The Cursed Ground

by T. R. Simon

  Mr. Hurston put down his fork and looked at his favorite daughter. His eyes softened. “Let’s hope the storm changes course before it gets to us. That’s what I’m praying on.”

  Sarah nodded and fell back into silence. Zora’s older brothers swapped a serious look. This night even they didn’t make noise, argue, or snatch biscuits.

  After dinner, while Zora and I started silently clearing the dishes, there was a knock on the door. Mr. Hurston opened it and let in Joe Clarke.

  Zora ran up to him. “Mr. Clarke, what brings you to our place tonight?”

  “Why, to see my favorite Eatonville resident, of course!” He smiled, and Zora grinned.

  A second knock a moment later brought the Baker men — Mr. Baker, Micah, and Jake. At that point, Zora and I knew nobody was paying a social call. Something serious was happening, and the men of the town were gathering.

  Mr. Hurston looked at Sarah, Cliff, Ben, Everett, Zora, and me and spoke sternly. “Y’all go on up to bed, hear? We got town business to discuss, and it don’t concern children.” Since John and Dick were standing behind him, it obviously did concern at least two of his children, but we knew enough not to press the point.

  Sarah gathered a wriggling Everett into her arms and began shooing us to our rooms. Zora, one step ahead of her father, grabbed my dress and pulled me to the side. We ducked into her parents’ bedroom, right off the main room where the men were gathering. She closed the door all the way except for a crack and together we peered through. Lucy Hurston had taken her regular seat by the unlit fireplace and took up her darning. More knocks, and more of Eatonville’s men filled the room.

  Some fifteen minutes later things got underway. As mayor, Joe Clarke opened the meeting and laid out the problem at hand.

  “Here’s the situation. This morning two white men came ’round to see me: a land agent from Winter Park and a man from Jacksonville, name of Peterson. They claim that old Polk’s land was never legally abandoned, so it was illegal to join it in parcel with the land sold to Eatonville. They said I needed to dispossess Polk and they would ride out with me to make sure I did.”

  That set off an explosion of exclamations. “Say what, now?” “Oh, no!” “I don’t believe it!” “Nuh-uh!”

  Mr. Clarke raised his hand for quiet. “I showed them our charter and the deed to the parcel of the whole town. I showed them the part where it says the land Polk’s on now was declared legally abandoned in 1870 and made part of Eatonville in 1887. I showed them the record of Polk’s purchase of the land in that same year.”

  More murmurs, and Mr. Clarke held up his hand. “Hang on, men, I ain’t finished. The land agent represents Peterson, and he says the man’s claim on the land had been ignored after the war. He says that his client has come to reclaim the land that is rightfully his, and that he bears the deed to it.”

  Chester Cools stood up. “Did he show it to you? Did he show you the deed?”

  Mr. Clarke scowled. “We know darn well he doesn’t have one, Chester.”

  Mr. Cools looked embarrassed. “Well, I was just giving you the opportunity to say so. That’s a mighty important detail on such a significant matter.” He looked around the room. “Significant!”

  Zora elbowed me. She loved the way folks whose speech was plain as gray wool in normal times liked to trot out their biggest words on special occasions, as if they had been saving them up and didn’t want to waste them on everyday things. We agreed that her father was king of the fifty-cent words, but there were a lot of dukes and earls and counts in the kingdom of Eatonville, too!

  This was met by even more agitated murmuring.

  “It is significant, yes,” Mr. Clarke continued, “but this Peterson says he did present his deed to the county clerk up in Sanford, and the clerk raised no objection to his legal attempts to reclaim the land.” More murmuring, and Mr. Clarke spoke still louder. “Peterson says his call this morning was his ‘legal attempt at redress.’ That’s what he calls it. Now, I deny his claim . . .”

  “Of course you do!”

  “I denied his claim, telling him if he wants to dispute my decision, he’ll have to file a formal complaint at the courthouse in —”

  Mr. Hurston was on his feet. “Now, why you do that, Joe, tell him he could dispute it? Why you go do that?”

