He Woke in Darkness
by Harry Turtledove
Early on a cold and dark December morninga day after I bought this tale from Harry Turtledove, and long after hed written itI was startled by the morning news. The synchronicity of the story on the radio about an arrest stemming from an event of decades past and the unsettling story in this magazine seems to prove that some historical incidents will haunt us for years to come. Harrys newest book, Settling Accounts: Drive to the East will be out in August from Del Rey. He recently edited The Enchanter Completed, a tribute anthology to L. Sprague de Camp that has just been published by Baen Books.
* * * *
He woke in darkness, not knowing who he was. The taste of earth filled his mouth.
It shouldnt have ended this way. He knew that, though he couldnt say how or why. He couldnt even say what this way was, not for sure. He just knew it was wrong. Hed always understood about right and wrong, as far back as he could remember.
How far back was that? Why, it was ... as far as it was. He didnt know exactly how far. That seemed wrong, too, but he couldnt say why.
Darkness lay heavily on him, unpierced, unpierceable. It wasnt the dark of night, nor even the dark of a closed and shuttered room at midnight. No light had ever come here. No light ever would, or could. Not the darkness of a mineshaft. The darkness of ... the tomb?
Realizing he must be dead made a lot of things fall together. A lot, but not enough. As far back as he could remember ... He couldnt remember dying, dammit. Absurdly, that made him angry. Something so important in a mans life, youd think he would remember it. But he didnt, and he didnt know what he could do about it.
He would have laughed, there in the darkness, if only he could. He hadnt expected Afterwards to be like this. He didnt know how hed expected it to be, but not like this. Again, though, what could he do about it?
I can remember. I can try to remember, anyways. Again, he would have laughed if he could. Why the hell not? Ive got all the time in the world.
* * * *
Light. An explosion of light. Afternoon sunshine blasting through the dirty, streaky windshield of the beat-up old Ford station wagon bouncing west down Highway 16 toward Philadelphia.
A bigger explosion of light inside his mind. A name! He had a name! He was Cecil, Cecil Price, Cecil Ray Price. He knew it like ... like a man knows his name, thats how. That time without light, without self? A dream, he told himself. Must have been a dream.
Those were his hands on the wheel, pink and square and hard from years of labor in the fields. He was only twenty-seven, but hed already done a lifetimes worth of hard work. It felt like a long lifetimes worth, too.
He took one hand off the wheel for a second to run it through his brown hair, already falling back at the temples. Had he dozed for a second while he was driving? He didnt think so, but what else could it have been? Lucky he didnt drive the wagon off the road into the cotton fields, into the red dirt.
They would love that. They would laugh their asses off. Well, they werent going to get the chance.
Sweat ran down his face. His clothes felt welded to him. The air was thick with water, damn near thick enough to slice. The start of summer in Mississippi. It would stay like this for months.
He had the window open to give himself a breeze. It didnt help much. When it got this hot and sticky, nothing helped much. He ran his hand through his hair again, to try to keep it out of his eyes.
You all right, Cecil? That was Muhammad Shabazz. Along with Tariq Abdul-Rashid, he crouched down in the back seat. The two young Black Muslims didnt want the law, or what passed for the law in Mississippi in 1964, spotting them. Theyd come down from the North to give the oppressed and disenfranchised whites in the state a helping hand, and the powers that be hated them worse than anybody.
Im okay, Cecil Price answered. Im okay now, he thought. I know who I am. Hell, I know that I am. He shook his head. That moment of lightless namelessness was fading, and a good thing, too.
We get to Meridian, everythingll be fine, Muhammad Shabazz said.
Sure, Cecil said. Sure. The night before, the locals had torched a white church over by Longdale. Hed taken the Northern blacks over there to do what they could for the congregation. Now...
Now they had to get through Neshoba County. They had to get past Philadelphia. They had to run the gauntlet of lawmen who hated white people and Black Knights of Voodoo who hated whites even moreand of lawmen who were Black Knights of Voodoo and hated whites most of all. And they had to do it in the Racial Alliance for Complete Equalitys beat-up station wagon. If RACEs old blue Ford wasnt the best-known car in eastern Mississippi, Price was damned if he knew another one that would be.
Of course, he might be damned any which way. So might the two idealistic young Negroes whod come down from New York and Ohio to give his downtrodden race a hand. If the law spotted this much too spottable car...
