Trouble in July

  “There are more than a few bad actors with a hand in this thing, McCurtain,” the Judge said, leaning back and pulling the blanket under his chin. “The one that’s likely to cause me the most trouble is that Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun. This petition business of hers has come up so suddenly that no man alive can do any more at this point than guess what effect it is going to have on the election. The whole thing is blame foolishness from start to finish, but that won’t keep it from causing trouble this near the election. People can be worked up to such a pitch over the rape of a white girl that they’ll sign their names to any paper that comes along.”

  He stopped to think for a moment. After a while he turned and looked at Wardlaw standing in the corner.

  “Wardlaw,” he shouted, “I could send you to hell to burn in everlasting fire for your letting that nigger boy rape a white girl.”

  Wardlaw began to tremble.

  “Please don’t do that, Judge!” he begged. His lips began to tremble. “I won’t never grumble over what you makes me do as long as I live!”

  “That rape might set the opposition off on a clean sweep in the primary,” he said, still looking at the Negro in the corner. “Say something! Don’t just stand there shaking all the time!”

  “I hope the opposition all goes to hell and burns in the everlasting fire,” Wardlaw said, stumbling over the words. He was trying his best to remember what the Judge had said so he would be able to repeat it as he knew was expected of him. “I hope you’ll send me to hell to burn in the everlasting fire because I let a nigger boy touch the white girl.”

  Judge Allen turned away from him.

  “Don’t you think I ought to hurry on down to the creek and start fishing right away, Judge?” Jeff asked hopefully. “If I left now, I could be there in half an hour.”

  “Fishing is something you ought to stay away from, McCurtain,” the Judge said. “You ought to do something that’ll give you exercise. Sitting on a creek fishing all day is the worst thing you could do. You wouldn’t have to carry so much weight around if you took the proper exercise.”

  “I shed all my seasonal weight in the spring Judge. I’m close to fifteen pounds lighter than I was last winter.”

  Judge Allen thought for a while, glancing casually around the room while he was making up his mind.

  “I’ve decided you’d better get out there to Flowery Branch right away and make a show of trying to catch that nigger, McCurtain.” He looked Jeff straight in the face. “That Calhoun woman is going to be out getting names on that petition of hers at the crack of dawn. If the people take to it the way I fear, it’ll mean that we’ll have to safeguard our interests by siding with the majority. I ain’t in favor of sending the niggers to Africa, or anywhere else, no matter if every voter in Julie County signs the petition. But I can’t let my personal feelings influence me at a time like this. We’ve got the courthouse full of our men who look to me to keep them in office. You’re one of them, McCurtain. You want to stay in office, don’t you?”

  “Sure I do, Judge, but—”

  “Then get out there right away and move around in the act of trying to catch that nigger, at the same time dropping a hint that if you do catch him, he can be taken away from you if enough citizens demand that. By morning I’ll have a chance to see how that petition is filling up. As soon as I know how to act, I’ll send you the word.”

  Judge Ben Allen stood up. The blanket dropped to the floor.

  “All of us have a big stake in county offices, McCurtain,” he continued, “and we can’t afford to let the opposition turn us out after all these years.”

  Jeff wished to suggest that it might be best if he went back to Lord’s Creek and waited until the decision was reached, but he began thinking about the likelihood of his being defeated in the race for the sheriff’s office, and he decided to do as Judge Ben Allen had told him.

  It was difficult to imagine himself out of the sheriff’s office after all those years of living on the top floor in the jailhouse. If he lost out there, he would have to take up farming. He did not know what else he could do for a living.

  The phone on the desk rang, causing all three of them to jump. Wardlaw moved to answer it, but Judge Allen picked it up, motioning Wardlaw back to his corner.

  “Is this Judge Ben Allen?” a woman’s voice asked.

  He grunted affirmatively.

  “Judge Allen, I’m awfully sorry to call you in the middle of the night like this, but I’m worried sick. I’m Mrs. Anderson out here at Flowery Branch. My husband has gone off with some other men to hunt for a nigger boy named Sonny Clark, and I’m afraid he’ll be shot and killed by that nigger. I just know that nigger has a gun of some kind, and he might shoot my husband. Can’t you do something? Has the sheriff gone out to capture him yet? Do you know what’s happened since midnight? I’m out here all alone, and that nigger might break in the house and harm me. I think it’s the sheriff’s duty to track him down and kill him. When will that be done?”

