Those Bones Are Not My Child (83 page)

“You late, Ma,” he said, climbing up and swinging his legs over the back-porch rail.

“Well, what is it? Kenti said I should get Sonny one.”

He threw his arms out. A small boy with the world’s troubles to handle and she was weighing him down with trivia. She eased the coverlet down over the bush. She wanted to talk with him about going home. They might not have the chance to talk family during the trip. Once everyone heard that Mercer was sending a stretch deluxe limo down, the passenger list to Brunswick had grown.

Spence offered Kofi a bite of his sandwich, and he stepped back.

“Something the matter?”

The men were getting up and going out. The trucks had come and were tooting their horns. Kofi followed his dad out.

Sonny was hanging his arms out the truck window, beating his elbows on the door.

“You staying?” The skin under one eye crinkled. “You got things to do, Li’l Brother?”

When Kofi hesitated, Kenti stood up in the back of the first truck and waved her arms to shush everybody. “We gotta wait for my brother Kofi.” She turned to him all serious. “You got to go to the bathroom first?”

Before Sonny could laugh, Kofi climbed up beside Kenti. It wouldn’t have been a good laugh; his face was screwed all up like he was disgusted with him.

There were no horses. And the moo cow turned out to be a big ugly bull. Long after the others went off to swing on the ropes and Sonny, really mad ’cause there weren’t any horses, went off by himself somewhere, Kenti kept watching, hoping the bull would do some interesting thing she could tell the class about when she got back to Atlanta.

She pulled her halter up and hooked her arms over the next-to-the-
top log that went across, and watched the bull through the space. It was eating something with its mouth open and the spit was coming down like a washing machine with too much soap. It made a low rumbly noise when it chewed. She could hardly hear the tractor, the bull was so loud. Seemed like her daddy, riding along with Sheena’s granddaddy, could hear it.

Kofi was way over by the pig house with Cookie, fooling with the pump. She was holding the bucket and he was working the handle. Rattle rattle, lift, squeeze, and the water thudded out. They were too far to call to. But maybe Kofi would think to come on and see something about the bull that she could tell the class. Sheena and Junior and them were standing on the knots at the bottom of the ropes. The ropes were hanging down from a big log somebody strong had set in the elbows of three pecan trees near the stable where there weren’t any horses on account of Junior’s daddy had sent them out to work. She wasn’t sure where Sonny had went to, but he said he’d be back.

She bent down and loosened the buckles on her new white sandals, watching the bull Sonny called the Beast. She could make up something about the bull, even something about the horses, act like she’d fed them carrots and apples, patted their necks, taken a ride. But that would be lying. She’d heard Aunt Gerry telling Granny Lovey that Sonny was prone to lying.

“Prone.” She did her mouth to say it again and liked the way it felt. The Beast looked her way and started pawing the ground with its big foot. “Prone,” she told him. The bull swished his tail. Sonny had said to be careful, not to get close or do nothing stupid like give the Beast clover to eat. It made her laugh, the way he kept saying “the Beast.” But then he teased her for calling it a moo cow, teased her for acting like a silly little child, kept saying she better grow up ’cause look like she hadn’t grown any since he’d been gone.

Kenti looked down at herself. Her halter and shorts were the same ones from last year. Maybe Sonny was right. She’d have to see what she weighed on the school scale and see where the ruler pressed at the top of her head hit the wall. But the way he said it was like she was a baby because he wasn’t around, like he was big stuff. He wasn’t nothing but just a ball nobody could find. That’s what Granny Lovey had said to Aunt Gerry—he was a lost ball in the high grass.

Spit was coming down the bull’s chest where his muscles bulged
like black ropes. He was pawing the ground again like he was saying to come in and play.

“I look like a fool to you, Beast?”

From where she squatted, looking between the two bottom logs, she could see his feet good. He took a step coming and then another one. And his paw landed right on top of an anthill. Ants starting running away. Some of the ants were carrying yellow specks from the blue-bonnets there in the pasture. Some were carrying their dead ant friends.

