Trouble in July

by Erskine Caldwell

  “Some of those folks up there in those sand hills beyond Flowery Branch raise girls that never have drawn the color line,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to say about brother whites, but it has always looked to me like them folks up there never was particular enough about the color line. However, a nigger man ought to be more watchful, even if it is one of those white girls up there in the sand hills. If the niggers would—”

  “That Barlow family lives up there,” Bert said.

  “But that ain’t one of Shep Barlow’s womenfolks, is it?”

  “She’s his daughter.”

  The sheriff’s jaw fell ajar. He stared at Bert, shaking his head unbelievingly. Some of the papers slipped off the desk and fluttered to the floor.

  “Man alive! Shep’s daughter?”

  Bert nodded.

  “That’s bad,” he said after a while. “That’s really bad. Shep Barlow ain’t nobody you can fool with. About nine years ago he killed a nigger for just accidentally breaking a hoe-handle. And only a few years before that he killed another one for a little thing a lot less. I’ve forgotten what it was now. Shep Barlow ain’t one to stand for something like that, especially if it’s his daughter that’s been raped.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you ever since I called you the first time, Sheriff Jeff. I tried to tell you it was important. Jim Couch said—”

  “But you didn’t tell me it was anything to do with Shep Barlow,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “That makes all the difference in the world. There’s going to be a mess of trouble as sure as the sun’s going to rise tomorrow morning. There’s bound to be trouble now.”

  He began filling his leather pouch with smoking tobacco from the glass jar on the desk. His hands were shaking so badly he spilled more tobacco on the desk than he managed to get into the pouch. When he had finished, he swept the spilled tobacco to the floor with a single motion of his hand.

  “Maybe when Jim Couch phones in—” Bert began.

  “Maybe, nothing!” he said, his voice shaken. “There ain’t no maybe about it. Get me my fishing pole out of the closet. I’m going off fishing for a few days. While I’m gone, you and Jim look after things the best you can. But don’t do nothing without proper orders from me. No matter who says what, you deputies ain’t got the right to so much as turn over a stick unless I give the word.”

  “Yes, sir, Sheriff Jeff,” Bert said.

  Jeff pulled out three or four desk drawers, feeling inside of them for the bottle of mosquito oil. He found it and held it up between his eyes and the light globe. It was all of half full of yellowish fluid. He tamped the stopper tightly and dropped the bottle into his pocket.

  “You can let Sam Brinson, the colored man, out in a few days, but tell him I said if he mortgages any old car again and then turns around and sells it over his head, I’m going straight to the courthouse and get a writ of estoppel drawn against him that’ll tie him hand and foot. And I don’t want to find that cage-room back there full of nigger wenches, either, when I come back. The last time I went off for a few days, I came back here and found a nigger gal in almost every cage in the whole jailhouse. You tell Jim Couch I said you and him has got to do your wenching someplace else after this. I ain’t going to stand having this jail turned into a whorehouse every time I turn my back. If it happens again, I’m going to do something far-fetched to you boys.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bert said.

  Chapter II

  WHILE BERT WAS looking in the closet for the fishing pole, Jeff McCurtain walked out on the front porch and looked up at the starry night. He felt lonesome the minute he left Bert and heard the screen door slam behind him. He knew he was going to spend four or five of the lonesomest days of his life down on Lord’s Creek. He wished he could take Corra with him to keep him company, but he knew she would never consent to any such proposal.

  He walked down the steps and looked up at the bed-room windows on the second story. The light was still burning, and he could see Corra’s shadow moving around the room. He knew she was waiting up to make sure he left for the creek.

  Just as he was turning to look at the stars once more, an automobile roared through the middle of town, coming down the main street at a fast rate of speed. At the corner a block away, the car slowed down suddenly with an ear-splitting shrieking of tires on the pavement. A moment later the headlights from the car turned the night in front of the jailhouse brighter than day. The automobile jerked to a stop, bouncing from end to end. Before Jeff could get out of sight, somebody jumped out and ran towards him.

