Tulsa Burning Page 7

  The Jacksons was going to Widow Carter's just like me and Cinda was. I was kind of surprised that a preacher would want to see a barnstormer, but he was real excited about it.

  Cinda and me thanked the preacher for the ride, and we raced off across the pasture to where a crowd had already gathered. We had just got to the crowd when someone yelled, "Look!"

  We did, and there was the plane. It buzzed down so low over Widow Carter's barn that the crowd made an "ah" sound almost all at once, like we was just one big person instead of a whole bunch of different people.

  "They'll go up again now and do some stunts," a fellow behind us said, and he was right. When they were back above the barn again, the plane started to circle. Me and Cinda kept our eyes on it, and we almost held our breath. Then one man climbed out on the wing, and we really were afraid to breathe. When he was just barely on the wing he leaned back, and the pilot handed him a baseball bat and a small bag. With the bat under his arm, he stood up on the wing.

  "There'll be a ball in that bag, sure as you're alive," said the man behind us, and sure enough he was right again. The man on the airplane opened the paper bag, took out a red ball, and let the bag go in the wind. Then he held the ball up in front of the bat, dropped it, and hit it hard. The crowd went wild, but I didn't spend any time clapping or shouting.

  "I'm going to go find that ball," I told Cinda, and I tore off in the direction it had landed. Cinda came right along. We didn't pay any mind to the stunts even though the crowd was oohing and aahing. When we got to the general area where we thought the ball had come down, we split up and looked for it.

  Pretty soon Cinda yelled, "Here it is," and she held it up for me to see. The stunts were over now, and by the time we ran back to the crowd, Basil and Willie was landing. Cinda and I stood near the edge of the up-front group.

  Both men came climbing out of the plane, and the crowd went to cheering real loud. First Basil and Willie walked to the widow and her brother, who were standing in the front of the crowd. Willie shook Olly's hand, and Basil gave him a big hug. The crowd cheered again, and I expected Oily to bolt and run on account of him being so shy, but he didn't.

  The flyers went back to the plane, and Basil climbed back up on the wing. Then he started to yell out, "Who wants a ride? Only five bucks for the ride of your life! I can take three at a time, folks, because Willie here wants to stay on the ground and look for him a gal. Me, I'm a married man, so I can keep my mind on the flying. Now who will be first?"

  No one stepped up. "Come on," shouted Basil. "Don't be nervous about going up! Why, I tell you what I'll do! You give Willie here the five dollars, and if we crash and you get killed, you can have your money back!"

  The crowd laughed, but no one stepped up to buy a ride. Cinda still had the ball in her hand. "Go give the ball to Basil," I said to her.

  "I sort of thought I'd keep it, you know, as a souvenir." She turned the ball over in her hands. "I don't reckon they know we've got it, and I bet they've got another one."

  I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, I was thinking they might give you a free ride if you was to give it back to them."

  Cinda sucked in her breath. "Oh, do you think so?"

  "It's worth a try," I said.

  Cinda stepped toward Basil, but she grabbed my hand and sort of pulled me after her. When we was close to him, he said, "You two want rides?"

  Cinda shook her head no. "We ain't got no money," she said. "But here's your ball we found."

  "Well, now, that's real neighborly of you, bringing back my ball. I'm real fond of that particular ball." He took the ball and held it up for everyone to see. "This here young lady brought back my ball," he yelled. "I figure maybe she ought to get a free ride."

  "Sure thing," yelled Willie. "You climb right on up there, darling."

  Cinda didn't move. "It was Nobe's idea," she said. "I never would of thought to go look for the ball, but right off that's what he thought of. Nobe ought to be the one to get the ride instead of me."

  "No," I said. "You found it fair and square. You go."

  "Well, looks like we've got us a pair here, huh, Willie?" he called. "It appears we'll have to take them both."

  Cinda squeezed my hand so hard I thought she might break my fingers off, but she dropped my hand real quick when Basil said, "Climb on in." She was up in that plane in nothing flat, like she'd been scrambling up into airplanes for all her life. Basil Bailey pointed us to the backseat.

