Flossie's Revenge

by Lubrican

Chapters : Foreword | 1-2 | 3-4 | 5-6 | 7-8 | 9-10 | 11-12 | 13-14 | 15-16 | 17-18 | 19-20 | 21-22
23-24 | 25-26 | 27-28 | 29-30 | 31-32 | 33-34 | 35-36 | 37-38 | 39-40 | 41-42 | 43-44

Chapter 37

The irony of the money wasn't the last of the ironies, or justice that resulted from Harvey Wilson taking his family to Catfish Hollow, and promising to ruin the life of the only teacher willing to teach the children of that community. There would be more to come in the next year, though none of them knew that then.

When men's eyes lit up, and then became guarded, as they examined the Civil War era sniper rifle Nathan Wilson took them for appraisal, their off-hand offers rang false to the mind of a newly trained observer. He didn't tell them who he was, or what he did, but the reaction was always the same: greed. It shone in their eyes as they fondled the rifle and accompanying scope. They usually said the guns were old and probably shot-out, but were interesting as a curiosity. One man offered thirty dollars, and another fifty. At that point, Nathan took the gun to a retired Police officer who ran the armory of the KCMO Police Department, who did some research. What he found was very interesting.

The hexagonally-bored Whitworth rifle was so unusual and rare that even information about it was "collectable." One collector he spoke to made reference to some records in the archives of the Truman Presidential Library, so the armorer drove over there to take a look at them. What he found was that there was a government record of investigation pertaining to the sale of some rifles, in 1864, by a British arms merchant to a known Southern sympathizer who lived in Missouri. The investigation included a list of seven Whitworth rifles, identified by serial number. Because the Whitworth wasn't in usage by the Union, during the war, it was assumed he had procured them for his friends in the Confederacy. Nothing had been proven against him, however, primarily because the rifles had never been found. The armorer was astonished to find that the serial number of the rifle Nathan had given him to examine was on that list. Not only did this rifle have intrinsic value as a rare antique, it also appeared to have important historical value as well.

His examination of the weapon, which he took completely apart, suggested it had never been fired. The scope was not listed in the records, but it would have been made by a different company, so that wasn't strange. He showed Nathan how to mount the scope, and they left it mounted on the rifle.

Nathan thanked him. "You know, I might know where the other six are," he said.

The old gunsmith looked at him with penetrating eyes. "You lay your hands on the other six weapons in that lot, and let me negotiate with a couple of museums, and I'll make us both rich men."

"I might be able to do that," said Nathan.

The man stared at him. "I can't make this happen if they're stolen," he said.

"You can check with every police department on the continent, and you won't find a report about that rifle, or the others," said Nathan.

"You're from down South ... aren't you?" asked the man.

Nathan nodded.

"Rich men, young fella. Both of us, and that's with me only taking ten percent."

Nathan couldn't schedule another trip back to get the rest of the rifles for months. In the meantime, he and Flossie stood in front of a Justice of the Peace, and got married. The man didn't bat an eye.

Flossie, with nothing to do during the day, took walks on the farm she now lived on. It was too late in the season to plant a garden, but she planned out a big one for next year. She didn't mind that Curtis Lee lived with them. He sometimes took the car and went someplace, or worked a different patrol shift than Nathan did, and she and her husband had plenty of time to be alone together. Her belly grew, and Nathan continued to have long one-sided conversations with his daughter, as he now addressed her. No names had been chosen yet.

Then Curtis Lee bought his own car. If he and Nathan were working together, they left a car at home. If they worked different shifts, there was still a car available to provide Flossie with transportation. One of the first things she did was inquire about teaching school. She found that the schools in Kansas City were still segregated, not by law, but by custom and population density. Black people lived in the same areas, so the schools in those areas were attended by black children. Whites lived in other areas, and their children filled those schools. A new school, in the black part of Kansas City, Kansas, called Douglass, was being built, and would be opened in September of 1963. It would have 25 classrooms, a library, offices and an multi-purpose room. With this expansion of classroom space, the administration was eager to hire her to work in the new school. That would give her time to have the baby and do some continuing education at the University Of Missouri, Kansas City, which she knew would be needed to acclimate her to Northern schools. The money from the gold had been banked, toward buying their own house some day, and while Nathan's job supported them, she loved teaching and wanted to work.

Nathan and Curtis Lee were not able to return to Catfish Hollow until May, a month after Flossie had delivered to him a nine pound boy, with caramel colored skin, and kinky black hair over a face that, other than the color, resembled any white child.

They had not, based on both Flossie's and Marian's intuition, thought of any names for a boy. Nathan teased her, offering names like "Surprise" and "Oops". Flossie insisted on Nathan Junior.

"I like a man named Nathan," she said, ignoring her husband and talking to the baby, who was sucking lustily at one swollen breast. "And you eat like a hog, just like that man," she cooed. "So I just have to call you Nathan."

Once it was clear that the baby was as healthy as a horse, and the mother was well recovered from an extremely difficult labor with a baby so big, Nathan took a picture with a Kodak Brownie camera, had two prints made, and he and Curtis Lee took off to deliver the picture to his mother.

