Luke smiled at me and ran his finger down my nose to clear it away. “Looks good on you.”
Buddy laughed a laugh that hadn't changed since the time we were children together, even though the rest of him had. “I owed you, didn't I? Anyways, that ain't near as bad as stuffin' cake up my nose like you did.”
“Well, you almost drowned me. I win.” I dipped my napkin in my water and scrubbed the sticky residue away. “For a man fixin' to marry, you sure act like a boy. I swear, Dolly, you got your work cut out for you, marryin' him.”
“That's what his momma says.”
Buddy shook his head and pointed his straw at Luke. “You see how these ladies talk? Just once, I'd like to hear what goes on in one of them sewin' circles they have.”
“âOh, Dolores,'” Luke sang out, “âI do declare that husband of mine will be the death of me! He don't do nothin' but eat and sleep and cause me trouble.'”
I shoved my spoon into my chocolate sundae and eyed Luke up one side and down the other. “What in tarnation is that supposed to be?”
“Woman talk, of course.”
“Ain't no woman this side of the Mason-Dixon Line got a voice like that.”
“You sayin' you met every woman in the South?”
I rolled my eyes in disgust. “You make us women sound like crazy people.”
Buddy and Luke exchanged a glance that said,
Maybe they are crazy, but I ain't goin' to be the one to say it.
I was just about to protest when Gemma came in, breathless from having hurried over.
“There's trouble brewin' over at the meetin' place,” she called out. “And Tal's right mixed up in it.” Then she scurried back into the street. All four of us rushed out of the diner, following in Gemma's wake.
The meeting place was a field behind the lumberyard, a wide meadow dotted with shade trees, perfect for picnics and such. Today it was being used by the colored church for their monthly social, but nobody in particular owned it. It just sat there on the outskirts of town to accommodate anyone who wanted a place to picnic or laze about on a fine afternoon, one of the few places in or near town where there were no
Whites Only
signs or separate entrances. After all, it was nothing but God's country there, and there wasn't anybody who had the right to put such stipulations on that.
Or so I thought.
By the time we got there, the arguing voices were raised in the kind of way that doesn't do anything but make a body nervous, and I knew without even thinking who one of those voices belonged to.
“Malachi,” I groaned in Luke's ear. “He's at it again.”
“But he didn't start it.” Gemma tugged at my arm to get my attention. “It's Cole Mundy and Delmar Custis. They come over here all liquored upâon a Sunday no lessâand start fussin' at Tal, and then they go tellin' the rest of us we ain't got the right to use this here meadow no more. âWe is too,' Malachi says. âAin't no laws against it.' So Delmar, he says it's white people that make the laws, and any self-respectin' white man knows there ain't no excuse for no group of . . . Well, you can guess what he called us. He says ain't no excuse for a group of us to be ruinin' the scenery for law-abidin' folks who want to come into town of a Sunday.”
“Delmar Custis!” I narrowed my eyes at the man's back. “He ain't nothin' but a Klansman at heart. Always has been, always will be.”
“Well, you can bet Malachi couldn't keep his mouth shut, so now he's over there arguin' with those two, who ain't got half the sense God gave a mule on a good day. When they're liquored up, there's no tellin' the trouble they'll cause.” Gemma glanced nervously at Delmar, who was now pointing and yelling like some sort of hellfire-and-brimstone preacher on revival Sunday. “And you know that Cole Mundy's always got his huntin' knife on him. Maybe even a pistol, too. I'm afraid he'll start somethin'.”
Luke and Buddy edged forward to intervene, but Dolly grabbed Buddy's arm. “Don't you go gettin' yourself shot, Buddy Pernell, you hear?”
“I ain't aimin' to.” He gave her a wink and sauntered off beside Luke.
“I declare, that boy's goin' to up and get himself killed one day the way he dabbles in trouble.” Dolly crossed her arms and clucked her tongue like we weren't watching more than a picture on a movie screen. “He'll leave me a widow one day, you watch . . . if we even make it to the altar before he meets his Maker.”
