A Cry of Angels

by Jeff Fields

I looked at Tio. He kept his eyes on the ground before him. He seemed oblivious to all that was happening.

  Doc Bobo stepped to the center of the porch behind us and lifted his voice for distance.

  "Did you think," he shouted, "that I could be stopped so easily? Did you think any man, black or white, could stand up to Doc Bobo? Let me show you, let me settle your minds this morning!" He pulled the sheaf of papers Mr. Teague had signed from his pocket and walked slowly the length of the porch, holding them aloft. "This is a signed bill of sale—for the property once owned by Alvah Teague." He waited for that to take effect in the hills, for the shifting, murmuring, repeating of his words to die down. "Later this morning I will take part in a momentous occasion for our town, the celebration of the one hundredth year of our granite industry, during which I will be presented to our distinguished guests as the first black member of the Quarrytown Granite Association."

  "Because, Monday morning we will begin work on a brand-new quarry, right here in the Ape Yard only a short distance from the county's first quarry, and the first in the history of this granite industry to be owned by a black man!" Doc Bobo folded the papers back into his pocket. "Truly, a momentous occasion. And beginning Monday morning, that store will be removed, and those ridiculous structures"—he turned and pointed to Wolf Mountain—"will be pulled to the ground! There will be no more interference with our way of life in the Ape Yard. Doc Bobo is your friend here. Your only friend!"

  "Let them pass their laws, let them make their promises, they will raise no more false hopes here. They supposedly set us free before there was a granite industry in this town." He ran his eyes along the hills. "Are we free? We have pulled ten thousand tombstones from under this ground, and if we set one at the grave of every broken promise to the black man there still would not be enough! White men's laws are for white men's purposes, not for you and me. We have survived in the Ape Yard because we make our own laws. We have looked after our own."

  "The old ones know what I mean," said Doc Bobo. He turned and looked across the road at the shop boys kneeling on the bank, at Tio standing below him. "It's the young who don't remember."

  "The old ones know what I mean. They know better than to lift their hearts in hope, and have them crushed again." He turned to look across the yard and road at the shop boys kneeling on the bank, down at Tio standing below him. "It's the young who buy the dream. Because they grew up in the peace Doc Bobo brought them! They don't remember the innocent black man who was burned on the square as I do. They don't know about the night riders who used to come through the Ape Yard on Saturday night shooting out windows for fun. They don't know those horrors because they don't happen anymore! Thanks to Doc Harley Bobo!"

  "They are ready to mix and mingle, to turn a black man against his brothers—like these two right here. This is an example of the future if we let it continue . . . a black boy raised by a white man, spoiled and deceived by a white man's lies, a born troublemaker and a disgrace to his people . . . and a sorry, trashy white boy who thinks that lily-white skin is a badge of distinction giving him the right to attack and humiliate any man, no matter what his rank or position, so long as that man happens to be black!"

  "Their kind will not be tolerated in the Ape Yard!"

  "I will show you that now, young people." He motioned to the dog boys and they began filing up the steps and into the supper club, taking off their metal-studded belts as they came. "I will show you that once and for all, and when that is done we will climb those slopes to take part in the celebration of the town. I will expect to see every black face in this hollow on the square and cheering when Doc Bobo, on your behalf, accepts his place of honor. And if there are any among you who entertain notions of creating further trouble, I want you to look closely at these two, and those kneeling on the bank, when we are done with them. As they pass you in the streets in the future, look at them, and remember!"

  Doc Bobo turned around to those in the supper club. "Open those windows and let them hear it, and take your time."

  That was the way. Nothing in the sunlight for Bobo. Give them only screams to take with them as they climbed the hills to do his bidding, to take to their beds that night, to boil in their dreams and allow their imaginations to do Bobo's work. Later they could see the result. He was so careful in his staging, in his use of terror against ignorance. Bobo was a master.

  "The black boy first," snapped Doc Bobo.

  Clyde Fay took Tio's arm and Jed him through the door. Two dog boys walked to either end of the porch with pistols drawn, letting them hang loosely at their sides. A third stood at the door, waiting.

