was a crowd at the graveside, listening to the preacher’s words with the pinched, stoic expressions of people that had been expecting bad news and soon expected to hear worse. The cemetery was well-tended, bordered by woods on two sides and the small white church on another.
Everyone gave a wide berth to the big man in the brown suit. He stared down into the open grave in silence as the preacher intoned the last few words of the service. A few of them looked at the diamond and ruby rings on his fingers and noted the cut of the expensive suit, but no one made comments, at least in his presence. The man had not been a part of their lives for years, but his reputation for random and vicious fits of temper was still legendary.
When the preacher’s voice trailed off into a nervous mumble, the big man looked up and looked at him. His eyes were hidden by tinted sunglasses, but after a moment, the preacher looked away
and cleared his throat. The big man turned away without a word and walked off towards the line of beat-up cars and trucks in the gravel parking lot. He paused a moment to brush the dust from the cuffs of his pants and opened the door of a large brown 4 x 4 pickup. Letters across the top of the dark-tinted windshield said “INDIAN OUTLAW”.
He got into the truck and sat down, leaving the door open. The truck’s oversized wheels raised the pickup off the ground high enough that the man’s snakeskin boots dangled a few inches from the ground like a child’s in a grownup chair. He waited.
The group at the graveside had broken into smaller knots, discussing the weather, the tobacco crop, and everything except the recently deceased. After a few minutes, a young man detached himself from the congregation and walked over to the truck.
“Hey,” the young man said. There was no reply.
“Any news on who killed Daddy?” the big man said finally. The Lumbee accent made the last word come out as “diddy.”
The younger of the two brothers shuffled his feet in the coarse gravel. “Sheriff said they ain’t got no leads.”
“Shit,” the big man said. He spat on the ground next to his brother’s foot. It was an insult that would have resulted in knives being pulled on anyone else.
“Ain’t no need to get pissed off at me, Raymond.” The younger man whined. “I ain’t…”
“Someone knew Daddy had a lot of cash. Got any idea?”
The younger man shrugged. “I guess the Meskins knew. Daddy paid ‘em off ever’…”
Raymond swung his legs into the truck. “We’ll go talk to them, then. Get in.”
The younger man looked back at the safety of the crowd. “Get in the truck, John Lee,” Raymond said. “I ain’t gonna tell you again.” John Lee took a last look at the church and sighed. He got in the truck. He slumped unhappily in the seat as Raymond pulled away from the church. “I gotta drop by the club,” Raymond said. “Then we’ll go see what these Meskins can tell us.”
Interstate Highway 95 stretches 1,970 miles, a gray and black river of asphalt that flows from Miami to the Canadian border. Everything moves on the highway. Truckers ferry livestock, produce, cigarettes, clothing, lumber, bricks, cars, anything that can be shipped in a flatbed or trailer. Tourists stare blankly out the windows of cars, motor homes and SUV’s, as they traverse the flat, empty spaces between entertainments. Salesmen study the mile markers for signs that they’ll reach their next meeting in time. And, inevitably, drugs and money move on the highway. The FBI, the DEA, and a variety of local law enforcement try to interdict the tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana stuffed into the backs of pickups and the wheel wells of compact cars. They catch a few, but mostly they only succeed in angering the African-American and Hispanic drivers that they stop in disproportionate numbers.
Raymond’s club, the 95 Lounge, was visible from the highway, but a curious traveler had to go a mile up to a little-used exit and double back on a narrow country road to reach it. There was little reason for them to; the club was not advertised on any of the thousands of billboards that grew along the roadside. There was no Texaco nearby, no Cracker Barrel restaurant, no McDonald’s or Burger King. The only people who would take the trouble to find their way there were those who knew its real business.
Raymond and John Lee pulled up in the parking lot of the club. It was a low cinder block building painted a dull purple and black. The words “95 LOUNGE” were clumsily hand-painted on the front and side of the building in green and white Day-Glo letters. There were no windows. A neon sign beside the peeling wooden door announced that the 95 Lounge was “open”. There were a couple of battered cars in the parking lot and a new 18-wheel truck.
They entered the club, stopping for a moment to let their eyes get used to the gloom. The only illumination was provided by a dim fluorescent light behind the bar and a Budweiser sign on the far wall. There were several large booths along that wall. A fat man in a polyester shirt with his name embroidered over one pocket was seated in one of the booths. A skinny woman with bleached blonde hair was seated in the booth on the same side. She was whispering something in his ear. As John Lee stared, her hand slid beneath the table and into the fat man’s lap.
“You see somethin’ you interested in?” a voice said.
John Lee turned. Billy Ray, the club’s manager, was standing behind the bar. He had a malicious grin on his broad copper-colored face.
“Darlene’s busy right now, but I don’t reckon that trucker’ll take too long,” Billy Ray said. “You can have sloppy seconds.”
“Shut it, Billy Ray,” Raymond said. “John Lee and me got stuff to do.” The smile disappeared from the man’s face. He sullenly went back to polishing the bar.
John Lee looked back at the couple, who were disappearing out the back door. There was a broken down trailer in the back, he knew. John Lee had never discussed his brother’s businesses with him, but he knew the rumors. It was said that some of Raymond’s female customers were working off their drug debts in that trailer. John Lee swallowed nervously and followed his brother into the office behind the bar. He sat across the desk from Raymond in a rusted straight-backed chair with a tattered cushion. Raymond flicked his desk lamp on. “You got a pistol?” he said to John Lee.
John Lee shook his head. He felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Naw,” he said. “I got my deer rifle at home.”
Raymond grunted. He turned his office chair around and fiddled with the large, old-fashioned safe behind his desk. With a click, the black door swung open. Raymond reached in and pulled out a large object wrapped in cloth. He set it on the desk and unwrapped it. John Lee stared down at a huge long-barreled revolver that gleamed in the dim light.
“Raymond,” John Lee said, “What you planning, man?”
“You and me,” Raymond said, “We’re gonna find out who killed our Daddy.”
“The Sheriff--”
“Don’t give two shits about a dead Indian. You know that, and I know that. Anyone goin’ to take care of business, it’s us. Just like Lowrie.”
John Lee, like all Lumbee, knew the name. Henry Berry Lowrie was the Lumbee equivalent of Robin Hood, an outlaw who had taken to the swamps in the 1800’s against the Confederate Home Guard and later against the Federals to avenge the murder of his father and brother and the oppression of the Lumbee by whites.
John
