Beyond This Time: A Time-Travel Suspense Novel (17 page)

“What’s a fair weather friend?”

“A person that befriends another only if they have nothing to loose.”

“Oh.”

“So, is Samuel your friend?”

The question, asked by this old grandfather wearing shabby work clothes and a straw milking hat, revealed a new truth to the twelve-year-old.

Mitch nodded. “Samuel already cost me one after school detention,” he grumbled. “And I suppose there’ll be another one. Toland doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

“Are you saying Samuel is your friend?”

“Yeah. And I suppose that makes me a nigger lover.”

Speaking the ugly words aloud finally freed him from the racist cage Billy Lee erected around him. The walls, built of slurs and epitaphs, crumbled.

And now, this situation with Kat reminded him of Samuel and Peter Toland all over again. He could play it safe, temporarily push their relationship into the closet and turn out the light. A fair weather friend.

Or he could stop screwing around and do something.

His feet tangled in the blanket when he tried to stand and the man grabbed his arm, saving Mitch from cracking his head on the concrete floor. “Thanks,” Mitch paused, how could he talk to this guy if he didn’t know his name? “What’s your name?”

“What you want to know for?” The man looked ready to rabbit.

“Because I find it difficult to carry on a conversation with a fellow unless I know who he is.”

He nodded. “Name’s Maximilian Devore, boss. But they call me Taxi.”

Mitch wanted to ask how he’d evolved from being a Maximilian into a Taxi, but this didn’t seem an opportune moment. “Pleased to meet you, Taxi.” He held out his hand.

After several indecisive seconds, Taxi briefly touched his hand, not a shake exactly, but a start.

“Folks call me Mitch.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Mitch.”

“The woman Floyd and the others were bragging about could be a good friend of mine,” he said, hoping it was a local woman rather than his partner. He shook his head, ashamed for wishing ill will on someone he didn’t know.

He read the disbelief in Taxi’s eyes before the words soaked into the walls. The statement must have smelled like a pasture full of cow manure. How many white men in Alabama openly admitted to a close friendship with a black woman? In 1963, social exchanges between adult whites and blacks fell in two distinct categories: nonexistent or clandestine. And Mitch’s admission had shattered any possibility of a clandestine relationship into a million pieces. Another mistake.

How many errors in judgment were necessary before he learned how to behave in this society? He should have known better than to plant his butt on a stool in a
colored’s only
bar. And he sure as hell shouldn’t drag a black man into the middle of this mess.

But he needed information, and Taxi held onto it like an ace in the hole. Mitch knew he could turn on the cop, talk tough and shove him around a little. Under those conditions, Taxi would talk, or clam up so tight it would take a pry bar to open his mouth. Mitch couldn’t afford the latter. If Kat had met up with the three goons in the other room, she could have been seriously injured. It would be smarter to find another tactic, something besides rough and gruff, to convince Taxi to trust him enough to speak freely. And he better be real convincing or his source would back completely out of the door.

“My friend’s name is Kathleen, but I call her Kat. See this?” He opened his hand to reveal the cowboy boot pin. “I gave it to her. And that son-of-a-bitch Floyd had it in his pocket. I know he took it by force, because she’d never give it up voluntarily.” Mitch blinked rapidly, clearing the moisture from his eyes. Pictures of what Floyd had so vividly described intruded into his thoughts.

Taxi reached out and took the pin from his hand. He rubbed his thumb across the copper and silver boot. “She asked ‘bout a boot when me and my woman carried her into town,” he said softly.

Mitch’s stomach clamped down on his beer and peanuts as he struggled to overcome the nausea. “Where did you take her?”

“Cain’t say.”

“Can’t say … or won’t say?” Anger sparkled like ice crystals in Mitch’s eyes. Finally accepting the probability Kat
was
the victim of a rape, he had neither the time nor inclination to baby Maximilian Devore. He wanted straight answers.

Taxi backed away, shaking his head. “I won’t be mixing in a white man’s and a Negro woman’s affair. Besides, your kind don’t never go visiting in the east Hollow.”

Mitch smelled the sickly sweet odor of fear emanating from Taxi, and immediately shoved his impatient anger away. The strong-arm approach would only drive him further away, and without his help Mitch didn’t have a prayer of locating Kat.

“Taxi, she’s my friend,” he said, turning down the pressure. “And after the ruckus, I’m pretty sure those fools will be looking for her.”

“She’s in a good place. Ain’t no harm goin’ to come her way.”

“Don’t bet your paycheck on it. They aren’t completely stupid, they know she’s a star witness for the prosecution.”

“No need to worry on that count, Mr. Mitch. She knows better, she won’t be talking to nobody about them.”

“Kat isn’t like the other women in the east Hollow. She’s … well, she’s more progressive.”

“She still be colored.”

“We can stand here until the cows come home and never reach middle ground on this point,” Mitch said tiredly. After only a few hours in the old South, he longed to shove his fist in the face of the nearest good ole boy. “The bottom line is that I need help.
Your
help.”

“I done told you, I cain’t be taking you over there.”

“I don’t want you to take me anywhere.” Mitch pointed to the pin in Taxi’s hand. “Will you give that to her? Ask Kat where she got it. Then ask her if she wants to see me. Can you do that? Please. She’s very important to me.”

