Slave Graves

by Thomas Hollyday

Frank wiped the sweat from his face, dirt streaking his skin. He had climbed out of the pit and sat cross legged on the topsoil at the edge. The Pastor and Maggie hovered over the fragile skeleton in the small space.

  “I knew he was up here somewhere,” said the Pastor. “I didn’t know he was in this marsh. I thought he was somewhere out on the island.”

  He paused. “Who was he, Pastor?” asked Maggie.

  “We were taught not to talk about him to the white people. He disappeared in the summer of 1863.”

  “You mean we won’t find his story in the history books?” smiled Maggie.

  The Pastor brushed at the bones. “In those days this area of Maryland was occupied by the Union Army. The black folk called them liberators. The army was here to stop the supplies from up north from coming down here and going to the Confederate Army. I never did understand how companies in the north would sell to the enemy in the south. But the Eastern Shore was a natural route for smuggling like it had been since colonial days. This fellow,” he pointed to the skeleton, “he was one of the liberators.”

  “I assume he was killed by the white locals,” said Frank. “There must have been a lot of Confederate sympathizers around here.”

  “Everybody thought the southerners did something to him. The man disappeared right after the news of Gettysburg had come in. People thought it was local people taking revenge for the licking that the Southern Army took. What really happened was that a black man who worked near here killed the soldier.”

  “How did it happen?” asked Frank. “I mean, that’s a little strange a black man killing a Union soldier in the middle of the Civil War.”

  “Yessir, it was. The black community kept the truth quiet for the same reason. You may be the first white people who have ever heard the real story. You see,” he continued, “this soldier was stationed here in River Sunday. Soldiers didn’t make much money so some tried to supplement their income. If a man had money he could have a good time.”

  “So this fellow liked to have a good time,” said Maggie.

  The Pastor nodded. “The Yankees shipped south all the people they found that worked for the Confederacy. So this Yankee soldier decided he could use this as a kind of blackmail. He would go around and make the black folks who bred a few chickens give him some or he’d make up that they were aiding the Confederates. Then he’d send his chickens over to Baltimore to be sold in the market there. He’d get produce of all kinds but the one thing that folks around River Sunday were always good at breeding was good fat chickens.”

  “How could he get away with that?”

  “You had people who didn’t have the courage to trust any white. Anyway, come along, he ran into one black farmer who was braver than the rest, that’s what happened.”

  The Pastor continued. “This black farmer jumped him in the dark, jumped him and tied him up, pushed the soldier headfirst into the muck near the bridge and held him there until he suffocated. I thought the soldier was buried out on the island, as I said. I can see he was left right here in the marsh.”

  “Next day, the Union soldiers came looking for him. Cavalry rode up and down the county roads and searched a lot of the houses. They figured like you did that the southern sympathizers had killed him. There was some talk even that there was an invasion coming from Virginia.”

  “You could have kept all this to yourself,” said Frank.

  “I guess I figured you folks would find out who he was. I’m sure you got ways.”

  Frank looked at the Pastor, suddenly realizing how the Pastor knew the story.

  “The man who killed the soldier was a relative of yours.”

  “He was my great-grandfather.”

  “We can’t disguise this,” said Maggie. “The story will come out.”

  “When the time comes, we need to tell about everything at this site. Everything. It’s important,” said the Pastor. “Whatever gets found no matter what history gets changed. Besides, my great grandfather was protecting his family. I got pride in that. His story should be told.”

  Frank glanced at Maggie, realizing her dedication to accuracy. He sighed, “Well, I’m sorry that this wasn’t one of the slave graves that you’ve been looking for, Pastor.”

  “Local coroner has to be contacted when we find human remains,” said Maggie.

  “The man you want is Doc Bayne. He’s up at the Health Department,” said the Pastor.

  About an hour later a balding man with wire frame glasses, sweating, his sleeves rolled up, came and inspected the find. “Ain’t nothing to bother folks about. Ain’t no grave and it’s too old to match up with any killing I ever heard of around here. You call me, you find someone a little younger.” The fat man laughed at Frank’s solemn face as he stood up to leave.