  Judge Allen nodded his head wearily at the phone. “Maybe you’d better phone the sheriff’s office, Mrs. Anderson,” he said as calmly as he could. “The sheriff will help you. Good night.”

  He slammed the phone on his desk.

  “Wardlaw!” he shouted. “If I ever catch you raping a white girl, I’ll cut your gizzard out! Do you hear me!”

  The old Negro jumped as if somebody had jabbed a pin into his flesh.

  “Yes, sir, Judge, I heard you.” He closed and opened his mouth several times. “If you ever catch me raping—” He wiggled his tongue in order to free himself of the words he knew he had to repeat. “If you ever catch me touching a white girl—” He paused again, choked with words. “If you ever catch me, they ought to cut the gizzard out of me.”

  He swayed unsteadily until he leaned back and placed his hands against the wall for support.

  Jeff glanced uneasily at Judge Allen, his mind on the verge of urging him to try to persuade the Judge to let him go down to the creek at least until daylight. He had faith in Judge Allen’s wisdom at a time like that, but he could not keep from remembering his wife’s advice to stay away from Flowery Branch. If the crowd at Flowery Branch were given an opportunity to catch the Negro before he went out there, he would not be running the risk of making a lot of people switch their votes. His plurality in the last election was only one hundred and fifty-six votes. He was still waiting for an opportunity to suggest that he go down to the creek and stay at least until daylight when Judge Allen spoke.

  “How many men can you deputize at this time of night, McCurtain?” he asked.

  Jeff’s heart sank.

  “I hadn’t given it any pure thought, Judge. It’s hard to say, offhand. I reckon I could find a few, anyway. Maybe everybody’s gone out to join the hunt, though.”

  Judge Allen walked from behind his desk, kicking the nightgown with his knees. He looked to Jeff like an old man getting ready to say his prayers.

  “You’d better get busy and deputize as many men as you can lay your hands on,” he said. His voice sounded measured and authoritative in the high-ceilinged room. “You ought to be out there within the next hour and see what you can do without taking action. Just as soon as I can determine which way we’re going to jump, I’ll send you word with the expectation that you’ll act accordingly. In the light of a new day it may even appear wise for me to take steps to scotch Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun’s actions. I would see to it that the court issued a writ of non compos mentis. That would be effective in constraining her for some time to come.” He started towards the door. “I’m glad I was able to catch you before you hid yourself down on that creek, McCurtain.”

  Jeff got to his feet, pushing his weight upward and balancing it on his legs.

  “But, Judge,” he said protestingly, unable to hold himself back any longer, “a deputized posse at a time like this might rub a lot of fur the wrong way. I’ve always believed in not going against the will of the common people. Besides, I want to see th
is lynching kept politically clean.”

  Judge Ben Allen stopped in the doorway and turned around for a moment.

  “This lynching is going to be as clean as a cake of soap, McCurtain,” he said. “I’m seeing to that.”

  The Judge turned and walked through the doorway, leading the way out of the room. When they reached the hall, Jeff went towards the door. Wardlaw held it open for him, closing it noisily after he had passed through it.

  Chapter V

  A LARGE CROWD of men had collected in the Barlow front yard. Groups of them were milling around and around between the house and the barn, while some were standing in the fields surrounding the house in twos and threes. Most of the men were friends and neighbors who, like Shep himself, were tenants on Bob Watson’s plantation.

  The first ones to reach the house had started a smudge fire in the yard to keep the mosquitoes away. As time went on it began to look more and more like the beginning of one of the regular weekly possum hunts that nearly everybody in that part of the county took part in.

  An automobile’s headlights suddenly appeared in the lane a quarter of a mile away. Within a few moments word had spread through the crowd that it was Sheriff Jeff McCurtain coming to ask them to go home and let him capture Sonny Clark. Very little was said while they watched the car approach the house, but every man present was prepared to resist any effort to make them give up the hunt. Some of them muttered threats against the sheriff, but most of them waited grimly to see what was going to happen.

  “Jeff McCurtain had better keep out of this,” somebody said in a loud voice, each word a threat. “It just ain’t healthy for him to come butting in around here now.”

