Catching Moondrops (15 page)

“The colored church.” With that announcement, the dread that she'd already had written across her face turned a shade darker, and her next words came out in a sort of moan. “Tal's there.”

That was all she said, but it was all she needed to say. Her finger pointed off into the distance. I followed its direction until I saw what she did—three wisps of smoke, like gray fingers pointing to the heavens.

Luke disappeared inside, and I knew he'd be calling for help. But all I could do was stand and stare. Some six years back, the sight of such a thing sent us all into the worst time we'd ever known. The plumes of smoke that day were signs of a fire that left Gemma an orphan, and if I never saw such a thing again in all my life, I knew I'd be the better for it.

But Gemma, she'd been there. She'd seen the bolt of lightning that lit up her house like kindling. She'd heard her parents' cries and been forced to leave them behind, knowing they'd gone on without her and there was nothing she could do to change that.

I remembered the look on her face when I found her curled up in a cart while her house burned in the distance, and I saw that very same look now.

She pointed her eyes at me. They were glassy with fear, and when she spoke, her words came out in agonizing gasps. “There was a meetin' there tonight. We've got to go.”

I knew all about that meeting. It was a meeting to talk about how to peacefully stand up against prejudice in our community. I knew about it because Gemma had complained about it to me just this morning.

“Ain't no reason to go stirrin' up trouble,” she'd said. “Best to leave well enough alone.”

“Only it ain't well enough,” I'd replied.

She only shook her head at me. She didn't want to argue.

And there was no arguing with her now. Her whole body shook with the certainty that she could lose another loved one to flame and smoke, and I ached at the very thought of her having to go through that again.

“Gemma, you stay here.” I used my hands on her shoulders to turn her full around to face me. “You know you can't go out there and see that. It'll rip you up.”

“I have to.”

“No, you don't. You can stay here and wait for Momma and Daddy, tell them where we've gone.”

“A note'll do the same. I'm goin'.”

“Don't be a stubborn mule!”

“I'll be whatever I need to be, Jessilyn, and don't you go sayin' different. If I've got to go, I've got to go. Don't matter none if you think it wise or not.”

I knew I'd get nowhere, so I shut my mouth and watched her head off to take a determined seat in Luke's truck, her arms crossed as tightly as they could be, quivering as they were.

Luke came out and grabbed my arm. “Called the sheriff, and ain't it a surprise, he's not in! Got one of them dim-witted deputies of his, says he'll let it be known there's trouble at the colored church.” He lowered his voice even though Gemma couldn't hear a word from where she was. “You ask me, there won't be a single soul there to help . . . least not one that's white.” He steered me down the steps to the truck and helped me in before hopping up beside me.

Gemma's church, the only colored church in our parts, sat a good half mile away from town, an old, rickety building all alone in a field of goldenrod and ticks. Despite being painted up a shiny white and kept clean as a whistle, most of the time it looked like it was going to come down on somebody's head. I'd told Gemma many a time I was worried she'd be buried alive there.

She always dismissed me with the same words. “If I go to Jesus praisin' Him, I reckon there ain't no better way.”

Gemma's feet tapped the floorboard in a nervous dance, but I didn't put my hand on her knee to urge her to stop. I knew all sorts of things had to be stirring in her soul, and she needed to get by somehow. The trip wouldn't take long in minutes, but it would seem like an eternity in thoughts.

The acrid smell of burning wood floated into the truck through open windows, making our eyes burn and water. Gemma's lips moved in whispered prayers. I gripped Luke's sleeve, readying for what figured to be a trying time.

The sky was orange over the treetops when we rounded the bend to the church, throwing me right back to that day at Gemma's house like I'd been transported in time. The air was heavy with smoke, making it hard to breathe. Gemma pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and held it over her nose and mouth. The second the truck skidded to a stop well away from the burning church, Luke tied his own handkerchief around my face and then jumped out of the truck. “Stay back!” he ordered.

