In the summer months, it didn’t get dark until late. Sometimes not until eight or nine, around the time Granny and I would usually be lying down for the night. But when dark did set in, it was sometimes black enough to make your bones shiver—especially on a night when you knew the Klan was heading your way.
Granny and I ate ourselves a quick meal of sausage and leftover biscuits from breakfast after we got home from church. Neither one of us was all that hungry, but we made ourselves eat because we knew we needed to keep up our strength for the long night ahead of us. Now we sat together in the rocking chairs that used to be Granny and Grandpa’s and waited. We didn’t even have a lamp lit. Granny said we didn’t want to give them old white devils a reason to come in on us. Even though I hated being in the dark, I knew Granny was right. So we waited and watched and prayed.
Everybody in Colored Town got home early after church that day. Didn’t nobody want to get caught outside with those crazy white men running around, just daring a Colored person to cross their path. It was hot as all get-out in the house, but we didn’t open not one window; we just let the heat wash over us. Both Granny and I were steady wiping sweat, but we didn’t complain. Uncle Myron and Uncle Little Bud both came by before it got dark and begged Granny one more time to let one of them stay or us go to one of their houses, but Granny stayed firm.
“Everybody needs to be at their own home. Those trashy white men are looking for reasons to mess with some of us tonight,” she said, basically repeating her words from earlier. But this time, she was even firmer. “We will not give them a reason to hurt us. I remember the Klan rode through here, Myron, when you were still in knee britches, and they hung a man for being somewhere other than where they thought he belonged. I am not burying any of my kin over this. I’m just not.”
Finally, both uncles agreed to leave, but they said if anything didn’t seem right, they would be back. Uncle Little Bud stayed behind when Uncle Myron left. Granny went to her room to lie down some, and when she left the room, Uncle Little Bud pulled out a paper bag from his pocket and handed it to me. It felt heavy. I was about to look inside but he said not to.
“Opal, I want you to keep this bag close to you,” he said. When he said that, I knew what was inside: a gun. Probably the same gun he taught me and Lucille how to shoot last summer. He said back then he wanted all of his nieces to know how to handle a gun just in case. I guess tonight was a “just in case” situation.
“I don’t know how bad things are going to get tonight, Opal, but I don’t want you and Mama sitting up here defenseless if me or one of the men in the family can’t get to you soon enough. Don’t shoot it unless you have to, but if you have to shoot, shoot to kill. Fire right between their eyes, and then, after that, me and the uncles will take care of the rest. You hear me?”
I nodded. Uncle Little Bud was always the laughing and joking one in the family. Seeing him serious like this told me just how bad things might get.
“Me and some of the younger men talked after church, and we are going to be close by. We can’t be everywhere at once, but we will be close. Don’t tell Mama. It would just worry her,” Uncle Little Bud said. “I need you to be strong, Opal. Stronger than you’ve ever been before. You think you can do that?”
“Yes,” I whispered, willing the tears away. “I will take care of Granny and myself.”
He and I hugged like it was going to be our last hug.
Before he left, he made me promise not to let Granny know he had left me a gun. I slipped the bag inside my purse, and I made sure to keep my purse close to me at all times, even when I went outside to the outhouse. Once it got later in the evening, Granny said we needed to stop going outside and instead use the slop jar. I hated having to squat and pee on that thing. It was bad enough when I was sick. I sure didn’t want to use it when I was feeling just fine, but I understood. Nighttime and the outside were no longer our friends.
This time of the year, right before spring turned into summer, folks would normally be out and about, visiting with one another, enjoying the one day of rest we all had in common. The little ones would be running from one house to the other, trying to find somebody to play jump rope or hide-and-seek with, and those who were older would be roaming around trying to court one another without getting noticed by the adults. The young wives and older ladies would sit on each other’s front stoops and sip iced tea and gossip, and the menfolk would be somewhere talking ’bout work and, this time of the year, the Negro baseball league.
