by Daniel Black
Enoch understood his father’s speech as an announcement of something to come.
“Get ready for this one, boy! When they find these bodies they gon come after us like Pharaoh’s army!” Jeremiah said, then Enoch helped him back onto the wagon. “This gon be a doozy!”
“Billy!” Cecil Love screamed from the road, clutching his bleeding left arm with the palm of his right hand. “Billy! They killed yo’ brothers!” he panted loudly. Getting no response, he yelled at full lung capacity, “Billy!”
Rosalind heard the last cry and nudged her sleeping husband. “Sweetheart, wake up. Somethin’s wrong. Somebody’s screamin’ for you out in the yard.”
“Huh?” Billy mumbled, disoriented.
“Billy!” Cecil called again.
“What the fuck?” Billy said, rubbing his eyes. “Who is that screamin’ my goddamn name in the middle of the night?”
Rosalind gathered her robe about her shoulders and went to the window. “I can’t tell, honey, but it sounds like Cecil. Whoever it is, he’s holdin’ his arm like he’s hurt.”
“Shit,” Billy said, and reached for his trousers on the floor. “This better be serious, or I’ma kick some mutherfucker’s ass.”
Smoothing out his frazzled hair, Rosalind said, “Just go see what it’s about, honey. Don’t get worked up before you know.”
“Billy Cuthbert!” Cecil screamed again just as Billy opened the front door.
“What! Asshole! Why are you yellin’ in the middle of the fuckin’ night when decent folk—” The sight of Cecil’s blood dripping onto his front steps caught his attention. His voice softened. “What the hell happened?”
Cecil sighed. “They killed yo’ brothers. I got away.”
“What are you talkin’ about, Cecil?” Billy began to shiver. “Who shot you?”
“The niggers who live on Chapman’s place. They killed yo’ brothers and tried to kill me, too, but I got away.” He was still huffing.
“They killed my brothers? Who killed my fuckin’ brothers, Cecil?”
“Like I said, some o’ Chapman’s niggers. Mary’s kin. We went there to get that boy who sassed Catherine today in the store, and those niggers just shot us in cold blood.”
“Who sassed Catherine? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
Cecil grimaced as he shifted his arm slightly. “Catherine told Alvin that some nigger boy from up North came in the store today and sassed her somethin’ awful. She said she was bein’ real nice to him, but he bought a pop and just threw the money at her. He’s one o’ Mary’s grandkids, she said. At least he was with them earlier, so we was goin’ over there tonight to straighten him out, and that’s when the boy’s daddy and uncle, I guess, started shootin’. They killed Alvin, Mark, and Jay.”
Billy’s hands quivered. “Why the fuck did y’all go over there without me?” he screeched.
“We couldn’t find you!” Cecil whined. “We come by here, but Ros said she didn’t know where you was.”
“I’ll kill those fuckin’ bastards!” he screamed, and buried his right fist in his left. “You get to Doc Gunderman ’fore you bleed to death, boy. I’ll take this from here.”
Cecil nodded and stumbled away. He wanted to watch Billy put Jeremiah and Enoch back in their places, but his dripping blood convinced him to save his own life before he watched others lose theirs.
“What was that about?” Rosalind asked, watching Billy retrieve his rifle from the wall and load it.
“Don’t concern you,” he murmured. “Just take care o’ the girls. I’ll be back in a while.”
“It does concern me, Billy Ray. Anytime you get like this, somethin’ bad happens.”
Billy ignored her.
Rosalind folded her arms in disgust. “Then I’m comin’ with you.”
“No you ain’t!” he shouted. “This is sheriff ’s business. It ain’t your concern. I’ll be back in a while,” he repeated, patronizingly.
“Don’t go by yourself, Billy Ray! You ain’t thinkin’ straight, and you likely to do somethin’ you sorry for.”
“I ain’t gon do nothin’ I’m sorry for!” he bellowed. “I’m gon do somethin’ what shoulda been done a long time ago. I don’t need no help, and I don’t want no help.”
Rosalind shook her head. “I think you do, honey,” she pleaded. “You too mad to think right now.”
“I’m just fine,” Billy Ray whispered. He rose from the kitchen chair. “I gotta go.”
