Five Smooth Stones (128 page)

More of them were with him now. From all directions in the room there were responses, and from the outer room too, its babel of talk quiet, its people crowding before the open doorway to the room where he stood. There had to be more with him, all of them had to be with him, or so many that those who held back would not count.

"When I came here yesterday I felt that many of you looked upon me as a stranger." There were scattered cries of "No! No!" and his eyes sought the ones who had said it, and he smiled. "But last night! Last night when they heaved me over those barricades out there I didn't hear anyone say 'Howdy, stranger!'"

There was, praise God, laughter now.

He lowered his voice. "No man, no woman of our people, is a stranger to us now. We have known what it is to have dogs set upon us, to be shocked with electric goads like cattle, our young people have been clubbed and beaten—and our children have been blown to bits by bombs while they studied about God in a Sunday-school class! Strangers? No man with dark skin is stranger to another man with dark skin in our country today! Even those who betray us, even those who withhold their own black hands from our cause are not strangers. Leave them to their loneliness. When we've won this fight—and we will—and they share in the victory knowing they had no part in it, they'll be lonely and ashamed." He timed his pause like a veteran, then went on, his voice easy and conversational. He might have been talking with each of them individually, over a cup of coffee at a lunchroom counter. "For every Negro in this country who's saying today 'Deal me out,' there are ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, who are saying 'Deal me in!' They know we're going to win this hand. And we're going to win because we hold all the aces. We hold the legal aces, that we know. But we hold more important aces. We hold the spiritual aces! We hold aces we were dealt by the law of this land, and we hold aces we were dealt by God. We have aces in our hands and up our sleeves and down our necks and behind our backs. And we're going to play those aces. But we've got to play them one at a time. One at a time. When we need them most!"

He waited again, sensing the spirit of the people before him, feeling it draw closer to him, and when he felt that it was close enough he went on, his voice rising: "Right now there's been too much talk! When your committee crosses that roadway again it will not be to talk! No! Let's stop this foolishness about talk and 'negotiating.' Let's get our children home first!"

Now the spirit of the people was more than close to him. It was engulfing him. He slid a sweating hand into his pocket, fingered his change, his key ring, the oddments a man collects, waiting for the cries to die down. "Stranger!" he said. "Let me tell you how much of a stranger I am! This morning I walked across a field near here. You call it Flaming Meadows. The whites call it something else, but what they call it does not matter, because it is your field, and it is mine. More than seventy years ago a good man met his death there, a flaming death. And his best friend went out of his mind at what he saw. How do I know that the man who died in that field was a good man? Because I've been hearing about him all my life. Because down in the part of New Orleans where I come from he is a legend. When I was a boy there were still old people alive who remembered that man, knew him well, and loved him. One of those people was his wife, my great-grandmother! Abra'm Towers's old mother, who lives in the house oh the edge of that field, has a picture of my great-grandmother and her husband, the first David Champlin, my great-grandfather. I guess most of you have seen it."

He had to wait longer now for the hubbub to die down. He held up his hand to silence it, and suddenly they were quiet, so quiet his own voice sounded louder than need be, and after the first words he lowered it:

"Yes, the man who died on Flaming Meadows was the first David Champlin, a good man, a kind and gentle man, whose firstborn was my grandfather—and he came into the world three weeks after his daddy was murdered. I don't believe it was an accident that sent me here! I don't believe in accidents of God! They tell me my great-grandaddy walks the field of Flaming Meadows at night when the moon is dark. I don't know about that. But I know who does walk that field at night and in the day. God walks that field, and in a few minutes God will walk Main Street in Cainsville! God is going to take the hands of your committee in His own and lead them across that street as he led the children of Israel across the Red Sea! And when they say, 'Give us back our children and then we will talk!' God will be talking on our side!"

The sound that swept through the room and the one beyond it was like a great hoarse sigh. David's voice broke into it, above the cries of "Yes! Yes, Lord!" and "Praise Jesus!" and "Amen!"

"Come on!" he cried, and one hand was high above his head. "Come on, let's send them over there with God!" His voice sang over their heads like a wind—" 'Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you moan—Pharaoh's army got drownded' "—and the sound of their voices ran before it like a gathering wave.

