Cast a Road Before Me (27 page)

“Thomas!” I cried as he half dragged me toward the door. “Please! You don’t know how mad Lee is. And tell them not to hurt Uncle Frank; he’s not here to fight!”

But I heard no answer, for I was already outside, skimming along grass under the moonlight, propelled by a man used to being obeyed. Over the house’s roof and around its corners I could hear engines rattling off, more car doors slamming, an undercurrent of men’s voices. We reached the far back corner of the huge lot and turned right, following the tree-lined white wood fence down the side, keeping our heads down. When we were even with the porch, I saw a sight that made my blood run cold. The men were gathering, Lee at the forefront, many gripping two-by-fours and a few with crudely fashioned torches eager to be alight. Al Bledger carried a can of gasoline, his jaw set and shadowed in the umbra of the porch lamps.

“Lord help us,” the policeman breathed. I tried to slow, but he pushed me on toward a large oak tree about fifty feet from the men, one branch pointing off-kilter toward the earth. We sank to our knees behind its massive trunk, panting.

“What’s your name?” He slid his billy club from his belt and laid it on the ground.

“Jessie. What’s yours?”

“Lester.”

The lawn was cool beneath my legs. My tongue felt swollen, thick. I’d had nothing to drink, and my throat begged for water. I shivered, prickles skittering down my arms.

“Are you cold?”

I inhaled deeply, shaking my head. “Just … tired. And scared.”

In truth I felt I was suffocating. The air was still so hot, humidity clinging to me. The scene before me turned surreal, like a bad dream. There was something so wrong about it all. These were the men to whom I had served cake in Aunt Eva’s living room. Whom I sat across from in church. For whose wives I’d mended a dress or let out a waistline at Miss Alice’s. I’d greeted these men on the street, stood beside them at the July Fourth parade. And there was my uncle, apart from the milling crowd, praying. And Lee—standing on the first of Riddum’s three porch steps, palms low on his hips, back turned defiantly toward the house as if nothing in it could harm him. He was staring, hard-mouthed, at the police cars, calling to his friends down the driveway to “come on!” His shoulders were straight and his legs planted wide apart, his mouth granite. This was not the man I knew. This was not the one who’d kissed me so tenderly, who’d begged me to stay in Bradleyville and marry him. The man who’d wondered about giving his life to Christ.

I shivered again, amazed at the irrationality of anger.

T
he men were almost assembled, hitting expectant palms with two-by-fours, prowling, voices a low rumble. Their fury pulsed across the lawn, a bomb about to explode. Suddenly, as if on cue, their voices rose.

“Come on out, Riddum!”

“Think you can hide behind police?”

“Come out before we burn you out!” Al Bledger yelled, raising his can of gasoline.

I huddled behind the tree, sinking fingernails into my knees. Lester was coiled to spring, mumbling, “Keep calm, keep steady….” Over the chaos hovered an unspoken yet tangible sense of order. Lee was clearly the leader, his personal losses catapulting him into command. Everyone else’s grievances together could not match his.

He turned away from the men and toward the front door. “Riddum!” he brayed hoarsely over the din. “Got some men here need to talk to you!”

Uncle Frank’s hands were now tightly clasped, knuckles pressed against his mouth, his head bent.

Harsh laughter rose from the crowd and the roar swelled. When the front door opened, Lee tensed, fingers splaying. Movement behind him slowed in surprise, as if no one had expected it to be so easy. When Thomas and Jake Lewellyn eased onto the porch and latched the door behind them, the two-by-fours froze, the din fell away. For a moment, no one moved, the unexpected face-off sparking the air. Lee backed off his step onto the sidewalk. The two old men stood firmly, straight-backed. Thomas held a paper bag in one hand.

Black dots danced before my eyes. I could barely breathe.

Lee gathered himself. “Thomas, Jake, you two git off the porch afore you git hurt. This ain’t about you.”

“It’s about me, all right,” Thomas declared loudly. “It’s about the mill my daddy built. And y’all are part a the town he founded. He ain’t around to blame. So here I am.”

“And I’m as old as he is!” Jake Lewellyn shouted breathlessly. “Been part a this town since the day it was founded. You ain’t movin’ me either.”

Low guffaws rolled through the men, their clubs again in movement.

“This ain’t about respectin’ you or the town!” Lee retorted, stepping back on the stair. “I’ll pick you up one at a time and move you myself. As for your backup help hidin’ in there, we’re a lot more than they are. Bill Scutch!” he threw back his head, shouting toward the top window of the house. “You in there with the rest of ‘em, you better come on out!”

