placed around heavy tables that were not easily picked up and thrown around, as the lighter tables in other establishments were when the patrons became rowdy.
14
Escape!
Emma took a deep shaky breath. Her heart felt as though it would burst from her chest and her legs felt like limp noodles. Oh Lord, what am I going to do? I have to get out of here, she thought, frantically looking around.
Then, she saw the fallen tree that she used to break the heels off the shoes. Emma was headed straight toward it when she stopped to get rid of the hindering heels.
Over the tree she leapt, and kept running in as straight a line as possible. She soon came to an embankment, once climbed, it leveled out to a gravel bedded platform that held a set railroad tracks.
Well, that explained the vibrations; it was a train, thought Emma.
Once on the tracks, Emma hesitated still. She had no clue which way to go. She looked both ways and scanned the skies, but there were only dark clouds above her. It was impossible to tell which way was which.
Trees, trees, thought Emma, remembering that moss grew on the north side of them, but the trees nearest her were surrounded by moss. It grew all over the trunks of the trees and there was a new growth of kudzu growing amongst them. Emma’s eyes searched the tracks in both directions hoping to see some identifying landmarks, but all she could see in both directions were tracks and trees.
She knew that she could not stand there forever and she could not run down the tracks, because they could see her if she did, so Emma crossed the tracks and went down the embankment to the other side.
After a few yards scrambling through the thick undergrowth, she came to a river.
The direction of flow was to her left, which to her, meant that it was flowing south towards the Gulf of Mexico. All rivers flowed south to the gulf, right, her logical brain reasoned.
Emma gobbled down the cold sandwich and then plunged into the water. Emma resurfaced in the middle of the river. She was quickly caught by the rivers current. Initially, it drew her downward.
Emma relaxed, letting her body roll with the flow. Her body rose upward as if a buoy and she began to float down the river. She soon rounded a bend in the river.
She was now out of sight of her initial plunge, but she had not floated far enough to leave her watery haven.
She would not feel safe leaving the river to climb along its banks. She felt she was still too close to the place she was held.
Emma was glad she had learned how to float. Floating was much easier than swimming was.
Her daddy had taught her it was easiest, when he taught her to swim. He showed her that it was especially easier if you wanted to go with the flow, not against it.
She knew if she stayed afloat, the river would carry her to its end or if it were a tributary, it would carry her to a larger body of water. She would worry about that if it came to it. Right then, all she wanted to do was stay afloat.
Floating along in the river with her eyes closed, gave her plenty of time to think and think she did, replaying her ordeal in a mind that was no longer fuzzed by drugs.
Besides the citronella oil smell of the house, knowing the windows were boarded up, and that it had a basement and was several stories tall, Emma knew nothing else about the house. She saw no identifying features, because she had seen nothing of the front of it. It was more secluded than she had first thought, and when she ran into the backyard, all she saw were trees.
When she heard the screen door slam, she was already in the tree line; she could not see the back of the house, nor could she see what was around it.
Emma would be willing to bet she was floating in the Escatawpa River though. If so, above where she had gotten into it, was a trestle. Not the trestle where the train crossed near the old campground, but a trestle that was a few miles north of there, between Highway 98 and Citronelle. She was almost sure of it.
Once, when she was about twelve years old, her father had taken her and her brother fishing. They traveled up the river in a small aluminum boat, which had a gas-powered motor on the back of it.
After about an hour, they came to a trestle that was almost identical to the one near the campground. When she asked her father where they were, he said they were near Earlville… she remembered a train passing over the trestle as they fished the river a hundred feet or so above it.
Well, it’s a start, thought Emma. If she came to the familiar trestle near the old motel, she could then tell authorities where they held her. When I get to the trestle, I can find my tent and get my moped. Then I can get to safety for sure, thought Emma. She smiled, her stressed mind relieved by her thoughts.
Emma opened her eyes, raised her head to look around and then she turned over onto her belly so she could see ahead of her.
There was nothing to see but water and trees. She decided to swim with the flow and hurry herself along through the water.
The river was a maze of twists and turns, rounding bend after bend of white sand beaches and river birches.
Occasionally, along certain stretches of the river, there would be shallow water where the sandbar stretched nearly the width of the river and Emma would have to stand up and walk. Her legs felt very heavy when she tried to pick them up. In other areas along the river, eddies pooled where fallen limbs and trees gathered in the deepest part of the bend. Emma tried to avoid them, remembering what her father had taught her about eddies and undertows; how they would suck a person’s body beneath the surface and the harder you fought against them, the deeper you would go.
“Eddied pools whirl within the curvature of a slow flowing river. Seldom-traveled waters move backward, spun breadthways into a depthless abyss.”
Where had she read that? Emma tried to remember. Oh yes, it was from one of those poems written by her cousin Susie.
“Susie is always writing something; poems, stories; one day she’ll write a book” Emma’s aunt Hannah had said of Susie, and all agreed that day at her grandma’s house.
Susie looked very much like Emma’s aunt Jessie. Jess always referred to Susie as her little twin. Susie was short though, she took after the Fortner side of the family Emma reckoned, because she was barely five feet tall, if that.
Emma was glad her own frame had grown six inches above that. She knew she was not tall, but at least she was
not short either.
The river was peaceful. Emma floated along, sometimes skimming the bottom with her toes, other times with her knees or buttocks if she were on her back.
She had not seen anyone along its banks nor had she seen any houses nearby. She deduced that it must be a weekday since no one was fishing or camping.
After what seemed an hour, Emma came to a very swift part of the river. She could see some whitecaps ahead and she could tell the elevation was dropping.
Emma knew that Mobile was below sea level, she had learned it at school. Therefore, this drop in elevation was another clue to where they held her.
She did not remember this section of the river from when her father had taken them fishing, but the river could have been higher if it had been a rainy season that year. Emma was not sure.
None of the scenery alongside the river differed from the other very much at all.
The Escatawpa River was not extremely deep or wide; it could get very shallow and rocky in places; but it was a long river. Her father said the river began its flow all the way up past Chatom, Alabama to the north, and to the south, it flowed all the way down to Pascagoula, Mississippi, at the Gulf of Mexico. That was a long way, probably over a hundred miles.
Once Emma made it through the white capped water, the curves in the river became more snakelike, closer together; the water, swifter. She heard the low rumbling of thunder and saw lightning in the distance.
After rounding several sharp curves in succession, ahead through the trees, she saw what looked like a trestle or maybe a bridge. Overhead, she saw a darkness.
15
The Ala-Miss Club
It was about 9 pm when Joshua arrived at the Ala-Miss Club. The parking lot was overflowing with pickup trucks and motorcycles. You would think the two did not mix well, but the Ala-Miss was an exception.
Most of the bikers frequenting the club were good ol’ boys, wannabe’s, admirers of the free spirited lifestyle of actual bikers from movie lore.
