“Good, Father.” His father was on his knees, transformed. A happy drunk.
“You’ve finally got some sense, Joe. Tomorrow, you can help out at the bank.”
“I’ll help in the bank. Let’s move on, Father.”
Father reared back. Joe saw himself reflected in Father’s eyes. A young man with a gun. Dirty-faced, bruises discoloring his skin. Smoke in his hair and clothes. His father smiled.
“Joseph David Samuels. You’re kinder than Henry.”
His father’s face contorted with bitterness. He threw his bottle, didn’t flinch when glass exploded. “I’ve lost everything.” His words were dry, all the emotion squeezed out of them.
“No you haven’t, Father. We’ve got to get home.”
Father patted Joe’s leg, then his eye blinked, his mouth slackened as he said, wonderingly, “I don’t think I can walk. I don’t think I can get up.”
“Then I’ll carry you.” Awkwardly, Joe lifted his father, balancing him on his shoulder.
Father was a big man. Joe didn’t know where he got the strength; his footfall was heavy on the marble. He concentrated on placing one step in front of another, left then right. Father would end up like Tyler. Bitter because his dreams had been stolen. What would Father think when his bank burned down?
Joe opened the door, letting in a shaft of sunlight. The Dusell was ten feet away. “We’re almost there, Father.” He stepped onto the pavement. To his left, he sensed movement. He couldn’t reach his gun. Shots fired. He lurched forward. He slung his father off his back, into the car’s rear seat. Joe climbed in and pulled his gun. Another shot. Joe fired back.
“I winged him. I think I winged him.” Joe swung around to his father. Mouth open, fingers splayed wide, blood drained from a small hole in Father’s temple. Joe moaned.
A shadow fell across the back seat. A second man. He didn’t have time to grieve. Joe grabbed the money box, kicked open the back door, fired twice, and fled.
28
The world was ending.
Hildy scooted behind the wheel, ready to drive Miss Wright and Leda, Ernestine with her baby and son Dovell to safety. Mary sat in the car behind her, Allen in the car behind that. Old Mr. Thompson would drive Lilianne, Eugenia, Pauline and her family. His young grandson, not yet fifteen, manned a truckful of mothers and children. A caravan to freedom. A train to some new promised land.
There weren’t enough cars. Folks squeezed tight. Babies fretted. Belongings were left on the sidewalk: a favorite umbrella, a box of baby toys, a prized, stained glass lamp.
Hildy wanted to cry. Homes were collapsing; gardens, wilting. She remembered the Johnsons painting their home a new pastel each spring. The Browns had just replaced shutters. Last week, Ernestine had planted impatiens, in honor of her new baby girl who’d arrived a week early. All gone. All the hard work. All the care. All the memories of making home.
Mother, sullen, outraged by her “traitorous daughter,” sat in Mr. Williams’ car with Nadine and Gloria. Hildy knew she’d done right, forcing her mother to go. Forcing her to leave behind crystal, sterling, and clothes. “Only your jewelry, Mother.” Already flames licked the porch, climbing the trellis to Joe’s attic room. Mother’s and Father’s pride, “the tallest black man’s house,” was as doomed as Greenwood.
The air was almost unbreathable. But worse, her family was scattered. Father, Emmie, Joe, out of reach.
Greenwood had become Armageddon. On the hilltop, Mt. Zion had disappeared and the horizon sparkled with cinders, below a blue, dusky sky.
Hildy looked into the rearview mirror and waved. Mary started her engine. Other engines followed and they all began their drive out of Greenwood. She couldn’t shake her dread, thinking of white-robed ghosts, of Henry buried in the cemetery, of Tyler, not buried, maybe burning in the mortuary, of Gabe burning at Zion, of Revelations: “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth.”
Miss Wright comforted Dovell. Beside her, Ernestine cooed, rocked the baby. Hildy said a prayer for her missing family. She pressed harder on the gas. The plan was to get twenty miles outside the city. Twenty miles and a few days for Tulsans to regain their senses. Beyond that, there was no plan.
Ahead of her, she saw another caravan: four trucks looming with lumbering, thick wheels. Behind them police cars and private autos. Dust flew; gear shifts whined. “Jesus,” moaned Ernestine, squeezing the baby against her chest. The baby started crying. Miss Wright demanded, “What’s wrong?”
As the lead car, her choice was to stop or crash into the oncoming trucks.