Cecil Price wished he hadnt had that thought right then, in the instant before he saw the flashing red light in his rear-view mirror, in the instant before he heard the sirens scream. Panic stabbed at him. What do I do? he said hoarsely. He wanted to floor the gas pedal. He wanted to, but he didnt. The main thing that held him back was the certain knowledge that the old wagon couldnt break sixty unless you flung it off a cliff.
Pull over. Muhammad Shabazzs voice was calm. Dont let em get us for evading arrest or any real charge. We havent done anything wrong, so they cant do anything to us.
You sure of that, man? Tariq Abdul-Rashid sounded nervous.
This is all about the rule of law, Muhammad Shabazz said patiently. For us, for them, for everybody.
He respected the rule of law. It meant more to him than anything else. Cecil Price could only hope it meant something to the man in the car with the light and the siren. He could hope so, yeah. Could he believe it? That was a different story.
But Price didnt see that he had any choice here. He pulled off onto the shoulder. The brakes squeaked as he brought the blue Ford to a stop. Pebbles rattled against the cars underpanels. Red dust swirled up around it.
The black-and-white pulled up behind the Ford. A great big Negro in a deputy sheriffs uniform got out and swaggered up toward the station wagon. Cecil Price watched him in the mirror, not wanting to turn around. That arrogant strutand the pistol in the lawmans handspoke volumes about the way things in Mississippi had been since time out of mind.
Coming up to the drivers-side door, the sheriff peered in through sunglasses that made him look more like a machine, a hate-driven machine, than a man. Son of a bitch! he exploded. You aint Larry Rainey!
No, sir, Price said. Part of that deference was RACE trainingdont give the authorities an excuse to beat on you. And part of it was drilled into whites in the South from the time they could toddle and lisp. If they didnt show respect, they often didnt live to get a whole lot older than that.
Larry Rainey was older than Cecil Price and smarter than Cecil and tougher than Cecil, too. Hed been in RACE a lot longer than Cecil had. The Black Knights of Voodoo probably hated him more than any other white man from this part of the state.
But the way they hated Larry Rainey was like nothing next to the way they hated what they called the black agitators from the North. Even behind the deputy sheriffs shades, Cecil could see his eyes widen when he got a look at Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. Well, well! he boomed, the way a man with a shotgun will when a couple of big, fat ducks fly right over his blind. Looky what we got here! We got us a couple of buckra-lovin ragheads!
Sheriff, Muhammad Shabazz said tightly. He didnt wear a turban, and never had. Neither did Tariq Abdul-Rashid, who nodded like somebody trying hard not to show how scared he was. Cecil Price was scared, too, damn near scared shitless, and hoped the black man with the the gun and the Smokey-the-Bear hat couldnt tell.
The deputy went on as if the Black Muslim hadnt spoken: We got us a couple of Northern radicals who reckon theyre bettern other folks their color, so they can hop on a bus and come down here and tell us how to live. And we got us one uppity buckra, too, sneakin around and stirrin up what oughta be damn well left alone. Well, I got news for yall. That dont fly, not in Neshoba County it dont. What the hell you doin here, anyway?
We were looking at whats left of Mount Zion Church in Longdale, Muhammad Shabazz answered.
Yeah, I just bet you were. Fat lot your kind cares about churches, the big black deputy jeered.
We care about justice, sir. Muhammad Shabazz spoke with respect that didnt come close to hiding the anger underneath. I do, and Mr. Abdul-Rashid does, and Mr. Price does, too. Do you, sir? Does justice mean anything to you at all?
It means I know bettern to call a lousy, lazy, no-account buckra Mister. Aint that right, Cecil? When Price didnt answer fast enough to suit the deputy sheriff, the man stuck the pistol in his face and roared, Aint that right, boy?
Muhammad Shabazz had nerve. If he didnt have nerve, he never would have ridden down to Mississippi from Cleveland in the first place. We didnt do anything wrong, sir, he told the deputy. We didnt even break any traffic laws. You have no good reason to pull us over. Why arent you investigating real crimes, like a firebombed church?
To Cecil Prices amazement, the deputy smiled the broadest, nastiest, wickedest smile hed ever seen, and hed seen some lulus. What do you reckon Im doin? he said. What the hell do you reckon Im doin? All three of you sons of bitches are under arrest for suspicion of arson. A charge like that, you can rot in jail the rest of your worthless lives. Serve yall right, too, you want to know what I think.
