Slave Graves

by Thomas Hollyday

They faced each other, Jake, spotlessly clean, Frank, barefoot, dressed only in his muddy work shorts. Jake spoke first, quietly, only to Frank. “I told you to write me a report, Doctor.”

  “I can’t do that,” Frank answered.

  “Don’t you for one minute think I’m going to forget this. Your career is finished.”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He returned Jake’s stare.

  “Doctor, you know why you came down here?”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “You didn’t make a mistake coming here. You just forgot why you came.”

  Frank then raised his voice so the crowd could hear. “When I first came here, Jake, you told me I was like you.”

  “I was sure as hell wrong about that.”

  “No, you weren’t wrong. I was like you, all business, the wrong kind of business. It took working up here for a couple of days in all this heat and finding these horrors in the wreck to realize that I was also different from you.”

  “None of what you are saying means anything to me.”

  “Jake, there’s skeletons of dead children in here. There was a crime committed.”

  Jake continued to stare.

  “I don’t expect you to understand what I am telling you, Jake, but I’m going to say it anyway. You have to start to care about this. There was a murderer who burned all these innocent people to death in the old ship.”

  “Go on,” called the Pastor, “You’re doing fine.”

  Frank continued, “I don’t understand you, Jake. I think business and profit has become more important than the people you hurt, the people who die, because of what you do.”

  Jake started ahead again, saying nothing.

  “These children who died here, their deaths can not be disregarded. Your bulldozer can’t be allowed to torture their remains any more. This is like a graveyard. We have to bury them properly at least.”

  Jake ignored Frank’s words. “You up there on the tractor. You come on ahead as soon as I signal. Come on ahead, hear me.”

  Frank tried a different approach. “Jake, is all this some kind of family secret, something that has been passed down to you, something for you to hide? Is that why your family changed the place where they loaded their tobacco, because they wanted to hide this place?” Frank could see Jake’s lips begin to tremble, the first clue that Jake did indeed hear what he was saying.

  “By God,” Frank goaded, “I see, Jake. This is your turn to protect some rotten bastard who lived three hundred years ago.”

  The Pastor called from behind Frank. “He won’t tell you, Frank.”

  Jake, suddenly confident, a softness to his voice, said with a smile. “Frank, you’re holding up a lot of people’s paychecks.”

  Frank persisted. “Part of hiding the secret had to be getting rid of evidence. You knew that even if you concreted this site into the ground there would still be the records of what we found. You started the fire to get rid of all the records, didn’t you, Jake? You knew that all our discoveries were in that house and in Maggie’s car.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the bell, Jake. The bell was not destroyed. If anything, it’s in better shape.” Frank turned to Spyder. “Was it you I surprised setting the fire, Spyder?”

  “You’re lying,” squealed Spyder, traces of a grin still on his face.

  “If they tried, the local police might have a hard time accounting for your time last night.”

  Jake’s stare had turned to a look of intense hatred. “Get off my land.”

  “The ship’s name was the Adam and Eve.” Frank saw Jake move his head back, a sudden jerk, a glimmer of recognition of the ancient ship name. Jake reached down and grabbed two beer cans from the mud. He was back in control of himself once again, smiling, still slightly trembling.

  “These will make good fill for my Goddamned marsh,” he said as he continued walking toward Frank. “Here, I’ll throw these right in the hole, Doctor.” The crowd was silent. Jake’s eyes hardened.

  “You, Billy, come on,” he called. The chief started to move towards Jake and the mayor stopped him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Jake called out, “Cheeks, you and the boys come help me.” Cheeks was a fat man, his police blouse darkened with sweat, his belly overhanging his pistol and gun belt. Cheeks shoved forward the other two police beside him and with a smirk, walked quickly to assist Jake.

  Frank knew, the crowd knew, that nothing could or would stop Jake’s dedication. Jake’s face gradually lost all semblance of rationality. A look of madness, insanity, came over the once photogenic face. Frank, in turn, had become a soldier again. He was calm, ready to kill if necessary. The two men were like warriors facing off, maneuvering to strike first.

  “Don’t make him mad, kill him,” the voice of his sergeant from long ago at Fort Jackson Army basic training hammered back into Frank’s consciousness. “Don’t make him mad, kill him.”

  Then Jake made his move as his right hand reached out to pull Maggie off the hill. She stepped back. He muttered, “Damn you, woman,” and leaned forward to grab again at her arm. As he did, Frank instinctively hit Jake hard, his right fist smashing against the surprised man’s jaw. Jake fell back, collapsing on his back in the mud. He looked up, his hand touching his jaw, his face showing pain but only for an instant. Jake scrambled to his feet, his hands and body alert.

  Frank waited for the next onslaught, nursing his fist with his left hand.

