Red River

by Lalita Tademy

  Israel counts nine on horseback, advancing slowly down the wide dusty road. The white men have been caught off guard, the surprise on their faces easy to read. There are more colored men on foot than white horsemen, but that gives Israel small comfort.

  To Israel’s right, Sam Tademy tightens his grip on his Enfield, and Israel follows suit. This is uncharted territory. There is no reliable script for how the two opposing groups are supposed to act toward each other if the colored men refuse to give way.

  “I’m J. W. Hadnot, from Montgomery,” the lead white man says. “We got business at the courthouse.”

  Israel recognizes this man and hopes the memory is not mutual. There are Hadnots spread from Montgomery to Alexandria, in the towns and in the backcountry, known for both their political connections and their commitment to white supremacy. This particular Hadnot’s name is Smokin’ Jimmy, presumably for the pipe he keeps clenched between his teeth, lit or not, and he is high up in the ranks of the White League. In the woods outside of the polling place last year, Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot and a handful of others in the White League intercepted and challenged every one of the hundred colored men traveling to Montgomery to vote, threatening to kill them on the spot if they didn’t turn back before casting their ballot. A majority of the colored men traveled in armed groups, and although most were intimidated, they were not deterred. It is well known that the main job of the White League is to terrorize white and black Republicans, to keep them away from polling places, but the organization has obviously expanded its charter.

  “Only Republicans got business in the courthouse today,” says Levi.

  Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot regards him quizzically, as if Levi is a pet dog that suddenly knows how to talk.

  “Who are you, boy?” he asks.

  “My name is Levi Allen. Captain Levi Allen.”

  Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot pointedly ignores Levi. He eyes the other men of the foot patrol one by one, willing them to acknowledge his authority.

  “Most of you are good boys,” Hadnot says, barely shifting in the saddle. He delivers his words with the sluggish, thin-lipped smile all of them recognize as threat. “You don’t want to be throwing in your lot with carpetbaggers.”

  He takes his time, removes the pipe from his mouth, leans to the side of his horse, and spits at the base of the trunk of the Pecan Tree. Israel holds his breath, knowing better than to meet the white man’s cocksure gaze. He is just one of the faceless colored men he hopes Hadnot won’t remember.

  “Time to get back to your own concerns while you still got the chance, go back to your homes. You know better. You dealing with something you can’t understand here. Let us take care of the politics.”

  Levi stands his ground. “We got the right to be here. We hold the courthouse for officers duly appointed by the governor of the state of Louisiana.”

  Once again, Hadnot ignores Levi. “What you boys think you doing with those weapons, scaring all the decent people in town?” he asks.

  “We ask you to turn around and go back to Montgomery,” Levi says.

  Hadnot finally turns to Levi, his eyes a searing blue buried deep under hooded lids. “You in over your head, boy.”

  “These townspeople protect the appointed officers and the courthouse, sir.” Levi seems unruffled, his body all but hidden from view by the massive bulk of his sky-blue military greatcoat, which makes him look bigger than he is. Israel, on the other hand, feels the runoff of sweat from his scalp and the widening dampness around his armpits. He doesn’t want to call attention to himself by wiping his face, so he lets the sweat run off the slick surface of his skin to splatter in little droplets to the ground.

  “I wanna talk to someone in charge,” Hadnot says. “Are the white men at the courthouse?”

  “We can’t allow you further into town. We ask you to turn around and ride out. Those are our orders.”

  Hadnot’s face turns a mottled red, as if someone has hands around his throat, choking him.

  “Who you think you talking to, boy?” he sputters. He has a long-nose pistol tucked in the side of his saddle, and reaches to draw it out.

  The other men on horseback reach for their guns too, as if it is an orchestrated, singular move. They carry an assortment of weapons, mostly pistols and shotguns, although two of the men on horseback are armed with nothing more than the long-standing assumption of privilege.

  “Trouble’s not what we want,” Levi says evenly, “but each of us ready for it.” He brings his Enfield rifle to his shoulder, pointing it directly at Hadnot’s chest, with his finger on the trigger lock.