Youre out of your mind, Muhammad Shabazz exclaimed.
We wouldnt burn a church, Tariq Abdul-Rashid agreed, startled out of his frightened silence. That is crazy.
Weve got no reason to do anything like that. Why would we, sir? Cecil Price tried to make the deputy forget his comrades didnt stay polite.
It didnt work. He might have known it wouldnt. Hell, he had known it wouldnt. Why? Ill tell you why, the Negro in the lawmans uniform said. So decent, God-fearing folks get blamed for it, thats why. You agitatorsll try and pin it all on us, make us look bad on the TV, give the Federal government an excuse to stick its nose in affairs that aint none of its business and never will be. So hell, yes, youre under arrest. Suspicion of arson, like I said. Ill throw your sorry asses in jail right now. You drive on into Philadelphia quiet-like, or you gonna do something stupid like try and escape?
Cecil Price didnt need to be a college-educated fellow like the two blacks in the car with him to know what that meant. You do anything but drive straight to jail and Ill kill all of you. I wont do anything dumb, he told the deputy.
Better not, boy, or its the last fuckup you ever pull. The big black man threw back his head and laughed. Unless you already pulled your last one, that is. Laughing still, he walked back to the black-and-white. He opened the door, got inthe shocks sagged under his bulkand slammed it shut.
Let him jail us on that stupid trumped-up charge, Muhammad Shabazz said as Price started the Fords engine. Itll do just as much to help the cause as the church bombing.
I hope youre right, Price said, pulling back onto the highway, but hes a mean one. The Neshoba County Sheriffs meaner, but the deputys bad enough and then some.
You think hes BKV? Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.
Black Knights of Voodoo? Price shrugged. I dont know for sure, but I wouldnt be surprised if he goes night-riding with a mask and a shield and a spear.
In Philadelphia, a few people stared at the car with the white and the two blacks in it. Cecil Price didnt care for those stares, not even a little bit. He didnt care for any part of what was going on, but he couldnt do a thing about it. He parked in front of the jail. The deputys car pulled up right behind the RACE wagon.
Another black deputy sat behind the front desk when Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid walked into the jail. What the hells goin on here? he asked the man whod arrested the civil-rights workers.
Suspicion of arson, the first deputy answered. I reckon they mustve had somethin to do with torchin the white folks church over by Longdale.
Thats the What was the man behind the desk about to say? Thats the silliest goddamn thing I ever heard? Something like thatCecil Price was sure of it. But then the other Negros eyes narrowed. Fuck me, he said, and pointed first to Muhammad Shabazz and then to Tariq Abdul-Rashid. Aint these the raghead bastards who came down from the North to raise trouble?
Thats them, all right, said the deputy whod arrested them. And this here buckras Cecil Price. I thought at first I got me Larry Raineyyou know how all these white folks look alike. But what the hell? If you cant grab a big fish, a little fishll do.
Thats a fact, said the deputy behind the desk. That sure as hell is a fact, all right. Yeah, lock em up. We can figure out what to do with em later.
You betcha. The first deputy marched his prisoners to the cells farther back in the jail. In here, you two, he told Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid, and herded them into the first cell on the right. He stuck Cecil Price in the second cell on the right. Even at a time like this, even in a situation like this, he never thought to put a white man in with Negroes. That was part of what was wrong in Philadelphia, right there.
After Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid were safely locked away, the man whod arrested them clumped up the corridor and then out the front door. Where you goin? called the man behind the desk.
Got to see the Priest, the first deputy answered. Anybody asks after those assholes, you never seen em, you never heard nothin about em. You got that?
All right by me, the other deputy said. The first one slammed the door after him as he went out. He seemed to have to slam any door he came to.
Cecil Price had only thought he was scared shitless before. Not letting anybody know he and his friends were in jail was bad. Going to see the Priest was a hell of a lot worse. The Priest was a tall, scrawny, bald black man who hated whites with a fierce and simple passion. He was also the chief Neshoba County recruiting officer for the Black Knights of Voodoo. Trouble followed him the way thunder followed lightning.
Price wondered whether Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid knew enough to be as frightened as he was. The Priest had been trouble for years, while theyd been down here only a couple of months. The Priest would still be trouble long after they went back to the North ... if they ever got the chance to go North again.
