Slave Graves

by Thomas Hollyday

Frank worked as fast as he could, knowing little time was left. Maggie was working in area T. Nothing had been found there yet. This was disappointing to Frank because that was the stern section, the Captain’s area which he had expected to be rich in artifacts. As for himself, he still expected the cargo area Q in the center of the wreck to produce something more. He would continue to work methodically as he expanded the pit. He kept the Pastor working at area H where the bones of the giant were found. Soldado’s divining rods had been right about area H but they had not been as effective on pinpointing area Q. The Pastor worked hard, stubbornly scraping at the earth. From time to time, Frank looked over in a supervisory manner at the Pastor’s work. He knew this wasn’t necessary. The older man was too dedicated to make a mistake.

  “Frank,” the Pastor said, after a while, “I know you don’t think there was much to that graveyard story of mine.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I know there’s not much proof. You younger men, you all want touchable proof. I just rely on faith in an old man’s words. Maybe I shouldn’t have faith.”

  Frank kept working. The Pastor was right. He, Frank, had no faith in anything he couldn’t see or touch.

  The Pastor went on. “I always believed there was something up here. There wasn’t a black kid in this town that didn’t hear about the old slave burying ground and the magic up here. Our parents used to scare us, say they’d set us up here by ourselves, when we were bad. I had never done anything about researching the story. None of us had. Then the talk started about building the new bridge over this property and covering it up with concrete. There was a feeling among my church members, among many of the River Sunday black community that something should be done. No one knew what to do. Just about that time Mister Henry Johnson came to see me and told me his story.”

  “Why did he come to you?” asked Frank.

  “His wife was a member of my church. He didn’t have much religion. She was in my choir. A fine voice. She was a lot younger than him. They had one baby baptized by me. Let you know something about this old man, that baby was born when the father was in his eighties.

  “It was early in the day when she brought him in. He was a short skinny black man with white hair. He could not walk real well. His wife supported him and he had a cane. Came in and sat in my office by the wall. Took off his cap. He had a John Deere cap, like a green baseball cap with a little yellow deer on the front. Told me that hat meant a lot to him.

  “‘It proves I can still plow straight,’ he said to me.

  “‘Yessir, Pastor,’ he said, ‘Still driving my own tractor.’ His voice was very low, but he pronounced his words carefully, like a man who wants to be known for good speech habits. His wife smiled at me to tell me to relax and just sit back at my desk and give her husband some time to get his story out at his own speed. So I did just that and waited for him.

  “‘He’s not been too well,’ she said. ‘Besides that he just mostly contrary. He gives us a little trouble here and there, don’t you?’ she said to the Pastor but looking at her husband.

  “‘Yes ma’am, I do,’ he replied.

  “‘Mister Johnson, I sure appreciate you and your wife coming by the church today,’ I said to them.

  “Mister Johnson stared at the floor of my office for a while. He turned his head once to look at his wife and then he stared at the floor again.

  “‘Does it bother him to talk about this?’ I asked the old man’s wife.

  “‘No,’ said his wife. ‘He sure talks enough at home.’

  “She went on, ‘Well, he told me that when he was a little boy this farm was his favorite fishing spot. He used to find old pieces of rusty metal lying around. He said there were no gravestones there just the bits of iron here and there all pitted and rusted. There was little bit of marsh then but the marsh got worse as he got older. Pretty soon it was wet in there a lot of the time, especially under the brambles where the sunlight couldn’t get. There was an old white wooden gate to the property. It was closed up and chained most of the time when the farmer wasn’t working the fields there. Henry remembers sometimes when he got up there he would find a wreath of flowers on the old white gate and one time he saw one of the traveling preachers that used to come to River Sunday every week. The preacher was putting out some flowers too. They always put the flowers outside the fence. They never went inside on Mister Terment’s land. Henry went in though, snuck along the muskrat trails and went down to a hiding place on the riverbank where no one could tell he was there or not. No one couldn’t even see his fishing line because he didn’t use a bobber. He could feel a fish without using a bobber.’

  “Mister Johnson smiled with pride at that comment.

  “‘Did you ever see any sign of anyone getting buried?’ I asked him,” said the Pastor.

  “The old man looked up at me and shook his head. ‘Nossir,’ he said. ‘The folks,’ he said, ‘that were buried in there were all old time slave folks.’

  “Then he said after a moment, ‘I was told by my grandfather that the slaves buried there were Africans and that they were some of them great magic men. That’s what I was told.’ Then he went on to say that back in slavery days the black folks scared the old Indians, they call them Native Americans, away from the graves by telling them that the dead men buried there would make spells on them, would play tricks on them, if their graves were interfered with, if they tried to rob them. He said mostly the Native Americans, the Nanticokes, they were scared of the place anyhow. He said, ‘My father told me that if I went in there I might run afoul of them hants and get me a spell too.’”