They needed to hurry, this time, having to make the trip and get back in just two days. Their days off this week were Wednesday and Thursday, and they had to be back for the Friday shift. To that end, they drove through the night and delivered the money first, while the kids were in school. Their thinly disguised excuse for enriching the families of their school mates came completely undone when each family was handed five hundred dollars in cash, which amounted to three quarters of their normal yearly income as sharecroppers.

"I can't take this kind of money for that junk!" said a completely overwhelmed Minnie Cripps, pointing vaguely at the things Luthor had gathered together "for the next time Nathan comes shopping".

"Ma'am," said Nathan. "I don't have time to argue with you. We're kind of in a hurry."

"But this is crazy!" she moaned. Her eyes took on a wary look. "Where did you get this money?" she asked.

"All I can tell you is that it's part of Luthor's share of some good fortune that came our way," said Nathan, beginning to worry. He hadn't thought he'd have to beg people to take money. "I really can't tell you more than that," he said firmly.

"It's not stolen ... is it?" she asked, backing away from him. That was the only thing she could think of that would account for such an amount of money.

"No, Ma'am," he said firmly. "I promise you that. I have to go. I'll just leave it here." He put the money on the table, and backed up. He hated to lie, but he could already hear this woman demanding that her son tell her what was going on. If he did, it could ruin things. "And Ma'am, please don't ask Luthor about this. He doesn't know about this. There will be more, if things continue to work out, but people asking a lot of questions could stop that if they wanted to. We're just trying to help our friends, that's all. We wouldn't have driven all the way down here just to cause you trouble. This is just meant to help out."

She followed him out to the car, where Curtis Lee was waiting, in the driver's seat. When she saw him, she looked at Nathan. Tears started streaming down her face. He gave her a quick hug, and got in the car. She stood there until they were out of sight.

It was much the same at the other houses. Jesse's father was at home, and tried to turn the money down, fearing it was some trap that the white boy was manufacturing. Only when Curtis Lee took him aside and spoke at length with him, did he accept it.

Mrs. Finshaw had stared him straight in the eye and asked what she had to do for the money. When he'd told her he was simply trying to buy antiques, she'd snorted and suggested that he tell his mother that this kind of thing wasn't necessary.

"My Mamma?" he asked confused. "She doesn't know anything about this, Ma'am."

Curtis Lee had also had to talk to her. She looked puzzled when she finally accepted the money and watched them drive off.

Nathan dropped Curtis Lee off at Flossie's house, which sat, undisturbed. Flossie still hadn't gotten around to trying to figure out what to do with it. Her clothes were gone, but most other things had been left behind, including the furniture. Curtis Lee said He'd sleep there that night, and they could get an early start in the morning. Nathan planned on staying at his parents' house, where he expected to be kept up late talking to his mother.

His unannounced arrival caused an uproar, at least with the women in the house. When he got there, only his mother was home, and she almost collapsed when he said he had a picture of her new grandson.

"I didn't know if you'd want to see it or not," he said, nervous now.

"Of course I want to see it, you goose!" she said, a catch in her voice.

When he pulled it out of his wallet, she snatched it from his hands and stared at it for long moments.

"He has your nose," she said softly, "and your chin too. Ohhhh he's so cute!"

"Thanks Mamma," said Nathan, relieved. He had elected to use color film, but the obvious mixed race of the baby had caused him to wish he hadn't when he got the prints back from the drugstore.

She sniffled for a while, trying not to cry, but held on to the picture when he reached for it.

"This is mine!" she said, wiping her eyes. "I'll make sure to hide it well, but you can't have it back."

"How are the girls?" he asked, finally.

Marian threw up her hands.

"I've been helping the new teacher at school. It didn't take me long to see those mooney-eyed looks that Hilda Mae and that Moses boy were trading. It's been everything I could do to keep them apart. Thank goodness he's going to graduate and go up there with you to be a policeman. And Bernadette is just so surly, Nathan. It's like her best friend died or something! She's going to graduate in three weeks, and then I don't know what I'll do."

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked. Her letters, after that last visit had been somewhat stiff for a few weeks, but had gotten much more friendly since then.

"Oh, I know it wasn't you," she said, getting up to get him a piece of cake. "There weren't any suitable boys around, and we couldn't help that." She looked at the picture of her grandson again. "What am I going to do if all my grandbabies look like this?" she asked.

"Love them?" he suggested carefully.

"Of course I'll love them!" she said. "But he's so ... brown!"

"Send them to college, then," he said. "Maybe they'll meet some ... suitable boys ... there. You know, forget all about ... the others."

She looked at her son with pity in her eyes. "Don't you go trying to make me feel better. You don't know anything about women, I can plainly see that. Even if we could afford to send Bernadette to college, which is no fit place for a girl, if you ask me, all she'd do is go off to find Curtis Lee in Kansas City. And Hilda Mae's no better. I know she sneaks off to meet Moses sometimes. I can't lock her in her room, but I wish I could sometimes. Mable Finshaw and I are at our wit's ends!"

