Tom drove up to the garage and shut off the Nova’s engine, then sat for a couple of minutes, marshaling his strength for the walk to the door. Once he felt capable, he got out, struggled through the chilly wind to the arched timber door at the side of the house, and rang the bell twice.
Nearly a minute passed before a light came on inside the house. By the time someone peered through the little window set in the door, Tom had sagged against its face. When the curtain rustled, he stood up straight so that he could be seen clearly. Muted voices spoke behind the wood, but then at last the handle turned and someone pulled open the door.
Quentin’s wife, Doris, stood there in her housecoat, a black pistol in her hand. An attorney herself, Doris Avery was almost thirty years her husband’s junior. Tom figured Doris was about forty, but she had the same coloring as Viola Turner, the darker side of café au lait. In his confused mental state, Tom perceived her as an avatar of Viola, whom he hadn’t seen between the ages of twenty-eight and sixty-five.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Dear God,” Doris Avery whispered. “Quentin, it’s Tom Cage.”
Tom heard the whir of a motorized wheelchair. Then his old friend appeared behind his wife, smiling up from his chair as though finding Tom on his doorstep was only what he’d expected.
“Man, you look dead on your feet,” Quentin said. “Get yo’ ass in this house before I freeze to death.”
Doris didn’t look so sure about this invitation, but after a sharp whisper from Quentin, she helped Tom inside and led him to a sofa in a beautifully appointed den. When Tom collapsed into the padding, he felt something in him give way. He could scarcely follow the words being exchanged only ten feet from him. After a minute or so, the voices began to rise with emotion, and he realized that Quentin and Doris were arguing. He tried to speak, but a moan was all that emerged from his mouth. Then a warm hand touched his face, and he felt glass against his lips. He opened his mouth and swallowed instinctively. Cool water poured down his throat like ambrosia.
“He’s feverish,” Doris said. “Tom, you’ve got a fever. Do you have any drugs in that truck?”
Tom nodded. “Bag,” he whispered. “Cipro . . .”
He sensed Doris moving away from him. Then he felt a cooler hand take hold of his, and Quentin Avery’s warm, rich baritone, which had swayed so many juries in its day, spoke near his ear.
“I’m here, buddy. You just take it easy. You’re gonna be all right.”
“I’m sorry for coming here, Quentin.”
“Hush that nonsense. Is anybody following you?”
Tom laughed inside his head. “Everybody. But nobody followed me here. I just need sleep, Quentin . . . sleep.”
“You need a lot more than that. But sleep would be a good start.”
The next thing Tom remembered was Doris forcing a pill into his mouth and making him drink again.
“That was Cipro,” she said. “That’s a broad-spectrum antibiotic, isn’t it?”
Tom nodded and opened his eyes long enough to see Doris’s worried eyes. “Thank you. I’m sorry . . . nowhere else to go.”
“Lie back, Tom. Just rest there on the sofa. We’ll figure this thing out.”
Tom tried to follow the subsequent conversation, but his mind slipped underwater again. Then a sharp cry brought him to the surface. Doris Avery was clearly afraid—as John McCrae’s wife had been—and she was arguing that they could call someone she knew and arrange to surrender Tom to someone trustworthy in Jackson, the state capital. Tom tried to sit up, but he couldn’t manage it. He did, however, bring himself awake enough to hear Quentin’s reply. The old lawyer spoke quietly but with absolute conviction.
“Doris,” he said, “you’re my wife, and I love you. But you weren’t born until 1965. While you were in your mama’s belly, I was down in Liberty, Mississippi, challenging the county government on voter registration. Lionel Hill was down there with me, working secretly with CORE and the SNCC. Lionel was a wanted man in Mississippi. The Klan had been after him for a year. But at night he’d go into homes and churches and talk to the people, trying to buck up their courage and get them to risk registering to vote.”
“Q, that’s ancient history,” Doris broke in. “It’s got nothing to do with here and now.”
“You’re wrong, baby. It means everything. About a week into this work, the local cops heard Lionel was in town, and they started hunting him. The Klan, too. One night they got onto our tails, and we had to run for it in an old, broken-down Rambler. Lionel’s daddy had run whiskey up in South Carolina, and he was a hell of a driver. We got away from those white boys on a dirt road that ran across a flooded creek. But just after we got clear, Lionel skidded off some gravel and hit a tree. Ripped half the scalp off his head, broke some ribs . . . he was out cold for ten full minutes. We carried him to an old logger’s shack and got him awake, but he needed real help. The problem was, where to go? Any hospital in the state would have called the cops the second we walked in. They’d have jailed Lionel without putting a stitch in his head, if the Klan didn’t get there first and take him.”
“Quentin—”
“Let me finish. Then make your decision.”
Doris huffed in exasperation, and Quentin went on: “Lionel wanted to try for New Orleans, but there was no way we were going to make it out of Mississippi that night. Natchez was only twenty-five miles away. That old logger sneaked us out of Amite County on roads hardly wider than a deer track. Then he drove us to the edge of Natchez. I’ll never forget that night. I used a pay phone at the Minute Man just past the Johns Manville plant to call Dr. Tom Cage. And what did Tom do? He got out of bed, met us at his office, and worked on Lionel for two hours straight. That’s right. He risked everything he had to help us out of that jam. He risked his family, Doris. In 1965. Do you understand what that means?”