Red River

by Lalita Tademy

  “May be too late tomorrow,” Sam insists.

  “I’m not sorry you here with us ’stead of down there. Politicals pulled a mean trick, but now we got to deal with the way things is.”

  Sam studies his wife. Still young, though not so fresh as when he met her on the road in Alabama, determined and too assertive, a handful for any man.

  “May be we ought to think about moving on from Colfax,” Polly says.

  “We put ourself in this town eight years,” Sam says. He thinks of Levi riding off on his stallion, leaving behind the debacle of the courthouse, the dozens whose blood soaks the ground, their families stranded and adrift, the politicians who will settle in some other place and start again. “Things against us no matter where we is. This my town, and no place else gonna be different till we make it different. A colored man do the best with what he get. Make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. We make our stand in Colfax.”

  “In the morning then, not tonight,” she pleads. “Think of the boys.”

  “There ain’t no choice,” Sam says.

  “A man always got choice,” Polly says. “Choose us.”

  “I got to go,” Sam says.

  Figure 9. 1981 letter referring to Sam Tademy

  Chapter

  18

  Most of the white men leave Calhoun’s Sugarhouse around suppertime. Those departing on foot and on horseback are the most moderate of the white men, no longer excited by the chase, visibly tired and ready to call an end to the courthouse confrontation, but there are several small, keyed-up groups still energized by the day’s events, stoked by liquor. Of the men who pulled Israel and the others out from under the boards of the courthouse, the stout man called Narcisse leaves, and Baby-face Jim stays.

  Only a dozen or so of the original captors remain by eight o’clock, the hardest core, swapping stories and reliving high points of the day.

  “Cannon keep slipping back down the bank, wasn’t sure we could drag it up, but once we got to their blind side, it was like swatting flies in summer.”

  A white man laughs. “How dumb a coon got to be to hide in a burning building?”

  Suddenly, Jim points to Israel. “That one of the coons there played he was dead.”

  Baby-face Jim tilts the jug and drinks, fixing his stare on Israel. Israel keeps his eyes to the side, prays the man is too drunk to get up.

  The conversation sweeps on, past Israel and past the white man-boy. “Today was easy. Just take a little fire to smoke ’em out.”

  They light the lamps, and a couple of men pull out cards for a game of seven-up. Others, including Sheriff Nash, smoke or spit tobacco, and they all keep drinking. They tap a keg of something, Israel isn’t sure what, but the more they drink, the louder they get, working themselves up.

  Luke Hadnot shows up at Calhoun’s Sugarhouse a little after eight, with three other men from Montgomery at his side. He exchanges pleasantries with a few of the men and then walks over to the line of prisoners.

  “You know who I am?” he asks October White, the colored man closest to him.

  “No, sir,” October says, head down and thin shoulders trembling. His face is already a puffy, battered mess from the beating earlier.

  “My name is Luke Hadnot. You seen the white man they took off in a stretcher today outside the courthouse? He was my brother, Smokin’ Jimmy Hadnot. You killed him.”

  October shakes his head violently. “No, sir. I don’t shoot nobody. I wasn’t never at the courthouse, ’cept with a truce flag to deliver a message for your sheriff. I come right back to Smithfield Quarter, and all day I never leave my house again, not till they come and bring me here.”

  Luke hits October in the stomach, a sudden, thudding blow that knocks the thin man to the ground. Luke kicks at the felled man until Sheriff Nash pulls him off.

  “I remember this man,” says the sheriff. “He wasn’t one of them.”

  “That’s for my brother,” says Luke, and gives October a final kick. He turns to Nash. “Now you sheriff again, what we gonna do with these black devils?”

  “We’re all sorry about Smokin’ Jimmy, but we wait till morning, and then I decide.”

  “Go on home, Sheriff Nash,” says Luke. “You done a good day’s work, and now you deserve a good night’s sleep. I take charge of the prisoners.”

  “I don’t want no more blood tonight.”

  “You got my word, Sheriff.”

  “No funny business till I come back in the morning, Luke.”

  “I just bunk here tonight, see to it nobody run,” Luke says.

