A Peach For Big Jim

by Lisa Belmont

  Hattie Mae swung open the kitchen door. She was covered in biscuit flour, and her apron was balled up in her hand. I wanted to scold her that she’s too old to be afraid of a li’l ol’ bug, but before I could open my mouth, she pushed me into the breakfast nook. It was a cozy sitting area where Widow Jones would take her morning cordials.

  “Look out the window,” Hattie Mae said, pointing to Widow Jones’ drive.

  Torches and lanterns bobbed in front of Whitehall’s wrought iron gate. An angry mob had gathered and, from the looks of it, they weren’t going home.

  “Your pa’s out there and Joss Bleekman, too.”

  Pa’s red hunting cap stood out like a sore thumb, even in the firelight.

  All of a sudden, I realized there was only one thing at Whitehall that’d bring a mob like that.

  “We gotta get Big Jim outta here.”

  “Lord, I got biscuits in the oven.”

  “Let ‘em burn.”

  “Why they wanna hurt my baby?” she said, as we moved down the hall. “He ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  Lord, didn’t I know it? Big Jim ain’t never hurt nobody, but that didn’t keep Widow Jones’ wrought iron gate from rattling real good. With all those angry shouts I knew that gate would be down in no time.

  Big Jim was lying in bed, sleeping real peaceful like, when we turned on the light. Hattie Mae threw back the sheets, and he sat up.

  “Get him across the creek,” I said. “They won’t follow you into the Negro section.”

  I hoped that was true. I had no idea what a mob like that might do.

  “Get up,” she cried. “They’re coming for you.”

  “Who?” Big Jim said, with droopy eyelids.

  “A lynch mob. Got torches brighter n’ chimney fire.”

  Big Jim swung his legs over the side of the bed, his mouth gaping open like he’d seen a ghost.

  I handed Big Jim his crutches, grateful the doctor from Charleston had brought a pair. He tried to stand, but winced real bad and sat down.

  “Lord, I can’t make it.”

  “You’ve got to, Big Jim. It may hurt, but it’s better than being dead.”

  “Come on, baby,” Hattie Mae said, helping him. “We going out the back door.”

  Big Jim put them crutches under his arms and got to hobbling. I knew it must’ve hurt something fierce to hold up that injured leg, but there wouldn’t be nothing left of him if he stayed here.

  “Go on, Big Jim. Get yourself home,” I said at the back door.

  It was a full moon and the light cast eerie shadows on the garden. Big Jim moved past Widow Jones’ gardenias, and his crutches got to crunching on the pebbled path. When he disappeared in the shadows, I closed the door. The sound of voices coming from the front porch got so loud I wanted to run away. Hide down by the swamp with them coons.

  I pulled aside the drapes in the foyer and looked at the mob. They covered Widow Jones’ veranda and spilled down the steps, scattering along the front of the house. They looked like they’d come from all over cuz I didn’t recognize half of them. All I knew was they were carrying lanterns and shotguns that I knew weren’t for no deer hunting.

  I unlocked the door and peered out.

  “Where’s Madeleine?” Joss said, spitting on the ground.

  “Widow Jones ain’t here.”

  “Is that so?” he said, stepping across the threshold.

  I wondered if Widow Jones was upstairs asleep. Hattie Mae said she’d taken a shine to Southern Comfort peach liqueur. Momma said it’d make you sleep for hours.

  I didn’t know if I could hold off the mob that long and was more than a little relieved when Widow Jones came to the top of the stairs. Like a vision, she wrapped a champagne silk robe around her baby-doll nightgown.

  Joss looked up at all her nice curves and them feathery slippers and, Lord, if he didn’t get to blushing like he was caught with his finger in the candy jar. Weren’t many things that could catch Joss off guard, but a pretty lady was one of them.

  “Evening, Madeleine,” he said, tipping his hat.

  “Evening,” she said, like she’d invited him over for sweet tea on the veranda.

  It made me think of all them Emily Post books. I wondered if Widow Jones had been reading them.

