Disgusted, he slammed his feet down from the desk, swiveled in his chair. His chin was stubby; he needed a shave. He poured himself another bourbon. He’d sent five deputies to guard the jail’s perimeter and patrol the park. Except for the buzz of his dim lamp, it was quiet in his office. He was all alone in the near dark. Drinking himself into a light stupor.
He was sorry Joe had to take a beating. Not once had the boy cried out. Or begged for mercy. Everything about the boy was a puzzle. He didn’t rely on his father’s wealth. He told stories while shining shoes. Whoever heard of a colored dreaming of Houdini? Doing magic, illusions?
One winter, before his troop shipped out, Clay watched Houdini, chained and bound in a box, being lowered into the Hudson. Clay had thought him stupid, risking his life. When he’d emerged, Houdini, wet, had ignored the crowd and looked upward, shaking his fist at the sky.
Clay’s feet hit the floor. He didn’t understand any of it.
Clay guessed dreaming of Houdini was better than not dreaming, believing in nothing. Useful too. Clay still couldn’t figure how Joe had escaped. The kid so startled him, Clay could scarcely credit he was colored. But even dumb, lowing cows had known Joe was touched by grace. Clay wanted Joe gone. To San Francisco. Wherever. He didn’t belong in Tulsa.
Clay wasn’t certain he could keep Joe alive. Joe’s bruised, bloody body was an affront; that’s why he’d laid the boy on the cot and left the cell fast.
But who was he kidding? He’d given a few orders, had a few drinks, and fallen asleep. In a goddamned metal chair. No grand plans. No standing guard at the window. No dreams of substance. The key to life—sleep it off. Wake up. Another day. The problem might be gone. Shit. Clay hurled his bottle. Glass and brown amber stained the white walls.
He rested his head on his desk. He’d traveled west to nowhere. No wife. No friends. Maybe it was time to pack up and move on. They were going to hang Joe, just like Reubens. He was fooling himself if he thought he could stop it. Mary Keane or not.
Clay straightened, staring at the shadow of the barred windows on his wall. He lit a cigarette. Okay. Some game got away. Some battles weren’t won. Mistakes, foul-ups happened.
God, he was a son-of-a-bitch. He’d just grown old, not wise. He had to save Joe. Or drown in the well.
He got up, drawn to the window. Lace-edged leaves arched toward the sky. Courthouse Square was supposed to be an oasis. A garden flanked by the city’s best—the best hotel, the newest high-rise, the most modern jail, and a courthouse with the finest, swiftest justice. Citizens strolled in the park enamored of their city’s pleasures. Today they’d sit on white chairs, hands folded, eager to be instructed in Ambrose’s version of the truth. Civic pride, boosterism of the worst kind. Full employment for whites. Any job whites didn’t want offered to coloreds.
Spiraling beyond the park’s center were smaller communities. Towns within the city. Black Greenwood. Brink and 24th—dirt alleys snaking between Tulsa and Greenwood—where the races secretly mixed, where Prohibition didn’t exist, and women were bartered for gaming chips. The other neighborhoods—all white, some rich, some poor, righteous and unrighteous—expected Clay to keep coloreds in their place.
Clay pressed his forehead against the window, trying to see if his sentries were still on duty, whether they’d decided to give up the ghost. Whoever heard of white men protecting a nigger?
The sky was going to be goddamned blue. Night was just fading, but he could tell already it would be a cloudless, blue day. Ambrose was probably rousing the judge out of bed, expecting Clay to bring the prisoner to the court for a special arraignment. He wouldn’t be surprised if Joe was convicted with spare time for a final meal. Then the town could hang him in good conscience. He doubted if Mary Keane would be called to testify.
He’d better untie Joe, get the blood flowing in his arms and legs so he could at least stand for judgment.
“Sheriff.”
“Hey, Sully.” Clay crushed his cigarette in the tray.
“You should see this.”
Clay stared stupidly at the paper. Black lines and dots blurred, meaningless.
“Read it, sheriff.”
His eyes focused. “‘NIGGER RAPES WHITE WOMAN.’ Who wrote this?”
“Greenly’s been complaining about circulation.”
Clay stared at Sully. He looked like a dumb, pimple-faced kid. He was twenty-nine. His family was poor, but Sully had made good.
