The Rock and the River (13 page)

I rushed back toward him, pushing him as hard as he'd pushed me. “Good.” I shoved him again, toward the door. “Go. Without your stupid gun.”

“Stop it.” Stick fended off my hands with a sweeping arc of one arm. The other hand he planted on my chest, keeping me at a distance. He used to do that when we were little and fighting because he was bigger and his arms were so long that I could kick and hit and only catch air. He used to laugh at me, flailing in front of him.

So, I did what I would have done then. I swung my foot. It connected with his shin.

“I know,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “that you didn't just kick me.”

“So what if I did?” My breaths came quick and shallow. Where were we going with this? It always had been a game, back then. I didn't know what it was now. Stick's hand was tight against my chest.

“Then you're toast.”

He dove at me and we rolled to the ground. We'd fought before, but always in fun. This was different. Something real was at stake. We tumbled on the ground, no punches, just thrashing arms and legs and trying to get on top.

“Where is it?” he grunted, once he pinned me down.

“Not telling.” I pressed upward, flipped, and wriggled
until the balance was off again. I thought I had a chance to get him, for once. Only because he'd been injured was I even able to match him.

Stick threw his weight and I kicked my feet at his, trying to flip myself on top. I missed. My right foot caught the block tower right in its base. I felt my shoe pass through the foundation. Blocks rained down on my leg.

“No, stop,” I yelled at Stick, but we were locked in it. Stick tried to stop it too—I was sure that's what he was doing—but his foot followed mine, arcing across the face of the tower. More of it caved in, spilling around us.

“Sam?”

Stick and I froze.

“What's going on?” Father's voice boomed in the hallway. Stick and I broke apart. We leapt onto our respective beds, catching our breath.

Father appeared in the doorway. He glanced between us. A wave of emotions arced across his face. Anger. Frustration. Relief.

“Steven.”

Stick stood up. “Father.” They stared at each other for a long time. I stood aside, afraid to move or speak against the fragile balance in the air. Had Stick grown taller? His eyes gained power? He seemed as big as Father, and as strong.

“I have to go,” Stick said. He stormed toward the door.
Father's arm shot out, caught Stick around the waist.

“Not so fast.”

Stick stepped away, tugging the lines of his jacket back into place. “It's the job,” he said quietly. “I'm not going to blow this.”

Father laced his fingers together in front of his chest, then tapped his lips with his knuckles. “I know you won't,” he said. He stepped out of the doorway.

Stick nodded. But he didn't move right away.

“How are you, son?”

Stick sagged a little, then drew himself up. “You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine.” He glared over his shoulder at me, then swept past Father out the door.

“Why did you just let him go?” I stood up, too.

“If locking you two in this room for the rest of your lives would help anything, believe me…” He shook his head, like I should understand.

We looked at the block tower wreckage. It made me want to cry. The whole front part had collapsed, about a third of the whole. The remainder hung on precariously. I wished I could say the same for the hope inside of me.

Father cleared his throat. He probably guessed what had happened, but he didn't comment. “Let's get to work,” he said.

I followed him into the hallway. In the moments it took
us to get to the living room, I wanted to tell him everything. Tell him about the fight. About the gun. Get it out of my room, out of my mind forever. Father would take it away so Stick would never get it back and I wouldn't have to worry about what he might do.

Instead, I sat down on the sofa beside a stack of demonstration posters. And I didn't say a word.

W
HE MORNING OF THE DEMONSTRATION
the sky dawned pale blue, with easy rolling clouds. Father was rather cheerful as he looked out the front window at the perfect weather. “Should be a good turnout today,” he said.

I didn't care if it poured. For the first time, Father was letting me stay out of school to go to the protest.

“Go on and get ready, Sam. We'll need to leave in a few minutes to get over to the courthouse by eight.”

I dressed in good pants and a button-down shirt. Father said it was important to look like I meant business, especially now that I'd be standing at the front with him. I hoped a lot of people would come. Bucky needed all the help he could get. I wondered if Maxie would really show up. What would she think when she saw me up front, all important-looking? Would she see then that I was trying?
Would she like me again, even just a little bit?

