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Bridges
By Leatha J. Patton iUniverse, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Leatha J. Patton
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-1392-1
CHAPTER 1
Without time to reload his rifle, he took its butt end and, leaning from his horse, slammed it hard against Calvin Beckford's leg. But Beckford, large and strong even in his advanced years, did not go down as intended. Instead the violent act caused his aim to shift from its target, and consequently, the bullet tore into the animal. Beckford snatched away the white hood just as the horse, whinnying, fell heavily to the ground. The dead weight pinned the rider underneath, killing him instantly, leaving the face and head of the man visible and exposing cold, lifeless eyes in a vaguely recognizable face. Drifting clouds again obscured the moonlight as Beckford stood at the entrance of the forest on the wide strip of land that separated it from the cotton crop. The menacing flames had died, but segments of the destroyed crop yet billowed with smoke.
"On my own land!" Beckford bellowed, his voice carrying through the woods. "On my own land, Goddamn it."
To further enrage him were the bodies of his sons, swaying like pendulums in the trees, visible whenever the moon emerged from behind the clouds. He was certain that this dastardly act was retaliation for all the dead bodies that lay motionless on the ground. He braced himself, expecting that more were coming, but then realized the gunshots he heard were dispersing the remaining trouble into the woods. Once more, the moon's light allowed visibility, and he had to focus. He looked down at the calf of his right leg in the semidarkness and saw that he had sustained a nasty wound that was bleeding profusely; the partly frayed, bloody pant leg lay limp and wet against it. Anxiously he tore away enough of the pant leg to expose the injured calf. With the torn cloth, Beckford tied a tourniquet above the bleeding gash, moaning at the pain. His mother had taught him about tourniquets many, many years ago.
"Beckford," a voice called in the darkness. "Beckford!"
He recognized the younger McDermott approaching him beneath what was becoming a clear night sky in Georgia; following close behind was Sheriff Getties. All other law enforcement had left. The moon began to steadily reveal itself from behind the clouds, casting light on the ghastly carnage.
Calvin Beckford knew that he would carry to his grave the horrendous images of his sons dangling like ragdolls in the trees at the entrance of those woods.
Raleigh McDermott IV's rifle was over one shoulder as he walked toward Calvin Beckford. Approaching the grotesque sight of the swaying bodies at the mouth of the woods, he suppressed his shocked reaction as best he could; quickly his attention was diverted to Beckford's leg.
"I think that's a nasty wound, Beckford," he said. He then turned to Sheriff Getties. "You'll pass by Blaine's place, won't you?" Dr. Blaine was the one doctor around who did not discriminate against blacks. McDermott wasn't able to disguise the tremor in his voice.
"I'll make sure he gets over there," Getties answered in almost a mumble to conceal his confused anger. "Beckford," Getties continued with a measure of discomfiture, "we need to cut them down."
"Leave them be," Beckford replied with emotion in his voice. "I'm coming back for them."
It was an awkward moment for all three. McDermott kept his head averted as the sheriff appeared helplessly baffled.
"Well, I'm done here," McDermott finally said because his emotions were beginning to betray him. Hurriedly, he left the two men; in a day or so he would assess the damage.
Calvin Beckford watched the younger McDermott as he left the site on foot and in the distance saw his horse, barely visible, waiting patiently. He shifted most of the weight to his unwounded leg, limping with great effort over to his chestnut, Dan, as the throbbing pain intensified his wrath and devastated sorrow.
"I would rather die on my own soil than live off it," he said softly but with fierce conviction because Getties's reputation was well known.
"Now, now, Beckford, there's no need to talk like that."
The main culprits were dead or had been chased off; the worst was now over.
"I have sacrificed two sons," he replied in anguish. "None could be greater, so there's no need to stop now."
"Can you ride your horse, Beckford?" Getties gruffly asked.
Calvin looked down at the wound on his lower right calf. He managed to thwart any assistance and slowly climbed on his horse, with great difficulty.
"Dad," Medgar, his eldest, had teased, "you need to learn to ride." He was fifteen at the time. His response to his father's protest was laughter. "But you are no longer a slave—you're a free man. You don't always want to be bothered with hitching a horse to wagon."
His leg continued to throb with pain. Gently he nudged the animal, and it responded obediently by trotting slowly, carrying him away from the site of death as, fleetingly, he endured an eerie, out-of-body experience. He would never know if the sheriff would have shot him had McDermott not been present, and at this point he was beyond caring.
"The doctor needs to look at that leg, Beckford," Getties called out gruffly while Beckford was still within hearing range. "I'll send him."
