Redemption (31 page)

She got out. “Yes.”

“
After what you’ve done?”

“
Yes. I want you to think it through. Think it all the way through, from the very beginning.”

That phone call.
“
You
were the one who called me.”

She nodded. “You’re warmer than you’ve ever been, Miles, but you’re not quite there. Think it through. From the very beginning.”

“
You could tell me.”

She looked down and backed toward her porch. “I can’t do that, Miles. I made a promise.”

“
To Callie?”

She smiled. “No. See? You don’t know everything yet.” She climbed the stairs and turned back as she opened her door. “See you at the auction?”

“
I’ll be there.”

“
Good night, Miles.”

He drove up and down the streets of Snow trying to think it through.

All the way back to the beginning. But I’ve done that, haven’t I? It all started with J’s death, didn’t it? Or was it a different beginning? But the beginning of what? Callie’s birth? J’s birth? The beginning of my relationship with Callie? Darcy’s death? What?

He checked his watch. He had been up nearly twenty-one hours without any sleep, so he turned for home.

He slowed as he passed Callie’s farmhouse, a single light glowing in her bedroom. “You’ve been up all night, too, huh? A lot of that going around here these days.”

He nearly turned into her drive but continued on home.

Home. Callie’s farmhouse is my real home.

48

Don’t blame him for not stoppin’. That’s what I would have done, too, if someone had kept so many secrets from me. 'Course, I might have done a little damage first, maybe knocked over the mailbox, broke a few windows. Always makes me feel better ... for a little while anyway.

Bet he’s pretty hurt, bet he feels abandoned, betrayed, used and abused.

Good.

Now he knows how we feel.

Wish I didn’t miss him so much, but I’ve known a day would come where we’d hit this crossroads. We hit it right fast, too. Quite a few collisions these past few days. I could talk myself black and blue in the face for days, and he still wouldn’t understand.

He’s gonna have to figure it out and feel it for himself.

Only then will he know what it’s like to be black in Pine County, Virginia.

Saturday, July 10, 1999

49

Jimmy Lee soaked a long time in the pool just after sunup in the shallow end, far from the deep end where he had tossed both his cell phones just a few hours before.

“
You can’t win if I don’t play,” he had said from his window as he watched them tumble three stories into the pool.

“
You can’t win if I don’t play” became his mantra, and after a delicious Bloody Mary and buttered toast breakfast, he chanted it on the way to Darcy’s, the first property to be auctioned. He smiled as he weaved the Jaguar through the masses of people spilling over the sidewalks into the street. He double-parked in front of the pharmacy and bounded through the crowd, his eyes on Travis Dillard setting up his sound system on a card table on the porch.

He pushed through the first row and took the porch steps two at a time, beaming at Travis. “Mornin’, Mr. Dillard.”

“
Mornin’, Mr. Sellers. Nice crowd, huh?”

Jimmy Lee glanced over his shoulder at the throng then back at Travis. “Sure is. You ready?”

Travis stepped closer and whispered, “Have you
looked
at the
crowd,
Mr. Sellers?”

“
What for?”

“
Just take a look.”

Jimmy Lee turned and faced the crowd and saw a sea of black faces, some familiar, most not, some old, some young, and some in between. He caught his breath and forced a smile. He turned back to Travis. “They’re all black,” he whispered.

“
Yep.”

“
Wonder why that is.”

“
So do I. Can’t remember the last time a black person had the highest bid in any of my auctions. Guess there’s always a first time for everything.”

“
You didn’t get any sealed bids?”

“
Nope. Not a one.”

“
On
any
of the properties?”

“
Nope.”

Jimmy Lee swallowed. “Well, maybe the white folks are at the other sites. The other places are nicer anyway.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Or they can’t get through,” Jimmy Lee said. “I had to part the Black Sea to get here.” He laughed and checked his watch. “And it’s almost eight, so ...” He cleared his throat. “Might as well start.”
I’m not counting' on gettin’ much for this house anyway.

“
Yeah,” Travis said. “We got us a storm to beat.”

What storm?

Travis attached a small microphone to his collar and tapped it once. “Mornin’,” he said.

The crowd settled.

“
This is the first stop in today’s auction, so if you don’t win the bid here, there’s plenty more to bid on later today. Let me first give you a description of this property.”

Jimmy Lee tuned out Travis’s description and sat on the porch swing, occasionally turning and smiling at people in the front row. None returned his smile.
Guess they won’t be voting' for me. Black vote never amounted to much in Pine County, though. Least that’s what Daddy always said.

He looked over their heads and saw Autumn Harper taking notes under an elm.
You fit right in, don’t you, Autumn? Birds of a feather. You’re just a little whiter than the rest
.
He also saw
Sheriff Overton leaning against an oak across the street, his arms crossed, his eyes locked on his.
Sorry about your car, Sheriff. You filed your missing deputy report yet?

“
Okay, let’s start the biddin’ at forty-five thousand,” Dillard said, and he began his Foghorn Leghorn hum-chant-rant that made him so entertaining. “Start the bid, uh, I said start the bid, uh, startin’ at forty-five, forty-five, forty-five, do I hear forty-five, uh ...”