"You've met Mrs. Finshaw?" he asked carefully. That explained her reaction when, not two hours ago, he'd tried to hand the woman five hundred dollars.

"I had to talk to her when school started and I saw how smitten they were with each other," his mother said. "She's just as aware as I am how wrong it is for them to think like that towards each other. I see her every couple of weeks or so. It takes both of us to ride herd on those two, and they still manage to get alone every once in a while, despite everything we do. We threaten and threaten and it just doesn't do any good at all! As I said, we're both relieved that he'll be coming North to go that police academy of yours in July."

"Maybe you should let them get together, with supervision," said Nathan. "You know, chaperoned like."

Marian shot him a disbelieving look. "In this town, Nathan? What have they done to you up North? Addled your brain? Your father would horsewhip that boy if he ever showed up around here, and me for letting him!"

Nathan sighed. He knew it would be even worse if someone saw Hilda Mae visiting the Finshaw farm.

"I may have to send them up to live with you when they graduate," said his mother. "I haven't the foggiest idea what else to do. But I know that if I do ... I'll never get to see any of my grandbabies!"

Nathan almost groaned. Having his sisters around could cause real trouble, if only because he'd suddenly be responsible for them. That didn't even count the way the siblings felt about each other.

Marian looked at the picture of Nathan Junior again. "I just know that if I send Bernadette up there, I expect I'll be looking at another picture like this before I'm ready."

"We got married, Mamma," he said, remembering that he and Flossie hadn't told anyone yet.

She looked at her son, standing tall. He was a good boy, even if he had strange tastes in women. And the product of this crazy union was gorgeous, even if his skin was too brown, and his hair was black and curly. She ached to hold that little piece of her son, though she couldn't admit that to him out loud.

"Well, I suppose that was the right thing to do, considering what you did to the poor girl," she said, sighing. "But that doesn't mean I'll look forward to ..." She stopped and sat down. "Why can't children grow up like they're supposed to?" she moaned.

"I'm sorry I disappointed you," said Nathan sadly.

She looked up at him. "You're not a disappointment, Nathan. I never once even thought about you becoming a policeman, and helping people like that. I suppose I never thought about you growing up at all, or what that might mean. This is all just so strange to my tired old brain. I don't know what to think, or how to feel."

"I'm happy, Mamma," he said. "I'm really happy, and I feel like I'm doing the right things. I think you raised me up pretty good."

"Well," she corrected him, without thinking.

He laughed, a great long belly laugh, and told her about the first time Flossie had corrected him for misusing the word "good" when it should have been "well". "I was so mad at her I wanted to hit her," he said. "Now I'm married to her and love her more than anybody except maybe you and my sisters."

Marian listened with a warm glow in her heart. He sounded happy, and that was as much as any mother ever wanted for her children. Still, she couldn't just let her daughters flout convention too.

"I told you you didn't know much about women," she said.

When the girls got home from school, and saw Nathan's car, they crashed into the house like it was on fire and they were there to save everyone. Their mother was in the kitchen, working on supper, and when they didn't see who they were searching for, their natural instinct was to look in Nathan's old room for him. He was, in fact, lying on his bed, napping.

Marian heard the uproar as they came screaming into the house, and found them both on top of their brother, kissing him wildly.

"Here, now! Stop that!" she barked, as the two startled girls looked up. Nathan had a weak grin on his face. "Crawling all over a man in bed is not appropriate behavior for two girls in the blush of youth!" she said. Then her eyes went glazed for a second and, almost to herself she said "Though it is at least a white man."

Bernadette took her hand off her brother's crotch, hoping her mother hadn't seen it there squeezing, and she tried to put an outraged look on her face.

"Mu-thur!" she squeaked. "How could you think that way?! He's our brother! We just haven't seen him in a long time."

"Can I show them?" asked Marian excitedly, reaching into her apron pocket.

"It's your picture," laughed Nathan.

Marian pulled at her daughters and huddled with them. There were the expected squeals of excitement, and they talked about how much the baby looked like him, darting looks at the man on the bed, who was now sitting up, grinning.

Then Marian was back to being a mother.

"Now," she said, folding her arms under her breasts. "Don't you think that just because I think this baby is beautiful, that that means you two can go acting like harlots!" She faced Hilda Mae. "I know you and Moses snuck off to be alone last Thursday night, when you said you were going to the Library. Mable says Moses went to the library that night too!"

"Ohhh Mamma," said Hilda Mae, with an exaggerated tone. "We just talked, right there in the library."

"No you didn't!" said Marian heatedly. "Mrs. Hopkins said you both left at eight and you didn't get back home until nine. It doesn't take an hour to get home!"

"We just talked, Mamma," said Hilda Mae, looking down.

"Did you take your pills today?" asked their mother. "Both of you?"

"Mamma!" squealed both girls.

"Your brother is a grown man. He knows what goes on between boys and girls!" She waved the picture in her hand. "Now, did you take those pills today?"

"No, Mamma," they said in unison.

"We take them when we go to bed," added Bernadette. "Though why I have to take them is beyond me. I don't even have a boyfriend!"

