“He’s right,” Henderson agreed. “We’ve got to salvage some pride out of this.”
“Right,” Jacobs said. “You see President McKinley delivering his own mail?”
“Who wants to be our envoy?” Henderson said.
Ivanhoe Grant stepped forward.
“Not you,” Norwood started to protest.
“I’m exactly the wrong mailman,” Grant said, smiling to show all his teeth. Norwood could see he was mocking them, playing the sambo. “But I wish to nominate young Armond Scott here.” He had never met Scott before today, but the boy clearly thought Grant had hung the moon. Grant had been watching his face.
“Good idea,” someone said. “Send a lawyer. That’s how they do this kind of thing.”
Others murmured assent.
“What about it, Armond?” Henderson said.
They were all looking at him—he couldn’t very well say no. “Well, sure,” he said, without any certainty in his voice. “Sure, I’d be honored.”
Several men slapped him on the back and nudged him toward Henderson, who leaned down from his chair and handed Scott the letter. Scott carefully slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat.
“Gentlemen, we are adjourned,” Henderson said. “Leave here in twos and threes. Stay close to home, and don’t do anything stupid.” His last remark seemed to be addressed personally to Tom Miller, who spat and banged out the door ahead of the others, all by himself.
Within a few minutes, most of the men had scattered, hurrying in little knots up Dock Street, away from the river, their hats jammed low over their ears in the twilight chill, their eyes nervously glancing over their shoulders in case they were being followed.
Henderson asked Norwood, “Why hasn’t the Board of Aldermen acted? What’s Mayor Wright doing?”
Norwood could tell he was scared. He understood for the first time that Henderson had been working very hard to appear composed. Now, he just looked like a man worried sick about his family and his livelihood.
Norwood shook his head. “I’ve been trying to get them to meet for a month now. Everybody’s too scared, I guess. Dr. Wright has disappeared. Some say he’s hiding out, some say he’s long gone and not coming back.”
“That’s unheard of—he’s the mayor.”
“You read the last part of their so-called declaration. They want us all out of there. We dodged that part in our answer.”
“Can they do that?” Henderson said.
“I didn’t think they could do what they’ve already done. But the board, we’re a duly elected government. I don’t see how they can get around that.”
“Who becomes mayor if the mayor’s left town?”
“The board would appoint one,” Norwood said.
“What about the board? What if they’re scared off?”
“It’s never happened. They could nominate their own successors, I guess, but the full board would have to vote it.”
Norwood heard his own words as if somebody else were speaking them. He was talking out loud about the overthrow of the government—his government—as if it might actually happen. But it was a crazy idea. This was modern times, not the old plantation days. They couldn’t chase off the whole board, and none of them, including himself, would ever nominate successors that would please the white supremacists.
“I think we’re safe,” he said, after mulling it over. “Too many people would have to go along. You could never get that many people to go along with anything that dirty.”
“Let’s hope so,” Henderson said. “Meanwhile, get that damned board together. We’re breaking our backs trying to abide by the law, but the law is wearing thin.”
“I hear you, brother. I hear you.”
Ivanhoe Grant caught up with Armond Scott at the corner of Front Street, just as Scott was stepping into the street in the direction of downtown. He came up behind Scott and startled him.
“Oh, it’s you, Reverend. Guess I’m a bit jumpy.” He patted the letter in his breast pocket.
“I’d be jumpy as a cat with that mail in my pocket,” Grant said amiably. They walked together for half a block. Clearly, Scott was in no hurry to get where he had to go. “You’re a brave man,” Grant said.
“What do you mean?” Scott stopped and glanced left, then right, his hand over his heart.
“Didn’t hear no army of volunteers fighting you for the job.”
“You nominated me.”
“I know, I know. Thought I was doing you a favor, giving you some standing among those men. They need some fresh thinking.”
“New blood.”
“That’s right, new blood. But maybe I put you on the spot.”