On nights like this, I would lie in my bed and drift off to sleep to the sound of Mr. Tote’s harmonica. He’d play every kind of music that came to his mind. Sometimes he would play “jooking music,” as Granny would call it. Other times he played the kind of gospel wail that almost made you want to shout.
Not this night, though. On this night, there didn’t seem to be no sound—not one night owl squalling or dog barking. This night, not even the good Lord himself made a sound. It was like something had come along and spirited all of the people and animals away. Everybody and everything was waiting—wondering when the night sky would turn bright orange from the fire sticks them Klansmen carried. Wondering whose husband, son, or nephew might be the one to get carried off and hung up in some tree. Granny used to say that the trees all over the state of Georgia had stories they could tell, and none of them was good.
“Granny, are you sure we shouldn’t go on up to Uncle Myron’s house? It probably ain’t too late for us to go,” I said, my voice shaking. I had felt so confident about us staying at home this morning when I was surrounded by family and friends, but now I wasn’t feeling so sure. I wanted to be where my uncles were, not sitting up here waiting for Skeeter and those other crazy men to come riding through Colored Town. I thought about Cedric and his words. Colored folks seem to always be waiting to see what white folks like Skeeter will do next. We are always the hunted, never the hunter. I didn’t want to see anybody die tonight, but I didn’t want to feel like we had just given up, and this sort of felt like that was what we had done. Given up.
“Gone be all right. This will be over before you know it,” Granny said.
I tried to believe her. Granny had never lied to me to my knowledge, but this night, I wondered if maybe she was lying to us both for the first time. If those Klansmen did ride through like they said they would, I knew there was no way things would be all right. I tried to calm myself by knitting on the little sweater I was making for my cousin Lanetta’s baby, and not focus on the time. Cousin Lanetta was due any day, and I tried to always make something for any new babies in our family. I didn’t need light to knit. I could nearly do it in my sleep. Granny sat and held her Bible. It was too dark for her to read it, so she just cradled it like it was a baby. Before long, I felt myself dozing off, and what seemed like immediately after closing my eyes, I woke to Granny shaking me.
“They out there, baby,” she said in my ear, although I could hear the whooping and yelling, and I could see the flickering flames outside of the window. My heart quickened and I reached down beside my chair and felt around for my purse. Once I felt it, I placed it on my lap. I couldn’t imagine shooting anybody, but if it came down to it, I knew I would do what I had to do to protect me and Granny.
Granny reached over and took my hand as we listened to the loud crashing sounds from out in our backyard. Then we heard Granny’s chickens squawking in such a loud and frightening way, I didn’t even want to think about what was happening.
“Hey in there. Y’all niggers come on out,” a loud male voice shouted. “We about to make y’all some fried chicken. We know how much you darkies love yourself some fried chicken.”
“No,” Granny whimpered. “Not my chickens.”
Granny crept over to the window. She made a painful sound, but thankfully she stayed put.
“What’s going on, Granny?” I whispered.
She didn’t answer. I crept over to the window where Granny knelt, and I was horrified by what I saw. Those bloodthirsty demons were busy dousing Granny’s chicken coop with some type of liquid that had to be kerosene or gasoline. I wanted to run out and stop them. Those chickens were like family to Granny.
Granny would sit for hours talking to those chickens and babying them. It almost broke her heart for us to use their eggs. When one of those chickens died, you would think it was a friend of Granny’s. She would laugh at herself for being so silly about her baby birds, but they meant the world to her.
I watched in horror as one of the men tossed a fire stick into the coop. The flames leapt into the sky, and they all yelled and cheered like they were witnessing the winning run of a baseball game. The sounds those chickens made as they died in the blaze set by those Klansmen will live in my heart forever. Seemed like their screeching would never stop. I wrapped my arms around Granny. Her entire body shook with grief, but she kept quiet. I prayed they would leave, but they seemed to be getting louder. Then we heard a loud knocking at the door. I wondered where Uncle Little Bud and the other men were. I wondered if they were out there watching this happen. I tried not to think about the fact that in that moment, I didn’t believe anybody had the power to protect us, including God, who was painfully silent right then.
