Five Smooth Stones

by Ann Fairbairn

  "No. Look, I can't let you—"

  "Ain't no 'cain't' about it. You stays here. What that woman'd do to you, mad as she is, I don't want happenin' in my daddy's new motel. Gimme them car keys now—"

  David handed over the keys. "I sure thank you." Then added piously, "And may God have mercy on your soul—"

  ***

  Half an hour later there was a soft knock, followed by Luke's voice, low and a little unsteady. "It's me, boss. Luke." David unlocked the door, and Luke slid in sideways, then locked it again quickly. He was in pajamas and robe, barefoot. David, after a rough half hour during which many emotions had fought for ascendancy, had arrived at a state of suspension of all emotion. Until he saw Luke's face; then his body shook with his effort to control a reaction of wild laughter.

  "Boss—" The awe in Luke's voice matched the awe in his eyes. "Boss, I didn't know you had it in you. Mr. Champlin, sir, do me the kindness to tell me what in hell happened—"

  "You'll die wondering, kid. It's over. I hope."

  "Yeah. I figured you'd say something like that. Like it says in the Bible, huh? Sufficient unto the day are the kicks thereof—"

  "Did she come to our door?"

  "Did she! You never heard? Scared the hell out of me. I thought I was next in line. That desk clerk, he hauled her away. I heard him tell her you'd taken off."

  "You could hear all right from under the bed?"

  "Under the bed! Man, I locked myself in the shower!"

  "Look—go back and pack our stuff. I'll find out from that clerk how we can make it out in the morning. Then go back to sleep."

  "Who can sleep?" He grinned. "You always said you didn't like to fight. Even when you were a kid—"

  "I'm fighting now! Man, I'm running like a scalded cat. Give me a red-neck cop—-damn it—pull your face in line. One laugh out of you—"

  "Yes, sir, I hear you." Luke checked laughter with difficulty. "Always been a pleasure to work for you, sir. Sure been a pleasure. But damned if I ever thought it would be fun—hold it! Temper, temper! I gotta get out of here whole and get that guy to sneak me back home—"

  ***

  He stretched, yawned, brought himself back to New Orleans gratefully; this was a hell of a way to spend one of those precious hours when he could sleep in, remembering a scene like that last one with Sue-Ellen Moore. His shock at the news of Brad's injury had worn off; his appetite was beginning to assert itself, and Chop-bone's was making itself known vocally. His feet thudded on the floor and he headed for the shower, saying, "Courage, cat. Food next—"

  CHAPTER 67

  When David called ALEC headquarters he was told that Isaiah Watkins was in Baton Rouge for the day. He was relieved to hear it and, still in robe and slippers, leaned back in the big chair, fighting an almost overwhelming impulse to crawl back into bed with a prayer to God to act intelligently for once, just once, and repudiate His handiwork: mankind and all its works.

  When he finally looked up he said, "Food, Chop-bone," and rose slowly, stretching. There were still twinges in his back and in the rib area, but not, he supposed, as bad as the twinges Brad must feel in the scar tissue of a healing gunshot wound. He cooked scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, but found that his appetite of the night before was gone, and he gave the eggs to a delighted cat. The bacon and toast he forced down, helping them along with more coffee.

  Afterward he puttered around the house, fighting off what he knew was coming, holding it off with a tired mind, trying to build around that mind and the secret places of his emotions steel-strong walls, yet knowing that at last, like glass, they would shatter.

  What brought him back to loneliness like this, time after time, a loneliness he felt nowhere else with such poignancy? That it was bad this time because he was physically and nervously depleted be acknowledged. Usually the worst of it passed after a couple of nights' sleep, a day or two of relaxation. This time he knew it would not.

  He looked down at Chop-bone as he made the bed, and could hear Gramp's banjo and Gramp's singing, so husky and deep for so small a man, "Jesus gonna make up my dyin' bed—" and he responded softly to that ghostly voice, "'Ya-ah, Jesus gonna make it up—' " tucking in sheets, squaring corners, smoothing the bright, striped counterpane.

