Rough Justice

by Lyle Brandt

  The rally site was a patch of wasteland overlooking the Red River, south of town. Ryder had not scouted it beforehand, but he had no trouble finding it. He simply trailed the locals moving through the streets in that direction, muttering about the shame of Appomattox and the way that Washington was trying to destroy their state. It sounded like secession talk to Ryder, but they’d tried that route already and been soundly beaten for it. Coker’s name was mentioned often, one man saying that he ought to be the state’s next governor.

  The crowd was mostly men, as it had been in Corpus Christi. Women weren’t expected to participate in politics, since they were not allowed to vote and had their homes to tend. A few men strolling toward the riverfront were arm in arm with sporting ladies, but those nymphs du prairie were exceptions to the rule. Ryder observed, as usual, that nearly all the men were packing iron. He was relieved that none appeared to recognize or notice him.

  The open rally ground was filling up when Ryder reached it, people milling in a space of some two acres. Near the river bank, a flatbed wagon had been parked, its team removed, and corner-mounted poles upheld a banner reading AWAKE! KNIGHTS OF THE RISING SUN. Two men with pistols tied down low were standing underneath the banner, sharp eyes studying the crowd and watching out for troublemakers.

  Ryder didn’t bother moving any closer. He was happy on the far edge of the audience, less interested in Coker’s speech than how his audience reacted to it. It occurred to Ryder that he’d made himself a target by attending—that an enemy could slip a blade between his ribs in passing, and that no one in the throng was likely to assist him—but he stayed there, standing with his arms crossed, right hand within inches of his cross-draw holster.

  He could feel the crowd becoming restless, as they will, when someone near the front ranks cried out, “Here he is! The man himself!”

  14

  Roy Coker loved talking to crowds. It thrilled him, seeing all those upturned faces, bright eyes seeing only him, some listeners standing with mouths agape, waiting for him to tell them what they should be thinking, saying, doing in their daily lives. He loved the power of manipulating others, moving them like pawns on a gigantic chessboard. He had first experienced that feeling while in uniform, commanding men whose very lives depended on his orders, and he hated General Lee for groveling at Appomattox, when they could have fought to the last man.

  Maybe this time.

  One of his Knights helped Coker mount the wagon bed. He stood beneath the banner that had been prepared for him and scanned the audience, spotting familiar faces close in toward the makeshift stage. Others were new to him, but all seemed avid, anxious to receive his message and adopt it as their own.

  “My friends!” he called out, in a voice that needed no assistance from a speaking trumpet. “Knights of the Rising Sun, and those among you who have yet to join our ranks, welcome!”

  A rumble went up from the crowd in answer. Someone whistled near the back. A sporting lady, closer in, reached up to wave a lacy handkerchief. The faces ranged before him were all white, as he preferred.

  As it was meant to be.

  “Welcome to the beginning of a new day here in Jefferson, in Texas, and across the South,” he bellowed. “Times are changing, as you all must be aware, but is it for the better? Are we moving forward, or are radicals among us dragging our society back into savagery?”

  That raised a growl. Some fists were shaken, not at him, but at the others, enemies that few in Jefferson could name and none could reach. The pulsing anger of his people could have warmed the open ground if it were winter, and the middle of the night, instead of blazing noon.

  “We’ve lost a war, they say,” Coker reminded them. “They say we’re beaten. Look around you, and you’ll find our homeland occupied by enemies who tried to kill us, just a few short months ago. They claim they’re helping us. They say we need to change, give up our ways, renounce our principles. But what do we say?”

  “No!” a dozen voices answered and were answered in their turn by hundreds. “No! No!! No!!!”

  He could have turned them loose at that point, but they didn’t have a target yet, so he pressed on.

  “No, indeed! They say that animals we once called property are now free citizens, our equals. They must vote, take part in government, decide where they will work and when. Where does it end, my neighbors? Will the hogs and chickens turn up next?”

  That set them laughing, but it was a nasty kind of laughter, and mean-spirited. The kind Coker recognized.

  “And once the pigs are in your parlor, will they ask about your daughters?”

  Laughter turned to snarls, then, punctuated with more angry shouts of “No!”

  “You’re damned right, no!” he shouted back at them. A slick sweat beaded on his forehead, dampened Coker’s nape. “As long as I’m alive, I say our race will not be muddied and degraded! I say we will not bow down before the radicals in Washington and be their silent slaves. We are the masters of this land and will remain so, as long as a red-blooded white man draws breath!”

  More cheers. He scanned the outskirts of the crowd, looking for soldiers, but saw none. The bluebellies were wise enough to stay away from Jefferson, most days. They had supplies delivered to the camp and only came to town in small groups, to support the brothels. Off to the left from where he stood, Coker saw Harlan Travis and a couple of his deputies, thumbs hooked behind the buckles of their gunbelts, on alert for any trouble.

  “When the time comes,” Coker told his people, “we shall rise as one and reassert our claim to this, our homeland. We are not afraid of carpetbaggers, scalawags, or soldiers from the North—not even darkies dressed in blue!”

