Entrapment and Other Writings Read Online Free PDF Page A

fear and shame that he had been able to get no rest. At first he had been afraid that somehow the white folks would learn that he had seen and would come after him. He had been so afraid of that, that once he had risen from his cot in the middle of the night, dressed himself hurriedly, fully determined to run away. He didn’t know where. Just to run, run, run, was all he had been able to think, like a panic-stricken horse. Only the thought of Queenie Lee had, at the last moment, brought him back to sanity and self-control. She had gotten into his blood. He didn’t want to go away to some ol’ place where he’d never see Queenie on Saturday nights.
    Then he had been ashamed—ashamed of his fear—ashamed of his desire to run—ashamed, above all, that he had not had the courage to interfere in the killings. He could have saved them, but his courage had run out of him like so much water. So intense had his shame become that he had resolved to go to Mayor Breck and tell what he had seen. He knew just where he would be able to find Breck—in that little room on the second floor, right above where he was sitting now, with all the big lawyers and Judge Hafey and Editor Regan sitting around smoking and talking. He had resolved to go there even though it should cost him his life, but even as he had resolved he had cautioned himself: “Careful, nigger, careful.” He had reasoned with himself then: Actually, wouldn’t it be foolish to tell? Telling couldn’t bring the dead alive. And what if he should be telling them a thing they all knew?—Why, he’d just be giving himself away, putting his head in the noose. And didn’t they all know?—Hadn’t the bodies been buried with only the merest outward gesture of an inquest? Hadn’t the verdict of suicide been returned before the bodies had been thoroughly examined? Hadn’t Kurt Regan failed to print a single line concerning the murders in the
Herald
?
    Christopher turned the cold facts over in his mind, dreading the conclusion to which they were so rapidly driving him—that every white authority in town knew precisely what had occurred. He dreaded this conclusion because he didn’t wish to believe that those who had taught him to place utter faith in a just and omnipotent God had no faith in such a being themselves, and because he did not wish to believe this of them deliberately he desired to let his innate Negroid credulity master him. He wished to find them innocent; and if he could not find them innocent he wanted an excuse to find forgiveness for them. It was necessary to forgive them, if they were guilty, in order to recover his peace of mind. But were they guilty? Did they require forgiveness? Could they, come to think of it, be anything but innocent? Almost feverishly now he searched his mind for some evidence of Christian charity, however fragmentary, which he must have observed among them sometime in the past. He remembered that Judge Hafey had once given him a pint of dry gin; he remembered that Breck had shaken his hand when he had come back from France; he remembered that the pastor of the First Colored Baptist church had once changed pulpits with the Rev. Hugh Breckenbridge, of the White Baptist; and he remembered the florid kindness which always shone from the face of Kurt Regan, no matter upon whom Kurt Regan looked. No, they couldn’t actually know what had happened. Old Bryan had told them it was a suicide, and because they were pure in heart themselves, and had the True Faith, they had believed his story. Why, it simply stood to reason that they didn’t, couldn’t know, or they would have done something to Bryan, wouldn’t they? They were good men—all of them. Even Luther and Lloyd and Bryan might not be really bad at heart: Maybe the girl had wronged Lloyd first. Maybe it was for her own good that they had killed her. They would have used a rope if they’d been really mad with her, wouldn’t they? He asked himself this last question angrily,