Over a three-day period, David canvassed about forty ramshackle homes on the black side of town. Most wouldn’t even open their doors. Finally, he gave up. There was a late afternoon train. He’d be on it. Back at his hotel, he wrote his report, packed his bags, and headed for the railway station. It was there he happened upon a man who would talk. And the man’s name was Jonah.
“Caleb was a bright youngster,” Jonah said. “He was there when they dragged his papa from the woods. Later, somebody heard him say that he’d write to the Movement, tell who it was done what. That night, they came back for him.”
“God,” murmured David.
At the railroad station, Jonah, a porter, had whispered instructions to meet him at Miss Mae’s Rooming House. Then he’d gone back to work, hauling luggage. David had gone ahead to the house and Jonah had showed up ten minutes later.
“The next train ain’t till tomorrow,” Jonah had said. “But you can stay here tonight.”
Miss Mae’s was a little two-story construction, not much more than an oversized hut. David had had his doubts when he saw it. But Miss Mae eased his concern the minute he stepped inside the door.
“What a fine young man!”
She welcomed him, a stranger, with outstretched arms. She was so thin, it hurt David to look at her. He gratefully accepted the hug and the pat on the shoulder she gave him, and gently hugged her back.
“You just come on in and rest yourself,” she said. At the sight of Jonah, her smile grew wider. “Jonah! You come on in here. I ain’t seen you for way too long.”
Before David could blink, Miss Mae had sat the two of them down and laid out some thin peach pie and watery coffee. It was a meager spread, but it was all the woman had and David was touched by her generosity.
Miss Mae sat at the table with them. She refused to eat, but said: “Y’all take as much as you want.” Her voice was as soft as a whisper. She looked at David and her eyes twinkled with curiosity. She wasn’t fooled by the lightness of his skin. “You one of us, ain’t you?”
David smiled and nodded.
“So, where you from?”
“He’s from up north,” Jonah said.
David sipped some coffee to wash down the hard, crusty pie. “I’m working for the Movement. Took the train down from New York. I’m here to find the truth about what really happened.”
Miss Mae and Jonah exchanged glances. David sensed a palpable sadness enter the room. Jonah rubbed his chin. He was thoughtful.
“In a way, what happened here,” he began, “weren’t nothing special. Nothing we ain’t seen b’fore. It was bad. Yeah, it was real bad. But bad happens to us colored all the time. It happened here, but it coulda happened in the next town over. Y’understand?”
He looked at David, who nodded.
“There’s a lot of Charlottesvilles waiting to happen,” Jonah said, his brown eyes mournful. “Us colored folk … we’s born under the hangman’s noose. We never know when he’ll come a-knocking. Could be, he never comes. Could be, he comes on the morrow, any time, any day. And we accept.”
He fell silent, staring at his large hands, which he clenched and opened, clenched and opened. David looked at them too, thinking of their size … and their impotence in the face of the white man’s rule.
Jonah looked up at David. “We cain’t do nothing about nothing down here, so we accept. We just … accept.” He dropped his hands to his lap, and there was something very close to despair in his eyes. “My name is Jonah and many times I wonder ... will I end up in the belly of the whale? I just hope the Lord’ll deliver me if I do.”
“Hush your mouth,” Miss Mae said. “Ain’t no need to be scaring this young man. He a stranger—”
“That’s right,” Jonah said. “He a stranger and he don’t know nothing about what’s going on down here. But he need to.”
“That’s why I’m here,” David said with confidence. “It’s my job to ask questions. Get answers. And, hopefully, change things.”
After eating, he and Jonah had moved to the front porch. Now Jonah was sitting in Miss Mae’s creaky rocking chair, hunched forward. David was perched on the wooden railing, his arms folded across his chest, his face grim.
“The reports say Hosea admitted to killing Stokes and assaulting the man’s wife. Is that true?”
“He ain’t gone nowhere near Missy Stokes, but yeah, it’s true he said he killed the white man.”
“They tortured it out of him?”
“Didn’t have to. He fessed up all right. Free ‘n’ clear. Told Whitney all about it.”
