Echoes of a Distant Summer (50 page)

In the distant trees Elroy could hear owls hooting to one another and the stars seemed bright overhead. The canoe was hidden in the underbrush above the high-water mark and covered with a piece of tarp. Judah and his father hefted it on their shoulders and waded into the water. Once everything was loaded, they pushed out onto the black surface of the water and paddled quietly through the shallows toward some small islands out in the bayou where the eels were known to spawn. The frogs and the cicadas created rhythms in the darkness with their mating calls.

Elroy’s father lighted an old kerosene lantern and hooked it to the prow of the canoe and asked Judah, at the back of the canoe, to troll slowly while he threw little bits of bait into the water under the lantern. When his father started to see activity just under the surface, he told Elroy to throw out baited float lines, while he sat at the prow with a homemade net scooping for anything that came to the surface.

The fish weren’t biting in the first spot so they paddled to another cove where the delta created shallow waterways. Along the way Elroy’s father asked him, “You didn’t put out that bait like I asked, did you?”

Elroy had no choice but to tell the truth. “No, I forgot, Papa.”

“Yo’ brother done yo’ job for you again, huh?” he asked as he continued to paddle in the front of the canoe.

“Yes, sir,” Elroy answered, shame bending his head. He stared at his father’s carbine, which lay in the bottom of the canoe.

His father turned around and looked at both his sons with a smile.
“That’s what brothers are for. Yo’ brother did the right thing, but you, Elroy, got to stay on yo’ job; that way yo’ brother don’t have to forget his to cover for you.” His father paused as if to let his sons digest the content of his words and turned his attention to his rowing before he spoke again. He guided the canoe through a narrow channel which meandered between several small islands. He commented over his shoulder, “Judah, you ain’t doin’ too well on yo’ readin’ and writin’. When we finish buildin’ the schoolhouse and the teacher arrives, I’ll expect better from you. But you’s learnin’ the lessons about family that I wanted you to learn. You’s learnin’ about helpin’. You’s both good sons. I pushes you, ’cause it’s my job to prepare you to deal with the world these white folks have set up.” His father had to turn and concentrate on paddling because the canoe was crossing an area in which there were a lot of submerged logs. He guided the canoe into a little, narrow canal. From the rise of a small island on their right, the red eyes of some fair-sized animals reflected the light of the lantern.

“You got yo’ carbine, Pa? We got swamp deer right there!” Judah whispered.

“Sure! You got yo’ sling?” his father rejoined. “If you want to go about chasin’ wounded deer in the dead of night, might as well use that. I could hit him dead in the heart and he’d still run off thirty-five yards somewheres out there in the swamp.” The deer took off at the first sound of their voices and splashed away in the night.

There was a late moon rising overhead; it was nearly full and tinged pale blue. It cast a soft light over the half-submerged landscape. “I ain’t ever killed anything as big as a deer with my sling, Pa!” Judah mused.

“I was only funnin’, son. We’s after fish tonight. We got plenty meat smoked and put away.”

The canoe continued slowly forward through the narrow shallows until there was plenty of activity under the lantern. They fished steadily for nearly two hours, removing hooked fish and placing fresh bait on the float lines. Both eels and catfish were biting in the new area. Their handwoven basket was nearly full of slithering eels and wiggling catfish when the first gunshots echoed across the water.

Judah looked up and there was a red brightness above the trees in the direction of their cabin. “Pa, it look like there’s a fire somewhere near home!”

“Get them oars out!” commanded his father. “And start pulling hard.
We got a mess of distance to clear!” Elroy saw his father cut the trolling lines, leaving the store-bought hooks and floats to drift with the twine. He saw the muscles of his father’s bare back flex in a pattern of ripples in the lantern’s glow as he sent the prow of the canoe back toward the main channel.

“Help on the right!” Judah called out behind him and Elroy switched his paddle to the right side and dug deeply into the rippling surface.

They bent their backs to the task. Elroy could hear his heart drumming in his chest like the sound of an old mill saw. He focused on rowing, changing sides every two strokes like his father taught him. The canoe pushed through a narrow waterway where the thickets had grown dense on either side and several branches smacked Elroy across the face, then they were through into open water.

