The Sea Keeper's Daughters

by Lisa Wingate

  “Man,” Joel breathed.

  “You saved somebody’s life that day.” The girl’s voice again. “Did you ever tell anybody that story before, Mr. Franczyk?”

  “Quit callin’ me Mr. Franczyk. You seen me half-nekked with my rear end hangin’ out a hospital dress. No sense bein’ formal after that.”

  “Well, now, there’s a picture,” I said and entered the room.

  Joel, Clyde, and a petite, pretty blonde girl abruptly turned my way. Joel quickly made introductions. As I’d guessed, the girl was Kayla.

  Clyde cleared his throat, embarrassed at having been caught in a tender moment.

  “So, what’s going on up here?” A pizza box balanced on the arm of my mother’s chair, and three to-go cups sat on the end table. The pizza was mostly gone, the remains starting to solidify. Joel and Kayla had been up here for a while.

  Joel slanted a self-conscious look at the mess. “Kayla called and asked if I wanted her to, like, grab a pizza for lunch and bring it over to me, and I told her, ‘Heck yeah, I’m hungry’ … and … ummm …” He shrugged overgrown straw-colored curls from his eyes. “I hope that was cool. I had her bring enough for the dude upstairs too.”

  A warm feeling slid over me. “That’s nice, Joel, thanks. And of course it’s okay.” The scene was calming, a little oasis of kindness in an otherwise-confusing day.

  “Anyhow, don’t think we ain’t been workin’.” Clyde deployed the lecture finger and wagged it at me. “Joel here found another handful a letters stuck in a old peanut can downstairs, and he carried it up to me. These ones hadn’t been tore up, so I skipped over the last of the ripped ones and we been readin’ these. You’re gonna be surprised what’s in ’em. Alice and Tom found Ida Mullins and a little town of Melungeons. But when Alice and Tom got there to the settlement, it wasn’t a nice, warm reception. Them Melungeon families—a couple dozen of them livin’ in shanty houses up an’ around a long holler—was shy of outsiders. But folks would talk to Able a bit—ask her who her people was and such.

  “Alice started to takin’ Able around when she’d interview folks, and little by little she got a story or two—some about the families, and some about the old times, and the plants and roots they knew to use for healin’ sickness and such. Her and Tom stayed there a week, Tom gettin’ them Melungeons to let him take pictures, and Alice travelin’ around in a mule wagon with Ida Mullins. They stayed with Mrs. Mullins in her little shack. Alice wrote quite a picture of that place.”

  I stood spellbound as Clyde thumbed through the letters, his head tilted back so he could scan the words. “And … then there was a little romancin’. Thomas hadn’t given up yet… .

  “And there’s some in here about the necklaces. Alice was findin’ here and there that the Melungeon women had ’em. She also learnt that Able had one, but the cord was broke. Ida Mullins fixed it for her with a buckskin string. Every one of the necklaces was a little different, but all the women who had the necklaces, folks called them the sea keepers, not the story keepers. They said the necklaces proved that their people come over the water on a ship, a long time in the past, all the way from England.”

  Pausing, he leafed through several more pages, skimming the words and summarizing. “Tom and Alice found out where the orphan school for Melungeons was… .

  “Thomas traded with a man and got a little carved walrus tusk that was s’posed to be from them sea keepers. It didn’t belong to the man’s family. He’d found it in a cabin where the people died from dysentery… .

  “I got one letter left.” Clyde stopped offering highlights as he opened the seal on the last envelope. Meanwhile, Kayla, Joel, and I waited, breathless.

  “Let’s see what it says,” Joel prodded, leaning over Clyde’s shoulder.

  Clyde’s forehead lifted behind his bifocals as he read. When he’d finished, he slowly handed the letter to me. “Y’all might oughta read this one for yourselves. It tells where they went next.” Joel and Kayla repositioned, so as to read along with me. Turning to Alice’s words, I caught a glimpse of my stepfather shaking his head as he sank deeper into the worn corduroy chair. “I’ll warn ya, this story ends in the middle.”