It must have been about half past five when the phone at the front desk jangled loudly. Neshoba County Jail, the deputy there said. He paused to listen, then went on, No, I aint seen em. Jesus Christ! You lose your garbage, you expect me to go pickin it up for you? He slammed the phone down again.
Deputy! Muhammad Shabazz called through the bars of his cell. Deputy, can I speak to you for a minute?
A scrape of chair legs against cheap linoleum. Slow, heavy, arrogant footsteps. A deep, angry voice: What the hell you want?
Id like to make a telephone call, please.
A pause. Cecil Price looked out of his cell just in time to see the deputy sheriff shake his head. His big, round belly shook, too, but it didnt remind Price of a bowlful of jellymore of a wrecking ball that would smash anything in its way. No, I dont reckon so, he said. You aint callin nobody.
I have a Constitutional right to make a telephone call, Muhammad Shabazz insisted, politely but firmly.
Dont you give me none of your Northern bullshit, the Negro deputy said. Constitution doesnt say jack shit about telephone calls. How could it? No telephones when they wrote the damn thing, were there? Were there, smartass?
No, but Muhammad Shabazz broke off.
Constitutional right, my ass, the deputy sheriff said. You got a Constitutional right to get whats comin to you, and you will. You just bet you will. He lumbered back to the desk.
In a low voice, Cecil Price said, Were in deep now.
No kidding. Muhammad Shabazz sounded like a man who wanted to make a joke but was too worried to bring it off.
They arent gonna let us out of here, Tariq Abdul-Rashid said. Not in one piece, they arent.
Well see what happens, thats all, Muhammad Shabazz said. They cant think theyll get away with it. To Cecil Price, that only proved the man whod come down from the North didnt understand how things really worked in Mississippi. Of course the deputy sheriffs thought theyd get away with it. Why wouldnt they? Blacks had been getting away with things against whites who stepped out of line ever since slavery days. Times were starting to change; Negroes of goodwill like Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid were helping to make them change. But they hadnt changed yetand the deputies and their pals were determined they wouldnt change no matter what. And so...
And so were in deep for sure, Cecil Price thought, fighting despair.
* * * *
The first deputy sheriff, the one whod arrested them, returned to the jail not long after the sun went down. He walked back to the cells to look at the prisoners, laughed a gloating laugh, and then went up front again.
Whats the Priest got to say? asked the man at the front desk.
Its all taken care of, the first deputy answered.
They comin here?
Nah. The first deputy sounded faintly disappointed. Itd be too damn raw. Wed end up with the fuckin Feds on our case for sure.
Whats going on, then?
The first deputy told him. He pitched his voice too low to let Cecil Price make it out. By the way the desk man laughed, he thought it was pretty good. Price was sure he wouldnt.
Time crawled by on hands and knees. The phone rang once, but it had nothing to do with Price and Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. It was a woman calling to find out if her no-account husband was sleeping off another binge in the drunk tank. He wasnt. But it only went to show that, despite the struggle for whites civil rights, ordinary life in Philadelphia went on.
Around half past ten, the first deputy came tramping back to the cells again. To Cecil Prices amazement, he had a jingling bunch of keys on a big brass key ring with him. He opened the door to Prices cell. Come on out, boy, he said. Reckon Ive got to turn you loose.
Price wanted to stick a finger in his ear to make sure hed heard right. You sure? he blurted.
Yeah, Im sure, the deputy said. I been askin around. You werent at the church when it went up. Neither were these assholes. He pointed into the cell that held Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid. Gotta let them go, too, dammit.
Youll hear from our lawyers, Muhammad Shabazz promised. False arrest is false arrest, even if you think twice about it later. This is still a free country, whether you know it or not.
Although Cecil Price agreed with every word he said, he wished the Black Muslim would shut the hell up. Pissing off the deputy right when he was letting them out of jail wasnt the smartest move in the world, not even close. But Price walked out of his cell. A moment later, Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid walked out of theirs, too.
The deputy with the wrecking-ball belly at the front desk gave them back their wallets and keys and pocket change. If youre smart, youll get your white ass outa Philadelphia. Go on down to Meridian and never come back, he told Cecil Price. You cause trouble around here again, you look at a black woman walkin down the street around here again, you show your ugly buckra face around here again, you are fuckin dead meat. You hear me?
