Five Smooth Stones (144 page)

"My son knew him at Oxford," said the plump professor. "Good friends, actually. Haven't talked to him yet, but his mother tells me he's quite shaken up by it."

Elacoya Goodhue said, "Hot water, Professor?" and the man who had just spoken passed his cup absently. "Seems a bit hard to understand, things like that happening. All of us supposedly civilized, eh?"

"May I remind you, there is also racial tension here," said Goodhue. He tamped tobacco down, put the pipe in his mouth, began the first attempt to light it.

"Quite a bit different," said the angular professor. "Here we are contending with the economic fears of the working-men. Fears of loss of jobs, lower pay scales. Frankly, I can't recall a case of cold-blooded, calculated murder."

"There are many facets to the situation," said Goodhue. "Many problems we—er—are perhaps better equipped to understand over there. One doesn't condone these things, of course. This boy was, well, difficult, shall we say. Bit of a troublemaker—"

"Married Sara Kent, the artist," said the plump man. "Or so my son tells me. Classmates, weren't they?"

The puffs came faster from Goodhue's pipe. "Kent—Kent. Ah, yes. I believe they were. It was quite a while ago, you understand—"

" 'Murder most foul,'" said the angular man abruptly. "Mark of Cain, eh? Hardly the solution for a troublemaker. Most of our great men were troublemakers in their youth. Difficult, all of them."

"Chap was an outstanding scholar, my son tells me. Always regretted I didn't meet him," said the plump man.

"Shot from ambush, I heard," said the other. "One of your southern communities. Incredible."

"More tea, dear?" asked Elacoya of her husband.

"As I said, problems," said Goodhue. "Rather complex ones. Problems we must not let defeat us—ah, yes, thank you, my dear—"

"Shocking thing, just the same," said the angular man.

"Frightful," said the other.

***

It might have been Sunday at ALEC headquarters in New Orleans. The few people there talked in sudden bursts, then were silent. The receptionist-typist sat quietly, only her dark eyes, blazing in the honey-colored face, showed emotion. Isaiah Watkins had been in his office, alone, the door closed for a long time; how long he could not have told.

Man had to be alone sometimes. Even if it meant remembering a young man with haunted eyes and a quiet voice saying, "Heard you say you could use an extra hand here—" Even if it meant remembering, with equal clarity and pain, a small, gentle man, eyes glowing with love and the pride he would not voice, the pride in his grandson, first the baby, then the boy, and finally the man, who had given him the passport he carried in his pocket on the night he died.

"Don't gimme any calls; don't let anyone in," Isaiah had told the receptionist, but now the door opened squeakily, and he turned his chair from the window to face it. Ambrose Jefferson stood just inside, and Isaiah Watkins thought: Ambrose's an old man. He's an old man now, and was conscious of surprise.

"Don't do no good brooding, "Saiah," said Ambrose. "Don't do no good. Like I tries to tell Pop, don't do no good grieving. It ain't never brought no one back."

Isaiah did not answer, and Ambrose lowered himself slowly to a chair. "Li'l Joe," said Ambrose. "Li'l Joe Champlin. I keeps thinking of him. I keeps thinking of him more than David. Seems like I ain't taken it in yet, about David. I keeps thinking on Li'l Joe."

After a long time Isaiah brought his gaze from the window, let it rest on Ambrose's face. "What we going to do?" he asked and Ambrose Jefferson, looking at him, thought: 'Saiah's an old man now. Never give it much thought before, but 'Saiah's an old man now.

Aloud he said: "Reckon we got to wait and see. See what his wife wants. He'd oughta lie with Li'l Joe and Geneva."

"Even if he don't, we ought to have a service."

"Memorial service," said Ambrose. "And the music. Seems to me we got to have that Li'l Joe would want us to have that for the boy, like he had it. Reckon the boy would too. Been thinking we ought to have Preacher Jackson, like he had for his grandaddy."

"Seems somehow like we all coming back to where we started," said Isaiah. "Seems like we ain't getting nowhere." He was silent again for a long time, and his voice was still lifeless, without timbre, when he spoke. "You reckon it's all true, Ambrose? Things we was taught about meeting up with our folks after we've passed? God and all that?"

