Sins of the Fathers (7 page)

Dr. Flo motioned for Burch to join her. “Come and look at this.”

It was Chase who stepped around the obelisk and peered where she pointed. “Cool! Look, Dad, a skull and crossbones!” He traced the design with his forefinger. “Not very well carved, but…”

Burch didn’t budge. “Probably the work of kids.”

“My daddy used to claim we had a pirate in our family,” Dr. Flo told him. “I don’t know if this is the one.”

Burch huffed. “I am certain it is not, ma’am. Like I told you, the Mallerys were our people, and we have never had mixed blood in our family. No pirates, either.”

“Yet here are my grandfather and a pirate, both buried in your family plot.”

His nostrils flared and his words were clipped, but still polite. “If you are convinced this Claude Gilbert was related to you, ma’am, I’ll take it kindly if you will give me permission to move him. You don’t need to bother about the others. I’ll take care of them.”

He obviously expected them to pick up their shovel and march.

He beckoned with one hand. “Come on, Chase. We need to be getting home, and these ladies have a long drive back to Atlanta. Thank you all for coming.” He started across the clearing.

“We’ll tell Mr. Curtis what you said,” Dr. Flo called after him, “but you’d better not plan on doing any digging yet.”

He stopped in midstride, balanced on one foot with the other propped behind him in the sand. “I beg your pardon?”

“Obviously we disagree about whether these graves are connected to my family, but I don’t think there can be any doubt that they are connected to each other. Therefore, I cannot give permission to move Claude Gilbert without research to clear up who the others are.”

“Hell, lady!” He whirled, snatched off his hat, and slapped it against his thigh. “I don’t give a damn who
any
of those people are. I just want to move them out of here so I can build houses. I’ll put them in a good, safe place. I promise. I’ll even let you know where. So please stop by Hayden’s on your way home and sign that damned paper.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s not that simple. Although you are convinced Marie and Françoise are not my relatives, I believe they may be. If that is the case, I am the only person on earth who can authorize their removal. I am willing to do the research to determine whether they are or not, and then I’ll be glad to let you move them if I have that authority, but the research will take time. But if you turn out to be right and they are not related to me, you cannot move them without searching farther for the next of kin. Either way, you are going to have to postpone your plans.”

He kicked a piece of shell so hard that it lifted high into the air before it fell.

Katharine wanted to kick him. She said in what Tom called a Southern Sugar voice, “If these were my relatives, Dr. Flo, I’d sure hate to move ’em from where they’ve been all these years. It’s such a
chah-ming
place to be buried.” She peered up at the shading oaks and pretended not to notice the strangled sounds Burch was making.

Chase was running his fingers over the carving. “It really
is
a skull and crossbones. No doubt about it.”

“Of course there’s doubt,” his father snapped. “Never take anything or anybody at face value, son. How many times have I told you that?” He came back a few steps and glared at Dr. Flo. “Are you going to let me move that grave?”

“Graves, Mr. Bayard. I am going home to look for evidence that the two Guilberts are my relatives. If I find it, I will be glad to give you permission to move all three. I am not trying to be obstreperous. But that is all I can promise you today.”

Burch’s chest heaved with frustration. “I didn’t have to advertise, you know. I could have claimed they were all my relatives and been done with it.” He shook a fist toward the far side of the clearing. “That meddling old woman—” He broke off after that cryptic beginning. “Come on, Chase, let’s go.” He headed toward a break in the forest Katharine hadn’t noticed before.

“What was this space?” she called after him. “The clearing. Was it the original plantation house?”

“We
live
in the original plantation house,” he shouted, not bothering to turn, “and this is my island. I am going to develop it and I want those graves out of here. Fast! I’m fixing to bring in bulldozers next week.”

He strode off without another word.

Chase gave the two women an apologetic little shrug. “He’s really needing to get started, you know. He’s got a loan and signed contracts and stuff, so it costs him money every day he can’t build.” He picked up his gun. “That used to be a church over there, until Papa Dalt needed wood to fix the barn.”

He pointed to the edge of the forest. Katharine hadn’t noticed the old man until then. He seemed to be arguing with Burch. At first the others heard shouts rather than words, but as the voices notched higher, phrases were clear.

“…don’t stir up trouble…”

“…chance I’ve got…”

“…let the dead stay buried…”

“…aren’t gonna care…”

“…more than bodies.”

Their voices dropped again for a couple of beats, then the old man shouted something that ended, “…over my dead body!”

The younger bent toward him, punctuating every word with a finger pointed at his father’s chest. “If necessary, that’s exactly how I’ll do it!” He dashed between two clumps of cabbage palms and vanished.

The older man turned and yelled at the women. “I told you to git outta here!”

Chase loped to him and shoved him into the woods.

