“Morning, Mr. President,” he finally managed to say.
“Come ride the elevator with me, John!”
A few minutes later, having deposited the red-faced Morgan on his floor, Roosevelt had a good laugh at his expense. “And the newspapers call me a gasbag? Senator Morgan, my friends, is the royal and supreme emperor of gasbags! Did you see how quickly I deflated him simply by using his Christian name?”
Appreciative laughter from his aides trailed the president to his suite. Roosevelt grew serious the moment he passed through the door.
“Good morning, Mr. President. We’re all ready for your meeting,” said Jackson Hensen, his capable assistant.
“Well, get them in here. No need to dawdle.”
“Yes, sir. They’re on their way up in the service elevator.”
Roosevelt chuckled. “How did they take to that?”
“I understand the gentleman was… displeased,” Hensen said.
Chapter 48
THE INNER DOOR OPENED and a pair of adjutants appeared, escorting a distinguished-looking black man with a Vandyke beard and a wide woman of a darker, more African appearance, with a wise face and a spectacular sweep of hair that plainly was not entirely her own.
Mr. Roosevelt bowed to the man and kissed the lady’s gloved hand. He could never be seen doing such a thing in public, but here in private he was all too happy to pay honor to W. E. B. Du Bois, the great Negro writer and crusader, and to Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the passionate antilynching campaigner, such a modern and audacious woman that she dared to append her husband’s name to her own when she married.
“My sincere apologies for the indignity of bringing you up in the… back elevator,” the president said.
Du Bois bowed slightly. “It is not the first time I have ridden in the servants’ car, Mr. President,” he said. “I am fairly sure it will not be the last.”
Mrs. Wells-Barnett perched her sizable self on the upholstered chair beside the fireplace.
“Now, Mr. Du Bois,” said the president, “I have received quite a lot of correspondence from you about these matters. I want you to know that my administration is doing everything within our power to see that these local authorities start observing the laws as—”
Roosevelt was surprised when Ida Wells-Barnett interrupted.
“That’s fine, Mr. President,” she said. “We already know all that. You don’t have to coddle us or pour on all that old gravy. We know what you’re up against. We’re up against the same. White men get away with killing black men every day.”
Roosevelt’s eyes flashed behind his spectacles. “Well, Madam, I think I may be able to do something finally,” he said. “That’s why I agreed to this meeting.”
Du Bois said, “Yes, sir, but—”
“If you will try to refrain from interrupting your president,” Roosevelt demanded, “I will further explain that I am taking steps right now to learn the true situation in the Deep South. Once I have all the facts, I assure you I intend to act.”
“I appreciate that,” Du Bois said.
“We’re not asking for public displays any more than you are,” said Wells-Barnett, warming to the discussion. “As you recall, sir, when you invited Booker Washington to dine at the White House, it caused a political headache for you and accomplished absolutely nothing for the cause of colored people.”
“Booker T. Washington is the whitest black man I know,” grumbled Du Bois.
Roosevelt sat ramrod straight in a large leather armchair. Jackson Hensen loomed over a tiny French desk in the corner, taking down in shorthand everything that was said.
“Mr. Roosevelt, let me put this as simply as possible,” said Wells-Barnett. “What we have at the present time is an epidemic of lynching in the South. The problem is getting worse, not better.”
Jackson Hensen decided to speak up.
It was an unfortunate decision.
“I understand what you are saying, Mrs. Wells, Professor Du Bois,” he said carefully. “But at the same time you are telling us these terrible stories of lynching, we have it on excellent authority that there is also an epidemic of white women being raped and molested by Negroes all over the South. I’ve seen the numbers. The crime of rape is at least as prevalent as the crime of lynching, is it not?”
“That simply isn’t true, young man.” Du Bois’s voice was an ominous rumble. “I don’t know where you’re getting that insidious, completely inaccurate information.”
