Gemma still fumbled with the door like a child, and I watched her sadly for a few seconds before hopping out and running to her door to let her out. I took both her arms in my hands to help her down and let her steady her legs before letting go and following behind her.
About a dozen colored people huddled together in the tall grasses a good distance from the fiery remains, most of them with blackened and torn clothes, ministering to each other in between sobs. About a dozen more were futilely trying to squelch the fire with buckets of water from a nearby well.
I held on to Gemma as we wove in and out between them searching for Tal. I called out his name, but Gemma couldn’t.
Funny how our voices sometimes don’t work when we need them most.
As we walked by a large woman who cradled two weeping children in her arms, the woman reached out and tugged on Gemma’s skirt.
“Just like that, Gemma Teague,” she murmured. “It went up just like that. I saw them walk by the window, but I didn’t know what they was up to.” She covered one ear on each child and lowered her voice. “They looked like demons from the depths of hell, and they got to be if they’s the kind that can set a church full of people on fire like that.”
Gemma pulled away, her whole body shaking now. “Tal Pritchett,” she managed to stammer.
“What’s that, girl?”
“Tal Pritchett,” I answered for her. “She wants to know if Tal Pritchett was here.”
“Oh, he was here. He was up front speakin’ when it happened.”
I gripped Gemma harder. “You seen him after the fire started?”
The woman pulled the children closer and rocked back and forth. “Don’t know, honey. Just don’t know. It happened so fast.”
Gemma’s legs betrayed her, and she nearly tumbled to the ground before I managed to steady her. Afraid for her well-being, I searched the area for Luke, but he was several yards away from the church, coaxing a couple of anxious horses across the rough ground. Someone had hooked them up to a plow in an attempt at creating a sort of firebreak around the church property, but I didn’t have much hope that would stop the spread of the fire.
I turned Gemma to face me. “Won’t you please wait at the truck? It’ll be safer there, and I can go look for Tal.”
She only shook her head and tugged me onward. I slipped my arm around her waist and desperately searched the darkness, terribly afraid that this night would be yet one more scar on Gemma’s memory. As we walked on, the gasping breaths she took told me she feared the same.
We had scanned the faces of the group who milled about up front and were making our way around back when I heard Gemma cry out and felt her weight slump against me. I froze and looked ahead with a searing dread.
I didn’t want to see what Gemma’s eyes had seen.
But when I spotted Tal Pritchett, covered in soot and ash, stumbling toward us, I never wanted to stop looking. His face was creased with strain and streaked with sweat and tears, but his eyes were lit up from the sight of Gemma. He swept her into his arms, and once her weight was transferred to him, my legs gave out and I slid to my knees. As I knelt there, crying silently, watching my best friend weep out her terror, my bones turned brittle at the very thought of what could have been done to the man she so clearly loved with all her heart.
And at the thought of the men who had almost made it happen.
I leaned back on my heels and watched the flames lick at the starlit sky, and I thought of what those people must have felt like when it all happened. I could picture them sitting in the pews, alive and well, listening to folks talk about how to live a better life in a white man’s world. And then I could see that fire erupt in the church like they’d been dropped into the pit of hell. I could see them struggle to escape amid the smoke and heat, screams of anguish ringing in their ears. In my head, I could see it all.
But these people had seen it all with their own eyes. Over the years, they’d seen a great deal with their eyes, all because they’d been born with dark skin. And as I watched Gemma and Tal, as I looked around at the horrified faces surrounding them, I was filled with rage. I stood up with fists so tight, my fingernails dug into my palms.
I pictured those hooded men, unmasked by now, no doubt sharing moonshine and laughs in Cole Mundy’s barn, and my heart burned with the kind of hate my momma had told me was an abomination before God.
But I didn’t care. I looked around and saw there was nothing I could do here but watch the world fall apart for a congregation of colored people. I turned without a word, marched to Luke’s truck, and pulled away.