Her vision blurred. The car floated, without an engine. She wasn’t steering it, wasn’t seeing trucks, soldiers framed in the windshield, bayonets piercing the sky. Wasn’t seeing Greenwood men manacled like slaves. Fragments of color, shape became solid, more real. She knew not to scream, nonetheless, she did scream, in a place so deep, no one could hear.
A soldier pulled her out of the car. She yelled, “Miss Wright is blind.” Miss Wright and Leda were shoved forward, herded with a sobbing Ernestine, and a kicking, screaming Dovell. The men—some guardsmen, some Tulsans—urged the old men and women forward with guns.
Spiritless, Mother leaned heavily on her arm. Hildy stroked her brow, whispering, “Love you.” She realized she’d not said it for many years.
She heard someone—Mary?—shrieking, “It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.” When she looked back, Mary and Allen, their cars abandoned, argued with a guardsman.
The men—Mr. Williams, Mr. Thompson, and his grandson—went onto the first truck. She saw Doc Grey and Preacher Martin. She didn’t see Joe or Father. On the second truck stood men who’d fought at Zion. She wanted to touch each man’s careworn face, comfort the wounded. The men’s eyes were shuttered; they held their bodies stiffly, embarrassed their families should see them defeated.
Grief rattled Hildy’s bones. Her world was over. She’d never sit in her kitchen at sunset, feet up, with her Bible and tea. Never see the sunrise while she swept down the porch as her kettle hummed.
“Mother! Hildy! Here!” Emmaline stooped, reaching through the slats of the third truck, which overflowed with the press of women.
Mother moaned, shouted, “Emmaline.”
Hildy knew she and mother would be in the last truck. She wanted to ask Emmaline about Father—had she seen Joe?—instead, she clasped her hand, said hurriedly, “Gabe’s dead,” and watched her sister’s face crumble, her eyes rush with tears. She hadn’t believed Emmaline had truly cared. She’d never understood why Emmaline, if she loved Gabe, had obeyed Father. If Hildy’d been given the choice, she would’ve flown to him. Would’ve loved, worked beside him, matching strength to strength. Now she knew Emmaline had loved Gabe after all. Gabe would be well mourned.
The crowd pushed her onward to the next truck. She hollered back, “He loved you, Emmaline. He loved you.” But she couldn’t see Emmaline’s face, couldn’t tell if her words had soothed her sister’s pain or made it worse.
“Gabe was no ’count.”
“You knew nothing about him, Mother.”
“I knew enough.”
“Not nearly.” Nothing about his grace, his loyalty. About the jokes he told waiting in her kitchen for Henry. Or the stories he told about B’rer Rabbit, a child outwitting the wolf, the fox, the sly crocodile. How once, in church, she’d heard him sing with the tenor of an angel.
“Get aboard. Get your butt up.” The guardsmen poked her arm with his rifle. She helped Mother, climbed up behind her, then reached back to help Miss Wright, Leda, and all the other neighbor women, until they stood, jostling against each other, steadying themselves on the flatbed.
“Where’re we going?” she asked the soldier latching them in.
“You’ll know when you get there.”
She didn’t trust herself to know anything anymore. Just as she’d misunderstood Joe’s fears, she’d missed the signs her world was ending.
Had she missed robins gathering on the roof? Missed yea
st souring in the pantry? Missed mixed-up breezes, quickly shifting east then west?
She knew she was supposed to trust in the Lord and sing. Yet she couldn’t sing her sorrow. A plague had visited Greenwood; God was readying to stand in judgment. She was terrified, not just for others but for herself as well. The world was ending. Would she be found wanting? Had she lived well enough?
The impossibility of her love for Gabe lay heavy in her heart. And Joe, whom she loved more than anyone—she could only hope he was on the run out of Tulsa, never to return.
The truck lurched. Hildy braced herself. Mother buried her face in her hands. Miss Wright stared at what she couldn’t see. Eugenia slipped her arm about Lilianne.
The truck backed up, reversed its direction. Hildy stared at Greenwood. Perched high, she had a sense of the fire’s scale, of shimmering flames moving energetically beyond the power of any amount of water. She saw great smoke to the west: the business district leveled (Father’s bank probably gone); another thick cloud where Zion used to be. Flames scoured the east side—in her mind, she saw Booker T. and the nearby row homes where newlyweds first bought, scorched and gutted. By nightfall, in all directions, there’d be orange flames, nasty air, and few, if any, buildings left. Two generations’ work undone.
