Trouble in July Read online

  But Vi had already covered the pine chunks with ashes. He could not see even a gleam of light in the room.

  “Henry!” he whispered through the crack.

  There was no answer for a long time, even though he thought he heard Vi and Henry whispering to each other. The only other sound he could hear was the soft padding on the floor when Vi and Henry moved in their bare feet. They had taken off their shoes so as not to make any noise.

  “Henry!” he whispered again, much louder than before. “Henry!”

  “What you want now, boy?” Henry whispered back from the darkness of the room. His voice was not unkind, but it sounded as though he wished Sonny would go away.

  “I just can’t run off like you said, Henry,” he pleaded. “I don’t know how to go nowhere at all. I want to stay here. I ain’t done nothing, Henry.”

  He could hear Vi and Henry whispering to each other, but he could not hear any of the words. He waited, hanging onto the window sill by his fingertips.

  “If you ain’t going away off like I told you,” Henry said through the crack, “then just go off somewhere as far as you can from here and hide the best you can in the woods. But don’t hang around here no longer, because the white folks is liable to come busting in here any minute from now on. You got sense enough to know they’re going to get on the hunt. Go somewhere or other and find yourself a good place to hide, and just squat down and stay there. I’ll come looking for you when the trouble dies down, if it ever does.”

  “You’ll sure do that, Henry?” You’ll come and find me?”

  “Ain’t I always done like I promised?” Henry was pleading with him. “You strike out for the deep piney woods as fast as you can. Get going, boy, like I told you.” His voice was urgent.

  “All right, Henry,” he said obediently. “I’m going just like you told me.”

  He dropped from the sill, feeling a lot better since Henry had told him he would not have to leave the plantation country. He could hide out in the woods near by any length of time as long as he knew he could come back when the trouble had died down and go back to work for Bob Watson in the cotton.

  He tiptoed to the corner of the cabin and stood listening with head bent a little on one side. The dogs had stopped barking and howling, and there was no sound anywhere that he could hear. Some crickets chirped near by, but they did not matter. He felt safe and comforted standing there at the corner of Henry’s cabin.

  All at once he was hungry. He remembered that he had missed his supper that night. He had never felt so hungry before in his life. If he went off into the woods as hungry as he was, and had to stay there several days, maybe a whole week, he knew he would starve. He turned around quickly on his heel and looked at the dark shuttered window. He called Henry’s name several times, but there was no answer. He remembered that he had had only some cold turnip greens for dinner that day. He hugged his stomach with both arms, trying to ease the pain that had suddenly gripped him there.

  He tried to pull the heavy window shutter open, but it was locked fast on the inside. Then he put his mouth against the only crack he could find and called Henry for a while, and then finally Vi. There was no answer.

  Looking carefully in all directions first, Sonny crept to the front door and tapped on it. There was no answer, and he knocked louder.

  Henry came to the door and whispered.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Henry,” Sonny told him desperately. “It’s Sonny.”

  There was a long period of silence.

  “Why don’t you go on off like I already told you?” Henry said harshly. “There’s still time for you to go somewhere and hide out, boy.”

  “I’m hungry, Henry.”

  There was another interval of silence before Henry spoke again.

  “Boy, you sure does hang on. I never saw the like of it before in all my life. You hang on and on, just like a new-born calf onto the old cow’s teat. Ain’t you got one drop of sense?” he asked impatiently, his voice rising.

  “I’m hungry, Henry,” he said meekly.

  Henry and Vi whispered behind the door.

  “I just can’t go off to them woods hungry as I is. I ain’t had a bite to eat at all.”

  “There won’t be no need for you to eat,” Henry warned him, “if you hang around here and let the white folks catch you. Dead people don’t never have no craving to eat.”

