Finding Eliza Read online

  Alston ran to Eldridge, grabbing him by the legs. He struggled and slipped in the dirt and mud as he tried to lift the boy to relieve the pressure from the noose. His body was too heavy. Alston tried to wrestle his body free but realized that the rope would have to be cut down from the top. He tried to reach Eldridge’s neck to feel for a pulse. The boy’s arms rattled by his sides as Alston pulled and tugged at his limp body.

  Alston ran his hands over the pockets of his jacket and pants looking for his knife. Struggling up the tree, he wriggled and climbed until he was able to reach out far enough to the rope that wound around in knots. Sawing back and forth, Alston ripped each fiber in an attempt to set the boy free. The fraying rope popped, dropping Eldridge’s limp form to the ground. Alston watched his legs fold under him as the last thread in the rope snapped. He jumped down to the ground, landing on his knees. He rushed to Eldridge feeling for a pulse or breath. Instead, the boy lay broken and lifeless.

  Alston sat back onto his heels and cried. He dragged Eldridge into his lap by the straps of his overalls, dirty and stained with blood and red clay. Weeping, he looked at the boy’s body. His right ear was missing, and his arms were broken. Eldridge’s shirt and overalls were ripped and fraying along the back. Ropes hung from his wrists.

  With his arms still wrapped around the dead boy, Alston leaned to the side and was sick. He knew immediately that the poor boy was dragged to the tree. Broken hearted, Alston tried to wipe the blood off the head of the boy to whom his sister had given her heart.

  As his own tears poured out, Alston heard the cries of another. Crouched behind a headstone several rows away, he saw another broken and battered body. His anger boiled when he realized that this wasn’t the body of another young man.

  It was Eliza.

  Alston ran to his sister, pulling at her arms she had raised to hide her face. He was shocked at her appearance. Her hair had been ripped from the neat bun she had worn earlier in the day. Blood stained her clothing. Alston grabbed at her body, turning her from side to side checking her for injuries.

  “Eliza, let me see,” he yelled as she fought against his hands. “It’s me. Allie. You’re safe with me now. Look at me, Eliza.”

  Alston brushed the hair away from her face to find the same bloody wounds and swollen eyes that he had seen on Eldridge. A large gash cut across her face extending from below her left ear to her right cheekbone. She fought him, slapping his hands as he examined her wounds.

  “Leave me alone! Please, leave me alone,” she cried.

  Alston lifted her weak body into his arms. “I’m here. Allie has you. Can you talk to me? I’m taking you home, Eliza. I have to get you home.”

  Alone in the cemetery, Alston knew he had to make a difficult choice. He could only carry one of them at a time. He had to save his sister.

  Alston looked over at Eldridge’s lifeless body lying on the ground behind him. He said a quiet prayer and promised his sister that he would come back for him soon. He whispered to his sister, “Hold on, baby girl. I’m taking you home.”

  He stood looking around the cemetery for hidden dangers when he saw the road at the bottom of the hill. Knowing that he couldn’t carry Eliza through the overgrowth of the woods, Alston ran down the hill toward town. His arms and back ached, but his fear kept him going. Soon he reached the town square, running alongside the open doors of businesses as people stared from inside. Horrified faces shaded their eyes and shied away from him.

  “Help, please. It’s my sister. She needs help!”

  Women scurried their children indoors, and several men stood in the doorways with their backs facing Alston. No one came to his aid. With no reason to stop, he continued running until he reached his home.

  Alston stumbled up the porch steps and banged on the front door with his shoulder, refusing to set Eliza down on the porch. Unable to open the door with her in his arms he began crying out for his wife.

  “Anne, it’s me. Open the door. Hurry!”

  Seconds later, Anne opened the door with a gasp and cry. Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “Oh, sweet Lord, be near.”

  Only then did Alston start weeping over the broken body of his sister, Eliza.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lizzie sat holding the diary in shock. They killed Eldridge? What did they do to Eliza?

  “Holy crap,” she said to the empty room.

