How High the Moon Page 15

  We both got to looking about, careful not to be picked out by angry eyes, suspicious and eager for any reason to take out their pain for the murdered girls on someone with brown skin.

  Fred stopped. “We can walk from here,” he said. “Grab a rock.” I didn’t say anything and did as he said. There was a small building behind the sheriff’s station, possibly a storage room. We leaned the bike against it and ducked down. Fred had brought a long stretch of twine from home. I handed him my letter. He rolled the letter and tied the twine around it, knotted it, then, using his penknife, cut it. He tied the other end of the twine around the long rock.

  “I wrote one, too,” he said. “Grab me a rock.” While I searched for a good-size rock that would hold the twine ’round it without slipping, he took his letter out and rolled it like mine.

  “Here.” I handed him a rock and looked around the side of the building. I’d heard voices, and sure enough, two men were walking toward us. I jumped back and tapped Fred. “Someone’s coming this way,” I whispered. He stopped still and listened. I tried not to breathe. The voices stopped, but the steps got closer until we heard a door open. There was some rustling inside, followed by muffled voices. Then the door closed. Footsteps walked away toward the station. Fred held my arm as if to say, Don’t move. He slowly peered around the building, then turned back to me. “They’re gone.”

  There was only one window to the jail, on the back side of the building, up high. There wasn’t a soul around when we walked to the back of the building, ready to take aim at the window.

  As Fred secured the twine with my note attached to the rock, I could swear I heard a sound coming from inside. Soft and low, but something like crying. I looked to the window and strained to hear it again, but the sound never came again.

  We’d chosen rocks that were heavy enough to make it up and through the barred window, but not so large as to get stuck between the bars or make too much noise when they landed inside. Fred studied the height of the window, the width of the bars, the weight of the rock. I could see his mind working hard in the crease of his brow. With my body hidden around the back of the building, I kept watch of the front in case someone should wander toward where we were.

  Finally Fred threw the rock, letter attached. He lofted it up and forward. It went all the way up and through the bars on the first try.

  But the clanging sound was loud and tinny, even to us all the way outside the building. The rock must’ve struck a metal chair or a bench in there.

  “Shoot!” Fred gasped.

  “We gotta go!” I ran for the bike behind the storage building. Fred stayed behind. He wanted to throw his letter, too. I turned to see him toss it up, but it fell short.

  Voices could be heard from the front of the station. Someone was coming out.

  “Fred!” I whispered as loud as I could. Fred lifted the rock again, backed up a couple of feet, eyes measuring where he needed to aim just right. He tossed the rock up and it made it to the window, but landed on the rim, between two bars. “Come on!” I said.

  Fred shook his head in frustration and ran to me and the bike. I was already seated. We took off for the tracks before anyone could see us. I just hoped George got ahold of that letter before anyone else. That he could hide it. It was for George’s eyes only. He’d read how I, and everybody, was thinking of him. That we knew he was innocent. That everything was going to be okay. They’d all see that he didn’t do this thing. He just had to be strong and have faith.

  Fred’s nerves had him talking fast on the way home.

  “All that noise worked out just fine,” he said. “While they’re out looking for us in the back, George’ll be inside knocking my letter down from the ledge and reading ’em both ’fore anybody has a chance to get to them first.”

  “Yeah,” I said, though I couldn’t be sure that was true.

  “He’ll have time to hide them letters and all they’ll see’ll be the rocks, and they’ll just figure some white boys threw ’em in there.” He was standing on the pedals, pushing on ’em hard.

  The wind in my face cooled the tears on my cheeks. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. It was happening so frequently, I was beginning not to notice.

  Clouds were moving in, inching out the light and threatening rain. We felt good about what we’d done. George could look out his window tonight and know that he was not alone.

  henry

  That night, everything was tense.

  As I suspected, Ella wasn’t gone long, but when she came back, she wouldn’t say nothing to me.

  “Did you talk to him?” I asked her.

