kind of information Theodore Roosevelt had sent me down here to uncover.
Chapter 77
THROUGH THE HOLES in my hood I saw at least fifty men in white hoods and robes, walking in loose ranks along the dirt road. Jacob, Byram, and I fell right in with their step.
No one said anything until we were all inside Scully’s large old barn and the doors had been closed.
One man climbed up on a hay bale and ordered everyone to gather around. I followed Jacob toward the back wall of the barn.
“Our first order of business,” he said, “is to announce that we have a special guest attending our meeting this evening.”
He waved his hand—was he waving in my direction? There was no way he could know who I was, not under that hood.
Without a word Jacob reached over and snatched the hood off my head.
I stood revealed. The only man in the place without a mask covering his face.
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“Benjamin Corbett,” said the man on the bale. “Welcome, Ben. You are among friends here. We’re not the ones tried to hurt you.”
I sincerely doubted that. But then he took off his hood and I recognized Winston Conover, the pharmacist who had filled our family’s prescriptions for as long as I could remember.
One by one the men around me began taking off their hoods. I knew most of them. The Methodist minister. A farm products salesman. A conductor on the Jackson & Northern railroad. A carpenter’s assistant. The county surveyor. The man who did shoe repairs for Kline’s store. Sheriff Reese and his deputy. The man who repaired farm implements at the back of Sanders’ General Store.
So this was the dreaded Ku Klux Klan. As ordinary a group of small-town men as you’re likely to come across.
“Ben, we appreciate you showing up to let us talk to you.” It was Lyman Tripp. Jovial, chubby Lyman had the readiest smile in town. He was the undertaker, so he also had the steadiest business of anyone.
“Maybe you’ll see that we ain’t all monsters,” he said. “We’re just family men. We got to look out for our women and protect what’s rightfully ours.”
I didn’t quite know what he meant by “rightfully ours.”
Byram Chaney tied a gold belt around the waist of his robe. He climbed up on the hay bale from which Doc Conover had just stepped down.
“All right, let’s get it started,” he said.
The men stood around in their white sheets with their hoods off, conducting the most ordinary small-town meeting. They discussed the collection of dues, a donation they’d recently made to a widowed young mother, nominations for a committee to represent the local chapter at the county meeting in McComb.
Just when it began to seem as harmless as a church picnic, Byram Chaney said, “Okay now, there must be a recognizing of new business related to the niggers.”
Doc Conover spoke up. “I had two colored girls come into the drugstore last week. They said they was up from Ocean Springs visiting some kin of theirs. They wanted to buy tincture of iodine. I explained to ’em, just as nice as I could, that I don’t sell to coloreds. Then one of ’em started to lecturin’ me on the Constitution. When I told her to get the hell out of my store, she said she’d come back with her daddy and her brother, and they’d make me sell ’em iodine.”
“You say they’s from Ocean Springs?” said Jimmy Whitley, the athletic coach at Eudora High.
“That’s sure what they said.”
“Johnny Ray, ain’t you got a cousin in the chapter down in Ocean Springs?”
“I do, that’s Wilbur Earl,” said Johnny Ray.
Byram Chaney said, “Johnny Ray, why don’t you talk to your cousin, find out who those girls might have been. Then we can see about getting ’em educated.”
The crowd murmured in agreement.
Another man spoke. “I only want to report that that old nigger Jackie, you know, the one that used to drive the carriage for Mr. Macy? He come into my store again, looking for work.”
I recognized the speaker as Marshall Farley, owner of the five-and-dime.