That old building had gone up in flame so quick, it was almost a pile of ash already. The roaring of the fire, popping and cracking with a life of its own, was deafening, but not enough to cover the agonized screams and wails of the soot-covered mass of bystanders.

Gemma started to fuss with the door handle, but her hand was too shaky to grasp it.

“Don't, Gemma.” I held her arm. “Don't go out there.”

She coughed hard, and there were tears streaming down her face, but she kept jiggling the handle. “I need to know, Jessie,” she murmured when she could breathe again.

“Then let
me
go. Why don't you stay here and wait for help while I go look?”

She turned to face me, and with that handkerchief over her mouth and nose, all I could see were her bloodshot eyes, but they told me all I needed to know. “They already done their helpin'!”

I knew what she meant. The way she saw it, the only white hands that would have anything to do with this scene before us had struck the matches and poured the gasoline.

And that was the way I saw it too.

Gemma still fumbled with the door like a child, and I watched her sadly for a few seconds before hopping out and running to her door to let her out. I took both her arms in my hands to help her down and let her steady her legs before letting go and following behind her.

About a dozen colored people huddled together in the tall grasses a good distance from the fiery remains, most of them with blackened and torn clothes, ministering to each other in between sobs. About a dozen more were futilely trying to squelch the fire with buckets of water from a nearby well.

I held on to Gemma as we wove in and out between them searching for Tal. I called out his name, but Gemma couldn't.

Funny how our voices sometimes don't work when we need them most.

As we walked by a large woman who cradled two weeping children in her arms, the woman reached out and tugged on Gemma's skirt.

“Just like that, Gemma Teague,” she murmured. “It went up just like that. I saw them walk by the window, but I didn't know what they was up to.” She covered one ear on each child and lowered her voice. “They looked like demons from the depths of hell, and they got to be if they's the kind that can set a church full of people on fire like that.”

Gemma pulled away, her whole body shaking now. “Tal Pritchett,” she managed to stammer.

“What's that, girl?”

“Tal Pritchett,” I answered for her. “She wants to know if Tal Pritchett was here.”

“Oh, he was here. He was up front speakin' when it happened.”

I gripped Gemma harder. “You seen him after the fire started?”

The woman pulled the children closer and rocked back and forth. “Don't know, honey. Just don't know. It happened so fast.”

Gemma's legs betrayed her, and she nearly tumbled to the ground before I managed to steady her. Afraid for her well-being, I searched the area for Luke, but he was several yards away from the church, coaxing a couple of anxious horses across the rough ground. Someone had hooked them up to a plow in an attempt at creating a sort of firebreak around the church property, but I didn't have much hope that would stop the spread of the fire.

I turned Gemma to face me. “Won't you please wait at the truck? It'll be safer there, and I can go look for Tal.”

She only shook her head and tugged me onward. I slipped my arm around her waist and desperately searched the darkness, terribly afraid that this night would be yet one more scar on Gemma's memory. As we walked on, the gasping breaths she took told me she feared the same.

We had scanned the faces of the group who milled about up front and were making our way around back when I heard Gemma cry out and felt her weight slump against me. I froze and looked ahead with a searing dread.

I didn't want to see what Gemma's eyes had seen.

But when I spotted Tal Pritchett, covered in soot and ash, stumbling toward us, I never wanted to stop looking. His face was creased with strain and streaked with sweat and tears, but his eyes were lit up from the sight of Gemma. He swept her into his arms, and once her weight was transferred to him, my legs gave out and I slid to my knees. As I knelt there, crying silently, watching my best friend weep out her terror, my bones turned brittle at the very thought of what could have been done to the man she so clearly loved with all her heart.

And at the thought of the men who had almost made it happen.

I leaned back on my heels and watched the flames lick at the starlit sky, and I thought of what those people must have felt like when it all happened. I could picture them sitting in the pews, alive and well, listening to folks talk about how to live a better life in a white man's world. And then I could see that fire erupt in the church like they'd been dropped into the pit of hell. I could see them struggle to escape amid the smoke and heat, screams of anguish ringing in their ears. In my head, I could see it all.