“Put your backs into it, boys!” his father commanded. As he finished speaking there was a barrage of gunfire.

A rider sitting astride his horse at the back of the group of twenty hooded riders watched as his uncle, the Grand Cyclops of the Den, yelled out to the cabin, “Come out, niggers! You was warned to get out of this parish! You was warned not to try buildin’ no school! You was told there ain’t no place for educated niggers down here! Now it’s time to pay the piper! The Invisible Empire is here! Come out or we’ll burn you out!” Several of the riders at the front of the group were carrying torches.

There was only a woman’s voice in answer: “You ain’t got no right! Our people done lived on this land since before the Civil War. This is our land!”

“Ain’t that just like niggers?” the Grand Cyclops shouted over his shoulder to his followers. “The menfolk is too scared to come out of the pantry and talk, so they send a woman!”

“Let’s burn ’em down!” shouted another voice from the front. “Teach ’em a lesson!”

The Grand Cyclops gestured to a couple of riders who were carrying torches and they spurred their horses forward. When they neared the cabin, rifle fire erupted from inside. One man fell from his horse and the other turned his horse away. Suddenly, there was pandemonium and confusion among the riders; no one had expected resistance. “Return fire!” ordered the Grand Cyclops, riding out of danger, and a hail of bullets splattered against the cabin, breaking the glass windows and
punching holes in the walls and the door. A torch was thrown on the thatched roof and another through the broken window. The dry thatch caught immediately and the fire spread rapidly. The riders continued to fire their guns into the cabin despite the fact that there was no answer from inside the building.

Elroy’s mother was already dead. She was killed in the first hail of bullets from the Night Riders. Her seven-year-old daughter lay on the floor crying by her mother’s body until a piece of the burning roof fell on her. The child tried to put out the flames, but more burning thatch kept falling until finally both her dress and her newly oiled hair caught fire. The flames and the pain made her forget the men outside. She got up and ran from the cabin screaming. She stumbled off the front porch and fell in the dirt. She got up once and staggered blindly about until a shot from the Grand Cyclops’s gun knocked her over backward.

The rider who had initially been at the back of the group now found himself next to his uncle. He had seen the child come running from the burning cabin with her clothes and hair ablaze. Her body was still smoldering in the dirt. The smell of burning flesh was now strong in the clearing in front of the cabin. The rider was sickened by the carnage. It was not what he expected. He had ridden along for fun, but not to kill children. He turned his horse and kicked it into a gallop and, by doing so, saved his own life.

The first bullet that Elroy’s father fired hit the Grand Cyclops in the chest and knocked him off his horse. Elroy’s father continued firing until he was out of bullets. Several more riders fell. Once again there was confusion among the Night Riders. About half of them took off, riding for their lives. Others returned fire, aiming their guns into the darkness, hoping to drive off their foes.

Elroy’s father was out of bullets, but he couldn’t stay out of sight. His daughter was lying in the front of the burning cabin and he had no idea where his wife was. He had to at least get to his daughter. Using the shrubs and underbrush as cover he made his way toward the cabin. His carbine was useless. He prepared himself to make a dash into the clearing to get his daughter. He waited behind a bush, looking for an opportunity.

The remaining riders were having difficulty maintaining control of their horses, who were boggling because of the loud discharges from the weapons. There was considerable dust being raised by the horses’
hooves. After some shouted exchanges the remaining riders appeared to decide that it was best that they also depart, for they reined their horses and followed their comrades back along the road.

It was the moment Elroy’s father had been waiting for. He rushed out into the clearing and knelt by his daughter’s still-breathing body. The skin on her face and legs was burned black, and liquid from her wounds ran down his arms as he hoisted her to carry her to safety. He nearly made it out of the clearing when a shot rang out. The bullet hit Elroy’s father in the shoulder and spun him around. Nonetheless, he did not drop his daughter, but staggered back into the bush. The sound of returning hoofbeats followed close behind. Before Elroy’s father reached the cover of the oleander thickets another shot dropped him. He fell on top of the body of his daughter and lay still.

