About the time she’d figured out the relevant math, another young black man decided to hit on her. This one didn’t merely approach the booth, but slid onto the bench seat opposite her as though he belonged there.
Caitlin was so shocked that she didn’t protest immediately. This boy was older than the first one, maybe twenty-five. Not a boy, really, but a young man. He was also dressed in work clothes—reasonably clean jeans and a flannel shirt worn over a red long-john top. His hair was cut close to his scalp, he was clean-shaven, and his eyes were large and bright. The only thing that tweaked her radar was the sharp tang of cigarette smoke that wafted off him when he leaned toward her and whispered so that the men in the booths could not hear him.
“You the lady lookin’ for the Chain Tree?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” she said, a wave of heat coloring her cheeks. “The what?”
The young man turned around far enough to check on the men in the booths. “The Chain Tree. Big cypress with old rusty chains on it, where the Klan killed all them boys back in the old days?”
A couple of the men were watching now, and Terry was staring fearfully from the counter. Caitlin leaned forward and said, “How do you know that?”
The young man smiled faintly, and his eyes twinkled. “My daddy goes to Reverend Sims’s church. Beulah Baptist. He was asking about the Tree, whether anybody knew where it was. He talked about the Cat Lady a little, the one whose son got beat to death out there, and his wife got raped.”
The Cat Lady? Caitlin thought, trying to work through the boy’s words. It struck her then that he was the one who had been watching from the gas pumps when she and Terry first arrived. “How did you recognize me?”
The boy laughed. “You don’t exactly look like you fit in around here, you know? But I’ve seen your picture in the Natchez paper before. I saw you a minute ago, when I was getting gas. I figured you had to be her. Carl Sims said you looked like a movie actress.”
“Do you know Carl?”
“I know his cousins, the Greens.”
Caitlin didn’t bother digging any deeper. “So why did you come over here? Just to chat me up?”
The boy’s smile broadened. “No, ma’am. I came to check if you still want to go see where that tree be at.”
A dozen different thoughts tumbled through Caitlin’s mind. At the counter, Terry looked like she was about to call 911. Caitlin gave her the okay sign, then slid the photo of the map across the table.
“Do you recognize that?”
“Who drew this?”
“A friend.”
The boy chuckled softly. “I know who drew this map. Ol’ Toby Rambin.”
The kid was sharper than he looked. “Do you see that X on it?”
The boy nodded.
“Is it in the right place?”
He pursed his dark lips, then laid his long fingers on the edges of the map and regarded it from different angles. After several seconds, he took Caitlin’s pen and drew an X about an inch from the one that Rambin had drawn.
“Right there looks better to me.”
“What’s there?”
The boy looked up at her, his eyes like dark pools. “A place no black man ever went by choice.”
“Is everything okay?” Terry was standing at Caitlin’s side with a tray in her hand. Her eyes were locked onto Caitlin’s as though she was afraid to make eye contact with the stranger in the booth.
“Everything’s fine,” Caitlin said. “Sit here by me.”
After some hesitation, Terry slid into the booth.
“Terry, this is . . . ?” Caitlin gave the boy an inquisitive look.
“Harold,” he said. “Harold Wallis.”
Caitlin looked steadily into his eyes. “Show me your driver’s license.”
After a couple of seconds, he took out his wallet and opened it for her. The name under his driver’s license photo read Harold Wallis.
“You don’t have a middle name?”
“Nope. Mama couldn’t think of one. I got eight brothers, and she said she ran out by the time she got to me.”
Caitlin pointed at the map and lowered her voice still further. “How do you know where that X goes, when nobody else seems to?”
“Easy. My granddaddy trapped and fished that swamp all his life, same as old Toby. He used to take me back there to help with the trotlines. I seen that tree a dozen times, even though Daddy cut a wide circle around it.”
“How long ago was this? You’re not that old.”
Harold shrugged. “Fifteen years, maybe.”
“Did you ever see it up close?”
“Yes, ma’am. One time. And that’s all I ever wanted to see it.”
“Is it hollow, like the legends say?”
Harold nodded. “I shined a light through the crack in that big trunk.”
Caitlin’s pulse quickened. “What did you see?”
“A pile of bones.”
She looked past Harold at the men in the booths. No one seemed to be eavesdropping. “Human?” she asked.
“Some was. I saw a skull. But I saw deer bones, too. Set of antlers. Looked like a mess up in there, and I didn’t look long. Granddaddy was about to skin me.”
“Where’s Toby Rambin now?”
“Gone. Took off somewhere, I heard. He long gone.”
“Why?”
“Chicken, maybe. Or smart. I don’t know.”
“What’s he scared of?”
Harold shook his head slightly. “Not in here.”
Caitlin leaned toward him. “Do you know why I want to find that tree?”
He nodded. “You lookin’ for them dead boys.”
“What boys?”
“Them musicians from Ferriday, went missing back in the sixties. Used to play the blues clubs round here.”
The men in the nearest booth got up and went to the cash register, keys jangling on their belts.
“What else do you know?” Caitlin asked.
Harold shrugged. “More boys than that got killed back in that swamp. Newspaper say you lookin’ for them, too. That’s what Stoney told me.”
“Stoney who?”
“Stoney Jackson. He go to Reverend Sims’s church.” Harold suddenly looked nervous, or maybe just impatient.
“Do you think those bones are still where you saw them?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t they be? ’Less somebody moved ’em. And why would they do that?”