Gemma and I looked at her like she'd gone crazy, but we knew she was just being herself. Dolly Gooch had always been a kind soul, but she hadn't ever been much for serious thinking. Her mind had only been on looking pretty and setting up house ever since we were ten years old.
Well, she may have been the type to sit back and watch, but I wasn't. I walked off behind Luke, with Gemma at my heels, stopping only when I got to the edge of the crowd so Luke wouldn't yell at me for getting in his way. Tal stood off to Luke's left, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“You get Sheriff Clancy?” I whispered to Gemma.
“He ain't there!” She shook her head hard. “I tell you, that man's about as worthless as pig slop. He's probably off playin' poker somewheres.”
Luke whistled to interrupt the arguing, his hand at his waist so he could get a feel for his pistol. “This sure is a lot of noise for a fine Sunday,” he said when eyes turned toward him. “Seems a shame to waste such an afternoon on a spat over nothin'.”
“You ain't got no business here, Talley.” Delmar stared him down and then spit his chaw on Luke's foot. “Why don't you and your friend here clear out and let me take care of these niggers?” He jerked his head in my direction. “And keep your girlfriend there from shootin' willy-nilly. Seems she almost shot up my boy the other day, but I ain't like to let her get away with it same as he did.”
Luke casually looked down at his shoe, stared for a few seconds, then flicked his foot to the side to knock the chaw off. “I see you got yourself as much class as ever, Custis,” he murmured. “Now, why don't you head on out before this here trouble gets out of hand. The way I hear it, in this town, the meetin' place is open to all folks. Ain't no lawmakin' for a place that belongs to no one particular man.”
“Anythin' ain't man-owned is county-owned, the way I see it.” Cole Mundy stood a full four inches shorter than Luke, and he nearly stood on his toes to bring himself up to Luke's face, making him look more like a child at a circus than anything else. “Now, like the man said, clear out!”
“You ain't never had no problem with the colored church meetin' here before, Mundy. What's got you so riled up now?” He leaned toward Cole and sniffed. “Aside from the fact that you've been at the sauce.”
Tal was standing just behind Malachi, and he moved forward, raising one hand in the air like he was waiting to be called on by the teacher. “I reckon I'm the one got them riled up. There was a couple white boys playin' over by that fence there.” He pointed off in the distance and waited for Luke to nod his understanding before he continued. “Well, one of them, he fell down and hurt himself, so I went on over to check and see if there was somethin' I could do to help. These men here, they saw me talkin' to the boy, and Mr. Custis says it ain't fittin' for a colored doc to touch any white boy.”
“He didn't call him a âcolored doc,' neither,” Gemma muttered.
“This boy ain't got no call to put his filthy hands on a white boy, nohow. But it was this one got uppityâ” Delmar jabbed his finger in the air toward Malachiâ“sayin' it ain't my business to go about tellin' a doctor who he can and can't tend to. I ain't a man to stand for one of his kind talkin' to me like dirt. I want some respect from him!”
Malachi shook his head, smirking. “Shoo-wee! This here fella wants me to have respect for him.” He gave Delmar a once-over and laughed. “I'm confused. You want me givin' you respect for your fat gut or for your tobacco-stained teeth?”
Delmar took a leap at Malachi, but Malachi just stepped out of the way and let the heavier, slower man fall to the ground.
On another day, in another situation, I would have struggled not to laugh at the sight. But on this day, with one white man being humiliated by one colored man, in front of a group of colored folk, no less, I knew the minute Delmar Custis kissed the dirt, we were in for trouble the likes of which we'd never seen before.
You could hear a pin drop in that meadow. Every face in the crowd drooped in worry. Even Malachi's. There was no way in this whole world retribution wouldn't come for this, and there wasn't a single soul who didn't know it.
Malachi's poor momma was standing behind him, held in Noah's tight grip, crying like she had a crystal ball that foretold all kinds of pain in their future, all over this one encounter. The pain in my stomach didn't leave me much hope it would be otherwise.
Luke pulled his gun out, shoved Malachi out of the way, and pointed the weapon at Cole, who was reaching in his pocket, no doubt for something to wreak vengeance with. “You just head on out, Mundy, you hear? You ain't got your right senses about you just now, so you head on out.”