“Billy!” she cried after him although to no avail.
Her mother had warned her it would come to this. When, fifteen years ago, she first announced her crush on Billy Ray Cuthbert, her mother’s silence startled her.
“Don’t you think he’s ’bout the cutest boy ’round, Momma?” she asked, expecting an immediate affirmation. Her mother said nothing. “What is it Momma?”
Through pursed lips, her mother said, “He’s headed for trouble, Rosalind.”
“What chu mean?”
“Cain’t you see nothin’, girl?” her mother said sadly. “He and dem rogue brothers o’ his don’t do nothin’ but stay in trouble.”
“Ah, they’re just young, Momma. They’ll grow out of it.”
“Sweetheart, Billy’s twenty years old.”
“I know, but you know how boys is. They just foolish and like to have fun.”
The mother knew her words were in vain, but she had to try. “Rosalind, don’t be a blind fool. I didn’t raise you to have you give yourself to some no-good hoodlum like Billy Ray Cuthbert. He don’t respect nothin’ and nobody but hisself.”
“Aw, come on, Momma! He ain’t like that at all.” She danced around the room with him as her imaginary partner. “I think he just likes to have fun, like most boys his age. And he’s cute as pie!”
Her mother cackled. “Cute don’t mean kind, girl. I hope you don’t learn that the hard way.”
She did. Only weeks after they married, Billy called her a fuckin’ bitch the night she denied him sex. His words pierced her heart and made her wonder what, in God’s name, she had gotten herself into. However, determined to prove her mother wrong, she dismissed the verbal abuse as overwhelming fatigue and counted the incident exceptional. When, a month later, he hit her, she was still more committed to the dream of him than to the truth.
“So you gon let him kill you before you wake up?” her mother asked when she saw the bruised cheek.
“What do you mean, Mother? You think Billy Ray did this?” She touched her face and flinched. “I bumped into a door when—”
“Stop it, Rosalind! Don’t be too proud to say you wuz wrong. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ wrong, girl, once you discover it. But, whatsoever you do”—she was more intense than Rosalind had ever seen her—“don’t try to make it right. That’ll kill you.”
Rosalind couldn’t maintain the charade. She dropped onto her mother’s living room floor and wept in sorrow. “Momma, what have I done? What have I done?”
Her mother held her close, and said, “Look, honey. You ain’t got to pay for a dumb mistake the rest of yo’ life. You can always come back here. This is home.”
Yet determined not to be the gossip of Money’s white citizenry, Rosalind returned to Billy and decided to be a better wife. Anytime he wanted her she submitted, even when she was too tired to participate, and when the girls came, she named one Billie Jean and the other Rayina. Billy was pleased. That is, until Rosalind started cooking food whose names he couldn’t pronounce.
“What is this shit?” he asked one evening, frowning at the meal she had worked hours to prepare.
“It’s chicken cacciatore, honey. Just try it. I think you’ll like it.”
“Well, I don’t, and I ain’t eatin’ this crap.” He turned from the table and left Rosalind sitting at the other end. Seconds later, he returned.
“Cook me somethin’ decent, woman.”
The look in his eyes frightened Rosalind, but by then she had had enough. “Just give it a try,
honey. You never know what you like until—”
“Don’t tell me what I fuckin’ like! I been workin’ hard all day and gotta come home to a meal I don’t even want?”
Rosalind heard her mother’s voice in her head. “Then if you don’t want this, you’ll have to fix yourself something else.”
He moved toward the kitchen, then suddenly swiveled and struck her in the mouth. “Who the fuck are you talkin’ to? I said fix me somethin’ to eat and, goddamnit, that’s what I expect you to do. I don’t pay de bills ’round here for nothin’.”
Rosalind didn’t move. Her tongue felt around the inside of her mouth for any loosened teeth.
“I said, fix me somethin’ to eat, bitch!” Billy yanked her from the chair and pushed her toward the kitchen.
“Okay, okay,” Rosalind cried. “Whatever you want. Just don’t hit me. I’ll fix whatever you want.”
“Good. That’s more like it,” he said, and sat at the head of the table. “And make it snappy.”
