Sow the Wind
Julie Whitehead
Moses Tolliver walked into a room he’d never been in before in Parchman prison. He blinked at the bright light and saw his old lawyer, Keeven Null, a little grayer and more stooped over, and a grown white woman next to him he didn’t even know. He couldn’t think of when Null had last visited him, and it wasn’t a visiting room anyway—no glass separated him from the others.
The guard hovered behind him for a moment, then he said, “I’ll leave you all to it,” with a note of something Moses hadn’t ever heard from a Parchman guard. Was it respect? Moses couldn’t imagine why there’d be any of that—twenty years hadn’t made that much difference in his age.
Null sat down in a chair, as did the white woman. Moses looked at her—she was black haired and pale faced except for reddened cheeks and lips. She had on heavy mascara too, and her hair was swept back into a clip of some kind. Moses gave up trying to figure out who she was—Null would tell him when he was ready for him to know.
Null leaned back in his metal chair and waved his hand to the chair next to him. “Come have a seat, Mr. Tolliver,” he said with a broad grin. “We have news.”
Moses walked slowly to the chair and lowered himself down. The white woman kept her eyes directed at the floor.
“Mr. Tolliver, we’re here to tell you that you’re going to be a free man today,” Null said, showing all his teeth in his smile.
“Free,” Moses said. “You drove all the way up here to lie to me like that?”
“Look around,” Null said. “See anybody watching us?”
Moses slowly shook his head. “Gonna take more explaining than that.”
The woman spoke. “Hugh Woolcomb,” she said.
Moses exhaled. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in years,” he said.
“I’m sure,” Null said. “Well, we’re here to tell you that he died a week ago, and he had a handwritten addition to his original will, dated fifteen years ago. He had written out what happened to you in 1986—and how he was the one responsible for your family’s deaths—not you.”
Moses felt his insides start to churn. “What?”\
The woman spoke up again. “It’s his fault you’re here, Mr. Tolliver. And I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Are you saying Hugh Woolcomb set all of those fires on my family?” Moses said.
“She is,” said Null.
“Who are you? Coming in here telling me this?”
“I’m Lena Woolcomb Shirley,” she said. “Hugh was my daddy.”
Moses slumped down as twenty years’ worth of anger surged in him. “But now he’s dead and gone where no man can reach him and make him pay.”
“Well, that’s not quite true,” Null said.
Moses looked askance at Null. “What do you mean?”
“Daddy wasn’t in his right mind that last ten years he lived,” Lena said. “But before his mind turned he wrote out his confession and willed you all of his home place land to pay you back for what he’d done.”
Moses stared at her. “How much?”
“Seventy-five acres of pine land and ten of home place,” Lena said. “With sound leases to timber companies managing it.”
“So if that was in his will, why didn’t his lawyer say something while he was alive?” Moses asked.
Lena looked at Null. Null inhaled deeply. “Because he didn’t give it to his white lawyer—he mailed it to me with a fee and told me not to open it until his death. I had no choice but to follow his wishes—but I had no idea what it was.”
“SO now I own his home place and all his timber,” said Moses. “And his confession stands up in court to let me go?”
“The governor’s office has filed a motion to vacate your sentence and wipe the conviction off the books,” Null said. “The corrections commissioner has sent out an order declaring you can leave today.” Null said, his smile returning.
“Well,” Moses said.
Lena had taken to looking at the floor again. “Mr. Null,” she said.
Null looked over at her. “Yes, Mrs. Shirley?”
“Can I speak to Mr. Tolliver for a moment—alone?”
“I don’t see why not,” Null said. “I’ll just go out and wait by the guard and you let me know when to come back in.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Null got up and saw himself out. And Moses was faced with the woman whose words were telling him that his wildest dreams had just come true. He wondered why she wanted to speak to him alone. But he had enough sense about women not to rush her into talking.
She got up and walked to the door Null had left through. She pushed on the door to make sure it shut solid. Then she spoke, without turning to face him. “As you can imagine, this has all been a shock to all of us in the family, Mr. Tolliver.”
“Not near so to you as to me, Mrs. Shirley,”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve been managing daddy’s money—and his land-- since his mind went. I thought it would stay in the family. And now it isn’t.”
She turned. “We’ve all built on it—me, my brothers, their kids—everyone. Our homes are there on that ten acres. We never divided it up legal—just family out there, no need to.”