  “Well, he went on to tell me, ‘It was a good spot right along that shoreline. The weed wasn’t too bad in those days and there weren’t no snags to speak of. It was fair water for fishing.’

  “‘There was this time I was there, this time I came to tell you about, one strange time. The tenant farmer was away somewhere and the farm was deserted,’ Mister Johnson told me.

  “‘I was sitting there on the riverbank fishing. It had gotten dark. There was almost no light and I was getting ready to pick up my line. I knew my way out of there in the dark. I had been there so many times.’

  “‘Up by the road, near the white gate to the farm, I heard this noise, sounded like a large truck. It slowed down, backfired like a shot, and stopped right past the gate. I peeked out at it from where I was in the bushes and saw a bus. I could see people standing up and moving out of the bus and then standing along the road. They were black folks, all ages, about fifty of them in all. I could not see the markings on the bus but I thought it might be a church group just because I had been in buses like that with people of different ages when I had traveled with my own church and my parents.’

  “‘They were talking low and I could not hear the words. They moved along the road and climbed over the gate. Pretty soon all of them were walking single file towards the center of the marsh. Each one had a little candle in their hand, held up in front, and it made a procession of candles in the dark. It was real pretty. I had never seen anything like it. Then the talking stopped and they started to sing:

  “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

  And grace my fears relieved;

  How precious did that grace appear

  The hour I first believed.”

  From the light of the candles I could see their faces. They were all smiling and their eyes were very wide open. Their dress was real fancy too like they were going to church. In the front of the line there was a tall black man with a white beard. He was blind. I could tell because there was a little girl right next to him that pulled on his hand to show him which way to walk. That man was the leader though even though he could not see. They went exactly the way he did and when he raised his hands they raised their hands. He would hum the bar of music and them they would sing it right after him the same line just like he did and so I knew he was the leader.’

  “‘Then the old man stopped just about at
the center of the marsh. In the flickering of the candles, I could see the heads of the folks and I could see the whole shape of the man. I had a pretty good view. Where the old man was there was a little stream of water and a kind of small pond about six feet or so across with a lot of soil in it. I got caught in it one time and got filthy trying to get out. The muck just grabs at you in that old marsh up there.’

  “‘The music flowed over me. I was tapping my toe in the river lap just behind me. After a while they were all standing around this old man. I could have told them a better place to stand but from the looks of it they were so excited that they would not have listened to anyone maybe not even the Lord himself.’

  “‘Pretty soon this blind man raised both his hands to the sky. Everyone got real quiet. He started to talk. He had a voice like you wanted to have the music of that voice float all over you like warm water.’

  “‘Holy mud,’ he said. ‘Holy mud. This is holy mud.’ He went on and on saying words like he was chanting.’

  “‘When I was a young boy,’ the old man chanted, ‘I was a slave.’

  “The people repeated, ‘I was a slave.’

  “‘Yes, born a slave right here on this farm.’

  “The people replied, ‘Right here on this farm.’

  “‘I’m free.’

  “‘He’s free.’

  “‘Come touch this soil, children.’

  “‘Come touch this soil.’

  “‘You’re free children of God.’

  “‘Free children of God.’

  “‘Free I say.’

  “‘Free he says.’

  “‘This is sacred ground.’

  “‘It’s sacred ground.’

  “‘It’s where our ancestors are buried, a slave graveyard. Yes, it’s the home of Adam and the home of Eve.”

  “‘It’s Adam and Eve.’

  “‘While they were chanting they were twisting and turning all over that mucky patch. Then folks got back into a line and the started coming up one by one, the old folks and the young folks, and they each one kneeled in front of the old man. They would come up and carefully put down their little candle so it would not go out and them they kneeled in the wet earth and bent their head real low. I watched the light flicker off the bramble bushes and reeds all around them.’

  “‘Then the old man touched the mud at his own feet. He had on these big boots. Then with a little bit of mud on his finger, I watched him draw a cross of mud on the forehead of the kneeling person. He did that to each one of them in turn. After each one the old man said, ‘Amen.’

  “‘Pretty soon they had finished with crossing themselves and they all stood around and started singing again. Then the old man raised his hands and then put them down. The little girl came along and took his right hand and led him through the group of folks. They all started back towards the bus that brought them. ‘

  “‘I heard the bus engine start and listened to it idle while they climbed on board. Then I heard the driver shifting, clanking the gears as he missed shifts getting’ that old transmission to go. In a while the night was dark again. When the insects started making noise again I figured it was safe to move and I got up and walked real slow towards the spot where they had been standing.’

