Where Southern Cross the Dog (21 page)

A hand went up on one of the benches.

“You stand up, sinner.”

A man stood up.

“Did y'all hear that? Did y'all hear that?”

Amens rang out.

“We're going to run that Devil off, because Jesus is everywhere and the Devil is hiding. He's hiding in our hearts and the Lord knows it. Like finding a weevil in the cotton, the Lord knows where to look for the Devil. And when the Lord finds him, oh the Devil's gonna pay.”

“Gonna pay,” the crowd echoed.

Travis could feel the reverend leading his flock just where he wanted them to go. The crowd was excited, almost wild, clapping, shouting out, praising the Lord. This was what they all had come for—to be infused with the power of the Lord—and the reverend knew just how to do it. He took them down, then up, then back down again. Now, he was building to the peak.

“He's gonna pay,” the reverend said, swinging his arm down like he was chopping a chicken's head off.

The church members responded with their own condemnations of the Devil. They moved and sang and shouted, pushing the people toward the front of the congregation closer and closer to the platform.

“And how are we gonna make him pay?” the reverend said, moving back and forth across the platform, inciting the crowd into a religious fervor. “I'll tell you how, brothers and sisters. We're gonna
sing, and we're gonna pray. That's how we'll pay that old Devil back.”

Travis watched, fascinated. He glanced toward the front and noticed a woman wearing a long-sleeved dress, who earlier in the service had been seated in the first row, now standing as she clapped, sang, and prayed along with the reverend. Suddenly, she slumped forward, her body splaying out onto the platform as she lost consciousness. Her arm struck an oil lamp and sent it careening across the platform. The lamp's oil splashed across the wooden structure, onto some curtains, and instantly set everything in its path ablaze, the dry wood serving to spread the flames to the walls of the rickety building.

The reverend's back had been turned when the lamp fell, and the singing and clapping made it difficult to hear any of the commotion. In the moment before the reverend turned around, the fire was already burning out of control.

From where he stood, Travis could do nothing but watch it unfold.

Realizing it would be futile to attempt to extinguish the fire, the reverend tended immediately to several children who were sleeping near the platform, making sure their mothers picked them up and headed away from the flames. Next, Reverend Taylor turned his attention to the woman who had fallen. Two people were trying to help, but they weren't moving her away from the flames. In two steps the preacher reached her side, took her by the feet, and began to drag her away. But his progress was halted by the mass of people trying to flee.

The singing that moments earlier had filled the air had turned to screams. Smoke filled the room. The windows, really cutouts in the walls that looked like windows, were jammed with bodies scrambling to get out. Travis had been pushed away from a window into
the middle of the room, carried along by those around him. The woman he had stood next to through most of the service was behind him now. Travis could hear her cries.

“Oh hurry, hurry, we've got to get out,” she said. “I don't want to burn. Only people in hell burn.”

Even in all the turmoil, Travis thought, she's still preoccupied with the sermon.

The crowd moved toward the door slowly, more and more people coughing and choking around him. When the man behind him started to cough, Travis found himself scared.

He turned to watch the blaze momentarily. The entire front portion of the building was now on fire.

No longer near a window, there was only one way out, and the mass of people surged toward it. Travis felt the woman behind him pushing him forward. By the time he realized she was falling, it was too late. She clutched his shirt on the way down, and her weight and the awkwardness of his position in the crowd also dragged Travis down.

They fell together, and as the people around them tried to make room for their tangled bodies, they began to topple in a domino-like reaction. The panic intensified as the smoke in the air thickened.

Travis lay near the bottom of a pile, and the woman who had pulled him down was actually now underneath him. He tried to rise, but the weight of others was too much. He lodged an elbow and a knee between him and the floor to protect the unconscious woman under him. People continued to fall, but now farther away from where Travis was trapped. He tried again to push himself up but could not budge those above him.

Then, he felt another body fall on top of him, this one with such force that it pushed Travis away from the woman he was protecting. He landed on his left side, and an arm from the massive body came down across the side of Travis's windpipe, restricting his breathing.
Travis couldn't see the man's face because he was slightly behind him, but he assumed the man had passed out. He tried to move the arm off his neck, tried to breathe, but he couldn't budge it. Travis tried not to panic. Then he realized the man was not unconscious but was in fact holding his arm tight against Travis's throat.

Unable to move, the smoke and heat overwhelming him, Travis began to gasp. The man on top of him moved his arm slightly, and Travis took a deeper breath, though he still could not move his head. Travis felt isolated and removed from the madness, like he was floating. Then he felt the man's mouth right next to his ear.

“Your daddy and all his friends wastin' their time,” the man hissed, “trying to find out who killed all them niggers. So what if some poor white trash did it. He may go to jail, he may not. Nobody cares 'cept the white folks. He'll always be nothing, nobody, like the rest of us. And people will forget about those killings quick as they happened.”

Travis moved his head to get some air, but the man on top of him forced his arm down harder. Travis relaxed.

“The man they ought be looking after is Vidla,” the man continued. “Lot a people say he ain't doing right. But no nigger gonna say anything against a white man.”

Travis felt the man's arm relax. Then he pushed up, off of Travis's shoulder, and got to his feet.

Several people who had been entangled with Travis also moved, and finally he was able to kneel. He looked up, but all he saw was the man's back before he disappeared into the smoke.

Finally, the fallen bodies started to clear. Someone lifted Travis to his feet. The woman who had fallen with Travis was already gone. He and a few remaining congregants stumbled outside and stood watching with everyone else while the flames engulfed the building.

Outside, family and friends reunited after having been separated in the panic, tears of joy and cries of praise spreading to all. A chorus of “Amen” and “Praise the Lord” rose amid the scattered
coughs when it became clear that everyone had managed to escape the conflagration.