Katharine shuddered. She had been embarrassed by much of what had gone on with Burch, and the collective sins of her race pressed heavily on her. “I am so sorry about that.”

“Honey, if I let my feelings get hurt by every bigot I meet, I’d be a seething mass of self-pity. I had already figured out that this must be a white cemetery. Black folks around here couldn’t afford wrought-iron fences back when these people were buried. And you see how my folks lie outside the fence?”

“That could be because there wasn’t room inside. Claude and the four Morrisons are the only ones here buried after 1900.”

“Marie was buried in 1890 and Françoise in 1878, but they aren’t inside, either. Neither was Mallery. I’m not surprised the Bayards are upset that graves on their lily-white island might belong to African Americans. I only wish I knew why my grandfather was buried here.”

“Could they have been family servants?” Katharine suggested tentatively.

“Not likely. Marie was born in 1825, so she would have had to be a slave.”

“Maybe they were white.” Katharine scratched a pink welt on her arm. “You’re pretty light.”

“I have a picture of Daddy’s father, and he was darker than I am. I take after Mama’s family. Her parents were so light, they could pass for Italian or Spanish.”

Dr. Flo’s maternal grandfather, George Whitcomb, had been a cultured, well-to-do mortician. He and his wife had been fond of long cruises in their later years. Katharine noted that Dr. Flo—a stickler for good grammar—had not said, “They could have passed” but, rather, “They could pass.”

Dr. Flo bent to Françoise’s headstone again. “Bring that shovel over here and help me right this poor child’s stone. Maybe we can dig a hole deep enough to stand it up until I can decide what to do with these folks.”

Dr. Flo was holding the stone and Katherine was shoveling dirt around it when the shot whizzed over their heads.

They hit the ground. Katharine had her face pressed into the sand when she heard a gruff voice. “What the dickens do you think you are doing?”

Keeping her head low, she peered between two uprights of the iron fence. A tall, stocky woman with a bright pink face strode toward the cemetery. She wore denim overalls, a man’s long-sleeved white shirt, and heavy work boots. When she stopped near the gate, a fat basset hound plopped his rump at her heels like he was prepared to stay all day.

The woman’s back was to the light, and sunlight caught wispy curls escaping from a white crown of braids and made a nimbus around her head.

There was nothing saintly about the shotgun pointed in their direction.

Katharine knelt and raised both hands, wincing as her left knee found a sharp piece of shell. “Setting this tombstone back up.” Her voice shook. “It had fallen over.”

Dr. Flo climbed stiffly to her feet. She brushed her pants and said angrily, “Look at what you made me do. I’ll have to get these cleaned.”

“Better to pay a cleaner than a funeral home,” Katharine muttered. “Raise your hands.”

Dr. Flo expelled an indignant huff. “Raise my hands nothing.” She glared toward the woman with the shotgun. “Ms. Agnes Morrison, I presume? We’ve heard about you. What do you mean, firing at two unarmed women?”

“Protecting my property and my family graves.” The woman’s voice was placid.

“We were told this is Bayard property.”

“You must have been talking to Burch. He’s never checked the deed. I keep telling him this land from the slough to the road was given to my granddaddy by Ella Bayard. Not a court in the state would say different. Burch can’t do a thing with this land unless I agree to sell, and I don’t intend to see my part of the island covered with houses so long as I have breath to oppose it. Don’t aim to see you here, either, so git!” She jerked her head toward Katharine’s car.

“But we—” Katharine began.

The woman took another step in their direction. “I’m gonna count to fifty. If you aren’t both in that car before I finish, you’re gonna walk limping. I won’t kill you, but you might wish I had. Go on, now. Git! One, two, three—”

They were halfway to the car when she burst out laughing. “Hey!” she called.

They turned.

She gestured with the tip of her shotgun. “You forgot your shovel. I’ll stop counting while you come back and get it.”

Katharine trudged back and picked up the shovel, hating the moment when she had to turn her back on that crazy woman and her gun.

Dr. Flo stood beside the front fender of the SUV like a child playing statues, one foot ahead of the other, her weight on the forward foot, not moving.

“What’s the matter?” Katharine called. Then she heard a dry rattle, like beans in a plastic cup. She froze, too.

“Get on in that car,” Ms. Morrison ordered, coming closer.

“There’s a rattler.” Katharine could hardly speak the words. “I can’t see it, but I can hear it. I think it’s near Dr. Flo.”

Katharine did not hear the old woman move, but in a moment saw her inching forward on the toes of her boots. The basset stayed at her heel and whined.

The rattle sounded again. Ms. Morrison was lifting her gun when Katharine heard a shot. A three-foot snake flew into the air and flopped to the ground. Its head was gone.

Dr. Flo collapsed against the car and covered her face with her hands, shaking like a small brown leaf. “Dear God! Oh, dear God!”

