Trouble on the Tombigbee

by Ted M. Dunagan

  Mr. Jackson took the time to tell Poudlum that he could tell that his new principal was going to make his mark at his school. Then he said, “The Klan knows who you boys are, so why shouldn’t we know who they are?”

  Mr. Jackson had a way of putting things in perspective. Poudlum looked at me, I nodded, and he blurted out, “It was the Judge! It was Judge Garrison!”

  Mr. Jackson’s pencil froze in his hand, and his eyes, above the glasses perched on the tip of his nose, flicked back and forth between Poudlum and me. My uncle’s eyes bugged out like those of a startled squirrel.

  Mr. Jackson’s eyes finally rested on me, and he said, “Both of y’all real sure about that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I told him. “We remember him from the trial of the bank robbers.”

  He sighed deeply and said, “I wonder why that doesn’t surprise me. Did you boys get a look at any more faces?”

  “No, sir,” Poudlum continued. “It was right after that when one of them snuck up on us, and we almost got caught.”

  “That would have been the Klexter,” Uncle Curvin interjected.

  Mr. Jackson jerked around to face my uncle and said, “The what?”

  “The Klexter. He’s the one who circles the outer area of a meeting looking for any interlopers.”

  Mr. Jackson turned back to Poudlum and said, “Did he get a clear look at y’all?”

  “No, sir, but several folks had seen us coming to the river so it didn’t take them long to figure out it was us.”

  “How do you know they figured out it was y’all?”

  “They came to our camp two times, and we figured out they thought somebody had sent us to spy on them.”

  “Was it the same ones both times?”

  “No, sir, the first time it was Herman Finney and his daddy.”

  “What happened?”

  “We lied, told them we hadn’t been doing nothing but fishing. We felt like we could get away with it because we left our camp at the mouth of the Satilfa in the middle of the night, paddled up the river past the ferry and made camp up there, like we had been there all night.”

  “What happened next?”

  “While Ted was telling them all that, I eased down to the bank, and loosened the plug on their boat.”

  “And?”

  “And Mr. Henry told us later that the boat had sunk, motor and all, and they had to swim for it.”

  Mr. Jackson stifled a chuckle, looked at my uncle and said, “You hear that, Mr. Curvin? They sunk the boat, motor and all.”

  He turned back to us and said, “You mentioned they came to your camp two times.”

  Poudlum gave me a look, and I took over. “Yes, sir, but the second time we didn’t talk to them. Mr. Finney and the Night Hawk was at our camp when we approached it at night, and we held back and listened to them.”

  “The Night Hawk, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone else unmasked at the meeting. How did you know he was this person you call the Night Hawk?”

  “It was on account of his boots.”

  “How’s that?’

  “We saw his boots under his robe at the Klan meeting, and they had silver toes on them. And the man with Mr. Finney standing by the fire at our camp had those same boots on.”

  “Why do they call him the Night Hawk?”

  “Uh,” my uncle interjected again, “he’s the one who conducts new members through the ceremony.”

  Mr. Jackson paused, looked inquiringly over the top of his glasses at my uncle, and said, “Are you familiar with all the titles of Klan members, Mr. Curvin?”

  “Well, uh, most of them,” he confirmed.

  “Do you mind if I ask how you came into possession of such knowledge?”

  “No, sir, I don’t mind. People talk, and I make it my business to know things, and besides, they ain’t as secret as they claim to be and would like to be.”

  Mr. Jackson took off his glasses, turned directly to face my uncle and said, “Are you sympathetic with their cause?”

  “I make it a policy to mind my own business,” Uncle Curvin answered. “But when anybody starts messing with these here two boys, I don’t care who they are. They ain’t no friends of mine.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Mr. Jackson said as he replaced his glasses and turned back to us and said, “Now, boys, tell us who the Night Hawk is.”

  I swallowed hard and thought about it for a moment or two, but I trusted Mr. Jackson’s judgment, and I knew Poudlum did, too, so I just said it.

