“Besides that,” said Levis, sounding discouraged, “that car’ll be all beat up. It’ll show Morris was forced off the road.” He shook his head, as if all were useless, and turned to Stacey. His voice low, he asked, “You talk to Moe before you come down?”
Stacey looked around the dark room at all the people gathered and cautiously said, “No. Was going to ask if you’d heard from him since you told him about Morris?”
“Naw,” said Mr. Turner right off. “The boy was all broke up ’bout Morris. Sho wish Moe could be here, but we know he can’t.”
“We know it’s hard on you, Mr. Turner,” Stacey empathized, “losing Morris like this and not having Moe here.”
“It’s hard all right. Can’t deny it. That Moe was my rock, but he been gone from here now more’n twenty years. Don’t ’spect I’ll see him again before they lay me in my grave.”
We sat talking softly for some minutes longer, then Stacey asked Levis to join him outside. I went with them. After taking a few minutes to speak to those who had just come to the house, Levis, Stacey, and I headed over to the fencing that separated the lawn from the fields. There was no cotton growing. The field was planted in corn.
“Corn looks good,” I said.
“Maybe it’ll feed us,” said Levis, who then turned to Stacey. “I’m thinking you’ve got word from Moe.”
Stacey sighed. “More than word, Levis. Moe’s on his way down here.”
Levis, his arms resting on top of the fence, looked away. He did not seem surprised. “When did he leave from there?”
“Came before us,” said Stacey. “Myrtis called, told us what had happened and that Moe was already gone.”
“Well, she ain’t called here to tell us that.”
“Told her not to. You’ve got a party line and word could’ve gotten out.” Stacey hesitated. “I hate to tell you this, but I think Moe might be out to get whoever caused Morris’s death.”
Levis took that with a moment’s silence. “Wouldn’t doubt it. He been in touch with anybody since he left? Little Willie, maybe?”
“Not far as we know, and Little Willie hasn’t heard from him. He had a few hours on us, and soon as we got here, we went to see Willie. If Moe would get in touch with anybody down here outside of your family, it would be Little Willie.”
Levis looked back at us and nodded. “The boy’s lyin’ low. Good thing too.”
“He’ll show up,” I said. “Unless the police get him first, he’ll show up by the funeral.”
“Hope not,” said Levis, then turned and gazed across the road toward the forest. “Look yonder.”
Stacey and I both looked. Standing just inside the forest was a group of white men.
“There’s been some of them watching since this morning. Ain’t told Daddy. Couple of them come up to the house and said man could’ve been Moe was seen walking the woods up near Strawberry. Wanted to check the place. Moe come here, they’ll have him in jail or dead before we even lay Morris in the ground.”
* * *
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I called Guy and told him about Morris. For a moment, there was only silence on the line, then Guy said, “I’m coming down.”
“No. Please don’t do that. There are other things going on and your being here will just complicate matters.”
“You mean about Medgar Evers?”
“Well, that’s not all of it.”
“Cassie, I want to be there.”
“I know that, Guy, and that means a lot to me. But Papa’s ill and other things are happening too and it wouldn’t be a good time for any of us for you to be down here.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your father, Cassie. Is he very ill?”
“The doctors say he has a blood disease. . . .”
“Oh, Cassie—”
“He looks good though. All my brothers are here; so is my uncle. Papa’s not in the hospital. He’s at home, but things are hard right now, what with what happened with Morris. We’re all trying to deal with it.”
Again Guy was silent. “All right, Cassie,” he finally said. “I’ll abide by your wishes, but know I’ll be thinking about all of you. Call me if I can do anything.”
When we hung up, I walked the forest, trying to clear my head of thoughts of Guy and thoughts of Moe. I had told Guy about Papa, but I had not told him about Moe. I couldn’t risk it, not on a party line. If things were different, Guy would have been with me through the days ahead, and I longed for him to be.
* * *
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We all went to the wake. In earlier days, folks who passed were laid out for mourning in their homes and people went there to pay their respects. Now the dead were sent to a Negro funeral home in Jackson or Vicksburg and were brought back to the church for the wake the evening before the burial. Morris’s body was brought during the late afternoon, and folks began arriving soon after to say their good-byes. Throughout the afternoon and early evening, white men watched the church from their cars and trucks parked on the side of the road. Like the old building, the new church faced toward the old school grounds and not the road itself, so the white men were able to see both the front and rear of the church. They were there when our family arrived; we just looked at them and went on in.
At first the casket in which Morris lay was open, and there was great emotion as people approached the casket to look upon him. I didn’t go to the casket. I never looked upon the dead. Throughout the first hours of the wake, folks talked softly, reminiscing about Morris and comforting the family, then we all sat through words and prayer by the pastor. After the prayer services the casket was closed and Moe’s father, in a wheelchair, was taken out by two of his granddaughters. With his departure, many of the wake-goers left too. We had come over to the church in Stacey’s Oldsmobile and Christopher-John’s Ford. Uncle Hammer took the Ford and drove back home with Mama, Papa, and Big Ma. The boys and I stayed on with members of the Turner family who did not leave with Mr. Turner. After a while, the church emptied and only we were left to sit with Levis and Maynard and the four Turner cousins raised by Mr. Turner and called brothers by all of Mr. Turner’s children. They would stay in the church throughout the night to watch over Morris until the services tomorrow. Now the lights in the church were dimmed and the shades were drawn. Outside, the night was black, clouds covered the moon, and only one truck remained on the road.
* * *
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