Trouble in July (13 page)

She tried to stop thinking about all the things that filled her mind. After that the only thing she could feel was that she did not want to live any longer. She wished she were dead. She was sorry she had not stayed in the road when Leroy threatened her. If she had stayed, she would not have to lie where she was and endure such pain.

Twilight had vanished when she opened her eyes and raised her head. Sudden fear in her mind made her jump to her feet. She looked all around at the close darkness. She was not sure whether she had fallen asleep in a dream, but whatever it was, she thought somebody was creeping towards her in the night. Screaming, she ran up the road, not daring to look behind her.

When she had exhausted herself, she stopped, panting painfully. Her heart beat against her chest until it was almost unbearable. She looked down the road behind without being able to see whether anyone was following her or not. She could hear no sounds anywhere, but she felt as if somebody in the darkness were watching her. She turned and ran up the road as fast as she could, screaming. She fell almost as fast as she could get back on her feet.

No matter how fast she was able to run, she could not get away from the fear that gripped her. She felt as if somebody in the darkness somewhere around her would at any moment strike her down with savage force. She lost the road in the darkness, finding herself stumbling and falling headlong into a thicket of briars. She struggled to her feet and ran on, torn and bleeding, in a final effort to escape.

A
FTER A GOOD
long undisturbed afternoon nap, Jeff McCurtain went downstairs to the office to find out if anything out of the ordinary had happened between noon and dark. It was the first time in several weeks that he had been able to take a long uninterrupted nap during the day. It usually happened that when he felt like dozing in the afternoon, he was continually being waked up to serve an attachment or a writ on some farmer living in the farthest corner of the county.

Bert was waiting for him at the foot of the stairway. He followed Jeff into the office.

“Anything happen?” he asked Bert.

“Nothing at all, Sheriff Jeff,” Bert said. “It’s been quiet all afternoon. You didn’t have to get up from your nap unless you wanted to. Me and Jim are watching over things.”

Jeff looked around the office and promptly walked out again. He went to the porch, feeling rested and calm.

The street lights had just been turned on, and the flickering rays filled him with a desire to go back to bed. Corra would be getting into bed before long, and he could lie there with her beside him and forget the worries of the outside world. The following day was Saturday, and there was certain to be a whole new batch of court papers to serve.

Bert appeared beside him.

“They haven’t found him yet, Sheriff Jeff,” Bert said, startling him.

“Haven’t found who yet?”

“That nigger boy,” Bert said, surprised.

“Oh,” Jeff said, looking out into the street.

After a few moments he turned to Bert.

“But Sam’s back, ain’t he?”

“No, Sheriff Jeff. It looks like Sam Brinson has disappeared completely. Nobody in town has heard a thing about him.”

“That’s bad,” Jeff said slowly. “That’s real bad.”

He walked to the corner of the porch and looked up at the sky. The stars were out bright and thick. It was too early for the moon.

“How about Judge Ben Allen?” he asked. “Has he phoned?”

“No, sir,” Bert said.

Jeff was silent, thinking.

“That nigger boy’s been at large long enough to be caught long before this,” he said after a while. “I sure would like to know what’s holding things up this way.”

“He’s only been at large for twenty-four hours, Sheriff Jeff,” Bert reminded him. “The trouble only started about this time last night. They’ll probably catch him by morning.”

“I reckon you must be right about the time, but I feel like I’ve already been through a week of worry. But Sam Brinson, the colored man, has been gone far too long. I’m worried about Sam.”

Bert did not say anything. He waited to hear if Jeff had any instructions for him.

“I sure would give a lot to know what happened to Sam,” Jeff said, gazing at the lights flickering on the pavement. “Now, people just ain’t got no right to carry off a human being like that. It’s a penal offense to abduct a law-abiding citizen, even darkies. Sam hadn’t harmed a soul in the world. He’s gentle-minded. He never went out to do a person harm.”

Jeff walked up and down the porch several times, his forehead wrinkled in thought. Bert hovered by the door in case Jeff called him. It was another five minutes before Jeff stopped his pacing up and down.

