Trouble in July

by Erskine Caldwell

  He turned over quickly in spite of his weight and bulk and put his feet on the floor.

  “What’s the matter!” he shouted, trying to see between the bars.

  When his eyes swept the cage, he had the distinct feeling that everything was not as it should have been. He turned away from the door and looked at the opposite bunk. He sat up so erectly that he cracked his head on the steel frame of the bunk above. A Mulatto girl was lying on the bunk in front of him. She sat up suddenly and screamed at the top of her voice.

  Jeff rubbed his eyes unbelievingly.

  Just then there was a quick rush of heavy footsteps in the passageway.

  “Man alive!” he yelled. “Where am I?”

  He turned and looked through the barred door. He could see several strange-appearing faces straining to get a glimpse of him. After a moment he realized that the faces on the other side of the door were covered with handkerchiefs, and he had the fearful feeling of being in a dream and not being able to wake up from it. The masked faces looked exactly like the ones he had imagined so clearly when he was locking himself in the cage. Behind them all he could see dimly the familiar features of Corra, Bert, and Jim Couch.

  “Corra!” he shouted as loud as he could.

  The Mulatto girl sat wild-eyed before him, pulling her disarrayed clothes around her. In another moment she was again filling the cage with ear-splitting screams.

  “Great God, Corra!” he shouted, jumping to his feet and rushing to the door. “Get me out of here!”

  The handkerchief-masked men crowded around the door, shutting Corra from sight.

  “Where’s that Clark nigger, Sheriff?” one of them said calmly.

  He could see several gun-barrels pointing between the bars at him. He stepped backward a little.

  Corra pushed between the men and stood facing him a, few feet away. She was gazing at him coldly.

  “What are you doing, Jefferson?” she asked sharply. The instant he heard her voice he knew he was no longer floundering in a dream. “Jefferson!” she said.

  “Corra, I didn’t—”

  He glanced at the Mulatto girl from the corners of his eyes.

  “Now, look here, Sheriff,” one of the men said gruffly, “we ain’t got time to waste on drivel-dravel. We—”

  “I’m Jeff McCurtain! Nobody can order—”

  Several gun-points were shoved through the bars, prodding him painfully in the stomach.

  “We want to know what you done with that Clark nigger,” the gruff voice rose in his ears. “Word got around that you’d caught him and brought him to town and locked him up in the jailhouse. We ain’t got no time to lose. Where’s that Clark nigger, Sheriff?”

  “I don’t know who none of you is,” Jeff said, rising up, “but nobody’s going to come in my jailhouse and scare the wits out of me. I got elected to this office, and I’ve been re-elected time after time to it, and I’m going to run it my own way as long as I get the votes to keep me here.”

  “You’d better get out and start fixing your fences then, McCurtain,” another voice said. “When the people hear about this, they’re going to start stampeding for greener pastures.”

  “Where’s that nigger at, Sheriff?” the other voice said impatiently.

  “Boys, I ain’t seen nothing of Sonny Clark,” Jeff said quickly. “I hate like all get-out to be seen here like this, but it was all a pure accident. If you folks will just hold a minute—”

  “Nobody cares about that, McCurtain,” one of the other men said. “We want that nigger.”

  Corra was standing directly in front of him by then. She was gazing at him as though she had never seen him before in her life.

  “If you know what’s good for you, Sheriff, you’ll quit stalling and turn that Clark nigger over to us.”

  “What’s that nigger girl doing in there with you, Jefferson?” Corra spoke up.

  “Who, her?” Jeff asked, turning and pointing at the girl on the bunk.

  “Why didn’t you go off fishing like I told you?” she said, ignoring his motions.

  Jeff opened his mouth to protest, but one of the masked men shoved a shotgun against his chest.

  “We ain’t got time to stand here and listen to you and your wife squabble, McCurtain,” a man said roughly. He turned to Corra. “I’m sorry we got to be so short with you, Mrs. McCurtain, but we ain’t got no time to lose.” He turned back and faced Jeff. “We want that Clark nigger, and we want him quick. You and your missus can finish your squabbling when we get through.”