The bright moon continued to cast its fixed gleam on the horror in the trees as well as that strewn on the ground. Getties, frightfully mesmerized by the monstrous sight, abruptly turned away and momentarily hesitated in his saddle. Down through the years he had infrequently jailed or threatened the incarceration of whites. Years of deception had denied whites the well-disguised information about his origin. Otherwise, his position, which now generated fear and respect, would have quickly dissipated, and perhaps he too would be hanging in a noose from a tree branch. Thankfully, in appearance he had managed to escape his mother's curse—the slight brush of the tar. He felt a pang of regret; the world was not a nice place.
Calvin Beckford continued to travel the distance of approximately a quarter mile to his house. He could ride as well as his sons, but Dan had a cold and could manage only a trotting gait and not the full gallop required. Common sense told him that even if the horse had been in top condition, he would have arrived in the field too late.
Getties continued to watch Beckford as he gradually diminished to a tiny silhouette against the horizon of an early dawn. It was in times such as these that he warred with emotions of self-rebuke, incapable of purging mental pictures of the hauntingly sad eyes of his mother. It had been so many years ago since he had abandoned her. It was coincidental that he had learned of her death upon his return to this place.
He thought back to the sight of McDermott mounted in his saddle at the entrance of the Beckford property earlier that night, patiently awaiting his arrival, as if daring him not to show up. But once he and his men arrived, they were hampered by a combination of pitch blackness and drifting smoke from the burning crop. The conditions taunted even the law. He had practically stepped on a dead body. Finally, after traveling by foot for quite a distance on Beckford land in the variably dense forest, he and his deputized men managed to defuse the remainder of the mob—at least all who had not already escaped. It was doubtful that any of that rambunctious group would have allowed themselves to be jailed even if those deputized by court order had tried. The gunshots permitted all remaining perpetrators to flee like candle wax melting from a flame. As the chaos subsided, McDermott caught up to join him on foot, and then both encountered Beckford.
Getties thought back further to McDermott's cold steel gaze as he stood in Getties's living room earlier that evening. "I apologize for coming to your home on business, but I tried to get to you before you left your office. I won't be long, Jim," McDermott had said, removing his hat but refusing the offered seat with an explanation that he was short on time. "Trouble is brewing in the hinterland, and I know how you are about that type of thing."
Sheriff Getties frowned slightly. "I'm not following you."
"I know how you are about not interfering with things that are unlawful when they deal with 'keeping niggers in their place,' Getties."
Since the McDermotts no longer grew crops, the agreement was that the Beckfords could grow cotton on both properties. Therefore, he didn't mention the significant encroachment on his property.
The culprits were the descendents of Grainger and Burton Kane who were still engaged in maintaining the ongoing feud that had existed since plantation days between them and the McDermotts. During those days Grainger and Burton Kane were considered yeomen farmers. The problem began when McDermott's great-grandfather had seized most of the best land. But it had transpired long ago and was now irreversible.
It was common knowledge that the McDermotts were having a relatively difficult time keeping the mill solvent because no longer was there unpaid labor to pick the crop. So Grainger and Kane had concocted a scheme to force the Beckfords to discontinue growing cotton for the mill. Therefore, the McDermotts would have no choice but to pay a higher price for the stuff. What more appropriate time to turn business away from the Beckfords to themselves! No longer would they have to compete on the open market with the other cotton growers as before when the McDermotts still had a captive labor force.
"But what's happening is unjustified," McDermott had continued. "It's much like the incident which occurred on your watch about ten years back, remember?" He was referring to the random lynching of a free black man, a drifter looking for work. At the time, the cavalry, although not ubiquitous, still occupied much of the South to provide protection for the newly freed black population. Getties, a US marshal in the region at the time, could have assisted county law enforcement in preventing the lynching. The gruesome event was in keeping with incidents that were becoming more frequent all over the South. These incidents caused Raleigh McDermott IV unease and led his father to label him a throwback to his great-uncle, Neville.
"Now see here, McDermott, I—"
"Just a second, hear me out," said McDermott quietly. In contemplation he smoothed the brim of his hat, rendering Getties a thoughtful and steady gaze. "You know, my great-grandparents knew the Oglesby family. They remembered when the plantation's patriarch, Andrew Oglesby, had a quadroon for a plaything. She was pregnant with child when he bought her. It was discovered that this young girl had been cohabiting with the previous overseer and gave birth to a female octoroon. As the story goes, years passed, and on weekends this particular female, after about fifteen years of age, was passed around to guests; in time she birthed a son who, born under the Oglesby umbrella, was one-sixteenth Negro. One day that teenage boy left Georgia, just slipped away during the night sometime before the Civil War. A search party was loosely thrown together to look for him for a few days. On occasion his name would come up because we wondered what had become of him. Well, the story intrigued me even more than it did the others.
