Counted corpse, p.16
Counted Corpse, page 16
“Chief Stephenson said I could dig the first shovelful in the giant hole.” I looked over at the woman who had walked back over to join us.
“That’s very generous of you,” I said.
“It’s our pleasure. This way, Sawyer will know about our history and our present, and maybe he’ll be a part of helping us preserve our stories, just like his mama.” She squeezed my arm before taking Sawyer’s hand and leading him to the small group of people standing beside the space where the basement had been.
I trailed behind, eager to hear what was being said but careful not to intrude. The archaeologist in charge of today’s dig was setting out the parameters. “We’re not trying to excavate anything more than the bare minimum here. We’re not removing anything beyond what we need to confirm this is a burial site. So if you see anything, please photograph it and then call me or my assistant here to record the location. Then, the Chief and the council can decide whether to remove it or leave it be. Understood?”
I looked at the group of about ten people surrounding him. Including Chief Stephenson and two of the members of the Tribal Council I’d met before, the group included two Boy Scouts, probably here to earn their Eagle Scout rank, the two archaeologists, and three others I had never seen. As the group headed toward the pit, Chief Stephenson introduced me to the three younger people I didn’t know, all were members of the Monacan Nation enrolled in a summer class about tribal history. They were clearly very excited to be included today. Mary and Demetrius also stood nearby, but, like me, were here only to observe, not dig.
Chief Stephenson took Sawyer by the hand and then carefully lowered him into one of the Boy Scout’s arms below. Then, she climbed down the ladder next to him. As I stood above and watched, she thanked the ancestors for bringing them here today and asked for guidance in their work.
Then, she turned to Sawyer, pointed to his shovel, and said, “You first, Sawyer. Where do we begin?”
My son tapped his cheek in thought and then pointed toward a small indentation near the center of the hole. “There,” he said, and walked confidently toward his chosen spot. Then, after getting a nod from Chief Stephenson, he plunged his red shovel into the dirt and slowly lifted a pile of earth into the air before carefully pouring it out on a tarp the archaeologists had laid out.
“Now, Little Guy, we need to look through this dirt very carefully to see if we find anything,’ the head archaeologist said.
Saw nodded solemnly and then knelt down by his shovel of dirt. He put his hands into the drying earth and began to break it up with his tiny fingers. Within seconds, he said, “Is this what we are looking for?”
He held up a small patch of fabric that was stiff with dirt. When Sawyer brushed his fingers over the top, the dirt fell away and revealed a swirling flower of blue beadwork. The entire site went silent, and I let the tears stream down my face. My son had found just what we hoped – evidence of Monacan presence here.
Chief Stephenson knelt down next to Saw and took hold of the other side of the piece he held. “Yes, Sawyer. Just like this. One of my ancestors made this. They sewed it by hand and wore it on special occasions. Thank you for finding it for us. We had lost it, but now, we have found it. We have found them.” She pulled Sawyer to her and gave him a gentle hug.
When she glanced up at me, I smiled. Then, as Sawyer handed her the piece of what was now clearly identifiable as beaded leather, I climbed down, hugged my son, and suggested he go see what else he could find in the big pile of dirt.
As he and I climbed back out, I looked down and saw Chief Stephenson examining the piece Sawyer had found. She held it in the palm of her hand and studied it. Then, after the archaeologist photographed it and placed a flag to mark its location, the chief returned it to the ground, to the person with whom it had been buried.
Sawyer dug for an hour or so longer while the team in the pit checked a few more sites to confirm that Sawyer’s find was not just a fluke. But soon they had not only recovered several more pieces of clothing, but they had also unearthed human remains. There was no doubt this was a Monacan burial site, and with that confirmation, the team withdrew, Saul arrived with his backhoe, picked up Sawyer and put him in the cab with him and the two of them carefully and gently refilled the pit.
There wouldn’t be a press release or any public statement because, as we’d all learned, these sites were sacred and endangered. Ms. Dixon from the Department of Historic Resources came by and gathered the documentation to officially register the site, but it would not even be formally mapped on any public record. The presence of these people’s remains would be protected, but not publicized. Somehow that seemed just perfect.
When Sawyer and Saul finished filling the site, everyone except Mary, Santiago, Sawyer, Saul, and I headed home. It has been a momentous morning, and with all the events of the week pressing down on us, everyone was due for a long nap and a relaxing night.
But before Saul left, Mary wondered if he could ask one more favor. She looked over at me. “I took the plat behind the church that you photographed for me to the courthouse early, and then a friend who is a surveyor came out while you all were digging and checked the metes and bounds.”
“Is the property the church’s?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, it technically belongs to Hortense Beazley, but she’s just started proceedings to sell it to the church for a dollar. And she gave permission, in writing, for us to begin siting the addition for the church there.”
I smiled. “That’s great news.”
“Sure is,” Saul said. “How can I help?”
“I’d like to give our members a way to visualize the addition when they come on Sunday. We’re all distraught over the fact that we built on a burial group, and I want to assure everyone we are not violating anyone’s final rest to build out back.” Mary pointed toward the wooded grove directly behind the building. “Would you mind clearing a few of those trees?”
