The Road to Memphis

by Mildred D. Taylor

  I shrugged. “Well, I’m not going to worry about that now. First thing I’ve got to do is get to college. I’ll worry about the law later.”

  “If you do study the law, it’ll take a long time, and marriage could get in the way.”

  “No, it won’t. I don’t plan to get married until I’ve finished my schooling. Body had to take care of some man and a whole bunch of children, she wouldn’t ever have time for school.”

  Again he laughed. “Well, don’t be so sure about marriage, young lady. Some young man could possibly come along and change your mind.”

  “No, I wouldn’t let that happen,” I said, sure of that. “Getting all involved with some boy takes up too much time, and I can’t afford it.”

  “So what do you do, to keep boys from being a distraction?” “Well, I really haven’t had a problem so far.”

  “You mean you haven’t been in love so far.”

  I wasn’t quite sure how I should react to that; but it was true. “Guess not.”

  He seemed amused by my honesty. “Tell me,” he said, “just what do the young men have to say about all this? I mean, after all, it must be pretty rough on the fellas at your school.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because you’re a very pretty girl, and you deserve to be courted.” He flashed that wonderful smile again, stood, and gave me back my book.

  “Did marriage get in your way?”

  “Marriage?”

  “Aren’t you married?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you were . . .”

  “As I said, it’s not good for a lawyer, making assumptions.” “ . . . to that woman in green out there.”

  “Woman in green?” He seemed puzzled, then he laughed. “Are you a Dashiell Hammett fan?”

  “Dashiell who?”

  “Dashiell Hammett. He wrote a book called Red Harvest, first chapter titled ‘A Woman in Green and a Man in Gray.’ Your comment seemed appropriate.”

  “Especially since you’re wearing gray.”

  “You’re right. But what about Sherlock Holmes? Are you familiar with him?”

  “He’s a writer too?”

  Solomon Bradley pushed his suit coat back in a smooth, liquid movement and slid his hands into his pants pockets. “You don’t go to films much, do you? Or listen to the radio?” He gave me no time to answer. “Write this down,” he dictated. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, comma, creator of Sherlock Holmes, comma, one of the world’s greatest minds, period. Case Histories of a Free Society might be fine for bright young ladies boning up to become lawyers, but, believe me, Sherlock Holmes can be a lot more fun.”

  We heard footsteps in the hallway, and Jasper came in. “Eh, Solomon Bradley! Heard you was here!” He vigorously shook Solomon’s hand. “What brings you into town?”

  “Just on my way back from New Orleans. Thought I’d stop in and get some of that fine cooking you folks are always serving up.”

  “You gonna be here long? You know we got that place right upstairs. Stay overnight. We can fix you up a bed.”

  “Thanks, Jasper, but I’ve got to get back tonight. I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

  Jasper laughed. “Shoot, man, I had your money, I sure wouldn’t be worrying about getting back to work!”

  Solomon smiled. “Wish I had the money you seem to think I do.”

  “That your fine-looking woman all dressed in green sitting out there?”

  “She’s with me.”

  “Well, let me fix y’all up some food to take with you, since Jessie said y’all done already ate. Hope everything was all right.”

  “Fine as always.”

  “Good.” Jasper grinned, looking pleased. “Look, you come on out here and have some coffee with me. I’ll go on and tell Jessie to fix up some chicken and some pie for y’all to take.” With that he slapped Solomon’s shoulder and went out.

  Solomon Bradley walked slowly to the door. At the doorway he turned and looked back at me. “I liked talking to you,” he said.

  I laughed. “You sound kind of surprised.”

  His smile widened. “Well, frankly, I guess I am. It’s not every day I meet a high school student reading Case Histories of a Free Society.” Those hazel-flecked eyes studied me once more. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Cassie. Cassie Logan.”

  “Well, Cassie Logan, maybe we’ll talk again sometime.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And don’t forget to check up on Sherlock Holmes. And Dashiell Hammett.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  Still smiling, he left, passing Stacey and Little Willie on his way out. Stacey looked after him. “Who was that?”

  “Man looking for Jasper. You find Moe?”

  “No. We just came back to check and see if you’d heard from him.”

  “Not yet.”

