Mr. Justice (14 page)

Collier switched off the ignition, threw open the door, and squeezed out of the car. “Shit,” he said again. “A fuckin’ flat.” He retrieved the spare and the jack from behind the passenger’s seat. He kneeled to the ground to get a better look at where he should attach the jack. He couldn’t find a stable place. The combination of the flat tire, the slope of the terrain, and the rock itself had caused the car to lean too far forward for anything but a wrecker to be of use.

Collier hobbled to his feet, using the jack as a crutch as he did. He wiped dirt from his face with his shirt sleeve. He surveyed the area. He hadn’t been to this part of the woods for about a year—since the last time he and Smith had gone deer hunting—but he figured that he was about three-quarters of a mile west of the moonshiner’s shack.

Could he do it? he asked himself. He wasn’t wondering whether he could make the walk. No, he was wondering whether he would really be able to kill his best friend.

“Akia,” he said as he began to limp toward the shack. A klansman I am.

CHAPTER 49

Earl Smith reached into his pocket and pulled out a cross. At first glance, the cross appeared to be an ordinary Christian cross. But upon closer inspection it was more than that. Much more.

The Sacred Cross of the Kloncilium was three inches high, two inches wide, and forged from twenty-four karat gold. It was conferred upon only seven klansmen in the United States: the imperial wizard and the six members of his executive council. These seven men set Klan policy for every Klan chapter and den in the nation. The Klan was an oligarchy—some said it was a monarchy—and membership on the kloncilium brought both power and privilege to those fortunate enough to serve.

Earl Smith had been called to service after ten years of loyal and effective stewardship of the South Carolina Realm. His brothers in the Charleston den had been telling him for years that his time would come—that he would be bestowed the honor that had eluded his late father—but he didn’t believe them. It happened, however.
How
it happened was something that Smith would never forget.

Smith had been summoned to Washington, D.C. on what he was told was important business concerning the brotherhood. He had no idea what that business might be. He did know that if the location of the meeting was the nation’s capital, the imperial wizard—the Klan’s top official—almost certainly would be in attendance. Although the Klan’s national headquarters had long been located in Atlanta, the current imperial wizard lived and worked in D.C.

For the first time in the history of the Klan, the name and identity of the imperial wizard were unknown to anyone but the kloncilium. The reason for this was never conveyed to the brotherhood—again, the Klan was an oligarchy, which meant that ordinary members did as they were told without questioning why and what for—but speculation centered around the possibility that the imperial wizard was a high-ranking official in the government of the United States. If true, the argument went, his effectiveness would be reduced to zero if the nation’s movers and shakers knew that they were dealing with the head of a so-called terrorist organization.

Smith had never been to Washington, D.C. before. Night-shift foremen at regional tire plants didn’t have much occasion to hobnob in the epicenter of American politics. He was excited about the trip, though, both because he had always wanted to spit on the Lincoln Memorial and because the imperial wizard was reputed to be a truly impressive man. A holy man …

The meeting was being held at a Reconstruction-era Masonic temple about three blocks west of the Capitol building. Smith arrived by Greyhound bus, his Klan regalia packed neatly inside a Wal-Mart bag that he had brought with him from Charleston. He located the entrance to the temple, ducked inside a bathroom, changed into his white robe and pasteboard, and made his way to the ceremonial meeting room at the rear of the temple.

Smith was the first person to arrive. He inspected the room for security as every good klansman had been taught to do. His eyes danced from one sacred ornament to another: a china vase adorned with the symbols of the brotherhood, a golden chalice from which the sacrament would be served, a leather-bound copy of the Kloran, and a small wooden cross encased in a glass box that would be ignited to signify the commencement of the ceremony. The fiery cross … always and forever, the fiery cross.

Five men entered the room. They, too, were dressed in white robes and pasteboards. “Ayak,” they said in unison. Are you a klansman?

“Akia,” Smith said. A klansman I am.

“Kigy,” the tallest of the five men said. Klansman, I greet you.

A klonversation ensued.

“You must be Grand Dragon Smith,” the tall man said next.

