The Cursed Ground

by T. R. Simon

  “You were right, Micah,” he said. “The leg’s broke.”

  “No!” I whispered. “No, no, no.” Now that Moss Star had shifted position, I could just make out a small white bone jutting through his skin. Surely such a small thing could be fixed. It couldn’t possibly bring something as momentous as death with it. Why, there wasn’t even any blood.

  Teddy reached for the shotgun in Micah’s hands, but Micah said, “Let me do this. You take the girls and go home.”

  Teddy shook his head. “Moss Star is my friend. I promised Mr. Polk I would find him and bring him home.”

  Micah put his hand on Teddy’s neck in a brotherly way. “OK,” he said. “You do it right.” They walked to the horse together. Micah pulled a length of fabric from his overalls pocket and handed it to Teddy.

  Teddy wrapped the cloth around Moss Star’s head like a big blindfold, all the while murmuring, soothing. Meanwhile, Micah loaded the shotgun with two shells the size of his thumbs and passed the gun to Teddy. I watched Teddy’s slender brown hands cradle the shotgun and nestle it into his shoulder. This boy, who wanted no part of guns, knew how to handle one as well as his brother. Teddy was raised to use guns, yet I had never seen him use one until now. Micah came back to us and held us in his big arms.

  I only knew Teddy as someone who saved creatures’ lives, but here he was, the arbiter of death for a creature of God that held his heart. That Teddy knew what to do was a shock, and the fact that Teddy could do it changed him in my eyes. It seemed to me that a tenderhearted boy would have refused to take that necessary but unbearable step; I would have shared his pain. But it took a full-hearted man to see the creature he loved through death, to take that creature to the other side to ensure that it would not suffer as it found peace.

  Teddy’s commitment to that peace was so great that it steadied his hand, narrowed his grief, and brought calm to his every move. That calm in him calmed me. It was that calm in him that calmed Moss Star.

  Moss Star seemed to sense the end. He reared his fearless head up, neighed one more time, but then became still. Teddy stood slightly off-center, aimed at the horse’s forehead, and fired. Moss Star fell forward toward Teddy, but Teddy didn’t flinch. He laid the shotgun on the ground, knelt down, and put his hand on Moss Star’s neck. He nodded at Micah.

  I don’t know when I started crying, before or after Teddy fired. Micah wiped an arm across his eyes and held us while we wept. I had seen Mama wring the necks of a hundred chickens, but this was the first time I understood the power of killing. Something in me — and in Zora, too — fell and broke.

  Teddy walked back to us dry-eyed, but I had never seen him look more sad.

  Teddy spoke slowly and tenderly. “Sometimes death is the only way.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. I hugged him with no thought of ever letting him go. I wanted to take away from him a pain that must have been ten times my own. He hugged me back, resting his head against my forehead, while I wept for us both.

  After a few minutes, Teddy gently pulled away from me, holding my face in his hands. He softly wiped my tears away with his thumbs.

  To Teddy, Micah said, “You ready to go see Mr. Polk?”

  Teddy nodded. Micah picked up the shotgun, put his arm around his younger brother, and the two of them walked toward Mr. Polk’s place.

  Zora and I made our way back to her house in silence. I didn’t trust my words not to come out in sobs. Tears still streamed from her eyes.

  I hadn’t felt this much pain since my father went missing. How could I have ever let foolish pride anger me toward Teddy? He was, like Eatonville itself, beautiful and kind and constant and true.

  The dim sunlight filtering through the low-hanging clouds cast long shadows. As we neared the Hurston property, those shadows stretched toward us like long, dark fingers. In them I saw shapes that made me shiver: the serpent-like coil of men’s hate and the hard lines of the guns they expressed it with. Zora’s shadow stretched backward toward the chicken yard and seemed to break apart. My own shadow dragged, unwilling to keep pace with my grief-filled heart.

  On the porch we found Mrs. Hurston, her expression split between anger and relief. “Where have you two been? I should whip you myself!” Then relief seemed to win out over fear, and she pulled us to her. For a single second I couldn’t think why she would be so worried about us on this day of all days. My grief over Moss Star and the tidal wave of feelings for Teddy had pushed everything else to the back of my mind. Now I was reminded of the threat to Eatonville.

