by John Jakes
The pounding grew louder. “Please—someone—”
A woman’s voice. Madeline thought she should recognize it, but she didn’t. She was still too sleepy. Was it one of the freedmen’s wives?
Prudence lighted her lamp and brought it to the door of Madeline’s room. Her plain, stout face was alert, her eyes anxious. “Do you think it’s trouble with the school?”
“I don’t know.” Barefoot, Madeline went to the front door. “It’s the middle of the night.”
It was actually morning, she discovered as soon as she opened the door. Between the great trees she saw jigsaw pieces of orange-tinted sky. The light silhouetted a disheveled figure on the stoop.
“Aunt Madeline—”
She couldn’t have been more stunned if Andrew Johnson had come calling. “Marie-Louise! What are you doing here?”
“Please let me come in, and I’ll explain. I walked all night.”
“You walked all the way from Charleston?” Prudence exclaimed. “Twenty miles, by yourself, on a dark, road, and you didn’t think twice about it?”
In the space of a heartbeat Madeline knew something dire had happened. A death? Some act of violence? Then she saw the bulging valise. People didn’t pack a valise in order to report a tragedy.
“There’s this boy. Papa refuses to let him court me. I love him, Aunt Madeline. I love him and Papa hates him.”
So that was it. A young girl in love would do many a dangerous or thoughtless deed when her mind was fixed on her own problems. She remembered how it was with Orry; how romantic emotions had swept away many a practicality, and all fear of danger.
“Will you let me stay, Aunt Madeline? I won’t go back to Tradd Street.”
Then there would surely be trouble with Cooper. But Madeline couldn’t turn her away. “Come in,” she said, stepping back to welcome the breathless fugitive.
___________
WHITE MEN—TO ARMS!
Today the mongrel “Legislature” convenes in Columbia. The maddest, most unscrupulous and infamous revolution in our history has snatched the power from the hands of the race which settled the country, and transferred it to its former slaves, an ignorant and corrupt race.
This unlawful and misbegotten assembly will trample the fairest and noblest states of our great sisterhood beneath the unholy hoofs of African savages and shoulder-strapped brigands. The millions of freeborn, high-souled countrymen and countrywomen are surrendered to the rule of gibbering, louse-eaten, devil-worshiping barbarians from the jungles of Dahomey, and peripatetic buccaneers from Cape Cod, Boston, and Hell.
The hour is late; the cause is life itself; our sole recourse is force of arms.
Special issue of
The Ashley Thunderbolt, July 6, 1868
MADELINE’S JOURNAL
June, 1868. Cooper here not 24 hrs. after we took his daughter in. Terrible scene …
“Where is she? I demand you produce her.”
He confronted Madeline on the lawn in front of the whitewashed house. Down by the river, the steam machinery chuffed at the sawmill. A blade whined, straining to cleave through live oak.
“She’s on the plantation, and perfectly safe. She wants to stay with us for a while. She definitely doesn’t want the strain of more arguments with you.”
“God. First you do business with black Republican carpetbaggers. Now you turn my daughter against me.”
“Marie-Louise is in love with the boy, Cooper. I’d look closer to Tradd Street for the cause of her defiance.”
“Damn you, produce her!”
“No. The decision to leave will be hers.”
“Until she reaches majority, only I have the legal right—”
“The legal right, perhaps. Not a moral one. She’s almost sixteen. Many girls are married, and mothers, before that age.”
Madeline walked toward him and around him. “Now, if that’s all—”
“It is not. Are you aware that there is a Kuklux den in the district?”
“I’ve heard rumors. I’ve seen no evidence.”
“Well, I have it on good authority. The den keeps what’s called the Dead Book. It contains names of those who offend the Klan. Do you know the name at the top of the first page? It’s yours.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” Madeline’s forced calm hid any sign of the sudden tight pain in her midsection.
“I warn you, those men are dangerous. If they come here, if they hurt my daughter because of you, I won’t let the courts punish you. I’ll do it personally.”
