That Night at the Palace (13 page)

Cherokee turned and looked solemnly at the boys and asked, “What happened yesterday?”

Jesse felt coldness in the pit of his stomach, recalling just how angry the old man had been at Shorty and knowing that they were as guilty of Bucky Davis’s death as anyone.

Cherokee saw the hesitance in the boy’s faces. “I know y’all was there. Mert Davis seen ya,”

The man then looked directly at Jesse. “You are Murdock Rose’s boy, aren’t you?”

Jesse froze for a moment and then answered, “Yes, sir, we were there.”

“Last night a bunch of folks gathered at the Davis’s house over in Pleasant Grove. The young men all want to riot. That Ranger came out and settled things down, but they’re gonna get bad if we don’t do somethin’.

“Mert said that there was a hundred men there, maybe two hundred. This mornin’ I went up to Jacksonville, and everybody I talked to said they weren’t there. You’d think Bucky went and hung himself.”

“A white man did it,” Jesse said softly with his head down.

The old man looked at him again with a wrinkled brow.

“There’s this man here in Elza,” Cliff began. “Mr. Crawford. We saw him a few weeks ago talkin’ with this woman, Mrs. Stoker.”

“Irwin Stoker’s wife?” Cherokee asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cliff continued. “We’ve seen him get her to go into the alley a couple of times. She always comes out real upset. So one day we seen them go into the alley, so we climbed up on top of the Palace so we could see what they was doin’.”

“That’s why y’all went up there? I heard you two were tryin’ to steal popcorn.”

Jesse grinned. “That was after,” he interjected. “When we were about to climb down, Cliff decided he was hungry.”

“So anyway,” Cliff began again with a glare at his friend, “We saw him hit her a couple of times.”

“What’s that got to do with Bucky?”

“Yesterday,” Jesse started solemnly, “we got in the back of Toad’s pickup and rode up to watch. When we got there the crowd wasn’t that big, but cars and trucks started comin’ in from all over. It was like you said, maybe two hundred. We were stayin’ back ‘cause the crowd was getting scary, but then we saw Mr. Crawford and decided to go up into the crowd to get a good look.”

“That’s when the police chief came out with Bucky,” Cliff added.

“They walked him right down in the middle of the mob,” Jesse continued, “and then this car drives up and some man walks the girl out. They were right in front of me. Bucky on one side, the girl on the other.”

Now the boys are getting excited and Cliff added, “So Mr. Crawford gets to where the girl can see him. At first she didn’t seem to notice him. Then the chief asked if Bucky did it, and she shook her head. But she looked up at Mr. Crawford, and she got really scared.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, “Even more than she was before, but she still shook her head. Then Mr. Crawford opened his coat a little and she saw his gun.”

“He had a gun?” Cliff asked in surprise.

“Yeah, I think me and her were the only ones who saw it. Nobody was payin’ any attention to him except us. So then when the chief asked her again if Bucky did it, she nodded, but I think she just did that because she was scared of Mr. Crawford.”

“When she nodded, the chief just got out of the way, and the mob dragged Bucky into the park and hung ‘im,” Cliff finished.

Saddened, Jesse looked at the old man, fighting tears. “I’m sorry we didn’t stop it. I don’t know what we could have done, but Bucky didn’t need to die.”

Cliff wiped a tear from his eye, “I was up thinkin’ about it all night, Cherokee. I don’t know what I expected to see when we got in Toad’s truck, but I sure didn’t expect to be part of a murder.”

“You boys didn’t do nothin’,” Cherokee said with sensitivity. “There’s a lot of bad people in this world, boys. Some are real bad, like that Mr. Crawford. Others, like those who lynched Bucky, are bad because they let hate build up inside of ‘em ‘til days like yesterday when they let it all out. Others out there are bad because they watched and didn’t do nothing’, like that fool back there at McMillan’s. To him, Bucky’s just another dead black. But, you boys, y’all were just a couple of witnesses.”

“Mr, Cherokee?” Jesse asked. “Do you think there’ll be riots?”

“I don’t know. Those boys want blood, and they got the right. A white man done it, and a black man got hung.”

“What if we tell them what we know about Mr. Crawford?”

“Lord almighty, don’t do that. Have you told anyone?”

Jesse and Cliff shook their heads.