Sonny had told them a scary story about a slave boy they gave a whipping to and made him die. Sonny and another boy snuck down to the basement and got him. They were carrying him to the garage to get away, that’s when he died. But they put him in the car anyway and didn’t cut on the lights when they drove off. Then the police stopped them and took them to jail on account of the white men told the police they stole the car. And the police wouldn’t believe Sonny and the other boy. The police said they were the ones who killed the boy in the back.

She wasn’t sure she believed the story, because one time the other boy was named Buck but later when the police said they killed the boy in the back of the car, Sonny said “Roger” like her goldfish Roger, the poor little goldfish Mama let dry up.

Kenti wiped her face on her shorts and looked up. She wrinkled her nose. The bull was taking a crap. Right in front of her, the bull let go with another big plop to the ground and swished his tail like he’d done something to talk about. Kenti walked backward without even standing up first it smelled so bad. Then a bird came and sat on the top log. It had a blade of grass in its mouth. But when it lifted its head and smelled the stink, the bird dropped that grass and flew up. But it didn’t fly away like she would’ve. It flew down to the bull crap and started pecking in it.

“You nasty, bird.”

She ran off toward the ropes to tell what happened. But then she slowed down. Sheena and them probably saw that every day. But she had to tell somebody there. She sure couldn’t tell that in class.

No horse, no horses, six stalls and no horses, eight saddles, hay, harnesses, but there weren’t any horses. In the old shed back of the barn, though, was a bike and it was in great shape, an air pump on the bar, a
tool bag behind the seat, and in the bag a Prince Albert can with four patches and a full book of matches. The bike was leaning against the wall boards. But when he pulled, the whole shed shook. The kickstand was caught in the space between the boards. It took a while to work it free. When pulled from the bar, the strongest part of the bicycle’s frame, the front wheel turned and the handlebar got wedged between the boards. He lifted the bike as much as it would go and rammed it against the wall, twisting the wheel and freeing the handlebar. It made a lot of noise. He was sure someone would hear it. When the dust settled and no more pebbles fell on his head, he pulled again. And the boards shook again. He hadn’t watched the pedals. The inside one had knocked a knot hole clean out of the wood and was jammed tight.

Close to crying in frustration, he jumped when Kenti peeked through the boards and said, “I see you. You hiding?”

He moved quickly to the door but she’d run around and beat him. “Who’s playing?” She tiptoed in and pulled the door closed behind her. He stepped to the right to block her view of the bike. But, running around for places to hide, she saw it.

“Whose bike?” she whispered, going to it. “Can we ride it?” She straddled the front wheel and hooked the inside of her elbows up under the handlebars. “It’s stuck, Sonny.”

“We can free it, though,” he said, coming over.

“Better ask Junior. It’s his bike, I bet.”

He didn’t like the way she was eyeing him as he unfastened the tool bag and took out the tobacco tin. If someone stopped them, at least he’d have the patches. He slipped them in his pocket, then reached in for the matches.

“That’s not yours.”

“Lean against the wall and stick your foot against the pedal,” he told her. “And when I lift it up, push hard on the pedal.”

“You smoke now?”

“It’s to fix a flat. Stand over there and push hard. It’s the pedal that’s stuck.”

“You stealing stuff to smoke, hunh?”

“Would you push the damn pedal. I’m doing this for you. You want a ride, don’t you?”

Kenti backed away from the bike and walked around behind him, heading for the door.

“Where you going?” He meant to catch her by the arm, but he caught hold of the rubbery red-and-white halter, and when she pulled away the elastic snapped against her back.

“That hurts, you know!”

He could tell she wasn’t mad, so he had a chance. She was ready to play if he wanted to. So he snapped her top again and rushed at her to tickle her. She was too fast for him and ran. When they reached the door his father was standing there and his expression made Sonny cringe.

I’ve been holding these, Zala.”

Gerry tossed the envelopes on the table. They landed on the letter from Mason. Zala realized she hadn’t been reading but staring. More children murdered. The murders officially disconnected from the case. All news of the murders suppressed. Pressure to call off the rally organized weeks before the arrest.

“And you opened my mail?” Zala looked at the mess, the torn-open envelopes, a clipping someone had sent from a New Orleans newspaper nearly torn in half, a letter from Paulette with the second page missing, an empty envelope curled in the roll of the map. Zala looked up at Gerry. A cloth tied around her and knotted under her armpit, two towels slung over one shoulder, Gerry was braiding her hair and looking at Zala with one side of her mouth hiked up.

