Trouble in July (8 page)

“Hi there, Katy! Don’t forget me!” somebody shouted above the uproar.

DeLoach, the barber, again began nudging Milo in his ribs. Milo jumped every time the barber’s sharp elbow jabbed him.

“What did you do then?” the barber urged.

One of the other men took out a bottle and passed it around. They drank it empty and tossed it aside.

“I didn’t do nothing then, to tell the truth,” Milo said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “She lay there carrying on with herself like I never saw before in all my life. Then the next thing I knew she had started in on me the same way. We started rolling around getting at each other. That fieldhouse of Bob Watson’s is about thirty or forty feet square on all sides, and one time we would be bumping up against the side of one wall, and the next time against the other wall, that far away. She got hold of me with her teeth, and I thought she was going to kill me, it hurt so much. I yelled loud enough to be heard a mile away. I reckon I must have lost my head, because I started beating her with my fists, the pain was so bad. It looked like she didn’t mind that at all, because right away she started making a sound like pigeons cooing. Her teeth-bites didn’t hurt as much after that, and all I could hear was that pigeon-cooing sound. That lasted I don’t know how long, but the next thing I knew we was rolling again, all over the cotton. We smashed into a wall, knocking me silly as a jaybird. I didn’t care. What brought me to, was her getting a fresh grip on me with her teeth. I tried to beat her off with my fists, but she wouldn’t let go no matter how hard I hit her. The next thing I remember was when I opened my eyes and saw blood smeared all over both of us. Them sharp teeth of hers had took a bite out of my shoulder the last time, and I’ve got the scar right this minute to show for it. I reckon that scar will be there on me for the rest of my life.”

There was nothing said after he had finished. DeLoach, the barber, stood staring at him. After a while he walked off into the darkness towards the barn.

Milo and the other men moved towards the crowd around the porch step.

“Hi, Katy!” somebody shouted at her.

Milo pushed forward and took a good look at her.

“She’s got that same look on her,” he said, whispering to one of the men who had followed him from the smudge. “That’s exactly the way she looked that time in Bob Watson’s fieldhouse.”

Moths were fluttering around the light bulb on the porch ceiling, many of them flying against her face. She raised her hand and brushed some of them away. When her dress fell open, she pulled the ends together, giggling.

“Hi, Katy!” a voice, deeper than any of the others, shouted from the darkness of the yard.

She giggled so much she had to clutch the post with both arms in order to support herself.

A
FTER LEAVING
J
UDGE
Ben Allen’s door, Jeff McCurtain got into his car heavy-heartedly, and drove back downtown. Passing as quickly as possible the all-night filling station, which was now dark and deserted, he rode slowly around the Julie County courthouse time after time. His mind was tormented by the urge to follow Judge Allen’s advice for the sake of his political future, but it was his own conviction that more harm than good would come from any interference with a hunt-hungry crowd of men bent on lynching a Negro. He knew from past experience that Judge Allen was playing the situation as he would a game of checkers, and that whenever the opportunity presented itself, Judge Allen would gladly sacrifice one man in order to jump two. Jeff lamented the fact that the threatened law-breaking was not something out-and-out one-sided, such as common breaking-and-entry, or bail-jumping. He did not know how many times he had circled the tall, spire-topped, red-brick building, but he had gone around and around so often that he began to feel dizzy. He felt the car zigzagging in the street, but he had enough presence of mind to bring it to a stop. He looked out and recognized the east side of the courthouse square.

He was wondering who Judge Allen would choose to succeed him in office if the people turned against him when he suddenly felt deathly sick in his stomach. He slumped over the steeringwheel.

When he opened his eyes and sat up, he did not know how long he had been there, but he felt much better. He tried to find the illuminated clock-face on the courthouse tower, but the heavy foliage on the trees hid it from view.

Jeff had no idea where the idea came from, but from somewhere in his dazed mind had come the thought that it would be possible for him to keep from getting involved politically in the trouble at Flowery Branch. He remembered that while he was circling the square he had wished he could go somewhere and get the remainder of his night’s sleep. Now he had a plan that would enable him to do both.

