“And you think the rest of us have?” demanded Mr. Sutton. “You talkin’ like you the only one it happened to.”
The first man looked away.
A third man cleared his throat and spoke. “Hear tell there’s some folks talkin’ union.”
“Union?” said Mr. Sutton. The first man turned back.
“That’s right. Say that maybe that’s the only way we get our money.”
“You mean that union business with niggers?” said the first man.
“Mos’ likely.”
“Well, far’s I’m concerned, hell’s gonna hafta freeze over ’fore I go joinin’ anything with a stinkin’ nigger.”
“Same here,” hastily agreed the man who had brought up the union talk. “Things may be bad, but ain’t nothin’ that bad. . . . Lordy! Nothin’!”
The clusters of people began to break up and drift back into the court building. As they did, a thin boy with corn-blond hair wove his way toward us. He was Jeremy Simms, the younger brother of R.W. and Melvin Simms.
“Hey, Stacey. Moe. All y’all,” he said.
Stacey and Moe stood to greet him.
“Hey, Jeremy,” we replied.
“When’d y’all get here? Didn’t see ya inside.”
“Few minutes ago,” Stacey answered without going into why we had not come earlier. “What’s happening in there?”
“They picked the twelve men for the jury, that’s all.”
“Yeah, we know. It take all mornin’ jus’ for that?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Folks say it shouldn’t’ve, but Mr. Jamison, he was asking a lotta questions of every man up for jury duty—”
“Like what?”
Jeremy looked uneasy. “Like . . . like did they respect the law and would they ever take the law in their own hands? . . .”
His voice trailed off, but we knew what Mr. Jamison had been trying to do. Everyone, black and white, knew of the attempted lynching. “No wonder it took so long,” I muttered. “I’m right surprised they even got their twelve.”
Stacey glanced at me with harsh disapproval, warning me not to be so open about how I felt in front of Jeremy. The look was justified. It was just so hard to remember that I could not say in Jeremy’s presence what I could when Moe or Little Willie or Clarence were around, for Jeremy was a friend despite being a Simms. More than once he had proven that friendship and we all knew it. But he was still white, and that was what separated us and we all knew that too. Resigning myself to say nothing else, I got up and walked back over to the courthouse. Christopher-John and Little Man went with me.
“He there?” Christopher-John asked as I climbed to the cement ledge and peered in. The benches were quickly filling, but the area in front was still empty.
“Nope.”
“I gotta go,” Little Man said. “Where’s the outhouse?”
I surveyed the area. “Maybe it’s ’round back.” I jumped down and we went to see. There was nothing.
“I gotta go!”
“Well, go on over there in them bushes then,” I suggested. “Won’t nobody see.”
Little Man was outraged. “I ain’t neither! There’s folks all ’round here!”
I shrugged, ready to dismiss the problem and let Little Man work it out for himself, when I remembered what Uncle Hammer had said about some people in town having plumbing. “Maybe it’s inside,” I told him.
Little Man looked doubtful. “Inside? What’d it be doin’ inside?”
“Come on, we’ll see,” I said. We found a side door and we all went in. Following a narrow hallway, we came to double doors which opened to the main corridor. A man and woman, walking briskly as if they were afraid they might miss something, hurried toward us and turned into a room midway down the hall. Two more people did the same. The rest of the corridor was empty.
Christopher-John nodded toward the open doors where the people had entered. “You s’pose that’s where they got T.J.?”
“Most likely that’s the courtroom,” I said.
“Where’s the outhouse?”
I sighed irritably. At the moment Little Man’s mind was on only one thing. Leaving the protective cover of the doors, we ventured down the corridor looking from side to side, not really sure what kind of structure we were looking for.
“Look there,” said Christopher-John with a nod toward a man in the last stages of buttoning his pants coming through a door marked “Gentlemen.” Without a word, Little Man dashed down the corridor and through the door. Christopher-John followed him. The man took no notice of either of them as he too headed for the courtroom.
