by Ron Shiflet
Swallowing hard, he led Sherman out into the clearing. The Klansmen failed to notice him at first; they were all gathered around some of the gnarled, dead trees at the center of the clearing. It only took a moment or two to find Nathaniel amidst the gathering, as he was likewise centrally located, flanked on all sides by riders and the red light of their torches. Leroy was alarmed to see that Nathaniel seemed to be seated, sideways, as a woman may ride, on the back of a horse, his hands tied in front of him, and waiting beneath a large branch. Leroy couldn’t make out the noose, but he didn’t doubt that it was already strung around Nathaniel’s neck.
It seemed that he had arrived just in time… though it was possible he had arrived only to watch Nathaniel swing anyway.
“Um… excuse me?” Leroy said, pulling Sherman to a halt, but his voice did not carry and the Klansmen continued their preparations. One of them seemed to be reading out loud, his voice filled with bombast—a list of Nathaniel’s alleged crimes, probably, or maybe a ‘sentencing’.
“Could y’all stop that for a moment?” Leroy called out, this time making sure that he would be heard. Hooded heads snapped towards him, and as the speaker ceased, Leroy heard the sound of rifles being cocked. He shifted underneath the massed gazes, feeling quite out of sorts at the sight of these faceless, identical individuals fixated on him.
“I… uh, I think you’re making a mistake.”
“Do you now?” one of them said, stepping forward. This one had a circle of script printed in red on the forehead of his hood. Leroy stared at it uncomfortably for a few seconds of silence, likening it to a third eye, or a hole into which he might be swallowed.
“By what right do you interrupt the sacred dispensation of justice of the Ku Klux Klan?” the speaker asked again after Leroy failed to address the first question.
“This man…” he finally managed to stammer out, breaking contact with the red eye and looking out towards Nathaniel. “Um… this man is innocent, I believe. He hasn’t committed the crimes you think he has.”
“The crimes we think? And just why do you think we have taken this… ‘man’?” the speaker replied, showing unfortunate perspicacity. Leroy dearly wished this crew could have been led by one of the dumber hicks who seemed drawn to the brotherhood.
“Well, I mean, I don’t know, but… that is, I’ve been hearing rumors about Nathaniel here, rumors about how he might have a little more money than you’d expect, or is moving about at odd times, and how it might tie into a rash of robberies we’ve had here of late.” Leroy paused, waiting to see how they might react, but the hoods concealed all. “I heard these rumors, but they’re just not true. I live back in Bedford, same as Nathaniel, and I’ll say that he’s no richer than he’s ever been, and I ain’t ever seen him moving about at odd hours.”
“That means nothing,” the speaker said. “The ill-gotten goods can be hidden, and unless you watch this coon’s house night and day, you can’t account for his actions. Word o’ one man against the beliefs of many people who have relayed this information to us doesn’t stand to make a difference.”
Leroy fumbled about with Sherman’s reins. “Sure, maybe, but… here’s what I think: I think that the folks who’ve been out committing these robberies felt that the law was sniffing around, and decided to pass off the blame on a well-known negro like Nathaniel here, to save their own skins. So the rumors… not only are they not true, but were probably meant to trick good, upstanding folk like yourselves and let the real crooks get away.”
“What is your name, sir?” the speaker enquired.
Leroy gulped and debated for a split second giving a pseudonym, but then realized that if there was one among this shrouded number that knew him, he would destroy any chance he had of freeing Nathaniel.
“Collins, sir, Leroy Collins. Of Bedford,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.
“Well, Leroy Collins, you’ll have to forgive me for saying so, but your story seems rather spurious to me. I suspect that you saw us take this nigger from his house and decided to play the busybody. Frankly, if you are just a nigger-lover trying to interfere with our good work, then as far as I’m concerned, you can share his branch.”
“No!” Leroy said quickly. “I believe in the divine purity of the white man like any other. I just don’t think men ought to hang who haven’t done wrong.”
