Brotherhood

by Anne Westrick

“Nothing,” said Jeremiah.

  Shad listened to the rain a spell. “Can Bubba and me come?”

  “Shut up, Shad. We ain’t doing nothing this week.”

  “Next week?”

  “Geez, shut up.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  They walked some more. He saw Jeremiah pull on his goatee, and Shad knew it meant he was working out something in his head. After a time Jeremiah whispered, “Clifton and me told you to keep your ears to the ground and look around the Perkinsons’ house. So did you look around or not?”

  His question came at Shad like a blow. “What?”

  “Don’t gimme that, Shad. What do you know? The rumor about them maybe running a school for coloreds up Libby Hill—is it true or not?”

  Shad stumbled. He scrambled to keep up. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “You’re the one what goes up there for tutoring.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know. I’m in the front room, is all.”

  “When are you next going up there?”

  Shad swallowed. “Monday morning.”

  “Yeah, well, good. We need to know what’s going on behind the house, not in the front room.”

  The rain hit harder all of a sudden—pelting, driving sideways. Jeremiah picked up the pace. Shad felt rain stream down his cheeks and back. Jeremiah leaned in and put his mouth at Shad’s ear. “How hard is it for you to see if there’s a shed out back?”

  “Well, I don’t know. That—uh—it wouldn’t be right for me to go around there.”

  “Ain’t hard to walk around the block and see behind a house.”

  “I don’t know. It’s got, uh, a big hedge back there.”

  “It’s a simple question, Shad. Miz Perkinson got a shed out back or don’t she?”

  Shad let his mouth fall open. Rain poured off him in sheets.

  “Monday suppertime, I want a report, you hear me? Yes or no, a shed or no shed. I’m not asking for me, Shad. I’m asking for the brotherhood. The Cyclops needs to know.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “And if there is a shed, then we got to know if she’s schooling coloreds there. ’Cause if it’s true—Clifton and me, we’re gonna torch it. And if there’s coloreds in there when it goes up in smoke, well, all the better.”

  Shad’s heart stopped. “J-Jeremiah, you can’t do that.”

  “Assignment from the Cyclops.”

  “That’s Church Hill. It ain’t like some shack along the tracks. That’s white folks up there.”

  “White folks schooling coloreds.”

  “That’s Perkinson property.”

  “We ain’t gonna touch the main house. Just the shed. It’ll look like an accident, Shad. Accidents happen.”

  “You—you can’t do that. You’ll get arrested.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “You’ll end up in jail again.”

  “And the Klan will get me out.”

  “Get you out? How they gonna get you out?”

  The rain hit harder now, pelting Shad’s back, carving little streams in the dirt road, turning everything to mud. Jeremiah broke into an all-out run, and Shad let him get ahead. Run, Shad thought. Go on and run! Run so he wouldn’t see Shad’s face give him away.

  I hate you, thought Shad. Burning a school? Not caring if children were inside? It was worse than not caring. The Klan—they wanted children inside—colored children. Wanted to make it look like an accident. Good Lord Almighty.

  What if Rachel and the children were in there when it went up in flames? If Jeremiah carried through with this . . . Shad shuddered.

  He couldn’t let the Klan do it. Lord, what had he gotten himself into? Was this what the Klan was really all about? He shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t believe it. So much about the Klan was good. The brotherhood, the chickens. Men supporting one another, like Mr. Dabney buying a foot mat he didn’t need.

  The Klan was a good thing. And Daddy would rest easy knowing his family could survive without him, knowing Jeremiah and Shad were looking out for Mama. They were part of a brotherhood that cared for widows and Confederate orphans and the rest.

  But this business about burning a colored school? Shad couldn’t let the Klan do it.

  But he couldn’t stand up to them, either. They were too big. There were too many of them—they were everybody. Jeremiah. Clifton. Bubba. Mr. O’Malley. Mr. Dabney. Even his granddaddy.

