“But it’s not fair,” I said.
She laughed. “Welcome to my life.”
There I was, trying to explain the concept of fairness to a woman carrying two huge baskets of other people’s washing.
At the crossroads in front of Hemple’s store, I saw the usual two old men playing checkers. I stopped in front of their cracker barrel. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” I said.
One man looked up at me sadly. The other one said, “Well, suh, ain’t nobody strong enough to beat ’em. And so what they did was, they got off scot-free. Nothin’ new ’bout that.”
“Ben.” A soft voice, a hand on my arm. I turned. It was Moody.
She was wearing her white jumper again. She even had a little smile on her face.
“You planning to go door-to-door, explain to everybody in the whole Quarters what happened in the white man’s courtroom?” she asked.
“I would,” I said.
“Don’t you worry your purty head about it,” she said. “All the explaining in the world won’t change a thing.” She took me by the elbow, leading me away. The men watched us go.
“Papaw is worse sick,” she said. “I think the excitement of the trial done it. You want to see him? He wants to see you.”
Chapter 127
ABRAHAM LAY in the narrow iron bed in the front parlor, just the way he was lying there the night the White Raiders attacked. His voice was so faint I barely heard him. His lips were cracked and dry. “I imagine you been going around beating yourself up pretty good about this verdict, eh, Ben?” he asked.
“I thought I could accomplish something,” I said. “The country was watching, from the president on down. I thought we could make a little bit of progress.”
“Who’s to say we didn’t?” he asked.
Moody gently dabbed his forehead with rubbing alcohol, then blew lightly to cool his skin. Every time she touched his face, Abraham’s eyes closed in gratitude. I thought he must be seeing clouds, getting ready to dance with the angels.
“When you get to be as old as me, Ben, you can’t help but remember a lot of things. I was thinking about my mama… one time I stole a nickel from her purse. She knew it before she even looked in there, just by peering in my eyes. She said, ‘Abraham, I don’t know what you guilty of, but you sho’ nuff guilty of somethin’, so you might as well go on and confess.’ I cried for an hour, then I give back that nickel.”
Moody kept rubbing his face, rhythmically massaging the skin with her fingers. His eyes closed, then opened. He went on.
“I was just a young man during the war,” he said. “You ever heard that expression, how they say the ground ran red with blood?”
I said I had heard it.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” he said. “I saw the ground run red. I was up at Vicksburg, just after the fight. I saw… oh, Lord. Hurts to remember. I saw legs, you know, and arms, and feet, big heaps of ’em outside the hospital tent. All rottin’ in the sun.”
I could see the horror of it all in my mind’s eye.
“But bad as it was,” Abraham went on, “that’s when things begun to change. A big change at the first, then they took it back. But what happened in that courtroom… that’ll change it. You just wait. You’ll live to see it.”
He fell into such a deep silence that I thought he might have fallen asleep. Maybe he was beginning his passage into the next world.
But he had a few more words to say.
“Moody said you told the jury a saying from the book of Samuel,” he said.
I nodded.
“That’s one of my favorite passages,” he said. “I sure hated to miss you. Would you say it out to me now?”
“Of course, Abraham,” I said.
I cleared my throat.
“For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”
Then Abraham spoke the last words he would ever say to me.
“You did fine, Ben. You did just fine.”
Chapter 128
“HE’LL SLEEP NOW,” Moody said. “Maybe he won’t wake up this time.”
I followed her out to the little front porch. We sat in the chairs where L.J. and I had spent a long hot night waiting for the Raiders to come.
The worst heat had finally broken. You couldn’t call it a cool day, exactly, but the wet blanket of humidity had lifted.
“I’m glad I got to talk to him,” I said. “His words mean a lot to me.”
Moody said nothing.
“I feel terrible about the way the trial turned out,” I said.
I was hoping, I suppose, that Moody would say something like Abraham had said: that I had done my best and it wasn’t my fault.
She turned to face me. “I know you’re going to think I’m nothin’ but a cold, ungrateful girl. But I don’t just feel bad – I’m angry. Damn angry. Oh yeah, you did your best. And Mr. Curtis did his best. And Mr. Stringer spent all that money… but those murderers walked away free.”
“You’re right, Moody,” I said. “They did.”
“Papaw keeps saying it takes a long time for things to change. Well, that’s fine for him – he’s almost run out of time. I don’t want to be old and dying before anything ever starts to get better.”
I nodded. Then I did something I didn’t know I was going to do until I did it.
I reached over and took Moody’s hand.
This time she did not pull away.
We said nothing, because finally there was nothing left to say. After a few minutes she leaned her head on my shoulder and began to weep softly.
Then she pulled away and sat up. “Listen, Ben, do me a favor. I’m afraid Papaw’s going to get bedsores, and Hemple’s is all out of wintergreen oil. You reckon you could go into town and bring some?”
“Gladly,” I said. “But only if you go with me. You’ve been trapped in this house for days.”
