Slave Graves (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 1) (21 page)

“Stoplights were changed,” said the Pastor. “There’s a switch box up there. Someone’s prank.”

They stood behind the high mass of honeysuckle, unseen by the motorists. More drivers got out of their cars and milled around. The screaming and cursing was increasing in the summer heat. Frank watched this for a few more minutes, then turned to Maggie and said, “I think these folks are going to be here all afternoon, the way they’re going.”

Maggie pointed across the road where, gathering on the lawn in the shade under the ancient trees, were a few persons dressed in the orange and black butterfly costumes. More were coming from behind the old white house and lining up. As they did, they adjusted their wings and stood side by side across the yard, parallel with the road. Then together the human butterflies slowly moved their eight foot wings. The color of the costumes was a startling contrast to the deep dark green of the yard. The clutter of automobile and motorist noise continued to increase. Seeing the butterflies, the drivers who were still sitting in their cars honked their car horns again and again. Others began to shout at the orange and black costumes which, in turn, continued their waving motion.

Behind the line of human butterflies, the door to the white house opened and Mrs. Pond walked out and looked at the cars on the road, her arms folded. She turned and spoke to someone standing behind her in the dark interior, someone Frank couldn’t see. Frank watched her call to one of the butterflies who walked back to the porch. Frank could see the costume from behind, the human underneath who was dressed in a black shirt and trousers with straps holding the wings. The person stood in front of Mrs. Pond, then nodded his head and proceeded back to his fellow human insects. They gathered in a simple huddle and were given what appeared to be instructions. In a few minutes some of the butterflies began to cross the road through the crowd of angry drivers. They lined up directly in front of the hedgerow which hid Frank and his companions.

The owners of the jammed vehicles, becoming more angry, milled around, kicking at the stones in the gravel road, little clods of dust lifting at each kick and drifting down like small parachutes. Judging from the smile on her face, Frank assumed Mrs. Pond was pleased with all the confusion. He watched her walk down the steps of her porch and stride imperiously towards the human butterflies and the drivers. With her was her companion, a tall black man, dressed in African robes.

One of the drivers who was also black, pointed at the African saying, “Who is he? I ain’t never seen him around River Sunday.”

Frank heard a driver near him muttering almost whispering, “What does she want? Everybody knows she’s crazy. Just a crazy old rich lady.”

Mrs. Pond walked into the center of the road and stared at the drivers. The human butterflies gathered around her. Then she proceeded alone towards the bridge. The drivers, quieter, nervously made a path for her. She moved up under the stoplight, looked up at it and then at the switchbox on a metal post at the side of the bridge. Then she turned toward the drivers and spoke, her voice shrill like a bird.

“This bridge work must stop at once. Yours are not the only lives that matter.”

One of the drivers spoke up, a young black farm worker. “You don’t have no right, Mrs. Pond. No Ma’am. We don’t care nothing about no animals. I’ll hunt them all down for you and put them out of their misery. You are crazy, you old lady.” The driver moved towards her, his arm raised as if to strike. Another man restrained him, wrestling with him, saying, “You don’t know what you are saying, man. You’re going to get into a lot of trouble.” The man was held on the ground, kicking, by several of the men.

The butterflies began moving towards Mrs. Pond, their wings raised. Her face showed no alarm although the crowd was becoming more violent. Frank thought that the butterfly people and the drivers would start fighting momentarily.

Then he heard the police siren. At that moment a River Sunday police sedan arrived along the wrong side of the road, moving deftly by the stopped cars and trucks, its stern faced occupant motioning to different drivers he passed. The car stopped beside the group of butterflies, separating them from the drivers. The policeman whom Frank had seen at the meeting during Jake’s speech, stepped out. In the sunlight, he was a large tough looking man carefully dressed in his uniform, his holster and belt leather glinting.

“Hello, Mrs. Pond,” the office said, in a friendly manner.

She did not answer him and instead called to the African, who had remained several yards from the road, waiting up on the lawn in the shade. “Doctor,” she said haughtily, “as you can see we have no support from our police.”