She tried to plead reason one last time. “Cooper, we ought not to quarrel. Things will smooth out with Marie-Louise. Give it a week or so. Meanwhile, don’t forget we all have ties. We’re family. My husband was your brother—”
“Don’t speak of him. He’s gone, and you’re what you’ve always been—an outsider.”
She retreated, wincing as if he’d whipped her across the face.
His reckless rage was out of control. “I curse the day I convinced myself you could be trusted. That I owed you the management of this plantation because of Orry. Because he wanted you here. I wish to God I could cancel that moment and tear up the agreement and cast you out, because I would, Madeline. I would! You’re not fit to stand in my brother’s shadow. Orry was a white man.”
Jamming his tall hat on his head, he strode to his horse. His face was hollow-cheeked, the color of gruel, and wrenched by hatred as he rode away.
Orry, I can’t forget what he said, or overcome the effects of it I must not write of it at length. I do not want to fall into the slough of self-pity. But he has left a deep wound. …
… The mine is in full operation. A little money at last!
… Mr. Jacob Lee, Savannah, rode all night to meet with me this morning. He is young, eager, comes well recommended as an architect. Raised in Atlanta, where his parents lost everything to Sherman’s fire, he knows little about the Low Country, and nothing of me. Exactly why I hired him …
Small and energetic, Lee drew swiftly on his pad with a charcoal stick. She had apologized for her unfamiliarity with architectural terms and sketched Mont Royal’s columns as she recalled them. It was enough.
“The Tuscan order. The pilasters relatively freer of ornamentation than the Greek orders. A spare, clean capital and entablature—is this what you remember?”
Hands pressed together, Madeline whispered, “Yes.”
“Was the siding like this? White?” He slashed horizontal lines behind the columns.
She nodded. “Tall windows, Mr. Lee. My height, or slightly taller.”
“Like this?”
“Oh, yes.” She couldn’t hold back her tears. On his pad, created by a few expert strokes and her own imagination, she saw it at last. The second great house. The new Mont Royal …
The house in which Cooper says I am an intruder.
July, 1868. We belong to the Union again! Congress accepted the new constitution, the state legislature has ratified it, and we were readmitted on the 9th. A great occasion for public rejoicing. But there was none. …
… 14th Amend, ratified. Andy very proud. He said, “I am a citizen now. I will fight any man who tries to deny me that.”…
… Theo German visited last night. What a splendid, upright young man. He came in full uniform, alone—a brave act, given the temper of the neighborhood. He spent all morning at the school. M-L is helping there. Unless I can no longer judge such things, they truly love one another. How they will make their relationship permanent without alienating C. forever, I do not know. …
… Strange times. The mixture of men controlling our lives could not be better represented then by our delegates to Congress. The senators are Mr. Robertson (of the convention, and one of the first prominent state men to join the Republicans) and Mr. Sawyer of Mass., who came down to take charge of Charleston’s Normal School. Of the four representatives, Corky and Goss are Carolinians with no strong detractors, but few speak in their favor, either. Whittemore is a Methodist
Episcopal parson from New England, with a splendid bass voice; they say his powerful hymn-singing helped him win over the Negroes. Then there is the remarkable Christopher Columbus Bowen, organizer of the state Republicans and former faro dealer and gambler. He was court-martialed from the Confederate Army and, at the time of the surrender, was in Charleston jail for the alleged murder of his commander.
Gen. Canby says reorganization of the state under the Reconstruction acts is finished. The government is handed over from the military to the elected civil authorities. In Columbia we have Gen. Scott of the Bureau as governor, his ambition realized—the mulatto Mr. Cardozo as sec’y, of state—and a cold, refined Republican and Union veteran, Mr. Chamberlain, for att’y. general Chamberlain brings both Harvard and Yale degrees to the post, along with a disdain for all Democrats.
