“You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty. Fool white woman.”
“I’m sorry. I want to help Joe. Let me help.”
Hildy fought back tears. “There’s nothing you can do.” She collapsed in the chair. The thought of losing Joe overwhelmed her.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you right away about Joe.” Mary’s voice raised in pitch. “I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “Today happened to me too.”
Hildy dug her nails into the wood. She didn’t want this white woman to see her cry.
“He might make it,” Mary whispered.
Hildy’s head lifted. Yes, if Joe was free, he’d head for Lena’s River. “He’ll need food,” she said, rising, tugging a canvas bag off its peg. She opened the ice box, gathering leftovers—chicken, chunks of Colby, powder biscuits, pie.
“Let me help.”
“Don’t need your help.”
“You know where he’s gone, don’t you?”
“It’s time for you to clear out. Go home. You’ve had your say. Your say doesn’t help Joe.”
“That’s not fair. I can help.”
“Fair? You think you can walk in here and make everything better for yourself. Well, you can’t. Joe means more to me than the world—I raised him.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do,” Mary shouted back. “I raised a brother too. Jody. He lost a leg in the war.”
Chest heaving, the bag heavy in her arms, Hildy stared at Mary. Face to face, she could see they were the same height, about the same age given their gray hair, the lines tugging at their eyes and mouths. “You’re an old maid,” she said disgustedly. “Same as me. A useless old maid.”
Mary sighed. Taking the heavy bag from Hildy, she laid it on the table. “I can work. Same as you. You’ve got a jug for water? You’ll need to take him water.”
Hildy relented. It was easier to let this white girl help her than waste time arguing. She motioned to the cabinet beneath the sink.
“Ice box? You got ice box water?”
“Yes,” said Hildy, watching Mary fill the jug.
“I’m sorry. For hurting Joe. For hurting you and your family.” Mary rearranged the bag, with the water at the bottom. “Seems like folks decided to walk right over me to hurt Joe. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Nothing I say means anything. Not even the sheriff believes me. My words count for nothing.”
“You have to be somebody before they listen to you in Tulsa.” Hildy wrapped matches in waxed paper.
“You know Joe never touched me.”
“I know. If a black man’s a mile down the road and a white woman hollers, it’s rape. But if a white man tears off a Negro woman’s dress, no one believes her. It isn’t rape.” Hildy moved closer. “Why you think that’s so, Miss Mary?”
Hildy needed to hear this white woman’s answer. She needed to hear her say something stupid, so she could hate her outright. Not care about Christian charity. Not care about Mary’s pain. If she said something stupid, she could slap her, push her out of the kitchen door, down the porch steps.
“Truth is I never paid colored folk any mind.” Mary spoke slowly, cautiously. “I’ve worked at the Ambrose for six years. I couldn’t tell you when Joe started. I couldn’t tell you a damn thing about him. Hair, height. Being colored just made him disappear for me. But after today I could tell you there’s gold in his eyes.”
Hildy nodded.
“Joe let me see him. Let me see myself shining in a pool of tears. We were both of us drowning. Both of us trying to come up for air.”
“But you screamed. You must’ve screamed.”
“Yes.” Her shoulders drooped. “The one time I should’ve stayed hush. But I couldn’t. I hurt so bad.”
“Miss Mary,” Hildy said, vehement. “You’re still talking about you. You haven’t done nothing for Joe.”
“I tried.”
“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough, Miss Mary. You’re free—Joe’s on the run. Saying sorry is one thing, making good on ‘sorry’ is another.”
“I’m doing it. I’m helping you, aren’t I?” Mary dug inside her dress. “Here.” She pulled her rumpled dollars from her pocket. “Take this to Joe. It’s all I have. Take it.”
Hildy clutched the bills. “I’ll take it. But now leave my father’s house. Leave my kitchen, Miss Mary. You’re not welcome here.” Hildy turned away, disgusted. She didn’t hear footsteps. All right. Well and good. Miss Mary could take a minute to gather herself.