  The crowd moved forward, surrounding the car when it came to a halt at the end of the lane. Several flashlights were turned on the car, and all the doors were jerked open. It was not the sheriff after all. The man who climbed out, blinking with fear in the dazzling light, was a barber named DeLoach from Andrewjones.

  “What’s the matter with you folks?” he managed to ask. He backed up against the car. I ain’t done nothing.”

  “What do you want out here?” somebody asked him, pushing through the crowd standing before him.

  “I heard about a nigger raping a white girl, and I wanted to help out in the hunt,” he explained. “I’ve hunted down niggers before, and I didn’t want to miss this one.”

  “He’s all right,” another man in the crowd said. “He cuts my hair in town once in a while. I’ve known him a long time.”

  The crowd drifted back into the yard, making the barber feel more comfortable. He followed the men to the smudge.

  “Anything happened yet?” he asked.

  Nobody said anything, but he could see some of the men shaking their heads.

  “I was thinking only a few days ago that it was about time for something like this to happen again,” the barber said. “The niggers have been laying low for about a whole year now, ever since that lynching down in Rimrod County. I was scared the next one was going to be off at the other end of the State, so far away I wouldn’t have a chance to get there. But that’s the way it is. If you figure back, you’ll find out nigger-rapes take place just like clockwork. I’ve been keeping track of them ever since I started barbering in Andrewjones nine years ago.”

  Everyone seemed to agree with him, but nobody said anything. Most of the men around the smudge were farmers, and they had been neighbors of Shep’s almost all of their lives. There were only a few men from Andrewjones present, but because they were town dwellers they were looked upon as outsiders. The neighbors considered the trouble a personal matter, and they resented it when men from Andrewjones acted as though they had as much right to be there as anyone else.

  “The last time I went on a nigger hunt was about three years ago,” the barber said. “That was the time when we strung up that nigger down in Feeney County. He was a tough one to catch, believe me! It took us three days and nights to find him, because he’d hid in a swamp. That happened just about the same time of year it is right now, along about the middle of summer.”

  Before the barber from Andrewjones got there, the men had done a lot of talking about rape, but no one knew for certain what had actually happened. Even then, some of them were still skeptical. Two or three of the older men had not hesitated to say that it seemed strange that Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun, who everybody knew was promoting the Send-the-Negro-Back-to-Africa petition, was the only person who had said that Katy Barlow had been raped by Sonny Clark. So far even Katy herself had not opened her mouth about it, and a doctor had not been called in to examine her. The same handful of men were slow to believe that an eighteen-year-old Negro boy with a reputation as good as Sonny’s would molest a white girl, even if it was Katy Barlow, unless he had received a lot of encouragement. One or two of them had come out openly and said the whole story sounded like something Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun had made up in a scheme to get signatures on her petition.

  But most of the men were ready to believe anything against a Negro. One of them, Oscar Dent, operated a sawmill down in the Oconee swamp in the lower end of the county, and he had the reputation of fighting Negroes on every pretext he could find. Oscar had often boasted that he had killed so many Negroes that he had lost count. During the past winter he shot one to death at his lumber camp and killed another one with a crowbar. He had never been brought to trial for any of the killings, because he always claimed that he had acted in self-defense. After several unsuccessful attempts to indict him for manslaughter, the county prosecuting attorney had given up trying, because he said it only added to the expense of his office.

  The excitement that had flared up when the barber from Andrewjones drove into the yard had died down. Voices were subdued. Many of the men were standing around the smudge, silently watching it smolder. Those who were talking were engaged in speculating about the price cotton would bring in the fall. If the price dropped under eight cents a pound, it meant that a lot of them would have to live on short rations for the next twelve months; but if the price went above ten cents a pound, they would not only be able to eat well, but also be able to buy some new clothes and a few pieces of new furniture. Day in and day out, the price of cotton was the most important thing in their lives.

  Katy’s father still had not returned home. Shep had driven off in a car shortly before midnight, and nobody knew where he was or when he was coming back. When he left, he said he did not want anything done until he got back and, since he was Katy’s father, his wish had been respected. Everything connected with the preparation for the hunt depended upon Shep, and nothing could be done until he came back.

  Katy was inside the house under the care of Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun. Narcissa had brought Katy home that evening, saying she was going to stay with her through the night. She planned to start out the next morning as soon as she had her breakfast and put in a full day obtaining signatures on the petition.

