Five Smooth Stones (131 page)

David looked at Chuck, caught his eye, and sensed that he was about to speak. He shook his head, thinned his lips in a voiceless admonition to silence. Eddie's fist had stopped hitting the desk, and his breathing was short and heavy. He looked directly at David now, ignoring Chuck.

"I spent two years in the Army. Two years. Made sergeant. And even when I went in I didn't mind being integrated. Some of the guys did; some of the guys from up north, too. Captain of our outfit was colored. He was the spit of you. That wasn't easy, just at first; then it didn't make no difference. He was tough, tougher'n you, but couldn't anyone say he wasn't fair. Didn't anyone tell us that if a war come up and we took to fighting, them bullets was going to come marked 'White' and 'Colored.' Didn't anyone say the big bomb was Jim Crow. I saw what happened to you last night. I saw it, and it made me sick, plumb sick."

He got to his feet abruptly, swung one muscular leg up and laid his foot on the stool. He pulled up one leg of his khakis, then rolled his sock down to show an irregularly enlarged ankle snugly bound with an elastic bandage. He was talking to both of them when he said, "There ain't nothing wrong with that ankle, ain't a damned thing wrong with it." He hit the ankle with his hand, and David could tell it was hitting something other than flesh. "We got some of those things at the house the doctors use to look down your throat with. Tongue—tongue—"

"Depressors," supplied Chuck.

"Yeah. Tongue depressors. I got me some of them and I strapped 'em round my ankle and then I put on this bandage. And I told 'em this morning I sprained my ankle in the mess last night. That's goofing off. That's a real goof-off." He smiled an unamused smile. "That way I knew I'd have to limp. They've got it all planned for more trouble. They're loaded for trouble. They've got more'n a twelve-man mounted posse all ready back of here, and they got tear gas in this morning from the city." Now he was talking directly to Chuck, and David saw that his eyes were moist. "What am I going to do, Reverend? What am I going to
do?
I got no education like you and Lawyer Murfree. They've got him whupped, whupped good. He's cutting out. But I got no place to go with a wife and kid and all. And the colored people I grew up with and thought was my friends hating my guts all the time, and I didn't know, and now I'm taking orders to treat 'em like wild animals escaped from the zoo. If I was to kill one of them colored people I been knowing all my life there wouldn't anyone say a word to me. I'd—I'd—"

"Make captain," said David.

"I would, and that's a solid fact Reverend, whatever am I going to
do?"

Looking at Chuck's worried face, David mentally gave thanks he'd never felt a call to the ministry. Taking care of troubled souls must be a hell of a lot harder in some ways than fighting in the ranks for decency and justice. He'd be damned if he could see what Chuck could tell this tormented youth. Stall him, that was all he could do; stall him off until they could see Effie. Even if two doctors had seen her, even if the kids were all to be released soon, he'd feel better to get over there and find out for himself, offer to take her to Capitol City, to County Hospital, if it would help Anderson.

"Ride it out, Eddie," said Chuck quietly. "Ride it out on that phony limp and let me think about it. We'll manage somehow to get together and talk, even if you have to arrest me. There's always an answer, Eddie. Remember that. There's always an answer when a man wants to do what's right. Perhaps God doesn't make it easy, but He always makes it possible." Chuck laughed gently. "Just hop along on that homemade sprained ankle and get those passes signed so we can get in to see Effie, help her get out if she—"

It happened so quickly David felt nothing but blank shock for a second. Eddie turned from them, and his fist crashed to the desk; then he swung around, his face contorted, eyes wide and filled with moisture.

"Effie," he whispered. "Effie! God help us all, Reverend. That girl's dead. That pore girl's dead."

***

For an immeasurable moment in time following Eddie's broken whisper, there was a vacuum-like silence in the hot little room. Then Chuck, face dead white, made a run for the door. David did not rely on words, but on brute strength, pulling the big man back, holding his arm tightly. "Wait." He did not raise his voice. "Wait, Chuck. Wait."

He turned to Eddie, who was standing with his back to them, fighting for composure.

"When? When, Eddie? When did she die? For God's sake, answer me!"

When Eddie turned, his eyes begged for understanding and pity, found neither.

