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New Island, Charleston SC~1941
Wainright Desmond stood in the midst of chaos and wondered how it had ever come to this. His home, the only he had ever known was to have been a place of peace, of promise, of new beginnings hence New Island. What he witnessed now was not what his- what any of their ancestors had envisioned when they arrived on the isle less than a century earlier.
Wainright acknowledged that may not have been completely true. After all, he stood less than 20 feet away from the eldest of them- the one who had set this current madness in motion.
“Too long have we allowed this hoodoo sorcery to be carried out in our midst! These acts are a blasphemy in the eyes of the Great One who freed us from bondage! We have been tolerant! We have aimed for compromise, which they have undermined at every turn! Now we have no choice but to punish those who would see our home sacrificed to the devil!”
Roars of approval and dissention rose in almost equal measure.
“Sacrifices! Sacrifices that have already begun. Haven’t we all lost loved ones?! Members of our families vanished like smoke in the night?! The devil has already commenced his thievery! His madness!”
“You’re the mad one, Guthrie!” Wainright Desmond’s cry rang out over the roar of fire and voices. “This isn’t the dark ages! The people have a right to worship any way they see fit! Remember freedom, Guthrie? That’s why New Island was founded. You’ve forgotten your history, old man!”
At 92, Bronson Guthrie II’s unsettling gray-flecked stare still flared with an intelligence that was as bold as the timbre of his voice. The smile that stretched across his dark face, harbored the same intelligence as he eyed the younger man who had challenged him.
The rumble of voices; dissenting or otherwise, had silenced to leave only the roar of the immense fire. While the expressing of views from one of New Island’s oldest residents were often causes for disagreement, few had the courage to argue. That course of action or...inaction as it were, was as much about lack of courage as it was about unwillingness to challenge a member of the island’s founding family. Bronson Guthrie also held the distinction of being among the last generation born into slavery.
That distinction had afforded Guthrie respect...and impunity. The impunity had gone unchecked and left the doorway open for heinous acts of the past to simmer and be repeated.
“When we were given this land, it was with the understanding that we would all be free to live our lives.” Desmond didn’t buy that Guthrie’s quiet was a sign of his agreement. He hoped the extra time to plead his case might sway those in favor of doing things Guthrie’s way, to the side of right.
“The Taylors aren’t courting the devil and they haven’t forced their worship styles on any of us,” Desmond continued, “If anything, they’ve shown us another way to express our love for the Lord.”
“Desmond’s right,” Osmund Croix spoke up from his place among the incensed crowd. “Religion aside, they’re damn fine business people. Smart and hardworking just like the rest of us.”
“Mmm...yes, yes I’ve heard how...hardworking the Taylor women are.” Guthrie sneered through the waves of sweltering heat from the flames. “Could that be why you two have been sniffing ‘round their skirts?”
The roar of male voices resumed. Desmond and Croix didn’t mind that a wall of Guthrie’s supporters separated the man from his enemies. They charged along with supporters of their own. The skirmish went on all of five minutes, before more attempts at reasoning stirred.
“No one here can deny that something frightful is at work!” Nevil Hammond called out to the battling men from his place near Bronson Guthrie’s side. “Members of all our families have been disappearing for too long! We have to know why.” His voice softened somewhat as more men began to look his way.
“We were nearly four-thousand strong at the last census”, Hammond moved toward the group, hands outstretched in an imploring gesture. “We’re barely three-thousand now.”
A towering dark man moved from his place near Bronson Guthrie then. “Given that this has the power to affect us all and negatively, we should at least listen to what Mr. Guthrie has to say.” Capote Noble’s soft spoken manner seemed vastly at odds with his intimidating stature. “I think we can all listen to one another like civilized men so long as we can agree to keep talk of the ladies’ honors out of the discussion.”
Guthrie responded to Noble’s suggestion with a grudging shrug. The 92 year old moved with surprising ease as he shaved off a small bit of the distance separating him from his critics.
