Free Night on Fire by Ronald Kidd Page A

a beautiful pink dress with a red carnation pinned to the front.
    â€œCommunists!” she yelled.
    Next to her, a little boy picked up a stone and threw it at the bus.
    That’s when I saw Daddy.
    He was speaking with Mr. Young, a man who lived down the street. Daddy talked and nodded, keeping his eyes fastened on the bus.
    What did he see? What did he think? What would he do?
    He glanced around, and his eyes met mine. He looked away, embarrassed, then looked up again. This time, his gaze, warm and steady, connected us like a cable. It was the gaze I’d grown up with, the one that had told me everything was all right. Except now it wasn’t. The scene dropped away—the sound, the violence, the mob. There were just Daddy and me, like so many times before.
    I caught a flash of white out of the corner of my eye and turned to see two highway patrol cars pull up at the edge of the parking lot. The doors opened, and the officers got out. They looked around, but instead of stopping the crowd they leaned against one of the cars, arms folded, sunglasses glinting. They watched, talking calmly to each other.
    â€œHey!” I yelled to them, waving my arms. They didn’t see me.
    I looked back at the crowd and recognized one man, Bo Blanchard. He was a member of the local Ku Klux Klan, a group that was against Negroes or anybody else who disagreed with them. The Klan and its members were supposed to be secret, but Bo Blanchard couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
    I saw him step away and sprint for his car, which was parked up the hill. A moment later he came running back to the bus, holding a bunch of oily rags. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and held it up to the rags. They burst into flames. He flung them through one of the broken windows.
    There was a dull whumpf . Flames leaped. The bus was on fire.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    The passengers screamed. One of them, a young Negro woman, leaned through a broken window, gasping for air.
    She yelled, “Oh my God, they’re trying to burn us up!”
    The fire blazed behind her, and smoke began to billow. More passengers stuck their heads through the windows, their eyes wide with fright. I realized that the people in the bus had a terrible choice: face the flames inside or the mob outside.
    Hearing desperation in the passengers’ voices, the mob clustered around the door. One man smacked a lead pipe against his palm. Another broke a bottle and held it by the neck.
    â€œBurn them alive!” cried one.
    â€œFry them!” called another.
    Grant took pictures. The highway patrol officers just watched.
    The smoke turned an inky black, the color of midnight. Suddenly there was an explosion. Flames leaped from under the back of the bus.
    â€œThe fuel tanks!” yelled one of the men. “They’re gonna blow!”
    The mob backed away. Some ran. The bus door flew open, and people spilled out in a jumble of black and white. Most ended up on their hands and knees, coughing and retching from the smoke.
    A young white man approached one of the passengers and asked, “Are you okay?” Then he took out a baseball bat and swung it, smashing the passenger on the side of the head.
    The mob hesitated. Some who had run away moved back toward the bus, carrying tire irons and chains, falling on the passengers and beating them.
    Everyone watched, including me. I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t move. Then I saw a small figure through the smoke. Janie Forsyth, who must have heard the commotion from inside the grocery, weaved in and out among the victims, carrying a bucket of water and a stack of Dixie cups. She dipped the cups in her bucket and fed sips of water to the passengers. Pausing under the S&H Green Stamps sign, she gave a handkerchief to one passenger, and he wiped blood from his face.
    I wondered if she would get beaten too, but no one touched her. They knew her. She was the Forsyth girl. Maybe it was easier to beat up a