  She put a hand on the banister and kinda glided down the stairs like she was in a beauty pageant. Joss couldn’t take his eyes off her and, for a minute, I thought he forgot why he came, but it wasn’t long before the mob brought him back to reality.

  “You keeping Big Jim at Whitehall?”

  He was wearing his grimy work boots and smelled like pine tar and tobacco.

  “Hattie Mae’s son?” she said like it was the most natural thing in the world. “He’s recovering for a spell.”

  “Recovering, is he? Well, ain’t that real fine?” he said, turning to the crowd.

  You coulda heard a pin drop. I caught sight of Doc Maybley and Chester Bleekman. A few men from the sawmill and Uncle Hickory. They edged closer, their torch lights spilling a crimson glow across the floorboards.

  “Course now, Madeleine, that ain’t legal, is it? A white woman and a black man?”

  “He’s staying here ‘til he gets better.”

  “He’s been caught spying on women all over Mills Hollow. Just the other day he was lying in wait for Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret. ‘Come in the bushes,’ he said, moaning real loud.”

  “Big Jim wouldn’t hurt nobody,” I piped up. “He was cut up bad. That’s why he was calling for them.”

  Joss looked down at me, his thick eyebrows knitting a little. I was the girl who brought him and Pa their 80-proof whiskey after they’d gone hunting. I was the girl who shined their boots after they’d waded into the muddy creek bottoms. I was the girl who listened to Uncle Joss’s ghost stories late into the night by the fire. And here I was, standing up for Big Jim.

  Joss is like a brother to me, Chloe, Pa always said. Ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for him.

  I knew I’d crossed a line. I might as well have slapped Pa in the face, but at least Joss didn’t direct his anger at me.

  He patted me on the head and said to Widow Jones, “What you been telling this girl? You been filling her head with all that Daughters of the American Revolution crap?”

  “Chloe can speak her mind.”

  “Is that so? These men are afraid to let their women walk around Mills Hollow,” he said, eyeing her real good. “You sure Hattie Mae ain’t putting some strange herbs under your pillow? Casting one of her Gullah spells?”

  “She ain’t doing nothing. You’re the one setting out traps. One of them darn near took Big Jim’s leg off.”

  “He goes where them varmints go. Ain’t my fault.”

  “What about his whip marks? They aren’t your fault either?”

  A hurt expression crossed his face, and he took Widow Jones’ hand. He caressed her fingers and said, “Don’t know nothing ‘bout no whipping. You know me, Madeleine. I’m just looking out for these good folks. They need looking after and so do you.”

  Widow Jones’ violet-blue eyes met his and, for a moment, they got to looking at each other like Caleb and Emma Kate when they were skinny-dipping. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Joss wanted to kiss her, right there in front of all them people. Momma would say I should turn away, but there was something between them. Something that was whispered on quiet evenings when the crickets were chirping. I’d heard the hushed voices but never known what they meant. Now, I could see it. I could see it firsthand.

  “You see how it is, Madeleine,” Joss said, searching her face. “Menfolk gotta protect their women.”

  Widow Jones looked past him to the men holding torches. “Go home to Alma.”

  Joss kept his eyes on her as he motioned to the crowd. Pa and Uncle Hickory stepped through the door, their lanterns held high.

  “That nigger tried to rape my wife and daughter,” Uncle Hickory said. “Margaret still has nightmares.”

  A sho
t went off that liked to scare me to death. Them lanterns flickered something awful, and Pa’s face got real lit up.

  “Big Jim’s gotta pay for what he did,” Pa said. “If he don’t, every nigger in Mills Hollow is gonna think it’s open season on white women.”

  “Besides,” Joss said. “Law’s on our side.”

  He was right. If folks could drag a black man out of the Pickens County Jail and lynch him without a trial, then nobody was gonna stop this mob. Especially not when Big Jim had been accused of trying to rape Uncle Hickory’s wife. Caleb told me once that a black man had been lynched just for knocking on a white woman’s door.

  Widow Jones reached for me, but Joss pulled her aside. Uncle Hickory and Pa moved into the foyer, followed by the others. It was a hopeless situation.

