by Beth White
“And did you find your quarry?”
“Sir?”
“Did you find the men you were looking for?”
“Yessir. I mean nossir. They was ten of ’em sign a contract and run out on it. Took me a couple of tries, but I founds all but two and brung ’em back.”
“Your Honor.” Lemuel Frye stood. “May I interject a pertinent point here?”
The judge frowned at the interruption. “You’ll have your turn to speak momentarily, Mr. Frye.”
“But—”
“Sit down, Mr. Frye.”
Frye sat.
“Please continue, Mr. Moore. I’d like to hear your complaint against the defendants.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” said Moore. “So when I come back for the last two men, Mr. Frye here and some colored men was waiting for me. They drug me off my wagon and out in the woods, and beat the tar outta me. This was a week ago, and the cuts is just now healing.” He lifted the back of his shirt and turned so the judge could see the raised red welts across the dark-skinned back.
There was a ruffle of reaction from the audience. Schuyler couldn’t help a silent whistle. No denying that somebody had beat the man.
Judge Teague pinched the end of his mustache, maybe in an attempt to hide his own dismay. “Mr. Moore, I’m sorry for your injury. Do you have the names of the men who were with your attacker? And is there anyone who can verify your account?”
Adjusting his clothing, Moore turned to face the judge again. He shook his head. “It were near dark when they got me. The white man held the lantern and the whip while the coloreds tied me up and stripped me. Then he give them the whip, and they took turns whaling on me.” He turned to stare at Frye with clear hatred singeing his face. “It’s a miracle I didn’t die where they left me, but I crawled to a house nearby, where a kindly granny took care of me until I was well enough to walk to town. I reported what happened to the sheriff, but he didn’t arrest nobody.”
“Who is this granny? Did she witness the incident?”
“I don’t know her name, Your Honor. Didn’t think it mattered, ’cause she didn’t see nothing.”
“Hmm.” Looking skeptical, the judge addressed the sheriff. “Sheriff Stevens, I will get your take on the situation in a moment.”
“Yes, sir,” said Stevens. Schuyler could see the sweat dampening the entire back of the lawman’s shirt.
“All right, Mr. Moore. Let’s wrap this thing up now. What happened after you left the sheriff?”
“I went to the justice of the peace, Mr. Ashby. He questioned Mr. Frye, but let him go. Said they wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.”
“I can see why,” muttered Teague, looking perplexed. “So what were you doing back in Tuscaloosa last Monday?”
“I heard about the rally. Wanted to get them last two men and figured they might be in the crowd. They was. When I tries to round ’em up that night, these three men here try to take my gun away and set fire to the livery. The deputy will vouch for that.”
The judge sighed. “Do you have anything else to add to your testimony?”
Moore folded his arms. “I want the five-thousand-dollar reward for turning in this blackhearted villain what lays in wait to attack and try to murder a poor innocent Negro. I was just tryin’ to do my job!”
A chorus of shouts rose from the back of the room and the balcony. “Hang Frye, Judge! Throw him in jail for the rest of his life!”
Schuyler looked around and found several white men on their feet. Of course he didn’t know any of them, but all had a similar look of well-fed violence.
Before the crowd could get thoroughly out of control, the judge brought down his gavel. “Order!” He pounded it twice more, louder this time. “Desist in this nonsense immediately,” he roared, “or I’ll have every one of you thrown out of the courthouse!” As the noise subsided, the judge speared Harold Moore with an ironic glare. “You may sit down, Mr. Moore. I’ll let you know about the five thousand dollars.” As Moore obeyed, Teague addressed Lemuel Frye. “I suppose we’d better hear from you, Mr. Frye. Please stand and state your full name, occupation, and place of residence.”
“I’m Lemuel Frye, Your Honor. I’m a schoolteacher. I’ve lived right here in Tuscaloosa for the past five years.”
“Fine. What is your connection to Mr. Moore?”
“Last Monday was the first time I’ve laid eyes on him.”
The judge looked stumped. “Then why has he accused you of attacking him?”
