Sylvester must have heard them coming long before they began to shout, because he was already dressed and shaking Rose awake by the time she heard the first sounds of the posse. He leaned over her, pressing his lips to her ear in a soft-as-breath whisper.
“Come downstairs to Mama, bring Queen. Put on your boots. Be quiet.” He noiselessly crossed the room and went out the door.
“Come on out! We seen you, we know you’re here. Come on out here, boy, and speak to us!” a drunken Poly Wilkerson bellowed, his drawl slurred further by alcohol.
“Come out!” echoed another voice, chorused by others.
“Send him out Auntie!”
“Come on out here, boy!”
The front door rattled as fists rapped. The small panel of glass in the door vibrated and rang as the pounding shook the door and the frame around it.
Rose rolled over to shake Queen but she was already awake, looking frightened. Rose held her hand up to keep Queen in bed, slid out from under the quilts and tiptoed over to the wardrobe, pulling out their boots. Quickly she and Queen pulled them on, tied them and moved quietly over to the door. Rose held Queen back for a second and hurried back to the bed to pull off the top quilt, which she handed to Queen as they moved out the bedroom door and into the hall.
Daniel and Roy were both there, dressed and carrying their rifles. Sylvester was moving down the stairs, gesturing to them to follow. Rose could hear the pounding on the door again, loud and insistent, and see shadows move across the glass as she and Queen followed the boys down the stairs and into Sarah’s bedroom.
Sarah stood by her bed in her long flannel gown, her hair tied in rags and a shawl tied over her shoulders. She was holding the shotgun and listening to Sylvester as he whispered in her ear. She nodded, nodded, nodded again, then moved past the others into the hallway to answer the door.
“Auntie, you send that boy out! Him and them other boys, send them all out! We want to talk to them!” Poly Wilkerson yelled.
Daniel and Roy moved back towards the stairs at Sylvester’s gesture. Roy went silently back up the stairs as Daniel moved into the parlor. Sarah watched until they were both in place and then called out through the door to the men on the porch.
“Poly Wilkerson, my boys had nothing to do with this whole mess. Miz Taylor tell you herself, wasn’t one of our boys what done this. You go on home now Mr. Poly, the sheriff already been here today. He doesn’t want any of these boys.”
“Sheriff got nothing to do with this Auntie, you send them out here right now!” Wilkerson shouted. “We need to speak to your boy about his language and his manners! We’re gonna have a talk about his manners, teach him how to speak to white folks!”
The crowd snarled and bellowed after Wilkerson’s last words, the volume of their demands increasing.
“Send him out! Send him out!” they yelled.
One of Daisy’s puppies started barking, and a shot rang out. The puppy screeched and Daisy, roaring and snarling, came out from her den under the porch and set after whomever had fired the shot. More shots rang out as someone, swearing and thudding in the grass, shot her and kicked her away as she died in her attack. Shouts and laughter followed.
“Yeah! Shoot ‘em all!” someone cried.
“You all go on home now!” Sarah shouted, moving towards the front door.
She stood in front of the glass, holding the shotgun down but at the ready. She turned to look back at Sylvester and the girls, standing behind her in the hall, and turned back towards the door.
“You all go on home. There’s nobody here you need for anything. You boys listen to me now,” she cried.
The crowd grew silent as Sarah spoke. Rose could hear her inhale and breathe out and inhale again before she spoke.
“I’ve diapered most of you boys, and I birthed just about all of you. You’re all good boys, you don’t mean any harm. You don’t want this, I know you. I’ve nursed you and your babies, I’ve cared for your families. My children and I don’t have nothing here for you, and no one means anyone harm. You’re all good boys, you don’t need my boys. Now you all go home. Go on now, go home,” she called out into the silence.
The shot broke through the west parlor window, a full load of shot from a shotgun shell that Rose watched spray out as it hit her aunt on the right side of her face. It seemed to travel through her and come out the left side, making a trajectory path that Sarah’s body followed over and down to the floor, the gun in her hands dropping and clattering down on the floor until her body fell on it and muffled the sound. Sarah tensed, shuddered and made a choking sound, then drooped, silent and still.
Into the silence Poly Wilkerson yelled, “You don’t tell us! You don’t tell us shit, Auntie! Send those boys out or we’re coming in!”