  Stacey turned back to the door. “Well, there’s a couple more places we want to check.”

  I got up. “I’m going with you. I can’t study.”

  This time Stacey didn’t object. All he said was “What about those students coming to study with you?”

  “I’ll catch them later.”

  I grabbed my coat, and we went back into the cafe. The man Solomon Bradley and the woman in green were no longer at their table. Oliver was again seated at the cash register. Clarence sat alone in the booth, holding his head with his hands. “Y’all going back looking?” asked Oliver.

  “S’pose we better,” said Willie, “we gonna catch up with that boy. What ’bout you?”

  Oliver looked around the room. “Crowd’s picking up, and both Jessie and Jasper pretty busy. Best stay here. Look, Stacey, what if Moe show up while you gone? What you want me to tell him?”

  “Just tell him to stay here. We’ll be back soon.” He turned to Clarence. “You going?”

  “Naw, y’all go without me this time. I’ll just wait here with Oliver.”

  Stacey looked at him with concern, nodded, and we left the cafe. We walked down the street and got into the Ford. Just as Stacey started to pull from the curb a truck came alongside and cut him off. It was Jeremy. He drove on and parked. We hurried from the Ford to meet him. “Where’s Moe?” Stacey asked as soon as we reached the truck.

  The tarpaulin moved in back, and Moe stood up.

  “Man, get down from there!” ordered Little Willie, relieved to see him.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, reaching for Moe as he got down.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?” said Stacey.

  Moe nodded. I studied him to see if he was telling the truth. “Well, what took y’all so long? We’ve been worried to death about you!”

  “Had to stop in Bogganville. Jeremy had that load to deliver for his pa.”

  “And that took all this time?”

  Moe glanced at Jeremy, who said, “Truck broke down right outside Bogganville. Took us awhile to get it fixed.”

  “You didn’t have any trouble, though,” said Stacey. “I mean, you didn’t get stopped?”

  Jeremy, still sitting behind the wheel, met his eyes. “Naw, we ain’t got stopped.”

  “Good, then,” said Willie, “’cause we was beginnin’ to imagine all sorts of things.” He slapped Moe’s shoulder. “We was worried ’bout you, son!”

  Jeremy shifted gears. “Well, I guess I best be getting on back.”

  “Wait,” said Moe. He leaned into the cab. “I thank you for what you done. Couldn’t’ve made it without you.”

  “It’s all right. Hope you don’t have no more trouble.”

  “You figure you going to have trouble explaining to your pa about the time and all?” said Stacey.

  Jeremy shrugged. “Figure to just tell him the truth. truck broke down.”

  “Well . . . hope all this doesn’t cause you trouble.” He hesitated. “We thank you for what you did, bringing Moe to Jackson, I mean. You didn’t have to agree to bring him.”

  Jeremy’s pale eyes met S
tacey’s. “Yeah, I did. ’Sides, you’d’ve thought different, you never would’ve asked me.” He glanced away and was momentarily silent. “You know, Stacey,” he said, looking at the street, “back that night Harris got hurt, you told me I’d asked something hard of you to believe I ain’t meant Harris—none of y’all—no harm. I know y’all ain’t never forgot that night. Ain’t never forgive me for it neither. I figured I owed y’all. Now maybe the debt’s paid. Maybe we’s even.” He looked back at Stacey, his eyes strangely empty. Stacey kept his silence, stepped back from the truck, and Jeremy drove away. We watched, saying nothing, until the red taillights dimmed into the blackness; then Willie, still looking down the street, said, “So what do we do now?”

  For several moments, none of us answered Willie. Finally, Stacey turned, glanced at him, then looked at Moe. “Moe, I don’t figure you can stay in Jackson. You got to get out. Only way. They know it was you hit the Aameses, and they know you live here. Won’t be long before they come checking.”

  Moe sighed. “Yeah, guess you right.”

  “Figure you best leave tonight.”

  Moe didn’t say anything. He looked at me, then at Stacey, and turned away. Stacey watched him, then asked Willie, “How much money you got?”

  Little Willie dug into his pocket. “Not much, man. Paid Miz Stalnaker for my room last night, then give most of the resta my pay to my folks. How ’bout you?”

