Cape Fear Rising

by Philip Gerard

  “And if you’re mule-stubborn, you don’t cry out. You’re a stone man. Swallow the pain. Take the pain.” He punched the flat of his fist against his stomach. “Pack it into your stomach, close it like a fist. The pain makes you strong.

  “But you’re getting weaker—can’t help it. Your spirit leaking out onto the ground. They can smell it. Start shouting louder. They can smell the kill. They’re all yelling now, everybody wants a piece of you. Man with the whip, he swings it harder. You feel the sting of the knot on your shoulder bones—all the flesh is peeled off. The bones make a different noise, hollow, like whacking a water pipe when it’s froze.”

  He was talking so fast she could hardly keep up. “The crowd is moving now. Men and women both, fending off with their hands. See, you’re getting all over them. Little chunks of you—your flesh and blood, chips of your bones—flying into their eyes. Ruining their nice clothes. They jump back. The women squeal. Makes them crazy, they love it so. The men hoot. Strings of your flesh are hanging off the bushes. Coon dogs are fighting over the scraps.”

  Ivanhoe Grant was out of breath. He braced himself against the desk, palms flat, arms rigid. She stood watching an arm’s length away. His breathing was ragged.

  He said quietly, sadly, “When your back is all used up, they start on the legs. Sooner or later, you got to fall down. Then they put a rope around your neck and lift you up.” Around his neck was a ring of rough flesh—his high collar always covered it.

  “They hanged you? Then how did … ?”

  He sighed and then spoke quietly. “If the good Lord sends a fearful storm of lightning. If everybody runs for cover and leaves the nigger tied to the tree. That’s how.”

  She waited. His breathing calmed, deepened, took on power, control. When his voice came again, it was the voice of the pulpit, mystical, chanting: “He is baptized in a cold rain while the fire of the Holy Ghost blazes across the sky, cracking trees, burning the air into smoke. With fire and water is he baptized. They drift out of the woods like smoke, dark faces and dark hands, and they carry him away from that place. And in his delirium, he speaks in the tongues of the Holy Ghost. He gets the call, teacher. He is blessed by the Almighty, chosen of God. Forever after, untouchable.”

  He undid the buttons of his fly, then tugged down his trousers. The scars continued down his buttocks, thighs, and calves. Only his face and hands were unscathed. Naked, he was revolting to look at, worse to touch. Grotesque. Yet her fingers wanted to feel the rough flesh.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said quietly. “That’s not why you came here. Sit. Talk to me. Tell me what’s in your heart.”

  “Who are you?”

  He laughed without enthusiasm. “I am the devil on your shoulder. I am whatever you make me.”

  All morning long, activity was frantic at the Messenger. The newswire telegraphed nonstop, copyboys came and went, and Clawson stormed around importantly—dictating assignments, yanking copy out of typewriter platens, yelling at reporters, pausing only to shout into the telephone.

  J. Allan Taylor was in half a dozen times. Clawson’s office was crowded with rough men Sam had never seen before. They came in long enough to pick up a rifle or shotgun, stuff their pockets with ammunition, then shuffle out in twos and threes, hats pulled down hard over their eyes in the manner of country men.

  Sam sat at his desk working on a piece about the election. Police Chief Melton was so rattled with premonitions of violence that he’d asked the Board of Audit and Finance to authorize the hiring of two hundred special officers to guard the polls. The board had hemmed and hawed and refused to spend the money. Meanwhile, armed Red Shirts and Rough Riders patrolled the streets in squadrons. The coppers avoided them.

  The Board of Aldermen had met in emergency session and declared it illegal to sell alcoholic beverages within a mile of the city limits—but everywhere saloons were doing a brisk business and men were drinking openly on street corners. From what Sam could tell, every white man in the city had bought a gun.

  The local Democratic party had assigned twenty-five men to each of the precinct polling places tomorrow.

  The Wilmington Light Infantry and the Naval Reserves were on alert.

  Schools were closed. Vigilantes acting for the Businessmen’s Committee rode the streetcars.