She paused. “When I found out Mr. Null was coming here to get you, I knew I had to talk to you. I want to make a business proposal to you.”
“Business,” he said. “Really?”
She nodded, her eyes gleaming a little. “I have out in my car a suitcase with fifty thousand dollars cash in it. It’s all the money that daddy’s land made last year. I want to give it to you for rent for us to stay there—and for you to not come back to Succataw County.”
She talked more, faster now. “You’ll still own the land; we’ll still send you the money for the pine harvests every year. But please just let us stay, and we’ll forever be in your debt.”
Moses sat and thought. Twenty years in Parchman, he thought,
“Why did your daddy try to kill us all?” Moses said.
Lena licked her lips. “I was pregnant—and told him Charles Moseley had raped me behind the school building one night. He didn’t know which house was Charles’ in the dark. He was drunk and mad and—well, you know how he was.”
Moses closed his eyes. “Your baby?”
“I married Tommy Shirley and we raised her.”
“So you lied to your daddy,” Moses said.
“Yes,” Lena said, staring at him calmly.
Moses stood up slowly and started walking towards her. She must have seen the madness in his eyes. “One scream from me and you’re right back in that prison cell, Moses Tolliver,” she whispered. “No more freedom.”
He stopped. “You’re right,” he said. “Killing you isn’t worth my time.”
“So you’ll take the money?
He nodded.
“And not come back?”
He cocked his head. “What’s left for me there, anyway?”
Her face relaxed. “I knew you’d see reason,” she said breathlessly, and he saw what a sparkling light of a girl she must have been once.
She knocked on the door. “Mr. Null?” she called out.
Null opened the door. “All done with your business?”
“Yes sir,” she said. “Can the guard see us all out?”
He nodded. “He certainly can,” Null said.
Null looked over at Moses. “Your next breath can be of free air,” he said, with his grin still in place
Moses finally felt a smile come to his face. “Yes sir—and it will be sweet.”
Riding back to Succataw County with Null driving and himself in the back seat like the rich man he was now, Moses thought on twenty years ago while watching the flat Delta lad turn into the hills of northeast Mississippi. He had driven his little green Datsun truck out of the parking lot of the new bar just outside the quarters of Shuckertown. Succataw County was wet, but Shuckertown itself was dry so all the beer joints were just outside the town jurisdiction. His shift at the sawmill had ended at 1 a.m., and he’d slipped in to check out the entertainment—just one old blues guy singing into the mike and plinking the guitar. The cinder block building with picnic tables and benches was emptier than he’d ever seen a bar in Shuckertown so he didn’t even stick around to get a drink; after listening to one song, he got back in the truck and headed towards home.
He hummed along to the radio, a country station being the only one still on the air as he drove out into the boonies of Succataw County, where he lived on Old Wright-Moseley Road between Shuckertown and Hooverville. He was listening to the oldies program that was always on this time of night—they were playing “All the Gold in California” from back seven years ago in 1979.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel along with the drumbeat as he drove through the night. He passed the old building that had been the black high school he’d graduated from in 1970. It was rotting down, replaced by the county-wide school built in a hurry when integration had finally come to Mississippi. All his kids went to it except Isola and Isaiah, his youngest girl and boy.
He had felt his chest stick out with pride at showing a Polaroid of the baby, Isola, to his workmates at the mill during their meal hour that night. She had just started holding her head up good when his wife had snapped the picture and given it to him right before he left for the night at 5 p.m. The Polaroid was still in his wallet as he drove home.
He turned onto Old Wright-Moseley Road and saw a weird blue-and yellow glow ahead through the trees. His windows were down since the air in his truck had conked out a year ago, and he smelled something in the air—something that made him think of oil and rubber tires.
Gasoline? he thought.
He kept driving as the glow got bigger and bigger, then he was upon it—his father-in-law’s house was burning down, as was his brother-in-law’s next to it.
Moses slammed the truck into reverse and backed up—the heat was so hot that he didn’t want it melting his tires. He braked, threw it into park, and jumped out of the door. He ran closer to the fire but had to stand back and stare. Mr. and Mrs. Moseley’s house was eaten up with it, as was Kenneth’s. Suddenly he thought, where’s everybody?
He ran down the middle of the dirt road, trying to get out of the heat but also get to the other houses at the same time. He saw further down the road, that Ira Gene’s house was burning, too.
