Young Whit and the Shroud of Secrecy

by Phil Lollar

  “What are you doing?” Johnny groaned.

  She sat up, saw his eyes open, and threw her arms around him. “Thank God you’re all right!”

  “If you squeeze me any harder, you might just finish me off,” he said.

  They crawled back under the tower, this time being careful to touch nothing. Within five minutes, the storm had passed over. A light rain continued to fall, but all the noise of the thunder rumbled a goodbye. Johnny stood up, a bit achy, and walked over to the car battery.

  “At least it didn’t explode,” he said.

  “You mean it could have?” Emmy asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You mean we could have been covered in battery acid? You never told me that!”

  “You’re a smart girl. I don’t have to spell everything out for you, do I?”

  She just shook her head and muttered, “Incredible.”

  Johnny pulled a pocket multimeter from his bag and tested the battery with it. “Hmm,” he said. “It’s not fully charged, but it does have some power.”

  “Get down!” Emmy urgently whispered as she pounced on him, knocking him to the ground.

  “What are you—?”

  “Shh! Look!”

  Two men passed through the Granville House property, heading in the same direction that Ben had just gone.

  “Do you know them?” asked Emmy.

  “Yeah,” Johnny replied. “The white guy in the overcoat is Old Man Warner. He owns a drugstore and soda shop near Duke University. The black man is a hobo. I think his name is Clarence. He came to my house on Halloween night. That mysterious boy who helped us with the Confederate gold case put a note in my trick-or-treat bag about him.”

  “What? When?”

  “When we were trick-or-treating, of course!”

  “What did the note say?”

  “It said to beware of Clarence! And for good reason! Look at what he’s carrying!”

  Clarence was toting something long and thin in his left hand.

  “Is that a stick?” asked Emmy.

  “No,” said Johnny. “It’s a Winchester 1892—a rifle.”

  “A gun? Are you sure?”

  “I’m a boy. I know about guns.” He stood up. “Let’s go.”

  “Home, I hope?”

  “If you want to, but I’m going to warn Ben. If he finds the body they’ve been hiding, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

  Johnny could see Emmy struggle, and he wished now he’d never stopped by to ask her along on this adventure. But she didn’t disappoint him. “Okay,” she finally said. “Let’s go.”

  Johnny grabbed his tools and stuffed them back into his bag. Then they scampered across the field toward the forest behind the Granville House property. They quickly found the path the men had taken into the forest and made their way down through the thicket of trees.

  Carved into the first tree immediately next to the path were two more symbols. Johnny and Emmy had seen the first one, which looked like a hat with a pointy brim, on the gatepost out front when they came back to examine the coffin. Only this hat didn’t have the pointy brim. The symbol beside it looked like an upside down goal post.

  Johnny committed them to memory in case they might hold a clue to what to expect down the path. They walked on.

  A minute later, they heard a loud boom.

  They froze in their tracks, their eyes wide.

  Emmy spoke first: “Tell me that was more thunder.”

  Johnny could barely breathe. “I wish I could,” he said. “That . . . was a gunshot. And it was close.”

  They broke into a run in the direction of the noise, which came from down the path. They quickly topped a small rise at the same time a break in the clouds appeared. The raindrops falling from the trees surrounding them glistened like tiny prisms. Breaking through the trees, they came to a small clearing.

  A rainbow shone through the remaining mist. At the end where the rainbow met the ground stood the hobo Clarence, along with Mr. Warner.

  Ben’s body lay facedown on the ground at their feet.

  Rage filled Johnny as he picked up a rock and ran at them. “Get away from him!” he screamed. He threw the rock as hard as he could.

  It hit Clarence squarely on the leg, and he recoiled, dropping the rifle in response. “I—I didn’t mean to,” Clarence said. “I only wanted to scare him away. He ’us trespassin’!”

  Johnny flung himself beside Ben’s body. He grabbed Ben’s wrist and checked for a pulse.

  Faint. But he was still alive.

  Mr. Warner stood stock-still.

  “Help me turn him over!” Johnny hollered at the men.