"Answer me! When did she die?"

"Just before you-all come over. I sent for the doctor myself without no orders when I saw how bad she was. She— she died just after he got there. She—she's got—she had what they call congenital heart trouble. Doc Anderson was trying to get her ma to let him fix it up somewhere in Philadelphia for an operation. I been knowing that little girl ever since she was a little brown tyke in pigtails corning to our house with her ma—"

"Never mind that! Who knows about this?"

"Only Scoggins and Elmore and the mayor, and the head jailer and the doctors. They put her in a separate cell in the adult section. I called the chief out of the meeting and told him, after the jailer called. He called the other two out. They ain't told the others. Reckon that's why they decided to turn the kids loose. Get 'em home and the people away from the barricades before they let anyone know about—about Effie. And Elmore, I suppose he figured you-all better go over there and help keep things quiet until—"

"Keep things quiet! For Christ's sake! That ambulance siren? They were coming to the back entrance for the body, weren't they? They'll carry a dead Negro, not a dying one. Right?"

Eddie nodded. "They were going to take her to the white mortuary, leave her there till the kids were out and things quieted down. I—I called over when I heard the siren. I didn't say right out the chief told me to, but I reckon they thought so. I—I told 'em to send the ambulance away. That white undertaker, he hates colored. I couldn't let—"

"It's too Goddamned bad you didn't come down with nobility earlier," snapped David. "You knew she was sick. Too damned bad risking your job didn't do somebody some good."

"Take it easy, David." Chuck's urgency was controlled now. "Eddie, you did what you could, what you had to do. Now get those passes signed so we can get over there."

Chuck closed the door after Eddie left and said, "David, suppose I go to the jail and you go back over and get hold of Hummer, tell him to find Ruby and stick close to her—"

"Better if I find him and tell him the truth, then ask him to get those people over to the back of town, into that big hall. They can take the kids there in trucks. He can take Ruby with him, let someone else take over at the hall, then get her home and tell her—"

"God help him," said Chuck.

Eddie, when he returned, gave David his pass first, not looking at him, and David said: "Thanks, Sergeant. I'm short-tempered right now. You've been swell."

"That's O.K." He handed Chuck his pass and said: "Look, Reverend. As soon as we turn the kids loose, I'm going home. Me and the wife will figure something out. And—and thanks—"

"I'll see you later, Eddie. At your house, maybe."

"Maybe." Suddenly Eddie smiled, and David saw the guy who'd made sergeant. "Maybe, Reverend. They make fine bombs in these parts. For amateurs—"

As they started out the door of City Hall, the two men with guns moved aside, as people must once have moved aside from lepers carrying bells. On the top step Chuck touched David's arm. "Let's give the situation a quick run-through, be sure we know what we're doing—"

There was no air stirring. The heat of the setting sun was as scorching as that of a noon sun. David looked across the street at the people still standing behind the barricades. Somewhere in the crowd an arm was raised, a hand waved in greeting. He raised his own arm in return. It was like lifting a dead weight.

He glanced toward Haskin's store and saw Abraham Towers with a group of men; then one of the group moved to the porch railing, waved, and shouted a greeting. It was Luke Willis. David felt an unreasonable sense of relief at the sight of the boy; whatever Luke's faults, he was always unquestioningly there when a job had to be done, and there would be many to be done before this day and night were over.

Below them, on the stoop of the police station, Dr. Anderson and a white man carrying a doctor's bag were standing. He started to speak to Chuck, to point them out, but Chuck did not give him a chance. "Cuss for me, chum. We're too late. Look—"

Across the street Hummer Sweeton was just straightening up after ducking under one of the barricades. He stopped, spoke briefly to the policeman guarding it, and then was walking rapidly across the street on a diagonal course to the police station and jail. "Hummer!" called Chuck, and the little man slowed but did not stop. He smiled, waved, and hurried on. "He doesn't know," muttered David. "They've called him over to tell him. Who the hell—"

"Eddie," said Chuck. "The poor guy. He must have called after we left. He's burning his bridges. Doing all the wrong things for the right reasons—"

"We'd better get down there. No sense—Oh, God! Look now!"