  I held on to Mrs. Hurston and Zora, our three shadows together forming a silty-gray carpet that spilled diagonally down the front steps of the house and out onto the path. It was that carpet that met Mr. Clarke and Mr. Cools as they rode up to the house, Mr. Clarke on his beautiful bay mare, Mr. Cools on his tall mule, each one carrying a shotgun, their faces masks of fierce resolution.

  Mrs. Hurston stiffened. “Joe . . .” was all she managed to say.

  Joe Clarke swung down, tied up his horse, and came over to us. He put his hand on Zora’s shoulder and said, “We got word. They’re riding tonight.”

  Mr. Cools called Mr. Hurston’s name.

  Mr. Hurston walked out onto the porch, shotgun in hand. He looked at his wife, his daughter, and me, and in his eyes I saw everything that ever made a man want to run. Then he looked at Joe Clarke. “They coming.” It was a statement. Any questions of the previous night had been displaced by the certainty of impending bloodshed.

  Joe Clarke nodded. “Eatonville has no borders tonight.”

  Lucy Hurston found her tongue, pushed us away, and moved to stand in front of her husband. She looked up into his face and warned, “You men stand against them and they come for all of us. They gonna come for all of us.”

  John Hurston put his hands on his wife’s shoulders. At first I thought it was to steady her, but then I saw the truth. Lucy was his strength. He held her to draw that strength into his own body.

  Zora’s brother John came out of the house then, with Dick and Cliff close behind.

  “Lucy, close the storm shutters, get inside, and lock the doors. No lamps.” And without turning to his sons, Mr. Hurston added, “John, you come with me. Dick, Cliff, sit up with your guns at the ready.” Dick and Cliff stood still as statues, the words knocking all the boyhood from their faces.

  Within a minute, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Cools, Mr. Hurston, and John were all in the saddle and on the road.

  As I followed the men in my mind, I realized that Teddy and Micah had unwittingly walked straight into the field of battle. Once they figured that out, there was no way they’d want to leave.

  Half an hour later the only sounds in the living room were our breathing and the soft clip of scissors snipping thread. Mrs. Hurston and Sarah were working on quilt squares, a single lit candle between them. Cliff and Dick sat by the window, cradling their shotguns. This was the moment when our color became our curse — waiting to see if justice prevailed or if, like our men, we, too, would have to fight to the death. Feeling so helpless turned my fear to anger, anger so strong I thought I would explode.

  I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Zora stood up. “Carrie and I are going to sit upstairs.”

  Mrs. Hurston just nodded as her fingers worked the needle in the flickering light. Sarah didn’t look up, but she began to sniffle. Everett, sensing the tension in the room, began whimpering softly.

  Mrs. Hurston pulled Everett onto her lap and said to Sarah, “Wipe your tears. The time to cry is after the worst is over. Now is the time to pray.”

  Zora and I climbed quietly upstairs and I lay down on her bed. The cotton cover, slightly damp from the humid evening air, tickled my bare arms. Being scared and sad at the same time made my eyes burn, so I closed them tight.

  Zora sat on Sarah’s bed across the room.

  “Well?” she asked. “What are you thinking?” I looked over to see her eyebrows arched and her mouth set in a firm line.

  Zora r
esponded to fear like a lion tamer in a ring. She would hold the beast away by sheer force of will. I pushed myself up on one elbow.

  “I’m thinking that I’m glad my mama’s away.” I said it with all the conviction I could stir up, but in fact I was wishing with all my might that my mama were here with me. “I’m thinking,” I said, “what if my mama comes home in two days and there ain’t no home to come home to?”

  Zora nodded. “If your mama heard even a hint of what’s happening tonight, she’d ride the devil’s own stallion to get to you.”

  I realized that if I talked the tears would come out, so I didn’t say anything. I sat there, swallowing and feeling shame for wanting my mother with me more than I wanted her to be safely far away.

  Zora came over next to me and put her arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her. She wasn’t Mama, but she was the next best thing. We stayed like that for a good little while, me not crying and Zora gently rubbing my arm, not saying a word, just letting me feel, and likely knowing that I had just told a lie.

