by Lyle Brandt
He chose the latter, edging back along the south wall of the house, another home barely four feet in front of him, forming a narrow accidental alley. Ryder hurried, reached the small home’s southwest corner, and paused there, crouching and peering through the smoke that veiled his path.
Four shots remaining in his Colt, and if he wasted them, there might be no time to reload.
It took a few long moments, but they came. The first one through the narrow gap didn’t seem to like being the leader, creeping down the narrow strip of dirt in a half crouch, his pistol out in front of him, eyes squinting through the smoke and shadows. Ryder waited until both of them were in the funnel, then shot the leader, punching a blowhole through his chest. A jet of blood sprayed from the wound as he dropped backward, landing on his buttocks first, then toppling over to one side, his head wedged up against the nearest wall.
His partner turned to run, but Ryder didn’t feel like letting him escape to try again some other time. His last shot drilled the fleeing gunman from behind, between his shoulder blades, and dumped him facedown in the dirt.
It was a moment’s work to switch his pistol’s empty cylinder for one already loaded. Ryder got it done, then circled back another way to reach the street, without treading on corpses of the newly dead.
The battle was continuing. He still had work to do.
*
Abel Butler thought the tide was turning. He could not have said exactly when it happened, or precisely how, but suddenly it seemed that armed black men outnumbered whites, as if they’d sprung up from the earth itself somehow. Or maybe it was simply that more whites had fallen in the battle, leaving them shorthanded at the end.
Whatever the case, he was heartened by the shift but staggered by the dead and wounded bodies scattered everywhere around him. When he tried to count the burning houses, he lost track, confused by smoke and the necessity of watching out for men intent on killing him.
He’d used the last rounds from his pistol on three lynchers. They’d been grappling with a freedman, rope already snug around his neck, trying to toss the free end up and over the limb of a street-corner tree when Butler took them from behind. He hadn’t warned them, didn’t try to chase them off, just shot them where they stood and lingered long enough to see their victim flee. One of them, he believed, was dead. The others could go either way, depending on if help arrived in time.
What help?
The sheriff hadn’t turned up yet, likely delayed either by fear or prearrangement with the mob. The Union troops, for all he knew, were still in camp, heedless of what was happening. Whatever next occurred, whether the tattered mob retreated or its members called up reinforcements from the city populace at large, the residents of Colored Town would stand alone.
Except for him.
The empty Colt tucked through his belt, Butler had found an ax abandoned on the field of battle. While a part of him recoiled at using it to hack through human flesh, survival took priority. He would not strike, except in direst need, but if it came to that he would not hesitate.
Some of the rioters were fleeing now, he saw, a number of them clutching bloody wounds but strong enough to run away. Freedmen did not pursue them, concentrating on the others who remained, still fighting in the streets. Those were increasingly outnumbered, waging a defensive struggle now. As Butler watched, one of them fell no more than ten yards distant, skewered by a pitchfork, then surrounded and bludgeoned until he went limp.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” a voice behind him said. He whirled, raising the ax, then stopped and staggered back a half-step as he recognized Gideon Ryder. “Where did you come from?”
“The rally,” Ryder said. “Come on. I need to get you home.”
“It isn’t finished here,” Butler protested.
“Look around. They’re mopping up, and after last night, you don’t want to be here when the sheriff comes.”
“Why not?” Butler replied, but he could see the logic in it. Sheriff Travis wouldn’t need a great excuse to lock him up, perhaps even charge him with murder. Witnesses could be procured, and blacks were barred from testifying in the courts of Texas under current law.
“Your sister’s waiting for you, likely worried,” Ryder said, tipping the scales.
“All right.”
Butler was trailing him when Ryder paused and said, “You’d better leave that here.”
“What? Oh.” He dropped the ax and went on empty-handed, feeling suddenly defenseless with the empty pistol in his belt. Trying to think of what he should tell Anna, how much she could hear before she looked at him with fear and loathing in her eyes.
16
Ryder was eating breakfast—sausage gravy over biscuits, fried eggs on the side—when Sheriff Travis found him and sat down across the table from him without waiting for an invitation. Travis had a weary look about him, as if he’d been up most of the night and hadn’t been enjoying it.
“Coffee?” Ryder suggested. “This place makes it strong.”
Ignoring that, Travis announced, “We need to talk about what happened yesterday.”
“Simple. You proved you can’t police your town. Or won’t.”
“Says who?” Face reddening.
“The evidence. You have a major riot and the sheriff’s nowhere to be found.”
“Says who?”
“Eyewitnesses.”
“Niggers!” Travis spat the ugly word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth.
“Do I look black to you?” Ryder inquired.
“So, you were there?”
“Observing. It’s all in my field report.”
“I’ll need to see that.”
“Write my boss in Washington. He feels like it, you’ll get a copy when he’s ready.”
“Smug bastard!”
To his right, an older couple huffed and gasped. Turning their way, Travis said, “I’m sorry, folks. Heat of the moment.” Neither one looked satisfied by the apology.