  The colored men follow Levi’s lead. Israel lifts the heavy weight of his rifle, hoping the shaking of his arms and legs isn’t noticeable, to either the men on horseback or the men on the ground. He hears heavy drags of breath coming from men on both sides as he points the gun in the general direction of the horses.

  Hadnot pauses, assessing the situation. “Bring me the one calls himself the new sheriff,” he says finally. “I won’t waste my time talking to a colored boy.”

  “Unless you got special business in Colfax, no one comes in,” Levi says.

  “Only business with you got a bullet or rope connected.” Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot waves a piece of paper over his head. “This a warrant for the arrest of the black radicals. That include you. Go get me the new sheriff. His scrap of paper don’t make him legitimate, but least he’s white.”

  “The Republicans won on Election Day, and they in office now,” Levi says, as if explaining a simple lesson to a dull-witted child. “A warrant from Montgomery is no good here. We asking you to turn around and go on your way, peaceable.”

  Hadnot turns halfway in his saddle so the men on horseback can hear. “Carpetbaggers,” he says with disgust, shaking his head. The other men nod in agreement and laugh, but there is tentativeness in it.

  “You from Montgomery, Mr. Hadnot, not Colfax.” Israel sees Levi steady the angle of the Enfield rifle, tightening his index finger around the trigger as he talks. “I been appointed by the governor of the state of Louisiana.”

  “We don’t accept you or the governor, neither one. We run Grant Parish without outside meddling. You leading these local boys someplace they be sorry to find themselves later.”

  “These men plenty capable to protect their own rights,” says Levi.

  “These boys can’t do their own thinking, we all know that. And you can’t stay forever. You gonna give them work too, after you gone? Shelter their families?”

  “The party in office changed, Mr. Hadnot,” Levi says. “Time to turn around.”

  Neither Hadnot nor Levi moves for several long seconds, and the men on both sides wait. At last, Hadnot gives a firm squeeze of his heels, unhurriedly, edging the dapple-gray mare toward the ragged line of men on the ground.

  Levi fires once, a quick shot gotten off just in front of Hadnot’s mare, and Hadnot pulls back sharply on the reins. The mare prances nervously, whinnying and snorting, but Hadnot quickly gets her under control. It is all heavy breathing and hearts pounding, but no one else fires.

  “Time to turn around, Mr. Hadnot.” There isn’t a quiver in Levi’s voice. He brings a pistol out from under his coat and aims it squarely at Hadnot’s head. “The next one won’t miss.”

  Israel feels a sickness in his stomach. He would rather strain against the plow in hard labor, ass side of a mule, than bear the self-defining weight of his gun for one minute more, but he forces himself to pull up on his rifle as well. All the men on the ground do the same.

  Hadnot’s barely disguised rage hardens into stony resolve. He gives a signal to the men on horseback, an abrupt wave of his hand. “You not worth the bullet to put you in your place, and you don’t understand how we do things here. Yet.” With exaggerated, careful movements, Hadnot tugs on the reins to turn his horse. “Sheriff Christopher Columbus Nash is the real sheriff of Colfax, and he won’t like this one bit. Count on us coming back.”

  The other mounted
men turn in a wary arc away from the center of town.

  After the white men retreat, the colored men look nervously at one another. Israel isn’t sure who delivers the first big whoop, but before long, they all let loose in an excited churn of voices.

  “They know we mean business,” says McCully’s son, Spenser, bringing the sight of his rifle to his eye and aiming the long barrel in the direction the horsemen just rode. “This our town now.”

  “Settle down,” Levi says, not only to Spenser but to all of the men, and there is a startling quiet as the adrenaline begins to drain away. In contrast to the rest, Levi’s voice seems infinitely sad. “It’s only the beginning.”

  Even before Levi finishes the words, Israel knows what he says is true.

  As soon as the patrol reports back to the courthouse, the new sheriff holds a general meeting in the area surrounding the giant Pecan Tree.