  “Nuh-uh” was all she’d offer. For the rest of the day and night, I kept trying to get her to talk to me, but she wouldn’t answer nothing. Just shrugged, or shook her head.

  Ella and I helped Granny pull up the mustard and turnip greens from the garden, along with enough sweet peas for the evening meal. Ella was silent throughout, head bent forward, eyes on the peas and the greens and the earth below. The air over the farm was still ’cept for the sound of Granny humming. Something low and familiar, but I couldn’t place it. At one point, I heard Poppy pull up in the truck. He’d have been in town selling turnips and onions. It was still too early for potatoes.

  Everyone was moving about like we always did. Everything seemed normal. But things weren’t normal at all. There was something brewing.

  Ella knew as well as I did that “J.P.” could very well be Jackson Parker. He always kinda watched after our family like we mattered to him. Always doing nice stuff for us. Asking after us. And he’d let me go after taking that lure.

  Poppy’s rocker creaked rhythmically on the porch slats. The sweet smell of his pipe tobacco wafted inside. Myrna wasn’t home yet. I’d been trying to distract Granny from noticing that Myrna was gone. I was certain she’d run off to meet up with Fred and Ben, though I never did hear what they were planning outside Parker’s. Eventually Granny came inside and walked up behind me.

  “Where’s Myrna?” She looked out the window. It wasn’t yet night, but darkness hovered, silent. The air was thick. The sky was brimming with rain clouds fit to burst any minute.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and snuck a look at Ella, but she didn’t look up. Just plopped down in a chair with her basketful of peas and got to shelling. Granny let out a heavy, annoyed sigh. I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and started shelling, too.

  Granny dipped a cloth into a can of lard and spread the waxy oil along the bottom of a muffin pan. The crinkled skin on her hands gave the impression of frailty, but Granny was anything but. Her whole life she’d been using those hands to make clothes and food. To fix broken toys and mend shoes. She’d been shearing sheep with those hands, milking cows, reaching inside frightened mamas and bringing them healthy new babies.

  She’d been there at my birth, too. She said I took a lot of coaxing to come out of my mama’s womb, and that I would’ve stayed there another nine months if folks would’ve left me alone. Cozy as could be and in no rush. Ella, on the other hand, was anxious to get born. Granny said she came earlier than anyone expected. When Aunt Lucille felt the contractions come on, Granny went to make her a bath, but by the time she’d filled the tub, Ella was already pushing into the world.

  The screen door slammed and Myrna bounded past the kitchen and down the hall.

  “Hey! I forgot I had Loretta’s history book. Had to take it to her. I was carrying it for her yesterday, and…” Her voice trailed off as she went to the bedroom and closed the door.

  “Girl! You lucky you didn’t get rained on!” Granny called.

  Granny gave an extra swipe of grease to the sides of each muffin tin, then carefully folded the oily rag into smaller and smaller squares, till she couldn’t fold it anymore. She laid it on the kitchen counter and washed her hands.

  In a moment, raindrops were coming down—in loud, uneven thumps at first, but in only a matter of seconds, the skies opened up and slammed their fury on the rooftop.


  I was carefully pulling silks from the corn when something off to the side of me caught my eye. I turned and saw Ella, in the same spot she’d been shucking, only moments ago, now tearing at the corn. Clawing at the soft yellow flesh of the kernels, its pale juice rolling down her hands, her arms, the floor.

  Granny, standing near the kitchen sink, hadn’t noticed the platter of mangled corn, or that Ella had stopped putting the husks in the paper bag but had been dropping them, along with their stringy silks, onto the floor.

  Poppy came into the kitchen, squinting into his pipe as his finger worked to dig out something that had lodged itself there. Without looking up from his pipe, he pointed to Ella. “Hand me that there penknife, would you, Ella?”

  Ella stood and let the metal bowl, filled with green, unhusked corn, fall to the floor. The loud clang rippled and echoed and seemed to sound off for a long time after the bowl had fallen. Corn rolled in different directions across the floor.

  “What in God’s name?” Poppy started.

