In the Midst of Innocence

by Deborah Hining

  “Is your daughter at home, ma’am?” he asked.

  Mrs. Carlton froze, and from where I was, I could see how ascared she suddenly was. She stood there for a minute, then she asked him why he had his face covered. He did not answer her, but asked again if Darlene was at home, and he picked up his cross and lowered it down toward her head in a mean way.

  Finally, she said, “She is not here, either, and I ask you gentlemen to leave at once. You have no business with me or my daughter. The Wallaces live just across the creek from here, and I believe everyone is at home, including both Mr. Wallace and his brother, as well as his sons. If you do not leave at once, I will call out to them.”

  I knew she was bluffing. Daddy was not home, although Uncle Woodrow and the boys were about somewhere, but they could not hear her from there no matter how loud she hollered. I figured the only thing to do was to skitter back across the roof and down the back and go get them before things got out of hand. I had a bad feeling about this, and all of a sudden, I was not so sure about how much Darlene looked like a white girl. If they looked at her up close, they might be able to figure out she is still a Negro, no matter how much her looks had changed.

  I did not know what to do. Uncle Woodrow would not be worth much. If he even saw these men dressed up in their dirty sheets, he would no doubt fall into a shaking fit, and Sardius is too skinny to really scare these fellows. Only Jasper has some heft to him, and there is not much he could do against seven men set on meanness. I laid there for a minute more while I thought about it. Jasper could shoot them, or I could bring him and Mama and everyone and act like we were just ladies coming over for a visit while Uncle Woodrow drove the wagon over to get Pap-pa. But it would take a long time for them to get back here, and there was no telling what might happen in the meantime.

  No matter how I looked at it, it looked bad. But then, while I was lying there, trying to decide what to do, one of the other men said in a little nicer tone. “We would like to meet the little girl who lives here with you, ma’am. I reckon she is your daughter? Do you know where she is?”

  Mrs. Carlton lifted her head and told them straight to their faces that Darlene was off spending the night with her schoolteacher, Miss Emily Weston, and she would not be back today. The men looked at each other, then the tall one, the one they had called “Sam” stepped right up to Mrs. Carlton and raked his hand across her chest, picking up the cross she wears on her necklace.

  I know that is a Catholic cross because it has Jesus hanging on it, and I knew it was trouble by the way the man was looking at it and then looking at Mrs. Carlton with a sort of hungry look on his face.

  “Are you Catholic, Ma’am?’ he asked. Mrs. Carlton took a step back, but he hung onto that cross, stepping up to her and getting close to her face, then he yanked at the necklace. It broke and came off in his hand.

  After that, I could not believe my eyes what happened. He kind of sneered at her, and then he reached his hand inside her dress, and grabbed her titty, hard! I just about fell off the roof! I would have hollered at him then, but I was so shocked that all I could do was just draw in a breath and hold it. A woman’s titties are private to her and to her baby, and no one is ever allowed to touch them, not even her children, and especially not a grown man! My mama has told me that if anybody ever tried, I was to kick him in his private parts and scream bloody murder. That man had reached right in and grabbed one of Mrs. Carltons’, and I could not make it seem right in my mind that anyone could do such a thing. Mrs. Carlton’s face went red. She let out a little shriek, then she hauled off and slapped him. At the same time, one of the other men jumped in and grabbed the fellow.

  “Sam, you lay off,” he said. “We are not here to insult the lady.” Then the others stepped up, grabbing Sam to pull him away. Sam kind of glared at them, then glanced at Mrs. Carlton who stood in the doorway, her hand to her neck, shaking so hard she could barely stand.

  “I am truly sorry, Ma’am,” said the one who had stopped Sam. “Our fellow has no right to insult you. There is no need for you to fear us. We will not be back.” No one else said anything. They just turned and stepped across the yard and into the woods. The man who had apologized to Mrs. Carlton turned and waved at her as they made their way into the woods. I nearly died because when he looked back, I had half stood up on the roof, and I was ascared he had seen me, but he turned again and went on into the woods.

