Zora and Me: The Summoner Read online

  Bynum George said that the search party had pelted him and his wife, Maisie, with eggs from their own chickens before shooting up their coop. Dead birds littered the young couple’s yard. Bertram Edges said that all the windows on his house had been smashed. A barrage of bullets had destroyed Willie Mosely’s chimney, and the native South Carolinian pronounced himself lucky. The same, of course, could not be said of the fugitive, Terrace Side. He was the only known casualty of the night.

  Jessie Brinks, a bowlegged peanut farmer, sat on the banister, looking like he was trying hard not to show how upset he was. “Anybody been to Lake Bell yet?” he asked.

  Mr. Clarke rubbed his eyes. “Yes,” he answered. “I have.”

  Mr. Brinks started, stopped, and started again. “What did you see?”

  “Ashes, scorched earth. I’m guessing that before they burned Side, they broke him up real bad, probably pulverized that boy.”

  The soul of the town buckled under the weight of the murderous violence. By the front door of Joe’s store, one soul in particular, the old man Chester Cools, began to show signs of collapse. Like topsoil in an earthquake, Mr. Cools started trembling and shaking, scattering from himself but staying of a piece simultaneously. Joe Clarke grabbed him under the arms, trying to support him.

  “Chester, Chester! Can you hear me? Can you hear me?” Mr. Clarke barked in an effort to bring Chester back to the moment. Doc Brazzle, the town physician, took hold of Chester’s chin and opened his mouth to observe the tongue. The gesture seemed to interrupt Mr. Cools’s convulsions. He calmed immediately. The interest of the crowd died away almost instantly, too. Chester Cools was a fixture — a peculiar one — so was easy to dismiss. No one considered Mr. Cools dangerous or even menacing. I never did. In fact, there was only one thing about him that ever interested anyone.

  The story got told that from the perch of a fine Georgia sycamore on a November night, a young Chester Cools had watched Sherman torch the Confederacy. Since little else was known about Chester Cools’s past, the assumption got born that there was just little else of note about him to know.

  Some men, like Joe Clarke, one of the founders of Eatonville, are legendary for their actions. Other men, like Mr. Cools, become legendary for their witness.

  Mr. Cools leaned into Joe Clarke and muttered something in his ear.

  Doc Brazzle had obviously overheard, judging by his pinched and puzzled expression.

  When Mr. Clarke answered, it became clear what Chester Cools had said. “No. The plan to expand the town hasn’t changed.” Mr. Cools stared at him in silence.

  Joe Clarke did what he did best: he made sense and stayed calm. “Expanding the town shouldn’t worry you, Chester,” Mr. Clarke said. “I better get you home. You had some sort of spell. You need rest. Everybody in this town does.”

  Doc Brazzle placed his hand on Mr. Cools’s forehead. “A little warm,” he commented. “Chester, do you have a history of — ?” Dr. Brazzle paused, searching for a phrase that wouldn’t insult the patient, but before he could finish, Mr. Cools came to life.

  “History?” Mr. Cools asked vehemently. “Do I have a history? Well, my history is why I came here to Eatonville. I came here to escape my history. And you can be sure that’s why Terrace Side came here, too. He probably thought this place could erase his history, swallow it whole, and let him start over. Instead, Terrace’s history ate him alive. Just like mine. My history finished me off long ago. Because no matter how big Eatonville is or gets, history is bigger; it will finish her. It sure will.”

  Mr. Cools’s prophecy startled everyone on the porch that day, and it caused both Doc Brazzle and Mr. Clarke to take a step back. It occurred to everyone in the town, especially Joe Clarke, that the history we were making could very well be the seed of our destruction. The raid suggested that it could be.

  I had no idea when the territory of Florida officially became a part of the United States of America, but the country gained its independence from Britain in 1776. What America was for white folks in that all-important year, Eatonville became for black folks right here in America in 1887. We didn’t have a White House, but we had Joe Clarke’s store. Almost every man in town worked or managed his own land. Every child was enrolled in school. Sunday morning worship was better attended than the juke joint on Saturday night. Eatonville was considered a promised land for colored folk. Prosperous and industrious, Eatonville was bound to become a source of anxiety and envy for white folks sooner or later.

