Two Trains Running

by Andrew Vachss

  “Go ahead, then,” Tussy said, setting her jaw. She adjusted the lumberjack shirt tightly around her, sitting with her knees together, back straight.

  “I was a wild kid,” Dett began. “Always in trouble, for one thing or another. Nothing big, but plenty of it. Mostly because I had a foul temper. When I turned seventeen, I went to prison, for robbing a store. That’s where I learned how to fight. Not like I had before, in a temper. This was the cold way.

  “When I got out, I was twenty-one years old, and the war was on. I went in the army. Not to be a hero, or a patriot, or anything. Just to get away from everything I . . . didn’t have. They were taking anybody then.

  “I served in the Pacific.” Tussy’s eyes started to flood. “That wasn’t it,” Dett said, sharply. “I’m sorry, Tussy. I didn’t mean to yell at you. But you need to understand—what happened, it didn’t have anything to do with the war. It was just me, what I did, later. Okay?”

  Tussy nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

  “When I got out, I was almost twenty-six, and I didn’t know how to do anything. But that’s no excuse, either. I could have gone to school. To college, even. On the GI Bill. I could have gotten a good job, bought a house. . . . I could have been a regular person.”

  Tussy opened her mouth to interrupt, but reached for a cigarette instead.

  “I just . . . drifted,” Dett said. “But wherever I went, I was always in the same place. I’d work for a while—there was plenty of jobs: oil fields, timber mills, cotton crops—then I’d just sit around and do nothing. Have a few drinks, get into a fight, spend a couple of nights in jail. Three months on the county farm, once.”

  Dett paused, lit a cigarette of his own. “Then I killed a man,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. I’m not saying it was an accident, but I wasn’t thinking about killing him. It was just another fight. If he’d been a white man, my whole life would have been different.”

  Tussy squirmed in her seat, as if awaiting a sign from Dett to speak.

  “They took me down to the jail,” Dett said. “And that’s when it started. A couple of men came to see me. Government men. I say it was two men, but it could have been one; they were so much alike I couldn’t tell where one started and the other left off.

  “They told me I might get off on self-defense, this being Mississippi and all. But I might not, especially with my record. I might spend a long time down at Parchman for what I did. They said everyone was watching now. They meant the whole world. It was right after that boy was killed for whistling at a white woman. They said the law might have to make an example of me. I was scared.

  “Then they said there was a way I could make it right. They could fix things so I wouldn’t have to go to prison, fix it so nobody would even be mad about it. And what they wanted in exchange, they just wanted me to join the Klan.”

  Dett took a deep drag of his cigarette, closed his eyes for a split second, then went on. “See, I was a natural, Tussy. Anybody checking me out, they’d find I was in prison before. The Klan wouldn’t care about that, the government men told me. What they’d care about was that I went to prison by myself. I never told who else was in on that robbery with me. So it was like a good mark on my record. And being in the army, overseas, that was a good thing, too. It showed I could . . . do stuff, they said.

  “But the best thing, that was me killing that man. They said the Klan was mostly loudmouths. Brave when they were burning a cross, but just bullies, hiding behind sheets. You know, scared to fight a man fair. But me, I had done that. ‘You killed a nigger,’ one of them said. ‘In hand-to-hand combat. For the Klan, that’s a better medal than any you could get from Uncle Sam.’

  “I would be like a federal agent, they said. I’d have to use my eyes and ears, and make reports to them. They said the Klan was a danger to America. A subversive organization, they called it. I would be like a spy, for the government. When I found out the names of the people who were doing the lynchings and burnings and bombings, I’d tell the FBI—that’s what they said they were, the FBI—and they’d move in and clean things up. Because it was for damn sure the local cops were never going to.

  “They said I might have to commit crimes, just to prove I was a good Klansman, but that would be okay because I was working undercover. I’d get a full pardon when I was done, for everything.”