Scott shrugged and started walking again, this time with more purpose. “I’ll leave it off with Colonel Waddell and be on my way.”
Grant stopped at the corner of Market, and Scott stopped, too. “Go on your way?” Grant said. “Son, you’re making some powerful assumptions.”
“I don’t see it.”
“You know why I didn’t volunteer?”
A pair of white men crossed the street up ahead. Grant waited to see if they would come his way, but the men seemed preoccupied with other business and disappeared up Market in a hurry. “I figured, I show my black face in that pretty neighborhood, I’ll wind up like my granddaddy.”
“I heard you at the church meeting. Doesn’t change what I have to do.”
Grant ignored him. “Figure I might as well paint a bull’s-eye on my back. They’re apt to have rifles in every window by now. I mean, do you realize where Colonel Waddell lives?”
“I’ve never gone visiting, if that’s what you mean.”
Grant pulled Scott into the doorway of a hardware store closed for the night. “Just off of Market, on Fifth,” he said. He pointed up Market Street, away from the river. “Half a block east of him, right up this street, you got John D. Bellamy’s mansion. Just past that, you’ve got Hugh MacRae’s castle. Across the street from that, you’ve got Colonel Walker Taylor’s house.”
“So?”
“On the west corner of Market and Fifth, there’s First Baptist Church, which at this very minute is full of vigilantes. Practically next door to that is the Light Infantry Armory.” Grant lowered his voice to a whisper. “All connected by secret underground passages.”
“Go on—secret passages.”
“Tunnels right under the street. Go in here, come out there, like magic.” He snapped his fingers. “White man can be wherever he wants to be, just like that. Might as well be invisible.”
“Never heard of such a thing.” Scott chuckled nervously. Actually, he had heard tales of the old smugglers’ tunnels, but he had always assumed they were just stories.
“We’re talking about the heart of the heart of White Town, brother. Three blocks that way. You think they’re going to let you wander around loose in that neighborhood?”
“I’m just the delivery boy.”
“You’ll be running the gauntlet. You think they’re going to wait long enough to find out what you’re delivering?”
The streets were weirdly deserted. Scott turned the corner and started walking resolutely east on Market in the direction of Waddell’s house. He hurried across Second Street, then Third. Approaching Fourth, with the Wilmington Light Infantry Armory coming up on his left, he slowed.
Grant clapped him on the shoulder and stopped him, held up his finger for silence. Scott strained his ears. Far off, like distant surf, he could hear a vague murmur. “Hear that?” Grant said. He prodded Scott on, keeping to the right side of the street. A hundred yards away, in the yard of the armory, uniformed troops were drilling with bayonets. An officer with a sword gave the commands. Each rank of skirmishers advanced toward a line of straw dummies hanged from a gallows. The gallows was newly framed of clean, blond wood.
With each thrust of the bayonets, the rank of soldiers shouted in unison. Their sound was a kind of roar. The bayonets ripped into the burlap dummies.
&n
bsp; “Know why they yell?”
Scott shook his head. He was afraid to ask.
“So they can’t hear the cartilage tearing,” Grant explained in a whisper. Scott was rattled.
Up ahead, men jammed the street. Scott and Grant were only a block and a half from Waddell’s house. Between them and it lay First Baptist Church, on the left corner. The roar of the drilling infantrymen was nothing compared to the roar that suddenly rose from the mob in the street.
“Mass meeting,” Grant said, head cocked to listen. “Somebody’s giving another speech. Whatever he said, they liked hearing it.”
Scott stared at him dumbly.
“See their torches?” Grant said. Market Street was bathed in light—from the gaslights on the corners, as well as from a hundred kerosene torches flaring orange and smoking into the clear night. Once they emerged from under the shadows of the trees, they would surely be spotted.
“Church rally,” Grant whispered. “Can you beat it? Calling on our humble Lord to bless their mischief!” They both stared toward First Baptist Church, which rose above the crowd like a medieval fortress. “They’re voting on who to lynch.”