“Whitney? The one who turned him in?”
“That’s right.”
“You believe what Whitney said, considering the fact that he turned him in?
“Yeah, I b’lieve it. Most times, you cain’t b’lieve a thing Whitney say, but this time I b’lieves him. See, Hosea said he killed Mistah Stokes all right, but he said it was an accident. He went back to see Mistah Stokes about the money. Mistah Stokes told him that if he chopped him some mo’ wood, he’d give him his money. Hosea said he wasn’t about to do that. Mistah Stokes got angry. Took out his gun and aimed to shoot. Hosea—he threw his ax at the man and run. He say he heard the man grunt, but he ain’t look back, so he didn’t know that he’d killed him.”
“And what about this business with Missy Stokes? Did he say anything about that?”
“He say he guessed she was in the house, but he ain’t never seen her. Said he just threw that ax, turned tail, and headed for the woods.”
David looked at Jonah for a moment. Everything Jonah had said made sense. He asked the main question that no one so far had dared answer.
“Who was the mob leader?”
Jonah hesitated, then he told him. David sighed. It was as he’d thought. He dropped his hands to the railings, and shook his head, reflecting on what he’d learned. Then he looked at Jonah and thanked him.
“I hope it’ll help,” Jonah said.
“It will. And don’t worry, I won’t name your name in my report. Nobody’ll learn from me that we had this conversation.”
The two men shook hands. They’d been talking for more than an hour. David had missed his train. He didn’t want to spend another night in town, but it looked as though he’d have to. He cast his eyes to the western horizon. The winter sun was setting. Brilliant streaks of red, orange, and gold were layered behind the trees. His gaze took in the lush green foliage crowding the edge of Miss Mae’s yard. In stark contrast to the decrepit rooming house, it was a rich display. As he looked, a branch swayed, leaves rustled, and a twig snapped. He frowned, his gaze hardening into a stare.
Jonah, following David’s look, said, “Maybe we better go inside.”
David glanced at him, then back at the bushes. They were still and silent. “Yeah ... maybe we’d better.”
Night fell. Jonah had wished David good luck and gone home. After updating his report, David had retired to the upstairs room Miss Mae had given him. His sleep was troubled. He was standing in a narrow street, caged in by rickety buildings on either side. He could hear a low rumbling, a churning sound, like an approaching river. It was getting nearer. He looked up—just in time to see the rising wave of water rushing toward him. He had to get out of the way before he was crushed. He started to run—
And jerked himself awake. He lay there for a moment, stunned. Gradually, he realized that the rumbling he’d heard in his dream was still there. He sat up in bed, his ears straining to understand the sound. He was aware of his heart beating heavily, of cold sweat trickling down from his armpits. He crept to the room’s sole window and peeped out.
By the ghostly light of a full moon, he saw dusty clusters of white men swarming up the town’s main street. It was the muffled sound of their running feet that he’d heard, and the blurred murmurs of their agitated voices. They carried homemade torches. All bore arms: everything from shotguns and pistols to iron clubs and bullwhips.
David dressed quickly in the dark. Miss
Mae was standing on the landing when he left his room. Her sad, wrinkled face was drawn. She held a candle; it threw flickering orange shadows over her shrunken face. Her bony shoulders shivered under her thin shawl.
“Don’t go out there,” she whispered. “Please!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
He gave her a hug, and then raced down the steps and out into the street. He’d never felt such fear, not even under fire in Europe. Yet a desperate need to know drove him on. He followed the growing mob. The crowd, which included women and children, had stopped at a clearing at the farthest end of the Old Indian Cemetery, where the grass grew thin, not far from the tree where Hosea had died.
David looked around. The area had a few other trees, but they were young—nothing sturdy enough to support a man’s weight. That gave him hope—a hope that withered when he looked at the faces in the crowd. He saw grim, maniacal expressions, pale eyes that glittered with homicidal determination. The air crackled with pent-up anticipation and repressed exhilaration.
Then the ground began to vibrate. Then came the rumble of galloping horses and the cries of men raised in exultant triumph.