Frye’s thin, bruised face closed. “I suspect it’s because I don’t ask where the men I teach come from. What I was going to say earlier is that Moore didn’t come across the state line alone. He brought a posse of white men with him, riding under the aegis of the Ku Klux Klan. They are bent on sustaining the cotton empire they’re in danger of losing to freed slaves—men who want to farm their own land, feed their own families. You can understand why freedmen resist enforced servitude under lopsided contracts to their old—”
The courtroom erupted in shouts and jeers, drowning the rest of Frye’s sentence.
“Order!” Bang, bang went the gavel. “Bailiff! Sheriff!”
Sheriff Stevens rose, a hand on his gun. He slowly turned to face the crowd, his beefy face stern. The noise simmered to angry mutters.
The gavel slammed again. “The next person who utters one syllable out of order,” the judge ground out, “will be escorted from the room. Am I understood?” The courtroom went silent as Stevens dropped back onto the pew. “Now. Mr. Frye, you will please stick to the facts and resist the temptation to preach. We are not making law here, we are simply trying to determine whether or not Mr. Moore can provide enough evidence to bring you to trial. Can you prove your whereabouts on the evenings in question?”
“I was at home, reading a book.”
“Did anyone see you there?”
Frye’s expression tightened. “No.”
Even Schuyler could see the man was hiding something. Judge Teague peered at the defendant as if trying to read his soul. “Are there any witnesses you’d like to provide?”
“None that you would believe,” Frye said.
“You’d be best served not to ascribe motive to your adjudicator, Mr. Frye,” said the judge dryly. “All right. You may be seated.”
“Your Honor, I’d like to speak on behalf of Mr. Frye.”
The judge’s attention swung to the gentleman on the front row whose white summer suit, frilled shirt, and shallow-crowned straw hat proclaimed the Southern gentleman of means. “Mr. Samuel, I’d be happy to hear what you have to say.”
“Who is that?” Schuyler whispered to the man seated next to him.
“The mayor,” the man whispered back, looking at Schuyler as if he’d just dropped from the moon.
Schuyler leaned a little to one side so he could see around the hat of the lady in front of him. The sheriff’s earlier account to Levi and himself had characterized Samuel as a moderate man, perhaps along the same political lines as his father.
Meanwhile, Samuel had stepped to the witness box and sat down. “Thank you, Your Honor. For those that don’t know, I’m Thad Samuel, mayor of this great city. I was the sheriff a few years back, so I’m used to assessing a man’s character according to his actions, not necessarily the hot air he expels.” When laughter ruffled through the crowd, Samuel smiled a little. “I been watching Mr. Frye since he come here after the war to help out the freedmen in the area. He’s paid by the Bureau, but he can’t be making much. I never seen such a skinny, hungry soul in my life. And he don’t take a penny from none of his students. Occasionally one will bring him a chicken or a dozen eggs, but I’ve even seen him turn that down.”
Schuyler glanced at Frye, who had hunched down into his shoulders.
The mayor went on. “And it is true that the Klan has been moving across the state line—in both directions, I might add—to intimidate freedmen into signing labor contracts and staying away from the polls. Of course they don’t li
ke teachers like Mr. Frye, because men who can read are less likely to be duped. Frankly they don’t like me either. But I’m not a pushover. When they tried to oust me, I sent Mr. Frye and Mr. Beaumont, a respected board member on the M&O, to Montgomery to appeal to Governor Smith on my behalf. The governor denied my request for troops to repel our uninvited Mississippi guests”—a titter of laughter responded to this sally, along with a couple of muffled hoots from the balcony—“and sent my emissaries home with a flea in their ear.” Samuel paused, surveying the courtroom.
The judge leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Go on.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Judge Teague. When we planned that rally, I knew there might be some resistance. But I never thought anybody would resort to murder in broad daylight and torching a public servant’s property by night.”
An incipient surge of protest was quelled by the judge’s beetled brow and a tap of the gavel. “I’ll remind the court that disorder will not be tolerated. Mayor Samuel, do you have anything else to add?”
“No, sir, I believe I’ve done all the damage I can do.”
“Fine, you’re dismissed.”
The mayor rose and sauntered back to his seat on the front row.
