Earl nodded again, and the two set out. Earl had no problem staying with the smaller man as he undulated through the water in a limited but satisfactory version of the backstroke, and indeed, in a few minutes he realized the man near him was walking, not swimming. He let his feet drift downward until they reached mud, sank an inch or two, and then were on something solid. At that point he realized it intellectually as well as emotionally: again, he had survived.
They made it up the bank and over the levee which held the water back from the land. Earl scrambled up and over it, while reckoning they were downstream a couple of hundred yards from the Drowning House. The old man had cached a blanket here and retrieved it to wrap around Earl. That done, they found a path, more a deer track in the woods, and continued along it for a mile or so. Now and then something mean would cut at Earl’s bare feet, but he felt no pain at all.
At last they reached their destination, which was an old duck blind left over from years ago, when whoever owned the original plantation that became Thebes took his autumn harvest from the sky. Earl slinked in, the old man behind.
“You okay, boy?”
“These goddamn chains.”
“Gimme just a second.”
The old man bent, pulled one of his amazing secret pins out of some spot or other on that wiry old body, and quickly unlocked the cuffs and the ankle braces. Earl was free.
“You rest up here. I gots to get back. You be fine, here. No one knows a thing.”
“Yes, sir.”
The old man pulled over a cloth sack.
“Like I say, boy, some clothes. Dungarees, a work shirt, some old boots, a hat. You look like a tramp, but nobody be looking fo’ you. There’s also some biscuits and cornmeal. There’s a compass. You want to follow the river and this old track here for about five miles till you come to a island in the river. At that place, you steer north by northwest through the piney woods. You cut railroad track in ’bout twenty miles. Long as you stay north by northwest and keep moving and don’t panic, you goin’ be okay. There’s a freight runs up to Hattiesburg every day ’bout four o’clock. You hop that, take her into Hattiesburg, and from there you on your own. About fifty dollars hard cash should help, so it’s in there too. Buy some clothes, a bus ticket. Be cool. Nobody looking fo’ you, nobody know a thing. You a dead man, and ain’t nobody looking fo’ no dead man.”
“I got it.”
“The woods don’t scare you none?”
“I can get through woods.”
“Then you all set, white boy. You home free. Go back to freedom land. You done crossed the river of Jordan.”
“Old man, why you doing this thing for me?”
“Way to beat these boys. Onliest way there is. All the time I’m looking fo’ ways to beat them. It ain’t much, but it’s something.”
“I can’t say enough—”
“You hush on that. Now you gots two promises to live up to. Remember?”
“I do.”
“You listen good and live up to both of them. That’s what you owe Fish.”
“I will.”
“First is, you go to N’Awleans, my old town. You gets yourself two fine yeller Chinee gals and a bottle of bubbly and a room in a nice hotel and y’all have a time. And when you got mo’ pussy than any man done got in a single night, you lay back and you drink a toast to old Fish. Fish done this so he could get pleasure thinking on that.
“Second is: you put this place out of your mind. Here we are the lost. We are in hell’s farthest pasture. Ain’t no getting out or coming back. Nobody care, nobody want to know. You go on, have a good life, and don’t let what you done seen down here poison your mind. Don’t let it do no clouding. You can’t do nothing about it, so you forget it, or it wins. It kills you. You blows your brains out from sadness, thinkin’ on the pain. Don’t you no way think about coming back here to set things right. It can’t happen, not now, not in ten years, not in twenty, maybe not never, and no point rapping yo’ head bloody to find that out. I already knows.”
Earl considered.
Then he said, “Well, old man, you’re going to have to swim me back out that river and chain me down again, because I’m not keeping either of those promises. I am a married man with a young son, so I don’t need two Chinese whores for fun. Sure would enjoy it, but it’s not in the cards. And as for the other, I can’t help you none there neither. For I will come back. And this time when I come, I ain’t coming alone. This time I’ll have some friends. And you know what else, old man?”
“No,” said Fish.
“This time I’ll have a whole lot of guns.”
“Whoooeeeee,” whistled the old man in the dark, enough moon glow creeping in to light his face. “Whoooeeeeee! That pale horse coming to Thebes at last! That pale horse coming.”
FOUR
The Old Men
35
SAM said, “We must tell people.”
Davis Trugood said, “Nobody will care.”
Sam said, “Then we will make them care.”
Davis Trugood said, “All this is happening to Negroes. To many in the South and even to some in the North—possibly more than you would ever believe—the Negro is not fully human. They take the Dred Scott decision as gospel still. Allow me to quote: Mr. Justice Taney wrote that the Negroes were a ‘subordinate and inferior class of beings [who] had been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.’”
“It isn’t eighteen fifty-seven anymore,” said Sam.
“It is in much of Mississippi,” said Davis Trugood. “It has never stopped being eighteen fifty-seven down there.”
Sam screwed up his wily face. “You know a bit more about conditions down there than I might suspect, sir. More than you could have learned from my reports.”
“All I know I know from your reports, Mr. Vincent. You are the author of my opinions.”
“Then why do I reach different conclusions?”