“Says, ‘Brute tore her clothes.’ Says Miss Keane wasn’t even working. Says she was ‘visiting her dead father’s lawyer.’ Said she was ‘mercifully—’”
“‘Mercifully unconscious,’” read Clay, “‘when the nigger had his way.’ I’ll be damned.”
Sully pointed, “Read the last line.”
“‘Lynching is the only justice.’” Clay tore the paper. “Sully, I want you and the deputies to collect these papers. We’ll destroy them. Impound Greenly’s press.”
“Sheriff—”
“Ambrose will help. He won’t want a mob stealing his thunder.”
“Sheriff—”
“Goddamnit, Sully,” Clay pounded the table. “There must be at least the semblance of justice. A semblance, mind you. Joe is owed at least that.” Breathing heavily, Clay collapsed in his chair; he stared dully at his desk, then disgustedly swept his cigarettes, ashes, papers onto the floor.
“Sheriff,” Sully said patiently, “it’s past dawn. Papers already delivered. Newsstands ain’t open. But all it takes is one man or woman padding to the porch, picking up the paper, reading the headline. Not even dressed yet. No coffee. No breakfast. One person and the calls start getting made. You know that.”
“I know that,” Clay muttered into the wood, his head resting on his crisscrossed arms.
“You also know phones have been ringing for hours.”
“Yes.”
“Probably some colored who sweeps the Tribune’s floors, cleans the toilets, told folks before the printer started rolling. Everybody in Greenwood knows. Probably known it for hours.”
“Yes.” Clay squeezed his eyes, he could see it all happening: folks staggering awake, whispered voices, muttered curses. Phones ringing. Maybe the harmonica man calling folks together. In a church. On the streets. Harmonizing his blues. Greenwood awake while Tulsa slept.
“Yes. Coloreds would know. Samuels would know. They’re probably on their way here.”
“The Klan will follow soon enough.”
“Extra! Extra! Read all about it.” Clay looked up at Sully’s thin, scarred face. “You’re a good man, Sully.”
He shrugged. “Don’t be counting Lucas out. Ambrose can’t control him any better than you can.”
“What about the deputies?”
Sully studied the floor, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “They’ll stay.”
Clay sensed another failure. “Thanks, Sully.”
He retrieved his gun from its peg on the wall.
Sully moved to the window.
Clay unlocked a cabinet racked with rifles, ammunition. “Call in the off-duty officers. We’ll walk the streets. Use patrol cars, bull horns. Tell everyone to stay calm.” He stacked Winchesters on the desk. “Sully, you supply folks from here. I’ll ask Ambrose to get Greenly to print a retraction. Notify folks the law will run its course.”
“Too late, Sheriff.”
“What do you mean?”
Sully angled his head.
Clay brushed Sully aside and peered out the window. “Shit.” Coloreds were marching across the park, right in front of Ambrose’s Decoration Day platform. “Goddamn. Shit.” Clay wanted to retreat. Lead with his feet and run.
Some of the men wore Army green. Service caps. A few had Army rifles with bayonets. They weren’t a rag-tailed mob. They moved with grim purpose, marching in lock-step like an advancing army. “Goddamn.” Bringing up the rear was a midnight man in an ankle-length service coat. Clay remembered seeing him in the Ambrose. The man’s head was high—if Clay d
idn’t know better, he’d have sworn the man was a general.
“Let’s go, Sully. We’ll stop them at the steps.”
Clay’s heart was pumping. He was in the war again, struggling to make do, to survive. He dashed down the stairwell, almost tumbling down the flight of stairs. He could hear the approaching men, feet pounding, moving forward. He was glad Sully was at his back.
“Damn,” Clay swung open the doors and shouted, “Don’t fire,” to the deputies on duty. “Sully,” he said breathlessly, “there should be seven. Who’s not here?”
“Eddie. John. Peter.”
“Find them. Tell them to be calm. Don’t do anything.”
Sully hesitated.
“For God’s sake, Sully, do it. One shot and we’re lost.”
Sully nodded, skirting the building’s side.
The coloreds chanted: “Free Joe. Free Joe.” Clay could hear other voices, words floating up, syncopating the chant: “Joe’s innocent,” “Let him go,” “Let our people go.”
