Asimov's SF, August 2005

by Dell Magazine Authors

  But Price didn't see that he had any choice here. He pulled off onto the shoulder. The brakes squeaked as he brought the blue Ford to a stop. Pebbles rattled against the car's underpanels. Red dust swirled up around it.

  The black-and-white pulled up behind the Ford. A great big Negro in a deputy sheriff's uniform got out and swaggered up toward the station wagon. Cecil Price watched him in the mirror, not wanting to turn around. That arrogant strut—and the pistol in the lawman's hand—spoke volumes about the way things in Mississippi had been since time out of mind.

  Coming up to the driver's-side door, the sheriff peered in through sunglasses that made him look more like a machine, a hate-driven machine, than a man. “Son of a bitch!” he exploded. “You ain't Larry Rainey!"

  "No, sir,” Price said. Part of that deference was RACE training—don't give the authorities an excuse to beat on you. And part of it was drilled into whites in the South from the time they could toddle and lisp. If they didn't show respect, they often didn't live to get a whole lot older than that.

  Larry Rainey was older than Cecil Price and smarter than Cecil and tougher than Cecil, too. He'd been in RACE a lot longer than Cecil had. The Black Knights of Voodoo probably hated him more than any other white man from this part of the state.

  But the way they hated Larry Rainey was like nothing next to the way they hated what they called the black agitators from the North. Even behind the deputy sheriff's shades, Cecil could see his eyes widen when he got a look at Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. “Well, well!” he boomed, the way a man with a shotgun will when a couple of big, fat ducks fly right over his blind. “Looky what we got here! We got us a couple of buckra-lovin’ ragheads!"

  "Sheriff,” Muhammad Shabazz said tightly. He didn't wear a turban, and never had. Neither did Tariq Abdul-Rashid, who nodded like somebody trying hard not to show how scared he was. Cecil Price was scared, too, damn near scared shitless, and hoped the black man with the the gun and the Smokey-the-Bear hat couldn't tell.

  The deputy went on as if the Black Muslim hadn't spoken: “We got us a couple of Northern radicals who reckon they're better'n other folks their color, so they can hop on a bus and come down here and tell us how to live. And we got us one uppity buckra, too, sneakin’ around and stirrin’ up what oughta be damn well left alone. Well, I got news for y'all. That don't fly, not in Neshoba County it don't. What the hell you doin’ here, anyway?"

  "We were looking at what's left of Mount Zion Church in Longdale,” Muhammad Shabazz answered.

  "Yeah, I just bet you were. Fat lot your kind cares about churches,” the big black deputy jeered.

  "We care about justice, sir.” Muhammad Shabazz spoke with respect that didn't come close to hiding the anger underneath. “I do, and Mr. Abdul-Rashid does, and Mr. Price does, too. Do you, sir? Does justice mean anything to you at all?"

  "It means I know better'n to call a lousy, lazy, no-account buckra Mister. Ain't that right, Cecil?” When Price didn't answer fast enough to suit the deputy sheriff, the man stuck the pistol in his face and roared, “Ain't that right, boy?"

  Muhammad Shabazz had nerve. If he didn't have nerve, he never would have ridden down to Mississippi from Cleveland in the first place. “We didn't do anything wrong, sir,” he told the deputy. “We didn't even break any traffic laws. You have no good reason to pull us over. Why aren't you investigating real crimes, like a firebombed church?"

  To Cecil Price's amazement, the deputy smiled the broadest, nastiest, wickedest smile he'd ever seen, and he'd seen some lulus. “What do you reckon I'm doin'?” he said. “What the hell do you reckon I'm doin'? All three of you sons of bitches are under arrest for suspicion of arson. A charge like that, you can rot in jail the rest of your worthless lives. Serve y'all right, too, you want to know what I think."

  "You're out of your mind,” Muhammad Shabazz exclaimed.

  "We wouldn't burn a church,” Tariq Abdul-Rashid agreed, startled out of his frightened silence. “That is crazy."

  "We've got no reason to do anything like that. Why would we, sir?” Cecil Price tried to make the deputy forget his comrades didn't stay polite.

