A Death in Carolina
By Scott Skipper
Copyright 2011 by Scott Skipper
This free edition may be copied, distributed and shared provided
it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is
not charged for it.
Capital Blues
Family Traits
In the Blood
The Hundred Years Farce
Face of the Angel
Golden State Blues
Alien Affairs
Alien Eyes
Alien Child
Free short works: The Stainless Steel Coffin & Pain Below the Equator
Learn more at
www.ScottSkipper.com
Saturday, July 4, 1914
James Tomoney and James Shiver sat on the ground behind the colored lodge passing a glass-lined bag. The sun was about to set and the bottle was nearly dry. "Damn shame be the Fourth o' July without no fireworks," Shiver drawled as he pulled a pistol from the pocket of his shiny blue jacket and fired twice in the air.
Tomoney tossed the empty bottle toward the burning barrel and tried to shoot it with the revolver he took from inside his belt. "Laws," he said after his sixth shot, "I can't hit de side o' de barn today." He flipped the cylinder open to the left and pulled the spent rounds from it. A door at the back of the lodge opened as he pushed the last shell in place and closed the cylinder.
"Doan you boys be shootin' out here," Cap Robinson warned the pair.
"We's jus' celebratin' the Fourth o' July," Tomoney told him.
"Don't be shootin' out here, I tells ya."
"Well, den we's gonna come in der t' do our shootin'." Tomoney rose and pushed his bulky frame past the older man. Shiver laughed like a braying donkey and followed him into the lodge.
Robinson followed scolding, "Now, lookie here, you's can't be comin' in here like dat."
Tomoney ignored him and grabbed a wine bottle from a shelf at the back of the darkened room where the failing sunlight leaked in between the boards. He tossed it to Shiver saying, "Here, Jimboy, iffin ya wanna smell, drink Muscatel." Shiver caught it and brayed again like an infernal ass.
There weren't many people in the lodge hall. Fewer than a dozen black men sat around in their Sunday suits playing checkers and talking. All stopped to look at the distraction that entered from the back. Cap Robinson tried to get the bottle from Shiver but Tomoney brandished the gun in his face then grabbed a bottle for himself. They were flat pint bottles. The kind meant to be carried in the hip pocket of a gentleman's suit. He unscrewed the cap and guzzled nearly half of it, made a face then took aim at a picture on the wall and fired three times, hitting it once. That emptied the place. Robinson went out the back while all the rest crowded out the front. Tomoney stuffed another pint into his pants, straightened his shabby fedora and followed the crowd through the door. He paused on the rickety stoop of the old plank building and began shooting at the broken down old brogues of the patrons who had just quitted the place. They scattered while he reloaded cackling about as foolishly as Shiver's braying.
Cap Robinson, peeking around the corner of the weathered gray clubhouse, saw Tomoney fire indiscriminately at his fleeing friends and quietly started walking down the dusty road toward Farmers where the sheriff lived. The day was just as hot and muggy as a day can get, the mosquitoes were rising and he didn't relish the five-mile walk ahead of him. He hoped he could get a ride back.
Isaac was carving watermelons for the hoard of children who would bite out the heart, throw the rest in the bushes then get back in line for another slice. "You young 'uns stop be so wasteful," Isaac warned them. "Eat it down to the rind, ya hear." But the boys just ate the heart and rejoined the line with juice still dripping from their chins. Isaac couldn't even remember half their names let alone which of them had already had a piece of melon.
Ida swung in a glider by the table where Isaac worked and fanned herself with an ivory fan that had come all the way from China. At forty-five and after twelve offspring—ten surviving—she was still a fine looking woman. Her auburn hair was pinned off her neck and her cool blue eyes had a sultry, heavy lidded look that she had perfected early in life. Her southern belle charms aroused Isaac just as much after twenty years as they did on the day he proposed marriage to the widow Parker.
There were forty-two Skippers at that Fourth of July supper and all manner of Potters, Liles, Hinsons, Bentons and Jacobs. It took eight big picnic tables to hold them all and a hundred and twenty pound hog to fill them. Even Isaac's sister, Alice, the twice fallen woman, showed her face with her two bastard girls. Rumor was that Blanche, the crippled one—having been born when her mother was fifteen—was the product of Alice being unable, or unwilling, to outrun one of her less upright brothers. Maggie, being whole and healthy, it was assumed whoever fathered her couldn't be closer than second cousin. Ida wouldn't even look at them.