“Let them go. You have no right. Let them go.” Mary flung herself at the guardsman on the running board. “Let them go.” Her fists barely reached his shins. The truck still in reverse made Mary skip backward to avoid being pulled beneath wheels. The truck turned, righting itself due south. Mary cursed the driver. She ran after the truck, fists flying, battering the soldier’s legs, trying to climb aboard or else pull him down.
Hair undone, dress and face filthy, she looked like a witch, screaming, crying, “Let them go.” The truck picked up speed. Mary couldn’t keep up.
Mary fell to her knees. Behind her a truck screeched to a halt, horn blaring, causing a chain reaction in the other two. No guardsmen would run over a white woman.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” shrilled Mary. “This is not right.”
Two guardsmen dragged her.
Mary kept screaming, twisting, bucking with her body. “This is not right.”
Mary pounded the ground, hollering, “Take me too.”
Hildy clasped her arms about herself. The truck rumbled on; wind whipped her hair; she gripped the rail to keep her balance.
Mary, like Greenwood, faded from view. Hildy focused on the sun, squinting, trying to stare directly at it. Her eyes watered. “I am…the bright morning star.” Revelations 22:16.
Hildy felt a song stirring in her throat, she swallowed it—knowing later she would savor the sound when she could savor the memory of Mary doing right. A white woman saying what Negroes knew, “This is not right.”
Hildy sighed. She was traveling down a different road. It scared her. Yet, wherever the truck took her, she knew she’d survive.
The bright morning star.
“Joe,” she called and the wind snatched the sound, carrying it back to Greenwood.
29
Joe was on the run again. Run, nigger, run. The slave catcher come. No refuge—no home. He’d seen Emmaline, Mother, Hildy hauled away on a truck. Father was dead.
Sun going down. Slave catcher come. Nigger run faster.
No place to go but Lena’s. No place to be except the riverbed. He’d bury his grief, his mourning. Bury his memories of Greenwood afire. Bury the money box. Bury himself until the looters and guardsmen were gone. Thought gone. Feeling gone. Bury himself until the moon glowed yellow and it was time to board the train to glory.
Breathing hard, Joe slipped down the embankment. He knew just where to go. Beyond Gabe’s shack, under the willow where the river curved, there was a depression where silt gave way and the bottom dropped. Not deep, but deep enough to hide the money and himself. The sun was half in, half out the earth. He ignored Ambrose’s fields across the river, the seesawing knell of oil rigs, and focused on stones, the dry earth, memories of him and Henry searching for Lena’s bones.
He heard shouts in the distance. Fear pricked at him again. He pushed on, ignoring his tired legs. Until he was out of Tulsa, he feared his dream of being set afire could come true. He slid on his backside into the water. Mud sucked at him. Reeds, dead twigs, and surface algae covered his lower body. He heard shouts, the faint barking of dogs. Every Negro rounded up.
His hands tugged at the tree’s stiff roots, silt and earth shifted. He used the money box to claw a hole, then shoved the box inside, behind tangled roots. He was satisfied the box would hold even if it stormed or the water receded.
“Over here. Someone’s over here.”
Joe leaned backward, submerging himself in the pitch black water, anchoring himself with his hands. Algae blanketed him. He heard nothing above the surface. When his lungs ached, he pressed his lips to the surface, sucking in air, then drifted toward the bottom.
Relax. Inhale. His mouth gasped air.
“Over here, I tell you. A nigger’s over here.”
He stayed under, quelling pain. He felt lightheaded, trapped. Mud soaked his clothes, every crevice of his skin.
He surfaced again, heard footfalls, and quickly dived. Voices faded. Dogs quieted. It was calming inside the muddy water. He rose. Algae trapped the last sheen of sunlight. Inhale, then sink. Surface and sink. He heard thrashing in the water. Cursing then gunfire.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Lulled by silence, the firm hold of earth mixed with water, he seemed to stay submerged longer. At each breath, he caught glimpses of the world above—willow branches hanging over the bank; the sky shifting to red dusk; an owl flying overhead.
Surfacing was rhythmic, automatic. He felt weightless, comforted by the riverbed. Time slowed. It was quiet inside the water. He reminded himself to breathe.
