by Pat Conroy
As he walked the street with the cross on his back, all the voices came roaring out of the air at him, urging him on, their river boy, their lowcountryman, their champion. They cheered as he swore that he would not allow this to happen, that he was not resigned to the death of the town he loved the most. He swore to himself, to those thrilling and partisan voices, to the river and his slain town, that he would make his message known, that he would breathe into this violated soil the new life of towns, that he would raise Colleton like Lazarus up from the pillaged earth.
“They will know me,” Luke screamed. “They will learn my name. They will respect me. And I’ll make them build this town exactly like it was.”
He stopped himself and the voices left him. He laid the cross down in the dirt and he felt the melodies of liberation pouring through him. He began to dance down the Street of Tides, spinning and shouting. He would stop suddenly and say, “Right here. I’m going to put up Mr. Danner’s men’s clothing shop. And next to it is Mr. Schein’s food store and right next to that will be Sarah Poston’s dress shop and Bitty Wall’s florist and Woolworth’s five-and-dime.”
He could feel the earth tremble as he passed and he could feel those old proud stores struggling to be reborn. He could hear the whole town gathered on the roofs of once visible stores cheering him on. In his mind, he re-created the street exactly as he remembered it. When he left the Street of Tides that night, he looked back and saw all the stores lit up and the Christmas ornaments strung out across the streets and a boy putting letters on the marquee of the Breeze Theater and Mr. Luther sweeping the front of his store with a broom and Sheriff Lucas coming out of Harry’s Restaurant after a meal, loosening his belt and belching.
He had become, at last, he thought, an essential man, a man risen in spring, a man on fire.
He looked back with pride at the town he had created.
He heard something behind him. He whirled around and drew his pistol.
Then he heard it again. It was a whistle.
He saw the figure of a man moving toward him along the river with unutterable joy.
Mr. Fruit.
In March he made his small skirmish official, expanded its nature into full-fledged guerrilla warfare by an act purely symbolic to him but not to the state. At three A.M. on the morning of March fourteenth, four jury-rigged but immensely powerful bombs blew out the four bridges that connected the northern and eastern frontiers of Colleton to the mainland. An hour later, two more bombs wiped out the two railroad trestles that brought the freight trains of the Southern Railway into the county.
One of these trains, delivering a vast load of coal to the construction site, came roaring out of the night from Charleston twenty minutes after the trestle had been destroyed. The chief engineer took the long trestle at full throttle and the train was airborne for sixty yards before it crashed spectacularly into the black waters of the Little Carolina River. The engineer and three crewmen were killed instantly and first blood had been drawn in the war the newspapers soon called the War of Colleton Secession.
Luke wrote a letter to fifteen newspapers around the state of South Carolina declaring the land around Colleton in a forty-mile radius—an area that included thirty sea islands and forty-seven thousand acres of mainland—free from the manufacture of plutonium. He apologized to the families of the four men who lost their lives in the train crash and said he would do anything in the world to bring those men back to life. His task was to preserve human life, not destroy or forfeit it. The letter was a shorter version of the speech he had delivered to the citizens of Colleton on the night Patrick Flaherty told them how their town would be dismantled. He issued a manifesto declaring that the portion of land formerly known as Colleton County was hereby a sovereign state with himself as governor, high sheriff, commander of the armed forces, and, until he could recruit a population, its lone citizen. The federal government had decreed that the land belonged to the people of the United States and Luke agreed, but the manner of governance was at issue. This new state, one-twentieth the size of Rhode Island, was to be called Colleton. He gave the federal government thirty days in which to cease and desist in the building of the Colleton River Project and to return all lands stolen from the people of Colleton in their dispossession. If the government failed to cancel the project, the state of Colleton would formally secede from the Union and war would be declared. All construction workers would be considered members of an invading army of occupation and would be the target of hostile fire.
Luke also asked for volunteers to serve in a force of irregulars to patrol the borders of Colleton against incursion by federal agents. He ordered that they enter the new territory alone, wearing green armbands for identification, and establish listening points and outposts the length and breadth of the disenfranchised county. When there were enough of them dispersed through the swamps and forests, he would make contact and they would begin to operate as a small army. But at first, each man or woman would operate alone in a guerrilla action to stop the flow of materials and to halt the building of the plant.