He got a bad feeling down in his gut. Kenneth’s house was close enough to Mr. Moseley’s to catch from it, but Ira Gene’s was several yards further down. He started running again, faster now. “Please, Dear Lord, not mine, too. Please Lord.”
His heart sank down when he saw the next house on the little quarter-acre Mr. Mosely had given him and Lula Mae when they’d married. It was on fire, too, glowing in the night. And further down, he saw where Charles’ house and Samson, Jr.’s houses were burning on the front. He started yelling, thinking he might could wake up someone in there. “Charles! Charles Moseley! Samson! Wake up and get out!” he shouted.
He ran to the back door of Charles’ house and beat on it. The back door was the kitchen door, and their bedrooms were all on the front. He yelled and screamed, but no answer.
He heard the roof collapse just as he came back around to the front. All he could think of now was of going to get help. Maybe they could at least save Sampson’s house if he could get the fire department out quick enough.
He quickly figured that he’d have to go back on his tracks and wake up Hugh Woolcomb, man of the house of a white family living up the road. It scared him, because Woolcomb wasn’t wrapped all that tight from his stint in Vietnam, but he couldn’t let that bother him. Not if he wanted to save the only family he had.
He turned and ran back to his truck and tore out backwards down the road until he could turn around. He floored it and skidded his way back to the main highway and turned left onto Woolcomb’s road. It was nothing but a driveway, but it had its own name—Woolcomb Circle Drive. He sped down it and came to skidding halt. He saw a big Doberman in his headlights, barking and growling its head off. He could see Woolcomb’s door, shut tight. He leaned into the horn.
Suddenly he heard shattering glass, and a shot ripped past his truck. He instinctively let off the horn. Then he had an idea—he started beeping Morse code at him. The dots and dashes from S-O-S. After he’d done it twice, he saw the front door rip open and light come spilling out the door.
“Call off your dog!” Moses shouted.
“What for?” said Woolcomb, standing bare-chested in the in the doorway with a shotgun pointed out.
“Every house on Old Wright-Moseley Road is on fire!” Moses yelled.
“You don’t say,” Woolcomb said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Moses Tolliver!”
“You married to Lula Mae?”
“Yes sir!” Moses said. “Please call the fire department so they can help me find everybody if they got out!”
He saw Woolcomb stand still for just a moment, then he saw him turn and head back into the house. The dog was still standing his ground and barking; Moses didn’t dare get out of the truck to see what Woolcomb was doing.
“I’m going back to see if I can find anybody!” he shouted.
No answer form Woolcomb. Moses spun his wheels around in the yard and tore back out onto the main highway. He turned back down and his road saw that now all the roofs had collapsed. He parked back away from them on the other side of the road, took out his flashlight from the glove compartment, and started searching the other side of the road. “Lula Mae!” he shouted. “Mr. Moseley! Samson! Charles! Kenneth! Ira Gene! Anybody out here? Hey! Anybody??”
He heard nothing but the continued crackling of the fires and the sound of his heart bass-drumming in his chest. “Lord, don’t tell me they’re all gone!” he shouted at the sky. “Don’t tell me that!”
He sank to his knees on the side of the road. “Please, Lord,” he whispered. “Not everybody.”
He was snapped out of his memories by Null speaking from the front seat. “Are you a Christian, Mr. Tolliver?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Moses said. “My momma told me to get baptized at revival time when I was eleven, but the way the preachers come talk at Parchman when they let them in, there’s a lot more to it than that.”
“I was just wondering,” Null said. “Whether you can find it in your heart to forgive Hugh Woolcomb or not.”
“That’s going to take some thinking on,” Moses said.
“I imagine so,” said Null. “You know, I need to check on that life insurance policy your father-in-law took out. Now that we know you’re not guilty, maybe we can get you that money too. Make you a rich man.”
Tolliver laughed under his breath.
“What?” Null said, looking at him in the rear view mirror of his Chevy Impala.
“Looking for me to give you your fee for defending me all those years ago?” Moses said.
“No sir,” Null said, sounding hurt. “The county paid me for that. Just trying to get you a grubstake to start with, so to speak.”
“Sorry,” Moses said. “Twenty years in prison makes a man suspicious of everybody who does him a good turn. I appreciate the ride.”
Moses went back to looking out the window. Null apparently didn’t know what was in the suitcase Lena Shirley had given him after she had gotten it out of her car. For that matter, it occurred to Moses, he didn’t know for sure what was in it either. If Lena Shirley had it in her to stay quiet all those years, she had it in her to double cross him, he figured. But he could check and see when they got to where they were going.