  We watched them go, waiting, still as mice, for a good 5 minutes before I scurried back over the roof to Darlene. She was lying flat on the roof, shaking and sobbing quietly into her hands. After a while, Mrs. Carlton came out, walking around the house, calling to us softly, and when we peeked over the edge of the roof, she put her hand to her mouth and started to cry.

  I have never felt so bad in my life.

  April 14, 1932. I do not know where Darlene is. She and her mother have been gone since yesterday. I wish Daddy would come home. Mama is a nervous wreck. We have switched to planting Brussels sprouts and squash. We are working such long hours I do not have time to write.

  April 15, 1932. It was a hard day of planting. Darlene and Mrs. Carlton are still not at home. Goat milk shows up on our back step every morning, but neither Mama nor I have seen hide nor hair of them.

  April 16, 1932. Daddy did not come home again today. He sent word with Mr. Sutton that the Railroad is having trouble with the hobos and they need every man to keep them in line. As much as we are glad when Daddy gets to work overtime, we are starting to miss him, and I can tell Mama is worried. It is not good that the hobos are getting out of hand and hurting people. I hope Daddy stays safe. It was bad enough when he got beat up last month. They might could hurt him bad.

  I also wish he would get home and get busy with his still soon. We are about plumb out of whiskey. It will be nice when things get back to normal.

  We have finished up with most of the planting so that Uncle Woodrow and Jasper can handle it from here on. I am sick to death of working and worrying over Darlene. The only good news is that we get to go back to school on Monday.

  April 18, 1932. It is Monday, and I just realized I have not written in my journal to turn in to Miss Weston. We all are laying out of school because we just did not have it in us to go after what all happened. I will try to write it just as it happened, as near as I can tell it, anyway, because it is all so jumbled up in my mind that I am having a hard time sorting through what really went on.

  Darlene stayed home this weekend because Billy Ray turned up on Friday and he decided she could not go over to Pap-pa’s house. I did not see her all day on Saturday, and now I wish we had sneaked her out of the house anyway.

  Sunday started out really good because it was Miss Janey Jo’s birthday, and Mama decided we were going to spend the whole afternoon celebrating with Pap-pa and her and not do a lick of work. She said we all needed a true day of rest, and the best way to make that happen was not to even get near the fields all day. Then, before the day was over, it turned out to be horrible, more horrible than any I have ever had.

  Miss Weston was at dinner with us, and we had a very fine time playing games afterward, then we ended up staying until late in the evening. We spent the afternoon looking at Pap-pa’s new calf and riding his old saddle horse, and then Pap-pa up and decided that we needed to do some target practice. Uncle Woodrow and Miss Weston went back into the house because neither one of them can stand being around guns. I was hoping that they might start courting when I saw them walking back together, but now I know better. Miss Weston is for sure struck on Uncle Woodrow. She smiled at him all evening, laughed at nearly everything he said, and once she reached over and poked at his shoulder, but he is not struck on her, I am sad to say. I know for a fact that he is struck on someone else, namely Mrs. Carlton.

  I am getting ahead of myself. We practiced shooting at tin cans until it got too dark to see anymore. By the time we made it back, Janey Jo, Mama, and Miss Weston had already made supper, so we stayed until Ruby fell asl
eep on the floor and Beryl was yawning her head off. Mama finally said we had to get back because of it being a school day tomorrow, and Miss Weston offered to drive us home. It was a very tight squeeze, but we all got in. Mama and Uncle Woodrow sat in the front and held the little ones. I sat in the back with Jasper and Sardius. Beryl sat on Jasper’s lap. We giggled all the way home because we were all packed in so tight we hardly had room to breathe. That ride back was the last good thing I remember.

  After that, it felt like the whole world caved in. One minute, we were riding along in Miss Weston’s fine car, laughing like we did not have a care in the world, and the next minute we were rolling into the yard, and Darlene was stumbling up from the back, screaming like a panther. Her dress was torn and bloody, too, and I could see she had bruises and bloody marks all up and down her arms and legs. We all jumped out of the car to tend to her, but she was so riled up we could not hardly understand a word she was saying at first. She just gasped and screamed, pulling on my arm, hollering something about Billy Ray trying to kill them. Mama rushed into the house with Sapphire and Ruby, but the rest of us took off running over to Darlene’s house.

