“Come untie me first, Ben,” I said. “I’ll tie both of them up. Your shakin’ so bad you’ll never get a knot tied.”
Ben looked at me as if it took what I had said a minute to comprehend. Then he got up and stumbled over to the bench where I was sitting, almost falling down. He turned around so he could get to the rope. He leaned his head against my back and started untying the ropes, his hands trembling badly. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to be successful, but then I felt the ropes loosen. I twisted my hands around a few times and the ropes fell off. I took the gun from Ben’s hand just as I saw a flash out the corner of my eye. It was Feldman. I pulled the pistol up, reacting to what I’d seen. Ben had seen it too, and somehow found one more burst of adrenalin. Just as Feldman fired the gun that he had hidden in his waistband, Ben dove in front of me. I pulled the trigger at the same time and got off a lucky shot, hitting Feldman right between the eyes.
Ben lay at my feet, blood flowing from an ugly wound in his chest. I turned him on his back and looked into his open eyes. His mouth was quivering and he was trying desperately to raise his head. I thought I heard a faint noise come from his bleeding mouth. A horrible, gurgling sound. I turned and leaned my head down until my ear was touching his lips. “A…auto……autop..sy,” I thought I heard him say.
“Did you say….. autopsy, Ben?”
He feebly shook his head, yes. Then his body stiffened, and the brilliant light that had been in his eyes from the first time I’d seen him was extinguished. His eyes remained open, but it was as if a shade had been drawn over an open window.
I sat there for a moment in disbelief. My chin started quivering as I spoke. “Ben…Ben! don’t you die on me, you hear? We’ve still got a lot to do. B..Ben, you’ve got to finish your degree. Y…you ain’t even got started good yet, Ben!”
I knew my words were in vain, but they just seemed to come out involuntarily. I sat down flat on the floor and put Ben’s head in my lap. Tears were running unabated down my cheeks and I didn’t care. Harold was sitting on the floor holding his wounded shoulder and moaning, but I paid no attention to him. I had never felt so lost in my life. It took a long, surreal moment to see the reality. Ben was gone. The one who had always solved the problems I couldn’t solve. He was responsible for me having a good job, because I had used his brain like it was my own. At times we had almost been like one body and one mind. Two people conjoined by an invisible force, making each other whole. He was the brilliant mind and I was the body that was fortunate enough to have been born with white skin, that could allow his mind access to the bigoted world we lived in. Without him, I would probably have remained in the place where I grew up, pounding out a living in the cotton fields and getting old before my time. I might never have married Rachel, thinking I had nothing to offer her but a hand-to-mouth life filled with everyday, back breaking work. My mind and ambitions would probably have never expanded much beyond that of my ancestors, who had lived in the same place and done the same thing for over a hundred years.
Then I thought of my role and what I had contributed to Ben’s success. Without me, he may have never left his family and moved to Atlanta where he found a good job that paid wages he couldn’t even dream of where we came from. Then he met Abby, and with her influence was able to get enrolled in Morehouse College and then to Harvard. I had brought him with me and Rachel to Oak Ridge, where his genius was discovered by some of the brightest and most important minds who ever lived.
Strangely, as if it were a scene from a movie, all of this was running through my mind as I held Ben’s head and wept out loud. My life was flashing before my eyes, as if I were about to die. I had always needed Ben and he had always needed me. I had Rachel now, but as much as I loved her, I felt like she could never fill the void Ben would leave. And I would never be able to fill the void Ben would leave in Rachel’s life. They had always been confidants who shared the same interests and had the same insatiable curiosities.
I don’t know how long I sat there, rocking Ben back and forth like a baby that needed comforting, but when I finally came back from the state I was in to cruel reality, I took my coat off and gently laid Ben’s head on it. I picked up the pistol and pointed it at Harold, who looked at me with pleading eyes, hoping there was mercy in me. I decided I would be merciful, because I knew that’s what Ben would have done.
“Put your hands behind your back,” I said.
“I can’t….I can’t move my left arm,” he responded in a painful voice.
I grabbed him under the arms and dragged him over to one of the steel columns. I wound the rope around his torso and the column several times and tied it in so many knots that Houdini couldn’t escape from it. Then I walked up the stairs and out of the house. I decided to take Feldman’s car since I didn’t know what shape they had left my truck in. I cranked the engine and drove to the military police post.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They wouldn’t let me ride in the ambulance with Ben to the hospital, so I called Rachel and made sure she met them there. I told her not to let them do anything with his body until I got a chance to talk to Dr. Anderson and some of the other men in charge. Rachel was grieved to the point that I was concerned for her sanity, and I hoped she had comprehended what I told her. I was almost certain Ben’s last word had been autopsy. I assumed that had some kind of meaning and thought the men he worked with might know.
I was kept at the MP station until well after the sun came up answering questions, until I finally convinced them that Ben was indeed a physicist and Dr. Anderson could straighten everything out if they would call him. They reluctantly let me go after they gave all the guards at the checkpoints a good description of me and told them not to let me leave the compound.
When I finally got to the hospital, Dr. Anderson was already there, along with several high ranking military officers and men in suits that looked important. Dr. Anderson pulled me aside.