  Pa took me by the arm and said, “Get out of here, Chloe. Go home to Momma.”

  He shoved me against the wall, and I’d never felt so afraid. I thought they were gonna lynch me for just being in the house. I knew Pa had heard me speak up for Big Jim and wasn’t surprised one bit when he said, “You ain’t never to speak against Joss again. You hear?”

  I was trembling with fright, too afraid to speak. He slapped me across the face and said, “You hear?”

  “Yessir.”

  I felt like Rufus after a coon hunt when he ain’t found nothing. Pa would give him a shove and tell him to get out of his sight.

  Holding a hand to my cheek, I prayed Big Jim and Hattie Mae had crossed the creek. I went out the front door and got jostled around by the angry men waving their torches. At one point I got shoved right into a twisted oak – the one Puddingtate would sit under and sing his Negro spirituals. I felt the back of my head, knowing there’d be a knot for sure. A real big one.

  Widow Jones told everyone to get off her property, but they didn’t move, they just lifted their lanterns high and started chanting. “Get that nigger. Get that nigger.”

  Dogs barked like they were ready for a coon hunt. Even ol’ Rufus started howling like he was having a good time.

  I wanted to go home so bad, to run down the hill toward the swamp, but I had to know for sure that Pa and Joss didn’t find Big Jim. I hid behind the oak and peered out, watching as every room at Whitehall got lit up.

  The doors to Widow Jones’ balcony flung open and her white drapes fluttered like a pair of ghosts. I ain’t never heard so many loud noises before. I could hardly imagine the mess they were making. Probably tearing off bed sheets and moving furniture, going through all them neatly arranged clothes I’d just finished putting away in Widow Jones’ closet. I didn’t want to think about what Widow Jones was gonna do to me and Momma in the morning. Lord, she’d probably fire us both.

  I watched all them torches bob like they were trying to ward off some spell. I couldn’t account for where all that hatred came from. It seemed rooted somehow. Rooted in the past. Caleb said that’s what you had to do with them choker weeds. Pull them up by the roots. Maybe that’s why it was so strong. Nothing had ever gotten to the root of all that fury.

  A cool breeze came from the south as Joss stepped from the house. The crowd cheered as Uncle Hickory and Pa joined him. Lord, I thought they were gonna bring Big Jim out with a rope around his neck the way that crowd started chanting, but Joss quieted them down.

  “He ain’t here,” he said.

  That got the men to grumbling. They’d come for a lynching and a lynching they wanted.

  “Ain’t no use tonight,” Uncle Hickory said, holding his lantern high so that it shone on all them twisted oaks. “He’s over in nigger country.”

  I got the shivers thinking about all the trouble that’d been stirred up. Angry voices called for nothing less than a lynching.

  I moved through the shadows, grateful when I got to the cypress trees. They canopied over me, like a dark web, and I tried to clear my mind. At least Big Jim was safe. Ain’t nothing more I wanted than that.

  But as I walked through the swamp and got to hearing them crickets go at it, real loud and steady with their chirping, I remembered what Joss said. They were his last words, mingled with the angry voices of the mob, yet ringing out loud and clear.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Next time that nigger’ll be hanging from a tree.”

  Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measurement of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

  Frederick Douglass

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I kept imagining Joss throwing a rope over a branch, securing it real good, and Pa and the mob forcing Big Jim’s neck into the noose.

  “Pull it tight,” they’d say. “We gotta lynch him high.”

  I woke up the next morning with all kinds of nightmarish thoughts. I wondered if I’d go to Whitehall and see Big Jim swaying in the breeze. I got dressed and hightailed it through the swamp, not paying no mind to the Spanish moss that got moving real spooky like.

  “Where’s Big Jim?” I asked Hattie Mae when I got to Widow Jones’.

  She was shaping a pie crust, her hands shaking a little. She eyed me good and said, “He’s home. Been here long enough.”

  “Is Dr. Fontaine gonna come out to your place?”

  “Ain’t no white doctor comin’ to my place. You know that,” Hattie Mae said. “Mrs. Jones just wants things to settle down. Things have gotten awful worrisome ‘round here.”

