Dumping Grounds (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 1) (15 page)

Dumbstruck, Emma watched the skull roll across the floor. Suddenly, she felt as if she was surrounded many people. They were pressing in on her, smothering her.

It felt as if they were coming closer and closer and closer. “Stop it!” she screamed while backing into a corner, but they kept coming. She squatted down and buried her face in the crook of her arm. It felt as though someone was standing over her, examining her closely.

Emma raised her head and opened her eyes. She could see shadowy figures surrounding her. Quickly, she buried her face into her arm again and begged aloud for them to leave her alone. She asked them to please back away from her and told them that they made her feel as though she could not breathe. Nevertheless, she felt they kept getting closer until they were squeezing the air out of her lungs.Slowly, her thoughts faded until she lost consciousness.

When Emma awoke, she was laying on a downy soft featherbed. She stretched lazily, languishing in the comfort of her surroundings. Across the room, a tall, ornately carved, mirrored armoire stood almost ceiling high.

Emma sat up.

The polished pine floors gleamed brightly in the sunlight that streaked through the wavy glass panes of the windows on each side of the armoire.

There was a commode with a pitcher and bowl by a heavy wood paneled door that could have been a closet or an entrance door; she was not sure which it was.

In the corner, covered with a scarf, was a slop jar. Emma knew what a slop jar was, because her grandmother had always kept one in her bedroom, even after they built a bathroom onto their house.

Emma slipped off the bed. She could feel the smooth polished wood beneath her bare feet. There was not even a grain of sand on its surface. She padded across the room to the window, knelt down, and looked out onto an expansive lawn that swept toward a river.

She could see the river clearly from her place at the window. The lower half of the window was raised and she could hear soft Negro voices singing in the distance.

Somehow, she knew they were the voices of slaves going about their daily chores.

Down by the river, a long flat barge was tied to the dock. On one end, workers were unloading supplies onto a mule pulled wagon that was already overburdened.

On the other end, workers were loading bails of cotton onto the barge. She sat and watched until they were finished unloading the supplies.

The skinner geed to the team of mules and then up the hill they went. It traveled out of her sight as it went past the side of the house.

Emma leaned out the window to get a closer look at what was beneath her, but all she could see was the yard. She smelt bacon cooking and it made her mouth water.

A slate roof covered was she supposed was a front porch. Burgundy portieres were visible through a large window that she glimpsed along the side of the portico. Colored children were weeding dead grass and flowers from flowerbeds that flanked a curved driveway that ran south into the trees alongside the river. The yard was filled with palmettos and wild huckleberry bushes. The crowing jewel of the yard was a gigantic live oak in the center and on each side of it, maybe fifty feet away from the oak, were weeping willows. A cool blast of air suddenly swooshed in past Emma as a door opened behind her.

“Miss Jeanette!” a voice exclaimed, causing Emma to jump. “You’se had better get yo self outta dat winder afore your papa spots you and comes hisself up here an whips both us.” Emma turned to see a short round Negro woman coming into the room carrying a tray.

“You know you ain’t supposed to be outta dat bed yet. Da doctor done said so.You’se is still weak as a kitten from da malaria dat took yo little brother!”

Emma was too afraid to say anything, although she thought to herself that a person got stronger by moving around.

“Old Annie show is glad you’se is a feeling stronger, but I’s takes my orders from other folks in dis house and they says you is not ready ta get up so’s youse ain’t a gettin’ up. You hears me!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Emma mumbled, and Annie gave her a strange look which caused Emma to clamp her mouth shut.

“Old Annie has been a taken care of you’se since yo mama birthed you; you’se ain’t never said ma’am to me before. What is wrong wit you chile?” she asked, setting the tray on the bed and placing her hand on Emma’s forehead feeling for fever.

“Nothing, I just wanted to get up that’s all.”

“I know you does honey, but da doctor done gave his orders to your mama and papa and dey says to do what da doctor say. Now, you eat these cheese grits old Annie done brung up here for you’se to eat. Theys a stick to your ribs and help you’se get better,” Annie said as she fluffed the pillows around Emma and placed the tray on her lap.

Emma sat looking at the tray and Annie placed her hands on her hips and stood there until Emma took a bite. Then Annie left the room reminding her that every bite needed to be eaten.