  “John, as a marshal I’m a sworn officer of the law, and it’s my duty to —”

  “No, no. No, it ain’t, Joe. I beg to differ. Your duty is to protect and defend the people of this town, not to succor the enemy!”

  “John, let me finish what I —”

  “No, no, you let me finish. I was born into slavery, like most of us here. I was a slave the first two years of my life, and I’ll be damned if I ever be one again! Taking land from one of us is the same as all of us having no land at all. They take our land once, what’s to stop them from taking it again?”

  “It’s a fact,” called out Mr. Edges. “Ain’t no law bestowed with the purpose of protecting any man but the white man.” Zora and I looked at each other with surprise. It was the most animated we had ever seen or heard Mr. Edges in our lives.

  Teddy’s father stood. Mr. Baker wasn’t a member of the dictionary club, but folks listened to him. “Bertram’s right, Joe. There’s nothing white folks won’t do when colored folks have something they want.”

  Mr. Clarke looked weary, but his voice was strong. “I hear what you men are saying, but when I became the marshal of Lake Maitland in 1885 I bided my time. I waited. And, when I needed to, I groveled.” We heard the whole room catch its breath at that word. “I did, because always, in the back of my mind, there was the dream — that one day I would found a town for colored people, run by colored people. And my dream for that town was everything this country had denied us — a place where we could be free, where we could govern ourselves, and where the law that makes the dream of democracy real for white folks would make it real for us, too.”

  We could make out a few low “Amens” and a couple of “That’s rights.”

  “I made my dream come to pass. Y’all are standing on my dream made flesh.”

  The room fell deathly silent.

  “Now, I need to tell you something else: when we choose against the law, we’re choosing against our own dream — the dream of what’s fair and civil and decent. We’re choosing to side with the logic of the mob, with the worst this country is, and the worst it can dole out. And we know what white folks do when colored men take up arms — ain’t no mystery around that. We’ve got to try to rebuild this country with its own building blocks, and that means we need to keep trying the law. If we don’t have the courage and the patience to do that, we’ll trade blood for blood, clear through to our great-grandchildren.”

  Mr. Hurston nodded. “I hear you, Joe, and I respect what you say. We got to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, but what does Caesar render unto us? The white man is our Caesar, and he takes from us, all right, but he does not give to us, and he does not protect us from injustice. Think about the Seminole. What good the law do him? We all residing — white and colored both — on Seminole land. So why we think we can make the law protect us any more than it did the Seminole?”

  Micah and Jake Baker nodded vigorously in agreement, until their father raised an eyebrow in their direction.

  “What you say is true, John,” said Mr. Clarke. “We’ve done everything legal through and through, but what I saw in that man’s eyes today reminded me of things I want to forget.”

  No one said a word, but I believed I could hear the beating of every heart under that roof.

  It was Mrs. Hurston who broke the silence. “Why don’t you say it, Joe?” Her sewing had fallen to the floor and she was leaning forward, her face tight as a drum. “You think he’s going to gather men, don’t you?”

  Joe Clarke exhaled slowly. “That’s why I called this meeting, Lucy. I’m sorry you have to hear this, but my old neighbor Fred Callett rode down from Lake Maitland this afterno
on to tell me that while he was making a delivery at the back of a pharmacy up there, a white-haired white man was riling up a bunch of boys about ‘renegade nigras down in Eatonville.’” He let that sink in. “In fifteen years this town has never had so much as a whiff of the abomination this state is notorious for, but I’m afraid the coming days may change that.”

  “What we gonna do, Joe?” That was Mr. Eddie Jackson, a small nutmeg-colored man who lived with his sister and together sewed half the work clothes white Lake Maitland wore.

  Joe looked grim. “I’m going to use the law. I will bring a formal letter to the mayor and the sheriff of Lake Maitland tomorrow and ask them to sit down and talk. Peterson don’t care a fig for Eatonville law, but, if they side with us, Lake Maitland law is the white man’s law, and he’s bound to respect that, like it or not.”

  Mr. Hurston was not so easily pacified. “I say we pull tight and keep our guns ready.” This suggestion was met with more enthusiasm than Joe’s plan.

