Heaven and Hell (71 page)

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The Year of the Locust 447

Small foamy bubbles on his lip burst as he screwed the post of the earring into his left lobe. Wearing the memento of his punishment of George Hazard pleased and amused him.

He set the plug hat on his head and hobbled westward. The bobbing pearl caught the light of the burning farmhouse; it was as if an iridescent drop of coagulated blood hung from his left ear.

Slowly the firelight receded to the horizon and he hobbled in darkness, keeping himself warm by squeezing the great lump of cash and imagining his next victim and thinking, Soon. Soon.

LESSON XI.

Boys at Play.

Can you fly a kite? See how the boy flies his

kite. He holds the string fast, and the wind blows

it up. . . .

Boys love to run and play.

But they must not be rude. Good boys do

not play in a rude way, but take care not to hurt

any one.

When boys are at play they must be kind,

and not feel cross. If you are cross, good boys will

not like to play with you.

When you fall down, you must not cry, but

get up, and run again. If you cry, the boys will call you a baby. ...

McGuffey's Eclectic .

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First Readers 1836-1844

Madeline's journal

October, 1868. Civil authorities can find no culprit for the murders of May and Ridley. Why did I assume they would? Justice might be done if the military investigated, but they cannot. S.C. is

' 'reconstructed."...

448 HEAVEN AND HELL

Theo bought an old ship's bell in C'ston. I rubbed off the tarnish and nailed it up beside the front door to sound an alarm if it's needed. We now have our own Ashley District militia--all Negroes, most from M.R.--organized to prevent interference at

the polls. The Klan is seen frequently in the district. Tensions remain very high. So a man stands guard over this house each night.

In a civilized country, a country at peace, it seems unimaginable.

Yet I hear the watchman patrolling, his bare feet rustling the mat of pine straw on the ground, and I know the peril is real. . . .

M-L growing listless because of her confinement here. Her education is neglected. An unsatisfactory situation. Must do something.

. . .

November, 1868. To town, on the second-to-last day of the campaign.

Saw a soldier's parade--marching units calling themselves

"Boys in Blue for Grant." Posters by Thos. Nast, the N'York cartoonist, render the Gen'I. with a marble elegance. But Bad eau's and Richardson's campaign biographies go begging in a bookshop.

Seymour, Grant's opponent, poorly regarded here, but Blair, his running mate, is a darling of white citizens. Blair calls the Reconstruction gov'ts "bastard and spurious," offers broad promises of restoring the Southern ' 'birthright,'' and openly declares the white race "the only race that has shown itself capable of maintaining free institutions of a free government.'' No wonder Yankees say, "Scratch a Democrat and you will find a Rebel under his skin." Judith said she feared to scratch Cooper lest she learn the truth. I saw great anxiety behind the weak jest; C. is rabid for Blair. . . .

. . . All over, with no surprises. Grant is elected. In Dixie, Seymour carried only Louisiana and Georgia. So much for Blair's
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promises to "disperse the carpet-bag state gov'ts and compel the army to undo its usurpations." Every eligible man at M.R. voted, of which 1 am very proud. . . .

Theo here for supper. Left just before I sat down to write this. For the first time, he and M-L raised the subject of marriage.

I do not oppose it, but she is Cooper's child. How far do I dare go to abet something sure to inflame--Must stop. Noise outside--

In single file, the riders turned into the lane from the river road. A sickle moon set white highlights flashing along the barrels of their weapons.

They proceeded slowly under the arch of trees and rode around the The Year of the Locust 449

white house quietly. They drew up in a line at the front door. In the moonlight their shimmering robes and hoods had a black cast. The eyeholes reflected no light at all.

The horseman in the center of the line raised his old squirrel rifle.

A man on his right saw the signal, scraped a match on the heel of his plow shoe and touched it to an oil-soaked torch. The light blazed up, illuminating the half-dozen riders.

"Call her out," said the man at the extreme right of the line. He sat his horse near the lowest limbs of a huge gnarled live oak. The upper portion of the oak's trunk was all but hidden by Spanish moss. Some bird or squirrel moved there, a faint rattling. The rider on the end peered upward, saw nothing.

The man at the center of the line raised an old speaking trumpet.