  That got the hooting started, and a few shrill Rebel yells. Coker stood tall, basking in adulation, while his heart thumped solidly against his rib cage. He could sell these people anything, he thought. Make them do anything. He was about to test that theory, but they needed further motivation first.

  “My brothers—”

  “What about your sisters?” shrilled a painted lady, ten or twelve rows out.

  He played along. “My brothers and my sisters, our oppressors think that we are beaten. That we have no spirit left in us, and we will do whatever we are told, regardless of the cost. I say they’re wrong. What say the rest of you?”

  “Dead wrong!” one of his Knights called back, on cue. Others took up the cry, until it rolled along the riverfront like a relentless tide.

  Coker waited for it to ebb, standing with arms outflung as if he had been crucified. Silence returned by slow degrees. He waited, shoulders aching by the time the crowd was still enough to hear him speak again.

  “But where should we begin?” he asked them. “What are we to do?”

  *

  Gideon Ryder felt the crowd stirring around him, tipping toward that balance point that, once exceeded, turned an audience into a mob. Last time, in Corpus Christi, troops had been on hand to quell the violent impulses and absorb the worst of them. He didn’t want to see another riot, soldiers forced into the line of fire, but when he thought of the alternatives, they all looked worse.

  He didn’t know what Coker had in mind, but he—and all the others present—would find out, he guessed, within the next few moments.

  “We have two plague spots in Jefferson today,” Coker declared. “The first, you’re all aware of. That’s the Yankee nest outside of town. They don’t belong here—they don’t even want to be here, take my word for that—but tackling them means touching off a fight we aren’t prepared to finish yet.”

  That “yet” hung in the air above the crowd, a dangling noose waiting for someone to step up and put his head in.

  “Now, the other plague spot, most of you likely don’t think about. It hasn’t been that long ago that darkies knew their place, and that was in the cotton patch or working on the docks. Today is what they like to call the Year of Jubilo. You’ve heard the song? ‘De massa run, ha, ha! De darky stay, ho, ho!’ It’s what they
pray for, night and day.”

  More angry rumbling. The faces close enough for Ryder to observe were reddening, and not entirely from the sun. A man nearby, to Ryder’s left, spat out the stub of a cigar and shook a clenched fist toward the wagon stage. Another had a long knife in his hand, upraised, as if to slash the sky.

  Ryder relaxed his crossed arms just enough to let his right hand find the curved grip of his Colt Army.

  “Today, right now, your rightful servants live together on the west side of this very city, doing nothing. Waiting for those forty acres and a mule the radicals have promised them. Your acres, since they never owned a scrap of dirt before, much less a house or farm. Your mules, most likely, while they’re at it. You know damn well Congress doesn’t deal in livestock.”

  “Bet your ass they don’t!” a fat man bawled, away to Ryder’s right.

  “And when they come to take your land away, what will you do?” Coker demanded. “Will you run away like massa in their song, or will you stand and fight?”

  “We’ll fight!” the cry went up, at least a hundred voices strong.

  “Or will it be too late by then?” asked Coker, from his wagon. “Will you look back from a pauper’s shanty, wishing you’d done something on your own, before they got the nerve to loot your property and kill your sleeping children in their beds?”

  The crowd was roaring now.

  “You know the place I mean,” Coker reminded them. “Now, I can’t tell you what to do. The Yanks would call it treason, string me up for it. But I believe you’re wise enough to work it out yourself, and strong enough to do the job!”

  Somebody fired a pistol in the air, then half a dozen more. From there, it was a stampede from the rally grounds and off along the nearest street, the mob in motion.

  Headed west.

  *

  Look, he’s goin’ with ’em,” Ardis Jackson said.

  “What for, you think?” Wade Stevens asked.

  “Dunno, don’t care. It make things easy for us, though.”

  “How’s that?” asked Caleb Burke.

  “The middle of a riot, who’s to say how he got kilt?” Jackson replies. “Who’ll even give a damn?”

  “I get it.” Stevens flashed a crooked grin.

  “Then let’s go get it!” Jackson said.

  They stepped into the tide of bodies and were swept along, running to keep pace with the flow and working up a sweat. Of course, they’d been sweating before, but this just made it worse. Jackson felt vaguely sick, wished he’d laid off the whiskey that morning, but now his sweat smelled like red-eye. He wondered what would happen if he fell, deciding that the mob would likely run right over him and leave him in its dust.

  Caleb was running to his left, mouth breathing even with his nose fixed, more or less. Stevens was faster, started pulling out ahead of them, then got snarled in the crush and couldn’t make much headway. Jackson cursed him breathlessly for showing off, then cursed himself for dreaming up this half-baked scheme in haste.

  How in hell were they supposed to kill the Yankee if they couldn’t even find him in the middle of the riot that was shaping up? Jackson had lost sight of his quarry when they joined the mob and hadn’t glimpsed him since. For all he knew, the man from Washington had ducked out one side or the other, left the group, and was returning for a nice rest at the Bachmann House. Why would he want to join a charge against the darkies anyway?

  Unless …

  What if he’s after Mr. Coker? Jackson thought. The boss had treated him unfairly yesterday, but that made Jackson yearn to please him and regain his confidence, not see him gunned down in the street.