“I shot her, shot her dead probably!” A voice called from the side porch. A cheer went up from the yard and the pounding began again on the front door.
A shot from inside the parlor broke out the rest of the windowpanes and the voice on the porch raised in glee changed and became a high-pitched scream of pain. Shouts from the outside came closer as several men dashed up on the porch and dragged away the injured shooter.
“You sons of bitches, we’ll kill you all for that!” a voice screamed from the front yard.
Sylvester pushed Rose down to the floor and moved past her, shouting to his mother.
Screaming children called out ”Mama! Mama!” There were footsteps in the upstairs bedrooms, running, and Minnie Lee came sliding down the stairs, screaming.
Sylvester moved past his mother and grabbed Minnie Lee before she could reach the body on the floor.
“Come on honey, I’ll keep you safe,” he told her as he pulled her across his hip and, turning quickly back down the hall, dropped her into the wood box in the closet under the stairs. He turned back towards the door as the pounding began again, several fists hitting the wood and glass, making the door shiver in its frame.
Rose slid and crawled up the hallway towards Sarah, reached out and pulled her farther down the hall. She tried to turn her over to see how badly she was injured, but her aunt’s body was still and heavy and wouldn’t roll.
Sylvester, keeping his eye on the door, crouched down to help her and together they turned Sarah over.
Something was wrong, something was not right about the shape of her aunt’s head and her face and Rose could not understand what she was seeing, but something was wrong about her ear and the shape of her mouth and the shape of her chin. Just when it started to seem that she could understand what was not right, just as she realized that no one could be alive and look like that, Sylvester rolled his mother back over and leaned down towards her, shuddering and moaning.
“Ah, ah God, oh God! Mama! Oh God, Mama!” he cried as he scuttled away from his dead mother and stood upright.
“We’re coming in!” Poly Wilkerson yelled as the door jumped forward, splintering the jamb.
“Come in, you killed her, come on in!” Sylvester shouted as the door broke open and slammed back into the wall.
Poly Wilkerson stood in the doorway, rifle raised. A small, rat-like man with a thin mustache stood next to him, holding a shotgun. They stepped together over the threshold and together they died in their next steps as Sylvester fired once, twice and killed them both. They staggered back and fell heavily backwards out the front door, and a wailing cry went up outside.
Rose could hear Daniel calling her name and felt a hand pulling her towards the parlor. She could hear Minnie Lee screaming and Sylvester telling her calmly “Don’t worry baby, I’ll save you.”
More gunshots came down the hallway from the porch and Sylvester cried out. The shouting from the yard turned to screams as Sylvester fired boom, boom, boom, out the open doorway into the darkness.
A light shone in through the parlor window, illuminating the room.
“Shoot ‘em! Shoot ‘em now!” a voice shouted.
Daniel whipped around from Rose, left her lying on the floor where he had dragged her, and he fired at the light. The lantern crashed and went out as its bearer fell and began screaming, his heels pounding the porch floor as he screamed in pain.
Daniel reached down for Rose and pushed her against the sofa under the window.
“Get under it!” he yelled, and moved over to the wall between the front and side windows, pressing up behind the curtains. He leaned forward and fired again and again and another voice began screaming and cursing out in the yard.
A volley of bullets smashed into the house, breaking every window on the front, upstairs and down. Screaming and crashing from upstairs began as guns were fired from inside and outside the house. Rose could hear one of the children keening in a high scream and Gussie crying, “It’s all right! It’s all right!” over and over.
The fusillade continued as Rose crouched half under the heavy sofa and sobbed, trying to breathe and trying not to scream as bullets whined close by and slapped into the walls behind her. Daniel slid down to the floor and reached in his front pocket to reload.
“Quick, quick, quick, quick,” he was panting and whispering as he pushed the bullets into his rifle.
Three shots from the porch echoed in the front hall. Three times Sylvester cried out and Minnie Lee shrieked. Sylvester passed in front of the parlor door, holding his rifle and another gun. He dropped the rifle and raised the other; it was the shotgun his mother had been holding. He pulled each trigger, emptying first one barrel then the other. Then he slumped against the parlor doorframe and let the shotgun fall to the floor.
From outside the voices cried out, “Come on, come on! Let’s go!” and steps pounded down the porch stair.
Horses whinnied and stamped hooves, wagons clattered and engines roared, then even these noises faded away back to silence as the crowd of murderers fled.