  He shuddered again. What if they burned the school and no one got out alive? The next day folks would shake their heads and say, “Shame. Did you hear about that school burning down with all them coloreds inside? Crying shame.” Jeremiah and Clifton—they would strut up and down the streets of Shockoe, and men would mumble, “Shame,” while patting the boys on their backs and offering cigars.

  Now the rain hit so hard, it hurt. Shad stopped and turned. He held his face high and let it pound him—first one cheek, then the other. Let it hit him—he deserved it. Lord, take me. He didn’t want to live to see them hurt Rachel and the children. A psalm came into his head and he whispered the words to the rain.

  In my distress, I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me.

  Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

  Then, as if the Lord had heard him, lightning lit the sky. Thunder boomed so loudly, Shad’s heart leaped out of his chest. He ran.

  When he got to the house, he tiptoed through and stripped off his FEED AND SEED shirt and Willy Johnson britches, leaving them in a heap in the corner of the room. Then he crawled into bed, his hair steaming like a wet dog. Jeremiah was already sound asleep.

  25

  Glory, Hallelujah

  MONDAY MORNING, rain was still falling. On Friday afternoon Shad had sewn a pocket into his white silk shirt—sewn it low and on the left side, so it would be perfect for carrying a little timepiece. Then he’d washed the shirt and hung it to dry, but even after hanging near the cookstove for two days, the shirt was dead-bird limp. All that rain, and nothing in the house was dry.

  He took Mama’s black umbrella with the three broken wood ribs, but with the rain driving sideways and the wind popping his umbrella inside out, by the time he got to the Perkinsons’, he was drenched through and through—a six-foot-tall puddle on the front step.

  “Sorry,” he told Caroline as she let him tiptoe down the hall to the back door.

  “Get on! Quick, quick now.”

  Shad reached the kitchen and looked back to see her in the light of the kerosene lamp, mopping up the hallway, erasing any sign that he’d come through dripping wet.

  He stepped outside and stood for a spell at the top of the stairs, setting his hand on the wooden banister. It had once been sanded smooth and painted, but the paint had worn in places, and today the banister was swollen from the rain. He rubbed his fingers lightly up and down the wood, thinking about the lesson he’d planned.

  Kitty wanted to sew a dress, and she was ready for gathers. She was weeks ahead of the other children. It was plenty in a day for them to sew flat little sacks and remember to clip corners before turning a piece right-side out. But not for Kitty.

  While the others practiced seams, he’d show Kitty how setting gathers meant running two lines of long basting stitches first, then pulling gently on the threads to arrange the fabric, then pinning the whole thing to another piece—like the skirt to the bodice or the sleeve to the shoulder—and running yet another line of basting stitches before settling in to do the fine work.

  All the basting was akin to preparing wood for paint, and with the rain, even with Kitty catching on fast, Shad didn’t expect the lesson to go well—not on damp cloth.

  He looked toward the shed, waiting for dawn to give it form. Then he thought about what he was doing, and the thought made him dizzy. What he was doing was wrong. It was exactly what th
e Klan feared. He was teaching skills to coloreds.

  If Kitty learned to gather, and if he taught her collars and cuffs and buttonholes, her skills would be in demand. Some highfalutin lady might even hire Kitty—why, she’d only pay Kitty half what she’d pay Weaver’s Fine Tailoring for a dress.

  His fingers gripped the banister to keep him from toppling down the steps. He shouldn’t have agreed to keep coming.

  How long could he put off Jeremiah before he’d have to tell him what was what? Yes, a shed. Northwest corner of the property, away from the Twenty-eighth Street side, beside a hedgerow, just beyond the door to the icehouse, invisible from Twenty-eighth Street on account of the holly bushes. Jeremiah would have to get to it from the alley—from that little opening in the hedge.

  Lord God Almighty, what the hell was he doing? He was Klan—a KKK brother. He should have felt proud to serve the brotherhood—report to Jeremiah, make his assignment go smoothly. But no matter how much Shad talked to himself, he couldn’t keep his head from shaking no.

