I pointed to it.
“Don’t forget what I said, Ben. Keep your head down.”
L.J. opened the little door that let onto the alley. He glanced around, then turned back. “Nobody around. Let’s go, Elizabeth.”
She turned to me with a smile that spoke of her concern.
“Ben, please let us help. We’re your friends. Maybe your only friends.”
Chapter 84
ALMOST MIDNIGHT. Another knock came on the rear door of the long house.
I shot the bolt and the door swung open.
Moody Cross was standing there in a white jumper. And not a little terrified. She pushed past me and slammed the door shut.
“Papaw sent me.”
“I guess my secret hiding place is the worst-kept secret in Mississippi,” I said.
She was out of breath. “We need help. A lady from the Slide Inn sent her colored girl out to warn us. Said they’s a group of men coming out to kill me and Papaw and Ricky.”
“Who’s Ricky?”
“My cousin, you met him at the funeral. He got run out of Chatawa, where he lived all his life. He been staying with us since you left—you know, like for protection.”
Now I remembered him, a boy about the same age as Hiram, with a family resemblance to Hiram and Moody.
“What happened in Chatawa?” I asked.
“Two white men said they saw Ricky staring at a white woman. Said he was thinkin’ evil thoughts. I guess some white folks can even see inside of a black boy’s brain. There’s this group of ’em—the White Raiders, is what they call ’em up there. They s’posed to be the ones coming to get us.”
This seemed like more than coincidence. The horror raining down upon Abraham’s family simply would not stop, would it?
“There’s something else.”
What else could there possibly be?
“Papaw is sick,” she said. “He can’t get out of his bed, got the fever and the shakes, and Aunt Henry’s been there nursing him.”
Moody started to cry, and I remembered something Mama always used to say: When the time comes you want to start crying, that’s the time to start moving.
It was time for me to go get L.J. and Elizabeth.
Chapter 85
L. J. STRINGER’S six-seater spring wagon flew down the road, stirring the motionless air of a sticky-hot Mississippi night.
“You’re going straight to hell, Ben Corbett, and you’re taking me with you!” L.J. raised his crop to urge on his team.
As soon as I had gotten Moody to stop crying, we’d sneaked over to the Stringer place and surprised the whole household with our late-night knock on the kitchen door. I’d asked L.J. to help me protect Abraham, Moody, and Ricky. He’d listened and he hadn’t hesitated. “I said I’d help you, Ben, and I will.”
Yes, he’d heard of the White Raiders. Yes, he knew them to be a gang of killers. Finally he sighed heavily and sent his man Luther out to hitch up his team.
And now here we were, bumping and rolling our way out to Abraham’s house in the Quarters. Crammed together on the back bench were Moody, Luther Cosgrove, and his brother Conrad.
Luther and Conrad were L.J.’s assistants—“my man Friday and his brother Saturday,” he joked—on call twenty-four hours a day to do whatever the boss wanted done. They drove Allegra Stringer on her errands. They ran packages to McComb and Jackson and Shreveport. If L.J. needed anybody “brought into line,” as he put it, it was the Cosgroves who did the bringing.
“What we’re doing here is extremely foolish,” said L.J. “You know that?”
“I know that,” I said. “But if we don’t help these people, nobody will. And they’re all going to die.”
L.J. shrugged and said, “Well, we can’t have that. This has to stop somewhere. Might as well be right here and right now.”
Chapter 86
POOR ABRAHAM WAS in the parlor of his house, sleeping fitfully when we arrived. Half a dozen men came from the Quarters, as volunteers, even though they had only a couple of rifles. “Guarding Father Abraham,” that’s what they called it. Abraham was that beloved here.
As it turned out, the White Raiders didn’t come that first night, but we continued guarding Father Abraham. As the sun went down the second evening, L.J. and I took our places on the porch. We’d been friends for a long time, but he’d gotten better and better with the years, the exact opposite of Jacob.
