WE WERE HALFWAY to the Quarters before the most persistent of our pursuers gave up. We stopped to catch our breath, but I kept an eye out, in case anyone was still following.
As it dawned on me what we had done, I realized that I was—well, I was delighted. Who would have thought two people holding hands could make so many wrong-minded people so very unhappy? We had put the citizens of Eudora in an uproar, and that realization warmed my heart.
I had abandoned my bicycle downtown. Maybe the mob had strung it up in a noose by now.
As Moody and I walked the muddy boards that passed for a sidewalk, folks began coming out of their houses to have a look at us. As fast as we’d run, news of our public display seemed to have preceded us.
“Y’all damn crazy,” said one old lady.
“Naw, they in love,” said a young man beside her.
“Well, hell, if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is!”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “We’re not crazy and we’re not in love, either.”
“You just tryin’ to cause trouble then, white boy?” she demanded.
“All I did was kiss her,” I explained. “But we did cause some trouble.”
The old lady thought about it a moment, then she cracked a smile.
It was like a photographic negative of our march through Eudora. By the time we got to the crossroads by Hemple’s store, we had a crowd of spectators tagging along with us.
One of the old men looked up from his checkerboard, his face grim. “Now see what you done,” he said to me. “You done kicked over the anthill for sure. They comin’ down here tonight, and they gonna lynch you up somethin’ fierce. And some of us, besides.”
“Then we’d better get ready for them,” Moody said.
“Ready?” said the other checkers player. “What you mean ready, girl? You mean we best say our prayers. Best go make the pine box ourselves.”
“You got a gun for shootin’ squirrel, don’t you?” said Moody. “You got a knife to skin it with, don’t you?”
The old man nodded. “Well, sho’, but what does that—”
“They can’t beat all of us,” Moody said. “Not if we’re ready for them.”
The people around us were murmuring to one another. Moody’s words had started a brushfire among them. “Let ’em come!” cried a young man. “Let ’em come on!”
Moody looked at me with soulful eyes. And then she did something I will never forget. I will carry it with me my whole life, the way I have carried Marcus’s kindness to Mama.
She took my hand in hers again. Not for show, because she wanted to. We walked hand in hand to Abraham’s house.