But these people had seen it all with their own eyes. Over the years, they'd seen a great deal with their eyes, all because they'd been born with dark skin. And as I watched Gemma and Tal, as I looked around at the horrified faces surrounding them, I was filled with rage. I stood up with fists so tight, my fingernails dug into my palms.

I pictured those hooded men, unmasked by now, no doubt sharing moonshine and laughs in Cole Mundy's barn, and my heart burned with the kind of hate my momma had told me was an abomination before God.

But I didn't care. I looked around and saw there was nothing I could do here but watch the world fall apart for a congregation of colored people. I turned without a word, marched to Luke's truck, and pulled away.

There were no thoughts in my mind then. That's the funny thing about hate. It makes the brain fuzzy and mixes things up. It covers up all the good things you've learned over the years and lowers your inhibitions like alcohol. I'd never taken a drink of liquor in all my life, but I'd seen the effects of it many a time, and I figured this was as close to getting drunk as I'd ever be.

The truck rattled over the uneven dirt roads so that my ribs ached, but I didn't slow down one bit. By the time I pulled up at Cole Mundy's house, I was possessed by a kind of senseless rage I'd never known. I didn't think twice about what I was about to do, didn't worry that I was unarmed and would be outweighed by every man inside. Their raucous voices drifted out to me, and I got out of that truck, slammed the door, and barged into that barn like I owned it.

The air was so thick with smoke, it would have choked me had I not been forced to inhale it from the time I got within a mile of the colored church. There were a good twenty men there, and I recognized every cigar-smoking, liquored-up one of them.

Including Sheriff Clancy.

The chatter stopped the second they set eyes on me, except for the few muttered curses that were aimed in my direction.

Delmar Custis was the first to speak. He slid his filthy boots off the table they were propped on and let them hit the floor with a thud. “I think you got the wrong place.”

“No, I ain't. I was invited, don't you remember? Got me a nice little notice tacked up to my front porch.”

“That weren't no invitation. That was an announcement, is all.”

“You mean it was a threat.” I looked around the room. “Looks like you got yourselves a nice turnout, anyways. Not so many as you'd like, though. Bet if you'd have put ‘We'll be torchin' a colored church' on your invitations, you'd have gotten more of a crowd.”

Several of the men sat up real straight when I said that, but Delmar waved them off with his cigarette. “Girl, you ought to know better'n any other in this here town, you don't go makin' accusations to certain people unless you want trouble comin' your way. We don't know nothin' about no colored church bein' torched. Shame if it's true, though.” He took a puff of the cigarette. “Heck, you got yourself a nigger, ain't you? Sure hope she ain't got singed or nothin'.”

To this day I think maybe I could have kept myself together but for one thing. He laughed. Right there in front of me with the sin of attempted murder on his hands that very night, he looked at me and laughed at the thought of my Gemma being caught in that burnt-up church.

I marched to him in three quick strides, yanked the cigarette from his mouth, and put it out on his arm. He screamed and lunged for me, but even when he had me pinned between his sweaty body and the wall, his gasping breaths tainting the air, I didn't care. It was as though some part of me had begun to leave, the part of me that had always believed good would eventually win out over evil. It wasn't gone completely, not yet. But it was starting to fade away, chipped at like peeling paint.

Delmar had my hair in one hand, yanking my head back so I had to look up at him. Past him I could see the other men closing ranks to watch the show. “You gonna kill me now?”

“I ain't killed nobody, girl, but if I aim to start, I can't say I'd be too sorry to start with you.”

“But you'll kill someday.” I made an effort to swallow even though it was hard with my neck stretched backward. “Men like you, they don't go through life without killin' someone.”

His grip loosened a bit, but he still pinned me with his chest. I took the opportunity to tip my chin down some, and when I did, I caught Sheriff Clancy's eye. “What sort of law they hire you to uphold these days, Sheriff? Or don't you hold to the law none at all?”