Alex Cross's Trial

Chapter 44

COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY PEDAL a bicycle as slowly as I did going back to Eudora?

I looked all around me. Although my little town still looked much as it had when I was a boy, now it was stained and tattered almost beyond recognition.

Now the whole place was poisoned by torture and murder. The proof was still swinging from that oak tree out by the banks of Frog Creek. I thought about going to the police, but what good would it do? And besides, it would raise the question of why I had gone out to the scene of the lynchings.

“You all soakin’ wet,” Maybelle said as I trudged up onto her porch. “Set here with me and have a lemonade.”

I put myself in a porch rocker and prepared to be disappointed, but the lemonade was cold, sweet, delicious.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Maybelle said. “You had a visitor while you were gone. Senator Nottingham’s wife.”

“Elizabeth? Did she leave any message?”

“No, she said she would stop by again. But that reminds me, I know how much stock you put in getting the mail, and you did get some today. I put it in the front hall.”

On the hall table was a square, cream-colored envelope with my name written in Meg’s delicate hand.

I took the stairs two at a time. Inside my room, I removed my jacket and settled into the chair at the window for a good read.

Dear Ben,

I know I ought to be ashamed for not having written sooner. The girls have done very little else but remind me. They have pestered me about you night and day. But I’ve been busy doing almost all the housekeeping, because Mazie had to go up to Trenton on account of her sister has been “ill.”

Do not worry about me. Other than sore muscles from wringing out the wash and from scrubbing the floors in the house, I am in good physical shape.

These opening lines filled me with joy. My wife was still my wife. My fears were unjustified. The letter sounded so much like her – the teasing complaints, the emphatic descriptions, even the hint that she regarded Mazie’s sister’s problem as nothing more than a love of the grape.

Later on, when I reflected on this moment, I wished I had stopped reading at that point.

Ben, I might as well get to the point. I have suffered and wept many nights over this. Finally I have reached my decision. There is no reason for me to delay the pain for both of us, and pain there will surely be when I tell you what is in my heart.

I think it would be best for all involved if I move back in with my father.

I read that last sentence again… and again…

I doubt this will truly come as a surprise to you. You know that we have not been in love, as husband and wife must be, for some time now.

My hand was shaking now. The paper began to rattle and my eyes burned.

I rested my head back against my chair. “I’m still in love, Meg,” I said out loud.

I have prayed much about this matter, and have spoken to my father about the situation.

I should have known. Meg had consulted the one god in her life, the almighty Colonel Wilfred A. Haverbrook, U.S. Army, Ret. No doubt the colonel had agreed with her that her husband was a miserable failure.

I know that my decision may strike you as a terrible mistake on my part. Yet I believe it is the only correct solution to our dilemma. We must be honest with each other and ourselves.

I think it best if you do not come home at this time. I will be in touch with you by post or wire, as I begin the steps necessary to bring about a most painful but inevitable result.

Cordially, your wife

Meg

I have often heard the expression “It hit him like a punch in the stomach,” but I had never felt it myself. Suddenly I knew exactly what it meant. The letter struck me a blow that caused a physical ache so sharp I had to bend over. Then I sat up. Perhaps I’d missed a word, or an entire sentence, and reversed the meaning of the thing.

I grabbed the letter and read it again. I read it out loud.

Eventually I turned it over and found another message scrawled on the back in pencil, a child’s handwriting.

Daddy, me and Alice miss you terrible, just terrible. Pleas come home soon as you can. I love you, your dauhgter, Amelia.

And that is when I felt my heart break.

Chapter 45

I POURED COLD WATER from the pitcher into the basin, then washed my face with the coarse brown soap, scrubbing so hard I threatened to take the skin off.

Next I took a sheet of writing paper from my valise, along with a pen Meg had given me for the first anniversary of our marriage: a beautiful Waterman pen.

I pulled the wobbly chair up to the wobbly table and uncapped the pen. Immediately I felt all my lawyerly eloquence disappear.

Dear Meg,

As your husband, and your friend, I must tell you that you have some things wrong. I do love you. You are simply wrong to say that I don’t. A separation like this is a rash thing to do, especially considering that we have never even discussed these problems face to face.

I don’t care about your father’s opinion of our marriage. But I do care that our parting will break the hearts of everyone involved – Alice, Amelia, my own heart, even yours.

Before you take any further action, please, my darling Meg, we must discuss this – together, as husband and wife, as mother and father of our two little daughters, as Meg and Ben who always planned to spend our lives together.

Suddenly I came out of my writing trance…

“Mr. Corbett! Mr. Corbett!”

It was Maybelle, hollering from the foot of the stairs. I quickly wrote,

Your loving and faithful husband,

Ben

“Mr. Corbett!”

I put down the pen and walked out to the landing.

“What is it, Maybelle?” I called.

“Mrs. Nottingham is here to see you. She’s here on the porch. She’s waiting on you, Mr. Corbett. Hurry.”

Chapter 46

THERE ELIZABETH WAS, standing on Maybelle’s wide wraparound porch. She had put on another bonnet and seemed even more attractive than she’d been this morning.

She reached out for my hand. “I came to apologize, Ben.”

I took her hand. “What do you mean? Apologize for what?”

I said this for the benefit of Maybelle, whom I could see lingering in the parlor, trying not to be observed.

“Let’s go look at Miss Maybelle’s rose garden,” I proposed. “It’s in full bloom this time of year.”

I made a motion with my eyes that disclosed my real meaning to Elizabeth. She nodded and followed me around the porch toward the backyard.

Maybelle’s roses were actually in sad shape, a few blossoms drooping among a profusion of weeds.

“I’m sorry for this morning,” Elizabeth said. “The way I ran off.”

“You didn’t run, you walked. I watched your every step,” I said and smiled.

“You can still be funny, Ben.”

“Sit on the bench,” I said. “I won’t bite you.”

Smoothing her dress, she sat on the stained marble bench amid the raggedy roses.

Sitting close to her, I was fascinated by her every gesture, word, movement. I noticed the way Elizabeth touched her mouth with the knuckle of her second finger, giving herself a little kiss before coming out with an opinion. And the slow southern musical rhythm of her speech. Lord, what was getting into me? Probably just loneliness. Or was it being rejected by my wife?

“You were surprised I came to see you again so soon?” she said.

“I’m always glad to see you, Elizabeth,” I said. Then added, “Yes, I’m surprised you’re here.”

“I do have an ulterior motive,” she said. “We’re having a luncheon after church on Sunday. Will you come?”

“We?”

“Richard and I.”

“Sure, I’ll come,” I replied.

I caught the faint scent of rose water, and I noted the curve of her nose, and remembered being very young and in love with that little nose.

“Wonderful,” she was saying. “Come about one, Ben. We’ll have some nice people in. I’ll try not to have any of those you were subjected to at L.J.’s.”

She stood. “I can’t be late picking up Emma from her lesson. She’s quite the little pianist, and I guess I’m quite the doting mother.”

I stood, and we smiled. This time, there was no kiss on the cheek.

But I watched Elizabeth walk away again, every step, until she finally disappeared behind the rooming house porch.

Chapter 47

WASHINGTON, D.C.

That same afternoon, Senator John Tyler Morgan,[2] Democrat of Alabama, stood in the lobby of the Willard Hotel, yelling at the general manager.

“I have never been refused service in my life! That insufferable man in the elevator had the nerve to tell me he was holding the car for an important personage. He told me to get off that car and wait for another car!”

Senator Morgan was so angry that specks of saliva were speckling the lapels of the general manager’s morning coat.

“Senator, I am so sorry for the inconvenience–”

“Not an inconvenience! It’s a goddamned insult! Who the hell was he holding the elevator for, the goddamned president of the United States?”

As he roared this question, the great glass doors of the lobby flew open at the hands of two uniformed guards. In walked Theodore Roosevelt.

