It was after ten p.m. on Sunday, but someone was leaning on the doorbell and banging on our front door. I leaped out of bed.
“What in kingdom come!” Daddy fussed. Mama and Daddy were already in their nightclothes.
It was Meriwether, breathing fast, his eyes red and looking wild. In my daddy’s language, he was all fueled up. “It was him! I know it! Tried to kill my girl,” he hollered. “Tried to kill my girl!”
“Who?” Daddy asked.
“Lucas!”
“Is Abigail hurt?” Daddy asked.
“No, she’s fine . . . over at the church with my wife, Pastor, and some of our men, keepin’ watch, just in case.”
“Come inside and have a seat, Mr. Hunter,” Mama softly beckoned.
Somewhat reluctantly, he stepped over the threshold into the house, but instead of sitting, he paced.
“Tell me,” Daddy said.
“A few hours ago, just this evenin’, we got home from a special church service in Charleston. I parked our car out back and we came in through the rear door. After a while, Abigail notices what looks like a gift on the front porch. ‘Daddy, look. There’s a box,’ she says. And I figured ’cause last week was her birthday, someone from the church musta left it for her as a surprise, you know. So I tell her to go on and get it. And she goes out to the porch. ‘It’s for me,’ she says. ‘Got my name on it. Abigail, A Father’s Delight,’ and me and Phoebe are smilin’ and I tell her go ahead and open it . . . not thinkin’ ’til she calls out, ‘Somethin’ inside the box is movin’ around,’ and just as I get outside, she gets the box open . . . and it strikes at her, missin’ her by no more than a few inches.”
“What?” I asked.
“A diamondback rattlesnake.”
Mama let out a gasp. “Lord, no!”
“Lucky for me there was a shovel close by, which I grabbed and jammed into its neck.”
“You kill it?” Daddy asked.
“With one blow.”
“And what has you convinced it was Lucas? How would he know your girl’s name and what it meant?” Daddy questioned.
I answered, “’Cuz he asked her and she told him. I saw him talkin’ to her.”
“Abigail claimed the same thing, but there’s something else. This was in the box too. Knew I’d lost it somewhere the other day after I’d shown it to Gabriel. Now I figure it fell outta my coveralls in the garage and Lucas musta found it.” It was the picture of Meriwether and his tank crew. “Had to be him, I tell you. Had to be.”
“You talk to the sheriff?”
Meriwether locked eyes with Daddy. “For what? Got no proof. B’sides, even if there’d been a witness, colored folk accusin’ a white man would only likely bring me and mine more trouble.”
“But Hector Monk’s reasonable and a good sheriff,” Mama claimed.
Meriwether turned his gaze to her. “Not aimin’ to disrespect you, ma’am, especially in your own house, but the way my people see it, like most sheriffs in these parts, he appears to belong to y’all. Colored people ’round here, we got nuthin’ to protect us but our wits, and sometimes even those fail us. Now and then, the good Lord takes over.”
“But a child’s involved. It hasta be reported to the authorities. What if she’d been killed?” Mama argued.
“If she’d been killed, it’s likely I wouldn’t be here talkin’ to y’all . . . I’d be—” Abruptly he stopped and took a deep breath. “Gotta be careful what I say in case y’all wind up under oath in a court of law, don’t I?”
Daddy pleaded with him, “Promise me, Meriwether, that you won’t take the law into your own hands.”
Meriwether opened his hands and stared at his palms. “Been keepin’ promises all my life—promised to be loyal to my country and bravely serve, which I did. And for the most part, I’ve even kept the Ten Commandments ’cept for the one that forbids us to covet . . . Hard for a colored man to see some of y’all havin’ what looks like heaven on earth and not long for it myself.” His tears began flowing. “I’ve been a good man, mostly kind. As honest as this life would let me be.” He hunched his shoulders. “Would think this would be a sweet place, named the way it is. But even a good colored man can’t be a real man in this town called Birdsong.”
The fire that’d been in him minutes earlier when he’d rung our doorbell had completely vanished. And my daddy, Jake Haberlin, embraced him as Mr. Meriwether Hunter sobbed.