"Moses Finshaw is not Hilda Mae's boyfriend!" said Marian. "And you're going to graduate in three weeks, and you won't tell me what you're going to do then, or if you're staying here, or going who knows where after that. What am I going to do with you two?" she moaned.

Neither girl said anything. It was obvious to Nathan that this was an argument they'd had before.

"Supper will be in an hour," said Marian finally. "There will be no talk at the table about Nathan Junior, is that clear?"

All three of them answered in unison: "Yes Mamma."

Marian turned on her heel and left. The girls tackled Nathan more quietly this time. After kisses that left him helplessly erect, they relented.

"Did Curtis Lee come with you this time?" asked Bernadette in an excited whisper.

"I'm not telling you until after supper," said Nathan.

"He's nere?" she gasped. "Where is he, Nathan?"

"I'm not telling you until after supper," he said quietly. "I want you to act normal during supper."

"Nathan!" she pleaded.

"Not until after supper," he said doggedly. "And then only if you act normal."

Bernadette flounced out of the room. Hilda Mae just looked satisfied that now, she got her brother all to herself.

Supper was surprisingly docile. Harvey nodded to his son, but didn't say anything, or ask why he was back home. Marian strained, at first, to carry on normal conversation, until Nathan started telling stories about what being a policeman was like in the big city. He already had lots of war stories to tell, and he held them enthralled all through supper.

"Hey," said Bernadette, during dessert. "You know what I heard today? There's a new store over in Flaerty that opened up, and they have all the latest fashions. Could Nathan drive us up there to see it?"

"They'll be closed," said Harvey shortly.

"Yes, but at least we could look in the window and see what kinds of things they have," said Bernadette, not looking at Nathan. "If it's pretty things, he could take us back next Saturday."

"I have to leave tomorrow," said Nathan. "I have to be back at work Friday afternoon."

To be honest, it was both girls pleading to go that finally wore Marian down. It didn't occur to her that with both girls being with their brother, either of them could get into any trouble.

"All right," she said finally. "But don't be gone too long. Your brother needs his rest for that long drive back."

Nathan drove around town, and went past Flossie's to park the car by the bridge over Foster's creek. That way it would look like someone was doing some late fishing, instead of the car being parked by Flossie's house. Curtis Lee was reading a book by lamplight when they went in the door.

Bernadette went to him, pulled him up, pulled him into Flossie's bedroom, and closed the door.

"They'll be busy for a while," said Hilda Mae, unbuttoning her shirt.

Nathan looked at her, sixteen now, and more well developed by far than the last time he'd seen her naked. Her breasts were more full, and her nipples better formed. They were stiff and stuck out pinkly against the creamy white of her breasts.

"I'm married now," said Nathan.

"She'll understand," said Hilda Mae, ignoring the obvious opposite. "Besides, I only get to see Moses about once a month."

"You're taking your birth control pills?" he asked.

"You bet I am," said his sister.

"What if they come out here?" he asked as she dropped the last of her clothing and stood before him in all her naked glory.

"I don't care," she said, her eyes smoky.

Curtis Lee groaned as he slid deep into Bernadette's clasping pussy. He had missed this as much or more than she did. He didn't last long, sending long ropes of spermy semen into her womb. She didn't care. She knew she could get him hard again in a short while.

In the next room, Hilda Mae swallowed Nathan's spunk as it spurted right on that special spot deep in her throat. His finger was hooked inside her and the double stimulation brought her off nicely. She, too, planned on getting him hard again, as soon as they'd have time to snuggle and kiss for a while.

An hour later, both girls were dripping sperm into their panties as they walked with their brother back to the car. He drove them around just long enough to get the car's engine good and warmed up. Being a cop had taught him to expect the unexpected, and it was possible that their father would walk out and feel the hood of the car when they got back home. Harvey had to know that Flossie had left town the same day as Nathan, and he'd never said anything about it, but still, it was better to play the role than take chances.

The house was dark when they got home, though, their parents already in bed. The girls, worn out from their activities, went straight to bed after giving their brother a long good night kiss and thanking him.

Nathan was already gone in the morning when they got up. Where the car had been parked was just empty space. He had picked up Curtis Lee and fifty more Double Eagles, and they were already sixty miles from town when Bernadette and her sister went off to school. The car was in East St. Louis when Bernadette came home from school. It was just about as Curtis Lee, at the wheel, pulled up to the farmhouse, and Flossie came out the door to greet them, that Hilda Mae finished the hundred strokes she had given Bernadette's hair. Nathan was kissing his wife, when Bernadette picked up the packet of birth control pills her mother had given her, to take Friday night's pill.

She stared dumbly at the Thursday pill, which was still snugly encased in its holder. She had, in the excitement of the previous evening, forgotten to take the pill. She looked at Hildy's packet. The Thursday pill was gone, the Friday pill still there. Hildy came over and asked what she was doing. She pointed at the un-swallowed contraceptive in her packet.

"Uh oh," said Hilda Mae.

"It'll be okay," said Bernadette. "I took all the other ones."

