A Moment in the Sun (49 page)

“Oh, they’ve done such a wonderful job of it!” she cries. “Considering what they have to work with.”

The carriages come next, with the Mayor of Fayetteville, the editor of their
Observer
, the Democratic chairman, and Pitchfork Ben Tillman himself riding in the first. The Senator waves energetically, a solid man of fifty dressed like a middling farmer come to church, his one eye bright with the excitement of the occasion.

“If we had a firebrand like him,” the Judge shouts to his daughter over the tumult, “crisis would not be upon us.”

Mr. Bridgewater, father of Sally’s dearest friend Emilia, beckons them then, and they walk to the elegant landau he has rented for the day. The driver, an Irishman in a jacket a size too small, eases it into the procession once they are settled, the girls facing forward, waving delicately as if they are the true dignitaries and the Judge and Bridgewater facing the rear, with an excellent view of the Fayetteville White Government Union lads footing along on either side in homburgs and plugs and slouch hats, strutting to beat the band.

She has a sense of purpose that neither of his boys possess, Sally, able to chart a course and stay true to it. Harry leaps from one fascination to the next, while Niles—the less he thinks about Niles the better. Sally has her mother’s soft-spoken perseverance, plus an intellect that if not restrained within the limited purview of her sex would be formidable. She is no suffragist, though, feigning no interest in what she condescendingly refers to as “men’s business.” He was surprised that she asked to come with him, until the display of maidens was revealed, and she has asked no questions about the gathering that might not pertain to a country fair. The girls have their parasols up, as it has begun to sprinkle again, and look a picture. One of the White Government boys, transfixed by them as he walks alongside, steps into a lamppost and is heartily mocked by his companions.

Cannons boom across the fairgrounds as they enter, the Cornet Band greeting them with
Dixie
. The judges’ stand on the racetrack infield is serving for the speakers’ platform, and dozens of benches have been set up on the turf to accommodate those who cannot fit in the grandstand. Tom Mason, a fine academic speaker from up by the Virginia border, is already holding forth when they find seats, Bridgewater having brought a blanket to cover the damp pine. The crowd is only half paying attention, the fairgrounds no venue for fine points and historical flourishes, but all rise to applaud when he introduces the Senator from South Carolina.

The approbation continues for some time. Here is the stalwart of the backcountry farmer in his struggle with robber barons and tidewater Bourbons, the Free Silver man who offered to stick a pitchfork in Grover Cleveland, his own party’s candidate, if he continued to acquiesce to combinations and goldbugs, who lost an eye in the War and proudly claimed to have instigated the Hamburg Massacre. That he lost the eye to disease and saw no battle does not dampen the enthusiasm of the gathering, nor does the fact that his role in the historic first blow of Redemption is greatly exaggerated. He is the people’s man, though never an avowed Populist, blunt-spoken and unapologetic. The Judge’s Charleston acquaintances, of notably bluer blood, complain that Tillman’s accomplishments as governor have been limited to outlawing Greek letter fraternities and denying citizens the right to buy liquor by the glass, but that was ignoring the larger picture. The man has stemmed the tide of defeat.

“They call me Pitchfork Ben,” he opens and there is another cheer, punctuated by rebel yells throughout the gathering.

“Out on the farm we employ a pitchfork to handle manure. And I can tell that you want a long-handled one to deal with the recent political shenanigans in your state.”

The Wilmington contingent, mostly around them on the grandstand, are particularly amused by this.

“As a United States senator, I am asked to consider matters which at first might seem to have little to do with one another. But during my tenure there I have discovered that a great number of the things which affect us here in the South adversely—are all of a piece. Our former candidate, Mr. Cleveland—” booing here, though rather good-natured, “—has been revealed as not only a mono-metalist and a tool of Wall Street, but an accomplice to the international thieves who doom the poor farmer and the honest white working man to patches in his clothes and slim pickings on his table! He so damaged our economy he was forced to bring in Rothschild and his American agents—” more boos now, with an edge of anger, “—to maintain the gold standard. The richest and most powerful nation brought so low as to allow a London Jew receiver to its treasury!”