I arranged the other men as carefully as a Civil War general planning his lines of defense. I put two of the new men on the roof, despite Moody’s protest that the sheets of tin were so old and rusty that they would almost certainly fall through.
Then L.J. dispatched five of the men in an enfilade line among the old willow trees at the edge of the woods.
“Stay awake. Stay alert,” he told everyone. “Don’t leave your post for any damn reason. If you need to pee, just do it in place.”
As the second night watch began, our fears were as high as on the first.
Around eleven L.J. and I decided a finger of sour-mash whiskey was what our coffee needed to take the edge off. After midnight Moody came out with a fresh pot. She told me Abraham was awake.
Through the window I saw him propped up on his pillow. Between his hands he held a bowl of steaming liquid, which he raised to his lips.
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s got a little more energy tonight. But I ain’t getting my hopes up. Aunt Henry says he’s on his way.”
I nodded and walked inside.
“How are you feeling, friend?” I asked.
He smiled. “How are you, is the question,” he said. “I ain’t doing nothing but laying on this bed, trying not to die. You the one doing somethin’.”
“I’ll keep doing my job, as long as you do yours,” I said.
I was surprised how sharp he seemed, and I seized the opportunity.
“Still no word from the White House, Abraham,” I told him. “Makes me angry.”
“The Lord and the president, they both work in mysterious ways,” he said.
“How did you ever come to know him, Abraham?” I asked. “The president, that is.”
“Mr. Roosevelt’s mama was a southern lady, you know. Miss Mittie. From over where I’m from, in Roswell, Georgia. And see, my sister Annie went to work for Miss Mittie, eventually went with her up to New York. She was still up there, nursing Mittie, the day she died. Died the same day as Mr. Roosevelt’s first wife, Alice. Did you know his mama died the same day as his wife? I was there that day, helping Annie. That was a terrible day. I guess he never forgot it.”
“Ben!” L.J. shouted. “The sons o’ bitches are here! They’re everywhere!”
From all around the cabin came a clatter of hooves, then an explosion of gunfire.
I lunged for the front door. I was almost there when one of the Raiders came crashing through the roof, landing on my back.
Chapter 87
BULLETS WERE WHIZZING through the air as the confused-looking man picked himself up off the floor, still clutching a scrap of rusted tin he’d brought with him on his fall through the roof.
L.J. ran into the house and aimed a rifle at the fallen Raider. “Get the hell out of here or die. I see you again, you die!”
In the darkness outside I could see eight men wheeling about on horses. They wore no sheets, no hoods. They weren’t bothering to hide themselves. I recognized the redheaded troublemaker I’d encountered at the trough in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile.
One lout, on a big dappled quarter horse, must have weighed in at four hundred pounds. The horse struggled to keep from collapsing.
The fat man was agile, though, hopping down from his saddle like somebody a third his size. The other Raiders were getting down too, yoking their horses together.
One aimed his shotgun at the house. Ka-blam!
“Goddammit,” L.J. grunted. He poked the barrel of his fine hand-carved rifle through the window, squeezed the trigger, and dropped the shooter in hi
s tracks.
This was war, just like I remembered it from Cuba, except the enemy was from my own town.
L.J. called, “Take the back of the house, Ben!” So I ran to the tiny kitchen and onto the stoop.
Behind the trunk of a giant pecan tree stood Ricky, with his shotgun trained across the yard on an oak where a White Raider huddled with his rifle trained on him.
Neither of them had a clear shot, but they were banging away at each other, riddling each other’s tree trunk with bullets and squirrel shot.
As I burst headlong onto that stoop, I presented a clear target for the White Raider.
He swung his gun toward me, and time seemed to slow down while I watched him turn. He squeezed off a shot. I saw the spark of the bullet strike a rock near the stoop.
The man ducked behind the oak, but he was big enough that the trunk didn’t entirely conceal his belly. I braced my pistol hand on my other arm and fired.
I got him, and he hit the dirt with a thud, screaming, holding his abdomen.
