Trouble in July (7 page)

“The last time I went on a nigger hunt was about three years ago,” the barber said. “That was the time when we strung up that nigger down in Feeney County. He was a tough one to catch, believe me! It took us three days and nights to find him, because he’d hid in a swamp. That happened just about the same time of year it is right now, along about the middle of summer.”

Before the barber from Andrewjones got there, the men had done a lot of talking about rape, but no one knew for certain what had actually happened. Even then, some of them were still skeptical. Two or three of the older men had not hesitated to say that it seemed strange that Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun, who everybody knew was promoting the Send-the-Negro-Back-to-Africa petition, was the only person who had said that Katy Barlow had been raped by Sonny Clark. So far even Katy herself had not opened her mouth about it, and a doctor had not been called in to examine her. The same handful of men were slow to believe that an eighteen-year-old Negro boy with a reputation as good as Sonny’s would molest a white girl, even if it was Katy Barlow, unless he had received a lot of encouragement. One or two of them had come out openly and said the whole story sounded like something Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun had made up in a scheme to get signatures on her petition.

But most of the men were ready to believe anything against a Negro. One of them, Oscar Dent, operated a sawmill down in the Oconee swamp in the lower end of the county, and he had the reputation of fighting Negroes on every pretext he could find. Oscar had often boasted that he had killed so many Negroes that he had lost count. During the past winter he shot one to death at his lumber camp and killed another one with a crowbar. He had never been brought to trial for any of the killings, because he always claimed that he had acted in self-defense. After several unsuccessful attempts to indict him for manslaughter, the county prosecuting attorney had given up trying, because he said it only added to the expense of his office.

The excitement that had flared up when the barber from Andrewjones drove into the yard had died down. Voices were subdued. Many of the men were standing around the smudge, silently watching it smolder. Those who were talking were engaged in speculating about the price cotton would bring in the fall. If the price dropped under eight cents a pound, it meant that a lot of them would have to live on short rations for the next twelve months; but if the price went above ten cents a pound, they would not only be able to eat well, but also be able to buy some new clothes and a few pieces of new furniture. Day in and day out, the price of cotton was the most important thing in their lives.

Katy’s father still had not returned home. Shep had driven off in a car shortly before midnight, and nobody knew where he was or when he was coming back. When he left, he said he did not want anything done until he got back and, since he was Katy’s father, his wish had been respected. Everything connected with the preparation for the hunt depended upon Shep, and nothing could be done until he came back.

Katy was inside the house under the care of Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun. Narcissa had brought Katy home that evening, saying she was going to stay with her through the night. She planned to start out the next morning as soon as she had her breakfast and put in a full day obtaining signatures on the petition.

The smudge fire was smoldering briskly in the yard at the end of the path that led from the front door to the lane. The men had again scattered, and they were standing in small groups talking in low-pitched voices.

“You can bank on Shep Barlow,” somebody standing beside the smudge said. “I don’t know what he’s up to now, but whatever it is, I’m with him. Maybe he knows where that nigger’s hiding, and has gone to bring him in single-handed. That’d be just like Shep.”

“I want to get started,” another man said. “There ain’t no sense in just standing around like this doing nothing. We could have that nigger caught by daylight if we’d go out after him.”

“It’s Shep’s daughter that brought it all about,” the other man said. “That being the case, I think it’s only right to let him run it the way he wants it.”

Shep had the reputation in Julie County of being the quickest-tempered man ever known. He never had confined his killings to the Negro race, because he acted without any delay when somebody made him angry. The last man he killed was a stranger, a white man nobody knew. The mystery where he came from and where he was going, and even his name, had never been cleared up. Shep killed him for scarcely any reason at all. The stranger walked into the yard one morning about ten o’clock and drew himself a drink of water at the well without asking for it. Shep happened to be sitting on the porch, and he did not say a word. When the stranger was leaving, Shep walked out into the yard and slit the man’s throat open with his pocket-knife. The man lay there on the ground all afternoon and bled to death. At the inquest, the coroner asked Shep if he thought the man was deaf and dumb, and when Shep said he did not know one way or the other, the coroner said he was not going to hold a citizen to stand trial for murder just because he was an ignoramus. Shep said afterward that he did not like being called an ignoramus, but since both of them were Allen-Democrats, he was willing to forget it if the coroner would, too.

