They were out in the street, squinting into the bright Tennessee sun. They walked to the car fast, in a hurry to get away from all the terrible news they’d just had land on their heads like a tree limb in a hurricane.
All along your mama knew, Laura Anne said in disbelief after they were back in the car with the doors locked. I am dumbfounded by that. Dumbfounded. We have to get back to Guilford and ask her about it. Right away.
Mickey Moe was in tears. He laid his cheek down over the steering wheel pointing himself in her direction. His damp face, his red eyes twisted up her heart.
If you wish to separate yourself from the son of a murderer thief, one with deranged tastes in women as a bonus, I completely understand, Laura Anne. I set you free without bitterness.
Now don’t get yourself in an uproar, she said. I’ll still marry you. Who your daddy was makes no difference to me. I told you that on the day we met. I’ll marry you today. I don’t care what my parents think.
And for the first time since she’d fallen in love with Mickey Moe Levy, she felt 110 percent released from her parents, her upbringing, and her social caste. Liberation exhilarated her. It was one thing, she realized, to voice modern opinion about a woman’s place, quite another to seize control of your own fate. She was doing it, really doing it and how about that? she thought, how about that? She gave her lover a bright, shimmering gaze of triumph, but Mickey Moe surprised her.
No, darlin’, he said, taking up her hand and kissing her fingertips. I thank you. We’ll do that but not today.
No?
No.
He straightened up. Put the key in the ignition and shifted into gear.
I’m taking you back to the motel, he said. And then I’m goin’ back to the woods for your daddy’s gun.
Oh honey, I don’t think so. The police could be there by now if Walter Cohen’s told them anything at all. How can we trust him, you know? We don’t know him.
Mickey Moe pulled out of the parking spot and into the street. That’s alright. Didn’t you hear, Aurora Mae? I am the son of a man of action. A hero. And I’m going to do what the son of such a man does.
I don’t understand.
I’m going to protect my woman’s family. That’s what.
With extraordinary courage filling him up in that place Aurora Mae had utterly depleted with her story, he drove Laura Anne back to the motel.
XV
Memphis, Tennessee–Saint Louis, Missouri–Kansas City, Kansas, 1927–1930
THE THREE OF THEM LIVED up there in the big house attic for a time, waiting for the second crest and the third to pass on by. After that, they waited for the waters to stabilize. Day after day, they huddled together on the upstairs balcony, leaning against the wrought-iron gazelles that supported them. From high up, they could study the Mississippi and the new routes the floodwaters cut through the countryside. They watched the bloated bodies of livestock and humans float by along with rooftops, tires, whole ancient trees with their roots sticking up like the hair of a crazy man, wooden barrels, plows, machinery parts. They made a guessing game of identifying the mangled ruins of civilization, the way one conjures objects out of passing clouds on a fair afternoon. They went downstairs only so far as they had to, to the second floor for the bathroom or to gather more furniture for firewood, as they found the nights damp and cold like wintertime. There wasn’t any reason to hide, not to go all the way downstairs or even out the door. The rains had ceased, the river quieted. There wasn’t anybody around. It shouldn’t have mattered how they carried on in the buildings or on the grounds of Ghost Tree Plantation, but it did.
Sometimes at night, Bald Horace would get up and pace and fret over how his critters might be getting along until Aurora Mae or Bernard reminded him he’d opened their paddocks and coops the day the crest came, thinking they’d have a better chance free. Once they jogged his memory, he imagined all his babies out there sorting for themselves. Now they are prey to wild beasts and hungry humans, he thought and sat down and cried.
Aurora Mae developed a habit of standing in front of Bernard the handsome’s wardrobe mirror, running her hands over herself, clucking her tongue, murmuring to herself things like “Well, lookit here” and “This sure is somethin’, ain’t it” in a manner that awed the men. They didn’t interrupt her or comment. They tried not to watch, but it was quite a spectacle. She’d pass by the mirror, then stop, go back, make her repetitive self-examinations, talk to herself in wonderment. It was as if she’d never before comprehended what had become of her young, strong, and magnificent self.
