Blood on the Leaves Part 20

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" Cheryl asked, interrupting his concentration.

"It wasn't dark when I first sat down," he answered.

She switched on the overhead light and entered the room. "What are you listening to that for?"

"It's what Matheson listened to when he worked at home."

"That might drive anybody to kill." She walked toward him, unaware of what he held.

"So you're finally coming around to accept he did it?"

"I didn't say that. I said . . . My G.o.d!" She saw the photo and studied it in horrified revulsion. "What kind of animal would do that to a human being?"

Her husband placed the photo down on his desk. "What kind of human being is produced when people are treated like animals?"

Cheryl turned away. Reynolds noticed her discomfort and knew it had to do with more than the photo. "You still don't think I should be prosecuting him, do you?"

She hesitated. "You're being used. You know that?"

He didn't respond.

"If you win, you're going to be despised by black folks."

He looked at the floor, but she gently lifted his chin and made direct eye contact. "If you lose, whites are gonna doubt your ability and question your loyalty. Either way, everything you've worked to achieve will be destroyed." She softened. "You really want to risk all that for somebody else's political agenda?"

"He's guilty," he said firmly.

"How can you be so sure?"

"We've already been over this, Cheryl," he snapped. "I've been with him!" he said with a degree of anger that surprised him. He softened his tone. "Been in his home. I've seen the photos plastered on the wall like some sick monument. You look at them too long, it's like drinking poison."

"Drink it slowly enough, you build a tolerance," she said.

"But you destroy the soul," he responded softly.

She picked up the photo and brought it closer to him. "How long have you been looking at this?"

"I'm not sure, maybe all my life."

She put the photo facedown on the desk. "You and Martin have more in common than you want to admit. Just make sure you're prosecuting him and not yourself." She kissed him and left.

He closed his eyes to fully appreciate the song's sorrowful concluding lyrics. He envisioned birds scavenging for the sacred fruit, or watching it rot beneath the burning sun, only to be washed away by the cool night rain. He opened his eyes and studied the photo, wondering just how bitter this strange crop had become with time.

He ejected the ca.s.sette cartridge from the player and put it carefully into its case. He placed the photo in a gray manila envelope, retrieved his keys from his jacket, and left the room, carrying the photo with him.

CHAPTER 41.

REYNOLDS DROVE HIS car slowly through a winding residential neighborhood in Natchez. He looked at the digital clock in his instrument panel and hoped his mother wouldn't be too tired to answer his questions. It had been a while since his last visit, well over a year-actually, now that he thought about it, closer to two. Cheryl enjoyed bringing the children to his mother's home. Christopher always liked going into the room where his father had grown up. He found it hard to imagine his dad as a child confined to a room without a television or computer or PlayStation. There had been a record player, though!

Reynolds smiled as he remembered his mother taking it out of his old closet and showing it to a stunned Christopher, then around five. She'd given him three chances to guess what it was. After his third choice-a rotisserie for pancakes-she placed a funny-looking vinyl disk that looked like a flattened black CD on the thing called a turntable. Christopher's eyes gleamed with amazement when he heard scratchy music blare from two cloth-covered box speakers that hung on side hinges, connected by long, thin, entangled plastic-coated wires. He asked his grandmother to play the song twelve straight times. After the fifth repeat, he started antic.i.p.ating where the needle would skip or ride a b.u.mp. "Cool!" he said, with each accurate prediction.

Reynolds pulled into the driveway and turned off the car engine. He left on his headlights and observed his parents' home in the darkness. It had seemed much larger to him in his youth. He once thought he could run in his backyard for days before reaching the end. Now he realized there wasn't enough room to throw a football very far. He noticed his mother standing at the doorway. He turned off the lights, then exited his car, carrying a night bag and a large gray envelope.

His mother appeared younger than her sixty-five years. Even in the darkness he admired her clear skin that neither needed nor often used artificial ingredients to make her look lovely. Her silver hair glowed majestically in the moonlight and curved around her head in short, tight curls.

