The Intruder

by Charles Beaumont

  In a short time, an automobile horn sounded outside.

  She went to the door, hesitated a moment, then walked to the waiting Chevrolet.

  Adam Cramer did not greet her; he simply pulled away, and they drove in the direction of the highway, toward the forest, and did not speak at all.

  Then the car stopped under a quilt of green sunlight.

  Adam Cramer shifted in his seat. “You said you didn’t want to talk to me,” he said, “so I won’t ask you to. I will ask you to listen, however. And listen carefully.” He lit a cigarette, and Ella could see that he was nervous also, for his movements were short and jerky and his eyes would not stay still.

  “First I want to tell you that I’m sorry about what happened to your father. I don’t know what made him do such a foolish thing, and it might even be said that he was asking for trouble, but—now understand this, Ella—I had nothing to do with it. Nothing whatsoever, in any way. Whoever it was, they acted completely on their own. In fact, at the time it happened, I was in my room at the hotel. You can verify that if you want to. Also, I had no part in the church dynamiting. And that can be verified too. Are you listening?”

  Ella nodded. She was listening, but she heard with only half of her mind.

  “All right. Now I’m going to have to say some things to you that I don’t want to say. You’ll end up hating me, if you don’t already. And that makes me very unhappy, because for a while I thought we were pretty close. I thought there were wonderful things in store for us, and I was looking forward to them. So were you. But I’ve got to give all of that up now, because something far more important is at stake.

  “I don’t know how well you understand the situation. Maybe you do, more than I suspect; maybe you don’t at all. Anyway, I have to explain a little of it before . . .”

  Ella saw the fire in his eyes and knew that these eyes were not seeing her, were not traveling over her, but were full of an unseeing hot fire that frightened her.

  “My organization,” Adam Cramer said, “was going well and we were taking big steps forward in licking this integration law, until some people—their names aren’t important—started to get ideas. They weren’t willing to go along with SNAP. They got impatient. They made some mistakes, and it was enough to weaken the whole movement. We’ve begun to lose the support of the people. They’re getting scared. Scared enough to pull out and just let things sit. But we can’t let that happen, because the niggers are still in school. You see?

  “Now maybe I can’t expect you to know what all this is about, but you’ve got to understand that we’re in a position where we’ve got to do something. Something that will win the people back. I talked to one of the men in the council, and we thought about it, and finally we figured out a way. And this is where you come in.”

  Ella kept looking at the fire in Adam Cramer’s eyes.

  “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “the whole thing depends on you, Ella. Not only the organization and all, but your father’s life as well. The men who beat him up this morning are desperate. You saw what they did. If we don’t do something, I can promise you this: They’ll kill Tom. I know it because they told me so. They’ll go right into the hospital and blow his head off, and there’ll be so many of them that the sheriff won’t know what to do. Believe me, Ella. It’s true.”

  Adam Cramer knocked the ash from his cigarette and looked at the glowing tip somberly for a number of seconds.

  Then he said, “Apart from your father, there’s one person holding the nigger children together now. His name is Joey Green. Have you heard of him?”

  Ella nodded.

  “All right. Then listen carefully, and I’ll tell you what you must do. But remember that I don’t like it any more than you will; and remember, too, that it’s the only way we’re going to be able to save your father’s life.”

  He spoke slowly, in slow, measured, tones; but the fire in his eyes did not go out.

  26

  It had been easier this morning. The kids were afraid, but they did not argue; and their parents did not argue, although they were also afraid. A man who believed in them and had given them strength when they needed it, who stood to gain nothing by this and to lose much, lay in the hospital, wounded. And they knew they could not betray this man. So when Joey called, they came, and they went down the hill together, looking neither to the left nor to the right, and they went into the school; and Joey knew that they must win now.

  As he walked along the corridor to Miss Angoff’s classroom, he thought about Tom McDaniel and felt both ashamed of his earlier despair and happy that he could feel this shame. Because it meant that now he did not despair. Now he was not keeping promises to a dead man.

  He stopped at his locker, calmly removed his handkerchief, wetted it, and wiped away the words that had been scrawled in chalk upon the green-painted metal:

  JIGS GET OUT

  He then opened the locker, placed two books on the top shelf and took out two more. As he was closing the locker again, he heard a voice behind him.

  “Excuse me.”

  He turned to face a pretty white girl dressed in the regulation uniform. She looked nervous and frightened, and he decided that it would be best to close the locker and continue to the classroom and not stand here with a white girl so close.

  “Are you Joey Green?”

  He paused. The corridor was fairly empty; most of the other students were already in their rooms. That’s right.

  “Well, I’m Ella McDaniel. Tom McDaniel’s daughter.”

  “Oh.” Joey took a step. “I heard about what happened yesterday. I hope he’s better. Is he?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “He’s a lot better.”

  “I wish you’d thank him for us, miss,” Joey said. “He did a real fine thing. He’s a fine man.”

  “I know.”

  Joey noticed that the girl did not look at his eyes, and that she seemed to be getting more nervous. He snapped the combination lock together and twirled the knob. “Better get going,” he said, and smiled. “That bell’s about to ring.”

  The girl nodded.