  “I’m curious about one thing.” This was Doc Brazzle, who up until then had been smoking his pipe in silence. “What does Polk have to say about this? Why isn’t he here? Do we know for a fact that he wants to keep all that land? Maybe he could work out a compromise with these people? He doesn’t use but a fraction of it, and it’s worthless for growing anyway —

  Mr. Slayton chimed in. “Yes, why don’t he tell us himself? I would deeply love to hear that!”

  This brought the first nervous laughter of the night.

  “Very funny, Luke,” said Mr. Clarke. “Very funny. Fact is, I already been to see old Polk. I found him with his arm bandaged up. As far as I could tell, he had already given those men his answer, and they were not able to work out a compromise, as Doc so eloquently put it.”

  “But, Joe” — Mr. Hurston wasn’t standing and he wasn’t puffed up or loud, but his jaw was set hard — “if they do gather men . . . if they do come for Polk . . . ?”

  Mr. Clarke laid a hand on the pistol that always dangled from his belt. “If they gather men, if they come for Polk . . . then every man in this town will arm himself and head for Polk’s, and we will defend our own. And God save Eatonville.”

  Those were the words nobody wanted to hear, yet everybody was waiting for. With nothing else to do or say, the men left and made their way home.

  Joe Clarke was the last to leave, but stood by the door with Zora’s parents for another moment.

  “The past is coming for us, isn’t it?” Mrs. Hurston asked. “A lynch mob is coming here as surely as I saw them come to Notasulga, back in Alabama. White men with lynching ropes will hang us from trees here as easy as they did in Alabama. We were foolish to think there could ever be a safe place, that we could ever get away.”

  “Eatonville ain’t Alabama,” said Joe Clarke. “It ain’t Mississippi, and it ain’t any place else in the rest of Florida. We built this place to make a fresh start, and as long as I draw breath I will protect Eatonville and every one of her residents. They may come, but Eatonville ain’t gonna go easy.”

  In an equally somber tone, Mr. Hurston added, “For all we cleared this land, and built it up, and invested every cent we had to make this our Eden, white folks can turn it into hell on earth in one day.”

  Joe Clarke squeezed Lucy Hurston’s hand and walked into the night.

  Zora sat back, eyes shining. “Mr. Polk was stabbed by that white man we saw at Joe Clarke’s store!” she whispered.

  I was beginning to see the shape of something bigger than the secret Zora and I thought we were keeping: we held no secret at all. Everything we knew was just a tiny detail of a much larger picture, whose ugliness was growing clearer as the image revealed itself.

  “What are we gonna do?” I whispered back.

  Zora was thinking so hard that it pulled her face in twenty different directions. “Mr. Polk is protecting that land. That land, with the husk of a plantation on it, is worth more to him than his life. It means enough to him to risk all of Eatonville. Why? There has to be a reason.”

  “Like your daddy said, if they take land from one person, they can take it from everybody.”

  “I know that already,” she snapped, drumming her fingers on her leg. “But that don’t explain why it means so much to him. He’s not gonna tell us anything, but there is one person who knows as much of the truth as there is to speak of.”

  I knew who she meant before she even said the name, and I really wished I didn’t.

  “Mm-hm. Old Lady Bronson. Whatever Mr. Polk is hiding, she has a good idea what it is. If she tells us, maybe — just maybe — we can help Daddy and Joe Clarke hold this thing off. If we do nothing, we’re just a pile of sticks waiting for a match.”

  I guessed Zora was as scared as I was, but nothing could stop her from trying to save the people and the town she loved. It was like Mr. Hurston said: Eatonville was us and we were Eatonville.

  I peered out into the main room to see Lucy Hurston take her husband’s arm and him follow her into the kitchen, bending over her small frame and listening intently to her quiet words. Seeing our escape route cleared, we hightailed it up to Zora’s room.

  When we opened the door, there sat Sarah, wide-awake as a barn owl, eyes glinting in the candlelight, and Everett sound asleep next to her. But instead of chastising us or threatening to tattle, she was somber as the night.

  “Zora,” she whispered. “Did you find out what’s going on?”

  Zora sat down beside her. “White men want to take Mr. Polk’s land. Mama thinks they might ride against Eatonville to do it.”