  Dett stubbed out his cigarette. “I’m not sure why I did it,” he said. “Not even now. I could say I wanted to do something good. For America, like they said. I could say I felt guilty about killing that man. I could say I didn’t want to go to prison. I could even say I wanted the money—they paid me, just like a salary—but that would just be . . . saying things. Because I really don’t know.

  “My trial only lasted one day. A bunch of colored people testified that they saw the whole thing and the other guy had pulled his knife first. I don’t know if that was true—it all happened so fast—but I know not one of them had been out there in that parking lot. So they were all lying.

  “I was found not guilty, and nobody was mad at me, not even the dead man’s own mother. I know that because she said so, right in court. She said her son would get crazy-wild when he was drunk, and that he had been drinking all that day it happened. That was a lie, too. He wasn’t drunk when we fought. Everything was all lies. I never even had to say anything.

  “It was that same day, right after it got dark, when the night riders came to where I was staying and took me. The government men were right. The Klan thought I was the greatest man in the world for what I had done.”

  Tussy’s green eyes seared into him. Finish it, he ordered himself. Get it done.

  “The first time I went riding with them, it was a few nights later. We burned out a family. I don’t know what the man who lived there was supposed to have done. They said he was some kind of agitator.

  “I called the number the government men had given me, and I told them everything. Who was there, what they did. They said I was doing a good job, but they were after bigger fish.”

  Tussy opened her mouth, caught Dett’s eye, and reached for another cigarette without speaking.

  “They were all scared then,” Dett said. “Not the colored people. I mean, I guess they always were, but I wasn’t among them, so I couldn’t say. But the Klan, the people in it, they were scared. Of . . . the future, I guess. You could feel it coming. It was all in the air. Things were going to change.

  “The way one of them explained it to me, it used to be, if you were a colored man who wanted to have a chance, you went north. Lots of them did that. But now the strongest ones weren’t leaving. They were staying. If they got the vote—I don’t mean got the vote; they already had the vote; I mean, if they got to actually vote, cast a ballot—they could be running things in twenty years, that’s what he said.

  “Everywhere you looked, you could see it. The way it was told to me, there was a wall between whites and coloreds for a good reason. Like how you have to keep gamecocks away from each other. If that wall came down, we wouldn’t be shaking hands with what was on the other side, we’d be fighting it to the death. Segregation was good for the coloreds, that’s what they all said. It protected them, kept them safe. It was just the outsiders, the people from up north, who stirred everything up.

  “And the Jews were behind everything. You couldn’t see them, but they were there. They didn’t care a damn about farming—they needed more and more people to work in their factories. That’s what started it all. The Civil War, I’m talking about. It wasn’t to free the slaves; it was because the Northerners needed people to work in their factories.”

  Tussy arched her eyebrows, tilted her head a fraction.

  “Did I believe that myself?” Dett answered her unspoken question. “Maybe. It sounded like it made sense, kind of. But I didn’t really pay attention, because I was just there to do a job. But if you’re thinking, Did I ever argue with them?, no. I don’t know if that was because I was working undercover, or because I believed wha
t they said. I didn’t think about it, not then.”

  Dett put another cigarette in his mouth, lit it mechanically.

  “It was just past ninety days,” he said. “I crossed off each day on my little calendar, just like you do in the county jail. I got to know who every single one of them was. I don’t mean just by face; I knew their names and what they did for a living, even where most of them stayed. I told all of that to the government men. I would just call them and talk, sometimes for a couple of hours. They would ask me questions, but they never told me what to do, exactly. They would just say I was doing good work, and to keep it up.”

  Dett suddenly ground out his cigarette and stood up, startling Tussy.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to . . . I was just . . .” He quickly sat down again.

  “On the ninety-second day, they killed a man,” Dett said, struggling with the words, but determined to go on. “Dragged him out of the shack where he was staying, took him out to a field, and whipped him. I think that was all it was supposed to be, but I . . . I just don’t know. One of them felt his neck, and he said, ‘This nigger is dead, boys.’ That’s when they got the idea—to string him up over a tree limb, like a lynching.

