The Dark-Thirty (6 page)

Esau continued his story. “Pa bet on that horse and lost every penny. When the bad men caught up with us, he couldn’t pay them. He made promises and even told them about my gift, but they just laughed at him. Then they punched him around … just like I saw that they would.”

“None of it’s your fault,” Amanda said, hugging him close.

“Since then I haven’t had the sight anymore. I call to it, but it doesn’t come.”

“Maybe you’re better off without it.”

Losing the sight didn’t matter much to Esau either. He didn’t like knowing a friend or a family member was in trouble anyway.

And as he grew up, Esau forgot that he’d ever had the sight to begin with.

*   *   *

A lot of Missouri boys saw action in World War II, and among them was Esau Mayes. Esau was one of the lucky ones who made it back healthy and whole, and with a wife, too. He’d met Charity Rose in St. Louis while on furlough after his training at Fort Leonard Wood. “The first night we met it was like we had known each other all our lives,” Esau told Amanda the day he brought his new wife to River Ridge.

Soon after the twins were born, Amanda gave the farm to Esau and Charity Rose, and she moved into a small house in town. The city girl took to country ways easily, and there wasn’t a more loving husband or kinder father than Esau. “Somewhere there is a man who is as happy as me,” Esau said, saluting Charity Rose at their tenth-anniversary party, “but no man can claim to be happier.”

But as soon as the words had passed his mouth, he felt uneasy. That night Esau had a nightmare. It frightened him so much he couldn’t go back to sleep. The next night he had the same dream. After splashing his face with cold water, he checked on the boys and crawled back into bed. Again he was afraid to sleep for fear the dream would return.

Still the dream came night after night. It always began with the smell of oil. Then he saw smoke, black billowing smoke. Next came the heat. As Esau lay trapped in a dream state, he was forced to watch his family being swallowed up by a wall of hissing flames.

His eyes were closed, but still he experienced it all.
He felt himself running, running … pain clawed at his leg … more heat, choking smoke. “Daddy! Daddy! Over here!” More running. A shadowy figure holding him back. Charity Rose screaming “No, no, no!” Fire! Water! Smoke! Screams! Then a powerful force snatching him, jerking him, slamming him against the ground
.

Esau’s eyes snapped open. Gasping for breath, he lay engulfed in his own fear.

Even though he desperately wanted to believe it meant nothing, Esau knew his dream was more than a nightmare. The sight had returned.

Not wanting to frighten Charity Rose or the boys, Esau kept the dreams to himself. It was the first time he’d ever had a secret from his wife, and she sensed something was wrong. When Esau brought home a new oil heater to replace the one they’d just bought a year earlier, she asked him what was the matter.

“I’m okay,” he assured her. “I haven’t been
sleeping well.” That was as much of the truth as he dared tell. “Just need some rest, that’s all.”

Charity Rose didn’t probe, and he was grateful. Besides, the dreams stopped. After a week had passed, Esau was convinced that the old oil heater had been the problem and that replacing it had offset the impending disaster. He let himself relax.

Then one morning while he was working in the barn Esau smelled smoke. Looking around to see what might be burning, he realized the sight was upon him.

Esau knew he wasn’t dreaming—he was wide awake. As he fought to free himself from the paralyzing trance, his body trembled in convulsive jerks. Choking on smoke, he felt the heat, saw the explosion and fire, heard the screams.

Esau also heard Charity Rose calling his name, but he couldn’t answer. Then slowly the sight let go its grip. He was soaking wet, cold and shivering, coughing, and sore. Beside him was his wife, wiping his face with a cool cloth.

There was no way for him to keep his secret any longer. Esau told Charity Rose everything. “I was born with this curse,” he said, pacing the floor as he talked. “I can see things that are
going to happen in the future. It’s called having the sight.”

“Amanda told me about your special gift, but I thought it was just a story.”

“It sounds crazy, I know. But it’s true. You and the boys are in danger—real danger!”

Fear darkened Charity Rose’s face. “Could you be wrong?”

Hugging her tightly, Esau continued. “No. Even though it’s hard, please believe me. This fire’s going to happen. Trust me.”

“I trust you, Esau. Now what should we do?”

He managed to smile. With Charity Rose’s support, Esau felt as if he’d set up his first line of defense. “I’ll take you and the boys to Ma’s house for a few days. You’ll be safe there.”

“No. Let’s take the boys, then you and I can come back and face whatever is going to happen the way we always have—together.”

“Listen,” Esau said firmly. “I have a plan, but you’ve got to let me stay here alone.”

Charity Rose hesitated but finally agreed. Esau was relieved. He rushed on with his idea. “So far I’ve been resisting the sight. If I know you’re safe, I’ll open up to it and maybe some of the shadowy details will become clearer.”

It was settled then. Esau would stay at the
farm. “Promise me you won’t use that oil stove no matter how cold it gets,” said Charity Rose.

When the boys came home from school, Esau drove his family to his mother’s house. “The sight has come back,” he told her, then returned to the farm right away, leaving Charity Rose to fill in the details.

The sun had set, but there was still enough daylight to finish his evening chores. Afterward he fixed himself a sandwich and ate in silence. The house was chilly, so he wrapped himself in a quilt and sat by the fireplace. The November wind shook the latches.

As he sat staring into the fire Esau did something he hadn’t done since childhood. He opened his mind to the sight. And it came.

Now Esau was inside a house. He knew it well—the mantel with the crystal candlesticks and his military photo. Lower down, the wine-colored couch and matching chair. On the table, a pair of glasses and a newspaper. Suddenly the smell of smoke. An old oil heater growing hotter and hotter, overheating, getting ready to explode. Back to the newspaper. His mind’s eye racing over the date: November 14, 1954. Today!