The African grinned and held up two small books from a pocket in his robe. From the distance Frank could see what looked like a butterfly on the cover of one. The African nodded vigorously to Mrs. Pond. Yet after a few moments of this movement of his head, Frank realized the man was dazed, his mind elsewhere, unable to do anything more than stand there and bob his head up and down. About once a minute, he methodically thumbed the books, ready, it seemed to Frank, to look up the specifications of a butterfly as if that was the best answer to his friend’s moment of distress.

With the coming of the officer, the crowd had calmed. Mrs. Pond had returned safely to the side of the African. She touched his arm almost in apology for disturbing him and turned finally to speak to the policeman, who stood patiently, as if he had been through this type of experience several times before.

“Billy, the Doctor teaches in London,” she said. “He’s one of the world’s greatest lepidopterists, his specialty being migration of butterflies. He graciously agreed to stop in River Sunday on his tour around the United States. He could tell you how important it is for all of us to leave these insects in their habitat. He could tell you what will happen to all of us if we do not respect nature’s ways, its rules. He could tell you so much.”

Billy, the officer, sweating in the sun, looked at her and the African, then around at the people in costume. “Mrs. Pond, we’ve been through this before. I’m sure your guest doesn’t want any trouble.”

The African, quickly nodding his head, selected a page to read, the picture of the butterfly on that page particularly colorful as the limp paper hung over his large hand. He read softly to himself in careful English. The tall woman looked down at the officer who was easily a foot shorter.

“You have no idea how much trouble there will be in the future if you do not act,” she said, her voice like that of a shrill bird.

“Mrs. Pond, I don’t know what happened here. I expect one of your people got a little carried away again. You know better than to do this sort of thing. We got to let these cars go or I’ll have to start arresting your people.”

Her look was one of pity mixed with authority as though she were the policeman and were letting him go. She slowly turned away, then motioned to the butterflies and walked back towards her house. The human butterflies fell back into their original solid line away from the road and on the lawn by the house. By then Mrs. Pond had reached her porch. She turned and watched, her hands on the porch railing as the butterflies began to move their wings and sway from side to side. Frank could hear them chanting.

“Say the word and the bridge will be stopped,”

“Say the word and the bridge will be stopped.”

Billy began backing the cars off the bridge.

“It’s all over. Let’s get back to work,” said Frank. He led the others back to the site.

“With all her concerned heart,” the Pastor said, “That lady doesn’t have any idea about the poor folks here. So maybe that’s why I don’t care too much about her animals, her butterflies.”

Then his face turned into a broad smile.

“What?” asked Maggie.

“You two look like slaves,” said the Pastor.

Frank and Maggie looked at each other.

“I guess he’s got a point,” said Maggie.

“The old folks worked just like the two of you in this heat,” said the Pastor. “They were always filthy from the working conditions and the dirt floor huts they lived in. Their clothes were not any different, Maggie, than the ragged shorts and shirts that you two are dressed in. Look at yourselves. Bare feet, rags, covered with dirt. Yessir, you could pass for a couple of field slaves working up here before the Civil War.”

Over beyond the honeysuckle hedge, the traffic on the bridge was running freely. The butterfly costumes had been neatly stacked on Mrs. Robin Pond’s porch and the actors had disappeared inside the house. Frank and the others had been at work in the pits for more than an hour when they saw Jake’s station wagon stop on the road outside the gate.

Frank watched Jake talk to the company guard for a few minutes, the two standing at the far side of the highway, an occasional car or truck rumbling by and hiding them for a moment. Jake’s face was animated. The guard in his green jacket held his head in a slight bow as he listened to Jake, sometimes talking but mostly listening. Then Jake walked away towards the site.

Jake slammed the old gate open and walked through, two birds flaring in the honeysuckle hedge as he did so. There was a mud smear on the bottom of his left trouser leg. It was the first dirt Frank had seen on the man’s immaculate white suit. Jake carried his white jacket in his left hand. His right hand was clenched in a fist which he held in front of him as he approached.

