Scott gave very little conscious thought to the malicious things Chloe had said about Kate. She was jealous, and jealous women were often spiteful and said things without realizing what they were really saying. And as for Kate being in love with him, that was completely absurd. Such were his conscious thoughts during his busy, well-filled days. But sometimes in the evening, as he smoked a last cigarette before he went to sleep, relaxed and not completely in control of his thoughts, the picture of Kate was before him. A picture gravely sweet, steady-eyed, deeply stirring. Once he had thought that he was in love with Kate. If Chloe hadn’t come along — but those were thoughts he would not admit into his mind. He turned firmly away from them and was ashamed that he had felt their force even for a little.
He saw Kate often, of course. He saw her on his clinic days, because she was interested in the clinic and its work, and she and Miss Mabel were the best of friends. Kate, who had had nurse’s aide training, was always glad to lend a hand when it was needed. He also saw her at the many parties and entertainments given for himself and Chloe, and just because the people of Hamilton liked getting together at parties. There didn’t have to be any special reason for a party; and whether there were two couples, or twenty, it was still a party. It was a friendly, hospitable custom, and one of Hamilton’s charms for Scott.
The first few times he saw Kate after that evening when Chloe had assured him that Kate was in love with him, he had had to smother a small feeling of awkwardness that Kate had noticed, with a tiny frown. But by the next morning at the clinic he had himself firmly in hand and he and Kate outwardly resumed their old friendly casual relationship.
There had been a letter from Liss, telling him of her ecstatic happiness, thanking him for the way he had made her understand her own needs and her own desires and urging him and Chloe to include New York on their honeymoon and be guests of the Hanovers.
We have what our friends call “this huge apartment,” she had written gaily. Of course, after Hamilton and the great barns of homes down there, five ordinary-sized rooms doesn’t seem very large to me — until I saw the bill for the rent last month, that is! Anyway, there’s a spick-and-span guest room already in waiting for my dear friends, the young Scott Etheridges, so be sure to make this your New York headquarters, won’t you? I’m writing Chloe, so you needn’t show her this. As a matter of fact, because of the first five pages of this, I’d much prefer that you didn’t show it to anybody. Catch on?
Chloe had told him eagerly of her own letter from Liss and had taken it for granted that they would accept Liss’s invitation. When Scott had pointed out that they really could not afford their share of the entertaining Liss would expect to do, he and Chloe had quarreled and Scott had slammed out of the house in anger.
Immediately he was ashamed of himself. He was tired, nervous, under a strain. And he reminded himself that Chloe was in a like condition. They were getting on each other’s nerves. But they would be married in a little over two weeks, and then they would go quietly away together and rest and get to know each other, and everything would be fine.
He tried hard to deny the small cynical voice somewhere far back in his mind that asked, “Will it? Aren’t you a fool for thinking so?”
It had to work out, because they were going to be married and spend the rest of their lives together, he kept reminding himself. Nor did he realize that the very necessity of that constant reminder was in itself a warning that he could not, or would not, admit….
And then the whole situation came to a wild, incredible climax.
One night they were driving out to the Maysons’ country place for a dinner-dance, at which they were to be honor guests. It was the fifth straight night in a row that they had been out until all hours, and there were lines of weariness in Scott’s face. For no matter how late he was out at night, he had to be up and about at the same hour in the morning. But Chloe looked fresh and gay and excited, and had laughingly admitted that she had slept until two o’clock that afternoon.
She was curled up on the seat beside him, chattering away; Scott had long ago learned that when she was in this blithe mood he could relax a little, not listen too hard and just toss in a word now and then.
The Maysons’ home lay along a country road several miles from the highway, and Chloe had told Scott of the short cut they could take, along a lonely unpaved side road. The weather was so perfect that the road would be easily negotiable and it would save them several miles. The road, like many country roads of its sort, curved along lush fields and between tall trees. And it was as Scott rounded one of these curves that his headlights, flashing for a moment among the trees, fell on a fantastic thing: a scene he was quite sure could exist only in a nightmare.
The white light had illumined for a moment a dense thicket of trees, and moved instantly on; but that instant had been long enough for Scott to see the white glimmer of a shirt, torn and ripped against a black back. He had caught enough to believe that what he had seen had been a man tied to a tree, slumped against his bonds. But surely it had been a trick of the lighting on his eyes. It couldn’t be…. Yet he swore under his breath, jerked the car to a stop, and turned the headlights on the thicket.
Chloe, startled at his behavior, followed the direction of the light, and screamed raggedly. But Scott was already out of the car, and jumping down into the ditch that separated the road from the woods. He reached the thicket and saw, to his sick pity, that the man’s back was laced with welts and wet with blood. He had been beaten with something like a thick leather strap. Nothing else could have made those brutal gashes and those livid welts.