With all his strength Esau forced himself out of the trance. Still the sight held his mind.

The oil heater blazing brighter and brighter. The furniture growing even clearer. Why, this wasn’t his own farm at all! This was his mother’s house!

“Nooooo!” he screamed.

Blindly racing outside, Esau prayed it wouldn’t be too late. He fumbled in the darkness for the keys that were always in the ignition, then panicked. They weren’t there. No time to waste looking. He hot-wired the truck and roared up the drive and onto the country road.

The psychic bombardment continued, clearer than it had ever been before. He saw puffs of oily smoke escape from the heater. Down the hall his mother and Charity Rose slept soundly in the front bedroom. The boys were in the back room. How he wanted to be there to pick them up and carry them to safety.

“Charity Rose!” he called out with his mind. “Wake up, honey. Get the children and Ma. Get out of that house.
Now!”

Esau pushed down on the accelerator as he passed the five-mile marker. The truck swerved to miss an oncoming car. “Charity Rose, wake up! Get out of that house! Get out of that house!” he called again and again.

When the oil heater exploded, Esau saw it.
The mental flash blinded him and he lost control of the truck. It skidded off the road and crashed into a ditch. Although he was unconscious only a few minutes, he felt as if he’d been out for hours.

Pulling himself from the wreckage, Esau screamed. He’d cut his leg in the accident and the gash was spouting blood. He ripped a sleeve out of his shirt and tied it around the wound. The pain was severe, but he ignored it and stumbled toward the orange glow on the horizon. He heard sirens in the distance and saw flashing lights.

When Esau turned down Carpenter Street, he saw volunteer fire fighters with hoses doing what they could to contain the fire.

Esau stumbled onto the scene like a miscued actor. Turning in confusion, he ran toward the flaming house. The heat and smoke choked him and his leg hurt, but still he kept running.

“Daddy! Daddy! Over here!” his children screamed. The smoke billowed out of the broken windows. Esau tried to run, but someone was holding him back—one of the firemen. Strengthened by a burst of adrenaline, he wrestled himself free and continued to charge.

“No! No! No!” he heard Charity Rose yell.

A wall of flames towered in front of him. The heat was intense. Suddenly he felt himself being violently pushed, jerked, and slammed against the ground, rolling and tumbling like a rag doll. He collapsed in anguish.

When Esau came around, it was just as he’d seen in the vision; he was cold and shivering, coughing, and sore. But he was surrounded by his family Charity Rose had covered him with a warm, dry blanket.

“Sorry I had to turn the hose on you, Esau,” said one of the firemen. “That was the only way to stop you from going inside.”

“I thought my family was—”

“We were over here, Daddy,” one of his sons said. “Didn’t you hear us calling?”

“The sight proved to be a blessing to us,” Amanda comforted him. “We’re safe. We’re safe. You saved us.”

“Yes, we’re okay,” Charity Rose said, hugging Esau. “We got out before the explosion. I heard you.”

G
rady Bishop had just been hired as a driver for Metro Bus Service. When he put on the gray uniform and boarded his bus, nothing mattered, not his obesity, not his poor education, not growing up the eleventh child of the town
drunk. Driving gave him power. And power mattered.

One cold November afternoon Grady clocked in for the three-to-eleven shift. “You’ve got Hall tonight,” Billy, the route manager, said matter-of-factly.

“The Blackbird Express.” Grady didn’t care who knew about his nickname for the route. “Not again.” He turned around, slapping his hat against his leg.

“Try the
Hall Street Express
,” Billy corrected Grady, then hurried on, cutting their conversation short. “Snow’s predicted. Try to keep on schedule, but if it gets too bad out there, forget it. Come on in.”

Grady popped a fresh stick of gum in his mouth. “You’re the boss. But tell me. How am I s’posed to stay on schedule? What do those people care about time?”

Most Metro drivers didn’t like the Hall Street assignment in the best weather, because the road twisted and turned back on itself like a retreating snake. When slick with ice and snow, it was even more hazardous. But Grady had his own reason for hating the route. The Hall Street Express serviced black domestics who rode out to the fashionable west end in the
mornings and back down to the lower east side in the evenings.

“You know I can’t stand being a chauffeur for a bunch of colored maids and cooks,” he groused.

“Take it or leave it,” Billy said, walking away in disgust.

Grady started to say something but thought better of it. He was still on probation, lucky even to have a job, especially during such hard times.

Snow had already begun to fall when Grady pulled out of the garage at 3:01. It fell steadily all afternoon, creating a frosted wonderland on the manicured lawns that lined West Hall. But by nightfall the winding, twisting, and bending street was a driver’s nightmare.

The temperature plummeted, too, adding a new challenge to the mounting snow. “Hurry up! Hurry up! I can’t wait all day,” Grady snapped at the boarding passengers. “Get to the back of the bus,” he hustled them on impatiently “You people know the rules.”

The regulars recognized Grady, but except for a few muffled groans they paid their fares and rode in sullen silence out to the east side loop.

“Auntie! Now, just why are you taking your own good time getting off this bus?” Grady grumbled at the last passenger.

The woman struggled down the wet, slippery steps. At the bottom she looked over her shoulder. Her dark face held no clue of any emotion. “Auntie? Did you really call me
Auntie?”
she said, laughing sarcastically. “Well, well, well! I never knew my brother had a white son.” And she hurried away, chuckling.