She would have left him that night if she hadn’t been pregnant. But, as a child, she promised herself that her children would have a father, their real father—unlike she had—so she discarded all her cookbooks and served fried chicken, fish, or pork chops every evening for the next fourteen years. Once her mother died, and Billy became sheriff, she knew she’d be with him until she died. Or until he killed her.
Not knowing what else to do, she returned to bed. Lying awake, she thought about how much she hated Cecil Love. Some folks thought he was one of the Cuthbert brothers, but actually he was their first cousin. Their mothers were sisters, and since Cecil was an only child, Billy and his brothers made him an honorary Cuthbert. He was about as ignorant as the others, Rosalind noted, so his presence among them made perfect sense. She marveled that all the boys had lived so long.
Billy drove toward Chapman’s place with the rifle in his lap. Everything he saw looked red. Trees, the moon, squirrels … everything. He considered stopping to invite others along for the ride, but not this time. He wanted the full joy of putting colored folks back in their place. He wanted the credit for every Black life destroyed and the pleasure of doing it. Niggers killin’ whites—who would ever have thought it? Billy pondered. Somebody had to restore order around Money, Mississippi, and as sheriff it was his job to oblige, especially since, now, niggers had taken every brother he ever had. Had it been daylight, Black folks in the field would have marveled at the sheriff, flying down the road like a crazy man, and they would have wondered what in the world he was rushing to. The trail of thick dust might have made them believe he was trying to enter another place and time, that maybe he had left something undone in another life that, now, he desperately needed to complete. Yet, in the dark, his law enforcement vehicle moved swiftly like a phantom, which, at any moment, might vanish into the night.
Sweeping the porch with hot water and ammonia, Miss Mary saw the bouncing headlights the same instant she heard Ella Mae and the children enter through the back door.
“Take the children to the barn, Ella Mae!” she hollered through the front screen. “And stay there with ’em. Somebody comin’.”
By the quick patter of footsteps she knew they had heard her, and although afraid, she braced herself to stand alone. “Lawd have mercy!” she mouthed and grabbed Jeremiah’s shotgun. Having never killed anything, she didn’t want to start now, but she prayed for the strength to do so if necessary.
Billy slammed the car door shut, and Miss Mary concluded that he, too, must be alone.
“Who killed my fuckin’ brothers?” he screamed from the yard. Getting no response, he yelled, “Mary, don’t make me come in there!” Then he marched onto the porch and flung the screen door open.
The coal oil lamp next to the ragged sofa illumined an empty room. Billy looked around quickly, and shouted, again, “Who killed my fuckin’ brothers? I know you niggers is ’round here somewhere. And when I find you, I’ma kill every one o’ you fuckin’ bastards!” He turned.
“Not if we kill you first,” he heard the familiar voice say.
Billy stiffened. He glanced around again, but saw no one.
“You ain’t got no business talkin’ like dat ’round my house, Sheriff Cuthbert. I near ’bout raised you myself,” Miss Mary declared, staring at the angry white man from her view next to the peach tree. She had exited through the back when she heard Billy approaching the front. “Don’t act like you done fugot! You ain’t plumb crazy!” She knew she was taking the risk of a lifetime, but, in the moment, it seemed her only option.
Billy Ray hadn’t forgotten. “I didn’t come here after you, Mary!” he shouted into the night. “I come after whoever killed my brothers.”
Miss Mary paused to gather her senses. Already in dangerous territory, she decided to go further. “I killed ’em!” she screamed boldly. “They busted my do’ down, seekin’ to take one o’ my chillen, and I wunnit givin’ up another one.”
Seeing Billy return to the porch, Miss Mary eased toward the back of the house.
“You knows me, Sheriff. I near ’bout raise you!” she declared again. “You know I wouldn’t kill fu no reason at all.”
“I ain’t here fu you, Mary!” he repeated louder, hoping she’d show her face and close her mouth.
“Then go on home ’cause ain’t nobody else here but me. If you wants to talk, we can do dat afta you calm down, but I don’t intend to be killed by somebody I nursed back to life, colored or white.”
Billy was sure, moments ago, he would have killed anybody Black he encountered, but now his certainty, at least concerning Miss Mary, was weakening.
