“What is this place?” I asked.
“Don’t know. But someone must come here to hide out and drink.” Joe wandered over to one of the empty bottles and picked it up for a sniff. “Moonshine—that’s for certain.” He sniffed again. “Potent moonshine.”
I crept over to the pile of reading material to see if the contents would offer any clues about the inhabitants. A few editions of the crime-and-adventure magazine Black Mask lay on the floor in front of the toes of my shoes, but my eyes veered straightaway to a copy of a newspaper called the Western American. The front page featured illustrations of Klansmen in hoods and robes gazing at the Statue of Liberty. Beside the newspaper rested a pamphlet the color of porridge that bore the words THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JUNIOR ORDER OF KLANSMEN.
My stomach dropped.
I knelt down and picked up the pamphlet with the very tips of my fingers, as if the paper might singe and blister my skin. Down at the bottom of the front page I found a series of handwritten notes, scribbled in pencil.
Konklave, July 2, 1923. New members needed. White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen.
Initiation planned. Necktie party?
The problem of Joe Adder. Moral degenerate.
Pancake breakfast set for Saturday at the Dry Dock. Money raised will repair potholes on Main Street.
“Joe,” I said in a suddenly raspy voice. “Look.” I stood up and stuck out my hand with the pamphlet.
Joe walked over and took the paper.
“Do you know anything about the Junior Order of Klansmen?” I asked.
His eyes dropped down to the notes penciled in at the bottom. His breathing quickened, which made me breathe twice as fast as usual, and the combined sounds of our panting gave the unsettling impression that a dozen other people crowded around us.
“Did you read it?” I asked.
He plunked the lantern onto the ground and ripped the paper down the middle.
“No!” I clamped a hand around his wrist. “That’s evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” he asked. “My future beatings? My murder?”
“I don’t know, but”—I grabbed the pamphlet and crumpled it down into one of my dress pockets—“I’m keeping it.”
“This place makes me sick.” He kicked aside a cigarette butt and stumbled out of the cabin with the light from the lantern skittering across the walls.
I followed, and everything outside in the dark—the breeze in the branches, the splash of an animal in the creek, even the damn croaking frogs—spooked me into thinking an entire mob of Elston residents shuffled around in the bushes, spying on us. People our own age. White, Protestant boys aged twelve to eighteen.
I blinked to adjust my eyes to the lack of light, and then I grabbed the blanket and basket and trailed Joe and the lantern up the slope. “Where do you think we should go now?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” he said. The lantern swung by his side, casting erratic streaks of light that made our surroundings seem to shake and grow.
“Do you think Laurence and the Wittens are in that Junior Order?” I asked.
“Laurence probably is.” He veered to his left at the top of the slope and brushed a thick branch out of his way. “He’s been speaking highly of the Klan and one hundred percent Americanism.”
“Fleur said he’s been after her and her mother to spend more time with church groups, to mind how they look in the community.” I pushed the branch away, too, and sap smeared across my hand. “He hasn’t said a kind word to me in well over a year, not since he befriended those Wittens. Since Uncle Clyde barged his way into our lives.”
“You see what I mean?” Joe stopped, for one of his pant legs had gotten snared on a bush. “The local Klan is more than just a group that hosts baseball games and prints anti-Catholic pamphlets. And even if they did just promote anti-Catholicism, what makes you think their hatred would stop with one group?” He shook his leg free of the branch. “I witnessed it in prison, and I’m feeling it out here—there’s a powerful movement to cleanse this country of the wrong sorts of people.”
I came to a stop near the same bush that had grabbed him. “If they’re as hateful as you believe—”
“Hate doesn’t even begin to describe what’s happening.” Joe turned back around with the lantern shining across his eyes. “People in this state are controlling who can and can’t breed, Hanalee. They’re eradicating those of us who aren’t white, Protestant, American-born, or sexually normal in their eyes. They’re ‘purifying’ Oregon.”
“Oh, God.” I dropped the basket to the ground and crouched into a ball, holding my arms around myself.
Joe knelt down in front of me. “I know. I’m scared to death, too.” He raised the lantern so we could better see each other’s faces. “But if those of us who are being threatened join together and fight back, there will eventually be enough of us to stop them.”