  “In the morning, the word shot around town like a fire spreading. The sheriff went out to the field, and his men cut that colored man down.

  “The head man called a meeting for that night. He said we’d have to lay low for a while, until things died down. Some of the other men argued about that. They said we had the niggers on the run now, so we should keep going, but the head man won out.

  “I thought I was done then. I told the government men everything. I mean, I was right there. I even . . . I helped them do it, Tussy. I could say I didn’t know they were going to kill the man, and that would be true. But I can’t say what I would have done if I had known, so it doesn’t mean anything.

  “The man on the phone said they had to have my story in person. I drove all the way over to Jackson to see them. There were a lot of men in the room they took me to. I showed them where it happened—they had a map of the area that was so big it covered the whole wall—and they had me put different-colored pins all over, everyplace something had happened. The last one, the killing, it got the only red pin.

  “Then they made me go over what they called a ‘bracket.’ The twelve hours just before it happened, and the twelve hours after. They wanted to know how many people, how many cars, who spoke first, who made the decision to string the man up after he was dead—everything.

  “It took so long that we stopped and had a meal. Sandwiches and coffee they had brought in.

  “The more I talked, the better I felt, Tussy. Like I stuck a needle in an infection, and the pus was coming out. The more I told them, it was like the tighter I was squeezing, to get out every last drop, and be clean again.”

  “Walker . . .”

  “I have to say it all,” he said, inexorable.

  She nodded, reached for still another cigarette. As she did, Fireball strolled into the living room and regarded her appraisingly for a moment before curling up at her feet.

  “It was late at night when we finally finished,” Dett said. “And that’s when it happened.”

  Dett closed his eyes, concentrated on his breathing.

  Tussy watched, the cigarette smoldering in her hand.

  “They told me I wasn’t done,” Dett said. His voice was thin, as if short on oxygen. “What I had given them was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. They had information that the most committed—that was the exact word they used—the most committed members were coming from all over, for one big splash. Alabama, Louisiana, Texas . . . everywhere. Not just the Klan, either. All kinds of groups. They were going to be making a statement. Do something so big that nobody would even think about trying to register the coloreds to vote, ever again.

  “It was going to be a bomb, they said. A bomb big enough to blow up a whole city block. But that was all they knew. They needed me to find out when it was going to be done.

  “I was . . . upset. I told them that wasn’t the deal we made. I thought all the people who had killed that colored man would have to answer for it. That would be like a bomb, too. Only a bomb for good, like the one we dropped on Japan.

  “But the government men, you know what they said? They said, first of all, the man who died, it was an accident. I’d even said so myself, that they hadn’t started out to kill him, so what kind of witness would I be? Maybe a few men would go to prison, for a couple of years or so, but that wouldn’t do anything but make them heroes. ‘Just like you were,’ one of them said, pointing his finger at me like a gun.

  “So I went back to work. I did everything they said I was supposed to do. That’s funny, huh? You probably don’t know who I mean by ‘they,’ do you, Tussy? Do I mean the government men, or the Klan? I was just thinking, even as I said it, I don’t know myself. Because I did what they both wanted me to do.”

  Dett clasped his hands in front of him, took a deep breath, and looked into Tussy’s eyes for a long moment. She stared back, green eyes unblinking.

  “I did terrible things, Tussy,” he said. “Not because I lost my temper, not because I was angry. Not even because I was scared, anymore. I did them in cold blood. I knew, when it was all over, I could never come back. I didn’t think about what would happen then. I guess I had a . . . fantasy, you could call it, about going to work for the government myself, in some other town. You know, being a spy. But, most of the time, I didn’t think about it at all. I just . . . did things.

  “One night, three of them came to where I was staying. Parnell James, William Lee Manderville, and Zeke Pritchard. I remember their names like they’re engraved on my heart. Like someone took a chisel to the stone. They said it was time to ride, and I didn’t ask any questions.