  “He’s the county solicitor, Mr. Danny Pierce.”

  Mr. Jackson tossed his pencil down on the conference table and shook his head back and forth as he speculated, “My God, is the entire court system members of the Klan?”

  Uncle Curvin showed no emotion at my revelation.

  We went on to tell Mr. Jackson and Uncle Curvin about our catfish dinner with Mr. Henry and his wife and how we had been run out of the quarter in the middle of the night by the Klan.

  “Despicable behavior!” Mr. Jackson said.

  We went on to recount the events of having to hide under the ferry when the men left the two boats they intended to use to search for us the next morning, and how we had taken them down to our camp at the mouth of the Satilfa, set them on fire, and sunk them.

  “Good Lord,” my uncle said with a toothless grin. “That makes three boats y’all done sunk. If y’all had been out on the river much longer, they wouldn’t be no boats left on it.”

  “We did sink one more,” Poudlum volunteered.

  “Huh?” Uncle Curvin said in wonder.

  “Yes, sir, we sunk your boat later on. The one we had when you picked us up belonged to two bootleggers and a murdering slaver.”

  When Poudlum said that, I thought my uncle’s and Mr. Jackson’s jaws would drop off as they stared at us in disbelief.

  Mr. Jackson recovered first and said, “I take it this situation you’re referring to now didn’t involve the Klan?”

  I took it upon myself to clear up the confusion. “No, sir, it didn’t. After we set them two Klan boats on fire and sunk them, we intended to paddle on down to the bridge at Jackson and meet Uncle Curvin the next morning, like Mr. Henry had advised us to do.”

  I looked at Poudlum for some help, and he didn’t miss a beat. “But that night and the next day it rained cats and dogs for what seemed like forever.”

  “Yeah, that storm and the aftereffects is what kept me over in Choctaw County longer than I had planned,” Uncle Curvin interjected.

  Poudlum continued, “Well, the rain finally let up, and we loaded up the boat about dark to paddle on down to Jackson and meet Mr. Curvin. But when we got out on the water, we found out the river was swelled up like a dog tick, and it just grabbed us and took us downstream with it.

  “We was at the mercy of the flooded river, and we finally give up trying to use our paddles and let it take us. And it took us all right! It took us way on down the river past Jackson, and we woke up the next morning lodged in a tree top that had fell into the river. That’s when Silas, the bootlegger, pulled us out and him and Dudley locked us up in a room full of whiskey with no windows.”

  “Slow down,” Mr. Jackson said. “Why did they lock y’all up?”

  “Because they wanted to sell us down the river to Mr. Kim for two hundred dollars, who was gonna take us down to Mobile and put us on a big ship to China to serve as cabin boys. Sounded like being sold as slaves to us.”

  “Now hold on, Poudlum,” Uncle Curvin said. “You sure you boys ain’t making up a little bit of a yarn about bootleggers and slavers?”

  Mr. Jackson held his hand up with the palm out to my uncle, indicating he was interested in hearing more from Poudlum. Then he said, “There has recently been a great deal of alarm down around Mob
ile about young boys disappearing. This could have something to do with that. What happened after they locked you boys up?”

  “We whittled our way out,” Poudlum continued. “Took a long time, and we wore some blisters on our hands doing it, but we cut right through the floor with our pocket knives and got out that way just before Silas and Dudley busted down the door that we had stacked the boxes of whiskey against.”

  I could tell Poudlum had grown weary, so I picked up the story from him and told how we had been recaptured when we first encountered Mr. Kim, along with Silas in a motorboat.

  “How did you know this Kim was Chinese?” Mr. Jackson asked. “Did he just look that way?”

  “Yes, sir, plus he had a long skinny moustache, wore a strange black shirt, and had his hair plaited into one long pigtail down the middle of his back.”

  “I assume you boys escaped again?”

  “Yes, sir, while Silas and Mr. Kim went to make a last whiskey run before taking us down the river, Poudlum tricked Dudley, and then we overpowered him after Poudlum tossed some ground-up hot and dry pepper in his face.”