As he was saying this, however, he noticed a Klansman amble to the speaker and, placing their heads together, speak softly. Leroy chewed on his lower lip, wondering what was happening.
“Interesting, what you say about these rumors, Mr. Collins,” the speaker said after the huddle. “Because my colleague here says he specifically remembers hearing you speaking them in a tavern back in Colfax. Care to explain?”
Leroy cursed his bad luck. “I didn’t… that is to say; yes, I did say those things. And that’s how I know they’re not true. Because… I was paid to say them!” Leroy tried not to let his relief at hitting on a new plan show in his voice. “I did wrong, I know, and I’m terribly ashamed of it, but these men, the real robbers, they came to me and said that they would pay me to start spreading rumors… to deflect the attention of the law off of them and onto Nathaniel here.” Leroy modulated into contrition. “And, like a Judas, I took their coin. I needed the money, but that’s no excuse for what I did, and I simply cannot, to salvage what is left of my conscience, allow an innocent man to die for my weaknesses.”
There. That was great: a blend of fiction and truth, sufficiently abrogating of his character to sound real without condemning him to the gallows by the same token. He looked at Nathaniel, to see how the former soldier had reacted to the “confession”, but his face was fixed, impassable. There was no rage there, but his gaze seemed unforgiving.
“What were their names?” the speaker asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The names of these thieves who paid you.”
Blazes—he should have expected that. He had committed the odd heist with others, but he wasn’t about to trade one group of armed ruffians for another, not to mention that they would point him out as an accomplice in more than spreading lies.
“They never told me their names,” Leroy said. “They just gave me the money, up front, and told me to find a patsy, and I haven’t seen them since.”
Even as he said it, he knew how weak it sounded. What kind of thief pays up front?
The speaker was quiet for a good long while and Leroy had to resist the urge to squirm.
“Mr. Collins,” he said at length, “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing at here, but I’ll be generous and say that if you turn around and head out now, we’ll forget about this little incident and you can go back to whatever you do when not trying to save nigger criminals from their well-deserved fate. If you insist on interfering, then we’ll give you a hands-on demonstration of our order’s justice. Are we clear?”
Leroy hesitated. Most of him was calling for a retreat, since dying alongside Nathaniel would hardly have any positive effect. And yet the vision of Eileen’s flame-framed face floated before him, dominating his tongue, paralyzing his muscles.
He was spared making the impossible decision when one of the Klansmen pointed towards him and cried out: “More people coming!”
Leroy thought, at first that it was some kind of trick, but he was so outnumbered that he failed to see what good that would accomplish. He turned back, and saw a number of indistinct white figures making their way through the underbrush towards Bald Spot. Beneath the sudden chatter of the Klansmen he thought he heard a low vibration, as though a large number of people were humming or moaning.
“You!” the Klansman with the unseeing eye said. “You led the law here!”
“No!” Leroy protested. “I came here on my own! And aren’t those yours?”
“All our members are here,” he answered, glancing between Leroy and the advancing shapes. “These must be with you.”
The newcomers were getting closer, and by now Lero
y was certain they were moaning. He thought of the two figures he’d seen earlier, that he’d assumed were Klansmen. But if they weren’t, then who…?
Old Sherman stirred uncomfortably beneath him, and Leroy tried to calm the horse down even as he frowned at the shapes that were emerging onto the dry ground of Bald Spot from the forest. To his shock, he realized that not only were these people the whitest white he’d ever seen, but they also seemed to be translucent, with figures in the back visible through the vanguard of the cohort. The interlopers wore state militia uniforms that hadn’t been in use for almost half a century, and although it was hard to tell because of their clear flesh, Leroy thought, from their facial features, that they were negroes.
White, transparent negroes in fifty-year old uniforms. With a sensation akin to thunder Leroy realized that he was somehow looking at the members of the Louisiana negro militia that had been slaughtered in Colfax back in ’73. He realized it was these spirits he’d seen rising from the ground back in the bayou. He also saw that the ghostly militiamen were still carrying their old rifles.
