The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart (25 page)
Read The Color of Your Skin Ain’t the Color of Your Heart Online
Authors: Michael Phillips
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“Jeremiah,” I whispered, “don’t. She’ll be all right.”
“Cut it out, Hal,” said the one called Jeb. “Time for that later when we got what we come for.” Then he turned back to Katie. “Now, little girl, you listen to me,” he said angrily. “It’s your ma we want if your pa ain’t here—or what she’s got. And that is her brother’s gold.”
“I’m sorry … my mama isn’t here either,” said Katie.
“She still sick?”
“Uh … yes, sir.”
“Well, maybe that’s so, but I reckon you know about that gold too.”
“I’ve only heard about it, sir.”
“And you have nothing to tell us about Ward Daniels?”
“No, sir,” said Katie. “I’ve never seen my uncle Ward.”
The man let out an exasperated sigh, and it was obvious he was losing his patience.
“Now look,” he said, “we’re tired of fooling around. This is the third time we’ve come here, and we’re asking peaceable-like. Fact is, Ward Daniels stole some gold from us and we aim to get it back. Your ma told Sneed there was no more, but you see—me and the boys ain’t quite as trusting as Mr. Sneed. We don’t believe him. And to tell you the truth, little girl, we ain’t so sure we believe your ma either. She may be sick, but that don’t stop her from being a liar. You see, that piece of gold the banker brought him, that’s from what Ward stole from us. So we know Ward left it here, wherever he is by now, or even if he’s dead. And there was a lot more than that little bag your ma gave Sneed. I don’t know what she was trying to pull with the banker, but you see, we ain’t convinced.”
“What if … there isn’t any more?” said Katie in a shaky voice.
“If your ma was playing it straight and don’t know where it is, then we’ll have to find it ourselves, ’cause it’s here, whether you or she know it or not. And we aim to find the rest of it. It’s ours. It don’t belong to Ward, and it don’t belong to your ma or pa or you neither. We ain’t gonna take no for an answer. No ain’t no answer at all.”
Katie just stared back at him.
“So I’m asking you straight out—has your ma got the gold?”
“I’m … I don’t know, sir. There’s no more gold.”
“All right … if that’s the way you want it, you tell your ma she’s got twenty-four hours to stop whatever game she’s trying to play, or else to find it. Then we’ll be back—noon tomorrow. You tell your ma that if she don’t give us the gold, we’ll take her place apart board by board if we have to. We’re going to find it. I’m giving you fair warning.We’ll be back … tomorrow. We’ll have our guns, and whatever else it takes to find it. We’ll ransack the place if we have to … we’ll burn you out if we have to.”
He spun his horse around and rode off and the second man followed. The third waited, then went up close to Katie again and reached down from his horse to touch her hair and neck. “And just maybe I’ll help myself to a little of this too, after we find your gold!” he said.
Then he laughed a horrible laugh and galloped away after the other two. Right then I think I could have killed him.
As soon as they were gone I went to Katie and took her in my arms. Every inch of her body was trembling.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do, Mayme,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “We chased them away with guns once, and we fooled them once with me pretending to be my mother. But they’re going to be prepared when they come back. They’re not going to let anything stop them tomorrow.”
T
HAT PUT AN END TO OUR COTTON PLANTING
for that day. What was the use of planting cotton if they were going to come back and knock the house apart, or even burn it down?
The first thing we had to do was tell Henry, and Jeremiah left for town immediately to do that. They both came out later and spent the night at our place in the barn. Even having Jeremiah there wasn’t like I wished it could have been because we were all so scared. He and I didn’t get the chance to be alone together at all.
Katie didn’t know what to do. If she gave the men what was left of the gold, the bank would take Rosewood, and they might still not believe it was all of it and might do those other terrible things regardless. But if she didn’t give it to them, they might destroy Rosewood before the bank could do anything anyway.
It seemed like there was nothing she could do that wasn’t bound to have a bad ending.
And the minute they found out there were no grownups here but Henry, and that Katie’s mama hadn’t ever
really
been here at all … I could hardly sleep that night for thinking about the dreadful things they might do—like raping me and Katie and Emma and hanging Henry and Jeremiah. Right then, I was more worried about all that than I was the gold or the bank. The look in that man’s eye when he’d come up close to Katie was a look to frighten any girl with an ounce of sense, and it sure frightened me.
I could hardly sleep a wink, growing more and more worried with every hour that went by.
Sometime in the middle of the night I got up and crept softly into Katie’s room.
“You asleep?” I whispered.
“No,” said Katie softly. “I can’t.”
“Me neither.”
I got into bed with her.
“I don’t know what to do, Mayme,” said Katie. “Maybe I ought to just give them the gold. But I’m afraid they’ll be just as mad because I lied to them yesterday, and it won’t stop them from doing bad things. They don’t seem like the kind of men that will be satisfied with it now that it’s gone this far, especially if they find out I was just pretending to be my mama.”
“Even if you give it to them, what if they still don’t think that’s all of it?”
“Then what’s to be done, Mayme?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s finally time to tell the sheriff or some folks in town. Maybe some men would come out to help.”