A short, heavily-built woman had squeezed around one end of the barrier and was talking to the guard in a high-pitched, carrying voice. David caught the words "Reverend Sweeton," and saw the guard shrug and send her over with a jerk of his head. She began to run, trying to catch up with Sweeton, but she was short-legged and awkward and Sweeton was already on the stoop talking with Anderson and the other doctor before she was halfway across.

"Eddie may be getting right with God, but he sure as hell is messing things up," said David. "That's Ruby Brown. We both better go down there. Don't run. Take it slow and casual or those people over there will sense something."

They started down the steps, Chuck saying, "You think I grew up down here without knowing your people wouldn't sense something if we just walked along whistling. They know something's up already."

The heat seemed to have sucked all sound out of the air, but the whinny of a restless horse from somewhere back of City Hall came close and loud. Even the young people in the stockade, pressed close along the length of its fence, were quiet. A boy's voice cut the quiet, calling to them, "Hey, when we going to get out of here?"

Chuck called back, "Pretty soon, kid, pretty soon."

David did not take his eyes from the scene on the stoop of the police station; he spoke to Chuck without looking at him. "Hell's on its way again, Chuck, and these bastards over here are primed for it. Another week and we might have had a chance at—
Let's go!"
He started to run, Chuck outstripping him. He had seen Sweeton try to draw Ruby inside the building, seen her break away and run to Anderson, pound his chest with clenched fat fists, head thrown back to look at him, eyes white-rimmed and staring.

Ruby's first scream was a bayonet in his belly, stopping him, draining all thought and strength with its pain. The screams that followed were blinding, like forked lightning in a black, starless sky; deafening, like thunderbolts directly overhead. For an aeon there was nothing in the world but the screaming of Ruby Brown whose child lay dead in the jailhouse.

CHAPTER 82

The worst of it was over just after dark. The tide of yelling humans that had roared through the barriers at Ruby's screams had receded. The horses were gone, and the men with clubs and whips who rode them into flesh and bone; the tear gas and the goads were gone, and the dogs. Soldiers, white and black, patrolled the sidewalks, and jeeps drove slowly through the dusty roads and along Main Street, their heedless wheels smearing and obliterating the thick dark patches that gleamed moistly under the lights. They had used a hose for what lay on the pavement between Haskin's store and City Hall, and David, standing on the store's porch, had cried out, "Let it be!" There had been a touch on his arm and Chuck's voice saying, "Come inside, David."

Now, after dark had fallen, he sat where he had more than twenty-four hours before: at the end of the dining-room table in Haskin's dining room, one hand slapping steadily on the worn wood. But tonight no hand could quiet it, as Grade's had then, not that of Gracie, who touched it lightly and turned away, defeated; not Brad's on his shoulder. He did not look at Chuck when he heard the low voice say, "Easy, chum. Take it easy. They've hanged themselves this time."

When he finally stopped the soft slap-slap, it was to cover his face with both hands, the table supporting his elbows, supporting him. Not all of what had happened was clear and sharp in his mind. He could not have told how many horses charged into Main Street from around the corner just above City Hall, and drove the people back from the area in front of City Hall, heedless of those who fell, nor how many there were in the second group that deployed along the eastern side, driving the people back, the riders slashing with whip and club, the horses rearing back from contact with soft, yielding flesh but goaded on by spurs.

Before the front runners of the Negro ranks from across Main Street had reached the eastern sidewalk, David saw Anderson pick Ruby Brown up bodily and carry her inside the jail, Hummer and the white doctor following. There was no chance now of reaching the jail. David feared for Chuck. Not all the Negroes could possibly know him, and the rocks and bottles being thrown now had only one general aim, whites. He kept his back to the stockade fence, his hand on Chuck's arm, said, "Back the way we came. We'll cut over above City Hall—" Then Eddie was there, running stiff-legged, wincing with real pain caused by the edges of the makeshift splint that were cutting into his flesh above the shoe top. This was not the fearful, agonizing youth of a few moments before, but a man in police uniform, one hand on the gun at his hip, the other carrying a regulation club, a man who had "made sergeant" at a younger age than most.

"You-all make a move to get into that mess and I'll wing you—"