After that first night he had spent in jail after his family was gone, Moses had raised his head from the table they had him cuffed to as the sheriff walked into the interrogation room. Moses felt the weight of his head on his neck—the stuffiness in his head from the crying he had done sitting in a cell after they’d arrested him for murdering his whole family. He knew better than to spew the obscenities he’d wanted to let loose at the man—it hasn’t been that long since Succataw County’s last lynching, and he didn’t intend to be the next one hung from a tree with a noose on his neck. So he simply sat and listened to the sheriff.
“Now, boy, you can make it all easier on yourself if you’d just tell us exactly what happened last night. I know you told one of my men your side, but I want to hear it again for myself and this recording machine here,” Sheriff Glenn said, patting the tape recorder he’d put on the table as he came in.
Moses lowered his head and was silent. What was the use in the truth when the deck was stacked against him and the sheriff had all the aces in his hand?
The sheriff sighed. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said.
“I want a lawyer,” Moses said slowly.
“You got the money for one?” Glenn said.
Moses was silent again.
The sheriff heaved himself out of the chair and opened the door. “Somebody call Keeven Null to come over here,” he shouted to his deputy.
Moses sighed. One black lawyer in the whole county, he thought. Null was a NAACP lawyer who’d settled into the area after the integration fights—he’d been to born in New Jersey and educated at Howard University. He’d spoke once at Moses’s church about their rights after the state had finally gotten around to giving them any. Nobody trusted him. But no one else would represent blacks in the county either, so it was him or nothing.
Moses knew how to wait things out; he’d gotten a good dose of military discipline at Fort Sill, where they’d sent him after he was drafted. He’d been lucky enough that the war in Vietnam was winding down and he hadn’t had to go. So he sat and waited silently, as did Glenn.
Null came in what felt like an eternity later, while Moses had laid his head back down on the table under Glenn’s steady gaze. Moses hadn’t returned it; he didn’t want to be tempted to talk just to hear the sound of his own voice.
Null came into the interrogation room wearing a light blue polyester suit shiny at the elbows and knees. He had a black briefcase he set down on the floor after he sat in the chair next to Moses. He didn’t speak to Glenn or look at Moses; he simply sat and crossed his legs with his hands resting on his knees.
“Now let’s get this show on the road,” Glenn said. “I need to get this done.” He punched the red record button on the machine.
“I don’t suppose you intended to put a cassette tape in there, Sheriff Glenn,” said Null, in his measured, clipped voice.
“Í did so.”
“Well, from my point of view, I don’t see one,” Null said. “Awfully hard to record without it.”
Glenn stared at Null, and punched the eject button without looking away from him. No tape came out.
“Well, I’ll be John Browned,” Glenn said, surprised. “Hold on.”
Glenn hauled himself up out of the chair and went out the door. Null looked at Moses without expression. “Are you innocent?’
“Yes sir,” Moses said.
“Then don’t say a word unless I tell you to,” Null said.
“Yes sir,” Moses said.
Glenn came back in with the cassette tape in his hand. “Now let’s try again,” he said. “What happened last night?”
“My client has already appraised your man of the facts that he knows, Sheriff Glenn,” Null said. ”On what evidence are you holding him in custody?’
“Well, we’ve been checking out his story,” Glenn said. “He got off at 1 a.m. last night—we checked that with his time card at the mill.”
Glenn leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “We took the polaroid of Mr. Tolliver here to the new bar he claims he went to after work last night, and no one there remembered him.’
“Was the bartender from last night there as well?” Null asked.
“Well, we don’t rightly know,” Glenn said. “No one said or not.”
“You may want to do some more checking there,” Null said.
“Anyway, we did stop by the gas station and they said he had come in and charged fifteen dollars to his account yesterday—a trip which he did not mention to us.” Glenn said triumphantly.
Null looked at Moses and merely nodded his head. Moses took it as to mean that he could tell what he did there. “I filled up my truck and a gas can before I went in at the mill so I could mow grass today,” Moses said, trying to hold his voice steady.
“Let the record show that we did not find a gas can in his truck when we impounded it,”
Glenn said, leaning in to the microphone on the machine.
Moses sat up straight. “But—“
“Mr. Tolliver,’ Null said.
Moses looked over at Null. “Thank you,” Null said.
