Fiction Friday

SUNDOWN IN ZION

CHAPTER THREE

Welcome back: Our hero, while waiting on a medical appointment at the VA hospital in Little Rock from a young friend with a problem. Finished with the doctor, Gideon Nelson reconnects.

            Nelson waited until he was in his truck before calling Martin. The phone only rang once. When Martin answered, he sounded concerned.

            “I thought you had forgotten me.”

            “No,” Nelson said. “The Doctor wanted to talk.”

            “About what?”

            Nelson laughed. “You are your father’s son, aren’t you?”

            Martin said, “How?”

            “Inquisitive, but never mind,” Nelson said. “You about ready to leave Hot Springs?”

            “Packed for the weekend,” Martin said. “Just waiting for your call. I called Dad and told him I was stopping to see you.” He paused. “He said to tell you ‘Ship Ahoy’ for him.”

            “You tell him I said ‘Hello’ when you see him. Now,” he said, “when you get to Little Rock, it’s simple. You know where the Ninth Street exit is?”

            “Yessir.”

            “Get off there, turn left, and go four blocks west.” Nelson finished giving him directions and the two signed off.

            Nelson wound his way through the maze of parking lots around the medical campus and turned north to reach Third Street. Heading toward the downtown area, he stopped at a convenience store and purchased soft drinks and chips. Then he headed east and passed through the central business district before reaching his house.

            It was a small Queen Anne cottage nestled between two larger homes on a quiet, tree-lined street. He turned his truck into the drive and inched in as far as it would go before stopping. He opened the door, looked both ways, stepped out, and moved toward the house. Before entering, he once again looked around before inserting a key into the front door.

            He entered a well-furnished living room. The interior was well preserved and presented that unique smell of old homes—a combination of the acidity of old age and the sweet warm scent of prolonged human contact. Two unopened boxes lay on the floor by a couch. A pile of books covered a small coffee table. Nelson flipped a switch and light bathed the room in a soft glow. He walked into the kitchen and put away the items he had purchased. Then he walked back into the living room and pushed one of the unopened boxes to a spot in front of the couch. Taking a knife from his pocket, he slit the packing tape and opened the box.

            Inside the box were more books and articles of clothing, including a pair of plain black dress shoes. He pulled them from the box, laid them aside, and examined the other items. One was a folded American flag in a plastic container. Nelson held it in front of him and spent a minute staring at it. A piece of trash had worked its way into the container and Nelson opened it. He removed the flag, brushed the dust away, and studied the flag again. As he began to reinsert it into its cover, an object dropped from the folds of the flag, a folded sheet of paper filled with spidery handwriting. It fell to the floor and Nelson retrieved it. He held it before him and read.

            “Gideon: If you are reading this, it means that I have passed from this mortal stage. If I am right, I am now in a better place. If you are right, I simply suffer no more pain. Either way, I hope this finds you at peace. Please take Timmie’s flag with my love. He would be happy, I think, to know you have it. I know that I am. I hope it reminds you not of strife, but of the many happy and peaceful moments that you and I spent in conversation. You once told me about the value of a good sailor’s knot, that it must not only hold as needed for the job, but also must be capable of being loosened easily when its work is done. I hope that your personal knots still hold firm. But more, I hope that you will be able to loosen them at that time when they are no longer needed. That is my wish for you, offered with my thanks for helping to make the last days of an old lady bearable. I can only pray that God’s breath will always fill your sails and that you will someday find yourself safely home from wherever the seas of life might take you”

It was signed simply, “Edith Hartwell.”

            Nelson reread the note and held it for a full minute. He then cocked his head and looked away. As the sky outside began to darken, he folded the page and inserted it back into the flag. He put the flag into its pouch, then took it to a bedroom and laid it on the shelf of a closet. He returned to the living room and sat in a large, overstuffed chair with his hand under his chin as the day turned into evening.

            Nelson had dozed when the knock came at the door. He awoke, then rose, walked over and opened it. There stood an African-American youth of at least six feet in height, with a broad smile on his face. He carried a small backpack. “Mr. Nelson,” he said, extending his hand.

            Nelson gawked. “Martin?”

            “It’s me sir,” the lad said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

            Nelson motioned him in. He said, “I wouldn’t have recognized you if I met you on the street,” he said. “You’ve grown. How long has it been since I saw you last?”

            “Only six months,” Martin said. “Dad says us Barkers tend to grow in spurts.”

            “I believe him,” Nelson said. He led Martin into the kitchen and sat him at the table. “Wait one,” he said, as Martin placed the backpack against a leg of his chair. Nelson retrieved two glasses from a cabinet and filled them with ice from the refrigerator. He sat one in front of Martin and one in front of the opposite chair. He handed Martin a can of soda, turned back to the cabinet and returned with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Martin eyed the whiskey and then looked at his soda.

            “Forget it,” Nelson said. “You’re driving. You’re underage. And you mother could whip both our asses with one hand tied behind her back.”

            Martin laughed. “You got that right,” he said. He poured the soda into his glass and took a sip. He leaned back in his chair and waited.

            Nelson poured himself a finger of whiskey. He took a sip, then laid the glass aside and said, “So tell me about your troubles.”

Martin paused, seeking the right words. He looked at the ceiling, bit his lower lip, and then stared Nelson directly in the eyes. “My best friend was murdered. They say she was beaten and shot.”

            “Your best friend,” Nelson said, “as in girl friend?”

            “She was a girl,” Martin said, “and she was my friend, a student with me at the Math and Sciences School.”

So, she was your girlfriend.” Nelson smiled.

Martin sipped his soda and chose his words carefully. “In time we might have viewed it that way,” he said. “But we both had dreams.” He swallowed. “Well I still do.”

“Dreams?”

“She wanted to become a marine biologist,” Martin said. “She was already pretty much accepted into the University of Miami. I’m thinking of the University of Texas then, hopefully, Cal Tech.”

Nelson nodded. “I see. A ‘boyfriend-girlfriend thing’ wasn’t part of your curriculum.”

            “She was a serious student,” Martin said.     

            “So she was killed in Hot Springs?”

            “No sir,” Martin said. “They found her body in Connorville.”

            “Connerville?”

            “Connerville,” Martin said. It’s a town not far from here, just off the freeway. It is in Armistead County too, the far northern corner.”

            “Seems I have heard of it,” Nelson said. “Is that where she was from?”

            “Oh no sir,” Martin said. “They don’t have any folks of her color there.”

            Nelson leaned back. “So she was …”

            “Blacker than me,” Martin said. “That’s why it was so odd that she was found in Connerville.”

            Nelson let out his breath. He started to say something, stopped and looked away. A few seconds later, he looked back at Martin and said, “Maybe you should start at the beginning and tell me everything.”