by Hite, Ann
He pulled a folder out of a pile on the desk. “Yes, my friend proved your concerns. I think you need to tell me everything you know.”
“First, what have you found?”
“I know why Charles Dobbins came to be a pastor on Black Mountain and why he hasn’t left. And Maude, you were right. He never would have chosen this place on his own.” Zach drummed his fingers on the paper.
“So tell me.” My stomach fluttered. Would he believe what happened to me in the cemetery that morning?
“His father is a big guy in the Episcopal church in New Orleans. Pastor Dobbins was pulled out of the class he taught at the local seminary and sent to run a revival all over the Southeast. He wasn’t a pastor but a teacher, but a lot of the students were complaining to the head dean about his beliefs and theology. So Pastor Dobbins ended up on the coast of Georgia. His father sent the youngest brother, Lenard, along to keep Charles in line. Lenard was and is known all over New Orleans for his taste in card games and losing money, the black sheep of the family. Anyway, he took off the first night to play cards somewhere on a dock in this place called Darien. When he came back early the next morning, Charles was missing, so he reported the disappearance to the sheriff. That’s when he found out the police had discovered the body of a young Negro woman in the warehouse near the bank of the Altamaha River where Charles and his brother had pitched their revival tent. Then the story gets more interesting. My friend says there was another Negro girl found but the story went cold there. No one pressed charges against Pastor Dobbins or his brother, not even a report by the sheriff. The way my friend found out about this was Lenard himself, talking after a few drinks and a card game. Two witnesses put Charles with the first Negro woman before she was found dead. Lenard confided that he believed his brother was very capable of killing. My friend said you could chalk Lenard’s story up to differences between brothers, but still. It’s something to think about.”
I never saw myself as a woman scared easily, but that was the second time in one day I got a cold chill.
“Whatever happened that night, Dobbins and his little family—including their maid and her son—were packed up and sent to Black Mountain for good. To me, that indicates something bad happened. I figured his father pulled some kind of strings to get Charles off the hook. Then put him in a safe place where he couldn’t do much damage. You can’t get more isolated than the mountain. Also, Mr. Dobbins had a reputation in New Orleans for his taste in colored maids, if you know what I mean.” He looked at me. “What did you find in the church records?”
“Mostly deaths and births, but I did find out there was a Negro girl who came up missing in 1870. She was loved so much by Amelia Daniels that she put up signs attempting to find her. Kind of strange for the times.” The angel came to mind and I smiled.
Zach wore an intent stare. “It seems your concerns are correct, Maude. Now tell me what you think the good pastor did.”
I waited a minute. Once my thoughts were out, I couldn’t put them back, or as Mama used to say: Open a can of worms, and you can’t close it again.
“George Connor told me Lydia Dobbins left the mountain in a hurry. The woman never leaves the mountain.”
“You can’t arrest a man because his wife leaves him.” Zach frowned at me. “Tell me.”
I took a deep breath. “Arleen Brown died in childbirth in the summer of 1935.”
“That’s been four years ago. Why now?”
“Her death seemed a simple case caused from childbirth gone bad. But she told me something right before she died.” The words hung in the air between us.
“What did she tell you?”
“That she was forced into having relations with the baby’s father.”
He looked at the ceiling. “And that is, who? And why now? Why not five years ago when it happened?”
“I didn’t have a real reason. I didn’t know the person responsible.”
“And you know now. You think it is Dobbins? Why? You didn’t just pull him out of thin air.”
I looked away. Faith didn’t need trouble from Zach. “Something isn’t right about him. It’s a feeling.”
“Feelings don’t count as proof, and you know it.” He cocked his head to the side. “You’re giving me the runaround. Why?”
“I’m not.”
“Maude, what else?”
I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out the cross, dropping it on the desk. “This was Arleen’s. Her family never knew how she got it.”
He turned it over in his palm. “The Browns are pretty stretched, right?”
“Yes.”
“No one on the mountain has the means to own such a nice piece of jewelry except you and of course Charles Dobbins.”