  “Is there a report to be filed?” Maggie insisted.

  “Oh, I’ll report something for you. We ain’t exactly fools down here, young lady.”

  The Pastor shrugged his shoulders as the official drove away.

  “I thought he’d do all kinds of tests and hold up our work,” said Frank.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” said the Pastor. “He’s got money in Jake’s project just like most everyone else in town. He wouldn’t do anything that might hurt the profits. He’s got reason enough, though. He hates Jake, I can tell you that.”

  “Why?”

  “His daughter died in childbirth on her sixteenth birthday. Died right in his arms. Most people in town knew Jake was the father. Jake didn’t even show up at the hospital or the funeral. There got to be so much bad talk about Jake, Mister Terment invited Doc Bayne to Peachblossom. Way I heard it, Mister Terment asked him to help stop the rumors about Jake and the daughter. The Doc wouldn’t sit down. He stood there and said to him, ‘You pack that boy of yours in a box and put him under six feet of Eastern Shore earth next to my dead girl and her baby and maybe that’ll stop the rumors, Mister Terment.’”

  Another car approached the farmhouse. They could see its roof above the hedges of honeysuckle, then flashes bouncing off the metal as it passed behind the boxwoods.

  “It’s a car like yours, Maggie. A state car.”

  “That’s my boss,” said Maggie. She and Frank stood up from the test pit and started towards the farmhouse. The car stopped and a well dressed woman got out and waved to Maggie.

  “Hi, Cathy.”

  “Hello, Maggie. I thought it was hot in Baltimore, but, oh my, the humidity here in River Sunday. This is terrible.” Cathy was a tall lanky woman, dressed in summer white. As they talked, Cathy changed her heels to a pair of low leather shoes. She opened the car door and put her suit coat on a hook in the back of the car. On the back seat Frank saw boxes of files he guessed were records of other sites.

  “You’re making the rounds today?” said Maggie.

  “Same story, Maggie. Too many projects, not enough money, and I’m supposed to see everyone of them every week. It’s been a bad day.”

  The two women did not look anything alike. Maggie was shorter, tanned with her hair tied up carelessly. Cathy’s suit was carefully pressed, her blouse without wrinkles even in the intense heat. Maggie wore a dirty white tee shirt like the Pastor and Frank and her cutoffs were uneven and ragged. Cathy kept her polished shoes carefully out of the wet earth as she walked across the field, following behind a barefoot and unconcerned Maggie.

  “You certainly get into your work,” said Cathy, noticing Maggie’s appearance.

  Maggie looked back at Cathy, “You didn’t hire me to look good on a site, Cathy.”

  “No, but you’re a state employee. You should remember it. Remember the taxpayer and his or her opinion of the government employee.”

  “You are really upset about my appearance aren’t you?” said Maggie, trying not to smile. “Can we take a look at the site?”

  “Yes, of course, Maggie.”

  “We found a cannon and a skeleton.”

  “Oh. I’m sure you’re handling it well as usual.” Cath
y’s attention shifted. “I must say hello to Pastor Allingham.” She smiled at the Pastor, who stood up from his work to greet her.

  “How are you, Mrs. Smith? It’s nice to talk to you again,” said the Pastor, shaking hands.

  Cathy spoke with a wide, very friendly smile, “I hope you are enjoying your volunteer work. The Governor wanted me to send his regards.”

  “Well, that’s very kind of him. Yes, I am enjoying my work here.” Frank was walking behind them. Cathy turned to him.

  “You must be Doctor Frank Light.” She held out her hand. Frank wiped his hand on his shorts and extended it to her.

  “Sorry. A little dirty,” he said as they shook hands.

  “I got a call from Jake Terment recommending you for this job, Doctor Light.”

  “Yes,” said Frank.

  “Well, what do you think of him?”

  “Kind of impressive man,” said Frank.

  “I should say so. I think this is a good idea, don’t you, Doctor Light? An expert like yourself can really help. We are so shorthanded.”

  “Sure.”