  Sonny heard Henry’s bare feet padding towards the kitchen, and he knew he was going to get something to eat after all. He crouched low at the door, turning his head just enough to enable him to watch the lane in both directions. All the cabins along the lane were as dark as the night itself. The whole settlement looked deserted. Sonny wondered as he crouched against the door if the people in the quarters, beside Henry and Vi, had heard anything yet. He decided they did know about his trouble, because he could think of no other reason why the cabins would be dark, even if it was after midnight, and the shutters closed over the windows on a hot summer night.

  “Reach your hand through the crack when I open this door a little,” Henry said, startling him. “Vi couldn’t find nothing except some pieces of cornbread, but that’ll do you for a while. Now take what I’m giving you, and jerk your hand away fast, because I’m going to shut this door right up tight again. Next thing I know you’ll be wanting to come in here and sleep in the bed. Do you hear me, boy?”

  “I hear you, Henry,” he said gratefully.

  He put his hand on the door and waited for the crack to appear. In a moment his hand slipped through the opening Henry had made, and he grasped the bread that was thrust at him. He began eating it in big mouthfuls right away.

  “I ain’t trying to be mean to you, boy,” Henry said insistently. “I’m just trying to make you strike out for them deep woods where you belong. Now, get going! You hear me, boy?”

  “I’m going, Henry,” he promised. “I was just hungry.”

  He left the door, cramming the cornbread into his mouth and swallowing it in painful gulps. When he got to the back of the cabin, he stopped and listened, but there was nothing he could hear. He took one more look in the direction of the cabin where Mammy was, and then he crawled, through the split-rail fence behind Henry’s cabin and started walking across the field towards Earnshaw Ridge.

  Halfway across the first field he suddenly remembered the rabbits. There was a persimmon tree not far away and, crouching, he ran to it. He pressed his body against the trunk of the tree. He thought he could almost see the rabbits half a mile away. They were in a hutch at the back of Mammy’s chicken house.

  He stood under the tree wondering if Mammy would forget to feed them while he was away. She might forget, if she spent her time worrying about him, and they would be shut up with nothing to eat for two or three days, maybe a whole week, if he was away that long. The longer he gazed in the direction of the rabbits, the more troubled he became. Mammy was old and she forgot easily. It hurt him to think of his rabbits shut up in the hutch and dying of starvation.

  He made up his mind to go across the field to the back of the chicken house and feed the rabbits. He walked slowly across the field until he came to the ditch where the tall grass grew. He pulled up grass by the handful and stuffed it into his shirt. When he could not get any more into it, he ran along the side of the fence until he came to the rear of Mammy’s cabin. The chicken house was only a few yards away. He could see the rabbits sitting in the starlight with their twitching noses poked through the mesh-wire. They began hopping around like mad when they saw him climb through the fence and come towards them.

  Sonny stuffed the boxes full of the new green grass and put his hand inside to feel them. The two does sat where they were and let him rub their ears back and run his fingers through their fur. The buck was more cautious. He backed into a corner and stayed there eating grass with one ear raised and one flat on his neck.

  “You sure like to eat, don’t you, Jim Dandy?” he said to the buck, pushing a handful of
grass closer. “You keep a man busy just feeding you and nothing else.”

  He had become so absorbed in the spell cast over him by his rabbits that he jumped when he remembered what it was he had to do. He looked around the corner of the chicken house towards the cabin, but the building was as dark as any of the others. He wished he could go inside and wake Mammy and tell her what had happened, but he remembered what Henry had told him, and he turned sadly away.

  When he passed the box where the rabbits were, he stopped and looked inside again. Jim Dandy and the does were so busy eating the fresh grass that they had not moved in all that time. The box looked as if it were bursting with rabbits. All the young ones had started eating grass, too. They were hopping all over the place, nibbling first at one blade of grass, then hopping off to nibble at another one.

  He was about to climb through the fence when he suddenly ran back and caught one of the little ones. Holding it tightly in both hands, he climbed through the fence and ran out across the field.

  When he came to a drain ditch where a patch of grass was growing, he stopped and snatched up several handfuls and stuffed it into his shirt. Then he put the rabbit in with the grass and buttoned the shirt carefully.