David turned.
The crowd had parted. A single white rider appeared, galloping at full speed, kicking up a billowing cloud of reddish-brown dust. Out of the cloud emerged the form of a ragged bundle, dragged by a rope attached to the rider’s saddle horn. Soon, other riders appeared. And men on foot who waved their arms. The horsemen thundered through. They dragged their victim to the center of the clearing, jumped down and untied him. David’s recognized him. His heart thumped.
It was Jonah, bloody and battered.
Four men lugged in two short wooden stakes. They pounded them into the ground—not too deep, because they were in a hurry, but deep enough to make them hold. They stretched Jonah out on the ground and yanked his hands over his head. His wrists they bound to one stake; his ankles to the other. Meanwhile, people in cars were arriving. They parked in a semi-circle and left their headlights on, illuminating Jonah in a glaring, ghostly white light. From the cars erupted men with cameras and tripods. Within minutes, the atmosphere had gone from grim to festive. A party was about to take place and a torture-murder was the main attraction.
In a spasm of terror, Jonah twisted and yanked at his bonds. Onlookers jeered, enjoying his struggles. He bucked and pulled, but the stakes held.
Finally, he let his head drop back and closed his eyes. He lay there, his chest heaving. Then he raised his head again and looked around. His gaze jumped backed and forth across the crowd and then ... they found David.
David felt something inside him spasm and a pain shot through him that reached his fingertips. Just a few hours earlier, he and this man had been sitting at Miss Mae’s together. Will I end up in the belly of the whale? Jonah had asked. Now, Jonah’s eyes, full of wrenching despair, held the answer.
One of the whites followed Jonah’s stare. “Hey, I know him!” he yelled, pointing to David. “He’s the one been hanging around, asking questions.”
“He the one I seen at Miss Mae’s,” another cried. “He was sitting and jiving with the niggers just like he was a one of them.”
“Maybe he is!” the first said. “A Yankee nigger!”
Angry murmurs rumbled through the crowd. The mob seemed to contract, then it surged toward David like a murderous claw. He couldn’t move. His instincts said run, but his legs wouldn’t carry him. He could never outrun that crowd. His eyes went to Jonah. Their gazes locked. It couldn’t have been more than a split second, but David would never forget the agony, the dignity and fellowship in Jonah’s eyes. Save yourself, Jonah seemed to say, and live to tell my story. David heard Jonah’s message in his heart. He did not remember opening his mouth, but he heard his own voice, anguished, broken and husky.
“I’m not a nigger,” he whispered. “I’m not ... one of them.”
“You spoke to him at the railroad station. And then you was at that ole nigger woman’s house. I saw ya!”
David’s chest heaved. “He said she wasn’t feeling well. I went to help. But I don’t know him ... don’t know him at all.”
“You’s a lying uppity yella nigger!”
“Come down here to spy on us!”
“Let’s burn the bastard!”
“Yeah!”
David tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry. With a leaden finger, he slowly tapped the collar of his well-cut jacket. His voice was heavy with shame. “Would a colored man be dressed so fine? Speak so well? Would a colored man stand here and watch while another colored man dies? Wouldn’t I be running ... if I was a colored man, too?”
Hoots and snickers went up.
“Hey, we’s wasting time,” a voice cried out. “We already got a nigger to burn!”
“Yeah!”
“Let’s get to it!”
The mob lost interest in David. The people began to turn their backs on him. On impulse, he took a tentative step forward and asked: “But what has this man done?”
One of the white men slowly turned. He was tall, nearly skeletal and had a fanatic’s gleam in his eyes. He held a coiled bullwhip. “What d’ya mean, what’s the nigger done?” he hissed. He looked David up and down, and his gray eyes glinted with renewed suspicion. Gesturing toward Jonah with the bullwhip, he said: “Niggers don’t need to do nothing to die, but this one’s done a-plenty. He’s been spreading lies about them nigger deaths.”
“Take him to the sheriff,” David said. “Whatever you think he’s done, he deserves a fair trial.”
More laughter, but bitter this time and laced with poison.