Oh, yes, sir. I sure do hear you, Cecil Price said. That was how you played the game in Mississippi. Price hadnt promised to do one thing the deputy said. But hed heard him, all right. He couldnt very well not have heard him.
Go on, then. Get lost.
The first deputy walked out into the muggy night with the white man and the two Northern blacks. A mosquito buzzed around Prices ear. Price slapped at it. The deputy laughed. He watched while Price and the Black Muslims got into RACEs blue Ford wagon. Price started up the car. The deputy went on watching as he put it in gear and drove away. In the rear-view mirror, Price watched him walk back into the Neshoba County Jail.
Maybe they really are learning they cant pull crap like that on us, Tariq Abdul-Rashid said.
Dont bet on it, was Muhammad Shabazzs laconic response. They dont back up unless theyve got a reason to back up. Isnt that right, Cecil? ... Cecil?
Cecil Price didnt answer, not right away. His eyes were on the rear-view mirror again. He didnt like what he saw. This time of night, driving out of a little town like Philadelphia, they should have had the road to themselves. They should have, but they didnt. One, then two, sets of headlights followed them out of town. Price stepped on the gas. If those cars back there werent interested in him and his black friends, hed lose them.
Hey, man, take it easy, Tariq Abdul-Rashid said. You dont want to give the law a chance to run us in for speeding.
Weve got company back there, Price said. Speeding up hadnt shaken those two cars. If anything, they were closer. And a third set of headlights was coming out of Philadelphia, zooming down Highway 19 like a bat out of hell.
Tariq Abdul-Rashid and Muhammad Shabazz looked back over their shoulders. You think theyre on our tail, Cecil? Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.
Before Price could say anything, Muhammad Shabazz said everything that needed saying: Gun it! Gun it like a son of a bitch!
The old Fords motor should have roared when Cecil Price jammed the pedal to the metal. Instead, it groaned and grunted. Yeah, the wagon went faster, but it didnt go faster fast enough. The two pairs of headlights behind the Ford got bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, closer and closer. And the third pair, the set that got the late start, might almost have been flying along Highway 19. That was one souped-up set of wheels, and the rustbucket Price was driving didnt have a prayer of staying ahead. Before long, whoever was driving that hot machine got right on the wagons tail.
Desperate now, Price killed his lights and made a screeching, sliding right onto Highway 492. Only in Mississippi, he thought, would such a miserable chunk of asphalt merit the name of highway. But if it let him shake his pursuers, he would bless its undeserved name forevermore.
Only it didnt. The lead pursuer, the hopped-up car that had come zooming out of Philadelphia, also made the turn. Even over the growl of his own cars engine, Cecil Price could hear its brakes screech as it clawed around the corner. Then the pursuers siren came on and the red light on top of the roof began to flash.
Jesus! Its that damn deputy again! Price said. What am I gonna do?
Can we outrun him? Muhammad Shabazz asked as the beat-up Ford bucketed down the road.
Not a chance in hell, Price answered. Hes liable to start shooting at us if I dont stop. If he got hit, or if a tire got hit, the car would fly off the road and burst into flames. That was a bad way to go.
Maybe you better stop, Tariq Abdul-Rashid said.
Damned if I do and damned if I dont, Cecil Price said bitterly, but his foot had already found the brake pedal. The old blue station wagon slowed, stopped.
The deputy sheriffs car stopped behind it, the same way it had earlier that day. This time, though, the other two cars also stopped. The big black buck of a deputy sheriff got out of his car and strode up to the Ford wagon. I thought you were going back to Meridian if we let you out of jail.
We were, Price answered.
Well, you sure were taking the long way around. Get out of that car, the deputy said. That was the last thing Cecil Price wanted to do. But he thought the deputy would shoot him and the two Black Muslims right there if they refused. Reluctantly, he obeyed. Perhaps even more reluctantly, Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid followed him.
Men were also getting out of the two cars stopped behind the deputys. Prices heart sank when he saw them. There was the Priest, all right, black as the ace of spades. And there were ten or twelve other Negroes with him. Price recognized some of them as BKV men. He didnt know for sure that the others were, but what else would they be? Some had guns. Others carried crowbars or tire irons or Louisville Sluggers. They all wore rubber gloves so they wouldnt leave fingerprints.
You dont want to do this, Muhammad Shabazz said earnestly. Im telling you the truthyou dont. It wont get you what you think it will.