"James, I've been so worried ever since I got off the phone with you."

"Why?" He kissed her on the cheek, and they both entered the house.

"You sounded so strange. I was afraid something happened to Cheryl or the children," she explained.

"You mean you weren't worried about me," he teased, then dropped his bag onto the floor. He held the envelope to his side.

"I know there's nothin' ever gonna hurt you." She grabbed his shoulders and turned him completely around. "Let me get a good look at you." She studied him carefully. "Have you lost weight? I made extra chicken and baked macaroni for you to take back to my grandchildren, but I think you could use some tonight. I'll heat up some greens, too."

He smiled sadly.

"James," his mother said seriously, "is something wrong between you and-"

He extended the envelope to her. "I think you know about that," he spoke softly.

She looked at the envelope with concern, then took it from him. Reynolds walked away from his mother and gave her some privacy. When he turned to look at her, he discovered her holding the photo to her breast, startled. She placed her left hand to her mouth.

"My G.o.d, who'd do such a thing?"

"I thought you might be able to answer that," he said.

"I've never seen this before in my life." She held the photo out to him. She wanted him to take it back.

He approached her, but his hands remained at his sides. "Not the photo, Mama." He stood close to her. "The incident . . . the man, hanging from that tree."

She didn't want to look at the photo again, but she did. She moved to an end table and retrieved her eyegla.s.ses. She put them on and studied the picture carefully.

"I used to wake up seeing his face," Reynolds spoke as his mother's eyes stayed fixed on the photo in her increasingly unsteady hands. "He was always chasing me. No matter how fast I ran, he'd be right behind, his fingers reaching for me, tearing at my clothes."

Reynolds touched the side of a chair his father would have loved-wide and soft with high, cushy arms. He sat on the ottoman. "I fooled myself into believing he existed only in my nightmares," he said, lightly rubbing his unshaved face. "You'd come into my room and tell me he-"

"Wasn't real," she said, completing his sentence for him. She held the photo carefully and walked to her son. "I said that he was only in your-"

"Imagination." This time he finished her statement.

She sat next to him and held the photo on her lap. She looked at it occasionally in between her short, deliberate breaths. "I even started to believe it." She shook her head, ashamed. "Especially when you'd go weeks at a time without waking up frightened. There were nights when you slept so peacefully, followed by mornings when you woke up screaming you'd never sleep in your room again." Her eyes filled with tears. He touched her hand. She put her fingers around his.

"What happened to me?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

"You wandered away from your school group, got lost." She held his hand more tightly. "They'd organized a field trip at the county preserve. We searched all night for you. Your father and me were so afraid we'd never see you alive again. All we could do was pray and leave it in G.o.d's hands to bring you home safe." She let go of his hand and walked to the mantel, which contained childhood pictures of Reynolds, including one of him seated on his father's lap. He joined her and studied a framed picture of himself as an adult playing happily with his children.

"Your father and some other men found you unconscious the next morning and rushed you to the hospital. I was there at your bedside when you woke up screamin', *No! No! Please stop! Please!'" She bowed her head and wept uncontrollably. Reynolds held his mother and comforted her.

"It's all right, Mama. Everything's all right. You don't have to talk about this anymore." He lifted her into his arms and placed her gently on the couch. He found a quilt and covered her, remaining by her side until she fell asleep.

Reynolds entered his old room, which had been converted to an extra guest bedroom for the grandchildren. Despite his mother's best intentions, he'd never allowed Christopher or Angela to sleep there. He said he didn't want to share his special secrets with them just yet. They'd have to wait until they got older. Then, and only then, would they be worthy of discovering the magic of his childhood.

His wife knew there was more to his edict than he'd ever admit-much more. She tried to get him to reveal his real reasons for denying their children-and, for that matter, herself-access to his past. She'd never been successful and long ago had decided not to force him to unlock whatever mysteries he'd worked so hard to keep hidden. For that, he'd remained grateful.

