A mass of gray hair surrounded the woman's fat face. Her purple dress had a collar of white lace, ragged and dirty around her neck. She prayed, her face shining in the light from a nearby torch. “Lord, this white child have fainted for you.Your spirit come over her and she be fill with Jesus. Gentle her, so she come back to us.” She took Stell's right hand in both of hers.
Stell's eyelids fluttered. The woman leaned over her and a drop of sweat landed on Stell's forehead. Stell's eyes opened. She looked up into that black perspiring face, inches from her own.
“Hey, honey, you coming back?”
Stell moaned and closed her eyes.
“Oh, Lord, be in her now, give her cease from sorrow.”
Mary said, “I believe this child has had about all the Lord she can take for one night.You go get some water.”
“Yes'm, that probably do it.” The woman put her hand on my shoulder and pushed down hard as she got to her feet.
“Stell Ann? You wake up now, it's time to get on home.” Mary rubbed Stell's hands. “Estelle Annette Watts, open your eyes.”
Stell looked up at Mary. “What happened?”
“You took off for a while.”
The woman was back with a cup of water. Stell sat up and drank.
Mary said, “Stell, can you stand?”
Stell got to her feet. “I'm okay, really.”
“You reckon you can walk back to the motel park? It's a good ways.”
“Honestly, I'm fine.”
There was a clatter of voices inside the tent, and the woman said, “Reverend Cureton taking a break.” She reached into a pocket of her dress and took out a watch with a broken wristband. “Dint do but half a hour. He hungry. We always feeds 'em good.”
“We be getting on,” said Mary. With Stell in the middle, we held hands walking back up Zion Church Creek Road as the moon began to rise.
C
HAPTER 21
A
t the edge of town, Stell directed us down a tree-lined avenue with wide lawns, a shortcut to the motel.We left the rumble of the boulevard. Our footsteps clattered on the sidewalk in the warm night, and our shadows stretched ahead and disappeared in the glow of the next streetlamp.
Mary asked Stell, “Is it okay, us going down this street?”
“It's the quickest way back.”
“That's good.”
I remembered the curfew signs in Wickens.
We walked a bit, then Stell said, “Reverend Cureton has fervor.”
“Um-hum,” Mary said.
I said, “He's no Daddy Grace.”
Stell snickered. “You've never heard Daddy Grace preach.”
Mary chuckled, her gold tooth glinting. “They different, that's for sure. Reverend Cureton preaches in a tent. Daddy Grace, he got a door mat woven from twenty-dollar bills for wiping the mud off his gator shoes.”
A car came down the street, slowed as it got to us, sped away.
A mosquito buzzed my ear. The air smelled like fresh-cut grass.
There was a loud pop, the tinkling of breaking glass. A streetlight went out a block away. Everything was quiet, even the crickets. Mary said, “Some boy got a new BB gun.” She walked faster. “I was a member of the House of Prayer from a child, and Daddy Grace was Moses to me. But I saw the light. Now I'm at McDowell Street Baptist.”
“Where Leesum is?”
“Yes, with Reverendâ”
Another loud pop. A streetlamp near us shattered. Stell gasped.
“Stell, Jubieâ” Mary's voice was shrill.
A man spoke behind us. “We gonna get you, girl.”
Across the street a porch light came on. A woman shouted, “What's going on?”
“Nothing, ma'am,” the man called out. “We're just clearing some niggers outen your neighborhood.”
“Help!” I screamed.
The light went out. A door slammed.
“They're after me,” Mary said. “Y'all run. Get the policeâ”
Someone grabbed my hand and wrenched it behind my back, up between my shoulder blades. Another man shoved Stell against a tree, his hand over her mouth. I screamed again.
“Shut up!” The man holding me had rotten cigarette breath and stank of liquor.
A third man said, “What you doing walking in a white neighborhood after dark?”
Mary said, “Going home from the meeting.”
