The Chamber (Page 76)

"Yes, I did."

"Where were you?"

"Over there," she nodded, but didn’t point. "In my pecan tree. Hidden from the world."

"Sam couldn’t see you?"

"No one could see me. I watched the whole thing." She covered her eyes again and fought back tears. Adam eased onto the porch and sat beside her.

She cleared her throat and looked away. "He watched Joe for a minute, ready to shoot again if necessary. But Joe never moved. He was quite dead. There was some blood around his head on the grass, and I could see it from the tree. I remember digging my fingernails into the bark to keep from falling, and I remember wanting to cry but being too scared. I didn’t want him to hear me. Quince appeared after a few minutes. He’d heard the shot, and he was crying by the time I saw him. Just running like crazy and crying, and when he saw his father on the ground he started screaming like any child would’ve done. My father raised the gun again, and for a second I knew he was about to shoot the boy. But Quince threw Joe’s shotgun to the ground and ran to his father. He was bawling and wailing. He wore a light-colored shirt, and soon it was covered with blood. Sam eased to the side and picked up Joe’s shotgun, then he went inside with both guns."

She stood slowly and took several measured steps. "Quince and Joe were right about here," she said, marking the spot with her heel. "Quince held his father’s head next to his stomach, blood was everywhere, and he made this strange moaning sound, like the whimper of a dying animal." She turned and looked at her tree. "And there I was sitting up there like a little bird, crying too. I hated my father so badly at that moment."

"Where was Eddie?"

"Inside the house, in his room with the door locked." She pointed to a window with broken panes and a shutter missing. "That was his room. He told me later that he looked outside when he heard the shot, and he saw Quince clutching his father. Within minutes, Ruby Lincoln came running up with a string of children behind her. They all collapsed around Quince and Joe, and, God, it was horrible. They were screaming and weeping and yelling at Joe to get up, to please not die on them.

"Sam went inside and called an ambulance. He also called one of his brothers, Albert, and a couple of neighbors. Pretty soon there was a crowd in the backyard. Sam and his gang stood on the porch with their guns and watched the mourners, who dragged the body under that tree over there." .She pointed to a large oak. "The ambulance arrived after an eternity, and took the body away. Ruby and her children walked back to their house, and my father and his buddies had a good laugh on the porch."

"How long did you stay in the tree?"

"I don’t know. As soon as everybody was gone, I climbed down and ran into the woods. Eddie and I had a favorite place down by a creek, and I knew he would come looking for me. He did. He was scared and out of breath; told me all about the shooting, and I told him that I’d seen it. He didn’t believe me at first, but I gave him the details. We were both scared to death. He reached in his pocket and pulled out something. It was the little Confederate soldier he and Quince had fought over. He’d found it under his bed, and so he decided on the spot that everything was his fault. We swore each other to secrecy. He promised he would never tell anyone that I had witnessed the killing, and I promised I would never tell anyone that he’d found the soldier. He threw it in the creek."

"Did either of you ever tell?"

She shook her head for a long time.

"Sam never knew you were in the tree?" Adam asked.

"Nope. I never told my mother. Eddie and I talked about it occasionally over the years, and as time passed we just sort of buried it away. When we returned to the house, our parents were in the middle of a huge fight. She was hysterical and he was wild-eyed and crazy. I think he’d hit her a few times. She grabbed us and told us to get in the car. As we were backing out of the driveway, the sheriff pulled up. We drove around for a while, Mother in the front seat, and Eddie and I in the back, both of us too scared to talk. She didn’t know what to say. We assumed he would be taken to jail,- but when we parked in the driveway he was sitting on the front porch as if nothing had happened."

"What did the sheriff do?"

"Nothing, really. He and Sam talked for a bit.

Sam showed him Joe’s shotgun and explained how it was a simple matter of self-defense. Just another dead nigger."

"He wasn’t arrested?"

"No, Adam. This was Mississippi in the early fifties. I’m sure the sheriff had a good laugh about it, patted Sam on the back, and told him to be a good boy, and then left. He even allowed Sam to keep Joe’s shotgun."

"That’s incredible."

"We were hoping he’d go to jail for a few years."

"What did the Lincolns do?"

"What could they do? Who would listen to them? Sam forbade Eddie from seeing Quince, and to make sure the boys didn’t get together, he evicted them from their house."

"Good God!"

"He gave them one week to get out, and the sheriff arrived to fulfill his sworn duties by forcing them out of the house. The eviction was legal and proper, Sam assured Mother. It was the only time I thought she might leave him. I wish she had."

"Did Eddie ever see Quince?"

"Years later. When Eddie started driving, he started looking for the Lincolns. They had moved to a small community on the other side of Clanton, and Eddie found them there. He apologized and said he was sorry a hundred times. But they were never friends again. Ruby asked him to leave. He told me they .lived in a run-down shack with no electricity."

She walked to her pecan tree and sat against its trunk. Adam followed and leaned against it. He looked down at her, and thought of all the years she’d been carrying this burden. And he thought of his father, of his anguish and torment, of the indelible scars he’d bome to his death. Adam now had the first clue to his father’s destruction, and he wondered if the pieces might someday fit together. He thought of Sam, and as he glanced at the porch he could see a younger man with a gun and hatred in his face. Lee was sobbing quietly.

"What did Sam do afterward?"

She struggled to control herself. "The house was so quiet for a week, maybe a month, I don’t know. But it seemed like years before anyone spoke over dinner. Eddie stayed in his room with the door locked. I would hear him crying at night, and he told me again and again how much he hated his father. He wanted him dead. He wanted to run away from home. He blamed himself for everything. Mother became concerned, and she spent a lot of time with him. As for me, they thought I was off playing in the woods when it happened. Shortly after Phelps and I married, I secretly began seeing a psychiatrist. I tried to work it out in therapy, and I wanted Eddie to do the same. But he wouldn’t listen. The last time I talked to Eddie before he died, he mentioned the killing. He never got over it."

"And you got over it?"

"I didn’t say that. Therapy helped, but I still wonder what would’ve happened if I had screamed at Daddy before he pulled the trigger.

Would he have killed Joe with his daughter watching? I don’t think so."

"Come on, Lee. That was forty years ago. You can’t blame yourself"

"Eddie blamed me. And he blamed himself, and we blamed each other until we were grown. We were children when it happened, and we couldn’t run to our parents. We were helpless."

Adam could think of a hundred questions about the killing of Joe Lincoln. The subject was not likely to be raised again with Lee, and he wanted to know everything that happened, every small detail. Where was Joe buried? What happened to his shotgun? Was the shooting reported in the local paper? Was the case presented to a grand jury? Did Sam ever mention it to his children? Where was her mother during the fight? Did she hear the argument and the gunshot? What happened to Joe’s family? Did they still live in Ford County?