  “When I saw the car they had—it was a station wagon, and I knew it wasn’t any of theirs—I knew. Something was going to happen. Something terrible.

  “We all had guns. In the back of the wagon, there were chains. Heavy chains, like you’d use to tow a tractor out of the mud. Zeke was driving. I was next to him in the front seat. He said there was this nigger, Lewis, I don’t know if that was his first or his last name, and he was stirring things up bad. Going around with some white boys. Strangers, not from around there. They were night-riding, just like we had been. Visiting the coloreds in their homes. Telling them they all had to register to vote. Signing them up.

  “This Lewis, he was a big man, Zeke said. Not big in size, but in power. The coloreds were all getting ready to follow him. They, the other men in the car that night, they had their orders. It was time.

  “We rode way out into the country. Lewis was staying in this sharecropper’s shack, on land that wasn’t being worked anymore.

  “He was a squatter, they said. Didn’t even have the right to be on the land. ‘We have to sneak up on him,’ Zeke said. ‘Lewis is a real bad nigger, not the kind to just go along and take what’s coming to him, like most of them.’ He had a gun, and he’d use it.

  “We got to where he was staying. There was no light on in the cabin. We came at it from the sides. I was the first. Because I knew all about sneaking up in the dark, from the army, is what Zeke told me.

  “When Lewis woke up, I was standing over him, with a shotgun aimed right at his face. We chained him up and put him in the back of the wagon. He didn’t fight—it wouldn’t have done him any good—but he didn’t cry or carry on, either, the way some of the others had done.

  “Zeke drove us out to a spot they had picked out. They made him walk to a tree, and Parnell took out a rope. Zeke asked Lewis if he had anything to say, and that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew for sure.”

  “They were going to murder him?” Tussy blurted out.

  “That’s one thing I knew,” Dett said, his voice just above a whisper. “But I knew something else, too. I knew it as sure as I had ever known anything in my life. When it was over
, when I told the government men about what happened to Lewis, it still wouldn’t be the end. They’d just send me back. To do more.

  “Lewis might have been scared, but you couldn’t see it in his face. He looked . . . not even angry . . . more like he was looking down on all of us. Like we were dirt. ‘You can’t stop the train from coming,’ is what he said. And I knew what he meant, even if the others didn’t. I remember thinking, There’s five people, standing out in this field, in the middle of the night. But there’s only one man.

  “The moon was shining. Cold light, making us all into ghosts. I had a pistol in my belt. My old army .45. I could feel it against my stomach, pushing at me.

  “ ‘You got the sickle, Parnell?’ Zeke said. Then I knew what they were going to do . . . after they hung him. The shotgun in my hand came up, like it had its own mind. I cut Zeke down. Parnell and William Lee just stood there. Their mouths were open, but nothing came out. I pulled my .45 and shot them both. At that distance, I couldn’t miss.

  “Then it was just me and Lewis. I had nothing left. I couldn’t even talk. Like killing those men had taken all I had, and I was done.

  “ ‘Get these chains off me,’ Lewis said. I felt like I was moving underwater, so slow and heavy, but I did it.

  “ ‘You can’t never go back now,’ he said. ‘Me, neither. They’ll never find me where I’m going. I’m just another nigger, I can disappear. But you, they know you.’

  “He walked over to the bodies of the three men, went through their pockets like rolling a drunk. ‘Got almost sixty dollars here,’ he said. ‘You got anything?’ I told him I had about forty on me. I thought he would want that, too, but he just said, ‘Good. We got a little time, not much. Give me a ride to the crossroads; I’ll be all right from there. They probably won’t even start looking until morning, when this trash don’t come home. Got a few hours. They going to expect you to go north, man. But you can’t do that. You going down to Louisiana. To my auntie’s place. It ain’t got no address, but I’m going to tell you how to get there. Tante Verity, she take care of you until you ready to make your move.’