Poudlum retreated from the creek bank and stood next to me. We cocked our ears and listened intently, and sure enough the sounds were exactly what we thought they were.
“Who you think that could be?” Poudlum whispered.
“I ain’t got the foggiest,” I whispered back.
“What you think we ought to do?”
“I think we ought to make sure they don’t see us. Quick, let’s drag all our stuff into the woods,” I said as I scattered my pile of firewood with a swipe of my foot.
The paddle sounds and the voices were coming closer, alerting us that we didn’t have much time, so we made haste and by the time the boats came abreast of us we had cleared our campsite and were peeking through heavy foliage at the edge of the creek.
It was dusk but we could still see there were three boats with six men in each one. It wasn’t the boats or the men that scared us—it was what they were wearing.
They were all clad in white and had pointed hoods on their heads.
“Lawd have mercy,” Poudlum moaned low. “They is the Klan!”
“Hush!” I hissed. “Don’t make nary a sound!”
Their faces weren’t covered, but there wasn’t enough light to recognize anybody. However, the voice of one of them rang out clear over the water when he said, “I smell fish.”
“Me, too,” another one said. “Supposed to be some mighty fine fishing around here.”
“Yeah,” the first one said. “But it smells like fresh-caught fish, real strong like.”
“Y’all hold it down back there,” a voice from the lead boat said. “And get busy paddling because we got about half a mile to go up this creek. And light your lanterns. It’s starting to get dark.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, and heard Poudlum do the same as the boats moved on past us while they struck matches and lit their lanterns.
Still, we didn’t move a hair or make a sound until they were out of sight and out of hearing.
“Whew, Lawdy,” Poudlum said as he exhaled heavily. “If them men had a come by five minutes later we would have been frying catfish next to a big fire and probably wouldn’t have even heard ’em till it was too late.”
“We could have outrun them through the woods,” I said.
“Yep, and then we woulda been stuck out in these woods ’side the river all night with nothing to eat.”
“Well, the good Lord was looking out for us and they didn’t see us.”
“They shore did smell our fish though. I had to drop our supper on the bank when I first heard ’em. Now we gonna be eating cheese and crackers for supper instead of fresh fried catfish, all on account of the Klan.”
“Let’s get those tree tops off the boat and get moving,” I said.
“That sounds good to me. Being out on this river at night don’t sound so bad after all.”
“We’re going up the creek and not out on the river, at least not now,” I told Poudlum.
His jaw dropped as he stuttered, “Is-is-is you crazy? Why we want to go up the creek when we know the Klan is messing round up that way?”
“Don’t you see? They didn’t have their faces covered and they’ll have a big fire going and we can sneak up on them and see who they are!”
“You is crazy! What fire you talking about?”
“They not going up the creek to go fishing, Poudlum. You heard one of ’em say they had ’bout half a mile to go. I bet what they doing is having a big Klan meeting and they’ll have a big fire going.”
“Why you wants to know who they is?”
“Don’t you? It’s a big deep and dark secret who belongs to the Klan. If you know who they are you’ll know who to keep an eye on. If need be you could warn other people about them.”
I could see he wasn’t convinced, so I went on. “You could figure out a way to warn people without anybody knowing the warning came from you. Besides that, you and me would know something that just about everybody else don’t.”
I knew Poudlum was with me when I saw his back stiffen. He said, “I ’spect you might be right. It would be some mighty powerful knowledge to know who is in the Klan, more so to me than to you. Let’s get our stuff in the boat.”
“No, leave everything here for now. We gonna have to move fast to catch them, and maybe even faster when we come back.”
“How we gonna see?”
“We’ll paddle hard up the middle of the creek till we can catch up close enough to see their lights.”
“What if they hear us?”
“Take your knife and cut off a piece of your blanket big enough to wrap around the handle of your paddle, then cut a strip to tie it good. That’ll muffle the sound.”
“How we gonna see coming back?”