“Don’t. The law don’t care about black folks, and if he’s that bad he’ll come after you. I’m gonna come into Elza tomorrow with a load of tomatoes to sell. You boys point him out to me.”

Chapter 7

301 RED OAK AVE.

ELZA, TEXAS

6:40 p.m. Sunday, November 16, 1941

G
arvis Rose prepared two plates with roast beef, mashed potatoes, collard greens, and carrots. There was a lot left since Jesse hadn’t eaten lunch. Sunday was pot roast day. Garvis wasn’t much of a cook. Her mother hadn’t cooked at all; they had had Nelda to do all the cooking. She would have preferred to have someone to do the cooking for her, but Murdock wasn’t about to pay someone to cook. Of course they could afford it, but he was a bit old fashioned in that way. It took several years for him to concede and hire their housekeeper, Miss May, from over in Pleasant Grove. Cleaning up after the man was where Garvis absolutely drew the line. From day one in their marriage she refused to clean his filth. As it turned out, that decision was one of the wisest of her life because Murdock Rose didn’t like cleaning up after himself either. Therefore, as soon as they could afford it, Miss May was hired.

Cooking, though, was something from which she couldn’t find a way to escape. She fumbled through the first few years. Of course, they were young newlyweds and Murdock didn’t mind a burned hen or a dry turkey, but it wasn’t long before he began to complain. She, naturally, tried to convince him that she was hopeless and they needed to hire a cook, but such reasoning simply fell on deaf ears. Then one day he came home with a brochure for a cooking class at the Henderson community center. She, naturally, pretended that he had hurt her feelings but, like all men, Murdock could be exceptionally dense. Thus, every Tuesday and Thursday she took the bus into Henderson where she and the East Texas hillbilly housewives learned how to baste a chicken and whip eggs. Eventually she began to somewhat enjoy cooking, but it was still humiliating that even though they could afford proper kitchen help, she still had to spend a couple of hours a day standing over a hot stove.

She sat the two plates on the dining room table, along with flatware and two glasses of iced tea and then walked to the front door. Jesse and Gemma were sitting on the steps holding each other. It had been a dreadful day for Jesse, and the two had been sitting there for over an hour without saying a word.

It was just terrible about poor Cliff. Over and over Garvis had asked herself how it could possibly have happened. Sadly, that dumb cluck of a police chief sure wasn’t going to get to the bottom of it. Poor Jesse was just lifeless with sorrow. Garvis hadn’t heard him say two words all afternoon. This was the one and only time that Garvis was thankful for Gemma Crawford.

It wasn’t that Garvis had anything against Gemma, of course. She was a delightful girl, but her father was a drunk who got hit by a train and her mother was a seamstress, of all things. Jesse deserved better. Nevertheless, if he had to spend his time with one of the girls in this two-bit town, Gemma was, as Garvis’ daddy would say, “the pick of the litter.” Garvis was just thankful that he hadn’t taken up with that Stoker girl. That would have been a real problem.

At any rate, Jesse would be in College Station in a few months, and Mrs. Murdock Rose felt sure that he would be over this little infatuation with Gemma by Christmas. Still, it was exceptionally annoying that every time she walked down Main Street some bumpkin would ask if Jesse had “popped the question yet.” As if it was a foregone conclusion.

Well, it wasn’t.

That very subject had been the cause of the only real difficulty in her relationship with her son. Jesse was a wonderful boy. Garvis, and Murdock too, couldn’t be more proud. He would graduate at the top of his class. Granted there would be only six graduates, but Jesse was unquestionably the smartest. He was always respectful and had never given his mother a single problem. He was so sweet, too. And Garvis felt they could talk about anything.

Well, almost anything. The biggest worry in Garvis’s life was that Jesse would get himself engaged to that girl before going off to college. That was the one thing that Mrs. Murdock Rose was just not going to stand for.

It shocked her when she sat her son down to have a conversation about his intentions with Gemma, he steadfastly refused to listen to her. Garvis said she had no intention of trying to separate the two. She simply felt that it would be wise for him to finish at Texas A&M, get his Army commission, and after a couple of years, once he had been promoted to First Lieutenant, or god willing, Captain, he could then think about marriage, once he was making a reasonable living. Of course, by that time he would have long since forgotten about a high school sweetheart.

Jesse’s response was appalling. Not only had he refused to discuss it with her, he told his mother in no uncertain terms, that his plans regarding Gemma were not her business. Then he stormed off to his room and wouldn’t come out. Understandably, Garvis had been appalled; no mother wants to hear such talk from her baby.