“You wouldn't understand.” Maxie's words floated back to me. “You're over it, right?”

I'd said I was. Why couldn't she see past my words?

I reached under my bed for the shoe box. The thought of going to the march set my heart racing with excitement. But its beating held a twinge of fear, as well. What if Stick came back while I was gone? What if he found the gun?

I set the box on my nightstand. Now what? Anywhere in the room I put it, Stick might look. The dresser. The desk. The closet. Back under the bed. No good.

I flipped open the box lid and lifted the gun out. My heart raced as my fingers curved around the handle, slid into the grooves made for them. My index finger tucked itself around the trigger. I'd never held a gun before, and once it was in my hand, I didn't know what to do with it.

There was a round part in the center, and I knew that's where the bullets went. I pressed against the side, like I'd seen people do on television, and the barrel dropped open. Six silver slots, lying side by side in a circle, all empty. A stab of annoyance, or maybe disappointment, shot through me.

But I didn't want bullets. I didn't even want the gun.

“You wouldn't understand.” Her words burned in my head.

It didn't matter what she thought. I knew I should go to the demonstration and stand by Father. That was the right thing to do. Wasn't it? For a split second, I wasn't sure.

I clicked the gun barrel back into place. Maybe if I just showed it to Maxie, just for a minute, she'd see there was more to me than—

“Sam?” Father knocked on the door, then opened it. I spun around, hiding the gun behind me. “You about ready?”

“I'll be out in just a few minutes.”

“We don't have a few minutes,” Father said. “We can't be late.” He stood in the doorway watching me.

My hands had begun to sweat. The gun was slipping. I eased it into the waist of my pants, then moved my hands forward like I was adjusting my belt. My shirt was untucked, so I pulled it down to hide the gun.

“Let's go,” Father said, waving me toward the door.

“All right.”

I stepped forward, and the gun came with me. Just like that. Like it had always been there. The cold metal pressed against my skin. It wasn't a bad feeling. And this was one hiding place Stick would never think to look.

I glanced at myself in the mirror as I walked past Father and into the hallway.

It didn't show.

 

I'd never stood up front at one of Father's demonstrations before. Seeing the crowd from this side of the demonstration was as foreign to me as seeing the earth from outer space. A sea of faces spread out in front of me, mostly black, but also a number of white, carrying signs and cheering for Bucky's release. In the front row a man stood with his tiny daughter perched on his shoulders. The girl held a hand-lettered
FREE BUCKY
poster that kept flapping in her father's face. His work-roughened hands wrapped around her pink shoes, anchoring her legs against his chest. Beside them, a balding man with hunched shoulders clutched the wooden police barricade for balance, swaying with the jostling crowd. I wondered if there had been this many people at the last demonstration I'd been at. The energy of the crowd thrilled me. I looked up at Father and smiled. He smiled back, patting my shoulder.

Buildings rose tall above the colorful cluster of heads and bodies. A totally different skyline view from the steps than from the street.

“Ready to go?” Father asked. I nodded, bringing my attention back to the crowd. Father stepped up to the microphone. He placed his hands along the sides of the podium, preparing to speak, but his face froze and he
gripped the wood frame as if he needed it to hold himself up. I sucked in my breath and followed his gaze.

The Panthers had arrived. They marched in two straight lines right up to the courthouse steps. People moved out of the way to let them through. They looked so serious. The crowd's chanting faltered then stopped altogether as people turned to stare.

Leroy. Raheem. Stick. Lester. Charlie. Maxie. I did a double take. Maxie. She was dressed like the rest of them, black beret, black jacket, black shoes.

They stood at attention, right there in the center of the crowd. They didn't talk to anyone, or break ranks. They weren't there to start something. They were there for Bucky.