  “Sheriff Jeff!”

  “Is that you, Jim?”

  “I’m glad you’re up and dressed, Sheriff Jeff.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Jim Couch, the elder of the two deputies on the staff, ran up the walk. He was out of breath. He stood looking up at Jeff, panting for wind.

  “I just came from Flowery Branch,” he managed to say, his voice raucous with excitement. He stopped and breathed deeply several times before he could say anything more. “I thought maybe you hadn’t heard about the trouble.” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to stay out there and get mixed up in the trouble until I was certain what you’re going to do about it, Sheriff Jeff.”

  Jeff looked down at Jim calmly and serenely.

  “Me?” he said quietly. “I’m going fishing, son.”

  They walked up the brick path to the porch and opened the screen door. The phone in the office suddenly began to ring with a shrill, unpleasant clamor. Jeff went into the hall and stood in the office door. Bert had already picked up the phone.

  “Is this Sheriff McCurtain’s office?” a husky voice boomed.

  “Yes,” Bert said, his eyes turning slowly in his head until he was looking Jeff straight in the face. “Deputy Bert Stovall speaking.”

  “What kind of a sheriff’s office are you folks running anyhow?” the voice demanded.

  “What do you mean?” Bert asked, wondering who it was.

  “You’d better get McCurtain up out of bed and tell him to get busy and catch a nigger named Sonny Clark, or I’ll come to Andrewjones and jerk McCurtain out of bed myself. I want Sonny Clark caught and locked up for safekeeping. Do you hear me?”

  “Who’s talking?” Bert asked excitedly. “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “This is Bob Watson at Flowery Branch. Sonny Clark has been accused of raping a white girl, the daughter of one of the tenants on my place. Sonny is one of my field hands. I don’t want no trouble out here. If Sonny Clark gets lynched, there won’t be a nigger left on my plantation by sundown tomorrow night. Or if some of them don’t run off, they’ll be too scared to get out in the fields and work. My whole crop will be ruined. Don’t forget this is laying-by time. I won’t even be able to hire outside help if a nigger gets lynched out here. You tell McCurtain I said for him to get up out of bed and come out here and catch Sonny and take him to Andrewjones, or somewhere, and lock him up good and tight for safekeeping till this trouble blows over. I voted for McCurtain the last time he ran for re-election, and my wife votes the same ticket I vote. But he’ll never get another vote in this part of Julie County if he don’t come out here and do something right away before it’s too late. He was elected and draws a bigger salary than he’s worth to do just what I’m telling you now. You tell McCurtain I said he’s already done enough fishing to last him a lifetime, and if he goes again now, it’ll be just one too many. Good-by!”

  Bert set the phone down carefully, fearful that it would burst into another clamor of ringing before he could get away from it. Crossing the room, he repeated to Jeff practically every word Bob Watson had said. Jeff listened with his mind in a ruffle, leaning his weight against the doorframe.

  Nobody said anything for several minutes after Bert had finished. Jim Couch stood behind Jeff in the hall, waiting impatiently for the sheriff to act.

  Jeff moved his bulky body across the room and sat down
heavily in the big arm-chair behind the desk. Jim followed him into the room.

  “Jim,” he said slowly, looking up at the deputy under drooping eyelids, “Jim, it’s things like this that has whipped me frazzle-assed for eleven long years.”

  Both Jim and Bert nodded sympathetically. They realized he was at that moment in the tightest corner of his entire political career. On one hand there was a crowd of Julie County citizens, all registered and qualified voters, who would do their best to throw him out of office if he attempted to interfere with their lynching of Sonny Clark. On the other hand there was a small group of influential men and women, one of them being Bob Watson, who would do anything within their power to ruin him politically if he did not show some evidence of trying to stop the lynching.

  “If it had happened anywhere else in the country,” Jeff said wearily, “it wouldn’t amount to so much. I can’t figure out why that blame nigger had to be one of Bob Watson’s hands. It’s a pure shame.”