“You are plain crazy, Ben Corbett,” she said. “You think the people of this town want to see you and me parading together downtown? You want to get yourself lynched again?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Do you care about what the people of Eudora think?”
She pondered that a moment. “No. I s’pose I don’t.”
She wiped her eyes with a corner of the dishtowel. “Oh, hell, Ben, what goes on in that crazy brain of yours?”
I was wondering the same thing.
“Will you go with me?” I said. “I need to do something in town.”
Chapter 129
I HELPED MOODY DOWN from the handlebars of the bicycle. She had hollered most of the way into town, threatening bodily harm if I didn’t let her down off that contraption this instant! The noise we made was enough to turn heads all the way up Maple Street, onto Commerce Street, and into the center of town.
Eudora had just begun to settle down again. The last of the photographers and reporters had gone away on the one o’clock train.
I heard the rhythmic clang of iron from the blacksmith shop, and the pop-pop report of a motorcar doing a circuit around the courthouse square.
A few hours ago the eyes of the nation were upon Eudora. Now it was just another sleepy little southern town, happy to go back to living in the past, looking toward the future with nothing but suspicion and fear.
“Shall we?” I asked Moody.
“You’re gonna start a riot,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
I clasped her hand tightly in mine. Then we began to walk down the sidewalk of the busiest street in Eudora.
To anyone who didn’t know us, we would seem like lovers out for a romantic stroll on a late-summer afternoon.
But of course there was a complication: I was white, Moody was black. My hair was blond and straight, hers was black and tightly curled.
The citizens of Eudora had never seen anything like the two of us.
They stopped in their tracks. Some got down off the sidewalk to put some distance between us. Others groaned o
r cried out, as if the sight of us caused them physical pain.
Corinna Cutler and Edwina Booth came out of Miss Ida’s store, a couple of plump old hens cackling to each other – until they laid eyes on our joined hands.
Both their jaws dropped.
“Afternoon, Miz Cutler,” I said. “Afternoon, Miz Booth.”
Their faces darkened and they hurried away.
Ezra Newcomb saw us through the window of his barber-shop. He abandoned his lathered-up customer in the chair and stalked to the door. “Ben Corbett,” he shouted, “I oughta take this razor to your damn throat!”
I relinquished Moody’s hand and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulder. “Nice to see you too, Ezra.”
Word of our coming spread down the street before us. About half the town stepped out onto the sidewalk to see what was causing the commotion.
At the drugstore I held the door for Moody.
Doc Conover stared down at us from his pharmacist’s bench at the rear. “What do you want, Corbett?”
“A bottle of wintergreen oil, please,” I said.
“We’re fresh out,” he said.
“Aw now, come on, Doc,” I said. “It’s for Abraham Cross. He’s dying, and it would bring him relief. You’ve known Abraham all your life.”
“I told you we’re out,” he said. “Now clear out of here.”
“There it is, up there next to the camphor.” I pointed to the row of bottles on the shelf above his head.
“You callin’ me a liar?” said Conover. “Take off, or I’ll have the police throw you out of here.”
Moody pulled at my sleeve. “Let’s go,” she said.
I followed her toward the front door.
There was a crowd waiting outside to point and jeer at us. We turned left and headed down the block. “Let’s go to the Slide Inn and have some iced tea,” I said.
“I can’t go in there,” she said.
“Sure you can. Who’s going to stop you?”
“Get out of here, nigger-lover!” called a man in the crowd.
We came to Jenkins’ Mercantile, passing the bench where Henry North and Marcus had carried my mother after she had had her stroke.
We walked the rest of the way to the Slide Inn, trailing our little mob of catcalling spectators.
Lunch service was over. There were only three customers in the café – two young ladies sipping coffee and an old woman chewing on a cheese sandwich.
I’d hoped Miss Fanny was on duty today, but it was another waitress who approached us. “Can’tcha read?” she said, poking her thumb at a brand-new sign posted above the cash register:
WHITES ONLY
“I’m white,” I said.
Without a pause the waitress said, “You got a nigger with you. Now go on, get outta here.”
“Where’s Miss Fanny?” I said.
“She don’t work here no more,” the woman said. “’Cause of you.”
We turned to the door. I felt something hit my sleeve and I glanced down. It was a gob of spit, mixed with what looked like cheese. It could only have come from the little old lady.
When we stepped out the door our audience had swelled to a couple of dozen angry people.
They gawked at us. They yelled. They mocked.
“Kiss me,” I whispered to Moody.
She looked up at me as if I were insane, but she didn’t say no.
I leaned down and brought my lips to hers.
A cry of pain ran through the crowd.
A woman’s voice: “Look, he got what he wanted – a nigger girl to take to his bed.”
A man’s voice from behind me shouted, “Y’all goin’ to hell and burn for all time!”
“Niggers! You’re both niggers!”
“You make me sick in my gut!”
“Get out of here! Just get out!”
I whispered, “You ready to run?”
Moody nodded.
And we ran, and ran, and ran.