  The Ape Yard waited, under the flares of sun that streaked through the morning shroud to the iron-rich clay of the slopes, bathing them all in a reflected red earthen light.

  When he was ready, when there was not a movement in the hills, Doc Bobo turned to the dog boy in the door and nodded.

  The dog boy relayed the signal inside.

  A moment later screams began, starting low, then rising rapidly to shrill, piercing shrieks, the echoes bouncing off the silent ridges and ringing through the hollow.

  Then, through the numbness of shock, I became aware that they were not coming from inside the supper club but arose from somewhere else. Heads were turning in the crowd. Arms lifted to point. Doc Bobo stepped to the edge of the porch, looking up toward the Ape Yard rim.

  45

  Beyond the last houses on the upper ridge, a blobby shadow was descending through the red earthen light. Down the terra-cotta slopes he came like a charging primeval beast, jumping, bouncing, clearing the rain-gutted trenches, howling that inhuman cry.

  Heads poked out of the supper club's windows. The dog boy on that end of the porch, recovering, raised his gun and braced it against the post. Doc Bobo was on him. "No shooting! No shooting!"

  On the Indian came, leaping from bank to bank, dead-on across the grassy knolls, sliding down the clay.

  "Stop him!" Doc Bobo shouted to the frightened people clustered along the way. "You better stop him!"

  Jojohn built his speed, dodging through the little brown yards and grappling hands, feeble hands, unwilling hands, brushed aside with exploding howls.

  He burst through the plum thickets onto an apron slope, then off a high bank to the flat below, hit the ground rolling, then was up again, hatless and running, a flicker of khaki through the pines. He circled the marsh beside the supper club and could be heard smashing through the tall reed-thicket, straight on, roaring his coming.

  Dog boys were crowding to the door of the supper club. Doc Bobo glanced around at them. He beckoned to the one at the other end of the porch.

  "Cannie!''

  When the man came, Doc Bobo had him drape his jacket over his pistol. He looked nervously up toward the fairgrounds. "One shot," he said, shaking a finger, "one shot."

  The dog boy knelt and propped an elbow on one knee.

  Em Jojohn broke the clearing, the dog boy lowered his chin, sighting, and when he did I whirled and threw myself straight on top of him. The gun exploded in the jacket.

  The Indian came pounding down the clearing, white-eyed, bellowing. He cleared the low steps and dived, landing inside in a crash of men and furniture.

  Scrambling to my feet, I ducked into the darkened supper club, watching for the furious dog boy to come after me and at the same time trying to stay out of the commotion inside. Through the window I could see Doc Bobo setting the two on the porch to guard the crowd.

  The mill-house dance floor was a churning, tumbling pile of arms and legs, with Em in the middle and dog boys, struggling, diving over each other to get at him, making fierce, guttural sounds in their throats. They were rolling across the floor, smashing, tearing clothes, gouging; it was as though Em was being devoured by a many-armed, furious beast. He was fighting defensively, rolling away, trying to get out from under, and they were falling on him from all sides. The walls echoed with the struggle, tables toppling, faces flashing in the light strea
ks. It seemed the room could not contain the savagery.

  Suddenly a man squawled like the hogs I had heard in the slaughterhouse, and the Indian rose to his feet.

  And the sight of him was incredible. It was Jojohn in a fury I had never seen before, fighting as I had never seen before.

  A head taller than his attackers, he stood against the bar and moved his powerful body in a continuous destructive rhythm, bobbing, weaving, fighting for footing, windmilling blows at the heads below him as though he were demolishing a wall. The mob lunged and dived in upon him, arms thrusting, making a shock of contact, falling away. Others jumped in over those broken, winded, trying to crawl away from the flying boots; they crowded in, bumping shoulders, working to get him, fighting not on orders now, not for fear of Bobo, but in the evangelism of the violence itself. The faceless mob converged upon the furious, battering giant at the bar in an exaltation of fury. Still he stood his ground. A dog boy in a checkered coat arose behind the bar and smashed a wooden ice bucket beside Jojohn's head. The Indian turned and drove a fist through the man's breastbone. A man with a misshapen jaw kept leaping and screaming dementedly, swinging in over the crowd. Jojohn found him and smashed his face. He hit the jukebox and toppled to the floor, amid a pile of blood and black flesh and bright-colored rags.