  “Where in the world did he get hot pepper flakes?”

  “He keeps it in a little snuff can and he was pretending to get himself a dip, but instead of doing that, he tossed the pepper in Dudley’s face.”

  “And did that incapacitate him?” Mr. Jackson asked.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what that word meant, but I had an idea so I said, “He fell down on the floor blinded, choking, and gagging.”

  “May I ask how Poudlum came into possession of a snuff can full of ground-up hot pepper?”

  “Why, he keeps one in his pocket.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Well, mostly in case we run up on a bad dog, which we have been known to do. However, in this case it worked on a bad bootlegger.”

  Chapter 18

  Evidence Revealed

  “I must say you boys are a resourceful duo,” Mr. Jackson quipped. “So, y’all were able to escape again before Silas and Mr. Kim got back from their whiskey run?”

  “Well, sort of,” I told him. Then I turned toward Poudlum and asked if he wanted to tell what happened.

  “Uh-uh,” he said with a fear-shiver. “I don’t even want to think about it. You go ahead and tell.”

  I wasn’t too excited about recounting that story either, but it had to be done, so I set about it. I told how we stayed up that tree till dawn when Silas and Mr. Kim came back.

  When I uttered the part where Mr. Kim had struck Silas down with his murderous blade, Mr. Jackson dropped his pencil, gasped and said, “Are you saying he murdered the man?”

  “That’s right. He did,” Poudlum interjected.

  Uncle Curvin’s eyes were about the size of a couple of saucers when he said, “Boys, it can’t get no worse than accusing somebody of murder. Are you sure he was dead?”

  “He was laying there dead as a hammer,” Poudlum declared. “You would have been, too, if you had been stuck with that long blade.”

  Mr. Jackson regained his composure and said, “Why do you think he killed Silas?”

  “Probably ’cause he wanted to just take us and not pay Silas and Dudley their two hundred dollars.”

  As he picked up his pencil and resumed writing, Mr. Jackson said, “What did Kim do then?”

  “He went on up and into the cabin where I ’spec he probably cut poor old Dudley’s throat.”

  I could see the pity for Dudley in Poudlum’s eyes and hear it in his voice, too. And I could feel his pain because we knew we had left him tied up and unable to defend himself.

  Poudlum confirmed my thoughts when he said, “Old Dudley wasn’t too smart, but he did make some good biscuits.”

  “It’s a good thing Kim never knew you boys were witnesses to his dastardly deed,” Uncle Curvin said.

  Poudlum cast a look at me and wordlessly gave me the floor.

  “Uh, that’s the problem we have. He does know we saw him.”

  “Oh, Lord have mercy!” Uncle Curvin moaned. “I thought y’all was hid up the tree.”

  “We was, but the minute he went into the cabin, we skedaddled out of that tree, jumped into our boat, and started paddling hard.”

  “But he had a motorboat to catch y’all with,” Mr. Jackson observed.

  “We took the time to disable his motor before we took off,” I told him.

  He rolled his eyes and said, “I should have known that.”

  Mr. Jackson seemed to be talking to himself as he wrote. “He’s probably already done away with the bodies. Too bad we don’t have any other evidence.”

  Poudlum reached inside his shirt, pulled out a bundle and rolled it out on the table. “How about this?” he said, as the murder weapon tumbled to the center of the conference table.

  I thought my uncle and Mr. Jackson were both going to have some kind of conniption fit they made such a to-do over Mr. Kim’s knife. When they finally collected themselves, my uncle leaned in close and said, “I believe I see some little specks of blood on the blade!”

  “Don’t nobody touch it!” Mr. Jackson said as he jumped up and dashed out of the room.

  He was back in a flash with a big brown envelope, which he wrote something on. Then he picked up the knife with his handkerchief and placed it inside the envelope.