His fellow Raiders had circled behind the house in a ragged line, and now attacked, sweeping the ground with gunfire, round after round. These men had come well armed; they were good with their guns. I remembered that Colonel Roosevelt called this kind of fighting “sweep in and sweep up,” a strategy, he said, that was “generally used by butchers and fools.”
These fools were shooting and yelling as they came, catcalling, “We got you now, niggers!” and “Run, boy! Look at him go!”
A shout came from the swamp: “They got Roy! Goddamn niggers done shot Roy!” This news provoked a fresh round of shooting. L.J. glanced at me; we had the same thought at the same instant.
We waited until the last shot, when all their weapons were unloaded at the same time.
Then we charged around the house, weapons leveled at the Raiders. “Drop ’em!” L.J. hollered.
They obliged, and I rushed to pick up the rifles, yelling, “Don’t move—not one of you move!”
Soon two of the black men who’d been concealed along the fence line appeared, lugging a prone, struggling Raider they had lassoed and hog-tied.
“Where y’all want this one?”
“Put him down right here by the rest,” said L.J.
When they came riding in, the Raiders hadn’t realized they were outnumbered, but they were finding it out now. I saw a couple of smart ones leap on their horses and ride off.
But here came the huge fat man, lumbering around the side of the house with a shotgun in one hand, a pistol in the other.
“Drop your guns!” L.J. yelled.
The fat man did not obey. Instead, he pulled the trigger on the pistol. The bullet hit L.J. in the right cheek. I swear I heard the crack of his cheekbone breaking, then he fell to the ground.
I fired at the fat man and he went down hard. Stayed down, didn’t move.
“L.J.! Are you all right?” I knew he was not.
“Oh, hell, yeah,” L.J. said. “The damn thing just grazed me.” I could plainly see that it had taken a sizable chunk of flesh out of his cheek; blood oozed down his chin. That side of his face was black with gunpowder.
I heard more commotion in front of the house, then hoof-beats. The remaining Raiders had taken this opportunity to get the hell out of there.
“Moody!” I called.
There was no answer.
L.J. made a kind of whistling sound as he breathed through the new hole in his cheek.
“Moody, they’re gone! Come on out now, I need you!”
Again all was silent.
“You’d better… go see… ,” L.J. mumbled.
I rushed through the back door and stopped short at the threshold of the parlor. Abraham lay on his bed with the long barrel of a pistol pointed at his head. The man holding it had his other arm around Moody in a choke hold.
“You stop right there, Corbett,” said the Raider. “They’s nothin’ would give me more pleasure than to finish off this old troublemaking nigger, and then you.”
I didn’t move.
I didn’t have to.
I watched Moody’s hand gliding into the pocket of her jumper. She pulled out a kitchen knife and in one smooth motion plunged it into the White Raider’s back.
Chapter 88
“BEN CORBETT HERE is a well-known nigger-lover, so I don’t expect him to know any better—but L.J., for the love of God, I never in this world thought I would find you pulling such a stunt.”
It was four in the morning, and we were standing in the dogtrot of the log cabin that belonged to Phineas Eversman and his family. Phineas was the chief of the Eudora police department, which consisted of him, Mort Crowley, and Harry Kelleher, who worked only part-time.
“Just hear us out, Phineas,” L.J. said. When he lifted the bloody rag from his face, his voice had a sickening whistle in it. “Your town is out of control.”
“Look, Phineas, you can call me every name in the book,” I said. “You can hate me and everything I stand for, but we still have five men in the back of our wagon who attacked and murdered innocent people in the Quarters tonight. We are witnesses, and we are here to swear out a formal complaint against these men. That means you are required by law to arrest ’em, hold ’em, and see that they’re brought to trial for murder.”
Eversman looked past me and out the front door. In the back of the wagon he saw five White Raiders tightly bound, hand and foot, by the very ropes they had brought with them for hanging Negroes.