“Sure. Just point me to what you want,” Saul said. “Sawyer, want to help?”
As if Saul needed to ask.
* * *
Within a few minutes, the bulldozer had cleared the first row of trees and was making short work of the understory beneath. Sawyer was laughing and squealing as Saul let him lower the bucket into a thicket of brambles. When they ripped out of the ground, his shout of celebration probably reached the other side of town.
As they worked, I turned back to my own research, determined that I could find something new, something that would clarify everything. But I just kept coming up with documents that confirmed what I already knew. Good for certainty, bad for discovery.
Fortunately, Mary joined me just as I started to get frustrated, and when she sat down, her chair bounced with her excitement. “You aren’t going to believe this, Paisley?” she said as she handed me a folder full of papers.
In the excitement of the morning, I had completely forgotten that she had something to show me, but when I opened the folder, I almost fell out of my seat. The photograph showed a tall, thin black woman with perfectly styled hair and an ankle-length dress standing behind the church that I was sitting beside. At the bottom, someone had penned, “Earnestine Greene, pastor’s wife.”
I looked up at Mary. “This is her,” I said quietly. “Wow. She’s gorgeous. Stately.”
Mary nodded. “She is, but it’s her body language I want you to consider.”
I looked back at the photo. She was standing straight up with her right hand on her hip, but her left hand was held up and out, like she was carrying a tray. At first, I thought she was simply striking a fun pose for the photo, but then I noticed her index finger was extended while the rest were folded into her palm. “She’s pointing at something,” I shouted.
Mary stood up and walked toward the church as I followed. Then, she took up the exact position and posture that Earnestine had in the photo, and instantly, I could see she was gesturing into the woods behind the church. The woods that Mary had just requested be cleared.
My mouth dropped open, and I started to say, “You sneaky wo—” when Saul gave a shout.
Mary and I exchanged a brief look of surprise and then jogged into the woods, where we could just see the glimmer of the yellow machine. When we reached them, we stopped short and stared. There, almost entirely covered in honeysuckle vines, was a shack. It was made of graying wood, and if I had come across it in any other situation, I would have assumed it was a little hunter’s cabin that was used to keep warm in the late autumn deer season.
But given what we knew and the photo of Earnestine that Mary had just shared, I knew that wasn’t any hunter’s shack. She and I both lunged toward the building, but just before we began to tug vines off the walls, Saul grabbed us both by the shoulders. “Ladies, there’s poison ivy all through there. Let me. I’m not allergic.”
I stepped back quickly — as allergic as I was I could get the stuff by seeing it – and stepped up onto the track of the bulldozer where Sawyer was watching intently. “We found a building, Mama,” he said.
I pulled him close and said, “You did a good job, Little Man. When we get inside, we may find what we need, too. Thank you.”
He smiled but never took his eyes off Saul, who was making quick work of the vines around the door. Mary was standing quietly nearby, the folder with Earnestine’s photo held tightly in her hands. I could see the other pieces of paper behind the photo. “What else is in that folder?”
She looked up at me. “More information about Earnestine from the church files. Most of it talks about how she loved history, was always looking into the family trees of church members, seeing if she could find out more about their families . She was the church historian, it seems.”
I nodded. “That explains a lot, right?” Clearly this woman knew a lot more than the average church member, and I feared we were about to learn just what had gotten her killed.
“Okay, if you go carefully, you can get in. The building looks solid, but I wouldn’t go wrestling and bumping against the walls now, ladies.” Saul grinned.
“No WWE moves,” Mary said. “Got it.” Then, she slid through the door Saul had shoved open with me close behind her.
Inside, we both gasped. It was a study, Earnestine’s study. The walls were lined with bookshelves and a table with an oil lamp sat next to a sheaf of paper. Mary moved around the table and studied the pages. “They’re too faded to read in this light, but it looks like a family tree, maybe.”
I stared over her shoulder, and I could just make out the branching shape of words in pairs of two, but like Mary, I couldn’t read it.
We moved onto the shelves and studied the spines of the leather volumes there. Each had a single word on it – “Canaan,” “Shifflett,” “Bonham,” “Morris.” These are family genealogy books, I knew it. Those names were Octonia names going way back. “This was Earnestine’s research space,” I whispered.
Mary sighed and took the Morris volume off the shelf. She turned and set it on the table, and as soon as she opened the pages, the scent of paper and ink wafted through the air. I breathed deeply and lifted up a word of thanks to Earnestine. Here, we may have answers.
13
As carefully as we could, we loaded our arms with books and walked back out into the forest around the shack. “We need something to transport a lot of books,” I told Saul.
He looked at me, nodded, and took out his phone. “Hey. You at the lot. Bring the front-end loader over to the church site. Keep it quiet, will you?”
I smiled. “Thanks. We don’t know what we have here, yet, so yeah, thanks.”
Sawyer came over and touched the books stacked in my arms. “What are these, Mama?