The man facing Mary wore a white T-shirt that glowed in the moonlight. He slapped her. “Use your manners, girl.”
She didn't say anything.
He socked her. Mary cried out, put her hand to the side of her face. “Please, mister, leave us be.”
I yelled for help. The man behind me jerked my hand higher and coughed against my neck. “I said shut up.” His foul breath washed across my face and I clamped my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.
The man in the T-shirt hit Mary in the stomach. She doubled over with a horrible groan.
“Go on,” the man behind me said. “Hit her again.”
“I got a idea about this girl.”
“Same idea I got about these li'l white gals?”
Mary struggled to speak. “Dey don't know 'bout pleasin' a man. I can show you boys a good time. All you.”
“Nigger gals are born wanting it,” said the one holding me.
“Yessuh,” Mary said. “Yessuh, yessuh, you right.” Talking colored again.
A car came down the street. Brakes squealed and a woman hollered from the car, “Let's get outta here.”
The men who held Stell and me shoved us on the sidewalk together, facedown. One of them said, “Put the darkie in the backseat.”
Car doors slammed and they pulled away from the curb, tires squealing. The motor grew faint.
The pavement hurt my cheek. Crickets sounded loud again. A screen door banged shut. Stell prayed in a fast whisper, “Jesus, we offer ourselves for your care. Please be with us. Shelter us from our enemies.”
“Mary,” I said. “Ask God to protect Mary.”
“God, please”âshe stammeredâ“what's that?”
I listened, trying to separate the sound from the crickets and tree frogs. Metal clinking, a clicking. “A dog, coming down the sidewalk.” I smelled it, felt it snuffling around our legs.
Stell jerked. “It's in my face.”
The dog licked my arm and I pushed against its hairy belly. “Shoo!”
Claws clicked on the sidewalk; the dog's collar jangled as it ran away. I sat up.
Stell tugged at my sleeve. “They'll come back.” She began to shiver.
I pulled her to me. She was my big sister and I wanted her to be strong. “You're scaring me.”
We sat there, Stell shaking and crying in my arms, making me crazy. I touched my elbow where the dog had licked me and my hand came away wet and sticky. “Ugh,” I said, wiping my hand on my skirt.
“What?” Stell's voice shook.
“Dog gunk.” I touched the spot again. “And I skinned my elbow.”
She got to her feet and took my hand, pulling me up. I caught my hem under my shoe and felt the skirt tear away from the bodice.
Stell said, “Mary's dress was caught in the car door. Flapping in the wind.”
I put my cheek against her hair and sobbed. “What will they do to her?”
A door opened in a house across the street and a woman stepped out on her porch. “Who are you girls?”
“Help us!” Stell ran toward the woman, pulling me behind her.
A block away a car roared around a corner, came straight at us. Stell froze in the headlights. I pushed her up on the curb as the car stopped and two men jumped out.
“Somebody called the sheriff,” a tall man said.
“Thank goodness,” Stell said.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” we said together.
The lady came down her front walk. “Sheriff Higgins.”
“Mrs. Rainey.” The tall man was in slacks and a golf shirt, not a uniform.
“These girls've been making a racket.”
“They took Mary,” I said.
“She was hurt,” said Stell.
Mrs. Rainey looked at my dress. “You should cover yourself.”
My stomach showed where I'd ripped my dress. “Go after them,” I said to the sheriff, “before they kill Mary.”
“Who's this Mary?”
“Our maid,” Stell Ann said.
“She colored?” asked the skinny man who was with the sheriff.
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened to her?”
“Some men beat her up.They put her in their car and took her away. They were talking aboutâ”
“About what?” the sheriff asked.
“Tell him,” I said to Stell.
“He, the biggest man, he said he wanted toâthat he was going toâattack her.”
“Sounds like they already did that,” the second man said. He was shorter than the sheriff, with a scratchy voice.
“Assault her,” Stell murmured.
“I'm sorry to ask you this, missy, but do you mean rape her?”