  A month earlier, Mr. Clarke had submitted a proposal to the governor’s office in Tallahassee for the expansion of Eatonville. The idea was shrewd and farsighted. Since 1887, two colored villages had formed in the square mile around our Eden. Lake Catherine came first. Then Blue Bay sprang up, and neither of the settlements was officially incorporated like Eatonville. Neither had a mayor, a marshal, nor a general store, so the people of Lake Catherine and Blue Bay naturally patronized Joe Clarke’s. They frequented Eatonville’s single federal building, the post office, and Mr. Calhoun had opened Eatonville’s schoolhouse to their children. Since the people of Lake Catherine, Blue Bay, and Eatonville had been merging anyway, Joe Clarke suggested the union be made official with the formal redrawing of Eatonville’s borders. The fledgling villages voiced hearty support for the plan, as did the folks of Eatonville. Everyone’s desire was to extend the sphere of shelter. Joe Clarke intended to extend that promise to as many colored folks as he could. The fugitive Terrace Side had very likely heard of that safe harbor, that haven called Eatonville.

  Mr. Clarke, his eyes shining with tears of sorrow, anger, and pride, said, “History’s not a monster that devours men. It’s the sum of the choices and the chances we take, if the white folks don’t snatch them from us first. Our town survived last night. Our town has survived other hardships. Our town has survived for eighteen years. We’ll survive the expansion, too,” he continued, “and we’ll be better off than we are now, stronger. When it’s all done, we’ll be stronger.” Hope for the future invested Mr. Clarke with magnanimity. “We’ll be stronger, Chester. You’ll see. You don’t need to be afraid. No one does.”

  John Hurston returned to Eatonville shortly thereafter because he was presiding over services at our church, New Hope Macedonia, the following Sunday. Zora sat in the front pew with her mother, her sister, and her brother Everett, as was custom for the preacher’s family. Restless as always, Zora kept looking back over her shoulder at the church’s entrance. I couldn’t figure out why, and my anxiousness about it might as well have sprinkled hoodoo dust on me because I achooed one hurricane of a sneeze.

  “God bless you,” my mother said. “And don’t worry,” she whispered, tapping my knee, “your time is coming.”

  I blinked hard. “Huh?” Then everyone in the church turned their heads. I shifted in the pew and saw sixteen-year-old Fanny Miller walking down the aisle. I turned back around and saw that a handsome stranger with a mustache like a push broom was standing at the altar next to Reverend Hurston. It was as if I had dozed off in the middle of a lesson, only waking at the critical moment.

  “The reverend just announced it,” my mother whispered. “Fanny’s fixin’ to be married.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes.” Mama squeezed my hand and dabbed at her eyes with a lilac handkerchief.

  “Pairs abound in this world,” Reverend Hurston began. “Soil and the ground.” He gestured downward. “The clouds in the sky.” He pointed up and smiled broadly as if God Himself were looking down. “There’s also the pair we’re celebrating this morning: the man and his wife. But God has plans for the husband and wife far beyond them staying a pair. Genesis two twenty-four reads,” Reverend Hurston said, recalling from memory, “‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: And they shall be one flesh.’” He paused, marking the end of the scripture, but then he pondered aloud the beauty and the aspiration in the phrase, “One flesh. That’s what a man and his wife are: one.
This ceremony is your rebirth as one new flesh.” He spoke directly to the couple. “Happy birthday!”

  More Happy birthdays, along with some Amens, Sure enoughs, and Yes, sirs, filled the air. During the ceremony, I thought about Teddy and how much I missed seeing him in his crisp white shirt and camel-colored suspenders on Sunday mornings. For months now he had been spending weekends at his brother Micah’s place, helping to build one of the largest horse barns in Orange County. I wondered whether Teddy was sawing or hammering right then, whether the sun was hot on his shoulders, or if he was taking a break in the shade with a drink. As my mind’s eye lingered on Teddy’s face, Reverend Hurston boomed in conclusion, “I now pronounce you man and wife!” The words forced me to take in the couple standing before the congregation. Fanny’s expression was a bit slack-jawed. The groom, whose name was Rudolph, gave a toothless smile. He looked pleased if not altogether happy.

