by Larry Karp
“Well, no, but—”
“I’m also bettin’ Curd’s got the kid out by his place, and probably the journal, too. Maybe the kid has it hid under his shirt. I’m going over there and get it, and while I’m there, I’ll teach both of them a lesson about what happens to a nigger that cold-cocks a white man.”
Klein grabbed at Barton’s sleeve. “Jerry, hold on a minute, huh? I don’t blame you for bein’ sore, but we’re meetin’ the boys in just a few hours. We gotta make damn sure Johnny gets the charge set okay, and we’re square on the alibis. You don’t want to screw up the plans.”
Barton pulled roughly away. “Christ, Otto, you’re such a goddamn old woman. We’re talking about a five-thousand-dollar book, and all you can do is snivel about ‘the plans.’ I’ll be back by eleven, easy, and I’ll have me a pair of nigger ears in my pocket. And if I don’t have that book in my other pocket, I’ll have two ears from offa a white kid instead. Shoot! I was gonna ask if you wanted to come along, but I don’t need you crappin’ your pants and stinkin’ up my truck. I can handle it myself.”
As the door slammed behind Barton, Eileen started to her feet, but her mother reached across the table to restrain the girl. “Just wait a bit,” Mrs. Klein said. “Give him a chance to cool off before we go out there.”
“Mo-ther,” Eileen whispered. “Do you know what they’re up to.”
“No,” said Mrs. Klein. “And furthermore I don’t want to.” She picked up her knitting, then added, “And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Oh!” Eileen balled both hands into fists, brought them down hard against her thighs. Then she threw the kitchen door open and rushed past her father, up the stairs, into her room.
Mrs. Klein heard the bedroom door slam. She braced herself.
Klein stormed into the kitchen. “What’s going on with that girl? She gives me a look like I just hit her, then runs on up to her room and bangs the door shut so hard they could hear it all the way to Lone Jack. I got a good mind to give her what-for.”
“Don’t, Otto.” Mrs. Klein’s voice was like a violin string. “Teenage girls are flighty sometimes. They can’t help it.”
Klein’s face worked itself into a statement of disgust. “Women. Huh!”
Mrs. Klein tightened her grip on her knitting needles.
***
Eileen threw herself onto her bed and launched a two-fisted attack on her pillow. Eventually, she ran out of steam, then rolled over onto her back, which put her in mind of that boy, Alan. He was so sweet last night, so embarrassed. She smiled. He stood there by the side of the bed for the longest time, just talking, till she finally sat up, took him by the hand, and pulled him into the bed. He said he’d never done anything like that before, and she practically had to tell him how to do it. He wasn’t like any of the other boys. When she was making out with Tim Baker in the back of his car, all he did was take off her brassiere, and then he made a big mess on her skirt, lucky she was wearing dark blue. And that night last summer in the corn-rows with Mark Nelson, she had to keep telling him to be careful, if he ripped her clothes, she was going to have a hell of a time explaining to her parents what happened. Then there was the night she’d left her window open so Lew Gardiner could shinny up the drainpipe to the roof to come into her bedroom. She giggled, remembering how he was in such a hurry, he almost fell, but then he was so rough with her, and he got done almost as soon as he’d started, then laid there like a big lump till she couldn’t breathe and had to push him off. But Alan just fooled around for the longest time, and when she finally told him to go all the way, he said, “You’re sure? You’re sure you want to?” “Yes,” she said. “Please.” But she had to help him get ready, and even when he was inside of her, he took almost forever. She’d never felt anything like that in her life, thought she might go crazy. If he were in the room right now, she’d make him do it again…whoa. Make him?
She sat up. What boy sneaks into a girl’s bedroom in the middle of the night just to say he’s sorry for being rude? She thought it was obvious what he’d really come for, so why did he just stand by her bed, apologizing, till she pulled him in? Oh, she was as stupid as her father, her stupid, stupid father, tearing the guest room apart. But he didn’t find what he was looking for, did he?