“Get me my hat, Bert,” he said quickly, going down the steps towards his car parked in the street “I want you to drive me out to Flowery Branch. I’m going to make some inquiries around.”

“But, Sheriff Jeff—”

“Get me my hat like I said!”

When Bert came out of the jailhouse with the hat, Jeff was sitting in the car waiting. Bert got under the steeringwheel.

“Bert, me and you is going off on an official trip to attend to some unfinished business. It ain’t political. It’s pure personal business.”

He pointed his hand in the direction of the road to Flowery Branch, motioning to Bert to start the car.

They drove slowly out of town and a few minutes later they were in the country rolling along behind a beam of sharp white light that pushed the darkness back on each side of the road. There were few lighted windows along the way, even though it was early in the evening. Several times they passed dwellings that revealed only a thin crack of light under the doors. All the Negro cabins were closed and dark. They looked as if they had been boarded up and deserted.

They met several cars along the road during the next half-hour, all of them moving slowly. Once they came upon a group of men around a bend in the road. The twelve or fifteen persons dashed for the bushes beside the road when the headlights suddenly flashed upon them. They had been standing around a smudge fire. The smoke had drifted ahead for several hundred yards, and Jeff and Bert drove through wisps of it during the next few minutes.

As they approached Flowery Branch bridge, a dull glow of light appeared. After going a little closer, they could see a jumbled mass of cars that looked as if they had been hastily stopped and left where they happened to be. Many of the cars were standing with their headlights burning. There were several almost upon the bridge.

“Hold on, Bert,” Jeff said anxiously. He sat up and peered ahead uneasily. “Switch off the lights and drive slow.”

They crept along the road until they were only a few yards from the nearest automobiles. There were no men within sight, but up at the bridge many voices could be heard.

“Reckon they got him, Sheriff Jeff?” Bert asked nervously, trying to keep his voice in a low whisper.

“Got who?” Jeff asked.

“Sonny.”

“I don’t know,” he said impatiently.

He motioned to Bert to drive off to one side. As soon as the car came to a stop, Jeff opened the door and got out.

“I ain’t forgetting myself,” he said defensively. “I still aim to keep this lynching politically clean. But I’m worried about Sam.”

Instead of walking up the road, they tramped in a roundabout way through the brush to a point that was within sight of the bridge. Standing where they were, they were fairly safe from detection. Several of the men were talking loudly. Bert and Jeff stood behind a hickory tree and tried to overhear what was being said.

Even at that distance they could recognize by sight several men they knew. Shep Barlow and Clint Huff were in the center of the bridge facing each other. The rest of the men were crowded behind them.

“I’m running this shooting-match,” Shep was heard to say. “If nobody don’t like the way I’m running it, then get to hell away from here. I’m running it as I God damn please.”

Clint Huff moved several steps.

“What you mean by stopping that car of yours in the middle of the road and blocking everything?” he said angrily. “This ain’t no way to catch a nigger. My old woman could do better at it than you’re doing. All this shouting and yelling gives him the best chance in the world to get away from here. Get that car of yours out of the way!”

Clint moved closer to Shep.

“Get that God damn car of yours out of the road, Barlow!” he shouted. “I ain’t going to stand here all night waiting for you to sober up. I’ll knock you off this bridge, if you don’t move to do something about it.”

Jeff nudged Bert.

“They’re arguing over the Clark nigger,” Jeff said in a whisper. “It ain’t the same bunch that took Sam off.”

Shep had backed up against the bridge railing.

“I’m running this shooting-match just like I said,” he shouted, waving his arms in the air. “Everybody who wants to catch the nigger fall in with me!”

Nobody moved.

“I ain’t taking no orders from no drunk,” Clint said.

“If that car of yours ain’t moved out of the way, I’m going to ram it out with a truck.”

The two men faced each other while the crowd moved closer in order to get a better view.

“This is the damndest nigger-hunt I ever saw,” one of the men in the crowd said. “Everybody squabbling, and the nigger hotfooting it away from here as fast as his legs will carry him. This ain’t no way to catch him at all.”

“Let Shep Barlow alone! He knows what he’s doing!”

“I’m putting my money on Clint!”