Wells-Barnett interrupted. “Just this morning, Senator Morgan was telling people in the lobby of this hotel that he intends to repeal the antilynching laws now in effect.”
Jackson Hensen made a skeptical sound. “With all respect, Mrs. Wells-Barnett, I seriously doubt Morgan can muster the votes to do such a thing.”
Then Du Bois: “I disagree, young man. I disagree—vehemently!”
“That’s enough!” said the president. He got to his feet and paced the floor behind his desk. “I’ve heard enough of this squabbling. I am determined to get to the bottom of the problem. And I will!”
The president’s flash of anger silenced everyone. They all stared at him dumbly: the combative Du Bois, the passionate Wells-Barnett, the young and arrogant Hensen.
Now Roosevelt spoke, quietly and with purpose. “At this very moment I have sent a personal envoy to the Deep South on a dangerous mission, to investigate this entire question of lynching. He is a man I trust,” Roosevelt continued. “A native of those parts. I have connected him with certain others who can show him the situation from all sides. I haven’t told you his name because I’d rather this situation remain confidential until he’s done his job. And then I will do whatever I deem necessary to remedy the tragic situation in the South.”
Ida Wells-Barnett rose from the sofa. “Thank you, Mr. President. I gladly tell anyone who asks that you are the best friend the Negro has had in this office since Mr. Lincoln.”
Roosevelt shook her hand enthusiastically.
Du Bois was forced by Mrs. Wells-Barnett’s action to rise from the sofa and offer his own hand. “Thank you, Mr. President,” he said.
“Yes. Thank you, sir.” The president shook his hand. “Let’s hope we can make progress on this.”
“I’ve been hoping for progress all my life,” Du Bois said.
Roosevelt kept the fixed smile on his face until the two were out of the room. Then he frowned and uttered an epithet.
“Sir?” said Hensen.
“You heard what I said.”
“Is there something I should do about this?”
“Get a message to Abraham Cross. Tell him I want a report from him and Ben Corbett immediately—if not sooner.”
Chapter 49
I WENT DOWN to Young’s Hardware—the only such store in town—and bought myself a bicycle. Then I wheeled my purchase out into the hot sun. The machine was a beautiful silvery blue, with pneumatic tires to smooth out the bumps and ruts of Eudora’s dirt streets.
I took my maiden voyage on my new machine out to the Quarters, to see Abraham Cross.
On this day Abraham and I did not head for the swamp. We rode his mules along the Jackson & Northern tracks, then turned east on the Union Church Road. This was fine open ground, vast flat fields that had been putting out prodigious quantities of cotton for generations.
Every mile or so we encountered a clump of trees surrounding a fine old plantation house. These plantations had been the center of Eudora’s wealth, the reason for its existence, since the first slaves were brought in to clear the trees from these fields.
“You don’t mean they lynched somebody right out here in the open?” I said.
“You stick with me,” Abraham said, “and I’ll show you things that’ll make your fine blond hair fall out.”
At that moment we were riding past River Oak, the Mc-Kenna family plantation. In the field to our left about thirty Negro workers were bent over under the hot sun, dragging the cloth sacks that billowed out behind them as they move
d down the row, picking cotton.
We passed out of the morning heat into the shade, the portion of the road that curved close to the McKennas’ stately home. On the front lawn two adorable white children in a little pink-painted cart were driving a pony in circles. On the wide front veranda I could see the children’s mother observing their play and a small army of black servants hovering there.
This was a vision of the old South and the new South, all wrapped into one. There, gleaming in the drive, was a handsome new motorcar, brass fittings shining in the sun. And there, rushing across the yard in pursuit of a hen, was an ink-black woman with a red dotted kerchief wrapped around her head.
Abraham was careful to ride his mule a few feet behind mine, to demonstrate his inferior position in the company of a white man. I turned in the saddle. “Where to?”
“Just keep riding straight on ahead to that road beyond the trees,” he said.
“You don’t think that lady’s going to wonder what we’re up to?”