“Man alive!” he said to himself, getting out of the car and stretching his legs. “I’d have worked myself lopsided out there at a time like this.”

He felt a lot better already. He was confident that, instead of losing votes in the coming primaries, he would invoke so much sympathy from the people that he would get more votes this time than he had ever before received.

Jeff walked up and down beside the car several times, limbering his muscles. He had been so thoroughly carried away by his enthusiasm that he had forgotten where he was. He ducked into the shadow of the car and looked around to make certain no one was observing him. He had happened to think that if the night town patrolman had been on the job, he would not have escaped being seen in the middle of the square at that hour. Seeing no one, he started down the street wondering if the patrolman had left town and gone to Flowery Branch.

Walking hurriedly, and yet being careful not to let his heels click and scrape on the concrete sidewalk, he went in the direction of the rear end of the jailhouse. He went three blocks out of his way in order to avoid being seen by chance anywhere near the front part of the building.

It made him feel good all over to think how, almost accidentally, he had found a way to satisfy everybody, politically speaking, including both Judge Ben Allen and himself. He thought his plan such a good one that even Corra would be pleased when she heard about it. He walked as fast as he could, swinging the weight of his body forward with a nimbleness that he once thought was gone forever.

At the rear of the jailhouse he stopped and listened. It was as quiet as a tomb in a country graveyard. The street lights flickered through the trees, making patterns on the pavement that reminded him of his wife’s fancy needlework.

Going carefully to the rear door, he took out his ring of keys and searched for the proper one. The key opened the lock, making only a single rusty squeak. He listened for a moment and then, secure in the knowledge that the noise had not attracted attention, he opened the door and stepped inside. He was careful to leave the door wide open.

Jeff stood in the darkness of the cage-room listening to the sound of Sam Brinson’s heavy breathing. Sam’s presence seemed to make everything all right from that moment on.

He felt his way through the passage between the two tiers of cages. It was pitch black in the room and he had to feel every inch of his way along the passage.

It was no trouble to feel the familiar pass-key on the ring, and he unlocked one of the cages and let himself inside. The rusty hinges creaked loudly when he moved the steel-barred door, but Sam Brinson’s heavy breathing continued without a pause. He had selected one of the cages on the south side of the passageway, because he remembered distinctly having locked Sam in the colored men’s usual cage on the opposite side.

Jeff closed the door slowly, taking care not to allow it to squeak any more than necessary. When it was closed, he put his hand between the bars, locked it, and tossed the ring of keys down the passageway as far as he could heave them.

He knew precisely what he was going to tell Bert the next morning when Bert came to give Sam Brinson his breakfast. He was going to explain that he was in the act of carrying out Judge Ben Allen’s orders when five men, masked with hankerchiefs tied over their faces, had abducted him in the courthouse square, threatening to knock him unconscious with pistol-butts if he made any outcry. After they had taken his keys from him, they locked him in the jailhouse, threw the keys away, and left before he could call for help.”

He planned to tell Judge Ben Allen that the men had locked him up in his own jailhouse and told him they were doing it in order to keep him from organizing a posse and interfering with their search for Sonny Clark. Judge Allen would not be able to hold him responsible for failing to deputize a posse as he had ordered and, what was equally as important, he would not have to go out to Flowery Branch and commit political suicide by antagonizing voters who were determined to catch the Negro.

Jeff chuckled to himself, his flesh shaking pleasantly, when he thought how lucky he was to have been able to think of such a fool-proof scheme. He knew Corra would be pleased, too, when she found out how well he had taken care of his political interests. She would be sure to forgive him for his failure to hide himself on Lord’s Creek.

“Man alive!” he whispered to himself. “If I had gone out there to Flowery Branch, it would have been just like cutting my own throat. That would have been a foolish, far-fetched thing for me to do.”

He felt sorry for the little Negro boy, Sonny Clark. A feeling of helplessness came over him. He hated to think of the boy’s life being taken away from him, but now that the situation was threatening his own political existence he knew he would have to safeguard his future at any cost. He tried to put Sonny out of his mind by thinking how sleepy he was.

