Circle of Fire (Mysteries through History)

by Evelyn Coleman

  Mendy felt sick. “I’m glad my daddy ain’t here, then,” she whispered. “Because if he was here, I might have told him about the raid. And then maybe he would have done something about it and gotten hurt. But, Jeffrey, I still don’t understand why the sheriff would tell you the Klan’s secret plans? Do you?”

  “It’s simple, Mend,” Jeffrey said. He kicked at the dirt. “All I can say is, I got to leave this alone. I can’t help you no more.”

  Mendy jumped up, glaring into his face. “Why on earth not? You kidding, right? You know how important this is.”

  “Mend, don’t make me tell you why Please.”

  “No. You’re going to tell me. You scared what they’ll do to you? To me? Tell me,” she said, shoving her finger into his chest.

  Jeffrey didn’t push her away. He just stood, head hanging low, hands clasped behind him. “All right, all right,” he said finally. He sighed deeply and looked into her face. “It’s my pa. Mend, my pa is in on it, too.”

  “Your pa ain’t in on this, Jeffrey,” Mendy said, taking a step back, her face burning hot. “That’s just what the sheriff wants you to think. That’s all.”

  “No, Mend, it ain’t that.”

  “Okay, so what exactly did your pa say when you told him?”

  “He said for me to stay out of it. That it ain’t my business. And he forbid me to go near Myles Horton’s place tomorrow.”

  “That don’t mean he’s in on it. Maybe he’s just trying to protect you. My daddy would tell me the same thing.” Mendy stared at Jeffrey, water pushing up in her eyes. He was scaring her now.

  “No, Mend,” Jeffrey continued, looking back down at the ground.

  Suddenly the hogs squealed and grunted behind them. Mendy turned to see what the ruckus was about, but it was just two hogs squabbling. When she turned back, he said, “Recognize these?”

  He had brought his hands out from behind him and was holding two shoes up to her. They were the shoes, the penny loafers Mendy had seen in the clearing. They had the same nickels, the same scratches on the right side, the same picks on the toes of the shoes. There was no doubt.

  “Where did you get those shoes?” Mendy said, lowering her voice as if someone might hear her.

  Jeffrey said, under his breath, “I guess Mr. Steven didn’t tell you everyone in Cowan who has penny loafers.”

  Looking down at the shoes now, Mendy remembered the man staring at her in the clearing, as though he could look into her eyes. His eyes—they were glassy blue. Jeffrey’s pa’s eyes were the same color. Mendy wanted to die. She said, “I’m so sorry, Jeffrey.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I’ve got to go,” he said, clutching the shoes to his chest.

  “Wait!” Mendy said. “Nothing’s changed. We still have to stop the raid. This ain’t something we can just forget about. Even if it is your pa, we at least have to warn the Highlander people.”

  “I can’t go against my own pa, Mendy Anna Thompson. Not even for you.”

  “Jeffrey, please. Even if it means people get killed?”

  “Your daddy killed people in the war. Was that right? I just can’t go against my pa. Now leave me alone. I feel bad enough.”

  Mendy wanted to scream at him, but she didn’t. She watched him walk back down the hill. She glanced over at the hogs. Human beings weren’t much better than hogs, she thought as she watched them clambering over each other to get to the slop. “Sometimes I don’t think God made humans,” she said to the hogs. “Sometimes I just can’t believe it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE ROAD TO MONTEAGLE

  Mendy stomped all the way home. What could she do? All the sheriffs in Tennessee were probably just like the Cowan sheriff, she thought. The world needed to do better than the whites sticking with the whites and the coloreds sticking with the coloreds. Mendy wiped her tears away She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

  Then it struck her that not all the whites were sticking with whites. Wasn’t that why the Klan hated Mr. Myles Horton and Mrs. Roosevelt—because they was trying to get the whites and the coloreds to be friends?

  Mendy walked home on automatic. Her head pounded like a hammer was banging inside her skull. As Mendy’s house came into view, she thought of one more thing she could do to warn Mr. Horton. Mendy climbed through her bedroom window—she didn’t have a key to the front door—and walked through the silent house to the kitchen. The telephone sat on the counter. She got out the thin telephone book and looked up the Highlander Folk School. She really hadn’t ever made a call. Not that many people she knew had telephones; Daddy just used the telephone for business. She dialed the number for the Highlander School, her hand shaking.