  Housewives were buying canned goods and kerosene for lamps.

  Many domestic servants had not reported for work this morning.

  The town was full of strangers.

  Where was Harry Calabash? Sam could guess: sprawled on his bed, obliviously drunk. He could use Harry today. He’d already lost track of half the names that mattered, and more were coming up all the time. There were so many factions, so many different parties, so many levels of the same parties.

  The Fusionists had broken with the Populists, and both had disowned the Republicans, who, they declared, had shown no backbone against the white supremacy campaign.

  The state Democratic party was feuding with the New Hanover County Democratic party over George Rountree’s place on the ticket. “Go to hell,” Rountree had reportedly told Furnifold Simmons, the state chairman and himself a candidate for the United States Senate. “We’re going to run our campaign to suit ourselves.” Wilmington was the real capital. The party was here. The will.

  Mayor Silas Wright was nowhere to be found, nor Sheriff French. Most of the aldermen had disappeared after their emergency meeting.

  All sorts of military men were taking their uniforms out of storage: Colonel Roger Moore, somebody named Morton with the Naval Reserves, another fellow named McIlhenny. Sam just couldn’t keep the players straight anymore.

  All those vectors of ambition were converging on the polls. If there was a single, secret plan, it couldn’t possibly be carried out amid this chaos of factionalism. Everybody was at odds. Nobody was going to get what he wanted. Everybody was going to step all over everybody else’s neat designs. Liquor, guns, politics, money, and white supremacy—quite a recipe.

  Sam was aware of someone standing over him. “Colonel Waddell. Surprised to see you here.”

  “The air smells of ozone,” Waddell declared, sniffing dramatically.

  “Pardon me?”

  Waddell slapped him on the back. “Storm coming,” he said happily. “Clear the air, make it so a man can breathe deeply again.”

  A storm was coming, all right.

  “Can you get away?” Waddell said. “We can talk over lunch.”

  Sam glanced toward Clawson, who was looking his way through the glass and motioning him to go along. He didn’t look happy about it.

  Sam grabbed his coat and followed Waddell to the door.

  At the top of the stairs, Harry Calabash passed them going into the office. “Samuel,” he said. “Off to conquer new worlds, I see.”

  Waddell looked on, annoyed.

  “You all right?” Sam said. “I missed you.”

  “Never better.” Harry looked tired, but his suit was immaculately cleaned and pressed, and he’d obviously been to the barber. He looked like a man with a purpose. Sam couldn’t smell liquor on his breath. Two men shouldered past them carrying Winchesters. “Democracy in action, eh?”

  “Harry, we have to talk.”

  Harry patted the pocket of Sam’s jacket, the one with the revolver. “Ruins the drape of your suit.”

  “Mind your own business, Harry.”

  Gabrielle emerged from her sewing room—the old servants’ quarters behind the kitchen—to take lunch with them. Before they sat down in the dining room, however, she and Colonel Waddell excused themselves to the library to discuss some household matter. He could just make out the rising inflection of her voice through the closed doors. He didn’t mean to listen, but it was a habit he had long cultivated for his profession.

  Saffron King James wiped her hands on her apron and rested them on her hips.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Sam said. “What I did that night was wrong. I beg your pardon.”

  “
Don’t fret. I ain’t going to get you in trouble with your boss.”

  “The Colonel’s not my boss.”

  “Sure act like it.”

  Sam glanced at the French doors of the study, still closed. Gabrielle’s voice was high and angry. He could make out a few words—they were quarreling over money, household expenses. “Look,” he said to Saffron, “things are getting plenty hot around here. You better watch yourself.”

  “What you talking?”

  “Tomorrow, stay off the streets. Find a hole and crawl in it.”

  “That what you going to do, find yourself a hole?” She laughed.

  “Forget it,” he said. “No use talking to you.”

  She said, “Too bad you got to go home to that ice queen.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about my wife.” He raised his hand, but he wasn’t sure what he meant to do. He couldn’t strike her—he’d never struck a woman in his life. But he had to do something, so he walked into the dining room.