“I slept on de floor next to yo’ bed when you wuz so sick yo’ folks thought you wuz gon die,” Miss Mary yelped. “I went to my God”—she poked her chest in the dark—“fu you. Every time you coughed, I poured a li’l chicken broth in yo’ mouth to give you a li’l strength. De doctor said you wunnit gon make it through de night, and I asked yo’ momma if I could stay ’cause you wuz like one o’ my own.”
Billy’s rage mounted. “I said, I didn’t come for you, Mary!” He shot into the sky. “I come for whoever killed my brothers, and I know it wunnit you.”
Miss Mary shot, too. The loud bang frazzled her momentarily, but she maintained composure. “You don’t know nothin’!” she said, and walked to the left side of the house as Billy walked to the right. “Don’t act like you don’t remember all dem meals I cooked and how I kept a cool rag on yo’ momma’s head fu two weeks befo’ she passed. Don’t act like you don’t remember, Sheriff !” Miss Mary’s adrenaline was flowing like the Tallahatchie.
“It was Enoch and that old man, wunnit it!” he asked from the other side of the house, trying to ignore her.
“NO!” she answered much too quickly. “I told you it was me, and de only reason I shot was ’cause they broke my do’ down.” She paused. “I near ’bout raised all you boys, ’cept Cecil. You know dat! I spent mo’ time in yo’ house than I did in my own for damn near twenty years. I didn’t leave yo’ momma ’til y’all got grown, and when she got sick, I went to see ’bout her every day. Didn’t miss a day!”
“Stop playin’ games with me, goddamnit!” he shouted. “If we gon talk, come on out and let’s talk.”
Miss Mary knew better. “You ain’t no good when you mad. I always knowed dat ’bout you. So go on home, and we’ll talk afta you git yo’self together.”
He looked toward the rear of the house, into thick black nothingness, and decided not to risk it. Miss Mary thanked a sovereign God.
Billy Ray thought of a better plan and walked back to his truck. “Tell yo’ menfolk I’ll be back,” he said. “Oh boy, will I be back. And when I come, you gon’ be real sorry, old lady. Real sorry.”
“You jes remember what I did fu you and yo’ family, Billy Ray Cuthbert!” Miss Mary yelled. “You remember dat befo’ you come back here again.”
Billy Ray smiled devilishly and cranked the truck. “When I git through wit dis fami
ly, you’ll never be de same. I promise you dat.”
Sheriff Cuthbert left as he had come—fast and reckless. The retaliatory idea he had conceived made him smile. Demons in hell would have gawked at a plan so devastating, so sinister, but Billy promised himself and his dead brothers that he’d do it. He would never let niggers get away with killing whites, especially his own, and this time he promised to teach a lesson they would never forget.
Before he reached the bend in the road, he saw the countless headlights approaching. He had to stop them. They would ruin his plan.
The men parked their trucks on the side of the road and exited like anxious children.
“We heard what happened, Sheriff, so we come to give you a hand!” someone shouted. “Let’s slay these bastards once and for all!”
“Yeah!” the mob roared.
Billy Ray counted at least ten lanterns swinging with the desire to kill.
“Just hold on there,” Billy Ray cooed. “We ain’t gon do it like that this time.” He winked.
“Huh?”
“What d’ya mean?”
“Why not?”
“’Cause these colored niggers killed my brothers and they don’t deserve to die. I want ’em to hurt for the rest o’ their lives.”
The men didn’t understand.
“You ain’t makin’ much sense, Sheriff,” Larry Greer, the local banker, said. “These niggers gotta die! And they gotta die tonight!”
“No!” Billy shouted. “That ain’t enough. If we killed ’em, then what? I wouldn’t feel no better ’bout my brothers just cause some worthless niggers is dead. I want more than that!”
“What chu want, then?” someone shouted impatiently.
Billy wasn’t ready to reveal his plan, but he had to say something. “I wanna make these niggers hate that they wuz ever born. I want ’em to feel pain so deep inside they can’t even reach it. I want ’em to run and tell all the other niggers never, ever to fuck with a white man long as they live!”
Billy’s nostrils flared as his teeth chattered.
“That’s what I want! And I don’t want none o’ you”—he looked each man in his eyes—“messin’ it up.”