"We got to, 'Saiah. Don't nothing make sense if we don't. You-all better get busy, 'Saiah. Brooding don't do no good."

"Li'l Joe was mighty proud of that boy, Ambrose. David was Li'l Joe's heart. It was a long time ago, but I remember it as good as if it was yesterday. Li'l Joe was mighty proud of that boy."

"You think he ain't now, 'Saiah? You think he ain't now?"

***

The small package on the desk was marked "Gift" and partially addressed with the name only. Within it lay a blanket, so light and soft Hunter Travis had said to his mother when they selected it, "I could blow it across the room with one puff."

"Better get it off quickly," she had said. "You do procrastinate sometimes, you know—"

Beside the package lay two cables. One was smooth and lay flat on the rich mahogany of the desk top. It read: "It's a boy. Three days old now. Everyone fine. David." The other was crumpled, torn as a man in a frenzy would crumple and tear the cause of his frenzy. It had come last night, eight hours after the first, and bore the same date, and was signed "Chuck Martin," and through an endless London night, into a gray, fog-shrouded London day, Hunter Travis had sought, not verification, but denial, some word that it was a mistake, a night and a day filled with unreal telephone calls, made and received in a waking nightmare, yet from them, pieced together, there had emerged a truth more fearful than any nightmare, less credible than any delirium.

"Can you pray?... David does...." Sara had said that, in a cab, driving through the rain, frightened. And he had answered something about not liking to, be rebuffed by strangers, something about not thinking words from Hunter Travis would be too well received by the Almighty. To what God can you pray now, little Sara? To what God? To what God had David's unseeing eyes been turned, lying at the edge of a southern field in the spring twilight?

There could be no God for the living, because life was chaos, a thing of whirling forces powered by a universal mind gone mad. But let there be a God for the dead, because David was dead; a remote and kindly God, unconcerned with the evil that was life. And if he could not now or ever pray, he could weep and when his eyes were clear again finish the address on the package that still bore only a name. His mother had said that Sara—little Sara, oh, Christ! little Sara —would be pleased when her son received a present addressed to his small self in person: "Master David Champlin."

***

The room in the little undertaking establishment in the Negro section of Cainsville was hot and stuffy, without life or movement. Brad Willis stood beside a simple wooden casket with metal handles, clenched fists resting on the closed lid, head bowed. Not for more than fragmentary moments since he had dropped to his knees in the blood-soaked grass of Flaming Meadows, by the body of David Champlin, had the sound of his own inhuman cry faded from his mind. What had to be done he had done, not knowing grief at first, but only the consuming rage that had given life to that first cry that surged from his throat. In a little while details would clamor for attention, but after the details, after the hell that would be the next few days, there would be an emptiness, a desk swept clean, the moments of forgetting and the quick turning to someone who would not be there. And in the years to come there would be the courts and the people—his people, David's people—and in the well of the court a shadowy advocate he alone would see. But here in the land where that advocate's roots had been, there would be many who would see a tall brave man whose laughter had been deep and loud, who had fought, and sung, not for them or to them, but with them. And who had died as his ancestors had, because he was one of them.

Brad had learned long ago that tears were no weakness in a man; he had seen too many weep, in joy, in grief, in fear, in remorse. Chuck Martin had broken down like a child

when Brad had finally reached him in Chicago, and Brad had envied him. Perhaps the soundless cry of agony that had lived within him since he had knelt by David Champlin's body—brat, brat, brat!—would fade, be washed away if he could call on the release of the tears that would not come, and then came and brought their healing at the sound of a low voice—"Brad, Brad, my dear, my dear—" the closeness of Peg, the strength in the pressure of her hands on his shoulders.

Later, when he raised his head, she said, "Brad, come away now."

"I didn't know you were coming. How—"

"I flew, dear. Your friend Jim Haskin met me. I couldn't reach you. And I had to come to you—"

"Peg, Peg."

"Things are all arranged. I've finished the loose ends for you. You can come with me now—"

"Sara?"

"She needs us, Brad."

Before he left, he laid a hand again on the wooden casket, touched the burnished metal handle. "The brat—" he said. "Yes, my dear. Our brat, our boy. Safe now. Please, Brad—"

"Coming, Peg."