She lay down in bed, and the egg the missed pill had allowed to drop, and which Curtis Lee's sperm had fertilized, drifted against the wall of her uterus, where it attached. By morning, Bernadette Wilson's digestive system was supplying nutrients to two living organisms. By the time she accepted her diploma, in late May, she had already watched Hilda Mae have a period ... all by herself.

Chapter 38

Marian watched her daughters becoming more and more sullen. Now that school was out, she could supervise them much more effectively than before, and she supervised with a vengeance. In a little longer than a month, Moses would board a bus and one of the problems would disappear North, hopefully forever. That still left Bernadette, who had graduated, but was not yet eighteen. She wanted to go North too, and Marian knew exactly why. She kept saying "No." When Bernadette turned eighteen, in July, she would keep saying "No", hoping that something would turn up that would keep her daughter away from Curtis Lee. She felt like she was in a no-win situation. She knew Bernadette talked about Curtis Lee to her sister, and vice versa. If Bernadette left, say for Atlanta, where Marian still had friends, and might be able to arrange employment, distasteful as that was, maybe Hilda Mae might be a little more manageable. On the other hand, Bernadette would be footloose and fancy free in the big city, which worried Marian to no end. And, Hilda Mae would then be alone, pining for something she could never have, with no sister there to commiserate with her. There was just no answer to the dilemma.

It was, ironically, the 4th of July, when Bernadette came to her mother one morning and asked her to sit down at the table.

"I have to go to Kansas city," she said, her voice sounding strange.

"We've talked about this over and over," said Marian. "I can't let you do that. You don't know what you're doing."

"Mamma," said the girl, her voice strained. "I have to go." She looked down at the table, unable to keep her mother's stare. "Something happened ... something I didn't plan on. I have to go, Mamma."

Something in her voice set of alarms in Marian's head.

"What happened," she asked, her stomach doing flip-flops.

"Curtis Lee came with Nathan last time," said Bernadette nervously.

"No he didn't," said Marian. "He stayed here, with us. He came alone."

"He didn't come alone," said Bernadette miserably. "We couldn't tell you. You'd have forbidden me to see him. I had to see him, Mamma."

"What did you do?!" asked her distressed mother.

"I have to go to Kansas city, Mamma. You need to understand that. I have to go soon, before ..."

"Before you begin to show," said Marian dully. "But that's why I put you on those damned pills," she said helplessly.

"I forgot to take one," said Bernadette. "Just one single time I forgot."

Marian lay her head down on her arms. She didn't say anything for so long that Bernadette was starting to get worried. Then she raised her head.

"I'll give you money for a bus ticket," she said. "I can't do anything more than that. I can't send you there, and I can't give you permission to go. Your father would never forgive me if I did. You'll have to repay me too. He should pay for this. He's the one who did this to you."

"It wasn't like that, Mamma," said Bernadette, straightening up. "He fought me the whole time, from the very beginning. He told me I was crazy, and that I'd get us both in trouble. He ran away from me, even. That was why he went to the academy with Nathan in the first place, to leave me here so I'd forget him."

"But he came back," said Marian sternly. "Didn't he?"

"I threatened him, Mamma," said the girl. "I wrote him secret letters and said I'd run away if he didn't come back with Nathan. There are things you don't know about ... things I can't tell you about ... not now. We're tied together, Mamma ... all of us kids ... Moses and Johnnie Sue and Jesse ... all of us have made plans, and I can't tell you about it, but I want you to know everything's going to be okay. I promise!"

"You planned this?" Marian gasped.

"Not getting pregnant," Bernadette blushed. "Not like this, anyway. I planned on being married first."

"To him?"

"Yes, even before he left. I told him I was going to marry him. He said I was crazy. But then this other thing happened and it changed everything."

"What other thing?" asked Marian.

"That's the part I can't tell you about. Please, Mamma, all I can tell you is that we'll be okay. Everything is already arranged."

"I will skin that boy alive!" said Marian.

"I told you, it wasn't his fault!" said Bernadette.

"I'm talking about your brother!" spat Marian. "He's been sneaking around behind my back, after I let him go off and be with her and ... and ... and" She began spluttering with frustration.

"Mamma, you remember when you first figured out I was in love with Curtis Lee?" Bernadette asked suddenly. "Remember when you came into the bedroom and talked with us for hours?" She leaned forward. "Do you remember what you told us?"

"Of course I do," moaned Marian. "And you obviously didn't listen to me! I told you it was damn foolishness to think about boys outside your station in life!"

"You told us about that other boy you liked, Mamma," said Bernadette. "And you told us how you forgot all about him when you met Daddy, and that we'd forget all about the boys we were interested in when we met the right kind of boys."

Marian looked confused. She had told them about Phillip. She had told the story differently than she had when she told it to Flossie, but the purpose had been different.

"Mamma, we could see that you hadn't forgotten about him. Your eyes got all soft when you were remembering him, Mamma. You said you'd forgotten him, but you didn't really."

Marian looked at her daughter helplessly. "I love your father," she said.