He took one look at John Tyler Morgan in mid rampage and the poor little cowering manager. Then Roosevelt thundered, “Unless my eyes deceive me, the man at the center of that ruckus is none other than the senior senator from the great state of Alabama. Good morning, John!”

The famous Civil War general and southern statesman was stunned into silence. No one had called him John in many years.

“Morning, Mr. President,” he finally managed to say.

“Come ride the elevator with me, John!”

A few minutes later, having deposited the red-faced Morgan on his floor, Roosevelt had a good laugh at his expense. “And the newspapers call me a gasbag? Senator Morgan, my friends, is the royal and supreme emperor of gasbags! Did you see how quickly I deflated him simply by using his Christian name?”

Appreciative laughter from his aides trailed the president to his suite. Roosevelt grew serious the moment he passed through the door.

“Good morning, Mr. President. We’re all ready for your meeting,” said Jackson Hensen, his capable assistant.

“Well, get them in here. No need to dawdle.”

“Yes, sir. They’re on their way up in the service elevator.”

Roosevelt chuckled. “How did they take to that?”

“I understand the gentleman was… displeased,” Hensen said.

Chapter 48

THE INNER DOOR OPENED and a pair of adjutants appeared, escorting a distinguished-looking black man with a Vandyke beard and a wide woman of a darker, more African appearance, with a wise face and a spectacular sweep of hair that plainly was not entirely her own.

Mr. Roosevelt bowed to the man and kissed the lady’s gloved hand. He could never be seen doing such a thing in public, but here in private he was all too happy to pay honor to W. E. B. Du Bois,[3] the great Negro writer and crusader, and to Ida B. Wells-Barnett,[4] the passionate antilynching campaigner, such a modern and audacious woman that she dared to append her husband’s name to her own when she married.

“My sincere apologies for the indignity of bringing you up in the… back elevator,” the president said.

Du Bois bowed slightly. “It is not the first time I have ridden in the servants’ car, Mr. President,” he said. “I am fairly sure it will not be the last.”

Mrs. Wells-Barnett perched her sizable self on the upholstered chair beside the fireplace.

“Now, Mr. Du Bois,” said the president, “I have received quite a lot of correspondence from you about these matters. I want you to know that my administration is doing everything within our power to see that these local authorities start observing the laws as–”

Roosevelt was surprised when Ida Wells-Barnett interrupted.

“That’s fine, Mr. President,” she said. “We already know all that. You don’t have to coddle us or pour on all that old gravy. We know what you’re up against. We’re up against the same. White men get away with killing black men every day.”

Roosevelt’s eyes flashed behind his spectacles. “Well, Madam, I think I may be able to do something finally,” he said. “That’s why I agreed to this meeting.”

Du Bois said, “Yes, sir, but–”

“If you will try to refrain from interrupting your president,” Roosevelt demanded, “I will further explain that I am taking steps right now to learn the true situation in the Deep South. Once I have all the facts, I assure you I intend to act.”

“I appreciate that,” Du Bois said.

“We’re not asking for public displays any more than you are,” said Wells-Barnett, warming to the discussion. “As you recall, sir, when you invited Booker Washington to dine at the White House, it caused a political headache for you and accomplished absolutely nothing for the cause of colored people.”

“Booker T. Washington is the whitest black man I know,” grumbled Du Bois.

Roosevelt sat ramrod straight in a large leather armchair. Jackson Hensen loomed over a tiny French desk in the corner, taking down in shorthand everything that was said.

“Mr. Roosevelt, let me put this as simply as possible,” said Wells-Barnett. “What we have at the present time is an epidemic of lynching in the South. The problem is getting worse, not better.”

Jackson Hensen decided to speak up.

It was an unfortunate decision.

“I understand what you are saying, Mrs. Wells, Professor Du Bois,” he said carefully. “But at the same time you are telling us these terrible stories of lynching, we have it on excellent authority that there is also an epidemic of white women being raped and molested by Negroes all over the South. I’ve seen the numbers. The crime of rape is at least as prevalent as the crime of lynching, is it not?”

“That simply isn’t true, young man.” Du Bois’s voice was an ominous rumble. “I don’t know where you’re getting that insidious, completely inaccurate information.”

Wells-Barnett interrupted. “Just this morning, Senator Morgan was telling people in the lobby of this hotel that he intends to repeal the antilynching laws now in effect.”

Jackson Hensen made a skeptical sound. “With all respect, Mrs. Wells-Barnett, I seriously doubt Morgan can muster the votes to do such a thing.”

Then Du Bois: “I disagree, young man. I disagree – vehemently!”

“That’s enough!” said the president. He got to his feet and paced the floor behind his desk. “I’ve heard enough of this squabbling. I am determined to get to the bottom of the problem. And I will!”

The president’s flash of anger silenced everyone. They all stared at him dumbly: the combative Du Bois, the passionate Wells-Barnett, the young and arrogant Hensen.

Now Roosevelt spoke, quietly and with purpose. “At this very moment I have sent a personal envoy to the Deep South on a dangerous mission, to investigate this entire question of lynching. He is a man I trust,” Roosevelt continued. “A native of those parts. I have connected him with certain others who can show him the situation from all sides. I haven’t told you his name because I’d rather this situation remain confidential until he’s done his job. And then I will do whatever I deem necessary to remedy the tragic situation in the South.”

Ida Wells-Barnett rose from the sofa. “Thank you, Mr. President. I gladly tell anyone who asks that you are the best friend the Negro has had in this office since Mr. Lincoln.”

Roosevelt shook her hand enthusiastically.

Du Bois was forced by Mrs. Wells-Barnett’s action to rise from the sofa and offer his own hand. “Thank you, Mr. President,” he said.

“Yes. Thank you, sir.” The president shook his hand. “Let’s hope we can make progress on this.”

“I’ve been hoping for progress all my life,” Du Bois said.

Roosevelt kept the fixed smile on his face until the two were out of the room. Then he frowned and uttered an epithet.

“Sir?” said Hensen.

“You heard what I said.”

“Is there something I should do about this?”

“Get a message to Abraham Cross. Tell him I want a report from him and Ben Corbett immediately – if not sooner.”

Chapter 49

I WENT DOWN to Young’s Hardware – the only such store in town – and bought myself a bicycle. Then I wheeled my purchase out into the hot sun. The machine was a beautiful silvery blue, with pneumatic tires to smooth out the bumps and ruts of Eudora’s dirt streets.

I took my maiden voyage on my new machine out to the Quarters, to see Abraham Cross.

On this day Abraham and I did not head for the swamp. We rode his mules along the Jackson & Northern tracks, then turned east on the Union Church Road. This was fine open ground, vast flat fields that had been putting out prodigious quantities of cotton for generations.

Every mile or so we encountered a clump of trees surrounding a fine old plantation house. These plantations had been the center of Eudora’s wealth, the reason for its existence, since the first slaves were brought in to clear the trees from these fields.

“You don’t mean they lynched somebody right out here in the open?” I said.

“You stick with me,” Abraham said, “and I’ll show you things that’ll make your fine blond hair fall out.”

At that moment we were riding past River Oak, the McKenna family plantation. In the field to our left about thirty Negro workers were bent over under the hot sun, dragging the cloth sacks that billowed out behind them as they moved down the row, picking cotton.

We passed out of the morning heat into the shade, the portion of the road that curved close to the McKennas’ stately home. On the front lawn two adorable white children in a little pink-painted cart were driving a pony in circles. On the wide front veranda I could see the children’s mother observing their play and a small army of black servants hovering there.

This was a vision of the old South and the new South, all wrapped into one. There, gleaming in the drive, was a handsome new motorcar, brass fittings shining in the sun. And there, rushing across the yard in pursuit of a hen, was an ink-black woman with a red dotted kerchief wrapped around her head.

Abraham was careful to ride his mule a few feet behind mine, to demonstrate his inferior position in the company of a white man. I turned in the saddle. “Where to?”

“Just keep riding straight on ahead to that road beyond the trees,” he said.

“You don’t think that lady’s going to wonder what we’re up to?”