Jimmy Lee looked out on the crowd for hands—and didn’t see any.
Shit! Don’t they know we’re startin’ twenty thousand under the tax assessment? We ain’t gonna
give
it away!

Travis turned off the mike and mouthed “Down five?” to Jimmy Lee who nodded, wondering why Joe Graves hadn’t made a bid.
I know Joe’s good for it. He’s probably the only one with any sense—or cents!—out there.

“
Forty, forty, forty, forty, uh, I said do I hear forty, uh ...”

Jimmy Lee searched for hands, for nods, for any kind of gesture.
All they’re doin’ is blinkin’! This ain’t no kind of auction!

He slid off the swing. “Let me talk to them,” he said, and Travis unhooked his mike and handed it to him. Jimmy Lee smiled, but no one smiled back.
This has to be a joke. These are some of the smilingest people on earth!
“Look, I know y’all know that somebody died in this house. I’m a little superstitious, too. But most old houses are like that. I bet many of you are livin’ in homes where somebody died. Am I right?” He looked for a few nods and found none.
Tough crowd.
“This is a fine house, good ‘n’ sturdy. It’s been assessed at sixty-five. We’ll start the next bid at half that, okay?” He handed the mike to Travis.

“
We have an outstanding start of thirty-two-five, I said, uh, thirty-two-five, an outstanding start, uh ...”

Again Jimmy Lee watched, and again the crowd stood mute. He grabbed the mike off Travis’s collar and forced another smile. “Did any of y’all come here to bid today? If you did, please come down here below the stairs. I imagine this large crowd might make you nervous, but don’t be shy.”

The crowd rippled as folks stepped aside to make room for a single, withered, coal-black woman with a bright white shock of hair. She had to be helped up the sidewalk by another woman.

“
Any other bidders?” Jimmy Lee asked, but the crowd had closed ranks again. He looked down on the woman. “You here to bid, ma’am?”

The woman threw her head back, her chin jutting into the air. “
Hell no!
Why I’m gonna bid on somethin’ I
should
already own?”

50

Overton had sensed the tension in the air as the crowd gathered, had smelled it when the bidding began, and had tasted it when no one made a bid.

They’re not here to bid. Why? Why come out here on a sweltering morning, three hundred strong, and not make a bid of any kind? And now a single old woman is turning Jimmy Lee’s fair face whiter. I didn’t know that was possible.

He crossed the street as the crowd pressed closer to the porch, his progress stymied by the considerable width and bulk of Joe Graves. “‘Scuse me, Joe.”

“
Howdy, Sheriff. Tough week, huh?”

“
Yeah.” He tried to slip through the crush but met a wall of backs. He turned to Joe. “What’s going on here, Joe? Who’s that woman?”

“
Mazie Gray.”

“
Why is that name familiar to me?” Overton asked.

Joe nodded toward the house. “This is where Mazie grew up. This is where Mazie lived till the Sellers took it away from her back in the fifties.”

“
Took it away?”

“
Yep. That’s the way it was then, right? Mazie was agitatin’ for integration at the high school, so she lost her house. I think the term they used back then was ‘foreclosure.’”

“
But that only meant that she couldn’t pay her mortgage,” Overton said.

Joe smiled, patting Overton on the back. “Mazie
could
pay her mortgage, Sheriff, and she’d been doin’ it faithfully for years and years, even paid a week early, just to be on the safe side. Then Sellers got involved when
she
got involved with integration. His constituents were worried, don’t you know. Can’t have white folks upset in Snow, right? He made a phone call to the president of the bank, the bank calls the loan, she couldn’t pay the note though folks tried to raise the money to help her, and they took it away.”

Is
this
the beginning Autumn was talking about?

“
To add insult to injury,” Graves said, “who do you think buys it from the bank for much less than it was worth?”

Overton felt ill. “Senator Sellers.”

“
Yep. Today, Old Mazie has herself a cashier’s check for what she owed on that loan back then, and that’s what she’s biddin’ today. Three thousand, four hundred, fifty-seven dollars, and fifteen cents.”

“
How do you know all this?” Overton asked.

“
I’ve heard this story ever since I was a little boy, and it made a deep impression on me, too. I made sure that I’d never owe anyone anything,
especially
no bank run by white people.”

“
But Mazie doesn’t expect to get the house for
that.”
He searched Joe’s eyes. “Does she?”

“
She does.” He laughed. “And we’re here to make sure. Don’t worry. We’re not here to make trouble. We’ll just stand out here till Jimmy Lee does what’s right.” He took Overton’s arm and led him to a shady spot under an elm. “Miles, I know you were seein’ Miss Callie.”

“
Were?”
He caught sight of Autumn on the other side of the tree.

“
Well, after all that’s happened, I just thought ... Anyway, I just want to know how you’d feel if, well, if I started seein’ her. Not right away, now, I don’t want her on the rebound, but eventually. I been likin’ that lady for the longest time, and I—”

“
Joe,” Overton said loud enough for Autumn to hear, “Miss Callie and I are to be
engaged
.”
And I’ve just decided that as of now. What am I thinking? Will I ask her to marry me ... then arrest her? Or will I arrest her and marry her in jail? We’d save a fortune on the ceremony.