“You gonna have his blood on your hands too, Lee?” Thomas challenged.

“I ain’t gonna have no innocent blood on my hands!” Lee punched the air with his fist. “We’re here for
one
man and one only. The man who almost killed my
family!”

“Blair Riddum didn’t set your house on fire!”

The reaction was immediate, men shouting their disgust, weapons rising. From across the lawn I could see Jake Lewellyn’s legs begin to tremble. He lowered his head to cough. Thomas
raised the bag in his hand, yelling vainly until his voice broke through the noise. “I’m tellin’ you the truth, Lee!”

“He was seen, Thomas!” Lee cried.

“Why’re you protectin’ him?” Al Bledger raged. Others echoed his disdain.

“Will you
hear
me? Will you at least hear me!”

Lester, half-crouched, took his gun out of its holder.

“What are you
doing?”
I uttered, astounded. “Nobody out there’s got a gun.”

He snorted softly. “You see all those men? You know how many there are of us? You should be worryin’ about
me.”

“You can’t pull a gun on men who don’t have any. Is that what they teach you?”

“This ain’t the classroom, Jessie; this is real life. We’re overpowered.”

My throat tightened. “Please don’t shoot it.”

“We’ll give ‘em a chance. They put down their weapons, nobody’ll get hurt.”

“But you don’t understand; he won’t stop. The one on the step.” Tears filled my eyes.

“How do you know?”

He leaned toward me, searching my expression. I thought of Miss Wilma, exhausted and destitute. Connie and her fatherless baby. My mouth went to mush, a hand flying to cover it. “He has good reason. What if
your
family was almost killed?”

Lester’s jaw hardened. He turned back toward the men. “You cain’t take the law in your own hands.”

“What’s your proof, Thomas!” Lee challenged. “We know the screen was cut! We know he lit the curtains.”

I looked from Lester’s gun to Lee, then gasped as Uncle Frank broke through the mob to join him. Aunt Eva had been right; no way he could stay out of it. “That’s my uncle!” I choked. “He’s not here to fight; he wants to calm the men down. You
can’t
hurt him.”

“Quiet, all a ya!” Uncle Frank commanded, waving his arms. “We’re gonna listen. Give Thomas one minute.”

“You ain’t our manager out here,” one of Al Bledger’s cronies threw out.

Lee stretched his fingertips wide above his head, as if blessing his friends. Their rancor quieted to a sizzle.

Thomas jumped in, voice rising in the thick night air. “Blair Riddum wasn’t around the night of the fire! He and his wife were visiting her sick aunt in the next county—”

“You gonna believe that?” Zach Bulder called.

“Esther’s still with her aunt. As for the fire, if you wanna blame someone for it, blame Martha Plott.”

“Martha
Plott!”
Caustic echoes surged through the night. Al Bledger, disgust dripping from his shoulders, edged toward the back of the crowd, gesturing to friends.

“That’s right, sweet ol’ Martha Plott!” Jake Lewellyn bellowed. “Y’all wanna burn
her
house down?”

Thomas threw a shushing hand at Mr. Lewellyn and raised the paper bag above his head. “Lee! You saw us pull this piece a cut glass from the ruins a your house.” He opened the bag and withdrew a large, jagged fragment, held it high between two fingers. “You told me it was from a lamp Martha gave your sister the day a the fire. It was right by the window, remember, by the curtains. Bill and I and the fire inspectors have been lookin’ at that piece a screen all evenin’. It wasn’t sliced clean, with a knife. The lamp caught the curtains on fire first, the glass exploded, and then a piece cut through the screen! Here.” He pulled a foot-long piece of half-melted screen from the bag. “See for yourself!”

“We don’t believe none of it!” someone at the edge cried, hoarse with hatred. In one fluid motion he twisted, drawing back a two-by-four like a bat.
“None!”
With two-fisted strength, he smashed the wood into a police car window.

The heavy crunch of glass reverberated through the limbs of those men, shattering any semblance of logic. They went wild then, and after that, everything happened very quickly. Their yells drowned out Thomas’s pleadings. Other sticks lifted heavenward,
and their rage turned on the six Albertsville police cars, quickly surrounding them to smash windows and bash in doors. Bill Scutch’s car sat apart, for the moment unharmed. Uncle Frank trotted a few steps from Lee and raised his hands over his head, loudly praying. “Lord Jesus, send your calming Spirit!” his voice rose over the din. “In the name of Jesus, still the hands of these men!” Lee seemed caught between the two camps, hurling a wooden beam one moment, then jumping onto the porch to peer at the screen and glass. Even in his fury, I knew he wanted to believe. In a gesture that pierced my heart, he dug fingers into his skull as if to burst the blister of his confusion.

