Wesley and I well knew the stories. They were part of our heritage. Once, it had been Wynn’s Mill. But the W-Y-N-N spelling had been mutated to W-I-N-D. It was even spelled W-I-N-D in church bulletins and in the social columns of local newspapers, where religious and civic activities were chronicled. The change of name—sounds alike, different spelling—was not deliberate; it was the impact of folklore.
During the Civil War, in that final, desperate gesture of defense against northern forces, one of the sons of the Wynn family became obsessed with the fear of dying in battle, so he made a hiding place behind the great paddle, beneath the flooring of the mill, and there he stayed as Confederate troops rode through and enlisted farmers to fight for the honor and heritage of the South. Fear and shame made a hermit of the deserter. No one really knew what had happened to him, but the stories had him dying in his hiding place, and his spirit condemned to that same prison. At night, the wind moaned through the paddles and there were those who swore it was the dead man’s spirit begging to be released. That is when the name changed to Wind’s Mill—because of the wind and the dead man’s spirit. Skeptics would make pilgrimages to discount the dead man’s pitiful cry for forgiveness. “There’s nothing to it,” they would say, standing on the steel-beam bridge crossing Beaverjam Creek. “Nothin’.” But you could tell by the tightness of their voices that none of them would spend the night alone at Wind’s Mill.
It was Freeman who told the story of the dead man, with Dover gravely nodding his appreciation and saying quietly, “Uh-huh. That’s right. That’s what folks say.”
Somewhere far off a dog bayed and Dover thought about Bark.
“We better be goin’, boys,” Dover said. “Bark’s not been fed.”
“Yeah,” agreed Freeman. “I got to work in the warehouse some tomorrow.”
“On Sunday?” asked Wesley.
“On Sunday, Wes. You do what you supposed to.”
“Freeman, you are bound to get in trouble workin’ on the Lord’s day,” Dover joked.
“I am bound to get myself fired if I don’t, and Old Man Hixon didn’t do no cartwheels because of my run-in with Dupree. He done warned me.” Freeman laughed easily. “I must be leadin’ the world in bein’ warned by the Hixon family.”
“You better watch it, that’s all.”
“I always do, Dover,” answered Freeman. “I always do.”
10
BEFORE SHE MARRIED and moved from our house, my sister Susan would cover herself with a quilt in a corner of the middle room when it rained, or thundered, or when lightning staged its primitive dance across the skies. She would not move except to breathe. In our very, very young years, we thought Susan hid as a game and we delighted with wiggling in and out of that dark quilt cave as thunder lashed its terrible complaint outside. But as we grew older, we realized Susan was not playing games; she was afraid. The loud voice of thunder was the loud voice of demons and it was advisable to cover your face and close your eyes and not anger the demons—who were angry enough if you knew how to translate their popping, cruel language.
We missed Susan when she married. On days of storm, the middle room seemed lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural, without Susan.
It was lopsided, out of balance, and unnatural on the Sunday following our afternoon with the Dasher Brothers Flying Circus and the hot dog roast at Wind’s Mill. It had begun to rain in early morning, the kind of rain which would fall through the day, into night and into sleep. High, black clouds boiled up and tortured Earth with lightning, spreading like witches’ fingers, and Earth (or the demons) screamed and trembled with each painful jolt.
We crowded near the radio in early night and listened to Sunday gospel quartet singing. Mother lit the huge kerosene lamp we reserved for company and placed it on the rolltop desk. “Just for warmth,” she said.
My mother had a gift for warmth. It was in the way she spoke, in the way she touched, the way she surprised us with gingerbread and hot chocolate; it was in the way she yearned to hurt when we hurt and rejoice when we rejoiced.
“Remember this rain,” she told us. “Remember sitting here and remember how warm a kerosene lamp can be. Soon, it’ll be different every time it rains. When we get the REA, we won’t all be bunched up in a corner like this.”
“Why, Mama?” asked Lynn.
“Because there’ll be a light in the middle of the ceiling and it’ll make the whole room bright, instead of just one little corner, and you’ll all be playing by yourself instead of sittin’ together.”
“If Susan was here, she wouldn’t be playin’,” I said.