Emma’s brain reeled. Why was she here? What was happening? How did she get here to this place, to this time? Emma knew that this had to be the plantation, Caledonia, and that she was back in time; but how this all occurred, was beyond Emma’s comprehension. Was it some sort of backlash through time, Emma wondered as she ate the grits and drank the milk. As soon as she finished, she ran back over to the window to watch what was going on outside.

Down by the river, slaves, at least she suspected they were slaves, were lashing cotton bales onto the flat barge, readying it for transport south, down the river.

A well-dressed redheaded man was mounting a big white horse and riding toward the back of the house. Emma ran over to the mirrored armoire and stood in front of it. She wanted to see what she looked like. Would she look like she always had or would she look like this “Jeanette” that Annie had called her?

The girl staring back at her from the mirror looked nothing like herself. The girl was thin, pale and fragile looking with mousey brown hair that hung around her hips. She looked to be about fourteen. Emma moved closer to the mirror and starred into the girls eyes; they were pale blue. She had a few freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, but she was not ugly. Emma actually thought she was pretty, just pale and weak looking.

Emma stood there; she was completely lost. What was she to do? She knew she could not fit into this family without them discovering that she was different.

She mouthed her name into the mirror and then said it aloud. “Jeanette” she said, and then said, “I am Jeanette Moffett.” Her voice sounded as it always had to her ears. Emma wondered if she should reveal herself as someone else stuck within the body of young Jeanette Moffett.

They would just think she, Jeanette, had done gone plumb crazy. What would happen then? Emma feared to think about it.

She walked back over to the window and knelt down so that she could see better and smell the fresh breeze that lifted the leaves on the trees.

Emma noticed that some of the leaves were changing colors. It must be autumn, she thought to herself. How can that be, it is March.

In 1976 it is
, a voice inside her head, whispered. There was a tap on the door and then it swung open. A boy of about twelve, walked in.

“Good, you’re awake!” he exclaimed, running over and plopping down beside her.

“Papa said that I can go to Mobile with him tomorrow. That means we will get licorice whips for Thanksgiving!” the boy exclaimed. Emma sat there starring at him, not knowing what, if anything, she should say to him.

He looked at her and then asked, “Has the fever done fried your brain Jeannie? Licorice is your favorite, well, besides cranberry stuffing. Papa is s’posed to get some oysters too. Won’t that be grand!” he exclaimed; Emma stared at the boy. He looked a lot like her reflection did, except his hair was wavy and only touched his shoulders.

“Yes, that will be wonderful” she said, testing her voice.

“Are you addled, Jeannie?”

“No, I am not addled. I have been sick. Now, quit picking on me!”

“That’s better.I thought you was done messed up in the head. At least you didn’t die like Keith did,” he said lowering his voice. Emma knew that she should appear to be upset or sad because this Keith was her “brother,” but it was hard to appear to have feelings for someone she had never met.

She did not know what to say to this boy, without giving herself away. Then, she decided to try it as she would with her own siblings.

“I have a secret,” she whispered.

“What kind of secret,” he asked excitedly, and then leaned closer to her.

“I can’t remember anything,” Emma told him seriously. “Ever since I woke from the fever, my memory has failed me. I don’t even remember my name.”

“Are you pulling my leg?”

“No, honestly, I cannot remember.Please don’t tell them. Maybe my memory will come back soon. I do not want them to think I have gone crazy.”

“I know you are joking. People don’t just forget their family,” he said doubtfully. Emma lowered her head and tried to think of how she could convince him.

“You just have to believe me. I am really scared… I do not know what to do about it,” she said as truthfully as she could.

“Okay, I will tell you who everybody is and we will keep it a secret until you can remember on your own.”

“Thank you so much!” Emma said excitedly, and then asked, “What is your name?”

He gave her a strange look and then mumbled “I’m Will. How can you-” he stopped short and just stared at her.

Joshua Stokes sat staring out into the darkness, and it was dark. No lights were on inside the house and the moon was hidden behind thick dark clouds.

Occasionally, moonlight would peek through the clouds; it cast fleeting shadows among the trees. Joshua swore to himself that he saw someone leaning against a tree one time, and another time, he thought he saw a horse with white paint on its rump.

