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“Go on,” Nate said.
“Don’t feed that dog my soup bone, hear?” Bessie called as the boys barreled out the front door. She shook her head. “Those boys dote on that dog like he was their third brother.”
“You, uh, heard any unusual stories around here?” Memphis ventured once the boys were out of earshot. “Stories about strange goings-on?”
“What kind of strange?” Bessie asked, shifting her baby to the other breast.
“Ghosts,” Henry said with a glance to Memphis.
Nate laughed. “This whole country’s fulla ghosts. They don’t bother us none.” Nate wiped his mouth and fingers clean. “But why you want to know about that?”
“Oh, just something we heard. You know how people talk,” Henry said and left it at that.
“I haven’t heard about any ghosts. But my friend Lorena told me something funny just this afternoon,” Bessie said. “She said she overheard Mr. LeRoy telling somebody about these Fitter Families tents been springing up everywhere, at every fair and carnival and circus across the state. Heard tell they’re looking for people. Special people. Diviners.”
“That a fact?” Bill said blandly, flicking a warning glance to Memphis and Henry.
“Heard Mr. LeRoy say that those Diviners are ruining the country. That they blew up that big exhibition in New York City, and there’s a bounty on their heads now. Five thousand dollars for each one captured. It was in the papers just today.”
“New York City. Might as well be on Mars,” Nate said, grinning.
“Where’d y’all say you’re from, again?” Bessie asked.
“N’awlins,” Henry drawled.
“Oh, that’s a fine place, I hear.”
“Yes, ma’am. It surely is.”
They slept on the porch. Bessie wanted to give them the boys’ bed, but Memphis wouldn’t hear of it. “We’ll be fine out here, ma’am.”
“I didn’t expect the news to show up in a place like Greenville so soon,” Henry said as he lay on the front porch and stared out at all those stars. “You think the Shadow Men will find us before we can get to Bountiful?”
“We’ll move on in the morning, maybe see if we can catch us a train at Vicksburg,” Bill said.
“Feels like we should’ve warned them about the dead,” Memphis said, pulling the quilt up around his ears.
“We do that, we call attention to ourselves. I don’t think we should say nothing at all ’bout ghosts,” Bill scolded.
But Memphis wasn’t so sure. Didn’t they have a responsibility? People had to look out for one another, didn’t they? Beyond rules and electric lights and tea dances, wasn’t that, at the very bottom of it all, what made for civilization?
In the cemetery at the far end of Main Street, the cool April breeze caressed the headstones. Here lies. Here lies.
Lies.
The dead rose up from the dirt like wisps of pale smoke. Restless. Hungry. Why were they here? Who had called them into service after so many weeks, months, years, a generation or more moldering below?
They walked for miles. To Mounds Landing, where the levee was weak.
Hungry, they bit into the sandbags.
When Memphis fell asleep at last, he dreamed of the Hotsy Totsy. Gabe was there, still alive and playing his trumpet so sweet that a man from Okeh Records walked right up onstage and offered him a contract. But when Memphis looked again, it was the King of Crows, and Gabe was signing his name. Gabe fixed his burning, empty eyes on Memphis. “You’re next, brother,” he said. And then he raised his trumpet, blowing for all he was worth, holding that one sweet high note for so long that the whole club was going wild, stomping feet and shouting.
“Memphis! Get up! Now!” Bill jerked Memphis awake.
Memphis was awake, but Gabe was still holding that sweet high note. Memphis rubbed sleep from his eyes, tried to focus. It was the fire whistle, not Gabe’s horn. And the church bells were ringing, too.
“What time is it?”