Cole lowered his hand the second he stared into the barrel of Luke's pistol, but the look on Delmar Custis's face when he peeled himself up off the ground was like a premonition. It held more violence than I'd seen before, and I'd seen some mighty fierce hate in my day. For a brief moment I thought he might reach out and snap Malachi's neck where he stood. But just now he was in ready range of Luke's pistol, and he didn't have much choice but to back away.
Just before he turned, however, he leaned forward and spit right in Malachi's face. Buddy wrapped his arms around Malachi before he even had a chance to react.
“I said, head on out,” Luke repeated through clenched teeth, now pointing his pistol toward Delmar's chest.
Delmar aimed eyes at Malachi that carried the kind of hate you'd expect to find only in the depths of hell and pointed one finger in his direction. “You're dead, boy. You hear that? Stone-cold dead.” He took one last hard look at Malachi and then backed away several steps before turning to saunter off from the group.
Silence reigned as those men backed away from us, staring us down like wild animals eyeing their prey. The sight of them made my skin crawl, and for those few moments, while time seemed to stand still, the thought ran through my mind that I wouldn't care one bit if Luke's gun went off and shot Delmar Custis square between his beady eyes, that Delmar Custis could drop dead in front of me this very moment and I'd smile. But it took only two seconds for me to realize what kind of evil my thoughts were made up of, and I rubbed my arms against the unusual chill that descended on me. I'd had many an idea run through my mind in my life, but this was the first one that had me thinking kindly about seeing a man meet his Maker right in front of my eyes. I swallowed hard and tried to look at Delmar Custis without hate in my heart.
I had more trouble doing it than I was comfortable with.
When Delmar and Cole disappeared around the corner, a collective sigh spread over the meadow, but it wasn't a sigh that spoke of confidence that peace was coming to Calloway County anytime soon.
It was one that told of coming horrors instead.
Chapter 14
Monday evening, Luke's truck picked up gravel and flung it every which way when he tore into our driveway. I was taking clothes off the line, two clothespins propped between my teeth, but I dropped the trousers I held the minute I saw him drive up like that. There was no other reason for him to do it except that there was trouble brewing somewhere.
I ran to meet him. “What's happened?”
He slammed the door. “You seen Noah?”
“No, why?”
“His momma ain't seen him since this mornin'. She said he headed into town and ain't been seen since. Malachi was supposed to meet him in town and walk him home, but he ain't to be found neither.”
“I reckon we can all guess where he is.”
Luke stood there for a second, his head down, and then he reared back and kicked one of his tires hard. “Doggone it! What's he thinkin'? Goin' off half-cocked like this, throwin' his life and money away. And on what?”
Gemma came out onto the porch. “There trouble?”
“Can't find Noah,” I said. “You seen him?”
She shook her head, her hands gripping her apron, twisting it into a thin line. “You goin' to look?”
Luke nodded.
“I'm comin' too.”
I untied my apron and tossed it on a nearby tree branch. “Leave a note for Momma and Daddy. They can help look when they get back from Mrs. Tinker's.”
Gemma ran inside, and I let Luke help me into the truck.
No one spoke as we drove, but I knew where we were going. We'd been there once before, that night we'd seen the Klan on the banks of Barter's Lake. If we wanted to find Noah, the best place to start was with Malachi, and we knew exactly where he'd be.
The din of raucous, drunken men filtered through the open windows as we approached, and Gemma jumped out before we'd even pulled to a stop.
Malachi saw her and ducked behind his hand of cards. “Don't let her see me. She'll beat me with somethin'.”
“I see you fine, Malachi Jarvis. I ain't blind.” She stared him down, hands on her hips. “You put them cards down and get on in the truck.”
“I can't go yet.” He talked around a cigarette that hung from the side of his lips, all droopy and ashy. “I'm workin' a straight flush.” He turned the cards around to show her. “See?”
The rest of the group muttered and threw their cards onto the crate that served as their table.
Gemma marched over to him and looked around angrily in search of something. Then she grabbed the hat off the man next to her, knocked the cigarette out of Malachi's mouth with the back of her free hand and proceeded to whack him over the head with the hat.