Dalt Bayard stepped from beside a live oak trunk and grunted. “Shoulda let him kill her and get it over with, but I never could resist a good, clear shot.” He spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Now git off my proppity, the whole blooming lot of you. Git!”

“Thanks,” Katharine called, as much to rile him as anything.

He trudged toward the woods with no sign that he heard.

Ms. Morrison helped Dr. Flo into her seat, offering comfort in a gruff, awkward way. “You weren’t bit. Be grateful for that. I’d have gotten him if Dalt hadn’t shot him first. But they can shake you up some, can’t they?”

Katharine wanted nothing but to get in her car and drive away, if her legs would let her move, but now the woman wanted to chat.

“You folks interested in old cemeteries?” She spoke to Katharine across the car.

“No, but Dr. Flo thinks some of those graves belong to her family.”

She peered at Dr. Flo with new interest. “No bull? Those Guilberts are yours?”

She gave it the French pronunciation.

Dr. Flo took a deep breath and exhaled all of it before she nodded. “I believe this Claude Gilbert was my grandfather. I don’t recognize the other two, but I’m going to check them out. Do you think they were French?”

“Our family always pronounced the name that way, but I have no idea why. I don’t want to offend you, but I wish I could see Burch Bayard’s face when he finds out you are Claude’s granddaughter.”

Dr. Flo had recovered enough to give a shaky laugh. “He already did. He’s trying to graft Marie and Françoise into his family to keep me from claiming them, too.”

“But you’re sure they’re yours?”

“I’m pretty sure about Claude. It’s possible the others weren’t related, but…”

“Highly unlikely. The county has other cemeteries they could lie in if they weren’t kin.”

They had forgotten Katharine was there, but the mosquitoes hadn’t. As she stowed the shovel in the back of the SUV she smacked three that left smears of blood on her arm.

Ms. Morrison addressed her as she climbed into her seat. “Where are you heading after this? Do you have time to run down island? There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

Katharine looked toward Dr. Flo, waiting for her to demur, but the professor said, “I didn’t give Mr. Curtis any specific time we’d be there. I just said we’d come after we visited the cemetery. I’d like to see the island, since we’re here.”

Ms. Morrison reached to open the back door of the SUV. “If you don’t mind if Samson and I ride along…” She didn’t wait for approval. Katharine watched in dismay as the overweight basset struggled to climb aboard. Tom had a strong aversion to dogs in the car, and she could smell that dog from several yards away. Ms. Morrison bent and hefted him onto the seat. “There, boy. It’s a bit high, isn’t it?” Her face was flushed from the exertion, but her breathing was regular. She put the shotgun in the floor and climbed in.

As Katharine started the engine, she had a momentary memory of herself standing in her kitchen—was it just yesterday morning?—thinking that anything would be better than nightmares and shopping. Shotguns, rattlesnakes, and smelly basset hounds had not been remotely what she’d had in mind.

Neither were chiggers, but from the way her ankles were burning, she’d picked up a few. She reached down to scratch. Dr. Flo asked softly, “Are you all right?”

“Except for bites. Are you okay?”

“I guess so.” Dr. Flo picked stickers from the legs of her dress slacks. “This place is crazy. Bugs, snakes, guns—I sure am glad you came.”

“Two are usually safer than one.”

“White is safer than black. Burch Bayard expected a white woman to claim the graves.”

Agnes Morrison laughed behind them. “He sure did.”

“He kept calling me ‘cuz,’” Katharine admitted, “but I’d rather Dr. Flo was related to him than me.”

“I’m not related to him, girl. He’s pure alligator on one side and water moccasin on the other. Besides, like I told you, I don’t have Bayards on my family tree. Thank the good Lord.” She laid her head back and shut her eyes.

The rest of their way through the forest, the only sound was Samson wheezing. His odor was so strong that Katharine bypassed air conditioning and opened the windows.

“Turn right,” Ms. Morrison instructed when they reached the asphalt road.

The road down island was a mass of twists and turns. Katharine didn’t know whether it had been laid out by a drunk or to avoid marshy ground. They saw no signs of habitation until a low house appeared, sitting under the branches of a wide oak. A cream Mercedes, a silver BMW, and the decrepit black truck they’d seen at Stampers sat near two sandy ruts that comprised the drive. Behind the house was either another slough or more of the one that bordered the cemetery.

Katharine slowed. “Is that the Bayard place?” She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. Hollywood has set the standard for “plantation house,” so she had expected a two-story porch held up by columns, attached to a huge white house. This house was plain, not excessively large, with a screened porch on four sides and dormers in a gray tin roof. The best thing it had to offer was a view across the slough and miles of marsh.

“Bayard Bluff,” Ms. Morrison confirmed.

“It’s not very big, is it?” said Dr. Flo.