Suddenly the front door flew back and Madeline stepped out, her left hand rising toward the rope of the ship's bell.

"Stay," ordered the man with the trumpet and squirrel rifle.

Madeline looked pale as she clutched the front of a man's cotton robe worn thin at the elbows. Behind her, the stout schoolteacher peered out, and then Marie-Louise.

"We are the knights of the Invisible Empire assembled," said the man in the center. His nervous horse shied.

Madeline startled them all by laughing. "You're little boys hiding your faces because you're cowards. I recognize your long legs, Mr.

LaMotte. At least have the decency to remove that hood and act like a man."

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A Klansman at the left of the line hiked up both sides of his robe and put his hands on the matched butts of revolvers. "Let's kill the damn bitch. I ain't here to debate a nigger."

The man in the center raised the squirrel rifle to quiet the speaker.

To Madeline he said, "You have twenty-four hours to leave the district."

The torch hissed. There was a clicking sound, a lever action putting a cartridge into a chamber, and a voice behind and to the right of the line boomed out:

"No, sir. Not just yet."

They all turned as Madeline's glance flashed to the mossy tree. A burly, round-faced black had crept into sight on a thick limb that bent under his weight. He braced his shoulders against a limb above, freeing both hands for his rifle. Madeline recognized gentle, reticent Foote; she hadn't known who was standing guard tonight.

"I think you gen'men had just better turn 'round and ride off,"

Foote said.

"Jesus, it's only one nigger," protested the man with twin revolvers.

45O ' HEAVEN AND HELL

"One nigger with a repeating rifle," said another of the Klansmen.

"I wouldn't be hasty, Jack."

"No names," the man in the center exclaimed. Marie-Louise whispered at Madeline's shoulder:

"It is Mrs. Allwick's dancing teacher. I know his voice."

Madeline nodded, her lips compressed. The man in the center of the line began, "Madam--" Madeline leaped forward, shot her hand upward and tried to snatch his hood.

His horse danced and side-stepped. He batted at Madeline with the squirrel rifle but she wouldn't be driven back. She jumped and clawed at the hood again. This time, she pulled it off. Des LaMotte's face was red with fury.

"Well. At last. The notorious Mr. LaMotte. And I have a souvenir of your visit." She held up the hood.

All of them watched her--the other two women and the Klansmen and Foote on the sagging limb. During the struggle for the hood, the Klansman with the two revolvers had drawn both of them. Still unnoticed, with everyone's attention on Madeline, he bent his right arm, laid
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the muzzle of his left-hand gun on it, and squeezed the trigger.

The revolver roared. The horses whinnied and bucked. Foote took the bullet in his left thigh, blown back off the limb and out of sight behind the Spanish moss. "Foote," Madeline cried, running past the horses to reach him. Before she could, the rider nearest the tree raced his mount under the lowest branches. Another roar reverberated. Madeline jerked to a halt. "FooteT'

"Stop that other one," shouted the Klansman with the twin revolvers.

Jack Jolly tore off his hood and aimed at Prudence, who had dashed outside after the second shot. The disfiguring scar showed white on his face.

Jolly was momentarily hesitant about putting a bullet in a white woman. His hesitation allowed Prudence to seize the bell rope. LaMotte's shout went unheard in the clangorous ringing. Another man cried, "That's done it. Let's go."

Eyes glassy with confusion, LaMotte shouted at Madeline: "You have twenty-four hours. Clear out. Everything. This teacher, your nigger militia--"

Something inside Madeline broke. She ran at LaMotte's horse again, caught hold of the headstall and yelled at him in the voice of a dock hand. "The hell I will! This is my land. My home. You're nothing but a pack of cowards dressed for a music hall. If you want me off Mont Royal, kill me. That's the only way you can get rid of me."

The horse of the Klansman at the left of the line began to stamp m

The

Year of the Locust 451

LaMotte threw anxious looks at his men. Jolly was enraged. "If you're scared to kill a nigger woman, I'm not." He pointed both Leech and Rigdons at Madeline, grinning. "Here's a one-way ticket to Hell Station on the devil's railroad."

