Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [45]
“Lennie.”
“Lennie, you’ve done this before?”
“Marched? Sure. And hey, they’ll put you in the white jail. You’ll have a lot more room tonight than I will.”
Dave was thinking he’d maybe been a bit hasty. He wondered what his chances would be of slipping back into the crowd. But how could he do that in front of Lennie? How could he do that and face Shel, who was still watching him from the safety of the sidelines?
More important, how could he justify it to himself? Well, maybe there was an easy answer to that one: This wasn’t his fight.
Screams of rage and obscene gestures followed them through the streets. It didn’t seem to matter that there were children among both the marchers and the bystanders.
They’d watched George Wallace, the Alabama governor, in the video record. He’d made his feelings clear enough about the demonstration. It was a public-safety issue, he’d claimed, and he would not allow it. The impetus for the event had probably been the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson during a civil rights demonstration in Marion three weeks earlier. But the anger and frustration on both sides had been building for a long time.
The people lining Broad Street strained against the police lines.
THE Alabama River was beautiful in the late-morning sunlight. Dave was thinking how he’d like to drop in on Wallace and show him how history would record his name.
They stayed on the pavement as the walkway angled up. Ahead, the front of the line had ascended to the midpoint of the bridge and started down. Dave knew that Lewis and Williams were now able to see the waiting troopers.
Despite what Lennie assumed, there’d be no jail for these people. Broken bones lay ahead. Concussions and tear gas and a lot of blood. Some of the marchers would carry the marks of this day for the rest of their lives.
“I thought they’d stop us before we got out of town,” Lennie said. “I didn’t think we’d get this far.”
They reached the top of the incline, and the troopers became visible. There were three lines of them, maybe a hundred altogether, backed up by local cops on horses. And people behind the cops who were not in uniform. They were Sheriff Jim Clark’s deputies. Drafted thugs.
The troopers carried billy clubs; the deputies had clubs and whips. A state police commander, his bars glittering in the sunlight, stepped forward and held up a hand. His name was John Cloud.
Television crews on the far side pointed their cameras. A couple of reporters were talking into microphones.
“HOLD it,” Cloud said. His voice was thin.
Lewis raised a hand, and the people immediately behind him slowed and stopped. Gradually, the entire line came to a halt. “We don’t want any trouble here,” said Cloud. “You have two minutes to break this up and go back.”
Lewis replied. Dave was too far away to make out his words, but he knew what he was saying: “We’d like a moment to pray.”
The commander stared at Lewis. And waited.
Seconds ticked by. Then, apparently forgetting the two-m inute grace period he’d promised, Cloud gave a hand signal and moved back. The troopers and the deputies strode into the marchers, swinging clubs and whips. Tear-gas canisters exploded like gunshots.
Screams erupted, and the onlookers cheered and laughed. The demonstrators scrambled for safety. But there was nowhere to go. More police and deputies moved in from the flank and rear to cut them off. Blows rained down, and people fell into the roadway, their hands over their heads. Some were dragged to their feet and clubbed again.
Police on horses rode into them. Drove the marchers to their knees. Trampled them. Kids screamed and cried. Lennie covered his head and was hammered by a three-h undred-pounder with a nightstick.
When they came for Dave, he tried to back away. They kept coming, two cops with smoldering eyes and batons. He did the only thing he could think of: He held up his hands to show he had no weapon and would not resist. He was accustomed to reasonable police officers and, despite what was going on around him, was shocked when one of them hit him