-
Night Fires
- University of Georgia Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Night Fires T he Cathedral bell gongsthree times slowly,lugubriously in the Mobile darkness and Herman wakes to seethe bruise on the rim of the sky.He has seen that glow before, like a wound on the clouds, the fire beginning in the shanties of the south part of town and eating houses and stores. But there is only silence now, not like a decade earlier when alarm bells had rung and the men from the Creole Firehouse had rushed in their horse-drawn firetrucks to do David-like battle against the Goliathflames. He props himself up on his elbow and watches the color against the far skyshift, deepen. Can he slip out without being noticed?Next to him Abe is snoring; in Lillian's old room is Hannah, sunk in dream; in the front, Mama and Daddy,unmoving. He rises,dresses, steals down the steps.Like aburglar he unlocks carefully, silently,the front door and steps outside, moving toward the soresky. He comes to the street Daddy has told him never to cross alone, even though he is a straight-A high school student, even though he knows plenty well what Abe is doing when he goes out late and returns with splotchy marks on his neck and curls up in his bed, moaning. Reaching the curb he hesitates. On the other side, as though on the far bank of a treacherous river,loom the churches and meeting halls, the bars and nightspots, of colored Mobile. He sees faces moving past those corners that havesurelywalkedinto M.Kleinman 86 T Night Fires 87 & Sons many a bright afternoon; but, except for Dr. Spicer,fewresidents of Dauphin cross the other way. There is noise now: the crackle of fire eating through wood, through straw, and voices clamoring. Then comes afreakishcrying, a frantic squealing, not a human's at all. An animal's. He is on the other side of the street now, and a slender man leaning against a wall looks at him, warning, "What you doin' around here, you Mr. Morris's boy," but he keeps on, moving toward that crying, the man behind him calling out, "This ain't none of your business, fool." He passes wood frame houses thick with wild camellias spilling over the steps, yard tables heaped with jars, clotheslines strung out from side porches where longjohnshang like lynched men. Toward him comes running a young black woman clutching the hands of her two small children. When they seehim the children point and exclaim but she drags them faster. The sky,like a face, is flushed, bright with fever. He arrives at a clearing where a barn sits atop a hill, flames climbing from its rafters. On the ground ablack man isyanking at the barn door, even as it ripples into flames. He wrenches it open in time for two horses to bolt out, rearing and neighing. Inside the barn the squealing rises, the stench of charred flesh curling out. The yelp and screech of the animals is muffled, dies. He steps forward thinking he is still over the store dreaming this giant cross he sees being erected by hooded men, the cross now bursting intoflame,the night riders climbing onto their own horses, circling around it whooping and hollering. Off to the side of the barn men and women are huddled, children at their feet pressing fists to their mouths. The hands of the women are clasped together but they are not facing the burning cross. On their horses the hooded men turn toward them. The women are praying, the children are pushing up against their daddy's legs, the horses galloping faster. As the first hooded rider approaches, one of the men on the [3.93.173.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:57 GMT) 88 CHICKEN DREAMING CORN ground pulls a shovel from behind him, swinging it through the air, catching the rider in the jaw.The horse veersto the right, the rider's head bobbing as though he is no longer conscious of the horse beneath him. The women and children are scattering one way,the men another. The other riders begin to chase the men, but one horse curvesin the direction of a small figure whom Herman is startled to see standing at the edge of the field behind him, dark hat pulled low. "This ain't no place for the likes of you!" the man on the horse is screaming at the figure, whose hat, tumbling away, reveals a thick...