“Liar,” said Francis, his voice almost a sob. He turned the gun back on Janie. “This time I’ll make sure I won’t miss.”
“P-please,” Janie wheezed. A river of tears scurried over her cheeks. The fear was real. This man could kill her in front of Burke. Then he could kill Burke. She had to say something. Do something.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
“What?” said Burke.
“Pregnant! I’m pregnant!”
Francis stared, then began to laugh. An evil, hollow laugh. “Poetic justice, Burke.”
“Francis. Please,” he said. Burke’s eyes looked into Janie’s. He felt like the world had just dropped on his chest. “That’s my child she’s carryin’,” he said.
“How do you know?” said Francis. “She didn’t tell you? The night she got hurt by these white men. I was one of them. Maybe I even had a little feel or two under her dress. It could be my child, Burke. What do you think of that?”
“Liar!” Janie gasped. “Burke, don’t listen. He never did- he never touched me like that.”
“I’m goin’ to kill you,” said Burke. His gaze fixed on his cousin, hating, furious. “I’m goin’ to kill you slow.”
Francis hadn’t lowered the gun, but the shot didn’t come from the rifle. Betty, ever true to her aim, had fired a pistol from the doorway. It took Francis in the shoulder.
He screamed and made his last mistake: he dropped the rifle.
Burke was across the floor in a single powerful movement. He struck Francis to the ground and climbed on top of him.
“Janie!” Betty cried as he did so. She did not drop the gun- a gun she seemed to have produced out of thin air. She hurried over to her bleeding cousin, ushering her out of the room. “Don’t watch. Let’s go!”
“I- can’t leave,” Janie choked. The pain from where the bullet had scored her was blinding. But she’d been lucky. A centimeter to the right, and it would have struck her jugular. She looked back at Burke, who pinned the writhing body of the other man to the floor, and was raising his fists…
She turned away. She didn’t want to see this.
Choking and thumping sounds came from the other room. Janie gagged and rushed outside, Betty close behind. They only stopped running at Janie’s insistence; the pain was making her dizzy.
“Betty!” she gasped. “Where did you get that gun?”
“Baby Jesus, you’re bleedin’ everywhere.” Her cousin tore a strip from her skirt and pressed it to Janie’s injury.
“I went up to Lookout,” Janie said. Betty’s face was a mask of sweat, fear, and exhaustion. “I found Emmett’s body. I took it from him.”
“Christ almighty. I’m sure glad you’re smarter than me.”
“We need to get outta here, Janie. You heard what he said. The Klan knows where he is. They’re bound to come knockin’ soon.”
“The Croup house is on fire,” said Janie. “I saw it- from the lookout. Won’t they be distracted?”
“I ain’t riskin’ it,” said Betty.
“I can’t leave Burke!”
“Janie, he can handle himself! You’re hurt!”
“I ain’t leavin’. Period. Let’s wait ‘till he’s...finished.”
It only took a few minutes before Burke emerged from the house. He stood, shadowed in the doorway. For a moment the two women clung to each other in fear. He could have been a devil or an angel. He was not Burke then, but some kind of spirit of darkness; a hulking form that drew the shadows into him and trembled at the edges. They saw him and prayed together, hoping wildly that his Eye couldn’t pierce the night and see where they were standing.
But then he sank to his knees, and he was Burke again. Janie staggered to him, despite her cousin’s fearful whispers. She knelt at his feet and put her head in his lap. His hands, slick with blood, came to rest on her back. If the shudders from his body were from grief or exhaustion, she didn’t know.
“I’m sorry, Janie,” he said.
“You got nothin’ to be sorry for,” she said.
“He shot you.”
“I’m alright.”
“No, no, no,” he said. “We gotta take care of it- do somethin’.”
“We have to leave, Burke.”
He looked back into the house. The body of his cousin was still there. Growing cold.
“You’re right.”
*
Little Curtis had seen the whole thing. The men came up to the Croup mansion, dressed all in black, wielding torches like spears. They wore black hoods over their faces and black gloves on their hands. He had been there, at Emmett’s request, to watch the performance. For that was what the men treated it like- a performance.
Curtis knew some of them from the community. They were Emmett’s recruits from Rickshaw, the proof of his own pathetic attempts to start a chapter of the Sons of Moses in Mississippi.
As Curtis knew, from the conversation snippets Emmett left him, and the documents he spied on in Emmett’s study, there were men like Freeman being sent all over the South. Their missions were to spread the word of the Sons of Moses, gather intel on the rich old ex-slaveowning families, and, most importantly, help black communities wherever they could.
Curtis watched from between the branches of a poplar tree as the Sons of Moses did their work. He wondered only briefly where Emmett was. Though in his young heart he knew that his tutor couldn’t live out here much longer. Men on the run had never lasted long in the South.
Curtis stayed only long enough for the porch of the Croup mansion to go up in flames. Then he lighted down from the poplar branches and took off. Like the night of the riot, Rickshaw was a strained place tonight. Something evil hung in the air.