Hildy went into the pantry and digging behind a flour pail, she pulled out a small pouch. She counted bills and coins. She had nineteen dollars, twenty-seven with Miss Mary’s eight. She turned off the pantry light, expecting Miss Mary to be gone from her kitchen. But the crazy woman was still standing there pale as a ghost. Hildy could feel her fury rising again. One more minute and, Lord forgive her, she’d beat this woman out her kitchen. Christian charity or not.
“I’m Mary. Just plain Mary.” Mary’s face was dull. Her hands hung limp at her sides.
Hildy shivered. She heard such hurt in Mary’s voice.
“I was raped this morning. By a white man. Pa’s hired hand. I told Sheriff Clay Joe didn’t touch me but I didn’t tell him who did. I was a coward. I didn’t want folks talking about me any more than they already were. I didn’t want to tell the sheriff something so,” she looked down at her shoes, then up again, “personal.”
Mary limped forward. “But I promise you—if it will help Joe, I’ll tell the entire city, the whole world, if necessary, that a white man raped me, not Joe.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. But I never accused Joe. Never. No one will ever make me say any different.”
Hildy felt the Lord taking her by the hand, leading her to a greater light.
“I want to help Joe escape. Besides,” Mary stated grimly, “if you’re stopped by the Klan, my whiteness might be useful to you. To Joe’s safety.”
Maybe the woman would be useful. It wouldn’t be easy to get Joe out of Tulsa. Father wouldn’t help Joe escape, that was sure, thought Hildy. She could ask Emmaline, but Emmaline might tell Father. Hildy looked closely at this strange woman in her kitchen.
“You understand I love my brother?”
“Yes,” Mary answered simply. “I do.”
Hildy stretched out her hand. “My name is Hildy.”
Hildy felt Mary’s matching calluses, the matching strength in the white hand cupping her own. Slowly, she exhaled, thinking the Lord was putting her in the fire as well. If she made a mistake trusting this woman, she might fail Joe again.
Mary’s eyes never wavered.
Hildy nodded.
“We can carry the supplies to Lena’s River,” said Hildy. “Joe’ll go there, if anywhere.”
17
Clay couldn’t quite remember the joke. It bothered him—something about a rabbit and a lion. It wasn’t really a joke. More like a joke on the lion. Some trick, just like Joe’s trick. He’d underestimated the boy.
Almost midnight and Clay still hadn’t found Joe. He’d sent deputies fanning out across the roads between Tulsa and Greenwood. Sully was in charge of door-to-door searches. Coloreds would be riled, but Clay didn’t have much choice. He didn’t doubt he was racing against Klansmen hunting for Joe.
Clay searched alone. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he wanted to find Joe himself.
He’d parked his car at the station and now he moved through the railroad yard, stepping quietly over steel ties and rods, breathing through his mouth. He wished he were hunting squirrel or, better yet, fishing bass outside of town. He’d wanted to escape the war, but he was right back in it. His first few years as sheriff hadn’t been bad—drunks, belligerent gamblers, the occasional prostitute batterer. But progress had come to Tulsa as streams of oil gurgled from the ground. Now murder was on the rise: shootings, lynchings, brutal beatings. He couldn’t figure it. E
verybody was better off. Coloreds had their own town. No white people were starving. Yet night riders, like Lucas and Bates, lynched coloreds and Jews.
Ambrose had a clear purpose—to make Tulsa the rival of Chicago. “Hell, better than Chicago.” The Klan was his tool to make Tulsa the most admired, the most civilized, the most patriotic city west of the Mississippi. No wonder Ambrose was announcing for governor. Tulsa was the cow town transformed: a city of Christian schools, a new Convention Center, and an expanding railroad to haul oil and cattle out, silks and good whiskey in.
Clay stooped, his fingers touching a clean print in the dirt. He’d been lured to Tulsa because he’d heard it was a hunter’s paradise. In his mind, Tulsa had risen like a dream: rolling hills, musk and cedar scents, woods with free-roaming deer, rabbit, clear streams stocked with crappie and trout, and a horizon clouded only by startled ducks in flight. He thought he’d forget Pittsburgh’s molten steel, its soot-clouded sky, brick-paved hills, tenements overrun with Poles, Italians, and the coloreds’ shanties by its dirty rivers. Tulsa was “the West”—the land of cowboys, open spaces. In Tulsa, his innocence would be reclaimed; a sheriff always kept the peace. How simple he’d been.