“Bless your name, Jesus,” Granny whispered, pulling me down to the floor so we couldn’t be seen. The light from the burning chicken coop cast an eerie glow outside our window. “Protect your children, Father,” she continued to pray. “Let that fire in the yard burn down low so as not to do harm to this house or others. And please, Lord, let the fire to hurt and harm burn down low in the bellies of those evil men.”
“Come on outta there,” we heard someone yell. “Come on. Ain’t nobody gone hurt y’all if you come on out.”
I knew that if they wanted to come in, it was just a matter of time before they broke through our front door. I was not planning on Granny and me becoming victims that night. In that moment, I felt what Cedric and the other boys had felt in church today. Rage. Anger. Resolve not to die. If those Klansmen came into our house, they would not be leaving on their own steam. I had never killed another living being in my life, but I was determined that on this night, if it meant dying myself, nobody was going to hurt us without me fighting back. I reached around on the floor until I found my purse. I quickly pulled out Uncle Little Bud’s pistol. Satan was not going to have his way with us. And if God really did care about Colored folks, then I prayed he would give me the strength I needed to do what had to be done.
“What are you doing with that thing?” Granny hissed. “Put that thing away, baby. They’ll kill us dead if they think we got something like that in here. Lord Jesus, I know that had to be Little Bud’s doing.”
Before I could answer, we both looked at the door. Somebody was pushing against it.
“I guess y’all want us to come on inside where you are,” the voice called out as he continued to ram against the door. “I don’t mind coming in there. I bet that little pickaninny gal will be just as tasty as these chickens.”
Granny continued to pray. At first she was soft, but the more they rammed against the door, the louder her prayers became.
“Granny, they gone hear you,” I whispered. I stood and aimed the gun toward the door. For the first time that night, I did not shake. My hands were steady, just like Uncle Little Bud had taught me. Whatever or whoever came in, I planned to fill them with bullets and send their soul to hell.
“Don’t ever aim a gun at anything or anybody unless you mean to use it,” Uncle Little Bud had taught me and Lucille last summer.
“I got a gun in here,” I yelled out. “I got a gun and I’ll use it.”
“Baby, hush,” Granny pleaded. “You’ll just stir them up worse.”
I heard laughter. “Y’all hear that? One of them nigger wenches said they have a gun. Well, shoot it then. Shoot your gun and you’ll both be dead before the bullet leaves the chamber good.”
There was more laughter. Then I heard what could only be Skeeter’s voice.
“Well, I’m coming in, and you better be ready to use that gun, pickaninny, and you better kill me with one shot, because otherwise you and your granny will be swinging from one of these trees,” he said. “I guarantee you that.”
He rammed the door again and again and again. It just never seemed to stop, and just when I thought the door couldn’t possibly stand another second, the knocking and ramming stopped, and I heard a voice that sounded better than any church song we sang on Sundays. The voice belonged to Jimmy Earl.
“Y’all go on. You’ve had your fun, now go on before the sheriff rides up here,” he said.
My hands began shaking again, but I continued to aim the gun toward the door.
“You threatening me, Jimmy Earl Ketchums?” another familiar voice said. That voice was Jimmy Earl’s Uncle Rafe. As bad as Skeeter was, Mr. Rafe, his daddy, was ten times worse.
“No sir. Just telling you I don’t want to see any of y’all getting hauled off by the sheriff tonight, that’s all. You know he don’t like Klan riding around this countryside.”
The next voice that piped up sounded like it belonged to one of Jimmy Earl’s other cousins. “We own this countryside, Jimmy Earl. Not that nigger-loving sheriff, and sure as hell not these niggers. They may call this Colored Town, but this here is white man’s territory. We owned this land when they were chained up like yard dogs.”
A bunch of the men yelled out their approval.
“Jimmy Earl, this ain’t your fight,” Mr. Rafe said. “You don’t want to be on the wrong side of right, now, do you, boy?”