“If you were there,” Travis told Ryder, “you saw white men gettin’ slaughtered by a bunch of savages.”
“That how it looked to you from home, or sitting in your office?” Ryder asked.
“That’s how it was.”
“No question in your mind why all those good white folks wound up in Colored Town with guns, before the killing started?”
“Not the way I heard it,” Travis answered.
“Oh? What, then? You think the freedmen went and dragged them over there, armed as they were, just for the chance to fight them?”
“Well—”
“And liked it all so much, they burned their own homes, just for fun?”
“You get white folks riled up, they don’t just sit and take it.”
“Not like you, just sitting on your backside while a lynch mob’s running wild.”
“I’d have them niggers locked up right this minute, if it warn’t for you!”
“How’s that, Sheriff?”
“Runnin’ to call the bluecoats out, the way you done.”
“I hate to tell you, but you’re wrong again.”
“Save it. I know you went out to the garrison.”
“Your spy should tell you that was in the morning, hours before the KRS got fired up for a massacre.”
“So what?”
“And for the record, their commander sent me packing. Said he doesn’t meddle in civilian matters.”
“Well, he’s dang sure meddlin’ now. As if you didn’t know.”
“It’s news to me,” Ryder replied. “And overdue.”
“In your opinion.”
“Just about the only one I trust.”
“You got a narrow view of things.”
“I think of it as knowing right from wrong.”
“And you’re the judge of that?”
“We all judge, Sheriff. Some of us just get it wrong.”
“If I was you—”
“A lot of people would be disappointed. Is this where you tell me I shoul
d leave town?”
“I don’t have authority for that.”
“You’re right.”
“But I’d suggest it all the same, for everybody’s sake.”
“Who benefits, in that case?”
“You do. Leastways, if you call stayin’ alive a benefit.”
“That’s my problem. Who else?”
“The whole town, way I see it.”
“What you mean is, all the white folks who agree with you and Coker.”
“That’s the town,” Travis replied.
“Is it?”
“I just said so. You might try cleanin’ out your ears.”
“Or you could get your eyes checked. All the time you’ve been alive—what’s that, now, forty-something years?”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“Could have fooled me. Anyway, in all that time, you’ve been a member of the only race that mattered. You were always on the top rung of the ladder, looking down. But things are changing, Sheriff. Slowly, maybe, but they’re changing. Colored folk are free now, and I’d bet your next year’s salary that someday soon, they’ll have the vote. Keep treating them like dirt, how likely do you think it is they’ll vote for you?”
“Don’t matter none,” Travis replied.
“You’re tired of playing lawman.”
“Not just yet.” And now he smiled. “Seems like they’s tired a livin’ here in Jefferson.”
“How’s that?”
The mocking smile grew wider. “What, you didn’t hear? They’re moving outta town, all them that’s still alive.”
*
The residents of Colored Town were leaving under guard. When Abel Butler heard, he rushed back to the scene where he had shot six men just hours earlier and found the army standing by in case of any further violence. They weren’t simply protecting people and homes, however; they were aiding in an exodus.
Abel caught up with one of those whom he knew best, a former slave named Luther Hill who’d worked on a plantation west of town until the war’s end set him free. His wife was common law, no formal marriage having been permitted under slavery, and they had two young boys, aged eight and five. When Abel found them, they were clearing out their modest home, next door to one that had been razed by fire. Scorch marks on the south wall of Luther’s house revealed what a close call the fire had been.
“What are you doing, Luther?” Abel asked, without preamble.
“What it look like, Mr. Butler? Gettin’ out while we still can.”
“But this is your place. The first real home that you’ve ever had.”
“Was our place,” Luther said. “Now it’s just kindlin’, if the white folks take it in their heads to light another fire.”
“But if you leave, they win!”
“And if we stay? If we get kilt, who wins? You wanna tell me that?”
“The army can protect you.” Abel heard the hollow ring to that, before Hill gave it back to him.
“Like they pertected us last night? For all the good they do, they may as well go back up North, or off to fight the Injuns.”
Abel looked around him at the partial devastation: homes in ashes, bloodstains in the dust, a greasy pall of smoke still lingering, tainting the very air he breathed. He couldn’t argue with the man he thought of as a friend, couldn’t promise any member of the black community would live in safety if they stayed in Jefferson.
“Where will you go?” he asked, at last.
“One thing the soldiers know about is pitchin’ tents. They’s settin’ up a camp for us to stay awhile in, next to theirs. Figger they’ll keep an eye on us until we think of someplace else to try.”
“In Texas?” Abel pressed him.
“I been thinkin’ bout the Injun Territory,” Hill replied.
Abel knew the basics of it: organized in 1834, to hold the Indians displaced by white westward movement and various wars. Several thousand members of the Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole—had joined the Confederate army, fighting in several major battles against Union forces. Abel had never understood their choice, but knew the tribes kept slaves to work for them. And that the Union Army had rejected Indian recruits throughout the war.