Stell looked down. “Yes, sir, that's what they meant.”
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Rainey. “If y'all don't need me, I believe I'll go back inside.” Her front door closed and the porch light went off.
“How old's this darkie?” the short man asked.
“Her name is Mary Luther and she's forty-seven,” I said.
The sheriff looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “Did she provoke them? Did she talk back?”
I said, “She's too smart for that.”
“A smart nigger?”The short man snorted.
“Mary
is
smart, and she's notâ” Stell said.
“Don't pay any mind to Ray there,” Sheriff Higgins said. “Where you girls from?”
“Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“What y'all doing in Georgia?”
“We're on vacation.”
“Y'all the ones had that wreck yesterday at Grady and Main?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you staying?”
“At Sally's Motel Park,” I said, “with our family.”
“We'll let you call your parents from the station. It's late for y'all to be out alone.”
“We weren't alone.” I couldn't swallow around the rock in the back of my throat. “We were with Mary.”
C
HAPTER 22
T
he sheriff 's office was in a building smaller than our garage. A man in uniform behind the front desk looked up as we walked in.
“These girls need to call their parents,” Sheriff Higgins said.
“Yes, sir.” The man scrambled to move the phone to the front edge of the desk. “You need the book?” Stell nodded. He handed her a flimsy directory.
The sheriff went to a coffeepot in the corner and poured himself a cup. “Could I get you some water?” he asked me. “Too late to send out for Co-Cola.”
I shook my head. I kept taking deep breaths, tried to stop trembling. Where was Mary now? What were they doing to her?
Stell hung up. “Daddy'll be here in ten minutes.”
“Come on in my office,” said the sheriff. “We'll be done by the time he gets here.”
He sat behind his desk, pointing Stell and me to two metal chairs.The one window was open, but the room was too warm. “Give me a second.” The sheriff pulled out several desk drawers, looking for something. “Here it is; knew I had one.” He handed me a safety pin. “You ripped your . . .”
He looked out the window while I pinned the skirt of my dress to the bodice. “Everything'll be okay, sooner or later.”
How could he know that?
A jittery fluorescent light buzzed overhead. He wrote something on a pad, then swiveled his chair and picked up three sheets of paper, sandwiched carbon paper between them, and rolled them into the typewriter beside his desk. “August 13, 1954, ten-oh-five p.m.,” he said, typing. “Lillington Avenue at Cameron.” Plick-plick-pling, using two fingers, looking down at the keys, then over his glasses at what he'd typed. He glanced back at Stell. “I need your full name and age.”
“Estelle Annette Watts. Sixteen and a half.”
“One six.” He typed the numbers. “Birth date?”
“February 11, 1938.”
“And you?”
“June Bentley Watts. Thirteen. October 4, 1940.”
He typed again. “And your girl's name? What'd you say it is?”
Stell said, “Mary Luther,” and I said, “Mary Constance Culpepper Luther.”
The sheriff typed some more and I added, “She'll be forty-eight next month.” I wished I could remember her exact birthday.
“The men who took your maid, how many were there?”
“Three,” I said.
“Plus the girl driving the car,” Stell said.
“Did you get a good look at them?”
Stell said, “The one whoâhe shoved me against a tree. I couldn't see Jubie and Mary.” Tears welled in her eyes, rolled down her face. “And they shot out the streetlights. A BB gun or something.”
He made notes on the pad, then looked at me. “How about you? Anything that sticks in your mind.”
I thought of rotten breath, the smell of liquor, cigarettes, and BO. “Tall,” I said. “The one who held me was taller than I am, skinny and strong.”
“How tall are you?”
“Five-nine. He'd been drinking.”
“How do you know?”
“I know the smell.”
His lips pushed into a thin line. He looked at Stell Ann. “The fella who had you, what can you tell me?”
“His hands are calloused.” She closed her eyes. “He's big like a football player, or maybe just fat.”
