Fireflies In December Part 14

"That they have. No doubt. Problem is, they don't seem to know much about that night either. Seems like they lost their memories too. But then, Mr. Beauman and his son were seen, along with yourself, crossing the railroad tracks over Beaver Creek just before seven thirty on June 15. So are you sayin' that you don't remember bein' at the tracks on Beaver Creek?"

"Didn't even know there was tracks over Beaver Creek. Heck, I didn't even know there was a Beaver Creek!"

Laughter filled the courtroom, but the prosecutor went on. "Are you also sayin' that it makes sense for you and Frank and Frank Jr. to all forget what you were up to on the evening of June 15?"

"Well, old Frank . . . he's known for takin' some of that homemade whiskey of his," Walt said with a laugh, tilting his head back like he was taking a gulp of something.

The people in the courtroom laughed again at his words, but I couldn't manage to smile over anything Walt said.

"And Frank Jr.," he continued, "he ain't never been the brightest bulb in the closet. They's probably not the best ones to ask about . . . what'd you call it . . . witness testimony?"

The prosecutor scratched his head dramatically. "Well now, that's a funny thing about this case. For one reason or another, not one person remembers where you were at seven thirty that night." He paused, laying a finger across his pursed lips. "Except . . . ," he said, holding that same finger up in the air, "except for one man. Mr. Elijah Joel Baker. This man," the prosecutor declared, raising a photograph of a wounded Elijah. "This man knows who did this to him. He knows who beat him and kicked him, who instructed two other men to tie him up and drag him behind a horse-led wagon. He clearly remembers that face because he stared at it through swollen eyes while he was being tied to a tree in front of his grandmother's home, leaving her to find him battered and bloodied, unable to move and barely able to breathe."

My heart raced faster as that man's voice rose. It was like a preacher's h.e.l.lfire-and-brimstone sermon, with him standing on his toes the way he was. I was mesmerized by his speech.

But the judge stopped him suddenly with a rap of his gavel after Walt's attorney stood to object. "That's enough," the judge said. "If you have a question, Counselor, please get to it."

The prosecutor tossed his papers onto the table behind him. "I don't have any more questions for this man, Your Honor. There's no point in asking questions of a man who seems to have so conveniently lost his memory."

The judge asked Walt's attorney if he had any questions for Walt.

The man stood stiffly. "Yes, Your Honor. In fact, I do."

I disliked the man instinctively as I watched him stand in front of the big oak table. He was dressed in an ugly brown suit with a tie that wasn't done up right, what little hair he had left combed crookedly to one side.

"Mr. Blevins," the attorney said, "did you a.s.sault Elijah Joel Baker on June 15 of this year?"

"No, sir," Walt said lazily. "I did not."

The attorney smiled arrogantly and sat back down. "No further questions."

I sat there with my hands squeezed so tightly together they were numb, and I couldn't believe that was all that would be asked of Walt.

The trial continued for another two hours or so, and by the time the judge handed things over to the jury, I was sure Walt would be found guilty. With testimonies and mounds of evidence, including a signed statement from Elijah Baker, the prosecutor had put forth a very convincing case.

About half the people swarmed out of the courtroom once court recessed, and Gemma and I went off quickly to avoid seeing my daddy. We sat under a sprawling oak and munched on some leftover corn bread and a couple of apples a colored woman had kindly offered us.

"Gemma," I said thoughtfully, "think he'll pay for what he done?"

A colored woman nearby answered for her. "Ain't no way he'll pay," she said with a sniff.

I turned around and leaned my chin on my shoulder. "Why do you say that?"

"You take a good look at that jury?" she asked.

"'Course I did."

"What'd you see they have in common?"

I stared at her, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't they all look alike to you?"

"They's just a bunch of men," I said. "So?"

"She's tryin' to tell you that a jury of white men won't never condemn a white man for hurtin' a colored one." Gemma shook her head. "But there ain't no reason to bunch all white people in together."

"Girl," the lady behind us said, "you done fooled yourself if you think white people ain't all alike. Just 'cause your little friend here's white, don't you start thinkin' you'll be seen any different. White's white and colored's colored. The two just don't mix."

"That's 'cause people won't let them. It's people's thinkin' that's the trouble, not their color." Gemma took my hand in hers and tugged at me. "Don't you listen none to her. Maybe justice'll be done; maybe it won't. But I ain't gonna lump everyone in together. You and me . . . we'll just wait and see what happens for ourselves."

I turned around, but it didn't keep me from hearing the lady behind me say, "Ain't no one got to wait for this verdict. They probably already got the newspaper report printed up."

Gemma and I didn't say much for the next hour. The lady didn't bother us anymore, but we could hear her and others around her talking in the same way she'd talked to us.

I was scared to death, worrying about what would happen if Walt didn't go to jail. "He'll come back for us," I whispered to Gemma. "If they let him go, he'll come back. And what if he knows something about Cy Fuller?" I sent my voice even lower so I could barely be heard and said, "If he knows I killed Cy, he might tell."