The girl jumped to the floor, peered underneath the bed, but aside from a few dust bunnies, nothing. She took a moment to gauge just where Alan had stood, then lifted the edge of the mattress, reached beneath it, came out with a leather-bound book. “Oh, damn you, Alan Chandler,” she muttered, and slammed the journal down onto the bed. “All you came in here for was to hide this stupid journal. Well, all right for you, then.”
The girl took a deep breath, climbed back onto the bed, picked up the book, and started to read.
***
By the unsteady light of the coal-oil lamp in the living room, Alan told Samson and Irma Curd and their daughter Susie about New York City. “Ain’t none of us ever been outa Pettis County in our lives,” Curd said. “I seen pictures of New York, and I can’t believe there really do be places like that on this earth. Them skyscraper buildings…” He shook his head.
“And all them people,” Irma said. “I’d be scared outa my wits.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be scared.” More than a trace of mockery for the old folks in Susie’s voice. “I want to go and see it all for myself. See if I don’t one day.”
Curd laughed gently. “When you be fifteen, you got all kinds of big plans for yourself.”
“Sure, I got big plans. You think I want to live out my days, never settin’ foot outside of Pettis County, Missoura? Times is changed from when you and Mama was young. Now, Mr. Alan, I want to hear about the Empire State Building. Ain’t that supposed to be the biggest building in the world?”
Before Alan could launch into his story about taking an elevator to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, a hundred and two stories up in the air, and looking out over the whole city, Curd put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Listen.”
The room went still. A faint sound caught Alan’s ear. “A motor.”
Curd nodded.
“How did you ever hear that?”
“Be black as me, you keeps your eyes and ears wide open, even when you be sleepin’.” Curd motioned Alan out of the chair. “Come on.”
“Where’re we going?”
“Out to the woodshed. You gonna sit in there for a bit, till we sees what’s what. We don’t usually hear no motorcars out this way, this time of night.”
Alan followed his host out the front door, off the porch, and around the corner. By the light of the lamp, he saw a ramshackle little building next to the house. Curd pulled the door open, then motioned Alan toward a six-foot woodpile to the left. “Get yourself down back there, nobody gonna see you, not ‘less they lookin’ awful hard. Don’t move till I comes for you, hear?”
“Yeah.” Alan started back, tripped over an ax, stumbled behind the woodpile. Curd chuckled, then closed the door.
The boy worked himself into a sitting position, then stared into the darkness. He thought about the music he’d played earlier, out of Curd’s piano bench. “The Cascades,” it was called, and it said on the cover that it had been composed for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Alan imagined a piano keyboard before him, and began to move his fingers.
In the back of his mind, he heard the motor draw closer and closer. Then, a car door slammed. A moment later, he heard a shout. “Hey, Curd.” A banging noise. “Open up the door or I’m comin’ in shooting.”
Alan stopped playing, listened hard. No sound. He tried to go back to his keyboard, but it had vanished. He worked saliva around his dry mouth.
***
In the living room, Curd, his wife, and his daughter stood respectfully. Barton ignored the women, zeroed in on Curd. “You was out diggin’ sassafras today, huh?”
“No, sir,” Curd said. “It ain’t quite the right time yet.”
“Oh.” Barton’s face twisted into a sneer. “So I guess you been workin’ somebody’s farm, then. Whose farm you work today? You tell me that, then you and me is gonna go talk to whoever it is.”
Curd shook his head slowly. “Mr. Barton, sir, I wasn’t workin’ on no farm today.” He pointed to the door, still open from Barton’s entry. “I been fixin’ things around the house. Like the door, it done broke itself offa the hinge las’ week. And the roof, lot of the shingles came off in the big storm back in January. You can see, they’s new ones on the back, to the wind side.”
Barton sneered again. “Smart nigger. I bet there’s new shingles back there, but you didn’t just put them on today. ‘Cause today, you was out diggin’ in the woods behind Mr. Armstrong’s, and you found me with a boy there and gave me a good knock on my head. That boy had him a book, and I want it, and I want the boy with it. And I don’t got a lot of time to be foolin’ with you.”
Curd shook his head again. “Mister Barton, please. I ain’t got the littlest idea about no boy and no book. I be sorry for what happened to you, but I don’t know nothin’ about it.”
