Tulsa Burning Read online

  Chapter 10

  I RECKON the ghosts listened to me, because I just run into that barn without seeing one thing to slow me down. First, I went to the corner where I knowed the tar paper used to be, and sure enough there was a bunch of it. I took out my knife and cut me off four good-size pieces. I laid the string and the tar paper on one of the hayloft ladder rungs. Then I took the rag out to the pump and wet it down.

  Back inside, I climbed the ladder with all my stuff. The hayloft was different than it was the last time I was in the barn. The bales of hay was all gone. I figured the fellows from the bank must have taken it along with old Buttercup and the horses. It seemed strange to be in the barn without no critters and no hay.

  My hiding place was the same. I lifted the board and slipped down into the hollow spot. It was a pretty tight fit, but I figured there would be room for Isaac. He wasn't so terrible much bigger than me. I used my knife to pry up another board, making a second place for us to hide.

  Next, I worked on my tar paper balls. I tore up the old flannel shirt that Widow Carter gave me. I made little balls from the pieces, wrapped the wet cloth in tar paper, and tied them with string. I was ready now.

  I got in my spot and put the balls right beside me. Then I practiced setting up. I didn't throw the balls, just aimed and thought about throwing them. After a while, I just laid in my hiding spot and waited. I kept pressing my hand against my overall pocket so I could feel Cinda's lucky silver dollar.

  A long time passed before I heard anything, but finally they came. I heard the automobile engines first, then the men's voices. How many were there? I tried to guess from the noises, but I couldn't get no real notion. I could tell they was parking their motorcars behind the barn just like the sheriff had suggested. When I heard the barn door squeak open, I sucked in my breath, and held it, afraid to breathe.

  "Come in, brothers," a man's voice said.

  There was lots of talk and movement. I wondered if they pushed Isaac in front of them. I imagined him there, all bound and gagged, but I was afraid to move from my hiding spot until I had to set up to throw my little bombs.

  "Brothers, brothers," said that first voice, and everyone else sort of quieted down. He went on. "We've gathered tonight to do the Lord's work."

  "Amen," I heard someone shout.

  Laying there in that hot hiding place, a cold chill went over my body. The Lord's work! Down there on the floor of our old barn was a bunch of men who claimed that killing Isaac was the Lord's work. I started to feel sick at my stomach, so bad I was afraid I might puke.

  "Brothers," the leader said, "let us sing, 'God Bless America.'"

  They started to sing, "God Bless America, land that I love." The crazy thing is their voices sounded good, but I couldn't enjoy the song for two reasons. The first reason was because I knew the singers was fixing to murder the best man I knew. The other reason was because I was steeling myself for throwing my little firebombs.

  I eased up real slow. The big barn doors was open, and the moonlight gave me a clear view. Luck was good. The group of sheet-covered men was facing toward the doors, their backs to me. In front of the group, but sort of off to the right, stood Isaac, just like I had imagined him, except that I had not thought about the rope. It was there, though, a rope around his neck, and the end of that rope was tied to a barn rafter! Isaac was standing on a big barrel. Someone must have brought that barrel along because it wasn't ever in the barn before.

  Isaac stood up there on that barrel with his head down, waiting. All it would take would be a kick, and the barrel would roll. Isaac would die! What would happen if my bombs worked and the barn filled with smoke? Would one of the twelve or so men kick that barrel before he ran out the door? Maybe. But it was a chance I'd have to take. If I didn't take that chance, if I didn't throw my bombs, Isaac would hang for sure.

  "Hang by the neck until dead"—it was a phrase that stuck in my mind from something I heard about a man sentenced to die that way. That man was a killer, though. I couldn't let Isaac hang by the neck until dead, not while there was life in my body.

  I aimed at spots behind the group, and I threw my four bombs, fast, one after the other. There was little bursts of flame and lots of smoke. I heard the men yelling.

  "What the devil?"

  "Fire."

  "Run."

  There was so much smoke that I knew nobody would see me get down. Besides, they was all running for the door. I didn't take time to use the ladder, just jumped without thinking what trouble me and Isaac would be in if I broke my leg.