“This is a hell of a way to catch a nigger!”

“This ain’t no nigger-hunt—this here’s a jawing-match!”

Clint reached into his pocket for his knife, but before he could draw it, Shep lunged forward, butting him down. Clint fell sprawling on his back.

“Don’t let him pull that knife on you, Shep!” somebody shouted warningly. “He’ll rip you open like a hog!”

“Shut up and let them fight it out. Shep Barlow can take care of himself, drunk or sober. I’ve seen him fight before when he was drunk.”

The barber from Andrewjones rushed at Shep with a monkey wrench. Before he could strike Shep, somebody had shoved him towards the railing. He went tumbling over out of sight.

“God damn it, this ain’t no way for you folks to be doing!” somebody said. “You folks save up and do your scrapping tomorrow or some other time. I came out here to help track down a nigger.

Somebody picked Clint up and pushed him towards one of the cars. Fifteen or twenty men followed behind.

“What we going to do now, Shep?” several of them asked.

Shep brushed himself off and started for his car. The men on the bridge began arguing among themselves, some of them undecided whether to follow Clint or Shep.

Jeff and Bert backed away and circled around through the brush until they were back where the car had been left. Jeff was hurrying across the ditch when a flashlight was turned on him. Several men crowded around him.

“What the hell are you doing out here, McCurtain?” one of them demanded. “I think it’s pretty funny to be stumbling over you out here where you don’t have no business of being. You ain’t fixing to double-cross nobody, is you?”

Two of the men began roughing Bert, pushing him towards the road.

“Why ain’t you laying low like Judge Ben Allen told you to do?” one of the others asked. “I talked to Judge Ben Allen on the phone, and he told me—”

“Now, hold on a minute,” Jeff said uneasily. “There ain’t no use in anybody in the whole wide world misunderstanding me. I’ve worked myself frazzled-assed trying to keep this lynching politically clean. That’s why I wouldn’t be out here on false pretense. All I wanted to do was find what became of Sam—”

“Sam who?”

“Sam Brinson, the colored man,” Jeff said. “Everybody knows Sam. He’s the darky who’s always trading old machines and getting into hot water every now and then about the mortgages. Some folks carried Sam off, and I started out to hear some word of him.”

“That ain’t no reason to find you snooping around out here when we’re looking for that Clark nigger, McCurtain.”

“Now, boys,” Jeff pleaded, “don’t jump so hard-almighty at conclusions. I thought somebody around here might know about him. He was carried away from the jailhouse early this morning, but he ain’t got a thing in the world to do with this trouble. He gets into a fix now and then when he sells one of them old cars of his when it ain’t clear of mortgage, but he don’t mean no harm.”

“This is a bad season of the year for any nigger to be getting into trouble,” a man said. “It ain’t healthy for that Brinson nigger, or any of them, to be crossing white people right now.”

“Sam never sets out to do harm,” Jeff protested. “It just looks like it’s pure second-nature with him to be wanting to swap them old machines of his around.”

“Well, he ain’t out here, McCurtain,” a gruff voice broke in. “And the best place for you at a time like this is right back at the jailhouse in Andrewjones.”

Jeff moved towards his car by the side of the road. The men walked on each side of him in silence. Jeff did not like the careless manner of some of them with their shotguns and rifles, and he watched them nervously.

Several other men came up suddenly out of the darkness, but no one said anything. The faces in the light looked grim and determined.

Bert was standing in the ditch with half a dozen men around him holding guns in the crooks of their arms. He looked worried.

“All right, McCurtain,” somebody prompted him. “Remember the talk we had back there a minute ago.”

He and Bert got into the car. The men, fifteen or twenty of them by that time, waited in a semicircle while Bert started the engine and drove down the road in the direction of Andrewjones.

Bert ventured to speak after they had gone two or three miles. He had waited as long as he could before saying anything.

“Maybe we ought to be going back to the jailhouse toreckly,” he suggested. “There’s no telling where Jim Couch is, and somebody ought to be there in case something comes up.”

Jeff motioned to him to slow down the car. Bert stopped it at once on the side of the road.