  We could hear the screams before we got to the creek. By the time we made it to the house, all I could hear was shrieks—shrieks from Darlene right beside me and shrieks from Beryl, who by this time, had caught the hysterics. And then there was Darlene’s mother, sitting in the middle of the floor, her bloody hands held out in front of her and shaking as if she had the palsy. Blood streamed out of a gash along her collarbone. Beside her lay a big black skillet smeared with blood. Billy Ray was sprawled over in the corner, his head lying in a puddle of blood. Beryl let out one more shriek, and then lit out for home.

  All of a sudden, it seemed as if everything went into slow motion. Uncle Woodrow shoved me aside and threw himself at Mrs. Carlton, getting down on his knees in all that blood, gathered her up in his arms, and then sort of collapsed into her, sobbing and shaking, rocking her like a baby, covering her bloody head with kisses while she screamed and hollered. The rest of us stood rock-still, except Miss Weston, who grabbed onto the doorframe and slid to the floor, hanging onto that doorframe as if her knees had turned to water. She stared at Uncle Woodrow for a long time while he kissed Mrs. Carlton, and then she began to sob.

  Then everything just went crazy. While we were all looking at Uncle Woodrow and Mrs. Carlton, Billy Ray came to. He pulled himself up to his knees, and then he staggered to his feet and lunged toward them. He had a knife clenched in his fist. Jasper saw it, too. Before Billy Ray had time to take a second step, Jasper tackled him. The knife skittered across the floor, finally stopping in a slow spin right beside Uncle Woodrow.

  Billy Ray jumped up and took a swing at Jasper, but he ducked just in time. Sardius head-butted him in the stomach, but not hard enough to do any good. Billy Ray shoved him off, and just as he stood up straight again, something whizzed by me, and the next thing I knew, Billy Ray was standing still, looking at the knife sticking out of the middle of his chest. Uncle Woodrow still had one arm around Mrs. Carlton, who half lay in his lap, sobbing and quivering. The other arm was held out straight, as if it had been frozen when the knife left his hand. That arm was as still as stone, while the rest of him wailed and shook like he had the palsy. Then the arm that held the knife began to shake, too, until he fell face first onto the floor, weeping and shuddering, making noises like a trapped animal.

  It is funny what I remember and what I do not. I do not remember Billy Ray falling, nor what Jasper, Sardius, or Darlene did after that. All I remember is poor Miss Weston looking at Uncle Woodrow and Mrs. Carlton with their arms around each other as if her heart was broken. She sat on the floor, staring for what seemed like a long, long time, where nobody spoke, until she finally shook herself and said. “We need to get these children out of here, and Mrs. Carlton needs attention,” and she held out her hand to Jasper to pull herself up.

  Everybody but me started moving, but I could not remember how to pick up my feet. It felt like they had just grown to the floor. Sardius put his arm around Uncle Woodrow, coaxing him to get up, while Jasper gathered Mrs. Carlton in his arms and carried her out the door. Uncle Woodrow was not worth a hill of beans. He just kept stumbling and sliding back down to the floor, crying fit to be tied. Finally, Miss Weston went over to him, helped Sardius hoist him up, and pulled his arm over her shoulder.

  “Come on, Woodrow,” she said. “This is no time to fall to pieces. We have to get Mrs. Carlton some help.”

  I was so ascared I forgot to follow them out. The next thing I knew, I was standing alone on a bloody floor with a dead man at my feet, and I could not make it make any sense. In all the times that I had imagined Billy Ray dead, I had not seen anything like this. In my mind, I could see him as cold and still, and I could imagine saying, “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” but seeing him like this was far past what my mind had told me it could be like.

  Somehow, Billy Ray dead was more real than he ever could have been when he was alive. He was hard and still, his muscles outlined underneath his soft, splotchy skin. The skin of his face and neck seemed tender, like a baby’s. His hands were rough, hairy, and bony, but at the same time, they seemed helpless, pitiful. All the meanness had left him, as if it had run out with his blood. I could not stitch it together in my mind that all that blood had been inside of him just a few minutes before, and he had been alive. Now his spirit had fled, and I did not want to know where it had gone.