  Dearest Ruby,

  We’ve come into a spot of trouble, and I’ve found it prudent to package the collection of my rough drafts into one of my smaller suitcases, which I will be sending to you via post very soon. I know that you will hold the originals in safekeeping, so as to preserve them, should any of my finished pieces fail to reach the state office or be rejected there.

  Upon leaving the home of the Melungeon woman, Ida Mullins (an experience which I will no doubt sit up late to tell you of in detail someday), we passed through the small community of Towash, a place Ida and the Melungeon families scorn, as they are most unwelcome there. The Melungeons will, in fact, travel over twice as far around the mountain to do their town business and shopping elsewhere.

  Our intention in Towash was to purchase some supplies at the small general store and post my latest packet to the state FWP office. Tom also planned to speak with the man at the Gulf station as to the possibility of trading his beloved Kentucky rifle for new tires. The WPA car was not in good condition at the outset, and now we have been repairing three to four flats per day along the rocky upland roads. The situation at this point is fairly desperate. Even so, the reception we received in Towash sent us onward in no small hurry, I will tell you. The man at the Gulf informed Tom that he had no tires for sale, even though there was a full rack visible in front and a sign advertising the price. All were presold, the proprietor claimed. In the general store, the girls and I were accused by two local women of “stinking like Melungeons.” Imagine!

  I refused to buy a thing there, and we left. A pair of young rounders followed us out the door, making cattish conversation. I was midway between perturbed and petrified, as Tom was still over at the filling station, arguing with the man. I had Emmaline clutched on one hip, and Able close by, and I was thinking of the little pistol Tom had insisted I carry in my satchel. (Please do not worry, Ruby. I refuse to even keep the bullets in it.) Of course, I could only imagine what would happen to us here, were I to brandish it on the street. The local constable himself was on the porch of the jailhouse, pretending not to notice our harassment.

  Finally, I turned to the boys, getting Able and Emmaline behind me. I imagined those scruffy young mountain lads as rowdies, chasing after my college girls, and I gave them a red-faced scolding, also letting them know I had the pistol and I would surely not be worried to make use of it.

  “Both of you run along now, or you’ll find yourselves in a bushel of trouble!” I told them.

  The larger one, a sorry lump who looked as though he had not missed a chance at the trough in quite some time, said, “I y’ain’t worriet. Anybody’s been wit’ them Melungeons ain’t welcome in Towash. I heared the Klan’s gonna put yew down in a holler where ain’t nobody’ll never find ya.”

  Ruby, I must tell you that when one has never been the target of injustice, it is as jarring as a sudden slap. I thought of the man who had accosted me at the vegetable stand and wondered whether word of us was traveling these hills in whispers, moving faster than we were.

  “Young sir,” I said, “I am under the employ of the United States government. You would do well to tell whoever might be making threats that should we meet the slightest trouble here, there will not only be federal agents to deal with, but an occupation by the National Guard. We Federal Writers have been tasked to travel this country by none less than President Roosevelt himself, and we shall visit all parts of it, including the portions occupied by both the Negro populations and the Melungeons.”

  “My pappy says ain’t nothin’ them’uns gotta say needs’a be toldt in no book, nohow,” he stammered out, but his skinny friend was already backing away. “Nobody’d ought’r be thinkin’ the mount’n folk is back’ard as them Melungeons that lives up to Rooster Hill, that’s how my granny told’t it. Said a long time b
ack, some woman put them Melungeons in the Tennessee newspaper. Spoke agin’ the mount’ns, she did! Them Melungeons witched the woman, was what they done. My granny ’members.”

  He was, I knew full well, speaking of Miss Will Allen Dromgoole and her reporting, some forty years ago.