  A woman with a pleasant voice answered, “Hello. Highlander Folk School.”

  “May I speak to Mr. Myles Horton?” Mendy asked.

  “He’s out of town. May I help you?”

  Mendy hesitated, thinking of Mr. Benefield, Mr. Franks, and Mr. Whitehall. She didn’t know what to say. The woman on the phone could be a part of the Klan for all she knew. Mendy couldn’t trust any white person except Mr. Horton. And he wasn’t there.

  She wasn’t even sure what she’d say to Mr. Horton. Would he believe her? She didn’t really have any proof—just a few names, and two of them were the most respected men in Cowan. And, much as she hated to think it, another was Jeffrey’s pa. Mendy said, “No, thank you,” and hung up the phone.

  Mendy racked her brain for anyone else to call. What about Miss May Justus? Daddy said she was a fine white woman. She was often at Highlander when Mendy went there to swim. Miss Justus wrote children’s books, and once she had told Mendy that one day she was going to write a children’s book that had the wonderful colored children in it. Mendy remembered how proud that had made her feel. She needed that feeling now.

  Mendy looked up Miss Justus’s name in the phone book. There was no listing. Mendy’s heart sank. What else could she do? She walked into her bedroom and spotted her scrapbook lying wide open on the bed. Had Mama been looking at it? Mendy picked up the scrapbook and read the saying by Mrs. Roosevelt on the open page: A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.

  Well, Mendy was in hot water now. Trouble with a capital T had come to her, and she didn’t know what to do. She sat on the bed and tried to think of something. Her glance landed on Grandma’s picture on the dresser top. Suddenly Mendy knew what Grandma would do if she were here. Mendy decided it was the only choice left. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

  Mendy hastily grabbed a long-sleeved shirt and went out to the barn. She hitched Tandy to the dray, a low, heavy haul wagon. She loaded six steel traps into the dray—three small Victor traps used to catch rabbits and squirrels and three larger ones meant for foxes and coons. She added a pickax, a shovel, a flashlight, gloves for handling the traps, and lots of rope. She paused a moment, considering what else she needed. She loaded her own rusty red wagon onto the dray, too. She got two of her daddy’s hunting knives from his hunting box and stuck them in her belt.

  Now she was ready. She just needed to cheek on Aunt Sis and Li’l Ben, and then she’d be on her way.

  By the time she got to Aunt Sis’s cabin, the sunset had spread out in oranges and purples, wide like the hands of God. Mendy looked up at the sky and wished the whole world could feel the way she did when she saw the sky this beautiful. God made the sky to be seen equally by all people. Mendy took the sunset as a sign that she was doing the right thing.

  Mendy went into the cabin and found Aunt Sis rocking Li’l Ben to sleep. Mendy was thankful that Aunt Sis was in her right mind and seemed to be doing better lately If Mendy didn’t make it back, Aunt Sis would take care of Li’l Ben until Mama and Daddy got home.

  Aunt Sis had left Mendy some chicken and dumplings on the woodstove. Mendy didn’t feel hungry, but she ate to keep Aunt Sis from getting suspicious. While she sat at the table, Mendy took her notepad from her pocket and wrote a short letter.

&n
bsp; Dear Mama and Daddy,

  Daddy, I hope you’re feeling better when you read this. I have prayed you would get well. I know you wouldn’t like what I’m going off to do. You would say it’s too dangerous, and Mama, you would say it wasn’t ladylike. But I think Grandma would be proud if she was here. Aunt Sis is doing fine so I’m not worried about Li’l Ben or I’d take him someplace else. Aunt Sis loves him, and I know she wouldn’t hurt him, even in her wrong mind. Remember I love you both.

  I am going to the Highlander School to make sure that Mrs. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt is safe. Wish me luck.

  Your daughter,

  Mendy, Wild Trapper

  Mendy read the note to herself. She looked out into the darkness. The moon was bright enough to light up the tops of the trees. Another good omen. She would leave the note for Aunt Sis to give to Mama and Daddy when they came home. Aunt Sis couldn’t read, so Mendy’s plan would remain a secret until Mama and Daddy saw the note. If Mendy weren’t back by then, they would know something had gone wrong with her plan.