Sucking in his gut, trying to appear calm, Clay studied the band. At least three dozen men. He recognized some of them: meat cutters, chauffeurs, clerks who swept grocery aisles. Faces mottled, they waved the Tribune, cursing, shouting, “Free Joe.” The men angled through the trees, heading directly toward the street, the jail.
Clay recognized the veterans—expressionless, trained to be deadly, they were focused on him. Even the ones who’d never fought, who’d served in latrines, commissaries, had the warrior’s face. Dispassionate, steel-edged. Fear and pain would come later. But nothing was lost yet. The war hadn’t begun.
War.
As soon as he thought it, he knew it was true. War was coming. Clay couldn’t help feeling he was to blame. He’d let injustice hide within justice, tried to ignore the twin-edged terrors of Ambrose and the Klan. The lines here would be drawn colored and white as they’d been in Europe. But there wouldn’t be a common enemy. Just common hatred.
The coloreds spread out below him, blocking the jail’s entrance. Their voices and steps diminished, softened to an uncanny stillness. To the left of him, Clay heard a gun being cocked. “Easy, Pete.”
Clay exhaled, wondering where Sully was. Joe’s words came back to him: “Were you ever a slave catcher?” He felt like one now. The coloreds looked at him, waiting for a signal, but Clay knew it wasn’t his signal to give. All of the men held themselves in check. Clay felt the tension. The crowd parted. The man in the Army coat stepped forward.
Wiping his palms on his pants, Clay moved downward to greet him. He offered his hand and caught the man off guard. He didn’t take his hand, but Clay hadn’t expected he would. He’d hoped to buy time, a few seconds of peace.
“You’ve got Joe Samuels in your jail. We’ve come for him before he’s lynched.”
“Nobody’s going to be lynched.” Clay was surprised he’d said it.
“Hung then. Same difference. Same white justice. Same way one of your deputies killed Joe’s grandfather, beat his father last night.”
“Terrorized the women,” shouted someone else.
“I didn’t send any deputies.”
“Tell ’em, Gabe, how Deputy Lucas tore the house apart.”
“I’ll have his job.”
“Too late now.”
Clay turned to the sandy-colored man.
“Damage is done,” sneered Sandy. “Tyler’s dead. Mr. Samuels’ blind in one eye.”
Clay turned back to Gabe. “Corporal. You were a corporal, weren’t you?” It was a calculated risk. Clay saw pride, disdain ripple across the veteran’s face. “I have to consider tactics. If I let you take Joe, hundreds might get hurt.”
“So you’ll sacrifice Joe. What’s one less nigger?” a taller man exploded. “Isn’t that what white folks want—one less nigger?
“Quiet, Nate.”
“Gabe, he’s mocking you, man.”
“I’m not mocking anyone,” said Clay. “I don’t want folks hurt.”
“What about this?” Someone shoved the Tribune at Clay.
Clay focused on Gabe. “I intend to impound the paper. Joe’s innocent until proven guilty. Miss Keane swears Joe didn’t touch her. I believe her.”
“Did you believe Joe?”
“Yes.” Clay shouted in the direction of the voice. There were murmurs in the crowd.
“He’s lying out of his mouth,” said Nate.
“I don’t think he’s lying.”
Clay recognized the harmonica man.
“Lying Man, go on now,” said Nate. “White men lie. Hated us since we got home from the war. Angry ’cause we want our rights. You read the Chicago papers, New York. They had their hot summers.”
“We agreed, Nate,” insisted Lying Man. “No harm to anyone.”
“That’s right,” Gabe murmured. “I don’t want a riot. I want to save Joe.”
“This way,” said Clay, looking at the armed men, “will surely get him killed.”
“Lieutenant,” sneered Gabe, “you must’ve been a lieutenant, right? If we let you keep Joe, can you swear he won’t be dead in a day?”
“No lynch mob will get him. I promise you. I represent the law.”
“Lieutenant, that’s not enough. Will your law do right by Joe?”
Clay should’ve bluffed. His body betrayed him. He glanced at the cracked pavement, away from Gabe’s piercing stare.
Gabe responded grimly, “I’ll guess we’ll take him, sheriff. Be man enough to step aside. No harm will come to you or your men.”
