Eula opened the kitchen door and stood silent, waiting for Willy to notice. Willy turned and beckoned her. “Come in, Eula. I think we’re done.”
“Anything I can do before I leave, Miss Willy?”
“Just help me up from this floor. After seven months I feel like a lead balloon, about to burst.” She laughed, “Can a lead balloon burst, Ted?”
Eula helped her to her feet and then turned to Luke. “Good night, Mister Luke.” She turned and reentered the kitchen. They heard the back door close and Eula’s steps fade gradually on the gravel outside.
Willy caught Luke’s eye and gave a quick nod. The large man stood, and for the first time in the afternoon, a smile lightened his face. “Not sure this is the kind of southern hospitality you expected, Mr. Mendelsohn. But it’s the kind you’re going to find when Willy Claybourne is the hostess. Very little bullshit and a lot of uncomfortable questions, because my wife has a curiosity that doesn’t stop. I’ve been trying to get used to it since I first dated her in high school. Usually I can ease the situation with some of my daddy’s bourbon—which is exceptional.” He grinned. “We’ve had the questions, but none of the easing. Willy and I would like to have you join us for a drink.”
Surprised, Mendelsohn returned his smile. “Thank you. I’d be very pleased to do that.” As Luke moved to a sideboard to pour the drinks, Ted turned to Willy. “Might I use your phone, Willy? A friend of mine expected to hear from me by four o’clock.” He grinned as her eyes widened. “The kind of friend that worries a lot.”
“One of those scruffy students who rarely showers?”
He laughed and picked up the phone. “How did you know?”
Dale’s voice sounded tight and constricted on the phone, and Ted had to strain to hear. “Yes, I’m fine. Why do—? When? ” Drinks in hand, Luke and Willy turned at the sudden urgency in Mendelsohn’s voice. He began jotting notes. “Where? Of course. I’m on the way.” When he hung up the receiver, he scanned the notes, and approached the Claybournes.
“Is there a problem?” asked Willy.
Mendelsohn handed her the notes. “They’ve found the station wagon that the three civil rights workers were driving.” Her hand was shaking as she returned the paper.
Luke grinned. “Five will get you three that it was parked at the Havana airport. J. Edgar predicted it.”
Mendelsohn tried to control his voice. “You’d lose. The wagon was hidden in the woods outside Meridian in Lauderdale County. It’s been burned.”
“Meridian? And what about the three outside agitators?” Luke’s voice was aggrieved. “They leave a forwarding address?”
Mendelsohn stared at Luke. “Those three agitators are boys I was with up in Ohio at the orientation, Mr. Claybourne. James Chaney is a kid from Meridian. He’s been working with Mickey Schwerner, a young man from New York who’s been down here restoring black churches that have been torched. And Andy Goodman is a college kid from Westchester, New York, nineteen years old, who just arrived in Mississippi to try to register black voters.”
Willy stepped in front of Luke. Her face was pale. “Where are the boys, Ted?”
“Nobody knows. They’re simply gone, Willy.”
“I think my bet is still a good one, Mendelsohn.” Luke was replenishing his drink. “Can I pour you one?” Mendelsohn knew it was an afterthought meant to be gracious, but he recognized it as arrogance cloaked in good manners. He’d seen it before. Claybourne had the implacable confidence of a poker player who was so sure of the validity of his hole card that he didn’t even have to show his hand before picking up the chips. Mendelsohn felt disoriented and sick at heart. James! Andy! Mickey! Just disposable chips? Where are you guys? His jaw was clenched. Can I pour you one? Go fuck yourself!
“No. I’ve got to get back. This is a very important story and my editor’s going to be looking for me.”
“Why important, Mendelsohn?’ Luke’s voice was unrelenting. “Three Commie kids playing hide and seek in the barbarous South? That’s what you think is important enough to write about? You just lookin’ for another black eye?”
“It’s not a judgment call for me to make, Mr. Claybourne. I’m just a working stiff. If something has happened to those boys—” He hesitated. “Two of these boys are white. People up north will notice that. Some, unfortunately, are considered more equal than others up there. Just like down here. My editor taught me that.” He turned to Willy. “Thank you for this afternoon, Willy. I hope Mr. Claybourne is right, that those three young men are hiding in Havana. It’s a bet I’d like to lose.”
