That Night at the Palace

by Watson, L. D.

  “No, but it goes in the direction of the railroad tracks, so it has to put us out close to home,” Cliff argued as he headed up the road with Jewel behind.

  “Are you sure about this?” Jesse asked before following the other two.

  “No, but we don’t have anything better to do.”

  The three followed the lane to the railroad. It was obvious that before the tracks were built the road went straight through. When they climbed up on the tracks, the road on the other side that had once gone straight to New Birmingham now curved and followed along the tracks. Instead of leading to New Birmingham, the road now led to a little shantytown.

  Jesse was wide-eyed with amazement. He knew about shantytowns. Lowell Thomas talked about them on the radio all the time, and he had seen one in a movie. He knew the place existed, of course - hobos wandered into Elza almost every day - but he had never seen the town and had no idea that so many people were there.

  His mother called those people freeloaders and bums, but his father said that they were just normal folks who were down on their luck. Most had lost their jobs and then their homes because of the Depression and were trying to make their way to California.

  The town covered about an acre of land where the railroad tracks curved to the south next to a county road that led out to the highway near McMillan’s. There were around a hundred men and women and children, most living in tents and lean-tos. Some were living out of cars and wagons. All had the same downcast look upon their faces.

  Until that moment Jesse had never thought of his family as wealthy. He knew that they were one of the better-off families in Elza. Just living on Red Oak Avenue said it all. There were only a few two-story brick homes in town, and they were all on Red Oak. In fact, there were only two houses bigger than his. One belonged to the bank president and the other was Fitches Funeral Home.

  He also knew that they had it a lot better off than Cliff’s and Jewel’s families. Both of their fathers were farmers who had to take part-time work at the mill to make ends meet. Farming, his father had often told him, had made pretty good money before the depression. Crop prices dropped dramatically after the crash of ’29, and many of the farmers had to find jobs. Others lost their farms to the banks. Elza was lucky to have the pulp mill even though his mother complained constantly about the smell of burned wood and tar. According to Jesse’s father, the only reason the town survived was because there was one good business that continued to hire workers. Murdock Rose often liked to remark, to Garvis’s utter humiliation, that Jesse’s grandfather, the late Horace McCracken Hamilton, would still be in business had he the wisdom to convert his lumber mills to pulp rather than investing in whores and cheap whiskey.

  Jesse realized, as he Cliff and Jewel followed the tracks past the little village that the Rose family might not be rich, as his mother regularly informed him, but he had a home and a bed and a meal every night, which was considerably more than these people.

  Just ahead, where the railroad tracks turned to the south, Chief Thomas Jefferson Hightower slowly drove along the corrugated road toward the three in his old 1928 Model AA Flatbed truck. The chief had bought the truck second-hand from old Mr. Bradford over in Maydelle whose son used it to deliver groceries and feed for their family store. The Ford’s cab was powder blue and was so faded and oxidized by the sun that if you rubbed your hand on the door it would come up a dirty white. On the side door you could still see where the word “Bradford” was once painted.

  Jefferson had been fighting with the town council for years to get a police prowler. He argued, quite rightly, that a police chief shouldn’t have to go running down the street every time someone called for help. He also made the sound argument that it was embarrassing to the entire town that on those rare occasions that he made an arrest he had to buy bus tickets for him and his prisoner to go before the judge at the county seat in Rusk. The town council naturally understood, but argued that the town, quite frankly, could barely afford to pay his salary, let alone buy him a car to drive around in.

  It was finally agreed that if he bought his own vehicle, the town council would keep him supplied with gas and oil. It soon became a running joke down at the domino hall that if the town council knew beforehand how much oil that Ford leaked they would have bought him the prowler he wanted.

  “Hey, Jefferson!” Cliff shouted with a wave as the old Ford rambled toward them.

  The chief pulled the truck to a stop and the three kids walked up to the window.

  “What are you kids doing out here?”

  “We went up to the old ghost town,” Jesse answered.

  “New Birmingham?” the Chief asked smiling.

  “You know about it?” Jewel asked excitedly.

  “Sure. We used to hike up there all the time when I was your age.”

  “What are you doin’ here, Jefferson?” Cliff asked.

  “I like to come out and check on these folks now and then, that’s all.”

  Jesse looked around at the little town, “I bet you make a lot of arrests out here.”

  “Nope, not a one. Once in a while one of these fellows gets drunk and I take him in and let him sleep it off, but they never cause any trouble. I really just take them in so I can give them a good meal and a decent place to sleep. Most of these folks don’t get much to eat.”

  Jesse looked around somewhat ashamed at his remark.

  “You kids want a ride back to town?”

  “Sure, Chief,” Jesse replied for the three of them.

  “Hop on the back,” Jefferson told them unnecessarily as Cliff and the other two were already climbing onto the flatbed truck.

  #

  The Chief pulled over at McMillan’s and stopped. The kids hopped off the flatbed, and Cliff walked over to the cab.

  “Thanks for the lift, Jefferson.”

  “Anytime,” the chief replied as he pulled away and headed up toward Main Street.

  “Hey, Jefferson!” Cliff suddenly shouted as he ran up to the truck.

  The chief stopped and looked back at Cliff who, followed by the other two, came to the window.