“If you do this, if you take Joe, there’ll be no holding back the town.”
“They’re not going to be held back anyway,” answered Gabe. “Never have been. Never will be. How many Negroes you got in your jail? That’s what it was built for—to hold Negroes, keep us in place.
“I’m going to climb these steps, sheriff, and collect Joe. I’m asking you to help me. Asking you kindly. Step aside.”
Clay pondered. His honor had shrunken to a small, piddling thing. If he let the men take Joe, it might be the best thing he’d done in years. But there’d be hell to pay. Come nightfall, there might not be a Greenwood. He looked at the small band. Soldiers. Prepared to do what was necessary. They were asking him to surrender. He looked at Gabe: eyes sunken, cheekbones prominent.
“I wasn’t a lieutenant,” Clay answered slowly. “A sergeant. Steel hicks from Pennsylvania were mostly grunts. You were 369th? Right?”
“What about it?” asked Nate, jostling forward. “Lots of Greenwood men served.”
Clay didn’t take his eyes from Gabe. Cynical, that was it. Gabe looked even more cynical than him. Clay wondered if the war still haunted Gabe, if he drank deep and heavy.
“Deal, sheriff?” Gabe spoke so softly, Clay wasn’t sure he’d heard or just imagined his words.
Tulsa was supposed to be the magic city. City of possibilities. Potential. Clay stared across at the park, at the grand trees, tendrils arching from branches, marigolds edging the blue grass. Oasis, hell. There was no refuge here. He had to choose.
Horns blared. A flatbed truck, loaded with white men, turned onto the street in front of the jail. Lucas stood on the running board, waving. He held a rope, already tied into a noose. There were farm boys, some off-duty deputies. Klansmen in white, flowing robes. Bates’ fat face was thrust out of the truck’s window.
The Greenwood men stood taut, heads turned toward the motley caravan. Clay saw Lying Man place a hand on Nate’s shoulder.
Lucas hopped down as the truck pulled to the curb. “What’s this—a nigger rally?” As Lucas pushed through the Greenwood men, Clay realized Lucas didn’t have any fear, any sense that the colored men might be dangerous. Lucas and his crew expected servility, expected the coloreds wouldn’t challenge a lynching. Wouldn’t dare. Hell, Lucas probably thought he could hang them all. They’d line up for him—one by one.
Lying Man sang out, “Easy, men. Losing our heads won’t save Joe. The battle against Pharaoh can be won. But
easy now. Y’all, hear? Easy now.” Lying Man hummed a refrain. Clay felt an answering tremor. There were murmurs, “Yeah,” “All right,” “Unhuh,” and, like magic, Clay saw the men’s shoulders relax.
Lucas stepped even with Clay. “We’ve come for Joe.”
Bates, who’d lumbered behind Lucas, chortled, “Got no choice, sheriff. Justice demands its due.” Four other men fell in beside Bates.
Clay’s deputies moved behind him. Sully and Eddie appeared on Clay’s right. The battle lines were falling into place. All he needed now was an archduke.
“You’re fired, Lucas.”
“I figure I’ll have your job when this is through.”
“Not killing innocent men, you won’t.”
“The niggers been whining, have they? Did you hear the cripple shot at me, killed Miss Keane’s brother? Even the Tribune doesn’t know that. Ambrose doesn’t know. But me and my men do.”
“Your Klansmen.”
“What does it matter?” Lucas asked fiercely. “Jody died before dawn, bleeding like a gored pig. Man gave his leg for his country. Once any self-respecting American hears about Jody Keane, they’ll thank us. Can’t have niggers assaulting our women, killing men defending their sister’s honor. So, sheriff,” he spat the word, “and any other nigger-lovers…” Lucas pulled his gun. “Step aside.” He looked at Sully, the nervous, awkward deputies on the steps, then back at Clay. “Sorry, sheriff. Might’ve been different if you’d been Tulsan.”
“You can’t have Joe,” Clay said grimly. “Sully, you and the others, take Lucas into custody.”
No one moved.
Clay cursed. He swung around, arms outstretched. “What about the law? Sully—”
Sully shook his head, muttering, “Sorry, sheriff. The town will be turning against us, not Lucas.”
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