“She don’t even see us,” said Abraham. “She just happy to sit up on her porch and be rich.”

We passed once more out of the shade and turned our mules down the long line of trees flanking the McKennas’ pecan orchard.

Soon we arrived at another clump of trees shading an intersection with another dirt lane. The western side of this crossing formed a natural amphitheater, with a gigantic old black gum tree as its center.

Beneath this tree someone had built a little platform, like a stage. In a rough semicircle several warped wooden benches were arranged, their whitewash long faded. Obviously they had been hauled out of some derelict church and placed here for spectators.

“What is this, a camp revival?” I said.

Abraham pointed up at a sturdy low branch of the gum tree. The branch extended directly over the little wooden stage – or rather, the stage had been built directly under the branch. Three ropes were carefully knotted and hanging from the branch, three loops waiting for heads to be slipped in, waiting for someone to hang.

“Good God!” I said as I realized what I was seeing.

“For the audience,” Abraham said as he gestured around at the benches. “They come to watch the lynching. And they need a place to sit. Nothing worse than having to stand while you waiting to watch ’em hang a nigger.”

That was the first time I’d heard Abraham use that word, and his eyes burned fiercely.

I almost couldn’t believe it. Across that fence was the McKennas’ impeccable lawn, acres and acres of flawless mown grass. I could see beds of bright orange daylilies sculpted into the landscape from here to the big house.

To one side of the stage, I noticed a low table with a small bench behind it. Maybe that was for shotguns and rifles, to keep them out of the dirt.

“What’s that table for, Abraham?”

He answered with a weak smile. “That’s where they sell refreshments.”

Chapter 50

IF I THOUGHT that obscene place was the worst abomination I was going to see – a serene amphitheater constructed for the pleasure of human beings torturing other human beings – I was wrong.

Our journey was just beginning.

We turned south, along back roads, until we were riding beside the fields of the Sauville plantation. I asked if they too had a theater for lynching.

“I don’t believe so,” said Abraham. “Why bother building your own when there’s such a nice one already established in your neighborhood?”

We rode past the showy Greek Revival pile of the Sauville home, past miles of fields with colored folks in them, picking cotton.

After riding for most of an hour, we came to a long, low cotton barn with a tall silo for storing grain at one end. The place was neatly kept and obviously much in use; the doors at one end stood open, revealing deep rectangular bays stuffed to the ceiling with the first bales of the new crop.

The most successful farmers used barns like this for storing their cotton from year to year, selling only as they needed cash or the price reached a profitable level.

“You telling me they’ve lynched somebody here?”

“I’m afraid so. This was where Hiram Frazier got hanged. And a couple more since.”

“How on earth could you hang somebody in a barn this low? Looks like his feet would drag on the ground.”

He pointed to the end of the barn by the silo. “The folks watch from in here. But they hang ’em inside the silo. Don’t even need a tree.”

I shook my head. I thought of Jacob Gill and the pint he kept in his leather toolbox. I wished for a taste of that whiskey right now.

Abraham led the mules to a slow, muddy stream, where they drank. The old man knelt down, cupped some water in his hand, and drank too.

“It don’t look like much, but it taste all right,” he said.

I was thirsty but decided I could wait.

We climbed up on the mules. Abraham’s animal groaned as he brought his full weight down on its back.

“I declare, I don’t know who’s in worse shape,” Abraham said, “this poor old mule or me.”

I smiled at him.

“There’s one more place I need to show you, Ben,” he said. “Then I reckon we’ll be ready to write an official report for Mr. President.”

As his mule started off, I saw Abraham wince in pain and try to hide it. He saw that I had noticed and forced a smile.

“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Corbett,” he said. “I’m old, but I ain’t even close to dyin’ yet.”

But as he turned away and the smile dropped from his face like a mask, I realized that Abraham was a very old man, and probably a sick man as well. His face had the hidden desperation of someone hanging on for dear life.

Or maybe just to make this report to the president.

Chapter 51

I SUPPOSE ABRAHAM WAS WISE to save the worst for last. We rode the mules through a peach orchard south of the Chipley plantation, making a roundabout circle in the general direction of town. The air was heavy with the smell of rotting fruit. For some reason no one was picking these peaches.

At the end of the orchard we emerged into a peaceful wooded glen. At the far side stood two huge old trees. From the fruit dotting the floor of the glen, I made out that these were black cherry trees; we had a nice specimen growing in back of the house the whole time I was growing up.

From the tree on the right hung a black man. At least, I think it was a man. It was mostly unrecognizable. Flies buzzed around it. It had been there a while.

I didn’t want to go closer, but I found myself moving there as if my legs were doing all the thinking for my body. I could see that the man had been young. He was caked with blood, spit, snot, mud, and shit. His head was distended, swollen from the pressure of hanging. His lips were swollen too, like balloons about to pop.

I began to gag and I turned away. I fell to one knee and heaved.

“Go ahead, Ben,” Abraham said. “It’s good to be sick, to be able to get rid of it like that. I wish I could. I guess I’m just gettin’ too used to seein’ it. It’s a bad thing to get used to.”

I took out my handkerchief and wiped the edges of my mouth. The wave of nausea was still sweeping over me.

“That’s Jimmy Patton up there,” he said.

“What happened to him?”

“He worked over at the gin for Mr. Purneau,” Abraham said. “Last Saturday he got drunk like he always does after he gets his pay. He was walkin’ home and somehow he got hold of a gun. Don’t know if he brung it with him, I never knowed Jimmy to carry a gun. Anyway he popped it off right there a couple of times on Commerce Street, down at the end there by the depot. He didn’t hit anybody, but a couple of men saw him. They brought him here.”

“We can’t leave him up there,” I said.

“Well sir, we have to,” said Abraham.

“Why is that?”

“Because they told the people came to cut Jimmy down they wanted him left here as a warning for the others.”

“You afraid to cut him down, Abraham? This man needs to be buried.”

“We got no way to carry him.”

“Across the mule’s back,” I said. “I can walk it, or I can ride with you.”

“I’m an old man, Mr. Corbett. I can’t climb that tree.”

“Well, I can, but I don’t have a knife,” I said.

Abraham produced an excellent bowie knife with a bone handle.

It was only when I was directly under Jimmy Patton’s body that I saw someone had severed his fingers and toes. Where his digits should have been there were bloody stumps.

I made quick work of climbing the cherry tree.

“Yes, sir,” Abraham said. “Sometime they cut off pieces. To take for souvenirs. And sometimes they sell ’em, you know. At the general store. At the barber shop. Ten cent for a nigger toe. Twenty-five cent for a nigger thumb.”

I waved my hand at the ugly explosion of blood on the front of Jimmy Patton’s trousers.

“That’s right,” said Abraham. “Sometimes they don’t stop at fingers and toes.”

I felt light-headed and nauseated again. “Just – just stop talking for a minute, would you, Abraham?”

I sawed at the rope with a knife for what seemed like an hour. Jimmy Patton finally fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

Somehow I managed to climb down that tree. Somehow I got the Indian blanket out from under Abraham’s saddle and wrapped it around the dead man. With Abraham’s help I got Jimmy onto the mule. His body was so stiff from rigor mortis that I had to balance him just so, like a pine log.

“We better get out of here,” Abraham said. “Somebody watching us for sure.”

“Where? I don’t see anybody.”

“I don’t see ’em,” he said, “but I know they watching us, just the same.”

We made it back through the peach orchard, onto the road, all the way back to town without meeting a soul. I walked the mule by its rope, hoping it would help to be out front. But there was nowhere to walk without breathing in the smell of Jimmy Patton’s decomposing flesh, the coppery smell of his blood.

“I’m ready to write that report, Abraham,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I imagine you are.”

Chapter 52

SUDDENLY IT WAS SUNDAY, and I was back in a world I recognized. I didn’t admit to myself why I felt so lighthearted. I splashed my face with lilac water and clipped a fresh collar to my shirt, but it wasn’t until I was standing at the bright yellow door of Elizabeth Begley’s white mansion that I admitted what had made me so happy yet apprehensive: the prospect of seeing her again.