  “It’s Mr. Parker, ain’t it?” Ella blurted. “Tell me the truth! Is he my daddy?”

  “Ella!” Granny scolded, but Ella kicked the bowl across the room.

  “Tell me!” she shouted, then turned to Poppy. “Tell me! It ain’t right to keep it from me!”

  Poppy opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word, Ella laid into him.

  “That ain’t right! I shoulda known! Y’all shoulda told me!”

  Myrna appeared at the door to the hall. “What’s going on?”

  Ella was visibly shaking. She searched Granny’s face for the truth, and, sure she’d seen it, she turned to Poppy for confirmation. He looked at her, but didn’t say nothing. A quiet sound, like a whimper, came outta Ella before she ran past Myrna, into their room, and slammed the door. We all stood in a bit of shock as she got to throwing things around in there. Breaking things. Screaming, raging. Myrna started to go in after her, but Granny stopped her.

  “No.” She waved a hand at her and shook her head. “Leave her be.”

  Myrna turned to Poppy, but he only sighed, eyes on the peas strewn about the floor, but mind somewhere else. She turned to me, eyes still wide, jaw slack. I just shook my head. I couldn’t speak either.

  The bedroom door burst open and Ella ran out. She ran past Myrna, past all of us in the kitchen. Tore through the front door and into the pouring rain. Poppy followed her out the door and into the driveway.

  “Ella!” he called. Sheets of rain were coming down. I could barely hear him through the banging on the roof. There was no sign of her.

  ella

  They’d lied to me! All of them! Granny, Poppy, Mama, Mr. Parker! They all knew and they all lied!

  I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop my legs from moving forward. Couldn’t stop my wailing, silent against the downpour. The rain drowned all sounds, all thoughts, all tears.

  I didn’t know where I was going or when I’d go home. I just knew I needed to move. To go. To do something. But what could I really do? I couldn’t run from it. It just was. It had always been.

  I lifted my face to the sky and let it pour over me.

  Ella Louise Parker.

  And I had a sister: Millie. All this time, I could’ve been a big sister to her. I could’ve fixed her hair for her and taught her how to do things. What would I teach her? I’d never been a big sister. I was always the youngest. Amie was about the same age as Millie. I tried to think of what George had taught his little sister. I wondered where Amie was now. Did she know that her brother was in prison? Did she know why? What did they tell her when she cried at night?

  I had so many questions swarming in my head. What did it mean for me to be half white? I sure didn’t feel no different. I’d been colored my whole life. Some folks I knew, they hated white folks more than the devil himself. Said white folks was mean and evil and that they couldn’t help theyselves. That it was in the blood.

  I had white blood in me. Was I evil? I didn’t feel evil. But maybe I was. All I knew for certain was that I was mad.

  All of them had lied to me!

  When the rain finally stopped, I stared up into the sky and searched for the first stars of the night. There still must’ve been a layer of clouds ’cause I couldn’t make out any. Just black night.

  The birds were silent. The street, calm. I stopped running. Stopped crying.

  I left the road and walked awhile through the fresh stillness of the woods, focused only on the sound of the squish of the mud, my mind rested. My clothes were glued to my body, completely soaked through. I was dripping, a little cold, and ready to sit. Soon I was at Creek’s Clearing. The sound of the water lapping gently across the rocks soothed me. White light bounced over the creek’s black surface. The moon pushed itself a little closer through the clouds. I sat beside the creek, the wet earth on the back of my thighs.

  Finally, the moon came out fully. So did the stars, like brilliant white glitter. I caught a shooting star’s brief trail and closed my eyes. So many questions and thoughts filled my head, but no wish would come.

  Only one other person could feel so alone. I thought of George, all by himself in that cold cell. If George had a window in his cell, maybe he was looking out that window at this very moment. Maybe he saw the same shooting star and made a wish. Maybe we were both staring at that same moon high in the glittering sky.

  Tree frogs chirped. A nearby barn owl screeched. I let the familiar sounds wash over me and through me.

