Page 20 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

The two highway patrolmen were sitting back in their seats, looking bewildered. George guessed their assignment was to spy on the Riders, and they had not reckoned on becoming victims of mob violence. They had been forced to join the Riders' side in self-defense. They might learn to see things from a new point of view.

The bus moved. George saw, through the windshield, that a cop was urging men out of the way and another was waving the driver forward. Outside the station, a patrol car moved in front of the bus and led it onto the road out of town.

George began to feel better. "I think we got away," he said.

Maria got to her feet, apparently unhurt. She took the handkerchief out of the breast pocket of George's suit coat and mopped his face gently. The white cotton came away red with blood. "It's a nasty little gash," she said.

"I'll live."

"You won't be so pretty, though."

"I'm pretty?"

"You used to be, but now . . ."

The moment of normality did not last. George glanced behind and saw a long line of pickup trucks and cars following the bus. They seemed to be full of shouting men. He groaned. "We didn't get away," he said.

Maria said: "Back in Washington, before we got on the bus, you were talking to a young white guy."

"Joseph Hugo," George said. "He's at Harvard Law. Why?"

"I thought I saw him in the mob back there."

"Joseph Hugo? No. He's on our side. You must be mistaken." But Hugo was from Alabama, George recalled.

Maria said: "He had bulging blue eyes."

"If he's with the mob, that would mean that all this time he's been pretending to support civil rights . . . while spying on us. He can't be a snitch."

"Can't he?"

George looked behind again.

The police escort turned back at the city line, but the other vehicles did not.

The men in the cars were shrieking so loud they could be heard over the sound of all the engines.

Beyond the suburbs, on a long lonely stretch of Highway 202, two cars overtook the bus, then slowed down, forcing the driver to brake. He tried to pass, but they swerved from side to side, blocking his way.

Cora Jones was white-faced and shaking, and she clutched her plastic handbag like a life preserver. George said: "I'm sorry we got you into this, Mrs. Jones."

"So am I," she replied.

The cars ahead pulled aside at last and the bus passed them. But the ordeal was not ended: the convoy was still behind. Then George heard a familiar popping sound. When the bus began to weave all over the road he realized it was a burst tire. The driver slowed to a halt near a roadside grocery store. George read the name: Forsyth & Son.

The driver jumped out. George heard him say: "Two flats?" Then he went into the store, presumably to phone for help.

George was as tense as a bowstring. One flat tire was just a puncture; two was an ambush.

Sure enough, the cars in the convoy were stopping and a dozen white men in their Sunday suits were piling out, yelling curses and waving their weapons, savages on the warpath. George's stomach cramped again as he saw them running toward the bus, ugly faces twisted with hatred, and he knew why his mother's eyes had filled with tears when she talked about Southern whites.

At the head of the pack was an adolescent boy who raised a crowbar and gleefully smashed a window.

The next man tried to enter the bus. One of the two burly white passengers stood at the top of the steps and drew a revolver, confirming Maria's theory that they were state troopers in plain clothes. The intruder backed off and the trooper locked the door.

>

George feared that might be a mistake. What if the Riders needed to get out in a hurry?

---