Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (27 page)

“Right,” Travis agreed, jaws set grimly. “And they’re the ones we’ve got to get our hands on, because they’re either responsible for all the crimes or they know who is.”

Sam waved a paper in the air, the cheeks above his brown and gray beard splotching red. He yelled angrily, “Have you read this report? A fifteen-year-old boy was found dead, a rope still around his neck, and a sign pinned to his shirt that said, ‘one less vote.’ A
fifteen
-year-old, Travis!”

“There are two more over here just like it,” Travis said. “One was fifteen, the other, fourteen. But think how many may have gone unreported, for fear of reprisals. I think we’ve got quite a job ahead of us, Sam, quite an ugly job.

“I also think,” he continued, giving his companion a wry grin, “that you and I had best keep our backs to the wall. I’ve a feeling we aren’t going to be well liked around here.”

“I know, I know.” Sam got up and walked over to stare out the door glass into the empty alley. “I keep telling myself that not every white Kentuckian is responsible for this. They aren’t all bad, for God’s sake. Just a few rotten eggs. Just a few we’ve got to make stop.”

“Be patient, Sam,” Travis said, forcing a lightness to his tone. “We’ve got to…” he stopped talking to stare at Sam, who was looking through the glass, eyes narrowed, alert and tense. Travis got up and hurried to the door to stand beside him.

“There.” Sam moved away so he could see. “Behind that trash barrel. See him?”

Travis looked just in time to see the top of a straw hat disappear from view.

“It’s a nigra.” Sam said. “I saw him slipping along the side of the wall, looking behind him like he was afraid he was being followed. Then he ducked behind that barrel.”

Travis opened the door, looked around to make sure no one was watching, then called out softly, “It’s okay. You haven’t been seen. Get on in here fast.”

Very slowly the hat rose into view once again. Soon they saw the wide-eyed, frightened face of an old Negro man. Trembling, he looked fearfully at Travis, but he made no move.

“Come on inside here,” Travis called. “Get on in here. We won’t hurt you.”

When the old Negro didn’t budge, Travis went out and grabbed his arm and pulled at him gently. The black man said in a quavering whisper, “I’s gonna get kilt if anybody sees me, Marshal. Just let me go. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Nonsense.” Travis pulled him firmly into the office, closed the door behind them, and locked it. “We’re your friends. We came to Kentucky to help your people. You obviously have something to tell us.” He nodded to Sam. “This is Marshal Bucher, and I’m Marshal Coltrane. Now suppose you tell us why you came.”

The Negro glanced around the room, removing his hat to twist it round and round in his gnarled, veined hands. He wore a shabby, tattered cloth coat over faded green trousers that were far too large for his bony frame. They were tied at the waist by a length of frayed rope. The top of his head was a shining glimmer of baldness set in a frame of snow-white fuzz. His eyes, milky chocolate, were red-veined, the vessels strained by age.

“You can talk to us,” Travis urged him, helping him to a chair and seating him gently. Then he and Sam leaned against the back of the desk with arms folded across their badged chests, looking down at him. They hoped their expressions conveyed solace and safety.

“It’s my boy,” he spoke finally. “Munroe. I’m afraid he’s gonna get hisself
kilt…”
His eyes bulged as he spoke the terrifying word.

“Now, what makes you think Munroe is going to be killed?” Travis urged. “Tell us, and we’ll do what we can to help.”

The words poured from the old man’s trembling lips. He seemed to gather strength as he talked. “He’s been shootin’ his mouth off. I told him he couldn’t do that, not with so many ears around. He’s been sayin’ that if our people gets together, we can fight back. He’s talkin’ about buyin guns and goin’ after them that is killin’ and whippin’ our people. He’s talkin’ ’bout takin’ the law in his own hands ’cause he says the law is on
their
side.”

“Whose side?” Travis prodded. “Who are you talking about?”

The old man swallowed hard. “Them what wears the white hoods and rides at night,” he whispered tremulously. “Night riders. They is the ones what will come and kill him. They has ears ever’where, and they’ll hear what he’s sayin’ and kill him. They will.”

