Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

When the day for the meeting at the county seat came, nearly the entire male population of the county, white and colored, were present, and the negro companies were out in force, marching and parading up and down in the same field in which the white troops had paraded just before going off to the war. Many remarked on it that day. It served to emphasize the change that a few years had brought. When the parade was over, the companies took possession of the court green, and were allowed to break ranks preparatory to being called under arms again, when they were to be addressed on the issues of the campaign. The negroes, with a few white men among them—so few as not to make the slightest impression in the great dusky throng—were assembled on the court green. The whites were outside.

There was gravity, but good-humor.

Steve Allen, particularly, appeared to be in high spirits. To see the way the crowd was divided it might have looked as if they were hostile troops. Only, the whites apparently had no arms. But they had almost the formation of soldiery waiting at rest. Steve sauntered up into the crowd of negroes and made his way to where Leech stood well surrounded, talking to some of the leaders.

“Well, Colonel, how goes it? You seem to have a good many troops to-day. We heard you were going to have a muster, and we came down to see the drill.”

The speech was received good-temperedly by the negroes, many of whom Steve spoke to by name good-humoredly.

Leech did not appreciate the jest, and moved off with a scowl. The young man, however, was not to be shaken off so. He followed the other to the edge of the crowd, and there his manner changed.

“Mr. Leech,” he said, slowly, with sudden seriousness and with that deep intonation which always called up to Leech that night in the woods when he had been waylaid and kidnapped. “Mr. Leech, you are on trial to-day. Don’t make a false step. You are the controlling spirit of these negroes. They await but your word. So do we. If a hand is lifted you will never be Governor. We have stood all we propose to stand. You are standing on a powder magazine. I give you warning.”

He turned off and walked back to his own crowd.

It was the boldest speech that had been made to Leech in a long time. His whole battalion of guards were on the grounds, and a sign from him would have lodged Steve in the jail, which frowned behind the old brick clerk’s office. He had a mind to order his arrest; but as he glanced at him there was a gleam in Steve’s gray eyes which restrained him. They were fixed on him steadily, and the men behind him suddenly seemed to have taken on something like order. Until that moment Leech had no idea what a force it was. There were men of all classes in the ranks. He seemed suddenly the focus of all eyes. They were fastened on him with a cold hostility that made him shiver. He had a sudden catching at the heart. He sent for Still and had a conference with him. Still advised a pacific course. “Too many of ’em,” he said. “And they are ready for you.”

Leech adopted Still’s advice. In the face of Steve’s menace and that crowd of grim-looking men he quailed. His name was put forward, and many promises were made for him, revolutionary enough, but it was not by himself. Nicholas Ash, after a long conference with Leech and Still, was the chief speaker of the occasion, and Leech kept himself in the background all day.