There were no thoughts in my mind then. That’s the funny thing about hate. It makes the brain fuzzy and mixes things up. It covers up all the good things you’ve learned over the years and lowers your inhibitions like alcohol. I’d never taken a drink of liquor in all my life, but I’d seen the effects of it many a time, and I figured this was as close to getting drunk as I’d ever be.
The truck rattled over the uneven dirt roads so that my ribs ached, but I didn’t slow down one bit. By the time I pulled up at Cole Mundy’s house, I was possessed by a kind of senseless rage I’d never known. I didn’t think twice about what I was about to do, didn’t worry that I was unarmed and would be outweighed by every man inside. Their raucous voices drifted out to me, and I got out of that truck, slammed the door, and barged into that barn like I owned it.
The air was so thick with smoke, it would have choked me had I not been forced to inhale it from the time I got within a mile of the colored church. There were a good twenty men there, and I recognized every cigar-smoking, liquored-up one of them.
Including Sheriff Clancy.
The chatter stopped the second they set eyes on me, except for the few muttered curses that were aimed in my direction.
Delmar Custis was the first to speak. He slid his filthy boots off the table they were propped on and let them hit the floor with a thud. “I think you got the wrong place.”
“No, I ain’t. I was invited, don’t you remember? Got me a nice little notice tacked up to my front porch.”
“That weren’t no invitation. That was an announcement, is all.”
“You mean it was a threat.” I looked around the room. “Looks like you got yourselves a nice turnout, anyways. Not so many as you’d like, though. Bet if you’d have put ‘We’ll be torchin’ a colored church’ on your invitations, you’d have gotten more of a crowd.”
Several of the men sat up real straight when I said that, but Delmar waved them off with his cigarette. “Girl, you ought to know better’n any other in this here town, you don’t go makin’ accusations to certain people unless you want trouble comin’ your way. We don’t know nothin’ about no colored church bein’ torched. Shame if it’s true, though.” He took a puff of the cigarette. “Heck, you got yourself a nigger, ain’t you? Sure hope she ain’t got singed or nothin’.”
To this day I think maybe I could have kept myself together but for one thing. He laughed. Right there in front of me with the sin of attempted murder on his hands that very night, he looked at me and laughed at the thought of my Gemma being caught in that burnt-up church.
I marched to him in three quick strides, yanked the cigarette from his mouth, and put it out on his arm. He screamed and lunged for me, but even when he had me pinned between his sweaty body and the wall, his gasping breaths tainting the air, I didn’t care. It was as though some part of me had begun to leave, the part of me that had always believed good would eventually win out over evil. It wasn’t gone completely, not yet. But it was starting to fade away, chipped at like peeling paint.
Delmar had my hair in one hand, yanking my head back so I had to look up at him. Past him I could see the other men closing ranks to watch the show. “You gonna kill me now?”
“I ain’t killed nobody, girl, but if I aim to start, I can’t say I’d be too sorry to start with you.”
“But you’ll kill someday.” I made an effort to swallow even though it was ha
rd with my neck stretched backward. “Men like you, they don’t go through life without killin’ someone.”
His grip loosened a bit, but he still pinned me with his chest. I took the opportunity to tip my chin down some, and when I did, I caught Sheriff Clancy’s eye. “What sort of law they hire you to uphold these days, Sheriff? Or don’t you hold to the law none at all?”
“Ain’t no lawbreakin’ goin’ on in here, Jessilyn. Least not until you showed up. I could arrest you for assault.”
“I didn’t say nothin’ about lawbreakin’ goin’ on in here. I’m talkin’ about over at the colored church.”
He watched me for a second and then took a long swig of his beer.
“That stuff give you courage, Sheriff? Or does it just make you a better liar?”
Sheriff Clancy spit and shifted his wad of chewing tobacco. “You got a big mouth on you, girl!” But despite his vehemence, he clamped a meaty hand on Delmar’s shoulder. “Let her go.”
“Don’t feel like it.”
“I didn’t ask if you felt like it. In fact, I didn’t ask you nothin’. I told you to let her go.”