  A wave of emotion flooded over her. She didn’t expect to grieve a life she didn’t know. Lizzie couldn’t believe how close she had become to the people represented by the words on the pages in front of her. She hadn’t known that Eldridge existed more than a few days, yet she felt like she lost a family member. Her sadness flowed into anger. Lizzie resisted the urge to throw the diary across the room. She wanted to distance herself from it and go back to her blissful state of ignorance. Reading the next entry wasn’t something she wanted to do. Lizzie had to see her grandmother.

  Rather than waiting for her jeans to finish drying, Lizzie threw on yesterday’s pair and ran down the stairs. After grabbing her keys and jacket, she flew through the kitchen door and ran toward her truck.

  “The diary,” she whispered.

  Doubling back, she ran to her bedroom to retrieve the book. She had to get to her grandmother’s as fast as possible. Lizzie needed answers, and she needed answers immediately.

  As Lizzie’s vehicle barreled down the gravel drive, she couldn’t control her anger. Her knuckles began to turn white from gripping the steering wheel with all the strength she could muster. She slammed on the brakes and threw the engine into park, dust flying all around her. Lizzie threw the door open and jumped out, her boots sliding in the rocks. She couldn’t sit still just yet. Adrenaline flowed through her body making her flush. She had to move. She had to pace. Lizzie moved back and forth franticly like an animal in a cage. Her shock over what they did to Eldridge turned into an anger that she hadn’t felt since after her parents’ accident.

  Lizzie threw her head back and screamed to the sky, cursing God. “How could you do it again? Why do you keep taking people away from those that love them?”

  She screamed at the passing clouds, tears running down her face. The wind whipped around her, blowing her hair into her face, causing heavy strands to stick to her wet cheeks. Her hands clawed at the chunks of curls, pulling them back and willing them to leave her alone. Pacing, she walked further down the drive. Without giving herself a second to think, Lizzie started kicking the closest fence post. Lizzie kicked the post with her boot, over and over, until the red dirt around the post’s foundation stained her boots and jeans. Dust swirled around her, hanging in the air like a tornado.

  “Why did they have to murder Eldridge?” she screamed. She threw her head back and yelled till her lungs burned and her throat as on fire. “What the hell did you let them do to Eliza? Why do you always have to take everyone?”

  Lizzie’s legs trembled, struggling to hold her own weight. She grabbed the post in front of her to steady her body until finally giving in to the weakness. She slid down into the gap where the driveway’s rocks met the red clay and grass in the side ditch. Lying on her back with her knees bent in the air, Lizzie clutched her stomach and gave into the tears that wouldn’t stop. She cried over the loss that she felt for Eliza and Eldridge. Lizzie couldn’t explain the hole she felt growing inside her. The feelings were overwhelming until she realized that she wasn’t just crying for them. She was also crying for the others missing from her life. Lizzie was crying for her parents.

  After laying by the road for what felt like hours, Lizzie stood. She dusted the dirt off of her clothes and piled her hair into a loose bun using the elastic that she always kept around her wrist. She climbed into the truck and sat behind the wheel. Void of all tears and emotions for a few moments, she pushed the engine into drive and continued to Gertrude’s. She pulled out onto the road in front of her farm and turned toward town.

  By the time Lizzie was in front of her childhood home, she was ready to d
iscover the details that darkened her family’s history. Lizzie tilted the rear view mirror toward her and wiped her eyes for one last time.

  She looked at herself in the mirror and paused. “Let’s do this.” Lizzie walked up the stairs to her grandmother’s front door. She stood for a moment, took a breath, and knocked.

  Gertrude opened the door, surprised to see her granddaughter. “Lizzie, oh my stars! Are you all right? Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” She wrapped her arms around Lizzie’s shoulders and pulled her into the house.

  Her grandmother set Lizzie in the sitting room and retreated to the kitchen to make a tray of tea and fruit. Lizzie looked around the room filled with antiques and family heirlooms. Lizzie and Gertrude sat together in heavy silence, each stirring their own cups of tea.