  Bob Watson was the largest landowner in Julie County. He owned nearly half of all the farming land in the county, and almost all the timber land. He farmed about fifteen hundred acres of cotton with field-hands. Another fifteen hundred acres were let out to renters, sharecroppers, and tenants.

  Corra came downstairs and stood in the doorway. She knew at once by the look on her husband’s face that something unexpected had turned up to discourage him.

  Bert went to the door and told her in whispers what had been said over the phone.

  “I’m licked, Corra,” Jeff said, looking at her helplessly.

  “Nonsense,” Corra said. “Bob Watson is nothing but bluff and bluster. You know better than to pay any attention to what he says. Haul yourself up out of that chair and get on down to Lord’s Creek like I told you almost an hour ago. Get up from there and stir yourself, Jeff.”

  Jim Couch went out to the porch to wait. Bert stood ready to help Jeff get started.

  “Maybe you’re right, Cora,” he said, taking heart. “It’s sitting around here letting these things get me into a stew that does the damage. Bert, where’s that fishing pole of mine? Get me what I need. I ain’t got no more time to waste.”

  He got up and walked heavily towards the door. His wife followed him, patting his arm, until he reached the front porch. Throwing himself forward, he crossed the porch, went down the steps and hurried towards his car standing in the street. At the sidewalk he turned around for a last look at Corra, but she had gone out of sight.

  Jim had followed him down the brick path to the car.

  “Since you’re figuring on being gone four or five days,” Jim began hesitantly, “I thought I ought to remind you about Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun, Sheriff Jeff.”

  “What about her?”

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten about her. It’s that petition she’s been getting up for the past two or three months. This is going to be a bad time, nigger-trouble coming right on top of that.”

  Jeff’s shoulders sagged.

  “That’s right,” he said, his gaze falling to the ground. “I’d clean forgot.”

  The light in the bedroom went out. Corra had gone back to bed, thinking he had left for Lord’s Creek. He looked up at the darkened windows for a while, trying to think.

  “If she gets a majority of the voters to sign that petition, that might settle the election right there and then,” Jim suggested.

  Jeff nodded, his gaze still fastened upon the ground.

  Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun was a grass widow about forty-eight years old who made a living selling Bibles and religious tracts. She had kept after Jeff to buy one of her books during all the past spring and summer, and he finally bought a tract with the hope that she would leave him alone after that. He had not seen her again until one morning three weeks before when she walked into his office carrying a big bundle of papers. That was when he found out that she was canvassing the county for signatures to a petition, the object of which was to send all the Negroes to Africa. She had written a letter to Senator Ashley Dukes and told him that the Negroes were buying Black Jesus Bibles from a mail-order house in Chicago, and that he would be as shocked and scandalized as she was to see pictures of Christ looking like a Negro. She told him something ought to be done right away to stop the circulation of Black Jesus Bibles in the nation. Senator Ashley Dukes wrote back and asked her what she proposed to do about it. Narcissa told him she wanted to get up a petition with millions and millions of names on it asking the President to send all the Negroes back to Africa where they came from. Senator Ashley Dukes wrote her again and told her if she persuaded everybody in Georgia of voting age to sign the petition, he would act accordingly. That was the point when Narcissa started out to get everybody, white and twenty-one, to sign it. Jeff had told her the first thing that because he was in politics he could not sign his name to it. She kept after him so persistently that finally he promised to sign the petition if she got everybody else in the county to sign it first.

  “That petition changes the complexion of everything,” Jeff said, thinking hard.

  “What are you going to do, Sheriff Jeff?” Jim asked.

  “Sometimes I wish I was just a frazzle-assed beggar with nothing in the world to worry about except a bite to eat now and then,” Jeff said dejectedly. “Being sheriff ain’t what it’s talked up to be, Jim. My soul is worried limp from one day’s end to the next. I can’t even remember when I’ve had a minute’s pure peace. There’s always something coming along to torment a man in politics. You no sooner get through one election than you have to turn right straight around and start worrying about the outcome of the next one. Voters are a queer lot of people. I’ve seen out-at-the-front candidates wind up at the tail-end for a little thing like not wearing a pair of galluses. Now, ain’t that pure discouraging?”