  “All right, then,” says Sheriff Nash. “I leave ’em here with you.”

  Luke Hadnot and the white men still sober enough force-march the four dozen colored prisoners away from the sugarhouse. They herd them toward the riverbank, not that far from the center of Colfax and the Pecan Tree.

  Israel recognizes where they are. Just yesterday the colored men of Colfax gathered here, but tonight the Pecan Tree belongs to the white men.

  “We gonna put this old tree to good use tonight,” one of the men says.

  “I got a better idea first,” Luke Hadnot says.

  Israel catches the scent of alcohol mixed with Hadnot’s sweat. What time is it? Time keeps coming into his head. As early as nine? Late as midnight?

  “Pull them out, two by two.”

  They take the two colored men closest to the end, loosen the bindings from their feet, and pull them away from the others.

  “Take their shirts off and put ’em back to back,” Luke says. The men who untie the rope, curious, do as he asks, positioning the first pair of colored men so their shoulder blades touch. It is two brothers from The Bottom, Henry and Meredity Elzy. Henry is out of Israel’s view, looking out toward the river, but Meredity faces in toward the gathering of men, and to Luke Hadnot.

  “You coons kill my brother today,” Luke says, his words slurred. “What you think we gonna do about that?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Hadnot, sir,” Meredity says. “I seen it. We come out the courthouse with a white flag. Your brother got caught crossways from the side by a bullet, back from where the shooting was.”

  Luke Hadnot’s face changes expression, his eyes an intense blue that visibly deepens, even in the dim light. “You saying we shot him ourselves in the back?”

  Big drops of sweat form on Meredity’s forehead. “I just telling what I seen, Mr. Hadnot. We come out the courthouse with our hands up, waving white, and your brother come rushing toward us with a rifle in his hands, and next I see, he grab at his side, toward his back, and fall down to the ground. The bullets what was flying hadn’t never stopped from your side.”

  Luke Hadnot raises his pistol and shoots Meredity in the temple at close range. Meredity crumples to the ground, heavy, like a full sack of rice. Henry turns just long enough to see his brother dead, then takes off in an absurd dogtrot, a short mincing gait toward the river, tripping with each step on the snarl of rope that binds his ankles together. Before Henry has taken five paces, Luke calmly shoots him in the back.

  “They made me use two bullets,” Luke says petulantly.

  Israel is almost exactly in the middle of the long line of roped-together colored men of Colfax. He sees Luke Hadnot load and reload several times, perfecting the game he has invented to kill two men with a single bullet. There is no escape possible, even if the men could devise a scheme to work together. There are fewer white men than colored, but the colored are shackled, and all of the white men have guns. Two by two they are untied and positioned back-to-back while Luke waits for the preparations to finish. Once center stage is his again, Luke practices trick shots, shooting from under his arm, but his balance is shaky and he settles into calling his target beforehand to keep himself amused.

  “Head,” he calls. But instead of hitting a man’s head, Luke Hadnot’s bullet hits him in the chest, sometimes the leg. Luke tries again.

  “Wasted another bullet,” he mumbles, and swears. Luke is mean-
drunk, as are most of the white men by now. If a colored man still stands, they prop him upright again, and Luke has another go. The dead pile up, and two white men are assigned to take them down to the riverbank by their hands and feet and throw them into the water.

  When it is Israel’s turn, hands yank him up by one arm, along with Eli McCullen. They are the next pair hustled to the killing spot. A sudden sharp, rancid odor catches Israel unawares. One of them has fouled himself.

  Eli faces Luke Hadnot, and through blurry eyes, Israel takes one last view out over Red River. He and Eli are of similar height. Luke’s followers have declared it too much effort to strip the shirts from the colored men before Luke takes aim, but even through his jacket, Israel feels Eli trembling where their shoulders touch.

  “Chest,” Luke Hadnot calls out.