He carried on down the road. Thinking. With Emmett gone, so were his prospects of a good education, college, and sponsorship. Curtis had been looking forward to those. It was disappointing.
Later, sometime near dawn, he came almost unconsciously to Old Ben’s cabin. The man lived on the very edge of Rickshaw. At his house you could hear the trains going by. Old Ben was a hoodoo priest; or so he claimed, anyway. Curtis didn’t believe in that stuff. But the old man always had a kind word for him, and Curtis enjoyed his ramblings on the Universe and the Invisible World. Unlike with Emmett Freeman, Old Ben’s teachings didn’t come at the end of a razor strap.
The old man was sitting in the grass outside his house. He tipped his chin upwards as Curtis approached.
“Hello, child,” he said.
“Hello, Uncle,” said Curtis.
“Trouble in the air tonight,” said Ben. “You feel it?”
Curtis told him what he’d seen. Ben sucked in air through his teeth. “Bad news. But you know, good things always come after trouble. Cain’t make an omelette without crackin’ some eggs.”
Curtis nodded.
“I knew this would be a hard summer,” said Ben, scratching a bite on his ankle. “Even without these damn ‘skeeters.”
“Wisht you woulda told me,” said Curtis. “I needed the warnin’.”
Ben laughed.
“Hard for you, especially,” said the old man. “It’s always hard for children, in such times. But I got a good feelin’ about you, Curtis. You’re gonna go places.”
“Emmett is gone,” said Curtis, in his matter-of-fact way.
“Oh, I know,” said Ben. “But look, here’s two more to take his place.”
They watched as two people came up the hill. One was Janie Ruth Ross, the schoolteacher-who’d-never-taught. The other was the white man- Burke Giraud. Curtis had never thought much of Burke- he’d hardly known the man, anyway. But he had a soft spot for Janie Ross, especially after that harrowing night they’d had together- which seemed like lifetimes ago.
As for Ben’s opinion of them, well, Ben had always had a way of knowing things about people. Whatever his keen eye didn’t pick up, the twelve-sided bone dice he carried in his pockets were sure to tell him. He didn’t need bones to tell that these two were in a hurr
y, leaving something dark and tragic behind them.
Ben whistled as they crossed. Burke turned his head; Ben waved the both of them over. It seemed they were unsure of whether to keep going or not. Ben watched them work it out between themselves. They carried a small carpet bag between them. Janie’s head and hair were covered. Burke wore his hat low on his face. To Curtis it appeared they were running away from something.
“Good mornin’,” said Ben genially. “We travelin’ somewhere today?”
“Mornin’,” said Burke.
“Hello, Uncle Ben,” said Janie.
“Why don’t you set here a piece and tell me what’s got you so ruffled?”
“We can’t stay long,” Burke said. His tone was firm. Dark circles dug pits under his eyes. Janie laid a hand on his arm.
“We’re on the move, Uncle,” she said, placatingly.
“Whatever you’re movin’ from,” said the old man knowingly, “I hope you had the sense to clean up after yourselves.”
Burke’s eyebrows raised in suspicion. Janie smiled. She was the type to indulge people; Old Ben liked being indulged.
“Anythin’ we should know before we leave?” she asked.
Ben nodded, and closed his eyes. His fingers twitched in his lap. “A red sky last night. Spilled blood, and a bright day to follow. Wind to the west.”
“Thank you,” said Janie.
“That’s not all,” said Ben. He patted Curtis on the shoulder. “Travelin’ is always better in threes.”
“What do you mean?” said Janie.
“Take this little boy with you, when you go.”
Janie shook her head. “Naw. I’m ‘fraid we can’t, Uncle.”
Curtis’s heart skipped a little. He glanced from the old man to Janie, then to Burke. He wanted to go with her. Her lips were fixed to say no. The expression on the white man’s face was unreadable.
“I got some money,” said Old Ben. He made them wait while he dug out an old coffee tin from under his porch. The tin had three hundred dollars. He counted it out in front of them.
“I can’t take this,” said Burke immediately.
“I ain’t givin’ it to you,” said Ben. “I’m givin’ it to Little Curtis.”
“He’s only a boy,” said Janie. “And we might be in danger, Uncle.”
“No more dangerous than growin’ up a young black boy stuck in a place like this,” said Ben. His tone hardened. “This boy’s got a bright future ahead of him. Freeman threw it away on some white woman. I’ve known about you, Janie Ross, and I like you. At least take ‘im with you. He’s got nobody else. Give the boy a chance.”
“You mean adopt him?”
“In a way, yes. Get him out of here, at the very least.”
Janie looked at Burke helplessly. Curtis looked at his shoes.
“It’s too risky,” said Burke.
“We’ve been careful,” said Janie. “No one could know it was us.”