The peace of the evening was punctuated by the staccato of firecrackers and the deeper boom caused by some boys who had gone down to the Carolina bay below the graveyard to stun bullheads with cherry bombs. When the wind was right Isaac thought he heard the sound of a Jews harp coming from the sharecroppers' shacks back where the slave row had been in the days before he was born. It seemed as idyllic a Fourth of July as there ever was.
G.W. Skipper was especially close to his uncle. He admired him for the fact of being deputy sheriff and hoped he could get the job when Isaac retired. Given that his grandfather, Lawson, had procreated across such a broad span of time, G.W. was only three years younger than his uncle. "Uncle Isaac," he said, "why don't you sit down and relax and let those young 'uns fend for their selves?"
Isaac licked the sweat off his handlebar mustaches and said, "It's been such a peaceful day I wouldn't want one of 'em to spoil it by cuttin' off his arm."
"That's a fact. Now, that's a fact."
Ida chuckled and said, "You just like playin' the head of the family and you know it."
"G.W.'s daddy's the head of this family and that I know."
"Maybe so but you take to it more than Sylvester does." Ida heard a giggle from inside the house. She looked through the gauzy drapes to see Kathleen's new husband, Arthur, giving her a squeeze. "Here now," she tapped the sill with her fan, "you two stop carryin' on so."
"Mama," her oldest daughter protested, "we are married."
"Just the same, there'll be no such carryin' on in my house." Arthur sat up straight and folded his hands in his lap.
Caldwell Potter came onto the porch and pulled the straw hat off his long skinny head. "Mr. Skipper," he said, "I still want your bull to stand stud fer my prize cow."
"We talk about that some other time, Caldwell. I have taken this day off and don't want to think none about business."
"All right then. Okay if I come back on Monday?"
"That'd be fine. That'd be fine."
Isaac sat on the glider by Ida, crossed his legs and interlaced his fingers. He tilted his head in thought for a time then called out to the darkness, "Did I ever tell you young 'uns what it was like the night they had the big earthquake down to Charleston?"
A voice in the dark said, "Tell it again, Uncle Isaac."
"Well, it was late summer and just about bedtime but I was down to the pond giggin' frogs when the ground started rollin' and the trees started shakin' and there's a big rumblin' noise. I didn't know what it was. Thought this might be Judgment Day but it kept on more than a minute I reckon, and the water slopped right outta the pond. It sure stirred up them ghost lights. They was risin' outta the ground everywhere I looked. They's bubblin' right out the swamp water and all that commotion made the frogs jump right onto the shore, and I was able to stuff my pockets full without even havin' to gig
'em."
Ida shook her head and smiled behind the fan.
"By the time I got back to the house all the girls, and Mama, was standin' in the yard prayin' in their nightgowns. Sylvester and Needham was makin' sure the house and barn wasn't gonna fall down. Y'all know how Daddy cobbled another room onto the place every time a young 'un was born. We didn't find out what it was for nigh a week when Everett went up to Farmers and got a newspaper. None of us had ever heard tell of such a thing before—"
G.W.'s oldest son, Jack—he was Ephraim but preferred Jack—vaulted all the steps in a leap. "Uncle Isaac," he cried, "there's a nigger calling for you."
"A nigger? Now, what's he want?"
"Says he needs to see the sheriff."
"Well, where is he?"
"Out behind the kitchen. Says he don't feel right comin' 'round the front."
"Go fetch 'im, Jack. Your uncle's tired."
Jack ran through the house instead of going around and he slammed the door in the process. Ida rolled her lovely eyes and kept fanning, however, she was relieved to note that the boy had enough sense to bring the nigger back around the house and not let him traipse through it.
"Mr. Skipper," Cap Robinson said, "you come quick. Der be a crazy nigger up at Northwes' and he like t' shoot up the place."
"He kill anybody?"
"Not by time I leave but he done wing a few."
Isaac drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He patted his baldhead with his handkerchief and sucked his teeth while he thought about it. Robinson stood wringing his old felt hat in his sweaty hands and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Ida broke the tension. "Isaac, do you have to go out on the Fourth of July?"