His pursuers could be anywhere.
“I have such dreams, Hildy. Terrible dreams.” Tadpoles wriggled against his legs. He felt buried alive like Houdini had been. But he couldn’t escape now. Couldn’t panic.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Tyler’s bony body, shriveled and dying. Saw Henry rotting, cushioned inside a steel coffin; saw Gabe, waving, before falling under the weight of flames; finally, saw Father, the hole in his head, eye open, jaw slack.
He started to believe he was nothing but water and mud. There wasn’t any Joe Samuels.
Mud filled his ears, nose, pressed against his mouth. Taste, smell, sounds disappeared. Eyes shut, he lay blind, seeing only with his touch. Fingers dug into the muddy silt. He felt snake scales, fish skeletons, dead leaves, and, he was sure, Lena’s bones. Letting himself float, he imagined Lena rocking him. She lived inside the riverbed, inside him. Dead, not dead. The sluggish water teemed with life: reeds, fish, minnows, river snakes. Creatures pierced his skin, floated in his blood, stirring his heart.
“You’ve done it, Joe. Your magic is far greater than you know.” He’d reached the dead. Lena’s ghost. Yet, not a ghost. Bones cradled him. There was something he was meant to know. Understand. Yearning flooded his soul.
Breathe.
He plunged deeper into the watery soil. Grabbed fistfuls of mud, rock. Tiny insects bit his hands; he concentrated on feeling. His lungs complained, telling him to rise. He burrowed deeper into the muddy cavern. His chest ached. There was something just beyond his reach, elusive. Something in the soil. He grabbed a fistful of muck. Something. Had to breathe. Breathe. Unable to restrain himself, he burst upward through the water.
Other sensations returned. He was cold, hip deep in water. The split moon hung low on the horizon. Pulling on the tree’s roots, he dragged himself out of the water. Mud plastered his clothes, weighing him down. He smelled the decaying tang of a river at night, heard its incessant rippling.
To the east, over the rise, Greenwood was gone. He looked west across the river Father had warned him and Henry never to cross. He blinked. For a moment, he thought he saw glowing, moonlit stalks of wheat. Tyler’s acres. His painted f
ields. Fields painted in oils.
Oil fields.
Joe grabbed a handful of rocks and threw them across the river. Handful after handful of stones, pebbles, dirt, he threw across the river while he raged, not certain at whom. Father? Ambrose? Himself.
The derricks moved as rhythmic as breathing, up and down. Rhythmic as breathing.
At least the money was safe. He’d get a message to Hildy. She could come get it, take care of Emmaline and Mother.
He began washing himself at the river’s edge. He’d look for clothes in Gabe’s shack. The 9:45 would be leaving. One last disappearing act—his grand escape from Tulsa.
Joe opened the door to the shack wide, letting in as much moonlight as possible. He moved cautiously; remembering the oil lamp on the desk. The fireplace was empty, the windows still boarded. He lit the lamp and saw a sack, a canteen, and a note. “Gabe, here’s food and clothes for Joe. Keep him safe. Come back to me. Love, Emmaline.”
Joe ate a piece of cornbread, drank clear water.
Underneath the cot were a pair of dress boots and an Army duffel. Joe emptied the bag: a corporal’s and a private’s insignia (one Gabe’s, the other, Henry’s); six letters from Emmaline; a box of .45 ammo; and two grenades, their safety clips fixed. The grenades came all the way from France. Joe held the grenades gingerly, thinking Gabe must’ve had some purpose for keeping them.
Joe slipped the insignias into his pocket. “Henry was a good soldier,” Gabe had said. Henry had said the same about Gabe. He slipped the grenades into his pockets too, stuffed Gabe’s boots, the canteen, clothes, and food in the duffel.
Joe wasn’t certain of the time, but before catching the westbound train there was one last thing he needed to do.
Picking up the oil lamp, he marched out of the shack, down the embankment. Ambrose’s drills pumped Tyler’s earth, reaching through topsoil to black gold. He set the duffel on the shore, then waded halfway across the river, the lamp swinging in his hand. For Gabe, thought Joe. He pulled the clip, aimed, then let the grenade soar. It sailed over Lena’s River, exploding a rig. Metal, dirt, and oil flew skyward; oil streamed out of the ground. For Henry. He threw the second grenade; oil pooled in the new crater.
Magic City Page 26
