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Eversman pulled his chenille bathrobe snug around his ski
“Evenin’, Phineas,” said one of the Raiders with a chuckle. “I sure am sorry these bastards decided to wake you up for no good reason.”
Eversman didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. I thought I heard a quiver in his voice, but he spoke loud and clear.
“You men are under arrest for… for trespassing, assault with a deadly weapon, and… and…”
He couldn’t seem to get the words out, so I helped him.
“And first-degree murder.”
Eversman glanced at me. He swallowed hard. “And first-degree murder,” he said.
The men set up a howl. A dour, wiry man yelled, “Because that nigger-lover Corbett says so?”
Eversman’s voice had lost its tremor. “And because his complaint is supported by our most upstanding citizen, Mr. Stringer,” he said.
“Mr. Stringer is indeed upstanding,” I said. “But Chief Eversman will also find that my complaint is fully and completely supported by a person even more esteemed than L. J. Stringer, if you can imagine that.”
The wiry man in the wagon cast an ugly eye on me. “And who the hell that?”
“His name,” I said, “is Theodore Roosevelt.”
Part Five . THE TRIAL AT EUDORA
Chapter 89
JACKSON HENSEN, the harried senior personal assistant to the president, entered the Oval Office with a bloodred leather folder under his arm. He took one look at the president and dropped the folder. The morning’s correspondence scattered all over the carpet-telegrams and official greetings from the king of England, the shah of Persia, and the Japanese ambassador, letters from congressmen, ordinary citizens, and all ma
“Har-de-har-har!” The president was laughing and singing. Also, he was dancing a jig. He was waving a golden Western Union telegram in the air as he capered in a circle behind his desk.
“Is anything the matter, sir?” Jackson Hensen asked.
“Does it look like there’s anything the matter, Hensen?”
“Well, sir, I’ve never actually seen you dancing, except at state di
“This is the first time I’ve ever been happy enough to dance at my desk,” Roosevelt said. “Read this.” He thrust the telegram at Hensen and collapsed onto a sofa, out of breath, but still chuckling and congratulating himself.
Hensen sca
It was this last piece of information that so delighted the president.
“There it is!” Roosevelt shouted. “White men charged for killing black men, right down there in the heart of Dixie. Now let Du Bois and that Wells-Barnett woman try to tell me I have ignored the Negro problem!”
Hensen’s eyes came up from the telegram. “It is excellent news, sir.”
“Worth dancing about, Hensen?”
“Well, sir… certainly.”
For a moment Jackson Hensen feared that President Roosevelt was going to make him dance.
“Do you know why I am fortunate enough to receive this most excellent news, Mr. Hensen?”
“Why is that, sir?”
Roosevelt peered around the sofa. “Where’d you go, Hensen?”
“I’m here, sir. Picking up the mail.”
“Never mind that, Hensen. Get your pad, will you? I gave Margaret the afternoon off. I want to send my congratulations to Abraham Cross and Ben Corbett. What shall it be, then, a letter or a wire?”
Hensen took a little notebook and pencil from his vest pocket.
“Those men must have thought I’d forgotten all about them.” He laughed, a big booming Roosevelt laugh. “I think I showed great wisdom not to respond to their first report, but to let them draw their own conclusions as to what should be done.”
“Yes, sir, it most certainly was wise of you.” Hensen was often amazed at the depth and breadth of the president’s self-regard. He licked the point of his pencil. Roosevelt perched on the edge of his desk, mindful of the fine figure he cut as he dictated his message of congratulations.
“What a magnificent ending to this project!” the president exclaimed.
Chapter 90
PHINEAS EVERSMAN’S FIRST ACT was to release two of the five prisoners. He told us it was for lack of evidence, but I assumed there was some family co
The three still in custody were named Chester Madden, Henry Wadsworth North, and, ironically enough, Lincoln Alexander Stephens, a man whose name evoked both the Great Emancipator and the dwarfish vice-president of the Confederacy. Henry North was the redheaded bully I’d encountered before, at Jenkins’ Mercantile.
Some folks called it “the Niggertown Trial.” Others called it “the White Raiders Trial.” The New Orleans Item dubbed it “That Mess in Eudora.” Whatever people called it, everyone was obsessed with it.
The citizens of Eudora were divided on the issues, but they certainly weren’t evenly divided. A small group welcomed the prospect of punishment for the violent, night-riding Raiders. But many folks, unbelievable as it might seem, thought the Raiders were being treated unfairly.
The Eudora Gazette, a weekly four-sheeter usually devoted to social notes, was now publishing five days a week, churning out a breathless new front-page report on the White Raiders Trial every day. The formerly lazy and slow-moving editor, Japheth Morgan, was a whirl of energy, placing expensive telephone trunk calls nearly daily to consult with his “unimpeachable sources of information in the capital.”
Japheth Morgan had never worked this hard before. He was losing weight and smoking cigarettes, one after another. He had dark circles under his eyes.
“You’d best settle down a bit, Japheth,” L.J. told him. “This trial could end up being the death of you.”
“But you don’t understand,” Japheth answered. “For me and for the Gazette, this isn’t the opportunity of a lifetime, it’s the trial of the century!”
The trial of the century.
As soon as he said it, I knew it was true. This was the trial of the century-not just for Eudora, not just for Mississippi, but for the entire country.