“Still,” said Burke. He looked at the young child closely. The boy had sloane-brown eyes that even he, Burke, who was uneducated, could tell burned with a fierce intelligence.
“He’s a prodigy, Burke. I’ve never met a smarter child.”
The big white man thought for a minute.
“Where would we take him?”
“New Orleans,” Curtis blurted. “It’s where y’all are goin’, ain’t it? They got better schools there than what we got here.”
“Who told you that’s where we’re goin’?” Janie said.
“A guess,” said Curtis.
Burke squatted on his hams to look the young child in the eye. “So you want to go to school, huh?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Curtis. “I sure do, sir.”
Burke looked thoughtful. Then he set his shoulders. “I’d never deny a child an education.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Ben. He tramped back inside and got something else- a small traveler’s coat for Curtis, and an amulet for Janie. The amulet was blue glass, with a white eye painted in the center of it.
“Black folk oughta stick together,” said Ben. “I’m an old man, I never got much education. But I know that much.”
“Thank you,” said Curtis. He didn’t know whether to direct this to Old Ben, Janie, or Burke Giraud. He felt nothing but that sweeping powerlessness children feel when their lives are steered by currents they have no control over; gratitude and anxiety mingled in his young breast. As if sensing this, Janie took his hand.
“We need to go now,” said Burke. He laid a protective hand on the child’s shoulder.
“God go with you,” said Old Ben. “I’ll be waitin’ just here if y’all decide to come back.”
“I don’t know about that, Uncle,” said Janie Ross. She fixed him with a watery smile. “But I sure do appreciate it.”
“Anytime, child.”
The three of them left together, on a train bound again for New Orleans. The green trees made a blur as the train churned past. Nothing could be heard over the roaring. Burke sat in the Colored Car after a long deliberation with the conductor. He looked back often through the window. Curtis and Janie did not. Rickshaw was behind them, and would be forever after. The weight of what they had done grew lighter with the realization that all of life waited at the horizon. Life with all its blessings.
Janie eyed the boy sitting next to her, absorbed in a newspaper. She touched a hand to her stomach. Already new life was growing inside her now…
With a secret smile to herself, she leaned her head back on Burke’s shoulder and went to sleep.
Chapter 8
Epilogue I
They had taken the body of Francis Croup up the mountain. Burke did most of the lifting, anyway. Janie just followed, covering their tracks. She’d never had an idea of Burke’s true strength until then. He hoisted the body like a sack of meal, staggering upward, upward, to a secret place only he knew about.
As he walked, Janie remembered the second time she had laid eyes on Burke. He’d been cavorting in the springs with some black men, local bricklayers. She’d wondered what happened to those get-togethers. Happier times.
Burke’s dog followed them faithfully. Kojack. Janie had grown to like the dog and hate these woods. Branches tugged at her like unfriendly arms. She’d had too many bad experiences here. Even the hot springs, which she had spent so many hours bathing in, became wickeder the higher they climbed. Here the water boiled and bubbled. The smell was unbelievable.
“Almost there,” grunted Burke. Janie grunted back.
‘There’ was a pit, or rather, a hole, cut away inside the cliff. Burke told Janie to stay put; the ground here could be extremely soft. A man could fall in easily and be boiled alive. The pit itself had black, black water. It didn’t look like water, though, just some sulfurous, evil soup that Janie shuddered to think about. How would human flesh fare in such a toxic brew for longer than a second? Not well. She held her breath as Burke stopped in front of it, visions of him falling in racing through her mind.
He did not fall in. Instead, he began to strip the body. All clothes, shoes, and jewelry had to be removed. A precaution. Janie turned away from this. Burke’s face was set in a grim line. She turned to look at him for a second and saw he might have been fighting back tears. She turned away; she would leave him his privacy. He shoved the naked body of Francis Croup unceremoniously into the pit. It made a sick squelching noise as the water sucked it in.
“Let’s go,” Burke gritted. He pushed past her, stalking down the mountain.
Only later, did Burke tell Janie he had seen his father dispose of a man this way. One of the few people to ever know Burke’s true parentage. A white schoolteacher who had tried to keep Burke after school to touch and play disgusting sex-games with. Burke had been seven years old. He had thought the older man his confidante and friend. He didn’t eat or sleep for a month.
His father had killed the man. Then he’d taken the body up the mountain and disposed of it. He didn’t make Burke watch, but
he showed him the place after.
“This is what happens to anyone who hurts this family, Burke,” he’d said.
“Protect your own.”
Burke considered Janie a part of this family. And Francis had pointed a gun at her. The man had never been fond of Burke’s people. He’d kept the secret of Burke’s parentage but tried to snatch Burke’s birthright from under him at every turn. That he could let go; but Francis’s true colors had showed the moment he’d taken up with these KKK bastards and started this whole mess in the first place. And a man who could strangle his fiancee to death with his bare hands...
Race Traitor: BWWM Romance Novel for Adults Page 16