  Stacey shook his head. “Paid off the car. Just held out enough to get by on for the week.”

  “I got a little money,” I said. “Cousin Hugh and Cousin Sylvie paid me yesterday.”

  Moe looked around. “How come y’all figuring money?”

  “Got to figure money,” said Stacey, “we going to get you a ticket.”

  “Ticket?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, Moe, you gotta get out. We got to get you on a train or a bus outa here tonight—”

  “Train’s better,” advised Willie. “More room to move quick, you hafta—”

  “But where’ll he go?” I said.

  Stacey considered. “Chicago. He can go to Uncle Hammer.”

  “Stacey, we gotta talk ’bout this,” said Moe. “I can’t just go way off north to Chicago and leave my papa and my family like this. I just can’t do that!”

  “You gotta do it, Moe. You don’t, these folks down here, they’ll get you, then what your family going to do?”

  Moe spoke quietly. “We ain’t got the money. I ain’t got the money. I done what Willie done. Done give my last money to my pa.”

  “Don’t matter. We get the money somewhere. Cassie has some, and I’ll ask Oliver. Maybe he can let us have the money from the cafe—”

  “No—”

  “Cousin Hugh and Cousin Sylvie, they won’t mind. They’d want you to have it.”

  “No—”

  “It can be a loan.”

  “Yeah,” advocated Willie, “’cause you gotta get outa here, man!”

  Moe took a few steps away, stopped, then turned to face us again. “I wanna see Mr. Jamison.”

  That was the last thing we expected him to say.

  “You crazy?” yelped Willie.

  “Wanna see Mr. Jamison. Wanna talk to him, see what he got to say ’bout all this.”

  “What in the world for?” I cried, not seeing the first sense in such a thing. I knew Mr. Jamison was a fair man. I knew he had more than one time proven himself to be a fair man. But I didn’t figure there was anything he could do, and if there was nothing he could do, there was no sense in talking to him.

  “My papa’s here, Cassie. My whole family. I ain’t wanting to run, not come back. Mr. Jamison, him being a lawyer, maybe he can tell me what’s best—”

  “Boy, we already know that!”

  “Got no choice, Moe,” said Willie urgently. “You gotta run, man. They catch up with you, you could be swinging from a tree, and there won’t be no questionin’ that, one of them Aames boys die.”

  Moe glanced from Willie to Stacey. “I leave from here, I be running the rest of my life. Can’t never come back—”

  “Better that,” I said, “then never being able to leave at all.”

  Moe looked at me, then said to Stacey, “Just take me over to talk to him, will ya? I gotta know if there’s another way.”

  “There’s not.”

  “I’m asking ya.”

  “You wrong. There’s no other way—”

  “Then I be the one that pay. Can’t leave knowing I ain’t tried.”

  Stacey stared at Moe as if he would like to have just knocked him out and put him on that train. “All right, I’ll take you to see him. But you got to promise me something, Moe.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Things don’t work out with Mr. Jamison, you going to get on that train and leave.”

  “Won’t be nothing much else I can do.”

  Stacey and I went back inside the cafe to tell Oliver that Moe had arrived and that we were headed for Mr. Jamison’s. “Check the train schedules, will you?” Stacey asked him. “I figure we’ll have to head on there afterward. We’ll pick up some of Moe’s things from Mrs. Stalnaker’s, then we’ll go.” He looked around. “Where’s Clarence?”

  “Lying down in back. Want me to get him?”

  “Naw, let him rest,” said Stacey.

  Oliver followed us out and greeted Moe, hidden in the shadows beyond the corners of the cafe. Then, as he moved back toward the door, he said: “I’ll see y’all back here in another hour or so.”

  The rest of us got into the Ford and headed for Mr. Jamison’s widowed sister’s house, where Mr. Jamison resided when practicing law in Jackson. Because Stacey and I had been there once before when Stacey had made a payment on his car, we knew what to expect. Houses were huge and set back on deep lawns that were lush and meticulously mowed. Folks that lived on that plush street seemed civil enough; still they had stared curiously that time we had come, for colored folks, except for domestics, were a rarity and not welcomed in white neighborhoods. I was not looking forward to going there again.