Ambrose had hired him because he was a decorated veteran. Clay didn’t tell him his medals were at the bottom of the Monagahela. Clay wasn’t proud of surviving a gas attack, machine-gunning ragged soldiers who thought they were advancing on an unmanned trench.
Clay believed Mary Keane. He wanted justice done. He just wasn’t sure how to do it.
Sweat was dripping into his shoes. He wanted a drink badly, but the flask in his back pocket was empty.
His revolver was loaded. He had cuffs, even cord to hog tie Joe. Clay stopped, his head turned into the wind. Smoke rose from a campfire; hobos were arguing. The train was a stinking, easy rambler of thirty cars hauling cattle and pigs, due to leave at 12:18. The engineer was building pressure in the valves and the crew was loading gear in the caboose. Clay was betting Joe would hop the train. It wouldn’t be easy. But Joe had already done the unbelievable. Clay looked at the train. Where would he hide? There were no passenger cars, not even flat cars carrying wood.
The train gushed steam. Cows lowed like they were in pain. Pigs grunted and squealed. Hooves scraped boxcar floors.
Clay didn’t want to be seen. He ducked behind the rear cars, running low past the couplers, pressing himself flat against the last cattle car. Horns poked through the slat rails; the steers were hungry, restless. No sense feeding animals on their way to slaughter. When he peered into the car, all he saw were thick shapes, the glint of horns, and moonlight catching the frightened glitter of a cow’s brown eye. Splinters dug into his skin.
Clay heard something like a moan. He released the safety on his gun. He was scared, just like in the war. He didn’t want to kill Joe. Steam hissed. Clay stared inside the car; a cow was down, slowly being trampled.
The whistle shrilled. Five minutes. The train would leave. Clay started trekking toward the engine. He stumbled over loose rock, dodged, darted between cars, feeling the rush of air in his lungs as he passed a seemingly endless line of cars, searching for Joe. Clay thought he should be the one leaving. He should hop the train and go.
He’d gone to David Reubens’ funeral knowing he wasn’t welcome. Thornton had gotten a colored mortuary to bury him. Some barber had played a harmonica while a woman wailed: “This train’s bound for freedom. Children, get on board. There’s room for many a-more.”
Clay moved rapidly from car to car. The woman’s song had switched to a blues: “How long, how long, tell me how long the train’s been gone? Baby, how long?” Emotion had rocked him and he’d nearly fallen to his knees, despairing opportunities missed, how corrupt he’d become.
He was twelve cars back from the engine. He’d made a mistake. Joe wasn’t on board. He slowed. Animals caterwauled; the station master yelled, “Twelve-fifteen. Last call.” The engine pulsed with power, metal wheels strained to turn.
Clay squinted at a cattle car. “Gaines’ Tobacco” was in red at the top. Shadows moved behind slats. It was quiet in the car, hushed like animals after feed.
He drew closer, peering at the steers pressed too tight, hides slicked with sweat. Their heads bunting toward the slats for air.
Out of the corner of his eye, to the far right, he saw an open space, not blunted by any form, any shape. With so little space, so little air, it didn’t make sense for the steers to avoid a corner of the jammed car.
“Joe,” Clay called softly. “Joe?” He inched forward, focusing on the blank space. He lowered his gaze. “Joe?” He could see the boy sitting, cross-legged, on straw. Joe was barefoot and soaked. He must’ve hidden in the water trough until the train was ready to leave.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He thought he saw the boy nod.
Joe had astonished him: disappearing from jail, calming cattle as if by magic. Whoever heard of slaughterhouse cows standing still? Unlike him, Joe seemed unafraid.
Clay stooped. Joe scooted forward, leaning his brow against the wood. The boy was shivering, his arms curled about himself.
“Did you remember the joke, sheriff?”
“No.”
“Too bad. It was a good one.”
“You have to come with me, Joe.”
“Do I?”
Clay cursed.
“I want to see the ocean. Ride the train to Frisco. Have you ever been to Frisco, sheriff?”
“No, Joe.”
“You should go.”
Clay reached inside his jacket. “I found this in your personal effects.”
