Chapter Twenty-One

Margaret gleaned what she could from the estate’s resurrected side-yard strawberry patch, carefully placing the plump, juicy fruit into her basket.

All the while, the morning sun kissing her bare arms, she thought of her father. From her earliest memory until she left home a married woman, he insisted that she plant, weed, and harvest her own patch of land, just as he tended the much larger family garden behind their small brick house.

It was only now that she understood what he had really been doing; teaching her how to survive, no matter what. He would have been proud to know that this garden not only helped feed her own family, but gave her a modest income as well.

A rivulet of perspiration ran from her forehead down to her cheek that intercepted a tear. She blotted her face dry with the hem of her apron.

It was nearly mid-August and probably the hottest day of the whole year. “Plantation weather,” her father called it.

Through the open kitchen door she could hear the phone ringing from inside the house. Momentarily, she had forgotten that Walter wasn’t here to answer it. He hadn’t been around for weeks.

Devin hadn’t paid him in so long that Walter had finally taken another job with one of the families of the so-called “Sacred 36,” if the gossip she’d accidentally overheard at church was at all reliable.

The phone’s ringing was insistent. She set her basket down and ran up the stepping-stone path to hurry inside. Mother Browne slept through most everything these days, but the discordant noise probably had awakened Devin.

The thought of another ill-tempered berating made Margaret cringe. If only Dr. Locke would give Devin permission to leave his sick bed. He didn’t even have bandages anymore.

Her hand was inches from the screen door when the phone suddenly stopped ringing. She paused statue-like, drew a breath and waited.

It was apparently worse than what she’d feared. Devin’s blistering words to the caller, which could be clearly heard through his open bedroom window, indicated a problem far greater than an irksome banker demanding payment of a delinquent loan. It seemed to be something about MacDuff.

Each time Devin spit out the man’s name it was embedded in a saloon epithet. A brief silence was punctuated unexpectedly by the sound of breaking glass.

Margaret looked up to see the ripped out telephone flying through the air and was just able to bolt clear of the shards raining from Devin’s shattered bedroom window.

He came to the window cursing and shouting like a madman, leaned out, and yelled down to her.

“That bastard MacDuff went behind my back and convinced Locke to move the rally up a week. MacDuff thinks he’s won my territory, but Denver belongs to me. If he wanted to stake a claim here, his granddaddy should’ve shipped over and burned out the Indians like my grandfather did. I’ll be double-damned before MacDuff gets his limey paws on what’s mine.”

Devin’s cough returned more violently than ever. He had to hold his shoulder where he’d been shot. Margaret was almost as afraid for him as she was of him. “Devin, please,” she called to him, “you’re not well enough to …”

He was hunched over in pain, but anger radiated off of him like heat from a blast furnace. “Margaret, shut the hell up,” he croaked, “and don’t dare try to tell me my business. Just get up here and get your Klan robe on. Then come help me with mine. We’re going to be the ones with Locke at the front of the damn Karavan.”

Margaret’s mind froze with horror. She’d given every reason she could think of at the Kouncil meetings to dissuade the leadership from carrying out another Karavan, but she’d been shouted down—accused of being a typical woman.

To quote Dr. Locke, this Karavan was going to be, “the mother of all parades; a little something the Jews, Catholics, spics, kikes, wops, gooks, and especially, the niggers would never forget.”

It meant more burning crosses, more hate speeches, more vile threats, except this time not just through a working-class neighborhood, or on a local hillside or even out in a prairie farm town, but from the top of Table Mountain.

Worse yet, the burning crosses would be visible to all of Denver and beyond. And what if the men got liquored up, like they always did? Especially MacDuff and his bunch of criminals.

God help us, Margaret wanted to cry out. There was going to be trouble soon like this city had never seen.

⟞ • ⟝

By late afternoon, the broiling summer temperature had barely eased. The westward procession up Colfax Avenue of some six hundred cars and trucks and horse-drawn buckboards kept to five miles an hour so as not to overheat any engines, as well as ensure being a real spectacle.

In spite of the speed, the participants were whooping and clowning like a big-top circus was in town.

Dr. Locke’s chauffeured Buick was in the lead, followed by Devin and Margaret’s Oldsmobile. Devin was unable to locate Kyle anywhere. He wasn’t with MacDuff, who was driving an old farm truck, and was in the very rear loaded down with planks of lumber. Spud was at the wheel and MacDuff was a passenger.

By the time the Karavan reached the foothills the convoy had doubled, if not tripled, and the way into Golden was lined with waving, shouting well-wishers.

There was still adequate daylight by the time the Karavan reached the mountaintop, but little effort was given to orderly parking. The excitement of arriving and getting the meeting under way was too great for most everyone. They simply abandoned their vehicles helter-skelter, and ran with their blankets and picnic baskets to the site — an expansive, grassy plateau overlooking not only the Queen City of Denver, but also Colorado’s great plains for as far as one could see.

Two or three stars barely had begun to twinkle, visible through the early evening’s coppery light, while somewhere far eastward, great buffalo herds had once stampeded in the bowels of a seasonal thunderstorm.

Denver, only twenty-five miles away as the crow flies, had never appeared more peaceful.

Table Mountain, on the other hand, was all hustle and bustle as a detail of bare-chested men assembled and hammered together three fifteen-foot crosses, and others, also from among the soon-to-be-robed brethren, dug three deep holes spaced apart in a straight line that extended the length of half a city block where they planned to post the crosses.

Fresh volunteers raised the crosses, shoveled, and packed dirt back in the pits to anchor the crosses, and hefted sandbags and stones around the bases of the crosses to stabilize them.

Three open barrels, full to the brim with kerosene, were put near each one of the crosses with each barrel accompanied by infinitely more barrels crammed with long, sturdy sticks, with all of the sticks knotted with rags at one end.