“Y’all know this is Birdie’s house. She’s worked with Gran’s family since she was a girl. Please, don’t do no harm to her or her granddaughter,” Jimmy Earl begged. “Y’all done had your fun. You burned down her henhouse. Ain’t that enough?”
“Jimmy Earl, that nigger said she was going to shoot us. Ain’t no nigger gone get away with threatening a bunch of white men,” Skeeter bellowed. “Not even your favorite pickaninny.”
“Skeeter, you know as well as me neither Birdie nor Opal got a gun. They scared to death. They just want y’all to leave, so that’s why they said they had a gun. Use your noodle,” Jimmy Earl chastised.
“Lord Jesus, please open their hearts to Jimmy Earl’s words,” Granny whispered.
Jimmy Earl continued to try and reason with them. I knew he was hoping that them being his kin would be enough for them to listen to him. I hoped he was right, because I was seconds away from firing that gun.
“Uncle Rafe, my gran begged me to come see about Birdie and Opal. I shore don’t want to have to go back and tell her the two of them got hurt tonight,” Jimmy Earl said.
“Please go. Let this night end,” I whispered. All I could think of was some of my uncles or cousins coming out and getting hurt. I prayed that these awful men would listen to Jimmy Earl and leave.
“All right, Jimmy Earl. If these niggers mean that much to you, then we’ll ride on down the road a piece farther. But I’ll tell you what, Jimmy Earl Ketchums, you better stay your nose out of Klan business from here on out. Don’t make me forget that you’re my nephew,” he said. Then I heard a lot of whooping and yelling and then . . . quiet. Seconds later, there was frantic knocking at the door.
“Birdie! Opal! It’s me. Jimmy Earl,” he called.
Granny struggled to get up from the floor, but then she ran to the door and pulled him into the room, hugging him so tight, it was a wonder he could even breathe.
“Oh, Lord Jesus,” she cried. “Thank you, son. Thank you for coming to see about us.”
I still stood holding the gun. It was like I couldn’t move. It was like my entire body was frozen.
“Opal,” Jimmy Earl called out to me, his voice soft and even-keeled. I watched as Granny let him go, and they both turned toward me. I still couldn’t move. I just stood there with that gun in my hand and I couldn’t lower it. I couldn’t do anything but stand there with that thing aimed in the direction where Jimmy Earl and my granny stood.
“Opal,” Granny called. “It’s all right, honey. Put down the gun.”
All of a sudden, my whole body started to shake so violently, my teeth were chattering, but I still couldn’t put it down. It felt like holding that gun was all that was keeping me from falling apart.
“Opal?” Jimmy Earl called. “Bean? Do you hear me? Bean . . . listen . . . I’m going to come over to you. Okay?”
I tried to answer him, but I couldn’t. I just stared at him and tried to focus. Tried to lower the gun because I realized I must have looked crazy still holding it now that the danger was over, but I just. Couldn’t. Put. It. Down. Jimmy Earl reached me, took my hands, and lowered the gun.
“You okay?” he asked. I shook my head no. I wasn’t okay. I was still feeling like at any moment those awful men would come rushing through the door and do God knows what to me and Granny. I wasn’t okay. Jimmy Earl seemed to understand. He didn’t keep pressing me for answers; he just took the gun from my hand and pulled me into his arms.
For a moment, I let myself relax into his embrace. I didn’t think about the fact that Jimmy Earl and I were hugging, something we hadn’t done since we were little children. I didn’t think about the fact that he was white and I was Colored or that half of the people who had come to bully us had been his kin. No, I just focused on being safe in his arms where nothing and nobody could get at me. It felt good being held. For the first time that night I felt safe, as if all of the bad that had gone on outside no longer existed. I buried my face against his chest and sobbed.
“Opal. Jimmy Earl,” my granny called to us, but I stayed where I was. “We got to go outside and see about that fire. With this drought going on, it could spread in a few minutes flat,” she said. I heard her, but I was afraid to leave Jimmy Earl’s protective embrace.