  About the time we got settled, Preacher Jackson joined us, and Basil started up the engine. My stomach felt real strange when we took off, and I reckon I was holding my breath pretty tight. Cinda grabbed my hand. Her fingernails were cutting into my skin, but I didn't try to get loose. It wouldn't have done me any good to try anyway. Cinda wouldn't have let go of that hand no matter what.

  As soon as we was off the ground, the preacher started shouting out a prayer so loud you'd think he thought God had to hear him over the roar of the airplane. "Oh, Lord," he prayed, "forgive me my sins. You know I started swearing a blue streak this morning when that old cow took to kicking me because I forgot to put the kicker chains on her. And forgive me for being so interested in worldly things as to make me spend five dollars on this ride. And dear, God, if you can see your way to spare our lives, I'll be a better man, and Lord, I think Nobe, who is in the backseat, will be a better man, too."

  I wanted to say to the preacher that God sure ought to know who it was in the backseat without being told. I also wanted to say I wasn't making any promises about being a better man. Not that I wouldn't like to do better, but see, Cinda was leaning against me while she held on to my hand with one hand and clutched my knee with the other. There I was up above the world, where any fool would have his mind on dying and trying to get into heaven. Not me, though. I started having impure thoughts right there in that airplane. I reckon I would have impure thoughts even if one of them clouds parted and I was to see the face of God. I reckon I've just got one of them kind of minds. I just had to hope God knew what it was like to be a boy who tried to keep a pure mind, but just couldn't.

  "This is as high as we go, folks," Basil yelled. I was too scared to look down until then, and I just had to look. Boy howdy! I never had any notion how beautiful our plain old Oklahoma really was. I could see the widow's barn, and her pretty fields of corn and wheat. One field had just been plowed, and the brown looked so pretty there in the middle of the growing things. Over in her pasture, two jersey cows was standing in a pond so as to cool off. The cows was real small from up there, but they looked so beautiful. I could see Wekiwa over to my left. For a minute I didn't think it was our town on account of how pretty it was, but then I looked at the lay of the buildings, the bank building on one corner being the tallest and all. I knew for sure it was Wekiwa.

  The funny thing is that I stopped having them impure thoughts, and I went to talking to God too, not out loud like the preacher, but just quiet inside my head. I told him that I never did know how beautiful his world was, and I sort of thanked him for letting me live in it.

  I think Cinda was feeling the same way. "Oh, Nobe," she said. "Just look down there. The world's so wonderful and so big. It's just so big, and I want to see it, Nobe, I want to see it all, Noble. Oh I do."

  We started down then, and we buzzed real low over that barn again. When we landed, Basil said, "I hope you three will urge the others to go up too. We'd like to make some money today."

  "I surely will do that," Preacher Jackson said, but when we stopped, he didn't get much of a chance.

  Even before Basil Bailey had a chance to get out, Cinda popped out of that seat. Quick as a wink, she was up on the back of that plane. "You got to go up," she yelled. "Even if you've got to get a mortgage on your farm to do it, you've got to go up. There ain't nothing like seeing our world from way up there, the way God sees it."

  We climbed out of the plane then. People was crowding up to pay their five dollars. Cinda and I pushed our way through the crowd to stand u
p and watch. Then she did the most amazing thing. She leaned right over and kissed me. The kiss landed half on the side of my lips and half on my chin. "Thank you, Nobe," she said. "If you hadn't thought of getting that ball, we might never have had a chance to see." I felt like I was purely flying again!

  Chapter 6

  I JUST NEVER DID FEEL the same inside after we went up in that airplane with Basil Bailey. I'd walk around Wekiwa looking at things like the street or the blacksmith shop, and I got to studying about how pretty things looked from up there. And then, of course, there was that kiss. I spent me some real nice times thinking about that kiss.

  Sure. I had not forgot what Cinda said about me not being her beau. But that kiss was real, and it was her idea. There was flyers around town about how Basil was aiming to be back in town on June 2. I'd have me a payday by then, and I knew what I'd do with the money. I forgot all about saving for my escape. I'd use the money for an airplane ride for Cinda. I might ask Daisy about an advance on my wages, so that I'd have enough for me too.