"I reckon a nigger has to be brought to heel on the Fourth of July as much as any other day. I won't be long. You don't wait up now." Then he said, "Jack, you go get the T-Model outta the barn. G.W., you comin'?"
"I bet I am. I'll go fetch a gun."
Isaac stood like he had creaky bones. He ran his thumbs under his braces while he walked stiffly into the house. When he came out he was wearing his coat, badge, pistol and club. Jack had driven the Model-T right to the steps of the porch. It was clattering and reeking to high heaven. Cap Robinson made sure he had a place on the running board. G.W. sat beside his son and Isaac shook his head, walked around the car and climbed into the rear seat. He said somewhat pointlessly, "Jack, you drive." His own eldest son, L.T.C., might have come along but he hadn't been seen since he and Lydie James sneaked away to the privacy of the cemetery.
Ida called to him, "Don't you be late, Isaac, ya hear. You have to get up early for church—and be careful." But he couldn't hear her over the noise of the car.
"Boy," Isaac said to Cap Robinson who was perched on the running board and holding tight to the edge of the door, "you know who this nigger is?"
"I seen 'im a time or two. Name's James Tomoney."
"Tomoney? What kind of a name is that?"
"I reckon it mus' be a nigger name," Cap replied.
Isaac smiled, "I reckon yo're right about that."
Jack said over his shoulder, "I threw a piece of rope under the seat, Uncle Isaac, in case he done hurt some white folk."
"Boy, we're not gonna have no lynchin'—exceptin' he done somethin' real bad."
"Daddy said you used to have lynchin's all the time back in the day when grand-daddy was guardin' the chain gang."
"That was before I was sheriff. We're gonna arrest this boy and that's all we're gonna do."
Jack wouldn't relent. "We'll be out all night if we have to take him all the way up to Wilmington. Be a lot faster just to string 'im up and give the po' folk a reason to remember the Fourth of July."
G.W. spoke up. "Don't you sass your uncle or I'll give you a reason to remember the Fourth of July."
"I was jus' teasin'" Jack grinned.
Cap Robinson listened with the whites of his eyes showing all the way around the irises.
When they got to Farmers Station, Jack rattled over the tracks and followed the right-of-way toward Northwest. The moon was just three days shy of being full. It lit the sandy road more than the headlights and it made the shiny rails glow silver on the black bed of the cinders. Cap said, "Dis be sich a night I be surprised we doan see de ghost train."
"Ain't no ghost train," Isaac told him. "Folks hereabouts been seein' those fairy lights longer than there ever was a train."
Cap let go of the door with one hand and reached into his pocket where he stroked his rabbit's foot. "I reckon den the ghost light jus' keepin' up wid de progress."
The lights of Northwest became visible through the long straw pines and a black man was spotted walking toward them with a kerosene lantern. Cap squinted into the darkness. "That be my cousin, Jasper. He 'uz at de lodge when Tomoney start shootin'. We ast him where he be now."
Jasper stopped and looked frightened when the car with three white men stopped next to him. It took a few seconds for him to recognize Cap hanging on the side. Isaac addressed him. "Boy, do you know where the nigger is who's been raising a rough house?"
"He quiet down a bit. Gone t' Medlin's t' get somethin' t' eat."
"Anybody else get shot?"
"Not dat I sees."
"OK, then you get on home and stay outta trouble."
"Yessah."
"Jack, drive behind Medlin's and stop with the bumper up again the door. We don't want him seein' us and goin' out the back."
Jack did as he was told and Cap stepped off the running board to let Isaac open the door. Isaac said to him, "You come along and point him out to me."
Medlin's was a general store with a lunch counter at the back. It had electricity and when they looked through the window the dozen or so bulbs hanging from their cords lit the place well enough to reveal a sizeable crowd milling around the spectacle of a black man being served at a whites' only counter. G.W. said, "The damned fools is standin' 'round waitin' for him to start shootin' again."
Jack said, "I can't believe Medlin served him."
"I reckon Medlin ain't here. His nigger cook probably served him just to keep peace," Isaac replied. "You two stay behind me and keep your guns handy but outta sight. We don't want to start shootin' in there with all those people 'round if we don't have to."
