Nobody Said Amen (11 page)

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” The fury in his voice made her turn. “You don’t just walk out when I’m talking to you! Where are the manners your mama taught you, girl?”

“Mama taught me manners.” Her voice was sharp. “But Mama came out of another time. You’re right, Mama was very big on manners, Mr. Luke. Mustn’t do anything that might make the Claybournes think we’re not grateful. But Mama’s manners aren’t mine.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m all grown up now that I’m twenty-one. I make up my own mind about what is proper. I think it’s good manners to respect the people that work for you. I think it’s the proper thing to do. But then I guess I don’t get frisky like mama did on your daddy’s shine. Been too busy trying to get on to college.”

“Don’t you dare to preach to me, girl. Not in my house!”

“I don’t mean to do that, Mr. Luke. You and Miss Willy have always made me feel welcome here. But a whole lot is changing right outside. I see it on the television set. I hear it over in the Sanctified Quarter. I read about it in the
Clarion
. And you don’t seem to notice anything different.”

“More preaching bullshit from the ‘freedom fighter’ you’re banging in your room? Well, girl, listen hard. Miss Willy likes how things are here. Mr. Luke likes how things are here. And my niggers like how things are here. Any of ’em don’t, the highway north is right at the end of the driveway.”

“A whole lot of your Negroes are going over to Indianola and registering to vote, Mr. Luke. They’re not heading north. And I’m not heading north.”

“Goddammit! So it’s true what I heard? You and Caleb Johnson and Rufus Marks went down to Indianola and registered to vote?”

“Yes, sir. We certainly did. On my day off last Thursday.”

Luke pointed to the window. “If the three of you don’t get your names off that list by tomorrow, girl, last Thursday will be your last day off at this plantation.”

Unobserved, Willy had entered the room, halting at the door.

In disbelief, Eula stared at the enraged man. “You’re firing Caleb and Rufus and me? For registering to vote?”

“You and Caleb and Rufus and any other ungrateful black on this plantation who’s taking on airs and forgetting his place. We ought to help Eula get to college, Willy said. Another of her great ideas. College? You don’t have any idea of what your place is, girl. I can just imagine what you’d be like after college! I said tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow.”

Willy stepped between them. “You’re doing what?”

Startled, Luke stared at her. “I’ve told Eula she gets her name off the voting rolls tomorrow or she’s out of here for good.”

“You’re firing Eula?”

“Stay the hell out of this, Willy!”

“Oh, no, I won’t. I don’t tell you how to run the plantation. You do as you see fit. You always tell me it’s your business. But this house is my business, and I will not have you firing Eula May. I need her and I want her here.” She turned to face the black woman. “You promised me you would stay till the baby comes. I want you to keep your promise, Eula. I need you. You haven’t finished with the lunch, and the ladies will be here in less than an hour.”

“Yes, Miss Willy.” Without a backward glance, she left the room.

Luke watched the kitchen door swing shut and wheeled on his wife. “Jesus Christ, woman. You really want to cut off my balls in front of that nigger?

“That nigger? Eula? You’re sending Josie’s daughter away?” She stared, unbelieving, at Luke’s flushed face. “Are you drunk, or have you gone crazy? Well, Lucas, she’s not going. Do you understand? Eula’s not going anywhere.”

“Oh, yeah, I understand what you’re saying. And you better understand what I’m saying, Willy McIntire. If you ever, ever, put me down in front of a nigger again, it will be your last day as Mrs. Lucas Claybourne.”

After the first week, Sheriff Dennis Haley had the police cruiser stop tailing the reporter. He knew the yellow Chevy was going to be following the volunteers as they ventured up into Drew, down into Indianola, over to Cleveland. When the volunteers from Shiloh gathered crowds with their freedom songs on the sidewalks in Drew, or in Sunflower or Ruleville, the Mack kid would work the crowd. When they’d stage a picket line in Cleveland at City Hall, Mack would be handing out the signs, showing them where to start, where to stop. If there was anybody to worry about, it was Jimmy Mack. And each time he saw Mack, he saw Mendelsohn, taking notes, taking pictures.