  It didn't work. He might have known it wouldn't. Hell, he had known it wouldn't. “Why? I'll tell you why,” the Negro in the lawman's uniform said. “So decent, God-fearing folks get blamed for it, that's why. You agitators'll try and pin it all on us, make us look bad on the TV, give the Federal government an excuse to stick its nose in affairs that ain't none of its business and never will be. So hell, yes, you're under arrest. Suspicion of arson, like I said. I'll throw your sorry asses in jail right now. You drive on into Philadelphia quiet-like, or you gonna do something stupid like try and escape?"

  Cecil Price didn't need to be a college-educated fellow like the two blacks in the car with him to know what that meant. You do anything but drive straight to jail and I'll kill all of you. “I won't do anything dumb,” he told the deputy.

  "Better not, boy, or it's the last fuckup you ever pull.” The big black man threw back his head and laughed. “Unless you already pulled your last one, that is.” Laughing still, he walked back to the black-and-white. He opened the door, got in—the shocks sagged under his bulk—and slammed it shut.

  "Let him jail us on that stupid trumped-up charge,” Muhammad Shabazz said as Price started the Ford's engine. “It'll do just as much to help the cause as the church bombing."

  "I hope you're right,” Price said, pulling back onto the highway, “but he's a mean one. The Neshoba County Sheriff's meaner, but the deputy's bad enough and then some."

  "You think he's BKV?” Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.

  "Black Knights of Voodoo?” Price shrugged. “I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if he goes night-riding with a mask and a shield and a spear."

  In Philadelphia, a few people stared at the car with the white and the two blacks in it. Cecil Price didn't care for those stares, not even a little bit. He didn't care for any part of what was going on, but he couldn't do a thing about it. He parked in front of the jail. The deputy's car pulled up right behind the RACE wagon.

  Another black deputy sat behind the front desk when Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid walked into the jail. “What the hell's goin’ on here?” he asked the man who'd arrested the civil-rights workers.

  "Suspicion of arson,” the first deputy answered. “I reckon they must've had somethin’ to do with torchin’ the white folks’ church over by Longdale."

  "That's the—” What was the man behind the desk about to say? That's the silliest goddamn thing I ever heard? Something like that—Cecil Price was sure of it. But then the other Negro's eyes narrowed. “Fuck me,” he said, and pointed first to Muhammad Shabazz and then to Tariq Abdul-Rashid. “Ain't these the raghead bastards who came down from the North to raise trouble?"

  "That's them, all right,” said the deputy who'd arrested them. “And this here buckra's Cecil Price. I thought at first I got me Larry Rainey—you know how all these white folks look alike. But what the hell? If you can't grab a big fish, a little fish'll do."

  "That's a fact,” said the deputy behind the desk. “That sure as hell is a fact, all right. Yeah, lock ‘em up. We can figure out what to do with ‘em later."

  "You betcha.” The first deputy marched his prisoners to the cells farther back in the jail. “In here, you two,” he told Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid, and herded them into the first cell on the right. He stuck Cecil Price in the second cell on the right. Even at a time like this, even in a situation like this, he never thought to put a white man in with Negroes. That was part of what was wrong in Philadelphia, right there.

  After Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid were safely locked away, the man who'd arrested them clumped up the corridor and then out the front door. “Where you goin'?” called the man behind the desk.

  "Got to see the Priest,” the first deputy answered. “Anybody asks after those assholes, you never seen ‘em, you
never heard nothin’ about ‘em. You got that?"

  "All right by me,” the other deputy said. The first one slammed the door after him as he went out. He seemed to have to slam any door he came to.

  Cecil Price had only thought he was scared shitless before. Not letting anybody know he and his friends were in jail was bad. Going to see the Priest was a hell of a lot worse. The Priest was a tall, scrawny, bald black man who hated whites with a fierce and simple passion. He was also the chief Neshoba County recruiting officer for the Black Knights of Voodoo. Trouble followed him the way thunder followed lightning.

  Price wondered whether Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid knew enough to be as frightened as he was. The Priest had been trouble for years, while they'd been down here only a couple of months. The Priest would still be trouble long after they went back to the North ... if they ever got the chance to go North again.