  When we reached the house, Stacey turned off the engine, then looked back at Moe. “Why don’t you wait here?” he said. “I’ll go in and talk to Mr. Jamison.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I volunteered.

  “Maybe I best go in myself,” said Moe.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said. “The law, it’s a funny thing, Moe, and Mr. Jamison being a lawyer and all, he might have to tell somebody about seeing you.”

  Stacey agreed. “Best you stay here.”

  “Yeah, y’all go on,” instructed Little Willie. “I’ll keep the boy company. And hurry back, will ya?” He glanced nervously at the street. “Don’t want to be sitting up here too long.”

  Moe said nothing further. He seemed tired of arguing. Stacey and I got out of the car, passed by the front door, and walked up the darkened drive to a side door and rang the bell. A few moments passed, then we heard footsteps. The door swung open, and a woman, gray haired and middle-aged, stared out at us, a curious look on her face. “Yes?” she said.

  “We . . . we’re here to see Mr. Jamison,” said Stacey. “Name’s Logan. Stacey and Cassie Logan.”

  “David Logan’s children?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She peered out and studied us closely. “Oh, yes, I remember your father. Come in. I’ll tell my brother you’re here.”

  She pushed the screen door open, and we stepped inside. Leading us down a softly lit hallway, she ushered us into a comfortable room with deep-set sofas and a fire burning brightly in the hearth. Mr. Jamison, standing behind a huge desk, was talking on the telephone. He looked over as we entered. He didn’t seem surprised to see us. He motioned us to sit down, then continued his conversation. His sister left the room. We continued to stand. When Mr. Jamison hung up, he said, “Am I correct in assuming you’ve come about Moe?”

  “You heard, then?” said Stacey.

  Mr. Jamiso
n nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well, we were wondering . . . what’s the best thing for him to do?”

  “Assuming he happens to show up here?”

  “Yes, sir . . . assuming that.”

  He motioned again for us to sit, and this time we did. He sat across from us. “Well, I’d say that’ll partly depend on how the Aames boys fare, and at this point it looks as if Troy might not make it. He was hurt pretty bad.”

  “But what if he pulls through? What if they all pull through?” “If Moe’s in custody, he’ll still most likely have to go to jail.”

  I leaned toward him. “Even though it was Statler and them that started it all? Mr. Jamison, you know Moe. You know how hard he works. He minds his own business and doesn’t go out looking for trouble. He was thinking on joining the Army, was figuring on trying to get to be an officer or maybe get some pilot training or something like that. He always figured to make something of himself. But today Statler Aames and them, they were teasing at him, like they teased at Clarence, and he had that crowbar, and he just hauled off and hit them with it. He shouldn’t’ve done it—he knows that—but they pushed him into it. Now he’s trying to do the right thing. He doesn’t want to run. He—” Nothing in Mr. Jamison’s face changed; yet I knew I had slipped and said too much. From what I had said, Mr. Jamison had to know that we had seen Moe since the incident in Strawberry. I glanced at Stacey, but it was too late to correct myself now, so I just went on. “He was figuring that maybe if Staller Aames and them were all right and seeing this here’s Jackson, not back down in Strawberry, maybe things wouldn’t go so bad for him.”

  Mr. Jamison considered. “Even if Moe were to go to the Jackson police, he’d still have to stand trial in Strawberry.”

  I sighed. “Then he’s got no chance.”

  Mr. Jamison’s lawyer eyes studied me. “I know you’re interested in the law, Cassie. I’m sure you already know that the law can sometimes be a tough thing. As a lawyer I often find that giving advice can be a tough thing too. What I’m telling you and Stacey now is some legal advice mixed with a good measure of common sense. If you’re asking me strictly about the law concerning Moe’s situation, I have to tell you what the law says. Any man who raises his hand against another man and injures him must be held accountable. If you’re asking what Moe should do, then I feel obliged to tell you that the law is an imperfect piece of machinery and not blind to color, not here in Mississippi. The law here is bound by race. No matter what Moe’s defense, his being a Negro will affect what happens to him. Yes, he could go to the police, but as the law stands and as Mississippi justice stands, he would go to prison.”