The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron Read Free Book Online

tree, all these carvings in the bark. When he speaks, his voice carries the quiet of reverence. “Happen aroun aught-three. Since I come in with the century that make me three, too little to remember but my pa tole me. That nigger workin Whitacre’s farm violated this white girl, nineteen an married with a child. The whole town took after him: Dr. Brinkley who’d just pulled out my brother’s appendix, Mr. Peterson the district attorney, Judge Healey, Reverend Longwood, most a the farmers and most a the merchants, the girl’s family naturally though for some reason their name I can’t recall, all together, all hands on. The culprit took to runnin but they snagged him quick. Beat him, burned him, dragged him aroun, back of a cart. Practically dead by the time they slipped the noose round his neck. All the while to the end, ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.’ ‘Did he?’ I asked your granpaw. ‘Sure he did,’ answered my pa, ‘an if he didn’t was a lesson to any of em thought maybe they might sometime.’ When it was over, Mayor Rook looked at the pack of all of em an said, ‘Yaw behaved like honorable men tonight. I’m privileged to be amongst ya.’ This was the tree. You fine your granpaw?”
    A dizzying maze of carved initials but not hard to locate the imprint of my deceased elder, given name Ebenezer. Big, like John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence: E.E.
    Still a ways to trek down the mountainside, and not until long after we’re back on flat ground does he speak again. “You’re thirteen, baptized in the church this year. This is parta growin up too.” I’m looking at the Big Dipper. And there, that star with a slight orangey tint. Mars.
    â€œThey were cautious. Not about you bein a boy, you mighta noticed a handful there bout your age. What was bothersome was you without a robe which clearly identified me, and the meetin speakin all sortsa inner sanctum things, they wonder do I take it all serious, what a secret society is. Well how you make decisions about what you wanna do, you don’t firs taste it? I ain’t forcin you into nothin.” I wonder if Grand Wizard Pitsfield gets on Pa for never being in church. Or do they call it Grand Dragon? “So whatcha think?”
    â€œIt was nice.” It was, though I imagine if that cross toppling hadn’t interrupted the reverend and I’d’ve had to stand for another hour of his discourse, the charm might have worn off.
    My father shrugs. “I ain’t forcin you into nothin.” Some rustling off to the left but before my light catches it I’m hurled, flying, deer hooves on me on my chest, Pa yelling slapping its rump, its head turns its antler cut my face and it’s gone, vanished into the forest.
    â€œYou al right, boy? You al right ?”
    â€œUh-huh.” I touch my forehead, look at my fingertips. Blood.
    â€œWe’ll get you patched up at home. Goddamn dumb buck!”
    My father tells me to sit in the kitchen while he brings down bandages and antiseptic. If he’d brought me up to the bathroom medicine cabinet, we would have wakened my mother who would have flown into hysterics at the sight of my wound and blamed my father for his foolish Klan business. In the light of day and with the gash properly dressed, he must figure her panic will be somewhat abated. The grandfather in the living room dongs—4:15.
    â€œPa, you said you don’t wanna force me into anything.” The ointment he dabs on my forehead stings and I flinch. “I was thinking. Maybe I’ll go to high school next year. I can always get on at the mill later, but I was thinking. Maybe I’ll finish school, get my diploma.” He takes my hand and puts it on the bandage to hold it in place while he tears the tape with his teeth.
    â€œWe musta surprised it,” he says. “People think deer all gentle, nothin but