  "Whyn't you do the dishes, fat cat?" he asked Chop-bone when he went into the kitchen. He unlatched the cat door, and Chop-bone slithered through it. David stopped himself from calling the cat back. "You've had it, brother," he told himself. "Christ! You've really had it!" Wanting the cat's company because he needed something to talk to, because he felt self-conscious talking to himself without even Chop-bone there to hear the sound.

  He washed and dried the dishes, put them away in the cupboard, then folded the dishtowel neatly and hung it on its bracket over the sink.

  Darling, we'll never make it; never, never make it, sweet. You'll hate me in a week, following after me, hanging up dish towels, putting caps back on toothpaste tubes. Promise not to hate me, darling.

  "Sara." The sound of the whisper and the thud of his fist on the sink's enamel edge seemed to echo through the house. His hands gripped the edge of the sink, and he bent over like a man retching with nausea. He let the pain carry him, convulse him, because to fight it only drove it to a corner, to return, renewed in strength, a little later. "Not again. Christ! Not again. God almighty, let the time come when it won't happen, won't ever happen again."

  The pain would go, he knew that; if he could ride it out it would pass because it must if he was to keep on living. God would see to that, the God who let his people suffer the last full measure of pain and humiliation, pressed down and running over, that God would keep him living, and because he must keep living the pain would pass. And because he was alive, it would return; not all his pleas could hold it back.

  It was here, in the little white house, that it lay in wait, an unconquerable army with spears of fire. But Sara had no part in the memories of this house, had never been here, could never be here; even if they had married she could never have been here. Yet in shabby motel rooms, in the poor homes of his people who took him in, or the well-to-do homes, in luxury hotels in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, even in his own apartment in Boston, the pain could be kept reasonably distant, Sara could be exorcised. Here, never. Here he could not order her from his side, still her voice in his mind.

  It had to do with love, in some obscure, unanalyzable way; when the worst of the pain had abated he would tell himself this, that it was bound up somehow in the love that had permeated the house, that clung still to every board, each piece of furniture and knickknack and pot and pan, the love that had cradled the infant, taught the child, strengthened the youth. The love of Gram and Gramp and a huge red-bearded man who had said, "You are the son of my mind."

  Benford had said, an aeon ago: "Within the four walls of whatever place we called home there was a security of love that passeth the understanding—" God help him, this was home, and he could never bring to it that which would make it whole again, and because of that the pain awaited him. Somehow, somehow, now, now on this trip, he must tear it from him, dismantle it, put it in its place in the past, bury it, bury it, bury it where it belonged, in the past with Gramp, and yellow cats and red-bearded men and the sound of music in a little room at night—and love of any kind.

  ***

  David watched Brad walk from plane to terminal entrance, searching anxiously for any sign that the older man had been telling less than the truth when he said, "I'm O.K. now," found only a slowing of the walk that had always been more of a fast amble, a darkening of the skin beneath the eyes. "Satisfied?" asked Brad, and David grinned in reply.

  They stopped at ALEC headquarters before crossing the bridge to Beauregard. On the way Brad had told David that Luke had been released a few days before; that the message about the job had reached him by telephone in Cainsville, and he had gone to New York. "He'll be here tonight or tomorrow," said Brad. "He'll be sticking with us for a while. In fact, he's hop
ing to make Cainsville his first series."

  In Isaiah's office, while Isaiah was out hunting up beer, Brad said, "Damned if Isaiah doesn't look ten years younger than he did the first time I met him."

  "He does, at that."

  "I wish I could say the same of you, brat."

  "You can't?"

  "To the casual observer you still look the callow, untouched youth—"

  "Get off my back. To the noncasual observer?"

  "You look like hell," said Brad with a flat bluntness that raised David's eyebrows and brought a smile.

  "Maybe I'm like the five-year-old who was told he was a fine, big boy and looked older than his age, and who said, 'I've thought a lot.""

  "Too damned much."

  "Maybe I've crossed my last river, seen my last jail," said David.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Only that I think now I can be of more use in Boston, at national headquarters. My God, Brad, you have any idea of the damned mountain of legal paper work that's piling up?"