  “I’m calling for deputies,” he says. Sheriff Shaw’s pale face is flushed, haggard and drooped as a hound’s. Rigid muscles around his thin lips do little to hide his anger. His entourage, including Levi Allen, moves close together behind him in a show of solidarity. “We got word a group out of Montgomery planning to attack Colfax tomorrow. They threatening to replace all the Republican appointees with their own party and hang the black radicals. Two things we need. We need to hold the courthouse to protect the lawful appointed Republican officers, and we need to keep the peace.”

  Sam Tademy steps forward. “Where the Federals at?” he asks. “The Federals supposed to be here if the election men have trouble taking office. That be the understanding.”

  As the colored men talk among themselves, uncertain, McCully elbows his way forward in the crowd, his brown fedora jammed down low on his head.

  “I voted Republican last November,” he proclaims loudly, his voice at full pitch. He goes quiet until he reaches a spot directly opposite the sheriff, not over three feet from the politicians standing near the base of the Pecan Tree. “You might could say it was me voted you folks here in the first place.” McCully holds himself very straight, towering over the men around him, refusing to be either dismissed or ignored. “Where you from, Sheriff Shaw?”

  The sheriff’s face tightens, and he makes no attempt to hide either his puzzlement or his annoyance. “Philadelphia, by birth,” he says reluctantly.

  “I don’t know how it be where you from, but any colored man vote Republican in Colfax may as well walk up to the devil, introduce himself, and slip his own neck into the hanging noose.” McCully stretches out one arm and waves it in a broad motion, indicating everyone present. “Every man here got a story, but I’ma tell you about my family. We got more than a few McCullens around Colfax.

  “The white man at the livery stable tell my brother Eli he see him in hell ’fore he let him vote Republican, but Eli vote anyhow. Next day no more job. After five years doing whatever that white man ask. Best livery hand this town ever seen, but Eli don’t get no more work from any white man in Colfax.”

  The crowd responds. “Amen, Brother McCully.”

  “My brother Abe vote, get his ribs kicked in behind his shed the next night by three white men don’t even bother to hide they faces. In front of his woman and children. Nothing happen to those men. They brag on it and come out meaner the next time.”

  “Preach on.”

  “Instead of marching together right up the road to Mr. Calhoun’s plantation to vote, like we done in 1868, last year the polling place move way out almost to Montgomery, where we couldn’t hardly get to it. The few colored could get hold of a mule or horse carried others out with them, and the rest of us walked, took near the whole day. We put our votes through.”

  “What’s your point, McCully?” asks the sheriff, barely keeping his tone level as he clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides.

  “White men here in Louisiana determined. You got a letter from the governor in your pocket, don’t mean we won much of nothing yet. Colored men here already prove we able to protect the courthouse and the Republican Party. But keep the peace? That a whole different bucket of slop, unless you talking about things going backwards to how they was before. That the only peace we likely to get. The colored citizens of Colfax gone too far down the road now to give up that ground.”

  There are a few echoes of “That’s right,” but most of the men stay quiet and uncommitted, tracking the exchange between McCully and the sheriff like a horse race, not yet choosing sides.

  “You can’t protect the courthouse and keep peace at the same time,” McCully says. “Sam’s right. We need the Federals, but we need Colfax colored men even more to force change on this town. We risking everything, but long as we got guns, we at the level of the white man. We got majority. We got right on our side. We got law. Even if they bring in every white man from Grant Parish.”

  “We Republicans too, me, the judge, the tax assessor, throwing our lot in for change,” says the sheriff. “We got plenty to lose. This don’t go down easy for any Republican, white or colored.” Irritation settles along the deep creases of his face. He lets go of a bit of the tobacco juice he holds in his cheek, spitting it out in the dirt. “You volunteering for deputy or not?” he asks McCully.

  McCully takes off his fedora and, in an exaggerated, theatrical gesture, raises it above his head. The light plays off the colors of the heron feather, from blue to gray and back again. “I volunteers,” he says. “And my son gonna volunteer too.”