  I landed hard, a real bad jar, but my leg didn't break. I just held my breath and run through the smoke, almost bumping into a couple of guys.

  It was easier to breathe up by the doors, but I still didn't know how well Isaac could see. "Isaac," I called, "it's me, Nobe. I got to get you down quick without rolling that barrel." I knew he understood me because he held his hands down to me, and I started to work at undoing the rope that tied him. I was worried that the men would come back in, but just then I heard what I'd been praying for, the sound of an airplane!

  I didn't stop to enjoy the sound, just kept working at that rope, while the plane sound got closer and closer. It come right down on top of us like the airplane was setting on the barn. I heard lots of shouting, and somebody fired a gun a couple of times. The airplane sound would raise up a little and then come back down real close. I could tell Basil and Willie were buzzing the barn and the motorcars behind it.

  The rope was finally untied from Isaac's hands. It just took a second for him to get the noose off his neck. "Hurry," I said, and I grabbed him by the arm, pulling him with me back toward the loft. At the ladder, I pushed him ahead of me and told him to go up. We was safe in our hiding spots in just seconds.

  The airplane sounds just kept coming. Basil and Willie had been a little reluctant, but I figured now they was really getting into scaring off the mob. Over and over we heard motorcar engines firing up. Finally, it was quiet. I figured maybe it was safe to come out, but I wasn't about to take no chance. "Wait and be sure," I kept whispering to myself.

  I just laid there, smiling. Isaac was quiet too, and I knew he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. It wasn't long before the airplane sound come back, and this time we could tell it was landing.

  "Okay," I shouted. Me and Isaac both come busting out of our hiding places. I wanted to jump again, but I figured we'd better take time for the ladder. We scrambled down and run through the barn. There was still some smoke, and I felt real proud of my little bombs.

  The sight of that airplane with its propeller turning might be the most beautiful thing I'll ever see in my lifetime. "Get in," Basil yelled when we got up close to the plane.

  Isaac stepped back for me to go first, but I shook my head. "I'm not going," I said. "They'll take you somewhere safe. I'll tell your mama." I reached out and hit his shoulder.

  "Thank you," he said, and I could see tears rolling down his cheeks.

  He started to climb in, but I thought of something. "Wait," I said, and I pulled the envelope from Lester out of my pocket. "It's from your pa," I told him.

  He hit me on the shoulder then. I watched him climb up in the plane. All three of them waved to me. I watched them take off, but I didn't hang around looking until they disappeared. I wasn't that sure that none of the clan members wouldn't come back.

  I didn't use the road, just hightailed it off through the fields toward Widow Carter's place. The moonlight was nice, and my heart felt mighty light, like maybe I could just fly without the use of Basil's airplane. I cut through our pasture, where every step was familiar. Last, I went through a big corn field that belonged to the widow. The stalks were green and real tall for early June. "Corn's high," I said, and for some reason I wished I could tell Pa.

  Finally, the big house come into my view. It was dark, not a light anywhere, and I was glad. I had been afraid the widow might set up fretting over me, but it looked like her and Oily was sleeping. Befor
e I got in the preacher's truck, I stood for just a minute and looked at that big house. There was lots of room there, and Widow Carter had lots of land. Her and Oily both worked on the land, but I knew she had to hire men too.

  I started to wonder if maybe Widow Carter would take me in and let me work for my keep. It was a sure thing that Sheriff Leonard wasn't going to house me anymore. I wondered about Ma. Would she take the sheriff's side and believe he didn't know about the Klan trying to hang Isaac? Well, if she did, I could do without her. The thought come to my mind that I could use my phone keys again, clean out all the money, and get out of town quick if the sheriff tried to hurt me.

  Just then I seen a movement in the shadows on the porch. I jumped a little, afraid for a second that it might be a Klan member. It wasn't, though. Widow Carter moved into the moonlight. She waved and called out, "Nobe, thank God you're safe."

  I waved back. "Isaac too," I yelled. Then I cranked up the truck, jumped in, and took off. I thought about going over to Mrs. Mitchell's to tell her what had happened, but she didn't know anything about the hanging stuff. She would be thinking Isaac was still in jail. Maybe she was sleeping. I didn't want to wake her up. Besides, I was awful tired.