Chapter Ten
Sunday already, and still no hint of rain.
Luke Claybourne sat down heavily on the top step of the porch. The sliver of shade from the roof cut the glare from the fields, but the sodden heat engulfed every corner of his Delta. He squinted at the shimmering silent fields and the implacable sky. It’s never going to rain again. Not a damn cloud. Look at that sky. As unbroken blue as the plantation’s green. Like Delta bookends this rotten summer. Rain! Please, Jesus, rain! Down by the roots it’s caking and that cotton’s getting browner by the minute. Should have listened to Roland Burroughs, that money-sucking bastard. New sprinklers that can wet you down twelve, fifteen rows at a time, Lukie. Lukie! Nobody’d called him Lukie since the old man passed.
“I’ve got almost forty families living off this place, and I can’t take care of them and buy those goddam sprinklers, too!” His voice startled him. “Those contraptions give me the creeps just lookin’ at ’em, like giant space grasshoppers, something from Buck Rogers.” He looked at the crows, wheeling slowly in the heat. “Nothin’s movin’. Nothin’s growing. But it’s something else. Shit, the weather hasn’t changed in two months. It’s not just the weather.”
Irritable, he walked inside and poured a glass of iced tea from the sweaty pitcher. The bright cerulean of the unrelenting sky made him blink as it reflected off his glass. It’s never going to rain again. He swallowed deep and sucked on an ice cube. It’s not just the weather. It’s Willy.
The thought surprised him, it was so ready. Willy. I don’t think it’s the pregnancy. She wants the baby, flounces all over town, telling everybody the McIntire-Claybourne union is declaring a dividend come September! She still makes me laugh. But something’s changing. The way she listens when Dick Perkins carries on about ski resorts in Colorado or scuba diving in Mexico. Her eyes get big, like a kid. She looks like Willy McIntire again, my Cotton Queen. God, I want to touch her, squeeze her tight. And the way she looked at that reporter, a nosy Jew from New York who’s slumming down here. But anything about New York is manna for old Willy. She hasn’t been that interested in anything I’ve had to say in six months. Why be interested in the resident redneck? Six months and we’ve hardly touched each other, for Christ’s sake. Who told you fucking would bother the baby, Willy? Doc Henderson never said that. Dick Perkins says she’s restless, is all. Get her out a little more. Where? To Walgreens?
He emptied the glass and poured some bourbon from a flask onto the ice. Funny. Sundays always felt like Sundays. The whiskey was sweet in his mouth. Sweeter on Sundays? He smiled. Yes, Jesus! A door closed and he called, “Willy? You home already?”
“No, Mr. Luke, it’s Eula.” She paused at the door. His face brightened.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for a Sabbath morning! All dressed up in your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes. What are you doin’ here, Eula? You’re never here on Sunday.” He clinked the ice cubes and grinned. “It is Sunday, isn’t it?”
She noted the flask and Luke’s drowsy look. “For sure it’s Sunday, Mr. Luke. Miss Willy asked me come and set up for the church ladies who are coming for luncheon. Be in your way if I start bringing in the dishes?”
He nodded. “Go ahead. You’re not in my way.” He heard the clatter of crockery being loaded on trays. The door swung open, and Eula stepped into the room. His eyes moved slowly over the beautiful dark woman as she walked gracefully across the floor. The harsh
light from the window seemed to melt on the mahogany skin. His tongue hesitated as it moved across his lips. He groaned silently. Oh, to stroke that luminous skin, to touch it, to have his tongue glide slowly across those breasts that undulated under the pink blouse. Oh, Christ. Just once.
“Mr. Luke?” She turned from the table and stirred uncomfortably as his avid eyes met hers. “I best get started with the luncheon, Mr. Luke.”
“You look so pretty in that pink blouse, Eula May. It’s a great color for you. I never get to see you wearing anything but your uniform. I think we ought to dress you in pink.”
She smiled, and suppressed a laugh. “I don’t think Miss Willy would appreciate that, Mr. Luke, though she’s the one that gave me her blouse for my twenty-first birthday.” He was surprised by the sudden boldness of her gaze. “Way that you’re looking, you probably recognize it!”