Swiftly, he touched the man and realized that he still lived. He jerked a knife from his pocket and slashed at the stout clothesline that had bound the wrists together until the hands were swollen out of shape. As the last rope gave way, the man’s body sagged inertly to the ground and lay there. Scott, his eyes blazing with wrath, tried to lift him. But the man stood almost six feet tall and was well built. Scott could drag him, but he could not lift him.
Chloe called to him shakily, “Scott, what is it?”
“Come and help me,” Scott called to her sharply. “We’ve got to get him back to town, to the hospital.”
“Help you?” Chloe stood now on the edge of the ditch in the road, her foamy dress of ivory threaded with silver held carefully, her silver sandals poised where the dust seemed less menacing to their pristine beauty. “Scott, for goodness sake — why, I’d ruin my clothes coming in there. Come on, Scott; we’ll call the police from the Maysons’.”
“We can’t leave him here like this. Hand me my instrument bag out of the car. And then help me get him into the car.”
Dazed, Chloe took the instrument bag and held it for a moment while he waited. And then, her face dark because the moonlight was behind her, she tossed the case to him, and he caught it.
He made a swift examination, and called to her with relief. “His heart action’s pretty good. He’s had a terrific beating but if we can get him to the hospital — ”
He straightened and looked swiftly at her.
“I don’t dare drag him, Chloe; there may be internal injuries. If you’ll help me, just steady him, I can get him into the car,” he said swiftly.
But Chloe shrank, shuddering, as she looked down from across the ditch at the man.
“I can’t, Scott. I couldn’t touch him. I’d be sick. Scott, he’s all bloody.” She hid her face in her hands.
“He’s a human being, Chloe, and he’s in desperate trouble. We can’t waste time like this.”
“But my dress! And where would you put him in the car? There isn’t room.” Chloe was shaking.
Scott said savagely, “Chloe, if you’re going to be a doctor’s wife — ”
Chloe flung up her head, and now in the moonlight as she turned he saw her set white face.
“I won’t ruin my dress climbing through that thicket, and I won’t ride in the car with that horrible thing.”
And suddenly, before he could guess her intention, she had whipped into the car and jammed her foot on the accelerator. Even as he called out to her sharply, the car leaped down the road, the red taillights winking back at him as it vanished around the next curve in the road.
Scott stood there gawking after the car, dazed and incredulous. He could not make himself believe that Chloe would do such a thing: drive off in his car, leaving him there with a grievously wounded man. Refuse to help because of danger to her gown? Run away from a human being in such desperate need of help?
And now, he wondered savegely, what in blazes was he to do? This was not the main highway where he might expect to encounter a car, a truck, or some other vehicle that could bring help. It might be hours before anything moved along the road. And this man needed attention and needed it now.
By the light of the small flashlight kept in his instrument bag he did what he could, but every moment of his attempted first aid told him how grievous was the man’s need for something far more than this pitiful stop-gap.
It seemed to him that time dragged by. The only thing for him to do, he finally decided, was to leave the injured man there and walk to the highway, a distance of three or four miles, perhaps more, in the hope of getting help. Of course, it was possible that there were houses closer than the highway. He did not remember passing any after they had turned off the highway, but there might be some ahead.
The man’s pulse seemed to him to be weakening, and Scott swore under his breath and felt a burning rage in his heart toward Chloe that was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. He hoped sincerely never to set eyes on her again; he wondered how he could ever have thought her lovely or alluring, how he could have escaped knowing how shallow and petty she was.
Anger and disgust seethed through him, and in that long bitter interval love died and was replaced by a feeling of loathing that he would never be able to wipe out.
Suddenly he was jerked from his bitter thoughts by the sound of a car approaching, and his heart hammering with sudden, almost violent, relief, he leaped back into the road and stood full in the flood of the light that was rounding the curve. He waved his arms and heard the slowing of the car, but he did not leap to safety until the car had ground to a halt a few paces ahead of him. In the moonlight he caught the glimmer of the automobile and with a deep, heartfelt relief saw that it was a county police car.
Two men leaped out and came toward him, their smartly fitted uniforms standing out clearly in their headlights.
“What’s going on here?” one of them demanded gruffly.
But the other one said in sharp recognition, “Why, it’s Doc Etheridge. Hi, Doc, what’s up?”
“Thank heaven you’ve come,” said Scott huskily, his relief making him dizzy for an instant. “I’ve got a badly injured man here that I’ve got to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Give me hand, will you?”
“Sure, Doc, sure,” said the tallest of the two men, and they followed him across the ditch to where the man lay.