  She followed. “She thaw out sometimes, with the right man.”

  “What?” He turned.

  She went around the table and played with her apron strings. “Some girls fancy a preacher man. Not me, but some girls.”

  “What are you talking about? Tell me plain.”

  “Shoot, ain’t no use talking to you.” She grinned, then disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen, where he heard her laughing.

  Then another door slammed, and Sam heard Waddell’s crooning murmur from behind the closed doors of the library. Presently, he and Gabrielle appeared in the dining room. Her face was flushed, and she would not meet his eye. She said, “Bessie’s down at the market. I’ll serve the lunch.”

  While she busied herself in the kitchen, Waddell poured them both glasses of iced tea from a pitcher on the sideboard. “I hope you’ve thought about what I said.”

  “Of course. But I still don’t understand why you need me.”

  “Things are starting to happen. When they’re done happening, this will be a different city. The old virtues will matter again—loyalty, honor.”

  Sam sipped his tea. God, he was beginning to hate the stuff.

  “I’ll be frank,” Waddell said. “My own son—”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “Let me finish. A man wants to be remembered. To pass on his legacy. I have a son, but he is no good to me. No good at all. I need someone I can count on.”

  “To tell your story.”

  “Somebody who has mettle, who is not easily swayed. You were in Cuba—you won’t flinch.”

  Sam shrugged. It was easy to watch other men being brave, even in Cuba. “A lot of men fit that description.”

  Waddell waved a hand. “Not as many as you’d think. Not like the old days.” He wagged a finger. “But you—I saw it in your eyes that first day on the train. You would not meddle in other men’s business, until it was a matter of personal honor.”

  When the Red Shirt had grabbed Gray Ellen. Given another chance, Sam knew now, he might take sides sooner.

  “Mainly, I need someone who has no debts.” Waddell waited for it to sink in. “Someone who is not connected to the regimes of the past.”

  “Hugh MacRae—my cousin, remember?”

  “I can work with Hugh. But I need a sort of protégé, if you take my meaning.”

  “I already have a job. I don’t have any training in the law.”

  Waddell smiled. “What you need to learn, I can teach you.”

  “If I go along?”

  “Keep on writing for Tom Clawson. When the time is right, I’ll call for you.” He moved very close to Sam. “I’ll only call once. After that, events will pass you by.”

  Sam nodded. He was tempted to make a declaration of allegiance here and now. All his career, he had been dogged by bad luck, bad timing, bad habits. Chicago had been his first big chance. Then going to Cuba with the army. He’d fouled up both.

  Now, he had cleaned up his life. He was ready. It was about time he hooked up with a winner. Waddell looked like the right horse. He had that aura of success, a man in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment. Never mind his household troubles—he had lost two wives, and look who he’d ended up with. He always came out ahead.

  Still, it felt wrong.

  Gabrielle took too long preparing lunch. When she finally came into the dining room, her eyes were red. She wouldn’t look at Sam all during the meal. Waddell stuffed himself happily, talking nonstop—between mouthfuls of cold ham and pickles—about the Hibernian navigators, Columbus, and Manifest Destiny. To Sam, he seemed an old man to be entertaining such grand ambitions, but then he remembered Joshua Slocum, another old man, who had just sailed alone around the world on a salvaged oyster dredge and now dined with the Roosevelts. The world was changing. Anything was possible. The trick was to reach out and grab the main chance. Sam intended to grab as hard as he could.

  As he and Colonel Waddell left by the front door to go back downtown, Bessie King was hurrying up the driveway on her way around back, carrying a parcel wrapped in white butcher’s paper.

  “Hello, Aunt Bessie,” Waddell called.

  Bessie stopped and glared at them both. She nodded slightly, then continued around back.

  Colonel Waddell rapped the ground with his walking stick. “Damned insolent coloreds. Under my own roof! I simply will not have it!”

  Sam expected the Colonel to turn around and go back inside to discipline Bessie, but instead he kept walking toward Market Street.