I laughed. “You know it’s not mine.”
“I have to cover every possibility. You know that.” He smiled. “So, we have a cross and a dead girl’s last words.”
“In the church records, Amelia Daniels’s brother mentioned a missing cross with a diamond in the middle, but that was 1870,” I blurted. All of a sudden I wanted him to believe me.
He turned from the window he was looking out and stared at me again. “Maude, how did you get this cross?” The question stood between us. “I know you’re not telling me everything.”
I looked away from him and waited, waited because I wanted to save, to protect, Faith. “Faith brought it to me yesterday.”
His face remained neutral. “Where did she get it from?”
“I really don’t know, Zach. But I do know Arleen had it around her neck in the casket at the funeral. But I know Faith could never take it off. I know this about her.”
He plopped down in his chair. “Maude, we have a mystery but I’m not so sure it only involves Pastor Dobbins.”
“We have to leave Faith out of this. You have to trust me. If anything, she is a victim too.”
He slapped his hands on his knees. “We have a mother who may have taken her daughter off the mountain. We have a dead girl’s cross and her confession of being raped. We have to have proof. The cross isn’t proof.” He thought a minute. “Does Faith know if anything was going on between her father and Arleen?”
“I don’t know. She is a private girl. I do know he bought the girl a brand-new casket and brought it up the mountain. It was the talk for some time. And the Sunday before her funeral he tried to give the Browns the offering collection. Mr. Brown refused because of pride.”
“While all interesting, nothing proves he is a rapist, not even the information we got from New Orleans. He’s a pastor and we have to tread lightly. We have to pin this cross to him, and that will help a whole lot.”
“You know if Charles Dobbins forced himself on Arleen and she became pregnant, then in a way he is responsible for her death.”
“No jury would convict him.” Zach shrugged. “I’m going to do more snooping. Maude?”
“Yes?”
He frowned at me. “Do you think Dobbins is a threat to his daughter?”
“I’ve always seen him as a stupid man, an idiot, but yes, I think he could hurt someone, especially Faith, maybe even Shelly, his maid’s daughter.”
“Then you have to be careful.”
I looked away. “He won’t hurt me.”
“Just be careful. I’ve got to give this some thought. I’ll come up to see you in the next day or two. We can decide what the next move will be.”
“I’ll come down here.”
He smiled. “Still worried about what others think?”
I frowned. “No, I don’t want to tip off Dobbins.”
He nodded.
Arleen Brown
MAMA’S WORDS WAS ALL OVER me when I closed the door to Faith’s room and pulled the desk chair in front of the window. This way I could keep a watch on Pastor, who was stretched out in the backyard, yelling at the sky every once in a while. The charm quilt was spread out on Faith’s bed, and the old sewing basket sat next to it. What that basket held was part of the magic: a
thimble, a pair of shiny little scissors, and lots of thread, some homespun and so old it broke when I pulled too hard while stitching. The thread colors, pale red, gray-blue, yellowing white, and coppery brown, painted the feelings being sewn into the pattern. Mama said in the old days a quilt was much more than a blanket to throw on the bed in the winter. A person’s story was sewn right into the design. A wedding quilt most of the time was made from scraps of clothes that once belonged to the beloved couple. A baby quilt gave hope to the sweet parents bringing the child into the world. And a charm quilt could be a lot of things. This one was a death quilt and told the story of my death at the hands of all those who played a part. Death didn’t always come to a person in a straight line. Those involved sometimes didn’t even understand they had a place in the circumstances.
Mama was not part of my death quilt. I thought I’d get something of hers and add it, but after the visit I knew she believed me to be good. If she did one thing wrong, it sure wasn’t her fault. Every good Christian woman believed in her pastor. They was supposed to. Mama was no different. So she couldn’t be faulted. But I had me a real list of folks that had gone into this work. Faith left the finishing touches to me. One more thing had to go into the quilt—a soul. And that soul was wicked. A death quilt had a sleep charm woven into the materials. When placed on that soul, it gave sleepy calm. It was then and only then a girl could go after her revenge.