  He started off down the hall.

  “Wait a second.”

  He turned. Four or five students were loitering in the hall now, reading the bulletin board, fooling with their lockers. One of them looked familiar.

  “I wonder,” the girl said, “if you’d do me a favor.”

  “Sure,” Joey said. “If I can.”

  “It isn’t much. I’m—well, see, I’m working in the supply room, and I have to get some things. I could use a little help.”

  “After class, you mean?”

  “No. Right now.”

  “Well, I’ll have to ask Miss Angoff. Wait right here and I’ll—”

  “I spoke to her,” the girl said quickly. “She doesn’t mind. It’ll only take a few minutes. I just want you to kind of help me with some things.”

  Joey shrugged. “Okay,” he said.

  Ella McDaniel swung around and started walking down the hall. Joey followed. They went to the last stairway, down the long flight of steps, and into the lower floor, which was used for storage.

  It was a black and silent place, all hot and heavy with the smells of paper, iron and coal dust; like a factory at night. The single wire-webbed light bulb high above put out a feeble glow, and Joey’s eyes were slow to penetrate the dusk.

  “Come on,” the girl said.

  Joey said, “All right,” and blinked. About were cartons stacked in massive rows; between them, slim and shadowed passageways. “I can’t see too good,” he said.

  “Just follow me.”

  He walked between the cardboard cliffs slowly, tracing lines along the dusty sides of the boxes with his fingers. Ahead, the girl walked briskly.

  “Wait here a second,” she said, when they had reached the end of the passageway, “until I get the other light on.”

  Joey waited; then the girl’s voice said, “All right,” and he walked into the
small supply room.

  Ella McDaniel stood by the door. “Up there,” she said, turning and pointing, “on the top shelf. You see the box marked Pads?”

  “Where? Oh, yeah. Under the two big ones.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You want it down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Is there a ladder around here anywhere?”

  “I think so. Right there; it’s folded up, I think.”

  Joey reached down and pulled out the small ladder. He set it on its legs and tested it. Then he looked at the girl and said, “You mind if I ask you a question, Miss McDaniel?”

  She said nothing.

  “How come you got me to help you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You looked strong.”

  “Well, I’m glad to help. But I don’t think—I mean, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. For you, I mean. You know?”

  “I didn’t think of it,” she said.

  Joey smiled. “That’s a nice thing to say,” he said, and started up the ladder. It was just tall enough. He braced himself and moved the top box, laying it on its side. Then he moved the second box, which was a more difficult operation.

  The one marked Pads was heavy, but he got a firm and professional grip on it, made sure of his balance, and walked backwards down the ladder.

  He set the box on the concrete floor and looked up.

  The girl was gone.

  He felt a small prickling sense of fear, but brushed it away. “You want the whole thing?” he said.

  There was no answer.

  He walked to the open door and peered out into the cellar-darkness, and saw only the mountains of boxes.

  “Miss!”

  He was about to return to the room when he heard the girl’s scream.

  It was high-pitched and hysterical, and instantly he knew what had happened. He knew what had happened and what was going to happen.

  He stood listening to the screams; to the silence; then to the sounds of shoes slapping hard against cement, running, running down the stairs and across the floor, toward him; and he could only stand and wait.

  27

  They sat at the tables quietly, no one speaking, no one moving. The fat paddles of the dust-caked fan above revolved in lazy circles, but the air was not disturbed—it hung as still as mold in the café. Harold, dressed in white, sat dozing at the end of the counter; Joan was at the other end, reading a paperback book. The central table accommodated Bart Carey, Phil Dongen, and Abner West. They were playing gin rummy. Lorenzo Niesen watched them, but without interest. Several times he opened his mouth, but he did not speak.

  At the corner table by the window, Adam Cramer sat with his hands folded.

  Someone said, “It’s ten of.”

  Niesen muttered “Sweet Lord” under his breath, removed a handkerchief and knotted it about his neck.

  Five minutes passed.

  Then the door of the café opened, and Danny Humboldt came in.

  His face was red, and he was gasping for breath.

  “Happened,” he said.

  Adam Cramer glanced at him sharply, frowned secretly, and said: “Go easy, Danny. We don’t know what you’re talking about. What has happened?”

  Danny Humboldt grinned.

  “Go easy.”

  Of the other men, only Carey showed any interest in the boy. He exchanged a glance with Adam and moved his chair around.

  “Nigger at school tried to rape a girl!” Danny Humboldt said excitedly.

  “What?” The Rev. Lorenzo Niesen came instantly out of his lethargy. Again, his features were hawk-sharp.

  “Nigger. You know, one called Joe Green.”

  Adam Cramer walked over to the boy and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you joking?” he said.

  “Hell, no. Happened twenty minutes ago. Ella McDaniel, you know her, the fella who’s in the hospital’s daughter.”

  “Yeah?” Phil Dongen came over.

  “Well, everybody heard this hollering, this screaming, you know? And she come running into Mr. Crandall’s room, and her shirt was ripped and she was crying. What it was, she was getting some supplies for—”

  “I knew it’d happen!” Joan said, in a tone of finality. “Harold, you hear that? Nigger tried to rape a white girl over to the school!”