Bernard was the happy one. Details of the trauma he’d experienced, that of the flood combined with the haunting guilt of murdering his name-twin, faded away each time they rose up to enslave his mind. In an act of will, he pushed all ugly, fearful questions aside and focused on the future when they’d leave Ghost Tree and find a home together. What joy that would be! Aurora Mae would have housemaids to wait on her, ten little dogs to cuddle. Bald Horace would have all the goats and chickens and pigs a man could desire to dote upon. And he, Bernard Levy, would keep his love by his side where he would never lose track of her again. Out of all past misery and terror, untold delights would blossom beneath their feet and buoy them to a heaven on earth. In the meantime, he busied himself sewing gold coins into their clothes and making backpacks that would hide more in clever compartments a Pinkerton couldn’t find.
Early one morning, a wayfarer showed up on the property. He strolled right up to the front door and knocked. They waited upstairs to see if he’d go away, but he did not. He’d noticed the smoke coming from the chimney and knew there were people about. He banged away, relentless. Eventually, full of dread, they trooped downstairs en masse and opened the door. The man doffed his hat, taking Bernard for the original Bernard Levy whom he’d never met.
Sir, he said, kind sir. My brother worked for you. The family’s lookin’ all over for him. His name was Carter. Do you have any word of him, any at all?
No one had seen the King of Prussia man since the day of the first crest, which is how they chose to recall events. It beat recalling the day of the murder of Bernard the handsome.
I don’t know what happened to him, Bernard the survivor said. He was here one day and then there was the crevasse and he was gone. I’d go into the town if I were you and inquire there.
That’s where I come from, the man said.
Then we cannot help you.
They gave him a packet of food and a bottle of spirits to help him along his way. They watched him walk down the road.
Bald Horace said, I guess that’s it, then. If they’re lookin’ for Carter, they’ll be lookin’ for the big man soon enough. We’d best be gone.
His sister and the man who loved her agreed.
The next morning, they put on the clothes Bernard had altered and tried on the packs he’d salted in gold.
It’s a heavy burden, Bald Horace said.
Can’t be helped, Bernard responded.
They set out.
Any other time, they would have made a strange procession. There was Bernard in his service livery and one of the big man’s panama hats, Aurora Mae in a fresh costume fashioned out of Ghost Tree bedsheets and table linens, and Bald Horace tagging along, bent over from the weight of his backpack plus that of the goat cart he pulled behind, which was loaded high with everything they thought might be useful on a trip to nowhere in particular. Any other time, local authorities coming across their path might’ve stopped to ask them who exactly they were and where they got a cart full of goods. But these were flood times, and they were not the only motley crew on the road. There was a great crush of humanity on the move, remnants all, odds and ends of half-crazed folk with water still in their ears, most either homeless or scavengers. Among those legions that emerged in that time from out the Delta’s sodden skirts to wander or pillage, Bernard, Aurora Mae, and Bald Horace were flyspecks, passing curios in a great and desperate parade.
They trekke
d along the riverbank, looking for transport. One time early on, they met up with a steamship loaded with refugees run by a hard, stout man with three weeks’ worth of scraggly beard. Bernard waved his hat at him until he steered close enough to converse.
Where you headed?
Up north. There’s not much left south of here.
Might you be goin’ to Saint Louis?
I might be. If you got the fare.
They negotiated a price, but when the captain saw that Aurora Mae and Bald Horace were part of the deal, he balked.
No niggers, he said. They’s swarms of ’em tryin’ to get north, and I ain’t takin’ any of ’em. They’s enough white people on the move. Don’t need no trouble takin’ thievin’ niggers.
Bernard insisted. The captain stood firm. Bernard offered him double his price per head. The captain weakened.
But she’s a big’un. You pay three times for her.
He would not take on Bald Horace’s cart for any amount of money. The three stuffed their pockets with whatever small things they found most necessary—shells for their handguns, a few toiletries, a hunting knife, bits of wire and rope, a flint—and abandoned the rest.