  At school, Mr. Calhoun had put Fanny in charge of checking the spelling and arithmetic of the youngest children. She managed her duties well and kept an eye on us older kids, too, often intercepting the notes passed back and forth between Hennie Clarke and Stella Brazzle. Aside from relishing the satisfaction of Fanny sabotaging Stella, I couldn’t mistake my tears for amassing in a longstanding well of feeling. The slack-jawed mien that had flickered on Fanny’s face after she had been pronounced somebody’s wife was what petitioned my sympathy. Without embarrassing herself or her parents, Fanny had tried her best to pass a note, one written in universal code across her countenance, to the whole church. Though I had received the message loud and clear, what made me weep was that there wasn’t a solitary thing for Fanny I could do.

  Afterward, the congregation gathered outside on the hard clay to see the newlyweds off. Rudolph beamed so at his brown automobile, you might have thought he had just married the machine. A single small suitcase in the back seat contained all of Fanny’s belongings. Next to me, Sarah was staring at the suitcase. All the while, a young man I had never seen before was staring at Sarah.

  “Nice wedding,” he said to Sarah with a nervous smile. “Your father is quite the preacher.”

  Sarah turned to the stranger, surprised. She hadn’t noticed the young man standing so close. Her single onyx braid, thick and luxurious, hung over her right shoulder like a miniature stole. The young man looked as if he wanted to touch it, pet it.

  “Why, yes, he is,” Sarah answered somewhat hesitantly, not yet sure what to make of this tall, brown man with keen features and a pleasant voice.

  He held his hand out to her. “I’m East Wheeler, a friend of Rudolph’s.”

  “Sarah Hurston,” she said, accepting East’s hand. All this while, Fanny’s mother was bawling. Before long, I began crying, too.

  Rudolph started up the engine. Mr. and Mrs. Miller hugged and kissed Fanny goodbye one last time. Mrs. Miller held to her heart a piece of the eyelet cloth that had been used for the modest train of Fanny’s wedding dress. The new bride’s eyes stayed locked on her mother’s. Mr. Miller grinned, relieved, I think, to be done with the expense of having a daughter and no wedding reception to pay for. The rear of Rudolph’s automobile was adorned with pink ribbons and tin cans. Rudolph and Fanny waved as the new husband released the clutch, pressed the gas, and carried his bride off, spokes aglitter and the ribbons streaming.

  “Had Fanny even seen that man before today?” Zora asked aloud. Reverend Hurston overheard her and put away his smiles and small talk to shoot daggers at Zora.

  “If you must know,” he answered, “the match had been in the making for some time. It was I who suggested the Millers move up the wedding date.” John Hurston briefly paused. “After the awful, awful thing with Terrace Side, the folks in this town needed a joyous occasion. But I don’t suppose a joyous marriage is something you’ll ever know about, so I shouldn’t be surprised at your attitude, Zora.” Mr. Hurston jabbed gladly now. “Who would marry you?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Daddy.” Zora was not immune to her father’s cruelty, but self-possession occasionally helped blunt the sting. “Who would I even want to marry? That’s the real question. I can tell you one thing for sure, it won’t be no preacher! Never!”

  John Hurston took a step toward his daughter, but Mrs. Hurston grabbed Zora by the hand and gave her husband an affectionate and tired smile. “Just think, Zora, what a fool I must have been, falling in love with your father at first sight.” Lucy Hurston’s words mixed dusk and dawn. The good-humored rebuke warmed Mr. Hurston’s face and calmed Zora. Then Lucy Hurston’s eye caught sight of East Wheeler sweet-talking Sarah. An internal maternal alarm instantly tensed the frail woman.

  “Why, hello,” Lucy Hurston said, interrupting the conversation.

  East politely bowed his head. “Ma’am.”

  “Mama, this is East Wheeler,” Sarah said a little hurriedly, embarrassed by the attention.

  “Sir, it’s an honor,” East held out his hand to John Hurston. “I greatly enjoyed the ceremony. You delivered my friend Rudolph into matrimony in fine fashion, sir, very fine.”

  “Thank you,” John Hurston accepted the compliment and East himself with a hearty, welcoming handshake. Zora frowned at her father and defensively planted herself at Sarah’s side. Sarah shot her little sister a curious glance.