  Neither moved, frozen in fear. Emmy ran up and instantly took hold to pull while Johnny pushed. Together, they got Ben over on his back. Blood had pooled over his shirt and onto the dirt. He was badly wounded.

  Clarence caught sight of the face of the man he had shot and gasped loudly. “No! Oh, Lord, no!”

  He ran to the body and knelt beside it. “Dear God, what’ve I done? My son! Ben! I shot my own boy!” He wailed, pulling Ben’s body close to him. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry, boy! I didn’t mean to!”

  Johnny gaped at him. “Ben’s . . . your son?”

  “I didn’t know he still lived around here. I haven’t seen him in years. I thought he moved away. He wasn’t here last I came,” Clarence babbled. His wails turned to sobs. “I killed him! I killed my boy!”

  Emmy started to weep. Mr. Warner sat on a rock, his face in his hands.

  Johnny felt shell-shocked. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The scene was like something in a James Cagney movie. Only this was really happening. He felt sick—all the while wishing there was something he could do. Some way he could help.

  “Help him,” the voice had said to him. “Help him.” Johnny reached into his bag.

  He felt the cloth. He pulled it out and handed it to Clarence. “He’s not dead,” Johnny said. “Use this to put pressure on the wound. Try to stop the bleeding.”

  Clarence did, muttering through his tears, “Please, God, no! Not my boy, please!”

  Johnny turned to Emmy. “Go for help,” he told her. “Doc Willis, Deputy Miller, anybody! Tell them there’s been an accident. Ben Huck has been shot. Tell them where we are!”

  Emmy looked at him, pale and frozen with fear. He barked at her, “Emmy! Go! Hurry!” She snapped out of it, nodded, and took off back down the path toward the water tower.

  Johnny turned to Mr. Warner, who was still in shock. “Give me your coat!” Johnny ordered.

  Warner didn’t move.

  Johnny went to him and shook him. “Mr. Warner! I need your coat to cover him and keep him warm!”

  Warner’s hands trembled as he fumbled with the buttons on his overcoat. He then took it off and handed it to Johnny.

  Johnny took the coat to Clarence and Ben. “Keep the pressure on,” he told Clarence, who nodded, still weeping. Johnny draped Warner’s coat over Ben, tucking it in and around Clarence’s arms.

  Seconds later, Karl Mangle emerged from the woods. He walked up briskly. “Was ist los?” he said. “I heard a gunshot and—” He stopped, taking in the scene, and then bellowed at Clarence, “Donnerwetter! What have you done?”

  “I didn’t mean to, Boss,” Clarence said. “I saw a feller from behind. He was pokin’ around, and I thought I’d give him a good scare.” Clarence wiped Ben’s brow with his left hand, all the while keeping the compress firm against the wound. “I never was a good shot. Can’t hit a thing I aim at, and here I was tryin’ to miss . . . and I shot him! I shot my own son!”

  Mangle was visibly shaken. “Your son?” he said. “You never told me you had a son around here! Es tut mir leid—I’m sorry, Clarence!”

  Johnny exploded. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? Why? Because it’s his son who was shot instead of some other random person you don’t care about?”

  Mr. Warner moaned, “We’re going to jail, aren’t we?”
<
br />   “Ruhig sein, Otis. Be quiet,” Mangle said. He looked at Johnny. “What are you getting at, young man?”

  “This isn’t the first time something like this happened, is it?”

  Mangle swallowed. “I don’t—”

  “I know about the body you’ve been hiding!”

  Warner jumped up and said, “What? You shot someone before?”

  “Sit down, Otis!” Mangle snapped. “Listen, Johnny, I don’t know what you think you know—”

  “I don’t think I know anything!” Johnny interrupted. “I heard you and Clarence talking about moving her body.”

  Mangle and Clarence exchanged confused glances. “Whose body?” Clarence asked.

  “Rakia,” Johnny said. “You moved her from down by the river, and then you moved her out of the coffin in the crawl space of Granville House! Don’t deny it!”

  Mangle exhaled and looked down. “Very well. Ich werde nicht. I won’t.”

  “You buried her here!” Johnny shouted. “That’s what Ben was looking for! And you shot him because of it!”

