A Moment in the Sun

by John Sayles

  The private is still watching Lupe. “She write you letters when you’re away?”

  “She don’t write.”

  “Good. Don’t teach her.”

  When the boy is settled in the saddle Guadalupe rides bareback on the new mule, who is surprised but doesn’t kick, pulling the mare along by the reins.

  “Es que se le parte el corazón,” she says to Jacks when they are on their way to Huachuca. “Nada más.”

  The Army will occasionally grant leave on the death of a soldier’s mother, but makes no provision for broken hearts. Every time the damn mail comes there is somebody left in a funk, and he wishes the people at home would have the decency to lie if they don’t have good news to report.

  “We’ll stop on the way, deal with them hands of yours. Lupe got something to put on it.”

  “She a medicine woman?”

  “Horse doctor. If she can fix saddle galls and glanders and poll-evil, I figure she can’t do too much damage to a colored infantryman.”

  It is only a glue that she makes that you paint on after the big spines are pulled out and wait for it to dry. When you peel it off all the little cactus hooks and hairs in the wounds come out too. They ride for some time, Scott still smiling his smile though he is facing at least a week in the brig and won’t see another leave for months, though it must be some effort to keep seated being weak and dizzy and riding with his hands crossed in front of his chest.

  “You were out there a good five miles from Bisbee,” Jacks says finally. “Mind telling me where you were headed?”

  “Not headed anywhere. Just waitin.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  The private stops smiling and looks off to the right to the Dragoons, where old Cochise holed up with his people. “You sit there long enough,” he says, “and the Dark One is spose to come and offer you the world.”

  A CALL TO ARMS

  It will take a day or two for the word to drift back from Magnolia, and with the election tomorrow it won’t likely compete as big news. The Reverend and Mrs. Cox seem like they’ve hosted plenty of these—wedding party of four, no announcement in the papers. The Record has shut down, of course, Manly supposed to be halfway to Philadelphia, and the Messenger doesn’t bother with colored society. Dorsey doesn’t mind a bit, not any of it. Only too bad Mama passed before she could see him married to Miss Jessie Lunceford.

  “From the beginning of creation God made them male and female,” says Reverend Cox with his big deep voice, “that they might be one flesh.” Dorsey has seen him preach once or twice, coming back from Raleigh on a Sunday and stopping halfway for church. A joyful messenger for the Lord. Dorsey is joyful now, surely more joyful than Mrs. Lunceford with her handkerchief to her eyes and Dr. Lunceford grim-faced and wishing it was over and Jessie, so beautiful in her yellow dress holding the yellow roses it was so hard to find, a brave little smile on her face like a girl waiting for her smallpox needle. Dorsey doesn’t mind any of it. There is joy in his heart, and in time hers will follow.

  “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves unto his wife,” booms Reverend Cox, voice filling the tiny nave they’ve requested to avoid the empty, accusing pews in the main hall. Reverend Cox knows this is not a judge’s sentence but a joyful sight under Heaven, and thunders out the Scripture while Mrs. Cox keeps an eye on the clock. Dorsey noticed the party waiting in the main hall when they passed through, the girl showing six months if it’s a day. With Jessie you’d hardly guess, maybe just a little butterfat here and there, make her look more womanish.

  “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—”

  Dr. Lunceford endures the Reverend’s words with shoulders set and chin thrust upward. Dorsey has cut him once or twice, in the days before he moved to the Orton Hotel for the white trade. A serious man, Dr. Lunceford, a race man. People have nothing but good to say for him as a doctor, but the rest scares them some, showing so proud in the world, making the white folks jumpy. They are Episcopalians, the Luncefords, but have chosen Reverend Cox because it’s Magnolia where nobody of any account knows them and because the Reverend is understanding of what he called the ex post facto of the situation. Dorsey expects some heavy ribbing from the boys who cut for him over that, maybe even from some of the white gentlemen at the Orton when they finally hear. But no matter the circumstances, from this day forward Dorsey Love and Miss Jessie Lunceford will be bound in holy matrimony.

  “I do,” says Jessie, quiet and sweet and dry-eyed as she speaks.