Joshua knew it was not from drinking. He had fallen asleep holding the glass of whiskey in his hand; he never finished it. He had been drunk enough to see the proverbial pink elephants before, but he had only taken a couple of sips of the glass he poured when he came out.

Joshua had never seen Indian ghosts before. Usually, he just heard the field hollers and the slave songs; occasionally he saw an old woman in his cabin.

He knew Indians had occupied the land long before the white man came, because there were Indian mounds all along the river. He and one of his friends, Austell Glover, had dug into one of the mounds when he was about fourteen. They had found several pieces of pottery. When they dug deeper, they found human bones.

They had quickly covered the bones over with dirt, because Austell told him that if you messed with Indians burial places, their medicine men would put bad spells on you and you would die.

They had not died, but for several months, they were scared to death the Indian medicine men would find them and kill them in their sleep. He thought it a little funny now that he was grown, but anything was possible.

Joshua knew that ghosts did exist, and it was plausible that a spell could be put on a person, especially if a person believed in such, just like with Josiah Long and his fortune telling, some folks swore by such as that.

Just then, the clouds parted and Joshua saw more shadows. They seemed to be sneaking up closer and closer each time. He wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He laid his pistol in his lap and then chuckled at himself. A gun was no match for a ghost.

Joshua could hear katydids chirping, and down by the river, bullfrogs were croaking loudly. At times, they quieted and he could hear the flow of the river as it brushed fallen branches and flowed over rocks along the edges.

Behind his house, the river was narrow; most of the time, a sugar white sandbar lay along his side of it. The water was not extremely deep except on the western side where the bank was probably a good twenty feet high.

Felled trees hung down from the embankment, their tops reaching down into the water. Most had fallen when hurricane Camille came ashore in 1969.

The storm had tore Biloxi slap up, pushing fishing boats ashore and washing away houses and docks.

They said the surge ahead of the 190 mile per hour storm was twenty-five feet high, with enough force to mow down anything in its path. The force of the water pealed the pavement up off the ground down along the coast.

In his mind, Joshua could still see the devastation. The winds that reached Mobile were in excess of a hundred miles per hour. Electricity had gone out within the first 30 minutes and it had taken the power company three weeks to restore the electricity at his house, longer at others. He knew they were due for another storm soon, but hoped it was a long time before another came.

Most folks pulled together and helped each other when disaster struck, but some people took advantage of the situation. They robbed folk’s blind, family homes and businesses alike. Some places along the coast were torn up so bad that you could not tell what it was before the storm. A farmer over in Mississippi found a pine needle drove through a fence post a mile inland of the gulf!

The snap of a breaking twig drew Joshua’s attention back to the woods surrounding his cabin.

His ears became alert to every single noise there. He could hear a cricket rubbing its hind legs together and then he heard a pinecone turn loose its bough and fall. It slid through the leaves of a nearby birch tree.

He heard a muffled thud as it landed and rolled in the pine straw gathered beneath the trees.

Joshua glanced up at the sky trying to locate the moon’s whereabouts, wondering when the light would break through the clouds again.

The grunt of a wild boar rutting somewhere along the river drew his eyes in that direction. He wanted a cigarette so bad he could taste it, but did not want to disturb the natural rhythm of the nightlife.

The sound of an armadillo skittering through the undergrowth to his left drew his attention in that direction. As he looked, the moon came from behind the clouds highlighting a nightrider who sat perched upon the back of a jet-black pony whose left eye was encircled with white paint. The rider sat staring at Joshua. His mane of black hair hung in two thick braids over his bare chest.

Joshua stared into his eyes briefly before the moonlight disappeared and darkness took him away.

What was so strange was that he knew from the look in the rider’s eyes that the rider saw him, as plainly as he saw the rider.

Joshua’s nerves could not stand it any longer; he reached for his smokes. He stuck one in his mouth and struck a match. Light from the match, lit up an area a few feet in front of him, and right there, not three feet away, sat the rider on horseback staring at him.

Joshua held the match aloft, staring back at the Indian. Suddenly, a burning sensation on his fingertips caused him to turn loose the match. It fell to the floor and he stomped it out with his bare foot, which in turn burned the bottom of his foot.The rider chuckled softly as Joshua spouted a string of profanity.

By the time Joshua got another match lit, he was alone. He thought of Jack and wondered why Jack had not so much as growled at the intruder. He needed to get some lighter fluid and refill his cigarette lighter. It would have stayed lit much longer than the match did.