It became as predictable as the furious response of the local toughs. Each time, he’d call the local police chief, telling him to monitor the demonstration but not let it become a mob thing that could get real ugly. Too many Feds in the area who would notice. “We don’t need the FBI on our backs,” Sheriff Haley told them, “and you can stop your surveillance of the reporter. It’s a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

It was clear by now that the volunteers were nonviolent. But after every public meeting, anywhere in his county, he’d get the agonized calls from Mayor Burroughs. “What is your problem, Haley? Those Commies are organizing civil unrest right under your goddam nose, and you’re not putting a stop to it? Magnolia County is going to be the laughingstock of the whole country!” Haley would hold the receiver at arm’s length, staring at the circulating fan. “The White Citizens Council is meeting Thursday, talking about candidates for the fall elections. Your name is not real popular with the folks upstairs in my bank. Get your ass in gear, Haley. There are others in this community who seem to have more balls than the sheriff’s office and will do something about the Reds if you don’t.” The sheriff would close his eyes and wait impatiently for the harangue to stop. “Thank you for the heads-up, Mr. Mayor.”

The call from Dick Perkins made him smile. “You got a drink for the local carpetbagger, Dennis?” Ever since 1958, when Perkins arrived from Colorado to run the U.S. government’s agricultural demonstration farm just south of Shiloh, Haley and Perkins had shared an affectionate but slightly jaundiced view of the reality of Delta life. As a result, they enjoyed each other’s company. “I’m taking my latest foreign delegation to the bus terminal at five and I’m going to need some American talk and some Kentucky bourbon.” After the latest tirade by the mayor, Haley could use a drink himself. And Perkins was good company.

“Come on over to the office,” he said, “and if you don’t have plans, come on home and have some ribs with Janey and me.”

Mrs. Skinner, his secretary, had already left when Haley heard Perkins on the stairs. He turned his overhead fan to high, kicked off his shoes, and took out the Jack Daniels and a couple of glasses. His feet on the desk, he was lighting his after-work cigar when Perkins stuck his head around the door.

“This Mayor Burroughs’ office?”

The sheriff grinned and motioned to the chair opposite. “No, he just left. He needed a high colonic for his rapid heartbeat caused by worry that the Bolsheviks are already here. You can have his seat. Matter of fact, I wish you’d have his seat.”

Perkins poured himself a drink and settled down comfortably to enjoy it. “Thank you, sir. It’s a just reward for doing the Lord’s work one more day. I feel blessed. Two Brazilians, one Chileño, and two good neighbors from Ecuador are right this moment discussing how American know-how, as exemplified by the highly mechanized Perkins farm, can be replicated, turning South America into a fecund Eden. It is truly a wonderful thing that I am doing. And your invitation to visit Madame Jane and share your ribs makes this weary bachelor very happy.”

Haley grinned. Perkins’s arm’s-length view of the life in Shiloh where he had chosen to settle was uncannily close to Haley’s own, although he himself had been born and raised Delta. Being sheriff did that. Every time he got cynical, he found out it wasn’t cynical enough. “Have you met the Ambassador from
Newsweek
yet?” he asked Perkins. “No? Well, his presence in our Shiloh is giving Mayor Burroughs all kinds of shit-fits. And Mayor Burroughs is giving this sheriff all kinds of shit-fits, threatening in his own way to let loose the savages to do the cleansing of the Bolsheviks. Did you know that
Newsweek
is a Bolshevik rag, Richard? No? Well, I think the next time I hear from the mayor I’ll put you on the phone. It’s past time to educate outlanders like you.”

“Outlander? Sheriff, I am now in my seventh year as a plantation owner and taxpayer in Magnolia County, garden spot of America. And I don’t take kindly to your characterization. In forty-three more years I will be considered one of your own. So watch your tongue. You got a little more ice? No, in answer to your question. In Colorado,
Newsweek
was not considered hazardous to your health. But we were an enlightened community at the university. We knew Reds when we saw them. Didn’t even fire the ones Joe McCarthy said we should.”

“What made you leave? Politics?”

“No. Helen’s dying. After she was gone, the music went out and Colorado got a lot chillier. I decided to leave the ag school and make my fortune as a wily carpetbagger at the government’s expense. I run their demonstration farm in Shiloh and then make a deal to lease the land from Washington with an option to buy. Smartest thing I ever did. So now, Dennis, I am doing well and doing good. For which I am truly grateful.”

“Grateful, Richard, but not yet humble. You still have forty-three years to learn how. Maybe your friend Claybourne can help teach you.”

“Luke?” Perkins laughed. “There are a lot of nice things about Luke Claybourne. He was very generous when I first came down. He and Willy made me feel at home. But humble? Not Luke. He got his road map on living from his daddy, and the old man never taught humble. When he died Luke had to take over and pretend he knew what he was doing. He became more like his old man than his old man was.” Perkins added ice to his drink and settled back in his chair. “It wasn’t easy for Willy, who’s a lot more curious about the world out there.”

