Fairbairn, Ann

by Five Smooth Stones

  It happened so quickly David felt nothing but blank shock for a second. Eddie turned from them, and his fist crashed to the desk; then he swung around, his face contorted, eyes wide and filled with moisture.

  "Effie," he whispered. "Effie! God help us all, Reverend. That girl's dead. That pore girl's dead."

  ***

  For an immeasurable moment in time following Eddie's broken whisper, there was a vacuum-like silence in the hot little room. Then Chuck, face dead white, made a run for the door. David did not rely on words, but on brute strength, pulling the big man back, holding his arm tightly. "Wait." He did not raise his voice. "Wait, Chuck. Wait."

  He turned to Eddie, who was standing with his back to them, fighting for composure.

  "When? When, Eddie? When did she die? For God's sake, answer me!"

  When Eddie turned, his eyes begged for understanding and pity, found neither.

  "Answer me! When did she die?"

  "Just before you-all come over. I sent for the doctor myself without no orders when I saw how bad she was. She— she died just after he got there. She—she's got—she had what they call congenital heart trouble. Doc Anderson was trying to get her ma to let him fix it up somewhere in Philadelphia for an operation. I been knowing that little girl ever since she was a little brown tyke in pigtails corning to our house with her ma—"

  "Never mind that! Who knows about this?"

  "Only Scoggins and Elmore and the mayor, and the head jailer and the doctors. They put her in a separate cell in the adult section. I called the chief out of the meeting and told him, after the jailer called. He called the other two out. They ain't told the others. Reckon that's why they decided to turn the kids loose. Get 'em home and the people away from the barricades before they let anyone know about—about Effie. And Elmore, I suppose he figured you-all better go over there and help keep things quiet until—"

  "Keep things quiet! For Christ's sake! That ambulance siren? They were coming to the back entrance for the body, weren't they? They'll carry a dead Negro, not a dying one. Right?"

  Eddie nodded. "They were going to take her to the white mortuary, leave her there till the kids were out and things quieted down. I—I called over when I heard the siren. I didn't say right out the chief told me to, but I reckon they thought so. I—I told 'em to send the ambulance away. That white undertaker, he hates colored. I couldn't let—"

  "It's too Goddamned bad you didn't come down with nobility earlier," snapped David. "You knew she was sick. Too damned bad risking your job didn't do somebody some good."

  "Take it easy, David." Chuck's urgency was controlled now. "Eddie, you did what you could, what you had to do. Now get those passes signed so we can get over there."

  Chuck closed the door after Eddie left and said, "David, suppose I go to the jail and you go back over and get hold of Hummer, tell him to find Ruby and stick close to her—"

  "Better if I find him and tell him the truth, then ask him to get those people over to the back of town, into that big hall. They can take the kids there in trucks. He can take Ruby with him, let someone else take over at the hall, then get her home and tell her—"

  "God help him," said Chuck.

  Eddie, when he returned, gave David his pass first, not looking at him, and David said: "Thanks, Sergeant. I'm short-tempered right now. You've been swell."

  "That's O.K." He handed Chuck his pass and said: "Look, Reverend. As soon as we turn the kids loose, I'm going home. Me and the wife will figure something out. And—and thanks—"

  "I'll see you later, Eddie. At your house, maybe."

  "Maybe." Suddenly Eddie smiled, and David saw the guy who'd made sergeant. "Maybe, Reverend. They make fine bombs in these parts. For amateurs—"

  As they started out the door of City Hall, the two men with guns moved aside, as people must once have moved aside from lepers carrying bells. On the top step Chuck touched David's arm. "Let's give the situation a quick run-through, be sure we know what we're doing—"

  There was no air stirring. The heat of the setting sun was as scorching as that of a noon sun. David looked across the street at the people still standing behind the barricades. Somewhere in the crowd an arm was raised, a hand waved in greeting. He raised his own arm in return. It was like lifting a dead weight.