  “I do,” says Dorsey, feeling shivery as the words come out. His life will never be the same.

  There is no way to cross the river of white men. Jubal pulls back on old Dan and sits as still as he can, watching them pass, white men in red shirts riding through the colored section of Wilmington, whooping their rebel yells, some already taken with liquor and all of them shiny-eyed with the power of their numbers. Jubal watches and is careful to avoid meeting the gaze of any of them, knowing how easy they can spook. There are the horsemen in the red shirts under the old slavery flag and then a bunch on foot, the first two holding up a banner that says WHITE CITIZENS’ UNION which is the ones he has been losing hauling jobs to, the bossman saying Sorry, Jubal, I got to hire white till this election business blow over, three dozen Paddy-looking characters ambling along in sloppy rows singing—

  Onward Christian sojers

  Marching as to war—

  Making it sound more like a drinking song than a hymn—

  With the cross of Je-sus

  Going on before

  Then there is another mounted group, ten or twelve riders in buff uniforms and campaign hats. ROUGH RIDERS is written on the banner the first two support, the third man carrying the American flag on a long pole. This bunch gets the biggest noise from the white folks lining the street, as if they are all veterans of the recent triumph.

  Two of them detach from the rank and ride up on either side of Jubal, a big one with a beard and a mean-looking little one.

  “Come to gawk at the parade, Rastus?” says the little one.

  “Nawsuh. Just waitin to cross.”

  “We aint holdin you up, are we?”

  “Naw. Yall go ahead first.”

  “That’s white of you, Rastus,” says the little one and the big one laughs. The little one tugs at the front of his shirt. “You know what this uniform mean?”

  “Mean you been to the Spanish war,” says Jubal. “Like my brother Roy.”

  The white men trade a look.

  “We was meant to go,” says the little one. “North Cahlina Volunteers. Only they pushed them nigger outfits in front of us.”

  The big one indicates the parade passing behind him. “Know what this all about?”

  “Aint sure I do.”

  “This here’s the White Man’s Rally. It’s about how we gonna take this city back.”

  Jubal says nothing.

  “What you think about that?”

  There is always the point where you got to guess which way it’s best to move. “You don’t never show a mad dog your back,” his uncle Wick always says, “and you never look a papa bear in the eye.”

  “Don’t spect I think nothin about it, one way or the other.”

  The little one nudges his horse closer. “You playing with me, boy?”

  Jubal is a little above him on the wagon seat. Dan won’t bolt no matter what you hit him with, been trained for that, so even if the path ahead was clear there is no way out of this. He just hopes they won’t look into what he’s hauling under the tarp behind—Dorsey Love would surely skin him alive if that got messed with.

  “Nawsuh, I aint playin.”

  “You gonna vote tomorrow?” asks the big one.

  “And there aint many white folks,” Uncle Wick always finishes, “who merits the truth.”

  “I aint never voted,” says Jubal, looking the little one in the eye with as empty a face as he can muster. “And I don
’t spect I start up tomorrow.”

  The big one grunts. “Sounds like a wise plan of inaction.”

  “We gonna be out here tomorrow, supervisin,” says the little one. “We see you anywhere near a polling spot, you be one dead nigger.”

  They yank the reins and are gone then, trotting to catch the other Rough Riders. There are gaps in the flow of the white people coming down Bladen now, just the stragglers, black folks starting to pop their heads back out from their houses, but Jubal is in no hurry to push through.

  Her father insists on running up the colors when they pass. He has lost several flags to vandals in the past, even after he fenced the yard with pickets, in the annual battle of the dead. When Miss Loretta was a girl and the bluecoats still a presence in town her father would march with them up to the National Cemetery on Decoration Day, though he had never been a soldier, would drag her along by her skinny arm, mortified, to hear the yankees speechify and the negroes sing. Honoring the Nation’s Sacrifice is what they said, but really it was only the graves of the Union men and some of the colored who had served with them they were praying over, and there were many in town who wanted to reroute the New Bern Road so they wouldn’t have to pass by the entrance gate. She was twenty-four when the bluecoats marched to the train station, gone forever, and since then every tenth of May when the rest of white Wilmington flocks to the Oakdale flying the old Dixie flag to mourn the Confederate Dead her father raises his defiant Stars and Stripes to shame them all. And here he is today, Roaring Jack, ramrod straight beside the pole, banner rippling above him, glaring his contempt over the white pickets to the horsemen passing by.

