He paused, panting.
“Go on!” Corra said, stepping back from him.
“That’s all, honey. But it didn’t work out because them other men showed up just a while ago and spoiled everything I had all planned out in advance.”
“If that’s part of your cock-and-bull story, what’s the rest of it? I may as well listen to all of it while I’m about it, because I won’t be staying under this roof long enough to hear it after I walk away from here.”
“I crept in in the dark, honey,” he began desperately, fighting for breath to enable him to tell it as quickly as possible, “and then I locked myself up in that cage without knowing anybody in the world was in it. I didn’t know that until just a while ago when I woke up.” He stopped and looked around for Bert and Jim. “You heard them deputies say they locked her up in here themselves, honey. I didn’t know a thing about it. I’ve told them plenty of times before that I want it stopped, too. I’m going to do something far-fetched to them this time.”
Corra turned and, without a word, walked straight to the door. She opened it, crossed the hall, and walked stiffly up the stairs.
Jeff followed her, his feet dragging with every step. His head moved from side to side as he led himself over the floor towards the door. He looked like a huge shaggy animal being drawn against his will. He mounted the steps behind his wife, wondering how long it was going to take him this time to convince her that he was innocent of wrong-doing as a newborn pup.
Chapter VII
IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the hot July morning, three hours later, when Jeff finally left the bedroom on the second floor of the jailhouse and came down the stairs. He came down slowly, dropping one heavy foot after another on the squeaky treads. It was a sound like a sack of scrap iron falling each time the weight of his body was lowered to another step.
There had been no shouting, there had been no crashing of furniture upstairs during all the time. All that had been heard down on the first floor was an incessant humming, the kind of sound made by a single person talking ceaselessly without inflection of the voice. Bert had waited patiently in the office under the bedroom until the monotonous drone lulled him to sleep. He had even gone without his breakfast in order to be on hand when Jeff came down.
Jeff reached the bottom step and moved heavily across the hall towards the office door.
“Bert!” he yelled.
Bert jumped from the chair and ran to the door.
“Yes, sir, Sheriff Jeff,” he said sleepily.
“Bert,” he said wearily, stopping and looking at Bert in a strange way. “Bert, I’d give my soul if I had had the common ordinary sense to stay down on the farm when I was a young man. I’d heap rather be a frazzle-assed plowboy right this minute than be anything the political life will ever do for me.”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff Jeff,” Bert said, getting out of the way.
Jeff pushed his bulk through the narrow doorway.
Bert hurried in behind him.
“There’s somebody waiting to see you, Sheriff Jeff,” he said.
Jeff looked across the room straight into the eyes of Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun. She had been standing by the window, but she was already coming towards him. Jeff tried to turn around, but she had reached him before he had a chance to make a lunge for the door. When he looked at her again, she had extended her arm and was pointing to a large bundle of papers on a chair.
“What do you want, Cissy?” he asked fearfully, his eyes bulging at the sight of the petition.
He made his way to his chair, clutching at the desk for support until he could ease his weight down into a place of rest.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing the right thing, Sheriff McCurtain,” she said, smiling at him with unmistakable meaning.
“What am I doing, Cissy?” he asked, perplexed.
“Letting the will of the people prevail, of course, Sheriff McCurtain. I’m proud of you.”
He wondered how he could keep away from the dangerously thin ground that she was leading him to. Cissy came and sat down in the chair beside his desk.
“My wife read me that book you sold me, Cissy,” he said, beaming at her hopefully. “She read it to me about a month ago, I reckon it was. Corra—” He paused and cocked his head to one side, listening to the faint sounds overhead. “It was the one about Christ coming back to earth and getting a job as automobile salesman, selling second-hand cars. Of course, it ain’t none of my business if Christ wants to come down and do that. But if anybody was to ask me, I’d say there’s too many of them broken-down rattle-traps tearing around the country as it is. If Christ wants to come down and sell machines, why can’t he sell brand-new ones instead of them old junk-piles? I took the worst beating I ever had in my life once when I bought a second-hand car from a fellow. I didn’t have it a week before the axle broke in half, but that was only the start. The radiator dropped off in the road one day while I was driving along. It was one thing right after another, just like that. Now, you take Sam Brinson, the colored man. Sam’s easy bait for any old second-hand car, and everybody knows the trouble he gets into. Sam has worked himself down to skin-and-bones all his life just trying to keep four wheels spinning. And what has it all amounted to? Nothing. Sam’s as—”
He sat up, looking around the room. He had forgotten about Sam Brinson.