Armond Scott was afraid. There must be five hundred white men here, he thought, and their mood is ugly. “We could circle round, come up from the other side.”
“You don’t think they’ll be waiting on that side, too? Use your melon.”
Scott was stymied. A few minutes ago, carrying the message to Waddell’s house had seemed like a minor chore. Now, it seemed suicidal. Scott wrung his hands. He looked up Market, daring himself to walk farther.
Grant put an arm around his shoulder. The boy was trembling. Grant spoke slowly, gently. “Take it to the post office. Let some white man wearing the proper uniform deliver it for you.”
He could backtrack down Market Street, walk north on Front for two blocks, and be rid of it. “But that’s not the plan! I promised—”
“You promised you’d get it there. Right?”
“Well, yes, Reverend, but—”
“If they shoot you down in the middle of Market Street, is the note going to get there?”
Scott was confused. Grant’s voice was so sure, so confident, and he was a righteous man. “No, I guess not.”
“You guess not? Well, I don’t have to guess. I can say for sure.”
Another roar went up from the crowd. Scott could see their backs and the torches, pumping up and down in clenched hands. He looked at his shoes, as if he couldn’t get over how mud-spattered they were. He said, tentatively, “The post office? But it won’t arrive on time.”
“We post it now, it’ll make the early mail.”
Scott pondered that. “The man said seven-thirty.”
Grant laughed and clapped him on the back. “You lawyers. It was a figure of speech, that’s all.”
Scott looked skeptical.
“Look. Didn’t the declaration itself say they demanded an answer within twelve hours? Right in the text?”
Scott was on firm ground now—he understood documents. “Right. Within twelve hours.”
“And what time did you meet with Waddell and his bunch?”
“Three-thirty sharp. The meeting lasted half an hour.”
“So twelve hours from four o’clock makes four in the morning. Yet he said seven-thirty.” He knew Scott was too scared to think straight. “Does that sound to you like they care whether it gets there at four in the morning, or seven-thirty, or eight-thirty, just so long as we give in?”
Scott thought about it awhile, then smiled. “When you put it that way …”
“Anyway, they already have their answer. Didn’t lawyer Henderson say he told them Manly was already gone? Didn’t he tell them we meant no trouble?”
“He did that. He’s a man to speak his mind.”
“So the written reply is really just a formality. Something for the record. They’re not in any suspense.”
Scott relaxed. “No use me getting all shot up over this thing.” He laughed with nervous relief.
Grant shook his hand. “I admire a man with common sense.”
They doubled back down Market Street together, keeping to the shadows, and hurried along Front Street two blocks to the post office. On the steps of the massive marble building, Scott stopped short. “Damn!”
“What is it?”
“They’re closed—and I haven’t got a stamp.”
Grant smiled, reached into his coat pocket, and extracted a glassine envelope full of stamps. “Here,” he said, offering it to Scott. “Better paste two on it, just to be sure. No sense taking any chances.”
John Norwood left Jacobs’ Barbershop alone. He wasn’t sure where he was going. See if Mayor Wright was in his rooms at the Orton Hotel, maybe. Find Flavell Foster or Ben Keith, buy a little insurance from the vigilantes. He had to walk awhile and think this thing through. He had a hunch there was precious little time left for quiet reflection.
Scott had taken the letter—good, that was done. Scott was young but reliable. As a lawyer, he was only fair, but he had a bright future as a politician. People took to him immediately. He had charm, good looks, and a winning smile, and he was a team player. He ought to be putting the letter into Colonel Waddell’s hands any minute now.
Up ahead, Norwood spied two men walking together. One was lean and blond. Even from behind, he recognized the other’s halting gait, the sloped shoulders and walking cane. “Hold up there, Mr. Calabash,” he said.
Harry Calabash turned, startled. Sam Jenks turned with him, alert for attack. “Oh, it’s you, John,” Harry said. “How are you this evening?”