“She don’t even see us,” said Abraham. “She just happy to sit up on her porch and be rich.”
We passed once more out of the shade and turned our mules down the long line of trees flanking the McKennas’ pecan orchard.
Soon we arrived at another clump of trees shading an intersection with another dirt lane. The western side of this crossing formed a natural amphitheater, with a gigantic old black gum tree as its center.
Beneath this tree someone had built a little platform, like a stage. In a rough semicircle several warped wooden benches were arranged, their whitewash long faded. Obviously they had been hauled out of some derelict church and placed here for spectators.
“What is this, a camp revival?” I said.
Abraham pointed up at a sturdy low branch of the gum tree. The branch extended directly over the little wooden stage—or rather, the stage had been built directly under the branch. Three ropes were carefully knotted and hanging from the branch, three loops waiting for heads to be slipped in, waiting for someone to hang.
“Good God!” I said as I realized what I was seeing.
“For the audience,” Abraham said as he gestured around at the benches. “They come to watch the lynching. And they need a place to sit. Nothing worse than having to stand while you waiting to watch ’em hang a nigger.”
That was the first time I’d heard Abraham use that word, and his eyes burned fiercely.
I almost couldn’t believe it. Across that fence was the Mc-Kennas’ impeccable lawn, acres and acres of flawless mown grass. I could see beds of bright orange daylilies sculpted into the landscape from here to the big house.
To one side of the stage, I noticed a low table with a small bench behind it. Maybe that was for shotguns and rifles, to keep them out of the dirt.
“What’s that table for, Abraham?”
He answered with a weak smile. “That’s where they sell refreshments.”
Chapter 50
IF I THOUGHT that obscene place was the worst abomination I was going to see—a serene amphitheater constructed for the pleasure of human beings torturing other human beings—I was wrong.
Our journey was just beginning.
We turned south, along back roads, until we were riding beside the fields of the Sauville plantation. I asked if they too had a theater for lynching.
“I don’t believe so,” said Abraham. “Why bother building your own when there’s such a nice one already established in your neighborhood?”
We rode past the showy Greek Revival pile of the Sauville home, past miles of fields with colored folks in them, picking cotton.
After riding for most of an hour, we came to a long, low cotton barn with a tall silo for storing grain at one end. The place was neatly kept and obviously much in use; the doors at one end stood open, revealing deep rectangular bays stuffed to the ceiling with the first bales of the new crop.
The most successful farmers used barns like this for storing their cotton from year to year, selling only as they needed cash or the price reached a profitable level.
“You telling me they’ve lynched somebody here?”
“I’m afraid so. This was where Hiram Frazier got hanged. And a couple more since.”
“How on earth could you hang somebody in a barn this low? Looks like his feet would drag on the ground.”
He pointed to the end of the barn by the silo. “The folks watch from in here. But they hang ’em inside the silo. Don’t even need a tree.”
I shook my head. I thought of Jacob Gill and the pint he kept in his leather toolbox. I wished for a taste of that whiskey right now.
Abraham led the mules to a slow, muddy stream, where they drank. The old man knelt down, cupped some water in his hand, and drank too.
“It don’t look like much, but it taste all right,” he said.
I was thirsty but decided I could wait.
We climbed up on the mules. Abraham’s animal groaned as he brought his full weight down on its back.
“I declare, I don’t know who’s in worse shape,” Abraham said, “this poor old mule or me.”
I smiled at him.
“There’s one more place I need to show you, Ben,” he said. “Then I reckon we’ll be ready to write an official report for Mr. President.”
As his mule started off, I saw Abraham wince in pain and try to hide it. He saw that I had noticed and forced a smile.
“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Corbett,” he said. “I’m old, but I ain’t even close to dyin’ yet.”
But as he turned away and the smile dropped from his face like a mask, I realized that Abraham was a very old man, and probably a sick man as well. His face had the hidden desperation of someone hanging on for dear life.