  The kitchen door opened and lantern light peeked out. Rachel stepped onto the landing. “Ha! Look at you—wet as an otter.” She nudged his side and he held fast to the banister all the way down the stairs.

  In the shed, rain pounded so loudly on the roof, it was nearly as loud as thunder. The roof leaked in four places, and the children pushed and shoved, trying to keep from standing under the drips. Even with the windows open, the air was thick with the stench of musty clothing and steaming bodies and smoke from the kerosene lantern. Shad didn’t think a lesson on setting gathers would go over well, and he felt relieved when Rachel seemed to read his thoughts.

  She declared, “Let’s try something new today. We’ll remain standing. Mr. Nelson has taught me the words to a wonderful song, and I’d like to teach it to you. It goes like this.” She commenced to sing, and all the children turned her way.

  Shad rested his eyes on her face and watched her glow in the lantern light. Darn if her rich singing voice didn’t mesmerize him. It was deep and clear—as smooth as French satin.

  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

  His truth is marching on.

  Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!

  His truth is marching on.

  He watched her close her eyes as she sang, and when she got to the end of that verse, she opened them and started teaching the song, one line at a time.

  As the children strained to hear over the pounding rain—to hear and follow the tune and the words—Shad was struck by an odd feeling of safety. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before—not in church, not at home, not in a brotherhood meeting. The pounding rain drowned out everything—the day, the threats, the Klan, Jeremiah. It was so loud, Shad was sure the neighbors couldn’t hear the singing even though everyone was carrying on like there was no tomorrow.

  And not only loud—but that rain was too wet. If it kept raining like this, rained for forty days and forty nights, Klansmen couldn’t burn the shed if they tried. Not even a torch could take down the shed right now. Everyone would be safe as long as it kept raining.

  Then a thunderclap made them jump. It sounded like a tree trunk had split in half, and Shad expected a great oak to crash down upon them. But nothing fell, and even if it had, well, that was the darnedest thing—the feeling of safety stayed with him. If the world had ended in that very moment with Shad singing “Glory, hallelujah” in a shed full of coloreds, he’d have gone to his Maker with a smile on his face. He sensed that he belonged like he hadn’t ever belonged anywhere before.

  He shook his head. Stop, he thought. He was losing his mind. Leave, Shad—just get on home. Get out. You don’t belong here.

  But his feet didn’t budge.

  Maggie inched her way through the children, around the drips from the leaky roof, and stopped at his side. She wrapped her wet arms around his waist, and her hands felt tense and tentative on his shirt. Shad cringed. He didn’t want this little girl hanging on him. But then Maggie tilted her head and turned her face up and closed her eyes, and let her little-girl voice reach the rafters. Her hands and arms relaxed and settled into Shad’s waist, and she gave herself over to the music. He felt her voice seep right through his shirt and into his chest, and the words to the song vibrated deep down in his soul.

  Shad closed his eyes and for a second, he wasn’t sure where to put his hand. Maggie hung on his waist and his hand hung in the air, looking for a resting place when nothing felt right. But after a spell, he set his hand on top of Maggie’s shoulder—on that wet gingham dress with the crooked pocket she’d sewn on the front all by herself.

  The next thing Shad knew, he felt a hand come down on his own shoulder—the shoulder on the side where Maggie wasn’t. He turned, expecting—well, he wasn’t sure what. Eloise, maybe? But the hand belonged to Nathaniel.

  Shad frowned, irritated that the boy was keeping his eyes on him and Maggie, making sure Shad didn’t do that little girl any harm. He glared in Nathaniel’s direction, only to see the boy’s eyes twinkle. Darn if that boy wasn’t smiling as he sang. Darn if his hand on Shad’s shoulder wasn’t . . . friendly.

  Then Shad couldn’t stop his own smile from coming up and erasing his frown. He tilted his head and took a deep breath and listened to the way Nathaniel’s little-boy soprano voice blended right fine into all the other voices.

