Alex Cross’s Trial

We were riding past the town limits sign now. It was late; Commerce Street was deserted. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves echoed off the storefronts.

I finally pulled to a stop in front of the Nottingham home. I clicked open my watch. “Ten minutes till midnight,” I said. “Very respectable.”

“Respectable,” she said with a little smile. “That is one thing you are. It’s a good thing, Ben.”

I walked her to the yellow door flanked by a pair of flickering gaslights.

“Thank you for a beautiful evening,” she said. She pressed her lips to mine, her body soft against mine. The embrace lasted only a few seconds, but for those seconds, I was lost.

“Ben, do you want to come inside?” Elizabeth said in a whisper.

“I do,” I whispered back. “I most certainly do. But I can’t.”

Then Elizabeth disappeared inside her house, and I went back to Maybelle’s. I had never felt more alone in my life.

Chapter 58

I WAS STILL WAITING for an answer from the White House. Maybe my telegram had been too concise? Too curt or disrespectful to send to the president? Maybe Roosevelt had forgotten about me?

I walked downtown to get out of the rooming house, to do something other than wait. Pretty much every human being within ten miles came to town on Saturday. For a few hours in the morning, the sidewalks of Eudora buzzed with the activity of a much larger town.

I was standing in front of the Purina feed and seed, discussing the weather with Mr. Baker, when I saw an old lady and her grown daughter hurrying along the sidewalk toward us, as if getting away from something.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” the younger woman said as they passed, “they are human beings too. It isn’t right! Those boys are acting like heathens!”

Mr. Baker and I tipped our hats, but the ladies failed to notice us.

I excused myself and walked up Maple Street, around the corner where they had appeared. What I saw made my heart drop.

Three white men, maybe my age, were holding the heads of two black boys under the surface of the horse trough in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile.

They were drowning those boys. It scared me how long they were submerged after I came around the corner and saw them. Then, as if on cue, they were yanked up from the water. They spluttered out a desperate heaving breath, and then their heads were plunged into the water again.

Those boys were just kids-twelve or thirteen at the most.

When their heads came up out of the water again, they cried and begged the men to please let them go.

“Whatsa matter, you thought them white ladies was go

Their heads went back under.

I remembered the closing words of Mr. Clemens’s address: “Where shall these brave men be found? There are not three hundred of them on the earth.”

I took three long strides forward. “What’s going on here? Let ’ em up. Do it now.”

The white men whirled around. In their surprise, they jerked the heads of their victims clear of the water. The boy on the left used the moment to make his escape, but the largest man tightened his grip on the other boy’s arm.

He was a mean-looking fat man with red hair, bulging muscles, and a tooth missing in front. “These niggers was sassing us,” he said.

“Turn him loose,” I said.

“Shit, no.”

“He’s about twelve years old,” I said. “You men are grown. And three of you against two little boys?”

“Why don’t you mind your own damn bidness,” said the second man, who had a greasy head of black hair and a face that even his mother could not have loved much. “These nigger boys was out of line. We don’t allow that in this town.”

“I’m from this town too,” I said. “My father’s a judge here. Let him go.”

I guess I sounded just official enough for Big Red to relax his grip. The black boy took off like a shot.

“Look what we got here, men,” said Red then. “A genuine nigger-lover.”

Without warning he charged and struck me full force with the weight of his body. I went flying.

Chapter 59

I WAS SLAMMED DOWN on the hard dirt street, and before I could catch my breath Red jumped on top of me.

“Reckon I’ll have to teach you how to mind your own business.”

I was trying to figure a way out of this. I had once watched Bob Fitzsimmons demolish an opponent with a third-round knockout. That was one way to do it. But there was another way to win a fight.

I reached up and pressed my thumbs into the soft, unprotected flesh of the fat man’s throat. I got my leverage, then slung him off me, right over my head. Red landed face-first in the dirt and scuffed up his lip. Blood was coming out of his nose too.

I jumped to my feet and his buddies charged at me. The first ran hard into a right uppercut. He dropped like a rock and was out cold in the street.

Now there were two dazed bullies down, but the third got behind me and jumped on my back. He started pounding his fists into my ribs.

I knew there was a thick wooden post supporting the gallery in front of Jenkins’ Mercantile, so I leaned all my weight into the man, propelling us backward, smashing him right into it. His arms unraveled from my neck and he lay on the ground twitching. He’d hit that post pretty hard, maybe cracked a couple of ribs.

“Nigger-lover,” he spat, but then he struggled up and started to run. So did the other two.

It was quiet again, the street empty.

Well, almost empty.

Chapter 60

STANDING ON THE BOARD SIDEWALK beside Jenkins’s display window was the dapper local photographer, Scooter Willems. Today he looked extra-fashionable in a seersucker suit with a straw boater. As always, he had his camera and tripod with him. I wondered whether he had just photographed me in action.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that, Ben?”

“Boxing team at college,” I said.

“No, I mean, where’d you learn to put your thumbs in a man’s throat like that? Looks like you learned to fight in the street,” Scooter said.

“I reckon I just have the instinct,” I said.

“Mind if I take your photograph, Ben?”

I remembered the night I first saw him, photographing George Pearson. “I do mind, Scooter. My clothes are a mess.”

“That’s what would make it interesting,” he said with a big smile.

“Maybe for you. Not for me. Don’t take my picture.”

“I will honor your wishes, of course.” Scooter folded the tripod and walked away.

I tucked my shirt into my torn trousers, and when I brushed my hand against my chin, it came back bloody.

Moody Cross stepped out of Sanders’s store with a sack of rice on one hip and a bag of groceries on her arm. She walked toward me.

“You are beyond learning,” she said.

I used my handkerchief to wipe off the blood. “And what is it I have failed to learn, Moody?”

“You can go around trying to fight every white man in Mississippi that hates colored people,” she said, “but it won’t do any good. There’s a lot more of them than there is of you. You can’t protect us. Nobody can do that. Not even God.”

She turned to walk away, but then she looked back. “But thank you for trying,” she said.