The light in the hall was turned on, and Katy came to the front door. She stood there for a while, peering out into the darkness. The men who saw her standing there recognized her at once. They moved closer to the porch where they could get a better view of her.

“I didn’t know she’d growed up like that,” a man whispered to somebody next to him. “She’s a big girl now. I thought she was too young to look at a man.”

“I’ve seen her around a lot of times the past year or so,” the other man said, “but I never paid much notice of her. I always thought she was just one of the young ones.”

“She might have been one of the young ones in the past,” a man said as he moved towards the porch, “but she ain’t no more. She’s as bold as a bitch in heat. Just look at her up there!”

Katy’s mother, Annie Barlow, had been dead for two years. Katy had just passed her thirteenth birthday at the time of her death. Her mother fell into the well one morning while she was drawing water to fill the washpot in the back yard. Shep had missed Annie that same evening when he came home for supper and found the meal had not been cooked and placed on the table at the proper time. He lost his temper and chased Katy out of the house, making her spend the night alone in the woods. Shep thought Annie had become peeved about something or other and had gone across the field to sulk a while, and that she would come back sometime during the night or early next morning in time to cook his breakfast for him. He was confident that when she did come back she would be as docile as ever. He went to bed that night and slept soundly. When he had to cook his own breakfast, he made up his mind to give her a good hard thrashing when she did come home. Late that afternoon she still had not returned, and Shep began to get a little worried. At dark he went over to Bob Watson’s and got a half a dozen Negroes to help him search the woods and fields near the house. They looked all that night and up to noon the next day, but not a trace of Annie was found. Shep finally sent word over to Smith County to find out if she had gone over there to stay with her father or sisters, but the word came back that she had not been seen there. Shep looked a little every day during the remainder of the week, and by Sunday he was ready to give up completely. He had finally decided that Annie had run off to Atlanta or Jacksonville or one of the other big cities. Late Sunday afternoon he was drawing a bucket of water at the well when the bucket struck something on the bottom he knew should not be there. He got Annie’s hair-mirror from the house and ran back and cast a beam of light down into the well. He recognized Annie’s red gingham dress the moment his eyes saw it. It made him much more angry to discover that Annie had been in the well all that time than he would have been if she had run away from home. He began shouting for Katy and throwing things into the well. Katy ran for the woods for fear he was going to throw her into the well as he was doing with everything else he could lay his hands on. There was nobody to stop him, and he kept on until most of the wood from the woodpile had been thrown down into it. Katy stayed away until the middle of the following week, but even then she was afraid to go to sleep at night during the rest of the summer while her father was digging a new well.

The men in the yard had crowded around the edge of the porch where they could get a better look at Katy. She smiled at the faces she could see clustered around the steps.

“Hi there, Katy!” somebody shouted excitedly.

She leaned forward grinning at the men.

“Hi there, Katy!” the same voice shouted, louder than before.

Katy switched on the porch-light, turning the whole yard almost as bright as day. Most of the men who were leaning on the porch hastily backed away, but others took their places, and before long nearly everyone was standing as close as he could get. Katy was still wearing the dress that had been ripped down the front from neck to hem. Mrs. Narcissa Calhoun had said that that was the way she found Katy, and that she wanted her to show what a Negro had done. Narcissa could be seen hovering behind the door, urging Katy to go out on the porch.

“Hi, Katy! How about it!” somebody called to her.

