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figured Mr. Brooks would put her and Gran somewhere close to his shop. He and
Justin were the only people she knew here. They could tell her what to do.
Whatever it was, she needed to do it in a hurry. Gran was sitting there, sort
of staring at the TV. She often watched without really knowing what was going
on, but this was different. Her brain wasn't working right. She would have
stared the same way if she were pointed in some other direction.
Beckie tried using her cell phone to call the coin and stamp shop. No luck all
she got was static. The hotel room had no phone, any more than one in
California would have. Land lines were dead, dead, dead. She wished she were
in some backward part of the world where they still used them Russia, maybe,
or central Africa. She'd never imagined low tech could be better than high,
but she'd never been in a war before, either. Phone service was probably out
all over western Virginia and eastern Ohio. What a mess.
If she couldn't call, she had to go. She didn't like leaving Gran by herself,
but she couldn't see that she had much choice. Gran wasn't likely to wander
off. If she got sicker . . . Beckie gnawed on the inside of her lower lip. She
didn't like to think about that.
I'm going to get help, she told herself. / won't be gone long. I hope I won't,
anyway.
Then she told Gran the same thing. Gran nodded vaguely. "I think the muffins
are spoiled," she said, which meant she didn't hear or she was out of her head
with fever or all of the above.
Three blocks over and two blocks down toward the river. That was what the
terminal said. It didn't say anything about what might be going on between
here and there. Beckie wished it would have. She wasn't brave not even close.
But she knew she had to go, and so she left the hotel room before she gave
herself much of a chance to think about it.
The bellhops and porters were Negroes. So were the waiters and, she presumed,
the cooks. In California, she wouldn't have paid much attention and there
would have been all kinds of people doing those jobs. Here, seeing black faces
made her nervous. She knew it shouldn't have ... or should it? How much did
they hate whites? How many good reasons for hating whites did they have?
When a bellhop tipped his cap to her as she went out, she almost screamed.
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What was he thinking? How much did he despise himself and her because he had
to make that servile gesture? How much did he wish he had a rifle in his hands
and were fighting the soldiers from Virginia? Wouldn't paying them back almost
be worth getting shot?
A lot of Negroes in Charleston sure seemed to think so.
Going out on the street, getting away from those people who wouldn't have been
polite if they weren't getting paid, came as a relief. . . for a little while.
Then she found out how much the hotel's soundproofing muffled the noise of
gunfire. It was much louder, and much closer, than she'd thought.
"Let's see your papers!" a soldier barked at the first checkpoint she came to.
She handed them over. His eyebrows jumped in surprise, almost disappearing
under the brim of his helmet. "California passport! What in blazes are you
doing here?"
"Visiting friends," Beckie said, which wasn't even a lie. "I didn't know I'd
get stuck when the war started." That was also true.
"Who are these friends?" the soldier asked.
"Justin Monroe and his uncle, Randolph Brooks," Beckie answered. "Mr. Brooks
runs a coin shop not far from here."
"He does, Everett," another soldier said. "I remember seeing the place."
"Okay." Everett looked at the passport again, shook his head, and gave the
document back to Beckie. "You can go, I guess. But be careful. Things aren't
exactly safe around here yet."
She found out what he meant when she walked around the corner. Two bodies lay
there one white, one black. Flies buzzed over them and settled in the blood
that had pooled on the sidewalk. A mockingbird a cheerful, sweet-voiced
mockingbird pecked at one of the corpses and swallowed . . . something.
Stomach knotting, Beckie waved her arms. The bird screeched but flew away.
Those bodies were fresh. Something in the air told Beckie of others she
couldn't see. The ones she smelled had been dead longer. How long would that
stench last? How could anyone stand to live here till it went away?
People were on the streets. Some moved warily, as if afraid of what might
happen next. Beckie moved that way herself. Who could tell when a wacko of any
color might pop out of a doorway and start shooting? But others walked along
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