When Murdock came home, she immediatly sent him up to have a stern talk with Jesse. But when he came downstairs Murdock simply said that, “The boy knows what he’s doing,” and she was not to worry.

Murdock spent that night in the guest room.

As far as Garvis was concerned, this was not over. She may not be able to keep him from getting engaged, but she would see to it that he didn’t get married without getting his commission first.

The worst part of that little incident was how Jesse had talked to her. It was simply shocking. She thought they had been so close for all those years. Which, now that she thought about it, is why it was so surprising to learn that he had been slipping out the window at night and running around town with Cliff. Jesse just didn’t keep secrets from his mother, did he?

It was the influence of that Tidwell boy. The two had been best friends since they were in diapers. Garvis had heard stories about Cliff’s mischief, but fortunately, Jesse never partook in the antics. Obviously, Cliff Tidwell had convinced Jesse to sneak out a few times. Garvis was going to have to have a little discussion with Jesse about that. But the really concerning part was that Jesse had never told her about it. Jesse was not one to keep secrets from her.

As she stepped out on the porch, that waste of tax revenue of a police chief and another man were getting out of the prowler. Garvis had always thought Chief Hightower was worthless, but she now despised him for the disrespectful way he had spoken to her husband that morning. Murdock Rose was one of the leaders of the community, and this civil servant treated him like he was a pea farmer.

“I’ve got dinner on the table for you two, Jesse.”

“I’m not hungry, mom. Besides, the Chief is here. Maybe he has some news.”

Garvis stood patiently with her long-practiced and most pleasant smile as their town’s only law enforcement officer and his companion approached the porch.

“Hi, Jesse, Ms. Garvis, Miss Gemma,” Jefferson said as Jesse and Gemma stood.

Garvis glared with disdain, but as quickly as she could, she replaced her glare with her pleasant-though-somewhat-condescending smile.

“Did you find out what happened?” Jesse asked.

Brewster recognized the boy.

“Well, Jesse,” the Chief began, “we’ve got a pretty good idea, but we have some unanswered questions. Would you mind coming down to the station with us?”

“No, of course not.”

“Hold on just a minute!” Garvis exclaimed at a volume that was just shy of a shout.

“Ms. Garvis,” the chief began.

“Any questions you have you can ask right here on this porch,” Garvis ordered, having not forgiven the tone with which this public servant had spoken to her husband that morning.

“Mom.”

“Murdock, come out here. They’re arresting Jesse.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t say anything about arresting him.”

“Then you can do your talking right here.”

Murdock came to the door where his wife had been standing. Garvis was now on the porch with both hands on Jesse’s shoulders.

“What is this about, Chief Hightower?” Rose asked in a commanding tone intended to let everyone know that he was in charge at his home.

“Murdock, we-,”

“That’s Mr. Rose to you Chief,” Rose interrupted.

Jefferson paused, glanced at Brewster and rolled his eyes. This had been a long day, and Murdock and Garvis Rose were not making it any shorter.

“Murdock. We have a murder, and your son may be able to answer a number of questions. Now, he’s comin’ with us and that’s that.”

Gemma grabbed tightly to Jesse’s arm with fear in her eyes.

“Chief Hightower,” a belligerent Murdock began, “get off my property and don’t come back without a warrant.”

“We don’t need a warrant,” said Brewster, who had until now remained silent.

“And who the hell are you?”

“You’re Corporal McKinney, aren’t you?” Jesse asked, but he knew the answer to the question. For the first time since this confrontation began, Jesse was frightened.

“We’ve met before haven’t we son?

“You came to town when I was a kid.”

Brewster began putting it all together. “You were one of the two boys we questioned.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brewster looked at Murdock and Garvis. “Brewster McKinney, Texas Rangers.”

“Well, I don’t care if you’re the governor himself; my son isn’t leaving my porch.”

“Mr. Rose, your son is hereby under arrest for suspicion of murder.”

Jesse tensed and Gemma clenched her hands on his arm.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Garvis ordered. “Murdock get your gun.”

Brewster opened his jacket revealing the Colt .45 automatic pistol in his shoulder holster, “Ma’am, this ends one of two ways. Your son comes with us peaceably, and we hold him overnight and ask him some questions, or I arrest your husband for obstruction of justice.”