  Sarah shivered. “Do Daddy and Joe Clarke think they can stop them?”

  “I don’t know. They mean to try, but I don’t know.” Zora’s words, so empty of hope, hung in the room. Sarah nodded but said nothing else. Zora got up, and Sarah, rather than moving Everett to his own bed, tucked herself in next to him.

  I slipped out of my dress and crawled under the rough sheets. A minute later Zora did the same.

  Sarah broke the silence, her voice fierce in the dark. “I’m glad you listened, Zora. Part of me wishes I didn’t know, but not knowing would be worse.”

  In that moment I saw that no matter how many superficial differences Sarah and Zora had, a cable of sameness, strong as steel, ran through the sisters. There was Lucy Hurston in Sarah, too.

  Dry lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room with a suddenness that threw everything into stark relief. It was the same with my understanding of tonight. I thought I knew everything about Eatonville, but as the lightning of race hate lit up our town, I saw how vulnerable we really were. No matter how clear our town borders seemed to me, they could be disregarded at any moment by white men who sought to hurt us.

  The next day was long. I spent from sunup till late afternoon in the washhouse. The humidity kept my back from drying, and the open sores wept through the bandages and the back of my shift.

  My first respite came when Rebecca stuck her head in to say that Master George wanted me to serve at the dinner table. She caught sight of the back of my shift. “I’ll fix you up before you go,” she said. “Won’t give him the satisfaction.”

  It was the first time seeing Prisca since our strange meeting the night before. Clearing the plates, I glimpsed an uneasy watchfulness on Master George’s face. The moment I reached his plate, he addressed his son.

  “Timothy, you told me a troubling story last night. I would like you to repeat it now.”

  Timothy flushed, but his eyes were bright.

  He looked across the table at Prisca and announced, “Prisca wants Jude to marry her. She wants him to marry her so she can leave Westin and take Lucia with her. I heard her say so. She asked Jude to marry her!”

  Miss Caroline put down her spoon and gaped at Prisca. “Is this true? Did you offer yourself in marriage? To young Jude?”

  Prisca stared at Timothy, her eyes blazing. “The child has no idea what he’s saying!”

  Timothy bridled at the insult. �
�I’m no child — I’m fourteen! I know what I heard!”

  “I believe the boy,” Master George returned quietly. “Prisca, why would you do such a shameful thing?”

  Prisca stared at George and uttered not one word.

  “Prisca, dearest . . .” Miss Caroline cajoled, but there was also impatience in her tone. “Why?”

  Prisca turned on her. “You wept for my father. You implored me to see you as my mother, yet you would do this thing that you know will break my heart. You take from me the only person who links me to my home. Are these the actions of a mother?”

  Miss Caroline clicked her tongue. “I told your father that your attachment to the girl was unhealthy. She is a slave. A slave exists to work and be useful. She is most useful to us now in terms of the value she can bring. It is a value she should have brought three years ago, but I let my feelings for your father, and, yes, you, overshadow my good sense.” Here she paused, caught her breath, and dabbed tears from her eyes. “Now you scold me for my kindness.”

  “Mother Caroline, there is more about this that concerns me.” Every eye turned back to Master George. “Do you think Prisca does this alone, or do you think she makes plans with Lucia?”

  Now I knew why George had wanted me to serve. I stepped back when his gaze fell on me.

  “The two girls come from an island of slave revolt, where the natural order is reversed: slaves are the rulers through terror. So I am compelled to wonder, is it Prisca who acts so inexcusably on her own, or is it the slave girl filling Prisca’s mind with such untoward actions? Until two days ago I had no reason to doubt Prisca’s loyalty, but now, suddenly . . . this.” He addressed Prisca directly. “Just last night I looked out to see you walking back from the slave quarters. What reason would you have to go there? Has the girl been summoning you to her defense? Has she threatened you with violence should you fail to obey her?”

  Prisca opened her mouth, but for a moment no sound came out. Then she stood. “Your accusations are abhorrent to me.” She slammed her hand down on the table so that her silverware jumped. “You are abhorrent to me.”