“Because your template for interpretation is your own mind, which is tolerant and logical and orderly. But it is ill-equipped to deal with that which is not.”
“You say you never argue, sir? You argue well.”
“When I must, I can, I suppose. But the true expert on Thebes County has yet to speak.”
Earl had sat listening to these two palaver for an hour now. His ribs were still heavily taped, as four of them were broken. He had serious internal injuries, a doctor thought, possibly as bad as a ruptured spleen. He still could not walk without pain, or move quickly. The doctor had put 134 new stitches in him, and had grown annoyed when Earl stuck to a stupid story about being the victim of a beating by gamblers.
“If you are the victim of a beating,” he had said, “why then would your hands be swollen still, your knuckles ripped to hell and gone? You may have several broken fingers.”
“If my fingers move, they must not be broke. As for the rest, those fellows must have drug me after I passed out,” was all Earl had said.
“I should call the police,” said the doctor.
“Sir, I can handle this.”
“No getting back at these fellows then. It has to stop here, or I will call the police. You must learn the power of forgiveness.”
“Yes, sir,” Earl had said.
Now, both pairs of eyes turned on him. He was in Sam’s office three days after his return, and Davis Trugood, alerted by telegraph in Chicago, had arrived as soon as the travel schedules allowed.
“I have something of an idea,” said Earl. “I would like Mr. Sam to leave the room. I don’t want him to hear of it.”
“I will do no such thing,” said Sam. “Earl, I am a party to this as much as you. I got you in. I will not leave.”
“I do not want you knowing what horror I am capable of imagining. Your opinion of me will drop. That, and you may feel obligated to make a report to the
police, or no longer be able to represent the law fairly.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Sam said. “Earl, you are a good man. You are a hero. You have your whole life to live. We need you as a witness. You need to speak of what you saw down there. You need to be the centerpiece in our campaign, not merely to make those responsible pay, but to change the thinking of the South. Other Southerners must know what some Southerners are capable of and what is being done in their name.”
Earl said nothing, as Sam lectured him. Sam, as usual, had all the answers. But possibly to the wrong questions.
“Earl, listen to me,” Sam continued. “And you, too, Mr. Trugood. I have thought this all out, and it is the only way. Earl, we depose you. With your medal and your reputation, your account has instant validity and importance. We can get people to listen to your story. I have the whole campaign mapped out. I know that we can get the support of progressive people in Mississippi and throughout the South, but I also know it must be blue ribbon. We must not mess about with radicals, socialists or communists, and we should have white and Negro clergy united on our side, but no Negroes of frightful disposition or unruly countenence. That is what is best. You are our secret weapon. Your vengeance will be your survival and testimony, if need be in a court of law, if need be in the court of public opinion.”
Earl listened politely. Then he said, “First off, I do not want to be no singing clown in some kind of circus who is crybabying about all them awful things done to him. I don’t like lights shining on me. But second off, and more important, here’s what would happen after that. Nothing. Not a thing.”
“See, that’s my point too,” said Mr. Trugood. “He sees it to the nub, Mr. Vincent.”
“I cannot give up on the rule of law and the majesty of the courts,” said Sam. “Even in a benighted zone like Mississippi.”
Earl said, “You seem to think we have a choice. Your way isn’t a choice at all. It’s an impossibility.”
Sam made a face of disapproval.
“Now, Earl—” he began.
Earl kept going.
“You know, I don’t have a education like you two. I don’t know enough words. But I am looking for a word now, and it means something like ‘logical.’ But logical in the way of institutions. The way institutions act with each other. They progress along certain lines that everybody knows, that makes a sense everybody agrees upon. What is that word, Mr. Sam? You would know it.”
Sam narrowed his eyes, then spoke. “Earl, I believe the word you mean is ‘rational.’”
“Yes, sir, that is it. That is the very one, right there.”
“But where is this going?” asked Davis Trugood.
“I’m trying to be clear about what they’ve done down there, and why the ordinary remedies are doomed. You see what they’ve engineered? They’ve engineered a system that is unbreachable by what you would call a rational action, the action of men or systems who themselves are rational. They’ve thought about their enemies and how they’ll come at them. Their whole campaign on me wasn’t at all about me, but about who I represented. They thought I represented someone, and they had to work out a way to deal with that body. When they concluded I did not, it became clear they were going to kill me. But not until.”
“Earl, possibly you are thinking too hard about this.”
“No, Earl knows a thing or two,” said Mr. Trugood.
“They are set up along one line and one line only: to survive any ‘rational’ attack on them. If any institution attempts to change them, they can defeat it. They will know in advance it is coming. The newspapers, the police investigators, the federal investigators, all that: it can’t work because that is what they are the best at. That is what they expect. You yourself asked some questions in Washington, and for your troubles nearly had your career destroyed, Mr. Sam, by federal investigators.”
“I may yet have it destroyed,” said Sam. “And if we go where you’re going, I may end up in prison.”