"You ain't killed him," she said angrily.

"But what if I did?"

"You didn't!"

"Gemma! If I did and Walt knows it, he might tell."

"What good would it do for him to tell anything about that night?" she asked. "It wouldn't do him no good to go stirrin' up trouble and tellin' tales on himself. You best quit worryin'. Ain't no good worryin' about things you can't do nothin' about. Only G.o.d knows what happened to Cy Fuller, and only G.o.d knows how to handle a man like Walt Blevins. It ain't for you to worry about."

But I was worried all the same. I tapped my feet and squirmed. Gemma tried to get me to eat the rest of the corn bread, but I could barely sit still, and I hopped up like a scared rabbit as soon as someone called out that the jury was back. I could barely get my wobbly legs to crawl onto the wall, and when I took my seat again, I had the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach. My head told me that there was no way Walt Blevins would walk out of that courtroom a free man, but my famous instincts told me differently.

As the jury filed back into their seats, I grabbed Gemma's hand. I could feel it shaking, and it made me ten times more nervous knowing that Gemma was scared too. The buzzing of chatter faded away as the judge returned, and barely a sound could be heard in the entire room.

Every now and again in life there are those moments when time actually seems to stand still. Those are the times when sounds echo in your ears, and people look like they're moving too slowly.

That was one of those times.

I wanted to look around the courtroom, but I couldn't. My eyes were stuck in one spot, staring straight ahead at the judge through wisps of smoke that curled up from the jury box. Throughout the trial, several men in the room had smoked cigarettes and cigars, the smoke floating out the window to tickle our noses. It wasn't until that moment, when my nerves were so raw, that I even noticed it, and I began to feel choked and breathless. My eyes watered, and I swallowed hard several times to keep from coughing.

The chairs of those in the sweltering room let out vague squeals as the people nervously shifted in them. Finally getting my eyes unlocked, I let them wander over to where Elijah's family sat, and I saw his grandmother rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around her middle, whispered prayers coming from her lips. The tears that streamed down her face made my throat feel tight, and I flashed my eyes toward the front, afraid to watch her anymore.

Then the judge rendered the verdict. I couldn't hear him over the whooshing noise in my ears, so I leaned forward, but it didn't help. It felt like my ears had stopped working. I leaned forward even farther, almost falling into the window.

I never heard the verdict. . . . I saw it.

I saw my daddy's head drop, his shoulders slump. I saw Gemma's grip on my hand loosen and fall away. I saw Elijah's family collapse onto one another in anguish, shedding painful tears.

And I saw Walt Blevins's self-satisfied expression.

My stomach ached horribly, and my teeth chattered even though it was about a hundred degrees outside in the sun.

"We better get back to the truck before your daddy," I vaguely heard Gemma whisper. I let her haul me up, but then I stopped cold.

Walt Blevins got out of his chair, took a deep breath, and gazed out the window. I could have sworn he was staring straight at me. I had thought my daddy was the last person in the world I wanted to have see me at that trial, but Walt Blevins was far worse.

"Jessie," Gemma said, "what're you doin'?"

"He's starin' at me," I whispered, my voice breaking.

"Who? Your daddy?"

I shook my head slowly. "Walt."

"Don't be stupid! Ain't no one's gonna see us through them shutters."

"Then he can feel me. I swear his eyes are burnin' into my skull."

Gemma followed my gaze and then pulled at my arm good and hard. "Come on." When I hesitated, she cried, "I said come on!"

Gemma steered me toward the truck, through people moaning and crying, yelling and arguing. I tripped on a gnarled tree root and skinned my right knee on it, but she yanked me back up by my arm like Daddy did when I was little.

In the end, all that dragging did us no good, because we took the same route back to the truck as we'd taken into the courthouse, right past the front steps. Just as we rounded the corner, Walt Blevins came sauntering out ahead of a group of his supporters, and we nearly ran right into him.

He looked down at us with a sneer, lifting a hand almost as if he meant to swat us out of the way like pesky flies, but he stopped midway and stared. It took several seconds of quizzical inspection before it finally dawned on him who I was. "What're you doin' here, girl?" he snarled at me quietly. Then he looked over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers and hissed, "You aimin' to stir up trouble?"

I remained quiet, but I didn't move even though Gemma was tugging at my sleeve desperately.

"I done asked you a question. You and this girl o' yours plannin' on doin' some cryin' to the law? 'Cause I'm a free man today, girl, and I won't be takin' kindly to any troublemaker gettin' the law on me again."

The lawyer behind Walt put a hand on his shoulder and said, "We're in front of a courthouse. Don't you go startin' up trouble."

Walt slapped the man's hand from his shoulder. "Ain't got to tell me what to do no more, lawyer man. You done your job." Then he put one meaty finger under my chin and said, "Now you just let me go on and do mine."

The simple nearness of him made my skin crawl, but I couldn't move a muscle. It was as if my entire body was as afraid of Walt as my mind was.