Shut the fuck up, you goddamn raghead race traitor. The deputy sheriffs voice was hard and cold as iron. You get in the back of my car now, you hear?
What will you do to us? Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.
Whatever it is, well do it right here and right now if you dont shut the fuck up and do like youre told, the deputy answered. Now stop mouthing off and move, damn you.
Numbly, as if caught in a bad dream, Cecil Price and his companions got into the back of the deputy sheriffs car. A steel grating walled them off from the front seat. Neither back door had a lock or a door handle on the inside. Once you went in there, you stayed in there till somebody decided to let you out.
The deputy slid behind the wheel again. The men from the Black Knights of Voodoo got back into their cars, too. A couple of them aimed weapons at Cecil Price and the Black Muslims before they did. The deputy sheriff waved the BKV men away. Not quite time yet, he told them.
This wont help you. The country wont be proud of you. Theyll go after you like you wouldnt believe, Muhammad Shabazz said. If you hurt us, you help our side, and thats nothing but the truth.
I dont want to listen to your bullshit, you buckra-lovin raghead, and thats nothin but the truth, the deputy said. So maybe you just better shut the fuck up.
Why? What difference does it make now? the Black Muslim asked.
Instead of answering, the deputy sheriff put the car in gear. He made a Y-turnthe road was too narrow for a Uand swung back around the cars full of BKV men. Then he hit the brakes to wait while they turned around, too. Good cooperation in a bad cause, Cecil Price thought. If RACE members worked together as smoothly as these BKV bastards...
All right, the deputy muttered, and the black-and-white moved forward again. Now that he wasnt chasing people at top speed, the deputy sheriff acted like a careful driver. He flicked the turn signal before making a left back onto Highway 19. Click! Click! Click! The sound seemed very loud inside the passenger compartment. What went through Prices mind was, Measuring off the seconds left in my life.
As soon as the deputy finished the turn, of course, the clicking stopped. Price wished his mind had been going in some other direction a moment before. The deputy drove toward Philadelphia for a minute or two, then used the turn signal again. Click! Click! Click! Cecil Price cherished and dreaded the sound of those passing seconds, both at the same time. He grimaced when the deputy finished the new left turn and the indicator fell silent again.
Where the hell are we? Muhammad Shabazz muttered.
Before Price could answer him, the deputy did: This here is Rock Cut Road. Aint hardly anything around these parts. Thats how come were here.
Oh, shit, Tariq Abdul-Rashid said. Price couldnt have put it better himself.
The deputy wasnt kidding. Looking out the cars dirty windows, Price saw nothing but a narrow red dirt road and weed-filled fields to either side. Behind the black-and-white, car doors slammed as the Black Knights of Voodoo got out and advanced.
Im gonna open the door and let yall out now, the deputy said. You dont want to do anything stupid, you hear?
What the hell difference does it make at this stage of things? Tariq Abdul-Rashid asked.
Well, some things are gonna happen. Theyre gonna, and I dont reckon anythingll change that, the deputy sheriff said seriously. But they can happen easy, you might say, or they can happen not so easy. You wont like it if they happen not so easy. Believe you me, you wont, not even a little bit.
He got out of the car. Can we jump him when he opens the door? Price wondered. He shook his head. Not a chance in church. Not a chance in hell.
One more click!: the door opening. Heart racing a mile a minute, legs feather-light with fear, Cecil Price got out of the Neshoba County Sheriffs Department car. The dirt scraped and crunched under the soles of his shoes. Is that the last thing Ill ever feel? It didnt seem like enough.
Two Black Knights of Voodoo grabbed Tariq Abdul-Rashid. Two others seized Muhammad Shabazz, and two more laid hold of Cecil Price. Another BKV man walked up to Tariq Abdul-Rashid, pistol in hand. The headlights of the cars behind the black-and-white picked out the globe and anchor tattooed on his right bicep.
Go get em, Wayne, somebody said in a low, hoarse voicethe Priest, Cecil Price saw.
I will, goddammit. I will, answered the BKV man with the pistol. Price happened to know that Wayne Roberts, in spite of the tattoo, had been dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps. In the Black Knights of Voodoo, though, he could be a big man.
He scowled at Tariq Abdul-Rashid. No, the Black Muslim whispered. Please, no.
Fuck you, man, Roberts said. You aint nothin but a stinkin buckra in a black skin. He thumbed back the revolvers hammer and pulled the trigger.