“What’s the matter?” Cissy asked, looking at him curiously.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing much.” He looked at Bert, but he realized Bert probably had not heard a word since Sam was taken away. “I was just thinking about that little book you sold me, Cissy.”
He listened overhead, trying to detect any unusual sound Corra might make in the bedroom. He was not worried about her as long as the sounds of her movements were familiar. He dreaded the coming of the time when he would hear the sound of a trunk being shut decisively or of a suitcase being dropped heavily on the floor. When he left Corra upstairs, he was fairly positive he had let her talk herself into not leaving, but there was always the danger that she might argue herself into changing her mind.
He beckoned Bert to him and whispered in his ear.
“Go out and see if you can hear anything about Sam,” he said, keeping his voice low enough to prevent Cissy from overhearing. “Come right back as soon as you can. I’m all upset about what they done to him.”
Bert left the office.
“Well—” Cissy said impatiently.
“Look here, Cissy,” Jeff said, turning and looking directly at her. “Who wrote that story about Christ coming back and selling second-hand cars? It wasn’t you, was it?”
“No, I didn’t write it, Sheriff McCurtain. I sell the book to people.”
“Do other folks believe Christ came down here and sold those old cars like the story said?”
“I can’t speak for the tracts,” she said, moving uneasily in the chair, “but I stand up for the Bible.”
Jeff glanced nervously at the ceiling.
“I didn’t come here to talk about the tracts,” Cissy said quickly.
“What did you come for?”
“The petition,” she said, leaping to her feet and bringing the heavy bundle of papers to the desk and dropping it before him.
“Now, Cissy—” he began.
“These are dangerous times, Sheriff McCurtain,” she said, leaning over the desk towards him. “You know what the world’s like today. We’ve got to do something about it. We’ve got to send all the niggers back to Africa where they came from. They’re multiplying so fast there won’t be room for a white person to breathe in before long. The niggers—”
“Now, Cissy,” he said helplessly, “a man like me holding political office can’t afford—”
“I was raised up among colored people,” she said, her eyes sparkling with an intense light, “and I’ve always treated them right. But that was before they started buying those awful Black Jesus Bibles with pictures in it making Christ look like a black nigger man—”
“That
ain’t no sin, Cissy,” he protested. “It looks to me like the niggers has got just as much right to say Christ was a black as the brother whites has to say he was a white. There ain’t no way of proving it either way, is there?”
The light in her eyes was more intense than ever.
“Well, he might have been a black, at that,” Jeff said doggedly.
“Sheriff McCurtain, you’ll never win another election in Julie County if you stand up for that,” she said firmly. “If you don’t sign this petition and help send every last nigger in the country back to Africa where they came from—”
“But they didn’t all come from there, Cissy,” he said hopefully. “There’s been any number of niggers born right down the back alley from here. Two nigger babies was born down there only last month.”
“I know,” she said in exasperation, “but I’m talking about the nigger race. All of us whites is duty-bound to get together with Senator Ashley Dukes and send the nigger race back to Africa.”
“Why?” he asked, unconvinced.
“Because!” Cissy said stubbornly.
They sat in silence, each staring at the other.
Jeff was wondering what had kept Bert so long, hoping that when he did get back he would have news that Sam Brinson had been turned loose unharmed. He knew Sam would be able to make his way back, but Jeff hoped Bert would know where he was so they could send a car for him. He hated to think of Sam’s having to trudge fifteen or twenty miles through swamps and over rough ground.