  He glanced toward Haskin's store and saw Abraham Towers with a group of men; then one of the group moved to the porch railing, waved, and shouted a greeting. It was Luke Willis. David felt an unreasonable sense of relief at the sight of the boy; whatever Luke's faults, he was always unquestioningly there when a job had to be done, and there would be many to be done before this day and night were over.

  Below them, on the stoop of the police station, Dr. Anderson and a white man carrying a doctor's bag were standing. He started to speak to Chuck, to point them out, but Chuck did not give him a chance. "Cuss for me, chum. We're too late. Look—"

  Across the street Hummer Sweeton was just straightening up after ducking under one of the barricades. He stopped, spoke briefly to the policeman guarding it, and then was walking rapidly across the street on a diagonal course to the police station and jail. "Hummer!" called Chuck, and the little man slowed but did not stop. He smiled, waved, and hurried on. "He doesn't know," muttered David. "They've called him over to tell him. Who the hell—"

  "Eddie," said Chuck. "The poor guy. He must have called after we left. He's burning his bridges. Doing all the wrong things for the right reasons—"

  "We'd better get down there. No sense—Oh, God! Look now!"

  A short, heavily-built woman had squeezed around one end of the barrier and was talking to the guard in a high-pitched, carrying voice. David caught the words "Reverend Sweeton," and saw the guard shrug and send her over with a jerk of his head. She began to run, trying to catch up with Sweeton, but she was short-legged and awkward and Sweeton was already on the stoop talking with Anderson and the other doctor before she was halfway across.

  "Eddie may be getting right with God, but he sure as hell is messing things up," said David. "That's Ruby Brown. We both better go down there. Don't run. Take it slow and casual or those people over there will sense something."

  They started down the steps, Chuck saying, "You think I grew up down here without knowing your people wouldn't sense something if we just walked along whistling. They know something's up already."

  The heat seemed to have sucked all sound out of the air, but the whinny of a restless horse from somewhere back of City Hall came close and loud. Even the young people in the stockade, pressed close along the length of its fence, were quiet. A boy's voice cut the quiet, calling to them, "Hey, when we going to get out of here?"

  Chuck called back, "Pretty soon, kid, pretty soon."

  David did not take his eyes from the scene on the stoop of the police station; he spoke to Chuck without looking at him. "Hell's on its way again, Chuck, and these bastards over here are primed for it. Another week and we might have had a chance at— Let's go!" He started to run, Chuck outstripping him. He had seen Sweeton try to draw Ruby inside the building, seen her break away and run to Anderson, pound his chest with clenched fat fists, head thrown back to look at him, eyes white-rimmed and staring.

  Ruby's first scream was a bayonet in his belly, stopping him, draining all thought and strength with its pain. The screams that followed were blinding, like forked lightning in a black, starless sky; deafening, like thunderbolts directly overhead. For an aeon there was nothing in the world but the screaming of Ruby Brown whose child lay dead in the jailhouse.

  CHAPTER 82

  The worst of it was over just after dark. The tide of yelling humans that had roared through the barriers at Ruby's screams had receded. The horses were gone, and the men with clubs and whips who rode them into flesh and bone; the tear gas and the goads were gone, and the dogs. Soldiers, white and black, patrolled the sidewalks, and jeeps drove slowly through the dusty roads and along Main Street, their heedless wheels smearing and obliterating the thick dar
k patches that gleamed moistly under the lights. They had used a hose for what lay on the pavement between Haskin's store and City Hall, and David, standing on the store's porch, had cried out, "Let it be!" There had been a touch on his arm and Chuck's voice saying, "Come inside, David."

  Now, after dark had fallen, he sat where he had more than twenty-four hours before: at the end of the dining-room table in Haskin's dining room, one hand slapping steadily on the worn wood. But tonight no hand could quiet it, as Grade's had then, not that of Gracie, who touched it lightly and turned away, defeated; not Brad's on his shoulder. He did not look at Chuck when he heard the low voice say, "Easy, chum. Take it easy. They've hanged themselves this time."

