Hot Valley by James Lear Read Free Book Online

mighty popular down in that part of town, Jack. I’ve heard
that there’s very little you won’t do. And what a fine, generous young man you are.”
    â€œYou don’t know—”
    â€œI know plenty. People do, Jack. I imagine even your father knows more than he’d like to.”
    â€œBut what’s that got to do with us? You wouldn’t tell. I wouldn’t talk.”
    â€œYou think we live in a world where every man is his own master, Jack. Where nobody minds anyone else’s business, and everyone can live and let live. But I tell you, we’ve already done more than is safe. If I didn’t believe that your family is indoors right now, that the light is failing, and that nobody has trespassed on your grounds, I would never have come within three feet of you. I would never speak to you in this way. I would never have kissed you.”
    â€œBut we can be alone together, far from everyone.”
    â€œLike you were with Mick in the woods? Up at the ponds?”
    Had Mick talked? “Who told you about that?”
    â€œYou were seen, Jack. People have eyes.”
    â€œBut who…”
    â€œNobody’s done anything—so far. They hate what you do, they would kill you if you weren’t the son of the wealthiest man in town, and Mick would be run out of the state if he weren’t under your protection. And he knows how to look after himself. He doesn’t tell you about that, does he? About the fights and the abuse and the threats that he gets. You think all those men in the downtown bars are just there for your pleasure, Jack? They’d cut your throat if they thought they could get away with it.”
    I was shaking now.
    â€œBut that’s nothing, nothing at all, compared to the hell that would be let loose if they found out that a black man had been sticking his big nigger dick up your ass. Ooooh, my soul! Dey chase dat boy all de way to de nigger-hangin’ tree! Dey burn yo’ house down! Dey take yo’ sistah and yo’ muddah and dey throw dem in de rivah!”
    â€œYou don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œI’ve said too much.” Suddenly he was Mr. Aaron Johnson again, formal, distant, polite. “Please forgive me, Jack. I hope I have not alarmed you. Now there are business matters that I must discuss with your father. Good evening.”
    He turned on his heel and walked back to the house.
    I sat on the riverbank and stared into the gathering darkness, imagining the twinkle of 100 pairs of prying eyes staring right back at me.

III
    SUDDENLY, THE WORLD CHANGED. WHEREVER I WENT, FROM the office to the town square to the bar of the White Horse, the talk was of war. In March, President Lincoln declared that secession was legally void. In April, confederates fired on Federal troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The world was on the march, communities were divided, and our lives would never be the same again.
    Even in Bishopstown, prosperous New England backwater far from the battle lines to the south, there were rankling divisions springing up in unlikely quarters, splitting our town in two and making the streets unsafe to walk at night. Old resentments flared up like fires long smothered but never extinguished. Mr. Windridge declared himself hot for the rights of slave owners, and started to frequent hotel bars where like-minded anti-abolitionists flaunted their views without fear of attack. In the town square, there were rallies in favor of Mr. Lincoln, in favor of abolition, in favor of joining the army right there and then to go and fight for the Union. I watched them from a distance, listened to the speeches, and feared for my future.
    Mick, my longtime lover and mentor, disappeared one day from the bar of the White Horse, without a word of where he was going; I suspect he’d returned to some long-forgotten homestead with the vague impulse to defend the family who had rejected him. Only