The door swung open even before I could knock. At a house so grand, I naturally expected to be greeted by a servant, but instead I found the door opened by its owner, Elizabeth’s husband, a short, bald man with an amiable smile. “You must be the famous Benjamin Corbett of Washington, attorney at law,” he said.

“I am,” I said. “And you must be the much more famous Richard Nottingham, senator and man of influence.”

He smiled. “You’ve got that just about right,” he said, grabbing my hand. That hand had not been shaken so vigorously since Roosevelt operated it at the White House. Maybe it was a habit of politicians to inflict pain on new acquaintances, as an aid to memory.

“Lizzie talks so much about you I feel like we already know each other.”

Lizzie. The familiarity of the nickname made me wince inwardly.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” I said. “She speaks fondly of you.”

“Oh, now, he’s making that up,” said Elizabeth, coming up behind her husband. “Don’t lie, Ben. Richard knows I haven’t spoken fondly of him in years!” She threw her husband a big stage wink. “At least, not in public.”

Nottingham laughed. “Isn’t she a delight?”

I agreed that she was, in a most unspecific murmur. Then I followed them into a small drawing room off the rear of the center hall.

“Ben, Richard and I are so happy you came. There may be a few people here you don’t know–”

This looked a lot like the gathering at L. J. Stringer’s mansion: the same aging stuffed shirts, the same overstuffed dresses, a faint smell of mothballs.

Elizabeth led me to a stout couple on the fringed velvet loveseat. “This is Senator Oscar Winkler and his dear wife, Livia.”

I noticed that state senators dropped the “state,” turning themselves into real senators. Senator Winkler clasped my hand. “Nice to see you again, Ben.”

I was surprised he remembered me. Many years ago, as political editor for the Eudora High School Bugler, I had interviewed Senator Winkler for a column entitled “Eudora Looks Forward.” He had been warm to me and wise in his comments. One thing he said I had never forgotten. He said it, then asked me not to print it: “The southern man who figures out a way to bridge this terrible divide between the black and the white will enjoy all the blessings our Lord can bestow.”

I shook the senator’s hand and kissed his wife’s. As I was straightening up I heard Elizabeth say, “And I do believe you already know this fellow.”

I turned. To my astonishment, I found myself smiling and extending my hand to one Judge Everett Corbett.

He shook it quite formally and made a little bow. “Ben, always a pleasure,” he said. “I hope your business down here is going well.”

Richard Nottingham clapped his hands. “Lizzie, I heard just a bit too much preaching this morning, and presently I’m about to starve to death.” Everything the man said had that odd quality of being humorously intended but not actually funny. “Could we please have our dinner?”

Chapter 53

I WAS PLEASED about two things immediately. One, Elizabeth seated me next to herself at the table; two, turtle soup was not on the Nottinghams’ menu.

I’d eaten a skimpy breakfast, expecting the usual six- or seven-course southern exercise in dinnertime excess. Instead I found the food a touch on the dainty side: deviled eggs, shrimp rémoulade, cucumber sandwiches, various cheeses, and a big silver dish of pickles.

My father was also dishing it up: the personification of silver-haired charm, as he could be at those times when he let himself be roped into a social event.

“I really owe you and Elizabeth a debt of gratitude,” he told Nottingham. “If it weren’t for you, who knows if I’d even get to see my son again before he heads home!”

I recognized that as a clear signal. Now that we’d seen each other and been observed acting cordially toward each other, my job was done. I was welcome to go back to Washington anytime.

“Oh, I’m not going home yet, Father,” I said over the back of the settee. I held up my glass of claret. “I’m grateful too, Richard. My father and I don’t get to see each other enough. It’s so rare to see him in such a cheerful and expansive mood.”

My father gave out a little laugh. “Ben is quite a character,” he said. “He’s come down to tell us all where we went wrong. He thinks the South ought to be able to change overnight.”

Richard Nottingham was glancing from my father to me, as if wondering whether this dispute was going to lead to blows among all this expensive china and crystal.

“I’m just hoping for a South that returns to the rule of law,” I said. “I just want a place where the Ku Klux Klan is not hanging black men from every available tree.” I knew that I was treading dangerously here, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Now you’re being plain ignorant,” my father said. “You don’t seem to remember that the Klan was outlawed about forty years ago.”

“I remember it very well,” said Livia Winkler. “My daddy said it was the end of civilization.”

Senator Winkler cleared his throat. “Now, Judge, you know as well as I do that outlawing something does not guarantee that it ceases to exist,” he said. “As a matter of fact, that’s one of the best ways to ensure its continuing existence – to forbid it!”

They glared at each other. It struck me that they’d had this argument before, when I was nowhere around. It also reminded me that there were many good men and women in the South, even here in Eudora.

I was about to say something in support of Winkler when a servant girl walked in bearing a large round cake, frosted white, on a silver platter.

Nottingham brightened. “Why, Lizzie, is that a hummingbird cake?”

“Of course it is. I had them make it just for you. Richard’s going off to Jackson next week. We’ll miss his birthday, but we can all celebrate tonight.”

Something happened then that sent an electrical jolt through my body. It was all I could do to keep from bolting upright in my seat.

As she said these words to her husband, I felt Elizabeth’s hand gently pat the inside of my thigh.

“Ben,” she said, “you must try the cake.”

Chapter 54

“NO, SIR.”

“No, not today, Mr. Corbett.”

“No, sir, nothing today.”

Maybelle always had the same answer to the question I asked her at least once every day. First I would check the table in the front hall, then I’d convince myself that a letter had come and Maybelle was keeping it from me because she knew how anxiously I waited.

I would go ask her, and she would say, “No, sir.”

It had been more than a week since I’d written to Meg. I’d imagined that my love had fairly leapt off the page when she read it and that she would write back immediately.

That letter had not yet arrived.

Meanwhile I was keeping someone else waiting: President Roosevelt expected a report on what I had found out about lynching in and around Eudora. I had spent the past two evenings on a long letter to the president that gave precise locations, right down to the species of the hanging trees. I included the names of victims and the approximate times and dates of their murders.

Then I showed the letter to Abraham. He read it and said, “If it was me, I’d make it like a telegram. Short and sweet. ‘Dear Mr. President, it’s worse than you heard. Send the Army. Stop.’”

Abraham was right. I remembered years ago at Las Guasimas when Roosevelt spoke to me for the first time. He glared down from his horse. “Do we have provisions for an overnight, Captain?”

“Sir, I ordered the men to double their rations and to fill their canteens–”

“Stop!” Roosevelt commanded. “That was a yes-or-no question.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

And now it took Abraham to remind me of Roosevelt’s fondness for a concise report.

“Send it to him in a wire,” he said.

“That’s a good idea. But I can’t send it from Eudora.”

The telegraph operator in town was Harry Kelleher, who was also the stationmaster. The moment I left the depot after sending my wire to the White House, Kelleher would personally see that the contents were passed on to every man, woman, and child in Eudora.

“Where can I go, Abraham?”

“Where’s the closest place where everybody doesn’t know who you are?”

I thought about that. “McComb,” I said.

McComb was the nearest sizable town, a farm center and railroad hub ten miles north. When I was growing up, McComb was nothing but a crossroads, but when the Jackson & Northern railroad extended its line and located a terminus there, it outgrew Eudora. McComb was only an hour’s carriage ride away, and it boasted Sampson’s, a fine restaurant specializing in New Orleans-style food: Creole jambalaya, grits and grillades, steak Diane.

Most of all, it had something that was sure to lift my spirits. I had seen the handbill only the day before, hanging on the front wall of the Eudora Courier office.

TOMORROW! ONE NIGHT ONLY!