Gemma didn't share my paralysis, though, and she smacked his hand away. "You get your filthy hands off her!"

That was all it took for Walt to send her flying with a backhand that was so quick I could barely see it coming. I found my voice and let out a shriek, but when I tried to run to Gemma, Walt grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. Pain coursed through my shoulder, but within seconds I could hear a scuffle in front of me, people yelling and cursing. The grip on my arm suddenly released, and I fell to the ground, nauseated.

Without glancing up, I crawled over to where Gemma was lying, her dress covered in dirt, her mouth b.l.o.o.d.y. I tried to call her name, but it only came out in a loud whisper."Gemma, are you awake? Say somethin'!" I shook her a couple times and screamed, "Gemma! Gemma!" before she finally rolled over slowly and moaned.

All I could do was lay my head down on her stomach and cry. What had developed around us was what my daddy called a riot. Through my tears I could see nothing but flying fists, tangled bodies, and sweat. The fists were colored as well as white, and they landed soundly with each punch. For once, though, I saw colored winning out over white. The anger over the injustice inside the courtroom had spilled out in violence, and the colored men swung their arms wildly, leaving Walt battered and bruised.

There was such chaos, you couldn't tell one person from the next, but I saw someone wade through that commotion, and I could tell him apart from first glance. My daddy came through that pile like he was cutting his way through a jungle, and besides the fact that I knew he'd be furious to find me there, I was more grateful to see him then than I ever had been.

He swooped down between the two of us and picked us both up at the same time, nearly dragging us to the truck. He didn't say a word. Instead he looked us over, inspecting us for injury, and when he was satisfied that our wounds were not severe, he ran back to the fight. "Break it up. Come on, now. Break it up!" He grabbed at any appendage he could get to, but I noticed that the only ones he tried to get hold of were colored. Finally one of the men stopped and looked at Daddy, and Daddy told him, "They're gonna get extra law here in no time. You want to go to jail?"

By that time, most of the white men involved had fallen to the ground, incapacitated, and several of the colored men gave my daddy their attention as they paused to wipe the sweat from their foreheads.

"We done got a right to get justice," one man said breathlessly. "Ain't no justice for us unless we make it ourselves."

"Ain't gonna be no justice for you in them courtrooms, neither," Daddy told him flatly. "You understand that? Just as easy as they let Walt go free, they'll lock you in irons for life. Or worse. Make no mistake!" He waved a hand wildly toward the road. "Now you best hightail it outta here before you catch trouble, ya hear? Scatter! All of you!"

Like usual, my daddy made enough sense to convince them, and they all started back to their women, who had been screaming after them the whole time.

I don't remember much of what happened after that. Once Daddy got back to the truck, Gemma and I about pa.s.sed out in a daze. The only thing I do remember is that my daddy never mentioned it to us again. It seemed to me that he believed by rights he should punish us for sneaking around like that but didn't want to, so he thought if he never mentioned it we could just pretend it never happened. He must have gotten to Momma, because she never said a word either, and that just wasn't like Momma. Left on her own, she would have babied us until we were better and then laid into us until we wished we were sick again.

Even Luke never said a word, but he was more of a presence than he'd ever been before. From then on, when he wasn't working, he was like my shadow. To me, it couldn't get any better, but Gemma kept muttering things about how "that man should take up a hobby or somethin'." When she was with me, he was her shadow too, and she'd always go around telling him we didn't need him tagging along at our heels all the time.

I shushed her every time because I didn't want him getting ideas.

If Luke Talley was going to have a hobby, I figured following me around was the best he could get.

Chapter 13.

Otis Tinker came by early the morning after the trial, toting a sack over his broad shoulder.

I ran out to meet him, happy to see a visitor to our forbidden farm. "Hey there, Mr. Otis. You comin' to see Daddy?"

"Well now, I might like that. But I actually came to see you, Miss Jessie." He set the bag down on the ground and pulled out a tiny gray kitten. "You know our cat, Tawny? She done gone and had herself a litter."

"Sure enough?"

"Sure enough, and we thought maybe you might like this one for yourself, if your momma and daddy don't mind." My face must have lit up with the excitement of having that kitten, because Mr. Tinker laughed at my expression. "I'm guessin' you'd like to have it."

"Unless Duke decides to make it supper," Daddy said as he came walking up behind me. He took his hat off and tossed it onto a nearby fence post. "How come your pets are always havin' babies, Otis? You got the most romantic property in Calloway."

"Can't keep an eye on 'em all the time, Harley."

The two men laughed, but once Daddy caught my expectant gaze, he turned serious. "You plan on takin' care of this here kitten?"

"Yes'r."

"Like you took care of the puppy that ran away?"

"He was too rowdy," I said in my defense. "And he liked chasin' after skunks. I wasn't gonna track him down when he was trackin' a skunk."

"What about the rabbit?"

"I didn't know those berries would make her sick."

"And the duck?"