  “Boys, I don’t know nothing in the world about—”

  “Come on, McCurtain! Quit your stalling!”

  Jeff turned and looked helplessly at the girl. She had drawn herself into the far corner of the bunk and was staring at the guns.

  “Boys, I swear I ain’t seen Sonny Clark,” Jeff said earnestly. “I wouldn’t lie, boys. I got my political future to think about. That’s why I couldn’t lie about it. You folks know me better than to think that, don’t you?”

  “This ain’t no time to be asking us questions, McCurtain. We’re doing that part ourselves.”

  Jeff tried to look between the bars and see why Bert and Jim did not take some action when the jailhouse was being held up like that. He saw that both of them had guns shoved against their sides.

  “Boys,” Jeff pleaded, “everybody in Julie County knows I’m a man of my word. I’ve been running on that plank ever since I went into politics. The common people have voted me into office every time I’ve been up for re-election just on that account. You can believe—”

  “You can have that put on your tombstone, McCurtain,” one of the men said roughly. “Right now all we care about is getting that nigger you’re hiding somewhere.”

  The two men guarding Bert and Jim pushed them down the passageway, flashlighting each cage as they went along. Two of the men stayed to guard Jeff, and the fifth one watched Corra.

  “Jefferson!” Corra said, her eyes not leaving his face for an instant. “The idea of you laying-up with a nigger girl right here in the jailhouse! I’ve got a good mind to walk off and leave you for good and all!”

  “Mrs. McCurtain,” the man behind her said, “you’d better stay right where you is. We won’t be long now.”

  “Corra,” Jeff pleaded, “I don’t know nothing about how she came to be in this cage where I am.” He turned and surveyed the girl timorously. “I was only trying to keep the lynching clean politically. I don’t know—”

  The other men came back, pushing Bert and Jim along as though they had been convicted prisoners themselves.

  “Where’d you hide that nigger, McCurtain?” one of the men demanded. “It ain’t as long as you think till election-time. Is it, Mrs. McCurtain?”

  Corra clamped her lips into a thin straight line.

  “Julie County ain’t never had much regard for a nigger-loving sheriff, now has it, Mrs. McCurtain?” the man asked, turning and looking at Jeff.

  Corra ignored the question.

  Jeff shook his head, moving it from side to side so that all might see. He could not keep from observing Bert’s and Jim’s inquisitive looks, but what worried him most was his wife’s scandalized stare.

  “Boys,” he began hopefully, “I was on my way to go fishing down at Lord’s Creek when all this trouble started.” He paused and looked from face to face, feeling weary with discouragement when the handkerchief-masked men did not respond to his story. He took a firmer grip around the bars. “I did go up to see Judge Ben Allen, but I ended up right here where you see me now. I ain’t been within ten miles of that Clark nigger, that I know of. I don’t know no more about him than the next one to come along.”

  The men were silent. While he watched their expressionless faces, he hoped that nobody would think to ask him how he came to be locked up in his own jailhouse, and in the same cage with a colored girl, at that.

  “You heard what the man said, Corra,” he urged. “You can tell him I’m saying only what’
s what.”

  Corra pretended to ignore him completely.

  “Boys,” he said, turning to the men around the door once more, “I give you my word as sheriff of Julie County that I ain’t got the slightest notion where that Sonny Clark’s at. That’s the pure truth if I ever told it.”

  Two of the men withdrew from sight. The dawn was turning the inside of the room into a dull, dirty gray. Jeff could hear the men whispering in low voices. He was not worried at first, but later he began to fear that they might be discussing whether they wanted to take him along with them. He looked imploringly at his wife, hoping for help from her.

  The two men came back, demanding the jail keys from Bert. Bert handed them over without protest. The men unlocked the door to Sam Brinson’s cage and prodded him with a gun. Sam came tumbling out into the passageway, shaken with fright.

  “Now, hold on there!” Jeff said, realizing what was taking place. “Sam Brinson ain’t done no harm to nobody.”