  Mangle held up his hand. “Enough!” he said. He walked directly up to Johnny and scowled down at him. Then he continued past him to the edge of the clearing. A clump of low-hanging tree boughs butted up against a boulder. Mangle pulled one of the branches back, revealing a lean-to hidden behind it. It was dark inside and impossible to see what lay within. “Rakia is right here,” he said. “You may as well see her, since you know all about her.”

  Johnny swallowed, stood, walked boldly over to Mangle, and peered into the darkness of the lean-to. A powerful, pungent, stinging odor assaulted his nostrils. He had smelled it before, and he knew where. He looked back at Mr. Warner. It was that day at his drugstore. Johnny turned back to the interior of the lean-to and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

  In the back of the makeshift room stood a large, metal tub. A long, copper tube wound out from it. Beneath the tub, a small fire burned.

  “It’s a still,” Mangle said. “We brew mondschein here—moonshine liquor.”

  Johnny stepped back, confused. “So Rakia’s not here?” he asked.

  Mangle shook his head. “Nein, she is. My wife comes from Bulgaria. Rakia is the name of the liquor they brew. Frieda knew the recipe and how to make it—her family had a still while she was growing up. Rakia sells well here.”

  “But moonshine’s illegal, isn’t it?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” said Mr. Warner bitterly. “Prohibition was repealed years ago. But the senators here in North Carolina think they know better. ’Tain’t right.”

  “I sell it to make money on the side,” Mangle said. “My son’s medical bills are sehr expensive—more than a professor’s salary can carry.”

  Johnny’s face reddened. “I’m sorry, Professor Mangle. I should have known you wouldn’t—”

  “Nein. How could you know? I might have thought the same thing myself.”

  “So this is what those symbols mean? The pointy hat in front of Granville House and the two at the head of the trail leading back here.”

  “Hobo code,” Mangle explained. “The first one means that you can get liquor where the arrow points. The two together mean that this is the place to get it.

  “It’s over now,” Mangle continued. “The sheriff will shut us down. Probably arrest us. And if the doctor doesn’t get here soon . . .”

  Just then, Clarence cried out, “Ben!”

  Johnny’s heart sank. He couldn’t breathe. His worst fear had happened. Ben had died, and he had been unable to help him. He bowed his head.

  But Clarence wasn’t upset; he was happy. “Ben! You’re all right! Talk to me, boy!”

  Johnny’s head darted up. Ben was moving. He slowly sat up, looked at Clarence, and said, “Pops? So I guessed right. You are here. When I heard about Rakia—”

  Clarence laughed, holding Ben tight. “You know me. Never one to be far away from a spirit.”

  “What happened?” Ben asked.

  “I shot you. Sorry about that. I meant to hit that tree yonder.”

  “You always was a lousy shot. But I ain’t shot—least I don’t think so.”

  Clarence hugged Ben long and hard. “Thank God you’re all right,” Clarence said.

  When they broke apart, Ben pulled away Warner’s coat and the cloth with it and tossed them aside.

  Warner stood over Ben, scratching his scruffy whiskers. “Makes no sense,” Warner said. “You were bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  Just then, Doc Willis and Emmy crashed through the trees and into the clearing. “Someone has been shot?” the doctor asked.

  Mangle pointed at Ben. “This man here,” he said. “At least we thought so.” He looked at Johnny curiously.

  “He crumpled down soon as I fired,” Clarence said. “Shot him in the back, or so I thought.”

  The doctor inspected the back of Ben’s shirt.

  A bullet hole.

  He then inspected Ben’s back where the bullet would have entered.

  Nothing.

  “Well, there’s a hole in the shirt, all right,” the doctor said, “but it must not have come from a bullet. There’s no wound site.”

  “We found him . . . lying facedown,” said Emmy, still breathless from running for the doctor. “He was bleeding from his chest.”

  “Might he have punctured his chest on a rock when he fell?” Mangle suggested.

  “Let’s see,” the doctor said. He lifted Ben’s shirt to inspect his chest. “I don’t know what to tell you, but there’s no wound on his chest either. I can’t see anyplace where the blood would have come from.”