  Aunt Sis put Li’l Ben down in her own bed instead of on the pallet. She said, “Mendy, sometimes we just got to do what’s right. I’m going on to bed now.”

  Mendy’s head shot up from the note. Did Aunt Sis know that she was planning to sneak out? No, she couldn’t know. Mendy lay down on the pallet and pretended to sleep.

  Soon she heard Aunt Sis snoring lightly. Mendy got up quietly and slipped outside. She untied Tandy and hitched her to the dray. Mendy was shaking. It felt like barbed wire was balled up inside her stomach.

  Monteagle was a long ways away, up the mountain. Danger lurks in the mountains at night. And now Mendy could agree with Mama, going to Grundy County meant trouble with a capital T for sure. No coloreds had ever lived in that county. The saying was, if you was colored, don’t let the sun go down on you in Grundy County Mendy was afraid, but that wouldn’t stop her. Daddy always said fear could not stop a person from doing what they had a call to do.

  Mendy set off down the winding dirt road. She held the reins tightly as the dray rumbled along. A coon crossed Mendy’s path, his eyes glaring up at her like lit marbles in the dark. Mendy slapped the reins so that Tandy would move on faster.

  Mendy shuddered as she listened to the familiar sounds of nighttime in the Cumberland Gap. She tried to focus her mind on the beautiful lightning bugs dotting the landscape of hardwood forests and tobacco and cotton fields.

  Soon she passed the fork in the road near where Grandma had tended a bed of wild ginseng, down below in a crevice. Grandma used to take Mendy to the crevice some nights, with just a lantern and a shotgun. Grandma believed that a moonlit night was the best time to rack the herbs she tended deep in the woods. Grandma had showed Mendy how to tend ginseng. She had given Mendy ginseng to taste, and many other healing plants, too—quinine root, catnip, horehound, and sassafras. Grandma said the best way to know the healing qualities of a root or herb was to use it yourself. Leastways, Mendy thought now, if she got hurt tonight she’d know how to tend herself.

  In a low whisper, Mendy started singing Daddy’s song about the heavenly nights, but she couldn’t remember all the words. She needed to be brave, she told herself. She recited the Twenty-third Psalm over and over, until she finally came to the single rusty chain stretched across the entrance to the Highlander property. It wasn’t much to keep people out. Beside it stood a sign that read ALL ARE WELCOME AT HIGHLANDER.

  Mendy didn’t want to take the noisy dray on the road leading up to the school. She pulled the mare and dray off into the woods, down by a little brook. Mendy climbed down, unhitched Tandy, and tied her to a tree close to the brook so she could drink if she was thirsty Then Mendy pulled her small red wagon from the dray and piled her traps and tools into it. Finally she put on her long-sleeved shirt. It made her sweat, but it would protect her from chiggers and ticks. “Tandy, you must be quiet,” Mendy whispered to her. “I’ll be back for you.”

  Mendy had no idea how long it would take her to do what she’d come to do. But she would not leave until she’d done it. Mendy Anna Thompson never abandoned her friends. And Mrs. Roosevelt was a friend, not only to her, but to all colored people.

  For a moment, Mendy wished that Jeffrey were here with her. But then she recalled another of Mrs. Roosevelt’s sayings: A woman will always have to do better than a man in any job she undertakes.

  Mendy decided she was prepared to do just that.

  CHAPTER 12

  WILD TRAPPER

  At night, the forest looks different than it does in the daylight. Mendy shined her flashlight into the dark tangle of trees and bushes until she found the trail, so faint that it was little more than a deer path. She hoped the sound of her rusty wagon would not carry too far. At least this part of the Highlander woods was pretty well isolated.

  Mendy drew a mental map of the property. Last summer, while Daddy fixed the school’s plumbing, Mendy had roamed the Highlander woods. She knew them well.

  Right now, she was at the top of a rocky bluff hundreds of feet above the pond where she used to swim. Far below, on the other side of the pond, was the little cluster of buildings that made up the Highlander Folk School. Mendy knew that if anyone wanted to sneak up on those buildings, there was only one way to do it. A person would have to come through these woods, just the way she was doing now, and then pick his way down the left side of the bluff. Any other approach to the buildings was wide open and offered no cover.