  Sarah, their father’s favorite, and Zora, their father’s hated, had never been friends. Lucy’s condition, largely playing out in their father’s absence, had changed that. Viewing each other through the love of their mother, Zora and Sarah had become allies.

  “Did you come very far for the wedding, Mr. Wheeler?” Lucy Hurston asked.

  “No,” East answered proudly. “I moved to Lake Catherine just over a month ago. I’ve started a coach service in these parts. Right now, I’m carrying folks in a horse and buggy, mostly to and from the train station in Maitland. Before long, I reckon, I’ll have enough saved to purchase a horseless like Rudolph’s.”

  Ambition for the material things in life further lubricated John Hurston’s favorable impression of the young man. The successful striver placed an approving hand on East’s athletic shoulder but played the part of minister. “It takes more than money to build something,” he said. “It takes faith, too.”

  “I was planning on attending service again next week,” East answered eagerly. He gave Sarah a quick sweet glance. “I’d like to join your flock.”

  Mr. Hurston said kindly, “Well, fine!”

  East stepped toward Sarah, took her hand, and kissed it. “It was an honor making your acquaintance on this very special day, Miss Sarah.”

  Sarah nodded, blushing to the roots of her hair. “Yours, too,” she managed.

  Mrs. Hurston flashed the guarded grin of a white lie to East. “Don’t make a stranger of yourself,” she said.

  The afternoon after Fanny got married, Zora and I met as we always did on Sundays at the Loving Pine. As our sacred place, it was fitting that the Loving Pine was also Zora’s study. She worked there atop a crate lid, her white paper glowing like treasure against the backdrop of the cool green forest. For as long as I could remember, Zora told stories. When she started writing them down, it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

  It was a strange thing, but Zora and I never spoke about writing and she didn’t talk about it.

  I most hated to interrupt Zora when she stared up through the tree’s canopy daydreaming. I understood innately that it was in daydreams that stories searched for spirits they considered safe harbor and, finding one, docked. Zora was one such spirit. Zora had been called to speak in this world with her pen. Her genius also required her to listen.

  Zora read Rudyard Kipling’s Kim aloud while I combed, greased, and plaited her hair. Doing something besides making lye or stirring and scrubbing laundry was sweet relief for my raw hands. Previously, we had fallen in love with the talking snake in The Jungle Book and had been excited to give another Kipling novel a try. We were disappointed that this one didn’t have any sharp
-witted animals in it, but we rooted for the Irish orphan alone in India just the same.

  We were at the part in the story when Kim, recently appointed a monk’s apprentice, began learning of the Wheel of Things. One of the phenomena on the wheel, everlasting life, came at the heavy cost of dying again and again and again. I couldn’t fathom the idea, not in any reasonable way, which was why it captivated and frightened me.

  I made a zigzag part down the middle of Zora’s head, dipped my fingers in the pomade, and oiled her scalp. I started a five-stranded braid. The woven hair reminded me of a crochet chain. Right then I wished I had some red ribbon to pull through the plaits to give them some color.

  The singing drifter, Ivory, whose headless body Mr. Cools had discovered at the railroad tracks five years ago, had not entered my thoughts in a long time. Recently, however, my daydreams would turn a corner and trip over the wooden shards of his bashed guitar. Or I’d be hanging sheets and, out of the corner of my eye, think I glimpsed a tattered red ribbon like the one Ivory used as a strap. Had the horrible fate of Terrace Side conjured these fragments of my fears? Or had a benevolent force planted these warning flags?

  Just then, Zora thunder-clapped the book shut. Apparently, the Wheel of Things had spun her around, too.

  “Can you believe my father,” she cried, “thinking that marrying off Fanny in a hurry would somehow be medicine for the town? How can it? How can a girl getting married cancel out a man getting hunted down and lynched? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  I hesitated, then said, “I doubt one thing can really cancel out the other, but the wedding did make my mother feel better. It was a distraction.”

  “I’ll tell you about distractions,” Zora cried angrily. “With just a few looks, that East fellow practically emptied Sarah’s head of everything that was in it. As for Fanny, she deserves more from her life than a husband more in love with his car than with her!