***

A tattered, rebel flag hung limply from a galvanized metal pole in the front yard of the house. It looked as defeated as the confederate troops must have felt at the end of the Civil War.

Roy McGregor’s motorcycle sat parked beneath a shade tree, ready for his next ride. He will never ride again though, at least not in this world, thought Joshua Stokes as he lit a cigarette. Roy lay dead, rotting in his living room.

Joshua got out of his patrol car and walked toward the house. When he had gotten the call, about an hour after daybreak, Joshua was still sitting in the rocker on his back porch, pondering the reason for his recent visits from the spirit world.

Joshua Stokes had seen ghosts his entire life, but none had ever interacted with him as these last two had and it baffled him. He thought that if a dead person wanted to visit and talk with him, it would be someone he knew, not a total stranger or someone from so long ago.

His folks had never talked of having any Indian blood in them, and the girl ghost with the sewn shut mouth, her visit was just downright freaky.

Joshua took several long drags off his smoke as he stood outside Roy’s small house, which was in the Forks, a tri-angled area that lay between Georgetown and Wilmer to the east and west and north of Fairview.

Joshua took a deep drag. He felt as if he had been drug over fifty miles of bad road and dreaded having to go inside where Roy’s body lay.

John Metcalf was still inside processing the scene. Joshua knew that he must enter and do his assessment before the body could be removed.

He mentally took notes of the surroundings.

If any evidence was present, every Tom, Dick, and Harry that lived north of Fairview was trampling it. Joshua caught Deputy Cook’s attention and with a motion of his head called him to him.

“Cookie, we need to keep these folks from trampling what evidence there is around here. Unless you know something I don’t and you already know who killed him.”

“Well, no Sheriff, I don’t know who killed him.”

“Then I would suggest you get a couple of deputies to help and stretch out some of that yellow tape and keep everyone except our people out!” Stokes said sternly.

“Yes, Sir!” Cook replied, suddenly aware of the situation.

Joshua finished his smoke and was about to drop it to the ground and grind it into the dirt, when he caught himself. He knew better, especially since he was on the scene of a crime. They would need every bit of evidence gathered and catalogued for the trial when they caught whoever killed Roy.

Something felt odd, out of place. It was something that Joshua could not put his finger on, but it was bothering him. He walked out away from the house about 20 more feet, leaned against a pine tree and then lit another smoke.

He took a long drag off his cigarette and then studied Roy’s house and the surrounding area.

His eye roamed from left to right, studying every inch. The clothesline stretched across the backyard, was filled with freshly hung laundry. That was it, the laundry! Where was Cassandra and where was her car? Roy had a longtime, live-in girlfriend. She was missing and so was her car.

Joshua walked over to where Deputy Cook had set up a command post and asked him if anyone had talked with Cassie Bohannon. When Cook looked dumbfounded, Joshua explained that as far as he last knew, Roy had a girlfriend who lived with him. Her name was Cassandra Bohannon.

“She should be here too, wouldn’t you think,” Joshua suggested.

“Well, yes Sir, I reckon she should, but to be honest, I didn’t know about her.”

The deputies had gotten the yellow crime scene tape stretched out within a thirty-foot perimeter of the house. When Joshua looked toward the house again, John Metcalf was standing in the front door. He motioned for Joshua to come in. Deputy Cook followed Joshua to the porch and was going to follow him inside, but Metcalf stopped him before he entered.

“Sorry, Deputy Cook. I just need the sheriff right now. I need to go over something with him, before I can let anyone else in,” Metcalf explained.

Joshua saw Cook’s chest fall and felt sorry for him. He told Cook to stand guard at the door and to not let anyone into the house until Metcalf gave the go ahead.

“Yes, Sir” Cook replied, visually puffing his chest back up as he turned and stood as at attention. Joshua turned into the room and was surprised by the dimness of it.

“Do you know who called this in?” Metcalf asked.

“No, I don’t, John. They called me at home this morning and told me about it.

“Well, I haven’t seen Roy in a while, Sheriff, but I do not believe the dead man in there is Roy.”

Joshua had removed his handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his nose as he walked inside. He now stood openmouthed, the handkerchief held loosely in his hand. Metcalf’s words had surprised him.