“Damit,” an unhinged Jefferson Hightower began, “everybody calm down. Corporal, with all respect, please fasten your coat. Jesse get in the prowler. Now, Murdock we’re taking him in for questioning. He’s not under arrest,” he said with a glance toward Brewster. “You can see him in the morning.”

Murdock and Garvis froze, both fuming.

“Come on, Jesse,” Jefferson ordered with way more authority than he knew he had.

Jesse timidly stepped off the porch, glancing back at Gemma.

“Gemma, you’re welcome to come down to the station,” Jefferson said compassionately to the girl.

“My lawyer will be there first thing in the morning,” Murdock proclaimed.

“I’m sure he will,” the Chief replied as he led Jesse to the prowler, with Gemma following.

#

MAIN STREET

ELZA, TEXAS

June 27, 1936

Jesse and Cliff were walking up Main Street after finishing up at McMillan’s store. Up ahead, Jewel was walking toward them as she did every day at about that time. Just past the Palace, Cherokee had his Model-T parked nose-in to the curb and was sitting on the tailgate selling tomatoes.

“You gotta get Jewel out of here.”

“Why me?” Jesse protested.

“She likes you more than me.”

“Bull.”

“Well, somebody’s gotta do it. What if her mama comes out and meets Mr. Crawford?”

“They ain’t done that in a while.”

“I know. Somethin’s up.”

“Well, I ain’t doin’ it. I’m gonna visit with Cherokee.”

As the two were debating, a Plymouth sedan pulled into one of the parking spots just in front of them. Peterson Crawford was driving, and Gemma and Jettie were sitting in the front seat beside him. Crawford got out of the car and stared at Jesse as he and Cliff came to the front of his car.

As Jesse and Cliff stopped in their tracks at the sight of Crawford, Jewel approached them.

Jesse turned his attention from Crawford, trying to avoid eye contact with the man. In an attempt to appear casual, he said, “Hi, Jewel.”

“Hi, Jewel,” Cliff echoed.

Gemma and her sister started climbing out of the car as Crawford continued looking at Jesse. Jewel knew something was up but assumed it was just Jesse freezing up in front of Gemma.

“Hi, Gemma,” Jewel said, looking past Jesse and Cliff.

Gemma looked at the three kids as Jewel stepped between the two boys toward her.

“Hi.”

“We’re going McMillan’s to get some RCs if you want to come along. Jesse’ll buy you a soda,” Jewel said with a grin toward Jesse. “Won’t, you Jess?”

Jesse froze, staring at her.

“Gemma,” Peterson Crawford called to his daughter as he turned to head across the street toward his wife’s dress shop.

“I’ll be there in a minute, Daddy.”

Crawford took Jettie’s hand and led his younger daughter across the street but glared back at Jesse.

“I’ve gotta help my mother with her shop.”

“Maybe some other time,” Jewel replied after a long glance at Jesse.

“Sure,” Gemma answered and then, after looking at Jesse, turned to walk away.

Once her back was turned, Cliff shoved Jesse in the shoulder causing the boy to stumble off the curb.

“Uh, Gemma,” Jesse blurted out.

Gemma turned back around to look at him.

“Uh,” Jesse paused. “Uh, hi. I’m Jesse Rose.”

“I know.”

“I, uh. Hi,” he repeated.

Gemma looked at him for a several seconds before replying, “Hi.”

“Bye.”

Gemma looked at him for a moment then said, “Bye,” and turned to walk away.

When Gemma was inside Anna-Ruth’s, Cliff said, “Well, you finally did it. You finally said two words to her. Of course, Harpo Marx could have said something more eloquent.”

Jewel started laughing, “Come on, let’s go to McMillan’s.”

“Y’all go on, I’m gonna hang here a while.”

Cliff glared at him.

“We’ll bring you an RC,” Jewel replied. “Cliff will buy.”

“If he wants an RC he can get it himself.”

“Come on, can’t you see? He’s in love,” Jewel replied as she grabbed Cliff and began leading him away.

Jesse couldn’t keep himself from smiling as he walked up Main to where Cherokee-One-Leg sat on the tailgate of his Model-T selling tomatoes.

As Jesse arrived at the truck, Cherokee had just finished putting some tomatoes in a brown paper bag and handing it to a woman. The lady politely handed him some coins and walked away.