Chapter 1

 

Broken Promise

 

Once upon a time in Texas, about a hundred miles south of Waco, there was a wide place in the road called Promise Falls. It lay in a shallow valley on the shores of a pathetic little trickle known as the Promise River. Surrounded by dry, stony hills, plagued by tumbleweeds and endless westerlies, this dusty little town looked like it had just stepped out of a B-grade western. Clapboard houses, lovingly whitewashed many years earlier, were now a drab, uniform shade of grey. What gardens did exist had to be religiously watered every day, or they quickly degenerated into dustbowls.

The inhabitants of Promise Falls were typically backward and inbred, the sort of racist rednecks everyone hears about, but no-one ever wants to meet. Choice stories about their habits and practises abounded.

Old man Hickman, who ran the local hardware store, was rumoured to have six toes on both feet, but since no-one had ever seen him with his boots off that was never verified. It was said that Fred Hill, a teacher at Promise Falls Elementary, regularly had sex with his sister, and that two of her children were actually his. Although it was impossible to tell which – all five of Nelly Hatfield’s brats looked like they had fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Even more disturbing, Sarah Jane Montague actually caught her husband Billy Ray, naked in the back seat of their brand new Chevy, rubbing himself into an ecstatic frenzy against the leather upholstery.

But by far Promise Falls’ most noteworthy event revolved around its Bible-thumping Baptist minister, Reverend John Cassidy. He suffered a fatal heart-attack while in flagrante delicto with his fifteen year old African American maid.

Promise Falls was the sort of town that kids described to their shrinks after thirty years of failed relationships and neuroses. As soon as a child turned eighteen, he or she jumped on the starting blocks and waited for the gun to go off so he could burn rubber out of the one-horse town.

This is the story of one of Promise Falls’ inhabitants; Frank Cassidy, the only child of John and Nora Cassidy.

In most, the desire to leave Promise Falls arrived when they hit puberty and discovered that the crappy little town offered next to nothing in entertainment, employment and future. However Frank wanted to leave from the age of five onwards. He had a knack for uncovering secrets, and discovered something about the town far more disturbing than its seamy surface of sexual perversion.

Frank had never been a particularly happy child. He loved his mother dearly, but she was never more than a shadowy slave of his father, the fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher. The little boy spent most of his time roaming the local neighbourhood which, during the late nineteen fifties, was a lot safer than it is now. Or so it seemed on the surface. He was happiest on his own, when his father wasn’t shouting at him or beating the bejesus out of him.

 

Lying along the south bank of the Promise River, on the western outskirts of Promise Falls, was a sprawling shantytown of African Americans. Slavery might have been abolished ninety years earlier, but the blacks were still treated like trash. Even though every Sunday Rev Cassidy climbed up into the pulpit of St Jerome’s and said things like “love thy neighbour” and “all men are children of God”, they didn’t seem to apply to the niggers.

Whenever something went missing, it was the niggers’ fault. Whenever an incident of vandalism occurred, it was blamed on the blacks. And when Celia O’Rourke’s body was fished out of the Promise River, minus all her clothes and plus sixteen stab wounds in the chest and stomach, the prime suspects were, of course, the coloureds.

At five Frank Cassidy didn’t understand any of this. He liked to go down to the shantytown to play with the little Negro lads his own age. They were a lot more fun than the snooty white boys, who always teased him because of his big-mouthed self-righteous father. As he trotted down dusty Old Barton Road, he didn’t see the abject poverty; the tumbledown hovels made from other people’s building scraps, the mangy dogs, the scruffy, free-range chickens, the empty beer bottles lined up like sentinels on sagging verandas, and the heavily patched rags flapping on makeshift clotheslines. He saw only the potential such an interesting place offered a small child. Here, he was never admonished for leaving fingerprints, trekking mud or being too noisy.

He met his best friend Bobby Lee at the bottom of Old Barton Road. Bobby Lee was only six years old, but he already seemed like an adult to Frank. He didn’t know his letters or numbers, but he knew the local area better than the back of his own hand. He knew all the best fishing spots, secret trails, hiding places and climbing trees. He could make every place they visited an exciting, magical adventure.

Bobby took Frank down to the riverside, to a neat fishing hole they had discovered only two weeks earlier. It could only be accessed by children as small as the two boys; larger individuals would quickly become trapped in the entwined trunks and vines of the bushes by the water. But the lithe lads slipped through the damp branches like eels, emerging mud-covered and breathless behind Mama Regan’s place, where she lived with her nineteen year old boy Joey.