  As I looked at him, I thought that the right thing to do would be to take the knife out of his chest, but the thought of touching him turned my stomach. I made myself reach for it, but then it came to me that even if I took it out, he would still be dead. There was nothing I could do to help him at all. My knees went to jelly. I staggered out as fast as I could, but my legs just quit working. I fell off the porch and lay in the grass, gulping in great breaths of air, hoping that Jesus would forgive us for what we had done, but not being exactly sure what it was that we had done. It just seemed that evil had pushed its way inside us, and I was sorry we had not done anything to stop it. I wished I had never hated Billy Ray.

  I laid out there in the grass beside the porch for some time, crying, praying, afraid for what would happen next. I tried to get up, but I was so sick and dizzy, I could not get my legs up under me. Just when I was beginning to think I would have to lie out there all night, I saw Jasper coming back for me. He walked up to where I lay, sat down beside me, and then he put his big, strong arm around my waist and hefted me up. He did not try to hurry me along, but he had to hold onto me because my legs were twitching so bad, I could not take a single solid step by myself.

  We were nearly to the creek when all of a sudden, Jasper stopped, holding his breath as he looked around. “Shush,” he said, hustling me over to a pokeberry bush. After another second, he ran back to the house, pulled the door shut, then sprinted back to my hiding place in the pokeberry.

  I could not understand why he was acting like that. “Listen, and be quiet,” he whispered, and after a few seconds, I could hear hushed noises coming through the woods. Three white figures came out of the darkness of the woods—men wearing sheets. One was very tall, and I knew him to be Sam. Another did not have the sheet over his head, but wore a bandana tied around his face. That was Hank, the one who had the meanest spirit toward Darlene. I could tell because of the bandana and the way he walked, sort of hunched over. He carried the same cross I had seen before. They came on as quiet as cats, creeping and stopping to listen, until they stood in front of Billy Ray’s dark house, not five feet away from us. I was trembling so hard I could hear the leaves of the pokeberry bush rustling around me. Jasper kept his arm tight around my waist, hunkering down over me as if he could protect me. He kept his hand over my mouth for a minute, until I felt like he was smothering me and I pushed it away. I knew better than to make a sound.

  “Be quiet,” Sam said. “We want to be out of here before they wake up.” He took the cor
k off a jug and doused kerosene all over the cross while another one of them dug a hole with a spade. I could smell it, strong and sharp, like the breath of the devil. When the cross was good and soaked, they dropped it into the hole, scotched it up with rocks, then tossed a match. It went up in blue flames. As the fire whooshed up, swallowing up the cross, the men lit out toward the woods.

  It was an awful sight, that cross on fire, the flames spewing up into the black sky, the smell of kerosene strong in the cool night air, and I all I could think of was Jesus hanging on that cross and burning, while evil men stood nearby, casting lots and jeering. I wanted to scream, but no sounds came out of my throat except for some gasping sobs, and then Jasper’s hand was over my mouth again and he was dragging me out of the pokeberry bush and across the creek, through the woods, and on up to our little house, all lit up with light and voices.

  I do not know what happened after that for a while. I just sort of blanked out, and then Mama’s hand was on my forehead and she was holding a cup of whiskey to my mouth. I choked some of it down, and although it tasted awful, it gave me a warm feeling in my stomach, and after a minute, I felt back to myself a little. Darlene sat beside me, holding my hand and crying, while Mrs. Carlton half-sat, half lay on a chair at the kitchen table. Her eyes were closed. She moaned a little bit, then fell quiet. Uncle Woodrow sat beside her, holding her hand, shaking bad enough to rattle the whole house

  “Are you feeling better now, Pearl?” Mama asked. I nodded, not sure if I could speak. She looked at me real close, stroked back my hair, and smiled at me, her eyes sweet and gentle. “Good. I need to finish stitching Mrs. Carlton up before the laudanum wears off,” and she put my hand in Jasper’s, walked over to where Mrs. Carlton lay, and picked up a needle that had been lying on her collarbone. As calm as could be, she took to stitching. Mrs. Carlton moaned and cried out, but Mama did not seem to notice. She just kept on sewing while Mrs. Carlton cried and Uncle Woodrow sat beside her and shook.