After a while, Reverend Taylor tried to refocus his flock, leading them in a short walk to a field about forty yards from the church. “Come on now,” he said, urging gently. “Come to me.”

“The Lord told us something tonight,” the preacher said to his congregation gathered in the field. “He let us live to pray, and He let us live to take His word to others. To be His missionaries. To be His light.”

“So, I want you—no, I
need you
to rise up tonight and spread His word—to your friends, your family, your neighbors, and your community. Remember where Jesus lives, and don't forget that the Devil is always lurking, waiting for you to forget that Jesus is in your heart. Now go and do His work.”

The reverend's helpers began to take up the final collection of the evening. Travis watched from the edge of the group. The crowd, holding hands and praying as the flames leaped up behind them, created a picture that looked to Travis like heaven at the gates of hell. From heaven to hell—all on a small slice of Mississippi Delta. It was a revival no one would forget.

As Travis stood watching, the words that echoed in his mind were not those of the reverend but those of a man who had truly testified.

Judge, don't ask me no questions.

—John T. Smith

SAM TACKETT SAT WITH HIS HANDS FOLDED IN FRONT of him and waited for Judge Bertram Long to begin.

“The first order of business is the schedule,” the judge said. “We will only be in court today and Wednesday of this week. I have a federal case that I'm presiding over, and I must prepare for it on Tuesday with the federal prosecutor, and then I'm in Oxford Thursday and Friday. I'll return on Monday of next week to finish the trial. I apologize for the unconventional format, gentlemen, but it can't be helped.”

Tackett stood and was recognized. “Your honor,” he said, “this is most unusual, changing the days and times we meet. This is a murder trial, your honor, and altering the daily schedule is disruptive to
the jury. I fear they won't be able to render a proper verdict with all these shifts in time.”

“I
know
what kind of trial it is, Mr. Tackett. And I believe the jury can remember what's going on, even if we don't meet every day. This is not a complicated matter, and until you're sitting up here, and I'm down there, Mr. Tackett, we're doing this my way.”

In reality, Tackett didn't care, but he tried to put on a good show for the jury, to demonstrate he was watching out for them. At least that's what he hoped they were thinking.

Judge Long turned to the jury. “Over the next few days, we will not be on a regular schedule. I will allow you to return home at night, but you must not discuss the trial or anything that goes on in the courtroom with anyone. Not your friends, not your wives, not your neighbors. No one. Is that understood?”

The jurors nodded.

Tackett looked down at his witness list. There were four witnesses left: Sheriff Collins, Bill Montgomery, Horace Johnson, who had been a friend of the victim, and Conrad Higson.

“Call your next witness, Mr. Tackett,” Judge Long said. “We haven't got all day.”

Tackett tried to ignore the comment. “The state calls Sheriff Frank Collins.”

Collins was quickly sworn in and took a seat on the stand.

“For the record,” Tackett said, “please state your name and occupation.”

“I'm Sheriff Frank Collins, and I'm the law in Coahoma County, Mississippi.”

“And how long have you been sheriff of Coahoma County?”

“Going on six years.”

“Now, Sheriff, I've called you because we'll be discussing the crime scene today, to give the jury a sense of the crime and how heinous and vicious it was. We will also be introducing some pictures of the crime scene. As the sheriff, you're always one of the first
people on the scene after a crime has been committed. Or at least discovered. Is that correct?”

“Yes, that's correct, Sam.”

Judge Long cleared his throat. “Sheriff,” Judge Long said, “please address the district attorney formally during your testimony.”

“Mr. Tackett,” Collins said. He slowly shifted in his chair and looked over his shoulder at the judge.

Tackett walked over to his table, picked up a piece of paper, and turned to Collins. “Seeing that you're usually at the crime scene before anyone else, could you please describe the circumstances that led you to the deceased?”

“I received a call late in the afternoon on Monday, the twenty-sixth. The caller indicated that a body was hanging out near 49. He gave me some general directions, landmarks, what to look for, then he hung up. That's when I called you and Mr. Montgomery, and we drove out there.”

“And can you describe the scene?”

“He was hanging from a tree.”

“Was he dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“No, Mr. Tackett.”

“Can you tell us anything else about the victim and his demise?”

“He apparently was a day laborer. Come to Clarksdale looking to make a little extra money during the picking season. We named him John Doe number five until someone came forward and identified him.”

Collins hadn't finished his sentence when the judge's gavel slammed down so hard several jurors jumped in their seats. Everyone turned and faced the judge.

Tackett knew what was coming.

“Get to the bench, counselors,” the judge said, his crimson face glaring at them.

Tackett and Usher stood like misbehaved schoolboys before the judge.

“What the hell was that, Sam?”

The judge was madder than Tackett thought he would be.

“I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but I'm tempted to let Charlie move for a mistrial and grant it.”

“That was my next request,” Usher said.

“Denied, this time. Sam, do you have any explanation for this?” the judge said.

Tackett knew that referring to a dead body as number five would tell the jury that there were a slew of bodies in the morgue. And everyone knew that Luke might be related to some or all of them. “That's how the sheriff and others at the morgue were referring to the victims.”

“Well we're only talking about one victim during this trial. And you had better start referring to that victim properly in my court or you're out. Got it?”

“Yes, your honor,” Tackett said. He had tried to slip one by, but now it didn't seem so clever.

After the judge instructed the jury what to disregard, Tackett continued questioning Collins. “You indicated someone came forward and identified the body?”

“Yes,” Collins said. “The victim's name was Milton Hibbs.”

“And you found him hanging out near 49?”

“Yes, like I told you before.”

“That's not unusual around here, is it? Was it a lynching?”

“No. I usually know about those. No one knew about this one. It wasn't a lynching.”