It was hard traveling. There was so much debris in the river, below and above the surface, the ship went slowly. There were times Bernard thought they’d make more progress if they disembarked and walked. The other passengers were restless and argued with the captain and with one another. They argued about how to judge where they were with all the changes in the river’s course wrought by the flood. They fought over food. They fought over where they slept. If the sky took on a darkness in the daytime, they argued about whether it would rain again and for how long. The captain took to wearing a handgun in a holster under his arm and shot off rounds into the air to quell their noise and agitation, just as Bernard the handsome had done. Bernard, Aurora Mae, and Bald Horace kept to themselves, their own firearms hidden in their clothes.
They came upon a fragment of a levee holding twenty Negro souls. Whatever shore the levee once graced, it now stood in the middle of the river, like a tiny island sprouting human beings instead of trees. When they saw the ship coming toward them, they raised their hands and praised Jesus and waved back and forth, hoping for rescue.
My Lord, Bernard said to Aurora Mae. Can it be these poor people have been stranded here these last weeks?
She shuddered and turned to him with teary eyes.
Looks like. Looks like. And there’s babies there. Scrawny, little, faint-lookin’ babies. Sweet Jesus, they look half-dead.
The captain steered the ship away from them, making as wide an arc around as he could maneuver. Bernard and Bald Horace with Aurora Mae a great hulking shadow behind went up to the wheelhouse to confront him.
What are you doing? Why don’t you help those people?
The captain grunted. I told you. No niggers. Besides it don’t look to me like they got the fare.
I’ll pay for them. Double.
The captain looked out his window to where the people stranded on the levee continued to wave, hop up and down, bang together whatever was at hand hopeful they still had a chance to win the attention of the steamship. With a wry smile, he lifted a finger and counted them, calculating. Dang that’s a lotta juice, he said. But I ain’t haulin’ ’em. And I wouldn’t be lettin’ anybody know you got that kind of money on you, boy.
He laughed. It had a coarse, bitter sound. He took one hand off the ship’s wheel then pushed the brake lever. He turned to face them and put the other hand on the grip of his gun.
I wouldn’t be lettin’ me know that.
His hand moved to pull the gun from its holster. A shot whizzed by so close to Bernard’s ear, it burned his skin and singed his hair. The captain’s face blossomed in a jagged red pulp. He twitched, gurgled, crumbled, and was still.
The wheelhouse, thick with gunsmoke, went quiet ’til the air gradually cleared like fog on a day that warms slowly. Bald Horace spoke first. Now we both murderers, he said.
Bernard stepped back to avoid a widening pool of blood at his feet.
Why, oh why, did you do that?
Bald Horace’s eyes went round as two moons. Lordy, don’t you know? First off, he won’t let those poor sufferin’ people on board. And second, he was gettin’ ready to shoot you dead, Bernard. Maybe you didn’t notice.
Oh Horace. We don’t know that. Maybe he was just fixin’ to rob me. I would’ve given him everything I got. He never would have thought you two had gold. We’d still have plenty between us. Oh, this is terrible, terrible. What are we goin’ to do?
Now Bald Horace was crying. Aurora Mae put her arms around him and glared over his head at Bernard. You know how fragile he’s been since the flood! her look said with electric clarity.
Bernard’s own eyes welled up. He paced from one end of the wheelhouse to the other, slapping his head with two hands repeating over and over, Oh, what a mess, a mess, a mess, we’re in a royal mess.
Outside the hand of God was at work. As soon as the steamship braked and came to a grinding halt, the strongest men stranded on the levee jumped off and swam over, risking life and limb to submerged perils none could see. As they climbed over the side, the passengers on deck swarmed near and came this close to running them back off the ship into teeming, brackish water littered with debris. But these men were not the submissive, shuffling Joes they might have pretended to be before the flood. They stood desperate, hunched over, feet planted wide, arms curled, hands out, ready to attack. Their eyes were on fire, their wet clothes plastered against bodies made hard and lean by lifetimes of work and weeks of disaster. They looked like the nightmare savages the white people on board had feared rising up against them since childhood. None dared confront them. Directly, the Negroes took the lifeboats, lowered them down into the river and went to fetch their half-starved women and babies. When these were all transported back to the ship, they went about demanding food and fresh water from the others who scurried about, trying to appear charitable instead of terrified. Night fell.