“And that is why you came to us,” Travis said, exchanging an anxious glance with Sam. This was what they had been waiting for, someone with the courage to come forward with something…anything. “Now tell us your name and where you live.”

He looked at the door nervously, then said, “Israel. My name’s Israel. Can’t never say my last name. Man what owns me give it to me. His family done own me all my life.”

“No one owns you any longer, Israel,” Sam said firmly. “The war has been over almost five years now. You’re a free man.”

“I don’t worry about that none,” he said with surprising candor. “Mastah Mason, he say I’m too old to beat anymo’, that I gonna die any time now, anyhow, so he lets me stay on his place if’n I does what I can, like clean the chicken pen and looks after the chickens. I can still wring their necks, and as long as I can do a lil’ sumpin’, he won’t run me off.

“But if he finds out I is here,” he lowered his voice and gripped the arms of the chair, “he gonna run me off, and I won’t have nowheres to go. My wife, she died last year, and my chil’run, they all run off ’cause they was scairt of the night riders. All ’ceptin’ Munroe. He’s so crazy mad, he ain’t scairt o’ nothin’, and that’s why you gotta talk some sense into him and make him see he’s gonna get hisself kilt.”

His bony arms snaked out and pencil-thin fingers pushed against Travis’ chest. “You gotta save my boy, Marshal. He’s all I got left, and you can’t let him get kilt. Make him see he ain’t doin’ no good. Can’t nobody do nothin’ with him.”

Sam opened his desk drawer and brought out a bottle of whiskey. The old man gratefully took the glass offered him.

“Now, I disagree with you, Israel, when you say no one can do anything,” Sam said. “That’s why we are here. Marshal Coltrane and I are here to enforce the law, and I want you to tell your son that. Tell the other Negroes that we can be trusted, and if they have a problem, they can come to us. We’ll do everything we can to protect them. That is the only way that all this is going to stop.”

“It’s admirable that your son is so courageous as to stay here rather than run away,” Travis said. “But he cannot take the law into his own hands. I can understand why any of you might want to, but it will only cause more trouble. It’s going to take people like you, people willing to give us information, if we’re going to be able to do anything about all this.”

Israel swallowed hard and said, “You don’t understand, Marshal. I won’t have me no home if’n Mastah Mason finds out I been here. He might even beat me, too, he be so mad.” He gripped the chair to lift himself up, but Travis gently pushed him back down. With a whimper from deep within, he whispered, “Please, Marshal. Just let me go on outta heah. I nevah shoulda come. You do what you can fo’ my boy, but please just let me go and fo’gets you evah saw me in heah.”

“I won’t say anything about you coming in here, Israel. You can trust me.” Travis gave him what he hoped was a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “But now that you are here, at least go ahead and tell me what you do know.”

“That’s right,” Sam said quickly. “We’re strangers here, and nobody has talked to us. If someone like you can tell us anything, anything at all, then we’ve got a start.”

Israel shook his head, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. “Don’t know nothin’. Can’t tell you nothin’. Just find my boy and talk to him. Try to get him to just shut his mouth.”

Travis bluntly asked, “Is this man Mason you speak of one of the night riders?”

Israel’s body suddenly jerked upward as though he had been shot. “I don’t know nothin’ about them riders,” he cried hoarsely. “They wears white hoods, with slits cut in so’s they can see, and slits so’s they can talk. But don’t nobody see their faces.”

“But surely there is talk among your people, Israel,” Travis coaxed. “Surely you must have some idea who wears those hoods.”

Israel lifted tear-filled eyes to plead. “Marshal, jus’ let me go. I can’t be found heah. Please.”

Travis and Sam exchanged looks and sighs, and then Travis nodded. “All right. You can go. But if you don’t give us some idea where to locate your son, then we can’t talk to him, can we?”

Israel stood, legs trembling. “He’s hidin’ out in the mountains with some o’ his friends. I don’t know ’zactly where. I heard up on Blue Bird. Can’t say fo’ sho. Can I go now?”

“Yes, you can go. But please tell your people that if any of them want to talk to us, that they can trust us. We’re here to stop all this, Israel, and you’ve been a big help in getting us started.” Travis went to the door first and peered into the alley before nodding to the old man.

