“Except for Hargrave we were all in suspenders. It was so hot that even with the windows open my shirt stuck to me, and after a spell the crowd settled down to breathing and fanning themselves with this kind of low whoosh. First day they pick a jury of impartial white men and then George puts on Lucy, wearing pigtails and a dress buttoned to her Adam’s apple. She swore she’d been raped, real firm like she’d been practicing with George, looking everywhere but at the nigras. On cross Baxter hardly touched her.

“It was going like George planned, except I noticed he was looking worse and worse—almost pasty. They got to where Baxter called Moses to say he didn’t do it. Hargrave starts watching real close. The whole trial he’d been playing judge, fresh black robes every day and hair pomaded just so, but he hadn’t had much to do. The nigra begins telling his story right along, looking straight at the jury, about how he went looking for his brother and found him with Lucy. Then he gets to the part about Lucy being a whore. Hargrave frowns at George, waiting for him to object. George doesn’t say a word. The nigra’s still talking when Hargrave bangs his gavel. ‘Miss Vines is not on trial here,’ he says, very stern. Baxter starts arguing sort of feebly that the testimony goes to whether there was rape at all. Hargrave orders him to sit down. So he does. All this time the nigra is just watching.”

Channing paused in a seeming trance from the rhythm of his own recall. I loosened my tie. Between Channing and the pictures I’d studied I could see the courtroom. Behind the railing sat twelve white jurors in shirtsleeves. One fanned himself with a long flyswatter. A table full of reporters took notes behind the bank of typewriters they banged at recess. From his hand-carved bench Judge Hargrave peered sternly down at Baxter, half-drunk already, his courage used up. “What happened then?” I asked.

Channing rasped scornfully. “After that, cross examination should have been easy. But George can’t do it. He whispers to me, ‘Think you can take cross, Luther?’ His eyes are yellow at the rim. You can hear a pin drop. I freeze. They’re all waiting. Then someone coughs. Before I know it I’m on my feet walking over to the nigra. ‘You were there,’ I say, ‘weren’t you, Moses. There, with your brother on top of Lucy Vines.’

“He was so black he looked almost purple. ‘Well, sir,’ he begins, ‘I was just tryin’—’

“‘To rape a white girl?’

“‘No, sir.’

“‘But you didn’t stop it.’

“‘No, sir, but—’

“‘Didn’t try to pull him off.’

“He blinks. ‘I just got there.’

“‘And you were just watching, weren’t you, Moses?’ His mouth falls open. Almost whispering, I say, ‘Watching—and waiting.’