  “Of course, Jake Terment will do all that has to be done. After all, his family has lived here for centuries. We’re fortunate that the site of the old wreck was on his land. I’d much rather work with a landowner whose family has a record of caring about historic things. Why, that monument in the harbor alone. That monument is a testimony to the Terment family dedication to River Sunday and its history.”

  “Jake Terment is all the time pushing to get us finished, Cathy,” said Maggie. “I’m not sure he is very interested.”

  “Maybe if you had as much money at stake,” replied Cathy, “You might feel the same way. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll do the right thing on this site. I’d like to see your notes.”

  Maggie handed over her work journals. Cathy looked at them quickly and gave them back. Then Cathy walked slowly around the site, lips pressed together. Frank and the Pastor watched the two women.

  “When the sunlight hits her hair a certain way, Maggie reminds me of a girl I knew a long time ago in Australia,” said Frank.

  “There’s not a lot of women like her in this world,” said the Pastor.

  Cathy stopped and began to talk to Maggie. “Can you finish up, be back at the office tomorrow?”

  “Finish up, no. I can be back in the office but then I’ll have to return here.”

  “I don’t want to have to send you back again. What do you have left to do, Maggie?”

  “We want to try to find some more of the ship. We still don’t understand enough about it.”

  Cathy leaned over to Maggie. Frank and the Pastor could hear what she was saying even though her voice was lowered. “The Pastor, is he happy? Are you taking care of him as I asked you to? For God’s sake, don’t let him work too hard in this sun. I don’t want the office blamed for a black preacher having a heart attack.”

  “He seems to be enjoying the work,” said Maggie.

  “These graves he talks about, any sign of them?”

  “We found a skeleton, but it’s not one of the old slaves. It was a white man.”

  “Well, let him look all he wants,” said Cathy. “Don’t get the office involved in the slave graveyard business.”

  “What if we find the graves?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Maggie?”

  “Maybe I don’t.”

  “Well, let me explain it to you,” said Cathy, staring at her. “You are a state employee in one of the smallest departments in the bureaucracy. A nice dedicated professional department which doesn’t have enough budget, has to fight the other more needy programs in the legislature every year to get the budget to keep you and a few other professionals paid.”

  “You get paid too, Cathy,” Maggie added.

  Cathy went on without replying, “We have to keep the department going, Maggie. We have to try to do a reasonable job for the people who care that our work is done correctly and we also have to try to keep the department budget. So, don’t get nervous in the service. When I tell you to get a job done and get back to the office, you listen to me and do as I say. Believe me, there’s a lot has to be done to keep you working.”

  She grinned, “Just think how much it would cost to move all the graves in a slave graveyard to some other site. A lot of that cost would come from our budget, and take funds away from other projects. Do you want that?”

  “I’ve always been a professional,” said Maggie, moving from foot to foot.

  “Maggie,” she said as she lowered her voice even more, “The Governor gives me my orders. On this job he said to please the preacher and to please the businessman. That’s all he said but I knew he meant that both these men were very powerful and could cause him a lot of adverse political pressure. He expects to hear no complaints from Jake or the Pastor. As I see it, the best way to please both of them as well as the Governor is to have you both do as little investigating as possible here and to cover this site soon with tons of impermeable concrete.”

  She gave Maggie an understanding smile. “I’ve always tried to help the people who work for me. I keep you protected from the politics so you can do your job. This site might become very controversial if you archeologists find anything out of the ordinary. So, in order to please everyone, I find it useful not to care what is here. Frankly, I don’t want you to find anything at all.”

  She winked at Maggie. “I’m sure you’ll do the right thing here.”

  She walked over to where the Pastor was working. He was holding a small bone up in the air, examining it. She did not ask to look at the bone. Instead she ruffled her papers to let the Pastor know she was standing there. When he turned around, she said, “Thank you for helping us out. I understand you’re a pretty good volunteer archaeologist.”

  The Pastor stood up. “I’m trying to be some help. A little too old for some of this though,” he smiled.

  “I’ve told Maggie to keep an eye out for your graves. Of course, we’ll have to stop our research when we have decided about the shipwreck.”