Moses looked back down at the table. He hadn’t looked at the truck and couldn’t know if the gasoline was in his truck bed or not when he got in it last night. What time was it now anyway? He was so worn out and tired—and it seemed like forever since he’d fought alongside the firemen trying to put out the fires at the place.
“We found something else mighty interesting whe we searched the house your wife’s parents lived in,” Glenn said, addressing Moses directly.
Moses looked back up. Glenn was holding up some papers. “We found an old Army ammo box that was locked in one of the closets. It had paperwork in it for a life insurance policy on Mr. Moseley. Fifty-thousand dollars’ worth,” Glenn said.
“Are you saying my client killed his entire family for a fifty-thousand dollar life insurance policy?” Null said. “How would he even know anything about such a policy’s existence?”
“Because everybody who was to be a beneficiary signed a paper saying they agreed to be on the policy—and here’s his signature.”
Null cocked his head at Moses. “Do you remember signing such a paper?” he asked Moses.
“I signed a lot of paperwork after me and Lula Mae got married,” Moses said.
“It’s dated 1971,” Glenn interjected.
“That would be about right,” Moses said. “For when we got married.”
“Let the record show that Moses Tolliver admitted to signing the life insurance policy on Mr. Samson Mosely, Sr.” Glenn said, leaning into his machine again.
“Now wait just a minute--” Null began.
“No, now you wait a minute,” Glenn said. “I’m doing everything here by the book. I called you in, you’ve been briefed by my man, and I’m telling you we have enough evidence to hold him for the crime. You take care of your business, I’ll take care of mine.”
Moses lowered his head and looked at Null out of the corner of his eye; for the first time since he’d known him, he looked flustered. “Sheriff,” he began.
“I think we’ve taken up enough of your valuable time today,” Glenn said. “We’ll escort Mr. Tolliver back to his cell, and you can see him tomorrow during visiting hours if you’d like.”
Null looked back at Moses, and Moses could see the defeat in his eyes. He closed his eyes and put his head back on the table just before the deputy came in to lead him away. He could hear the jail cell door slamming on his life already.
Moses woke up in the back of the car with a soft jerk. He reached up and rubbed his eyes. He recognized the look of the land around him—they were at the outskirts of Succataw County. Null looked back at him in the rear view mirror. “I heard you snoring and thought it best to let you sleep,” Null said, his Jersey accent softened after years of living in Mississippi.
“You asked me about forgiveness a while ago,” Moses said. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I didn’t drive all the way to Parchman to get you just so’s you’d do something to get yourself sent back,” Null said, a serious look on his face. “If you want revenge on Woolcomb or on the family or on me, you’ll have to find yourself another lawyer to represent you if you take it.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Moses said, laughing down in his throat. “I’ve always lived my life by the Book and I don’t have any plans to change now.”
“Good,” Null said, that searching look still in his eyes. He pulled up on a street to a hotel surrounded by beer joints. “I went ahead and reserved you a room for a week here, give you time to find a place to live and me time to get that insurance company to pay you out at least the principal. Or would you rather sue and get the interest, too?”
“Just get what they owe me,” Moses said. “Not a penny more.”
“You’ve got it, Mr. Tolliver,” Null said.
Tolliver got out of the car, his legs stiff from the ride. He grabbed the suitcase Lena Shirley had given him and pulled it out casually. No need to Keeven Null to know what was in it.
Moses got up to his room and exchanged pleasantries with Null as he walked him back downstairs. As soon as Null was out of sight, he ran back up to his room and opened the suitcase.
It was full of money all right, loose twenties, some stacked and others single. Moses commenced to counting.
It wouldn’t count one dime past ten thousand.
She had put a note inside. “Consider this a down-payment. More to come,” she had written in a curvy cursive script.
He swore. Forgiveness—that wasn’t what he had on his mind at this point. Not at all.
He sat up the whole night, staring at the money and thinking. When the first dawn of light came up, he called the front desk and told them to get the sheriff’s office on the phone.
Three days later, Moses Tolliver slowly walked through the yards of the houses. He felt the eyes of the whole Woolcomb clan on him as the deputies herded them off the property and onto the road. He wandered up and down driveways and in and out of porches. He figured up that there were twelve homes on Woolcomb Circle Drive. He had hoped there were more, but these would have to do.