  "Did you know Klein has had another heart attack?"

  "No! When?"

  "A few weeks ago. As a matter of fact, he was in the same hospital I was in. You brought it up, David. They'd like you to take over. I wasn't going to tell you till later."

  "Hell, no, Chief. I've been out of touch too long for that. And it will take a hell of a long time just to get my own material in shape—"

  "Fight it out with them. I'd like to see you do it. This year's going to be a big one, David; next year will be bigger. They need someone with front-line experience."

  "Here's Isaiah—"

  They talked a while of progress and nonprogress, discussed politics and the possibility of a civil rights bill and the handling of the trouble that would follow its passage. David told Isaiah of the need for organization and trained leadership, especially now that whites were coming down in groups. "They don't know what the score is," he said. "You can't expect them to; you can't expect a wide-eyed, white college kid who's never had anything worse than a campus curfew to contend with to understand fear and the apathy of fear. They'll catch on, only they need leadership and, well, call it education. And sometimes I think the young Negro needs it even more than the white. They don't have the tolerance, don't understand the psychology of their elders, tend to be contemptuous of the mental scars—"

  He saw a gleam come into Isaiah's eyes. "How long you staying down here this time?"

  "Middle of next week," said David.

  "Fine, son, fine. You doing anything Sunday? You better not be. We've got our youth groups pretty well licked into shape. Sunday there's a big picnic, young folks, old folks, everyone. Over the lake, if it don't rain. They'd sure be proud if you'd give 'em a talk."

  "God, no, 'Saiah. I'm no good at that sort of thing. And I hate making speeches, even though I've had to make a lot of 'em. Besides, you want someone who's better known—"

  "What you saying! Better known! You think you ain't known around here? Negro press give you a mighty big play, son, when you give up that big gov'mint job to stay down around the South. Editorials and all that. They tell me the northern papers played it up, too, columnists and all. Li'l Joe Champlin's grandson stands mighty high around here, almighty high. Anyhow, it's just one day. Thought you might tell 'em about some of the snags they'll run into, some of the mistakes to steer clear of, keep 'em from making fools of theirselves when the time comes, getting theirselves in trouble—"

  David shrugged. "O.K. So I make a speech and I give 'em the works on nonviolence—"

  "Who said anything about a preachment on nonviolence?"

  "I thought that was what you were getting at—the joys of law and order."

  "Where's it going to get you with police dogs and cattle goads? You-all know what's been going on up around Plaque-mine way?"

  "I've heard," said David. He didn't want to talk about it. It made him sick, nauseated him, the memory of what he'd heard. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brad shift in the wooden office chair, pull away from its back, rest his weight on one thigh, and said: "Give 'em rifle practice, too. Teach 'em to shoot straight."

  "Lawd!" Isaiah's eyes widened. "Never thought I'd live to see the day. Li'l David Champlin, the kid his grandaddy said didn't like to fight. Never thought I'd ever live to see it."

  "Me either," said David. He frowned at Brad. "Come on, Uncle Bradford. You're going to the house and get some rest." He turned to Isaiah. "Let me know where and when you want me Sunday. After that I'll be busy. So no more plans. O.K.?"

  CHAPTER 68

  Luke came just before they started dinner, pounding up the path, knocking and then bursting in without waiting for an answer, saying "Hey, man!"—live, vital, bringing an almost tangible glow into the house.

  "Charge!" said David, and grinned at Brad.

  They called each other "jailbird" and other, less complimentary names, Luke giving David and Brad little chance to talk. "Can I use your shower, man? Man, five days out of the clink and the smell's still there. You got your phone connected, man? You got the water heater on? Must be half-dozen chicks in this town gonna sit up all night and cry, Luke don't let 'em know he's back, don't show 'em trouble hasn't changed him any. Man, what a trip! Out of the bucket and into the Ritz in five easy steps. Man, you hear about my job?"

  "Slow down," said David. "Slow down. We're old men, remember? Listen, I've got hot water, telephone, and the divan bed's made up for you. But you've got to sleep in it alone, y'hear? And if you can hold still long enough to eat, we've got gumbo, beans, rice, chicken, and biscuits. If you want to tomcat around tonight, you can sleep tomorrow."