***

He stepped off the chair, weak from reaction, one hand on its back supporting him. The people were still singing, and he took Haskin's arm. "Some place we can talk a minute?" Haskin opened a door behind them and they entered a smaller storeroom, piled with unopened cartons of canned goods and cigarettes and beer. They closed the door, and when David looked at Haskin he saw that the other man was smiling, that, the taut look was gone. "That was fine," said Haskin. "That was sure fine."

"Thanks. First time in my life I ever led the meeting! Haskin, have any of those men on that committee—the white committee—tried to talk with you privately? Tried to trick you into talking with them alone?"

Haskin scratched his head. "I couldn't prove it," he said. "I mean I couldn't say as how this one or that one come up to me and invited me out for a friendly cup of coffee, like maybe over to the ho-tel. But now you speaks of it—" He paused, and David waited without prompting him. "Now you speaks of it, it seemed like ol' Hoot'n' Holler was a mite chummier than what he usually is. Kept a-looking at me every time he said anything, seemed like he was trying to say 'You and me understands one another.' But you gets used to that. You know how it is. All the whites thinks they understands us better'n anyone." He paused thoughtfully, then frowned at David. It was evident he was on the defensive. "We picked our men and women careful, Lawyer Champlin. Real careful. We got white men's niggers here just like they got everywhere. But they ain't over there in that room with me, I'm telling you straight. I'm a suspicious man, Lawyer Champlin, and I swear to God I don't know how that fella Garnett took me in. I guess I jest figured if he was with Reverend Sweeton he was all right."

"Never mind, Haskin. Never mind that now. And I didn't mean for a minute that I thought your men couldn't be trusted. My God, no!" He hesitated, looked at Haskin closely, and hoped that his judgment was right: that this was a close-mouthed man. "Keep what I'm going to tell you under your hat. Don't tell the others." He briefed him quickly on the Towers land deal, then said: "That's why I say if he tries to get you alone, let him—except it would be better if you at least made an effort to have one of the others there, have a witness. But if he won't go for that, then talk with him alone. If he does this, stall. Stall, and get back to us with it. But leave him with the idea you'll see what you can do about getting cooperation from the Towerses. See?"

Haskin looked at David and smiled, and David was glad this man was on their side of the fence. "Sure I see," he said. "Sure I do."

"Now about Effie Brown. She's the first order of business."

"We been trying. They ain't about to budge."

"Try some more, Haskin. Try like hell. Mr. Willis may be able to get some pressure put on."

"We'll do our best. Effie's my sister's chile. You think I ain't trying?"

"I know you are."

"About this here other business. He makes a proposition and I comes back to you guys with it and meantime you got things fixed. Right?"

"I hope so."

"And then I go back and say as far as I know it's O.K., and they lets the kids out, mebbe a little bail money to save their faces, and
then,
after the kids is home—"

"That's it," said David. "That's it. And it won't be your fault. They can't blame you. If you keep your mouth shut."

Haskin's smile was one of genuine amusement now. "That's what I call a low punch, Lawyer Champlin. A real low punch. I'd a hell of a lot rather shoot 'em down, rush them stockades, but we got no choice. Man can't shoot without a gun; man can't fight odds like they got with his bare hands, not fair and square." He laughed. "They sure teaching us a lot, ain't they? About how to do business."

"We learn fast, once we start," said David.

***

After Haskin left, David walked to a side window and crossed his arms on the pile of cartons that half obscured it. Over the top of the pile he could see across Haskin's littered backyard to the roadway and across the roadway to City Hall and a corner of the stockade. The singing in the outer room had died down, and there was only a low murmur of voices. He suddenly gave way to the reaction he had been fighting off, laid his head on his forearms, not wanting to watch Haskin or the others cross the roadway, not wanting to see Al Williams look toward the stockade, perhaps wave or blow a kiss to his daughter who waited behind the heavy galvanized mesh with the barbed wire strung along its top. If I could just keep it a cause, he told himself. Just keep it a cause. But I can't. It's people, little people, big people, saints and sinners, good people and plain old-fashioned country sons of bitches; it's the white men's niggers and the men like Medgar Evers; it's the Effies and the no-count bastards like Garnett. And if I could just stop thinking about the people as individuals, lump 'em all into one, into the cause, it would be a hell of a lot easier.