  “Is this how the house looked when you were growing up?” she asked her grandmother.

  “Well, yes, I suppose. It was similar. Of course I’ve added a few things over the years. I don’t live in a museum. Things change.” She took a sip of tea. “Why?”

  “After reading about Eliza today, I can’t help but think of what it looked like that night. I just walked up the stairs that Alston carried Eliza up. This is the house where he brought in a battered and bruised sister to recover. It happened here, Gran. Not somewhere unknown. Here. He brought her to the house where we live.”

  Lizzie’s composure started to break as she began telling her grandmother what she had read. The strange mixture of anger and sadness flooded her again. Tears began to roll down her cheek.

  “I just can’t believe what I’m reading. You learn about events like this, like the lynchings, but you don’t think you’ve got them in your family. This was all because two kids fell in love.” Lizzie took a slow, long sip of her tea and sighed. “Gran, I thought I was just reading about two star-crossed lovers. I was hoping Eliza and Eldridge would run off to New York where she could be a writer. Jack has been pushing me to finish my degree. I thought you were giving me a story of love and determination. I was so wrong.”

  Gertrude patted Lizzie’s knee and gave her a smile.

  “Oh, baby girl. I thought you knew it wouldn’t end well. It was a different time. They weren’t supposed to be together as far as society believed at that point. They were taking a risk in trying to be together, and they knew that.” She reached for a box of chocolates that she kept on the side table for guests. She held the open box to her granddaughter. “Chocolate is the best medicine.”

  “Where were they for those two days? Held? Trapped?” Lizzie sat with the chocolate in her hand, unable to focus on anything but the story.

  Gertrude stood and walked to the front window. She swept the lace curtain from the window and placed a hand on the glass. She stood quiet, watching the neighbor children as they played between their yard and hers. “My father indicated in his diary that they had been missing for a day or two before the incident. I think that they were trying to run away together just like you thought. Where else could they have been? He didn’t write that she was held captive, so they had to be together before that mob found them. I don’t think they expected what happened.”

  “Do you know what happened to Eliza?” Lizzie hesitated. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

  “You know from the diary entry that they beat her pretty severely. Just like Eldridge, Eliza’s wrists had the same rope tied around them. My guess is that they dragged her just as they dragged him, but I don’t know that for sure. Daddy believed that they raped her. You’ll read about it later in the diary. During her recovery Eliza kept telling him that the men involved told her that she needed to be ‘turned back to her kind’.” Gertrude lifted a handkerchief from her pocket and patted her eyes as they watered. “The hatred that they heaped on that poor girl was too much. Remember, she was just a teenager herself. It was just too much.”

  “Gran, do you think if she had made a different decision they would be still be alive? If she had stayed away from Eldridge, would it have made a difference?”

  “I wouldn’t know how to guess. There’s no way to know. All I know is what happened that day, or at least what the diary tells us,” Gertrude answered.

  “Do you know who did it? Do you think that it was someone in the town here today?”

  Her grandmother was silent. “I’m not sure that I want to know that answer. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t you think that it’s time we found out the full story? Eliza deserves to be remembered. We have to find out what happened to her.”

  ***

  After a light dinner, Lizzie sat in the glider in front of a fire. She looked up at the first stars of the night and made a wish.

  “Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish that I wish tonight. I wish that Eliza’s story will be discovered.”

  “Did you say something?” Jack asked as he joined her in the back yard.

  “Oh, just being silly. I’m making my wish like we did when we were kids. Who knows? Maybe it will work this time.”

  “What are you wishing for? I know. You want a handsome man to come sweep you off your feet.” Jack pulled his wife’s feet into his lap and pulled off her boots. “Tell me your story.”

  Lizzie had been replaying the diary entries in her head all evening. Like Technicolor film, the horror her grandfather expressed in his diary played on a loop through her mind. She replayed the details from the diary as well as the fear and anger she felt as she broke down in the drive.