The letter was front-page news across the state. There was a picture of Luke and me holding a huge trophy aloft when we won the state football championship our senior year and a picture of Savannah taken from the jacket of The Shrimper’s Daughter. The National Guard was given the job of protecting all the bridges entering the county and work began immediately to repair the damaged bridges and trestles. Security was tightened at the camp and a warrant for Luke’s arrest was issued. I think I met every cop and law enforcement officer in South Carolina after the letter appeared. Luke was considered armed, dangerous, and probably insane. There were hysterical editorials in leading newspapers and Senator Ernest Hollings was quoted as saying in the News and Courier, “The boy may be crazy, but there sure ain’t many bridges leading out to Colleton anymore.” The KA chapter of the University of South Carolina gave a green armband party to raise money for disabled children. One letter to the editor appeared in the Columbia State calling Luke Wingo “the last of the great South Carolinians.”
Three weeks after Luke’s letter appeared, a seventy-year-old man named Lucius Tuttle, a former fur trapper, was seized and arrested in the area near the main construction site of the Colleton River Project. The News and Courier reported the incident but did not disclose the fact that the man was apprehended wearing a green armband and that he resisted arrest by holding off twenty deputies with rifle fire until his ammunition gave out. Ten women, all members of Women Strike for Peace, lay down in front of a bus carrying construction men to their work. They all wore green armbands and were chanting “No more nukes” as they were led off to jail.
In conservative circles in the state, Luke was considered a murderer and a crackpot. But there were some men and women, admittedly few, who looked upon him as the ultimate environmentalist—the only man in the history of the republic who had come up with a reasonably sane response to the chilling grotesqueries of the nuclear age. At the very moment that the public’s perception of Luke’s insurgency was changing, the federal government was becoming deadly serious about terminating Luke’s war against the state. As a guerrilla he had proven himself formidable and cunning, but as a symbol it was feared he could jeopardize the entire Colleton River Project. Luke had become a hazard, an explicit public relations dilemma. By taking out the six bridges, Luke had demonstrated a refined tactical sense behind his genius for disruption. FBI agents began flocking into Colleton County and a Special Forces team from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, trained in anti-insurgency warfare began to make night sweeps of the islands. Luke assessed the time he had left by the prestige of those they sent to stop him. He began noticing the increasing number of reconnaissance flights over the marshes. The Coast Guard increased its patrols on the river. Their engagement was an act of homage to him. He appreciated the quality of the men commissioned to apprehend him and bring him to justice, and although they brought extraordinary skills to the matter of his interdiction, he had br
ought to his campaign a lifetime’s head start in his familiarity with and mastery of the terrain.
I learned to identify an FBI agent from a distance of a hundred yards or more and these sightings were always error-free. Their markings were as distinctive as an eastern diamondback’s. They had all watched too many movies and read too many books about how fabulous their investigative powers were. They believed all the happy horseshit that the FBI fed in liberal doses to its own agents. I’ve always hated men firm of jaw and handshake who look like they’re imitating the style of B-grade actors. All FBI agents appeared to have shopped for the same colorless suits off the same rack at the same cheap men’s stores. Their badges were the most attractive part of their wardrobes. I was interviewed by a dozen of them the first year of Luke’s engagement in the woods of Colleton and it gave me small pleasure. I could be inordinately offensive when talking with men who might one day kill my brother. The FBI considered me hostile and this estimation could cheer me up on bad days.
It was almost a year before J. William Covington was assigned to Luke’s case. He appeared during a spring football practice as I was trying to install a new veer offense to take advantage of a quarterback who ran like a deer but also passed like one. Bob Marks, the line coach I had just hired fresh out of The Citadel, spotted Covington sitting in his government-issue Chevrolet as we ran the team through wind sprints at the end of practice.
“More fuzz, Tom,” he said.
“Next year, I think I’m going to pay my taxes,” I said, walking toward the car.
He got out of the car when he saw me approach. J. William was exemplary of the breed. If he had been stark naked dancing through a field of lilies, you could still make a positive identification of him as an FBI agent.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to him. “We don’t let Hare Krishnas pass out literature on the football field. The airport is fifteen miles west of here.”
He laughed and it surprised me that his laughter sounded genuine. “I heard you had a sense of humor,” he said, extending his hand.
“That’s not true,” I answered. “You heard I was a wise-ass.”
“In your file, you are described as being uncooperative,” he said. “My name is J. William Covington. My friends call me Cov.”
“What do your enemies call you?” I asked.
“Covington.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Covington,” I said. “Now, to continue with my career of noncooperation, I’ll tell you everything I know. I don’t know where Luke is hiding. I have not heard a single word from my brother. He has not written, called, or wired. I am not supplying him with food or shelter or aid of any kind. And, no, I will not help you with your investigation in any way.”
“I would like to help Luke get out of this, Tom,” Covington said. “I like everything I hear about Luke. I think I can work a deal with the prosecutor’s office where we can plea-bargain a sentence of only three to five years.”