  When he finally stopped the soft slap-slap, it was to cover his face with both hands, the table supporting his elbows, supporting him. Not all of what had happened was clear and sharp in his mind. He could not have told how many horses charged into Main Street from around the corner just above City Hall, and drove the people back from the area in front of City Hall, heedless of those who fell, nor how many there were in the second group that deployed along the eastern side, driving the people back, the riders slashing with whip and club, the horses rearing back from contact with soft, yielding flesh but goaded on by spurs.

  Before the front runners of the Negro ranks from across Main Street had reached the eastern sidewalk, David saw Anderson pick Ruby Brown up bodily and carry her inside the jail, Hummer and the white doctor following. There was no chance now of reaching the jail. David feared for Chuck. Not all the Negroes could possibly know him, and the rocks and bottles being thrown now had only one general aim, whites. He kept his back to the stockade fence, his hand on Chuck's arm, said, "Back the way we came. We'll cut over above City Hall—" Then Eddie was there, running stiff-legged, wincing with real pain caused by the edges of the makeshift splint that were cutting into his flesh above the shoe top. This was not the fearful, agonizing youth of a few moments before, but a man in police uniform, one hand on the gun at his hip, the other carrying a regulation club, a man who had "made sergeant" at a younger age than most.

  "You-all make a move to get into that mess and I'll wing you—"

  The young prisoners in the stockade were screaming, massed at the fence where fingers were interlaced so thickly in its meshes they looked like clusters of brown grapes. One boy, shoes off, agile as any monkey, already had climbed close to the top, and was going to brave the barbed wire. Eddie stretched body and arm to their utmost, rapped sharply but not viciously on the knuckles of the clinging hand. "Get down from there, Jerry, y'hear! Y'all goin' to get hurt—" The boy stopped his climb, looked down at Eddie's upturned face, and spat.

  The first contingent of horses came then, sweeping the people down from the City Hall area, then on their heels the second contingent, single-filing down the eastern sidewalk, a horse wheeling across from each intersection to charge into the crowd. There were people lying on the pavement now, some of them struggling to their feet again, others crawling toward the opposite side of the street. A young Negro in a striped shirt was running toward the Greyhound station, and when he saw that it was Willy Haskin, David gave a hoarse, involuntary shout of warning as he saw the horse that was following him. Willy was driven over the sidewalk, fell, and crawled into a corner by the station steps, and David saw the hoofs of the rearing horse plunge downward, saw the swinging whip in the rider's hand. A surging movement of the crowd obscured the scene for a moment, and when the steps were visible again horse and rider were charging back into the milling group in the center of the street. He saw Willy's hand reach up gropingly and grasp the edge of a step, saw him pull himself painfully half upright; then two men came from inside the building and lifted and supported him until they reached the inside of the station. The blood was clearly visible on face and body. He's alive, thought David. He's alive. And now he'll always fight like a cornered animal, always, wherever he is. More power to him, more power to him—

  Main Street was comparatively quiet in the wake of the horses, all the pandemonium concentrated in the area below Calhoun, in front of the stockade and the police station and below. David could see that horses had followed Negroes who fled from them down the side streets, did not need to see to know that the horses would overtake many, some in their own yards, on their own porches.

  The haunch of a wheeling horse just in front of them threw him against the stockade fence, knocking his breath from his lungs, and he needed Chuck's support for a moment as they edged along the fence, working their way back to the area in front of the City Hall.

  "Where's Eddie?" asked Chuck. "Where is he?"

  David leaned against the wall of the building, still fighting for breath. "Damned if I—" then pointed in the direction from which they had come. "There. Bleeding like a stuck Pig."

  By the time he reached them, Eddie had succeeded in slowing the flow of blood from a deep forehead gash. It had been made by a sharp-edged rock. David recognized the type of wound. Eddie said, "Stay where you are." David watched him mount the steps of City Hall, saw three men in khaki come forward. "Who's in charge here?" snapped one. A fourth stood quietly at the railing of the porch just above them.

  "I am. Scoggins is down at the jail directing action."

  "Want us to take care of those niggers you got there? Both of 'em? White and black?"

  "Who sent for you?"

