Gold, Fire & Refinement

Chapter Forty-Nine

"We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future." ~Frederick Douglass

More than two months after the dark days of September, Zarah ended a perfect day at Wilson Manor with her fiancé. Practicing their wedding dance, they were in perfect sync. They had it down. The song they chose for their big dance was perfect for them, and the dance was perfect too. Once they finalized a few last-minute plans for their big day, she went home to Strawberry Circle and got ready for bed. She felt safe. Harvey had heightened security everywhere—at Strawberry Circle, Wilson Manor, Wilson Office Park, Wilson Publishing, and his other buildings and companies around the world. 

Investigation into the shooting of Eva Pearl was still ongoing, but so far, there were no new leads, and her sister's assailant was still unknown. Lying awake in the dark, she thought about all that happened, good and bad, on the darkest of September's dark days. She couldn't believe it at first, when Sean Carlos told her what his deputies found hanging from a tree branch in the woods near the old pond, on her mother's property. The Keepers hadn't told her someone stole the gold brick, so it shocked her to learn it was found inside a black backpack with a Confederate flag patch on it. Once she found out how the backpack and the brick ended up in the tree, she couldn't wait to ask Mr. Clinton why he hadn't told her it was missing.

"How did you find out it was gone?" he asked. "We didn't know it was gone until my grandson got back home to New York after the live show. That brick belongs to me and my family, see, and we decided not to tell anyone it was stolen. How did you find out? We knew it was gone, but we just said, 'the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.' We hoped the one who stole it really needed it, and that our old gold brick would find a way to bless somebody else.

Listening to Mr. Clinton, Zarah waited for the right time to tell him the Clarence Edward Stringer story. "Not many people would feel that way," she said, "after being robbed." 

He laughed. ""True, but we've made our fortunes, Dr. Brion. We're triple-digit millionaires, many times over. We have money, so we know what matters most in this world is all the stuff money can't buy. It's hard for folk to believe that though. Especially people who have no money."

"It might be even harder," Zarah said, "for a lot of those that do have it."

Mr. Clinton laughed again. "That's what I was gettin' ready to say next. How that gold came to us helped make believers of our ancestors, and they passed what they believed down to us. We knew if it was God's will for us to keep that brick, it would find a way to get back to us. You're calling about it now, so I think. I think that old brick has found a way to come back home." He started laughing again.

She laughed. "You Keepers and your gold. You know you made a believer out of me. And your brick? Well. I think it had a job to do, because you know what it did? It ended up helping to save my sister's life." After she finished telling him the story, Mr. Clinton laughed a long time before telling her he was not surprised to hear what she told him. 

"It makes perfect sense to me," he said. "We told you when we were in Pennsylvania. That gold is attached to the hand of Yeshua ben Yoseph, the Messiah, Jehovah-Rapha, God the Almighty. And that hand of God? It had some more work to do. So if the guy who stole it was a man who set out to do your sister harm, then ended up doing just the opposite, that only reinforces what my ancestors believed about that gold."

"It saved my sister's life," Zarah said. "The man who stole it believes that brick gave him superhuman strength. He used that strength to sling his backpack like a bola to hit the guy in the head who tried to kill my sister. We still don't know who the shooter was after ... he might have thought my sister was me, or he might have been after my sister all along. But we do know if it hadn't been for that brick in that backpack? The guy wouldn't have been able to save my sister's life."

"Well, I do say." Mr. Clinton sounded overwhelmed. "I do say."

"A lot of strange stuff happened that day, Mr. Clinton. Both the men who fought were wearing black clothing, and my sister and I were both driving the same model and the same color car. She didn't know I had a red Mercedes convertible, and I didn't know she had one."

"All God baby," Mr. Clinton laughed. "It's written. He works in mysterious ways sometimes, his wonders to perform. The Good Book says that, plain and clear. I think God marked that day with those things so we couldn't just chalk everything up to coincidence."

"Speaking of wonders," Zarah said. "My fiancé told me his cousin—the young man who stole your brick? He's a completely different person since he nearly died. That's why, when he begged to just give the brick back instead of being charged for stealing it, the sheriff let him do it. As far as we're concerned? There was just something heavy inthat backpack. Flew out. We don't know what it was. Mr. Clinton, instead of being held as evidence, your gold is on its way home. My fiancé's security team will be delivering it to you tomorrow."

Mr. Clinton laughed for a whole minute, and, even though she did her best not to laugh or to cry, Zarah couldn't stop her laughter or her tears.

"Once it gets home?" Mr. Clinton said, "it has even more to work to do. It'll be part of the bedrock for the foundation we've already started. From that foundation? We'll loan money at extremely low interest rates, only to black American descendants of slaves. They'll have to prove to our board's satisfaction they are starting and want to learn how to build, grow, and keep owning their own business. But thanks to you and that follow-up story you already published in Araminta, folk already know our primary rules. We're aiming to help black Americans looking for a hand up, not those who just want a handout. We won't be helping any five-dollar black people, or anybody looking for a handout. Those folk will just have to go on and get in the government lines, behind all the other folk whose ancestors this country never stole, bought, sold, nor enslaved or institutionalized the mistreatment of, for going on five-hundred years."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zarah's ringing phone interrupted her recollections. When she answered it, Harvey started singing to her. It was the song they'd danced to earlier that evening. Before hanging up, he told her he was finishing up his evening workout in his home gym. That meant she'd get one more call from him once he was lying in bed, before going to sleep. She smiled knowing she'd get to hear her man singing to her one more time before falling asleep.

Waiting for her fiancé's last call, she started thinking about her sister. As soon as Eva Pearl was out of intensive care and able to talk, she told the sheriff she had no idea who the man in the white Ford truck might have been. She said she felt like someone was following her as she drove home from Las Vegas, but dismissed the feeling thinking her mind was playing tricks on her. She told the sheriff and her family about her rocky relationship with Frank before he died, and then she got to the part of the story involving the robbery incidence in Dallas.

After she told them about the white Ford truck the service station attendant said he'd seen after the robbery, Sean Carlos let the FBI know what happened. What Eva told him, he said, could mean the man crossed state lines in pursuit of her, and that, he said, made it a matter for federal authorities to investigate. After searching for months for a man and a truck fitting the description they were given, neither the police nor the FBI were able to find any new leads. The investigation was not over, but it was stalled. Although the sheriff's team found the black baseball cap in the pond, where Clarence Edward told them it would be, any forensic evidence it might have contained had been washed away in the water.

Eva Pearl was still at in the hospital, in Boston, and Harvey made sure she had the best specialists in the world attending to her needs. She was paralyzed and in a wheelchair, but her doctors were optimistic. The bullet hadn't gone through any major arteries, and all members of her medical team felt sure she would be up and walking again. Soon.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I would love to hear your comments, and if you liked this chapter, please consider giving it a vote. ~Thank you!