Israel shuffled as quickly to the door as his feeble legs would allow. After looking the alley over carefully, he placed a gnarled hand on the knob. Turning slowly to give them one last, frightened look, he bolted, disappearing down the alley.

“He never would have come in here if you hadn’t dragged him,” mused Sam. “And we ain’t got that much to go on now that’s he’s been here.”

Travis was silent for a moment as he stood in the doorway and stared down the empty alley. Then he spoke over his shoulder, “Let’s take a walk around town. We’ve got to find out about this Blue Bird Mountain, and we also need to ask some questions about Mason.”

Sam got up to go with him. Even if they did not learn anything, he reasoned, anything was better than going over those depressing reports again.

Outside in the cool, midmorning air, they stepped onto the main street of the town. They said nothing, silently noting how the Negroes moved to cross away from them as they approached, and how the townspeople eyed them suspiciously, condemningly, as they passed by.

“We’ve made the rounds of the saloons, and we won’t find out anything there,” Travis pointed out as they approached the town’s only hotel. “Let’s go in here. There’s a tearoom, and we should run into a different class.”

Sam laughed. “You trying to tell me that the higher-ups might give us information? I’m betting they’re the ones who pay the ruffians to do their dirty work.”

“Not everyone in this town condones what’s happening, Sam. There might be a few who’re willing to help us once they know which side we’re on.”

“Don’t count on anybody talking to us. Whites are probably just as scared as old Israel,” Sam replied.

“Sometimes it isn’t what people say,” Travis said as he pushed open the doors to the hotel. “It’s what they
don’t
say.”

They entered the shadowed, musty lobby, glancing briefly at the desk clerk, who eyed them suspiciously from behind his counter. They moved across the faded rose-patterned rug in the direction of the tearoom. Frosted panes of glass painted with golden scrolls surrounded the entrance.

Stepping inside, they sensed every eye upon them. Travis led the way and they sat down at a table draped in spotless white. A waiter, attired in a short black coat, approached them with suspicious eyes. “Yes, what can I get for you, Marshals?” he asked quickly.

“Coffee,” Travis ordered for them both, and as the waiter hurried back toward the kitchen, turned to glance around the room.

Four tables were occupied, and the occupants all looked away as Travis’ eyes raked them over. There was one exception, a young woman sitting alone near the window facing the street.

She met Travis’ gaze with quiet amusement, emerald eyes sparkling beneath long, dusty lashes. Leaning forward to lift her china cup to perfectly formed lips painted pale pink, she offered a teasing view of the small, perfectly formed breasts swelling above her white velvet morning dress.

He suddenly realized that, besides Kitty, this young woman was the most beautiful he had ever seen. The green eyes were of a deep shade and brilliantly clear. The light brown hair was lustrous and touched with gold.

With a haughty yet playful lift of her chin, she looked away, through the window to the street beyond. Her profile was flawless.

Just then the waiter returned with two fragile-looking floral cups filled with steaming coffee. As he began to move away, Travis gestured to him. “That young woman,” he nodded in her direction. “Might I ask who she is?”

The waiter hesitated briefly, then shrugged as though telling himself there was no harm in answering. “That is Miss Alaina Barbeau, Marshal.” Then, with a laugh, he added, “Sure can tell you haven’t been around here long if you don’t know the Barbeau family. Jordan Barbeau is the richest man in these parts and maybe the most powerful in the whole state of Kentucky.”

Travis had heard of Jordan Barbeau but knew from experience that the best way to get information was to feign ignorance. People felt superior when they thought they knew more than you did, and were delighted to tell all they knew. With a blank expression, he looked up at the waiter and said humbly, “I didn’t know that. I must admit I have never heard of the Barbeaus.”

A smug expression crept over the waiter’s face as he moved to brush imaginary crumbs from the white linen tablecloth. “Well, don’t go around admitting that, Marshal,” he spoke quietly, “or folks will think you’re just plain dumb. Jordan Barbeau owns most all of this county. He’s got hundreds of acres of tobacco, not to mention corn, hay, and big herds of cattle. He also breeds Thoroughbred saddle horses and racehorses. He’s even got interest in two big manufacturing plants over in Louisville.”