For several moments I waited outside the men’s room, then, drawn by the open doors, went down to the courtroom entrance where I tried to peek between the spaces not filled by people, several deep, lining the back wall. I thought about squeezing in and working my way around to where Reverend Gabson and the Averys were, but before I could make up my mind to do so, a man stepped to the doors and closed them. It hadn’t been such a great idea anyway.
With nothing further to see, I turned and headed back down the corridor. As I did, a young woman came from an office and bent over a water fountain. I watched her drink, the water arching toward her like a colorless rainbow. When she stepped away from the fountain, she saw me watching her. She glanced at me somewhat oddly, then crossed the hall, her high heels clicking noisily against the wood floor, and went back into the room. As soon as the door closed behind her, I hurried over to the fountain and twisted the knob. The water shot up, slapping me coldly across the face. I jerked back, startled, then tried again.
“Cassie!”
I looked around. Jeremy Simms stood at the main entrance of the courthouse staring down at me.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
Walking, then running, Jeremy came toward me, his arms waving frantically. “Cassie! Get away!” he hissed in a whispery cry which filled the empty corridor.
“Boy, jus’ what’s the matter with you?” As Jeremy reached me, I could see that his face was flushed. “You sick or somethin’?”
Jeremy didn’t answer as he looked nervously around him. “C-Cassie, you can’t—you can’t drink from there. Ya best get ’way ’fore somebody sees ya.”
“You crazy? You ain’t Stacey. You can’t be tellin’ me what to do—”
Before I could finish, Jeremy grabbed my arm and pulled me several feet from the fountain. I jerked loose, furious. “Boy, you jus’ wait till we get outside—”
“Cassie, Cassie,” he murmured hoarsely, waving his hand to silence me. There was an urgency in his manner as he turned away and stared down the corridor. I followed his gaze. Three farmers had just entered. They plodded heavily to the courtroom, opened the door, and disappeared inside. With his eyes still on the door, Jeremy asked where Christopher-John and Little Man were.
“Jus’ don’t you worry ’bout where they are, ’cause boy, you done torn your britches with me.”
Jeremy looked at me now. “Where, Cassie?”
Again, there was that urgency.
“They in there,” I said, pointing to the men’s room.
Without another word, Jeremy rushed over to the door and swung it open. Before the spring had pulled it to again, he was at the entrance with Little Man and Christopher-John in tow. With his right arm outspread, keeping Little Man and Christopher-John securely behind him, he searched the corridor. Finding no one there but me, he pushed them out and toward the side entrance. He didn’t say a word to me. I followed them, as he no doubt knew I would. Once outside I lit into him again.
“Jeremy, how come ya done that, huh? How come ya went and pulled me like ya done?”
Jeremy stopped and looked at me. “You—you jus’ shouldn’t’ve been drinking in there, Cassie.”
“Whaddaya mean I shouldn’t’ve been drinking there? I was thirsty!”
“I—I know, but—”
“Other folks was drinking there—”
“Yeah, but—”
&nbs
p; “Aw, you jus’ make me sick. I wasn’t even finished.”
“I’m jus’ real sorry, Cassie, but—”
“—You ole peckerwood!”
Jeremy’s face paled as he stared at me through eyes that were a faded blue. Before he looked away, I saw the pain there.
“Jeremy—”
“Stacey,” he said, pointing up ahead and not letting me finish. “Here he come.”
I looked around. Stacey was coming with Moe beside him. That he was furious was obvious.
“Lord-a-mercy, Cassie, where’d y’all go off to?” he demanded, anger and relief both mixed in his face. “We been looking all over the place for y’all. Little Willie and Clarence even gone back up to the main road and here the trial is gettin’ started. Now where y’all been?”
Jeremy answered for us. “They was in the courthouse, Stacey. Cassie, she . . . she was drinking the water and Christopher-John and Little Man, they was using the toilet.”
Stacey’s face changed. He glanced anxiously from Jeremy to Christopher-John, Little Man, and me, then back to Jeremy. “Anybody see ’em?”