  In the kitchen, Bessie unwrapped the porkchops for supper and commenced to butterfly and season them. That boy David was going to get himself into trouble, running with that preacher and those Manly boys. No good was going to come of it. And now that newspaperman was back, plotting with the Colonel.

  She checked on the spider in the pantry and felt reassured that she was still upright in her web. Calm down, she told herself. Other folks crazy, no reason you got to be crazy, too.

  Gabrielle came up beside her. “Bessie, why don’t you stay here with us for a few days?”

  “Miz Gabby?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

  “Saffron and David, too, if you want.”

  “But the Colonel—”

  “You leave him to me. This is your home, too. Use the sewing room—I’ll clear out my things.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She laid a hand on Bessie’s wrist. “I just feel safer with you in the house.”

  “If you put it that way.”

  “There’s one bed in there. And a couple of old army cots.”

  “I know, I know. Down in the basement. My David can haul ’em up.”

  When Gabrielle had gone, Bessie went back to preparing the porkchops. “Living with the whitefolks,” she said to the empty kitchen, shaking her head. It was a long way from the cotton fields. “The world sure turning topsy-turvy.”

  Except that this time Gray Ellen was not with him, and that he was sitting on the stage behind Waddell, Sam had a strong sense of déjà vu. Thalian Hall was once again packed with white faces—mostly men. There were fewer women than previously. Several orators spoke as the crowd filtered in, boisterous, joshing, making the most of the fun. From this new vantage point, the hall seemed intimate, a fancy parlor. He was astonished that he could recognize so many faces so clearly so far into the back rows.

  Waddell again waited for the house to quiet completely before speaking. He knew he was the man they had all come to hear. Once again, he played their emotions perfectly. His speech was the same as before, the same one he had been delivering all over the state at rallies and barbecues, changing it only slightly, honing the metaphors, injecting local anecdotes.

  “Men, the crisis is upon us!” he declared, then waited a whole minute for the uproar of applause and cheers to die down. “This city, the county, and the Old North State shall be rid of Negro domination—once and forever!” Again, a din of cheers, men banging their fists on th
e arms of their seats.

  His voice took on a measured tone. “You have the courage. You are brave. You are the sons of noble ancestry.” They murmured assent.

  “You are Anglo-Saxons. You are armed and prepared, and you will do your duty.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “Be ready at a moment’s notice. Go to the polls tomorrow, and if you find the Negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls! And if he refuses—”

  Murmuring, angry muttering, a rebel yell.

  “—kill him! Shoot him down in his tracks!” He banged his fist on the podium.

  The hall exploded in whoops and cheers. Was this just hyperbole? Sam wondered. Or did the Colonel honestly expect them all to come out shooting tomorrow? Hyperbole, he decided—an orator’s trick. Otherwise, the notion was just too far-fetched. They were, after all, on the verge of the twentieth century. Sam checked his watch: five minutes passed this time before the Colonel could continue. Tonight, he was going to burn the place down.

  “We shall win tomorrow, if we have to do it with guns.” He pivoted and pointed his finger like a pistol. “Let every man go to the polls ready and willing to rule or die.”

  Another uproar of assent. Then it got very quiet. Sam could see only Waddell’s back, his erect posture, the black clawhammer coat draped perfectly, without a single wrinkle. The silver head shimmering in the limelight.

  So quietly Sam could barely hear, he continued, “If you fail at this time, you deserve to be spit upon.”

  He leaned and spat, right onto the stage.

  Something was happening at the back of the hall. In the midst of the shouting and applause, Sam couldn’t hear the fight, but he could see black heads bobbing in the crowd at the top of the aisle. He left by the back way and ran around to the front steps, where the police were dispersing a gang of Negroes—a dozen or so, Sam calculated. They scattered, except for one lying face down on the steps with two policemen pinning him. They drove their knees into the small of his back until he stopped struggling, then handcuffed him and led him across the street to jail. Sam recognized one of the cops as Sergeant Lockamy.

  “Frank Thompson, that’s the name of the fellow they just hauled away,” Harry Calabash said.