“The Old Farmer’s Almanac said there’s a full moon tonight, so if there’s no clouds there’ll be plenty of light when it comes up.”
“That full moon is probably what got the Klan all stirred up.”
We managed to stay in the middle of the creek by watching the fuzzy outlines of the treetops on each bank, and pretty soon we glimpsed lights flickering up ahead.
“See up yonder,” Poudlum whispered.
“I see ’em. Now all we got to do is just keep them in sight,” I whispered back.
We kept our distance for a while and could hear their voices, but not well enough to distinguish what they were saying. I wanted to get close enough so we could make out exactly what it was they were saying, so I whispered to Poudlum to paddle a little harder.
“What if they sees us?”
“They can’t see us. All they’ll see is just black night if they look back down the creek. Just keep talking soft so they won’t hear us.”
Pretty soon we could make out what they were saying. It sounded like the leader again when he said, “There’s our signal up ahead. See that light up on the left? That’ll be the Night Hawk.”
“Who did he say had a light up yonder?” Poudlum whispered.
“He said the ‘Night Hawk’ or something like that.”
“What you ’spect that means?”
“I ain’t got the foggiest. Let’s get a little closer and see if we can find out.”
We got close enough to see they had landed their boats and were all on the bank in a big clearing. We did a few soft backstrokes with our paddles to keep our boat still in the water.
That’s when we saw the Night Hawk. He approached the group of men from the boats with his own lantern in his hand. He was dressed in a white robe with a pointy hood, just like them, except he had his face covered with two eyeholes and one for his mouth.
He held up his lantern and said, “You are now entering a secret place among invisible men who relieve the injured and the oppressed and lend succor to the suffering and the unfortunate ones.”
“Gentlemen,” the leader of the men in the boats said, “This is the Night Hawk, the officer who will be conducting you through your inductions tonight.”
Just about every hair on my young body was stiff with fright when Poudlum said, “Sounds like the Klan gonna get some new members tonight and the Night Hawk is in charge of ’em.”
“Yeah, that’s what it sounds like to me, too,” I told him.
There was enough light and we were close enough now to clearly see the faces of all the men who had arrived in the boats.
“Does you know any of ’em?” Poudlum whispered.
“No. They must all be from over in Choctaw County, but study their faces so we can remember if we see ’em again.”
It got real dark and real quiet after they all followed the Night Hawk from the clearing and onto a trail leading into the woods.
“What now?” Poudlum asked. “It’s too dark to see much of anything.”
“Let’s paddle over to the bank and tie the boat up. We’ll leave it a few yards down the creek from theirs. That way we’ll be below them in case we have to make a run for it.”
We gently nosed the boat into the bank. It made a soft brushing sound which indicated there was a thick growth of foliage hanging over the edge of the creek. It was almost pitch black and we had to do everything by feel. I took the rope in one hand and reached out toward the shore with my other one. My fingers closed around a small tree about the size of my arm. I tugged on it and it seemed to be stout enough to hold, so I looped the rope around it and put a good knot in it.
“Come on,” I told Poudlum. “When we get off our boat we’ll have to make our way through the woods until we get to their boats and the clearing.”
We slipped into the dark and dense woods, feeling with our hands as we went. “Stay behind me and hold onto my belt, Poudlum.”
It took a little time because we had to move extremely slowly, not only not to make any noise, but also to keep from falling or getting jabbed in the face by stiff, dead, or broken limbs lodged in the brush.
We emerged cautiously from the edge of the woods into the clearing, where we stopped and strained our ears for any sound of the men, but all we heard were the creek sounds— soft running water and an occasional frog croak.
Continuing to whisper, I told Poudlum I thought we could ease down the trail they had taken and see where it led.
“Hey!” Poudlum said, barely audible.
“What?”
“The moon ain’t up yet, but I can see a little now. Why you think that is?”
I realized he was right and told him I figured our eyes were becoming more adjusted to the dark.
“You mean we getting to be like a cat that can see in the dark?”
