AudioBook: NatchezBurning: GragIles

Description

wenty-two days later Natchez, Mississippi “IF THEY’D HAVE left them two Jews alone and just shot the n—-r,” said Frank Knox, “none of this would even be happening. New Yorkers don’t give no more of a damn than we do about one less n—-r in the world. But you kill a couple of Jewboys, and they’re ready to call out the Marines.” “You talking about that Neshoba County business?” asked Glenn Morehouse, a mountain of a man with half the intellectual wattage of his old sergeant. “What else?” said Frank, flipping a slab of alligator meat on the sizzling grill. Sonny Thornfield popped the cap on an ice-cold Jax and watched the veins bulge in Frank’s neck. The discovery of the three civil rights workers in an earthen dam a few days ago had stirred Frank up in a way Sonny hadn’t seen since the Bay of Pigs fiasco. In a way, this whole camping trip had been designed to let off pressure after the FBI’s discovery of the bodies up in Philadelphia. After their shift ended Friday, they’d mounted four camper shells on their pickups, then towed Frank’s boat and Sonny’s homemade grill down to the sandbar south of the Triton Battery plant, where they all worked during the week. The long weekend of sun had pretty much worn everybody out, except the kids. Now the women sat in folding chairs, fanning themselves and swatting mosquitoes in the shade of the cottonwoods. Frank’s and Sonny’s wives were back there, along with Granny Knox and Wilma Deen, Glenn’s divorced sister. The kids who weren’t out in the boat were teasing a stray dog down by the riverbank.