“Protect me?” Kenneth echoed with a rising, questioning inflection.
“Yes, to protect you. Y’ see, he knew She’ff Parker couldn’t be depended on ’cause he’s in with this gang ’round here. He knew the only chance was through the Guy’nor.”
“But why should I need protection now?” Kenneth asked wonderingly. “Good God, haven’t these devils done enough to my family and me already?”
She explained patiently as though talking to a child. Neither of them realized the unusualness of their situation. Both had forgotten race lines, time, circumstances, and everything else in the tenseness of the moment.
“B’cause the Ku Kluxers are after you!” she whispered.
“Why should they be after me? I’ve done nothing! My Lord, I’ve tried in every way I could since I’ve been back in this rotten place to keep away from trouble—” he declared querulously.
“Wait a minute an’ I’ll tell you!” she interrupted him. She took his arm and led him into the next room where they would not disturb Mary. “Roy heard them talking about you and cursin’ you out about some kind of a society you’ve been formin’ among the nig—the coloured people. He told ’em they oughter let coloured men like you alone ’cause you were a credit to the community. The nex’ mornin’ he foun’ a warnin’ on the front po’ch from the Kluxers, sayin’ he’d better stop defendin’ niggers or somethin’d happ’n to him!”
“Oh, that’s all tommyrot, Mrs. Ewing!” Kenneth declared in a disgusted and disdainful tone. “These silly nightriders wouldn’t dare do anything to your husband! I don’t believe they’d even try and do anything to me!”
“You mustn’t talk that way!” she sharply broke in. “They’d do anythin’! Roy says She’ff Parker’s one of ’em, and a whole lot mo’ of the folks you wouldn’ believe was in it!”
Kenneth’s voice became hard and bitter.
“Mrs. Ewing, I’ve tried—God knows I have—to keep away from trouble with these white people in Central City. If they bother me, I’m going to fight—you hear me I’m going to fight—and fight like hell! They’ll get me in the end—I know that—but before I go I’m going to take a few along with me!”
He left her standing there and went back into Mary’s room. He secured his bag and started down the stairs. Mrs. Ewing ran after him and caught him just as he opened the front door. She had to seize his arm to hold him, as he was impatient to be gone. He felt as though he never wanted to see a white face again as long as he lived. He did not know, nor did Mrs. Ewing, that several white faces were looking at them as he stood there with Mrs. Ewing clinging to his arm.
“You will be ca’ful until Roy comes back, won’t you, Doctor?” she pleaded.
Promising her impatiently, without even comprehending what he promised, he ran down the steps, eager to get home.
XXIII
Kenneth did not see the dark forms that crouched like tigers in the shrubbery on either side of the long walk that led to the gate. But as he reached the ground, he turned just in time to see a shadowy body hurl itself upon him. Instinctively his right arm shot outwards and upwards. His clenched fist met flush on the point of the jaw the man who had attempted to hurl him to the ground. His would-be assailant gave a deep grunt and fell to the ground at Kenneth’s feet.
Before he hit the ground, however, Kenneth found himself surrounded by a cursing, howling crowd. He lashed out blindly—hitting wherever he saw what seemed to be a form. Madly, desperately, gloriously he fought! For a time he was more than a match for the fifteen that assailed him. He did not know that they had expected to take him by surprise. The surprise was now theirs. He heard a voice shout at him in rage: “Sleepin’ with a white woman, eh! You dirty black bastard!” With superhuman strength born of hatred, bitterness, and despair, he lunged at the speaker. Almost at the same time that his fist landed in the man’s face, his foot went into his stomach with a vengeance. He put into the blow and the kick all the repressed hatred and passion the day’s revelations had brought forth.
It seemed to him he had been fighting there for hours, days, months! The odds fifteen to one against him—his strength was as of the fifteen combined. No Marquis of Queensberry rules here! He knew it was a fight to the death, and he yelled aloud for sheer joy of the combat! In the darkness his assailants could not lay hands on him, for he was here, there, everywhere—hitting, kicking, whirling, ducking blows, jumping this way and that—a veritable dervish of the deserts in his gyrations! One after another his opponents went down at his feet! Windows began to be raised at the tumult. Shouts and cries of inquiry filled the air. But still Kenneth fought on.
At last he saw an opening. Out went his fist! Down went the man who met it with his face! Shaking off one who sought to grasp him from behind, Kenneth stepped over the body of the one who had just gone down before him, and, like an expert halfback running in a broken field, darted out to the sidewalk. Fifty—forty—thirty—twenty—ten—five more yards and he’d be in his car and away! At last, he reached it! Feverishly he wrenched open the door! He started to spring in! They’d never get him now!
A shot rang out! Another! Another! Kenneth’s arm flew up. With a low moan he sank to the street beneath the car. He tried to rise. He couldn’t. The bullet had shattered his leg! On they came, howling, gloating fiendishly—their rage increased by the mess they’d made of what was intended should be an easy job! Kenneth saw them come! He groaned and tried to draw the gun from his hip pocket. It hung in his clothing,