“Yeah, I do. But it looks a little different on you. There’s more of you to fill it out. Twenty-one! God, you’ve become a beautiful woman while we weren’t noticin’, Eula! Seems like only last week you were still over in junior high school and you came here on Saturdays to help your mama, Josie. Twenty-one?”
“Miss Willy’s going to be back in an hour, and I should get on with my work.” She hesitated at the door to the kitchen.
Luke swung his legs to the floor and strode over to the table with his glass in hand. “Twenty-first birthday, and I didn’t even know it! Calls for a celebration drink, Eula, honey. Some of my daddy’s great moonshine.” He held up the flask like a trophy. “Did Josie ever tell you about that still over in Tallahatchie? She and my daddy used to drive up in the hills in the old De Soto to get the ’shine. They’d come back real late, frisky and gigglin’.”
He winked. “I caught ’em together one night and my old man pulled out his leather belt. Josie stood right over there, watchin’. He was just tappin’ the leather into his hand. ‘Lukie, boy, this is a little secret between you and me that your mama doesn’t have to know about. What am I supposed to do with this belt now, son?’” Luke paused and looked mischievously at Eula. “And I said ‘I’d put it back in your pants, pa.’ He and Josie started giggling, and I lit out for my room upstairs.” His laughter filled the room. “My daddy never did whip me, because he knew I could keep a secret.” He lifted the flask. “Let me pour you a short one, girl.”
“I don’t drink, Mr. Luke. You know that.”
“That’s all right. Just sit with me a little. We never get a chance to talk. There’s no big rush about doing the lunch.” Damn, she looks good in that blouse! Hell, she’s twenty-one, she’s a nigger girl and knows the score, done it plenty times with that Jimmy Mack, I’ll bet, long before this. She’s Josie’s daughter, for Christ’s sake! Good. She’s sitting down. Those eyes. Black as pitch. Never can rightly tell what she’s thinking. He settled back as Eula perched tentatively at the end of the couch.
“Your kin and mine, Eula.” His voice was intimate. “They’ve known each other well for a whole lot of years. Cared a whole lot for each other. Like I care for you. Now tell me, how is Josie? She was doing poorly a few months ago.”
Eula smiled. “Thank you for askin’. She’s feeling better. Doctor Henderson gave her somethin’ for her arthritis that really seems to help. ’Course she’s gettin’ on, and nothing will really help very much.”
Luke reached out, his hand carelessly resting on Eula’s knee. “But you’re not getting old, honey. Twenty-one! Prime of your life. Look at you. Like a ripe peach.” His hand tightened on her knee and he edged closer. His voice was soft. “You been picked yet, Eula May?” His rough hand had moved to her thigh.
She looked at him with dark eyes as she deliberately removed his hand and rose from the couch. “I have work to do, Mr. Claybourne. It’s late.”
“Now wait a minute. You know there’s nothin’ better for a girl than to be picked by a man who cares about her. I care for you, Eula May. I do.” As she stood up, he stretched out to restrain her and knocked over his glass of whisky.
Her face did not change expression as she went to the sideboard, returning with a dishtowel. She bent to mop up the spilled drink and Luke put his hand on her shoulder. His face was flushed. “Eula—Eula, honey . . . ”
She straightened up and stared down at Claybourne, struggling to control the anger in her voice. “Mr. Luke, this did not happen. You’re not your daddy. And I am definitely not my mama. House niggers are long gone. The moonshine may not remember that, but you do. We’ve known each other for too long a time for you not to know.” She stepped back. “I’ve got to finish the luncheon and go on to church, Mr. Luke.”
Furious and humiliated, Luke confronted her. “Why?” he taunted. “You got some sins to confess?”
“No, sir, Mr. Luke. And I don’t plan to have any.” She turned and moved swiftly toward the kitchen.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” The fury in his voice made her turn. “You don’t just walk out when I’m talking to you! Where are the manners your mama taught you, girl?”