The hooded man next to him grabbed and lifted Jolly's arms an instant before the revolvers went off. One bullet tore into the shakes of the roof. The other sped high in the dark. The Klansmen were now in panic, but scarcely more frightened than Madeline, who'd flung herself back against the whitewashed house, certain that one of the bullets would find her.

"I'll not have it," said the man who'd interfered with Jolly.

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Hearing him for the first time, Madeline registered astonishment.

"Father Lovewell? My God."

"I'll not sink to this," he said. Jolly turned the pistols on him.

Undeterred, the hooded priest grabbed his arms again. "Stop it, Jolly.

I'll not condone murdering women, even a colored--"

"You pious fucker," Jolly cried, wrenching one arm free. He aimed at Father Lovewell's hood. Again the Episcopal priest struck Jolly's arm before the revolver discharged. The bullet plowed under the belly of Father Lovewell's mare, raising a spurt of dust. Out in the dark, answering the bell, men were shouting.

Father Lovewell snatched a revolver away from Jolly. Jolly aimed his remaining gun. His skittish horse reared, forcing him to delay his shot. With both hands steadying the piece he held, Father Lovewell pulled the trigger.

Jack Jolly stood up in his saddle, then slumped forward. Blood darkened the front of his sateen robe and leaked down his mount's flank.

The other Klansmen were totally disorganized; freedmen could be heard running and hallooing.

Des LaMotte looked bilious as he backed his horse and yanked its head toward the end of the house. He raced away. The other Klansmen jostled each other trying to follow. Jolly's horse galloped off last, its dead rider wobbling and bouncing and threatening to fall.

Madeline's legs felt weak. She pressed her hands against the whitewashed wall to support herself. Bitter powder smoke choked her.

The torchlight faded as the Klansmen galloped down the lane.

"Are you all right? Who fired shots?" That was Andy, charging in from the road to the slave cabins.

Madeline's nerve collapsed suddenly; shock took her. Hair straggled in her eyes as she ran toward the darkness under the tree. "Foote.

Oh, poor Foote--"

Before she reached him, she had to turn away, violently sick.

452 HEAVEN AND HELL

At the edge of the dark marsh, by torchlight, they weighted Jack Jolly's body with stones and slid it under the water.

"They shot him, and he fell right by the house. That's the story,"

LaMotte said, hoarse. "We couldn't bring him out because they were swarming all over us. Don't worry, his kin will never go to Mont Royal
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to collect the body."

"And we aren't going back either," Father Lovewell said.

"Oh yes we are," LaMotte said. "I take the blame for what happened.

I never imagined she'd have a guard posted. But I won't be whipped by a woman. A nigger woman at that. She shamed my cousins.

Destroyed them--"

"Des, give it up. Father Lovewell's right." It was the first time Randall Gettys had spoken.

"If that's the kind of Southerner you are, all right," LaMotte said.

His face was nearly as red as his hair. He was furious, because months of delay had culminated in a bungled night's work. But he wouldn't quit. "She's not going to stay on the Ashley and flaunt herself. She's going to die. I'll hide out a while: Then I'll go back alone if the rest of you are too yellow."

No one said anything. They threw their hissing torches into the brackish water and dispersed, leaving Jack Jolly submerged, with darting fish and frogs and a three-foot baby alligator for company. The alligator swam close to the body, opened its jaws, and with needle teeth began to feed on the face.

We buried Foote. Cassandra inconsolable. She lost Nemo when Foote came back. Now this. Nothing I said helped. Late this afternoon, we found her gone. . . .

. . . To C'ston--and not eagerly. With a cold demeanor, Cooper listened to my story, and my assertion that Prudence and his own daughter would corroborate it. He was clearly angered by M-L's proximity to danger, but he contained it--then. As for the Klan visit, he advised me curtly to drop the matter because no Carolina juryman would convict them. Further, Des's family would certainly find witnesses to prove he was elsewhere at the time.

Father Lovewell''s presence would never be believed, witnesses or no. The authorities can get nothing from Captain Jolly's trashy kinfolk. No doubt hearing of his involvement, they have already left their campground and vanished from the district.

Cooper said he was sure there would be no more incidents.

How he could be so certain, I did not know. But his tone permitted no argument. Quite suddenly, he began to harangue me about Marie r