He pulled back the curtain and opened the window that had once promised him a quick escape from any unwelcome visitations disrupting his sleep. On more than one occasion, he also used it to avoid a well-deserved whipping. In the end, his father or mother would find him outside, peeking from behind the large oak tree, and they'd make him endure twice the ordinary punishment for the additional trouble he caused. He'd learned to dread "seek and destroy missions" long before he ever fully appreciated "search and rescue." When he turned away from the window, he discovered his mother standing at the doorway, holding the photo.

"What did you want to know?" she said bravely.

He sat on the edge of the twin bed and bowed his head. "Who was the man they hung?" he said quietly.

"I don't know," she answered firmly.

He looked at her and knew that while capable of evasion, she'd never directly lie to him, not even over this.

"I never wanted to know," she continued with absolute conviction.

"Was I found near him?"

She nodded. "They said he did things." She swallowed hard. "Terrible things to young children. We didn't believe them. They just needed an excuse to kill that man. So they created a horrible lie."

Reynolds's eyes searched for the window, but he knew he'd traveled too long and too far to escape now. "You recognize any of the men in the photo, the ones standing around his corpse?"

She walked toward him and pulled out a desk chair. She sat down and pressed her back against the rigid set of wooden bars. "I've been lookin' at it for a while." She pointed to a white man who wore a long, light coat and a ten-gallon hat. He stood at the base of the lynched man, almost touching his bare foot.

"This one never was no good," she said with a level of animosity that lingered in the air. "We all knew enough to stay away from him. Far as I know, he hasn't changed."

"He's still alive?" he asked, interested.

"Let it go, James," she warned. "The only thing that comes from reopening old wounds is an infection ten times worse than the original." She rose from her seat and headed to the door. "I'll make us something to eat."

"What's his name, Mama?"

She diverted her eyes to the floor. "Eat some food and rest for a while. If you still want to know in the morning, I'll tell you then." He nodded his head in agreement. She left the room.

CHAPTER 42.

THE BOY RAN faster than he'd ever thought possible, and yet the b.l.o.o.d.y fingers never tired. No matter what he did and despite his best efforts, the fingers followed his every move. The night sounds were almost deafening, but the boy could still hear his heart pounding and feel the warm breath on his back. "Help me!" He heard the words, desperate and afraid. He felt a hand tug at his chest. He saw blood and the rapid movement of a sharp blade illuminated by a cross. He felt something or someone strike him against the side of his face. His body kept falling and falling; then he heard laughter, followed moments later by a scream and something shining in the dark.

Reynolds awoke on the bed in the room of his childhood. His perspiration had soaked through the pillow and stained the blanket underneath his body.

He sat up and looked around his old bedroom and decided the nightmare had plagued him long enough; the time had come to turn the tables and chase the ghost. He took a shower, had breakfast with his mother, and then left to acquire the information he'd traveled all this way to obtain.

The Greek Revival mansion overlooked the Mississippi River. It sat on a scenic bluff that must have made it a spectacular plantation in its day. Gothic white pillars lined the front entrance. Elderly black men in spotless uniforms worked next to tall concrete and marble columns. Reynolds half expected to see a marching band in red jackets playing "Dixie" while the servants danced and shuffled for the amus.e.m.e.nt of their master. Sarah, an older woman, introduced herself to him in the courtyard, wearing a maid's outfit with a white ap.r.o.n that caused Reynolds to think of Gone With the Wind.

"Follow me, sir," she said, curtsying slightly. She walked pigeon-toed down a pathway that led through a garden of yellow and peach-colored roses. So this is the New South, he thought, as he walked on loose multicolored gravel sprinkled in between large round stepping-stones. They pa.s.sed a guest house with several recessed porches. He wanted to hate this place but found the architecture remarkable. He wondered how many black hands had toiled to make the fine millwork and how many backs were broken to lay the bricks that surrounded the structure.