  One thing I wanted to do, though, before I went back to town. I wanted to see Cinda. I drove the truck close to her house, but not up into the driveway, so I wouldn't wake up her folks. I walked up to the house and went to the back, where I knew Cinda's room was.

  I was glad there wasn't no screens on the widows here like at Sheriff Leonard's. I could just walk up to the window and say, "Cinda," real soft. I stood there thinking, though. What if I scared her and she screamed? I didn't want her ma and pa to come a-running.

  Finally, I knew I had to do it or give up and leave. I moved right up to the window.

  "Cinda," I said, "It's me, Nobe."

  She didn't scream or nothing, just come right to the window like it was a regular way for folks to call. "Just a minute," she said. "I'll get dressed and climb out."

  That's what she done, too. She come climbing out that window in a pink sundress, and there was just enough light to make her look like an angel. "They tried to lynch Isaac," I said even before her feet hit the ground, and it didn't take no time to tell her the whole story.

  "Oh, Nobe," she said. "Oh, Nobe, I knew you would think of a way to help Isaac, but I didn't know you'd have to be that brave."

  "I was awful scared," I said. "Reckon I still am. Maybe it was your lucky dollar that got me through."

  She come to me then and put her arms right around me. I hugged her back. For just a little while we stood there like that beside her mulberry tree. I guess I never did in my whole life have such a good feeling inside as I did right then in that moonlight.

  I knew I couldn't just stay, though, and I made myself leave to go back to town where I parked in front of the preacher's house and struck out for the sheriff's. I was glad to see that house dark too, but of course, I knew someone might wait in the dark.

  The sheriff did. He was setting on the stairs, and he stood up real quick when I come in. I thought about turning and running out, but before I could move, he had hold of me, pinning my arms against the wall. "So you're back," he said, and his voice was full of hate. "Where you been, boy? You worried your mother real bad."

  "I been walking," I said. "I took me a long walk through cow pastures and cornfields." I could feel his hot breath on my face and smell the coffee he'd been drinking. I wanted real bad to spit right into his eyes, but I knew if I did, he'd kill me sure as anything.

  The sheriff snarled like a mad dog. "You smell like smoke. You had something to do with them airplane fellows and that colored boy disappearing," he said. "I know that sure as I'm alive." He leaned his ugly face even closer to mine. "I want you out of my house, tonight! You ain't sleeping here another night."

  I tried to pull away from him, but he held me tight. "No, I ain't so sure that's enough. I ought to kill you now, rid the world of a smart-aleck kid goes sticking his nose in other folks' business."

  "Dudley." The voice come from upstairs. We both looked up to see Mrs. Leonard leaning on the rail around the stair opening. There was a light in her room behind her, and we could see her plain. My ma was there beside her. "Dudley," Mrs. Leonard said again, and her words sounded stronger than her body looked. "If you hurt that boy, if you harm one hair on his head, now or later, I'll divorce you so fast you won't even have time to pack a bag. Vows or no vows, you'll be out of here. Then I'll see that you lose that badge. Women can vote now, you know. You hurt that boy, and you'll be very sorry. That's a promise, Dudley," she said. "It's a flat promise."

  The sheriff dropped his hands away from my arms. "Mavis, darlin'," he said, "let me help you back to bed." He went up the stairs fast.

  I watched them moving back into her bedroom, then I run up the stairs too. I wasn't going to leave that house without my things, especially my horseshoe and my marbles. Ma come into my room while I was rolling my clothes around the marble jar.

  "Where you going, son?" she said real sad like.

  I shrugged my shoulders. "Don't know yet."

  "Nobe," she said, "this could have been a good place for us. Why couldn't you just behave?" She stepped toward me, but I moved around her toward the door.

  "Ma," I said, "that man tried to have Isaac Mitchell lynched tonight. Isaac couldn't help what happened to Lida Rose."

  She shook her head. "Dudley says the boy was driving fast and crazy, said he laughed about what happened. That little girl was his niece, his sister's child. Maybe Dudley done wrong, but son, a body can't blame him."