Joe reached for the square. “Did you look at it?”
“Yes.” Clay remembered the brutal, lovely picture of Houdini leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge, crashing, handcuffed and chained, into the water.
Reverently, Joe unfolded the picture. “I tore this from Magical Arts. Houdini surfaced in fifty-seven seconds and swam to shore. I’ve never seen the ocean. Have you?”
“The Atlantic,” said Clay. “I threw up the whole trip to France. I couldn’t keep water down.”
The whistle shrilled again. The train was ready. Cows lowed; pigs whined.
“Sheriff, maybe you never saw me here? Maybe it was too dark?”
Shadow and light streaked across Joe’s face, his expression hopeful. Joe was young enough, Clay thought, to believe in miracles. Clay considered following the boy’s lead. Getting the hell out of town. Clay envied the boy. Now he understood—he’d been hoping to witness Joe’s escape, not capture him.
Joe handed him the picture. It was damp, the paper curling where Joe’s fingers had touched. Houdini risked everything to prove he was invincible. Clay hadn’t risked anything and felt vulnerable every day of his life.
“All right,” he murmured. “Send me a postcard. Let me know when you’re safe.”
Joe grinned. There was a steady clanging. A green light lit the track. Clay nearly laughed outright. The two of them had bested Tulsa.
Horn blaring, a truck swerved onto the lot, its sharp stop kicking up gravel and dust. “Shit.” Nearly a dozen men jumped from the truck’s flatbed. Clay watched Ambrose get out of the cab, stop at Clay’s car. “Damn.”
Ambrose shouted, “Hold that train.”
“What is it, sheriff?” asked Joe.
The men fanned out, flashlights focused and glaring. Waving Joe quiet, Clay drew his gun, flattened his back against the cattle car. “I’ve got to think.” Panic was rising. “Shit.” He should’ve known better. Ambrose was starting his election run.
The men began searching the train, starting from the back and moving systematically forward. Ambrose had moved out of sight, but Clay knew he would be in the thick of it. Joe swinging from a tree would make Ambrose a hero.
“Joe, trust me. You’ve got to let me take you in.” Clay cursed; Joe looked dull-eyed, defeated. “Ambrose and his men are here. You’ve got to let me take you. It’s your only chance.”
Cl
ay undid the latch, slid back the cattle door. Brown noses pushed forward. “Come on, Joe.”
Joe waded forward, pushing against the steers to keep from being crushed.
“Come on, Joe. Come on.”
“Hey, who’s there? That you, sheriff?”
“Hurry, Joe,” Clay whispered, extending his hand. Joe clutched it.
“They’ll burn me.”
“Not if I can help it.” Clay unlatched his cuffs. “Hands behind your back, Joe.”
Animals survived by admitting defeat, going belly up. War had taught Clay men weren’t so reliable. But it was worth a try. He snapped the clasps shut and pulled Joe into the open, away from the train.
“I’ve got him,” Clay shouted, firing his gun in the air.
Other shots rang out; men hollered, “We got him. We’ve caught the nigger.” Men were running, bearing down upon them.
“Steady, Joe,” said Clay.
Joe, head bowed, wet and stinking from the trough, didn’t move.
Men formed a circle around them, some darting forward to sneer, poke a stick at Joe. Clay, gun still drawn, felt like firing into the middle of them.
“Lynch him,” a voice started the chant. Then they were all yelling, foul mouthed and insistent, “Kill the nigger.”
“Get the rope!” someone shouted. “Here.” A heavy rope appeared.
Ambrose stepped into the circle, his bow tie askew, still wearing tails from the evening’s fund-raiser. Though his hair was thinning, his flesh loose at the neck, he still exuded charm. Charming and ruthless, Clay thought.
“So. You found him, boys!” crowed Ambrose, flushed and excited.
“I found him,” said Clay, holding tight onto Joe’s arm.
“Of course.” Ambrose stepped closer. He lifted Joe’s chin.
Joe shuddered, tried to look away.
Ambrose gripped his jaw. “Look me in the eye, boy. Who do you think you are? You think being Douglass Samuels’ son makes you special?”
Ambrose struck Joe square in the mouth.
Joe staggered back.
Magic City Page 14