  It hit him then. If he could rescue Mr. Coker from the Yank, it would be one of those sweet situations that you rarely saw in life. Two birds, one stone. Who could predict how Mr. Coker might reward him for a thing like that?

  Jackson picked up his pace, although with difficulty, knowing that the best intentions in the world were useless if he missed the party. That would do him no damn good at all.

  “You see ’im?” he called out to Stevens, wheezing.

  “Well, find ’im, dammit!”

  “How’m I s’pose to—”

  Stevens tripped, almost went down, but Jackson caught him by one arm and used the last ounce of his energy to keep him upright, moving forward. “Jesus, watch your step!” he hissed, wishing that he could catch his breath instead of panting like a dog.

  They had another five, six blocks to go, at least, before they got to Colored Town. Jackson had been out on patrol around the darky district more than once, but he had never had to run there from the river, and he never would again. This one time ought to do it, if he kept his wits about him and his aim was true.

  Against his will, he started thinking of the things that could go wrong. What if the Yankee wasn’t out for Coker, after all? No problem, there; Jackson could fake it, once the man was safely dead. What if they couldn’t find him? Or they found him, tried to shoot him, and they wound up hitting someone else?

  What if they hit the boss?

  “Shut up, goddamn you!” Jackson cursed his brain.

  “I di’n’t say nothin’,” Burke complained.

  “Not you. Just save your breath and find that Yankee spy!”

  *

  You can’t go out there, Abel!”

  “What choice do I have?” he countered, wishing that his sister would not raise her voice. The throbbing in his head had not retreated far enough, as yet, to bear the volume of an argument.

  “What choice?” Anna regarded him with something close to disbelief. “Stay here, of course!”

  “There’s going to be trouble with the KRS. I feel it.”

  “And suppose you’re right. What can you do against a mob fired up on hate and liquor?”

  “Stand my ground,” he answered, stubbornly.

  “It’s not your ground!”

  “Anna—”

  “You shot a man last night. The sheriff would have locked you up, except for Gideon. If you go out again—”

  “The sheriff doesn’t care what happens to the freedmen. You know that, as well as I do. Someone has to help them!”

  “We came south to help them learn and vote, not fight a war. The AMA would toss us straight out on our—”

  “It’s my duty!” he insisted.

  “Why? You aren’t a lawman. You have no official duties whatsoever.”

  “Anna, you, of all people, should recognize a moral duty.”

  “To be killed? To murder others?”

  “It’s not murder if you act in self-defense.”

  “Matthew 5:39,” she replied.

  Abel blinked at her. “What? You’re not making sense.”

  “The words of our Savior,” she answered. “Remember? ‘I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’”

  “We’re not discussing a slap in the face.”

  “No, we’re not. You were shot yourself, last night, if you’ve forgotten. Nearly killed.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Then why do you keep wincing when I raise my voice?”

  “Because you’re shrill and grating on my nerves!”

  “Abel, if you go out tonight and die—or if the sheriff holds you for a lynch mob—what becomes of me?”

  “You leave this cursed place. Go home and start a decent life, a thousand miles away from savages and crackers.”

  “On my own?” Her eyes were brimming now.

  While they argued, he was bent over the old Colt Paterson, confirming that all five chambers were properly loaded, spinning the cylinder, easing the hammer back and down with his thumb, staying clear of the trigger. Five shots wasn’t much in the face of a mob, and there would be no chance to reload. It was a daunting prospect—frankly terrifying, in his present state—but he could not sit idly by while madmen pillaged a community of innocents.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said, as if c
onceding that this night would be his last. “You’ll find a suitor, never fear.”

  “A suitor?” Anna leaned across and punched his shoulder with her fist. “You think that’s all I care about? My God, you don’t know me at all!”

  “I may not, but the neighbors will, if you keep shouting.”

  “Damn the neighbors! You are all the living family I have, and now you’d rob me of it, in defense of total strangers.”

  “They’re not strangers. You know many of them.”

  “I’m acquainted with them, but I wouldn’t say I know them. When we visit with the freedmen, there’s a wall between us. Don’t you feel it? Most speak only when they’re spoken to, and even then they keep the answers short. I’m not convinced they want us here at all.”

  “Anna, we’re white. They’ve been enslaved by white men since their grandparents were taken out of Africa in chains. You can’t expect their trust to blossom overnight.”

  “And they have no right to expect that you will die for them!”

  “They haven’t asked me to.”

  “No. You’re about to volunteer. But you are not their savior, Abel!”

  “No. I’m just a man trying to do the right thing in a rotten situation.”

  He was on his feet now, pistol tucked under his belt, donning his jacket to conceal it. Anna tried to block the doorway, but he moved her, gently but firmly, to one side.

  “Please, Abel! Please!” she begged him, weeping openly.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he said and kissed her on the forehead. “Lock the door behind me.”

  It was hot outside. He could have done without the jacket, but the pistol made him anxious. Many men in Jefferson wore firearms anytime they left their homes, but Abel knew he was a special case. The sheriff might arrest him, even though there was no statute on the books forbidding him to travel armed. Jail could mean death, or at the very least, a beating.