Nobody Said Amen (5 page)

On the other side of the highway was the Sanctified Quarter, home of the Negroes of Shiloh, where Percy and Rennie Williams lived. Ted had learned about the Sanctified Quarter before he ever came to the Delta. But now it was here before him, a visible history that was as exotic to him as it was tragic.

When the out-gunned and exhausted Confederate troops had been forced to flee south from the Delta, they left behind a smoldering land of burning buildings, thousands of abandoned fields with rotting cotton, and a hungry, bewildered, and rootless population of slaves. So when the pursuing Union troops swept through the cotton hamlet of Shiloh, they left behind a small garrison to secure the vital Delta crossroad and offer protection to the thousands who were newly free.

The Union encampment was on the Daniel Wilbur plantation, adjacent to the one good wagon road that stretched north to Memphis and south nearly to the cotton ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Emboldened by the Yankee presence, Negroes from the Wilbur plantation took over the looted and abandoned granary and proudly christened it their Sanctified Church. It was the first black house of worship in the Delta that belonged to the parishioners. The small, unheated, and unlit building became, by its mere presence, the spiritual center for the throngs of ex-slaves who roamed the region as they foraged for food and shelter.

Three years after fleeing Shiloh, Daniel Wilbur, his wife, and his only son, George, returned from their long exile. To their despair, they found that their great plantation house had been gutted. From the remains of the veranda Wilbur could see, from horizon to horizon, the desolate ruin that had once been the family plantation. Thousands of his acres of cotton, the richest in the whole Delta, his daddy had said, bore only the rotted and desiccated remains of cotton plants that had died of suffocation by encroaching weeds, thirst, and disease. They too were the victims of the savage war. The powerless slaves, who had been forced for generations to keep the fields alive and productive, had abandoned the land they had nurtured and fled toward freedom. It was an irony that was lost on Daniel Wilbur. He knew only that he must rebuild the family legacy.

He surveyed the throngs of black men, knowing that without them the plantation could never be revived. And an agreement was reached that history would morally judge a hundred years later, an agreement forged only from a shared desperate need to survive. The ex-slaves became indentured servants to the old masters. For shelter and food they would once more drain the swamps and master the killing labor and suffocating heat of the cotton fields. For a pittance of a wage, they would once more become voiceless and powerless beasts of burden that could secure the legacy of the white aristocracy of the Delta. And when Daniel Wilbur commanded that they tear down their Sanctified Church and rebuild a greater granary, there were no black voices that said no. All that remained of the Sanctified Church, Dale Billings had told Mendelsohn, was the small overgrown burial plot that the Negroes had built in the lee of a stand of locust trees behind the church. Among the tangle of ivy and bayberry bushes one could still see a few remaining tiny rock headstones with some names still legible: Tobias, Daddy, Martha, January.

With fierce resolve, Wilbur had recreated the great plantation despite the turmoil of the Reconstruction years. He was demanding and autocratic with his family. His son, George, considered him an unloving man dedicated only to success, who had no empathy and was a stranger to compassion. Blacks who worked at the Wilbur place thought he was a hard taskmaster but a fair one. When Daniel Wilbur died in 1874, he left the thriving plantation of 3,000 acres to his son, a canny businessman who had managed the family fortunes during the hard years of rebuilding and was determined not to emulate his father. He decided early to enjoy his inherited wealth and travel abroad. So in the spring of 1875 he sold the plantation to an eager young Yankee banker who had come to settle his family in the Mississippi Delta. His name was Amos Tildon.

Mendelsohn eased across the highway, eager to see more of the Sanctified Quarter and to understand what it had become. Unadorned by street lights or paved roads, the black Quarter had sprouted like swamp weeds over the decades from depleted acres where cotton had once flourished. Few trees provided shade, and drainage ditches by the side of the dirt roads had to serve as sewers for the Quarter. On the metal roofs of the cobbled-together houses the Delta sun was blinding. As he had already learned at the Williams house, the stifling heat in the summer made the lives below almost unbearable. Yet in almost every sere front yard he noticed tin cans and discarded containers blossoming defiantly with petunias, nasturtiums, geraniums, and field daisies. And behind nearly every little house he could see a vegetable garden that might provide the tomatoes, okra, and beets that could be preserved for the cold months ahead.