Jeremy shook his head. “Don’t think so. I—I better be gettin’ back.” He turned to go, but as he did so, he looked at me. That awful pain was still there. Then he hurried up the courthouse steps, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he walked. I had hurt him and I knew it. No matter how angry I was at him, I should never have called him what I had. Still, he had wronged me badly, pulling on me like he had, and I wasn’t about to forget it.
“Stacey, you know what that doggone Jeremy done? He grabbed my arm like this here,” I said, replaying the scene by taking hold of Stacey’s upper arm, “and jus’ come jerking me ’way from that water and I wasn’t even finished—”
Stacey pulled his arm from my grasp. “Jus’ hush up, Cassie. Hush up!” he snapped. “That water in there and them toilets, they belong to the white folks, and the white folks don’t want no colored folks using neither one. Somebody’d caught y’all, we’d be in a real mess of trouble. Papa say folks done got killed for less. Doggonit, I was afraid of this! Papa gonna wear us all out as it is. You think I want him worrying ’bout somethin’ a whole lot worse?”
“But—”
“Don’t wanna hear no buts! Y’all just stay next to me from now on, ya hear?” Little Man and Christopher-John stared up at Stacey in bewilderment. Moe looked on, his face sympathetic, his manner backing Stacey. “Ya hear?” Stacey repeated, demanding an answer.
Little Man and Christopher-John gave him one, but I was too puzzled to answer. There was so much to learn, too much of it bad. Water was water, a toilet a toilet. Were the people crazy?
Stacey seemed to read the question in my eyes for he nodded, the scowl of anger etching deeper into his face. “Let’s get on back,” he said and directed us toward the tree where the old man still sat. “T.J.’s in the courtroom.”
3
From our perches in the trees which overlooked the courtroom, we could see T.J. sitting beside Mr. Jamison. He looked even skinnier than he had been when I had last seen him four months ago, and he seemed nervous, biting at his lower lip and jumping visibly at the sounds around him. As the proceedings began, he glanced back at his parents, then turned stiffly to face the prosecutor, Mr. Hadley Macabee.
The first witness called was Mrs. Jim Lee Barnett. Her story was that she and her husband had gone to their second-floor living quarters above the Mercantile shortly after six, as was their custom, had supper, and retired about eight o’clock. They were awakened about an hour later by noises from below. With Mr. Barnett leading the way, they went downstairs to investigate and found three Negroes standing there and the store’s safe open. Mr. Barnett, trying to stop the burglary, had attacked one of the Negroes, but a second Negro holding an axe had hit him on the back of his head with the blunt of the axe. Once Mrs. Barnett saw her husband down, she had attacked the men herself, but was swiftly knocked out by one of them. When she came to, she found her husband still unconscious and bleeding badly from the head wound. The men were gone. At this point she started screaming and ran outside for help.
When Mr. Macabee asked Mrs. Barnett who were the first to come to her aid, she replied that at the time she was quite dazed and couldn’t remember everyone, but she did remember Mr. Courtney Jones, proprietor of the pool hall, and R.W. and Melvin Simms.
Mrs. Barnett’s testimony was liberally laced with tears and emotion, and it was clear that most of the court spectators greatly sympathized with her. The jury members sat with their backs to us, so we could not see their faces, but I had no doubt that they too were sympathetic. Even I, as much as I disliked the woman and felt no loss at all for her bigoted husband, felt pity for her.
But not for long.
Once Mr. Macabee had finished with Mrs. Barnett, Mr. Jamison, speaking loudly enough to be heard by everyone, yet evoking a calm quiet that seemed almost a whisper, began to question her. He was very gentle, apologizing that he had to ask her to relive that night again, but that he needed to know exactly what she and her husband had done upon hearing the noises in the store. Mrs. Barnett seemed leery of Mr. Jamison at first, but recounted that night’s events as she had been asked.
She repeated that they got up.