  “Where is he?” Dongen asked.

  “Principal’s office,” Danny Humboldt said. “They got him locked up there.”

  “Well,” Adam Cramer said, “this is precisely what we’ve been afraid of, isn’t it?” He shot Carey a glance. Carey nodded. The exchange went unnoticed by the others. “Are we going to do something about it?” he demanded suddenly.

  Niesen slammed his hand palm-downward on the table. “God damn!” he said.

  Adam Cramer pointed at the little man. “All right,” he said, “go and get every member of SNAP you can find—you, too, Phil. Right now. Tell ’em what come up. Tell ’em to meet here as quick as they can; right away.”

  “Lot of them won’t,” Dongen said. “People been reading that newspaper. People been quitting, on account of—”

  “Don’t any of that matter now,” Adam Cramer said. “You just tell ’em what happened at the school, and they’ll come. They’ll come. Danny, you go on back. Round up as many kids as you can. Buck a head. Guarantee.”

  Danny Humboldt winked and ran outside.

  Bart Carey wiped his forehead with a paper napkin and rolled the napkin into a hall. “It better work,” he said, when the others had gone.

  “It will,” Adam Cramer said. He stared at the big man for a moment, then added, “If you keep your mouth shut. If you don’t start trying to think on your own any more.”

  Carey said, “There’s gonna be trouble!”

  “Of course. But that shouldn’t matter to you, Bart; because you’re in trouble already, right up to your behind. And the jigs are still in school. Now if you want them out, you’ll play along with me.”

  The big man ran his tongue along his lower lip nervously. “Jesus, that son of a bitch McDaniel’s gonna talk, I know it!” he said.

  “Probably so.” Adam Cramer reached into his pocket and found a dime. “But maybe Mr. Shipman and I will be able to find a lawyer. If we’re sure of you. You understand?”

  Carey said that he understood.

  “Now get out of here and round up some people. Fast.” Adam Cramer walked toward the back room.

  He put the dime into the coin slot of the telephone and dialed Verne Shipman’s number.

  28

  The room was divided into a reception area, with a counter and four desks behind the counter, and the principal’s private office. All doors were locked. Joey Green sat in the reception area, flanked by Mr. Crandall and Mr. Spivak. Inside the principal’s office was Ella McDaniel.

  She sat facing Harley Paton, although she did not look at him. She looked at the floor.

  “Calmly, Ella,” the principal said, “tell us once again exactly what happened. I know it’s hard for you to talk, but this is a very serious charge you’ve made and we’ve got to get our facts straight. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Ella kept her fist at her mouth and continued to stare at the floor.

  “Please,” the principal said.

  “I told you,” Ella said. “I went down to get some pads for Miss Seifried and when I started back, I saw him standing there. That’s all. He must have seen me go downstairs, or something. I don’t know.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yes. He said—he talked about having a ball.”

  “That was the expression he used?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know what he meant. But I was scared, so I asked him to move so I could get back upstairs, only he wouldn’t. When I tried to run, he grabbed me—”

  “He grabbed you?”

  Ella spoke in a mechanical, lifeless voice. “He ripped my blouse.”

  “Is that the truth?” Miss Angoff asked levelly.

 
; “Yes,” Ella said.

  The English teacher turned to Miss Seifried, who looked terribly frightened, and said, “Did you ask Ella to get you the pads?”

  “Yes. That is, she said she was going to, and I said that would be fine.”

  Harley Paton glanced at her. “But you didn’t ask her specifically?”

  “Not exactly,” Miss Seifried said.

  “Ella, why did you want to get those pads at that particular time?”

  “Because we were out.”

  “Yes, I understand; but why didn’t you have Miss Seifried ask one of the boys to do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Harley Paton tapped the desk with his finger. “The pads, I’m told, were in a very heavy box. Did you lift that box?”

  Miss Seifried made a sobbing sound in her throat. “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Paton!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you see the poor girl is in a state of shock? Why are you torturing her like this? Do you doubt her word?”

  “That isn’t the point,” the principal said coldly. “You know as well as I do what this means. I am simply trying to get the facts absolutely straight.”

  The little woman walked hurriedly to the door. “Well, I would like to be excused, if you don’t mind.”

  Harley Paton sighed. “Very well, Miss Seifried. You’re excused. But wait a moment . . .” He stared at Ella. “There is nothing more you care to tell us?”

  Ella shook her head.

  “All right, you can go. I called your house, but your mother isn’t there. Do you want me to call her at the hospital?”

  Ella said no.

  “In that case, perhaps Miss Seifried will drive you home.”

  The little woman said, “I’ll be glad to.”

  “One word of caution,” the principal said. “We will have to talk with you again, when you’re feeling better. So please stay within reach.”

  Ella nodded, got up and went out the door with Miss Seifried.

  Miss Angoff turned the lock and returned to the desk. “I don’t believe it,” she said firmly. “I don’t believe any part of it. Do you?”

  “I—don’t know what to think,” Harley Paton admitted, picking up his 8-ball ornament. “If it had been any other girl, I’d have said she was lying. But Tom McDaniel’s daughter—”