The Earthquake. —A letter has been received in this city, from a gentleman of the first respectability in Tennessee, which states that the Earthquake, so generally felt on the 16th of Dec. was so violent in the vicinity of his residence, that several chimnies were thrown down, and that eighteen or twenty acres of land on Piney river had suddenly sunk so low, that the tops of the trees were on a level with the surrounding earth. Four other shocks were experienced on the 17th, and one or more continued to occur every day to the 30th aft., the date of the letter.
Raleigh, (N.C.) Jan. 24
“It’s been lovely,” Wilona said. “Hard work, but lovely. I almost fainted when I helped Dr. Patel set that broken leg, but afterward Mrs. Ashenden said I was very brave.” She smiled. “And all the patients are so understanding. So kind. Even the ones who are in pain. They know we’re doing our best.”
Omar listened to Wilona in silence while a headache beat through his temples. He had picked her up at the Clarendon camp and was driving her home for the night, after which he would drive back to his office and continue his planning session with Micah Knox.
“We’ve got about a dozen cases of diarrhea,” Wilona said. “There’s some kind of stomach bug going around. That’s the most disgusting thing we’ve had to deal with.” She gave a little laugh. “We had that with Davy when he was little, of course, but I’m out of practice. Look out!” she called.
Omar swerved to avoid the figure of old Cudgel, off tramping the road alone at night. Omar caught a glimpse of the hermit’s yellow eyes in his lined, black, bearded face beneath his big hat. Cudgel carried a stick over his shoulder with some kind of dead animal dangling from it.
“Poor man,” Wilona said.
“He’s probably happier than most of us,” Omar said.
Omar and Knox had been discussing the situation at the A.M.E. camp when Wilona got off shift. Knox had been full of ideas. Knox really knew his stuff, Omar thought. Omar would never have thought of half those notions in a million years.
As Wilona spoke of her day, Knox sat in the back of the police cruiser without speaking. Omar could hear the faint sound of Knox’s fingertips tapping on his knees. Some part of Knox was always in motion, tapping to the furious speed of his mind. His distinctive scent— not just sweat from wearing flannel in hot weather, but maybe some weird kind of cologne, too— floated faintly to Omar in the front seat.
Knox was like a weapon, Omar thought. It was as if he was purpose-built. Knox had nothing but his cause: no property, no family, no job, no hobbies, no one to love. He hardly seemed to sleep at night.
It was as if God had made Knox solely for Spottswood Parish.
Or maybe, Omar thought, it was the other way around.
“And the people who were there!” Wilona said. “Mrs. Hall. Jamie FitzWalter. And Judge Moseley’s daughter, the middle one ... Amanda! Everybody from Mrs. Ashenden’s bridge club.” It was as if she’d attended a garden party at Clarendon, not spent a day tending the wounded. “There we were, all working together!” Wilona put her hand to her heart, looked at Omar. “Do you think I’ll be invited to join the bridge club after this is over?” she asked. “Do you think that might happen?”
“You already belong to a club,” Omar said.
“Oh, that!” Wilona said. “That’s not the same thing.”
Wilona wanted to play bridge, Omar thought, and drink tea off the Wedgwood and eat pastel-colored petit-fours with tiny ladylike bites. Instead her club played poker on Wednesday afternoons, drank beer, and met in Lillie Hutley’s double-wide trailer on the highway north of Hardee.
“Won’t none of Miz LaGrande’s ladies ever vote for me,” Omar said. “I’d keep visiting Lillie Hutley if I were you.”
“I would not drop any of my friendships,” Wilona said. “I never drop my friendships, though sometimes they drop me, like Amy Vidor did when her husband got his new job with Allstate and didn’t have to depend on your pull with the parish. But I don’t see anything wrong with making new friends.”
“Well,” Omar said, “if any of your new friends drop any information about who they’re going to run against your husband in the next election, you let me know.”
Wilona sighed. “Oh, darling,” she said, “do we have to talk politics?”
Omar drove to their house in Hardee and drew the car up in front. David’s car was in the driveway, parked carefully out of the reach of any falling branches from the magnolia. Knox waited in the car while Omar went inside with Wilona.
