The sun still came up and breakfast still went on the table in the morning. It was almost like a normal day, but nothing really was normal.
The smoking tree and burnt brush at the far edge of the yard were not normal. The packs of men in cars and on horseback riding up and down the road were not normal. The absence of the people of Rosewood, usually moving up and down the road in front of the house but now not seen, somewhere hidden from view, was not normal.
Having everyone in the house sitting around and not working was the least normal thing of all. Sarah put everyone to some task but soon there was nothing left to do inside the house. Sarah refused to let any of the children out of the house. She kept Daniel and Roy from leaving to check their trap lines, and she tried to keep Sylvester in as well. He laughed at first, teasing her, but grew angry as she insisted he stay in for a few days.
“Who the devil do you think is going to care for all those animals?” he asked her. “The cows need milking and James has a sow bearing out of season that needs checking before she births. That pack of dogs they shot needs burying before the vultures start to come around. Nobody else for it but me. Beauty can’t do all of it, and I’d rather she stayed in than me.”
“Don’t you curse at me,” Sarah warned him, shaking her head. “They’re looking for a colored man, not a group of girls and women. We’ll take care of all that. You stay in this house and out of sight.”
“Every one around here knows me Mama, no one will mistake me for some man escaped off of a chain gang.”
“Everyone around knows your cousin, they took him. Every one around knew Sam Carter,” Sarah cried. “Soon enough they’re going to remember you and want to know what you’ve been doing. You don’t need to remind them by being out running around.”
“No one will even see me Mama, I’m smarter than to go out in the road. Now quit.” Sylvester told her as he went out the back door.
The strange day dragged on, no one talking much or doing much. Rose cared for Queen, whose chest was still thick with congestion and mostly slept, although her fever was gone and her cough was lessened by the medicines Sarah made.
Marlene was strange, silent and wide-eyed, staring out the window at the site of the terrible lynching until Sarah made her move away from the parlor. The only time she spoke was when Sarah asked A.T. to go out and feed the chickens. Marlene looked up from her sewing and started yelling.
“Don’t send him out, don’t send him out!” she cried until Sarah, holding Marlene close and wiping away the tears pouring down her face, promised she wouldn’t let him leave the house. Rose slipped out to the yard to feed the hens and avoided looking at the scorched trees at the edge of the wood.
The groups of men traveling up and down the road moved back and forth all day and into the evening. Fires burned in the road, groups of men gathered around, and bottles were passed at each fire, making the men louder and bolder. One group of men approached the house after dark, a large red-faced man at the lead, pounding on the door even as he bellowed for Sylvester.
“Where’s your boy?” he asked Sarah when she went to the door. “Send him out. We want a few words with him, ask him about his whereabouts the past couple days,” he grinned. All the men were grinning, drunken grins on loose faces, loose bodies leaning on their rifles, crowding the steps and the path up from the gate.
Sarah stepped out on the porch, backing the man and the others away from the door as she moved forward.
“Evenin’, Mr. Poly,” she told the man. “You all need me for something?”
She looked around at the posse of men, looked long at some, and then spoke to a few of them.
“Mister Joe, how’s your mama?” she asked one man, who looked down at the ground.
“Fine, she’s fine Auntie, that medicine fixed her up fine,” he replied.
“Mister Pete. How’s your sister, Miss Tiny?”
“Tiny’s fine, the baby too, they’re both fine,” a red haired man answered, looking at Sarah and giving her a sheepish grin.
“We’re looking for Sylvester,” the big man told her again, stepping forward.
“He’s not here, Mister Poly, he went off to Gainesville with Gertrude,” she told him, looking him in the eye. “Sylvester had nothing to do with all this. He’s been gone since this all started. What you need him for?”
“We been deputized,” the man bragged, smiling and turning to the group of men behind him. “We’re talking to all persons of interest, and that boy’s of interest to this investigation.”
“Sylvester? He’s been out of town past two days. Nothing interesting about that.”
“He here?” the man interrupted her, brushing past her towards the door.
Sarah laid a hand on his arm and did not remove it, even when he pointedly looked down at it. She held on until he turned back and stepped back, away from the doorway and away from the group of women standing just inside.
“No, I told you, he’s been gone two days,” she said. “No men in this house. You all are welcome to look, but there are no men here. James is at the mill and Sylvester’s gone.”
“We don’t need to look, Auntie,” the red haired man told her. He turned and walked back out to the gate, several of the others following.
“Now hold on,” the man Sarah called Mister Poly called to them. They stopped to wait, but none returned to the porch.
“Sylvester’s a person of interest to this investigation, and we want to talk to him”, he told Sarah. “When he gets home, you tell him to come find us. Or we’ll be back.”
Poly Wilkerson went down the steps off the porch and the rest of the posse turned away to follow him, back out the gate and down the road. Sarah watched as they got back in their cars and on their horses and moved away into the darkness. They moved around the fires in the road, moved past and on, becoming only shadows of men moving towards town.