The dark horror of the deed fell hot upon him. He had not seen it before—he had not wholly realized it. Yet he must go on. He could not stop. What had other men thought when they murdered in a great cause? Suddenly he seemed to know. It was not the dead who paid—it was the living; not the killed, but the Killer, who knew and suffered. This was Hell, and he was in it. He must stay in it. He must go through with it. But, Christ! the horror, the infamy, the flaming pain of the thing!
And the world flew by—always, always the world flew by; now in a great blurred rush of sound; now in a white, soft Sweep of space and flash of time. Darkness ascended to the Stars, and distance that was sight became sound.
It was War. In all ages men had gone forth to kill. But never—never, from Armageddon to the Argonne, had they carried so bitter reasons, so bloody a guerdon. All the enslaved, all the raped, all the lynched, all the “jim-crowed” marched in ranks behind him, bloody with rope and club and iron, crimson with stars and nights. He was going to fight and die for vengeance and freedom. There would be no march of music and stream of banners and whine of vast-voiced trumpets, but it was war, war, war, and he the grim lone fighter.
But the pity of it—the crippled and hurt—the pain, the great pricks and flashes of pain, the wild screams in the night; the grinding and crushing of body and bone and flesh and limb—and his sweat oozed and dripped in the cold night. He cowered in that dim and swaying room and shook with ague. He was afraid. He was deathly afraid. If he could turn back! If he had but never fallen in with this crazy plan! If he could only die now, quickly and first! Yet he knew he would not flinch. He would go through with it all to the last horror. The cold, white thing within him gripped him—held him hard and fast with all his writhing. He would go through.
The outlines of mountains with snow lay sprinkled here and there. The lights on hill and hollow—on long shining rails and piling shadows paused, came back and forward, curved, and disappeared. He stood stiffly and heard the gay laughter of the smoker, and one shrill voice floated back with war of answering banter.
“Laugh no more!” he whispered, and then his thoughts went racing down to cool places, to summer suns and gay, gleaming eyes. The cars reeled forward, gathered themselves, became one great speeding catapult, and headed toward the last hills. Beside them a little river, silver, whistled softly to the night.
He collected his few pairs of shoes and set them carefully down before him, arranging them mechanically; he smiled—the shoes of the dead—and he strangled as he smiled; strong, big, expensive brogans; soft, sleek, slim calf; patent leather pumps with gaitered sides; slippers of gray suede.
Slowly he got out his shoe brushes, and then paused. His heart throbbed unmercifully and then was cold and still. It was ten o’clock. He put out his hand and felt the letter. Tomorrow she would hear from him. Tomorrow they would know that black America had its men who dared—whose faces were toward the light and who could pay the price.
He laid the letter on the table unopened and took up the rest of the package, the bundle of manifestoes which Perigua had prepared and printed himself. Slowly Matthew read the little six-by-eight poster. It was rhodomontade. It was melodrama, but it told its awful story. Matthew read it and signed his name beneath Perigua’s,
Vengeance is Mine
The wreck tonight is to avenge the lynching of an innocent black man, Jimmie Giles, on this train, December 16, 1926, by men who seek our disfranchisement and slavery.
Murder for Murderers
Matthew folded the posters slowly and held them in his hands.
Murder and death. That was his plan. It did not seem so awful as he faced it. Except by the shedding of blood there was no remission of Sin. Despite deceptive advance, the machinery was being laid to strangle black folk in America and in the world. They must fight or die. There was no use in talk or argument. Here was the challenge. An atrocious lynching; an open, publicly advertised movement to take the first step back to Negro slavery. Kill the men who led it. Kill them openly, publicly, and spectacularly, and advertise the killing and tell why!
Only one thing else, and that was: he must die as they died. It must be no coward’s act which brought death to others and escape to himself. He shifted his pistol and pulled it out. It was a big forty-five and loaded with five great bullets. If the wreck did not kill him, this would. He was ready to die. This was all he could do for the cause. He was not worth any other effort—he had tried and failed. He had once a great dream of world alliance in the service of a woman he had almost dared to love.
He laughed aloud. She would not have looked twice even on Dr. Matthew Towns, world-renowned surgeon, save as she saw in him a specimen and a promise. And on a servant and a porter—a porter. He thought of the porters, riding to death. Let the cowards ride. Then he thought of their wives and babies, of Jimmie’s wife and child. What difference? No—no—no! He