He glanced up at the ceiling, cocking his head to one side and listening contentedly. Corra’s footsteps were much lighter than they had been the last time he heard them. He leaned back in his chair with a feeling of relief.
Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun picked up the bulky petition and dropped it squarely before him. She turned back the cover and pointed to the typing on the first sheet.
“This is what you are duty-bound to sign, Sheriff McCurtain,” she said, pointing to the page with her long finger.
“Now, Cissy—” he protested, looking at the words on the paper.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.A.:
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED UPSTANDING LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS AND QUALIFIED VOTERS OF JULIE COUNTY, GEORGIA, DO HEREBY RESPECTFULLY URGE AND ENTREAT YOU, THE RESPECTED PRESIDENT OF OUR COUNTRY, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TO SEND ALL MEMBERS OF THE COLORED RACE, INCLUDING MULATTOES, QUADROONS, OCTOROONS, AND ALL PERSONS HAVING ANY DEGREE OF NEGRO BLOOD, TO THE COUNTRY OF AFRICA WITHOUT UNDUE DELAY.
Jeff read it hurriedly the first time, going back afterward and looking painstakingly at each word until he realized what it meant.
“No, sir,” he said emphatically, shaking his shaggy head from side to side, “I ain’t in favor of doing a farfetched thing like that. Maybe some colored people do have mean traits, but there are brother whites in this county a heap meaner than any nigger I ever saw. Now, you take Sam Brinson, the colored man. He’s a no-account scoundrel, all the time trading and swapping worn-out old second-hand automobiles, but aside from that he’s a companionable a fellow as you’ll find in either race. I’d hate not to have him around. I’d feel lost if Sam wasn’t here no more.”
Narcissa backed away, regarding Jeff with deep-seated scorn.
“You ain’t a nigger-lover, is you, Sheriff McCurtain?” she asked loudly, her eyes snapping and’ flashing.
Jeff got up as quickly as he could, shoving the petition across the desk. The bundle of papers fell on the floor.
Her face turned crimson with anger.
“There ain’t no name you can think of to call me that’ll make me change my mind about the colored,” he said staunchly.
Narcissa reached down and gathered up the papers hurriedly. With them in her arms she backed towards the door.
“I wouldn’t put it past you to be the one who started all this rape-and-lynching talk,” he told her. “How come it was you who was the know-it-all, anyhow? I’ll bet a pretty you put that Barlow girl up to saying what she did!”
Narcissa reached the door.
“You just wait till election-time, Sheriff McCurtain!” she said threateningly. “The voters are going to turn on you like you was a black nigger yourself. You won’t never be sheriff of Julie County again. I’m going straight and tell Judge Ben Allen about you. He’ll fix it so you won’t never hold another political office as long as you live. You just wait and see!”
Before he could reach her, she turned and ran out the hall and out into the yard. He followed her as far as the porch and watched her get into her car and drive off. Preacher Felts was in the front seat with her.
Jeff went back through the hall and opened the iron door that led into the cage-room.
“Bert!” he called, walking down the passageway and looking into each cage as he went along. It was too much to hope that he would see Sam Brinson sitting in one of the cages, but he could not keep from looking. “Bert! Come here, Bert!”
When he got to the rear door, which was still open, he looked up the street. Bert was halfway between the jail-house and the corner.
“Bert!” he shouted, walking out on the sidewalk.
Bert ran towards him.
“I can’t find out a thing about Sam, Sheriff Jeff,” he said, discouraged. “There’s plenty of people who know about it, but nobody knows what happened to him. I asked everybody I saw, too.”
Jeff turned and walked through the jailhouse to his office. Bert followed dutifully.
“Most of the people I talked to seem to think we ought to give up hoping to see Sam alive again,” Bert said. “They said the crowd with the hunt-fever wouldn’t turn him loose unless they could find Sonny Clark, and they think Sonny got away.”
The phone was ringing in the office when they got there. Bert took the receiver off the hook, holding it indecisively while he waited for Jeff to tell him what to do about it.
