The other side of the long building had the doors, and each had a stoop. One or two of the places seemed abandoned. Another was a burned shell. A rooster wandered inside the ruined place, pecking at debris on the floor. Three men sat in front of one house. One on the stoop, two flanking. One of them smoked a cigar butt as fat as a quarter but no longer than a fingernail. All of them had beards and leathered faces burned by the sun. The one on the right spoke.
"What are you doing here?"
Minnow took a few more steps before he realized who the man was talking to. He stopped and turned to face them. His cheeks felt hot.
"I'm just here for a while."
"I didn't ask how long you were here. I asked why."
"I'm here to get something. I've got something to buy."
"Something to buy?"
The man on the right stood up. His two partners stayed still, except for the one who moved to take an occasional puff on his cigar.
"What have you got to buy?"
"My father is sick," Minnow said. Maybe his story would give the man pause. Minnow tapped his foot once, to test his muscles. The man stopped to bend over and adjust his shoe. Minnow glanced over his shoulder at the road. Pretty clear. Lots of places to hide, but he didn't know the port at all.
"No doctor here."
"I've got one to see."
The man stopped again, this time just looking. A few steps more, and he'd be too close.
"Who you seeing?"
"Dr. Crow."
All three men burst out laughing. The man with the cigar relented and put it out in the dirt next to him. The talking man slapped his leg, leaned in, and stood up with a smile across his face.
"Dr. Crow? You going to Dr. Crow for what?"
"Medicine."
"Don't you know who that crazy old man is?" the cigar man asked.
"What you going to buy? A magic spell?" the first man added.
"I was sent here. By the man at Ander's."
"He sent you here? How much money you give him?"
"Fifty cents."
"You got more?"
"It's for the medicine."
"Don't give that old negro any money," the cigar man said, and leaned in and whispered to his silent friend. Then he looked back at Minnow and licked his lips. "Give it to me."
"I just want to see him and get what I need."
A foghorn bellowed out on the river. He could taste the salt water.
"Does your mama know you're here, boy?"
Minnow shook his head.
"Anyone know you're here?"
Another shake.
Cigar man stood up.
"Maybe we ought to tell someone. You don't need to be messin' around with no old negroes."
Minnow stepped away and the man appraised him, up, down. The third man on the stoop stood up.
"You think you're up to it?" talking man asked.
"Yessir."
The man nodded.
"He's just a crazy old man. Negroes love him, but he ain't worth much."
"Can you tell me where to find him?"
"He's down by the oysters. Got a shack."
"The oysters?"
"Up from the docks is a muddy place. Big oyster rake. The oysters. You'll see his shack. Go to the river and follow it up."
Minnow nodded.
The other two men came closer.
"Don't come back this way."
Minnow nodded and took a few backward steps before turning and walking away. He glanced back once and the men were standing closer together, the cigar man talking, all three watching him go.
The roads between the buildings narrowed into tight paths. He walked through mud, stumbling at times to avoid slow-rolling carts and wagons. He passed warehouses: big, wide. Wooden planks had turned black with age, molding in spots where the sun could not reach. A few buildings sent spirals of black smoke up from metal-barrel chimneys. Then the land disappeared.
Docks stretched out like dirty fingers over the flat, gray river. Walkways led out—narrow, gapped, no railings—and terminated at dock-heads stuck out over the water on high pilings. Barnacles crusted the lower reaches where the tide would rise. Some docks had floats at their ends, accessible by ramps that would tilt as the float rose on the incoming tide. Twice each day the tide cycled, rising from a muddy bottom to a high nine feet of water, lifting floats held in place by pilings stuck through galvanized rings.
Shrimp boats took up most of the dock space: bows long and low in the water, arrayed with nets and tackle. Barges moored between the docks hid the water and gave the appearance that the whole place was planked over. Everything moved in the breeze. Boats rocked on their moorings and threatened to jostle down smaller craft.
Men walked up and down the docks from boats and barges to offload their cargo or load supplies. People came off ferries from Charleston and Savannah, and maybe even from farther ports in places like Florida or Maine. The sailors called out: strange men with braided beards, men with pale blonde hair, men with skin as dark as coal, men whose faces had turned brown and freckled by long days at sea. They might have come from The Caribbean, or Mexico, or Africa, or beyond.
Minnow walked down the beach to where the mud met the water, mixing sand and shell. No marsh in this place, where the port had taken everything. Across the river, though, there was a wide field of green marsh, and beyond that a dark wall of trees showing the south face of the Island. The river would lead to Bay Street and off to the open sound. He walked along the shore, watching the water lap at the mud. It was clear for a few feet at the edge, and then it dropped off into murky gray far out under the sky. The sand turned shelly, packed with crumbled white oyster shells like bone fragments set in the ground. The oyster rake spread out before him: wide and long, covering the beach from that point until he could no longer see. The gentle river waves broke against the bleached shells. The oyster halves crunched under his shoes, but some had sharp edges that did not give and would have cut a bare foot like a razor.
The shack stood above the oyster line. He could see neither door nor sign of occupancy. It was a shack made of black boards, with a rough shingle roof. He left the water's edge and circled the shack. It was tiny, no more than a tool shed, and the door faced where Bay Street would be, pointed away from both the river and the port. He saw no sign of any living thing there. What if the shack were empty, abandoned, hopeless?
The closed door hung on rusty hinges. The planks were dark and moldy, but the door was painted fresh and clean in the color of a robin's egg. The cool blue was like a cloudless sky in the afternoon, free of any blemish or shadow. Minnow circled until he stood in line with the blue door. A gull swooped over his head and then rose on a thermal to glide across the river's edge, looking for a fish or a shrimp.
Minnow took a step forward.
"You come a long way today."
He knew it was Dr. Crow. He could