  “I assure you that I write only the truth, young man. In fact, I would write your story, if you would tell it. Or your granny’s if she would like to speak with me. We haven’t come only to talk with the Melungeons, but to document the lives and histories of all mountain folk.”

  “Y’ain’t witchin’ me… .” The boy began backing away. “Y’ain’t comin’ on our place stinkin’ like Melungeons, and with that’un carryin’ devil spawn in ’er belly, neither. Be better if it was dead ’fore she can birth it.” He gave Able a hateful look as if he would have beaten her right there, if he could. It chilled me to the core.

  “You will move along, young man!” I insisted and advanced with a finger pointed right in his face. “Shame on you!”

  Perhaps he could see that I was incensed, for he retreated, following his bony friend across the street to the porch of the brick jailhouse. The girls and I hurried on to the post office, only to have the postmaster request that I take my business elsewhere.

  “To be truthful, ma’am, your mail might not make it out of here if you leave it.” He was a young fellow, polite and cleanly dressed, but painfully honest. “There’s lot of folks round this area have got Melungeon blood someplace back in the family, and they don’t want that fact told, nor any discussion of it. They don’t even want folks pointing out that there are Melungeons round these parts a’tall. If you look a little, you’ll find there were plenty of white fellas who’d married a pretty Melungeon gal, back when womenfolk were scarce. Truth is, there’s even Melungeon blood in some fine families in the North Carolina statehouse, and they don’t want that sort of thing told neither.”

  He leaned close across the counter, beckoning me to him as if the very walls might be listening in. “You’d be wise to take my advice and let the Melungeon issue lay. Don’t be scratching up old bones, if you take my meaning. You’re likely to find that the politicians you’re figuring will send in the troops might be just about as unhappy as the folks round here. Every so often, there’s rumbling about how the Melungeons and the Cherokee and the free coloreds were chased off their land back in the old times, and with no payment for it. Some want reparations made. That’s not an issue the governor cottons to. Just the other day on the radio, I heard that Roosevelt was talking about eventually mixing the military. Colored fellas bunkin’ right next to whites. Can you figure? I don’t have a thing against coloreds, nor Melungeons. I’m a God-fearing man, and I figure the Almighty doesn’t ever meet a stranger, but it’s not easy to bend old minds around new times. There’s many here who’re barely scratching out a living themselves. They’re good folk, but they like things the way it’s always been. You’d best keep that in mind, is all.”

  I thanked him for his counsel, and we hurried off to meet Tom. When I related the details of our encounter, Tom was as upset as I, and we departed from Towash as quickly as possible.

  In the next town, we left Able in the car and quietly mailed my field report and final drafts to the state office. I thought it prudent to wait and post my suitcase with the rough drafts from a different location yet. When I can, I will send it to you. Please keep the stories safe for me. So many people do not wish these to be told. Perhaps political pressures will cause the Melungeons to be omitted from the state book altogether, but I must try.

  When I return from these wanderings, perhaps you and I will edit these works together and find a publisher for them, if need be; however, I cling to the hope that right will prevail in the state and national FWP offices. I simply cannot believe that we will not print the truth. We have, after all, been charged to record all of the stories, and the Melungeons do have quite a tale to tell.

  I have penned this letter during our stopover for lunch at a small white church with a lovely new picnic park built by the relief workers. Upon leaving, we will travel two hours (but only fifteen miles, we’ve been told) up a mountain, as close as we can come to the Melungeon mission school. From there, we will walk on foot the rest of the way in, finally crossing the rope bridge, if you can imagine!

  The school is quietly ignored by others in the area, and none care to speak of it. Our information is scant, but Thomas feels confident of finding the trail. We can only hope they will provide a safe place for Able, despite her condition. Otherwise, I do not know what we will do with her. All Able will say of the child is that she has no means of raising it and she plans to give it away. To whom, I cannot imagine. Parents here cannot feed the children they already have.