Chapter 130
WE WERE HALFWAY to the Quarters before the most persistent of our pursuers gave up. We stopped to catch our breath, but I kept an eye out, in case anyone was still following.
As it dawned on me what we had done, I realized that I was – well, I was delighted. Who would have thought two people holding hands could make so many wrong-minded people so very unhappy? We had put the citizens of Eudora in an uproar, and that realization warmed my heart.
I had abandoned my bicycle downtown. Maybe the mob had strung it up in a noose by now.
As Moody and I walked the muddy boards that passed for a sidewalk, folks began coming out of their houses to have a look at us. As fast as we’d run, news of our public display seemed to have preceded us.
“Y’all damn crazy,” said one old lady.
“Naw, they in love,” said a young man beside her.
“Well, hell, if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is!”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re not crazy and we’re not in love, either.”
“You just tryin’ to cause trouble then, white boy?” she demanded.
“All I did was kiss her,” I explained. “But we did cause some trouble.”
The old lady thought about it a moment, then she cracked a smile.
It was like a photographic negative of our march through Eudora. By the time we got to the crossroads by Hemple’s store, we had a crowd of spectators tagging along with us.
One of the old men looked up from his checkerboard, his face grim. “Now see what you done,” he said to me. “You done kicked over the anthill for sure. They comin’ down here tonight, and they gonna lynch you up somethin’ fierce. And some of us, besides.”
“Then we’d better get ready for them,” Moody said.
“Ready?” said the other checkers player. “What you mean ready, girl? You mean we best say our prayers. Best go make the pine box ourselves.”
“You got a gun for shootin’ squirrel, don’t you?” said Moody. “You got a knife to skin it with, don’t you?”
The old man nodded. “Well, sho’, but what does that–”
“They can’t beat all of us,” Moody said. “Not if we’re ready for them.”
The people around us were murmuring to one another. Moody’s words had started a brushfire among them. “Let ’em come!” cried a young man. “Let ’em come on!”
Moody looked at me with soulful eyes. And then she did something I will never forget. I will carry it with me my whole life, the way I have carried Marcus’s kindness to Mama.
She took my hand in hers again. Not for show, because she wanted to. We walked hand in hand to Abraham’s house.
Chapter 131
I THOUGHT I would be standing guard alone on the porch that evening, but at midnight Moody appeared – wearing a clean white jumper, of course.
“I couldn’t sleep, thinking how you hadn’t had nothing to eat the whole day long.” She set before me a plate of butter beans, field peas, and shortening bread.
The minute I smelled it, I was starving. “Thank you kindly,” I said.
“You’re welcome kindly,” she said, easing down to the chair beside me.
I dove in. “There was this old colored lady who raised me,” I said, “and she always sang, ‘Mammy’s little baby loves short’nin’-’”
“Hush up, fool!” Moody said.
I held up both hands in surrender. “All right, all right,” I said, laughing.
“You can’t help it, I reckon,” she said, shaking her head. “No matter how hard you try, you are always gonna be a white man, the whole rest of your life.”
“I expect I am,” I said, taking a bite of bread.
We watched the moon rising over the swamp from Abraham’s front porch. We heard the gank, gank of the bullfrogs and the occasional soft call of a mourning dove staying up late.
We sat in silence for a while. Then Moody spoke.
“You think they coming tonight?”
I sighed. “You know they’ll want
to teach us a lesson.”
We heard a groan from inside. Moody leaped up and I followed her into the parlor.
Cousin Ricky was there, at Abraham’s bedside, reading from the open Bible on his lap. Abraham looked too peaceful to have given out that groan just a moment before.
“You are the light of the world,” Ricky read. “A city set on a hill cannot be hid.”
We crept back out to the porch. After a time Moody said, “You made Papaw’s last summer a good one.”
“He’s one of the finest men I’ve met,” I said. “Of course, you know that.”
She touched the back of my hand. It crossed my mind that we might kiss each other now. Also it crossed my mind that we might not.
I’ll never know what could have been.
Suddenly there was a gunshot, then another, the clatter of hoofbeats, lots of horses.
We stood up, unable to see the men yet, but we could hear their voices in the darkness. We hurried inside before they could drop us where we stood.
“There they go, Sammy,” a man yelled. “Nigger-lovin’ Yankee and his nigger whore.”
It was unfolding just like the first White Raiders attack: gunfire everywhere, men jockeying their horses into position in the dark, the hatred in their voices.
This time though, there was a difference.
The Eudora Quarters was ready – at least I hoped so.
Chapter 132
THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A FIGHT like this one in the state of Mississippi, and maybe anywhere else in this country. One way or the other, we were about to make some history.
The Raiders must have thought we were too stupid to know what was going to happen or too scared to defend ourselves. It never occurred to them that Moody and my little stroll down the sidewalk might have been deliberate, a provocation, and that they were riding into a trap.
There were nine of them this time. That’s how confident they were that we wouldn’t resist. What arrogance – to come into the Quarters with this pack of their friends, nine of them among hundreds of Negroes.
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