  “Daddy,” she says gently, stepping out on the lawn to touch his arm, “just come in and pull the shades down. This will only spur them on.”

  “White Citizens’ Union,” he snarls, then raises his voice in a shout to the men on foot who follow the Red Shirts. “Passel of damned layabouts, got nothing better to do with their time! Shiftless trash—”

  The men, singing, turn and wave their hats—

  Christ the royal Master

  Leads against the foe

  Forward into battle

  See His banners go!

  “It’s just noise, Daddy. You know how elections are.”

  “It is rebellion,” he says. “Armed insurrection.”

  “Nobody has fired a shot yet.”

  “The voting doesn’t start till tomorrow. There will be bloodshed.” The old man’s face suddenly drains of color. “And what is this?”

  A group of men dressed as in the photographs of Roosevelt’s famous cavalry appear, riding two abreast. One of them carries the Stars and Stripes, what Daddy calls the Flag of Freedom, on a pole jammed into a scabbard on his saddle.

  “How dare they?” says her father.

  Miss Loretta feels her stomach clenching. If those men can use that flag for this purpose—

  “Sacrilege!” cries Roaring Jack, striding forward to the fence, cheeks flaming now. “You have no damned right to drag those colors through the mud!”

  A rider who seems too much the runt for his enormous campaign hat pulls his mount up on the other side of the fence, spurts a gout of black tobacco juice back over his shoulder.

  “What’s your trouble, Granpaw?”

  “That flag—”

  “We fought the Dagoes for that flag, old man. It’s ours now.”

  “Never.”

  The runty man looks past Roaring Jack to Miss Loretta.

  “You want to keep him tied in the yard the next couple days, M’am. Might could get dangerous for people who can’t control what they say.”

  “If that was a uniform,” her father says, looking the rider up and down, “you would be a disgrace to it.”

  A larger man with a beard walks his horse over. He touches his hat. “Afternoon, M’am.”

  “There are laws in this country,” her father continues. “Men have rights by the Constitution. Anybody put themselves in the way of those rights commits treason.”

  “You tell em,” says the big man.

  “What’s your name?” asks the other.

  “Daddy, come away from there.” Miss Loretta stays rooted where she stands, her father as likely to turn his wrath on her if she interferes. “You don’t need to tell them anything.”

  “My name is Jack Butler. And you skulking sons of bitches know where to find me.”

  Miss Loretta holds her breath. Rolling past the two Rough Riders, past the last of the white men parading on foot, is a carriage with two men in gray tailored suits and derbies sitting impassively in the front. The one with the reins is Frank Manly, beside him his brother Alexander, and though the latter is at least as light-skinned as she with her mother’s touch of Cherokee blood, the word has circulated that he is to be lynched on sight. The carriage is headed north.

  Alex meets her gaze for a moment in passing, holds her eyes.

  “You gentlemen will have to excuse my father,” she says, moving sideways to draw their attention. “Whenever an election comes up he can become somewhat inflammatory.”

  Her mother said a lady can diffuse the most awkward of situations with a compliment and a soothing word. “You all make such a stirring sight, up there on your mighty steeds—” and here she sugars her words with the tiniest lilt of flirtation, “it’s no wonder you’ve got him all riled up.”

  “I forbid you to speak with these scoundrels!” snaps her father, turning to her, furious. He slapped her once, only that one time.

  The carriage is past, out of sight. In the one cartoon of Alex Manly she has seen, waved in front of her by her father during one of his jeremiads, he is depicted as a coal-black fiend in the loud clothing of a Dock Street procurer, leering at a young white woman with her leg uncomfortably exposed as she steps down from a carriage very much like the one he just drove past in.

