season two ; episode eight { The Cross }
chapter sixty-nine
"GUYS, WE'RE COMING UP IN FREEDMAN'S CHURCH," Pope tells them as they continue to drive in towards their destination. "The church Denmark built for all slaves he freed."
They continued to drive and the further on they drove, the less Brooklyn recognised where they were. Although, it appears they were heading in the right direction because right up ahead and down a very narrow path was Angel Oak.
John B was careful in driving down the very tight path to reach the tree but only discovered that the tide was coming in and almost blocking their path. "Oh, shit! Tides coming in. Um..."
"Hey, wait a second. Look." Pope pointed out to the tire tracks. "They already came through here. Those have to be Limbrey's tire tracks. Guys, we gotta go."
"Mmm, what do you think, chief?"
"I'm thinking it's looking a little dicey."
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with that statement."
"Okay, clearly, they made it. No?"
"In a two-wheel drive? I don't know about that."
"Why are y'all acting like you're not gonna do it anyways?" Sarah spoke. "Like when have y'all ever done the safe thing?"
"She's got a point," Brooklyn says, turning her head back to the boys at the front.
"Speed is your friend here, okay? So, put her down in second and hammer down, brother," JJ told John B as he prepared himself.
"Stick to the ground in the middle."
"All right, ready? Here we go."
John B began to set off, driving directly in the middle and through the mud and the wet grass that was surly spitting everywhere on the van right now. "Come on, bro. Punch it. Speed is your friend. You're not going fast enough," JJ kept telling him.
"I'm in second," John B tells him.
"It's gonna slide."
"You're fishtailing already."
"I know," John B laughs, turning the wheel a little over to stick to the middle.
"Not to put any more pressure on you, but if you don't make it though, we'll be stuck here forever," Pope says, adding even more pressure to him.
"Put your head back, okay?" John B pushed the boy's head back into the back with the girls and continues to pick up the pace.
The group cheered when they reached the end and all was safe. "That's my girl."
"I told you we'd make it."
It didn't take them too long to arrive at their destination, they didn't want to just pull up outside the tree incase they had already beaten them to it so JJ remembered a quick detour they could take. "Angel Oak is right through here," he says, stepping out the van. "All right, so word to the wise," he opens the van door to let the others out. "definitely know that gators nest back here, so keep your eyes peeled, okay? You don't wanna step on a mama gator. That's the last thing you want."
"They have nests?" Kiara questioned.
"Seems like a good place to park."
JJ picked up a tree branch, almost like he was ready to attack. "All right. You don't wanna be a Pat Womack. She had her calf chewed off by a gator, right? You know that, right?"
"That's actually not true," Kiara tells him. "Pat Womack was injured in a car accident, but I hear you."
"Okay, just live in ignorance. But like, she had her calf chewed off by a mama gator. I know that for a fact," JJ told Kiara while she crouched behind him. "They like the brackish water." JJ crouched down to the water and used his surprisingly long piece of tree to hit the water awfully hard.
"What the hell was that?" Brooklyn snapped, trying to pull him away.
"Waking them up is smart," Sarah commented.
"I was just making sure it wasn't a gator. That's all, all right?" He placed a hand on Brooklyn's shoulder. "Don't want you to be eaten, sweetheart."
She pushed the boy ahead of her while he began to lead the way. Sarah and John B fell behind the other four who were walking ahead in JJ's direction. They all came together again when they began to arrive at the tree, hearing the faint whispers of people.
They all stepped up behind a bush to observe the scene. There was a small digger that was bringing up the soil from beneath the tree. There were a few men shovelling out whatever they could and Limbrey was leaned against the car watching them.
"I don't see shit. You sure this is the right spot," Rafe yelled.
Of course Rafe was in on this. This psycho would do anything.
"It's there. The garment will be in the cross, and the cross will be at the foot of the tree," Limbrey told them.
"Well, whatever we find, I get my cut," Rafe says and it's obvious this guy would do whatever for money.
They continued to watch the scene while Linbrey's assistant friend person collected a chair from the boot of the car to give it to her. She sat herself down just by the tree to get a closer look of whatever they find and she began to rant on about miracles and how she would be healed if she got to this cross.
"Hey! Wait!" Limbrey snatched her crutches back from the guy and lifted herself up off the chair. Stop! Stop. Please stop. Did you hear it? Hey, get in there, boys. Do it by hand," she says, looking over at the ground to whatever they had found. "Oh. This has gotta be the cross. It's smaller than I thought."
The group sat in anticipation, not knowing what they were saying as it was hard to make out the words from so far back. But then they watched as they lifted a casket out of the ground and it all made perfect sense. Denmark buried the cross in the casket... Maybe?