He walked slowly to his new-to-him Toyota Tacoma and reached over into the truck bed for one of the three full gas cans he had loaded in before leaving Shuckertown for here, picked out the house nearest him and trudged in the red paneled front door. He poured out some of the gasoline on the front carpet and then walked backwards out onto the porch. He quit pouring and went down the front steps slowly. Parchman had made him an old man before his time. He set the can down beside his feet.
He pulled out a box of matches and held it up high in the air. He heard an intake of breath behind him.
“This is for Lula Mae Moseley Tolliver, beloved wife and mother, aged thirty-two years,” he said in a clear voice. He willed it to not shake as he spoke. “Died March 24, 1986.”
He brought the box of matches down and opened it, He struck a match and threw it at the gasoline. He heard a pop and saw the flames curl up beside the front door.
He heard one of the girls scream from behind him. “No-o-o-o-o!”
He walked to the driveway of the next house. He heard Lee Copeland behind him yelling at the sheriff’s deputy. “He can’t do that! Why aren’t you stopping him?”
“They’re his houses now,” the deputy said, voice trembling. “He can do whatever he wants to do.”
This time, Tolliver repeated the same trek inside the pale blue house with white trim. He held up the matchbox again. “This one is for Isola Tolliver, aged two months. Died March 24, 1986.” He tossed the lit match onto the porch again.
As he turned, he saw Lena Woolcomb Shirley run past him up the steps on the third house. She stood on the front steps, blocking his way to the porch.
He saw the gleam of her daddy’s madness in her eyes. “You’re not going through with this,” she hissed. “I told you. I warned you. You said you wouldn’t come back.”
“I never said no such thing, Mrs. Shirley,” he said. ‘You heard what you wanted to hear.”
She didn’t move. He doused the boxwoods in front of the porch. He lit another match. “This is for Isaiah Tolliver, aged two years. Died March 24, 1986.” he shouted loud enough for her to hear.
She spun as he tossed the match and ran inside the house. He heard Tommy Shirley shout, “Lena! Lena, get back out here!” Tolliver turned to see Tommy being held back by the sheriff’s deputy. “LENA!” he shouted again.
Everyone heard the back door slam. Tolliver braced himself for the shot that most certainly should come after that.
Everyone heard the shot out back of the house. The sheriff told the deputy to hold on to Tommy Shirley. He ran around back as the flames licked the gray siding. He came back shaking his head.
When Tommy Shirley saw him, he commenced to bucking and screaming. “You killed her, Moses Tolliver! That’s blood on your hands!” he shouted.
Moses turned. “The Good Book says you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, Mr. Shirley,” he said calmly, looking Tommy square in the eye. “No blood anywhere on me. Just one more thing for old Mr. Woolcomb to answer for.”
He moved to the next house, painted white with black trim. With each match he struck, he called out another name.
“This one’s for Minnie Sue Tolliver, aged five years. Died March 24, 1986.”
Next house.
“For Annie Rae Tolliver, aged seven years. Died March 24, 1986.”
Another.
“For Moses Samuel Tolliver, Jr, aged ten years. Died March 24, 1986”
Another.
“For Eva Esther Tolliver, aged thirteen years. Died March 24, 1986.”
Gasoline fumes were filling the air. He heard motors starting and the line of cars behind him moving, the men gunning the gas and women and children hollering.
“For Samson Mosley and Kay Wilson Mosley, aged fifty-two years old and fifty years old. Died March 24, 1986.”
“For Kenneth, Gay, and Jay Mosley, aged thirty, twenty-seven and eight years old. Died March 24, 1986.”
As he approached the tenth house he heard sirens coming down the old Mosley-Wright Road Bridge. He knew he had to hurry so as each house would be too far gone to save once they got here.
He continued dousing the hedges and lighting up the last three houses quickly, muttering the names under his breath now. “For Charles Mosley and Katy Wright Mosley, ages twenty-one years and eighteen years,” he whispered as he lit the last match, his throat parched as the fire wind coming off the houses. “Died March 24, 1986.”
He started his way back to his truck, the last drained gas can in his grip. But he had to stop.
The flames were too high.
He looked up into heaven and saw Lula Mae Mosley Tolliver reaching out for him. He smiled and closed his eyes.
Julie Whitehead lives and writes in Mississippi. She received her MFA from Mississippi University for Women. Publications include Jabberwock Review, China Grove Press, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, her blog www.julielwhitehead.wordpress.com, and at www.BPHope.com.