The Judge looks over to his daughter, the smile never leaving her face, as if she might be at a garden party back home.

“With such men in power, we here in the South are doomed to economic servitude. New York shall ever be the center of manufacture and usury, and we here in the heartland of America shall never be more than drawers of water and hewers of wood, toilers on another man’s plantation.”

The Judge understands that this is the root of Tillman’s popularity, that it brings the bulk of the populace to the fold, but class hatred is a dangerous brew to stir. Easy resentment, simplified solutions—

“Let me talk about numbers for a minute here. There are three negroes in our state to every two white men. Let that sink in for a minute. With a free vote and a fair count, how you gonna beat those numbers? The Federals come down and handcuffed us and threw away the key, propped up their carpetbagging negro government with bayonets—” he looks around at them, indignant, “—and ever since they left we’ve had the damn Republicans trying to put white necks under black heels!”

Applause now, murmurs of outrage and agreement.

“But we took the government away from them in ’76. We
took
it. We have had no organized Republican party in our state since 1884, and we have fewer negro voters than a hen’s got teeth!”

Handclapping, some stomping on the footboards of the grandstand.

“My people,” he says with humility, “were but simple farmers. They never owned negroes. And I wish to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none had ever been brought to our shores. But that is not the case. So when we began our great movement we scratched our heads to figure out how we could eliminate the last one of them from the election process in our state. How? We stuffed ballot boxes. We threatened them. We
shot
them. We are not ashamed of it.”

Many are standing to cheer now. The Judge looks around uneasily at his confraternity. It is one thing to gain power and change laws—another to openly break those that exist. It should be possible, he believes, to challenge unjust institutions without fostering contempt for the law itself. He is beginning to understand more fully his Charleston friends’ aversion to the Senator.

Tillman turns to address the Red Shirts, dismounted now and standing in rough formation at the base of the judges’ stand. “It stirs my heart to see the demonstration of patriotism, the show of backbone, that these men have offered us today. When the Redemption got going in South Carolina I recall seeing more than five thousand Red Shirts in one gathering, and when they mounted up and rode together through the precincts of our adversary, believe me, those people ran back into their holes like rabbits.”

Laughter again, and a cheer for the Red Shirts, who raise their right fists into the air as one.

“We did not disenfranchise our negroes till 1895,” Tillman continues, easing back a little. “Then we had a constitutional convention which took the matter up, calmly, deliberately, with the avowed purpose of disenfranchising as many of them as possible under the 14th and 15th Amendments.”

Serious booing of the Amendments in question ensue. The Judge has taken them apart in front of a law class, revealed their basic incompatibility with the Founders’ intentions. A federal law must be truly iniquitous, he thinks, for the common man to know of its existence.

“We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us,” Tillman explains. “Now, I hear you got a few overeducated niggers up here in North Carolina—” laughter, applause, “—but if they so smart, they’ll learn to stay clear of the polling places soon enough! Our negro is as contented and well protected as in any state of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he has found the more he meddles in them the worse off he gets. And as to his ‘right’—” Tillman pauses masterfully, seeming to look into the eyes of each man present, letting the last charged word hang in the air, “—we of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men and we never
will
!” He pounds the podium with a fist as he shouts. “And we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him!”

This is what they’ve come for, and the reaction is enormous. Sally is swept up by the excitement of it, standing and applauding with the others. But Tillman is in no hurry, and draws back.

“Now I’ve been told,” he says, “that your numbers up here come out to two
white
men for every black.” He makes a puzzled face, holds his arms out at his sides. “Now if that is true, what, short of idiocy, has kept you people from prevailing over negro domination?”

An uneasy laughter follows this. The Judge notices that Colonel Waddell, who he had not seen on the train, is but two rows below them, chuckling and shaking his head.