“All right. I’d better hear from law enforcement. Deputy Foster, will you come to the stand?” The judge circled a hand. “Tell the court who you are.”
One hand on his weapon, the other grasping a mahogany cane, Foster swaggered to the witness box and stood there surveying the crowd. His gaze lingered on the balcony, and he acknowledged the spectators there with a nod of the head. “My name is Deputy Sheriff Newborn Foster. I was born and raised right here in Tuscaloosa County—shoot, everybody knows me.”
“Thank you, Deputy. Please give us the facts of what happened on May 5.”
Foster squinted at the judge.
“The day of the riot,” Teague prompted patiently.
“Oh yeah. Like Mr. Moore said, Your Honor, the situation commenced way before that day. Started with these runaway Miss’ippi slaves, uh, freedmen, hiding out on the colored side of town. We’d of sent ’em back if we coulda caught ’em. Sheriff Stevens and Deputy Dent and me was glad to get a little help from across the state line, wasn’t we, Sheriff?”
Deputy Dent nodded vehemently. Stevens shifted on the pew but didn’t deny it.
Foster thumped the cane against the floor as if to emphasize his point. “We let ’em go after their property, just keeping an eye out to make sure things didn’t get out of hand, you understand.” When the judge merely stared at him, Foster shrugged and went on. “Maybe it did get out of hand, but we’s just two men, and like the mayor said, the governor didn’t want to interfere in local business.” That seemed to Schuyler to be the opposite of what the mayor had meant, but the judge let it go. “But when Mr. Frye took to beating up this poor colored man, Mr. Moore, we couldn’t let that go. Which is why we brung him in—”
“I did not beat up Mr. Moore!” shouted Frye, apparently goaded beyond restraint.
“Mr. Frye,” growled the judge. “You’ve been warned.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Your Honor.”
“Evidently the justice of the peace saw no reason to keep Mr. Frye in custody,” Judge Teague observed, “so let’s skip to the night in question. Deputy Foster, can you explain to me why you alone witnessed this confrontation between Mr. Moore and the three defendants? Where was the sheriff?”
“He was dealing with the fire. I had run back behind the livery to see could I break some of the horses out, and I saw Mr. Moore had the same idea. Looked like he’d just pried one of the boards loose, when these three come skulking ’round the opposite corner of the building.”
“These three, meaning Frye, Perkins, and Thomas?” the judge clarified. “Mr. Moore said earlier they attacked him, and then set fire to the livery. Which was it?”
Foster looked confused. “Well, I guess it could have been before. I disremember. Anyway, before I could reach him, they’d took his gun and commenced to whaling on him, looked like they was gonna kill him—”
“That is a bald-faced lie!” Lemuel Frye jumped to his feet, shaking off Reverend Thomas’s restraining hand. “You are a despicable liar, curse you!”
Deputy Foster leapt over the witness box railing, cane upraised, to rush the livid schoolteacher, who was being held back by Reverend Thomas and Perkins.
The courtroom erupted in noise and wild motion. Judge Teague banged the gavel in utter futility, spectators gawked and squawked and dodged about like geese. Then gunfire exploded.
Schuyler dropped to the floor and rolled under a pew. Deafened by shots crashing about on all sides of the room, he expected each moment to be his last. He’d never gotten into the habit of carrying a gun, though he knew Levi went armed at all times. He prayed his friend had reached safety.
Since nothing could be more stupid than staying in one place, a sitting duck for the gunmen, he crawled under pews in the direction of the door, dodging feet and fallen bodies along the way. Blood dripped from the seats overhead. The smell of sulfur and smoke set him to coughing, and his eyes watered and stung unbearably.
He was almost in the clear, he thought, when he rolled over something hard, bruising his ribs. A pistol. He grabbed it, rubbed his eyes clear, saw that it was loaded. Thank you, Lord. Some poor soul had his gun shot out of his hand, but it was Schuyler’s salvation. At least he could defend himself now.
Cautiously he peered out from under the pew, saw that he was near the door. Though his ears still rang, the gunfire in the courtroom had stopped, and he could hear the pop-pop-pop of shots in the street. He got to his feet, holding the gun cocked and ready, but his knees were so wobbly he had to lean against the nearest wall. As the smoke moved out the window and cleared, what he saw brought sick bile to his throat.