As Isaac walked through the store he gestured sharply to people to get back and he took his club off his belt. G.W. and Jack followed at his elbows and Robinson remained a couple steps behind. The lunch counter only had five stools—just one was occupied—there wasn't anything behind it but a sideboard with a shoofly pie on it and a big old regulator clock on the wall that said it was eleven-thirty.
"Tomoney," Isaac said in a voice meant to intimidate. "You are under arrest for unruly conduct and attempted murder."
Tomoney didn't move for a second then he calmly turned from his biscuits and gravy. He raised his left arm as if to surrender but when he turned on the stool the pistol was in his right hand. Isaac's club went up but Tomoney fired before getting bashed on the head. The impact of the bullet entering Isaac’s left side snapped every muscle in his body limp, and the club, which only dented Tomoney's hat, clattered on the floor. Tomoney kept firing wildly. G.W. attempted to shoot but a slug hitting his gun knocked it from his hand, and the ricocheting bullet struck Jack on the temple, dropping him to the dirty linoleum. Another of Tomoney's shots hit G.W. in the hand and one hit Cap Robinson's scrawny leg shattering his thigh bone midway between the knee and hip.
Tomoney walked coolly toward the door reloading and the only sound in the place was the ticking of the regulator clock. Then Tomoney began firing again and emptied his revolver by the time he made it through the door. G.W. recovered his wits when he saw the man was about to escape and ran into the street. A couple of wounded sat in the dirt and a white man came running with a shotgun in his hand. "What happened?" he asked.
G.W. snatched the gun from the man saying, "Let me borrow that." Tomoney had just about reached the tracks when he fired
. The buckshot threw him across the rails where he landed spread-eagled with his face in the cinders. It was only a single-shot gun so G.W. gave it back to the man and went to check Isaac and Jack. Isaac was already dead and Jack was unconscious. G.W.'s hand dripped blood on his face while he closed Isaac's eyes then he took Jack's wrist to check for a pulse. Cap Robinson was whimpering on the floor when the cook brought a wet towel for Jack's head, which revived him, and a rag to bind G.W.'s hand.
The man with the shotgun came into the store and looked from G.W. to Cap Robinson. He said, "The other nigger ain't dead yet—shame nobody seen who done it. This one's gonna have to have a splint on that leg afore we can move him." Looking at G.W. again he asked, "Where you want us to take 'em?"
G.W. was trying to help his son into a sitting position leaning his back against the lunch counter. "Farmers Station," he said without looking. "Put 'em on the train in the morning for the hospital if they're alive—colored funeral home if they're not."
Jack was awake by then and stared in shock at his uncle's body. He said in a breaking voice with tears running down his cheek, "Aunt Ida's gonna skin us alive."
The Morning Star of Wilmington, North Carolina, ran the following story on Wednesday, July 8, 1914:
FUNERAL OF MR. I. W. SKIPPER
Services Held at Farmers, Brunswick
County, Monday
The funeral of Deputy Sheriff Isaac W. Skipper, who was killed while attempting to arrest James Tomoney, a desperate negro, at Northwest, in Brunswick county, Saturday night, was held Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock from his residence at Farmers. Rev. Dempsey Hewett, pastor of the Town Creek Baptist church conducted the services, which were largely attended by the people of Brunswick county, as well as many friends and relatives from Wilmington.
Interment was in the family burying ground. The grave was covered with many handsome floral wreaths, attesting the great sorrow felt over the tragic death of Mr. Skipper. The pallbearers were Messrs. A. T. Roper, S. W. Edwards, E. Skipper, Harvey Williams, George Sullivan, and Mr. Wilson.
On July 10, the Morning Star ran:
Colored Murderer Dead
James Tomoney, Who Shot and Killed
Deputy Sheriff Skipper, Died at
Hospital Yesterday.
James Tomoney, the negro who shot and killed Deputy Sheriff I. W. Skipper at Northwest Saturday night and was afterwards shot in the back with a load of buckshot by an unknown person, died at the James Walker Memorial Hospital yesterday morning at 6 o'clock. Previous to the shooting of the Brunswick officer Tomoney had terrorized the town. When the officer arrived the negro began shooting into the crowd of 25 or 30 which had gathered in a store slightly wounding several and seriously wounding Cap Robinson, colored, who had a leg broken with a bullet.
Robinson was brought to the hospital with Tomoney and is now
A Death in Carolina Page 1