“Do you know what kind of carâ”
“The one who beat up Mary had on a white T-shirt,” I said, remembering.
“Good girl.”The sheriff made a note.
Stell said, “A four-door Chevy, with white sidewalls and a loose muffler.”
“Stell!” I was proud of her.
“You sure?”
“I heard the muffler dragging. I looked up as they drove off andâ”
“But you said the streetlightsâ”
“Full moon, or almost.”
“You're right.” His pen moved on the pad. “What color was the car?”
Stell shook her head. “Light blue or gray.”
The sheriff stood. “Be right back.” He went into the outer office.
Stell took my hand. “They'll find her. She'll be all right.”
“What if they don't?”
We sat in silence.
The sheriff came back, sat down behind his desk. “Y'all got a picture of your girl?”
“No,” said Stell.
“I do.” Stell looked at me. “I
do.
From Uncle Stamos' birthday party.”
“Mary wasn't in any of those.”
“I kept the ones Mama tossed out. One was just Mary and me. I've got it at the motel.”
“That'll help,” said the sheriff. “Coloreds look so much alike.”
“No, they don't,” Stell said.
The sheriff said, “Hmph.” Like Mary.
I asked him, “When are you going to start looking for her?”
“We already are. Ray's driving around town, asking questions. We just radioed him a description of the car.”
I hoped someone would find Mary before Ray did.
The door swung open, banging against the wall. “Par'me, Sheriff, but they's a man out here making a ruckus.”
Daddy's voice boomed from the front office. “I want my daughters, damn it! Are they hurt?” I slid down in my chair.
Somebody said something I couldn't hear. Daddy yelled, “Where in hell are they?”
The sheriff said, “Bring him on in.”
Daddy burst into the sheriff 's office. “God, I'm glad you're okay. You are okay, aren't you?”
“Yes, sir,” we both said at once.
“We're about done here, Mr.Watts.”
Daddy shook the sheriff 's hand. “Just want to take my girls to their mother.” He looked at Stell. “I guess you got enough religion.”
She stared at the floor.
We answered a few more questions. When Sheriff Higgins said he was finished, I asked,“Is Mary okay? Do you think she's okay?”
He looked at Daddy, down at his desk. “I'm sure she is. We'll see.”
We left his office with Daddy holding our hands. We were almost to the Chrysler when he shoved Stell so hard she fell against the car.
“Daddy!” she cried out.
I couldn't move. I'd never seen him raise a hand to anyone but me.
“It's all your fault, you and that goddamn religious stuff you're always pushing at us. Jesus this and Jesus that!” He kicked one of the tires.
“It's not my fault.” Stell stood by the car, her face white in the moonlight. I wanted to warn her to be quiet.
Daddy drew back his hand as if he were going to hit her.
“Go ahead. You're only a hundred pounds heavier, so it'll be fair. I'll scream if you touch me.”
He stood there, his glasses two disks of reflected light. “Get in the car.”
I couldn't get to sleep. The heat was in bed with me, and there was no cool side to the pillow. Every time I closed my eyes, I could hear the men beating Mary. I kept wanting to grunt and moan. After a long time of trying to get comfortable, I got up. I bumped into Mary's cot on my way to the door. If she'd been there, I would have gone to my knees and put my head on her chest. I wanted her strong brown arms around me so bad my bones hurt. I went outside and stood in the grass and cried, hoping someone would hear me and afraid someone would. The stoop light came on at Mama and Daddy's cabin. The screen door opened and Mama came out, ghostly in her nightgown. I waited for her to say something, but she just stood there rubbing her arms. I finally said, “Mama?” my voice so shaky I didn't sound like me.
“Jubie? What are you doing out here?”
“I can't sleep. I'm worried about Mary.”
“Let's sit.” She pointed to the swing set. She sat in one swing and I sat in the other, smelling the rusty chains, feeling the splintery boards through my pajamas. Mosquitoes bit my legs, but I was too sad to swat them. The air was filled with the heavy sweet smell of Mrs. Bishop's gardenias. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks. I wanted Mama to hug me or hold me the way Mary did, but if she tried, we'd feel strange.
