The Last Ballad(92)

Hampton lowered his arm, unclenched his fist, felt Beal’s chest heaving beneath him. He climbed off Beal and sat on the ground beside him. Beal propped himself up with his elbows. On the other side of the field, a light winked on at a small, white farmhouse. Beal and Hampton both saw it. They got to their feet. The man kept the revolver on Hampton. A dog began barking somewhere out in the dark near the farmhouse. The man looked behind him, saw the light, looked back at Hampton.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said again.

“Who are you?” Hampton asked.

“This is Carlton Reed,” Beal said. “And Carlton Reed should’ve shot you.”

“No one needs to get shot, Fred,” Reed said. “But, Haywood, he’s right about one thing: your coming down here is a bad idea. Punching a white man in the South is an even worse idea. We’re on the same side, and we’re your brothers in the struggle. You should trust us, because if we weren’t we’d be looking for a place to bury you.”



It was well past midnight now, the streets deep with shadows and the shapes of rickety houses leaning away from one another at wild angles. Hampton climbed down from the rumble seat. Reed had killed the engine, but he still sat behind the wheel, smoking. The motor popped and hissed. Beal, his hands in his pockets, stood beside Hampton. Beal turned, looked up the street behind him as if expecting someone to appear. He stared for a moment, consulted his wristwatch. Beal nodded south where a dull light hovered in the sky. “That’s Loray,” he said.

Hampton stared at the light, then his eyes took in the houses around him, most of them small, a few of them two stories or more. Beal nodded toward a house several doors down the street. It was three stories high with gables along the roof.

“You’ll be staying there,” Beal said. “Miss Adeline takes Negroes in the attic rooms. She thinks you’re visiting family. Don’t give her a reason to think any different. Use the back staircase. Use the back door. Don’t go in the common areas. Don’t talk to the white boarders. Don’t look at white women.” He sighed, lit a cigarette. “Welcome to Gastonia.”

Something over Beal’s shoulder caught Hampton’s eye. A figure made its way down the street toward them. Beal turned and watched it too. As it came closer Hampton saw that it was a woman. It was Sophia. She waved. Hampton could see that she was smiling.

“Late, as usual,” Beal said.

“Fancy seeing you here, city boy,” she said when she was close enough to be heard. Her voice was bright and clear. Hampton almost smiled for the relief of seeing someone who cared about him, but the events of the night weighed too heavily on him, and now that he was free of the rumble seat, he was aware of the aches in his body. The left side of his face throbbed too, and he wondered if Beal had hit him, although he had no memory of it.

“Your package has arrived,” Beal said.

Sophia stopped and stood before Hampton and Beal. She reached out, touched Hampton’s shoulder, which seemed the only manner of greeting she was comfortable expressing. He kept his arms by his sides, his duffel bag at his feet.

“How was your trip?” she asked.

“I’m here,” Hampton said. He kept his voice cool, flat. “I survived.”

“We already gave him the speech,” Reed said from the driver’s seat.

Sophia looked toward the car as if she just realized someone had been sitting inside it.

“What speech was that?” she asked.

“The ‘don’t get lynched’ speech,” Reed said. He cranked the engine. He leaned forward, looked out the passenger’s window where Beal stood. “It was a good speech, wasn’t it, Fred?”

“It was,” Beal said. He opened the car door and put one foot inside, but then he stopped. “This is serious, Sophia,” he said. “I’d hoped we trusted one another more than this.”

“This has nothing to do with trust,” Sophia said. “It’s about taking action.”

Beal looked from her to Hampton.

“Whether or not we need action,” he said, “it’s what we’re going to get. You’ve both made sure of that.” He climbed inside the car and closed the door. The automobile rattled off down the dark street and turned left at the corner. Sophia watched until it disappeared.

“Cowards,” she said. She looked at Hampton, who stared back at her. She lifted her hand, touched his shirt collar. He felt it lift away from his neck. She let it go, and it flopped back into place. “Why is your shirt torn?” She stepped away from him as if appraising him. She must have noticed the grass stains on his pants, the sodden knees where he had kneeled over Beal in the mud. “What happened?”

“What happened?” Hampton asked. “When? When I was yanked off the train in Salisbury? When I was suffocating in the rumble seat? Or are you asking about when Reed pulled a gun on me?”

“Reed pulled a gun on you?” Sophia asked. “Why?”

“It’s a long story. It’s all been one long story.”

“I wanted to meet you in Charlotte,” Sophia said. “But they found out, and once they found out, it wasn’t safe.”

“Who found out?” Hampton asked. “Beal?”

“Yes, Fred, Reed, everyone. Probably Loray too.”