  He sat down on the curb, dropping his head into the palm of his hands. Jim stood by, nodding.

  “If I only knew which way the wind’s going to blow from now on,” Jeff said, “I wouldn’t have to squat here as blind as a pig in a poke. If that nigger-petition of her catches on, I’d be a fool not to jump straddle the band-wagon. Nigger-trouble right now might be just the thing to set it off, too. People might begin falling all over themselves to get a chance to sign it to show their spite. I’d look like a pretty fool if I got left behind.”

  He looked up at Jim, almost convinced by his own reasoning.

  “If a big politician like Senator Ashley Dukes plays safe, that’s good reason why a sheriff ought to look out for his future, too.” He watched Jim’s face. “I feel I’m right, Jim.”

  “That sounds right,” Jim said, “but you’re down here between two fires. Senator Ashley Dukes don’t have to run the risk of getting his fingers burnt up where he is. For all you know, that nigger-petition might back-fire and ruin everybody holding a political office in the county.”

  Jeff got up and put his hand on the car door. He glanced behind him at the second-story windows in the jailhouse to see if Corra had got up again. The windows were dark and silent.

  “My wife’s a wise woman, even if she ain’t so much for looks,” Jeff said, moving his head from side to side. “My wife told me to go fishing, and I reckon I’ll just go ahead and do like she said. I’ll be a lot better off down there sitting on a log across Lord’s Creek than I’d be up here running myself frazzle-assed trying to find out something nobody is going to know the truth about till the shouting’s over, anyway.”

  Jim watched him climb into his car and squeeze his belly under the steeringwheel. He was disappointed. He had hoped to induce the sheriff to change his mind so they could go out on a hunt for the Negro. The two joys of his life were hunting possums between midnight and dawn, and tracking runaway Negroes at every opportunity.

  Bert ran out of the jailhouse.

  “There’s another phone call coming in, Sheriff Jeff,” he said excitedly. “I haven’t answered it yet, because I thought you’d want to know about it if you hadn’t left. What do you want me to d
o?”

  “Go on and answer it,” he answered quickly. “It’s your job to take calls and promise nothing.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bert said, turning around.

  He had reached the screen door when Jeff called him. He came back to the porch steps.

  “I’m going to listen to it, but that’s all I’m going to do,” he said getting out of the car as quickly as he could. “Hold on, Bert.”

  Jim helped him squeeze his belly from under the wheel, and after that he was able to take care of himself. All three of them went inside.

  They gathered around the phone. Bert lifted the receiver.

  “Hello,” Bert said. “Hello!”

  “It had better not be Bob Watson again,” Jeff said, eyeing the instrument suspiciously. “I’d be liable to lose my temper and tell him something this time.”

  “Hello!” Bert said again.

  “Hello,” the voice answered. “This is Avery Dennis.” His voice was sharp and high-pitched with excitement. “This is Avery Dennis out at Flowery Branch. I want to report some trouble out here in the neighborhood. There’s a crowd of men out here in my corn field tramping down my crop. It’s some of the crowd that’s looking for that nigger, Sonny Clark. I don’t care nothing about him, but them folks out there are ruining my field. I put a lot of work into my corn this year, all on my spare time, and I ain’t going to stand and see it ruined.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Bert asked, turning and watching Jeff’s face.

  Jeff nodded tentatively. He was not certain that he approved of the question but it was too late by then to do anything about it.

  “Tell Sheriff McCurtain to come out here right away and drive them folks out of my corn field. He draws pay from the county for protecting property, and I want mine protected before it’s too late. There ain’t a nigger closer than a mile of here, noway. I’m going to get my shotgun and do some shooting of my own if them people ain’t run out of my field. I don’t have nothing against folks chasing niggers if they use care, but when they tramp down my corn field, drive automobiles over it, and ride mules through it, I just ain’t going to be responsible for what happens to them. You tell Sheriff McCurtain I said all that.”