Sarah told the boys what had happened and told them they’d all be staying home that day. Daniel and Roy protested, arguing that the trap lines needed to be checked and set.
“You’re throwing money away, leaving them for a day,” Roy told her. “Animals come along and eat what’s snared, tear up the skins. It’s a waste of a day’s work.”
“I want you in this house,” she insisted. “Believe me, they’ll be forming a posse to look for that man. No telling who that mob might grab.”
“Grandmama, we weren’t anywhere near Sumner. They’re not looking for us.”
“She made up some story, they don’t know who they’re looking for. Could be they’ll settle for you. I want you in the house.”
Finally both young men grudgingly agreed to stay on the farm for the day. Sarah sent them out with A.T. to cut and stack wood by the back door, with orders to come inside at the first sign of any men coming by.
Rose heard the mob long before she saw them. She and Marlene were in the front yard after the noon meal, watching the children play. They turned towards the south when they heard a low rumbling sound coming from the direction of the Sumner road. The noise grew as it approached, shouts from men and the thud of horse hooves and the grinding churn of automobile engines.
The sound of the baying of hounds caused Marlene to stand up.
“I’m going in to get Grandmama,” she told Rose, and hurried up to the house, calling for Sarah.
Sarah came out on the porch, pulling on her coat, as the crowd came in to view.
“Lord preserve us,” she breathed out in a whisper.
Two men were walking in front, pulling back on the thick leather leashes of four large hounds that were following a scent trail in the dirt next to the road. Following them were several young boys, running back and forth between the dog handlers and the crowd coming up behind. A large group of men were walking and riding horses along behind two automobiles, which were driving slowly along following the dogs.
The dogs stopped in front of the house and started baying and circling, sniffing the ground. A large man with thick mustaches pulled himself out of one of the cars and approached the house, looking up at the second story and around at the side yard.
“Bring those children in the house,” Sarah told the girls, and walked down the steps and out to the gate.
Rose hung back on the porch as Marlene shooed the children in through the front door. She saw the man reach over and unhitch the lock as he laid his other hand on the gate. Walking up, Sarah put both of her hands on her side of the gate and looked up at the man, smiling, as she stepped close enough for her shoe tips to touch the bottom board.
“Auntie, I hear you were over in Sumner washing this morning,” he told her as he removed his hand from the gate and stepped back.
“Yes Sheriff Walker, we were there. Some of my grandchildren and I were doing for Miz Taylor.”
“Heard tell there was an attack. You hear anything? See anybody you know?”
“I didn’t hear much until Miz Taylor come out and went next door. Then Miz Murphy come out and told me to send my granddaughter down to the depot to fetch you.”
“You didn’t see the man then, what attacked Mrs. Taylor?”
“I didn’t see any colored man there, except my grandson, A.T. He’s eight years old.”
“Didn’t somebody come out of Mrs. Taylor’s house? Go out the back way in to the woods?”
“We heard Miz Taylor come out, heard her scream and run next door. We were around the side, doing wash. Only ones went the back way were A.T., carrying the ironing over to Emma’s, and us when we come back here.”
The sheriff looked at Sarah for a long moment. She stood and looked back at him.
“The dogs led us right here to Rosewood, Auntie. Right to your nephew’s house, then in the front door and out the back. Your nephew wasn’t at home, though. Then we lost the trail, as if somebody took out the wagon. And the wagon’s gone, and the horses from the barn. Picked the scent up again on the road, straight this way. Tracks stop here looks like. Somebody come by this way?”
“No sir, we’ve been here about an hour or two, nobody’s been by.”
“Where’s Sylvester today?”
Sarah frowned, shook her head. “He’s not here. He took Gertrude and his sister up to Gainesville early this morning. He’ll be gone all day, visiting with the Hall cousins up there.”
“ Gone all day, you say. Well, what you think about all this, Auntie? You have any ideas where your nephew might be?”
“I haven’t seen him, sheriff, not since last night at the church.”
The sheriff tugged his hat brim down, looked up and down the road.
“Why would the wagon stop here?” he asked.
“I don’t know that it did, Sheriff, we were in Sumner all morning. Nobody’s been here since early, before dawn.”
“I guess we’ll keep on towards town then. The work camp sent word there’s an escaped convict, Jesse Hunter, running loose. Looks like maybe he tried to rob Mrs. Taylor this morning. You know the man?”
“No sir, I never heard of him.”
“Well you keep your eyes out for him, sounds mean. Big, dark man, they said. You see him, you send one of your boys to the depot, someone there will find me. Let me know if you see Aaron. Tell him I need to speak with him.”
The sheriff returned to his automobile and the crowd moved off, following the dogs down the road as they cast back and forth looking for scent. Sarah stood at the gate, watching, until the crowd was out of sight. She turned towards the house, shaking her head, and frowned when she saw Rose on the porch.
“I thought I told you to go on in,” she scolded Rose as she came up the porch steps.
“Auntie, why didn’t you tell him about that man we saw?” Rose asked.
Sarah took her by the arm, shaking her head.
