Free Darby by Jonathon Scott Fuqua Page B

and you keeps yer farm runnin’ in hard times. And, I’ll tell you, helpin’ someone’s fine. Helpin’ anyone is. But we got ourselves another situation altogether. Now, if a black man was ta ask you for a lawyer, you wouldn’t help him get that, would you? You wouldn’t give one of them that sorta powerful information?”
    My daddy took a small step closer to the man. Fearful they were gonna wrastle each other, I shrunk down and curled in a knot on the seat. Still, I listened as hard as I could.
    Daddy said, “Now, hold on. Yesterday Mr. Hawkins asked me who he could see about legal counsel, and I told him. He asked, and I told him. That’s all. I gave him Mr. Fairchild’s name, and Mr. Fairchild came and informed me not twenty minutes ago that he can’t be any help. So except for you threatening me, I think it’s all over. Don’t you?”
    The man didn’t say anything.
    “Don’t you?” my daddy shouted at him.
    The man raised his voice back. “Mr. Carmichael, don’t you get disrespectful with me, ’specially after what you done!”
    Daddy said, “I’ll get as disrespectful as I want. That’s exactly what I’m gonna do. You stop me on the road like this again, and I’m gonna get real disrespectful. I’m gonna get downright nasty.”
    Laughing, the man said, “Oh, yer a big fella, Mr. Carmichael, but you couldn’t shake no bullet, I don’t think. You take a look in that back window of my car, and you’ll see I didn’t come alone. The Ku Klux Klan don’t ever come alone. So next time you get ta feelin’ so friendly, you best consider the cost. Y’understand?”
    My daddy didn’t talk.
    “You hear me okay, Mr. Carmichael?”
    Daddy opened his car door, and he got in. He got the Buick rolling forward and around the man and the car that was sitting in the middle of the road. After a few minutes of driving, he said, “Darby? Darby, sweetheart, it’s okay. Those boys just needed directions. They’re from Columbia, and they lost their way, was all.”
    I started to cry. I couldn’t stop. Bawling, I said, “I . . . I heard what he said, Daddy! I heard him say he was from the Ku Klux Klan and how you might get shot by a bullet.”
    Upstairs, hidden from Aunt Greer, Mama squeezed me hard and told me that nothing bad was going to come of what happened. But I couldn’t stop crying. It was terrible. I didn’t want my daddy to die, and I didn’t want to, either. “I . . . I hate Mr. Dunn,” I sobbed.
    My mama rocked me good. She said, “Mr. Dunn probably didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”
    Placing a hand on my head, Daddy told me, “Darby, they’re all bluster and nothing more. The Klan is all bluster.”
    “What’s
bluster
mean?”
    “Means hot air,” Mama explained.
    “That’s what they’re full of,” Daddy declared, “just like a balloon. Besides, I promise you, we’re gonna be fine. I wouldn’t ever let something happen to you, your brother, or Mama.”
    “You forgot about Aunt Greer,” Mama joked.
    He laughed. “That’s right, Aunt Greer, too.”
    Smiling a little, I said, “How about your camellia bushes?”
    A grin came on his face. “Now you’re playing dirty. I wouldn’t allow anyone or anything to lay a hand on those.”
    Smiling wider, I snuffled. “Daddy, I swiped a bud for my hair on Monday.”
    “Oh, I know you did,” he said. “You always take them from the bush over by the smokehouse.”
    Surprised that he knew about that, I couldn’t help feeling better.

When I woke up on the morning of my birthday, what happened the night before seemed like a scary dream that wouldn’t melt away. Still, I tried not to think too hard on the skinny man with missing teeth. Whenever I started to, I focused on turning nine and how I was going to have cake and get some presents after lunch. That made me feel better.
    Shaking from the cold, I slipped from my bed and rushed over to the fire that was snapping and sizzling on the andirons in my hearth.