“You know better than to ask me that.”
“Have you met Mr. Jenks?”
Norwood bobbed his head and held out his hand. “His wife is one of our finest teachers. Can’t say I admire his own work as much.”
“Ah. Of course.”
“We’ve sent the reply,” Norwood said, almost defiantly.
“What do you want me to say, John—that everything’s going to be fine?”
“I don’t expect anything but fairness, Harry.”
Calabash shook his head. “Listen to him, Sam. Fairness, that’s all he wants. What city has he been living in?”
“Shouldn’t you be getting on home?” Sam said to Harry. Harry was drunk, and he didn’t want Norwood talking him into anything.
Norwood said, “You never come around anymore, Harry. You never talk to us anymore.”
“Can’t be helped,” Harry said. “I’m not a free agent, you know—I work for a man.”
“And your friend?”
Sam Jenks looked insolent and wary. Harry said, “Look—”
“Forget it. Forget you ever saw me. I’ll go back to my people and you go back to yours.”
“Aw, don’t be that way.”
“What way should I be? I’m part of this government. I’m an elected official. White people voted for me, too.”
“I know. I was one of them.”
“Then write the truth for a change, Harry. You know how it is. Write it that way.”
“John, John. You’ve been in politics long enough to know. Somewhere between my typewriter and the front page, the truth changes.”
“And you take no responsibility?”
“I work for a man.”
“So it’s not your fault? Is that what you mean?”
“These days, John, most things are my fault. Good night.”
Harry turned and went on his way, Sam beside him. The sky was clear and full of stars. Sam looked up and picked out the Big Dipper. He had never seen a sky so big. He could almost feel the earth rolling under his feet.
Norwood stood and watched them until they were just shadows, no longer in the shapes of men. He felt the starlight on his skin. The sky was a map of old journeys running deep in his blood. The Big Dipper, pointing toward the North Star—in the old days, the slaves had followed it north to freedom. “The drinking gourd,” he whispered to himself. “Fol
low the drinking gourd.”
PART IV
THE COUP
No trade at Wilmington. Spirits of turpentine—nothing doing. Rosin—nothing doing. Crude turpentine—nothing doing.
Associated Press Market Report, November 11, 1898
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Thursday, November 10
SAFFRON WAS STILL ASLEEP in Miz Gabrielle’s sewing room. The headless dressmaker’s dummy stood in the corner, draped with folds of fine satin for Gray Ellen Jenks’s evening gown.
Bessie King busied herself in the kitchen.
David hadn’t come back last night. Bessie didn’t know exactly where he was. If there was trouble, that boy would find it, though he was a good boy at heart. Everybody said so. But he didn’t think too clear. He was the kind of boy things happened to, never the right things.
Bessie served Colonel Waddell in the dining room, where he ate alone. He seemed all stirred up this morning, high color in his cheeks. Kept rubbing his legs and cursing softly, “Damned cavalry legs.” Let him suffer, she thought. Pain was a boon to character.
She ducked into the pantry to fetch another jar of marmalade, and there she saw it: her spider, hanging on her web upside down. “Lordy,” she said out loud, and crossed herself. She grabbed the marmalade and went out quickly.
“Something spook you?” the Colonel asked as she clattered down a plate of eggs, bacon, and cheese grits in front of him.
She looked at him and saw a ghost. She saw him melting away like a haint, a bad dream of a bad man. “No, suh,” she said, ducking her head.
“Do you know what today is, Aunt Bessie? What anniversary?”
“Suh?”
“Ninety-nine years ago, Napoleon seized the throne of France.”
“Yes, suh.”
He sipped coffee. “Go see if Miz Gabby is up yet. When you’ve served her breakfast, take the rest of the day off.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“And Aunt Bessie? Stay off the streets today.”
“Colonel?”
He smiled. “Nothing you’d understand,” he said, and forked into his eggs. “Just politics.”
She left in a swish of skirts.
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