Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [161]
“You can trust me,” he said.
“I know I can,” she said. “That’s why I told you the truth.”
GIDEON DID NOT know how deep their secret was until a strange incident revealed everything.
A comrade picked him and his father up one evening and they drove south for a meeting at the Zion-Afro Baptist Church just over the North Carolina state line. James Ford, the leading black Communist in the country, was to speak. It was a special event and had to be held in a negro church because it was the only place where they allowed unsegregated audiences. James Ford always ran on the Communist ticket for Vice President. He didn’t get many votes, because negroes couldn’t vote in the South, but he ran anyway.
They arrived at the church, which was packed with black farmers and whites from as far away as Raleigh and Newport News. It was a hot, stifling night as Gideon and his father crammed into the rear of the church. The word was passed that James Ford would be a little late, and the pastor led everyone in a hymn-singing session. Gideon had a fit of sneezing and went outside to catch a breath of air and take a pill.
The church was set back in a stand of oaks near a crossroad of the state and county highways, with sharecroppers’ farms all around. As Gideon stepped out into the night air, the singing followed him. It became uproarious as a number of people began seeing Jesus and screamed and several fainted.
There was a light on in the pastor’s house in the rear of the church, and he made for it to find the water pump, so he could swallow his pill.
He stopped dead in his tracks as a car coming down the highway pulled off and drove toward a shed alongside the pastor’s cottage. Gideon watched as a soldier and another huge man emerged from the car. He felt something was not right and ducked behind a tree to observe. The driver, the huge man, was a comrade whom he had seen at several meetings and who had been to his own home on occasion. He was another of those mysterious Party functionaries no one spoke about.
The soldier took off his clothing, down to his underwear, and the comrade handed him a package which he opened, containing civilian clothes. As the soldier dressed, Gideon saw some headlights blink on and off from inside the shed, and a second car drove out.
The soldier, now in changed clothing, jumped in the back and lay on the floor and was covered by some kind of canvas tarp.
There was a moment’s conversation between the huge comrade and the driver of the second car. It was then that Gideon was able to make out Miss Abigail behind the wheel. Not believing his eyes, he slipped in closer for a look. It was indeed Abigail Winters, and she whisked away and sped down the highway with the soldier.
GIDEON HELD HIS tongue for two weeks. Not a word of it, not even to Molly, but he felt he would burst. How to go about telling Miss Abigail he knew about her? Or should he?
Sometimes kids left their desks messy or misplaced something and she would have them stay after school.
Gideon decided to leave a story he had written on the floor near his desk. Sure enough, the cleaning lady put it on the teacher’s desk and Miss Abigail asked Gideon to remain after class.
“I believe this is your composition book,” she said to him after the room had been cleared.
“Yes, ma’am, thank you. I thought I’d lost it.” She gave him a sly look and he cracked a smile. “I guess I did leave it so you’d find it,” he confessed. “I’m really sorry.”
“Well, you did want me to read it, didn’t you?”
“I guess so. I mean, yes I did.”
“Well now, next time you just come up and hand me a story and say, I’d like you to read this.”
“Can I?”
“Of course you can. Your stories are very, very popular with the class. I think the kids look forward to rainy days. Your storytelling has replaced my singing act.”
Gideon straightened up, threw his shoulders back. She made him feel proud. “When I tell a story to the class,” he said, “I make up kids’ stuff, you know, prince and princess stuff for the girls and baseball stories for the