“Bean, we need to go tend to the coop,” he said in a soft voice, but he didn’t move. He just kept right on holding me, stroking my hair that was loose and wild on my shoulders. I could smell the faint scent of cologne. I had never known Jimmy Earl to wear cologne before. I guess this was something else new about him since he left Parsons for college. I tried to keep my mind clear, but I just kept seeing the events of the night playing in my head over and over again, and Jimmy Earl coming to the rescue.
“I know,” I managed to choke out, but I didn’t move either. I just kept standing there.
Then the door burst open. I screamed and tried to grab the gun from Jimmy Earl, but he kept the gun from my reach.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he kept repeating. And it was okay.
Coming into the room was Uncle Little Bud, M.J., and Cedric. I ran to them, and Uncle Little Bud caught me in a fierce embrace. When my face touched his, I could feel sweat and what might have been tears.
“You all right, Mama? Opal?” Uncle Little Bud asked, glancing over at Jimmy Earl. “I saw the coop blazing all the way up to the house. Me and the boys got here as fast as we could. The coop done burnt down to nothing now, though, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, son,” Granny said, hugging him, and me, and M.J. “Me and Opal is all right. I ain’t worried none about that chicken coop. Just happy all y’all is okay. You shouldn’t have come out with them crazies riding around the countryside. Jimmy Earl there came over and saved the day. He told them old Kluxers what’s what.”
“Don’t look like he saved the day for them chickens out there, Miss Birdie,” Cedric said, eyeing Jimmy Earl with a grim look on his face.
Jimmy Earl walked toward us. “We should go out and put out the fire. I’ll get—”
“Thank you mighty kindly, Jimmy Earl, but we can handle it from here. The fire done ’bout gone out on its own anyway,” Uncle Little Bud said with a cold look on his face. “God had his hand in things tonight. That fire could have killed my mama and my niece. Had that happened, there would have been bloodshed all over this countryside.”
“Little Bud, hush. Don’t say such things,” Granny reprimanded.
Jimmy Earl coughed. “Yes sir.” He turned and looked at Granny and me. “I better be going, Birdie. Bean. I’ll come pick you two up in the morning, just in case the boys are still out and about, still ramped up from tonight.”
“Ain’t no need of you doing that, Jimmy Earl. We Colored menfolk will make sure all our women get safely to their places of employment in the morning,” Cedric said, putting emphasis on the word our. “I’m sure we can handle ‘the boys’ if we need to.”
Jimmy Earl looked over at us but spoke to Granny. “Is that what you want, Birdie?”
“Her name is Miss Birdie, you—” Cedric started and then stopped. “She older than you. She deserve respect.”
Granny went to Jimmy Earl and patted his arm. She didn’t even look at Cedric. “Opal and me will be just fine. You might want to peek in on Tote and make sure he’s okay, though. I ain’t heard from him since them Kluxers left outta here. He’s the scared sorts.”
Jimmy Earl nodded. He walked over to Uncle Little Bud and handed him the gun I had been holding. He gave Cedric a challenging look and then left. It was quiet for a time, but then Uncle Little Bud spoke.
“Mama, what was that Ketchums boy doing here?” he asked. “And gal, what was you doing all hugged up with him like you was outta your fool mind?”
I didn’t know that they had seen that. I was embarrassed, but then I got angry. They weren’t here and Jimmy Earl was. I didn’t need them lecturing me on a night when we all could have been dead, a night that wasn’t over yet, if the truth be known.
I glared at Cedric and Uncle Little Bud. “Y’all mad and you don’t even know what it was like for me and Granny having them awful men just right outside the door, trying to get in here on us. Jimmy Earl saved us. I was grateful. That’s all.”
M.J., always the peacemaker, came over and put his arm around me. “We just happy y’all both is fine. Stank, why don’t you go on with Uncle Little Bud. I’m gone stay here with my granny and cousin tonight.”
“M.J.,” Granny said, “there ain’t no need in you doing all of that. Them drunken fools is probably all done gone home by now. Ain’t gone be no more trouble tonight.”