Or maybe just to make this report to the president.
Chapter 51
I SUPPOSE ABRAHAM WAS WISE to save the worst for last. We rode the mules through a peach orchard south of the Chip-ley plantation, making a roundabout circle in the general direction of town. The air was heavy with the smell of rotting fruit. For some reason no one was picking these peaches.
At the end of the orchard we emerged into a peaceful wooded glen. At the far side stood two huge old trees. From the fruit dotting the floor of the glen, I made out that these were black cherry trees; we had a nice specimen growing in back of the house the whole time I was growing up.
From the tree on the right hung a black man. At least, I think it was a man. It was mostly unrecognizable. Flies buzzed around it. It had been there a while.
I didn’t want to go closer, but I found myself moving there as if my legs were doing all the thinking for my body. I could see that the man had been young. He was caked with blood, spit, snot, mud, and shit. His head was distended, swollen from the pressure of hanging. His lips were swollen too, like balloons about to pop.
I began to gag and I turned away. I fell to one knee and heaved.
“Go ahead, Ben,” Abraham said. “It’s good to be sick, to be able to get rid of it like that. I wish I could. I guess I’m just gettin’ too used to seein’ it. It’s a bad thing to get used to.”
I took out my handkerchief and wiped the edges of my mouth. The wave of nausea was still sweeping over me.
“That’s Jimmy Patton up there,” he said.
“What happened to him?”
“He worked over at the gin for Mr. Purneau,” Abraham said. “Last Saturday he got drunk like he always does after he gets his pay. He was walkin’ home and somehow he got hold of a gun. Don’t know if he brung it with him, I never knowed Jimmy to carry a gun. Anyway he popped it off right there a couple of times on Commerce Street, down at the end there by the depot. He didn’t hit anybody, but a couple of men saw him. They brought him here.”
“We can’t leave him up there,” I said.
“Well sir, we have to,” said Abraham.
“Why is that?”
“Because they told the people came to cut Jimmy down they wanted him left here as a warning for the others.?
??
“You afraid to cut him down, Abraham? This man needs to be buried.”
“We got no way to carry him.”
“Across the mule’s back,” I said. “I can walk it, or I can ride with you.”
“I’m an old man, Mr. Corbett. I can’t climb that tree.”
“Well, I can, but I don’t have a knife,” I said.
Abraham produced an excellent bowie knife with a bone handle.
It was only when I was directly under Jimmy Patton’s body that I saw someone had severed his fingers and toes. Where his digits should have been there were bloody stumps.
I made quick work of climbing the cherry tree.
“Yes, sir,” Abraham said. “Sometime they cut off pieces. To take for souvenirs. And sometimes they sell ’em, you know. At the general store. At the barber shop. Ten cent for a nigger toe. Twenty-five cent for a nigger thumb.”
I waved my hand at the ugly explosion of blood on the front of Jimmy Patton’s trousers.
“That’s right,” said Abraham. “Sometimes they don’t stop at fingers and toes.”
I felt light-headed and nauseated again. “Just—just stop talking for a minute, would you, Abraham?”
I sawed at the rope with a knife for what seemed like an hour. Jimmy Patton finally fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
Somehow I managed to climb down that tree. Somehow I got the Indian blanket out from under Abraham’s saddle and wrapped it around the dead man. With Abraham’s help I got Jimmy onto the mule. His body was so stiff from rigor mortis that I had to balance him just so, like a pine log.
“We better get out of here,” Abraham said. “Somebody watching us for sure.”
“Where? I don’t see anybody.”
“I don’t see ’em,” he said, “but I know they watching us, just the same.”
We made it back through the peach orchard, onto the road, all the way back to town without meeting a soul. I walked the mule by its rope, hoping it would help to be out front. But there was nowhere to walk without breathing in the smell of Jimmy Patton’s decomposing flesh, the coppery smell of his blood.