"They got the cross? What do we do? What do we do?" JJ panicked.
"What can we do?"
Rafe and some other guy began to open up the casket and it seemed to reveal absolutely nothing because the look on their faces looked more in disappoint if anything else. "It's just a corpse."
Limbrey pulled herself up and said, "We must have missed something."
"Of course. Of course, yeah. Of course it's just a dead body. Jesus!" Rafe was clearly pissed off.
"We just got the wrong place. We'll go back to the island room. We're going back! We're going back! It's not over!" She yelled to the group of men she had dragged with her.
And once they set off and the coast was clear, Pope was quick to race over to the casket. The group followed Pope in running towards it and then all stopped when they were met by the bones of someone else.
Pope crouched down to look inside. "Cecilia Tanny, Denmark's wife." Pope looked up at his tree in front of him, rising back to his feet. "He wasn't talking about the cross. He buried her at the foot of the angel."
"The true treasure," Brooklyn says.
"His wife."
Pope fell back down besides the casket, a few tears falling from his eyes as he looked down. The idea of Denmark burying his true treasure somewhere so private and sweet was heartwarming and overwhelming to everyone in the group.
Everyone sat down with Pope to look inside the casket. "Denmark was hung for burying his wife, and now they defiled her grave." Pope reached a hand into the casket and pulled out something that appeared to be a pin. Pope swiped his finger across the dirt that covered it and realised it read the name, Cecelia.
Brooklyn had picked up what appeared to be a ring. She couldn't help but smile at the gold circle covered in dust. "This must have been from Denmark. Her wedding ring." She looked over at JJ who was smiling in her direction while John B and Sarah shared a look that didn't look as nice as theirs.
Pope placed the pin back down in the casket and said, "We can't leave her like this."
"We won't," John B assured him.
John B and JJ lifted up the lid of the casket and placed it back over to cover her once again. Pope placed flowers over the top of the casket while JJ hammered it down into place.
Once the lowered her in, JJ asked Brooklyn, "Will you help?"
She took the shovel from JJ's hands, removed her jacket and began to bring the soil back over the casket to cover her once again. With every fall of the soil from the shovel brought a tear to Brooklyn's eyes. It was sad, sad to see that Denmark buried his wife, his treasure in such an isolated place only to have it dug up by a couple of greedy rich people.
She didn't even want to know how Pope was handling this. It obviously wasn't easy because these people were his ancestors, his family.
"I just don't get it," Pope spluttered. "I mean, you guys saw the map. He hides his gold so no one finds it for a hundred and seventy years. And then he sends a message to his son Robert to come here to his mother's grave, but the message never gets to him and Denmark wanted to find the cross. I know we're in the right spot. It just feels like—"
"Like we missed something?" Everyone looked over at JJ to see his eyes were focused elsewhere. "Guys. Come here." The boy began to climb up onto the top of the van, Brooklyn following just to make sure he didn't get his arm stuck in this hole he found. "That looks like—"
"The painting in the island room," Brooklyn says.
"It's worth a shot, right?"
"Let's do it."
"Go for it," JJ says, pushing his girlfriend forward.
"No chance."
"You do it!" Sarah yells to him.
"Sorry. I... I went in the storm drain so..."
"She did go in the storm drain," Pope backed her up.
"Yeah. No, I'm gonna do it. It's just..." He began to pull back the sleeve of his jacket.
"He's scared," Brooklyn whispered to everyone down below.
"I'm not scared, Bee."
"You seem scared," she toyed, watching as he began to twist his hand into the hole to find anything that could help them.
"There's something in here," he says, pulling himself closer to get whatever it was. "Wait." The boy then burst into a fit of screams and cries that made Brooklyn race to grab his body, to try and pull him out safely before he was eaten. John B even began to climb up to help but before he could, JJ's screams turned into laughs.
"Oh, you asshole!" Brooklyn smacked his arm.
"Oh, man! I got all of you on that one," he laughed but not one of them were amused.
"Oh, yeah, real original."
"Wait, but seriously there's something in here," JJ says, while pulling out a long metal looking canister.
"Let me see it." Pope held out his arm to take the object from JJ.
JJ and Brooklyn jumped down to join Pope's side. "HMS Royal Merchant," he read.
"Give it to the captain. Here we go. It's a spyglass." He snatched it from Pope and opened it up to peer through it.
"There's something on the ends," Kiara pointed out.
"An inscription right there. Look at that shit."
"What does it say?"
Pope began to read, "You've come this far, do not falter. The cross is on the Freedman's altar." Pope paused to close the spyglass. "Freedman's alter. The cross is at the church!"
"What are we doing here, guys?"
"Come on! We got it!"
"Woogity-woogity." Pope and JJ cheered while the rest of them raced to the van.