“Mama taught me manners.” Her voice was sharp. “But Mama came out of another time. You’re right, Mama was very big on manners, Mr. Luke. Mustn’t do anything that might make the Claybournes think we’re not grateful. But Mama’s manners aren’t mine.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m all grown up now that I’m twenty-one. I make up my own mind about what is proper. I think it’s good manners to respect the people that work for you. I think it’s the proper thing to do. But then I guess I don’t get frisky like mama did on your daddy’s shine. Been too busy trying to get on to college.”
“Don’t you dare to preach to me, girl. Not in my house!”
“I don’t mean to do that, Mr. Luke. You and Miss Willy have always made me feel welcome here. But a whole lot is changing right outside. I see it on the television set. I hear it over in the Sanctified Quarter. I read about it in the Clarion. And you don’t seem to notice anything different.”
“More preaching bullshit from the ‘freedom fighter’ you’re banging in your room? Well, girl, listen hard. Miss Willy likes how things are here. Mr. Luke likes how things are here. And my niggers like how things are here. Any of ’em don’t, the highway north is right at the end of the driveway.”
“A whole lot of your Negroes are going over to Indianola and registering to vote, Mr. Luke. They’re not heading north. And I’m not heading north.”
“Goddammit! So it’s true what I heard? You and Caleb Johnson and Rufus Marks went down to Indianola and registered to vote?”
“Yes, sir. We certainly did. On my day off last Thursday.”
Luke pointed to the window. “If the three of you don’t get your names off that list by tomorrow, girl, last Thursday will be your last day off at this plantation.”
Unobserved, Willy had entered the room, halting at the door.
In disbelief, Eula stared at the enraged man. “You’re firing Caleb and Rufus and me? For registering to vote?”
“You and Caleb and Rufus and any other ungrateful black on this plantation who’s taking on airs and forgetting his place. We ought to help Eula get to college, Willy said. Another of her great ideas. College? You don’t have any idea of what your place is, girl. I can just imagine what you’d be like after college! I said tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow.”
Willy stepped between them. “You’re doing what?”
Startled, Luke stared at her. “I’ve told Eula she gets her name off the voting rolls tomorrow or she’s out of here for good.”
“You’re firing Eula?”
“Stay the hell out of this, Willy!”
“Oh, no, I won’t. I don’t tell you how to run the plantation. You do as you see fit. You always tell me it’s your business. But this house is my business, and I will not have you firing Eula May. I need her and I want her here.” She turned to face the black woman. “You promised me you would stay till the baby comes. I want you to keep your promise, Eula. I nee
d you. You haven’t finished with the lunch, and the ladies will be here in less than an hour.”
“Yes, Miss Willy.” Without a backward glance, she left the room.
Luke watched the kitchen door swing shut and wheeled on his wife. “Jesus Christ, woman. You really want to cut off my balls in front of that nigger?
“That nigger? Eula? You’re sending Josie’s daughter away?” She stared, unbelieving, at Luke’s flushed face. “Are you drunk, or have you gone crazy? Well, Lucas, she’s not going. Do you understand? Eula’s not going anywhere.”
“Oh, yeah, I understand what you’re saying. And you better understand what I’m saying, Willy McIntire. If you ever, ever, put me down in front of a nigger again, it will be your last day as Mrs. Lucas Claybourne.”
Chapter Eleven
After the first week, Sheriff Dennis Haley had the police cruiser stop tailing the reporter. He knew the yellow Chevy was going to be following the volunteers as they ventured up into Drew, down into Indianola, over to Cleveland. When the volunteers from Shiloh gathered crowds with their freedom songs on the sidewalks in Drew, or in Sunflower or Ruleville, the Mack kid would work the crowd. When they’d stage a picket line in Cleveland at City Hall, Mack would be handing out the signs, showing them where to start, where to stop. If there was anybody to worry about, it was Jimmy Mack. And each time he saw Mack, he saw Mendelsohn, taking notes, taking pictures.
It became as predictable as the furious response of the local toughs. Each time, he’d call the local police chief, telling him to monitor the demonstration but not let it become a mob thing that could get real ugly. Too many Feds in the area who would notice. “We don’t need the FBI on our backs,” Sheriff Haley told them, “and you can stop your surveillance of the reporter. It’s a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”
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