“You are a gift, indeed!” the reverend said heartily. “If we eliminate the scourge of illiteracy from our people — why we can be anything, do anything.”
“I do hope that you are right.” He tried to keep the edge of bitterness from his words. He knew far too much about the world the white man lived in to expect any swift miracles.
It had been a long train ride and a tiring one. The seat had been too uncomfortable to get much sleep in. But one thing that L.D. Lewis had learned in the army was the ability to sleep anywhere — at any time. The wooden floor of the storeroom, with his bundle for a pillow, was just about as comfortable as a man could want.
He awoke some hours later to the sound of hymn-singing. Mighty pretty it was too. He hummed along with it for a bit. Then rose and went into the little church and joined the service. Reverend Lomax saw him come in and saw fit to mention him after his sermon.
“Before I say ‘Amen’ I want you all to meet Mr. L.D. Lewis who has come here from Washington City, on behalf of the Freedmen’s Bureau. He is a teacher, yes he is, and he is going to teach you all all about reading and writing.”
There was quick applause and warm smiles of greeting. After the amens more than one offer of an evening meal came his way; he accepted gladly. Later, his stomach filled with grits and dandelion greens, pork belly and red gravy, he made his way back to the church just as it was growing dark. Reverend Lomax had waited for him.
“Front and back doors, they got bolts so they can lock from the inside. That’s my house down the path if you want me.”
“You get a good night’s sleep. I’ll be fine.”
It was a quiet night — and a restful one. The only sounds the deep moaning of the train whistles in the distance and a hunting owl hooting from the trees outside. When he grew sleepy he walked around the church, silently in the darkness, the Spencer rifle always at his side. Looking from each window in turn. But it was a quiet night. Dawn came and the church and the Freedmen’s Bureau were undisturbed.
Twelve newly washed and brushed children turned up for school in the morning. He found the McGuffey’s Readers, untouched since Mrs. Bernhardt had left them. He dusted them off and held his first class. After that he slept most of the afternoon, ate another dinner with
a different family, spent another night on guard.
The third night, a Saturday night, was very different. Just after midnight he heard the quick sound of hoofbeats thudding down the road, getting closer. They appeared to stop in front of the church. L.D. had been looking out a window in the back and he quickly, and silently, made his way to the window in the front office. Staying concealed in the shadows he could see — and hear — through the partly open window everything that transpired in the street outside.
He levered a cartridge into the Spencer rifle when he saw in the light of the lanterns they carried that all of the riders, but one, wore white hoods over their heads that masked their features.
The unmasked man was tied into his saddle, a black man, his face twisted with fear.
“You really sweating, boy,” one of the men said, leaning out and prodding the man in the ribs with his rifle. “You now thinking that maybe you was wrong in the way you acted to your massah.”
“I ain’t done nothing…” He grunted with pain as the rifle was thrust suddenly into his stomach.
“You speaking the truth there. You ain’t done nothing, that’s the truth. Your massah’s cotton growing rotten in the fields, while you and the other niggers sitting around in the shade—”
“No, suh. We ready to work. But what he want to pay us we can’t live on. We starvin’, our chillun can’t eat, suh.”
There was no humor in the harsh laughter. “Maybe you should have stayed a slave — at least you done et well then. But you don’t worry about that, hear. You gonna carry a message to the other darkies. You gonna tell them to get back to work or they end up just like you. Now — get that rope over the beam there.”
One of the masked men kicked his horse forward and threw a rope over the supporting beam of the church’s portico.
Then he tied a noose in the end.
“Get some coal oil on the church — it gonna light this boy’s way to hell.”
A corked jug was loosened from a saddlebow and passed forward. The noose was going around the terrified man’s neck.
“Just stop right there,” L.D. Lewis called out from the darkness inside the church. “There are a dozen men here with rifles. Just let that man go and skedaddle — hear.”
One of the riders, an old soldier from the way he reacted, raised his rifle and fired into the church. As did another — and another. L.D. fired back: the first rifleman slid from his horse. L.D. chambered another round and then another, firing so fast they must have thought the church was filled with gunmen.
The crock of coal oil hit the ground and broke. One of the lanterns fell and the glass globe broke but the lantern did not go out. The men shouted to each other: the horses reared at the gunfire and smell of gunpowder. Then they were gone, galloping away, two of the riders holding a wounded man in the saddle.
One hooded man remained sprawled on the ground, still holding to the reins of his horse. The Negro prisoner was unharmed but slumping in his saddle, almost unconscious with fear.
The nightriders were gone. L.D. slipped warily out of the front door, then opened his clasp knife and cut the bound man free. Caught him before he struck the ground. There was the quick sound of running feet and L.D. whirled about. It was the reverend, a white nightshirt flapping about his legs. He was carrying an ancient flintlock shotgun.
“I heard the shooting…”
“They were going to hang this man, burn the church. I couldn’t let them do it.”