“We’re not going to tell any story unless we’re sworn by a judge to testify. No one in this family has to tell Sheriff Walker that Miz Taylor’s telling stories to cover up. The sheriff’s not a bad man, he’ll figure out something’s not right with Fanny’s story. Everybody except her husband knows that man comes in and out of there. Somebody will tell. Now come on in. No saying what else will happen. I want everyone in the house.”
It was the middle of the afternoon before Beauty returned from Sumner. The family all moved from the kitchen where they were working to the front hall at the sound of an automobile pulling up at the front gate. Mrs. Pillsbury got out and followed Beauty up the walk. She came in the hall as Sarah opened the door and gestured her in.
“Miz Pillsbury, I appreciate you bringing my daughter home,” Sarah thanked the woman.
“I didn’t want her to leave but she insisted on coming home tonight. Thank goodness I had the car, Mr. Pillsbury’s at the mill. They’re locking down all the workers tonight, there almost was a riot in Sumner. No one’s allowed to leave, Mr. Pillsbury thinks it’s safer for everyone to stay in the old barracks.” She turned to Beauty, put a gloved hand on her arm.
“Don’t you return until this has all died down. We’ll do fine without you for a day or two.”
“Yes Ma’am. Thank you for driving me back.”
“Oh, my pleasure, I never get to drive much.”
“Thank you again Ma’am, for driving her back,” Sarah said as she moved out the door.
“We count on Beauty, I couldn’t just let her walk home with things all stirred up. You all don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll find that man quickly. Good afternoon,” she wished them as she returned to her vehicle.
Daniel went out and turned the crank for her and she soon was off back up the road towards Sumner.
An hour later, when she heard an automobile, Rose thought Mrs. Pillsbury must be returning to the house. The shouting and barking made Rose realize it was the crowd of men from before. She and Marlene and Beauty left the kitchen, Sarah close behind, and hurried up the hallway out onto the front porch.
A car was grinding up the road from town, it’s motor roaring as the driver accelerated and slowed, accelerated and slowed. The men inside the car were laughing, looking out the back and leaning out the side windows to see behind them. A group of boys, the dog boys from earlier, were running behind the car throwing sticks and rocks at a bundle dragging from a chain behind the car. The crowd of men following looked twice as large as it had been earlier in the day, and several other vehicles had joined the group following behind.
As the car stopped in front of the gate, the women on the porch could see the bundle being towed behind the car was a man, scraped and dusty. He tried to stand as the car stopped but the driver pulled forward, dragging the man back down as the crowd roared and the boys threw rocks.
Rose pulled back from the steps, horrified. She grabbed on to Beauty and Marlene as Sarah went down the steps towards the gate.
“Mama, don’t!” Beauty cried out to her mother as she went out the gate.
“That’s Aaron,” Sarah said, and went out to the man lying bloodied in the road.
“Get on back in the house,” a man snarled at Sarah, but she went down on her knees in the dust next to her nephew. She rolled him over and tried to sit him up but he was unconscious, his head lolling back as she struggled to hold him upright.
“Get off him, Auntie, he’s going to tell us where that convict is or he’s going to hang for him,” a man shouted at Sarah, pushing at her with his foot as he leaned over her from his saddle. Several other men started pushing her away but she held on to Aaron, pulling him to the side of the road as far as the chain would allow.
Beauty, whining wordlessly and trembling, went to her mother and helped to hold up her cousin. She used her sleeve to wipe Aaron’s face. He cried out and thrashed away when she touched his lower jaw; a huge bruise covered his chin and neck, as if a giant set of hands had squeezed and pressed his flesh there, turning it dark and swollen.
“Oh, God,” Aaron moaned.
Sarah rose from the dirt road and tried to pull Aaron upright. She pulled at the chain that held him and tried to slip it away from his neck and chest. Beauty tried to help but the crowd of men surged forward and pushed her away from her mother’s side.
“Get off! Move away from him, you two, we’re taking this boy and we’ll make him confess!” one of the men shouted. He rode forward and kicked Beauty in the side twice, hard, knocking her stumbling to the ground.
The sheriff’s car pulled up behind the crowd. He left his vehicle and pushed his way through the crowd of shouting men, moving to the front of the angry mob and kneeling next to the injured man.
“He alive?” he asked Sarah.
When she nodded yes the sheriff turned back towards the mob.
“You all need to let this boy off that chain and into my custody,” he told the men. At their angry shouts he repeated, “Let him off. Let him off. I’ll finish him. I know what to do. I’ll take care of him when I’m done.”
The crowd shouted at the sheriff, but in the end they moved aside and let the sheriff have his way. Unbelieving, Rose watched as the sheriff removed the chain and pulled Aaron erect. He held him, swaying, then dragged him to his car and pushed him in the back seat.
“I’m taking this man in for questioning,” he announced as he shut the door, and the crowd of men roared with laughter.
“Go back in the house, Auntie,” the sheriff yelled at Sarah.
Sarah helped Beauty to stand and together they staggered through the gate. She turned and the sheriff called to her again, “Get in the house.” He got in his car and drove off, the crowd slowly following back towards town, the boys running ahead again with the pack of hounds.