  “Big Jim ain’t gonna have no doctor?”

  “I’ve mixed up some yarrow root for his leg.”

  “He ain’t healed yet, though.”

  Hattie Mae gave me the look. The one that said I was getting out of line.

  “Them men last night ain’t carrying no broomsticks. You seen your pa.”

  The way she said it liked to grab me by the innards. I had seen Pa. I was downright ashamed of it too, but I could tell she was trying to make me feel guilty. Get in a little jab for what he did.

  Didn’t she remember that I was the one who stayed with Big Jim when he got his foot caught in a trap? That I was the one who helped get him out of the house last night? That I was the one who was teaching him to read?

  None of it seemed to matter. I’d about knocked myself out trying to do some good for him, and all Hattie Mae could see were the deeds of Tucker Ray Mason. If that didn’t beat all.

  I looked out to the big oak. At least Big Jim wasn’t there, hanging from a branch.

  “All them flowers Puddingtate put out. They’re trampled,” Hattie Mae said, following my gaze to the row of lavender petunias that formed the border to the front walkway. “Mrs. Jones is powerful mad.”

  I thought about The War Between the States. It had been fought over eighty years ago, and yet, it seemed like some things weren’t ever gonna be won.

  “Come help me make these pies,” Hattie Mae said. “Mrs. Jones is awful shook up and needs herself some comfort food.”

  Something was gnawing at me real bad to see Big Jim. I wanted him to know I wasn’t like that mob. That I thought what they did was awful.

  I grabbed my satchel and told Hattie Mae I thought I was coming down with what Momma had.

  “I can’t work today.”

  If she knew where I was going, she didn’t let on. She just shrugged and said, “Go on, then.”

  Actually, I did start to feel sick. Sick to my stomach. What could I really say to Big Jim other than Pa thinks you’d look real good swinging from Widow Jones’ hundred-year oak? Lord, just the thought of it gave me the willies.

  I left through the library and followed the cobblestone path that wound through the garden. Puddingtate had outdone himself with all them pink crepe myrtles and them white rain lilies. I might’ve picked one, just to feel the soft petals, but a passel of bees got to buzzing overhead. I looked up and saw a hive nestled high up in Miss Priscilla’s peach tree.

  I didn’t know if birds had gotten to the peaches or them bees, but there were holes in darn near every one. Ain�
��t that something, I thought. Some folks around these parts said them bees would drink the nectar right out of them peaches, but I didn’t know if that was true. I just knew I was mad to see all them good peaches go to waste.

  I found myself staring at a single peach, a goldeny-pink one that hadn’t been touched. Lord, if I didn’t think Big Jim would like it. I looked around like Pa was standing there with his shotgun, ready to have a go at me like Drayton Jones. I didn’t see anyone and got to standing on my tippy-toes. I reached way up high, wondering if this is how Miss Priscilla felt. If her knees got to knocking and she started wondering if it was worth it.

  Them bees got stirred up something awful like they knew I was invading their territory, but I didn’t care. I got to pulling on that peach until it came plum off. All that velvety skin liked to tickle my hand real good as I tucked it in my satchel. If there was one thing that Big Jim would know was a peace offering, it was a peach from Widow Jones’ tree.

  I headed out Whitehall’s ornate entry gate. It was made of wrought iron that usually swung open, but this morning it hung lifelessly from two stone pillars. One of the many casualties left in the mob’s wake.

  It was darn near two miles to Hattie Mae’s, and I wasn’t looking forward none to going to the Negro side of town. I think the only thing that kept me going was a sense of urgency to see Big Jim. I didn’t know what Hattie Mae had said to him last night, but I kept imagining it was something along the lines of You know Chloe’s gonna turn out just like her pa. She may not think like it now, but Lord knows he’s gonna make her hate you same as he does. She may even be the one carrying the noose next time.

  The thought made me wanna spit fire. I was so angry that I didn’t even stop when a colored man stared me down. He was fixing a broken slat on the siding of the colored school and said, “We don’t want no white folks ‘round here. You hear me?” he hollered.