  Clarence heaved a sigh of relief. “Praise be!” he shouted. “He musta tripped and knocked hisself out when he fell. I didn’t shoot ya after all, son! Maybe my aim is improvin’.”

  Ben smiled and said, “Well, that would be a miracle.”

  Emmy scowled. “But there’s blood all over him!” she said. “Where did it come from?”

  Ben looked at the front of his shirt, then stuck his pinky finger through a hole the size of a bullet in the exact same spot as the hole on the back of his shirt.

  As they all crowded around, inspecting Ben, Johnny discreetly removed the cloth from Warner’s coat and put it inside his jacket, zipping it in.

  Clarence looked into his son’s eyes. “Boy, you’re right,” Clarence said. “I believe we have witnessed a miracle.”

  Mangle stood up and looked straight at Johnny. “Ja,” he said, “I believe we have.”

  Just then, Deputy Miller entered the clearing and took a deep breath. “Weeelll,” he drawled, “looks like somebody’s got some explaining to do.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Professor Mangle was right. Deputy Miller did shut down the moonshining operation. He confiscated the still and the rifle and had them tear down the lean-to. But he didn’t arrest anyone, partly because of Mangle’s story, and partly because there was no point. “Nobody appears to have been shot,” he said, “and this county may be dry, but the next one over isn’t.”

  Professor Mangle accepted full responsibility, so the deputy did take him to the sheriff’s station to make a statement.

  Mr. Warner headed back to his drugstore, mourning the loss of the still. “’Tain’t right,” he muttered. “Just ain’t right.”

  Ben was still a bit dazed by all that had happened, but not so much that he couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Pops, leave it to you to hide a still inside a coffin!” he said. Father and son both threw back their heads and busted out in laugher.

  “I don’t get what’s so funny,” Johnny said.

  “I don’t expect I’ve told you about my Grams,” Ben answered.

  “That woman was a bona fide hero,” Clarence said.

  “What did she do?” Emmy asked.

  “She was the first one on her plantation to escape,” Ben explained. “Others tried, but none of ’em made it, ’cept Grams. Got all the way to Canada. And the route she took was along th
e—”

  “Underground Railroad!” Emmy exclaimed.

  “Right,” Clarence said, nodding. “My mama was a brave woman. She went on to help a lot of others find their way to freedom too. So as a way of remembering her, I wander up and down the route she took, imaginin’ all the things she went through to get herself—and them others—free.”

  “But I still don’t get what you thought was so funny,” Johnny said.

  A big grin stretched over Ben’s face. “Well, you know that the leader of the Underground Railroad was—”

  “Levi Coffin,” Emmy interrupted again.

  “Right. But what you don’t know is that the name of the man Levi worked alongside of—the man known as the founder of the Underground Railroad—was . . . William Still.”

  Clarence laughed again. “No one can say as I ain’t got me a sense of humor!” Father and son laughed as they made their way to Ben’s home.

  Johnny and Emmy were both stunned as they walked home.

  “What in the world just happened?” Emmy asked before she went inside her house.

  “I don’t know,” Johnny replied, shaking his head. “I really . . . do not know.”

  Emmy shook her head as she opened the door and disappeared inside. Johnny crossed his yard to the shed. He went in and emptied his bag on the workbench. He replaced the tools and unfurled the cloth.

  It was spotless.

  This is so strange, Johnny thought. Why did the cloth heal McDuff and Ben, but not Steve? Or did it actually heal anyone? Maybe the hole in Ben’s shirt had already been there, or perhaps a stick or rock had made it when he fell. But why did he fall when Clarence fired the gun if he hadn’t been hit? And why was there no blood on the cloth? It just didn’t add up.

  Johnny’s mind was a complete jumble. He couldn’t think straight, and he was exhausted from the afternoon’s events and from lack of sleep. He folded the cloth and started to take it back inside when he saw his father step out of the house.

  Johnny ducked back into the shed. There was no way for him to go in without being seen by his father. And he knew that if he tried to sneak the cloth into the house, his father would find it and confiscate it. He could think of only one thing to do. He rolled it up and stuffed it into a small gap between the workbench and the shed wall, then stacked some boards over the gap. Then he grabbed his bag, exited the shed, and headed for the house.