The roar was amazingly loud. The bullet, from point-blank range, caught Tariq Abdul-Rashid in the middle of the forehead. He went limp all at once, as if his bones had turned to water. Way to go, Wayne! said one of the men who held him. When his captors let go, he flopped down like a sack of beans, dead before he hit the ground.
You see? the black deputy said. Hard or easy. That there was pretty goddamn easy, wasnt it?
The BKV men who had hold of Muhammad Shabazz dragged him forward. Even as they did, he was trying to talk sense to them. I understand how you feel, but this wont help you, he said in a calm, reasonable voice. Killing us wont do anything for your cause. You
Shut up, asshole. Wayne Roberts cuffed him across the face. You bet thisll do us some good. Well be rid of you, wont we? Good riddance to bad rubbish. He shot Muhammad Shabazz the same way hed killed the other Black Muslim.
Easy as can be, the deputy sheriff said. Easiern he deserved, I reckon. Fucker never knew what hit him. The hot, wet air was thick with the stinks of smokeless powder, of blood, of shit, of fear, of rage.
Easy or not, Cecil Price didnt want to die. With a sudden shout that even startled him, he broke loose from the men who had hold of him. Shoutingscreaminghe ran like a madman down Rock Cut Road.
He didnt get more than forty or fifty feet before the first bullet slammed into his back. Next thing he knew, he was lying on his face, dirt in his mouth, more dirt in his nose. Something horrible was happening inside him. He felt on fire, only worse. When he tried to get up, he couldnt.
Big as a mountain, hard as a mountain, the deputy sheriff loomed over him. All right, white boy, he ground out. You coulda had it easy, same as your asshole buddies. Now were gonna do it the hard way. He crouched down beside Price, grabbed his right arm, and broke it over his thigh like a broomstick. The sound the bones made when they snapped was just about like a breaking broomstick, too. The sound Cecil Price made ... How the BKV men laughed!
With a grunt, the sheriff got to his feet. With the arrogant strut he always used, he walked around to Prices left side. With the coldblooded deliberation hed shown before, he broke the white mans left arm. Price barely had room inside his head for any new torment.
Or so he thought, till one of the Black Knights of Voodoo kicked him in the crotch. Aint gonna mess with no black women now, are you, buckra? he jeered. More boots thudded into Prices balls. That almost made him forget about his ruined arms. It almost made him forget about the bullet in his back, except he couldnt find breath enough to scream the way he wanted to.
After an eternity that probably lasted three or four minutes, the deputy sheriff said, Reckon thats enough now. Lets finish him off and get rid of the bodies.
Ill take care of it. Bet your sweet ass I will, Wayne Roberts said. He fired at Price again, and then again. Another gun barked, too, maybe once, maybe twice. By that time, Price had stopped paying close attention.
But he didnt fall straight into sweet blackness, the way Muhammad Shabazz and Tariq Abdul-Rashid had. He lingered in red torment when the BKV men picked him up and stuffed him into the trunk of one of their cars along with the Black Muslims bodies.
The car jounced down the dirt road, every pothole and every rock a fresh stab of agony. At last, it stopped. Here we go, somebody said as a Black Knight of Voodoo opened the trunk. This ought to do the job.
Oh, fuck, yes, somebody else said. Eager gloved hands hauled Cecil Price out of the trunk, and then the corpses of his friends.
Hell, this damll hold a hundred of them. That was the deputy sheriff, sounding in charge of things as usual. Go on, throw em in there, and well cover em up. Nobodyll ever find the sons of bitches.
Thump! That was one of the Black Muslims, going into a hollow in the ground. Thump! That was the other one. And thump! That was Cecil Price, landing on top of Tariq Abdul-Rashid and Muhammad Shabazz. An Everest of pain in what were already the Himalayas.
Fire up the dozer, the deputy said. Lets bury em and get on back to town. We done us a good nights work here, by God.
Somebody climbed up onto the bulldozers seat. The big yellow Caterpillar D-4 belched and farted to life. It bit out a great chunk of dirt and, motor growling, poured it over the two Black Muslims and Cecil Price. Price struggled hopelessly to breathe. More dirt thudded down on him, more and more.
Buried alive! he thought. Sweet Jesus help me, Im buried alive! But not for long. The last thing he knew was the taste of earth filling his mouth.
