Five Smooth Stones

  ***

  It was all as clear now as an image seen in a flawless mirror, as sounds heard on stereophonic tape: Chuck's hoarse, half-crazed whisper at his side, "No, God; no, God; no, God; no, God—" and the way Hummer's blood had flowed slowly, not spurting, down and over one side of the dark forehead, filling the deep eye socket, the hollow of the cheek, flowing richly, redly, to the pavement. The gaping exit hole from which it spilled showed more than blood, showed splintered bone and the yellow-gray mucoid patches that had been Hummer's brains, and these things had splattered the pavement around his head in the brief instant of his fall.

  David ran forward, but Abraham Towers was quicker, and when David reached the body Abraham was on his knees beside it, both hands on the pavement, Hummer's blood flowing, more slowly now, over black knuckles and fingers. David said "Abra'm—" but Abraham did not hear—or, if he heard, did not heed. The big man gathered Hummer's body into his arms, stood tall and straight and alone with his burden for a moment, his face a dark mask of pain and horror; then he moved toward those who waited, and Hummer's head rolled gently against his shoulder, the ruin of it hidden against the blue denim of his shirt. The exposed profile under the small red entrance hole in the temple was as peaceful and quiet and content as a tired child's, eyelid half open, waiting sleep.

  His thoughts then were remembered now, in Haskin's dining room, in the same bitter sequence. The barn, the old barn turned warehouse, and the story of the World War I snipers. Where Hummer had been standing was in direct line with the doors of the former hayloft, and just after the shot David had looked up, backing away as he did so, and saw that they had been swung half open, saw the glint of the sun on a rifle barrel, and saw behind it, indistinct but unmistakable, the bright green of a man's shirt.

  There was a second blast of gunfire, closer than the first, three shots this time, and a poster beside the hayloft doors advertising "Pep-U-Up" showed three holes in almost exact alignment. The angle of the rifle barrel behind the hayloft door changed, lost the glint of the sun as it was withdrawn slowly, eerily, by the unseen hand on its stock. On the porch of City Hall the man Eddie had called Underwood was holstering his gun. The three other men had moved away from him, and he stood alone in the center of the porch.

  Chuck, gray and sick with shock, was waiting. Eddie had held him back with an expert grip, but now he released him, running up the steps, his voice rasping and harsh as he said, "You see, Underwood? You see now? You see what I mean—?"

  "I see. Leave the trigger-happy son of a bitch to me, Eddie. I gave him notice to get the hell down. I'll talk to him when he—"

  "Talk! Talk to him?"

  David did not wait for any more, said to Chuck, "Let's go. We can't accomplish anything here now—"

  They walked slowly, and David kept his eyes straight ahead, not looking at what he knew was on the pavement at his feet. As they drew near Calhoun he saw Haskin and Gracie half carrying Ruby Brown to Anderson's car. He could hear again the keening of her sobs, and said to Chuck through stiff hps, "Were you there, Chuck, were you there—"

  "Yes, Lord, I'm here—"

  ***

  He had heard someone, probably Gracie, place coffee on the table while he sat there, and he raised his head now and drew the cup toward him. When it came to a certain kind of chips-down guts, he thought, women have us all whipped. It had been Mrs. Haskin and Gracie who had stripped the sodden shirt and undershirt off Abraham Towers, washed Hummer's blood from the massive black chest, forced a powerful slug of whiskey on him, known best what to do when he broke and the shuddering cries had come from deep within him.

  The call to Washington was made by Brad within minutes after his return from Heliopolis. "Two dead," he had said. "One of them Humboldt Sweeton. Numerous critical injuries and no adequate hospitalization... Snipers... Mounted posses... Uncontrollable rioting..." His voice had gone on, while David, leaning against the wall beside the

  telephone, had said, "Save your breath, Chief. Save your breath—"

  But the jeeps had come, and the trucks, and the mobile hospital unit, but not before two Negro boys had been dragged from hiding and beaten to a bloody pulp on the City Hall porch while a young police sergeant named Eddie who had tried to interfere lay unconscious nearby; and not before David Champlin had crouched on the floor of a pickup truck beside the frighteningly quiet form of Luke Willis, calling to the driver, "Mind the bumps, Les; for God's sake take it slow and mind the bumps!"