  “We’ll just take him along in case that other one don’t turn up,” a man said over his shoulder.

  Sam shook form head to heel, blinking in the early morning light.

  “Stand up there, nigger!” he was ordered.

  “White folks, please sir, I ain’t done no wrong!” Sam said. “I declare to goodness, I ain’t. You just ask Mr. Jeff about me, please, sir. Mr. Jeff’ll tell you about me!”

  “Shut up, nigger!”

  “Hold on there!” Jeff spoke up. “I wouldn’t go against the will of the people if they want to catch that Clark nigger, but I’ll stand up for Sam Brinson any day. Sam ain’t never done anybody harm in all his life, and I ain’t going to let nothing happen to him.”

  “What’s he doing in jail, then?” the man said.

  “It’s just temporary this time,” Jeff said at once. “They promised me over at the courthouse they’d nol-pros the charges against him and enter a writ of replevin instead. Sam’s always trading and swapping old cars. Sometimes when he gets into a deal over his head, I just lock him up for a while.”

  “That legal talk don’t make sense to me.”

  “White folks,” Sam said beseechingly, “if you all will let me go this time, I won’t never trade machines again. I’ll shut my eyes every time I see a machine looking my way.”

  “Shut up, nigger!” one of the men said, jabbing him in the ribs with a rifle. “Your mouth’s too big for the size of your face. It don’t look becoming when you open it.”

  “Sam Brinson ain’t done a thing to be harmed about,” Jeff insisted, raising his voice. “He was only locked up this time because he traded a worn-out old bicycle he picked up down on the dump for a wrecked car that wasn’t worth no more than it’s weight in scrap iron. There wouldn’t been no harm in that, except he mortgaged it for three dollars in cash, and then turned around and swapped it for another old machine that wouldn’t even roll when you push it. It just happened that he didn’t get the old car mortgage-free before sundown because he turned around and bought back the bicycle for three dollars. The man wouldn’t take in the old bicycle to clear the mortgage, and the three dollars cash was gone, so that’s why he got in a fix this time. If sundown had only held off half an hour longer, Sam would’ve been as cleanhanded as the folks who run the bank.”

  The men did not say anything right away. They looked at each other, trying to figure out the trail of involved deals Sam had made.

  “Everybody knows Sam Brinson is just a fool about old automobiles, like a lot of Geechee niggers is,” Jeff spoke up. “He ain’t like the common breed of fieldhand bucks. Sam’s been swapping and trading old worn-out rattletraps ever since God-come-Wednesday. Last month the grand jury threatened to return a true bill against him if he didn’t stop signing fraudulent conveyances when he made his swaps, but I don’t hold that against him. Brother whites make missteps, too, if they ain’t acquainted with the law.”

  “Shut up, McCurtain,” the tall man said, coming to the door. “You figure out them deals your own self. A white girl’s been tampered with, and the niggers has got to suffer for it.”

  They began poking Sam down the passageway.

  “But nobody ought to harm poor old Sam Brinson when he don’t know no more about it than I do! Sam couldn’t have done it! He’s been locked up here in the jailhouse since two days before the trouble started!”

  “You get busy and hand over that other one if you want this one back, McCurtain,” he stated. “And if you ain’t going to, you’d better save your talk for electioneering. It’s just before votes is counted when you’ll need talking the most.”

  All the men backed down the passageway.

  “Don’t nobody move out of their stocks for five minutes,” one of them shouted back. “And don’t nobody make a move to follow us. There’ll be plenty of shooting if anybody does!”

  Jeff sank down on the bunk, limp with worry. The first thing he saw was the figure of the yellow-skinned girl drawn up before his eyes. He dropped his gaze, staring blankly at the soiled concrete floor.

  Corra moved silently up to the barred door.

  “What have you got to say about all this?” she demanded.

  He shook his head from side to side.

  “I’ve never felt so frazzle-assed before in all my born days,” he said weakly.