“Go ahead and answer it,” Jeff said wearily. “It’s likely another of them cockalorums ordering me to come out to Flowery Branch and make people stop scaring their biddies.”
“Hello,” Bert said into the phone. “Sheriff McCurtain’s office.”
“It’s Judge Ben Allen!”
“Oh, Lord!” Jeff breathed, closing his eyes for a few moments of restful peace.
Bert laid the phone on the desk and backed quietly away. Jeff moved himself across the floor to the desk.
“Hello, Judge,” he said, forcing himself to speak up brightly.
“McCurtain, why didn’t you get out to Flowery Branch last night after you left my house?”
“Judge, a lot of things happened last night, all of them pure wrong. If I had more time, I could explain them. It looked like all the power in the world was against me. I ain’t been so plagued by so many far-fetched things all at the same time since God-come-Wednesday.”
There as a long pause over the wires.
“Consuetudo manerii et loci est observanda,” Judge Ben Allen said wearily.
“What’s that, Judge?” Jeff asked quickly.
There was an even longer pause before Judge Allen spoke again.
“After getting a few scattered reports from around the county, the situation looks different than it did last night. It’s too early yet to make a forecast, but maybe it’ll be best if you lie low for a few hours. By that time I’ll have a better line on the situation. It’s a good thing you didn’t get out to Flowery Branch, but I still don’t understand why you didn’t make straight for the country like I told you.”
“It ain’t so easy to try to explain over the phone, Judge. But I’m glad I wasn’t needed out there, after all. I want to do my best to keep this lynching politically clean, Judge. If Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun would only keep out—”
“You stay where you are, McCurtain, so I can put my hands on you when I want you. I don’t want to hear of you going off fishing, or nothing like that. Good-by.”
“Good-by, Judge,” Jeff said weakly, replacing the receiver on the hook.
He turned and looked
at Bert standing between him and the window. Bert’s face was pale and solemn.
“Bert,” he said, “sometimes I don’t know if I’m coming or going. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll get out of politics and never let yourself be tempted to sample a pollbook as long as you live. If I was you, I’d marry myself a loving wife and settle down to a peaceful way of living out on a little farm somewhere.”
“Why, Sheriff Jeff?”
“Because, Bert. Because!”
He got up painfully, pushing the sides of the chair from his hips. Once on his feet, he looked up at the ceiling, listening intently for Corra’s sounds. All was as quiet and peaceful as summer twilight. There was a faint aroma of boiling vegetables in the air. He tilted back his head, his nostrils flaring, and breathed deeply of it. He moved towards the door.
“I’m worried sick about Sam Brinson, the colored man,” he said. “As soon as I get a little bite to eat, I’m going to do some inquiring about him. I just can’t sit still and let something far-fetched happen to Sam.”
Bert got out of his way. He moved through the door and went to the bottom of the stairway in the hall. He listened for a moment before beginning to climb the stairs. Just as he mounted the first step, Corra came out of the bedroom and went into the kitchen. Jeff went on up, his nostrils quivering at the odor of boiling beans and freshly baked cornbread.
Chapter VIII
SHEP BARLOW, HIS eyes bloodshot from loss of sleep, got back home at noon that day. He had been away, alone, since the evening before. His blue-black beard, which was already three days old when he left, was a mat of bristly stubble. Shep was a wiry little five-foot man, and his insignificant-looking stature made his face seem awesome in contrast.
The six or eight men standing under the umbrella tree in the front yard spoke to him cautiously as he went past. Everyone else had left, most of them to search for the Negro, some to eat dinner. The crowd had become restless and angry at the delay caused by Shep’s failure to come back within a reasonable length of time. He had told them not to do anything until he came back, and the men had expected him to be there by sunrise. A large party had gone to Oconee Swamp, while a smaller group had gone in the opposite direction towards Earnshaw Ridge. Those who remained at the house were disgusted with the dilatory methods still being used eighteen hours after the word had spread over the county.