“Young Hammond speaks the truth here. None of us can deny something frightful is at work.” Despite the soft beckoning of his words, the same couldn’t be said of his gaze which bore into each pair of eyes he met. “Our people are disappearing and it seems to happen every time the Taylors hold one of their damned rituals.”
“They’ve done no harm!” A dissenting voice called from the crowd.
“Their ways are not evil ones- they serve the same God the rest of us do!” Another voice called.
“With screaming and convulsions?!” Nevil Hammond laughed.
“If you ever bothered to attend service at one of the churches on the mainland-”
“Outrageousness,” Guthrie spat at Osmund Croix’s reasoning.
“Those ways of worship are not meant to appeal to the harbingers of evil and death,” Osmund continued, “but to celebrate life.”
“And these celebrations go against certain laws of conduct we’ve agreed to,” Guthrie noted, his smile betraying a smug arrogance. “The penalty for going against these laws are also ones we’ve agreed to.”
“Why don’t you tell everyone why you’re really doing this?”
Guthrie’s arrogance dimmed and betrayed shadows of his age. Slowly, he turned to face the owner of the eerily cool voice that had wafted from the crowd.
Hayes Taylor appeared neither smug nor arrogant, though he witnessed the stricken look on the face of the man who had once been like an uncle to him. “You know my family has had no part in these disappearances.”
“I know what I see.” Guthrie bristled, his gray mane of hair appearing to stand even more on end. “And what I see is evil.”
Taylor smirked. “Evil. You dare to speak of evil when-”
“If you have nothing to hide, pledge your family loyalty by accepting the tradition,” Guthrie displayed a smirk of his own while raising his thin shoulders in a shrug. “If, as you say, your family’s ways are harmless, why do you deny the ways of others- ways we’ve all agreed to?”
“Because this is madness and, as we’ve said, we don’t court darkness in any form.”
Guthrie laughed. “How convenient that you cast it off as dark. A touch hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?”
Something resigned crept into Taylor’s bright hazel eyes and his mouth thinned. Guthrie’s chin lifted in defiance, though his expression was decidedly guarded as he studied Taylor’s tall, leanly muscular build.
“I come from a family of honorable men- as honorable as you are wicked.” Taylor seemed to observe every line Guthrie’s face held before he spoke again. “Your father would be ashamed of what you’ve become and we won’t fight your wickedness with more wickedness.”
“Wise.”
“Strategic.” Hayes Taylor countered Guthrie’s argument without hesitation. “Vengeance is the Lord’s, not ours. We won’t jeopardize our heavenly home to take you down.”
“Devil seed! You dare speak of the Lord!”
Taylor turned his back on Guthrie’s explosion. “My men and I will do this on one condition,” he addressed the crowd before turning back to the enraged 92 year old. “You cease this...tradition forever. Let this be the end of it.”
“And for that, will your family-”
“My family will find a more subdued way to worship.”
Taylor’s vow didn’t appear to make Guthrie any happier, but the man accepted the terms with a nod.
~~~
“Mama, why is grandpa so mad?” 10 year old Binta Guthrie watched the unfolding scene across the clearing. She looked up when there was no response to her question.
Teah Guthrie met her daughter’s upturned face when she could no longer deny the almost tangible pull of the child’s stare. “We have a beautiful thing here, Bin. Long ago, our ancestors’ masters gave them this entire island to live out their lives as they wished- as free people. Grandpa just doesn’t want anything to threaten that.” Silently, Teah acknowledged that her father-in-law’s actions were threat enough.
“Why won’t anybody stop him?” Even at 10, Binta knew wrong when she saw it.
“Only the other Elders can do that,” Teah explained to her only daughter. “An elder can only be stopped by another of his elders- another equal.”
“Will I ever be equal, mama?”
“Oh, my baby,” Teah laughed and knelt to draw the child into a warm hug. “You’ll be too busy being a lady of your home, raising your family to worry about any of that.”
Binta watched over her mother’s shoulder to her grandfather and his men. Others had circled the vicious fire and were using iron pokers to stoke it into heightened ferocity.
“This won’t ever be my family.”
The little girl’s vow was silenced by the sounds of tormented men’s screams filling the night air.