“That ‘un got more’n her share of white blood in her,” Henry said. “Big Jim gonna have him a high ol” time with her, awright.”
“Missy,” the spokesman told the white woman. “You crawl over there and jack off Big Jim; git him up good and hard.”
She refused at first. Several hard slaps across her face changed her mind. Reluctantly and with revulsion on her face, she complied.
Big Jim soon became more than enormous. He was
deformed. The woman released him and was dragged back to the hard hands that held her.
“Tear that nigger gal’s pussy up, Big Jim,” the spokesman said with a laugh.
The young black woman’s screaming soon echoed around the circle gathered around the burning cross. When Big Jim left the woman, she was huddled in a ball of hurt on the dirt. The grinning man was pointed out of the circle. He left carrying his pants.
“Position the nigger-lover,” the spokesman ordered the men holding the woman.
She was forced to her hands and knees. The black man was told, “Git it up, shine. We gonna watch and see what you got that this nigger-lover laks so much.”
“I will not!” the black man said.
The Klansman grinned. “How’d you lak’ for me to call Big Jim back in here and have him fuck your wife unnormally?”
The man hissed his revulsion at the thought.
“Will you let us go after we… do that?” the naked white woman asked. “If we … have sex, will you promise to let us go?”
“Well let you go alive. Shore we will.”
“Do it, Jimmy,” she told him, all resistance gone from her. She sagged in defeat. The cries of the black woman were still very much in sound and fury. The woman was bleeding. “Do it, Jimmy,” she repeated. “If you don’t, they’ll torture and kill us all.”
“You beside’ listen to the woman, nigger.”
“Why are you doing this to us?” Jimmy asked, anguish in his voice. “We havent done a thing to you people. Why?”
“You be a nigger, boy, and that there is reason enuff.
This area is pure “round herefor miles and miles. Pure white. No nigger, no greasers, no spies, no wops, no Jews, or nobody else lak” “at ‘round here-and they ain’t never gonna be neither. Now don’t none of us know nothin” “bout this Russian ya’ll keep flappin” your gums about, and I don’t really care. But it sounds lak’-if they is such a feller-he’s on the right track with his thinkin’. Now you get that cock of yourn up hard and dog-fuck this white bitch. Then ya’ll can leave here. When you do git gone, pass the word: No niggers allowed in here.”
“I … can’t get an erection under these circumstances,” Jimmy said.
The Klansman kicked the white man in the side. He fell to his back and screamed in pain.
“White boy, you lak’ niggers so much, you crawl over here and suck this black bastard hard. And you either do it, or I’ll have your balls cut off.”
His wife’s tears dropped to the dusty ground.
Jimmy stood trembling in rage and humiliation and helplessness.
His wife sobbed on the ground.
The bloody young man crawled toward the black man.
The circle of robed men and women began laughing.
CHAPTER SIX
“We’re going to have trouble in central Illinois, Ben,” Cecil said. “We’re getting more reports stating a strong Klan resurgence in that area. And they are getting nasty with it.”
Main Command Post, Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Ben sighed and looked up from a map.
“How many and how strong?”
“Field reports show the IPF is sending in teams to talk about an alliance with the Klan, and the Klan is buying their garbage.”
“Shit!” Ben spat the word. “God, that’s all we need at this time.”
“Lots of hate, Ben. I think even more so than back in eighty-eight.
Ben rubbed his face with his hands. He blew out a long, sighing breath. “It’s time for some good news, Cec. What’s the word out of north Georgia?”
“Hostile at first. But Captain Rayle said in his last report the people are getting stirred up about the IPF. Most are willing to see us come in. Captain Rayle says
they’ll work with us.”
“Good. I want those mountain people on our side. I just can’t help remembering the reception I got in the Smokies back in eighty-nine.”
“Oh?”
The first of May, 1989 found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold, canned meal.
These mountain people, he concluded, were weird. He couldn’t get close enough to any of them to say a word. At a little town just south of Bryson City, a man made the mistake of taking a shot at Ben. Ben had reacted instinctively and spent the next few, long hours watching the man die from a stomach wound.
“Why did you shoot at me?” Ben asked. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”
“Outsider,” the man had gasped. “Got no business being here. We’ll get you.”
“Why? Why do you want to “get me”?”
But the man had lost consciousness and Ben never learned the answer to his question-at least not from the man he’d shot.
Sitting in the motel room, Ben was filled with doubts and questions. Where had all the people gone? The people of Atlanta? What was the use of spending years writing something … his
His head jerked up as Juno growled softly, rising to his feet, muzzle toward the door.
“We don’t mean you any harm, mister,” a boy’s voice said. “But if that big dog jumps at me, I’m gonna shoot it.”
Ben put a hand on Juno’s big head and told him to relax. He clicked on the recorder. “So come on in and sit,” he invited.
A boy and girl, in their mid-teens, appeared in the door. They looked to be brother and sister. Ben pointed to a couple of chairs.
The boy shook his head. “Well stand, thank you, though.”
“What can I do for you?” Ben asked.
“It ain’t what you can do for us,” the girl said. “It’s what we can do for you.”
“All right.”
“Git your kit together and git on outta here,” the boy said. “They’s comin’ to git you tonight.”
“Who is coming to get me-and why?”
“Our people,” the girl told him. She was a very pretty girl, but already the signs of ignorance and poverty were taking their toll, affecting her speech and features.
The poverty and ignorance of her parents, Ben thought.
Root cause-in the home, passed from generation to generation, parent to child.
When will we ever learn? But… is it too late now? He thought not.
“I’ve done nothing to your people,” Ben said.
“You kilt our uncle,” the boy said. “Ain’t that doin’ somethang?”
“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was trying to do was catch some fish for my supper.”
“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.
“I see,” Ben’s reply was soft. “And you don’t want any outsiders here?”
“That’s it, mister.”
“If you feel that strongly, why are you warning me?”
The question seemed to confuse the pair. The boy shook his head.” ‘Cause we don’t want no more killin” around here. And if you’ll leave, there won’t be no more.”
“Do you agree with your people’s way of life?”
“It ain’t up to us to agree or disagree,” the boy said. “The word’s done been passed down from Corning. And if you stay here, mister, you gonna die.”
“Who or what is a Corning?”
“The leader.”
“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their manner of speaking or thinking. “Let me guess: This Corning is the biggest and the strongest among you all. He is a religious man-or so he says-and he has a great, powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am I right?”