  Near the trail’s entrance, Mendy checked the ground and the tree branches. She found no sign that anyone had passed this way recently, so she knew the Klansmen hadn’t been here yet. But Mendy was confident that they’d be coming this way before morning to set their explosives. She was sure they wouldn’t risk doing their dirty work in broad daylight.

  Mendy started down the trail into the woods, counting her steps as she planned her traps, Yes, she told herself, trapping was the way to go. Mendy had chosen these smaller traps for two reasons: she could handle them alone, and they wouldn’t kill or maim the men—just slow them down enough to keep them from getting to the school. It was the only way she could think of to stop them from setting their explosives. If a bomb went off at Highlander while Mrs. Roosevelt was giving her speech, people could get killed. Even Mrs. Roosevelt could get killed. Mendy had to do whatever she could to keep that from happening.

  Setting traps takes time and thought. Mendy knew that the element of surprise is what makes traps work best.

  The darkness crept around her like a heavy shawl. Every sound caused her to stop and listen. The last thing she needed was to be caught off guard by the Klan.

  Mendy decided to set a few traps only a little way into the forest. She grabbed the shovel and dug three shallow holes, spaced a few yards apart along the trail. She was glad the dirt was sandy in this part of woods, but even so, it was hard digging because her shovel kept hitting embedded rocks. When she was done digging, Mendy set the smaller steel traps into the holes and spread leaves and grass over them. In the dark, an unsuspecting person would step into the hole, spring the sharp trap, and fall. He would surely twist a knee or sprain an ankle.

  Farther along the trail, she set up the rope trap she had invented herself. She cut four lengths of rope. She tied two of them side by side between two trees, so that the ropes stretched across the trail about five feet high. She tied the other two pieces of rope so they stretched below the first, close to the ground. If a man hit either set of ropes, he’d trip and stumble—right into a modified Victor double four-and-a-half long-spring trap with sharp steel teeth. That ought to slow him down.

  Mendy set two more rope traps even farther down the trail. These ropes she set at slightly different levels. When the lower ropes snapped together, they would cut a man’s legs awful good. And he would be bound to fall into the shallow hole Mendy had carefully dug for her prey.

  When she was done, Mendy paused. By the position of the moon and stars, she knew that several hours had passed
. She had almost reached the point where the trail descended down the bluff to the pond and the school lawn. Only the two largest steel traps were left in her wagon. These she planned to set close to the school buildings. They would be the last line of defense. A man caught in one of the steel fox traps would be hard pressed to get up and run.

  According to the flyer that Daddy had shown her, Mrs. Roosevelt would be speaking outdoors. Mendy knew the place—an open area between the main building and the pond. Mendy made her way carefully down the bluff. She paused and listened hard. Sounds of night filled the hot air, but she heard no footsteps or voices behind her.

  In the last patch of woods that faced Mrs. Roosevelt’s speaking place, Mendy searched until she found two abandoned wells she’d discovered along the trail last summer. Only a few boards covered each opening. Mendy tugged at the nails securing the boards, her arms and legs paining her, until she pried the boards up. She threw a few rocks into the wells to check how deep they were. Each time, a hollow thud reached her ears as the rock hit bottom. Mendy was satisfied. The wells were deep enough, but not too deep. Now it was time to find briars and thorns.

  The traps Mendy planned were painful ones for the hunter as well as the hunted. She was glad to have the work gloves to protect her hands from the long, sharp thorns, but her arms were cut and bleeding long before the wells were filled. By the time she was done, a good two hours had passed. Around her, the nighttime creatures had quieted. The woods were hushed. Dawn was not far off.

  Quickly, Mendy tied a rope low to the ground just in front of each briar-filled well, stretching from one tree to another. Finally, in front of the last well, she tied one more length of rope low to the ground, securing it to only one tree. If by chance some of the men made it through all the other traps, Mendy herself would yank up this rope to ensure they fell into the last hole. The well was deep, and the briars were sharp as knives. There’d be no way a man could climb out.