“We gone make sure there ain’t no more trouble tonight,” Cedric said, sweat pouring down his face, which was full of rage. “They burnt down Brother Walker’s barn and they burnt a cross in Deacon Myron’s yard. That’s what took us so long to get here. I’m ready to go after them. They need to pay for the harm they’ve done once and for all.”
“Stop talking crazy talk, boy,” Granny hissed. “You ain’t got the good sense God gave a billy goat. You think them Kluxers is scared of the likes of you? Get somewhere and be still. Be prayerful and be thankful that we all is standing here with breath in our bodies. Could be more burnt up than just a coop full of chickens and a cross. All of us could be burnt to a crisp, and no matter how much that white sheriff promises he gone deal with them Kluxers, at the end of the day, white caters to white.”
Cedric had the good manners to duck his head, but I could tell he was still hot about the collar.
“Stank, let’s go check on Brother and Sister Walker again. They the last ones on our list,” Uncle Little Bud said.
“What list?” Granny said, eyeing Uncle Little Bud with suspicion.
“Mama,” Uncle Little Bud started, squeezing Granny’s shoulders. “Some of the menfolk all decided at church today we would check on all of our elders after them crackers got done showing their tail tonight. ’Course, I was going to check on you. Now all we have left to do is to circle back by the Walkers’, and Stank, M.J., and me will have checked on the ones we said we would check on.”
“Be careful, son,” she said.
“I will, Mama,” Uncle Little Bud said. He looked back at M.J. “You take care of your granny and cousin. Me and Stank will throw some water on them dying embers out there just to make sure we don’t end up with a worse fire. The wind was picking up a bit.”
M.J. nodded his head. “Yes sir. I’ll take care of them.”
Cedric looked over at me. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he clamped his lips shut. He was angry at me for hugging Jimmy Earl. I could see that. I wished I could go to him and let him know that my feelings for him were strong, but I couldn’t. Not with everybody standing there, so I just stayed quiet. Granny went to Cedric and put her hand on his arm.
“You be safe, too, son. Don’t go out there and do nothing foolhardy,” Granny said. “God won’t be pleased with that.”
Cedric looked like he was going to push against Granny’s words, but he just looked at her with empty eyes. “Yes ma’am.”
Before he left, Uncle Little Bud came over to me and hugged me tight. “I’m proud of you, little girl. I put the gun back in your purse. Trouble might be over for tonight, but trouble ain’t over forever.”
I nodded as he walked out the door. I went to the window and watched him and Cedric carry several buckets of water to the chicken coop that was nothing more than burnt memories of what once was there. I thought about Granny’s pets. I knew chickens don’t have souls, or at least, I didn’t think they did, but just in case, I said a little prayer for all of them.
“Be with God, little chickens. I hope heaven has a place for you,” I whispered. I imagined a beautiful place with no hate and no heartbreak, where Granny’s pets could flap their wings, cluck, and eat to their hearts’ content.
“Let’s go on and turn in. Morning will be here before you know it,” Granny said. I went and got some quilts, a sheet, and a pillow for M.J. to lie on in the front room.
I was about to go back to my room when he stopped me.
“That boy cares about you, Opal,” M.J. said. I knew who he was talking about. I didn’t say anything. “That Ketchums boy ain’t your friend. He’s your boss man and that’s it.”
“He’s my friend,” I said in a soft voice. “He’s been my friend since we were children.”
“Ya’ll ain’t children no more, though,” he said. “Don’t ruin what’s right in front of your face. Stank is good. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s good.”
“I know that,” I said and then walked toward my room. I could hear Granny in her room praying, right before I closed my door.
“Lord,” she said. “Cover us with your blood this night. Watch over every soul who’s out there in the highways and byways, including them white devils trying to vex us with their hate.”
I knelt down beside my bed. I tried to think of something to say to God. I tried to find the words to show appreciation for him sparing our lives tonight, but all I could think of was the sound of those poor chickens screeching and cawing out their final call to me and Granny to come out and save them, and how sad it was that there was nothing that either one of us could do.