“The four men who were killed on the train?” I asked.
“It’s obvious he didn’t know that train was coming then,” he said. “When your family lived in Colleton, no train ever used that trestle at night. I call that involuntary manslaughter.”
“He could get more than five years for taking out the bridges,” I said. “Why would the prosecutor go along with that?”
“Because I can convince the prosecutor that by working out a deal, he might be able to save all the bridges in the southern part of the county,” said Covington.
“Why are you saying this to me?” I asked. “I don’t see how I can help you.”
“Because I’ve read Luke’s file very carefully, Tom,” he said. “And there are three people who could find Luke if they put their mind to it. There is your father, who, as you know, is currently indisposed.”
“Indisposed,” I said. “I like the way you use the language, Covington.”
“The other two are you and your sister. She writes excellent poetry. I’m a big fan of hers,” he said.
“She’ll be thrilled,” I said.
“Can I count on your help?” he asked.
“No, you can’t, Cov,” I said. “You didn’t hear me the first time. I won’t help in your investigation in any way.”
“The Mewshaw Company’s offering a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who can neutralize your brother,” Covington said. “Do I need to translate the word neutralize for you? They are starting to put guys in that county who are more than a match for your brother. Two Green Berets who both received the Congressional Medal of Honor are in the county right now, hunting him. They may not get him tomorrow or the next day, Tom, but eventually someone’s going to kill Luke. I’d like to prevent that. I admire your brother very much. I would like to save his life, Tom. I can’t do it without your help.”
“So far, Mr. Covington,” I said, “you’re the first person from the Federal Bureau of Investigation who has not pissed me off. This, however, makes me very nervous. Why did you decide to become an FBI agent? And why, for godsakes, do you call yourself J. William?”
“My first name is Jasper,” he said. “I would rather die than have anybody call me by my first name. My wife came up with the idea for J. William, since I work for an organization founded by a J. Edgar. She thought there might be some subliminal value whenever a promotion was in order. I joined the FBI because I was a lousy athlete, and like most lousy athletes, I suffered through a painful high school experience and had doubts about my manhood. We FBI agents suffer no doubts about our manhood.”
“You give good answers, Jasper,” I said. “Unlike your associates, you’re giving out small intimations that I’m dealing with something vaguely human.”
“I studied your file carefully,” he said. “I knew if we did not establish some basis for trust you would not cooperate with me at all.”
“I didn’t say I trusted you, Jasper,” I answered. “And I already told you that I would not cooperate.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “Because you’re talking to the only man in the world who is interested in saving your brother’s life instead of killing him.”
I studied J. William Covington’s face. It was a handsome, sentient, chivalrous face, the kind that inspired a titanic distrust in me. He met my gaze with candor—another mark against him. His eyes were clear and untroubled.
“I think I can find my brother for you, Jasper,” I said. “But I want the deal in writing.”
“You’ll have the deal in writing and you’ll have my word that everyone will go along with that deal,” he said.
“I’ll do it, but I’ll never like or trust you, Jasper,” I said. “And I don’t like your suit.”
“I’m not interested in finding out the name of your tailor either,” he answered, pointing to my khakis and sweat shirt.
When school was out, Savannah flew down to Charleston and we spent several days gathering supplies and making plans for our expedition into our lost county. At night, Sallie, Savannah, and I would study the nautical chart of the county, a Mercator projection at a scale 1:80,000 at latitude 32°15′. The rivers and creeks were covered with small precise numbers giving the depth in soundings of feet at mean low water. Our fingers moved through marshes and channels and the long, flat geography of our childhood. We tried to put ourselves in Luke’s place and see the world as he was now seeing it. I thought he must be living in the Savannah River Swamp south of the county, making his brief forays of sabotage and disruption at night, then skipping back into the impenetrable swamp before dawn.
Savannah disagreed. She thought that Luke had a single refuge within the county where he based his operations and that it was a place we all knew. She reminded me that Luke was a creature of habit and she didn’t believe he would wage a war to liberate Colleton without being able to live there.
“You’d make a shitty guerrilla,” I said.
I also told her that they were hunting Luke with bloodhounds over the length and breadth of the islands and i
t seemed unlikely to me that those dogs would not have discovered a base camp.
“Then it must be a place they don’t know about, Tom,” Savannah said. “A place that only Luke knows about.”
“They know about every place Luke knows about, Savannah,” I said. “You can buy this same map at any port in the United States. America is nothing if not well mapped.”
“If it’s so well mapped, why can’t they find Luke?” she asked.
“He’s taken great care to hide himself well,” I said, looking at the map.