  And then a voice broke the moment.

  “Wandering alone at night? What happened, girl, you lose your way home?”

  I didn’t recognize the voice, but when I turned and saw those pocked cheeks and sneery top lip, I remembered him. He was the same fella me and Henry saw right here at the creek before I went to Boston. Same white boy who’d thumped my hat and talked mean. Only this time he had a couple of friends with him. All of them were muddy and soaked through.

  I was certain these white boys didn’t live anywhere near here. I’d have known them. Sometimes troublemakers came across the tracks looking to have fun messing with the colored folks, but I suspected this was something different. I suspected these boys had come to the colored part of town on account of George Stinney.

  I stood and peeled my skirt from the back of my legs. The boy doing the talking was taller than I was. His friends were stockier, but both wearing matching scowls.

  “No, sir.” I kept my eyes on the ground and began to walk past them, away from the creek.

  “I ain’t done with you!” he said sharply. I turned back to him, without looking up. “What kinda girl is out walking around by herself after dark? You looking for some kind of trouble?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  “Looks to me like she wants some trouble.” He looked briefly at each of his friends, then turned back to me. “What you all think?”

  “I think she does,” one of them said before spitting.

  “Maybe she just likes the rain,” said the other one, and they all shared a hollow laugh.

  Even with my head bent, looking at the mud under our feet, I could feel their eyes on me. They liked me like this, crouched over and afraid.

  “I have to go,” I said, and continued walking.

  “I bet you’s friends with that boy that killed them white girls,” he spat as I passed him. I felt them behind me, following. “That boy gonna fry. That’s if we don’t string him up first!”

  I kept moving forward. I had to get out of the woods and onto the road.

  “I said I wasn’t through with you!” he called.

  My breaths were short and I was trembling, but I kept on walking. I was quietly praying they’d just back off and go about getting their kicks somewhere else. I told my legs to keep moving. The stirring of leaves and branches on the ground and their whispering voices behind me told me they were still there. They weren’t letting me go. And they were getting closer.

  Just as I’d cleared the woods and saw the road
out in front of me, I felt a sharp burn across my scalp as I was yanked backward by my braids. I don’t think he meant to throw me onto the ground, but he pulled me back with such force that I lost my footing and he lost the grip on my hair. Rocks and branches tore at the skin of my bare thigh.

  Quickly the bullies huddled over me, blocking out the moon’s light and any sort of escape. I kicked at them wildly and heard one of them laugh.

  “A fighter, huh?” one of ’em said, just before kicking me deep in the stomach, knocking all the wind out of me. I gasped and, as strong as the pain was in my gut, I still tried to stand, to get away. Again, I felt the sharp sting on my scalp as one of them grabbed my braids, while another grabbed an arm, and they dragged me through the mud. I squirmed violently, swatted at their hands, screaming the entire time.

  “Get offa me! Let me go!”

  The gurgling of the creek began to fill my ears and I realized they were dragging me closer to the water.

  I twisted and turned my body hard, trying to make their hands come loose, but it didn’t do nothing. Finally, at the edge of the creek, they stopped. One of ’em dropped my arm, but the other, with my hair in his hands, pushed my face down into the mud. I reached up for his arm and dug my nails deep into his skin. He beat my hands away and yanked my head up.

  “We gonna teach you a lesson,” he said, and pushed my face into the mud again.

  I jerked my head to the side to catch air. The earth was in my eyes, my mouth, my nose. Again I clawed at his arm, but quickly felt a boot kick my hands and then settle itself in the middle of my back, pushing my belly and chest firmly into the ground. I could barely breathe. And then, when everything was splashing and slapping, and the blood in my head was racing, and my lungs had screamed out all the breath they had in ’em, everything went quiet. He let go of my head. Pulled his arm away. The boot let up off my back. There was another struggle, but this time, it was the boys who were squealing. A man’s voice cut through the wailing. It was strong and firm like Poppy’s. It was a voice I’d heard before.