"When you were assigned jurisdiction over this region, I couldn't quite place the familiar resemblance. I don't think anyone else noticed, but since my family and yours were well acquainted for many years and at one time visited each other. I recalled the likeness. One day I realized you were more than just under the Oglesby umbrella. There was a likeness. You possessed the signature features of the Oglesby males—the same blue-gray eyes, ruddy complexion, and blonde hair and that very pronounced nose, the Oglesby trademark."
The angry sheriff looked taken aback.
"I guess you're wondering how I knew since you're no longer known as an Oglesby, a name that can be traced back to your house slave beginnings. In search of respectability, you carefully changed your name. For a while you resided in another state, but after the legislation of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, you were assigned to this region as a US marshal. Keep in mind, my background as a lawyer allows me to methodically track information with critical thoroughness unavailable to the average citizen." He paused briefly. "You allowed your aspirations to run amuck, causing your reputation to precede you." He laughed wryly. "In many slave quarters you were called Marshal 'Hound Dog' Getties. 'I always get my nigger'—that is how you were quoted in the law enforcement community, chasing your own, searching for your own, lynching your own." He paused momentarily. "They are your own, Getties, because the one-drop rule still applies. Is that why you never married—afraid of risking the price of retribution for past deeds?" He paused with a quiet laugh and shrugged. "I can't say that I blame you. There is that universal law in some form."
Getties appeared petrified, clutching the arms of his chair so tightly his knuckles were visibly white.
"Do your job, Oglesby." McDermott paused, feigning mild apology. "Excuse me. You're Getties, James Getties." Mocking him, he tipped his hat, placed it back on his head, and offered a sardonic smile. "No more Josiah Oglesby for you, isn't that right?"
Getties's emotions were doing a tailspin. He felt as if he had just been doused with ice water. He was loath to mentally revisit his humble beginnings and have them recalled by himself or anyone else.
"Don't worry, Getties, I will always keep the secret because it is in my benefit to do so. I will keep my end of the bargain as long as you keep yours. Got it?"
He didn't answer but stared warily. He wanted to ask McDermott why he was so concerned with this nigger.
"Got it?" McDermott repeated pointedly.
"I believe that I do."
McDermott turned and left.
Young Raleigh McDermott IV was a prominent lawyer. His father, Raleigh McDermott, III, was only a part-time judge because of his involvement with the textile mill. One of the three law clerks, almost frightened out of his wits, had passed on the sinister news that pertained to the mill. Everybody knew that the Beckfords, ex-slaves of the McDermotts, grew the cotton crop. Without prompt relay of upcoming disaster, things would have been much worse.
Because of the prestige of the McDermotts throughout the county and beyond, things were aborted quickly. The court order was implemented at the discretion of a colleague, thus allowing Judge McDermott to avoid a conflict of interest. Getties, with the reluctant local law enforcement and even less enthused court-ordered deputies, arrived to put down an onslaught, which saved Calvin Beckford's life.
To this day, Getties held a mental picture of McDermott's great-uncle, Preston, mounted on his gray mare gazing down to greet his nephew and Getties as they played in the front yard of the Jade mansion. Getties still recalled that he had continued to play as he watched the man at short intervals until he was out of sight. He would never forget those cold, steel gray eyes, and he decided now that, yes, of course he too had known. All the so-called Southern gentlemen conversed with one another away from public spaces and their wives. It was the last he ever saw of the Jade plantation. Thereafter, the mistress slipped away without him.
Getties thought again about McDermott's remarks as he left the Beckford land. How had McDermott discovered his involvement in that one particular incident? In fact, it had happened only a relatively short distance away in a similarly wooded area. He had been guilty of nothing but remaining passive, but for weeks afterward, the ancestors had castigated him relentlessly.
The former marshal wondered what the mood of the South and the remainder of the country would be if all blacks had been cut from Beckford's mold. Exactly what was the bond between the McDermotts and the Beckfords? Why did the Beckfords not carry the plantation name as did the majority of freed blacks? He would probably never know. His thoughts drifted to the Haitian Revolution that had erupted during the latter part of the last century. Since their slaveholding counterparts on that island had met a tragic end, most never mentioned it. He hurriedly discarded these thoughts.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bridges by Leatha J. Patton. Copyright © 2013 Leatha J. Patton. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, LLC.
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