“This is not meant as an insult, for I am your guest. But I have been invited here as a man of some experience in these matters, a surgeon, if you will, and as such I must not spare the knife when it needs be employed. Your politicians have betrayed you, they have delivered you into the tender mercies of the negro party for their own profit and glorification, and you are seeing the fruits of that irresponsibility, of that treason, in the increasing boldness of those who would put big ideas in small minds.”

Tillman looks to the Float of Purity below him to the right, extending a hand to indicate the ladies, then swinging it toward the audience before him, seeming to look directly at Sally. “I can’t help noticing,” he says, “how many very beautiful girls we have among us today. They are our pride, they are our greatest treasure.”

Yes, thinks the Judge, this is it. This is it exactly.

“And every one of these fine young Christian ladies,” Tillman continues, voice rising in power, “lives in constant peril of losing her most precious possession!” He slams both fists down on the podium. “Why don’t you people get your damn niggers under
control
?”

And if any had been present they certainly would have been torn apart, with bare hands if need be, such is the vehemence of the reaction. Sally seems bemused, looking around her, taking the curses and protestations as a compliment. Which in a way it is. What do we fight for, thinks the Judge, if not the virtue of our women?

“I have three daughters,” says Tillman when it is quiet enough to be heard, sadness and reflection creeping into his voice, “but so help me God I had rather find any one of them killed by a tiger or a bear and gather up her bones and bury them, conscious that she had died in her purity, than to have her crawl to me and tell me the horrid story that she had been robbed of the jewel of her maidenhood by some black fiend!”

Again the Judge marvels at his daughter’s powers of concentration as men all about forget themselves and curse at the top of their lungs. It is the Southern woman’s great ability to shape reality by recognizing the existence of only those things they wish to, to smooth a rough or awkward moment with a pleasant phrase, to remain pure in the most compromised of situations. His wife, may she rest in peace, was a nonpareil of the breed, in command of any social situation, able to float above the unpleasant, able to disengage herself from—from everything. Sally has inherited much of this, but there is a warmth in her, a womanliness—

Judge Manigault looks at his daughter and Tillman’s image, a sooty paw on her pellucid, ivory skin covered with the finest golden down, overwhelms him to the point of nausea, his hands curling into fists. He knows that much of it is buncombe, an orator’s trick, but the diamond-hard kernel of it is undeniable. Their women will not be dishonored.

“From this day forth,” cries the Senator, “let the enemy live in terror of the slumbering giant he has awakened! The Anglo-Saxon will not be ruled! I don’t care if you been a Populist, Democrat, Fusionist—there must be only one political party in the great state of North Carolina, and that is the White Man’s Party!”

The Red Shirts wave their fists, the maidens on the float wave their hats, the White Government Unionists screech and stomp, flasks of whiskey passing from hand to hand. The Judge holds on to Sally’s arm and to the rail as the grandstand shakes, men pounding the boards with their booted feet. The old Confederate battle flag is waved atop a dozen poles. The rabble have been roused, the fuse lit for an explosion that will rock the state. The Judge decides that they will return on the train after the picnic, though they had planned to stay over at the hotel.

Tonight, he is certain, Fayetteville will not be a safe place for a young lady.

CONQUERORS

The moon is bright and high in the night sky by the time Royal stumbles back to the 25th.

They regroup, those not dead or wounded, in the mango grove to reclaim their blanket rolls and haversacks. The order comes to take the road back to El Pozo. Trudging through the dark jungle, too tired to talk, unsure if the day has been victory or defeat, Royal surrenders himself to the sight of Junior’s back in front of him and the mindless rhythm of one step after another. In the middle of the night they are allowed to stop and sleep next to the La Cruz plantation house, lying on their gear with their hands on their rifles.

Royal dreams of bullets.

A horizontal hail of bullets, singing down from the top of the endless slope in deadly sheets, no hiding from them, no cease in their nightmare waspwhine swarming till Kid Mabley blows him awake an hour before sunrise.