In a small cup was buttons Faith stole from the wash that hung on the lines out behind the main house. She snipped them off without anyone but me seeing her: a sunny yellow one from Mrs. Dobbins’s robe, three red triangle buttons stolen from a satin blouse hidden away in a cupboard in Amanda’s cabin—a blouse she had forgotten, wanted to put out of her mind—and last a bright blue button belonging to Miss Tuggle’s fancy dress along with some hair from her brush. Everybody that needed to be included in the making of the charm was right there.
The buttons made little clicking sounds in my hand. I would stitch each one on the quilt, a part of each person. I hummed one of them lullabies Mama sung to me as a little girl. A fluttering moved up my chest as I hummed louder. Faith wasn’t going to put up with me taking over her body for a long time. Her thoughts was tangled up with mine so tight I started to wonder which was hers and which belonged to me.
The house was silent and empty. The women was plotting how to save us all from Pastor so we’d be leaving soon. Of course, if Pastor fell through the hole in his mind and started killing everyone, that would be a sight. The quilt held a secret pocket that Faith had sewn into the hem. She was one smart girl, and I guessed that was one of the reasons I picked her. Folded into the pocket was a sheet of soft blue tissue paper with a lock of black hair. Hair always looked the same no matter how long it’d been around. All them bodies in Daniels Cemetery probably still had hair. I bet my baby boy was still curled in my arms out there in the ground.
A shadow moved across the glass in the window. A cloud hid the moon, and I couldn’t see Pastor. A strawberry moon looked like any other full moon, but it came in June just as the strawberries began to get ripe. It was a forgiving moon. Not one part of me was up for that, for forgiving.
That silly colored-girl haint, Armetta, stood in the corner of the room. “You working?”
“I guess so.” I touched the blue velvet hem of the quilt.
“A charm quilt.” She moved closer to the bed. “I could sew real good when I was alive, but I didn’t like it none.”
“I don’t like sewing either, but this be my way of fighting without no one knowing,” I whispered. “That girl, she did most the work. She likes to sew.”
“No forgiveness in this room.” She ran her fingers over the part of the quilt with the stolen words from my marker.
“Don’t have no room for such.” I shrugged.
“Maybe not.” She moved close to me. “You be one powerful spell, girl. We could help each other. I want what you want.” She looked at the hair in my hand. “Who that belong to?”
“Me.”
She turned quiet and looked at it. “No good going to come from you working alone.”
“Don’t intend no good. This here is a death quilt. I’m sewing a death and a truth at the same time.”
She stared at the quilt a minute longer and then threw her head back and laughed. A thick scar circled her throat. “Teach me how to have a body so I can finish my story.”
“This ain’t some trick I can give. She called me, the pastor’s daughter, Faith. She needed me to save her from herself.”
The cloud moved away from the moon.
“You got powerful mojo,” Armetta whispered. “You got a backbone too.”
“Why you stay with Pastor?”
Again she let go with that ugly laugh. “Our stories are all twined together like a fine horsehair rope. Me, you, and that girl inside of you, we all tangled.” And she was gone.
There was a time in my life when seeing that girl would have scared me into a early death, but now what scared me most was Pastor. He was real, solid, and pure mean. Those were the most fearful things. If he decided to pay Faith a visit, there was that razor in my pocket. That was the best kind of spell I knew. Faith needed a lesson in how to use a blade in the proper way.
Shelly Parker
I WOKE WITH MY HEART beating so hard in my chest I couldn’t think, and for a minute my breath was squeezed right out of me. My mouth tasted like sand, and my hands shook. I remembered how we’d be leaving anytime. The cabin was quiet, and the sun stretched over my bed. Maybe all of it was just a bad dream.
“Shelly,” Nada called from the front porch.
Mrs. Dobbins, her face bruised and beaten, was asleep in Nada’s bed. A chill walked through my body, a warning that something bad was sitting, waiting on all of us. “Yes, ma’am.”