“What would you do there?” Abel asked him.
“Farm, same as I been, but for myself this time. To feed my family, instead of makin’ white men rich.”
“And what about the red men, Luther?”
“Got nothin’ against ’em, long as they leave me and mine alone.”
“You know, they might not want to share their land.”
“Who ever does? It ain’t their land, though, if you think about it. It’s the gov’ment’s, and the soldiers there do more’n sit around in camp, from what I hear.”
“Well, if you’re set on it …”
“Ain’t set on nothin’ yet, but gettin’ out of here before another mob comes back to finish what they started.”
Abel nodded. “If there’s anything that I can do to help …”
“You helped last night, and it’s appreciated. Best thing you can do right now is clear on outta here. White folks in Jefferson got no love for you, as it is.”
“I’ll come to see you, in the new camp. Find out if there’s anything you need.”
Hill shrugged. “You wanna make the ride, we’ll be there. For a little while, at least.”
Feeling deflated, useless, Abel turned back toward his rented house on the far side of town.
*
How many dead, again?”
“Fifteen for sure,” the sheriff said. “Another two or three may go before the day’s out. Close to double that amongst the niggers.”
“Christ!” Roy Coker shook his head disgustedly. “It was supposed to be an easy job. A simple thing. What happened?”
“Well, you know I wasn’t there, o’ course, like we agreed beforehand. Way I hear it told, the boys went in awright, to start with, but the bucks stood up to ’em and fought right back. That ain’t the kinda thing white men are used to, Mr. Coker.”
“Jesus wept. Most of those men were soldiers, and the rest were on the wartime slave patrols. How could they go in and have their heads handed to them that way, by a bunch of field hands?”
“Again, I wasn’t there, but—”
“Never mind. It was rhetorical.”
“How’s that?”
Coker ignored him, changed the subject. “Did you see the Secret Service man?”
“Just come from him, at Latimer’s. I tole him he’d be wise to get out, like you said.”
“And?”
“Like you thought, he didn’t buy it.”
“So, we’ve got the same old problem.”
“Got rid of the niggers, though,” said Travis.
“Have we? Gotten rid of them?”
“They’re leavin’, like I said before. Bluebellies watchin’ ’em pack up and all. Word is, they’s gonna camp out by the garrison awhile, and then move on.”
“Good news for us,” said Coker. “Not so good for whoever receives them at the other end.”
“Least we don’t have to worry ’bout it.”
“The mind’s a strange thing, Harlan. As it broadens, you can see the world. But when it’s narrow, you can’t see beyond your nose.”
Travis considered that, then shook his head. “Don’t follow you.”
“As I surmised. From my viewpoint, we still have two problems in front of us. The man from Washington is one; the other, our departing dusky nemeses.”
“Niggers?”
“You’re catching on. If they leave now, how are we to fulfill our destiny for Jefferson and Texas?”
“Huh?”
“We need them here, under protection of the Yankees. When they are eradicated, it will spark a conflagration—that’s a fire, to you—that spreads across our state and through the late Confederacy. A rebellion that will make the last one pale beside it.”
“Hold on, now. I don’t think—”
“That’s the best way, Harlan. Don’t think. Leave that to your betters.”
Travis wasn’t dumb enough to miss the point of that, and while his face flushed crimson, he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut, swallowing whatever tart reply had come to mind.
“Sure, Mr. Coker. You’re the boss.”
“And your job, for the moment, is to keep the brethren calm. I’ll let them know, through you, when time comes for another move against the coloreds. In the meantime, there’s another spot of trouble you can help me with.”
“What’s that?” Anxious to please.
“The carpetbaggers. Butler and his so-called sister.”
“Want me to lock ’em up?”
“For what?”
“I’ll think a somethin’.”
“No. But I want them removed from circulation. Can you handle that?”
“‘Remove’ mean kilt?”
“It does—but not in such a way as to attract more notice now, right after last night’s trouble. If they were to disappear, say, taking their belongings with them, most folk would believe they’d gone back North, upset by all the harm they’ve done down here.”
“So, I should try again to scare ’em off?”
“Harlan, sometimes I fear …” He stopped himself and changed directions. “No. Don’t try to scare them off again. Make sure they vanish, preferably in the dead of night, but looking like they’ve run away. Don’t kill them outright. I’d prefer to question them beforehand, find out more about who sent them south, and why.”
“I’ll see to it,” the sheriff said.
“But carefully. Don’t leave your muddy tracks all over this.”
Travis glanced at his boots. “They ain’t … oh, right. I hear you.”
“You should start on that right now,” Coker advised.
“Will do,” the sheriff said and left.
*
Ryder watched the carts and wagons leaving, escorted by soldiers. Most of the freedmen were walking, some accompanied by wives and children, carrying their meager belongings by hand or strapped onto their backs. The houses that had not been burned or shot to pieces overnight now stood abandoned, causing him to wonder who would occupy them next.