“We didn’t expect you until later, Jake,” said Frank, as he raised himself to a kneeling position, his back straight, his arms stretching upward.

“That stoplight was broken on purpose,” he said. “Pond thinks she can stop the bridge. She doesn’t realize who she’s up against.”

“I guess your company guard must have called you,” said Frank.

The Pastor said, “I bet Billy, our chief of police, called you right away with a report. Tell Frank how you know all the cops, Jake,” said the Pastor.

He turned to Frank. “What he’s not telling you is that this is a small town and we all grew up together, cops, preachers, and Terments. The same group of tough white boys that hung around together when Jake was a kid, they got to be the policemen we have here today.”

“She can’t do this to me,” Jake said, as he turned to look over the road. Jake’s expression was one of rage. “I went out of my way to get along with her. She’s still pissed off after all this time.”

“What did you do to her?” asked Frank.

Jake calmed down and began to smile again, the television smile. He glanced at the Pastor who was staring at him. “You’ll never get the true story from Jefferson.”

“Come on,” Jake said to Frank. They walked to the station wagon out on the road. Spyder stepped out of the driver’s seat and opened the back door for Frank, smiling as always.

The air conditioner was running inside the car and the air was cold to Frank’s bare arms and legs. Jake handed him a small silver flask.

“Drink it. Good whiskey.”

Frank declined. “I drink that, I’ll start tripping over Maggie’s grid lines,” he laughed.

Jake grinned. “That’s not such a bad idea.” He laughed to himself. Then he said, “My father gave me that flask when I was sixteen years old, the beginning of the fall dove shoot right here at this farm.”

He pointed at the cornfield. “That’s where we used to shoot them. Corn left standing and the doves would roost in there. The tenant farmer would scare them up for us and we’d sometimes get shots for the whole afternoon. My father said he gave me that flask to keep me busy until the birds decided to fly by again.”

He looked at Frank again, his eyes pleading, as if looking for a friend to confide in. “Let me tell you about Birdey.” He took a pull on the flask. “My father was buried from the church behind the Court House in the middle of River Sunday. My family built that church. The first church in River Sunday. One of the oldest in the whole country. We gave him a beautiful funeral until she ruined it. I spoke at my father’s funeral and so did several friends of my family. Birdey had asked to speak and we let her, never expecting what she would say.

“She’s a tall woman and she towered over the pulpit. After looking at me for a minute or two, she started talking about how my father had been so aware of the environment, how he was a tribute to his family, how he was like the Terments of old, farming men who had, of necessity, a great respect for the land and the animals.

“Then she started in about her last visit to my father at Peachblossom. On this visit she said that he told her how he had stopped hunting, how he had started taking photographs of the wildlife out on the island. He took her into a small room off his study where he had hung these framed photographs of ducks and butterflies, that kind of thing. He said she was the only person who had seen them, the only person he wanted to show them to. She told the assembly at the church that she thought the photography was very good, almost that of a genius and that if he had pursued this creative work early in his life he could have been one of the great nature photographers.

“Then she said that he told her to announce after his death that Peachblossom Manor and its adjoining acreage on Allingham Island had been willed to her with the condition that she create a nature preserve from the land.

“Frank, with that bit of news you could have heard a mouse squeak in that old church. Can you imagine that? Bringing up a man’s last will and testament at a holy gathering. She didn’t even wait for the poor man to be buried. Of course, it was all a filthy lie. In her lack of respect she even lied at his funeral. Frank, I can tell you that tore me up. She started a legal claim on the estate which, while we handled it, cost us a little bit of money to take care of, not to mention the aggravation and the public scrutiny of my father’s memory and his mental state. “

He looked outside the car for a moment. “I had to witness this desecration of my father’s funeral. I had to do this alone. I’ll never forget it. When we came out of the church, Birdey was standing there shaking hands with most of my family and friends. I went up to her and she smiled at me, pretending she had not done this terrible thing. I think she expected me to congratulate her on the kind words she had said about my father.