THE INIMITABLE AUTHOR, SATIRIST, & RACONTEUR

MR. SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS,

WHO MAY DECIDE TO APPEAR ALONGSIDE

MR. MARK TWAIN

DOORS OPEN AT 7 O’CLOCK

THE TROUBLE TO BEGIN AT 8 O’CLOCK

MCCOMB CITY LYRIC THEATRE

My favorite author in the world was just a carriage ride away.

And then another thought struck me. I didn’t have a carriage, but I knew someone who did.

Chapter 55

WHEN I PUSHED my carefully composed telegram across the desk to the man behind the barred window at the McComb depot, his eyes bugged. “I ain’t never sent a wire to the White House before,” he said in a loud voice.

A few people waiting for the next train turned their heads to give me an appraising glance.

I smiled at the man. “Neither have I,” I said gently. “Could you please keep it down?”

“I sent one to the president of Ole Miss one time,” he bellowed, “but that ain’t the same thing. You mean for this to go to the real president, in the White House, up in Washington?”

“That’s the one,” I said.

I would have to tell Abraham that his idea of coming to McComb for anonymity had failed. I wondered whether there was anyplace in the state of Mississippi from which you could dispatch a wire to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without causing a fuss.

“Yes, sir,” the man was saying, “one time I sent one to Governor Vardaman, and there was this other time a fellow wanted to send one–”

“I’m glad you and I could make history together,” I said. “Could you send it right away?”

“Soon as the station agent comes back from his break,” he said.

I forced myself to remember that I was down South, where everything operated on Mississippi time, a slower pace than in other places. After the man’s break would be soon enough.

I hurried out to Elizabeth’s carriage, where she sat surveying the panorama of McComb.

Half the town had burned to the ground just a few years before, but a sturdy new town had already been put up to replace it. At one end of the business district stood a fine new depot and the famous McComb Ice Plant, which iced down thousands of train cars full of southern fruits and vegetables for the trip north.

All the way at the other end of downtown, on Broadway Street, stood the only other building that really interested me – the Lyric Theatre, where Twain would perform tonight.

First we repaired to Sampson’s, where I ordered crab gumbo and Elizabeth ordered – what else? – turtle soup. We chatted and relived old times throughout the Pompano en Papillote and the Snapper Almondine, the bread pudding and the egg custard. It was the finest meal, and dining companion, I’d had since returning to the South.

With a rare sense of satisfaction, Elizabeth and I strolled down the new sidewalks of Front Street to the theater. Men in waistcoats and women in fancy crinolines were milling about the entrance, and I couldn’t wait to go in.

“You look like a child on Christmas morning,” Elizabeth said and laughed merrily.

I lifted my hat to the man I’d engaged to water our horse and keep an eye on the carriage. “It’s better than that,” I said. “Christmas comes once a year. But Mark Twain comes once in a lifetime.”

Chapter 56

LET ME PUT THIS SIMPLY. Mark Twain[5] remains to this day the funniest, most intelligent and entertaining person I ever saw on any stage or read in any book.

By then he was an old man, over seventy, but he wore his famous white suit, smoked his famous cigar, and constantly ran his long fingers through his famously unruly hair. His voice was as raspy as an old barn door. He sounded at all times as if he were about ten seconds away from erupting in a violent rage.

“Nothing needs reforming,” he said by way of beginning, “so much as other people’s habits.”

The audience roared in recognition of a universal truth.

“Best forget about the animals. Man is the only one with the true religion…”

The audience waited. Sure enough, the rest of the sentence arrived with perfect timing.

“Yep… several of them.”

He was amusing, biting, sarcastic, ferocious, and bitter in his repudiation of nearly everything and everyone. Elizabeth laughed as hard as I did – harder sometimes. I kept sneaking glances at her: shoulders shaking, handkerchief pressed to her mouth. I was happy she was having such a good time.

I was no author, no satirist, no raconteur, but I did know that the humor of this man Clemens was different. Besides being funny, every word he spoke was the absolute truth. The bigger the lies he pretended to tell, the more truthful the stories became.

When he talked about his struggles with trying to give up whiskey and his beloved cigars, we all laughed because we had struggles of our own, and he helped us see that they were ridiculous.

When he read from his book Huckleberry Finn, a passage in which Huck is bemoaning the fancy clothes the Widow Douglas has forced him to wear, we laughed because someone had once forced us into Sunday clothes too.

Occasionally Twain landed with both feet in an area that made this audience a little restless, as when he said:

“We had slavery when I was a boy. There was nothing wrong with slavery. The local pulpit told us God approved of it. If there were passages in the Bible that disapproved of slavery, they were not read aloud by the pastors.”

Twain paused. He looked deadly serious. I saw men shifting in their seats.

“I wonder how they could be so dishonest…”

Another long pause. And then: “Result of practice, I guess.”

The laughter came, and I saw Elizabeth dab at her eyes.

After more than an hour of effervescent brilliance, it became clear that Twain was exhausted, clinging to the podium. A man pushed an armchair in from the wings, and Twain asked our permission to sit down.

He sat down and lit a cigar, which drew another round of applause.

He was finishing up. When he spoke this time, I felt he was speaking directly to me.

“There’s a question I’m interested in,” he said. “You – all might have an opinion on this. Why does a crowd of people stand by, smitten to the heart and miserable, and by ostentatious outward signs pretend to enjoy a lynching?”

The room fell so quiet you could hear the nervous cough of one man at the back.

“Why does the crowd lift no hand or voice in protest?” Twain said. “Only because it would be unpopular to do it, I think. Each man is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval – a thing which, to the general run of the race, is more dreaded than wounds and death.”

Still the audience sat rapt, unmoving.

“When there is to be a lynching, the people hitch up and come miles to see it, bringing their wives and children,” he said. “Really to see it? No – they come only because they are afraid to stay at home, lest it be noticed and offensively commented upon.

“No mob has any sand in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave. When I was a boy, I saw a brave gentleman deride and insult a mob, and drive it away.

“This would lead one to think that perhaps the remedy for lynchings is to station a brave man in each affected community. But where shall these brave men be found? That is indeed a difficulty. There are not three hundred of them on the earth.”

That’s exactly what Mark Twain said that night. I looked around and saw almost everyone in that audience nodding their heads, as if they all agreed.

Chapter 57

APPARENTLY ELIZABETH’S CARRIAGE HORSE had never encountered an automobile before, at least not after sundown, and not in such profusion.

With all the sputtering and clanging and light-flashing and honking in the streets around the Lyric Theatre, the frightened old horse bucked and snapped at the air. It took some fancy rein work to get us safely back on the road to Eudora.

The trip home made the trouble worthwhile. The stir of a breeze in the sultry night. A fat full moon that seemed stained yellow around its edges.

“I saw Charley’s Aunt in that theater,” Elizabeth said. “I saw Maude Adams in Jackson when she came through as Peter Pan. And they were both wonderful. But they didn’t touch my heart the way Mr. Twain did. Or make me laugh until there were tears.”

“It’s a very special evening,” I said. “Couldn’t have been any better.”

I waited. She didn’t answer.

“It is,” she finally said. “It’s very special to me too.”

These last words caught in her throat. I glanced at her: even in the faint moonlight, I could see the shine of tears in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Oh, you know what it is, Ben,” she said. “I should be riding home with Richard. I should be sharing memories of Mark Twain with him. I should be in love… with Richard.”

I knew what I wanted to do then. I wanted to tell Elizabeth my own troubles, Meg’s and mine, tell her how lonely I felt, how devastated when Meg proposed (by letter, no less!) that we put an end to our marriage.

Instead, I drove along in silence. The breeze disappeared, and the moon went behind a cloud.

“Why did you ask me to go with you tonight?” she said.

“I thought you would enjoy it,” I said. “And I guess I’ve been… lonely.”

“Oh, Ben,” she said. “Oh, Ben.” Then she took my hand in hers, and held it for a long moment.

We were riding past the town limits sign now. It was late; Commerce Street was deserted. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves echoed off the storefronts.