“Something like that. Let’s try moving along as quiet as a cat would, too.”
Just before we entered the mouth of the trail leading from the clearing, I thought of something. “Wait a minute, Poudlum. We need to do something first.”
“Yeah, I ’spect we ought to do some praying.”
“That too, but before we go let’s take the paddles out of their boats so they can’t chase us down the creek if we get caught.”
“Now you talking! That’s a mighty fine idea,” Poudlum said.
There were four paddles in each boat. I told Poudlum we could hide them in the woods.
“Naw, that ain’t good enough,” he said. They’ll have lanterns and might find ’em. Let’s slide ’em into the creek and just let ’em float on down to the river, and maybe all the way down to Mobile.”
We silently slid each long paddle into the water, giving each one a little shove when they began to float and watched them shoot out and disappear into the dark water of the creek.
When the last one was gone Poudlum snickered and said, “Now the Klan is truly up the creek without no paddle.”
I grinned in the dark and said, “Come on, let’s see what’s up that trail.”
We lifted our feet high with each step we took and put them down slow and straight to keep from tripping over any roots or rocks.
With our newfound night vision we could see the outline of the trail and the woods on each side of it. It wound on for what seemed like a quarter of a mile before we saw any sign of the Klan. But when we did, we froze in our tracks and gasped.
A great open field lay before us. There was a huge wooden cross burning in the center of it with what looked like several dozen or more hooded Klansmen surrounding it, each holding a burning torch.
“Lawd have mercy!” Poudlum exclaimed, a little above a whisper.
“Shhh!” I cautioned him. Then I leaned close and whispered in his ear, “No more talk, from here on out we communicate with signs, okay?”
He gave me a wide-eyed nod as I tugged on his sleeve and moved us into the edge of the woods. Once more we were making our way by feel, slowly and cautiously.
I had spotted the group of men we had followed up the creek off to the left, and we moved toward them under the cover of the dark forest.
Once again we were close enough to hear them speak, but they were strangely quiet as they stood in a huddled group.
I dropped to my knees and pulled Poudlum down with me. We sank down into the soft bed of the forest and peered out from underneath some low-growing bushes.
Poudlum poked me and motioned off to his left. I looked that way and here came the Night Hawk again. He still had his face covered when he walked to just within a few feet of our bulging eyeballs.
His knees were at eye level to us and I looked down and saw that beneath his robe he was wearing a pair of cowboy boots. The flickering light from his torch was reflecting off their silver-tipped toes.
I just about jumped out of my skin and I felt Poudlum flinch next to me when the Night Hawk said, “I have been asked to intervene on your behalf before the Exalted Cyclops . . .”
His voice was deep and gravelly, like he had smoked too many cigarettes. He continued, “. . . who has informed me your petitions are being seriously considered and he has instructed me to present you before the Klavern for examination. Follow me.”
The group marched off and Poudlum and I breathed sighs of relief. When they had moved off toward the center of the clearing we felt safe to whisper again.
“That Night Hawk still had his face covered,” I said.
“Uh-huh, but I seen them boots he had on,” Poudlum said. “From now on I be looking at everybody’s feet.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Suddenly all torches were raised in unison and a mighty roar engulfed the clearing as the entire group gathered around the giant burning cross, and Poudlum and I just about had our breath taken away when we saw what happened next.
A hooded and robed figure, in brilliant red rather than white, appeared as if he had just walked from the flames of the cross itself.
“Look at that one!” Poudlum exclaimed. “How come he’s dressed in red?”
“I think he must be the Exalted Cyclops.”
“The what?”
“The leader, the one the Night Hawk said was considering the new men.”
Sure enough, that’s who he was and after a lot of ritual stuff we couldn’t hear very well, he announced the new men as citizens in the Invisible Empire and fellow Klansmen.
The ceremony was over and to culminate it, and to our shock and disbelief, the Exalted Cyclops removed his hood.
Unfortunately, the gasps we let out when we saw who it was were louder than we realized.