  Em's shirt was hanging by the seams, white bone showed through the skin of beefy knuckles, his right eye was closing, his hair was corded in sweat and blood, but still he swung from side to side in that curious dance and knocked them away as he had kicked bottles from the circle at Dirsey's.

  One by one they crumpled, bleeding, crawling over fallen bodies to get clear of the churning above them, the boots that stomped at the fallen injured.

  As the fight wore on, Em showed signs of weakening. His shoulders swung heavily, his breathing grew loud and rasping. He was taking more blows now, sometimes staggering, but each time bouncing off the bar in new roaring rage at those who leaped in to the seeming advantage, still swinging to that instinctive rhythm, without style, without aim, eyes wide and staring, reacting to flickers in peripheral vision. Still he fought and cursed and roared.

  As men dropped away the pace of the fighting slowed, until there were only two left, powerful men, experienced alley fighters who loved to fight, and it became a slugging match. They shuffled before him trading punch for punch, trying to wear him down. But Em stood high in his awkward stance, fixed them with his good eye and swapped with them great, shocking blows.

  It went on for several minutes. At the edge of his strength and will, Em was sagging slightly now, rocking away from those punishing fists. Still he kept swinging, often missing, but maintaining a staggering balance and swinging. At last the man on his left went to his hands and knees; Jojohn's boot came up under his stomach with a force that lifted him off the floor. But the one on the right, a short, heavy man built like a wrestler with batwing muscles standing high through the torn shirt behind his neck, swayed and grinned in a violent stupor and kept coming back as if he had never known pain. He was a thrusting shadow, grinning and silent, rocking lightly from side to side and uncoiling his ebony arms with terrible, shocking force.

  Em grunted and absorbed the flashing hammers. Occasionally he connected, and only then, with the smack of flesh and the awkward lurch of the black man, did the force behind it show. The man kept tearing away at his middle, Em's flesh jumping under the blows, and the Indian took the punishment, holding firm. He would not be worn down.

  And then at last there was a subtle change in the black man's drive, the rhythm faltered, there was a tempering of his fury, and when that happened, something in Jojohn renewed itself. It was what he had waited for. The animal look returned to his eye, a flicker of savage joy. He stiffened and began pile-driving blows until he broke the other man down. The Negro stumbled and grabbed Jojohn around the waist. Throwing an arm under his chin, Em straightened and broke his neck.

  He released the body and let it slide to the floor. He looked about, at the wreckage, the fallen bodies.

  The jukebox lay on its side, making a rhythmic clicking noise.

  Em turned for the door and stopped, clutched a post and slid to one knee.

  "Em! Watch out, Em!"

  It was Tio, struggling behind the stairs. The boy went tumbling across the floor. A shadow moved out from the stairs, lengthening until it lay before the kneeling Indian. Em raised his head, squinting, blinking away blood.

  Clyde Fay stood watching him, the smile tight on the slit of his mouth.

  Em moaned in the effort to rise. A jack boot cracked across his chin and sprawled him on the floor Again he tried to get up, and Fay seized the post and whipped out a flying kick that sent him backward through the door. He hit the porch on his back and toppled off onto the ground.

  Fay was beside him. He kicked again, but this time Em managed to block it with a forearm and kick Fay's other leg out from under him.

  From the startled murmuring which arose from the hills, there now came screams and cheering.

  Fay rolled away and onto his feet and stood watching as Em pulled himself painfully up the side of the porch. Then he pounced in and away, and a long gash appeared in Jojohn's cheek. Em looked surprised and rubbed it with the back of his hand, and for the first time seemed to see the knife. Fay darted in again and blood oozed from a rip in the Indian's sleeve.