  Bert and Jim moved up to the bars and looked at him sitting dejectedly on the side of the bunk.

  “Get some keys and open this door, Bert!” he ordered meanly, looking up. “Don’t just stand there and gape at me like a blame fool!”

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

  He unlocked the door with the key from his own ring. The door swung open noisily, squeaking on all four rusty hinges.

  The girl sat up.

  “Is you the real sheriff, sure enough?” she asked boldly. “I thought you looked like Sheriff McCurtain, but I didn’t see how come the real sheriff would be locked up in the jailhouse.”

  Jeff glared at her.

  “Oh, Lordy me!” she cried, pushing herself into the corner.

  Jeff got up, put on his shoes, and slid the soles over the rough concrete, moving himself in the direction of the door. Bert and Jim stepped aside as he walked haltingly between them. He looked like a man who had been through a great ordeal within a short period of time.

  “Bert,” he said, “who put that nigger girl in this jail-house?”

  Bert did not answer immediately. He looked down at the floor.

  Jeff looked at Jim Couch. Jim’s face was solemn.

  “How long has she been in here?”

  “About two days, I think, Sheriff Jeff,” Jim answered, looking away.

  “Who put her in?”

  Both Bert and Jim looked as if a great weight were falling upon their backs.

  “Somebody is going to tell me. The county pays you deputies a good salary to answer my questions when I ask them, don’t it?”

  Jim looked him straight in the face, nodding.

  “I put her in, Sheriff Jeff,” he said meekly. “It was me.”

  “Turn her out,” Jeff ordered. “And be quick about it.”

  Bert and Jim went into the cage and motioned to the girl to get up and leave. She ran through the rear door as fast as she could.

  “I’ve told you deputies I wanted that stopped,” he said, glaring at them. He turned and walked painfully towards the door that led to his office in front of the building. “If I ever catch another nigger girl in my jailhouse, I’ll fire both of you.”

  He had taken two or three steps when he felt the stinging crash of a human palm against his face. He had forgotten all about Corra momentarily. Before he could guard against it, he felt the blistering impact of two more painful slaps on the other side of his face. He threw up his arms protectingly.

  Bert and Jim cowered in the corner.

  “You’ve got a lot to answer for, Jefferson McCurtain!” Corra said coldly. She raised her hand again as if to strike him another time, but he lowere
d his head into the protecting cover of his arms. “I never thought you’d disgrace me right in my own home! How can I walk along the streets of Andrewjones and hold my head up after this?”

  He looked at her through the protection of his raised arms. She was regarding him angrily.

  “Honey,” he said appealingly, “I didn’t know she was in that cage until I woke up just a while ago. And, besides, you know I ain’t touched a colored girl since that last time. You ought to believe me, honey.”

  “I don’t believe that when I can see as plain as day with my own eyes!”

  Bert and Jim tiptoed noiselessly through the door into the office. They closed the door carefully.

  “Why did you deceive me by trying to make me believe you was going fishing at Lord’s Creek, and then slip back here with a nigger girl? Answer me!”

  “Judge Ben Allen—”

  “Trying to put the blame on that old man!” she said disdainfully.

  “Honey, he told me not to go fishing because he was worried about Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun’s petition and said I ought to go out and catch that nigger boy before—”

  “You’ll be one that’s never sign that petition, Jefferson McCurtain, because you don’t want the nigger girls to be sent out of the country!”

  “Honey, that ain’t so! I’ll sign it right now and show you!” He looked at her hopefully, taking several steps towards her. “Honey, I was afraid to do what Judge Ben Allen said do, because I was afraid of the political risk if I showed my face at Flowery Branch. I was doing my best to keep this lynching politically clean. That’s how come I locked myself up in here and was going to say—”

  He paused and attempted to measure the degree of his success. Corra stared back at him.

  “Honey, I done what I done and was going to tell Judge Ben Allen and the people that some unknown men with handkerchiefs tied over their faces took me out of my car and locked me up so I couldn’t interfere with them catching that nigger boy. That’s the pure truth, honey.”