  "No one. We're just li'l ol' taxpayers, keeping niggers off city property. There's more of us inside. We just took five niggers across the street. Them committee niggers. Elmore told us to. Son of a bitch if I ever thought I'd see the day I'd be giving safe conduct to a bunch of trouble-making niggers. We're sure getting soft."

  David considered making a break for the other side of the street, but knew he'd be worse off than a sitting duck. Eddie was doing the best he could, keeping at his job because it suited his purpose at this time, following orders in his own way. David was sure Eddie had been on his way to the jail to deliver the release orders for the children when the riot had broken out and had realized it was out of the question for the time being.

  Eddie was speaking again. "Never mind how you feel. Just don't forget, you're guarding property; you ain't here to start something new."

  Looking up, David saw Eddie limp to the man standing at the railing just above them, heard him say, "How you like it, Underwood? How you-all like it now?"

  The man called Underwood spoke so low it was difficult for David to catch the words. "I don't, son. I don't. Ruby Brown damned near raised our kids after my wife took sick. Get going, Eddie. I'll take over here."

  Eddie turned, walked to the top step, and said quietly, "Underwood's in charge till I get back."

  Hours later, sitting in the Haskin dining room, David remembered these things with reasonable clarity, the edges of the events blurred and made hazy by the sounds of the fighting and violence that were their background. But what had followed Eddie's quiet order was sharp and shatteringly clear in his mind, without merciful blurring or forgetfulness, and the sound of Ruby Brown's steady, monotonous sobbing had been the acid that etched the details into his brain. It came from behind him, and he turned and saw Hummer Sweeton and Dr. Anderson, Hummer supporting Ruby, who walked stumblingly between them. They were making their way along the sidewalk outside the stockade fence. Chuck said, "Couldn't they have sent her home by car, the back way—" and David growled, "When're you going to quit talking about these people as though they were human. She's lucky not to be in jail—" Beside the three an impassive trooper walked as escort. Before they reached David, they started across the road, and David saw Abraham Towers start down the steps of Haskin's store with Haskin, Mrs. Haskin, and Gracie just behind him. David walked quickly to Hummer, and the little preacher's sunken, tragedy-darkened eyes lighted. "David."

  "What can I do to help, Hummer?"

  Hummer shook his head, tightened his arm around Ruby. "Nothing, son. There's nothing anyone can do about it now. Doc's getting her over to th
e hospital." Ruby's sobs increased and, as her screams had done earlier, blocked from hearing the sounds below them.

  "Come on," said the trooper. "It's dangerous here."

  Hummer nodded and gently urged Ruby forward. Anderson's eyes met David's. They were bleak and cold, the devils behind them no longer subdued. "If you can, come over to the hospital later, David. Bring your boy, Luke." David nodded. There would be pictures for Luke in that hospital tonight, pretty pictures all in color.

  Mrs. Haskin and Gracie ran past Abraham Towers, who, with Haskin, stood waiting at the edge of the pavement. "Let me," said Mrs. Haskin, and took Ruby into her arms, Gracie shielding them both as they made their way across. Anderson hurried after them. David turned and looked back at City Hall, trying to catch Eddie's eye, saw the young sergeant standing in the doorway with his back to them, talking to someone inside. When he turned back, Hummer was alone, the trooper dog-trotting toward a running group of Negroes, to herd them toward the west side of the street.

  "We'll be over in a minute, Hummer," he said. "They were going to release the kids when this broke loose. We want to make sure there hasn't been any mind-changing." He wanted desperately to offer some word, some gesture of comfort to Hummer, but could only shake his head futilely. Hummer's smile was distilled sorrow as David and Chuck started away, and at the steps of City Hall David looked back and saw that the little preacher's walk had slowed. As though feeling David's eyes on his back, Hummer turned his face toward them, and lifted his hand in the familiar, gentle gesture that was half salute, half blessing.

  Hummer's body did not crumple slowly to the ground, but struck the pavement as though he had fallen from a great height, and the crack of the gun that felled him came at the same instant.