“But when it was all over, everyone would know.”
“People are bound to find out sometime, just like Henry did.”
“But the longer we can wait, and the older I get, maybe nothing will happen. If they find out now, especially with us having got into such danger, they’d take Rosewood away for certain and my uncle Burchard would find out and William McSimmons would find out where Emma was.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” I said. “He’d find out where I was too!”
“Oh, Mayme, it’s too awful to think about! There’s
nothing
we can do! And I’m so afraid for what they might do to us, especially to Henry and Jeremiah if they say or do anything to try to help us. Men like that don’t like blacks, Mayme.”
“I know, Katie,” I said. “Believe me … I know.”
“Didn’t you see that rope tied to that one man’s saddle? When I saw it I could only think of one thing. I’m so afraid for Henry and Jeremiah. And if they took them and tried to hang them, there wouldn’t be anything we could do to stop them. Can you imagine how horrible it would be to have to watch them hang them, and watch them die right in front of us, knowing that when it was done they were probably going to hurt us. It’s so horrible, Mayme … I can’t stand it. And I don’t think giving them the gold will do any good. Maybe we ought to tell somebody in town like you said. I would, except for the danger it would put you and Emma in.”
Somehow we drifted to sleep. But when morning came it brought no answers to our dilemma.
And now noon was only a few hours away.
B
Y MIDMORNING THE TENSION WAS SO GREAT
I could hardly stand it. Even Emma was quiet.
Katie went down to the cellar and came back a while later with another canvas bag about half full of what remained of the gold, including the nuggets she’d taken to Mr. Taylor at the bank. I could tell by the way she carried it that it was heavy. She clunked it down on the sideboard in the parlor.
“Well, there it is,” she said.
“You gwine gib it t’ dem, Miz Katie?” asked Emma.
“I don’t know, Emma,” said Katie with a sigh. “I just don’t know. But I’ve got to be ready to give it to them if it seems like it’ll help.”
As Katie said it I could tell from the tone of her voice that she had about given up all hope of saving Rosewood. The bag of gold sitting on the sideboard was the only hope left—and now she was ready to give it away. She wasn’t just scared, her voice was sad. It was like she had finally realized that our scheme had failed and she had given up.
Slowly the morning passed.
About eleven, Jeremiah jumped up from where we were all sitting together in the kitchen.
“I don’ know ’bout da res’ of you,” he said, “but I’m gettin’ me a gun.—Miz Katie, show me da gun cabinet, an’ wiff yer permishun—” Henry rose to his feet.
“Now jes’ wait er minute, Jeremiah,” he began. “We don’ wants ter go git all riled. Ain’t no good comes from killin’, nohow. We ain’t gwine do no shootin’, not unless hit becomes a matter ob life er death, which ain’t likely ef gold’s sittin’ at da root ob it—” ‘
‘Look, Papa,” interrupted Jeremiah. “Dose men ain’t gwine ter be feelin’ too kindly tard Miz Katie when dey come, an’ wiff respec’ t’ yer feelins’ in da matter, I ain’t gwine let dem hurt her, or any ob da res’ ob dese girls. I ain’t neber shot nobody in my life. But I’s takin’ one ob Miz Katie’s guns an’ I’m hidin’ myself in dat barn, an’ effen dey lay a han’ on her or Mayme or Emma, or you either, den I’ll shoot ’em. I’m sorry, Papa, but I ain’t gwine stan’ by an’ watch dem do what white men sometimes does. Dey’s carryin’ rope too, an’ dat fears me right fearsome. You can whip me later ef you wants, ef you an’ me’s still alive, an’ I won’t gib a squeak er protest. But right now … —Miz Katie, show me yer guns!”
Henry kept silent. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or if he admired Jeremiah for his determination. Probably a little of both.
Five minutes later Jeremiah was on his way out to the barn carrying a loaded rifle and a shotgun in his two hands.
I followed him outside.
“Jeremiah,” I said, “please … be careful.”
“I’ll be as careful as I can be,” he said. “I’ll jes’ bide my time till I see’s what’s gwine happen. I won’t start nuthin’. An’ Lord knows I’s scared a da thought ob it all. So I’s keep quiet, res’ assured er dat, till I sees what dey’s gwine do. But I ain’t gwine let ’em rape Miz Katie, or hurt Emma or Miz Aleta or anyone—”
He paused a second and looked down into my eyes. It was a look that filled me with a feeling of comfort in the midst of the danger. There was almost a wild look in his eyes, but it was the look of love, not anger. In that moment I knew he’d die himself before he’d let anything happen to me.
“An’ I sure ain’t gonna let dem hurt
you,
” he said. “An’ if dey lay a finger on my daddy, den I’ll kill ’em.”
Suddenly he stepped forward, leaned toward me, and kissed me on the lips, then turned and strode off toward the barn holding the two guns, leaving me standing there with my heart pounding about twice as fast as it should have been! It wasn’t how I’d imagined the first time being kissed by a boy—with us worrying whether we’d live through the day.
But even with him holding two guns in his hands, it was mighty fine!