He did not know that Brad had entered the room until he heard him speak. He whirled, upset, embarrassed to have been caught in a moment of such weakness. "That was fine work," said Brad quietly. "I heard part of it between phone calls."

David shrugged. "Just call me Ne'miah," he said. He looked at Brad more closely and frowned in puzzlement. What in hell was going on? What in hell had happened? He'd never seen just that expression on Brad's face before, in his eyes. "You get hold of Washington?"

"Washington's at lunch."

"Whole damned city?"

"Whole damned government, anyway. 'Luncheon conference' is the word. Maybe it will be back at its desk by the time I get to Heliopolis."

"What's happened, Chief? You look strange-like."

"Don't 'Chief me. I've passed that title on to you. Right now I'm going to get Abraham and go out to Tether's End in Haskin's station wagon, pick up my car and head for Miz Towers. When I leave there, I'll have an option on her land. Abraham can help on that. Now here's what I've done. I've called Peg. Seems strange but it won't in a minute. I asked her to call a friend of mine, Cass Adams, who was also a classmate of mine and of Lloyd Litchfield. Told her to ask him who I meant by 'Beansy.' She was to explain something of the emergency nature of the call, of course. 'Beansy' happens to be the unfortunate nickname Litchfield had at college. Then she and Cass were to try to get hold of Litchfield and alert him for a collect call from me from Heliopolis. I'll call her first, of course, and find out where he is. By doing it that way I didn't have to mention Litchfield's name on the telephone, and the time I spend on the way to Heliopolis she can be using tracking down Litchfield. Clever?"

"Sort of."

"Well, damn it, it took some thinking, brat. Another thing. We got rid of Garnett. He's left the area, rather rapidly, I'd say. Les went back to the motel with him to help him pack. Just to be sure."

"You mean leaving town, for Cripe's sake!"

"Would you stick around if more than a thousand of your people thought you'd betrayed them, proved yourself an ally of the whites if it was easier for you? Kept their kids in a jail and a stockade a minute more than was necessary—Les and I had a little woodshed session with him out back, and you can wipe that grin off your face because we never touched him.

He'd have dropped dead of fright on our hands if we had. He's the worst physical coward I ever ran into. Anyhow, he's out of this picture. He'll bob up somewhere else, of course, but that's not to worry about now."

"Busy little character, aren't you?"

"That's not all. I've seen Ruby Brown. That woman we talked to on the road was right. She's damned near demented." Brad gave an involuntary shudder. "Her eyes are something I won't forget for a hell of a long time. It seems that one of our committeemen told her that when they asked to have Effie released, or allow Dr. Anderson to see her, Scoggins told them the girl wasn't really sick, was just putting on. He sent a matron or some damned woman over last night, and she made Effie take castor oil; said it was just plain old-fashioned bellyache."

"Castor oil! With appendicitis!"

"That's why Ruby is almost out of her mind. Anderson had told her that whatever she did she was not to give the child a physic under any circumstances. I've sent someone to ask Anderson to come over and give her—Ruby, that is— something to quiet her."

"God! Sweet God! What—"

"There's no time for philosophizing or asking rhetorical questions, David. If nothing's happened in about an hour you're to call a Dr. Hendricks, on the other side of the barricades. He's chief of staff at the hospital—"

"Damned if I will."

"You will, David. You will. You know it. They tell me he's a moderate—"

"Now I know I won't! I'll be damned if I will!"

"Go see Ruby Brown. She's in Haskin's house. You'll call."

"Anderson—"

"He'll have been here by then. He'll talk to Hendricks also; give him the medical picture. I think even the A.M.A. would gag at the publicity if Hendricks won't interfere when he's called on—"

"They don't gag easy."

"All right, all right—but Hendricks throws a lot of weight in the town; quite a politician for a doctor, I judge."