  Once the scared sadness inside me didn’t feel so bottled up anymore, I could speak. “Your daddy and John and Micah and” — I paused and took a breath — “and Teddy are out there tonight.”

  My words hung in the sticky moist air. Zora pinched my arm — gently — and whispered, “Do you love Teddy?”

  She knew. Of course she knew, but it wasn’t her knowing the truth about my feelings that made them irrevocably real. It was her saying it out loud. It hit me that not telling her about Teddy was my way of not telling myself. Zora was my best self, my most truthful self, so her speaking those words aloud made them something I could never deny again. “Yes. I do. I love Teddy Baker.”

  Zora smiled. “I love you, Carrie Brown. I love Teddy Baker, too. I love you both like I love my own family.”

  Now it was my turn to hug her, and I did it with all the strength I had. Hugging her gave me strength. “Zora, I think tonight’s gonna decide the future of Eatonville. Our future. I want my mama to come home, and I want Teddy to be safe, but I know no amount of wishing is gonna make one or the other of those things happen.”

  She chewed her bottom lip. “I can’t hardly sit here another minute while half the folks we love in the world are out there facing down death.”

  “I know!” I agreed wholeheartedly. “Let’s go!”

  Zora squinted at me. “Really? You want to go? I don’t have to convince you?”

  “Yes, I want to go! Right now! But how do we get out of here?”

  Zora put her finger to her lips. She slid the window up slowly and quietly with the skill of a seasoned burglar. “We climb.”

  I had climbed up so many trees and vines that climbing held no special fear for me. But we weren’t climbing up — we were climbing down, like Orpheus deliberately descending to Hades. And Hades is where we were headed, as sure as the sun breaks dawn in the east.

  I climbed out onto the warm roof over the kitchen side of the house, slid over to the drainpipe, and eased myself down it, cat-quiet.

  Zora was by my side a minute later, and we were over the fence and off down the road, careful to stay to the side so we could jump into the grass and hide if anyone approached.

  When we reached the pasture at the western edge of Mr. Polk’s property, most of the men who had been in the Hurston living room were there, along with a few others who hadn’t — like Teddy and Micah. All were facing away from us, turned in the direction of the road that led to Lake Maitland. Besides Mr. Polk himself, Teddy was the only one not holding a gun.

  Zora put her hand on my arm and pointed at Mr. Polk’s stables, which stood between us and the men. Ducking low, we made our way to the stables and hid ourselves in the stall that had belonged until that afternoon to Moss Star, the worn slats leaving enough space for peeking. Through the clouds we could see the last dark-red of the sun sinking slowly over the horizon, light giving way to this terrible night.

  The men of Eatonville did not grow darker with the fading light; rather, they seemed to shine brighter in it. The darker-hued ones glowed incandescent, as if the moon were illuminating them from within. The lighter-skinned ones appeared coral, like the husk of the cactus flower.

  These men had fathered and made this town whole in spite of the hate of an entire nation. These men had picked cotton, oranges, and tobacco from sunup to sundown and still came home most days shunning misery and weaving wonder with tales about outsmarting Ole Massa and the devil, too. These men made women laugh at least as much as they made them cry, and they preached sermons so we had a code for living, built houses so we had a place to live, and dug graves so we had a place to rest when we died.

  These men refused to be hardened by the yoke or the whip of white men or by fear. Instead of being immobilized by their own degradation, they became brave beyond measure.

  These men had come from places that said our town was something only a fool would dream, then dreamed Eatonville into existence. They then swore a blood oath to protect it with their lives. To take some was to take all. Each man here was ready to hold everything he loved up against the price of losing one square inch of Eatonville. Eatonville represented freedom itself.

  Those men, so much like my father, held all my hope. If they fell, we fell; if they stood, we could stand. They had as much hope of standing past morning as the cactus flower itself. And yet here they stood.

  Hoofbeats sounded in the distance, and the men took their places outside Mr. Polk’s cabin. Mr. Polk, Mr. Clarke, and Mr. Hurston stood at the front. I squeezed Zora’s wrist so hard she had to pry open my fingers and take my hand.