  “I understand that. I appreciate your concern. The Governor has been very kind.”

  Cathy then turned to Frank. “I’ll bet you’re enjoying working for Jake Terment. Isn’t he a delightful man? He looks just like he does on television except I think he looks a little shorter in person.”

  Frank smiled. She continued, “Well, I’ve got to get back to Baltimore. I’ll be back again soon to look in on the project. I’m scheduled to meet with Jake Terment tomorrow.” She turned to leave and then noticed the broken conglomerate in the grass.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “That’s the cannon I mentioned to you earlier.”

  “Well,” she said and continued walking, calling back to them, “Maybe what’s left of it can be set over at the side of the new bridge as a marker of some kind.”

  The three of them watched as Cathy got into her car and started the engine. She waved as she drove down the lane.

  Frank gave Maggie a friendly nudge. “Why is a bright person like you working for a political appointee like Cathy?”

  “Why is a bright person like you working at the university? We got to eat like everyone else. Besides, it’s interesting. There’s more potential sites in Maryland than many other places. Just like everywhere else, it seems, most of the time the sites get concrete poured over them no matter what we think might be there. We learn a little each time though. I keep hoping that I’ll find a site that I can study for a while, spend some time with, study. That’s why I became an archaeologist. One good site would make the effort all worthwhile.”

  “I guess,” said Frank.

  “Cathy isn’t the slightest bit interested in this site, Frank.”

  “I overheard a lot of what she said,” said the Pastor.

  “She sure was interested in you, Pastor.”

  “The Governor wants the votes of my little congregation next election. It’s the real estate lobby vers
us the minority lobby.”

  “She wants it finished,” said Maggie, looking out at the site.

  “Why bring me here if everybody has made up their minds already and no body is interested no matter what we find here?” said Frank.

  “They figure that you’ll just go along, add authority to their move,” said the Pastor.

  “Is that what you are, Frank?” asked Maggie. “Jake’s insurance policy?”

  Frank didn’t answer her. They went back to digging. Frank was working at Location Q, Maggie still at T, the Pastor working on the remains of the soldier near H.

  “Frank, you remind me of my parents,” said Maggie

  “How?”

  “The way you still think that Jake Terment is somehow OK. My parents would do that, put off a decision about people. Being in Vietnam didn’t teach you anything. I think you’ve agreed to put up with anything that comes along, right or wrong.”

  “You think I’m kind of hardened?”

  She didn’t answer him directly. “My mother and father were flower children. The only reason they stopped living in a shack in the woods was that I was getting older, needed to go to school, needed clothes and shoes. There were other families there. We ran around naked in the summer. It was like a village. I remember the ramshackle house that my father built, like a painting with all the strange colors and the octagonal windows. Then, my father gave up on the lifestyle. He started wearing shoes. He went to work in a hardware store and was so good at it that the day came when he bought out the owner. Even then he managed to give away goods to poor people. He never chased people for bills that they owed. My mother was the same, so wonderfully competent and perfectly willing to spend her energy on anybody who needed her.”

  Frank smiled. “Maggie, I never even knew my parents’ real name. They changed it after they came to the United States. They are both dead so I guess I’ll never know. I think they helped to kill a lot of German soldiers during the war.” He brushed intently at a spot of dark soil.

  “They took the name of Light when they were allowed to emigrate to this country,” he continued. “The name was in a copy of the music for the Star Spangled Banner. My mother learned the song. She liked where it said the “dawn’s early light.” My family name was from the song and then my first name was after President Franklin Roosevelt. I don’t remember them ever telling me the original European names. They never even talked their old language.”

  “Why?”

  “They hated the place they came from. Whatever home they had was destroyed in the war. They had been fighters, probably underground soldiers. Their bodies were covered with scars. Their wounds caused them serious medical problems when I was growing up. They had a pass to go to the Veterans Hospital. I would ask them but they never told me how they got the scars.

  “My father had a big knife that he kept in a box in their bedroom closet. I sneaked a look at it one time and I thought I saw stains on the blade. I grew up thinking that those were bloodstains from when my father killed enemy soldiers.