  "This body can," I told her. "I was there, Ma, in the car with Isaac. He was driving fine, and Lida Rose run out in front of him. Isaac sure wasn't doing no laughing, either. What you said makes me want to laugh, though. You think that man cared a whit about that little girl? He just hates all colored people." I went out the door then. I turned back for just a second. "Good-bye, Ma," I said.

  "Wait," she begged, but I didn't, just ran down the stairs and out of the house.

  That night I slept on the seat of the preacher's old truck, curled up with my head on my bundle of belongings. In the morning I climbed out with the first light, and I went out to the edge of town to the little creek there. I was dirty and smelling from all the sweat and smoke the night before, so I took off my overalls and got in the creek. I ducked down under the water and come up clean and shivering on account of the air is still pretty cool first thing in the morning in early June. I dripped dry, put on my clean clothes, and stashed all my things under a bush.

  I put on my best black pants and my best shirt. I hadn't had them on since we buried Pa, but I figured it was time to wear them again. I was fixing to go to the cemetery to watch them put little Lida Rose in the ground. I had me some time to kill, so I just set there on a rock and watched the water moving real slow in that little creek. I wondered where the water was going, and I wondered where I was going.

  At first hunger was a starving critter gnawing at my insides. I hadn't had anything to eat since the beans at noon the day before. After a while, though, I quit noticing the hunger pains on account of the aching in my heart. I just did not see how I was going to stand what was about to happen. How could I watch them put that little girl down into the dark ground?

  I went out to the cemetery what I knowed was way early, but I didn't have no watch and didn't want to take no chance of being late. I was standing under a cottonwood tree near the fence when the first automobile arrived. It was Mrs. Mitchell.

  I run out to her. "Isaac? Is he still in jail?" she called out before I could even get close.

  "No, he's all right," I yelled. When I got close, I told her the whole story.

  She was still setting in the car, and she leaned her head down on the steering wheel. "God bless you, child," she said. Then she raised her head and looked me right in the eye. "No," she corrected herself, "you are no child. You are a man." I don't expect to ever feel
prouder or better deep down inside than I felt right at that minute, not ever again.

  Other folks was coming by that time, some in wagons and some in automobiles. I guess just about every person in Wekiwa, Oklahoma, and the surrounding territory drove down the road to that cemetery that June day. Mrs. Mitchell and me stood under that cottonwood tree and watched them come. "I won't go close," Mrs. Mitchell told me. "I don't want to pain the parents."

  I started to tell her that Daisy and Sim wasn't blaming Isaac none, but I didn't say so. I figured it would be better just to wait and see what happened. Other colored folks did come, and stood back away a space from the whites.

  When Cinda and her folks come, she came over to stand by me. "Nobe," was all she said, but she reached over and she took hold of my hand. We was standing there, hand in hand, when the preacher come. His wife walked beside him, and the kids was right behind.

  The preacher stopped, put out his hand, and squeezed my shoulder. I figured he'd heard somehow why I had borrowed his truck the night before. When the preacher's oldest girl, Mildred, walked by, she slowed way down and looked at me and Cinda. "I thought you said he wasn't your beau," she said.

  "I reckon I was wrong," Cinda said. "I'd be tickled pink to say Nobe Chase is sure enough my beau if he'll have me."

  My face got hot, and I figured it was red, but I didn't care. I looked right at Cinda, and I felt myself smiling real big. The smile vanished when Daisy and Sim come. They was right behind Roscoe Jones's furniture truck, and I knew Lida Rose was in a box in that truck. The whole place got quiet, watching Daisy and Sim get out and start toward the empty grave where everyone waited.

  Some folks looked at them, real sad. Others closed their eyes and bowed their head.

  I noticed Mrs. Mitchell was looking, and so I did too. Just when Daisy and Sim got close to us, I heard Mrs. Mitchell whisper sort of loud, "I'm so sorry. Isaac and I are so awful sorry."

  Daisy stopped walking then, and she dropped Sim's arm. She moved over to Mrs. Mitchell. "Come with us," she said, and she pulled at Mrs. Mitchell's arm until she moved between Daisy and Sim. They walked that way to the grave, Mrs. Mitchell between them two heartbroke people, and them holding her hands.