She opened the screen door and walked out on the porch. She stood where she was for several moments, turning her head every now and then when Narcissa said something to her. She looked as if she were embarrassed. Her face was flushed almost crimson.

Finally Narcissa stuck her face around the door and said something to her. Katy hesitated for a moment, and then she took several steps towards the edge of the porch. Almost everybody in the yard had begun to push and crowd around the porch. Katy crossed to the post by the steps.

“I could get my temper steamed up a lot hotter if it had been anybody else in the world that got raped,” one of the older men in the rear said.

“Katy Barlow ain’t got exactly the best reputation I’ve heard about,” another one said, “but it ain’t exactly her fault. Her old man just ain’t taken proper care of her since the girl’s mother was found dead.”

“That’s true enough,” the other one said, “but I just can’t seem to be able to work up a temper over it.”

Katy was smiling down at the faces glowing in the light. She put one arm around the post, supporting herself, and fingered the torn opening in her dress. The crowd surged forward in an effort to get a closer view of her when she moved the opening in the garment.

“Hi there, Katy! How about me!”

She smiled broadly at the faces, her face burning with excitement.

Several men who had been standing at the edge of the porch directly under her, pushed their way out of the crowd and backed off to the smudge. DeLoach, the barber from Andrewjones, worked his way through the closely packed crowd. They gathered around the smoking smudge fire, watching Katy. Nobody said anything for several minutes.

Milo Scroggins, a tenant farmer who lived about two miles down the road, came up where DeLoach and the others were standing. He took a bottle of corn liquor from his pocket and passed it around. After the others had had a drink, he turned it up and finished it.

“I ain’t seen anybody tonight who’ knows anything about her,” the barber said, jerking his head in the direction of Katy on the porch. “It’s funny that she’s been living around here all this time and nobody’s ever had anything to do with her.”

“You ain’t been asking the right folks,” Milo said. “You ain’t ask me nothing about her.”

All of them crowded around Milo. The barber nudged him with his elbow.

“Have you ever noticed her doing anything?” DeLoach asked quickly, nudging him again and again.

“Notice her?” Milo said, smiling.

DeLoach nodded several times, still nudging him in the ribs.

“Last fall I was picking cotton for Bob Watson, over in a field about three and a half miles from here,” Milo said. “Bob Watson owns all the land in this part of the country, and nearly everybody around here works for him, renting or sharecropping or something. There was about thirty-five or forty of us in his field picking cotton this time I’m talking about.”

“What about her?” the barber asked impatiently, jerking his head toward Katy.

“Hold your patience,” Milo said, pushing him away. “I’m coming to that part. We are all picking cotton, and Katy Barlow was, too. I noticed all morning that she kept edging up to the boys, and so that afternoon about three o’clock I decided I was going to find out what she was up to. I fell behind the rest of the pickers a little, and it wasn’t long before she dropped behind, too. I talked to her some, trying to feel her out, and she appeared to be just as willing as they ever get. Right then I out and asked her how about meeting me when the picking-day was over, and she said she would.”

He paused and looked around to see if anyone else had come up to the smudge. The other men looked at Katy on the porch while they were waiting for Milo to continue. DeLoach pranched around excitedly, nudging him.

“A little before sundown, when the pickers was leaving the field to go home, I made a sign at Katy, and she followed me to the fieldhouse where we had been dumping our pickings all day. I crawled inside and waited, watching her through a crack in the wall as she came across the field. Pretty soon she came jumping in and climbed over the cotton to where I was. I never saw a girl so man-crazy before in all my life. In no time at all she had stripped herself down to her bare skin. I’m here to tell you I never saw a prettier sight than I saw then. She stretched out on the cotton, all naked and soft-looking. Where her legs came together at her belly it looked exactly like somebody had poked his finger in one of those toy ballons, and the place had stayed there. She—”

There was a commotion in the crowd around the step. Milo stepped and turned around to see what was happening. Katy was laughing nervously and pulling the dress together where it had fallen open.