Mama said, “They'll find her. Of course they will.”
I tried to believe her. We swung for a while, me sniffling, Mama slapping at bugs, not saying anything. The night sounds got louder, like the crickets and frogs had been waiting for us to stop talking so they could get going again. That morning, I'd seen two dead frogs floating in the pool, white bellies up. Did they die from the chlorine or get so worn out from treading water that their hearts just quit? A man lying on a lounge had said, “Sometimes there's half a dozen of them. Strange how dead things don't sink.”
The swings moved in unison.
Mama said, “It's going to be all right, you'll see.”
“Mama, they beat her so bad. She needs a doctor.” A yowling rose from my chest.
“You're going to wake everybody in the park.”
“Not Mary,” I wailed.
A screen door opened, Daddy called out, “Pauly? What's that racket?”
Lights came on in the office where Mrs. Bishop's apartment was. Mama took my hand and pulled me up. “We've got to go inside.”
Daddy was in front of his and Mama's cabin, hands on his hips, the light behind him. “It's the middle of the night.”
“Jubie's upset about Mary. I was just trying to calm her down.”
She was just listening to me cry.
“C'mere, Junebug,” Daddy said. I fell into the dusty tobacco smell of him. He held me close, rubbed my back.
Mama kissed my cheek, her cigarette breath enveloping me. “I'll go back in, then.”
I cried into Daddy's chest until the horrible ache inside me was numb.When I got quiet, he said, “C'mon, Jujube, I'll walk you home.” At the cabin, he said, “The police'll catch those guys and bring Mary back. Don't you worry.”
“Daddy, that man at the front desk said there wasn't any use looking for her at night because she'd be so hard to see.”
“He's not in charge, honey. Sheriff Higgins is heading the search, a good man.”
“The men who took her have to kill her. She knows what they look like.”
“They probably think kidnapping a darkie isn't much of a crime. Might as well let her go.”
In the cabin, I folded back the spread on Mary's cot and fluffed the pillow so her bed would be waiting for her when she came in. I stood, touching her pillow, then wiggled in under the top sheet. If she got back before morning, she'd have to wake me. Knowing that, I fell asleep.
That night Mary spoke to me. If I was awake or asleep, it happened, and it wasn't a dream. She said, “Jubie, you're a fine girl, and I'm a fine girl, too.”
I woke to whispers and giggles. Puddin, Stell Ann, and Davie were all in bed together, Davie under the sheets and Stell and Puddin poking at him, playing with him. Acting normal. I sat up. “Mary?” I asked.
The cabin got quiet. Stell shook her head.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.” I saw the strain on her face. She was just keeping up a good front for Puddin and Davie.
I got dressed and took Davie to Mama's cabin. She was sitting on the bed in her nightgown, sipping from a mug, letting her toenails dry. Pieces of cotton stuck out between each toe. The room was filled with sunshine, the smell of coffee, nail polish, cigarettes. I dumped Davie on the bed next to Mama, and she pulled him to her, cooing, “Hey, Davie-do, how's my boy this morning?”
He patted her face. “Mary?”
Mama looked at me, tears in her eyes.
“Wouldn't they have found her by now, if they were going to?”
“I don't know, Jubie. I just don't know. But it doesn't look good.”
I felt empty and hard inside. “Where's Daddy?”
“Gone to talk to the sheriff and see about the Packard.”
There was a knock at the door. “See who that is, honey.”
“It's just me, Mrs. Watts, come to find out what happened to your girl.” Mrs. Bishop pushed open the screen door. Her finger waves looked painted on. She reached for the ladder-back chair by the door.
Mama said, “Please have a seat.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Bishop sat, crossing her legs. She swung her foot and dangled her wedgy until it was barely hooked on her toe. “I was afraid your girls might have trouble.”