  It had been three days since the ride, and I was still feeling like I was walking in high cotton. The Café was open late on the last night of May because it was Tuesday, and the railroad men always came in for supper on Tuesday night.

  As soon as I got out the front door of the sheriff's house, I started to whistle, "You Are My Sunshine." Most times I went around to the back door of the restaurant, but I just went in the front, sort of wanting to see the folks who were eating from the dishes I'd be washing in a few minutes.

  My whistling stopped when I opened the front door and saw Sheriff Leonard. He had been at his house having his supper with Mrs. Leonard just a few minutes earlier, but now he was having pie while Charlie Carson from the bank ate roast beef. There was another man with them, but I didn't know him.

  I just nodded to Daisy and was about to go through the swinging doors when Preacher Jackson busted through the front doors. His face was red, and his hair was wild.

  "War's broke out in Tulsa!" he yelled, and he leaned against the counter like he'd run the whole twelve miles from there.

  "Mercy," said Daisy. "Don't tell us the Germans have attacked Tulsa!"

  The preacher shook his head, but he didn't say anything for a minute, just breathed heavy. Finally he was able to talk. "It wasn't the Germans," he said. "It's the colored people and the white people fighting each other. They're burning the town."

  Sheriff Leonard jumped up, and he had his hand on his gun. "The damn coloreds are setting fire to Tulsa?" he yelled.

  "No," said the preacher. "It's the whites that are doing the burning."

  "Well," said the sheriff, "they're bound to have good reason. The coloreds must of got out of hand, else the whites wouldn't have to put them in their place."

  The preacher wiped his face with a bandanna. "I was there when it started. A colored boy was arrested yesterday because a white woman claimed he grabbed her in the elevator where she worked. The newspaper had an article that got people to saying the boy ought to be lynched."

  Daisy brought the preacher a glass of iced tea, and he took a big drink before he went on. "Well, sir, a crowd of white men gathered down by the jail, talking up the lynching. Then the coloreds, they start to gather too, wanting to protect the boy." He wiped his hand across his eyes. "There was some of us, both white and colored, who were a trying to calm people down. I was standing right where the whole thing started, could have reached out to touch the fellow that got killed. That's exactly what I should have done, should have reached out to stop him." He stopped to get another drink. I noticed how his hand shook, holding the glass.

  "What happened?" Banker Carson was up by then, and he pulled at the preacher's arm.

  "Well, sir," said the preacher, "there was this colored fellow had a gun, and the white man said, 'What are you doing with that gun?' The colored man, he says, 'I'm fixing to use it if I have to.' The white man says, 'No, you're not,' and right off he starts to wrestle the colored man for the gun. The gun goes off, and the white man falls right there at my feet, dead. The shooting starts then. I ran." A terrible wounded look come across his face, and I was afraid he might start to cry, but he went on. "What was I to do? I couldn't talk sense to men who were shooting at one another. They brought in a truckload of white fellows with guns, gasoline, and matches. They started burning everything in sight! Churches! They even burned churches." He shook his head, and despair seemed to take over his whole body. He sort of fell into a chair near the counter. "Why would they burn churches? I never thought I'd see the day!"

  Sheriff Leonard pulled himself up to stand real tall. "Reckon I'd better be rounding up me some deputies," he said. "The coloreds could be attacking us next, but we'll be ready."

  The preacher lifted his head. "Didn't you hear anything I said, man?" he asked. "It's the whites that are doing the attacking, burning homes with women and children right there inside. It's a shameful day," he said, "a shameful day." He put his head back down.

  "Little children," said Daisy, "little children like Lida Rose seeing such awful things." She went over to put her hand on the preacher's shoulder.

  Sheriff Leonard wasn't satisfied. "I don't know," he said. "Seems to me like we ought to be taking precautions against trouble." He folded his arms across his chest, and his red face seemed lost in thought.

  "Dudley," Charlie Carson said, "what do you think is about to happen here in Wekiwa? We don't have a colored family here in town. Now we do have a few families out south of town, nice, peaceful folks they are. You think they're likely to go crazy and start a war, do you?"