He followed Sarah to a large, ornate gazebo adjacent to a sparkling pool. A white man sat comfortably under a blue-striped canopy. He wore a tan linen jacket and straw hat and drank iced tea with the flair of an aristocrat. Reynolds would bet his life the man had a neatly pressed Confederate uniform hanging in his closet alongside a custom-tailored robe fashioned from the finest white silk sheets.

"Are you Gates Beauford?" Reynolds asked while standing under direct sunlight.

"If I'm not, my mama's gonna be one shocked lady." Beauford looked at Sarah, who smiled on cue.

"I'm James Reynolds."

"Yeeeesss." Beauford prolonged the word and gave it many meanings, none of which Reynolds liked. "I've been watchin' you on TV. Impressive, very impressive. Sarah, you know we got us a celebrity? Why, that's the lawyer who's gonna put away that black professor for killing all those innocent elderly gentlemen."

She looked at Reynolds, trying unsuccessfully to hide her disdain. Beauford noticed her demeanor and spoke sternly. "Sarah, bring our special guest some lemonade. . . . Make sure it's from a fresh batch."

Sarah rolled her eyes and proceeded to the main house.

"She's a little slow but been with the family a long time. Would be cruel to let her go now. I doubt she'd even know how to take care of herself." Beauford squeezed a wedge of lemon into his tea until all the juice was gone.

"She manages to take care of you. Wouldn't be that big a leap to take care of her own needs." Reynolds spoke politely.

Beauford studied him for a moment, then stirred the ice cubes in his gla.s.s. "Oh, my, where are my manners? You must be melting in that hot sun. Do find yourself a cozy spot beneath the shade and rest a spell."

Reynolds took a seat opposite Beauford, separated by a round outdoor table with a frosted Plexiglas top and porcelain lamp in the middle.

"So, what brings you all the way out here from the big city? It must be something important for a man of your stature to visit my humble home."

Reynolds opened the envelope and removed the photo. He slid it across the table and positioned it in front of Beauford, who showed no reaction other than to scratch the back of his head just beneath his hat.

"Nice photo, don't you think?" Beauford asked. "I mean, given the conditions-night, dark forest, old cameras-I'd say it came out as good as could be expected."

"That's you in the front, isn't it? Standing next to the man you lynched." Reynolds stared into Beauford's eyes and found no discomfort and no remorse.

"I believe so. But let me check just to be certain." Beauford lifted the photo, held it in the sunlight at arm's length, squinted. "Yeah, that's me." He put the photo on the table and looked at Reynolds. "I was young, more outgoin' then. I value my privacy now. A great deal." He stirred his drink, then handed the photo to Reynolds. "I suggest you destroy that for your own good. Wouldn't want anything unfortunate to happen to you."

"This isn't the past, Mr. Beauford. I can take care of myself." Reynolds leaned forward. "You, on the other hand, might want to get yourself a good attorney."

Beauford c.o.c.ked his head to the side to examine Reynolds, then smiled dangerously. "The world's goin' to h.e.l.l in a handbasket. That's what happens when people don't know their place." He closed his eyes briefly and spoke nostalgically. "Wasn't all that long ago we had a Sovereignty Commission, funded by the legislature to take care of potential trouble before it got outta hand. Governor and lieutenant governor were members; worked closely with the sheriff and other decent folk. That's when government was part of the solution instead of the problem." Beauford used a white cloth napkin to dab the perspiration on his upper lip. "Don't tell me about the past, boy. Contrary to what you might believe, we ain't left it."

Sarah arrived with a cold pitcher of lemonade and two frosted gla.s.ses, but Beauford raised his hand for her to stop. She saw the photo and looked at Reynolds, then at her employer.

"You can take that back, Sarah. There's been a change in plans. Mr. Reynolds will be leaving, immediately." Beauford remained focused on Reynolds. Sarah glanced again at the photo, then left quickly.