Lost Souls Recovered, page 18
John remained tight-lipped. Billingsly pulled him closer to the furnace, which was now making an infernal noise, making more heat. He offered no resistance as he had caused the demise of the virago of Richmond, and he had never offered penance for his sin to anyone. He took a life, and now his turn had come, he thought. It was only just.
A memory of his mother’s face jumped to the fore of John’s mind, and he remembered her wish that he try to find Cousin Riley in Mount Hope. His brain was working as God wanted it to work, he thought. He couldn’t let her down, and for that matter himself, as he still dreamed of a bigger life. He jerked his arm back, hard, causing Billingsly to lose his grip.
John walked backward. Billingsly walked toward him. John’s left shoe slipped imperceptibly on some kind of oily substance. All he’d need to do now was to guide Billingsly over the same spot, and hope that Billingsly would lose his balance and he could run. He kept stepping backward.
Thoughts of Madame Billingsly lying dead near the staircase surfaced in his mind again. He contributed to her death. John thought either he was going to die, or it would be Monsieur Billingsly.
John continued to walk backward as though without awareness of the desperate situation he was in.
Without warning, it happened: Billingsly slipped on the spot and fell to the floor, his momentum throwing him onto the ledge and then forcing him to hang over the fire below.
John snapped out of his dreamy state, but his mind swirled in the moment of torment: He could flee from the monster who’d threatened to dump him into that same furnace, or he could try to save the life of the man who’d often tried to protect him from Madame Billingsly’s scalding words.
“Grab my right hand, sir,” John said as he looked at Billingsly’s sepulchral eyes.
“I can’t. I’m slipping,” replied Billingsly in a labored whisper.
John bent down and grabbed Billingsly’s right hand and pulled with all his might. After a long struggle, John pulled the man from his certain death. Billingsly stood up slowly, wiped his coat and pants. He didn’t say a word; he just stood there and looked at John with eyes that were being restored to life.
Billingsly stood still even as John walked past him with his eyes trained on Monsieur Billingsly as he left Sloss. John then sprinted to the YMCA, relieved that he’d live to see another day. John knew he had to leave the YMCA and Father Murphy.
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A couple of weeks before John went to Sloss to inquire about a job opportunity, Douglas was arrested for stealing a hammer at a hardware store. He pleaded his innocence, but the store owner said he saw Douglas take the hammer. As a condition of his release, Douglas could pay the cost of the hammer and a fine. When Father Murphy learned of Douglas’s problem, he told the court that he’d provide the money in about a week. However, within a couple of days after his arrest, Douglas had been convicted and sentenced to one year of hard labor and ordered to serve his sentence at the Pratt Mining Company.
Many colored men in the recent past had been falsely accused and convicted of petty crimes in this same manner and had been “leased” to private industries like Pratt Mining that were desperate for workers. It was a money-making arrangement for Jefferson County and companies getting the prison labor—the county received payment from the company, and the company got cheap labor. The county just asked the company using the prison labor to provide food and health services to the prisoner.
Although the county was to keep records of the prison labor it leased to companies, such records were either incomplete or simply didn’t exist. Hundreds of colored men were lost to slave labor across the South. When Father Murphy asked the authorities about Douglas’s whereabouts, he was told that Douglas pleaded guilty and was sent away to do some mining work for one year.
Father Murphy told John that he’d do all he could to gain Douglas’s return from Pratt. John needed to see his best friend again, but knew his own life was in jeopardy because Billingsly knew where he lived. The man who had shepherded him from Richmond, the man who had protected him, was now gone in a flash. He could only hope he’d get a chance to at least see him to say thank you. But he doubted that would happen; he knew it was time to fulfill his mother’s request that he go to Mount Hope to find Cousin Riley. He’d endeavor to fulfill that request—and although he wanted to find a blood relative, he wanted more.
He packed quickly, pouring his possessions into his haversack and a used valise he had purchased. He kept some of the lucre for a rainy day, spending the money he earned working on the things he needed.
But before he left the YMCA, he had made sure to collect both flasks, which he had hidden in a box in a crawl space no one used. He opened the box, stroked the engravings on them, and wondered why he had kept them for so long. Billingsly had finally caught up to him, and therefore the stolen flasks. The flasks had haunted him for all these years; perhaps he’d throw them in a lake, and the pall that enveloped him would be lifted. But because he remained somewhat intrigued about possibly uncovering valuables buried by Papa Billingsly someday, he decided to keep them. He then gathered some things from Douglas’s haversack to take with him, as he knew Douglas had a new home.
21 — Summer, 1890
Since he left Richmond in May of ’87 up until now, he and Douglas had wended their way south by foot, stagecoach, the powerful Cleveland Bays, rides with strangers, and by boxcar. He had overcome a near-death experience with the infection in his lungs. And he had thrived working for Father Murphy, who told John he was an excellent worker, a smart young man, and someone who’d be a leader somewhere, someday. He was a bit more urbane, and he intended to use it to move through society in a way he could bend.
He knew time was drawing nigh to move on after an extended stay in Birmingham. The near disaster with Billingsly accelerated his decision, along with the loss of his best friend to a government-sanctioned slave labor prison run by Pratt Mining.
