Chapter 27
CHAPTER
After that telephone scuffle with the governor, I was on high alert, poised for trouble to start. But May passed without any kind of major incident. School let out, and it appeared that we might have an ordinary summer in Bullock County.
Traditionally, the courthouse is quiet in June and July.
The temperature heats up and people slow down.
Folks don’t have the energy to duke it out in court.
Their kids are running the streets of town all day, and those summer days are long.
The sun doesn’t set until eight o’clock and twilight keeps the sky lit past nine.
It was a Friday afternoon in the middle of June, and the end of the workweek had me in good spirits—except that I was missing the Oyster House.
Since the Bria Gaines case had put me on people’s radar, Loucilla and I had to switch up our long-standing meeting day.
Changed locations, too, moving around and trying out new restaurants.
A change of habit is healthy, Loucilla claimed, but the novelty didn’t hold much charm for me, and I wondered whether we might hazard a return visit without attracting unwanted attention.
As I turned off the farm road and into my gravel drive, Foghorn trotted out of the barn to greet me.
Before I reached the farmhouse, I had to hit the brakes and let the car idle while he picked his way across the path.
Damned rooster thought he owned the place.
You know what people say about cats. Same thing was true with Foghorn: He was just letting me live in the house rent-free.
While I waited for the rooster to pass, I gazed over at the farmhouse.
The pots of red geraniums I’d planted lent a bright pop of color to the front porch.
The place looked good, tidy and neat, with a recent coat of paint and a fairly new roof.
I take pride in the little house that has stood on this spot for a century.
I tell anyone who’ll listen that the place is structurally sound, thanks to craftsmanship and materials—minus the ancient wiring and plumbing—that are just plain superior to what builders use now. They don’t make them like that anymore.
While I was admiring my house, I noticed another spot of color. A yellow note had been left on the doorframe. The paper that fluttered in the warm breeze was an ominous sign.
“What the hell?”
I parked the car, ran across the hard-packed dirt, and hurried up the porch steps.
The printed message from the US Postal Service—Sorry we missed you while you were out—was as regulation as my old-fashioned metal mailbox, the kind that allows the rural-route postman access without leaving his vehicle.
But a return-receipt legal notification required the dude to leave Farm Road 164, drive up to my house, get out, and knock on my door.
For a quarter century, I’d been engaged in the legal profession—a profession that dealt in bad news.
Somebody was fucking with me.
The handwritten notations on the form revealed my assailant: the Pearce Law Firm in Union Springs.
A spurt of anger sent my heart racing. Arch Pearce called himself a lawyer, but he was a glorified collection agent, one of the unscrupulous, overreaching shysters who made a living as a land-grabber.
His brand of legal practice, targeting poor real estate holders, was one of the reasons that landownership by Black people had dwindled to nearly nothing.
Whenever he appeared before me in my courtroom, I’d been inclined to lock him up in jail with the other crooks and thieves.
But the law isn’t written that way, and I don’t abuse my power, regardless of what the DA may claim.
So I tried to intervene by taking measures under my control.
Like reining him in by ruling against him whenever possible.
And now, in an ugly shift of circumstances, I was the target of an Arch Pearce certified letter. I crumpled the note in my hand. Paced up and down the porch, listening to the pine boards creak under my shoes.
“I’ve got nothing to worry about.” I said it out loud, to a limited audience: the rooster and the insects buzzing around. “This is my land. I take care of what’s mine, always have.”
It didn’t sound convincing enough. I raised my voice, letting it ring out. “Pearce won’t win. I’m bulletproof. No one can take it from me.”
Pearce handled a lot of collection cases. I took care of expenses, paid my debts, paid my bills, leaving no basis for one. But if Pearce wasn’t bringing a collection action, that only left one other alternative.
He was after the farm.
The Stone family farm had been handed down from generation to generation. My sisters and I inherited the land from our parents.
Neither Mama nor Daddy ever made a will. Not uncommon in this area. My parents died intestate. So did my grandparents. That meant that the farm in Bullock County was technically “heirs’ property.” Land owned by the descendants of the deceased as tenants in common.
And heirs’ property is a can of worms.
Shitttt. I should have taken care of it. Should have dug through our ancestry, taken time to file a quiet title action. Bought my sisters out, had them sign a quitclaim deed.
Because I knew the facts. Over the past few decades, 90 percent of Black Americans had lost their farmland. Through partition sales, foreclosures, deceptive tactics. Their property interests were vulnerable because of the history of heirs’ property and the cloud it casts over title.
I wanted to storm the post office and demand to see the correspondence. I was wild to know what that letter would say.
But the letter wasn’t even there. The postman still had it in the postal truck that was bumping over a farm road somewhere in Bullock County. And the postal notice stated that I could pick the letter up at the post office in Union Springs in two days.
Two days? That was a damned lie. It was Friday; the post office was closed on Sunday. I’d have to wait until Monday. And if they insisted on hanging on to it for two business days, it could be Tuesday before I’d be able to collect the letter and see what the hell this was all about.
I leaned against the painted beam holding up the porch and looked out at my property. Seeing it with fresh eyes—the trees, weathered barn, green fields. The sight as familiar as my own face in the mirror.
No one was going to take it. I wouldn’t permit that to happen.
I walked over to my wicker rocking chair and sat. Tried to calm myself by rocking back and forth.
Right.
Good luck with that.
Friday through Tuesday? I couldn’t wait it out. No damn way.
I lunged out of the chair so fast that it rocked so far back that it tipped against the window frame. Any more force and I’d have busted out the glass pane.
I charged across the yard and pulled open the driver’s door, climbed inside. Didn’t even check the clock. Because it didn’t matter what time it was.
There was someone I had to see.