Page 29 of Camino Ghosts

“But you have an idea.”

“Yes, in two years I should be finished with a draft that is publishable. How long did it take you to write your book?”

“Oh Lord, Mercer, I worked on that book forever. I have some old notebooks that go way back to when I was a kid in high school. I did finish school, you know? Wasn’t easy but I was determined to finish. We went to the colored school back then. It’s gone now. Been gone.”

Mercer smiled as she listened to her soft, slow voice, one that seemed to reach back for centuries. They were sitting knee to knee, almost touching, almost to the point where they could talk about anything.

Mercer said, “It’s only fair that you get some of the money. It’s the story of you and your people. I’ll need to spend a lot of time with you to get all of the details and background. It’s not going to be easy, writing is never easy.”

“Hardest thing I ever did.”

Mercer chuckled and wanted to say her book was far more interesting than most of what she read. She knew Lovely was not experienced in deal-making, so she cut to the chase. “I think fifty percent of the advance is too much, and ten percent is too little. What do you have in mind?”

“I had nothing in mind, until now. If I say twenty-five percent, how much will I get?”

“About fifty thousand dollars, before taxes, spread over the next three or four years.”

She closed her eyes and thought for a long time. Mercer took the opportunity to examine her turban of the day, a lime green and bright yellow headdress wrapped as tight as always. Her robe was a lively blue and red floral pattern. Yielding to the modern world, on her feet she wore a pair of brown sandals with a small Nike swoosh along the side.

She opened her eyes and said, “That sounds good to me. If I get some money I want to clean up the island and fix up the cemetery.”

“It’s still there?”

“Oh yes, honey. I know where it is but nobody else can find it. My parents, grandparents, lot of great-grandparents are buried there. I know where they are. Can’t nobody else find ’em, but I can.”

Mercer took a deep breath and said, “We have so much to talk about.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE DEFENDERS

1.

The ten-hour drive home was scheduled to begin around 8:00 a.m., or at least that’s what they had tentatively agreed upon the day before. But the farewell party at Myra and Leigh’s had gone on later than anticipated, which was exactly what they should have expected, and Saturday was off to a slow start. By 9:00 they were barely awake and guzzling black coffee. By 10:00, the Jeep Cherokee was half loaded with luggage and boxes and other stuff they had accumulated during their two months on the island and felt compelled, for some reason, to take with them. Mercer filled a picnic basket with sandwiches, fruit, cookies, and bottled water, as if they would not be able to find food between Camino Island and Oxford, Mississippi. At 11:00, Thomas finally locked the cottage, wedged the dog into the backseat, and started the engine.

“Only three hours late,” he mumbled. She ignored him. Things were somewhat tense but within minutes both were breathing normally and beginning the transition from beach to campus. The truth was that they were both writers and accustomed to a life that was somewhat unstructured. Punctuality was not that important. Who cared if they arrived in Oxford at 6:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday in mid-August, with the temperature there at least ninety-five and the humidity even higher?

It was a summer they would always remember and treasure: the wedding on the beach; the honeymoon to Scotland, a trip they still talked about and relived through photographs and vowed to do again; the excitement of finding the story for the next book, and an impressive advance with which to write it. After two months of marriage—two months that followed two years of living together—Mercer knew she was in love with the right guy. They were compatible and shared the same interests. They laughed a lot, at each other and especially at everyone else. They shared the irresistible dream of writing full-time and traveling the world in search of great stories. The issue of children was still being ignored.

“You want to drive?” he asked.

“What? We’re not even off the island yet.”

“I know but I’m yawning.”

“Drink some more coffee.”

He was kidding, of course, and breaking the ice to let her know he was no longer irritated because they were three hours late. He smiled at her, rubbed her bare and beautifully tanned thigh, and kept driving.

High on the bridge over the Camino River, Mercer looked to the north and saw the distant tree line of Dark Isle. She was curious about how it must have looked on the horizon three hundred years earlier.

2.

Being from an inland village, Nalla was not familiar with seafood and had never tasted an oyster or a shrimp. In her new home, though, the food came out of the sea, and there was an abundance of it. She and the other new arrivals were fed as often as they wanted to eat. Their stomachs had not been so full in months.

Communication was initially a challenge, though they were motivated to learn a new language. An older woman was also from the Kongo and spoke Bantu, and she became the English teacher. All the runaway slaves were from plantations in Georgia and spoke English along with a variety of African tongues.

They lived in small mud huts with thatched palm roofs. There were twenty of the homes in a perfect square around a central common. The entire settlement was heavily shaded by massive oaks and elms. The women cooked at night so the smoke from their fires would not be seen. They lived in fear and with the constant threat of being captured. Slavery had been forced upon them once. It would not happen again, not without a fight. Joseph, the unquestioned leader, explained to the new arrivals that the white men would likely return in search of survivors from the Venus. Therefore they must remain vigilant at all hours. The older boys and younger men watched the beaches day and night in a coordinated system of surveillance. If a boat approached, the men and some of the women would take up arms, a collection of homemade knives and spears, but their arsenal also included three rifles they had robbed from an earlier band of intruders.

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