  “One night my mother was drinking wine and talking a lot. She told me about a night during the war when a great number of children were freed from a concentration camp near her village. The camp had been attacked by the underground. After the children ran into the woods, three guards were killed by hand to hand combat by a village man and his wife. The couple then had to flee soldiers who hunted them for months. She began to tell how the man and woman almost starved to death and how the woman’s own baby died of hunger. My father told her to stop talking, that he did not want to hear the story. The next day, I went to look at that knife again but it was gone. I never saw it again.

  “My father was a cabinetmaker. I have some of his furniture. Beautiful. He was an artist. She was too. She helped him build the furniture. I remember when their customers used to come to the house and sit in the kitchen and talk about the furniture. They had many wealthy clients. I overheard my father asking one of them to write a letter to help me get into college. My father would never tell me about things like that. He did not like to admit that he ever took a favor from anyone.

  “My parents were the reason I went into history as a career. They owned every book they could buy about the United States. They taught me about this country, about American history. Every day when I was little they would quiz me about America, about the Presidents, about the American heroes. To them everything the country did was right. Europe was always wrong.”

  “Later I got into archaeology. I began to find out that what actually happened here was very different from the history that had been written. Heroes were really scoundrels, and scoundrels were really heroes. Archaeology didn’t lie. It laid bare how people actually behaved. There was no argument with an artifact hidden under the soil that no one has tampered with. I did not talk with my parents about my discoveries in archeology. They were happy with their own view of history.”

  “Then Vietnam came,” Maggie said.

  “My parents were very patriotic. They thought it was their duty to support me going to the war. My parents insisted it was a just war because they believed simply that the United States was always right. Maybe I thought too much about my mother’s story of those children escaping the concentration camp. Anyway I convinced myself I had to go to Vietnam.”

  “My folks,” Maggie said, “could never decide which side was right, which one to cheer for. It was against their nature to choose. In the beginning I worked for the Viet Cong in the student marches at my school. My parents would watch and look sad about it all. Then when the soldiers came home and some of them were so terribly wounded I worked in the Veterans hospital helping out. They were sad about that too.”

  She smiled. “Maybe my flower children parents are why I like flowers so much. Children too. I like children.” She looked at Frank.

  “I like roses,” said Frank. “I respect them.”

  “Why?”

  “They overcome the thorns.”

  “You have something to learn about roses,” Maggie said

  The Pastor called, “Should we try to lift out these soldier bones?”

  “No, leave them. Come help me here. We need to work on the shipwreck itself. We can come back to that area if there’s time.” Frank scratched his neck. “That waterman, Soldado, said he would be here to take us down the river.”

  “You think looking at those other wrecks might help figure out this one?”

  “I’d like to see what those hulls look like. That could help us direct our work to the best spots on this wreck.”

  They worked silently for a while, the Pastor digging at the opposite corner from Frank. The Pastor spoke first, “Let me tell you about my family. When my father and mother were let go from Peachblossom, we moved back to River Sunday. We lived upstairs at the church where I preach. My father and mother were hired as the custodians. He cleaned the place, repaired it, and she cooked for the itinerant preachers. Then my parents died suddenly. My brother and me were taken care of by the visiting preachers and some of the church members who looked in on us. They did all they could for us but they had their own families to take care of. It was cold in that old church. In those days there was not much insulation just boards on the walls. In the summer there were all kinds of bugs. We got along except that we were always hungry. Most of the time my brother would steal some of the food left out on Sunday morning for the church breakfast. He would sneak it back up stairs and hide it and he would share the food with me during the week. At first I wouldn’t eat any of it because I said we shouldn’t be stealing. I said that the preachers had told us not to steal. Then I got too hungry at night and I started to eat.

  “My brother, Lincoln, had an idea that Jake would give us some food. He thought that because Jake was a little kid and little kids care a lot about other people, that he would be generous. Lincoln figured we could get enough food for a week. So we set off in the morning, walked all the way out to the island and up to the big house and knocked on the
door. It was cold, I am telling you. A wet wind was blowing hard off the river, and my feet were just about frozen in some old red rubber boots I had. My brother was cold too but he stood there and rang that front doorbell over and over. He wouldn’t give up.