  Luke grinned. "You mean I'm staying here?"

  "Sure. Planned on it."

  "And you do the cooking? Let the chicks wait. They'll be all the better for it. I've been out five days, four of 'em in New York, and Luke don't waste time. I can hold out. Lemme get us some drinking liquor before I start scrubbing the frame—"

  David started to tell him there was plenty in the house, then stopped. The kid wanted to buy it himself, wanted to celebrate his new status, his new prestige. Brad said, "Put blinders on him and let him go—" and after the door had closed behind him, "My God, David, I never realized how much the boy had changed. The first time I saw him was right in this house. Remember? You sent for him. He was sulky, almost sullen. On the defensive, even with us."

  "He's not the only one, Brad. Take Isaiah. You noticed it. And I've seen it all over. I don't mean just hotheaded kids; I mean older people, men I'd never seen before in my life, but I knew what they'd been like a few years back and I knew the change was there. Even while they were holding back, giving me a bad time, 'not wanting no trouble, son'; 'too old now to go looking for trouble, son,' the change was there, in back of their eyes."

  "There's still fear," said Brad.

  "Hell, yes, there's still fear. As my grandfather said once, 'We been frightened people, son.' But, Brad, fear without hope is one thing; fear with the leaven of hope is something else." He remembered a conversation with Gramp years before. "Jungle," he said. "Them antelopes sure learning fast."

  Later, in the living room after dinner, as they were finishing the "drinking liquor" Luke had brought, David said: "Brad, come on with the Cainsville bit. Every time Luke's mentioned it you've shunted him off."

  "You mean my interference with the course of a bullet? I've told you about it. That was in—"

  "No, I don't mean that. I'm convinced now that you're in fair shape, loaded with luck. An ordinary guy, with ordinary, nigger luck would have bled to death on the way to the hospital. It's happened."

  "Why don't you give him the scene, Brad? Why you holding back?" Luke freshened his drink and, swinging one leg along the length of the divan, leaned against its arm.

  "Oh, hell." Brad was nursing his drink between the palms of his hands. "Why didn't you stay in jail, Luke? I've been holding back because I happen to be fond of this big ape. I'd like to see him out of the whole damned m
ess for a while, at least until he gets himself in shape again."

  "How about talking to me instead of at me?" asked David. "You know, like I was in the same room."

  "All right. Only I don't want you involved. Wait, that's not true. I'd give a good deal to have you with us there, but I'd give more to see you looking like a human being again, feeling like one."

  "F'cris'sake, what makes you think I want to be involved, as you call it? If I want involvement there are other messes in other places; there are other jails. Unless you need me, man, I'm happy to stay away. And there's one whole hell of a lot of catching up to do in a nice quiet office in Boston, where the jailhouse is a long way off. That's my next stop. What's so special about Cainsville you've got to treat it like a top-secret bombsight? Just another crumby red-mud southern town—"

  "Not now," said Brad. "Not quite. Do you know the Reverend Humboldt Sweeton?"

  "Hummer? Yes. I met him more than a year ago, in Montgomery. A hell of a sweet guy. Well named. He's no Martin Luther King, but in his own way he's quite something. If he had King's grasp of reality, he'd be one of the best leaders we have. Is he in this Cainsville scene?"

  "Very much so. ALEC just joined forces with him, unofficially, and secretly. Even Isaiah hasn't been told. The N-double-A and a couple of other groups are in the background, holding a watching brief. Fred Winters is there, and Les Forsyte."

  Brad rose and took what had been a bowl of ice cubes and was now mostly water into the kitchen, and David, waiting, searched his memory for more details of the minister known as "Hummer" Sweeton. He had met him in a small wooden frame church hall on the edge of Montgomery, Alabama. The hall had been crowded that day with delegates to some kind of church convention. The local ALEC group had found David in New Orleans, asked him to come and speak before the general meeting. After the talk Hummer Sweeton came up to him and shook hands. "Can you get us some more like you down here?" he said. "That's what we need, young leaders with your kind of sense."