“Well, maybe not Susan, but that’s all right,” answered Mother. “We’re all afraid of something. It’s just that Susan’s afraid of thunder.”
“Well, I’ll be glad when we get some electricity,” said Louise. “Maybe we can get us a radio that doesn’t have static all the time.”
*
It had stopped raining on Monday, but it was a gray morning and there was a fine, chilling mist, part fog. Wesley and I went to the corn crib after breakfast and began to shuck corn, stacking the ears in neat, yellow pyramids. It was hateful work, and frightening. My father always kept a king snake in the corn crib. King snakes loved to feast on rats, but king snakes were not poisonous. It didn’t matter. We knew that somewhere, warm and cozy under the heat of corn shucks, a king snake was curled, waiting. Garry absolutely refused to go near the corn crib, and, once, my sister Frances had accidentally sat on a king snake and she gave a horrible description of snake fangs sinking into flesh.
Corn shucking was a wet-day ceremony, the always-something-else job. But there was one consolation, one promise: if we worked long enough to achieve my father’s predetermined goal of the number of bushels needed, we would be permitted to fish the swollen streams that fed into Beaverjam Creek. When it rained, catfish rallied by schools at the mouth of those streams, gobbling away at the fresh supply of land food washed into the inlets. We knew R. J. and Paul and Otis would be fishing one of the spots. We would find them, and if we were lucky we would find Willie Lee and his brother, who was named Baptist. They were the two funniest fishermen in Emery, and we loved to sit with them as they argued over the size of catfish nibbling the bait off hooks, or who had eaten the last can of sardines that Willie Lee’s wife, Little Annie, had packed for them. We seldom saw Baptist, except while fishing. He was a nervous man. He believed in ghosts and good luck charms and he was an encyclopedia of dos and don’ts in man’s efforts to solicit fortune from the spirit world. Baptist claimed to hold the world’s record in the number of times he had seen the Soldier Ghost floating in the trees of the old Civil War cemetery, but Willie Lee said Baptist was crazy and the only thing he had ever seen in the cemetery was the moon shining on the leaves of the guarding oaks.
Wesley and I were talking about Willie Lee and Baptist and predicting where they might be on Beaverjam Creek, when Mother appeared in the doorway of the corn crib. She had driven to Emery to buy groceries and had promised to tell Freeman we would be fishing. Sometimes Freeman could beg off work, if the invitation to do something was irresistible.
Mother’s face was splotched with anger. “Boys,” she said, trembling, “Freeman’s just been arrested.”
Wesley stood. “What?”
“Freeman,” Mother repeated. “He’s just been arrested.”
I remembered what Dover had told Freeman, that someday he would get in trouble for working on Sunday.
“Why?” I asked. “What’s Freeman done, Mama?”
“Mr. Hixon said he stole twenty dollars from the store. He called the sheriff.”
“Freeman wouldn’t do that,” Wesley said. “Who said he stole it?”
“They did,” Mother said, releasing her anger. “Mr. Hixon said it was Freeman. Said Dupree and that little Haynes boy saw him take it off a counter.” Mother cared deeply for Freeman. He was her personal social concern, and she had spent hours prying into his personality and saying silent prayers for
the welfare of his soul.
“Did you see him, Mama?” asked Wesley.
“Just for a minute. Mr. Hixon was holdin’ him in the back of the store for Sheriff Brownlee to get over from Edenville.”
“What’d Freeman say?”
“Not much, Wesley. He was ashamed to see me, I guess,” Mother answered. “He did say he didn’t do it. Said Dupree was telling a lie, and asked me if I’d tell his mama that.”
Wesley sat on the floor of the corn crib and began to slowly strip the shuck away from an ear of corn. “I bet Freeman’s tellin’ the truth,” he said, finally. “I bet Dupree had somethin’ to do with it. He’s been tryin’ to find some way to get to Freeman all summer.”
“What’ll they do to Freeman, Wesley?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“They’ll take him over to the jail,” Mother said angrily. “He’ll be locked up with drunks and crooks and God only knows what else.”
“He’s not but fourteen years old,” Wesley said, almost as an afterthought.