I finally pulled to a stop in front of the Nottingham home. I clicked open my watch. “Ten minutes till midnight,” I said. “Very respectable.”

“Respectable,” she said with a little smile. “That is one thing you are. It’s a good thing, Ben.”

I walked her to the yellow door flanked by a pair of flickering gaslights.

“Thank you for a beautiful evening,” she said. She pressed her lips to mine, her body soft against mine. The embrace lasted only a few seconds, but for those seconds, I was lost.

“Ben, do you want to come inside?” Elizabeth said in a whisper.

“I do,” I whispered back. “I most certainly do. But I can’t.”

Then Elizabeth disappeared inside her house, and I went back to Maybelle’s. I had never felt more alone in my life.

Chapter 58

I WAS STILL WAITING for an answer from the White House. Maybe my telegram had been too concise? Too curt or disrespectful to send to the president? Maybe Roosevelt had forgotten about me?

I walked downtown to get out of the rooming house, to do something other than wait. Pretty much every human being within ten miles came to town on Saturday. For a few hours in the morning, the sidewalks of Eudora buzzed with the activity of a much larger town.

I was standing in front of the Purina feed and seed, discussing the weather with Mr. Baker, when I saw an old lady and her grown daughter hurrying along the sidewalk toward us, as if getting away from something.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” the younger woman said as they passed, “they are human beings too. It isn’t right! Those boys are acting like heathens!”

Mr. Baker and I tipped our hats, but the ladies failed to notice us.

I excused myself and walked up Maple Street, around the corner where they had appeared. What I saw made my heart drop.

Three white men, maybe my age, were holding the heads of two black boys under the surface of the horse trough in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile.

They were drowning those boys. It scared me how long they were submerged after I came around the corner and saw them. Then, as if on cue, they were yanked up from the water. They spluttered out a desperate heaving breath, and then their heads were plunged into the water again.

Those boys were just kids – twelve or thirteen at the most.

When their heads came up out of the water again, they cried and begged the men to please let them go.

“Whatsa matter, you thought them white ladies was gonna save you?”

Their heads went back under.

I remembered the closing words of Mr. Clemens’s address: “Where shall these brave men be found? There are not three hundred of them on the earth.”

I took three long strides forward. “What’s going on here? Let ’em up. Do it now.”

The white men whirled around. In their surprise, they jerked the heads of their victims clear of the water. The boy on the left used the moment to make his escape, but the largest man tightened his grip on the other boy’s arm.

He was a mean-looking fat man with red hair, bulging muscles, and a tooth missing in front. “These niggers was sassing us,” he said.

“Turn him loose,” I said.

“Shit, no.”

“He’s about twelve years old,” I said. “You men are grown. And three of you against two little boys?”

“Why don’t you mind your own damn bidness,” said the second man, who had a greasy head of black hair and a face that even his mother could not have loved much. “These nigger boys was out of line. We don’t allow that in this town.”

“I’m from this town too,” I said. “My father’s a judge here. Let him go.”

I guess I sounded just official enough for Big Red to relax his grip. The black boy took off like a shot.

“Look what we got here, men,” said Red then. “A genuine nigger-lover.”

Without warning he charged and struck me full force with the weight of his body. I went flying.

Chapter 59

I WAS SLAMMED DOWN on the hard dirt street, and before I could catch my breath Red jumped on top of me.

“Reckon I’ll have to teach you how to mind your own business.”

I was trying to figure a way out of this. I had once watched Bob Fitzsimmons demolish an opponent with a third-round knockout. That was one way to do it. But there was another way to win a fight.

I reached up and pressed my thumbs into the soft, unprotected flesh of the fat man’s throat. I got my leverage, then slung him off me, right over my head. Red landed face-first in the dirt and scuffed up his lip. Blood was coming out of his nose too.

I jumped to my feet and his buddies charged at me. The first ran hard into a right uppercut. He dropped like a rock and was out cold in the street.

Now there were two dazed bullies down, but the third got behind me and jumped on my back. He started pounding his fists into my ribs.

I knew there was a thick wooden post supporting the gallery in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile, so I leaned all my weight into the man, propelling us backward, smashing him right into it. His arms unraveled from my neck and he lay on the ground twitching. He’d hit that post pretty hard, maybe cracked a couple of ribs.

“Nigger-lover,” he spat, but then he struggled up and started to run. So did the other two.

It was quiet again, the street empty.

Well, almost empty.

Chapter 60

STANDING ON THE BOARD SIDEWALK beside Jenkins’s display window was the dapper local photographer, Scooter Willems. Today he looked extra-fashionable in a seersucker suit with a straw boater. As always, he had his camera and tripod with him. I wondered whether he had just photographed me in action.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that, Ben?”

“Boxing team at college,” I said.

“No, I mean, where’d you learn to put your thumbs in a man’s throat like that? Looks like you learned to fight in the street,” Scooter said.

“I reckon I just have the instinct,” I said.

“Mind if I take your photograph, Ben?”

I remembered the night I first saw him, photographing George Pearson. “I do mind, Scooter. My clothes are a mess.”

“That’s what would make it interesting,” he said with a big smile.

“Maybe for you. Not for me. Don’t take my picture.”

“I will honor your wishes, of course.” Scooter folded the tripod and walked away.

I tucked my shirt into my torn trousers, and when I brushed my hand against my chin, it came back bloody.

Moody Cross stepped out of Sanders’s store with a sack of rice on one hip and a bag of groceries on her arm. She walked toward me.

“You are beyond learning,” she said.

I used my handkerchief to wipe off the blood. “And what is it I have failed to learn, Moody?”

“You can go around trying to fight every white man in Mississippi that hates colored people,” she said, “but it won’t do any good. There’s a lot more of them than there is of you. You can’t protect us. Nobody can do that. Not even God.”

She turned to walk away, but then she looked back. “But thank you for trying,” she said.

Chapter 61

IN FOUR WEEKS OF LIVING at Maybelle’s, I’d come to realize that my room was so damp, so airless, so overheated night and day, that nothing ever really dried out.

My clothes, my hand towel, and my shave towel were always damp. My hair was moist at all times. As much as I toweled off, powdered with talc, and blotted with witch hazel, my shirts and underclothes always retained a film of moisture. This stifling closet at the top of Maybelle’s stairs was a punishment, a torture, a prison.

And besides, there was so much to keep me awake at night.

I longed for a letter from home.

And maybe because I didn’t hear, I wrestled with thoughts of Elizabeth. I could still feel our kiss in front of her house.

I wondered if Roosevelt had ever gotten my wire. Surely he would have sent some answer by now. What if that telegraph operator in McComb had taken exception to the facts as I was reporting them?

And here I was, quite a sight, if anyone happened in to see me. I lay crosswise on the iron bed, naked, atop sweat-moistened sheets. I had tied a wet rag around my head; every half hour or so, I refreshed it with cool water from the washbasin.

But no one could win the battle against a Mississippi summer. Your only hope was to lie low and move as little as possible.

“Mr. Corbett.”

At first I thought the voice came from the landing, but no, it came from outside.

Beneath my window.

“Mr. Corbett.”

A stage whisper drifting up from three stories below.

I swung my legs to the floor, wrapped the top sheet around myself, and walked over to the window. I couldn’t make out anyone in the mottled shadows under Maybelle’s big eudora tree.

I called softly, “Who’s out there? What do you want?”

“They sent me to get you,” the voice said.

“Who sent you?”

“Moody Cross,” he said. “Can you come?”

I didn’t think it was a trap, but it paid to be careful. “What for? What does Moody want?”

“You got to come, Mr. Corbett.” The fear in the voice was unmistakable. “They been another lynchin’.”

“Oh God – where?”

“Out by the Quarters.”

“Who is it?”

“Hiram,” the man said. “Hiram Cross. Moody’s brother is dead.”

Chapter 62

I FELT A DEEP SURGE of pain in my chest, a contraction so sharp that for a moment I wondered if I was having a coronary. Almost instantly I was covered with clammy sweat.

