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A stage whisper drifting up from three stories below.
I swung my legs to the floor, wrapped the top sheet around myself, and walked over to the window. I couldn’t make out anyone in the mottled shadows under Maybelle’s big eudora tree.
I called softly, “Who’s out there? What do you want?”
“They sent me to get you,” the voice said.
“Who sent you?”
“Moody Cross,” he said. “Can you come?”
I didn’t think it was a trap, but it paid to be careful. “What for? What does Moody want?”
“You got to come, Mr. Corbett.” The fear in the voice was unmistakable. “They been another lynchin’.”
“Oh God—where?”
“Out by the Quarters.”
“Who is it?”
“Hiram,” the man said. “Hiram Cross. Moody’s brother is dead.”
Chapter 62
I FELT A DEEP SURGE of pain in my chest, a contraction so sharp that for a moment I wondered if I was having a coronary. Almost instantly I was covered with clammy sweat.
I heard the voice from outside again.
“Somebody overheard Hiram say that one day white folk would work for the black,” the man whispered hoarsely. “Now Hiram swinging dead from a tree.”
I felt the room beginning to turn—no, that was just my head spinning. I felt a strange chill, and a powerful force rising within me.
“Stand back,” I said loudly.
“What’s that, Mr. Corbett?”
“I said stand back. Get out from under this window!”
I heard branches strain and creak as the man obeyed.
Then I leaned my head out the window and threw up my supper.
Chapter 63
MOODY DID NOT SHED a tear at her brother’s funeral. Her face was an impassive sculpture carved from the smoothest brown marble.
Abraham fought to stay strong, to stand and set a brave example for all the people watching him now. And although he managed to control his expression, he could do nothing about the tears spilling down his face.
Swing low, sweet chariot.
Coming for to carry me home.
It must have been the hottest place on earth, that little sanctuary with one door in back and one door in front and no windows at all. It was the Mt. Zion A.M.E. Full Gospel church, three miles out of town on the Muddy Springs Road, and it was jammed to overflowing with friends and relatives.
Early in the service, a woman fainted and crashed hard to the floor. Her family gathered around her to fan her and lift her up. A baby screamed bloody murder in the back. Half the people in the room were weeping out loud.
But Moody did not cry.