Under cover of chaos and a starless night, Bernard, Bald Horace, and Aurora Mae wrapped the captain’s corpse in tarpaulin with the ship’s heavy brass compass for company and lowered him overboard with a gentle, sinking plop. They took possession of one of the lifeboats and paddled the great distance to shore, dodging obstacles in the dark. Once ashore, they ran off into the woods.
They continued north. The siblings’ plan was to go back to the old house to see if it stood and if the cousins were still there. Maybe they believed if they went back to their old life, they could put all the horror behind them, forget about it, like it never happened at all. Bernard disagreed. He wanted to go someplace new, out west maybe or Europe, someplace a trio as odd as they were might find their place, renew their spirits, and redeem their sins. They had enough money to go anywhere. It felt as if they had all the money in the world. But the others insisted on returning home. Bernard went along. For now, it was enough to be near her, to sleep on the ground with Bald Horace on one side and his beloved on the other. The great warm mass of her while she slept enthralled him. He loved the way she smelled, the way she moved, the big throaty music of her snores. When she woke up, it was like a whole new planet arose with the sun. Once, when they came upon a freshwater lake and they all took baths, he hid behind a rock above the spot she chose to wash herself in private. He noted the changes in her body since that first time he’d spied upon her. He marveled at its undulations, the way the trails of soap disappeared inside one fold of her flesh and rolled out another. Though there were acres more of it, her skin was still resplendent, iridescent, and her hair, no longer unkempt as she’d left it during her servitude to the master of Ghost Tree, remained a living wonder. His desire knew no diminution. He was as much in love with her as ever, while she, though grateful and tender, kept as much distance from him as she could during a long trek in the backwoods with only her suitor, Bald Horace, and wild beasts for company.
&nb
sp; It was high summer by the time they made it back to the family farm. The house and the lands around it had been spared the flood, but the house was nearly as much a wreck as they were. There were cousins still living on the property, but not so many as before. It was like the soul got ripped from here once you all was gone, one of them told Bald Horace. People left. Even before the rains.
Little by little, they built the place back up. Afraid to attract too much attention, they spent their gold sparingly and hoarded the rest. The only extravagant thing they bought was a truck, and they took care to buy one secondhand. Everything should have been fine. Bernard was content to worship his goddess without satisfaction. Bald Horace tried to put his life back together, gathering a little herd of goats and a coop full of chickens. He had his times of torment, dark and flammable as the creosote they scraped from the old chimney. The blown-up face of that captain would come to him in the night, waking him from sleep, and he’d pace the kitchen floor, pounding his fist into his palm, mumbling, Kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you again, I’ll kill you a thousand times, you bastard, one for each time you raped my sister, you bastard, I’ll kill you, proving that he’d got everything mixed up in his sleep or in his conscience. In the morning, Aurora Mae would find him asleep sitting up at the kitchen table, and he’d wake smiling and remember none of it. She fretted over him some, but Bernard told her not to worry, it was alright, it was the way his mind needed to heal. They needed to give him time.
Aurora Mae was miserable. Country life irritated her nowadays. She couldn’t figure out whatever made her want to come back in the first place. Everywhere she looked, there was something she’d struggled to forget. It didn’t matter that the men plastered up the wall where Maxie’s brains had splattered or that they put down a new floor where her own blood had spilled. It didn’t matter that they put up headstones over the graves of her old yard dogs and bought her new ones, more docile creatures given to staying close by the house and barking up a storm if a stranger came by. The only thing that made her halfway happy was concocting her powders and potions in a room they added to the house with its own lighting and plumbing so she could work alone and undisturbed. All that did was give her solitude enough to come to a few conclusions and make a new plan. When she built up a stockpile of wares large enough, she called the men to her.
One More River Page 20