Delmar didn’t even flinch until the sound of a pistol being cocked caught his attention. I looked down and saw Sheriff Clancy holding his pistol by his right thigh.
“Like I said, Delmar . . . let her go.”
Delmar gritted his teeth so hard, I could hear them scraping together, but he let me go. Not without giving me one last shot, though, and his sharp release sent my head back into the wall. I bit my tongue with the force of it, blood immediately awakening my taste buds. I ran the back of my hand across my mouth where some had trickled from the corner of it. As I walked toward the door, I looked into the face of every man in that room, then made a mental note of their shoes. If a man was bound to hide his identity under a white hood, you could always figure him out by his shoes.
The sheriff kept his hand on his gun, apparently to stave off any trouble, but the look he aimed my way said he’d just as soon put a bullet in my head. I opened the door and hurried outside. It had started to rain, and the feel of it was like a slap to the face. My knees started to shake from the realization of what I’d done, and I ran to the truck awkwardly and peeled out of the gravel drive.
The rain had put a damper on the fire, but it still burned freely and had taken over most of the church property. Luke was standing on the roadside, his clothes wet and sooty, as I drove up.
“Jessilyn!” He waved and I slowed to a stop, turned the engine off, barely able to look at him. “Where you been?” he asked. “You had me worried sick. Gemma and Tal took a few of the ones who were worst off over to the Jessups’ barn to look after them, and everyone else headed out when they realized there weren’t nothin’ to be done. Next thing I know, I’m all alone, and you ain’t nowhere to be found.”
I hopped out, still unable to look him in the eye. I knew he’d want to wring my neck if he found out where I’d been, but it wasn’t likely I’d get by without saying. I put it off for a few more seconds and reached up to smooth back his wet hair.
He pulled my hand away to lay it over his heart. Then he leaned forward. “Jessie, what’s goin’ on? Don’t shut me out. Ain’t nothin’ worse than that.”
I felt so guilty. While Luke had stayed to help good people, I’d gone off to cause more trouble with the bad ones. I slipped my hand away from his and held it over my own heart, where a pain was starting to make it hard to breathe.
Luke looked at the back of my hand and then leveled a sharp glance at me. “Why’s there blood on your hand?” He pulled me to him and gave me a once-over. “You get hurt somehow?”
I shook my head and started to cry.
Luke took my face in his hands. “Jessilyn, you tell me what happened. Now! You hear?”
“I left.” My voice shook, and I had trouble working in my words around the gasps as I cried.
“I know that. Where’d you go?”
“To Cole’s.”
“Cole Mundy?” He dropped his hands and studied my eyes. “What in blazes would you do somethin’ stupid like that for?”
“I don’t know.” I knew my words were as stupid as my actions, but it was the truth. I didn’t know. I had no idea what had come over me from the very start of it all, and I couldn’t explain it to the man I loved just now, either.
“You don’t know? Jessilyn, they could have killed you out there, you know that?” He turned and walked off about ten feet. I knew he was likely thinking he could kill me right about now too, so I left him alone to work out his anger before he turned his attention back to me.
He turned around then and pointed at me. “Where’d the blood come from?”
“I bit my tongue.”
“You bit your tongue!”
“It’s the truth, Luke!”
“How?”
I stood there silently, afraid he’d retaliate after hearing Delmar had been rough with me, and I didn’t want Luke getting hurt because I’d been a fool.
But Luke wasn’t taking my quiet for an answer, and he took three quick steps toward me. “Jessilyn, how?”
“He just gave me a little shove, is all. It was my own fault. I just bit my tongue because I got surprised by him.”
“Who’s ‘him’?”
“Delmar Custis.”
“Delmar Custis put his hands on you?”
He had no idea how much, and I wasn’t about to let him know. I only shrugged. “He shoved me a little, like I said.”
He walked past me and opened the truck door, but I caught him by the arm. “Luke, wait! It wasn’t nothin’. It was my own fault. I lost my temper, and I went over and accused them. It ain’t like he didn’t have reason for it.”