The boys set up their rods to fish, and spent a good hour swapping stories as the sun slowly angled down on their left. Frank couldn’t understand why a boy as wise as Bobby didn’t go to school. Bobby said he had no wish to go to school, but Frank could tell that he wanted to. Something was stopping him, but Frank had no idea what. He was too young to see the disparity between black and white in this backward part of the south.

When the sun was hovering just above the wester horizon in a brilliant ball of orange, raised voices attracted the boys’ attention. Abandoning their home-made fishing poles – they hadn’t caught anything anyway - they picked their way through the tangles trees to the back fence of Mama Regan’s place. It was falling down and full of holes, enabling the little lads to see through to the white, dusty surface of Old Barton Road.

A large crowd of nervous Negros had collected not far from Mama Regan’s, and they were looking east, towards something the boys couldn’t see. As the boys watched, a woman approached at a run, pulling her grubby-faced three-year-old daughter along behind her. The little girl stumbled and complained, but the woman ignored her. The woman paused to tug on the sleeve of one of the men. He spun on her in anger.

“Git yerself inside, woman!”

“But George – your dinner’s ready!” she protested. “I bin callin’ you for nigh on fifteen minutes!”

The man lifted an arm to strike her. “I said now!” he snarled.

Chewing on her lower lip, the woman hurried off, dragging her protesting child after her.

George turned back around, resuming his gaze east. He looked angry and frightened at the same time, like he was here under duress. In fact all the men shared his expression. But this was something they had to do, even though they knew in their hearts their efforts would ultimately prove fruitless.

“What’s goin’ on?” Frank whispered.

“I dunno, but it don’t look good!” Bobby responded.

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot rent the air. The little boys jumped and crouched even lower, even though no-one could see them through the busted fence. The Negros began to back off the road, wanting to run but remaining in place. Now Frank and Bobby could see that all the men were carrying makeshift weapons; bits of board, pipes, picks, hoes, shovels and other tools. But they shook in their dusty hands, betraying their uncertainty.

Then a party of white figures appeared, wearing pointed heads and evil little black eyes that revealed nothing. Their long robes reached the ground and lifted dust from the dry road as they moved so it looked like they were floating on clouds of smoke. Frank gaped in horror and shoved a fist into his mouth to keep his cry of alarm in. Bobby grabbed his sleeve before he could run.

“What are they, Bobby?” Frank whispered. “Ghosts?”

His friend’s solemn eyes told Frank that that he’d seen these evil creatures before. “They ain’t ghosts, Frankie,” Bobby whispered. “They’s men in sheets – white men.”

“But why?” Frank whispered. “Hallowe’en is months away!”

“They ain’t here for Hallowe’en, Frankie.”

Some of the ghost-men carried shotguns and rifles, pointed at the angry group. Others carried bats and clubs and slapped them menacingly against their palms. They stopped in front of the blacks.

“They’s the Klan, Frankie,” Bobby whispered, his eyes like saucers. “They’s here for business.”

One of the white-robed men stepped forward. His robe did little to disguise the fact that he was enormous; a bear of a man with shoulders wide enough to support a bridge. He was carrying a shotgun at the ready. There was something disturbingly familiar about him; where had Frank seen this big guy before? “Stand aside, you niggers,” he growled. “We’ve got a job to do.”

A ripple of uncertainty pulsed through the assembled mob. Then a large black man in threadbare blue overalls moved to the front, stopping before the big man. He carried what looked like half a tree-branch in one huge paw. Frank and Bobby recognised Hank Jones, the carpenter. “No you ain’t,” he drawled.

The white-robed man moved with savage speed, flipping his shotgun and striking with its barrel. Hank lifted his branch to block, but wasn’t quick enough. The barrel struck him across the jaw and he fell onto one knee. The Klansman lurched forward, bringing his barrel down on the top of Hank’s head. The big Negro sprawled in the dust, blood seeping from a gash in his crown. His friends surged forward to help – and another shotgun blast tore through the air. The blacks froze in horror, and the boys shrank even further down.

“Next nigger to move gets it in the head,” the big Klansman declared, and sank a boot into the unconscious Hank’s ribs for good measure. There was a sickening crunch and the big body moved a good half-foot across the dirt. “Now back off.”

Their resolve spent, the Negroes shuffled out of the Klan’s way. With the burly Klansman at the lead, a small group of five broke off from the main party and marched up the overgrown front path of old Mama Regan’s house, disappearing from the sight of the two boys secreted behind the fence. The remaining Klansman kept their weapons trained on the surly blacks, just in case they tried something stupid.