I set the stack of books in the cab of Saul’s bulldozer and said, “These are books about a lot of the families around here. At least we think they are.”
“Is there a book about our family?” he said.
“I don’t know yet, Sawyer, but probably not. Most of these seem to be about the people who went to church here.” I knew this was a lot for him to understand, but I believed in telling him the truth, even if it was hard or confusing.
“But you go to church here,” he said with a furrowed brow. “Let me see if I can find our book.” He jogged past me and went into the building.
With a smile at Mary, I followed my son into this repository of genealogy and stood in awe again. There must have been two hundred volumes on those shelves, and I couldn’t imagine the number of hours she had put into all this work.
With deep concentration, Sawyer was looking at each of the books and “reading” the names on the spine. “O-o-cookie.” “Kakaluna.” “Sankatoto.” Recently, he’d begun pretending to read by using made-up words. It made my heart skip with delight, and now I just felt absolutely overwhelmed with joy.
But there was a shadow of sorrow here, too because for some reason she had needed to hide what she was doing. Otherwise why not work at home or even in the church library? Clearly, she didn’t want most people to know she had this vast collection of information, and now we had another mystery to solve.
Plus, I couldn’t help wondering who had built this shack for her. I had no doubt she was capable, but I imagined that the sight of a woman, especially a pastor’s wife, buying lumber and nails might have stirred up some gossip. No, a man had to construct this for her, and for some reason, I didn’t think her husband, the pastor, had done it.
Once Sawyer was sure there wasn’t a Sutton volume on the shelves, we went back out, loaded the books we could carry into our arms and tromped back out to the parking lot, where we quickly deposited all the volumes in my car and Mary’s. No need for someone to see what we had found before we were ready to talk about it. I figured if Earnestine had felt the need to keep things secret, we needed to honor that until we knew more. Mary seemed to agree.
The only person paying us any attention was Santiago, who had been in his cruiser managing paperwork and answering phone calls while Saul worked. Now, though, he was headed toward our cars with a very puzzled look on his face.
“Anything I should know about?” he asked as he looked from me to Mary.
“Definitely,” I said, “but let’s sit down.” The three of us returned to the circle of chairs while Saul and Sawyer went back into the woods to retrieve the bulldozer.
Mary showed him the folder with Earnestine’s picture and the various articles and bulletins about her historical research. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” She then explained what we found in the shack and what we thought all the books were.
Santiago stared at Earnestine’s photo for a few moments after Mary finished speaking, and then he said, “So you think these books may tell us who killed her?”
I nodded. “I think it may not have been the fact that she told the deacons about the burial ground at all.” The idea had been worming its way through my synapses for days now, ever since Levi Benfer had tried to put a stop to my research. But only now was the thought coming together. “I think she found out a family secret that someone really didn’t want told.”
Mary huffed. “I was thinking the same thing. I hate secrets,” she said quietly.
“Me, too, “ I added. “Me, too.”
Just then Saul’s guy with the front end loader pulled up, and while he and Saul unloaded one machine and reloaded the bulldozer, I asked Santiago, “So do we have your permission to take these books and study them?” I didn’t want to disturb a crime scene or something, and I definitely wanted official permission to take the books.
“Definitely, but I will need to be there. Just for the sake of any court case, okay?” He looked from me to Mary, and we both nodded. “Your house?”
Mary smiled. “Perfect. I’ll just swing home for the lasagna I prepped for tonight.”
I laughed. “I love you,” I said and gave her a big hug.
It only took a few minutes to get all the books into the bucket of the front end loader and then transfer them to our cars. Then, we got into our vehicles and made our way to my house, Mary by way of lasagna and Santiago by way of the station where he let the dispatcher know where he was and made an appearance for the sake of the gossip mongers in town.
But within thirty minutes, the lasagna was in the oven, a workspace was set up at my dining room table, and Santiago and Sawyer were gathering sticks from the yard for a huge bonfire at the edge of the field. With the boys thoroughly entertained but our police presence still reliable, Mary and I each selected a book and began to read. Mary took the Morris volume she had already begun with, and I picked up Shifflett, to see if I could find anything new about Santiago’s family, if this was the right Shifflett line.
Earnestine’s work was modeled on the traditional genealogy books. She began with an introductory essay and then moved through the family tree, giving basic information about the people in each generation. It wasn’t the most exciting reading, but it was thorough and well-done work. She had essentially documented the genealogies of almost every family at Bethel Baptist and some of the more prominent white families in Octonia, too. We had books for the Benfers and the Beazleys, as well as some other powerful Octonia folks like the Davenports and the Morrises.
Mary’s first read was her own family’s book, and the gasps and nods that were coming from her side of the table told me that Earnestine had done good work. I started with the Clevelands and read up through time until I reached Demetrius Cleveland the second, our Demetrius’s great-great-grandfather. I saw where his family tree intersected with Mary’s and with Earnestine’s itself, and a bit of back and forth in the pages confirmed what I had suspected, most of the families at Bethel were kin to one another at least way back.