Luke didn’t look at me. “Get in the truck, Jessilyn.”
“Where are we goin’?”
He didn’t say anything, but the set of his jaw told me enough. I slid my way between him and the truck door. “Luke, don’t do nothin’, please. It was my fault. Me! If you get into trouble because of my stupid ways, I’ll be sick, you hear?” I was frantic by now, all sorts of images flashing through my head, and not one of them ended without Luke being hurt. Or worse. I took his face in both of my hands and made him look at me. “If you care about me at all, don’t go over there. Just let it go.”
His blue eyes locked with mine. “Jessilyn, you know how I feel about you.”
“Then don’t go.”
He watched me for a good solid minute, every muscle in his face tense. I held my breath the entire time I waited. Finally he leaned his forehead down against mine and sighed. “You wear me out, Jessilyn. You know that, don’t you?”
Relief swept over me and I fell against him, no longer feeling able to hold my own weight. But I didn’t have to worry. He held it for me. And as we stood there in the rain, the smell of fear and hate mixed with the smoky air around us, I clung to him out of desperation, desperation about what life would bring us.
About the thought of who it might take away.
Chapter 11
I could see it start to happen right from the minute Gemma had met Tal on our front porch. Even with Malachi bleeding on the floorboards, she’d shone from top to toe, a flush dusted across those high cheekbones of hers like I hadn’t ever seen before.
Just like she was shining now, strolling up the walkway beside him.
I leaned the broom against the house, stood at the top of the porch steps, and waved. “All done for the day?”
“For all I can tell.” Tal held up a chicken by its scrawny legs. “Gemma’s prize for her services today. She’s a soldier to do what she does for some fried chicken.”
I wrinkled my nose at the sight of it. Ours was mostly a planting farm, and any slaughtering that was ever done was done by a field hand or my daddy. “I hate the sight of those things unless they’re already ready to be dredged and fried.”
Gemma smiled at my discomfort. “That mean you ain’t gonna pluck it and whack it up for me?”
“I will soon as hell freezes over.” I retrieved the broom and nodded toward the house. “Momma’s asked you to stay for supper, Tal.” Then I looked at him long and hard and said, “Long as your friend don’t come with you. Daddy’s in the shed. You can leave that critter off with him.”
“That’s mighty good of your momma. Tell her I thank her kindly.” He tipped his hat at me, then at Gemma, and went off to dispose of Gemma’s wages.
Gemma took the broom from me and swept the pile I’d made into the bushes. “That man put in more work today than most do in a week. He’s got six folks hurt from that fire, and he ain’t got nowhere to take them since the hospital won’t accept coloreds. You should see him tryin’ his best to care for folks in that empty old barn.” She stopped sweeping and tossed the broom against the wall so hard, it slid sideways and clattered to the floor. I didn’t say anything. I just watched as she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and then bent over to pick up the broom and settle it upright. “I swear, Jessilyn, sometimes it all just feels like too much. I ain’t sure how much more I can take.”
I took her face in my hands and stood almost nose to nose with her. “Gemma Teague, most days it’s me gettin’ a reminder from you, but today it’s my turn. All the stuff goin’ on—it’s a bunch of nonsense, ain’t no doubt in that. Men like the Klan shouldn’t be allowed to run around destroyin’ people’s lives. But I’ve had you tell me time and again to look at the good, and I’ll tell you what’s good this here day. It’s that you got Tal Pritchett here to care for them sick folk at all. He could’ve been lost yesterday. You remember that.”
Her eyes moistened up right off the bat, and she leaned her forehead against mine. “I know.” Her breath caught, and she took her time before repeating, “I know it, Jessilyn.”
I used my thumbs to swipe at her tears, then wiped away my own. “Now, more importantly, you two seem to be gettin’ on right nice.” I lowered my voice and put my mouth close to her ear. “Reckon he’s got some thoughts about you that don’t have to do with workin’.”
“Shh!” She gave me a playful whack with the back of her hand. “Don’t you go startin’ somethin’.”
Catching Moondrops Page 12