Elroy and Judah rushed to kneel by the bodies of their father and sister. Judah gently rolled his father’s bloodstained body off his sister’s and discovered they were both dead. Elroy was in shock. His gaze shifted back and forth from the flames of the burning cabin to the bodies of his father and sister, back and forth again and again. His mother was probably still in the house. If she had escaped, she would not have left Ruthie behind. Elroy couldn’t believe what was happening. He was afraid to even touch the blistered body of his sister. She smelled like meat cooked over an open fire, like barbecue. Tears began to trickle down his face. The blessing that was his family was being destroyed before his eyes.

Three hooded riders warily reined their horses to a walk just before they entered the clearing. Judah jerked at Elroy’s shirt, indicating it was time to escape into the thickets, but Elroy knelt as if he were frozen, heedless of his brother’s urgency. Judah shook him again but more forcefully. “Come on,” Judah hissed. “They gon’ kill us too!”

Elroy allowed himself to be helped up by his brother and led into the bushes. He seemed to have lost his fear of death, for he walked as if he were in slow motion. With Elroy’s arm over his shoulder, Judah half-carried, half-dragged him deeper into the protective cover of the underbrush. But not before they were seen.

“I see a live one, Lon!” a hooded rider shouted as he spurred his horse forward. “We still might have someone to hang yet!”

“Watch yourself, Shorty!” warned one of his companions. “They may still got some bullets!”

As soon as he heard the horse pounding toward them, Judah let Elroy slide to his knees and took out his sling. He reached into his pocket and found a particularly large stone in his collection and placed it in his sling. He started whirling the sling, getting the feel of his projectile, and waited for the rider who was almost upon them.

The horse and rider rounded into view and began to bear down on the two boys. The rider saw that his victims were not running and began to slow his horse. When he realized that Judah had a sling in his hand, the rock was already in flight. It hit him in the forehead just above the nose and caused him to lose consciousness and slump backward off his horse.

Judah pulled Elroy to his feet and slapped him hard across the face. “If we gon’ live, we need to be runnin’! I mean puttin’ a foot in it!” Elroy seemed to come to his senses and began to jog through the thickets. “Faster! Faster!” shouted Judah.

One of the remaining riders pulled the hood from his head, revealing two watery-blue eyes and a pockmarked face. He pulled a Winchester rifle out of its scabbard and focused on the retreating backs of the two boys. Because of the darkness, he decided on the larger target and waited for his shot. The boys had nearly made it to a stand of magnolias when they passed briefly into the open. The rider pushed a lock of corn-silk-blond hair out of his eyes and fired off two quick shots, then looked to see the result.

“Run, Elroy! Run!” Judah cried out.

After his brother shouted, Elroy heard the first bullet go hissing by his face and saw it knock a branch off a tree to his right. The fear which had strangely eluded him earlier was upon him now. It grabbed him like a hand and squeezed his heart. It spurred the pumping of his legs and drove him running pell-mell into the cover of the outlying foliage. He ran through thickets and bushes, heedless of the branches smacking his face. He ran until he could run no longer. Elroy tumbled to his knees, gasping for breath. He pulled himself underneath the branches of a dense-looking bush and lay back against its trunk. There was a large lime-green garden spider with a body the size of the first joint of his little finger devouring some hapless insect within two inches of his face. Elroy did not have the strength to move away. He lay there as daylight returned.

Elroy did not remember when he had gotten separated from his
brother. He spent the next two weeks hiding in the swamps, stealing in at night to eat the partially burned meats from the Caldwells’ smoke shed. It seemed to him that he was being punished by a cruel and merciless God. His desire for a family was filled then rudely snatched away. He did not leave the area until he overheard a neighboring colored family discuss the Caldwell family’s fate. When he heard that everyone in the family had been killed, Elroy headed back to Port Arthur. He lived by stealing and rifling through garbage. He arrived at the door of the orphanage a month later, starving and in rags. The sisters took him in and once more the cacophony and the regimen of motherless children enfolded him. He did not speak for nearly six months and would not eat any meat that was smoked or grilled over an open fire. Elroy recuperated from his experience without visible scars, but his innards had been mangled and he grew into a man who rarely smiled.