Nada drank her coffee and looked at the yard.
“You ain’t really going to make me go, are you?”
Nada didn’t look at me. “He’s gone for now. Mrs. Dobbins will be wanting to leave when she gets up. She’s going to take the car without him knowing. Get your stuff ready. Take it all, Shelly, especially your money. You might need it before this is over. I told you it be your running money.”
“I’ll go if you go.”
“This ain’t no bargaining table, girl. Go take yourself in there and get your things ready. When I call you, it’ll be time.”
I wore my meanest look.
“No fussing. Go.”
“Why you want to get rid of me?”
Nada gave me her most sorrowful face. “Girl, you know better. Be watchful. That’s something you’ve never been. Use the smarts God gave you and don’t listen to your heart all the time. It’ll fool you in a minute. I’m taking care of you by sending you off. That’s what a mama does.” She huffed and turned her attention on the cup of coffee. “Go on, now.”
It took me about five minutes to put my extra dress, my books, and my money in my feed sack. There was that stupid old book of Armetta’s under the floorboard. I grabbed it up just so I could say I had it. Part of me didn’t want to admit just maybe she could help me.
I scooted out the door ’cause I had two places to go before I left the mountain.
WHATEVER I THOUGHT I was going to find by hoofing it over to Miss Tuggle’s I sure didn’t get. Her house was shut up tight like she’d done left the mountain for a while. A note hung on the door.
Gone for a walk in the woods. Be back soon.
Maude
She was gone. I dug in my bag and pulled out my little pencil. It was mighty unfortunate she chose the day I was leaving to go take some dumb old walk. So I decided to tell her what happened and where I’d be.
Miss Tuggle:
By the time you get back, I’ll be gone from this here mountain on a trip that will probably last a month of Sundays. See Mrs. Dobbins is taking me and Miss Faith away from the mountain. We’re all going to hide at her brother’s on the Georgia coast. We got to sneak off with the car, s
o Pastor is going to be hot and he’ll come looking for you. Nada won’t go and I’m horrible afraid for her. He’s done lost his mind this time, ma’am. If you need to hide from him, there’s a cemetery up the mountain that is lost. Nobody goes there no more. It’s called Ella Creek and Pastor won’t never think to look there for you. See, he’s going to think you helped us get away. He don’t like you one little bit. Be careful going through them woods ’cause they be filled with lost souls. I know you be rolling your eyes, but for once just listen.
Shelly
I folded it real neat and slid it under the door. Instead of heading back to the main house, I took the trail leading further up the mountain. Maybe Nada would send Mrs. Dobbins and Faith on their way if she couldn’t find me. The woods always looked different. In the summer the trees was so thick it could come a hard rain and the water hardly touched the ground. The mountain laurel was in bloom and I wouldn’t get to enjoy it. That wasn’t fair. I loved the clusters of flowers. They didn’t have no smell to speak of, but the soft pink and white petals was real nice to look at. The deeper I went into the woods, the more heaviness settled on me. The dark spirits lived in those parts. Sometimes I’d stand on the back porch of the cabin and hear them whispering and moaning. Haints a girl didn’t want to meet up with, especially on a lonely trail going up the mountain. Haints like them watched from hidden places, waiting. No telling who they were and why they stayed out of sight. But they had to be better company than Mrs. Dobbins and Faith on the run.
Sunshine sprinkled across the path ahead. I knew where I was going. It was my quiet place. Ella Creek Cemetery was safe for now. I wanted to see Daddy’s grave one more time before I left. The last time I was there, a fine patch of wild daisies had sprung up on his grave just like someone had planted them.
A FINE-LOOKING RED BIRD landed on one of the old headstones. He cocked his head to the side. Nada said red birds meant a person would see someone unexpected. One of them haints from the woods was watching me. I felt them. I squatted in front of the stone, and that dern bird stayed right there. LOST was carved in the granite. ARMETTA LOLLY was carved underneath.
