theys…”
“All right, all right, now slow down, woman. Cain’t nobody understand what you’re trying to say with all that screechin’. You take a good long breath now and slow down.” It was obvious that the woman had taken stern orders from Miss Ida enough times in the past to nod her head and immediately start to suck air into her mouth and begin to swallow. Her next words were both several octaves lower and decibels quieter.
“Mizz Ida, ma’am. They is a dead man yonder near my place.”
This time those listening in the wagon began to rise and jump down on the ground. The driver was now too entranced himself to complain though he stayed in his seat.
“All right. All right, Shantice,” Ida repeated. She reached out to take the woman’s shaky hands in her own and covered them as if calming both of their hearts.
“Who is it, Shantice? Tell me who it is that’s dead?”
Now the small group was stone silent, waiting for grief to slap them.
“It’s a stranger, ma’am,” the woman called Shantice said. “I ain’t never seen him before, ma’am, honest to God.”
Ida’s brow furrowed in skepticism, a reaction that caught Marjory by surprise as much as the woman’s plea for believability.
“Now, Shantice, get yourself together, woman. You know every man in the Styx and most every other man on this here island. You think hard who you seen out there,” Ida ordered the woman.
“I ain’t never seen him, ma’am. God’s truth. He’s all burnt up, an he gots money…” At this point the woman’s hands started back to fluttering and her voice began to cry and climb. “He gots money in his mout,” she finally said, her fingertips now dancing near her own lips.
With the new information Ida shook her head with incredulity and started to turn back into the group as if this tale was a child’s exaggeration that went beyond belief at a time already full of unbelievable events.
“An he’s white, Mizz Ida,” Shantice blurted out, her words catching the elderly woman in midstride and freezing everyone within hearing distance. “It’s a dead white man.”
C HAPTER 5
T HE train was ready when Flagler was ready.
After a breakfast of hot oatmeal and weak coffee, during which his new supervisor gave him his duties until such time they were out of the city, Michael Byrne was positioned at the head of Flagler’s car number 90 where he was instructed to “stand ready like a Pinkerton man and don’t let anyone approach while Flagler and his wife are boarding.”
With a newly requisitioned knee-length woolen coat, Byrne stood rather comfortable in the cold, his hands clasped behind his back like he’d been taught as a police recruit, only moving up and down the loading platform. No one was within a car’s length of number 90. The other passengers and material being loaded were up the tracks where the less glorious coaches and boxcars were aligned.
Byrne cut his eyes to the north when a contingent finally arrived out of the clouds of steam. Flagler was not difficult to pick out. He was the one in the middle, wearing a dark suit without an overcoat despite the cold. He was of average build—about five-foot seven and a thin one hundred and forty—despite his reputation as a giant of the business world. His most distinguishing feature was his full head of snow-white hair and a thick broom mustache to match. His back was straight, his chin held high, and his gait was best described as leisurely. He moved at a slow pace, though not because of any obvious infirmity. He was simply not a man in a hurry, nor one who needed to be.
Byrne knew little about the man other than he was rumored to be in his late seventies and had long ago become rich as the partner of John D. Rockefeller when the two of them established the Standard Oil Company. His was a station of the upper class that a man like Byrne was well to stand out of the way of and at attention to. Flagler’s world was nothing that a working-class
“All right, all right, now slow down, woman. Cain’t nobody understand what you’re trying to say with all that screechin’. You take a good long breath now and slow down.” It was obvious that the woman had taken stern orders from Miss Ida enough times in the past to nod her head and immediately start to suck air into her mouth and begin to swallow. Her next words were both several octaves lower and decibels quieter.
“Mizz Ida, ma’am. They is a dead man yonder near my place.”
This time those listening in the wagon began to rise and jump down on the ground. The driver was now too entranced himself to complain though he stayed in his seat.
“All right. All right, Shantice,” Ida repeated. She reached out to take the woman’s shaky hands in her own and covered them as if calming both of their hearts.
“Who is it, Shantice? Tell me who it is that’s dead?”
Now the small group was stone silent, waiting for grief to slap them.
“It’s a stranger, ma’am,” the woman called Shantice said. “I ain’t never seen him before, ma’am, honest to God.”
Ida’s brow furrowed in skepticism, a reaction that caught Marjory by surprise as much as the woman’s plea for believability.
“Now, Shantice, get yourself together, woman. You know every man in the Styx and most every other man on this here island. You think hard who you seen out there,” Ida ordered the woman.
“I ain’t never seen him, ma’am. God’s truth. He’s all burnt up, an he gots money…” At this point the woman’s hands started back to fluttering and her voice began to cry and climb. “He gots money in his mout,” she finally said, her fingertips now dancing near her own lips.
With the new information Ida shook her head with incredulity and started to turn back into the group as if this tale was a child’s exaggeration that went beyond belief at a time already full of unbelievable events.
“An he’s white, Mizz Ida,” Shantice blurted out, her words catching the elderly woman in midstride and freezing everyone within hearing distance. “It’s a dead white man.”
C HAPTER 5
T HE train was ready when Flagler was ready.
After a breakfast of hot oatmeal and weak coffee, during which his new supervisor gave him his duties until such time they were out of the city, Michael Byrne was positioned at the head of Flagler’s car number 90 where he was instructed to “stand ready like a Pinkerton man and don’t let anyone approach while Flagler and his wife are boarding.”
With a newly requisitioned knee-length woolen coat, Byrne stood rather comfortable in the cold, his hands clasped behind his back like he’d been taught as a police recruit, only moving up and down the loading platform. No one was within a car’s length of number 90. The other passengers and material being loaded were up the tracks where the less glorious coaches and boxcars were aligned.
Byrne cut his eyes to the north when a contingent finally arrived out of the clouds of steam. Flagler was not difficult to pick out. He was the one in the middle, wearing a dark suit without an overcoat despite the cold. He was of average build—about five-foot seven and a thin one hundred and forty—despite his reputation as a giant of the business world. His most distinguishing feature was his full head of snow-white hair and a thick broom mustache to match. His back was straight, his chin held high, and his gait was best described as leisurely. He moved at a slow pace, though not because of any obvious infirmity. He was simply not a man in a hurry, nor one who needed to be.
Byrne knew little about the man other than he was rumored to be in his late seventies and had long ago become rich as the partner of John D. Rockefeller when the two of them established the Standard Oil Company. His was a station of the upper class that a man like Byrne was well to stand out of the way of and at attention to. Flagler’s world was nothing that a working-class
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