John was assigned a berth in a passenger car with other colored passengers. As the train readied to roll out, John stood on the landing just outside of the car, and waved goodbye to Birmingham, his home for the past two years.
The whistle blew, followed by a shout of “All aboard!”
John made his way over to the remaining open seat. The armrest was broken, and the thin cushion assured him of an uncomfortable train ride. He nodded at the occupant of the seat next to him as he sat down. She was a whey-faced colored lady, probably somewhere between 90- and 100-years-old. She was wrinkled, thin as a crack, and hunched over. Her face folded all over itself, which told a story of a hardscrabble life. Her blue buckram bonnet covered some of her wispy gray-and-white hair. She wore a long white cotton dress and button-up shoes. She alternated between using a fan to cool herself and using a doily to dab the sweat beads that formed at her hairline.
Forty passengers, all colored except for two white men who were assigned there because they smoked, were berthed in John’s car. The car floor was peppered with refuse, the upholstery tattered, and the windows speckled with mud.
She adjusted her bonnet, turned to John, and said, “I’m Harriett.” Her voice, as soft as a summer breeze, didn’t match her crumbling façade.
“Good day, I’m John.”
Within minutes, the locomotive was humming along at a nice clip. John closed his eyes and took stock of his life. Nothing could disturb him; not the conversation around him, not the clangorous train wheel noise. He was lost in thought about whether his mother was dead or alive. His mother’s megawatt smile still burned brightly in his head, which served as an impetus that kept him moving on his trek to locate Cousin Riley. He wondered about her nightmares and if she still had them; he had witnessed her screams many a night as a boy: screams over the lashings she’d received as a slave; screams over the loss of her husband; screams over the loss of her twin daughters. A heart could only take so much torment before it gave out, he thought. He shuddered when he thought he had added to that torment.
He had drawn a crisis that had spiraled into a tenebrous outcome for his mother, Madame Billingsly, and Monsieur Billingsly. And he figured that if he hadn’t stolen the flasks, he wouldn’t have killed three bandits.
That led him to think again that maybe he should have jumped in the charnel at Sloss and ended it all. It was he who stole the flasks; if he hadn’t, Madame Billingsly would be alive.
“Hey, you, wake up,” the white train porter said, nudging John on the shoulder.
No response, as he was praying that Monsieur Billingsly would not continue to chase him. Although Father Murphy knew John’s ultimate destiny was Mount Hope, he wondered whether Monsieur Billingsly would squeeze that information out of him. He settled on believing that Monsieur Billingsly and the damn flasks would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I’m talking to you,” the porter said in a louder voice, simultaneously kicking John’s right foot.
John whiffed a foul odor from the porter’s mouth. His eyelids opened slowly as though he were waking from a long, dreamy nap.
The porter looked at John and Harriett. He wore a lightweight white cotton jacket and black hat. His belly was large, and he had small dark eyes. “One of you gonna have to move.”
“Why?” John asked.
“Look, I don’t have tell you a damn thing. We got a white man who needs a place to smoke; this is the place for it.”
Harriett rose slightly before John put his left hand on her leg, using gentle pressure to force her to sit back in her seat. John said to the rotund porter: “There are no more seats.”
“Are you getting cross with me, darkie?”
John ignored the question. “This old lady should stay put.” John stood up and took a few steps to the aisle. “He can have my seat.”
“I say what seat he can have,” the porter huffed with more dragon breath and shot spittle from his mouth. “I want that wench to move.”
John’s eyes narrowed and a rush of adrenaline flooded through him, making him as strong as an angry lion. One or two more wrong words and he’d pounce on the porter.
Now twenty years old, he had grown to his full height of six feet, one inch. His hair was still raven-black, but it was slightly less wavy than when he was younger. The porter had girth on John, but John was muscular and agile. One punch in the mouth and he knew he’d slay the dragon.
Breathe, he heard his mother say when he was a boy and angry about something. Breathe, son. He took two deep breaths, deflating his swollen temper. He had just saved himself a trip to the hoosegow.
“Listen,” the porter said with a harsh tone to Harriett.
John looked over the porter’s shoulder and the porter followed John’s eyes. A white man with a cigar in his mouth tapped the porter on the shoulder and told him he didn’t want the seat because he’d refuse to sit next to Harriett. As the porter moved toward the front, the white man extinguished his cigar by pressing it against a petition that separated the cars.
A few minutes later, the porter returned to the colored car and said, looking at John, “You’re asking for trouble. I can have you arrested.” He panned the car and growled, “That goes for all of you.”
Harriett turned to John. “That be a brave thing you did there. Don’t go to jail on ’count of me. Why you so angry?”
“I think it’s because I wish I could see my mama,” John said softly. John looked at Harriett. Words just sat on his lips. She caressed John’s left hand with her bony right hand. Her motherly touch proved to be the salve he needed to talk. All thoughts he held in his head on the train earlier gushed out of him like a flood of water racing to find a low point. The flood found its low point twenty-five minutes later.
“Seem like you feel bad ’bout those whiskey bottles you took from … ”
“The Billingslys.”