“You don’t? You’re real sure about that, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh. Well, okay, then.” Barton’s tone denied the casual nature of the words. “Maybe I can help you remember.”
He glanced across the room, to where Curd’s hat hung on a nail, just inside the door, then turned a smile on the colored man that congealed the blood in his heart. “Yeah,” Barton said. “That’s the hat you were wearin’.” He grabbed Susie’s arm, pulled her half-off her feet. “Get your dress off, pickaninny. Quick.”
Susie screamed, tried to pull away, but got nowhere. Curd stepped toward Barton, but stopped when the white man pointed a large handgun at him. “Come one step closer, you’re gonna be a nigger with no knees,” Barton growled. He pulled at Susie’s dress once, twice. The third time, the fabric came away in his hand. Susie screamed again, then bent low and crossed her arms in front of her body. Barton turned the gun onto her. “Outa that filthy underwear,” he said. “I don’t want to touch my hands to it, but I will if you make me. Now, Samson, any time you want, you can give me that book and tell me where the kid is. Otherwise, I’m gonna go right on with what I’m doin’.”
***
Susie’s first scream sent Alan scrambling to his feet; the second one mobilized him to the doorway of the shed. Carefully, he worked the door open, then made his way toward the house as if he were crossing a freshly-waxed floor. A small branch cracked under his foot; he stopped, listened. Nothing.
The boy drew a deep breath, then edged around the corner of the house and up to the porch. Crouching low at the foot of the rough wooden stairs, he peered through the open doorway, saw Susie pull a long undergarment up over her head as Barton waved a gun in her direction.
Alan turned away, fury and embarrassment raging through his mind. Back he ran to the shed, grabbed the ax from the floor, hefted it. Bigger than the ones he’d used on camping trips, heavier, a longer handle. Probably a good thing. He hurried back to the porch stairs. Susie was on her knees now, in front of Barton, who held his gun to the side of her head. Barton’s back was to the door. Alan felt dizzy, took a moment to slow his breathing. Then he tiptoed up the three stairs, to the doorway, and into the room.
Mrs. Curd was crying. As she caught sight of Alan, she clapped a hand to her mouth. The look on Samson’s face was one Alan hoped never to see again. The boy prayed no one could hear the thumping of his heart. One step, another, a third, and he was within a pace of Barton. He thought Mrs. Curd’s eyes might pop out of her head.
The boy raised the ax, which threw him just a bit off balance. As he struggled not to fall sidewise, he came down hard on his left foot. The flooring groaned.
Barton pulled away from Susie, raising his gun as he turned. Alan stepped up, swung the ax. Too late, Barton saw the part he was playing in the ballet, moved directly into the blade, took it full in the face. He loosed a terrible noise, part moan, part howl, clutched at his ruined nose and mouth, then collapsed, slow-motion, into a half-crouch. The gun clattered to the floor. Alan raised the ax again, brought it down full force onto the crown of Barton’s head. Without another sound, the man sank to the ground.
Susie whisked her dress and underwear off the floor, and ran into the kitchen. Alan dropped the ax, retched mightily, but managed to hold onto his dinner. Curd felt at Barton’s neck, shook his head. His wife kicked at the body. “Pig!” she cried. “Filthy pig!”
Curd squeezed her shoulder, then wrapped both arms around Alan, who had begun to sob. “Boots startin’ to pinch a little?” Curd said softly. “Your skin look six shades darker than when I first laid eyes on you. You done put your life on the line for the colored, same as Mr. John Brown. Not many do that.”
“After what you did for me?” Alan wiped at his eyes. “What else was I going to do?”
“You coulda run off. Saved your own skin. But you didn’t.” Curd’s lips formed a grim smile. “Our Mr. Barton didn’t figure on findin’ a nigger in the woodpile.”
***
Inside an hour, the Curds and Alan had Barton’s body rolled up in an old blanket, and all the blood scrubbed off the living room floor and walls. They rinsed the buckets and the brushes, then flopped onto chairs around the kitchen table. It was Alan who finally spoke. “This doesn’t seem real. It’s like I’m having a bad dream and can’t wake up. Samson, did you ever kill a man?”