  Israel shuts his eyes. He hears the tinny pop from the pistol, feels Eli convulse, and there is a stinging in Israel’s back as Eli falls to the ground. The force of Eli’s fall takes Israel down, and he feels the deadweight of the man’s body on top of his. There is blood, wet and warm, inching at a snail’s pace along his bare hands and face. He isn’t sure if it is his or Eli’s, but Israel’s mouth fills with the warm taste of blood and threatens to choke him, keeping him from drawing air.

  “Those two fell just right.” Luke’s voice. Israel wonders what he is still doing alive to hear it. “Get the next ones.”

  Israel tries not to cough away the blood blocking his windpipe. If they think he is dead, he has a chance. He has played possum all his life, and now he needs to do it once again for a chance to escape death.

  They cart the pair of them toward the riverbank and dump them in a growing heap short of the water’s edge, too weary now to carry the bodies all the way down. Israel manages to stay quiet, and the dead man draped across his back shields him from view, but breathing is impossible. He lies facedown with his nose buried in the Louisiana soil, trying to time his frantic gasps to coincide with the noise of the shots from Luke Hadnot’s gun. That works for three more rounds of fire. A man cries out when hit and moans in pain until the second shot quiets him.

  Israel can’t shut out the sounds, but he knows he must fight to keep hold of consciousness.

  “I wasn’t at that courthouse, Mr. Hadnot,” a man begs. Israel recognizes October White’s voice.

  “Stand him up,” Luke Hadnot orders.

  October must have dropped to his knees, but Israel hears the gurgle in October’s throat and the snap of the rope as one of the white men yanks him back upright.

  “I got six children. I work for Mr. Calhoun every day for ten years, even before the war. Ask him. This a mistake.”

  Israel hears the pop of the gun, the drop of the bodies, the sounds of the next pair of men being prepared.

  “Sound just like popcorn in a skillet,” one of the drunken men says.

  The shooting seems to go on forever. The white men come periodically to the part of the river where Israel lies, and each time he manages to stay quiet. Israel figures they must be down to the last handful of men still alive. He hears footsteps close by and concentrates on keeping himself still, but a thick pocket of phlegm catches in his throat and he gasps several times, drawing fresh nonliquid air into his lungs.

  “This one’s alive,” someone says.

  Chapter

  19

  He is discovered.

  Israel lifts his head to get some relief from the collecting blood. There is no need to strangle when the bullet is so close to coming. He offers up a final prayer. He has done what he can to live, but his time has run out. At least he won’t have to listen to any more colored men dying.

  The man rolls Eli off Israel with his dusty boot. In his last moment, Israel looks the white man square in the face, watches him draw back the firing pin of a small pistol.

  “You know better than to look at a white man, boy,” the man says. He aims at Israel’s face and, with a hand unsteadied by drink, he pulls the trigger.

  Israel feels his right eye implode, and his vision becomes nothing more than the concept of red. He rolls over in pain.

  He hears another popping sound and feels a piercing pain in the small of his back. A strange lack of sensation descends on him gradually, like dusk, the passing of day into night. His body is weightless, prepared to drift to the realm of death, but once again his mind stays present. He hears the movement of the men around him, the involuntary sobs and mutterings of the colored men waiting for their fate, the horses whinnying nervously off the banks toward the tree line, the uncapping of the flasks and bottles that the white men pass among themselves, the cocking of a gun. He hears these things, clear and distinct.

  He still isn’t dead.

  Israel enters some other place. They leave him alone again. Without the dead man’s weight on top of him, and now that the angle of his head tilts to the side instead of facedown, with concentration, he can take shallow breaths without choking.

  “This ain’t fun no more, Luke.” It is the voice of one of the white men who has done most of the heavy lifting, clearly impatient with the role he has been assigned in clearing away another set of bodies. “Let’s stretch hemp with the rest. Plenty of rope.”

  “Only got three horses,” says Luke, his voice slurry. He sounds peevish, as if he hasn’t finished his own game and they are making him move on to another before he is ready.

  “That’s how many left.”

  Now Israel wills himself into unconsciousness, but his mind won’t shut off. His senses are sharpened by the constant pain, not dulled. He hears the white men collect the horses from where they graze by the trees. He hears them gather up lengths of discarded rope lying on the ground, left over from the men held captive but now dead. He hears the scraping of ropes thrown over tree branches. He hears moans from the three colored men as they realize what is in store.