  The smudge fire was smoldering briskly in the yard at the end of the path that led from the front door to the lane. The men had again scattered, and they were standing in small groups talking in low-pitched voices.

  “You can bank on Shep Barlow,” somebody standing beside the smudge said. “I don’t know what he’s up to now, but whatever it is, I’m with him. Maybe he knows where that nigger’s hiding, and has gone to bring him in single-handed. That’d be just like Shep.”

  “I want to get started,” another man said. “There ain’t no sense in just standing around like this doing nothing. We could have that nigger caught by daylight if we’d go out after him.”

  “It’s Shep’s daughter that brought it all about,” the other man said. “That being the case, I think it’s only right to let him run it the way he wants it.”

  Shep had the reputation in Julie County of being the quickest-tempered man ever known. He never had confined his killings to the Negro race, because he acted without any delay when somebody made him angry. The last man he killed was a stranger, a white ma
n nobody knew. The mystery where he came from and where he was going, and even his name, had never been cleared up. Shep killed him for scarcely any reason at all. The stranger walked into the yard one morning about ten o’clock and drew himself a drink of water at the well without asking for it. Shep happened to be sitting on the porch, and he did not say a word. When the stranger was leaving, Shep walked out into the yard and slit the man’s throat open with his pocket-knife. The man lay there on the ground all afternoon and bled to death. At the inquest, the coroner asked Shep if he thought the man was deaf and dumb, and when Shep said he did not know one way or the other, the coroner said he was not going to hold a citizen to stand trial for murder just because he was an ignoramus. Shep said afterward that he did not like being called an ignoramus, but since both of them were Allen-Democrats, he was willing to forget it if the coroner would, too.

  The light in the hall was turned on, and Katy came to the front door. She stood there for a while, peering out into the darkness. The men who saw her standing there recognized her at once. They moved closer to the porch where they could get a better view of her.

  “I didn’t know she’d growed up like that,” a man whispered to somebody next to him. “She’s a big girl now. I thought she was too young to look at a man.”

  “I’ve seen her around a lot of times the past year or so,” the other man said, “but I never paid much notice of her. I always thought she was just one of the young ones.”

  “She might have been one of the young ones in the past,” a man said as he moved towards the porch, “but she ain’t no more. She’s as bold as a bitch in heat. Just look at her up there!”

  Katy’s mother, Annie Barlow, had been dead for two years. Katy had just passed her thirteenth birthday at the time of her death. Her mother fell into the well one morning while she was drawing water to fill the washpot in the back yard. Shep had missed Annie that same evening when he came home for supper and found the meal had not been cooked and placed on the table at the proper time. He lost his temper and chased Katy out of the house, making her spend the night alone in the woods. Shep thought Annie had become peeved about something or other and had gone across the field to sulk a while, and that she would come back sometime during the night or early next morning in time to cook his breakfast for him. He was confident that when she did come back she would be as docile as ever. He went to bed that night and slept soundly. When he had to cook his own breakfast, he made up his mind to give her a good hard thrashing when she did come home. Late that afternoon she still had not returned, and Shep began to get a little worried. At dark he went over to Bob Watson’s and got a half a dozen Negroes to help him search the woods and fields near the house. They looked all that night and up to noon the next day, but not a trace of Annie was found. Shep finally sent word over to Smith County to find out if she had gone over there to stay with her father or sisters, but the word came back that she had not been seen there. Shep looked a little every day during the remainder of the week, and by Sunday he was ready to give up completely. He had finally decided that Annie had run off to Atlanta or Jacksonville or one of the other big cities. Late Sunday afternoon he was drawing a bucket of water at the well when the bucket struck something on the bottom he knew should not be there. He got Annie’s hair-mirror from the house and ran back and cast a beam of light down into the well. He recognized Annie’s red gingham dress the moment his eyes saw it. It made him much more angry to discover that Annie had been in the well all that time than he would have been if she had run away from home. He began shouting for Katy and throwing things into the well. Katy ran for the woods for fear he was going to throw her into the well as he was doing with everything else he could lay his hands on. There was nobody to stop him, and he kept on until most of the wood from the woodpile had been thrown down into it. Katy stayed away until the middle of the following week, but even then she was afraid to go to sleep at night during the rest of the summer while her father was digging a new well.