***

"What time would be best for me to see her, Suds?" Chuck Martin spaced his words slowly and deliberately. He had the feeling that this was the only way they would reach the mind of the man across the desk.

"Any time, Chuck. Only don't waken her if she's sleeping. We tried not to overdo sedation, but the shock had to be cushioned. It seems—apparently it happens all over again when she first wakes up."

"I know," said Chuck. "It's been happening to me."

Suds Sutherland stood, walked from desk to door and back to desk, remained standing, hands gripping the back of his swivel chair. It was the fifth time he had done this in the fifteen minutes Chuck had been in the office. Chuck rose slowly to his feet. "Some of your own medicine, Suds. That's what I'd prescribe."

Suds gave no sign of having heard, leaned forward, bearing his weight on hands that were white-knuckled from their grip on the chairback. "Chuck, what manner of person could do this! I don't mean David. I don't mean David. I mean Sara. Another woman. God almighty, Chuck! It was another woman who made that call. A woman calling another woman, the mother of a three-day-old son—mouthing filth, saying she was glad—Christ, Chuck! These things don't happen!"

"They do. How did it get through?"

"The call? The telephone operator at the hospital took a person-to-person from Cainsville. She thought nothing of it, of course. Chuck, it's unbelievable—"

"I wish it were."

"Sara screamed and ran out of her room and down the corridor, screaming. No one knew what had happened. She was like a madwoman. They got her back to her room and reached me. I—I—God help me, Chuck, I hadn't even heard about it myself. David hadn't been dead an hour. How did they know? How did that she-devil know where to call?"

"The baby's birth was on all the wire services, Suds, with the name of the hospital. And radio and TV carried it."

Suds Sutherland gave the chair he was gripping a violent shove that sent it thudding against the desk.

"What are you going to say to her, Reverend Charles Martin?" he asked slowly. "What are you going to say to our kid? Are you going to pray? Are you going to tell her about the love of God? The will of a good, kind God? Make her feel better?"

Chuck stopped, halfway to the door. "Suds—"

"And after you've seen her, are you going forth and preach the Gospel? Are you going to spread the Gospel, Chuck? After you've seen the casket they won't open because —because— Chuck, what God are you going to tell them about? Answer me that! After this—after this—you'll spread the word of God?"

"Suds, that's why. Can't you see—that's why—" But Clifton Sutherland was no longer looking at him. His elbows rested on the desk top; the heels of his palms were pressed against his cheekbones, his hands covering his eyes, the short, stubby fingers kneading skin of forehead and scalp. "Go on, Chuck. Go see Sara. Tell her we all love her—"

Chuck stopped, one hand on the knob of the door to the outer office. He stretched the other hand, big-boned, big-knuckled, toward Suds in a clumsy gesture, started to speak, let the words die unuttered, and left, closing the door behind him gently.

***

Sara was awake when Chuck came into the room, propped half sitting, eyes enormous. He saw no trace of recent tears, thought not of some Biblical text or pat prayer, but of the words, "I like a look of agony because I know it's true—"

"Chuck. I—we've been waiting for you—"

He hesitated, taking in the meaning of the "we," and walked to the crib against the wall and smiled down at the sleeping child, then walked to the bed and took Sara's hand.

"I came as fast as I could, Sara."

Her hand stirred within his, and he tightened his grip a little, then opened his hand so that hers lay against his palm. Hunter had said to him once, "Sara Kent can be ten feet tall—" After his talk with Suds, he had been prepared—steeled —for tears, for hysteria, for a frantic cry against what Fate had dealt her. This quietude was harder to take. It robbed him of words, left him feeling inadequate and helpless; she was encased in an armor of quiet he could not pierce. She had turned her head away, and he waited, thinking her stillness might be sleep, but in a moment she turned back and her eyes were open, clear. When he glimpsed their depths, he looked away, down at the small hand in the palm of his, the fingers, like a child's, gripping his.

"You know?" she said. "You know about it? All about— everything?"

"Yes, Sara. Suds told me. And Brad."

"I—I—oh, God! Oh, God, Chuck! It's so lonely. That woman doesn't matter, Chuck; she doesn't matter. I don't want you to think—Chuck—it's always going to be so lonely, always—forever—"

He waited till the storm passed, saw that earlier storms had exhausted her so that this one spent itself soon.