“That won’t make any difference, boys. It’s a stealing offense and that means jail, no matter what age he is.” Mother was trying to contain her temper, but she could envision Freeman shoved behind bars with criminals who worked the road gangs in their striped convict uniforms.
“What’re we gonna do, Mama?” I asked.
“I told your daddy. He was up at the house. He said he’d go over there and see what it was about. Said something might be worked out. Maybe he could post bail for Freeman, or something.”
“Can we go with Daddy?” I pleaded. “Me’n Wesley?”
“No,” Mother answered sharply. “No. I’m sorry, boys, but it’s something you ought not be around.”
“Freeman’s our friend, Mama.”
“She’s right,” Wesley decided. “It’d just make Freeman feel bad, and I guess he feels bad enough already. If Daddy can do anythin’, he will. If he can’t, it’s just gonna be Freeman’s word against Mr. Hixon’s.”
“Couldn’t we wait in the car?” I begged.
“No,” Mother answered. “You can wait up at the house, but it’s best that we handle this, and we need to be goin’ on over. If Freeman’s daddy gets there before the sheriff, there may be some real trouble. Your daddy can stop all that.”
*
We waited for more than an hour before we saw our Mother’s 1938 Ford appear, sliding cautiously along the slippery red road, and as she stopped beneath the pecan tree in the front yard, we saw that she was alone.
“What happened?” I asked eagerly. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s with Sheriff Brownlee,” she said. “Freeman escaped over on Rakestraw Bridge Road.”
“He…?” Wesley exclaimed.
“Escaped,” Mother repeated. “We were followin’ them over to Edenville to see about postin’ a bond, and when Sheriff Brownlee slowed down to cross Rakestraw Bridge, Freeman jumped out and ran off in the swamp.”
“He got away?” I asked, amazed at Freeman’s boldness.
“I don’t know,” Mother said, slipping wearily into a chair. “When I left, Sheriff Brownlee and your daddy and Freeman’s daddy were after him.”
Wesley walked to the window and looked out in the direction of Black Pool Swamp. “They’ll never catch Freeman,” he predicted. “Freeman knows that swamp better’n all of them put together. He won’t come out until he wants to.”
“I don’t know, son,” Mother said. “Sheriff Brownlee was shootin’ his pistol off up in the air and yelling that he’d get the bloodhounds if Freeman didn’t come back, and you have to remember Freeman’s daddy knows that swamp pretty good, too.”
“Not like Freeman,” insisted Wesley.
“But the bloodhounds, they’d find him,” I said.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Wesley whispered. “Maybe not.”
*
They did not find Freeman that afternoon. At first darkness, my father told us, Sheriff Brownlee stood at the mouth of a logging road leading into Black Pool Swamp and yelled, “Hear me, boy. I’m comin’ back. I’m comin’ back, boy. And I’m takin’ you outa here. No man alive, white or black, ever got away from me, boy. You better give up.” Freeman had not answered Sheriff Brownlee’s threats and Brownlee had lost his temper. He emptied his pistol into the ground and screamed that he would return with a truck loaded with deputies carrying shotguns, and he would get bloodhounds trained to chew the legs off escaped criminals.
My father was tired and wet, but he was irritated that Sheriff Brownlee had threatened Freeman. “Man or boy, it don’t matter. All that’ll do is scare him more, make it harder to get him out.”
“What would Morgan do?” asked Mother. Morgan was my father’s brother, and he had been sheriff of Eden County for years before retiring to fish the Savannah River.
“He’d go into the swamp and stay until he found the boy,” my father said simply.
“By himself?” I asked. “Is that all, Daddy?”
“It’s just one boy.”
“But Freeman knows that swamp inside out.”
“It’d be a boy against a man, son. Don’t ever forget that.”
My father did not know Freeman. In Black Pool Swamp, Freeman was not a boy. He was an animal. No man could trap him.
“I don’t like it,” Mother fussed. “Freeman’s all alone in that swamp, and he’s got a sheriff firing off his pistol like crazy. That man’s no good. He never has been. No wonder there’s so much trouble in the county. He’s kin to Old Man Alfred Brownlee, and that’s the craziest man in Georgia. In fact, Old Man Alfred’s first wife was my first cousin on my daddy’s side, and she used to say that whole family didn’t have enough sense to get in out of the rain.”