  Glory, glory, hallelujah.

  By the time Shad hit Nine Mile Road midmorning, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, then a mist. He opened the door to his family’s little white house as a ray of sunshine cut through the clouds.

  “Lord have mercy, a drowned rat—that’s what you look like,” said Mama.

  Shad smiled. He knew she was right. “I’ll throw on my nightshirt and put these clothes on the line.”

  “And hang these out there, too, would you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, picking up the basket beside the table where she was ironing. Later they’d sup at that table—the only table. Shad thought someday maybe he’d make Mama a board fashioned especially for ironing—maybe Christmas this year.

  He changed his clothes and headed out to the line—a woven cotton rope running from the corner of the roof to the top of the outhouse. The rope hung low from the rain, and from the lowest spot of all—smack-dab in the middle—there was a slow drip that had made a little puddle in the dirt. He’d need to crank up the rope before he hung the shirts and pants and whatnot. But first he thought to check on the chickens, and he set down the basket.

  “Hey there, Peep. Hey, Poke, how you doing?”

  “Shad!”

  He jumped. Shoot. Jeremiah was splitting logs near the outhouse. Shad’s mouth went dry. The sun burned the top of his head, his shoulders, his back through the cotton nightshirt. He wasn’t ready to see Jeremiah.

  Shad watched his brother drop the ax and strut toward him. Shad could tell Jeremiah was going to bump his shoulder into Shad’s. A brotherly bump. He saw it coming, and he moved with it and held his balance.

  Jeremiah leaned into his ear. “They got a shed up there or not?”

  Shad shrugged and kept his head down.

  “Come on, boy. Shed or no shed?”

  “I—uh, I don’t know.” Shad squatted and wrapped his fingers in the wire mesh around the chicken coop.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I—like I told you—I’m in the front room. That’s all.”

  Jeremiah slammed a fist on the wooden slats over the coop, and the mesh rattled. The chickens squawked.

  “If you ain’t gonna give me no report, I’ll have to go up there myself.”

  Shad tried to steady the mes
h—stop its rattling. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. The wire bent and he felt it cut into his hand. He opened his eyes to watch a drop of blood draw a line from the base of his middle finger straight down his palm. Shad looked at his hand like it wasn’t even his.

  “Worthless,” Jeremiah mumbled. Then Shad heard him strut back to the ax. Heard him splinter a log and start whistling “God Save the South.”

  Peep came close, cocked her head, and cooed at Shad. He leaned toward her scruffy red-brown face, and went to whisper, “Hey there, Peep.” But no sound came out.

  26

  Bad Boys

  EARLY TUESDAY morning Shad sat in the chair by the front window and stitched a buttonhole. From time to time, he glanced at Mr. Perkinson’s pocket watch, glad that he could now rely on it instead of wishful thinking that he’d get places on time. He ran his fingers over the watch, and it occurred to him that it was almost as fancy-pants as a brass door knocker. Owning a watch meant living a responsible life. It meant growing up and becoming a man and earning money that could buy fine things like armchairs and shoes and maybe even a pipe. Good dreams . . . maybe someday he’d buy himself a pipe.

  He fussed with another buttonhole and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well. He’d tossed and turned, trying to figure out a way to warn Rachel and Miss Elizabeth about Jeremiah fixing to torch the shed. But if he dared say anything—no, he couldn’t think about betraying the Klan.

  By the time he needed to get going, dawn had long since given way to morning. Summer was coming and the days were growing longer. They’d eaten corn bread for breakfast and Jeremiah had left early, saying once again that he would get a day job up Richmond proper.

  Shad set aside the sewing and pulled on his silk shirt—it was finally dry—and asked Mama if she needed anything in town.

  “Nothing today, son. But you remember to watch your mouth around them Yankee-lovers, now.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m real careful and real respectful, Mama.”

  “That’s my boy. If they ask about that dress—tell ’em I ain’t done yet. Had to get Doc Moore’s trousers done first, and then—”