  It was a lone rider, and as he came close we could see it was Mr. Ambrose, with a rifle scabbard slung across his back. He dismounted, and the first thing he did was clasp Mr. Polk’s hand in both of his. We couldn’t hear what he said to Mr. Polk, but when he stepped back he addressed the group clearly.

  “Gentlemen, I got word of trouble that might be coming your way. I went to the Lake Maitland sheriff to see if he could help, but he wasn’t interested, I’m sorry to say. But I’m here to stand with you tonight. If necessary, I’m here to put my gun with yours. The threat to you is a threat to what I know is right.”

  Joe Clarke stepped forward and shook hands with Mr. Ambrose, and Mr. Hurston and Doc Brazzle did the same. Mr. Polk tethered Mr. Ambrose’s horse to the fence, and then they waited. We waited.

  Everyone’s ears locked onto the slightest sound. Zora and I didn’t dare speak a word. Sweat trickled down my armpits, and ghost ants crawled across my feet.

  About half an hour later hoofbeats broke the silence again, this time much louder, meaning plenty of riders. It was the two white men from Joe Clarke’s store plus five other white men, all on horseback, all armed, two carrying torches. I had half expected them to be wearing disguises; I had once overheard Mrs. Sinkler tell my mama they did that in Jacksonville. “Too ashamed to show their devil faces, I suspect,” Mrs. Sinkler had said. “They ride all twisted up in white sheets, like the evil spirits they are.” But these men had no shame. They were boldly themselves. The two we had seen at Joe Clarke’s store were in frock coats, two others were in shirtsleeves, two in bib overalls, and one still in butcher whites. I recognized the last of them as Mr. Carter, and the shock of it made my stomach twist. That a man I knew, and who knew me and my mama by name, could set out to hurt the people I loved most in the world because another white man wanted land that belonged to a black man. No matter how long I lived, the hate white folks could have toward us would never make sense to me.

  The white-haired man pulled his horse to a halt in front of Joe Clarke and Mr. Polk.

  Joe Clarke stepped forward and addressed him. “Mr. Peterson, we don’t want no trouble.”

  But this Mr. Peterson had already dismounted, pointedly ignoring Mr. Clarke, and addressed the other Eatonville men in Polk’s yard. “This ain’t your quarrel, boys,” he said. “Go home to your wives and children. Leave Horatio Polk and me to talk th
is out, and nothing will happen to you and yours. You have my word.”

  Not a single man moved.

  “This is a private matter between two men,” Mr. Peterson asserted. “It needs to be settled privately.”

  Mr. Slayton pointed to the bruise on the side of Mr. Peterson’s face. “Looks like you tried that already. Looks like it ain’t been settled, leastways not the way you wanted it to be.”

  Mr. Peterson’s tone shot from reason to rage in a flash. “This is my land!” His anger was like a signal to the men who had ridden with him to raise their guns. But in the next moment, the circle of Eatonville men tightened, and the white men found themselves outnumbered three to one and looking down the barrels of nineteen rifles and shotguns. Still, the white men sat easy on their horses, comfortable even.

  A slow, sad awareness began to dawn on me. It didn’t matter how many guns we had. Their whiteness was stronger than our guns. Their skin itself was their power. Even if we shot them dead, the power of their whiteness would live on to see us all hanged. Our men were not real to them; they were mere shadows, without substance or soul.

  My throat burned and my eyes stung. Our lives mattered just as much as theirs, but the truth of that had been erased by slavery. Slavery itself might be over, but neither the Thirteenth Amendment nor anything that had happened since could make us human in the eyes of these men. That was why our parents had fought so hard to create and sustain a corner of the world where we determined our own value.

  Mr. Clarke slowly set his rifle on the ground. “Lower your weapons, men,” he said, letting his own hands float down deliberately, as if he were God nudging clouds from Heaven toward Earth. “Lower your weapons.”

  Not until they saw the Eatonville men ease their grips and lower their weapons did the white men do the same, slowly. This made Mr. Peterson angrier. “It is my land, by God. It is my legacy.”