What is most remarkable to behold, or most reprehensible, depending on one’s politics, is the new legislature. …
Cooper stood beside Wade Hampton at the rail of the gallery. Democratic Party business had brought him to Columbia to confer with party leaders. Hampton had suggested they go downtown for a firsthand look at those now running the state. From the moment Hampton led him inside the still-unfinished statehouse, he was aghast.
Dirt and trash littered the hallways. The doors of the House were guarded by a shiny-faced Negro who sat in a cane-bottom chair tilted back against the wall. Ascending to the gallery, Cooper discovered what looked like a great smear of dried blood on the marble wall of the staircase.
Now he clutched the rail, stunned again. He knew that seventy-five of the one hundred twenty-four elected representatives were Negro, but seeing them in the chamber had a far greater impact. The Speaker was black. So was his clerk. In place of the decorous white youths who had formerly served as pages, Cooper saw—“Pickaninnies. Unbelievable.”
Some delegates were neatly dressed, but he saw many secondhand frock coats as well. He saw short jackets and shabby slouch hats, the uniform of the field hand. He saw torn trousers; heavy plow shoes; woolen comforters and old shawls pinned around their wearers in lieu of a decent coat.
He recognized many of the white legislators. Former owners of slaves and great estates, they were a hushed minority among the blacks they once might have owned. As for the blacks, Cooper suspected their only political education was Union League cant. It would take years for such men to master the subtle arts required to govern. The state could be ruined first.
His face aggrieved, Hampton said, “Seen enough?”
“Yes, General.” The two men fled up the steps to the gallery doors. “The old saying’s come true, hasn’t it? The bottom rail is on the top.”
Hampton paused in the corridor to say, “What transpires in there is a travesty and a tragedy. I am persuaded that we must redeem South Carolina from such men or face extinction of everything we value.”
“I concur,” Cooper said. “Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do.”
August, 1868. Old Stevens is dead at 76. A greatly hated man in Carolina—but I cannot share that feeling. He lies in state with an honor guard of Negro Zouaves. There is already furor over his burial place in Pennsylvania. …
Virgilia saw her old friend three hours before the end. She sat holding his hand under the watchful eyes of Sister Loretta and Sister Genevieve, two nuns from one of the old man’s favorite charities, the Protestant Hospital for Colored People.
She and Scipio took the train to Lancaster to attend the funeral. On the trip they endured the angry stares and insulting remarks of other passengers. When they reached their destination, Virgilia struggled to contain her grief. She succeeded until they got to the graveyard where her friend was to lie.
Stevens had carefully considered his resting place during his last days. Because there were no prominent Lancaster cemeteries that accepted the bodies of blacks, he chose a small and poor Negro burying ground. He ordered that his stone be engraved with the reason:
I HAVE CHOSEN THIS THAT I MIGHT
ILLUSTRATE IN MY DEATH
THE PRINCIPLES WHICH I ADVOCATED
THROUGH A LONG LIFE:
EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR
When she saw that, Virgilia cried, great surging sobs, of the kind that had torn from her long ago when she went along to Grady’s grave near Harper’s Ferry. Scipio put his arms around her. It comforted her. So did his quiet words:
“Only a very few can say they died as they lived, testifying before the world. He was a great man.”
Virgilia pressed against him. His hand clasped tightly on her shoulder, and neither paid attention to the startled looks they drew. She was glad his hand was there. She hoped it would always be.
How brazen they are—the “Klan.” Gettys’s Thunderbolt carries a notice saying they will show themselves in a parade Friday night at Summerton. All who oppose them are warned to stay away or risk punishment.
Andy declared that he would go have a look. I said no. He replied that I was not in charge of his decisions. I said I was concerned for his safety, and begged him to promise me he would remain at M.R. I took his silence for assent.
The humid dark of a Low Country summer sapped strength and shortened tempers. At the old table in their tabby house, Jane pointed to the paper Andy had been reading and smoothing over and over with nervous strokes of his palm while he chewed his lip.
“Andy, it says right there, ‘All disloyal white men and Leaguers are warned away.’ What’s to be gained?”
“I want a look at them. In the war, the generals on both sides always scouted the enemy.”