David sat on Omar’s easy chair, a can of Bud in his hand. There were some empties on the table next to him and an open case of Coors by his feet. He looked up. “I helped Ozie shift his stock this afternoon. He gave me a reward.”
“So I see,” Omar said. Wilona ruffled David’s hair and kissed his cheek.
“Nothing much else to do,” David said, “since Ozie ’n me are both off duty for shooting people. For doing our jobs.” David’s tone was resentful, his face sullen. Omar felt a warning tingle run down his spine.
“Might as well just take it easy,” he advised. “Or if you get bored, you could work with one of the groups that’s cleaning up.”
“Oh,” waving a hand, “let the niggers do the sweeping.” He grinned up at Omar, eyes lazy with drink. “Dang it, I was starting to get a taste for law enforcement. You want a beer?”
The thought of beer made Omar’s stomach queasy. He’d spent the day living on Alka-Seltzer, but it wasn’t doing him any good.
“I’ll have a dope instead,” Omar said. He got a Coke from the fridge— the electricity was back on, finally— and took another for Knox.
When he returned to the front room, Wilona was telling David all about her lovely day at Clarendon. Omar watched them for a moment, then let himself out and rejoined Knox in the car. He gave Knox his Coke and turned the car around to drive back to Shelburne City.
“That was interesting, listening to Mrs. Paxton,” Knox said. “I guess everybody in this parish knows everybody else, huh?”
“Pretty much,” Omar said.
“The thing that really surprised me is how blacks and whites mix down here.”
Omar frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I thought this was the land of segregation!” Knox said. “But you people mix with blacks a lot more than we do up North. Back home in Detroit, folks who hate the niggers don’t have nothing to do with them. We don’t live with ’em, don’t talk to ’em, don’t hire ’em, run ’em out of our neighborhoods if they poke their noses in. But you Southerners— you say you hate the Mud People, but you got ’em everywhere! You live right alongside them. You talk to ’em like they were people. You hire them instead of whites! You let them in your house! You let them raise your children!”
“I don’t,” Omar said.
“Well, that’s because you have vision, Omar! You know how things can be made better for the white race. But the others— I bet that Miss LaGrande lets the Mud People right into her home.”
“She’s got servants.”
“I wouldn’t trust a black in my home! My God, and she’s a leader in this town. What kind of example is that?”
Omar gave a little smile. “Miz LaGrande and I have never seen eye to eye.”
Knox’s busy fingers tapped a rhythm on the car seat. “That’s cause you’re a man of vision, Omar. You fight for the race.”
I fight for my son, Omar thought.
“This is going to be famous, Omar,” Knox went on. “This is going to really wake people up. Just like in Hunter. I wouldn’t be surprised if this started the war to liberate America.”
“No one’s going to hear of it,” Omar said. “Nobody’s going to hear of it ever. I’m going to bury it all right here.”
Knox considered this for a long moment, his only sound the tapping of his fingertips on the car seat. “I don’t see it, Omar,” he said finally. “There are a lot of people in this county— parish. I don’t know how you’re going to keep the lid on this thing.”
“Let me worry about it,” Omar said. “You just help me do the necessary.”
Omar suspected that Knox had no real idea why Omar was doing what he was doing. Omar was defending his family, not his ideology. But Knox had no way to view actions other than through his beliefs, or through fantasies like Hunter or The Turner Diaries.
Knox wanted a revolution, a race war throughout the U.S. Omar figured that was desirable, just not very likely. The cause of the white race was lost. Omar just wanted to suppress a killing. If keeping David safe meant killing other people, that was okay. And if word got out, he’d take the rap himself rather than let David take the fall.
Omar wondered if Knox had a family, if he even knew what a family was.
And then he thought, who would miss Knox if he were to vanish? Who would miss any of the Crusaders?
Maybe Omar wouldn’t have to take the fall. Knox, he thought, was made for this.
“Well, Omar,” Knox said. “You know the territory. You’re the Kleagle.”
Omar only hoped that being Kleagle was going to be enough.