Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [42]
Selma looked typically Southern, long streets shaded by maple trees, pleasant homes with manicured lawns, signboards urging passersby to get right with the Lord. On this day, Confederate flags flew everywhere.
The center of town was home mostly to stores and warehouses. People on the sidewalk turned and watched as they passed. A few waved to the kids in front.
Traffic got heavy, and the pickup pulled over to the curb. The kids looked at them and shook their heads. “This is as close as I want to get,” said the driver. “The church is over that way.” He pointed northwest.
They got down. The passenger made a sucking sound. “If I were you guys,” he said, “I’d stay out of it.” They pulled away, made a left at the next intersection, and disappeared.
“Appreciate the ride,” said Dave.
They walked a couple of blocks to Broad Street, which was the commercial heart of Selma, such as it was. There was a bank, the El Ran chero Café, a drugstore, and a movie theater. On this day, police were everywhere. East on Broad, the city extended a few more blocks, then opened out into a highway. That would be US 80, which the demonstrators planned to follow on their march to Montgomery, the state capital.
They crossed Broad Street and entered the black section, located on the north side. Streets were unpaved, houses lay in a general state of disintegration, and trash was scattered everywhere. They walked three or four blocks north, then turned west. A few minutes later, they were at the Brown Chapel.
It was an attractive Romanesque church with twin towers. Several hundred people, mostly black but with some whites, had gathered outside. They’d spilled onto a ball field and some basketball courts. A few angry-l ooking whites stood across the street, watching. They made obscene gestures at Shel and Dave as they passed. Shel thought he heard a rifle bolt slide forward.
“Don’t look at them,” Dave said. “Just keep walking.”
In the church grounds, a few people were showing others how to protect themselves if attacked. Cover vitals. Head down. No violence.
“I don’t see him,” said Shel.
There were a lot of kids with the demonstrators. Young ones. Seven, eight, nine years old. The news footage of the police assault had concentrated mainly on the leaders of the march, mostly adult males. Shel had seen a few women attacked, as well. And he’d known there’d been children. But somehow they hadn’t been the focus.
An older black man in clerical garb shook their hands. “Welcome, brothers,” he said. And a young woman smiled at them. She was watching two boys, about eight or nine, tossing a ball back and forth.
Shel leaned close to Dave. “Who’d bring kids to something like this?”
A white guy, standing a few feet away beside a post, looked in their direction. He might have been about twenty years old. “Maybe because it means so much,” he said. “Everything’s on the table here.”
“Worth a kid’s life?”
“As things are, these kids don’t have lives.” He moved their way. He was about Shel’s size, compact, with an inner energy that suggested you could trust him. “Anyhow, we’re glad to see you. We need all the help we can get.”
Shel nodded. “My name’s Shelborne. This is Dave Dryden.”
“Josh Myers,” said the stranger. “Good luck. Keep your head down out there.”
“Josh Myers?” Shel examined his features. Hard to tell. “You from Tucson, by any chance?”
The guy’s eyes went wide. “Yes. How’d you know?”
Shel tried to think of an explanation. “Somebody back there”—he gestured toward the chapel—“mentioned you were from there.” He changed the subject: “They’re not serious about marching all the way to Montgomery, are they? It’s sixty miles.”
“No. I think they expect to get arrested before they get very far out of town. If these nitwits don’t shoot us first.” He looked over at a guy across the street who was pointing a rifle in their direction, taking pretend target practice.
Shel tried to look unmoved. “I guess it’s especially