“This was a rice plantation. The hot, muggy climate used to breed malaria and yellow fever, so before air conditioning, rice and sugar planters didn’t stay on their property except for January and February, the coolest months. Their primary residences were in Savannah, Charleston, New York, or Philadelphia, so they didn’t bother to build big like cotton planters.”

“New York and Philadelphia?” Katharine was skeptical, but willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a woman who had a shotgun in her car.

Ms. Morrison’s chuckle was deep and strong, like her voice. “Yep. Lots of folks don’t realize it, but a lot of plantations—and their slaves—were owned by Yankees.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dr. Flo admitted. “Were the Bayards northerners?”

“No, their main house was in Savannah until Dalt’s daddy, Asa, took over from his daddy, Hamilton. He sold the Savannah place and moved down here full-time, thinking he could make a living farming. He couldn’t, of course. The land was never good for much once rice and Sea Island cotton were done. By now it’s good for nothing. But the Bayards are prideful men. The way they say “Bayard Island,” you’d think it was Manhattan. So Asa and then Dalt muddled along for years growing a little and mostly living off their wives. Bayard men always marry money. Worthless as Confederate dollars, the lot of them, but they look good in a tux. Rich debutantes flutter around them like flies on honey. Get equally stuck, too. Take Mona—smart, rich, she could have had her pick of men. Instead, she wanted Burch and his romantic island plantation.” Ms. Morrison laughed. “She got what she wanted, poor soul.”

“Do they live down here with his dad?” Katharine asked, looking in her mirror for one last glimpse of the house. Had Mona seen the “plantation” before she married?

“No, Burch has never gone in for farming. He and Mona bought another place in Savannah—with her daddy’s money, of course. They live up there most of the time. Turn at that road to the right.”

A road—once paved but now pitted with potholes—led to the slough. A shrimp boat and a small motor launch lolled gently at a long weathered dock. A large shed and a small concrete building had once been white before wind and salt burnished them to a dingy cream.

The buildings certainly didn’t improve the ambiance of the island. Neither did the rusted white refrigerated truck with
STAMPERS SEAFOOD
lettered in blue on its side. Two men, black as ebony, were loading it. The air smelled of fish, shrimp, and the marshes they lived in. Katharine inhaled deep gulps, wishing she could bottle that odor and take some home.

An elderly Ford van, oyster shell gray with a disability tag, was pulled close to the concrete building, which had a sign on the door:
OFFICE
. Ms. Morrison climbed out, helped Samson down, and started in that direction. Dr. Flo followed Ms. Morrison, but Katharine stayed behind long enough to examine her ankles. Sure enough, five pink bumps had raised. She gave them a good scratch before she went inside, hoping she could find grease or butter soon.

A woman was greeting Ms. Morrison and Samson while stubbing out a cigarette in an ashtray that already overflowed. The fuggy chill came as a shock. Katharine’s toes curled inward while her lungs caught and held, unwilling to take in the acrid air. How could one small air conditioner, set high in the wall, generate so much cold? How could one small woman exhale so much smoke? Since nobody was talking to her, Katharine looked around. The office contained two straight chairs, a filing cabinet, and a desk—all older than she was. The concrete floor was bare, increasing the chill. Katharine shivered, especially when she noticed that the woman wore a white tank top that hugged her skinny body and high little breasts.

Like “Granny,” she was tanned and weathered with bottle-white hair, and she kept her lipstick shiny and her blusher fresh. Her face, however, was a generation younger and far prettier. Her hair was cut square and blunt to frame her thin face. Her eyes—blue, not green—were nearly hidden by long bangs.

She had been reading a paperback novel when they arrived. It lay, facedown and open, ready to pick up again.

It was when the woman bent to scratch under the basset’s soft ears that Katharine noticed she sat in a wheelchair. Samson flopped down beside one wheel like he’d been there before.

Ms. Morrison remembered her manners. “Folks, this is Nell Stampers, one of the owners of Stampers Seafood. And these are—sorry, I didn’t get your names.”

You were too busy shooting at us
, Katharine thought while Dr. Flo introduced them both.

The woman put out a nicotine-stained hand and her sharp eyes took in Katharine’s clothes with a flicker of envy. Her mouth curved in a professional welcome. “You all looking for fresh shrimp? The boat just came in.”

“I could use some for supper.” Ms. Morrison pulled five dollars from her overalls pocket and laid it on the desk. “Is Iola around?”

“She was here earlier, but she’s gone back to the store.” Nell nodded toward the door. “Tell Tick to weigh out your shrimp. How much do you ladies need?” She named a price and the tilt of her chin dared them to claim it was too high.

Katharine shook her head. “I’d love to get some, but we’re on the road.”

“We got Styrofoam coolers you can buy for a couple of bucks, and we’ll pack it in ice.”

“Then I’ll take five pounds.” What they didn’t eat at Jekyll she could pack again and take home.