“Not I. You know that.” She pulled the chair out next to Zala.

Zala let out a long breath and removed the ironed sheets from the seat. “Yes, I know that,” she said.

Mama Lovey was outside beating two bath mats together. She turned away from the clothesline as the tufts of lint blew through the yard. She looked toward the kitchen and Gerry blew her a kiss.

“Anything new from your friend Logan about the hypnosis sessions?”

Zala watched her mother moving between the clotheslines feeling the towels for dryness. “They’re on their way to Atlanta now—Innis, McGill, Logan, and a few others.”

“Think they’ll wind up at the same field you all located near the warehouse?”

Zala shrugged, but she had no doubt that the field not five miles from 6 Star was the cult’s ceremonial grounds McGill had described
under hypnosis, even though Inquiry had seen no shack, the shack in which McGill said she’d seen victims tied up, one victim murdered, a plastic bag shoved down his throat.

“And the Committee of Inquiry?” Gerry was rummaging in the mail.

Zala sighed again and said nothing. At the community meetings Mason spoke of, little credence was given the findings of the committee, though many felt there had to have been wiretapping by the state bureau and the feds, and were convinced too that the network of professional informants must have produced things that had since been suppressed. The mortician’s assistant had left town. The Bowen witnesses had either absented themselves from meetings or come and kept quiet. Only two of the community workers were still monitoring the house on Gray Street. Mason and Lafayette kept watch on Slick; Speaker stuck to Red. And the word on Dettlinger, the leading STOP investigator, was that he would work with the prosecuting team. An equally strong rumor was that he would work with the defense. Zala wondered what was preventing Mason from asking Dettlinger to declare himself at one of the meetings. Camille Bell would assist the defense. Other members of STOP said they’d wait and see. A major rally was scheduled for the next week. Buses were going up from Alabama.

“And Sonny?” Gerry asked quietly, breaking into Zala’s thoughts. She was fitting the torn news photo together. Zala looked at the picture of Hazel Blanchette. The Webbers’ former housekeeper, writing from the Algiers district of New Orleans, had drawn a parallel between the bogus official version of the Atlanta case and the bogus version the New Orleans authorities offered to explain away the murders in the housing project by the New Orleans police. It had been too much to read.

“I don’t know,” Zala said, leaning against Gerry’s arm. “I got a letter from a neighbor this morning.” She smoothed out the fancy stationery from Old Man Murray’s landlady. “Such a nice note. But she says we should go on TV.” Zala laughed; it came out short and breathy. “I can barely piece two bits of Sonny’s story together and she wants a neighborhood celebrity on prime time.”

Gerry took the letter. “I never have understood the desire to appear on those talk shows. But in your case, it might help. You seem to know more than the Task Force.”

“It would be helpful if they allowed the families to tell their stories
and let people call in with any news they have. It would be helpful if we could play the phone call the Task Force recorded. I know someone would call in. But that’s not what they do. They want you to cry so the cameras can zoom in on your personal tragedy. They ask questions that have nothing to do with the real case. It takes the whole time to straighten that out before you can get to the case as it really is. And so personal. They get right under your clothes.”

“I can never fathom why guests submit to it as though they’re not free to say, ‘I’d rather we focus on the whys and wherefores of the situation,’ ” Gerry said. You’d think we’d’ve learned something since the sixties—how to keep your eye on the ball, the issue.”

“It’s so childish,” Zala said. “This need to go public to be understood—as if you can be understood by people who don’t even know you.”

Mama Lovey came toward the back porch, a bunch of flowers in her hands. She was stripping away leaves from the stems.

“So,” Gerry said, going to the stove for the kettle. “The witness was cross-examined under deep hypnosis by the cult specialists. Did any of the descriptions McGill offered of her partners-in-crime fit Williams?”

“Possibly one. Hard to tell.”

Zala left the map on the table, but piled the rest of the mail on the tray with Sonny’s envelopes on the bottom. She shoved the tray in the cupboard as Mama Lovey came up the back steps. Gerry beckoned Zala to the pantry, where she poured warm water into the foot tub.