“That’s right,” Smith said.

“Welcome to the Temple of the Kloncilium.”

The sign on the front of the building said it was the Masonic Temple of Capitol Hill, but the Klan had their own names for things.

“The kloncilium?” Smith asked. “The imperial wizard’s executive council?” His voice cracked. His knees buckled a bit.

The five men nodded.

Smith knew what this meant, but he asked the question anyway. “Is he here?” His voice cracked again.

“Yes.”

Out from behind a velvet curtain strode the Honorable Alexandra Rutledge Burton, the senior U.S. senator from the great state of South Carolina.

CHAPTER 50

Earl Smith didn’t care much about politics. He wasn’t even registered to vote. But he knew who Alexandra Burton was.

Burton had represented Smith’s home state of South Carolina in the U.S. Senate ever since Smith was a boy. He had seen Burton’s campaign ads on TV—a shrewd politician, Burton had been the first elected official in the nation to run ads during NASCAR telecasts—and he had met Burton once before when the senator had made a campaign stop at the Taylor Tires plant in Charleston. However, never in a million years could Smith have imagined that Senator Burton was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, let alone the imperial wizard of the exalted brotherhood. After all, Burton was a United States senator. She was also a woman.

There was some precedent for klansmen in the federal government. The most famous was the late Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the longest-serving U.S. senator in American history. Senator Byrd had once been an active member of the KKK—rising to the office of kleagle, which meant he was his den’s official recruiter. In 1944 a young Robert Byrd had written to segregationist Mississippi Senator Rhett Henderson, “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

Byrd later stated publicly that he regretted joining the Klan, but klansmen everywhere knew that the senator had to say that to rescue his political career. He had learned that lesson after Hugo L. Black had saved his Supreme Court nomination from going down in flames with a similar public statement of amends.

The fact that Senator Burton was a woman shouldn’t have surprised Smith as much as it did. It was true that, historically, most women committed to the Klan way simply supported the men in their lives from a distance, but records uncovered by Klan historians in recent years revealed that some women were official members of the sacred order as early as the mid-1860s. A century later—by the 1980s, to be precise—women became eligible to serve in leadership roles. But it was Alexandra Burton who, in 2005, had broken the glass ceiling when she was elected by the kloncilium imperial wizard of the brotherhood, and now, sisterhood.

Earl Smith noticed that, at first, Burton didn’t say a word. She simply took her seat on a gold-leafed throne in the center of the dais.

The tall man who had greeted Smith opened the glass case that contained the small wooden cross. He lit the cross and then said to Burton, “Your Excellency, the sacred altar of the Klan is prepared; the fiery cross illumines the konklave.”

Burton said, “Faithful kludd, why the fiery cross?”

The tall man said, “Ma’am, it is the emblem of that sincere, unselfish devotedness of all klansmen to the sacred purpose and principles we have espoused.”

Burton said, “My terrors and klansmen, what means the fiery cross?”

The konklave of a half dozen men said, “We serve and sacrifice for the right.”

Burton said, “Klansmen all: you will gather for our opening devotions.”

The konklave sang the Klan’s sacred song.

Burton said, “Amen.” Then she added, “Kludd Watson, please escort our honored guest to the dais.”

Watson was the tall man. He said, “Grand Dragon Smith, please follow me to the sacred altar.”

Smith’s knees began to shake again. He managed to conceal his nervousness. He knew what was about to happen.

Kludd Watson retrieved the leather-bound copy of the Kloran from the table on the dais. Legend had it that the copy had once belonged to William J. Simmons, the most powerful imperial wizard of the twentieth century.

Simmons had been known as “Doc,” in reference to fictitiously claimed medical training. He dedicated himself to rebuilding the Klan after viewing the film
The Birth of a Nation
. He obtained a copy of the Reconstruction Klan’s Precept and used it to write his own prospectus for a reincarnation of the organization. However, he delayed his plans until the media-inspired lynching of Leo Frank, the accused murderer of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan. This horrific incident became a flash point for anti-Semitic feeling in Georgia. Frank was taken from prison and lynched by a mob on August 16, 1915. The lynch mob called themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan, and on October 16 they climbed Stone Mountain and burned a giant cross that was visible throughout Atlanta. The imagery of the burning cross, which hadn’t existed in the original Klan, had been introduced via
The Birth of a Nation
. The film, in turn, had borrowed the idea from the works of Thomas Dixon. He had taken his inspiration from Scottish clans, who had burned crosses as a method of signaling from one hilltop to the next.