  “Maybe it’s over, Frank,” said Maggie.

  “No,” said Frank. Cheeks, the other two officers and Spider were rushing to Jake’s aid. There was a flash of metal as Spyder pulled out a small revolver and pointed it at Frank, his silent grin still there. Maggie instantly threw her digging trowel at Spyder’s arm knocking the gun out of his hand. Spyder grunted as blood spurted from his wrist. Cheeks unfastened the hasp on his service pistol. Billy, from his place with the businessmen, raised his hand and called out, “You hold up, Cheeks. I don’t want no guns.”

  The crowd murmured but did not move forward. The guards stayed back waiting for orders. Spyder, glaring at Maggie, stood still, his revolver still on the ground, blood dripping from his wrist onto the mud and spattering his well shined leather shoes.

  Jake wiped his face leaving a streak of mud across his forehead, swore, and rushed again at Frank, knocking him off balance. Both of them crashed off the hill and into the mud, pummeling, scratching at eyes, seeking advantage. They rolled in the muck. Frank was hit hard in the stomach and crawled to his knees, his face still against the ground. Jake stood up over him and grabbed a shovel from the nearby sifting table. He raised the rusty tool over Frank. Just before he could bring it down on Frank’s head, Maggie yelled, “Look out. He’s trying to kill you. Somebody stop this.”

  Billy took a few steps towards the hill. He was too late. Jake moved forward, all his body weight behind the blunt weapon. Just before the shovel reached his head, Frank was able to roll to his side. The shovel continued and hit the mud, its impact throwing dirt and water through the air, the handle snapping with a loud crack. Jake gave a surprised look at the broken tool, then flailed at Frank again and again with the piece of handle. Frank on his part tried to fend off the furious blows with his arms.

  Suddenly there was a new sound, a new cry. Jake stopped, his concentration broken. He looked over his shoulder, still holding the shovel handle above his shoulder. The line of human butterflies opened in its center. There, Soldado came forward from the beach, the cat preceding him.

  Soldado was startling, tall, angry, with yellow, white and black paint on his bare skin, a red cape across his shoulder. The metal jaguar head hanging from his waist reflected in the sun from its golden metal jaws. Soldado held aloft a torch, its flames flying out into the sunlight as he moved it back and forth. He repeated over and over one word, loud and distinct, and fully understood by the crowd. It was the word “fire,” and it was like a trumpet to the crowd.

/>   The shuffling steps of the people speeded their advance on Jake, their hands stretching in front as if to grab him and tear him to pieces. “Fire” was chanted over and over, sound rumbling over the site, easily matching the roar of the bulldozer. One by one, Frank saw other torches raised among the crowd, flames licking at the air, bits of fire falling off. The people had become a furious army, torches their weapon, and their intent seeming to scorch or to burn Jake, to burn Jake with his own kind of weapon.

  Moments passed. The crowd became even more vicious, prodded by the angry shouts of encouragement by the Pastor, Soldado and Birdey Pond. There was also the ever-present sight of the skeletons. Even if the police had wanted to stop the mob, they would not have been able to accomplish this easily with the few men they had. Jake, still holding the splintered wooden handle, saw Soldado and the crowd, then looked back at Frank, fear and confusion in his eyes. He stood at the edge of the large pit, his back to the great pile of skeletons and bones. Then he raised the handle preparatory to crashing the wood against the prone Frank.

  “Look out, Frank,” screamed Maggie.

  Jake hesitated, allowing Frank to suddenly twist his own body and kick hard at Jake’s belly with his bare feet, leaving blobs of filth on the remaining whiteness of Jake’s suit. The surprise of the blow made Jake drop the shovel. Picking it up, he swore at Frank. At that moment the ledge of soft earth on the side of the excavation collapsed under his weight. Jake lost his balance and fell, lurching backward, one hand still in a tight fist, the other waving the handle.

  As Jake realized what was happening to him, he tried to move his arms behind his body to shield himself from the sharp up thrust bones of the resurrected skeletons. Those arms, failing to protect him, moved upward almost like supplication, but more like vaudeville.

  Frank, meanwhile, scrambled to his feet, fists ready to take advantage, as Jake fell, out of control, backwards into the grid pit. As Jake’s body came down heavily into the excavation, the bones that were torn out by the wild crowd the night before, the bones of the slave children who had been so hideously burned to death, cracked like pistol shots against Jake’s body weight. Some broke from the impact but others tore into the back of Jake’s careful white suit with spurts of blood as they thrust out through his stomach and chest. As he was impaled on the skeletons, small grinning skulls flew into the air from the impact, turning slowly above Jake’s prone and crooked body, then dropping back around him, partially burying him in bleached bone and blood.