  We silently watched as he went over and began working the combination of a steel safe against the wall. After he opened the thick metal door, he deposited the envelope into the safe. Before he closed the door, I noticed he took a pistol out of the safe and slid it inside his coat. Afterwards he returned to his seat at the table, took up his pencil again and said, “Now, how is it you boys think he knows you witnessed the murder?’

  Poudlum took up the story and said, “Because he come tearing out of that cabin while we was paddling off. He jumped in his boat, and when he figured out we had ruined his motor, he started paddling after us.

  “It was all we could do, with both of us paddling, to stay ahead of him. I never seen a man who could paddle, run, and swim like he could.”

  “Go on,” Mr. Jackson encouraged Poudlum.

  “By paddling with all we had, we managed to stay ahead of him, that is until our boat started sinking. That’s right, we sunk another boat, but this time it was ours. We managed to get to shore just before she went under, and that’s when the footrace started.”

  “He chased you?”

  “He chased us through the woods like a crazy man. We finally circled back on him and was getting away in his boat when he come tearing out of the woods and threw that knife at us. That’s how we got it. We ducked and it stuck in a paddle on the boat.”

  Poudlum sounded plum tuckered out just from telling about the chase, so I finished up.

  “He even took to chasing us in the water. He started swimming and stayed behind us for a while, but he finally give up, and the last we saw of him was when he went back ashore. But he was still on the east side of the river so we figured he might come on up through the woods chasing us. After that, we paddled hard and finally got on up to the bridge at Jackson where we found Uncle Curvin and them.”

  “I imagine you boys were mighty proud to see those folks,” Mr. Jackson said.

  “Yes, sir, we was proud as punch,” I answered.

  Mr. Jackson straightened up his papers, stood up from the table and said, “You boys just relax for a few minutes. Mr. Curvin, would you step over to my office with me?”

  After they left the room, Poudlum and I sat there nearly as exhausted from telling our story as we had been when it really happened.

  “What you think they talking about?” Poudlum asked.

  About that time I saw motion through the window and upon closely observing, I saw it was Uncle Curvin and Mr. Jackson standing on the landing outside the entrance to his office. I also
noticed the window was slightly cracked.

  “Come on and we’ll see,” I told Poudlum as I started scooting across the floor, staying low so I wouldn’t be seen. Poudlum followed, and soon we were scrunched down below the windowsill with our ears cocked to the opening.

  We picked up Mr. Jackson’s voice in mid-sentence, “—and I want you to hightail it down to Mobile and deliver this envelope. Don’t waste any time. I’m sure you realize how extremely important this matter is.”

  We peeked up over the edge of the windowsill and saw my uncle take the envelope and heard him say, “Don’t you be fretting about it, Mr. Jackson. I’ll take care of everything and report back to you tonight.”

  As they were saying their goodbyes, we scooted back over to the table and had barely reclaimed our seats when Mr. Jackson came back into the room.

  I knew something was up by the look on his face. He sat down across from us at the table and began to speak. “I know you boys have been through a lot in the last few days, but instead of going home, and in the interest of your safety, would it be all right if the two of you stayed with me a couple of days?”

  Poudlum and I immediately turned our heads to look at each other, but despite our ability to sometimes transfer information without speaking, we were both drawing a blank as to the reason for Mr. Jackson’s request.

  So I turned back to him and asked, “Sir, what do you mean by saying in the interest of our safety? Safety from what?”

  “It’s like this, boys. I don’t think we have anything to be concerned about from the Klan. Oh, they might threaten and intimidate you, but I don’t think they would physically harm you.”

  “Then how come they do like they do, Mr. Jackson?” Poudlum asked.

  “That’s a complicated question, son. But basically I think it’s because it’s very difficult for human beings to get over their differences. It seems like we want everyone around us to be just like we are. And I’m afraid it will take a lot of time and work to get over that, but when I see and talk to you two young fellows, I believe there is hope.”

  My thoughts were whirling, but I had his concern for our safety narrowed down. He was worried about Mr. Kim! “Mr. Jackson,” I said in a shaky voice, “you don’t think—”