“Damn! Where you come from anyway?” the lanky man asked. “A fair trial? It’s the American way, right? Well, hell, down here, son, lynching is the American way. Y’see the niggers down here—our niggers—they gets a hot tongue—a very hot tongue—when they forgets their place.”
The lyncher turned back to the crowd. Laughing amiably, he slowly uncoiled his bullwhip. Then he spun around and brought the lash down across David’s left shoulder. David reeled backward with a cry. The material of his jacket tore and his shoulder reddened with blood. The lyncher pulled the whip back with a resounding crack, and then flicked it forward. It wrapped around David’s ankles like a thick snake. The lyncher yanked and David’s feet went from under him. He lay in the dust, sprawled on his back. The lyncher stood over him.
“Now I don’t b’lieve in whipping no white man. But I will if I have to. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just settle down and enjoy the show. This here’s gonna be a good one.”
A babble of malicious chuckles and comments went up. The mob surged back to their victim. Children were sent to scavenge for twigs, urged on by their parents’ pointing fingers. It was a game to see who could gather the most. Some of the children were no older than three. Jonah watched mutely as they ran hither and thither, laughing and giggling. The oldest staggered back quickly, their thin arms weighed down with twigs, their small faces suffused with pride. Kneeling down next to Jonah, they arranged the branches snugly at his side.
How can they do this? David wondered. They’re old enough to realize that he’s a human being, old enough to know better. Don’t they know what they’re doing?
What they were doing was their parents’ bidding, as the cheering yells of the adults testified.
The hedge of kindling grew higher.
One of the men raced forward with a small knife. Another darted forward. He too, held a blade. David, confused, thought they were going to stab Jonah. But no, the men knelt down on either side of him. They yanked on his ears, pulled them away from the side of his head, and sliced them off. Jonah arched at the pain and bit back a scream. The first man stood and gave a great yell, waving Jonah’s right ear in his hand. The other man soon did the same with the left ear. Others scurried forward, their knives held ready. They stripped the skin from his face and hacked away at his fingers. Through it all, Jonah never once gave t
hem the satisfaction of a cry or an appeal for mercy. Only once, as the dull knives were being used to doggedly—and slowly—cut off his fingers, did David hear Jonah speak, and then it was to moan, “Oh, Jesus.”
“Clear away!” came the sudden yell. “We’re gonna set to it!”
The souvenir hunters ended their bloody work. Other men came forward. One laid down his shotgun, grabbed hold of Jonah’s jaw, and forced open his mouth; another poured in kerosene. As Jonah lay there choking and gagging, a third dropped in a lit twig.
The flames bubbled up in Jonah’s mouth for a moment, then shot up with a whoosh. The crowd cheered. Jonah’s exhalations were literally on fire. And every time he inhaled, he sucked the flames deeper into his body.
God, no! David inwardly cried. They’re burning him! My God, they’re burning him! For having talked to me! They’re burning him alive!
Jonah’s agonized face contorted in silent screams. Cherry-red flames licked him and kissed him and he writhed in their embrace. Meanwhile, the flashbulbs popped, blitzing the area with white light, as photographers took pictures for later sale as postcards. And the children stared, wide-eyed, while their parents grinned and pointed, to see Jonah’s blood vessels burst and his blood boil in the heat.
David watched, impotent and overwhelmed, and as he watched he prayed, prayed harder than when he was in the woods of Belleau and the Germans were racing toward him.
God help him. Help him help him, please.
From the west came the soft rumble of faraway thunder, and gradually, the crowd fell silent. Most stared dumbly. One or two had even turned away, sickened. Others still looked, but had shielded their eyes and peeped through their fingers. Now, there was nothing but the sound of the crackling flames. The air was nearly unbreathable, heavy with the stench of burning flesh. And Jonah, unbelievably, still twitched.
David cried to his God in anguish. Jesus, please!
Jonah’s struggles suddenly stilled and a bolt of lightning tore the sky. It cast the faces of everyone in that mob in a ghostly glow. In that flash of cold, blue light, they all appeared dead.
Harlem Redux Page 25