Father drew a long breath. He glanced at me out the corner of his eye, then began speaking. I wasn't hearing him. My eyes locked on the Panthers. I could've been down there with them. I could've been part of the reason everyone was staring. With Stick's gun tucked secretly under my dress clothes, I
was
one of them, wasn't I?

The crowd grew frenzied as the prison vans pulled up alongside the protesters. I gasped when I caught sight of Bucky. He looked thinner than ever, and he was built long and lean to begin with. They'd shaved his head smooth and dressed him in an orange prison jumpsuit. He was handcuffed.

Reporters leaped out of their vehicles, latched on to the small group, and followed Bucky into the building, shouting questions at him. He kept his eyes on the ground as the guards hustled him through the throng, up the courthouse steps, and into the building.

Shortly after Bucky arrived, the counterdemonstrators showed up. Forty or fifty whites, carrying posters and screaming at the top of their lungs. Their signs said
COP KILLER
and
HANG HIM TODAY
! Even though Bucky had done nothing to the cops who'd beaten him.

A line of cops streamed out of the courthouse and raced down the steps. They positioned themselves between our crowd and the angry white protestors on their way. I don't know what they thought they could do, but it didn't work. For a few minutes it was like watching oil and water: white folks on one side, blacks on the other. That didn't last long.

Father eyed the crowd from the podium. He resumed speaking. Against the rhythm of his voice, harsh cries rose from the edge of the crowd. The shouting, cursing, spitting sounds of the scuffle reached me all the way up front.

The Panthers broke ranks and filtered out through the crowd. Stick edged around people to get to the fighting, like a soldier looking for the front line.

A burly white man in a union jacket charged through
a line of people, fists flying. Stick intercepted him with a shoulder bump that sent the man reeling a few steps back. He caught his balance and lunged for Stick. Stick fought back, but his injury from two days ago hadn't healed. He wasn't hitting as hard or as fast as he could. He punched with his left fist, holding his right arm close to his chest.

The man slammed Stick in the ribs, then grabbed Stick around the neck and began choking him. Stick flailed his arms and tried to pull away, but he was in pain.

“Let go of him!” I screamed. “He's hurt!” My voice got lost in the noises of the crowd. I moved toward Stick.

“Sam!” Father stepped away from the podium and grabbed my shirt. “Sam, no!” I broke out of his grip and didn't look back. He called my name again as he plunged after me.

I dove through the crowd. I had to get to Stick. The crowd jostled and pushed me off course. They shoved me deeper into the center, past where Stick was. I turned around and fought my way back to him. Father made his way toward us from the podium. “Sam!” he shouted, drawing closer.

I reached Stick first. He was gasping in the large man's choke hold, his fingers pulling at the arm around his neck. My hands joined Stick's, tugging to loosen the man's grip.

The man released his other arm from Stick's waist and swung at me. He caught my cheek with his knuckles. The blow sent me reeling backward into the crowd. I fell hard. The gun jabbed into me, then slid out onto the ground. I rose up on my hands and knees, staring down at it. People jostled around me. Someone's foot clipped the edge of the gun, sending it skittering away. My hand shot out and caught it. I had to hide it again, before Father saw.

My fingers closed around the handle, and everything changed. I looked up at Stick, still struggling with the man, but I was no longer helpless. No longer did I have to stand by, watch, and wait.

Breathing hard, I lifted the gun from the pavement, stood up, and pointed it at the man choking Stick. “Let go!”

Stick flinched. A few yards away, Father froze. The man holding Stick stared at me with pungent hatred in his eyes.

“Let him go,” I said again. The moment stretched out so long, I thought it would never end. I held my arm firm, but the gun was growing heavy.

The crowd parted, forming a little circle around the three of us. Father pushed into the opening.

“Sam.” His voice was so low, I barely heard him.

The man looked at Father, then back at me. He slowly
withdrew his arm from around Stick's neck and stepped back. He melted into the crowd.

Stick stumbled forward. He came toward me, one hand on his neck, the other outstretched. “Give me the gun, Sam.” He lifted it from my fingers. I was glad to let it go.