“You gave Madeline your word.”
“I kept quiet. That wasn’t a promise. I’ll be careful. And back soon.”
He kissed her and slipped out. She touched her cheek. How cold his lips felt. She stared at the paper lying beside the candle that was attracting a whirl of tiny gnats. The black-bordered announcement repeated the same pattern of asterisks several times:
*
* *
Asterisks were substituted wherever the name of the organization should have appeared. It seemed the only matter about which the Klan members were secretive. Their threats, their hatreds, were fully displayed in Mr. Gettys’s copy. All disloyal white men and Leaguers are warned away.
Jane clasped her hands together and pressed them hard against her mouth. She closed her eyes. “Andy—Andy.” There was dread in her whisper.
He circled toward Summerton in a wide arc, traveling through the marsh, trusting his memory of the usable footpaths. He slipped knee-deep in salty water only once.
It was a cloudless night, with no wind stirring. A thick haze dimmed the moon. The air was full of mosquitoes and tinier insects that flew near his ear with a sound like the steam saw cutting. As he approached Summerton from behind Gettys’s store, he heard voices and laughter.
He crouched amid the underbrush growing in heavy woods at the rear of the Dixie Store. At the end of the front porch visible to him, some slatternly white women lounged. One had the front of her dress undone. A scrawny baby suckled at her left nipple. The conversation of the women was loud and profane.
On the other side of the dirt road Andy saw children seated in dust, along with a couple of the poorer sharecroppers from the district. All at once the talking stopped. The white people turned their attention to something out of sight beyond the store.
Sweating, he decided to move closer and observe from behind a huge live oak that stood about ten feet from the porch. To reach it he would have to cross open ground directly in front of him, weaving through a clump of foot-high yucca plants with rigid leaves sharp as spears. The open space was brightly lighted—a row of oil lanterns glowed on the porch, and a cropper’s boy stood nearby with a blazing torch—but the people in the clearing were all looking the other say, up the road. He counted to three and moved.
He dodged among the yuccas, running with barefoot stealth. A woman on the porch heard him, but before she turned around he was crushed against the back of
the tree, the bark rough against his shirt. He heard the woman grunt. “Just some animal, I reckon.”
After a period of silence, he heard a faint rhythmic thudding. Horses or mules, walking down the dusty river road. In the crossroads clearing, someone cried, “Hurrah! Here they come.”
Andy slid his face to the left behind the tree trunk, until one eye cleared the edge, giving him a good view of the crossroads, brilliantly lit now; half of the new arrivals carried smoking torches.
He knew they were men, and only that. Yet the sight of them struck him hard. They wore robes and hoods with eyeholes. The costumes were sewn of some shiny stuff the color of blood. It shimmered with highlights from the torches. He clutched the trunk and watched with his left eye, holding his breath.
In single file they paraded into the crossroads. The right side of the lead rider’s robe was pulled up and tucked behind a belt gleaming with metal cartridges. The butt of his holstered pistol, hung free. Among the other riders Andy spied old squirrel rifles, an ancient spontoon, even a saber or two.
Dust puffed up where the hooves fell. Round and round the clearing they rode, somehow all the more frightening because of their silence. Even the white slatterns and the croppers looked cowed.
The leader reined his horse in front of the Dixie Store. Andy noticed something he hadn’t seen before. The second man carried some kind of wood box on his saddle, partly concealed under his robe. The box appeared to be rectangular, about two feet long, and made of unpainted pine.
The leader raised an old ear trumpet of the kind used by deaf people. He spoke through it: The trumpet made his voice tinny and gravelly, disguising it somewhat.
“The knights of the Invisible Empire gather. Enemies of white chivalry beware. Your days are numbered. Your deaths are certain.”
It was trumpery, Andy knew. A childish masquerade. Yet he also knew the hearts of the hooded men, if not their faces. They were determined, and full of hate.
“Let the word go out,” the leader bellowed through the dented trumpet. “Here is the first who will feel our wrath.”