I help you with that window?”
“No. Takes knowing how. Damn window’s older than I am.” Mopping his brow, he moved from the window and made his way to the worn leather seat at his desk. “You must be the reporter.” He slowly poured himself a glass of water from a desk thermos. “You want some of this?”
“No, thanks. Looks like you’ve been doing all the heavy lifting. I’ve just been moseying around, looking at Shiloh.” Nothing stirred in the stifling office. “You mind if I take this off?” Mendelsohn shed his seersucker jacket and stood before the straight chair in front of the desk. “I just found out that you are also director of the Tildon bank, Mr. Mayor. Pretty large load to carry.”
Burroughs arched his back, settling into the comfortable old leather, and smiled. “Been doing it for so long that it feels like ordinary. I sweat here in the morning and cool off at the bank in the afternoon. Well, take a seat. I’m always glad to have folks come and look over my little town. We’re not big, but we’re right in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Richest soil in the world, richer than the Nile Valley. And if you can find it, the best moonshine that doesn’t come from Kentucky. Hope you’ll enjoy your stay. So what brings you to Shiloh?”
“Didn’t know about the moonshine, Mr. Mayor. I guess what brought me here was Senator Tildon.”
“Sterling! Well, I’ll be darned. You know Sterling?”
“I know him like a reporter knows the heaviest hitter in the Senate. My beat’s been in Washington for a long time, so I’ve interviewed your Senator Tildon on several occasions.”
“So the Senator sent you here?”
“No. I’m covering the great debate going on about the Voting Rights bill that’s tied up in the Senate.”
“Oh, yeah, Sterling’s been leading that fight. Looks like that commie bill will never get out of committee.” He turned, squinting at the reporter. “Why you here and not in Washington?”
“Just the way a story unfolds, Mr. Mayor. You go where the story takes you. I left Washington to cover the meeting in Ohio where the civil rights workers from Mississippi came to orient the student volunteers who were coming down to work here. And when I met the group who were coming to Senator Tildon’s home town, I decided to tag along.”
Burroughs drained the glass of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes remained still. “Just decided to tag along. Must be an interestin’ job you got. Where you stayin’? Our little hotel across the square there hasn’t been open for years. Don’t get a whole lot of visitors down here. Not till this commie invasion this summer with those ‘Freedom Riders.’ You stayin’ at the Motel 6 over in Cleveland?”
“No. I’m staying with Mr. Percy Williams over in the Sanctified Quarter.”
The mayor’s chair pushed back from the desk. “You’re stayin’ with Percy Williams?” His voice was incredulous. “With those commie kids, those Freedom Riders?”
“I don’t think Mr. Williams could rightly be called a Freedom Rider, Mr. Mayor. He’s deacon of his church, seventy-one years old, and never been out of Shiloh. Tells me he played with Senator Tildon when he was a boy, picking cotton at Tildon’s place. His daddy did shares there.”
“For a Yankee reporter, you seem to know a hell of a lot about this Delta Nigra.”
Mendelsohn stood and carefully picked up his jacket. “You learn a lot when you visit someone’s home town.”
Burroughs wheeled in his chair, extricating a dusty ledger from the shelf. “You came by to sign the register?” He shoved the register brusquely across the desk. “Just sign your name and your company. Newsweek you said on the phone?”
The reporter signed the register, shoving it back to the mayor when he was done. “That’s right. Newsweek magazine.”
Burroughs squinted at the signature. “Mendelsohn. Not a name I ever saw before.” He leaned back in his chair. “What kind of name is Mendelsohn?”
“Well, it’s an all-right name. It was my father’s name, Mr. Mayor.”
“Not a name you see down here. Never saw it in Iwo Jima.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. His face was flushed. “Never saw it at the VFW.” His voice was hoarse. “Never saw it at the Legion Hall, Mendelsohn.”
“Not a name that kind of slides off your tongue, Mr. Mayor? Well, maybe you need a title to remember it. I was Lieutenant Mendelsohn on D-Day at Utah Beach. And my cousin, Major Buddy Mendelsohn? He was killed with the 101st Airborne right behind my beach on D+ 2. Maybe that would have caught your attention way back before you didn’t see any Mendelsohns on Iwo Jima. Or at the Shiloh VFW. Too bad there aren’t any Mendelsohns down here in the Delta.” He smiled. “Until now, of course.”
“Until now, of course,” said Burroughs.
Mendelsohn waited a beat and then sat back down on the chair. Very deliberately he took out his notebook and unscrewed his pen. “Enough about me, Mayor Burroughs. I’d rather talk about you. And about Shiloh. And about those three civil rights kids, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney who disappeared over in Neshoba two nights ago. They were heading to Shiloh.”
Burroughs rose from his chair, walked to the window, and silently stared out. “I’ll bet you would, Mendelsohn.” When he turned back, his face was angry. “Three more victims of the Savage South for Newsweek, huh? You just lookin’ for a story about trouble down here, aren’t you? ’Spect this redneck mayor to help you? Well, Lieutenant, you came to the wrong place.” He returned to his desk and sat down heavily in the chair. “Last time we had trouble down here was two years ago when some outside agitators, like those three you just mentioned, came into Shiloh and shot up some Nigra homes in order to get money and publicity up North.” He snorted. “Worked, too. Gotta hand it to ’em. All the Yankee papers and networks were competin’ to see who could vilify us the most. And your magazine did a photograph essay showin’ those poor, mistreated darkies.” He pulled out a stapled sheaf of papers from a desk drawer and dropped it in front of Mendelsohn. “You’ll find it right on top. Just about broke your heart, Mendelsohn.”
“So the disappearance of those three civil rights kids was just an accident, Mr. Mayor? I’m real interested in the answer because I was with those boys just before they arrived in Mississippi, and my magazine, the one you save so carefully, is not interested in bullshit.”
“No. I don’t think their disappearance is an accident. I’m like J. Edgar Hoover who thinks they rushed off to Cuba so they can laugh at us. Mr. Hoover just bullshit too?”
“You shouldn’t ask that of a Washington reporter. So your quote is that there is no trouble to report?”
“That’s right. You can quote me. Mayor Roland Burroughs says there is no trouble in Shiloh, and we’re not going to stand for any bein’ brought here. Our Nigras are good people. We know them and they know us. There’s nothin’ these beatnik Freedom Riders can give them. They’re happy folks, Mendelsohn. And they sure as hell don’t want any trouble with the whites who they’re going to have to get along with after the beatniks go home. What are they doing down here, anyway?”
“They’re starting Freedom Schools to teach American history and black history and trying to register black voters.”
“Freedom