“You can’t do nothing rational and get them. They will always have the answer. They will go on and on and on. They’ll always know in advance, they have connections, they are doing what everybody wants them to do, and clearly at some level there’s some federal protection. So if you think newspaper campaigns and Negro ministers and blue-ribbon fellows are going to do a thing agin them, you are wrong, dead wrong. They’re smarter than that, and they will win every goddamned time. You cannot do it on a rational basis.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to say nothing.
Earl turned to Mr. Trugood.
“Sir, I don’t know why you’re in this, but I’m going to tell you what must be done and we will see if you have the grit to see this one through.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Swagger.”
“They are invulnerable to rational assault. They are vulnerable to unrational assault.”
“Irrational,” said Sam.
“Irrational, then.”
“And what does that mean?” said Mr. Trugood.
“It means something that can’t happen. Something that isn’t supposed to happen, not in this day and age, something that isn’t in the cards.”
“And that would be?”
“Men with guns in the night. Boys who know the place and can shoot a bit. It means fast, hard, complete, total surprise. Seven is the right number, I think. And I can get those men. I can. I know who they are and where they can be found, and I have the means to convince them to sign aboard. I can get ’em in, and lead ’em in a good night’s work, and get ’em out. You know why this’ll work, and nothing else? Because everything they done to fight the rational opens them up to the irrational. The isolation. The guns pointed in, not out. An installation that’s out of communication and that has no reinforcements at hand and thinks its location far up a river in a jungle and a forest is all the protection it needs. Seven men, Mr. Trugood, with guns and some light equipment. I can get ’em in, lead ’em to do a night of man’s work, and get ’em out. And the State of Mississippi won’t cotton to it till three or four days later.”
“Earl, are you going to break some men out of prison? Is that it?” said Sam.
“You don’t quite get it, Mr. Sam. I am not meaning to break some men out. I am meaning to break them all out. I am meaning to break the prison. When the morning sun rises on Thebes, there ain’t going to be no Thebes. None at all. None. I’m going in and shoot to kill those who stand against me, free the convicts, burn the buildings, and blow the levee and drown the place under twenty feet of black river. Nothing is left. It is gone, razed, destroyed, like Sodom and Gomorrah in the Good Book. It is finished. I can’t say what happens next, other than that it will be different. I take on trust it will be better.”
“Earl, that’s insurrection you’re talking. You could start a race war in the South.”
“No, sir. Because it’ll happen so fast and so totally that there won’t be nothing left. The evidence is under water and mud. The few witnesses don’t make no ‘rational’ sense. And the state don’t want to shine no spotlights on Thebes. None at all. It don’t want people peeking at what went on in Thebes. It will see the wisest reaction is to let Thebes stay dead in its tomb of river, and move on.”
“Jesus, Earl,” said Sam.
“I told you I didn’t want you involved.”
“We have now committed the felony of conspiracy to assault,” said Sam.
“So be it,” said Earl.
Sam shook his head.
Earl said, “Mr. Sam, when them German tanks were coming on, did you call the newspapers? Did you convene a panel? Did you file a suit? What did you do?”
“I calculated range and wind. As I recall, it was 2950 meters off by range finder, with a wind of more than 10 miles an hour to the west, a full-value wind we called it. We were already zeroed at 2000 meters, so I had to come up 73 clicks, and then come over 15 clicks to the right for wind deflection. I fired a salvo for double-checking my calculations, then I fired high explosive for effect. We
blew them off the face of the earth,” said Sam. “There was no other thing possible. But the state had decreed a general condition of war.”
“Well, that is where we are,” said Earl. “We are in a general condition of war. Or, we turn tail and forget about it and go back to our lives and live happy ever after. And Thebes goes on and on, maybe for years. You can’t fix it. You can’t modify it. You can’t reform it. You can’t make it better or gentler. You can only do two things. You can wait for it to change, meaning you wait until the world changes, which it might do tomorrow or next year or next century or never. And all that time, that city of dead under the water gets more and more crowded, the Whipping House gets bloodier, the Screaming House gets louder. And we’re the worst, because we knew about it and we didn’t do a goddamn thing. Or we can blow it off the face of the earth. Those are the only two possibilities, realistically.”
“You would take a force up that river?” said Mr. Trugood. “Or through that forest? It seems to me you’d be easily spotted and you’d have no surprise at all. Yet with only seven, you’d need surprise. I don’t see—”
“I can do it. I know the way. It’s a thing nobody ever thought of before.”
He told them.
“When?” Trugood asked.
“It’s now the dark of the moon almost. I want to go in the dark of the moon next month. I want it done fast, with good men. If I hustle and travel and palaver good, it can be set up and brought off that fast.”
Sam listened and saw the possibility of it.
“Earl, you are bent on this thing.”
“I am, Mr. Sam.”
“And if I say ‘no’ and that I have to turn you in?”
“You will do what you have to do, and I will do what I have to.”
“Can he do these things?” Mr. Trugood asked.
“Mr. Trugood, if Earl says he can, then he can,” Sam said.
“Mr. Sam, are you with us?”
Sam said nothing for a bit. Finally, he realized what he had to say, and declared himself to be a man of the law. “I cannot go against the law,” he said. “But you say to do nothing would be to go against a bigger law.”
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