  Miss Loretta spreads her arms apologetically. “He can be so difficult,” she says, nodding at her father. “If you gentlemen don’t mind—”

  The big one attempts a bow on horseback and leads away, while the runt turns to glare back at them as he follows.

  “Names are being collected,” she says quietly to her father when the riders are gone. “Mischief is being planned. They have lists.”

  “Well sign me up,” says Roaring Jack Butler, standing fast beneath his flag.

  It is the piano that makes her cry.

  All the way back to Wilmington in the carriage he’s rented she is strong, she is polite and respectful the way her father says she has to be. Dorsey is a good man, like her mother says, and mostly tends to the reins as if he isn’t used to driving, tipping his hat now and then to the loud collections of white men, carrying banners on horseback, who seem to have invaded the city. Dorsey makes no mention of them, as if not acknowledging nasty looks and leering comments means they didn’t happen, and instead compliments her dress, remarks on the Reverend’s beautiful voice. She understands how he can cut their hair all day. His house is on Eleventh just north of Red Cross, smallish, but his own house, he remarks with pride, bought and paid for.

  I will bear this, she thinks, this is my life now and I will be strong. Then he opens the door and the first thing there, too big for the room, is the gleaming piano and Dorsey turns to her proud and hopeful, gleaming himself, and it is too much.

  “I don’t need you to play for me,” he says when he has her sitting in the one soft chair, Dorsey perched on the arm of it holding her hand in his, patting the back of it as if comforting a child. “Just whenever you want—if you get the notion.”

  “I am so sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes and trying to catch her breath. “I didn’t mean to do like this.” My room, she thinks, her heart racing. I won’t ever sleep in my own room again.

  “We got lots of time, Miss Jessie.” She hasn’t called him anything yet, not Dorsey or Mr. Love or Dear or anything, just making sure he is looking at her before she speaks. He is always looking at her, sneaking sideways glances,
and she wishes he wouldn’t. “Lots of time for everything,” he says. “Aint no hurry about it when you married. You just let me know when you ready for—you know. When you ready.”

  She was hoping to get that over tonight, but now, with the piano filling up this room, pushing her back against the wall, maybe not.

  “Thank you,” says Jessie. He’s looking at her again, looking at her like she could break and she’s feeling like she might just, might shatter into a million pieces. White men are singing on the street outside, drunken, and she wants him to pull the shades down.

  “That’s the deal, being married,” he says again, squeezing her hand. “Aint no hurry about a thing.”

  Later, when he is gone to return the carriage wherever he hired it from, she plays a chord on the piano. It wants tuning.

  The gunfire begins when the sun goes down. There has been commotion all day, horns and drumming and the devil yells of the horsemen, and now the gunshots, singly and in volleys, accompanied by animal whoops and laughter. Dr. Lunceford can see the reddish glow over their bonfire on Chestnut, can hear the men shouting and carrying on from several directions, the rally having spread throughout the city. Yolanda, still mourning for their daughter, calls him in off the porch.

  “No reason to give them the satisfaction,” she says quietly when he steps back into the parlor. “Those kind of people get into the drink, there’s no telling what they might do if they come by and see you out there.”

  “This is my house,” says Dr. Lunceford, sitting heavily beside her on the settee.

  They have only the one gaslight lit on the wall and the piano throws a long shadow. It is so quiet with Jessie gone.

  “They see you on the porch of this house,” says Yolanda, “owning it, not doing the yard work, and it makes their blood boil. You know that.”

  During his visits to Brooklyn the previous morning the people were tight-lipped and grim, near whispering when they spoke of the election. The positions at risk on the state level are not so vital in themselves, and this is not South Carolina, or Mississippi, God forbid—but every new day there has been another warning. In the evening yesterday he and a handful of the others prominent in the colored community were escorted with an undertone of menace out onto the water, that huge gun bolted on the foredeck, the white men smirking as they neared Eagle Island and the deadly machine demonstrated. A simple cranking motion, like operating a meat grinder, then the hammering of bullets, all of them covering their ears as they watched thick wood reduced to flying chips on shore in an angry hailstorm of destruction. All this followed by a quiet but pointed lecture on civics and security. His companions were duly impressed.