The Klavern’s Nighthawk, keeper of the fiery cross, reported that nearly two thousand men were in attendance, but the circle of men around the field had swelled well beyond that number. Their mass of white robes and hoods cast a nightmarish pall against the darkening night.

The entourage of women and children were shunted to the side of the field closest to the cars.

One of the men began humming, then, across the way, a choir-worthy solo was offered of “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Bit by bit, others joined in until there was a crescendo of all the men’s voices.

Margaret watched from among the women, but Devin, identifiable by his robe’s special insignia, had succeeded in claiming the position nearest Dr. Locke, who was even more noticeable because of his crimson Grand Dragon’s robe. Oddly, MacDuff was nowhere in sight.

The other Klansmen’s identities were protected by their sheets. Even the man, who broke through the circle with a gasoline can and doused the bases of the crosses with a clear liquid poured from the can, was anonymous.

A chant started by another of the men caught on and soon overruled the hymn. At first the words were indistinct. Then they sounded more like a deep growl. Finally, however, the incantation took on an ominous, if mystifying clarity as more than two thousand voices recited...

Klakom, Kulkom. Koken, Klikom. Panther, Anther Hokum, Sibla. Bunko, Piffel. Siffel, Ribla was repeated over and over.

An hour later, the curse was still invoked, but the sky had become forbiddingly black with no moon or planets visible and strangely few stars.

Dr. Locke accepted a box of kitchen matches from Devin, took out one of the matches, and struck it against the sulfur strip on the side of the box.

His pressure on the match was too heavy and the match broke, as did the next one, and the next one. Devin conferred with him. The box was handed back and within seconds a match was thrown onto the base of the middle cross.

Licks of flame began to play among the sandbags, bursting into claws of bright orange as the wood caught fire. The unexpected heat forced Devin and Dr. Locke to cower back to the circle of Klan rank and file.

A great applause went up as the flames snaked onto the limbs of the cross, then shot the rest of the way up.

Devin went over to one of the barrels of sticks, chose the longest two, and returned with them to Dr. Locke. He kept the shorter one for himself and gave the other one to Dr. Locke. He followed Dr. Locke’s example and put the rag end of his stick to the flame, then they both turned back to face the circle and held high their blazing torches,

The crowd whooped and the circle began to move clockwise. As it did, the men passed the barrels and chose their own sticks and likewise lighted them in the fiery cross.

Dr. Locke retreated to a cooler corner of the field and left Devin to light the two remaining crosses.

Somehow, more than two thousand torches were ignited in less than an hour. To Margaret it looked like the residents of hell had taken over the earth. She couldn’t take any more.

The flames and heat were too much for her. She had to get away. But where? And how?

Her father’s family came to mind. Maybe they would take her in; but oh heaven, they lived in Five Points. And so did her daughter. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

She still hadn’t really recovered, physically or emotionally, from the miscarriage and now her surviving child might be in danger. Her head swirled with fear and she wanted to retch. Only, she couldn’t afford to.

If anyone detected that something was bothering her, she’d be a suspect. One line of questioning would lead to another. Maybe even to the discovery that she was really a Negro. She didn’t fear for herself, but for her daughter. She had to get back to Denver before the Klavern did.

She studied her surroundings. A sickly, orange reflection danced on the other women’s faces. They all seemed mesmerized. The men were certainly entranced. No one would miss her.

She looked over at the cars. If only she could drive.

Her only chance was to try. Only Devin’s car was blocked by some of the other cars. She’d have to run down the road and hope there was a car on the outskirts she could manage to operate.

She edged to the rear of the clutch of women, then away from them toward the cars. When she felt safely hidden by the cover of night, she turned and ran through the maze of cars down the hill.

She ran for at least ten minutes before getting anywhere near open road only to stop at a car that had a pair of tangled, out-of-breath lovers in the back seat.

Next, she considered a paint-worn delivery truck, but it had a flat front tire.

At last, she found a Model-T, the same type of car her father had last owned that was even facing the direction she needed to go.

Fortunately, it was easy to crank. She had closely observed the process many times. All she had to do after getting in, was remember her father’s hand and foot movements when he drove.

She put her right foot on what she imagined was the gas pedal and shifted into the gear she hoped would make the car go forward.

The car lurched three or four yards and smashed, head-on into the snout of a shiny, pastel yellow Packard.

Her mouth hit the Model-T’s steering wheel and blood soaked the sleeve of her robe, but after a dazed minute, she was otherwise all right.

She tried to get out of the car, but the door was jammed shut. She had to scoot across the seat and exit out the passenger side.

She was too far down the hill now to be able to actually see the burning crosses, but the sky over the crest of the hill remained a glowing red.

She could hear laughter and chatter though. Perhaps people were beginning to disperse. She had to hurry. She prayed, and ran further down the hill.

Around a bend, parked as if an angel had left it for her, was another Model-T, only newer than the one she had just crashed.

Five minutes later, she was rumbling down the hill at over fifteen miles per hour, but eventually, navigating as straight as a trolley on a track. All she needed was to turn on the headlights.

She fumbled around with the different console knobs and, at last, found the vital one. She hoped.

Great, except that the sudden beams of illumination revealed a deer bounding across the road, a mere fraction shy of missing her fender.

She screamed, yanked the steering wheel right, careened into a ditch, and nearly sheered a pine tree. Miraculously, she maintained her composure and brought the car safely back onto the road.

Realizing a new measure of confidence, she accelerated. As she neared Denver, she slowed momentarily and looked over her shoulder.

A long string of bobbing headlights was descending the road by which she had just escaped.

Even from the twenty-plus-mile distance, she could see that the burning crosses were now bonfires.