  Jack sat in the dark listening. Finally he asked, “Are you sure you need to go through this? Maybe the diary is too much for you to read. It sounds like it is just ripping off a scab from a wound that healed a long time ago. If you keep chasing this thing you’ll be stirring it up for everyone in town. Is that what you want? We’re talking about confronting racism in the South, Lizzie. This is beating a hornet’s nest.”

  “But, Jack, don’t you see?” Lizzie pleaded. “This is about a life that the people of this town swept under the rug. We’re talking about a murder, Jack. What if they are running around town here today?”

  “I think you’ve lost your mind. They’d be at least 100 years old by now.”

  “There was a mob, Jack. Some of those boys could have been teenagers. There are people in this town that are that age. They could still be alive. There could be other entries in the diary with more details leading to the people who murdered Eldridge. That’s a crime. You investigate crime. What about the crime involving Eliza? We’re talking murder and rape, Jack. You can’t let that go.”

  “Now I know you’ve lost your mind. You can’t be serious. It’s an old diary, Liz. Listen to how it’s written. It’s not exactly filled with specific names and locations.”

  Lizzie decided right away that Jack had no idea what she was holding. This diary was the story of a relationship gone wrong. It was the story of a family torn apart. She couldn’t be just the keeper of these secrets. She had to do something about it.

  “I don’t care what you think. These lives need to be remembered. They need us to find out the truth. You’re supposed to find justice for the innocent victims. Listen to what my great-grandfather writes. His heart was filled with so much pain. His sister and this man were victims. Don’t you believe that the stories in his diary are true?” Lizzie sighed under breath. Jack hated it when she sighed. In her heart she hoped that this would land with the impact she intended. “Jack, this is for my family.”

  “I love you and your family, but we’re talking about an event in history that people don’t want to discuss. I think you need to put this into perspective. Remember their lives, but don’t look for a crime. Do what you need to do to make peace. There’s nothing more to do than that.”

  Lizzie didn’t appreciate the brush off that she received from her husband. She knew that Eliza and Eldridge needed to be remembered no matter what Jack said. It was time to hit up Gertrude and the gals for help. Her mind raced with questions. Where should she look? Newspapers?
The courthouse? An event this big that ended in the death of one and the rape of another had to be recorded somewhere. “Gran and the gals will know,” she whispered to herself. She leaned back into the glider and looked at the stars once more. “I’d like to be a little clearer on that wish of mine…”

  Lizzie walked inside and got ready for bed. She pulled the covers around her body and settled in with the diary. Now that the initial shock had worn off, she had a renewed energy and interest in reading more. Lizzie read late into the night, even after Jack turned off his bedside lamp and settled into sleep. She couldn’t sleep until she knew more about the pain that Eliza felt. She had an empathy that she couldn’t explain for the girl that she’d never know.

  Lizzie couldn’t stop searching until she had answers.

  ***

  Diary of Alston James: 4 September 1934

  My heart is so heavy.

  Poor Eliza has been recovering for the last few days at my home. Anne is such a wonder to watch as she nurses the wounds of my baby sister, both those that are physically seen and those that are hidden emotionally. She shows such compassion that I pray her love and concern will nurture healing.

  I’m not sure what Eliza remembers. She refuses to speak. She’s locked herself into her mind, keeping us all out of reach. She withdraws whenever I get too close. She’s so broken. My heart weeps.

  I’ve been trying to contact the local police but no one wants to investigate a death like that of Eldridge. They won’t investigate the crimes against Eliza. They say that it’s illegal. They are so cruel and hurtful, looking past what they did because Eldridge was colored.

  What about my sister?

  I can see the light fading in her eyes. I’m not sure how long she’ll be able to survive like this.

  This is all my fault.

  Alston paced back and forth in the second floor hallway in front of the closed bedroom door that held his battered and broken sister. Anne stood at the bottom of the stairs listening to him as he prayed and cried out to God. After hearing his footsteps slow, she made her way up the staircase hoping to find him in their bedroom ready to rest and relax.