A flashlight made a round white beam on the man and one of the officers said, “Oh, a black boy, eh? What happened?”
“I found him tied hand and foot to a tree over there and beaten to insensibility,” said Scott, and his voice was thin and bitter with anger. “It has all the earmarks of a job by the Klan, don’t you think?”
The two officers exchanged swift glances and the one who had recognized Scott said awkwardly, “I wouldn’t like to say, Doc. Fellows don’t get beat up around these parts just because folks like ‘em. Matter of fact, I know this boy. Name’s Short and he’s got a right bad rep. He works for Mr. Ryan, and lives on his place.”
“Of course. What a fool I am. We’ll take him to the clinic at River’s Edge. There are several empty beds there. Here, help me get him to the car,” said Scott, and the two men bent to help him.
They got the still unconscious man into the back seat, with Scott beside him steadying the heavy, inert form as well as he could. Then the tallest officer slid behind the wheel and spoke over his shoulder.
“Where’s your car, Doc? How’d you get out here?”
Scott set his teeth for a moment, and when he answered he kept his voice colorless by a terrific effort.
“Miss Parham drove it back to town for help. I suppose she telephoned you?”
“Eh, no, nobody telephoned us,” said the tallest officer. “We were sort of cruising.”
“Got word along the grapevine that there was the devil to pay out in this section, so we were sort of scouting,” the other added.
The man drove swiftly, and eventually the car came to a halt in front of the small, tidy white clinic building. There was a dim light in the small office, but Miss Mabel’s windows were dark.
Scott fitted his own key into the lock, pushed the door open and reached inside to switch on the light. As he and the two officers got the unconscious man to a bed in the back room that was the men’s ward, Miss Mabel, huddled in a bathrobe, her hair in old-fashioned steel curlers, appeared at the door.
“For goodness sake — ” she gasped. Then her eyes found the injured man and she knew it was no time for questions.
Swiftly, efficiently, she and Scott went to work, forgetting the officers.
It was an hour later that Scott straightened, looked down at the neatly bandaged man and smiled faintly at Miss Mabel. “Hell be all right now,” he said wearily. “Run along to bed. I’ll keep an eye on him for the rest of the night.”
“Nonsense. You go home and get some sleep,” she protested.
“Nonsense yourself, and haven’t you been a nurse long enough to know you mustn’t talk back to the doctor? Scat, now!” ordered Scott with mock sternness. “I intend to stay, and there’s no sense in both of us losing sleep.”
When she had gone, he stretched and went out on the small screened veranda. A tall figure that had been lounging in one of the wicker chairs stood up in the shadows, and the voice of the taller officer spoke.
“Look, Doc, I’m James Brownlee. You took care of my mother when she died this summer. The whole family owes you a debt we can’t ever forget. Mom loved you like a son. And she’d want me to pass along a word I think maybe you ought to hear, you being a stranger in these parts and all.”
“Spill it,” said Scott curtly.
“Well” — James was hesitant but determined — “it’s this way, Doc. You took it for granted this was Klan business and said so right out loud.”
“Don’t you think so, Brownlee?”
“Well, I reckon maybe I’ve lived here long enough to realize it ain’t too healthy to go around shooting off my mouth about things I don’t know too much about,” said James slowly. “When you go around low-ratin’ the KKK, it might easy be that you’re saying things to a fellow that’s got him a robe and a pillowcase hid away in a dresser drawer somewhere.”
From outside in the darkness, the voice of the other man, weary and impatient, called softly, and James said, “Well, I gotta be running along, Doc. Keep it in mind, won’t you, what I said? You’re a very popular guy in these parts and we sure don’t want to lose you.”
Scott thanked him without promising, and a moment later the car drove away.
Scott went back to the room where the black man lay. He stood for a moment looking down at him, saw that his pulse was slow but stronger than it had been, and then he took the chart that Miss Mabel had prepared before obeying his orders to go to bed. He took the chart into the office, switched on the desk light, and looked at the name at the top.
“PARKER, JAMES,” Miss Mabel had written in her neat, precise hand.
Scott got up and went to the files beside the door, ran through the one filled with “P” and drew out one marked, “PARKER, MOLLY.”
For a moment he studied the two, then nodded and put Molly’s back in the file. He came back to the desk, picked up the chart Miss Mabel had just prepared, and stood for a long moment holding it in his hands, going back in his memory to the conversation he had had with Molly that morning a few weeks ago, when she had told him of her anxiety about her husband’s determination to find out who was “top dog” in the Ku Klux Klan. And James Brownlee had said the Negro whom he had called “Shorty” had been “plenty biggoty” and hadn’t known his place. Scott’s mouth thinned a little, for he had long ago learned that this was a cardinal sin in the eyes of the Klan.