I heard the voice from outside again.

“Somebody overheard Hiram say that one day white folk would work for the black,” the man whispered hoarsely. “Now Hiram swinging dead from a tree.”

I felt the room beginning to turn – no, that was just my head spinning. I felt a strange chill, and a powerful force rising within me.

“Stand back,” I said loudly.

“What’s that, Mr. Corbett?”

“I said stand back. Get out from under this window!”

I heard branches strain and creak as the man obeyed.

Then I leaned my head out the window and threw up my supper.

Chapter 63

MOODY DID NOT SHED a tear at her brother’s funeral. Her face was an impassive sculpture carved from the smoothest brown marble.

Abraham fought to stay strong, to stand and set a brave example for all the people watching him now. And although he managed to control his expression, he could do nothing about the tears spilling down his face.

It must have been the hottest place on earth, that little sanctuary with one door in back and one door in front and no windows at all. It was the Mt. Zion A.M.E. Full Gospel church, three miles out of town on the Muddy Springs Road, and it was jammed to overflowing with friends and relatives.

Early in the service, a woman fainted and crashed hard to the floor. Her family gathered around her to fan her and lift her up. A baby screamed bloody murder in the back. Half the people in the room were weeping out loud.

But Moody did not cry.

“I knew Hiram from the day he was born!” cried the preacher. “I loved him like a father loves his son!”

“Yes, you did!” shouted an old lady in the front row.

“Tell it, brother!”

“Amen!”

“I carried the baby Hiram to the river,” the preacher went on, “and I dipped him in the river of life. That’s right, I held him under the water of Jesus until he was baptized, and he come up sputtering, and then he was lifted up in the Holy Spirit and the everlasting light of Jesus–”

“That’s right, Rev!”

“–so that no matter what might happen to Hiram, no matter what fate might befall him as he walked the earth, he would always have the Lord Jesus Christ walking right there by his side!”

“Say it, brother!”

“Now, children,” the preacher said with a sudden lowering of his tone, “we know what happened to our son and brother Hiram Cross! We know!”

“Hep us, Jesus!”

“The white man done come for Hiram, done took him and killed him,” the preacher called. “We should think of our Lord, and how brave he was on that last night when he set there waiting for the Roman soldiers to come. He knew what was gonna happen. He knew who was coming for him. But he did not despair.”

Instantly I found myself wanting to disagree, wanting to cry out, to remind him of the despairing words of Jesus on the cross, My father, my father, why hast thou forsaken me?

“Hiram was just that brave,” said the preacher. “He didn’t bow down or beg them to spare his life. He went along without saying a word, without letting them ever get a look at his fear. We should all strive to be as courageous as our brother Hiram.”

“That’s right!”

“The white man killed Hiram!” he hollered again. “But my friends, we are not like the white man! We cannot allow ourselves to be like that. The Bible tells us what to do. Jesus tells us what to do. It’s plain to see. We have to do as Jesus did, we have to turn the other cheek.”

There were groans from the congregation. It seemed to me that most of them had been turning the other cheek their entire lives.

Abraham’s head had drooped until his chin was nearly resting on his chest. Moody continued to gaze straight ahead at the plain wooden cross on the rear wall.

“As the Lord tells us in Proverbs, ‘Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.’ God does not want us taking matters into our own hands.

“That is our charge, brothers and sisters. That is what the Lord tells us, in the book of Matthew: ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.’”

“How long, Brother Clifford?” came a voice from the back. “How long we ’posed to wait? Till the end of all time? How long?”

“We wait until the Lord makes his will clear,” the preacher said calmly. “We wait like the children of Isr’al waited, forty years out in that desert.”

The insistent voice spoke again:

“But how long? How long do we go on forgiving? How many of us got to die before it’s time?”

And that is when I saw one shining tear roll down Moody’s face.

We shuffled along, following behind Hiram in his pine box, out the narrow front door. The choir took up an old hymn.

Chapter 64

A BLINDING LIGHT CAME. Then another bright flash.

We were leaving the church, just making our way down the rickety steps.

Another stunning flash of light came.

At first I thought it was lightning, then I realized lightning doesn’t come from a clear blue sky. I blinked, trying to regain my power of sight, and then saw what was causing it: Scooter Willems and his camera, with its flash-powder apparatus.

Beside him were three large men I did not recognize, white men with twisted smiles on their faces, guns at their sides.

Moody left the line of mourners and marched straight over to Willems, right up to him.

“Show some respect,” she said to him. “This is my brother’s funeral.”

“Sorry, Moody,” Scooter said, almost pleasantly. “I thought you might want a photograph for your memory book.”

“I don’t need no photograph to remember this,” she said. “I’ll remember it fine.”

The pallbearers were sturdy young men about the same age as Hiram. They slid Hiram’s coffin onto the back of a buck-board. I made my way over to where Moody was glaring at Scooter and his bodyguards.

Scooter turned to me. “Moody’s all het up because I wanted to take a memorial photograph of the funeral.”

“Too bad you didn’t take a memorial photograph of the lynching,” Moody said. She turned on her heel and fell in step with the other mourners behind the wagon.

“Leave her alone, Scooter,” I said.

Scooter frowned. “Like I said, I just wanted to commemorate the event.”

I turned to leave, but Scooter wasn’t quite finished talking.

“Hey, Ben, how’s about I take one of you against this ocean of colored folks.”

I spun around at him. “Put your damn camera away. Go back to Eudora, where you belong. Leave these folks alone.”

I noticed two little black boys listening to our conversation. As I turned to leave, Scooter spoke to them.

“Hey, little boys, I’ll give you each a nickel to let me take your picture.” He held out his hand with two nickels in it.

I pulled nickels out of my own pocket and handed one each to the boys. “Y’all run on,” I said.

They did.

And I went to join Hiram’s funeral procession.

Chapter 65

ABRAHAM HANDED ME a huge slice of chess pie. It was a southern funeral favorite because it could be made quickly, using ingredients most people kept on hand – milk, eggs, sugar, butter.

Abraham’s house was overflowing with dishes and platters and baskets of food, and mourners eating as much as they could.

A question swam into my mind. How did Scooter Willems know Moody? I distinctly recalled him calling her by name, as if they were old friends. Were they? And how could that be?

I excused myself and threaded my way through the crowded little parlor, through the overpopulated kitchen, out the back door. I saw Moody sitting in the yard on an old tree stump, glaring at the ground.

“Moody,” I said.

She did not acknowledge me.

I reached out to touch her shoulder. “Moody.”

She pushed my hand away. “Don’t put your white hand on my black shoulder,” she said.

I drew back and put my hands in my pockets.

“Do you know Scooter Willems?” I asked.

She lifted her head and looked at me. “Who?”

“Scooter Willems. That photographer from outside the church.”

“I never seen that man in my life. He ain’t nothin’ but a buzzard, pickin’ the meat off of dead people’s bones.”

“If you’ve never seen him, how did he know your name?”

“I don’t know.”

Moody looked into my eyes. For the first time since we’d met, she didn’t look the least bit feisty or defiant. She looked downtrodden. Defeated. The heartbreak of Hiram’s death had drained all the anger from her.

I put my hand on her shoulder again. This time she reached up and patted my hand.

“I’ve been going to funerals since I was a baby,” she said. “This one is different. Ain’t no ‘peaceable joy’ around here.”

“What do you mean?”

“We used to burying the old folks,” she said. “You know – after they lived a whole life. After they married and had their own kids, maybe even their grandkids. But lately, all these funerals for the young ones. And Hiram… I mean, Hiram…”

Moody began to cry.

“He weren’t nothing but a baby himself,” she said.

I felt tears coming to my own eyes.

“Here.” I thrust the pie under her nose. “Eat some of this. You need to eat.”

It was useless advice, I knew, but it was what I remembered my father saying to people at funerals. Eat, eat… Now I understood why he’d said it: he just couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Moody took the plate from my hand.