“They’ve got guns!” Leroy screamed. He had been speaking to himself, but the words galvanized the Klan into action. Those with weapons drew them and fired into the approaching spirit legion. Leroy covered his head at the sound of all those detonations, hoping that the Klansmen were good enough shots to strike the shades behind him without hitting him as well. Bullets whipped through the ghosts without any appreciable effect that Leroy could detect; they sped, undeterred, into the forest, stripping trees of bark and exploding the fungal ground.
As though by unspoken accord, the firing stopped as they realized they were having no effect. Then the advancing spectres stopped, drew themselves into a line, and raised their own rifles. Leroy had just enough time to throw himself off Sherman and to the ground before a new round of thunder erupted from the ghostly firing line. The ghosts’ bullets were somehow much more consequential than their own bodies: Leroy saw Klansmen spinning in the hail, white sheets stained black and red with erupting blood, before crashing to the ground of Bald Spot, no longer dry.
As one, the horses panicked, either from the thunderclap of the guns or the proximity of the shades, rearing back and sprinting in every which direction. Those Klansman who clung to the fleeing beasts were the lucky ones; others were thrown off and trampled underfoot by the bewildered animals. Sherman stamped the earth with his hoofs and Leroy had to roll to avoid being struck. When he raised his head again, he saw the old mustang vanish into the underbrush.
It occurred to Leroy to glance Nathaniel’s way, and he saw to his alarm that the horse on which the former soldier had been sitting had likewise taken off, leaving Nathaniel to dangle from the rope. Leroy saw him bring his tied hands up as he swung and beat with his feet, but instead of grasping at the noose as most would, Nathaniel brought his arms up, grabbed the rope with his bound hands, and pulled himself up. The pressure of the noose loosened, but Leroy knew it was only a matter of time before the negro’s strength gave out and he would choke.
Leroy glanced around the battlefield of Bald Spot. The Klansmen and the spirit militia were still exchanging fire, despite the ineffectiveness of the Klan’s bullets on the ghosts. A number of the sheeted men had found refuge behind the corpses of horses slain in the opening salvos. None of them were paying any attention to the hanging man.
Crawling on his elbows, Leroy made his way towards the gnarled old oak, closing his eyes as he felt something warm and wet behind him as he passed by sprawled corpses already in their shrouds. He reached the tree unimpeded and used it to draw himself up. He couldn’t reach the branch from which Nathaniel was hanging, so he started climbing up, calling out to Nathaniel to hold on as he did so, although he didn’t think the other man heard him, too intent on grasping the rope.
It didn’t take long for Leroy to realize that there weren’t enough footholds to make it to the branch, but by hanging from the trunk, he was able to reach the rope itself. He brought it closer to himself, careful not to add to the pressure of the noose, then took out his bowie knife from his pants and began to saw. The fibres were tough, but Leroy worked steadily at it and one by one they snapped. Leroy glanced down at Nathaniel and saw him looking up at him, eyes wide. Leroy smiled in a fashion he hoped was reassuring, seconds before a whistling announced the explosion of the world.
Leroy cried out in pain as his chest seemed to bend inwards under the power of the phantom bullet, blood spouting like a volcanic eruption as lava-hot pain seared his senses. He lost his grip on the tree and fell forwards, momentarily grasping Nathaniel. The rope jerked taunt against the underside of Nathaniel’s chin under the weight, and then the last strands gave way and both men went sprawling to the ground.
Leroy lay panting, stunned, trying to concentrate on the pain radiating from his chest as though hoping that once identified it could be ignored. In his peripheral vision, he thought he saw Nathaniel sit up, grabbing at the noose still around his neck, trying to pull it off and failing. He didn’t seem to be choking anymore; the knot in the back was simply too convoluted to be undone by feel. Leroy looked away. He’d done what he’d come to do; right now, he needed to focus on his own survival. He wanted to press down on the wound, stem the bleeding, but he was having problems moving his arms.
