In conclusion, Luke returned to Kelli. “Kelli made us aware that we had a race problem in Choctaw, and that we had always had one. For that alone, and even if nothing had ever happened to her here on Breakheart Hill, we must never forget Kelli Troy.”
He stepped aside after that, and Eddie Smathers spoke briefly, then introduced Rayford Winters, who described Kelli as a kind of local saint. Rayford said other things as well, but my attention had turned away from him, my eyes searching the deep green wood just as Kelli’s must have searched it on that long-ago summer day. I could see her in her white sleeveless dress, her long brown arms pushing away the low-slung limbs as she moved deeper into the thickening forest. At some point she must have heard the scratch of the gravel as Luke’s old truck pulled away, but whether she glanced back, I will never know. I know only that she continued down the slope, her feet in summer sandals, her white dress no doubt catching from time to time on a bush or shrub, her eyes peering intently into the green filament of the wood, moving not toward martyrdom, as Rayford Winters would have had us all believe when he spoke on Breakheart Hill that day, but toward the heart—as I have come to think of it—of life’s disarray.
CHAPTER 14
ONLY A FEW WEEKS BEFORE IT HAPPENED, IT WOULD HAVE been impossible for me to have imagined Kelli as moving toward anything but a bright future. She never seemed more absolutely sure of herself, more in command of her own life, than during her last days.
During that time she worked furiously to uncover the origin of Breakheart Hill, spending more and more time at the town library, poring over old books and piles of letters, tracking it down step by step while Mrs. Phillips looked on approvingly.
It was also during this time that her article about the civil rights demonstration in Gadsden was published, and I remember the two of us watching tensely as that particular issue of the
It was strong stuff in the Choctaw of that time, and even Luke, probably one of the few genuine “liberals” in the town, greeted it with chilly resignation. “Well,” he told me with a shrug, “somebody was bound to say it sooner or later.”
But other people at Choctaw High were not so generous, and during the next few days, Kelli had her hands full. It was usually in Mr. Arlington’s class that the arguments erupted, and he did nothing to contain them. He had not liked Kelli’s article and openly quarreled with her about it, accusing her of misinterpreting the social situation in the South, what he termed its “long and mutually beneficial tradition of racial separation.”
At first, Kelli had listened politely, but as the days passed, and Mr. Arlington continued to attack her, shamelessly encouraging like-minded students to join in, she began to bristle, and then fight back.
“The white people just use the Negroes to do the kind of work white people won’t do,” she blurted out hotly on one occasion, her manner so strained and angry that Mr. Arlington actually stepped backward slightly, as if he feared she might rise and strike him.
Eddie Smathers stared at her, aghast. “You make it sound like they’re still slaves, Kelli.”
She stared at him coldly. “Well, aren’t they?”
A few other students groaned loudly at such heresy, but Kelli refused to be intimidated. “When you can’t vote or send your children to a decent school, aren’t you a slave?” she cried, her eyes aflame. “What would you think if you were an adult, and you had to call everybody miss or mister, even if it was a child?”
The students stared at her in stunned silence.
“Have you ever seen a Negro policeman in Choctaw?” Kelli’s words now resounded like pistol shots, sharp, deafening. “They can’t even deliver the mail here.” Her eyes challenged them. “So they have to take the lowest jobs in town. Jobs white people won’t do.” She stopped, daring anyone to oppose her. “That’s slavery, and all of you know it.”
There were a great many arguments after that, and I began to take part in them, always supporting Kelli. So much so that over the next few days, as the battle raged on in Mr. Arlington’s classroom, I became known as no less a defender of Negro rights than Kelli herself.
It was a role I came to welcome. I even took pride in it as the spring deepened, believing that the things I said during that time, the things I stood for, came from the deepest part of me. I felt the hostility of various classmates, and even a few teachers, but I refused to let that stop me. In fact, it encouraged me, gave me the sense of being Kelli’s comrade-in-arms, joined with her in an epic battle against the forces of darkness.
But if there was fierce hostility to what Kelli had written, there was support, too. It came particularly from other girls. Like Sheila Cameron, who insisted on walking with her in the corridor, her arm linked defiantly beneath Kelli’s. And Betty Ann, who wrote a blistering “open letter” to her fellow students, then boldly posted it on the bulletin board in the front hall. Noreen offered her good wishes, along with several other girls. Even shy little Edith Sparks came forward, though in a different way, baking Kelli a dozen sugar cookies for “what you said about the colored people.”
As for the boys, for the most part they merely withdrew from the fray, dismissing Kelli’s article as the sort of fool thing only a girl would do, particularly a Yankee girl, and then going on to those matters that were more important to them, sports and sex and racing cars. Only one of them came forward to congratulate her.
Kelli and I were just coming out of Miss Carver’s English class when he stepped up to us, and I remember that as he moved toward us, I felt Kelli’s body tense.
It was, of course, Todd Jeffries who came toward us, though not alone, but with Mary Diehl, with whom he had recently reconciled, clinging to his arm.
Todd barely looked at me, but focused all his attention on Kelli, instead.
“I just wanted to tell you that I thought your article was great,” he said.
Mary smiled amiably. “Me, too, Kelli,” she said. “It was great that you wrote it. We’re all proud of you.” She glanced up toward Todd, her gaze nearly worshipful. “Aren’t we all proud of her, Todd?”
Todd nodded, his eyes strangely concentrated as he stared at Kelli. “Very proud,” he said.
“Has anybody said anything to you about it?” Mary asked, quite cheerily, as I recall, despite the seriousness of the question. “Anything bad, I mean.”
“I think a few people didn’t like it,” Kelli answered, “but nobody has really said anything bad to me.”
Mary continued to smile brightly. “Well, most people in Choctaw are nice.” Her voice had the syrupy charm upper-class girls often affected in those days, and if her life had gone as she’d hoped, Mary would no doubt have matured into that same innocent, middle-aged sweetness that has since overtaken so many of the girls from Turtle Grove, some in reality, some as a mask. Like them, she would have fought to preserve her beauty, fought to fill her household with a decent warmth and love, fought to please and please and please, and in the end, perhaps she might even have succeeded somewhat in doing all those things. Certainly, even from the beginning, she had wanted to please Todd, to be his wife and the mother of his child, both of which she became, but on terms very different from what she must have imagined them that day in the hallway as she clung so tenaciously to his arm.
“Todd agrees with you,” she told Kelli. “He thinks the colored people have been mistreated here in the South.”
I saw Kelli’s eyes dart over to Todd, then back to Mary. “Yes, they have been,” she said.
“He thinks something has to be done about it,” Mary added.
“So do I,” Kelli said.
Mary tightened her grip on Todd’s arm. “Well, if anybody gives you any trouble, Todd’ll protect you, won’t you, Todd?”
Todd’s voice was very serious when he answered. “Yes,” he said, “I will.” He smiled. “I really will, Kelli,” he added.
Kelli’s gaze drifted over to him slowly, as if she were reluctant to settle it upon him, afraid, as I have since come to realize, of what her eyes might give away. “Thank you, Todd” was all she said.
Todd and Mary walked away after that, and as they did so, I noticed that Kelli’s eyes followed Todd a little way before they turned back to me. “That was nice of him,” she said.
I felt a quiver of jealousy, but I shoved it deep down into myself so that Kelli could not possibly have glimpsed it. “Yeah, it was,” I told her.