  After that he ran across the field, not stopping until he reached the fence on the other side. When he stood up after climbing through, he could feel the rabbit’s moist nose against his bare skin. It felt cool and friendly, and he was no longer lonely. He hurried along a path to Earnshaw Ridge, holding his elbows close to his sides so the motions of his body would not jolt and frighten the animal.

  Chapter IV

  AFTER LEAVING ANDREWJONES, Jeff McCurtain drove slowly down the highway through the low country, already missing his wife more than he thought he could endure for three or four days. He would find a Negro somewhere along the creek to cook his meals and keep him company, but even then he would be unhappy every minute. There was nothing in the world that could take the place of Corra’s cooking and of her mere presence when night fell.

  The highway was flat and straight, and he reached the narrow lane that led to Lord’s Creek a lot quicker than he had wanted to. He slowed down the car, taking a last longing look at the low country before turning into the deep tangled swamp-growth that bordered the creek for two or three miles on each side of its banks.

  The headlights of another automobile suddenly broke through the darkness and flashed upon him. The car drew up behind him and jerked to a stop. He did not have time to move before he saw Jim Couch.

  “I’m glad I caught you in time,” Jim said breathlessly. “If you had got to the creek, I couldn’t have found you till daylight.”

  “What in the world’s the matter, Jim?” he asked.

  “It’s Judge Ben Allen, Sheriff Jeff,” Jim replied quickly. “He said he wants to see you right away.”

  “Man alive, Jim!” Jeff exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell him I’d already gone to Lord’s Creek?” All he wanted was to know if I’d heard about the trouble and come down here, wasn’t it?”

  “I told him that, Sheriff Jeff,” Jim said, watching his face, “and he said he wanted you to come back to town as fast as you could and come straight to see him.”

  Jeff dropped his hands from the steeringwheel. His wrists suddenly began throbbing with weakness.

  “I don’t know what far-fetched thing Judge Ben Allen could be thinking about,” he said. “It ain’t like him to change his mind and not want me to come down to the creek, after all these years.”

  “I don’t know, either, Sheriff Jeff, but he sounded pretty positive talking on the phone.”

  Jeff gazed out at the fields of corn that covered the land as far as he could see towards the east. On the other side of the road, the earth was alive with tangled vegetation of the swamp. It looked peaceful and quiet out there towards the creek. The moon had come up, and the cool silvery light on the dew-drenched bushes reminded him of the night many years before when he walked seven miles to Corra’s home to court her for the first time. He wondered why he was reminded of that night, and then he began wishing he could go back to the day they were married and start his life all over again. He knew if he could do that, he would avoid politics as if it were a plague.

  “I’d sort of looked forward to a few days of peace and quiet down here on the creek, Jim,” he said wearily. “It’s about the only real pure vacation I ever have for myself.”

  “Maybe all Judge Ben Allen wants is to say a few words,” Jim said sympathetically, “and you can come right back down here again.”

  Jeff looked at him hopefully.

  “There is a chance of that, ain’t there, Jim?”

  “Sure,” Jim told him. “The Judge wouldn’t be likely to make any big changes. The primary election is a long way off.”

  “All right,” Jeff said, speaking decisively. He started the motor and began turning the car around. When he had got it straightened out, he called to Jim: “I’ll hurry back to town and see Judge Ben Allen. You and Bert keep things like they should be at the jailhouse.”

  He drove off, working the car up into a high rate of speed immediately. He left Jim standing in the road.

  It was eighteen miles back to Andrewjones, but he drove up the main street less than half an hour later. He passed through the courthouse square when it was only a few minutes past two o’clock and went directly up Maple Street towards Judge Ben Allen’s house. On the way he passed the all-night filling station and saw three or four men standing beside a car while gasoline was being pumped into it. He speeded up so as not to be recognized. He was certain the men were getting ready to go to Flowery Branch and join in the hunt.