  "A lawman's got to be ready," said the sheriff. "You can't never tell what the coloreds will do if they get all hot under the collar. I'm getting some men together."

  "Sit down, Dudley!" said Charlie Carson. He hit the table he stood beside with his fist. "I'm telling you, you are not deputizing a bunch of fools and starting some kind of trouble here."

  I never knew anyone had the nerve to talk to Sheriff Leonard that way, but he took it. Charlie Carson pulled back a chair, and the sheriff set down in it. Then Mr. Carson set down across from him. When he talked next, his voice was quieter.

  "Think about it, Dudley. You get a bunch of guys together with guns, and there's bound to be trouble. The preacher just told us what happened in Tulsa on account of hotheads."

  Daisy was still looking at Preacher Jackson. "Could I get you a plate of food, Brother Jackson?" she asked. "It would be on the house, of course."

  The preacher raised his head. "That's kind, but thank you, no." He wiped at his face again. "I couldn't eat a bite." He put his head back down. "I should have stayed," he said, real soft. "That's the thing that's eating at me. I should have stayed. Maybe there was some little thing I could have done, some little thing to help those suffering people. All I did was run. I started up my truck, and I got out of there fast as I could." He looked right at me then. "Most any man would have stayed and tried to help."

  "No." I shook my head. "I suspect most any fellow would have done what you did. You got a wife and kids to think about too, Preacher. What would have happened to your wife and kids was you to get yourself shot or burned up in Tulsa?"

  The preacher didn't say anything. He just stared at me like he wasn't sure where I had come from or who I was. "Nobe,"

  said Daisy, "why don't you see Brother Jackson home?"

  It was just a block over to the church, and the preacher lived right next door. "Sure," I said. I took hold of the preacher's arm. "I'll walk with you." I helped him up, but he seemed sort of shaky on his feet. I didn't figure he could walk even to his house. "Is your truck out front?" I asked.

  He looked at me, sort of dazed like. "Yes, I believe it is. Yes, I must have driven it back from Tulsa."

  "Come on." I steered him toward the door. I did not look at Sheriff Leonard. Somehow I just plumb could not stand to see that man's face one more time that night.

  I was helping the preacher into the car when he pointe
d off to the east. "See the flames?" he said. "The flames of hatred. God forgive us," he whispered.

  I looked back to the east, and sure enough, I could see the light in the darkness. "I am right glad I ain't in Tulsa tonight," I said, and it was just that second that I thought of Isaac Mitchell.

  The preacher thought of Isaac too. Before I could ask about him, the preacher started to talk. "Isaac Mitchell was there. Trying to talk his people into going home, saying the law would protect the colored boy. He wanted to get both sides to just go home." His voice broke. "I saw them strike him with the butt of a shot gun. I saw him fall, but he got up." He shook his head. "I believe I saw him get up. No, I can't be sure. Isaac may well be dead by now. He was such a good young man, a blessing to his dear mother."

  My heart took to thumping like it was fixing to break out of my chest. I looked again at the bright spot on the night horizon. Tulsa was on fire, and Isaac was there. He was there, and he was injured.

  I shoved the preacher in and fired up the truck. Driving that old truck wasn't as easy as Isaac's new automobile. At first I had trouble keeping it on the street. I remembered how Isaac had said I wasn't exactly ready for city driving, but it sure looked like I would be driving in a city. By the time I had it headed down the preacher's street, I had my mind made up. "Preacher," I said. "Can I borrow your truck? I got to go to Tulsa. I got to try to find Isaac and bring him home."

  "Oh, my boy," he said. "It won't work. I tried to turn back. After I came to myself, I tried to turn back for that very reason. No, they won't let you in. The National Guard has that part of downtown blocked off."

  "I've got to try," I said.

  "Well, then, turn the truck. I'll go with you. You've got to have help."

  "No, Preacher," I said. "You're done in for tonight. I can get me someone else to help." While I was saying that, I knew who I'd get. Lester. He was my only choice.