Before six in the morning, Mendelsohn had heard the trucks from the plantations pick up the men, women, and children of the Quarter, carrying them miles out into the vast green sea of cotton where they would labor until dropped off back at the highway when the sun had gone. Mr. Williams, at 71, was still making that journey. “Work from cain’t to cain’t, Mr. Mendelsohn, suh,” he had explained in his gentle voice.

“Cain’t to cain’t?” Mendelsohn asked.

The old man had smiled. “Work from cain’t see in the morning cause it’s too dark, to cain’t see at night cause it’s too dark.”

Mendelsohn had nodded. “A long day. And how much do you make, Mr. Williams?”

“Mostly about six dollars a day. ’Course we got Mrs. Williams’s garden out back, which carries us through most of the winter.”

Mendelsohn recrossed the highway now, parked the Chevy in the shade of the bank, and stepped gratefully into the air-conditioned interior. It was very small, with only two tellers. Sterling Tildon’s grandfather had opened this bank in the last years of Reconstruction, when times were cruel. Folks needed money, and land was cheap. With a little inheritance, Tildon had begun the acquisition of the land that now made up the largest plantation in the Delta. His father had expanded the bank in the 1930s and sent his son to Ole Miss, hoping he would choose a life in politics. And Sterling had not disappointed.

Mendelsohn moved across the marble floor to the building directory. Flanked by the Confederate Stars and Bars and Old Glory, it announced that Senator Sterling Tildon’s office was on the second floor. On the third floor was the suite occupied by the White Citizens Council of Shiloh and the Shiloh Club. He slowly scanned the interior of the Tildon bank and then looked out to the sleepy, overheated square. So this modest fountainhead in this two-bit feudal town was the genesis of the extraordinary career of Senator Sterling Tildon. During all Mendelsohn’s years covering Washington, this was the man he had watched with the most fascination as, step by step, he’d mastered the vast machinery of the United States Senate. When Mendelsohn approached the teller and inquired where he might find the mayor, the young woman pointed across the street.

“Our bank director, Mr. Roland Burroughs, serves as mayor, sir. Mornings he can be found at the City Hall yonder. Afternoons he is up on the second floor, next to the senator’s Shiloh office.”

Mendelsohn was panting when he reached the second floor of the small City Hall. Facing the landing, the glass door stenciled MAYOR stood ajar. As he loosened his tie and gulped for air, he watched the heavy, florid man in the office struggle to push up the large, shadeless window that framed the square. An ancient fan hung lifeless from the ceiling, and the morning sun flooded the room.

“Mayor Burroughs?”

The mayor turned, studying Ted over his glasses. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m Burroughs.”

“Can I help you with that window?”

“No. Takes knowing how. Damn window’s older than I am.” Mopping his brow, he moved from the window and made his way to the worn leather seat at his desk. “You must be the reporter.” He slowly poured himself a glass of water from a desk thermos. “You want some of this?”

“No, thanks. Looks like you’ve been doing all the heavy lifting. I’ve just been moseying around, looking at Shiloh.” Nothing stirred in the stifling office. “You mind if I take this off?” Mendelsohn shed his seersucker jacket and stood before the straight chair in front of the desk. “I just found out that you are also director of the Tildon bank, Mr. Mayor. Pretty large load to carry.”

Burroughs arched his back, settling into the comfortable old leather, and smiled. “Been doing it for so long that it feels like ordinary. I sweat here in the morning and cool off at the bank in the afternoon. Well, take a seat. I’m always glad to have folks come and look over my little town. We’re not big, but we’re right in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Richest soil in the world, richer than the Nile Valley. And if you can find it, the best moonshine that doesn’t come from Kentucky. Hope you’ll enjoy your stay. So what brings you to Shiloh?”

“Didn’t know about the moonshine, Mr. Mayor. I guess what brought me here was Senator Tildon.”

“Sterling! Well, I’ll be darned. You know Sterling?”

“I know him like a reporter knows the heaviest hitter in the Senate. My beat’s been in Washington for a long time, so I’ve interviewed your Senator Tildon on several occasions.”

“So the Senator sent you here?”

“No. I’m covering the great debate going on about the Voting Rights bill that’s tied up in the Senate.”

“Oh, yeah, Sterling’s been leading that fight. Looks like that commie bill will never get out of committee.” He turned, squinting at the reporter. “Why you here and not in Washington?”