  “So Mister Johnson looked up at me then, and he say, ‘Pastor, the ground there, the muck they were standing on, it was hot to the touch. It wasn’t just the sun of the day that had made it hot that way all day and still into the night. No this was more. It was hot on my bare feet and when I touched it, it burned my hand, it did. It was like there was a fire under that ground, right where he was sayin’ that the slaves were buried.’

  “Mister Johnson got more excited and twisted in his chair and his wife reached over to him. Then she said to me, ‘Pastor, he felt he had to tell you about this.’

  “‘Yessir,’ Mister Johnson said, his eyes getting big, ‘That was the fire of Hell, Pastor, the fire of Hell under that ground there.’

  “He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, then continued, ‘I did not go back into that marsh for a long time. I realized that my father had told me right that it was a graveyard and that there were spirits there and that I best be leaving them alone. Then I started sneaking back in there hoping that the spirits would not see me and the farmer would not see me either. When I went in there everytime I would go first to the place where the ground had been so hot. It was never the same way again. The hot ground was all gone, all cooled down regular.’

  “The old man sighed, ‘I sure loved to fish in those days. Still do but I can’t get around anymore. Mrs. Johnson, she don’t go with me no more. She don’t like to fish no more.’ His wife winked at me on that one.

  “So I got even more intrigued with this old marsh after hearing that story,” said the Pastor. “First I tried to find out who the people in the bus were. They could have been from one of the churches of the itinerant preachers the old man talked about. One of the ministers might have brought his flock down with him, instead of just leaving a wreath. I asked around among the parishes in Baltimore and Philadelphia, especially about a blind man.”

  “Like finding a treasure map,” said Frank.

  “In time I found out about that preacher. He was a man called Blind Tom who worked with poor blacks and migrants in Baltimore. He liked to take them on trips across the Bay to the Eastern Shore to remind them of their heritage. Most of them descended from slave families on the old farms here. He’s long dead.”

  The Pastor stopped digging. “I tried to bring the story of the slave graveyard to the attention of the state people.”

  “You got nowhere.”

  “I didn’t understand what to do. Of course, in those days I was not aware of Maggie. Evenso, she could not have helped me much. I needed lawyers or professional historians. The forms they gave me to fill out were too difficult. I would have needed years of research to make the application. All I had was a legend and a story by an old man.”

  “You saw how quick Jake got permission to bring you down here from up North, Frank,” said Maggie. “The Pastor needed that kind of power.”

  “I got nowhere,” continued the Pastor. “Everyone was real polite. I still got nowhere. When this shipwreck was uncovered, and I think that was by the grace of God, why, Frank, it was like a second chance. I had some leverage because the State of Maryland had to investigate. The black community, my church, we had some political power since it was in the jurisdiction of the state. Even with Jake’s political pull and money working against us, there was still a chance we could get something done for us, something he couldn’t stop.”

  The telephone rang. Maggie said, “Frank, it’s probably another call for you. Here, I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m sure it’s my boss again.” Frank said as they navigated the mire again, this time avoiding some of the larger puddles. As the two of them approached the house, Frank thought about what words he would use, how he would try to convince his boss to allow him to stay, to ask for the university’s support if he had to stand up and anger Jake further. He knew that if the voice were that of Mello, he would have nothing to say. She would have to change to his way of thinking, the way he was developing on this trip, and he knew that was impossible for her. Mello was the kind of person who would never change. Since her childhood she had told him often that she always bet on a sure thing.

  “Yes.” he said, picking up the telephone and glancing at Maggie.

  “Frank, it’s your editor,” a gruff voice answered.

  “Oh, yes,” he answered. Frank’s voice was excited even in the dulling heat of the old kitchen room. He covered the mouthpiece and said to Maggie, “It’s all right. My editor in New York. He wants his galley proofs.” He spoke into the telephone.

  “I was called out of town unexpectedly for a job.”

  “What about your galleys? We’re holding up a lot of people waiting on you, Frank.”

  “I’ll need a few more days,” Frank answered with a s
mile.

  “The best I can do is tomorrow, Frank. If I don’t get the work here by close of business tomorrow, we’ll have to cancel the schedule and stop our work on the book.”

  “Stop the work? We’ve been planning this for two years, all my writing and then the revisions,” Frank was no longer smiling.

  “It’s all money, Frank. Money and marketing.”

  “Can’t you give me some more time? I’m just caught up in a special project.”