  Then Fay went after him, lunging, cutting him off as Em dodged around the yard, trying to avoid the flashing knife. But it was too fast. Fay was an expert. The shaggy giant stumbled and roared as the blade flicked out again and again, each time opening new fissures in the old china skin. Fay circled gracefully, springing in and away, avoiding the Indian's clumsy swipes, the grin tight on his face, enjoying but checking himself, prolonging the kill like a cat.

  With a howl of frustration Em lurched away and clutched at his neck. Fay stamped his heels. A little joy dance. It was death and he was in the thrill of it. Em watched the knife point, flicking slowly, dropping his blood. The thing was eating him and no way to stop it. He drew a tattered sleeve across his face, smearing blood. Fay leaped in and lay a slash across his thigh, just below the crotch. He looked at the place and at Jojohn, his eyes shining with malevolent glee.

  Em stood looking back at him. Slowly something began to change in his face. He seemed to be drawing in, concentrating something within him.

  Then, raising his head, he fixed the black man with his good eye and began to shuffle cautiously forward. Fay backed down the yard, feinting, bouncing away.

  Still the Indian came. He closed in, watching the knife, hands hanging loosely at his sides. Fay checked his bluff. He drew a line of blood across Em's forehead. Jojohn shook it off and continued his advance.

  Fay danced lightly backward, watching the giant move toward him, puzzled, staying on his toes. Em kept moving him down the yard and into the shadow of the supper-club porch. When Fay's back touched the porch rail he froze; the smile slipped from his face.

  Em strode quickly forward, dropping low, tensing. Fay glanced for an opening, but the Indian was raising his hands to the sides, as though he were cornering a wild animal.

  Fay's reaction was instantaneous. He tucked low in a sweeping, coiling motion, and the knife blurred straight for Jojohn's throat.

  This time the Indian didn't dodge.

  Standing flat, focusing hard with his good eye, he swung his left hand over, flat and straight. The knife went to the hilt through his palm.

  Having thus anchored it in his flesh, he closed his left hand on the knife, wrenched it away, and in the same motion stretched himself to his full height, puffed his cheeks, and with a great, contracting movement of his entire body, he windmilled a massive right fist with sledge-hammer force.

  Fay buckled, his eyes bulging froglike from under his caved-in forehead, dead before his back hit the ground.

  Em hung over the black man's body, spent, shaking, blowing blood and saliva. He turned and sank to his knees, his face lifted, eyes closed
, bathed in the purple of his blood.

  There was silence. The yelling in the hills had stopped. The Indian knelt in the sunlit yard drawing breath in great, heaving gasps.

  There was that and the wash of the river.

  46

  I became aware of movement along the porch. The two dog boys who had been guarding the crowd were edging toward the other end, their frightened eyes darting. Suddenly they sprang over the far rail and took off down the road toward the river, knees high, pumping hard, their shoulders jerking as they ran.

  Doc Bobo stood in the yard, turning, looking at Fay, at Jojohn, at the figures disappearing down the road.

  There was a soft, rustling sound. He turned and looked up, and stood transfixed.

  They were pouring slowly down the hillsides, down the banks, filling the paths, brushing through the brittle weeds—hundreds of them, clay-colored people with raw, expressionless faces.

  Doc Bobo turned, circled, watching them close from all sides.

  "Listen to me!" he shouted. "You better listen to me!"

  A chorus of voices began rising along the rocks. Feet shuffled faster. A black-and-tan mongrel got caught on the road before the crowd; he ran in circles before them, barking, vicious, hunger-ribbed, rolling his eyes, then found escape by leaping a gulley and galloped away up the road.

  Doc Bobo shouted, commanding them, then suddenly broke and ran for his car.

  At that the crowd charged, their cries filling the air. They jumped from the banks to the top of the Continental, pounding it with rocks and sticks, and others rushed in to the sides, kicking, scraping, hammering with their fists. The limousine squatted under their weight as they flung themselves on it, burying it with their bodies, pounding at the doors and windows, climbing over one another like a horde of rabid squirrels, with still more pouring down from the rocks.

  The engine started. Wheels spun helplessly on the clay. Then they were rocking it. Louder and louder their wails climbed the Ape Yard walls. Louder and louder grew the pounding.