  Brad came into the room, a glass in each hand. He handed one to David, saying, "I can't get through to Anderson on the phone—"

  "I know. It's a madhouse."

  "I saw Hummer's body—"

  "Well?"

  Brad did not answer, and David said again, "Well? Aren't you going to say they can't get away with it?"

  "No. They can."

  "Effie. Hummer. Maybe Willy Haskin. And Fred. And another guy. Maybe our kid Luke—"

  "What happened to Luke, David? I've only had a sketchy account."

  "Ever watch a polo match where a man's head was the ball?"

  "For God's sake, no!"

  "The crazy bastard, the crazy, damfool bastard. He ran into the center of the street and focused on the horses, two of them, coming toward him hell-bent. He was running backward. He sidestepped the first horse, but not in time, and you could hear the crack of the club on his head clear over here. God knows why it didn't knock him cold, but it sent him staggering, and the guy on the second horse, coming up from behind, finished the job. He shouldn't have been moved, but we had to."

  "Who's 'we'?"

  "Haskin and someone else—I don't know who it was—and L And a guy from the police department named Eddie. That was just before they knocked him out. Eddie, that is."

  "Anyone see that happen?"

  "Haskin says he did. Happened while we were getting Luke to Anderson's."

  "Luke's camera?"

  David gave a short bark of laughter. "Stupid. As I said before, they're stupid. It was still slung around his neck. It's in Anderson's safe. The film's intact, I'm sure. I'll get it and unload it and send it north in the morning. When Luke comes out of it, he'll give me hell for not getting it there tonight. On foot if necessary."

  "When." Brad finished his drink with one swallow. "When Luke comes out of it. What does Anderson think?"

  "He wouldn't say. That's why I have to go over, unless we can reach him by telephone."

  "David, he may need brain surgery."

  "For God's sake, you think I don't know! But where? How? By Anderson? With only his wife to assist? Or by a couple of interns at County in Capitol City?"

  "A plane, David, a plane. Chartered. I understand that Fred and the other man who was in bad shape are both on their way to the Veterans Hospital in an Army ambulance."

  "By God! By God, that's good! It's sure a wonderful thing to have worn a uniform! When the guys you wore it for damned near club your brains out while you're defenseless' and alone as Fred was—you get to go to the hospital for free. Sure makes a guy feel good. Secure like."

  "Easy, brat, easy."

  David took his jacket from' the back of a chair as Brad asked, "What about Willy Haskin?"

  "Anderson says he can handle Willy's case there. Lucky he was hurt early. There was still a bed. Now the Army's here, they'll help with supplies and stuff, I imagine. They doing first aid?"

  "Yes. All that we can channel to them. I suppose Anderson still has his hands full, though."

  "About that plane?"

  "I'll call Shea. I don't know what chance I'd have in Capitol City."

  "Shea have 'em on tap?"

  "No, but he's a fast worker when his Irish is up. And I'll get through to Luke's magazine, have them line up hospital and surgical care."

  "I'll phone from Anderson's."

  "Better take someone with you." ' "I'll go alone."

  "I wouldn't—"

  "God damn it, I'll go alone!"

  "Right, David." Brad spoke easily
; only his eyes, as he watched David leave, showed worry.

  ***

  The streets were quiet and dark, the yards and porches empty except for an occasional group talking at a gate or on a porch, but there was no laughter, and from open windows no music, only the stylized syllables of a radio reporter's voice, telling the rest of the country about the night's events in Cainsville. "Tell 'em about it, boy," muttered David. "Tell 'em about it. Tell 'em all about the southern way of life."

  He was stopped three times by soldiers, explained his business and where he was going, and was waved on. Their faces were impassive, the not-to-reason-why impassivity of the trained military man. Only the Negro patrol who stopped him showed any sign of cognizance of the situation.

  "Glad you're here," said David.

  "Me, too. I come from Otisville, twenty miles north of here."

  "The hell you say!"