  “Take down their pants.”

  There is more movement now, as all the white men become active. The last three colored men put up a struggle, trying to run, but they are held back. Israel hears the hacking of knife into flesh as the white men cut off the colored men’s privates. The moans turn to screams in the uncaring night. Israel feels little of his own body, except the warmish blood in his throat, but it is as if he is one of the three, feeling the drunken stabs at the most tender of flesh with a dirty knife last used for skinning possum. The white men come alive for the ceremony of the rope, an ancient rite etched deep in their communal southern blood.

  Israel hears it all, the gashing knife, the bleeding men heaved on horseback, the rope’s taut friction over branches, the sudden shooing of horses, the self-congratulatory camaraderie of white men. After the initial burst of excitement and adrenaline, after the three colored men sway suspended in the darkness with their necks broken and faces swelling, Israel hears the eventual damping down of the mood of the white men, a stupored, languid drowsiness of too much liquor and maybe, finally, ample blood.

  Chapter

  20

  S am leaves his Enfield with Green in the swamp, carrying an old pistol borrowed from a wounded man who staggered into their encampment at dusk. Sam tucks the gun into his trousers’ waist.

  The woods are alive with movement, men, women, and children traveling singly and in groups, some heavily armed but most not, primarily colored but occasionally white, all antsy, a recipe for collision. The walk from Boggy Bayou swamp toward Calhoun’s Sugarhouse is made longer by the need for caution. Sam passes camps of colored people and slips around several of them unnoticed. He declares himself loudly at the more heavily guarded camps, making himself visible to avoid an accidental shooting. The color of his skin automatically identifies him as a man of no threat to the makeshift colored settlements, but each minute he is pressed into conversation is a minute stolen from reaching town.

  He comes within sight of the sugarhouse at last, moving slowly and quietly from tree to tree to cover his approach. This is no longer the woods and swamp, the colored have
ns on this night of horrors. The sugarhouse smells of conquered territory, with Sam the trespasser. There is only one dim lamp lit in the window, and the doors are open wide, swinging back and forth in lazy motion by small gusts of night wind. There is a quiet to the place, and no movement inside. Around the outer edges of the building, a handful of white men in stupefied sleep slump wherever they have fallen. There seem to be neither guards nor prisoners. The prisoners must have been moved, but where?

  Sam veers wide and follows the river toward the courthouse. It has been hours since he heard shots, and he hopes everyone is bedded down for the night. As he delivers himself directly into the lion’s den, he prepares himself to take off in a run if he comes across white men. Every noise nips at his jagged nerves.

  It is well past midnight. The sky is too clouded over for stars, and the moon is only a sliver veiled in mist. The shadowy natural light barely reflects on the water of Red River, and Sam can make out only the few feet directly ahead. He progresses cautiously, focusing on familiar landmarks, and dodges through Mirabeau Woods. Using the white man’s trick, he cuts over to the river to approach the courthouse from its blind side. If there are still white men posted, Sam is prepared to retreat back to the swamp, retracing his steps, or maybe to Smithfield Quarter. His plan is uncertain beyond that.

  The familiar shape of the upper branches of the Pecan Tree come into view, silent and majestic in the quarter-light of the moon. It is disconcertingly quiet, and Sam is pulled toward the familiar comfort and spread of the old tree.

  The closer he gets, the more his skin prickles under his jacket, but still he creeps on. After every step, he pauses, sniffing the air like a hunting dog, alert to sounds and movement, focusing on the distance. A deepening dread intensifies with each passing second. The air smells scorched, a sickening blend of burnt flesh and discharged gunpowder, singed hair and smoldering wood. He steps forward again, tentatively, his mind slow to catch up to the evidence of his senses, and he stumbles. He looks down, forced to register what he should have seen all along. There is a colored man at his feet, faceup, dead. Another dead man lies sprawled not a yard away. Unmoving forms cover the ground, like logs carelessly left after felling and splitting a tree.