Standing guard over these men were Cousin Ricky and eight of the ten surviving volunteer guards. Luther Cosgrove and a man named Jimmie Cooper had been gunned down. The captured men had laughed and hooted all the way downtown, promising us that their pal Phineas Eversman would soon set them free.
“Now, wait a minute, Corbett,” said Phineas. “The first thing out of your mouth was that you and these Nigras killed some of the men.”
“They attacked us!” I bellowed. “We had to fight back or we’d all be dead! Are you listening?”
“There’s no need to get ugly,” said Phineas. His voice was mild, but his eyes kept flicking outside to the tied-up men, as if he were weighing the risks on all sides.
L.J. pressed the bloody cloth against his cheek. “Phineas, you listen to me, now,” he said quietly. “It’s time, Phineas. It’s time to put an end to it—the violence, all the hatred against coloreds in this town. These Ku Kluxer gangs are tearing Eudora apart, limb from limb. People are living in fear, black and white. You know me, Phineas. I’ve lived here all my life. I was there tonight. I saw what happened. I demand as a citizen of this town that you arrest these men for murder. Right now.”
Eversman pulled his chenille bathrobe snug around his skinny body. He refashioned the knot in the belt, then made his way past us, outside to the wagon.
“Evenin’, Phineas,” said one of the Raiders with a chuckle. “I sure am sorry these bastards decided to wake you up for no good reason.”
Eversman didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. I thought I heard a quiver in his voice, but he spoke loud and clear.
“You men are under arrest for… for trespassing, assault with a deadly weapon, and… and…”
He couldn’t seem to get the words out, so I helped him.
“And first-degree murder.”
Eversman glanced at me. He swallowed hard. “And first-degree murder,” he said.
The men set up a howl. A dour, wiry man yelled, “Because that nigger-lover Corbett says so?”
Eversman’s voice had lost its tremor. “And because his complaint is supported by our most upstanding citizen, Mr. Stringer,” he said.
“Mr. Stringer is indeed upstanding,” I said. “But Chief Eversman will also find that my complaint is fully and completely supported by a person even more esteemed than L. J. Stringer, if you can imagine that.”
The wiry man in the wagon cast an ugly eye on me. “And who the hell that?”
“His name,” I said, “is Theodore Roosevelt.”
&nb
sp; Part Five
THE TRIAL AT EUDORA
Chapter 89
JACKSON HENSEN, the harried senior personal assistant to the president, entered the Oval Office with a bloodred leather folder under his arm. He took one look at the president and dropped the folder. The morning’s correspondence scattered all over the carpet—telegrams and official greetings from the king of England, the shah of Persia, and the Japanese ambassador, letters from congressmen, ordinary citizens, and all manner of federal bureaucrats.
“Har-de-har-har!” The president was laughing and singing. Also, he was dancing a jig. He was waving a golden Western Union telegram in the air as he capered in a circle behind his desk.
“Is anything the matter, sir?” Jackson Hensen asked.
“Does it look like there’s anything the matter, Hensen?”
“Well, sir, I’ve never actually seen you dancing, except at state dinners. Never at your desk.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever been happy enough to dance at my desk,” Roosevelt said. “Read this.” He thrust the telegram at Hensen and collapsed onto a sofa, out of breath, but still chuckling and congratulating himself.
Hensen scanned the telegram. It was stamped 11:50 p.m. of the previous night, signed CROSS AND CORBETT, and originated from a telegraph station in McComb, Mississippi. The report described in detail events that had occurred during the previous several days—lynchings, Klan meetings, the attack of the White Raiders, the gun battle, the arrest of three Raiders on charges of first-degree murder.
It was this last piece of information that so delighted the president.
“There it is!” Roosevelt shouted. “White men charged for killing black men, right down there in the heart of Dixie. Now let Du Bois and that Wells-Barnett woman try to tell me I have ignored the Negro problem!”
Hensen’s eyes came up from the telegram. “It is excellent news, sir.”