  It must have been about half past five when the phone at the front desk jangled loudly. “Neshoba County Jail,” the deputy there said. He paused to listen, then went on, “No, I ain't seen ‘em. Jesus Christ! You lose your garbage, you expect me to go pickin’ it up for you?” He slammed the phone down again.

  "Deputy!” Muhammad Shabazz called through the bars of his cell. “Deputy, can I speak to you for a minute?"

  A scrape of chair legs against cheap linoleum. Slow, heavy, arrogant footsteps. A deep, angry voice: “What the hell you want?"

  "I'd like to make a telephone call, please."

  A pause. Cecil Price looked out of his cell just in time to see the deputy sheriff shake his head. His big, round belly shook, too, but it didn't remind Price of a bowlful of jelly—more of a wrecking ball that would smash anything in its way. “No, I don't reckon so,” he said. “You ain't callin’ nobody."

  "I have a Constitutional right to make a telephone call,” Muhammad Shabazz insisted, politely but firmly.

  "Don't you give me none of your Northern bullshit,” the Negro deputy said. “Constitution doesn't say jack shit about telephone calls. How could it? No telephones when they wrote the damn thing, were there? Were there, smartass?"

  "No, but—” Muhammad Shabazz broke off.

  "Constitutional right, my ass,” the deputy sheriff said. “You got a Constitutional right to get what's comin’ to you, and you will. You just bet you will.” He lumbered back to the desk.

  In a low voice, Cecil Price said, “We're in deep now."

  "No kidding.” Muhammad Shabazz sounded like a man who wanted to make a joke but was too worried to bring it off.

  "They aren't gonna let us out of here,” Tariq Abdul-Rashid said. “Not in one piece, they aren't."

  "We'll see what happens, that's all,” Muhammad Shabazz said. “They can't think they'll get away with it.” To Cecil Price, that only proved the man who'd come down from the North didn't understand how things really worked in Mississippi. Of course the deputy sheriffs thought they'd get away with it. Why wouldn't they? Blacks had been getting away with things against whites who stepped out of line ever since slavery days. Times were starting to change; Negroes of goodwill like Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid were helping to make them change. But they hadn't changed yet—and the deputies and their pals were determined they wouldn't change no matter what. And so...

  And so we're in deep for sure, Cecil Price thought, fighting despair.

  * * * *

  The first deputy sheriff, the one who'd arrested them, returned to the jail not long after the sun went down. He walked back to the cells to look at the prisoners, laughed a gloating laugh, and then went up front again.

  "What's the Priest got to say?” asked the man at the front desk.

  "It's all taken care of,” the first deputy answered.

  "They comin’ here?"

  "Nah.” The first deputy sounded faintly disappointed. “It'd be too damn raw. We'd end up with the fuckin’ Feds on our case for sure."

  "What's going on, then?"

  The first deputy told him. He pitched his voice too low to let Cecil Price make it out. By the way the desk man laughed, he thought it was pretty good. Price was sure he wouldn't.

  Time crawled by on hands and knees. The phone rang once, but it had nothing to do with Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. It was a woman calling to find out if her no-account husband was sleeping off another binge in the drunk tank. He wasn't. But it only went to show that, despite the struggle for whites’ civil rights, ordinary life in Philadelphia went on.

  Around half past ten, the first deputy came tramping back to the cells again. To Cecil Price's amazement, he had a jingling bunch of keys on a big brass key ring with him. He opened the door to Price's cell. “Come on out, boy,” he said. “Reckon I've got to turn you loose."

  Price wanted to stick a finger in his ear to make sure he'd heard right. “You sure?” he blurted.

  "Yeah, I'm sure,” the deputy said. “I been askin’ around. You weren't at the church when it went up. Neither were these assholes.” He pointed into the cell that held Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. “Gotta let them go, too, dammit."

  "You'll hear from our lawyers,” Muhammad Shabazz promised. “False arrest is false arrest, even if you think twice about it later. This is still a free country, whether you know it or not."

  Although Cecil Price agreed with every word he said, he wished the Black Muslim would shut the hell up. Pissing off the deputy right when he was letting them out of jail wasn't the smartest move in the world, not even close. But Price walked out of his cell. A moment later, Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid walked out of theirs, too.

