book 3 from The SECRET Novel Collection
by Mirika Mayo Cornelius
“Hey, Tommy!” called the other man on the way back from the bathroom. “Yeah, that sign there is hanging off. I put it back up on there. Looks like the boys were telling the truth. You can let ‘em go.”
“Well, hey!” Tommy spun around to face his fellow lyncher. “I guess we got into a fight with these boys here for nothing. Hey, boy! You can go home now,” he hollered down at Drowning Boy who was only taking minute breaths. “Whatcha’ waitin’ on?” he questioned, staring back at Paton. “Come get your friend before he die out here on my cousin’s land. Nigger blood’ll make the crops die, won’t it, Lou?”
“Something like that, Tommy,” he grinned, walking quickly back to where Drowning Boy laid.
“You ain’t have to shoot him,” Paton stormed past the man with the gun, and when he reached Drowning Boy, he lifted him, using all the strength he could muster. Drowning Boy stumbled heavily onto Paton’s body, nearly causing him to fall backwards, but Paton stood strong as both white men stood back and grinned as he struggled. “You’re gonna have to walk, DB. I got to get you some help,” he strained as tears started to flow from his eyes at the sight of what looked to him like pools of blood coming from Drowning Boy’s belly.
“Oh, he’ll be alright. Get that big boy on home, and put him in the tub. Wash him down. Be fine in the morning. I done seen niggers that size climb down from a rope ‘round their necks, so a bullet ain’t went that deep. Come on, Lou,” he called at his friend, but turns back to warn Paton. “If you come back through here, any of you, I’ll kill all three of you. Walk the road. This here is family property now. No more short cuts. We got rights, and we shoot to kill.”
Paton didn’t stick around to listen to a menial word coming from the man’s mouth. Instead, he was consumed with dragging his bloody friend along with all the strength and stamina he could muster while calling Jesse’s name at the top of his lungs. He knew for a fact that Jesse was somewhere still around watching. “Jesse! Come back. I need you back here for Drownin’ Boy. Jesse, he dyin’! They let us go, so come on back.” Paton turned back and watched the two white men walking away, and then he shouted into the woods again. “Jesse, they leavin’! Come on, or Drownin’ Boy ain’t gonna make it.” He ain’t!”
Sweat drenched Paton’s shirt as it mixed with the blood of his vulnerable friend, only to turn his white shirt red as Drowning Boy gripped tightly to the shirt’s bottom. Drowning Boy’s weight became too much for Paton to handle, resulting in him pounding into the ground with his knees as Drowning Boy fell to his side. That was when Paton spotted Jesse running back towards them, his eyes larger than they’d ever been because he was struck with pure fear. Once again, Paton took a deep breath to help Drowning Boy back onto his feet..
“Stand him up, Jesse, stand him up. Grab his legs and bend ‘em. You can do it, come on, DB. Come on!” he yelled, but the more he tried to force Drowning Boy, the worse the situation got.
“We gotta drag him, Pate. Let’s drag him...by his legs. You get one, and I get one. Keep him on his back. We get him to the woods, outta this sun and off this land, and then I go for help. Get him off this land ‘fore them men come back out here and do what they did to him to us.”
“Let’s go,” Paton responded. “Get the left one, and I’ll take the right. Now pull. We ain’t got no time to think about them and what they claim they gonna do to us. Got no time for it, so pull.”
As they pulled, Drowning Boy’s body was rescued from being cut by the many rocks in the soil because the weeds fell underneath him providing a sheeted cushion. Drowning Boy’s eyes ended up shifting permanently from white and brown to bloodshot as he started to choke on his own blood. Therefore, when his body reached the edge of the woods, Paton flipped him over onto his side.
“Jesse, run and go get some help. Hurry up ‘cause I don’t know if he’s gonna make it.” As Jesse set off with the speed of lightening through the woods, Paton erupted into desperate pleas for help as loudly as he could as his voice cracked through the screams. “Help! Somebody, help us! It’s Drowning Boy!” As he peered back into the eyes of the wounded, he ripped his own shirt off and began to wipe the blood from inside of Drowning Boy’s mouth. The blood came out extremely thick on the shirt until he had to wipe it off on his pants and try again.
Drowning Boy tried to talk, but each time he took a shallow breath, no sound escaped. That’s when Paton rushed behind him and lifted his upper body from the ground so that he could be in a seated position, but that caused his head to drop forward. This created even more of a panic inside of Paton, so he leaned him back into his arms, continuing to shake him to keep him alive. The woods closed in on Paton as he sat there, tired of desperately yelling for help and crying the hardest he’d ever cried. The end of his hope came when he finally looked back into Drowning Boys eyes. They weren’t looking back, but only staring into the clear, blue sky.
Paton’s stomach quaked as a loud groan traveled from the deepest part of his soul to the outside of his body as he held a dead Drowning Boy in his arms. With his forearm, he wiped all the blood from Drowning Boy’s face, attempting to get it as clean as possible while his tears drenched Drowning Boy’s face. “I’m sorry,” he choked on his words as the sorrow overtook him. “It was just a stupid sign,” he continued as he rocked back and forth, squeezing Drowning Boy at his chest as he recalled how he convinced both Drowning Boy and Jesse to come along with him as he pulled the prank. He’d done it plenty times before, and although he knew he would get in trouble if he ever got caught, he never thought it would cost a life - his or anyone else’s. To him, it was just a silly prank.
an excerpt from the novel