"I know you do, but it was clear to both Hildy and me that you also loved this other man. You said he was the wrong kind of boy, but you loved him anyway, didn't you?" When her mother didn't answer she went on. "And I love Curtis Lee, even though I know he's not the right man for me to love, and that our life will be hard, and people will most likely look down on us. But I love him, Mamma, and it's his baby inside me, and I love that too, even though I'm scared to death. But I have to go be with him, Mamma. I can't stand the thought of him not knowing, and of me being away from him any more. I love you, and I wish this hadn't happened this way, but it did, and I have to go, and I promise you we're going to be okay, even though I can't tell you why."

Marian couldn't think clearly right now. The heart of a mother heard what was in her daughter's voice, but she couldn't just accept it ... not just like that. She stood up, rigid.

"I can't take you to the bus station," she said. "You must wait until you're eighteen, or your father will send people after you. You'll have to find your own way."

Tears ran down Bernadette's face, and her voice was choked.

"Okay, Mamma," she said.

"You can call your brother," said her mother.

On the fifteenth of July, 1963, in a strange role reversal, Moses Finshaw was taken to Flaerty to catch the bus north. The role reversal wasn't that Moses was riding, while his mother drove the battered old pickup that was jointly owned by the Finshaws and Jesse Hawthorn's parents. The role reversal was the fact that, in the back, covered by a tarp, nestled among bags of tobacco, was a white girl, escaping to the North by being smuggled out of the South.

The truck ground to a halt just around the bend that led into town, and Bernadette got out with her suitcase. In her pocket she had a hundred dollars that Moses had pressed into her hand just before he covered her up with the tarp. It was part of the five hundred dollars the Wilson boy had dropped off a couple of months earlier. The truck rumbled on into town, and Bernadette walked the last three quarters of a mile. She bought her ticket and sat down on in the white waiting area, where she could see Moses, who ignored her completely. When they boarded the first of several buses that would take them to Kansas City, they sat apart, as the law required. From St. Louis on, however, they sat side by side. Two men approached them, asking if the boy was bothering her. Bernadette simply said she was fine.

Bernadette had learned of the plans to get her to Flaerty in a note, printed neatly in her mother's hand, that she found under her pillow. Her mother never said a word about the note, nor did Bernadette ask her anything.

Marian's decision to help her daughter was influenced in no small way by a conversation she had with Mable Finshaw shortly after she had found out her daughter was pregnant. Knowing now that her younger daughter's infatuation with Moses was most likely not the rebellious crush of a young girl after all, Marian had gone to speak with Mable. It was then she learned about the money, and the laughable excuse Nathan was giving people about buying and selling antiques.

"I don't know where they got that money," said Mable softly as they sat out in the shade behind the house, "but they've been giving it to the families of all their school mates." She paused. "I can't imagine where it came from," she went on, "but I can tell you it's made a world of difference in our lives. That's a good boy you raised."

Marian had left that conference a troubled woman. By all accounts, her son had distributed over two thousand dollars, and Curtis Lee had been with him when it happened. She couldn't fathom where they could come up with that kind of cash, but Bernadette's heartfelt comment about "things I can't tell you about" came to mind. That didn't help much. Marian had learned that all the parents had gotten together to compare notes. They had then questioned and even threatened their children about the mystery, but not even Jesse had caved. At fourteen, he had a presence about him that far exceeded his years. All of the kids had presented a united front, saying they didn't know anything about it. That they clearly did, just made the mystery deeper. When, as a last resort, Luthor's parents said he could have none of the money, he simply said "Spend it on the farm, then."

After another week of worrying and fretting, Marian contacted Mable again. Then she wrote the note that Bernadette had found under her pillow.

On the evening of the 15th of July, at supper, Harvey asked where Bernadette was.

Hilda Mae sat calmly. "She said this afternoon that she was going to go help Miz Hopkins with a new shipment of books. She's probably over there reading them. I think she took some sandwiches with her."

"Well, when she gets back, tell her she missed supper and to stay out of the kitchen," said Harvey heavily. "I'm going to bed. Been feeling poorly lately."

The next morning, Hilda Mae came to the breakfast table, and sat down. She had taken two bites before she stopped eating and looked around. She was the consummate actress.

"Where's Bernadette?" she asked.

Harvey looked around.

Marian looked nervous. "Isn't she still in the bedroom?"

"No. Her bed was made when I got up."

"Didn't you talk to her when she got home?" asked Harvey, looking alarmed now.

"I fell asleep," said his daughter, no trace of guile on her face. "When I woke up I thought she'd already gotten up."

Marian rushed to the bedroom, already trembling, while Harvey followed her. Bernadette wasn't there, of course. Marian picked up the pillow, to reveal a note. When she read it she burst into tears. They were honest tears. She was terrified for her daughter, but it was what was written that caused her to cry out, just to keep from laughing.

"I have gone off to find my fortune. I love you both, but I'm all grown up now. I'll contact you when I've found some place to live. Don't worry about me. Tell Hildy she can have the clothes I left behind."