Something broke inside me. Anger dredged itself up my stomach, bile-ridden and acidic. It was no longer anger at Lee but at the insanity his misapplied zeal had wrought. I knew in that instant deep in my gut that someone would be hurt, and that person would be a part of Bradleyville, a part of my heart. Even more frightening, a part of me suddenly understood the men’s foolish violence. For anger as deep as theirs, as rising as mine, demanded a target, and finding none, would create it.

“Stay here,” Lester commanded, springing to his feet as his colleagues began to spill through the Riddums’ front door, washing Thomas and Mr. Lewellyn aside. Lee cast out his arms, calling for them to stop.

“No!” Without thinking I leapt up, catching the policeman by his shirt and pulling him backward. He uttered a surprised curse, shoving me away. “You can’t shoot them,” I begged, “they don’t have guns!”

“Stay
back,”
he whispered vehemently, punching a finger at my face, “or I swear I’ll handcuff you to that tree.”

I grabbed for him again but he sprinted away, angling his gun upward and over the white picket fence, firing harmlessly into the night. Shots rang out in quick succession as other policemen aimed into the air, surrounding the melee with a wide berth, their legs spread apart, both hands on their guns. The roar of raging men
checked itself, melting into astonishment. Flexed arms stilled, battered cars ceased to rock. The gun barrels lowered to point at the crowd.

“Put the two-by-fours down!” Bates ordered. “Put ‘em down now!”

Jake Lewellyn leaned into a porch pillar, breathing heavily. Uncle Frank mouthed something to him and was waved away with a fluttering hand. Thomas seized Lee’s wrist and shook it as he spit out words, then abruptly turned and disappeared inside the house.

Two-by-fours slowly dropped to the ground from stiff, reluctant fingers. The rage-filled heaving of all those chests seemed to suck oxygen from my own lungs. Black dots riddled my vision again, and I shook my head, blinking. The night turned oddly quiet, blood whooshing through my ears.

Officer Bates pointed his gun at the last hold-outs. “Put … them …
down
. Torches too. And you with the gasoline. Now, back up.”

“Wait!” Thomas stepped back onto the porch, hands up, palms out. “Bates! Put your guns away; let me talk to ‘em!”

The policemen were stone. “You want to talk, talk!” Bates allowed curtly, eyes fastened on Al Bledger. “But the guns stay where they are.”

Thomas dropped his jaw, raked in air. “Gimme a chance.” His fingers trembled as if cradling explosives. “This all stops right here! Riddum
did not
set the fire. Y’all need to
think
. For God’s sake, look around ya, look at what’s about to happen! You who sit in church every Sunday, are y’all a bunch a
murderers?
Listen to me; I got word to you from Riddum. Word that’s gonna lay this whole thing to rest, once and for all. He’s not gonna work at the mill anymore. He may own it, but he’ll stay away. Frank’s gonna run things from now on.” He looked purposefully at Lee then, as if to size him up, and they locked eyes. “And Lee’s gonna be assistant manager. Also, startin’ Monday, everyone’s got a 5 percent raise!”

When you’re barreling down a godforsaken road, mind set and teeth gritted, no amount of welcome news can immediately turn you aside, even if it’s the very news you’ve pursued. Velocity and adrenaline demand their own time. Seconds ticked as Thomas’s words tumbled over sweat-prickled heads and hulking shoulders. Uncle Frank and Lee seemed as taken aback as any.

In that moment, Thomas evidently thought he had them. Thought that, down to the last man, clear thinking would surface now that every wrong was righted, every demand met. But then, he was used to the army, all soldiers following one commander.

“Where is he?” someone called. “We wanna hear it from Riddum hisself!”

The rest took up the cry, and the policemen’s fingers tightened over their guns. “All right!” Thomas retorted. “He’ll come out here. Then we’re all goin’ home.”

Carefully, slowly, as if treading through egg shells, he backed up and pushed open the heavy oak door, eyes on the crowd. A shaking, cowed Blair Riddum materialized on the threshold, escorted by Bill Scutch, grim-faced and wary. They eased onto the porch, Bill’s hand on his upper arm, as if protecting a hated prisoner from lynching. Riddum swallowed, and in the wash of lamplight, I could see his Adam’s apple bob. The sight of him, scared as a rabbit, coated me—and most assuredly every man in that crowd—with gloating vengeance.