“What are they doing?” Frank whispered, his guts tying themselves in knots.

Bobby didn’t answer, pale-faced and trembling.

A scream of protest tore through the darkening afternoon, the querulous, high-pitched shriek of an old woman. Something fell with a crash, closely followed by the tinkle of breaking crockery. The muffled sounds of a scuffle followed. Bobby began gnawing on his dirty knuckles. He was frozen with terror, unable to tear himself away. Suddenly he no longer seemed older than Frank, but much, much younger – a terrified little boy who needed comforting. Frank found himself slipping an arm around Bobby’s shoulders and pulling him close. The Negro boy was trembling uncontrollably now, and even though Frank had been terrified before, he wasn’t so scared now – as though he couldn’t afford to be, not when someone needed his strength.

Suddenly the Klansmen burst from Mama Regan’s house, two of them dragging Joey Regan by his hair. The nineteen-year-old howled in protest, trying to free his curls. His Mama stumbled after him, trying to pull him from the Klansmen’s cruel grip. The big man with the shotgun spun around, cracking Mama Regan in the head with the butt of his gun. She stumbled a few more steps, then her eyes crossed and she sank to her knees. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she collapsed on her side.

Frank glanced at Bobby. The Negro boy’s eyes were brimming with tears.

The Klansmen dragged Joey Regan back to the main group, and he was hustled across the street in a cloud of dust, where there was a huge, gnarled oak with spreading branches. Someone slipped a rope around Joey’s neck and he screamed in protest. The other end of the rope was tossed over a high branch.

“This is what happens to filthy niggers who rape and kill good white girls!” the big Klansman roared, and in response his men hauled on the rope, hoisting Joey high off the ground. From their hiding place, the boys got a good view of Joey’s agonised face, his eyes bulging from his face. The youth’s legs kicked ineffectually, and then his tongue rolled from his mouth, purple and grotesquely swollen. The Klansmen holding the rope tied it off around the oak’s thick trunk.

“Let this be a lesson to you,” the Klan leader growled at the silent crowd.

Frank turned to Bobby, who had shrank into himself, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He wept silently, and had Frank not been holding him, he would have been rocking back and forth. “Th-they never done anythin’ like this before!” he whispered.

“C’mon – let’s get outta here!” Frank tugged urgently on Bobby’s arm.

Bobby gulped. “We better wait till they go.”

The Klan stayed long enough to make sure Joey Regan was dead, then with a few meaningful glares at the blacks, they turned and marched east along Old Barton Road, back towards the centre of town. As soon as the Negroes were sure they were out of sight, they cut Joey down. They tried to revive him, but he was beyond help. When Mama Regan slowly picked herself up from the dust and saw what had become of her only child, she burst into tears and collapsed beside his body. Her mournful cries streamed across the darkening countryside.

“Let’s go.” Frank pulled on Bobby’s ragged sleeve, and then turned and wormed him way through the tangled foliage towards the river. In the half-light, the branches looked like gnarled monster claws trying to grab him and drag him down into the mud. His heart started to pound, and with a cry he managed to flail his way out of the bushes. He feared to look around in case this slowed him down, and the beasts caught him. He stumbled through the long grass on the outskirts of the Negro shanty town, and took off towards Promise Falls as fast as his little legs could carry him.

Bobby Lee watched him leave, and then dragged a shaking arm across his streaming eyes. You lucky boy, he thought miserably. At least you can spend the night in a clean, dry house away from this awful place.

 

Frank ran all the way home, even though it was almost a mile through the fields and across the bridge into the north part of town. He was gasping for breath, his knees shaking, as he stumbled up the garden path and headed around the back of the house. Night had fallen, and he knew he was in for a major bawling out from his father for being home so late. And not to mention the beating he would receive for tearing and muddying his clothes. He would get no sympathy for all the scratches and midge-bites he’d sustained while watching those strange men in white murder that poor black boy.

But when tried and failed to open the back screen door without creaking it, he startled only his mother, who had just finished making dinner. She turned to gape at him, her blue eyes wide.

“What happened to you?” she gasped.

Frank tried to pour out the horror he had witnessed, but could only gape like a beached fish. How could he, a five year old boy, give voice to something like that? “I … I was playin’ with my friends down by the river, and it got late before I knew it,” he finally managed to whisper. “I’m so sorry, Mama.”

She grabbed him by his shoulders and propelled him from the kitchen, so quickly his feet hardly touched the ground. “Well, you wash up and get outta those clothes ‘fore your father gets home, and just maybe he won’t find out how late and filthy you were!”

“Yes Mama!”

 

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