To Marian's eyes, she saw a little girl, in all her innocence, running away from home on a lark of some kind. But she knew that was no little girl, and that, just as she did, Bernadette knew just what was at stake.

Harvey snatched the note from her, and his eyes bulged when he read it. He stomped out of the house, and didn't come back all day. He had tracked down the constable, who, when he found out the girl was eighteen, said there was nothing he could do. Harvey had then looked fruitlessly for his daughter, and then found someplace to get roaring drunk. Marian shooed Hilda out of the house. There was no telling what Harvey would be like when he was like this.

Hilda Mae got on her bike and rode over to Johnnie Sue's house, where she was invited to supper. Then, waiting until almost eight, she rode home again. She was both excited and sad. She was excited that, in a year, she would be able to do what her sister had just done - go and meet the man she loved and have his babies. She was sad because it was going to be a long, lonely year before that could happen.

On the 17th of July, Marian picked up the phone to hear her son's voice.

"The package you sent me got here just fine," he said. "Thank you."

"You just wait until I get my hands on you, young man!" said Marian urgently and softly, even though there was no one around to hear her. "Your father is breathing fire, and has even gone to the law!"

"That won't do him any good," said Nathan.

"I know that, but he's going to be insufferable until he finds out where she is!"

"She's fine. She'll call you herself in a day or two. She hasn't thought up a story yet about where she is."

"Nathan," said his mother, her voice changing. "Where did you get all that money?"

"What money, Mamma?"

"You know good and well what money I'm talking about," she said harshly.

There was a long silence, and then his soft voice again. "You know I love you, Mamma, and Bernie does too."

Marian waited, saying nothing.

"It's not stolen, or anything like that," said Nathan.

"Then why can't you tell me where you got it?" she asked.

"We found something ... something buried. It was worth a lot of money, but nobody owns it, or would even remember that it was ever there. We split the sale evenly."

"All of you kids?" she asked, shocked. "You were all together when you found this ... this ... what was it?"

"I can't tell you that, Mamma. I've already broken my oath, just telling you this much."

"You kids were ... playing together? All of you?"

"Yes, Mamma," said the voice of the son she felt like she didn't know. "We've all been friends, ever since the summer after we got there."

Marian thought of all the times her children had gone bike riding, and fishing. She had never known ... never suspected. They came home with fish, after all!

"What part did your wife play in all this, Nathan?" she asked, heatedly.

"Flossie?" he asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "She didn't know a thing. She just taught us things, Mamma. I have to go, now, Mamma. Don't worry. I'll take good care of her." He hung up before she could yell at him any more.

That made Marian feel a little better. At least until supper time, when she looked at Hilda Mae and remembered what superb acting skills she had displayed the day before. She still acted worried, and Harvey was still fuming. After supper she invited her remaining daughter to go for a walk.

They walked without talking for a block.

"I heard from Nathan today," Marian said. "He says Bernadette got there fine."

The change in Hilda Mae was immediate. She grinned and hugged her mother.

"Oh I'm so glad. I was so worried about her. I'm so happy for her!"

"You knew she was going, didn't you?" asked her mother.

"You did too," said Hilda Mae.

"You're going to do the same thing ... aren't you?" asked Marian. "When you graduate next year?"

Hilda Mae hugged her mother again. "If you're worried about me running off before then, don’t. I'm not like Bernie that way."

"But you will go off to be with Moses ... won't you?" pressed her mother.

"I don't know," said Hilda Mae. "He hasn't asked me to do that yet. Like I said, I'm not like Bernadette that way."

"What do you mean?" asked her mother.

"I'm going to make Moses ask me to marry him, not the other way around," said Hilda Mae.

"She did that?" asked Marian, astounded. It was unheard of! And not just because of the mixture of races.

"She chased that poor boy until he couldn't run any more," said Hilda Mae. "I was actually embarrassed about it a couple of times."

"Why didn't you say something to me?" asked Marian.

Hilda Mae looked at her like she had sprouted a third eye.

"We both knew what we were doing would make the world blow up," said Hilda Mae. "If I'd have told you, you would have sent us away or something."

"Tell me about the money," said Marian, casually.

"What money?" asked Hilda Mae, instantly on guard.

"Oh, it's no big secret any more. Nathan told me you all found something valuable on the phone, so I wouldn't worry about Bernadette."

"He told you that?" asked Hilda Mae, flustered.

"Yes, so now you can tell me more."

"What did he tell you we found?" asked Hilda Mae, suspicious at her mother's wording.

"Well, he just said it was something valuable, and that it belongs to all of you, and that you'd all been friends since the summer after we got here, and that that's where the money came from that he's been giving to the families."

"He told you all that?" asked Hilda Mae, standing there shocked.

Marian didn't tell her that she had dragged it out of him, or how she had done that. "As I said, he didn't want me to worry about Bernadette having enough to get by on."

Hilda Mae stood there uncertainly. She wanted to tell her mother ... to share the excitement. But, though she was also mature beyond her years, she still didn't trust ... adults.

"I can't say anything about it, Mamma. I swore an oath. So did Nathan. He shouldn't have said anything about it."