* * * *
He woke in darkness, not knowing who he was. The taste of earth seemed to fill his mouth.
He sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, heart sledgehammering in his chest as if hed run a hundred miles. He looked around wildly. Tiny stripes of pale moonlight slipped between the slats of the Venetian blinds and stretched across the bedroom floor.
Beside him on the cheap, lumpy mattress, someone stirred: his wife. You all right, Cecil? she muttered drowsily.
A name! He had a name! He was Cecil, Cecil Price, Cecil Ray Price. Was he all right? That was a different question, a harder question. I guess ... I guess maybe I am, he said, wonder in his voice.
Then settle down and go on back to sleep. I aim to, if you give me half a chance, his wife said. What ails you, anyhow?
Bad dream, he answered, the way he always did. Hed never said a word about what kind of bad dream it was. Somehow, he didnt think he could say a word about what kind of bad dream it was. Hed tried two or three times, always with exactly zero luck. The words wouldnt form. The ideas behind the words wouldnt form, not so he could talk about them. But even if he couldnt, he knew what the dreams were all about. Oh, yes. He knew.
He still lived in the same brown clapboard house hed lived in on that hot summer night in 1964, the brown clapboard house hed lived in for going on forty years. It wasnt more than a block away from Philadelphias town square.
Hed been Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price then. He ran for sheriff in 67, when Larry Rainey didnt go for another term, but another Klansman beat him out. Then he spent four years away, and after that he couldnt very well be a lawman any more. Once he came back to Mississippi, he worked as a surveyor. He drove a truck for an oil company. And he wound up a jeweler and watchmakerhed always been good with his hands. He turned into a big wheel among Mississippi Shriners.
But the dreams never went away. If he hadnt seen that damn Ford station wagon that afternoon ... He had, though, and what happened next followed as inexorably as night followed day. Two Yankee busybodies: Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. One uppity local nigger: James Chaney.
At the time, getting rid of them seemed the only sensible thing to do. He took care of it, with plenty of help from the Ku Klux Klan.
He wondered if the others, the ones who were still alive, had dreams like his. Hed tried to ask a couple of times, but he couldnt, any more than he could talk about his own. Maybe theyd tried to ask him, too. If they had, they hadnt had any luck, either.
Dreams. His started even before the damn informer tipped off the FBI about where the bodies were buried. At first, he figured they were just nerves. Who wouldnt have a case of the jitters after what he went through, when the whole country was trying to pull Neshoba County down around his ears?
Well, the whole country damn well did it. Back in June 1964, who would have dreamt a Mississippi jurya jury of Mississippi white menwould, could, convict anybody for violating the civil rights of a coon and a couple of Jews? But the jury damn well did that, too. Price got six years, and served four of them in a Federal prison in Minnesota before they turned him loose for good behavior.
He went on having the dreams up there.
Sometimes weeks went by when they let him alone, and he would wonder if he was free. And he would always hope he was, and he never would be. It was as if hoping he were free was enough all by itself for ... something to show him he wasnt.
Did the dreams make him change? Did they just make him pretend to change? Even he couldnt say for sure. Ten years after he got convicted, he told a reportera New York City reporter, no lesshed seen Roots and liked it. When he talked about integration, he said that was how things were going to be and that was all there was to it.
He spent years rebuilding his name, rebuilding his reputation. And then, in 1999, everything fell to pieces again. He got convicted of another felony. No guns this time, no cars racing down the highway in the heat of the night: he sold certifications for commercial drivers licensing without doing the testing he should have. A cheap little money-making schemeexcept he got caught.
They didnt jug him that time. He drew three years probation. But you could stay a heroto some peoplefor doing what you thought you had to do to people who were trying to change the way of life youd known since you were born. When you got busted for selling bogus certifications, you werent a hero to anybody, even yourself. You were just a lousy little crook.
A lousy little crook with ... dreams.
Two years later, a season after the turn of the century, he climbed up on a lift at an equipment-rental place in Philadelphia. He fell off somehow, and landed on his head. He died three days later at a hospital in Jacksonthe same hospital where hed brought the bodies of Schwerner and Goodman and Chaney for autopsy thirty-seven years earlier, after the FBI tore up the dam to get them out. He never knew that, but then, neither had they.
He woke in darkness, not knowing who he was. The taste of earth filled his mouth.

Copyright  2005 by Harry Turtledove.
