Cape Fear Rising - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Philip Gerard is the author of five novels, eight works of nonfiction, and numerous essays on history, music, and writing craft. He teaches in the BFA and MFA Programs of the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he has won a number of awards for teaching excellence. He is co-editor with his wife, Jill Gerard, of Chautauqua, the literary journal of the Chautauqua Institution, and serves on the faculty of Goucher College's summer residency MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. Gerard, an avid musician, incorporates bluegrass, folk, country, and original compositions into his readings, playing six- and twelve-string guitar, dobro, banjo, and pedal steel guitar. He and Jill live in Wilmington, NC, on Whiskey Creek near the Intracoastal Waterway.

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Prologue

STRANGERS, THEY COME TO TOWN. Six men-black, furtive, travel­ ing by night. They cross the Cape Fear River by rowboat from the west bank and gather in the shadows of stacked cotton bales on the wharf.

The August heat steams off the river in a clinging fog.

The six are frightened. There has been an uprising up north in Virginia-black men murdering whites in their beds. The roads are busy with armed riders-runaway patrols-galloping here and there after rumors of fugitives.

But there is work here for free blacks, they've been told. This is a free port. Full of West Indians, freedmen, mulattoes from white mothers. A place that needs strong backs and clever hands. Worth the risk. There's a man they have to see-owns a mill. Come daylight, they'll find him and show him their papers. Meantime, best lie low.

All but one are wearing homespun. Their faces are dusky and lined, their hands horny and rough from work. The other, the one they call Daniel Grant, is slender and lithe. His hands are smooth as a woman's, and yellow-like his face. His complexion is so fair that even in daylight he can pass for white. He wears a flannel suit and a linen shirt with a white man's name, the mill owner's, inked onto the inside of the left cuff. He is the only one of the six wearing shoes.

His voice is soft and resonant, a voice that comes up from his stomach and whispers things that sound so true five men have followed him a hundred miles from home to this river town.

They hunker on the wharf listening to the rush of the outgoing tide. The moon is invisible above the fog, silvering it with an otherworldly light.

One of the country men says, "The spirits is up and walking around, brothers." He carries a forked cypress switch to ward off evil spirits. Now, he rubs it between thumb and fingers until it is warm from friction.

"Hush, now," Grant says. "Don't go talking haints and voodoo. It's only the river fog."

"Feel that chill? The spirits is floating down the river to the ocean. Going back to Africa, brother." The country man rubs the forked stick some more. The love of Jesus is one thing, but a body needs every edge he can get in this wild river country.

"Just the night air cooling down," Grant says. The fishy stink of low tide fills the close air." 'The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters,' " he continues quietly, " 'yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.' "

"Amen," one of the men murmurs.

Another laughs. "For spirits, they's pretty ripe.''

"Don't be taking it lightly, brother. Time of night to be indoors, bolt the shutters."

"Ain't that the word. Give me a soft place to lay my head."

They have been sleeping out-of-doors for weeks. For two whole days, they wandered lost in the swamps, eyes peeled for cotton­ mouths and gators. At last, they found the river. Providence had left a derelict rowboat stranded on the mud flats at the mouth of a feeder creek. "We'll just borrow this boat awhile,'' Grant had declared, and they oared across at turn of tide. The current was stalled, and the dark water piled up in foaming ridges-unnatural.

Now, the Cape Fear is once again rising.

Stiff and travel-weary, they settle in among the bales to sleep one last night in the open. But all at once, the river sounds change. There's murmuring out in the fog, the rasp of boots on rough boards-a boat?

Grant and the others peer into the fog. But it is a trick of the ear-the men come not from the water but from behind, down Market Street.

"Dust yourself off, brothers," Grant says when he sees them, "and mind your manners." In the sudden glow of a dozen lanterns, they all get to their feet, hands clasped at their stomachs, backs slightly stooped, heads nodded forward: don't look the man in the eye.

Except Grant. He stands erect, hands clasped behind his back. He balances on the balls of his feet, ready to move.

The crowd of whites, armed with tool handles and rifles, fills in around them, backing them against the river. They listen to the steady slap of ax handles against palms.

"What have we here?" A tall white man approaches. Unlike the others, he is unarmed. He wears a frock coat and a four-in-hand, even in this heat. The lanterns make it hotter. His hair and beard gleam with oil. As he speaks, his long, smooth fingers play with a silk handkerchief.

"Cap'n," Grant says, "pardon us for loitering at your wharf. We meant no harm. We have come seeking work."

"Hear that, Colonel?" one of the white men says. "Damned fugitives."

''You want to work?"

"Yes, cap'n. We only just arrived."

The white man lifts a lantern and thrusts it close to Grant's face. Grant doesn't look away. The man leans in, squinting. "Why, you're the creamiest nigger I ever did see!" "A volunteer nigger," someone in the crowd says. "Could pass, if he was smart enough to try." Laughter.

"Bad night to be a volunteer nigger," someone else says. More laughter.

Grant says, "My daddy was a white-"

The Colonel slaps him-not hard, but so quickly that Grant is taken by surprise. The slap is almost ladylike-it hardly stings. "Don't ever let me hear you talking like that around here," the Colonel says quietly.

''Yes sir, cap'n."

"Don't look me in the eye, boy."

"Yes sir, cap'n."

"Why are you niggers skulking about at this hour? Plotting murder, are you?"

"We weren't skulking, cap'n. We're freedmen."

"Come into the light, all of you, where I can see you."

One by one, they shuffie closer to the lanterns. The Colonel scrutinizes their dark faces. "You one of Nat Turner's niggers?" he softly asks each in turn-speaking close to their faces. Grant can smell sweat, naphtha, perfume.

"No sir, cap'n."

"I think perhaps you are," he says to Grant. "Part of that mur­dering gang of wild apes up in Virginia. Going to slit our throats while we slept, were you?"

"We're freedmen, cap'n-I told you."

The Colonel yanks Grant's collar, tearing his shirt. "Where is your badge, boy?"

"Cap'n?" Something's wrong now, Grant thinks, getting more wrong every second.

"Every free nigger is required to wear a badge of cloth sewn onto his left shoulder-here." He cuffs Grant, hard. "The badge says 'Free.' Cost you a dollar at the town hall."

Someone murmurs, "Colonel, nobody goes by that old law."

"Cap'n, we don't mind buying a badge, once we working."

"Too late. Can't buy it now. You-all are unregistered niggers violating our curfew."

The country man fingers his stick and mutters, "Now they making up all kind of laws."

One of the white men snatches his stick and snaps it in half. "Don't be running that African voodoo on us."

"Colonel!" one of the men calls from the sea wall. "It's Parmele's skiff-got all his gear in it."

The Colonel folds his arms. "What have you done with the fisherman who owns this boat? What have you done with his body?"

"Wasn't no fisherman," the country man mutters.

"Please, cap'n, we're just poor field niggers looking for a job of work."

"Carter! Henry!" the Colonel says. "See if you can find Dal Parmele." The two men disappear into the darkness, and soon hooves are clopping fast on cobblestones. ''What about you?" He grips Grant again by his linen shirt. ''You a field nigger? You don't look like any field nigger I ever saw." He turns to his followers. "Gentlemen, what is your opinion of this fellow?"

"Damned rabble-rouser," one of them says. Others murmur assent.

"No sir, cap'n-"

''Yes, that's what I think. A rabble-rouser."

Grant remembers the name inked on his cuff. "Mr. Maclver can vouch for us, cap'n."

"Maclver? The Scots are all upriver. Make up another name." The men behind him laugh. "Are you...