"And if I keep you from running away until you tell me?" suggested Marian, hating herself for torturing her daughter.

Hilda Mae's reaction shocked her. The girl closed up completely, and then turned away to start walking back toward the house. "You'll have to do what ever you think is best," she said. "As will I," she added, stiffly.

Marian caught up with her and took her elbow. Hilda Mae jerked away from her, convinced now that not even her mother could be trusted, regardless of what she'd done for Nathan and Bernadette.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm a mother. I had to try to get it out of you. I won't ask again, I promise. Don't go home yet. There are other things we need to talk about."

Hilda Mae stopped, and stared at her mother suspiciously. "You won't ask me about the money again?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Marian, crossing her chest like she had in her youth.

They walked for two hours. Hilda Mae was willing to talk about the friendships that had formed, unknown to most of the parents. She was careful not to burn Johnnie Sue and her blood brothers, identifying them as being too young to be interested in the opposite sex, but who were part of the group anyway. She also told Marian about the treehouse, but only said that they got the lumber from an old tumble-down house in the woods.

Hilda Mae was not nearly sophisticated enough to realize that her mother could hear between the lines, so to speak. Before they'd even gotten home, Marian decided to have a visit with Mrs. Thorp, about Johnnie Sue, and about birth control pills.

Bernadette ran into problems. She hadn't thought to ask about her birth certificate, didn't even know such things existed until it was demanded to prove her age when she applied for a marriage license. That required a call home, during which she talked to her mother for two hours and things got patched up some. They decided to just tell Harvey that she was with Nathan, since Harvey would never make the jump to believe that she had gone there because of Curtis Lee.

As it turned out, that mollified Harvey somewhat. Knowing that a Wilson was there to look out for her made him feel better. He'd heard the stories Nathan told at supper that night, and he'd been impressed with the level headedness of the boy, even if he didn't show it.

Marian found and sent the birth certificate, and the same Justice of the Peace who joined Nathan and Flossie, married Bernadette and Curtis Lee. Flossie, baby in arms, and Nathan were there too.

While Bernadette's belly grew and grew, she wrote long letters to her mother, claiming to have gotten hired as a secretary for a plumbing supply company, while, in fact, she spent the vast majority of her time in the garden. Flossie taught her to can vegetables, and she worked hard to put up food for the coming winter. In September of that year, Flossie started teaching at the newly finished Douglass school, and Bernadette took over the daytime care of Nathan Jr., who was then almost six months old. She counted that as practice for the thing that was now beginning to move around inside her and nudge Curtis Lee's hand as it lay on her stomach. Curtis Lee had to start taking her from behind, and he had to be careful not to be too forceful, since he was long enough to impact that baby if he wasn't. Her breasts got heavier, and she found that she could have an exquisite orgasm just from Curtis Lee nursing her. She began to worry that she wouldn't be able to nurse the baby without ending up in a puddle on the floor.

Moses did well in the Academy, though his grades weren't as strong as those of Nathan and Curtis Lee. It turned out, however, that he had a flair for shooting. No matter what they put in his hands, he was a crack shot with it. It was as if he understood firearms on their own level, could hear them telling him where to aim them. When he shot only three points lower than the Department champion, he was chosen to be the first non-white on the marksmanship team, which competed with other departments around the country. In the late 1960s, when the KCMO PD would copy Los Angeles, and form a Special Weapons and Tactics Team, Moses Finshaw would be assigned to teach marksmanship to the first S.W.A.T. team in the city.

Moses' interest in weapons naturally led him to examine one of the Whitworth sniper rifles that still lay waiting to be researched and sold. When Nathan told him the armorer had examined one, and found it to be in apparently unfired condition, Moses couldn't resist trying one out. On the police firing range, he went up against an Enfield .303 in the hands of the armorer. The Enfield was good for about 800 yards on a man-sized silhouette. In the hands of Moses, The Whitworth, with the tubular four power scope mounted, reached 1,300 yards, placing the 320 grain, forty-five caliber, six-sided bullet square in the center of the chest.

In February of 1964, a very surprised Doctor pried an obviously Negro baby out of Bernadette with a pair of forceps. At seven pounds eight ounces, she was a small thing, but she was perfectly healthy, even though he couldn't believe she came from a young white woman. The doctor had gotten to know Bernadette during her relatively normal labor, and he liked her. He was concerned that her husband might hurt her when he found out she had been indiscriminate, and offered to call the police to be there when he found out.

She smiled. "He is a policeman, and he's already out in the waiting room. His partner is with him, though, so we may as well get this over with."

She giggled, in concert with the nurse, who knew which policeman was Bernadette's husband, while the doctor did not. The nurse described, blow by blow how the doctor approached Nathan and broke the news, even more unhappy now that he saw the "father" was accompanied by a black man. Nathan, had he known what was happening, might have played along and acted angry, but instead he turned the doctor over to Curtis Lee, who grinned from ear to ear as he was led in to see his daughter and wife.

They had already decided that, if it was a girl, her name would be Juliet, courtesy of William Shakespeare, and in honor of their forbidden romance.

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