Curd shook his head. “That way, I been lucky.”
“What are we going to tell the police?”
Curd hauled himself to his feet, stood over the boy, rested a hand on his shoulder. “We ain’t gonna tell the police nothing. A boy just in from New York, sittin’ around in a house with a bunch of colored people, and a white man, a real important man in these parts, gets his head bashed with a ax? We’re all four of us lookin’ at a rope with a big knot in it. We never did set eyes on Mr. Barton, understand? Not for a minute, not the whole night through.”
Alan pointed into the living room, where the rolled-up blanket was easily visible. “But—”
“I gonna take care of that.”
“How? You going to bury him some place?”
“Just you trust me, okay?”
Alan nodded. “Sure.”
“Good. Now, then, we better get a move on. Nice of Mr. Barton to leave us his truck. Irma an’ Susie an’ me, we gonna take that truck out by Jeff’son City, where her sister live, and far’s anybody else knows, we been there since yesterday, came in on the train for a visit. B’fore we leave, I gonna draw you a map. You’ll go down this dirt road out front, through the woods to the Georgetown Road, into Lincolnville an’ right straight to Mr. Ireland’s. You tell him what happen’ here, but not a single soul other, understand?”
Alan had never known his hands to shake, but right then, he couldn’t hold them still. Curd noticed. “You be all right,” he said. “You can count on Mr. Ireland to help you. If’n I could, I’d take you there myself, but best nobody see me around here tonight, and for sure, not with you.”
“Can’t you take me along to Jefferson City?” Alan paused, then added, “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
Curd shook his head. “Wouldn’t be smart. We tryin’ to make nobody notice us, and nothin’ personal, but in the colored part of Jeff City, you gonna stand out like a cow in a field fulla sheep. An’ if Mr. Law see us on the road, we don’t want to be givin’ him no reason to go an’ look in the back of that truck.”
Four pairs of eyes glanced at the bundle on the living-room floor.
“But what if someone stops me on the road into town?” Alan asked.
“You’s comin’ in from Kans’ City, got you a ride along the big highway, but the man was goin’ on to St. Lou, so you got out and started walkin’. Happens all the time. Nobody gonna think a thing about it.” Curd grinned. “And I warrant that would
n’t be the biggest story you ever told a person, now would it?”
Alan silently promised that if he got out of this alive, he’d never tell another lie. “No.”
“Good.” Curd pounded the boy’s back. “Come on, then. Help me get that piece of human dirt in the truck, and then we all be on our way.”
Irma Curd pushed back her chair, hesitated, then rushed over to Alan. “I ain’t never gonna forget you and what you did,” she said. “I never did imagine, not even in my wildest dream, I’d be sayin’ anything like this to a white boy, but you be a son to me now.” She threw her arms around him. He choked back a sob, and embraced her.
***
By the time Irma and Susie came outside with a small, battered suitcase, Curd and Alan had stashed Barton and the blanket on the floor in the rear of the truck cab, under gunnysacks of sassafras root. The Curds got into the truck, Susie in the back seat, her parents up front. Curd started the motor. “We be seein’ you again,” he called, and waved at Alan. “In the meantime, good luck to all of us.”
The boy watched the truck all the way down the dirt road until it made a turn. When the tail lights vanished, he pulled Curd’s map from his pocket. His shoulders sagged. Every muscle in his body ached; his legs felt rubbery. What was it, five miles to Sedalia? Maybe more. He shuffled back to the house, walked inside, and flopped onto the sofa. Grab a few minutes’ rest before the hike.
***
Eileen turned the last page of Scott Joplin’s journal, closed the cover, stared off into space. Boy, there was some interesting stuff in there. She hadn’t had the least idea what a wild place Sedalia was in the 1890s, thought it would’ve been fun living there then. But she didn’t think Mr. Campbell was going to be very pleased with the book, not when he saw what Scott Joplin had written about him. And that girl, Luella Sheldon, what a fruitcake. Funny, she had the same first name as Mrs. Rohrbaugh, the same unusual way of spelling it. They couldn’t be the same person, though. Mrs. Rohrbaugh couldn’t in a million years ever have done what Luella Sheldon did.