  The sign-ups go slowly at first, but before long, there are sixteen new deputies sworn in among the colored men of Colfax.

  Israel packs his dinner pail and his other belongings into the blanket, balls it tight, twists a knot, and flings his possessions over his shoulder. One last look around the room convinces him he has left nothing behind. As he prepares to leave, he almost collides with McCully and Sam.

  McCully eyes his bundle. “You not doing your children no favor, quitting now.”

  When McCully comes around, Israel feels small, as if he has something to apologize for. “We in too deep. Lucy alone on the place. I got to go back.”

  “You call one thing right,” McCully says. He enters the room and leans his weight against a heavy oak table. His beard is thick and full, dotted with gray, his hair uncombed, and his clothes filthy from a week’s worth of tar and grime on the roof. “What you call right is, we in too deep to back down now,” he says. “This a test. Because of this morning, they see us now. We visible. You know what that is, Brother Israel, how important that is, to be visible? It mean now we something they got to deal with.”

  Israel comes back sharply: “I know visible, McCully. You not the only one know some big words. I got to think of my own.”

  “True again. Lucy and the children the reason you need to stay.”

  “What good it do if we dead?” Israel wishes he had slipped away sooner, without the need to explain himself.

  “There’s worse than dead.” McCully steps closer. “Look here, Brother Israel, nobody talking dead but you.”

  “You think the Federals still coming?” Israel asks.

  “We got to get more men to stand up. That way, when troops come or troops leave, the old guard know they can’t mess with the colored men of Colfax, like before. Us men here, right now, got to break that way of thinking. Break that way of living.”

  “We only sign on to hold the courthouse for a day or two. Now there’s shooting, going head-to-head with white men, and promise of more. We running out of men and food. This can only go one way.”

  “Don’t know no such thing,” says McCully. “When we ever stand together as men and ask for what’s coming to us? Food be scarce now, but food easier to come by than men. Yes, some don’t want nothing to do with us courthouse men, don’t want to be seen drinking out the same cup, like we dogs gone mad. Looking over they shoulders like they afraid the white man see us talking and think they one of us. Why a few white men getting run off more important than all the colored shot and hung? Time to
think a new way, Brother Israel.”

  “A few days or weeks marching around town don’t make us ready.”

  “What example you putting forward to your sons?” McCully says. “First scuffle, and you ready to go off with your tail between your legs.”

  “Nothing but words. Still got to think about Lucy and the children.”

  McCully doesn’t hesitate. “Sam and me just been talking. He gonna bring his family up from The Bottom to stay with my brother in Smithfield Quarter, where we able to watch over them. And my wife happy to make room for Lucy and your children till this thing over.”

  Israel wavers. He thinks about the patrols, the unwashed men in the courthouse, the shacks filled with defenseless women and children on the farms that ring the borders of Colfax. He thinks of his sons Noby and David and what sort of future they have in Louisiana.

  “We doing this for the children,” says McCully, as if reading Israel’s thoughts and giving a final push. “You come this far. What say you now, Brother Israel?”

  Israel looks to Sam Tademy, standing quiet behind McCully. Sam nods.

  Everything suddenly seems too heavy, and Israel drops his rolled blanket in the corner of the courtroom.

  “I hope you right, Brother McCully,” Israel says.

  Israel Smith bears the added weight of his new Enfield rifle as he trudges along the last bit of the road home. Under different circumstances, the novelty of today’s warm spring sun would coax a more hopeful mood, but even the respite from the gloom of winter and the promise of increasing green in the landscape do nothing to calm his nerves. At his first glimpse of his cabin, the ragged brick of the fireplace, the familiar contours of the sloped log walls, his reaction is a sharp, euphoric rush. He is tempted to run through the field, burst through the door, find Lucy, and kiss her square on the lips in broad daylight. As if miraculously bidden outside by his need, she comes out of the cabin with a tin of slops and dirty wash-water to throw to the pig. Intent on her task, she doesn’t see Israel at first, and he studies his wife as if he has been away years, not a single week.