  "Man, this duty's doing my li'l black soul good. Really strengthifying it. Here's the Sarge. Get going, friend—"

  There was more semblance of order in the hospital when he entered it now than there had been when they carried Luke in. Minor injuries were being cared for at a first-aid table set up in the waiting room by a young man in heavy horn-rimmed glasses wearing a blood-stained white doctor's coat over levis and cotton undershirt. The boy, thought David, must be the one who was headed for Howard, whom Brad was helping out on the scholarship. All of those with major injuries must have been put to bed by now, either upstairs or in the "front parlor" where Luke had been put because Anderson had not dared to have him carried up the stairs.

  Mrs. Anderson came from the back of the house, face set and taut with strain, eyes preternaturally bright. "Mr. Champlin—"

  "I came to find out about Luke Willis."

  "Doctor's dressing a bad bite wound now. He'll be free—"

  "Mrs. Anderson, can't we forget the hospital-type formalities? The doctor-will-discuss-it-with-you routine? You must know as much as he does about it."

  She nodded, and for a moment he saw weariness take over her body, saw the straight shoulders sag. Then she became taut again and walked past him toward the front room. "Let's go in and you can see him."

  Luke lay on an Army cot in the dimly lit room, eyes closed in what might have been a deep sleep. David's throat tightened in fear and he pushed past Mrs. Anderson. Her hand on his arm stopped him before he reached the cot.

  "He's alive, Mr. Champlin." She bent and took one slack wrist in her fingers, nodded, and straightened up.

  "How bad?"

  "Pretty bad. We're trying to think of some way—"

  Outside the room a man called, "Ada!" and she hurried to the door. Anderson entered when she opened it, closed it carefully, then leaned against it, eyes closed. "That kid's leg, Ada. That kid's leg was bitten clear through. Muscles and all. And all he was doing was running, looking for his parents." He opened his eyes, saw David and said, "Hummer and that kid, the very young and the old. It doesn't matter, does it?"

  "Not to them. But it does to us, Doctor. We've got a feeling for kids and old folks—"

  Dr. Anderson shook his head violently, said, "Bah! It's just as well none of their wounded came here this night. If they had any."

  "They did. A few. One of 'em was hurt by his own. Hit over the head, they tell me, when he tried to stop a half-dozen guys from beating up a couple of colored kids. Young police sergeant."

  "Eddie? Hell, no! He was—never mind." Anderson walked to the cot where Luke lay, took the pulse as his wife had done, pulled back the lids of the eyes.

  "Doctor, if he needs surgery, Brad Willis is getting a chartered-plane standby."

  'There's no question about it. It may not be the only hope, but at the moment it seems to be."

  "It will take a little times—"

  "That's not even a calculated risk. It's an inevitable one."

  "I'll go phone Brad and I'll go along to wherever they take him."

  As Anderson walked to the front door with him a few minutes later, David asked, "How's Willy Haskin?"

  "I think he'll do. There are internal injuries, but he and Luke have one good thing going for them. They're both young."

  "Not now, Doctor. Not anymore—"

  When he talked to Brad from Anderson's office, he told him he would go to Tether's End and pick up enough clothes to take north.

  "You're going with Luke?" asked Brad.

  "Yes. Till we see what's what." He thought he heard Brad say, "Thank God."

  "Right. Can you get back here to Haskin's in, say, three quarters of an hour?"

  "Sure. How we going to get Luke out of here?"

  "Army ambulance, and the Army just told me there's an emergency field ten or fifteen miles east."

  "You mean you've ordered the plane already?"

  "Shea's going to. He'll either get one or the magazine will. Probably out of Capitol City."

  "See you later. Good going—"

  He drove slowly at first after he left the hospital, drawing the quiet of the night into his lungs, wondering if his bloodstream could distribute the quiet, like oxygen, to his jangled insides. Every house was lighted, and he could hear in his mind the endless talk behind the windows, in kitchens, and bedrooms, over coffee, over beer. With some the talk would be fearful, but not so fearful as it once would have been. With others, the talk would be angry, but not so angry as it once would have been, because now anger was no longer futile, a tortured, helpless thing, impotent. The chains had snapped tonight in Cainsville. Anger, freed, had brought men and women strength and hope. They had dead to bury, blood to staunch, but that night had shown them nothing they dared not face again, and thinking of it David felt his own being grow stronger, the sick weariness lessen.

