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CHAPTER 1
ON ANY OTHER DAY THE dead quiet coming from this room would have concerned no one, because the elderly couple usually napped peacefully, sat stationary as cats, or read their twin King James Bibles in silence, aged fingers turning pages replete with wisdom, tranquility, and violence.
The latter was on embellished display, for the man was sprawled on the floor on his back, while the woman was draped across a finely upholstered chair. Life had been rent from them with a grim certainty of purpose.
They were not remarkable in any way that mattered to most. What was memorable was the grand upheaval that would define and qualify the full measure of their deaths. It would fuel a calamitous surge of energy, like that of a sawed-off shotgun randomly discharged into an unsuspecting crowd.
Their violent end would be gossiped about in Freeman County, Virginia, for decades.
“You got the right to remain silent. You hear me, boy?” the first lawman said to the only suspect in the room.
That suspect was on his knees, his hands shackled behind him, the cuffs cutting deeply into flesh. The only signs of his granular fear were the trembling of fingers, and the quick exhalations of breath.
“This coon don’t look like he can talk even if he wanted to,” countered the second deputy. He was six feet, cattail-lean, with a soft jaw and eyes that resembled creased bullet holes. A policeman’s hat was tipped far back on his head.
The debilitating humidity, wicked off the nearby McHenry River, spread everywhere, like mustard gas weaving through the war trenches. The sweat dripped off the deputies’ faces, darkened their starched shirts, and, like gnats flitting around nostrils and eyes, added annoyance to their rage.
The first deputy continued to read off the little white card he’d drawn from his pocket. He was short, and squat as a tree stump. He had just arrived at the part about an attorney being provided if the accused couldn’t afford one, when his partner, clearly troubled by these new legal rights, interrupted once more.
“You tell me what lawyer in his right mind would represent this here colored boy, LeRoy. ’Cause I sure as hell would like to know the answer.”
Raymond LeRoy ignored this and continued to read off the card, because he hadn’t yet memorized the words. He actually doubted he ever would; the will was just not in him. He had no idea who this Miranda fellow was, but LeRoy knew that the legalese upon the paper was designed to help those people, who had committed crimes, usually against white folks. And that transformed every word, which he was compelled to read by the decision of nine robed men hundreds of miles away, into bleach on his tongue.
“You understand what I just read to you?” said LeRoy. “I apparently got to hear your answer accordin’ to those sonsabitches in Washington, DC.”
His partner gripped the butt of his holstered .38 Smith & Wesson. “Why don’t you just take off them iron cufflinks and tell him to run for it? Save the good folks of this fine county payin’ for his trip down to Richmond and the chair.”
“They ain’t doin’ executions no more, Gene. Say it’s cruel and unusual.”
Gene Taliaferro bristled. “And what the hell has he just done to them, LeRoy?”
In one corner an overturned table had upset the items that had long rested upon it, chiefly, a photograph taken over fifty years ago of the couple in their courting days. He with his slouch hat in hand, along with a pair of brooding eyes, she with a bonnet resting on her small, delicate head, the hair parted in the middle, making her resemble a child. They were framed by an arch of fragrant honeysuckle and jasmine that was hosting both bees and butterflies, tiny, whirring apparitions trapped by the flash pop and shutterbug.
Now the photo lay on the floor, its front glass shattered, a cut across the picture bisecting the woman’s face and reaching to the man’s left eye.
LeRoy said, “We ain’t gonna shoot him, Gene. Boy’s in custody.”
“He’s only a g-d n——!” exclaimed Gene.
“I know,” bellowed an out-of-his-depth LeRoy. “Do I got me two eyes or what?”
“Well then?” demanded Gene. “Ain’t be the first time we done it.”
“Well, it’s not like that no more, is it?” countered a disappointed LeRoy.
“A hundred years ago where was the capital of the Confederacy?” Gene pointed to the floor. “It was right chere in Virginia. And nuthin’ can change that. Granddaddy four times removed owned boys just like this one.” He stabbed his finger in the direction of the kneeling man. “Owned ’em! I got me a picture! They ought ’a fry his ass.”
“Then let ’em,” muttered LeRoy. “But I ain’t havin’ a bunch ’a Negro lawyers comin’ after me. And now that that Dr. King got hisself killed down in Tennessee, coloreds are riotin’ all over the damn country.”
Gene snorted. “He weren’t no real doctor!”
“Gonna let my son take up the cause. We got to keep fightin’. Hundred years, thousand years, it don’t matter.”
Gene sucked in a long breath and let it go. The gesture seemed to sap the core of his fury like cold mist on a candle’s flame. But then the lawman’s expression grew cagey. He squatted down on his haunches next to the only suspect in the room and slipped a wooden billy club from his belt. Along the wood were cut a dozen horizontal notches.
“I don’t remember tellin’ you to get on your knees, boy. Now stand up.” Before the prisoner could move, Gene struck him full in the gut with the head of the billy club, propelling the man to the floor.
Gene rose. “I told you to get up, not fall on your damn face. Now get your ass up boy, right now. Now, or you get some more of the wood.”