Then his arms were in motion, but stretching out behind him, over his neck, for some odd reason. Leroy tilted his head back and saw Nathaniel, upside-down, large hands clasping his owns, straining as he walked backwards, dragging him across the rough ground of Bald Spot. The cut, torn piece of the rope still beat against his muscled chest like a perverse necklace.
“What’s…?” Leroy started, and then choked on a clump of something thick and coppery at the back of his throat.
“Don’t talk,” Nathaniel said, his voice heaving and rough. “You’ve been hit badly.”
But Leroy persisted. “Sorry… leave me…”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Not if I can help it. Don’t know if what you said back there was about the rumors was true, Collins… for all I know, from your reputation, I think you’re likely to be a thief yourself… but even if you’re why they came for me, you saved my life back there, and took a bullet for it. I don’t leave men behind.”
Leroy realized that his vision had gone blurry and tried blinking to restore clarity. Overhead, the night sky with the falling crescent moon gave way to contorted branches and large-leafed treetops. The roughness scratching his back gave way to a wet, sucking sensation as they passed from Bald Spot and into the surrounding bogs. Leroy sank slightly in the mire, kept aloft only by Nathaniel’s pull. He thought of himself sinking beneath the morass, of the muddy fens becoming his mausoleum, and he felt oddly detached from the idea, not nearly as alarmed as he would expect to be.
It occurred to him that if he made the bogs his graveyard, he would probably join the corpses of the fallen militiamen whose spirits had revenged themselves on the ideological descendants on the first Klan who had slain them. That idea did bother him.
“The ghosts…” he tried to say, but his voice caught against a blockage.
Nathaniel seemed to hesitate for a moment, arms slackening, before resuming their drag through the swamp.
“My girl…” he said, then, “My grandmother. She had the old power, the juju. Used to be I was scared to even go near her. I was actually relieved when she passed away. But my girl, she has the gift too. Sees things in the sky, reads bones… talks to people who have passed on. I’m sure this was her doing somehow. She doesn’t know better not to mess with those powers, just thought she was helping her daddy, I don’t doubt.”
Nathaniel leaned over; to Leroy it looked as though he was the one underwater, his features rippling and swimming, blurred and hazy.
“If you don’t tell about her, I won’t tell about the rumors you spread.”
Leroy wanted to tell him not to worry, that he wouldn’t be telling anything to anyone, but simply trying to order his thoughts to
speak was too demanding. Nathaniel’s face vanished from his tunnel of vision, replaced by the fraction of moon, further broken by the overhanging branches. Even its silvery shine seemed too bright, so Leroy closed his eyes and felt comforted by the darkness, a sense of warmth creeping across his body despite the cold mire he was being dragged through. He wondered idly how long Nathaniel would keep going like this before he realized he was dragging a corpse behind him.
As he sank heavily into the mire, he hoped that the spirits of the bayou whom he was about to join would consider saving Nathaniel sufficient atonement and forgive him his sins.
THE TOOTH
MARK E. DELOY
“They used to kill witches on yer land,” Harlow said. Down in that holler near the river. Right up till the Great War.”
Jason looked at his wife, Jill, with more amusement than alarm. Their old codger of a neighbor looked the type to go on for hours about the old’n days.
“Really? I wonder if there are any of them buried here,” Jason said.
“No sir. You don’t bury a witch, least not if you don’t want her to crawl up outta the grave on the next full moon and come back ta kill you in your sleep. Naw. They used to chop their heads off and burn the bodies. They’d keep them pyres burnin’ for days to make sure every last bone had turned to ash. If they didn’t, the witches would surely find some way to…what’s the word…reanimate themselves?”
Jason couldn’t believe he was standing here listening to this old man talk about witches when he should be inside unpacking. They’d just moved into the house yesterday and there was plenty left to do. It was a big yellow Victorian with five acres of land just outside Nashville. The back yard bumped up against the Tennessee River and would make for a great fishing spot. It took every penny of their savings and some borrowed money from Jill’s parents, but somehow they came up with the down payment. Now all they had to worry about was making the hefty mortgage every month.