Chapter 66

MOODY WAS RIGHT. No “peaceable joy” came into Abraham Cross’s house that day.

The bottle of moonshine was gradually consumed. The ham was whittled away until nothing but a knuckly bone was left on the plate. The pies shrank, shrank some more, then disappeared entirely. The afternoon lingered and finally turned into nighttime, with ten thousand cicadas singing in the dark.

I shook hands with Abraham. Moody gave me a quick little hug. I made my way through the remaining mourners, out the front door.

Fifty yards from the house, in front of the fig tree where I had parked the bicycle, stood three large white men. I couldn’t make out details of their faces in that shadowy street, but I knew where I’d seen them: these were the same men who’d been standing with Scooter that afternoon at the Mt. Zion church when he took his photographs.

One of them spoke. “You looking for some trouble, Corbett?”

I didn’t answer.

Looking back on it, I guess one man must have been smoking a pipe. I saw him move and smack something hard against the trunk of the fig. Sparks flew in a shower to the ground.

“We asked you a question,” said the man in the middle. “Serious question.”

“Abraham! Moody!” I yelled.

I don’t know if they heard me. If they did, I don’t know whether they came out of the house. In less time than it took for me to get my arms up, the three men were on me.

Kicked in the head. In the face. I tasted blood. I fell face-down on the ground, hard. A knee went into my stomach, fists whaling at me all over. Someone stomping on the side of my rib cage. I could not get my breath. Something tore into my neck. It felt like fire.

“Looks like you found it – trouble!” a man grunted, and drew back to get a better angle for kicking me. He delivered a stunning blow to my knee. I heard a cracking crunch and felt a wild sear of pain and thought he had shattered my right kneecap.

That was the last thing I remembered for a while.

Chapter 67

THE NEXT THING I was aware of – voices.

“You gotta use a higher branch. He’s tall.”

Something was in my eyes. Blood. I was blind from all the blood.

“Use that next branch, that one yonder,” said a second man. “That’s what we used when we hung that big nigger from Tylertown.”

“He wasn’t tall as this one. I can’t hardly see up this high.”

“Hell he wadn’t. I had to skinny up the tree to put the rope way over.”

Every inch of my body was experiencing a different kind of pain: sharp pain, dull pain, pain that throbbed with a massive pounding, pain that burned with a white-hot roar.

I thought, It’s amazing how much pain you can feel and still not be dead.

“This nigger-lover is tall,” the second man said, “but that ’un from Tylertown, he had to be six-foot-six if he was a inch.”

I groaned. I think they were lifting me – hands under my armpits, digging into my flesh, cutting into me, dragging me off to one side.

A thud – something hurting my back. Then I felt the damp ground under me.

A crack – something landed hard on my left knee. I guessed that knee was shattered too.

“This rope is all greasy. I can’t get aholt of it.”

“That’s nigger grease.”

I felt the coarse hemp rope coming down over my face, dragging over my nose, tightening against my neck.

And I thought: Oh, God! They’re hanging me!

Then I flew up into the air, like an angel – an angel whose head was exploding with terrible pain.

I could not see anything. I thought my eardrums had burst from the pressure in my skull.

But they hadn’t tied the noose right. Maybe the one who thought I was too tall was inexperienced. The rope was cutting under my jaw, but it had not gone tight. I got my hand up, somehow worked my fingers between the rope and my neck. I dangled and kicked as if I could kick my way out of the noose. They are hanging you, boy, was the chant that went through my head, over and over, like a song, an executioner’s song.

Crack! I felt a sting on my back. Was it a bullwhip? A buggy whip? A willow branch?

“He’s done. Or he will be,” the voice said. “We can go. Let’s get out of here.”

The air smelled of woodsmoke. Were they going to burn me? Was I going to go up in flames now?

That heat grew and grew. I struggled to see through the blood. It sure is hot up here. Maybe I’m already in hell. Maybe the devil has come and got me.

“We better get out of here, J.T.,” said the voice.

“Not yet.”

“Listen to me. They’re still awake over in the Quarters. They’re angry.”

“Let ’em come out here,” the other man said.

“They’ll be looking for Corbett. He’s just like one of them.” “Yeah, he is. Just like a nigger. Wonder how that is?”

I heard the crack of a branch. The voices began to fade. The heat that had burned me alive began to fade away. Then I was alone. There were iron hands around my neck, squeezing and squeezing. No air. No breath. No way to breathe.

Oh, God. My mouth was so dry.

And then I was gone from the world.

Chapter 68

A FEW MOMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. Then I blacked out again.

Awake.

Asleep.

Awake.

The wakeful times were a nightmare of confusion.

Terrible pain. There was something snapping at my feet, something with fierce sharp claws. Raccoons? Possums? A rabid fox? I didn’t know if I was still alive.

I was surely dead for a while, then the bugs woke me with their biting, sucking my blood, little no-see-ums biting my neck and arms, mosquitoes big as bats sucking the blood from my veins, and then rats jumped onto my legs and ran up and down my body, squeaking, snapping at my privates.

Then a flash of light, so bright I saw the spackle of blood outlined on my swollen eyelids.

Was I dead? Was I in a different world? In my delirium I heard something. Maybe the angels singing. Or was it a dog barking–

Another flash, so bright it nearly shook me.

The pain in my skull increased. I felt the blood pumping through a vein in my forehead. I imagined it bursting, the blood running in a stream down my leg.

I tried to make a fist. My fingers are gone!

Oh my God. Maybe not. I couldn’t feel anything on that side.

I couldn’t taste the air.

I could only feel my tongue swelling up in my mouth, choking me. And my fingers were gone.

In my overheated brain I saw Mama at her desk, in that flowing white gown she wore under her housecoat. The violet inkstand, the silver pen. Mama smiled at me. “I think you’ll like this poem, Ben. It’s about you, baby.”

I sat on my little stool in the room off her bedroom that smelled like lavender and talcum powder. I saw myself sitting there as if I were a figure in a drawing – a precise, detailed sketch of Mama and me.

Then the pain came swelling up through my chest, through my neck, and up into my brain.

Another flash of light.

And once again, nothing.

Chapter 69

MORNING COMES TO A MAN hanging from a rope as it comes to a man sleeping in his bed – the chatter of birds, a faint breeze, the bark of a dog.

Then comes the pain again.

So much blood had clotted on my eyelids and eyelashes that I couldn’t open them.

I breathed in short sharp intakes of air. The fingers of my right hand wedged into the rope had kept open just enough of a passage for a trickle of air down my windpipe. It had kept me alive. Or maybe somebody had spared me. Maybe the one who said I was too tall? Maybe someone I knew?

The rest of my body was pure pain: so intense, so complete, that the pain now seemed like my normal state.

“Look, Roy, ain’t no colored man. That man white.”

The voice of a child.

“Dang,” said another voice. “Look like they done painted him red all over.”

A dog barked.

“Worms!” the first boy yelled.

I could only imagine what kind of horrible creatures were crawling on my skin.

“Worms!”

I felt something licking my foot. Then it barked.

“Worms! Get away from him, he dirty!”

Ahhh. Worms was the dog.

It was so hot. I should surely be dead by now. I think the pain radiating from my knees was keeping me alive. It wasn’t that I had a will to survive.

I thought of stories from the war, wounds so horrible or amputations so unbearable that men begged their comrades to shoot them, to put them away. If I could speak, I would ask these boys to fetch a gun and shoot me in the head.

I felt something sharp poking my stomach. I must have flinched or jumped a little, and gave out a groan. The boys shrieked in terror.

“Oh, Jesus, the man alive!”

“Run!”

I heard them running as fast as they could, running away from the monster. I heard Worms barking as he ran after them.

I wanted to tell them to please come back and cut me down. Oh, how I wanted to lie on the ground just once more before I died.

That was not to be. I couldn’t just hang here like this, waiting to die. The best I could hope for was to hasten it along.

I began wriggling my dead hand, trying to get it out from between the rope and my neck.