  “That’s real fine, Frank. You got to do the jobs that come across your desk. Your boss told me. He says you’re working for Jake Terment’s company. That’s a pretty good client. It will look good on your resume. Might be good on your dust jacket for the book. Nice going, Frank.”

  “When did the president talk to you?” asked Frank.

  “I called your office and the call was switched to him. He is handling your calls for you. He said he owed you in return for your going to the Eastern Shore on such short notice. He filled me in on the special project you are on. According to him it’s just some piece of a boat that Jake Terment dug up on one of his development properties.”

  “I expect you’ll see an article about it in the future,” offered Frank.

  “That good? Well, I’m happy for you.”

  “It’s more work than I thought. There might be more here than parts of a ship.”

  His editor said nothing.

  “You still there?” asked Frank.

  “Yeah, sure, Frank. Say, can I make a suggestion as your editor and an old friend?”

  “Sure.”

  “Get rid of this one, Frank. Pack up your stuff and get back to the university.”

  “Why?” asked Frank. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “It sounds like you are in over your head.”

  “Why are you saying this?” asked Frank.

  “First of all it’s a project financed by Jake Terment and if you don’t do it well it’s going to reflect on you in a big way. From talking to your boss, I get the feeling that your university is not too interested in this project if it goes against what Jake Terment wants.”

  “What are you telling me?” said Frank, knowing the answer.

  “Frank, we’re a small publisher. We have financing from our bank same as everyone else. We sell our books through distributors and book shows, same as everyone else.”

  “Go on.”

  “We’re just a textbook publisher. We don’t carry any banners for anybody’s causes. We just train the kids.”

  “The question is,” said Frank, “How do you train the kids, if you don’t carry any banners?”

  “I don’t want to get into this, Frank. I’m just a businessman who has to see his banker once in a while to get money to publish. I don’t want trouble.”

  “You think you’ll have trouble if one of your authors is not on the good side of Jake Terment?” said Frank.

  “Let’s say I don’t want to be that publisher. Do you want me to go on, Frank?”

  Frank finished the call politely and then walked out of the farmhouse. Maggie came and stood beside him on the porch.

  “Trouble with the book?” asked Maggie.

  “There’s a lot of fear of Jake Terment. I just got a deadline of tomorrow or no book. Something to do with the financing.”

  “I’ll just bet he gets his loans from one of Terment’s banks,” she said. “You could publish your work yourself. I’ll help you.”

  “This was supposed to be the best press for my kind of book.”

  She pulled him around to face her and then put her hands on her strong hips.

  “No, Frank, you think about it. The whole world of publishing, thank God, is not made up of little companies who are afraid of where their next bank loan is coming from. If you publish yourself, you can write what you want. We could publish your work and send it out ourselves. There’s independent bookstores. There’s the Internet.”

  “I wouldn’t sell very many copies without this publisher.”

  “You’d sell some, though,” she said. “Look, if the editor can be that scared, then what is the value of the publisher anyway?”

  “Why would you do this for me?” asked Frank, seeing a different Maggie than he had seen before.

  “Jake and his banker friends must be going to a lot of trouble to get you out of here. I don’t like anybody being pushed around. I think you’re a good archeologist. I’m betting on you. I think if you really get pushed toward poor scholarship, you’ll stand up and push back.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She looked at him with a smile. “I can’t stop believing in you. You can’t cheat.”

  “You think that about me?” said Frank.

  “You have more emotion inside that head and heart of yours than you want to let on. I get a big message when I hear you talking about Vietnam. It’s like Vietnam was a great disappointment for a man like you and you don’t want to ever risk that disappointment again.”

  She continued, “Guys like Terment, it’s easier for them to take risks, because they don’t deal with the same kind of truth. Most times their truths are just lies and if they lose they just change the rules of the game. You can’t play that way. You go for truth and if you lose, you always remember that you lost. There is one thing though, Frank.”

  “What’s that.”

  “Like the other women in the class, though, I did have a little crush on you.”

  He smiled. “I never realized.”

  “Some of the girls would try all kinds of things to get your attention. You remember the blonde girl whose breast fell out of her shirt on the practice site?”

  “No,” he smiled.

  “She cut the threads on her bra so she could get your attention. She didn’t have much of a figure but the boys did notice her after that. You just went right on telling us about measuring strata. You were so interested in the archaeology.”

  They heard car horns on the road, beyond the honeysuckle.

  “The Pastor is waving at us.” She squeezed his hand. “Remember, you don’t need that editor.”

  He squeezed her hand. He felt the warmth. “OK.”

  Chapter 12