There were two tiers of bunks in the cage, each tier containing two sleeping-shelves. Jeff felt his way to the bottom bunk on the left. He searched through his pockets for matches, but could not find a single one. He sat down anyway, and took off his shoes. In a few moments he was stretched out on his back sound asleep.

During the night he woke up once when he thought he heard several men shouting somewhere about the jailhouse, but he could not keep awake long enough to open his eyes. He turned over with his face against the wall and went back to sleep.

Just as dawn was breaking, shouting voices again woke him up. He awoke with a start. Before he could turn over, the high-ceilinged room was filled with sound. Some of the voices were raised to a high pitch. He was certain one of them was Corra’s.

He turned over quickly in spite of his weight and bulk and put his feet on the floor.

“What’s the matter!” he shouted, trying to see between the bars.

When his eyes swept the cage, he had the distinct feeling that everything was not as it should have been. He turned away from the door and looked at the opposite bunk. He sat up so erectly that he cracked his head on the steel frame of the bunk above. A Mulatto girl was lying on the bunk in front of him. She sat up suddenly and screamed at the top of her voice.

Jeff rubbed his eyes unbelievingly.

Just then there was a quick rush of heavy footsteps in the passageway.

“Man alive!” he yelled. “Where am I?”

He turned and looked through the barred door. He could see several strange-appearing faces straining to get a glimpse of him. After a moment he realized that the faces on the other side of the door were covered with handkerchiefs, and he had the fearful feeling of being in a dream and not being able to wake up from it. The masked faces looked exactly like the ones he had imagined so clearly when he was locking himself in the cage. Behind them all he could see dimly the familiar features of Corra, Bert, and Jim Couch.

“Corra!” he shouted as loud as he could.

The Mulatto girl sat wild-eyed before him, pulling her disarrayed clothes around her. In another moment she was again filling the cage with ear-splitting screams.

“Great God, Corra!” he shouted, jumping to his feet and rushing to the door. “Get me out of here!”

The handkerchief-masked men crowded around the door, shutting Corra from sight.

“Where’s that Clark nigger, Sheriff?” one of them said calmly.

He could see several gun-barrels pointing between the bars at him. He stepped backward a little.

Corra pushed between the men and stood facing him a, few feet away. She was gazing at him coldly.

“What are you doing, Jefferson?” she asked sharply. The instant he heard her voice he knew he was no longer floundering in a dream. “Jefferson!” she said.

“Corra, I didn’t—”

He glanced at the Mulatto girl from the corners of his eyes.

“Now, look here, Sheriff,” one of the men said gruffly, “we ain’t got time to waste on drivel-dravel. We—”

“I’m Jeff McCurtain! Nobody can order—”

Several gun-points were shoved through the bars, prodding him painfully in the stomach.

“We want to know what you done with that Clark nigger,” the gruff voice rose in his ears. “Word got around that you’d caught him and brought him to town and locked him up in the jailhouse. We ain’t got no time to lose. Where’s that Clark nigger, Sheriff?”

“I don’t know who none of you is,” Jeff said, rising up, “but nobody’s going to come in my jailhouse and scare the wits out of me. I got elected to this office, and I’ve been re-elected time after time to it, and I’m going to run it my own way as long as I get the votes to keep me here.”

“You’d better get out and start fixing your fences then, McCurtain,” another voice said. “When the people hear about this, they’re going to start stampeding for greener pastures.”

“Where’s that nigger at, Sheriff?” the other voice said impatiently.

“Boys, I ain’t seen nothing of Sonny Clark,” Jeff said quickly. “I hate like all get-out to be seen here like this, but it was all a pure accident. If you folks will just hold a minute—”

“Nobody cares about that, McCurtain,” one of the other men said. “We want that nigger.”

Corra was standing directly in front of him by then. She was gazing at him as though she had never seen him before in her life.

“If you know what’s good for you, Sheriff, you’ll quit stalling and turn that Clark nigger over to us.”