“What do you think Ben meant when he said autopsy?” he asked me.
“I have no idea, sir. I thought you might know.”
“Do you think he meant he wanted an autopsy performed on himself?” Dr. Anderson asked, trying to keep his volume down to a whisper.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “But I know that’s what he said, because I asked him twice and he shook his head, yes, both times. Then…then…it was over.” Tears were spilling down my cheeks and I was wiping them as fast as I could with my shirt sleeve.
“I believe that given the circumstances, they may do an autopsy on Ben and Feldman, anyway. The other man, too. Did you know him?”
“I didn’t even know Feldman before they nabbed us,” I said. “But I heard them call the guy that Ben shot and killed Carl. The one who was wounded, they called Harold. I’ve seen him before. He’s a foreman on one of the electrical crews.”
“Well, we’ve got ourselves one hell of a mess,” Dr. Anderson said. “If it hadn’t been for you and Ben, things could have really gotten out of hand. I just hope Feldman hadn’t already done this before. Pictures of our schematics and blueprints in the wrong hands would be very unfortunate.” Dr. Anderson paused for a minute, his countenance changing to one of solemnity. “Mr. Martin, I know how close you and Ben were. He spoke of you and your wife to me several times. I just want you to know how sorry I am for both of you. I had grown very fond of Ben myself. Minds like his only come along once in a great while. But his mind wasn’t his greatest attribute. His greatest quality was his heart. He was one of the most genuinely and sincerely, good young men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “And I agree completely. Ben had a heart as big as all outdoors. He saw the good in everybody and never spoke ill of anyone. Trusting people too much may have been his biggest fault.”
*****
Even though I couldn’t stand the thought of Ben’s body being desecrated by an autopsy, there was nothing I could do. I ask Dr. Anderson to contact me if anything out of
the ordinary was found. There had to be a reason for Ben to have made that his last word on earth. Ben never did or said much without a definite purpose. The next day when the autopsy was performed, we found out why. When Ben’s stomach was opened, a small black capsule was recovered. The capsule was small enough to swallow, but not without effort. I had always kept a gallon jug of water in my truck in case it ran hot. Apparently Ben had to have used it to wash the film capsule down hurriedly when he saw the men. Ben had swallowed the roll of film and was willing to die rather than give it up to the treasonous Feldman and his cohorts. What was more amazing, was him having the presence of mind to use his last breath to make sure I knew. He only had the time and strength for one word and he chose it carefully.
*****
A few weeks later, after three other spies who were co-conspirators of Feldman and his Nazi financiers were arrested, Rachel and I, along with Ben’s mother, were flown to Washington to meet President Roosevelt. I was to be awarded the Congressional Gold Metal, the highest award any civilian can receive. Evergreen, Ben’s mama, cried like a baby as she accepted Ben’s Congressional Gold Metal, awarded to him posthumously. We even got to have supper with the president and Mrs. Roosevelt. The president looked worn out and I could tell his health was not good. Still, he was a gracious host, as was Vice President and Mrs. Truman.
I took a few liberties and told the president what a bright and wonderful young man Ben was and how his patriotism held fast, despite his having to cope with racial inequities his whole life. The president said he would have given anything to have known him and praised Evergreen for raising such a wonderful son. I knew the president was sincere, but without actually having met Ben, he had no idea what an amazing person he had been denied the privilege of getting to know. I made up my mind right then and there that I would dedicate the rest of my life letting the world know about Ben Evans. He was a genius and a hero. The kind of person everyone, except a few ignorant bigots, love and want to be close to. With Rachel and Abby’s help, I was going to be sure the whole world knew about him, no matter how long it took or how much it cost.
*****
We buried Ben in the Negro cemetery in Collinwood, next to his great-grandmother. His funeral was attended by several congressmen, professors from Morehead College and Harvard University, as well as some of the most distinguished men in the country. Albert Einstein was among them. Dr. Einstein even accepted Rachel’s invitation to the meal Lizzie had prepared for everyone after the funeral was over. Most of the town was there. Even some of the men who had been responsible for the lynching of Ben’s papa showed their cowardly faces. They had heard he had died doing something very heroic, and I guess even they honored heroism and patriotism, even from someone with black skin.
We found out Ben had bought a life insurance policy worth $350,000. He wanted to make sure his family never had to live in another sharecropper shack again or pick another cotton boll, unless they owned the land where the cotton was grown. The money put all of Ben’s brothers and sisters through college. Nellie and Sam became doctors. Evergreen could live out the rest of her life in comfort, in a nice house that belonged to her.
We all put our heads together to come up with the perfect marker for Ben’s grave. We spent days going over different scenarios, trying to find just the right epitaph. Finally, Abby came up with the perfect idea. On a beautiful Italian marble stone, it reads:
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN EVANS
THE SHARECROPPER PRODIGY
OCTOBER 29, 1925 - MARCH 18, 1944
A BRILLIANT PHYSICIST WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS TO HIS COUNTRY AND THE WORLD WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. RECIPIENT OF THE CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. BELOVED SON, BROTHER AND FRIEND
*******
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