  When he reached the driveway in front of Judge Ben Allen’s house, he turned the car sharply and drove it under the wing of the building that had been built for the carriage entrance. He got out as quickly as he could, not even taking time to close the car-door.

  He mounted the steps, crossed the porch, and began knocking vigorously on the paneling.

  Judge Ben Allen had been a Circuit Court justice for more than twenty years, and he had retired from the bench when he was sixty-five. His wife had been dead for eleven years, and he was alone in the world. If he had any close relatives, nobody in Andrewjones was aware of it, because he never mentioned the fact. The only visitors he had at his house were politicians. They invariably left after discussing the business that brought them there, and none of them had ever remained to pay a social call. Judge Ben Allen raised pigeons in his backyard. The house itself was the largest and whitest in Andrewjones. It was a three-story colonial with thick round columns that extended from the ground to the roof. The Democratic Party was split into two factions in Julie County, and Judge Ben Allen had taken over the leadership of the larger one. The Allen-Democrats had not lost an election since he had been in control, and the county was run by the politicians fortunate enough to be on friendly terms with him. The scarcity of Republican voters in the county had long before ruled out any possibility of a Republican running for an office, and the handful of people who otherwise would have voted that ticket were scattered among the two factions in the Democratic Party.

  In a few minutes the door was opened by Wardlaw, Judge Ben Allen’s Negro man. Wardlaw was several years younger than Judge Allen, but he looked almost twice as old. His hair was as white as cotton, and his body was bent. He walked in a shuffling manner with his body stooped.

  Jeff pushed Wardlaw out of the way and went in, slamming the door behind him. Wardlaw got out of his way. It was not the first time the sheriff had come in a hurry to see the Judge.

  Judge Ben Allen was waiting for Jeff in the library. He had on his nightgown and slippers, and Wardlaw had put a blue-and-white blanket around his shoulders. He was sitting at his desk.

  “What’s the matter, Judge?” Jeff asked at once, standing before him at the desk like a prisoner on trial.

  Judge Allen looked up at him unsmilingly. Jeff could not recall ever having seen him before with such a w
orried expression on his face.

  “You were a long time getting here to see me, McCurtain,” he said. “I could have traveled that distance ten times over.”

  “I was down in the lower end of the county, near Lord’s Creek, when I heard you wanted to see me.”

  “What were you doing down there at this time of night?” he asked impatiently. “Why wasn’t you in bed?”

  Jeff looked at him carefully before answering. Judge Ben Allen had sent him fishing six or eight times during the past ten years, and he wondered if it were possible that the Judge was angry because for once he took it upon himself to go without being told.

  “I was going fishing, Judge,” he said finally.

  Judge Ben Allen grunted and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

  “This is a bad mess, McCurtain,” he said gravely, speaking as though he were about to hand down an important decision from the bench. “Sit down McCurtam.”

  Jeff sat down.

  “This thing looks worse every minute,” the Judge said, looking at Jeff and thinking. “That’s the aggravating thing about it. We’ve got the primary elections coming along in less than four months. This is one time we’ve got to be sure of our ground.”

  Jeff nodded.

  “Where have you been seen tonight since this thing got under way?”

  “I was in bed asleep until a little after midnight,” Jeff said quickly. “After that I got ready and got almost all the way to Lord’s Creek. I ain’t seen a soul tonight except my wife and the deputies.”

  Judge Allen looked at him, seemingly weighing the possibility that Jeff might be lying to him.

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  Wardlaw came in silently, sliding his wide flat feet noiselessly over the carpet. He went to the corner by the door and took up his accustomed position.

  “I hate to say it about brother whites, Judge,” Jeff began uneasily, “but them folks up there in those sand hills have got some far-fetched notions when it comes to mingling with niggers. I even found a white woman living with a nigger man up there once, but they ran off before I could do something about it. This Katy Barlow might be telling the truth, and, again, she might not be.”