  One by one, the bones came to rest, each one making small ripples in the water of the pit. Jake stirred and moved upward, first leaning on his right elbow then raising himself, his face contorted with pain, his back bleeding from multiple cuts from the sharp bones. Frank saw the killing wound. A large thigh bone, likely a part of the strange ancient giant, was protruding from Jake’s chest, blood gurgling at its browned base. Jake attempted to grasp it, to pull it out of his back where it had entered. He managed to stand and stagger forward. He stepped up to the edge of the pit and then fell forward into the muck, motionless and silent, the bone upright like an arrow above his body, his knees still down in the pit. In a few more moments of convulsions, he had slipped back into the excavation, lying on his stomach.

  The only noise was that of the diesel engine. A sense of surprise pervaded the crowd. Frank, his desire to hurt Jake gone, kneeled beside the horribly wounded man. Billy, Maggie and the Pastor rushed forward. Frank attempted to turn Jake’s mouth upward from the puddle of water.

  Soldado stopped several yards away, the cat motionless at his side. Soldado crushed his torch into the wet mud where its flames sparked and died. The forward shuffle of hundreds of warrior feet stopped, the chant hushed to ripples of noise. Other torches were lowered and extinguished. Then there was no sound except the rumble of the bulldozer engine. The cat hissed and jumped up on Jake’s back, sniffing at the bloody bone. The old man approached Jake’s writhing form. Standing over him and looking towards the sky, Soldado raised both arms, then put them down and walked back through the crowd, toward the riverside. The cat jumped off Jake’s back and went with Soldado.

  Jake’s hand slowly pulled at his back, its motion slowing then finally halting as his blood flowed out on the muddy ground. His face turned sidewise in the mud, looking up at Frank . His body was twisted with pain from the multiple wounds but he made no sound. Two police officers brought up a blanket from which was handed to the chief.

  Billy tenderly placed it over Jake. “The ambulance is coming.” he said.

  Spyder stood in the background, still holding his wounded hand. He did not speak. His grin was gone. Jake turned his head to the other side and saw his old friend, Billy, his gray police uniform splashed with mud. Jake whispered, with a slight smile, aware of what had happened to him and how seriously he was hurt,

  “Goddamn it, Billy, I think I’m cleaned out.”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t help you this time, Jake.”

  “Looking out for yourself,” Jake gasped, his smile jerking across his face with the waves of pain. “I would have done the same thing.”

  “You ain’t done yet, old friend. You just had an accident, that’s all. You fell. You’ll be all right.”

  Jake was having trouble getting his breath. Then he tried to raise his head once more. His eyes turned towards the island. A steady flow of blood came from the corner of his mouth and ran over his tanned cheek. His lips moved, trying to form words, but his voice, once strong and familiar to all of them standing and kneeling around him, was silent. His face had lost its look of pride. Frank thought he noticed a tear moving down Jake’s face.

  Jake tried once more to say something. Frank bent closer to hear. Jake gasped from the pain and his eyes dulled, staring without life. Frank knew he was dead.

  The Pastor stood up. “It’s a sad time when any man dies,” he said, moving away.

  Billy was still on his knees next to his childhood friend. He said, “Jake was a better man than people gave him credit.” He slowly pulled the blanket over Jake’s head.

  Soldado turned and walked back towards the riverbank, the crowd parting to let him through. The people, as if they were still fearful of Jake, even in his death moved closer to the body. A line formed and one after another, white, black, young and old, filed by the corpse. They stood around in clusters. Frank saw in those faces not only fear but an astonishment, as though the people expected the very still and dead body to raise up off the ground, stand up and become Jake Terment again.

  Spyder walked quickly toward the highway. Spyder climbed into one of the Terment Company cars and kicked up dust as he raced out the lane, narrowly missing the white gateposts. It was the last time that Frank or anyone else in River Sunday saw Spyder.

  “I ain’t going to hold you, Doc. You was just defending yourself. There won’t be any charges,” said the chief almost in a whisper, looking around at the hundreds of people. He motioned to the operator to shut off the bulldozer engine.

  The shriek of the River Sunday ambulance came through the trees at the edge of the site. The ambulance team quickly removed Jake’s body from the pit. He was carried to a patch of matted grass. The Terment Company guards clustered around the corpse and stopped the line of viewers.

  “Who’s going to tell his wife?” Billy asked the mayor. The mayor didn’t answer him.

  Then out on the site, the banner was pulled taut. Carefully, men and women at each section of the great orange flag pulled it out over the shipwreck and laid it down in the sun, placing it as a shroud over the ancient dead. A faint breeze sent tremors across the cloth.

  Jake’s body was finally put into the white truck. The siren was turned on and the ambulance slowly moved out the gate.

  “I’m going to make sure that’s the last Terment ever walks on the land of this farm,” said the Pastor.

  Chapter 23