Haley’s eyes crinkled. “Ah, Willy. You never knew her family, the McIntires, Richard. They sharecropped at the old Sheridan place. They were gone by the time you got here. Poorest white folks I ever saw— four kids, a drunk for a father, and a mother who worked herself to death. After she died, the kids split, heading north. Only Willy stayed. The Kilbrews took her in and she and their daughter, Emily, started high school together. She and Em have been tight ever since.”

“Luke said that Willy was the most beautiful girl he ever saw when she came to Shiloh High. Prom Queen. Cotton Queen.” Dennis smiled. “I remember her. Beautiful blonde. Wasn’t a boy in Shiloh didn’t have savage thoughts about Wilson McIntire. But Lucas Claybourne had the inside track. Growing up rich and a star linebacker at Shiloh High gave him a sense of entitlement that nobody could compete with. As for Willy McIntire, she loved Luke for all those reasons. But she was antsy. Gettin’ used to Claybourne life was pretty daunting for a McIntire who never knew shit from Shinola. Luke’s mama was old New Orleans money and Luke’s daddy had a tight rein on his only son. Mama never did approve of Willy, and they didn’t marry until she passed on.”

“It’s worked out,” said Perkins. “You can get used to money. Besides, she really seems to love Luke. Got one kid, Alex, already and another in the oven to prove it. Willy’s great. But she’s going to be antsy all her life, I suspect. She’s never really been out of the Delta except for her honeymoon with Luke in New Orleans. I keep trying to broaden their horizons a little, being kind of a genteel outside agitator. I’ve been trying to get them interested in some of the Delta blues I love. I’m going to take them to a juke joint outside of Clarksdale I heard of last week. A place called Fatback’s Platter. Ever hear of it, Dennis?”

Haley looked up sharply. “Fatback’s? Yeah. It’s not a licensed joint because we’re a dry state, so I pretend I don’t know. Long as there’s no trouble the Nigras can play their music and drink their ’shine. Besides, I got a small insurance policy, a man named Bronko, who makes sure that no trouble comes out of Fatback’s.”

“Bronko? What’s a Bronko? Sounds like a Polish car.”

Dennis laughed. “No. This Bronko is a half-Polish, half-Nigra off-duty policeman. He’s a mean mother, but I’m never quite sure which half is turned on. He came to work for me about nine years ago when he got out of the slammer for beating up a Polack who happened to be his father.”

“And that’s your insurance policy at Fatback’s?”

“Uh huh. He sure is. Nobody fucks with Bronko. He’s a killer, Richard. But he owes me, so I keep him handy for emergencies. Hey, the mayor may be right. If the Bolshies act up, our little county will have Bronko to show them the light.”

“And what does this mighty man do at Fatback’s?”

“He runs the door and keeps away all evil so the sheriff can sleep well. Not many of your racial persuasion ever show up there. So if you’re really going and you want to get in I’d suggest a fifty-dollar lubrication for the Bronko and a message from his friend the sheriff that it’s okay.”

He swiveled in his chair and looked hard at Perkins. “Luke really said he’d go?”

“I hunt quail with Luke, and he trusts me when I can get him to look up from his bountiful plantation for longer than the next weather report. It took a little persuading from me and a lot of persuading from Willy. But good ’shine will always be attractive for Luke, even if the ‘jungle music’—Luke’s description—isn’t. But we’re going Saturday night.” He grinned. “If it’s any good, Dennis, I’ll take your Janey there some Saturday night. Being the sheriff, I don’t think you’d be comfortable going.”

“Bachelors like you, Perkins, give bachelorhood a bad name. No man’s wife is really safe. It’s okay for tonight, you can come home with me for dinner with Janey. I’ll be right there. But when you go to Fat-back’s Platter, Janey’s going to be busy at home with her sheriff.”

Later, walking home from the Haleys, warmed by the hospitality and drowsy with the many drinks of the evening, Perkins remembered Dennis’s sly voice: “Wasn’t a boy in Shiloh didn’t have savage thoughts about Willy McIntire.” Perkins chuckled. Dennis Haley had nailed it. Savage thoughts. How could they not? That very first afternoon. . . . Jesus. Seven years ago, and he could paint a picture of it. It was his first visit to introduce himself to Roland Burroughs, the banker and mayor, a man he had to get to know. Burroughs was all hominy and honey, happy to meet the man who was going to run the experimental farm and introduce Magnolia County to the world’s farmers.