  “Finally the big old wood paneled door opened just a crack and we saw Jake peering out at us, his arm reached over his head like this.” The Pastor demonstrated with his arm stretched upward. “That arm, you see, was holding the doorknob. Jake, he smiled at us through the crack and said, ‘What you want, Lincoln?’

  “My brother said, ‘Jake, we’re hungry and we want some food.’

  “So Jake said, ‘All right, you wait here,’ and he closed the door. Just closed the door. We waited there in that cold for this little fellow to come back. My brother was smiling then like he had won something.

  “Byembye Jake comes back to the door. We hear him turning the knob inside and then it opens up a little bit more. Jake’s hand comes out in the cold air and in the palm of his hand is a handful of corn flakes. Then he says, ‘You better not eat too much because I’ve heard my father say that black folks won’t work when they got too much food in their bellies.’ Then he drops the food on the snow on the step and slams the door. Well, my brother, he looks at me and we both reach down and pick up every one of those flakes and just gobble them down we were so hungry. Then we set off for home. My brother told me then he said he knew I was cold but that he was warmed up by his hating Jake.”

  Maggie nodded.

  “I lost my brother a year after that. He got caught stealing food by one of the preachers and he was thrown out of the church building. He went off to Baltimore and I heard in a while that he died up there in the children’s jail. That was the end of my family till my wife come along.”

  The Pastor brushed at the ground with one of the excavating brushes. “I thought about that all my life, that kid and his corn flakes.”

  He paused. “I’m hopeful though,” he said softly. “Always hopeful. People around here might just surprise me. They may turn on Jake, throw him out of town with all his money. Just tell him they don’t want it. One of these days they might.”

  Frank pointed to a hard curved object coming out of the soil under his scraping. He was working into a new area. “Test pit Q is finally showing something. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more. This is right where the main cargo hold should be.”

  “What did you find?” asked the Pastor, as he leaned closer to Frank, trying to see.

  “It’s a pipestem, part of an old clay tobacco pipe.”

  “What does it tell us?”

  “Could have belonged to a sailor. Here, we can date the pipe with some precision.” Frank reached in his pocket for a small steel ruler. “OK,” he said as he measured the bore. “You see, Pastor, there was a fellow named Binford who developed a formula for archeologists to date tobacco pipes. Pipe bores got smaller from the Seventeenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. So if I measure this bore,” he calculated some figures on a piece of paper, “Then multiply a formula, Binford tells me the age of the pipe.” He paused as he looked at the paper. “Well, this is not very helpful for you, Pastor.”

  “Why?” said the Pastor.

  “This pipe is dated about 1700.”

  “The slave graveyard,” said Maggie.

  “I see what you mean,” said the Pastor. “Slaves were not imported into the Eastern Shore until then. For this to be their graveyard it would have to be dated later, 1720, maybe 1750, giving them time to live for a while then die. The strata where we’re digging is too old for a graveyard.”

  “The pipe is not definitive. We’ll keep looking. It does tell us about the ship in here. It’s an old wreck if I’m reading this pipe correctly.”

  The tawny cat reappeared and was standing at the edge of Frank’s area.

  “Cat knows something we don’t,” said the Pastor.

  “That cat understands it’s too hot to work,” joked Frank.

  “Cat might know more than you think,” said the Pastor, staring at the animal and leaning down to stroke its light orange fur. The cat purred. Frank stood up. “I’ll get the camera and take a record shot of the clay pipe in its site.” He set the fragment back into the soil strata where it had been. “Say, I just thought of something.”

  “What?” said Maggie.

  “Maybe that tobacco smoke I smelled came from this pipe.”

  Maggie threw a handful of muck at him and he ducked, laughing. The cat jumped into the pit and sniffed at the pipe, rubbed against Frank’s bare leg for a moment and then bounded away into the high grass.

  “One thing I learned from my father,” said Maggie, watching the cat and Frank. “If an animal likes you, you’re probably all right.”

  Chapter 7