Taxi took his time answering. “I reckon I can ask a couple of question, Mr. Mitch.”

Mitch smiled, getting word to Kat was half the battle. Now he needed to find out where Taxi stashed her. And since the
black
east Hollow appeared to be off limits, he would require an escort.

“What if I wait for you to bring me her answer at the bus station?” he suggested, knowing he couldn’t stay in Bubba’s store room. The depot would have both a colored and a white waiting room. Neutral ground. Taxi could freely come and go without being questioned.

“I suppose that’s a good a place as any,” Taxi said.

=THIRTEEN=

Taxi Devore got as far as the Webster Avenue Freedom Methodist Church before his hands got to shaking so hard he couldn’t hold onto the wheel and had to curb the De Soto. He sorely wished somebody would come along and tell him what to do. It seemed to him that he’d been making this same wish over and over again his whole life.

He’d not so much been raised, as growed up, and nobody much cared how. His momma ran off early on, and from then on his daddy moved from one girlfriend to the next, leaving Taxi and his seven sisters to get along on their own. But he always wished for a shove in the right direction.

Tonight he’d opened a door on a stinky swamp filled with all sorts of dangers. What kind of a colored girl got herself mixed up with a white man? She ought to know enough to stick with her own kind. Helping Mr. Mitch find his woman would bring the devil right down on top of Maximilian Devore. Yes sir, right on top.

“What am I doing?” he asked. While waiting for an answer, he picked at the loose skin around his thumb. “Should of known better, Maximilian,” he mumbled around the thumb in his mouth. “Got to stay clear of white boy business. Cause the only thing to come out of that’s my Negro ass in a sling. No doubt ‘bout it. No sir, no doubt.”

He wiped his thumb on his trousers then pulled the shiny little boot from his pocket. The street lights reflected off the delicate squiggles on the copper toe. He couldn’t help but wonder why Mr. Mitch gave a colored girl such a fine gift. Must be for a reason. Most likely a bedroom reason. Shoot, he and Dreama Simms had been together for close to a year, and all he gave her was that pair of red glass earrings from the five and dime. And that was for her birthday.

The longer he held the boot, the more it seemed to kick him in the back of his brain. “All the banging in my skull reminds me of a surly jackass that wants out of the barn stall,” he muttered, rubbing his aching head. “Not gonna involve myself,” he told the boot. “The woman’s doing just fine at Dr. Tim’s clinic. Lettie Ruth knows all about nursing the sick.”

Besides, if Dreama found out about Mr. Mitch she’d pitch a fit to beat all. She didn’t take kindly to Negroes that took up with whites. Male or female. Ever since those boys got a hold of her several months back, she couldn’t see the good in white folks no more. Taxi had friends living on both sides of town, and no matter what Dreama wanted, he wouldn’t stop seeing any of them.

Taxi shoved the jewelry piece in the glove box, thinking maybe if he kept it a little distance away the jackass in his head would quit kicking. No sense getting involved in other peoples woes. When he didn’t turn up at the depot, Mr. Mitch would figure his girlfriend didn’t want nothing more to do with him. And that would be the end of it.

“Nope, ain’t gonna drive to no Greyhound depot this time of morning,” he said. With the decision under his belt, Taxi cranked up the car engine and headed to The Blue. Dreama ought to be in the middle of her second show now.

* * *

The Blue

No matter how hard he tried, Taxi couldn’t shake his mind free of Mr. Mitch’s face. It kept pestering him like a white ghost floating all around the room. He couldn’t let it go. Might be because of the way the man had looked when he’d said her name was “
Kathleen, but I call her Kat”.
Or the awful sadness in his eyes when he said, “
Please”
.

The woman from the field was on the mend, Taxi was sure of it. Dr. Tim and Lettie Ruth had patched her up good. And no need to worry about Mr. Floyd finding her in the east Hollow. Shoot fire, those boys wouldn’t waste their time searching for a beat up Negro girl.

But when he thought about the brawl in Bubba’s bar, he just had to smile. Whoopee, but Mr. Mitch ripped into those miserable excuses for people. Taxi had listened to their bragging and seen them puff out their chests like scrawny roosters fresh out of the hen house, wondering about the kind of men that felt pride in taking a woman by force.

Thinking about all this business didn’t do him no good. He couldn’t go getting soft in the head about a white man. This Negro intended to mind his own
p’s
and
q’s
.

Taxi directed his attention to Dreama. His beautiful angel sat at the piano, in a pretty pink spotlight. The green dress hugged her curves something bad. He got short of breath thinking about what hid underneath all that silky material.

He whistled and cheered as Dreama tossed her head and made the old piano sing. She pounded the keys so hard, all her parts started wiggling and jiggling. As she beat out a hot rendition of
Bill Bailey
, she caught his eye and gave him the high sign. Four quick nods meant one more song and she’d be heading out the back door.

His woman had a real problem about folks seeing them together too often, which Taxi did not understand. They were of both well over the legal age for drinking and for doing what men and women did with each other. And they’d done it all. But Dreama still refused to hold his hand in public.