  I pondered her situation long and hard as the girls ran and played in the field, as carefree as newly hatched butterflies, the sunlight outlining the arc of Able’s stomach. In that moment, I decided that when we do reach the Melungeon children’s school, if it is necessary in order to secure a place for Able, I will offer to return following the birth and take the baby myself.

  Please, before you form a reaction, Ziltha, know that I did fully consider the implications that such a decision might harbor for Emmaline and for me. The idea left me no small bit afraid, so much so that I felt compelled to fall to my knees and ask for guidance. No one was nearby our little church in the wildwood, so I went inside and knelt in one of the pews, thinking of Able and her people. In the way of the Israelites, they have wandered in the wilderness. Not for forty years, but for hundreds.

  This poor baby will be born in hostile country, just as was the infant Christ. I feel as though I have been called to the manger, much like the shepherds, frightened and unprepared, but I simply cannot abandon the little foundling to a place where so many would rather see it dead.

  Peace descended upon me there in that chapel as I prayed, and I knew that my decision was as it should be. I am meant to save this child.

  After rising from the altar, I found Tom sitting in the doorway light, holding his hat in his hands. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said. “I just thought it’d be good to come in and talk to the Almighty, all things considered. It’s stayed in my head a bit, what that boy in Towash said to you about Able’s baby.”

  “Tom …” I went to him then, intending to assess whether he had overheard my prayers about the baby. I could see that he had. Would he attempt to dissuade me?

  I looked into his eyes, so fair and so blue beneath his tawny curls, and he took both of my hands in his, and I fell into him, weeping for all that is wrong in the world. “Tom … the baby …” was all I could muster.

  “We’ll find a way, Alice.” His voice was thin and choked, his head inclining over mine, holding me protected. “I promise you, we’ll find a way. With any luck, the father is white and the race won’t show, but if it does, we’ll do what we have to. We’ll go to Europe, or out west, or to Alaska … or Timbuktu. We’ll make a life. I’d walk to the ends of the earth, Alice. For you, I would.”

  Only when I had cried myself out did he lift my face to his and kiss me and taste the salt of my tears. The bitterness fell away and became as sweet and glorious as summer fruit.

  I do not know why I confess this to you now, Ziltha. It is so private a matter, and troublesome for all the reasons I have already mentioned. But, Dear Sister, you and I have always kept one another’s secrets. Were you to see me in person this moment, you would know the truth in less than a heartbeat.

  I have come to life again and found myself, quite impossibly, in love.

  Your sister,

  Alice

  I stood for a moment, staring at the letter. “This is it? This is the last one?”

  “Whoa,” Joel whispered.

  Kayla sniffled and wiped her eyes.

  Clyde cleared his throat. “That’s all we got so far. That one was in the peanut jar. Feels like you been left danglin’ in the wind, don’t it?”

  “Yes.�
�� I scanned the last page from beginning to end again, as if somehow by rereading it, I could make the paper stretch, grow new words, tell me more of the story.

  But paper doesn’t know the story. People do. If only I could’ve found these letters when my grandmother was still alive. Had Alice ever come to Roanoke after her work with the Federal Writers’ Project was over? Had Ziltha refused further contact … or had Alice run away with Thomas and the baby and never returned? Perhaps they’d moved overseas or out west and started a whole new life?

  Could my grandmother have told me what became of her sister?

  “There has to be something more down there.” I set the letter with the others.

  Joel nodded, blond hair falling over his eyes. He finger-combed it and held it in a ponytail atop his head.

  “Don’t know how you can find anything with that mop over yer face.” Clyde searched the mess on the card table and snatched something up. “Here, I got a pair of scissors. I can fix that real quick.”

  A smirk answered, making it evident that some sort of discussion had gone on before I’d arrived. Joel and Clyde were actually teasing one another. Go figure. “Yeah, that’s okay, Old Dude. I think I’ll spend the eight bucks on Great Clips. I don’t wanna come out lookin’ like I joined the Army.”