Doc Simmons organized a group of thirty-four men as the nucleus of his revived Klan. The group included many of the Knights of Mary Phagan, in addition to two elderly men who had been members of the original Klan. Fifteen of them went to Stone Mountain with Simmons to burn a second cross and inaugurate the new Klan. Simmons’s later retelling of the founding included “a temperature far below freezing,” although weather records revealed that the temperature had never fallen below forty-five degrees that night. The actual date of the founding was also in dispute, as some sources cited Thanksgiving Day, 1915. Simmons declared himself the imperial wizard of the new Klan. He died in Atlanta on May 18, 1945.

Alexandra Burton, who worshiped Doc Simmons, owed her own success to a Simmons-like knack for mythmaking.

CHAPTER 51

Kludd Watson opened the Kloran to page 3 and read, “The kloncilium is the sacred order’s executive body. It is responsible for setting policy for every realm in the nation. It is to be comprised of seven men: the imperial wizard and six kloncilmen. Whenever a vacancy occurs on the kloncilium, the imperial wizard shall promptly appoint a replacement.” Watson closed the Kloran—the ritual book contained various administrative details, in addition to songs and prayers—and looked at Earl Smith. “Imperial Wizard Burton has selected you to fill that vacancy.”

Smith said, simply, “Thank you.” He turned to Burton, who remained seated on her gold-leafed throne. “And thank you, Your Excellency.”

Burton nodded and said, “I will now administer the oath. Please raise your right hand, Kloncilman Smith, and place your left hand on the Kloran.”

Smith did as he was told. It was as if he was being sworn in as a member of the U.S. president’s cabinet. In a sense, he was.

Burton said, “Repeat after me. I hereby pledge my life and honor to my sacred service on the kloncilium.”

Smith repeated what Burton had said.

Burton continued: “I vow to serve with the best interests of the sacred order in mind, never deviating from my pledge and never failing in my duties.”

Smith repeated that part of the oath as well.

Burton extended her hand to Smith and said, “Kigy.”

Smith said, “Akia.”

Burton turned to Kludd Watson. “Are we ready for the final ritual of the sacred ceremony?”

Watson said, “Yes, Your Excellency.”

Smith watched Watson walk to a closet in the rear of the room. Watson opened the closet’s door. What was inside was briefly obscured by Watson’s large body. Watson stepped aside. Smith wasn’t surprised by what he then saw: a middle-aged black man tied to a chair with packing tape across his mouth.

Smith might not have been surprised by what he saw—this was a Klan ceremony, after all—but he was disappointed. He was growing tired of lynching black men for the sole reason that they were black. Smith was still a klansman, and he was about to become one of the most powerful klansmen in the nation, but he was beginning to question the Klan’s knee-jerk hatred of any person who wasn’t white. Like it or not, what he had done to his high school football teammate years earlier had changed him forever.

Burton said, “Deliver the sacrifice, Kludd Watson.”

Watson bowed to the imperial wizard. He returned his attention to the black man in the closet. “Stand, nigger.”

The black man struggled to his feet. Muffled screams—pleas for mercy, no doubt—sounded from his tape-filled mouth.

“Walk, nigger,” Watson said next.

Hop
was more like it. The black man stumbled to the front of the room. He stopped short of the dais. His bound feet made it impossible for him to elevate the distance necessary to reach the podium.

“Jump, nigger,” Watson said this time. “Like you do in basketball. Ain’t that all you niggers do all day? … Play basketball? You sure don’t work.” Watson punched the black man in the back of the head. He obviously didn’t know, or care, that the man worked two full-time jobs to support his wife and three children.