“Mama, Freeman’s all right,” Wesley assured her. “Freeman’s fine. He’s been livin’ in that swamp all his life.”
“But it’s damp out tonight,” Mother protested.
“Freeman’s dry,” Wesley said. “He’s got more’n a dozen places to hide where it’s dry as bein’ at home.”
“There’s snakes in there,” Lynn whispered.
“Freeman raised most of them,” Wesley argued. “You not talking about the Okefenokee. There’s no alligators or nothin’ like that in there.”
“Not what Freeman says,” Lynn answered.
“Freeman would say anything about Black Pool Swamp, Lynn, and you know it. There’s nothin’ in there but some rabbits and beaver and squirrels,” Wesley replied dryly.
“And snakes,” Lynn added.
“Yeah, some snakes.”
Wesley knew Freeman well. Freeman had a dreamer’s pride in Black Pool Swamp. To Freeman, Black Pool Swamp made the Okefenokee seem like a mudhole. It angered him when people made fun of Black Pool and he had invented outrageous stories to enhance his position as the only real authority on those two hundred acres of dark, forbidding woods. He told of an albino bear, eight feet tall, whose shimmering white fur was streaked with dried blood. He told of bobcats as huge and fierce as Asian tigers. He told of a killer wolf, a twenty-foot rattlesnake, a vicious wild boar with foot-long tusks, and he swore he knew the entrance to a secret underground cave where Indian warriors were buried. Occasionally, Freeman would present a bone from a decayed cow and tell us it was the remains of a careless human who refused his warnings about the dangers of Black Pool, or the Great Okeenoo-noo, as he called the swamp. Okeenoonoo, Freeman claimed, was an ancient Cherokee Indian word meaning Woods of Death.
The WPA had drained Black Pool Swamp in the mid-thirties and the signature of woeful, frightened men who had only their muscles and the promise of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to believe in was still carved in crisscrossing drain ditches that found the banks of Beaverjam Creek. The ditches had become covered in a death mask of honeysuckle vines and swamp grass, drooping and rising out of the depressions where WPA men had shoveled for WPA wages. Industrious beavers had whittled stick dams out of small hardwoods and had laced the dams together near t
he creek. The dams had again clogged Black Pool Swamp and there were acres of barely moving surface water seeping over the rims of WPA ditches, covered in a death mask of honeysuckle vines and swamp grass.
To those who feared the woods, Black Pool Swamp was imposing and, in its way, evil. To Freeman and those of us who lived south of Banner’s Crossing, Black Pool was an endless wonder, a huge playground to be discovered with each eager excursion. We had hacked off fox grape vines to swing, yodeling Tarzan yells in the soprano voices of boys. We knew which ridges of heaped-up dirt to walk in the watery bottomland. We had learned to cross back and forth over Beaverjam Creek, balancing on the trunks of fallen trees that had washed out of the banks of the creek in sudden flooding. We knew where to find the dens of red fox, where the giant canecutter rabbits played, where catfish or eel could be caught by grappling, and where the remains of several whiskey stills belonging to Freeman’s daddy could be located. Once, Wesley and I had even discovered one of Freeman’s man-made caves. It was a shallow hole running into the side of a steep hill overgrown with mountain laurel. Freeman had found a land flaw, a curious wash-out scooping into the hill, and he had carefully sculptured his cave out of hard clay and mountain laurel roots. It was a magnificent hiding place, a quiet, cool fortress protected from wind and rain by a natural upper lip that curled over the opening. It was not a large cave, but Freeman had obviously spent long, dreamy hours there. Wesley found some Grit newspapers and a cache of cured rabbit tobacco, and there was evidence that Freeman had experimented with building a small cooking fire. We did not tell Freeman about our discovery, but we began to respect his stories of caves and hiding places in the Great Okeenoonoo.
*
We ate supper in silence, listening for some new off-sound among the voices of Black Pool Swamp. Perhaps Freeman would speak to us in one of his animal tongues, and we would understand. He would tell us where he was, what he needed, how he felt.