  The deputy with the wrecking-ball belly at the front desk gave them back their wallets and keys and pocket change. “If you're smart, you'll get your white ass outa Philadelphia. Go on down to Meridian and never come back,” he told Cecil Price. “You cause trouble around here again, you look at a black woman walkin’ down the street around here again, you show your ugly buckra face around here again, you are fuckin’ dead meat. You hear me?"

  "Oh, yes, sir. I sure do hear you,” Cecil Price said. That was how you played the game in Mississippi. Price hadn't promised to do one thing the deputy said. But he'd heard him, all right. He couldn't very well not have heard him.

  "Go on, then. Get lost."

  The first deputy walked out into the muggy night with the white man and the two Northern blacks. A mosquito buzzed around Price's ear. Price slapped at it. The deputy laughed. He watched while Price and the Black Muslims got into RACE's blue Ford wagon. Price started up the car. The deputy went on watching as he put it in gear and drove away. In the rear-view mirror, Price watched him walk back into the Neshoba County Jail.

  "Maybe they really are learning they can't pull crap like that on us,” Tariq Abdul-Rashid said.

  "Don't bet on it,” was Muhammad Shabazz's laconic response. “They don't back up unless they've got a reason to back up. Isn't that right, Cecil? ... Cecil?"

  Cecil Price didn't answer, not right away. His eyes were on the rear-view mirror again. He didn't like what he saw. This time of night, driving out of a little town like Philadelphia, they should have had the road to themselves. They should have, but they didn't. One, then two, sets of headlights followed them out of town. Price stepped on the gas. If those cars back there weren't interested in him and his black friends, he'd lose them.

  "Hey, man, take it easy,” Tariq Abdul-Rashid said. “You don't want to give the law a chance to run us in for speeding."

  "We've got company back there,” Price said. Speeding up hadn't shaken those two cars. If anything, they were closer. And a third set of headlights was coming out of Philadelphia, zooming down Highway 19 like a bat out of hell.

  Tariq Abdul-Rashid and Muhammad Shabazz looked back over their shoulders. “You think they're on our tail, Cecil?” Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.

  Before Price could say anything, Muhammad Shabazz said everything that needed saying: “Gun it! Gun it like a son of a bitch!"

/>   The old Ford's motor should have roared when Cecil Price jammed the pedal to the metal. Instead, it groaned and grunted. Yeah, the wagon went faster, but it didn't go faster fast enough. The two pairs of headlights behind the Ford got bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, closer and closer. And the third pair, the set that got the late start, might almost have been flying along Highway 19. That was one souped-up set of wheels, and the rustbucket Price was driving didn't have a prayer of staying ahead. Before long, whoever was driving that hot machine got right on the wagon's tail.

  Desperate now, Price killed his lights and made a screeching, sliding right onto Highway 492. Only in Mississippi, he thought, would such a miserable chunk of asphalt merit the name of highway. But if it let him shake his pursuers, he would bless its undeserved name forevermore.

  Only it didn't. The lead pursuer, the hopped-up car that had come zooming out of Philadelphia, also made the turn. Even over the growl of his own car's engine, Cecil Price could hear its brakes screech as it clawed around the corner. Then the pursuer's siren came on and the red light on top of the roof began to flash.

  "Jesus! It's that damn deputy again!” Price said. “What am I gonna do?"

  "Can we outrun him?” Muhammad Shabazz asked as the beat-up Ford bucketed down the road.

  "Not a chance in hell,” Price answered. “He's liable to start shooting at us if I don't stop.” If he got hit, or if a tire got hit, the car would fly off the road and burst into flames. That was a bad way to go.

  "Maybe you better stop,” Tariq Abdul-Rashid said.

  "Damned if I do and damned if I don't,” Cecil Price said bitterly, but his foot had already found the brake pedal. The old blue station wagon slowed, stopped.

  The deputy sheriff's car stopped behind it, the same way it had earlier that day. This time, though, the other two cars also stopped. The big black buck of a deputy sheriff got out of his car and strode up to the Ford wagon. “I thought you were going back to Meridian if we let you out of jail."

  "We were,” Price answered.