  At Tether's End he groaned aloud at the shambles that was the main room of the house, and at the blood that spattered floor and walls. Fred Winters, quiet, elegant Fred Winters, must have put up one hell of a fight, and David smiled in spite of his shock.

  He gave up the idea of a quick shower; the homemade, tricky mechanism of that Rube Goldbergish arrangement in the lean-to might result in trouble and delay. Instead he satisfied himself with a once-over-lightly at the kitchen sink. There was fresh milk from Miz Towers's cow in the refrigerator, and he drank it slowly, knowing that in a few minutes the cramping pangs in his stomach would ease. As he changed clothes and packed the few things necessary for the trip, he thought again of the people of Cainsville, and of the new dimension of living into which they had traveled that night. They would not seek another horror such as the one they had just passed through, but they would meet it if it came. It had not been of their choice, had not, God knew, been planned. It had been set off by the young people, impatient at their elders, not knowing with any exactitude what they had been fighting for, any more than Billy, the wide-eyed boy at the picnic, had known because they had not lived the decades of oppression and poverty that their elders had. Yet, at the scream of a woman whose child lay dead of neglect and indifference, those faceless decades had been obliterated and the people who had poured in fury through the barriers had been human beings, no longer anonymous, no longer just "the nigras," but men and women made conscious of their birthright in the blinding, deafening sounds of a woman's screaming grief.

  A Murfree, an Eddie; David wondered how many generations must be born, grow old, and die before there would be enough Murfrees and Eddies, and answered his own question without hesitation. There would never be enough, not in North or South, and the Negro who faced that fact, who, while acknowledging his debt to them, continued his fight in what would always be a climate of lonely alienation, was the strong Negro. He would always face an enemy; only the ranks of the enemy would change, grow less, become so weak by the infiltration of the Murfrees and the Eddies it could not hold him back. And that would take a hell of a long time. Not all of Pharaoh's army would be drownded; there would always be those who escaped the waters and lurked in the hills to wage guerrilla warfare from generation to gene
ration.

  There should be a new mind born, he thought as he walked down the steps and toward the car, a new mind for the human race; a clean new mind, oh, God, a fresh new mind on the altar of the Lord, a clean new mind all freshly polished—

  He had not reached the car when he saw the headlights turn into the roadway from the south, and seconds later a searchlight blinded him. The first shot cut his legs from under him; the next slammed into his shoulder before he hit the ground, spinning him around. He fell face down, his one good arm outstretched, hand grabbing at the unyielding ground, trying to pull his body forward, toward the house, away from the running feet, the shouts, the insensate laughter. There was no pain yet from the bullets, but now there was pain from blows and kicks on head and spine and face, and there was rage at his own helplessness. Terror mingled with his rage at a new sound, the low, fury-filled snarling of dogs, very close. The shouts of the men took on new tones. There was a crashing blow on his skull, then darkness.

  CHAPTER 83

  Sara slept intermittently, with maddening indeterminate spells of half-wakefulness, thinking bitterly how easy it was for Hunter Travis to say "Get some more sleep, luv—" The city beyond her windows was taking form in gray light when she forced herself to full wakefulness, sitting up in bed, legs drawn up and held by tensely folded arms, chin on knees. She felt without identity: "an unidentified object in a waste place," she told herself. She knew she would have felt the same in Paris, New York, Rome, Chicago; she was in London, where she thought she had established a branch of her being and it made no difference. Düsseldorf? Would she be feeling the same if she were in Düsseldorf with Chris, a Chris whose eyes had not yet shown the pain and shock of her rejection of him? Was this feeling of complete aloneness, of being without living ties to the rest of the world and the people in it, one of simple loneliness that could be quickly, easily banished by a sleepy, maybe grumpy breakfast with a man who knew she wanted a little cream and lots of sugar in her coffee, whose only intrusion on her mood would be light words, a light kiss, because he loved her. "It would be hell," he had said. "Sheer hell. For me. For you... Go, my dear, quickly."