The judge sat pitched back in his chair, a gunshot hole through his forehead, gore marring the wall behind him. Several black spectators seemed to be dead as well, many others injured, moving slowly and moaning in pain. White men in the crowd still cowered under the pews or hunkered against walls. One or two of them might be injured as well.
“Riggins!” he shouted. “Where are you?”
No answer.
Holding the gun up in a shaking hand, Schuyler scoped out the balcony at the back of the courtroom, where smoke still drifted in evil clouds. There might be a couple of people still there, but the action seemed to have moved outside. He walked over to the judge and, out of respect, closed his eyes.
He would have to get help for the injured people in the courtroom, but where had Levi gone?
Suddenly violently ill, Schuyler rushed to the window and hung his head out.
Below him lay militiaman Sion Perkins, sprawled on the gravel road two stories below, his throat cut from ear to ear.
Joelle, seated beside Nathan in the loaded wagon, rode past rows and rows of sheets and dresses and work shirts hanging on ropes strung from gum tree to gum tree. Shake Rag. The name apparently came from the laundry business that kept the families of this dreary little community from starving.
She glanced at Nathan’s set face. He had left the Ithaca plantation and moved here after the Northern victory made him a free man. He’d used the skills learned as an enslaved blacksmith to slowly and painfully build a business of his own. He’d wooed and married Charmion Lawrence against her parents’ wishes. Then, apparently seeing someone trustworthy in Levi Riggins, he’d agreed to come back to Ithaca to work as a freedman upon the creation of Daughtry House Hotel. In the process, as part of his employment contract, he’d negotiated the purchase price of a piece of property and built the snug little cabin for his bride and unborn baby—leaving Shake Rag behind.
But it was clear to Joelle that Shake Rag would forever remain part of Nathan’s identity.
As he guided the wagon onto the church grounds and stopped in front of its burnt-out hull, his strong jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek as if he fought the urge to
scream in rage.
She wasn’t afraid of him. Never. He was one of the most gentle, controlled men she’d ever met. He’d insisted that Charmion not be allowed to come, for fear of harm to her or the baby. Still, Joelle couldn’t predict what he would do. They’d driven all the way out here from the hotel in taut silence. Even Wyatt, sitting in the back with the supplies—food, water, and as many different things as she could think of to throw in for people who had lost so much—had stifled his usual random chatter.
There were no words for this level of evil. Who would burn down a church?
“Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?” Joelle sat looking at the charred timbers, fallen in on themselves, the simple pews mostly in ashes.
“Look at that word on the pulpit.” His deep voice, with its fading African accent—that sounded like dat—came slow and harsh. “It’s no accident.”
She stared at the lectern, bizarrely the only intact piece of furniture in the center of the destruction. Someone had taken the time and trouble to remove it, carve out that ugly word, and put it back after the fire. Oh yes, she saw it, a word she winced at, a word she never used herself.
“Nathan, I’m sorry,” she said for the hundredth time.
Nathan tied off the reins and came around to help her down from the high wagon seat. “Me too, Miss Jo.”
Wyatt hopped out on his own. “Here come Shug and Tee-Toc. Where you want this stuff, Nathan?”
“Leave it for now. Mose and Horatia comin’ with another load. We’ll let her and Miss Selah manage distribution.” Nathan stood staring at the black-and-gray mess of charred boards, broken windows. “Good thing it rained last night, or we’d have the whole community in ruins.”
As it was, three shacks to each side of the church had caught fire and burned to the ground. It was bad enough. Joelle swallowed. It was just plain bad.
The ground was marshy, poor, here at the edge of the gum swamp, and Joelle stepped over puddles to get to the church entrance. A set of brick steps remained intact, and she walked up them, absurdly, because she could have simply stepped over the remains of the wooden walls. She stood there looking at piles of ash that had been wooden pews, lovingly made by local carpenters. In a corner she saw a scrap of fabric peeking from underneath a couple of soggy blackened boards and walked over to twitch it free.