“Yes,” said Mr. Jamison.
And went to their bedroom door.
“Yes.”
And through the living room—
“Yes.”
And to the hall and down the stairs—
“Just a minute, Mrs. Barnett,” Mr. Jamison gently interrupted. “Did you turn on the light first? As I recall, there is a light switch at the top of the stairs leading down to the store.”
Mrs. Barnett frowned in thought, trying to remember, then she said: “No sir, we didn’t turn it on ’cause it hadn’t been working for more’n a month. The one downstairs worked, but not that one. Jim Lee—bless his heart—had been intending to fix it, but never got ’round to it. It still ain’t fixed.”
Mr. Jamison bowed his head slightly as if in respect for the kind intentions of the departed, then probing just as gently asked if the light was on downstairs in the store.
Again Mrs. Barnett was thoughtful. No, she conceded, as if to a friend, the light was not on. She and Mr. Barnett always turned it off before retiring and the thieves had not turned it on.
“Then, Mrs. Barnett, how did you see?”
“Oh, we had a flashlight,” she answered matter-of-factly. “We always kept one by the bed. An oil lamp too. Never could tell when the electricity might go out.”
“I see. You had a flashlight. . . . You didn’t tell me.” Mr. Jamison’s tone was not one of accusation but of feelings hurt by her neglecting to confide that bit of information to him.
“I’m sorry,” apologized Mrs. Jim Lee Barnett.
“What about your glasses, Mrs. Barnett? Did you have time to put them on? I notice that most times when I’ve seen you, you have them on . . . like now.”
“Yessir, I always wear them. Had to since I was a young girl. Nearsighted, you know—”
“And did you wear them that night?”
There was silence as Mrs. Barnett pondered the question. “You know, I don’t believe I did. No, I didn’t, ’cause the flashlight was on Jim Lee’s side of the bed and I didn’t have no light. I remember reaching for my specs, trying to feel them on the nightstand with my hand, but I was so nervous and Jim Lee was already at the door going into the living room, and I was ’fraid he was goin’ downstairs by hisself.”
“So you didn’t have on your glasses—which you say you need—and you did have a flashlight, and you started down the stairs—”
“That’s right.”
“And did you and your husband go straight down the stairs and into the store—”
“Yes—”
“—or did you stop on the stairs, just for a moment or two?”
“Come to think of it, you know we did stop. That’s when we saw them.”
“Saw whom?
”
“The nigras.”
“I see. About how far would you say you were from the intruders? Could you tell us in relationship to the courtroom?”
Mrs. Barnett frowned again. “’Bout as far back as them middle benches there, I’d reckon.”
Mr. Jamison nodded. “About twenty feet then.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“And just where were the intruders standing when you first saw them?”
“Well, one of them was at the gun counter and them other two was by the safe.”
“You stated previously that one of the intruders struggled with Mr. Barnett and another one hit him from behind with the axe. Now which two men were involved in this? The ones at the safe, or did the one from the counter join in?”
“It was them two by the safe, but I figure that other one would’ve joined in if he’d’ve gotten a chance.”
“Just answer the question, Clara,” Judge Havershack said from his bench. “Wade didn’t ask you about what that fella would’ve done.”
Mrs. Barnett heaved an exasperated sigh.
“It was the two by the safe,” Mr. Jamison repeated. “Did that third person—the one by the gun counter—strike Mr. Barnett at all or attempt to harm him physically in any way?”
Mrs. Barnett conceded that he had not.
“Now, Mrs. Barnett, when your husband went down the steps, did he still have the flashlight?”
“He did. Used it to defend hisself ’gainst them murderers. Dropped it when he fell. Light stayed on though, so’s I was able to see.”
“Mrs. Barnett, you said that you saw three Negroes. I understand from Dr. Crandon that for many people with uncorrected myopic vision—nearsightedness—everything is blurred from a distance of twenty feet and that they would not be able to define any facial features. Were you able to distinguish the facial features of the intruders?”
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