“Just the way a story unfolds, Mr. Mayor. You go where the story takes you. I left Washington to cover the meeting in Ohio where the civil rights workers from Mississippi came to orient the student volunteers who were coming down to work here. And when I met the group who were coming to Senator Tildon’s home town, I decided to tag along.”

Burroughs drained the glass of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes remained still. “Just decided to tag along. Must be an interestin’ job you got. Where you stayin’? Our little hotel across the square there hasn’t been open for years. Don’t get a whole lot of visitors down here. Not till this commie invasion this summer with those ‘Freedom Riders.’ You stayin’ at the Motel 6 over in Cleveland?”

“No. I’m staying with Mr. Percy Williams over in the Sanctified Quarter.”

The mayor’s chair pushed back from the desk. “You’re stayin’ with Percy Williams?” His voice was incredulous. “With those commie kids, those Freedom Riders?”

“I don’t think Mr. Williams could rightly be called a Freedom Rider, Mr. Mayor. He’s deacon of his church, seventy-one years old, and never been out of Shiloh. Tells me he played with Senator Tildon when he was a boy, picking cotton at Tildon’s place. His daddy did shares there.”

“For a Yankee reporter, you seem to know a hell of a lot about this Delta Nigra.”

Mendelsohn stood and carefully picked up his jacket. “You learn a lot when you visit someone’s home town.”

Burroughs wheeled in his chair, extricating a dusty ledger from the shelf. “You came by to sign the register?” He shoved the register brusquely across the desk. “Just sign your name and your company.
Newsweek
you said on the phone?”

The reporter signed the register, shoving it back to the mayor when he was done. “That’s right.
Newsweek
magazine.”

Burroughs squinted at the signature. “Mendelsohn. Not a name I ever saw before.” He leaned back in his chair. “What kind of name is Mendelsohn?”

“Well, it’s an all-right name. It was my father’s name, Mr. Mayor.”

“Not a name you see down here. Never saw it in Iwo Jima.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. His face was flushed. “Never saw it at the VFW.” His voice was hoarse. “Never saw it at the Legion Hall, Mendelsohn.”

“Not a name that kind of slides off your tongue, Mr. Mayor? Well, maybe you need a title to remember it. I was Lieutenant Mendelsohn on D-Day at Utah Beach. And my cousin, Major Buddy Mendelsohn? He was killed with the 101st Airborne right behind my beach on D+ 2. Maybe that would have caught your attention way back before you didn’t see any Mendelsohns on Iwo Jima. Or at the Shiloh VFW. Too bad there aren’t any Mendelsohns down here in the Delta.” He smiled. “Until now, of course.”

“Until now, of course,” said Burroughs.

Mendelsohn waited a beat and then sat back down on the chair. Very deliberately he took out his notebook and unscrewed his pen. “Enough about me, Mayor Burroughs. I’d rather talk about you. And about Shiloh. And about those three civil rights kids, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney who disappeared over in Neshoba two nights ago. They were heading to Shiloh.”

Burroughs rose from his chair, walked to the window, and silently stared out. “I’ll bet you would, Mendelsohn.” When he turned back, his face was angry. “Three more victims of the Savage South for
Newsweek
, huh? You just lookin’ for a story about trouble down here, aren’t you? ’Spect this redneck mayor to help you? Well, Lieutenant, you came to the wrong place.” He returned to his desk and sat down heavily in the chair. “Last time we had trouble down here was two years ago when some outside agitators, like those three you just mentioned, came into Shiloh and shot up some Nigra homes in order to get money and publicity up North.” He snorted. “Worked, too. Gotta hand it to ’em. All the Yankee papers and networks were competin’ to see who could vilify us the most. And your magazine did a photograph essay showin’ those poor, mistreated darkies.” He pulled out a stapled sheaf of papers from a desk drawer and dropped it in front of Mendelsohn. “You’ll find it right on top. Just about broke your heart, Mendelsohn.”

“So the disappearance of those three civil rights kids was just an accident, Mr. Mayor? I’m real interested in the answer because I was with those boys just before they arrived in Mississippi, and my magazine, the one you save so carefully, is not interested in bullshit.”

“No. I don’t think their disappearance is an accident. I’m like J. Edgar Hoover who thinks they rushed off to Cuba so they can laugh at us. Mr. Hoover just bullshit too?”