“Yeah, the Billingslys. Don’t feel bad. Lots of stuff stole from colored folk. If those bottles make you rich someday, what you gonna do?”
John was no longer vigilant about keeping the flasks close at hand. They were in his haversack in the train storage along with his valise. “Truth is, I don’t know whether I’ll go back there looking for this fortune. It doesn’t belong to me.”
“Nonsense,” Harriett intoned. “You use it to help the colored people. Help build a school, something like that. Help your mama.”
John nodded to acknowledge her point. But the whiskey flasks had begun to lose their appeal. “If I hadn’t taken them, Madame Billingsly would be alive; there’d have been no need for me to leave Mama, back in Richmond. I have the flasks, but I’m without Douglas, my best friend. He came with me from Richmond. We ended up staying at the YMCA in Birmingham. Father Murphy told me that he was charged with stealing something from a hardware store. He said he’d raise the money to get Douglas out of jail, but I couldn’t stick around.… ”
“Why not?”
Ignoring her question, John turned the focus to Harriett, asking, “What about you? Where’re you from?”
Although unsure of her age, Harriett recalled the name President Monroe when she was a slave living in Baltimore, Maryland. All ten of her children were born into slavery. Three died young of various diseases. Four of her children traveled north, escaping slavery. She moved several times after they left, so she suspected that they probably would not be able to find her if they tried. She moved to Birmingham shortly after the War to live with her oldest son, who died a year ago. So she decided to move to Cullman to live with her grand-niece and her husband.
As Harriett rambled on with her story, she kept her gnarled hands folded in her lap restfully, as her glistened eyes gazed out the window. As the trained continued to steam to Cullman, Harriett both looked out the window, seeing a vista familiar to many colored folk who toiled on some white man’s land. Stretches of cotton, tobacco fields, and orchards dotted the landscape. Colored people working in the fields looked up at the fast-moving train.
John awoke from his nap when he felt the train slow appreciably. He leaned to his right to look out the window, where he could see people standing on the depot platform.
The train stopped.
After a few minutes, the porters exited the train and placed stepstools on the ground for exit doors of the passenger cars. The passengers in the colored car were permitted to exit twenty minutes later. As there was not a stepstool for Harriett to use, John helped her sit down in the doorway. He jumped down to the ground, picked up Harriett, and put her wobbly legs on the ground. Harriett asked John to retrieve her two suitcases from storage. He retrieved them, along with his haversack and valise.
A colored man extended his hand to shake John’s hand. “You a brave young man. Thanks for looking after my auntie.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” John said.
“I’m Troy, I be her nephew,” he said as he hugged Harriett.
John watched as Troy helped Harriett board a rockaway. They rode away.
John looked up on the façade of the building and saw the sign: CULLMAN STATION. He put his haversack over his right shoulder and carried his valise in his left hand and walked into the station.
The cavernous station, bustling with people, had a cathedral ceiling, ornate architecture, and paintings on the walls. John spied a bench and sat down. He pulled pemmican from his haversack and began to nosh on it. Two hours ago, he’d been in Birmingham, a place he had called home for two years. He knew its streets and avenues, its buildings, its people. Now he was in a strange city.
He saw a large, black sign with white letters that said: DEPARTURE TIMES. John picked up his bags and walked closer to read the schedule. He read the cities to himself—Birmingham, Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Montgomery, Decatur, Mobile, Augusta, Mount Hope.
“Mount Hope, canceled,” he muttered.
He walked to a man dressed in a bland gray shirt, shuffling through papers behind a counter. His name tag said “Bartlett Kohl.” John asked him what time the next train was leaving for Mount Hope.
“It’s not going nowhere today.”
John’s face sagged.
“Mechanical problems,” Kohl said.
“What times does the train leave Mount Hope tomorrow?”
Kohl retrieved a sheet of paper from a drawer. His right index finger rolled down the page. “Aha,” he said, “you can catch it next Thursday.”
“How far away is it?”
“About fifty-five minutes by train.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
Kohl offered hope, telling John about a new transportation line called an interurban, which had just opened, and that it was about five miles away. Because John hadn’t heard of an interurban, Kohl explained that it was somewhat similar to a passenger train except that it ran within and between cities and towns.
“There’s an interurban about five miles from here; it opened for business just a month ago. It makes a stop in Mount Hope: it’s leaving at seven in the morning.”
22 — Summer, 1890
It was a scene from the Arizona Territory being played out in a small Alabama town. It was an old-fashioned stickup, the robbers looking for targets for easy money from small-town America.
Two robbers had gone from one small town to another hoping they could make a hit and move on quickly to the next town. As they had rehearsed and done with other robberies, one robber would threaten the clerk at a lodging place or at a train station, and the other robber would stand in the back as a customer scouting the customers’ movements, and the lead robber would force the clerk at gunpoint to disclose where the money was located.
The lead robber, a young man with severe acne and shaggy blond hair, stood behind a counter pointing a Remington .36 caliber pistol at the woman clerk working for the Cullman Interurban. He told her it was a stickup and then shouted at the ten or so unsuspecting people in the small station to sit on the floor and not to make any sudden movements, and that they’d be shot dead if warranted.