  “Jefferson, if you could give those people down there some food, would you?”

  “Well, sure,” he answered, “do you have a stockpile of food that you want to take down there?”

  “No, I was just wondering,” Cliff said, and then he turned to walk off.

  Jefferson watched Cliff walk away. If it were any other kid, he’d be a little puzzled at the question, but Jefferson knew better than to try to figure out what was on Cliff’s mind. That kid, he had long since decided, would either end up rich or in jail. Cliff was one of those people who had no fear of taking a risk and less fear of the consequences. He smiled and waved at the kids and then pulled away.

  “Okay, what are you cookin’ up?” Jewel asked Cliff as she and Jesse caught up with him.

  “Nothin’.”

  Jesse and Jewel look at each other, neither buying it.

  “Nothin’, my butt,” Jewel replied.

  “Let me think on it a while, and I’ll let y’all in on it when I have a plan.”

  #

  COUNTY ROAD 36,

  ONE MILE SOUTH OF ELZA, TEXAS

  12:31 a.m. June 27, 1936

  Cliff and Jesse walked quietly along the long gravel road. It was after midnight, and neither boy wanted to get caught. Under his arm Cliff carried a rolled up tarp. Finally they came to a road crossing, where Cliff stopped.

  “Now will you tell me what we’re doing out here?” Jesse asked in a loud whisper.

  From across the road and hidden by the shadow of a large live oak tree, Jewel answered, “Stealing watermelons.”

  Jesse and Cliff both turned their heads in her direction in shock.

  “What are you doing here?” Cliff asked in even a louder whisper.

  “Same a
s you. Stealing watermelons,” she answered with both innocence and sarcasm as she walked over to the two boys.

  “How’d you know?” Cliff asked.

  Jewel rolled her eyes at Cliff.

  “The only person you fooled is him,” she said somewhat loudly, glancing at Jesse, “I’m surprised Chief Hightower isn’t out here.”

  “How’d you know we’d be here and not someplace else?

  “You won’t feel bad about stealing from Mr. McAlister. Everyone knows that he plows half his crop under.

  In the distance a dog started barking.

  “Be quiet,” Cliff demanded and then added, “Well, as long as you’re here, you may as well help. Here’s what we’ll do. Jesse and me will go into the field and bring you watermelons. You pile them up in the ditch next to the road. We’ll cover ‘em with the tarp and some dirt and come get them tomorrow.”

  Jewel saluted mockingly. “Yes, sir, Colonel.”

  Jesse laughed as a perturbed Cliff led the two of them through a barbed wire fence into a watermelon patch.

  The field belonged to an old man by the name of Jeremiah McAlister, whose farmhouse was about a quarter of a mile further up the road. Mr. McAlister had been a pig farmer for most of his life. In fact, his house was practically wallpapered with ribbons from his many grand champions at county fairs and one ribbon, of which he was particularly proud, from the Texas State Fair in Dallas. For years, most of his crops served only as food for the pigs, but a few years back he decided that he was too old for pigs and sold off his stock. He still farmed a few crops like turnips and corn and watermelons, the best of which he loaded each week into the back of his ’34 Ford pickup and hauled them up to Jacksonville to sell at War Memorial Park. The rest of his crops, the watermelons that were too small, for example, he simply let rot and then plowed under. This made for a good fertilizer, but, in Cliff’s opinion, was a terrible waste of good watermelons.

  Within minutes Jesse and Cliff were carrying large handfuls of smaller watermelons to the fence, where Jewel would take them and stack them neatly in the ditch. Within an hour the three had at least two hundred watermelons stacked orderly in the ditch. When they finished, they covered the watermelons with the tarp and then added some dirt and brush, so that if a car passed, which was pretty unlikely, no one would notice.

  As they stood admiring their labor Jesse asked, “Okay, wise guy, we got the watermelon, how do we get ‘em to the shantytown?”

  Cliff rolled his eyes, and Jewel began to laugh.

  “What?”

  “I swear, Jesse,” Cliff began, “you make the best grades in school, but if you had to match wits with a jack-ass you’d need crib-notes.”

  #

  It was a little after noon when Chief Thomas Jefferson Hightower’s faded powder blue Model-AA Flatbed rolled up the dirt road. Cliff sat in front with the Chief while Jesse and Jewel rode in back.

  “Pull over to the right where the roads intersect,” Cliff instructed.

  Jefferson didn’t know what the kids were up to, but knowing Clifford it probably wasn’t good. Obviously there couldn’t be too much mischief involved, or else they wouldn’t have invited the Police Chief. The chief had to admit that he was both a little flattered and entertained that the three kids chose to include him in one of their little escapades. Still, as he pulled the truck to the side of the road, Jefferson couldn’t help but fear that giving Cliff Tidwell and his two accomplices a ride could cost him his job.

  As Cliff climbed out of the truck, Jesse and Jewel were standing on the flatbed scanning the area for witnesses.

  “Anything?”

  “No, we’re clear,” Jesse replied as he climbed down.

  Jewel stayed in the back of the flatbed while the two boys pulled the tarp off the watermelons. The three had worked out their plan as they walked home. In order not to raise suspicion in case anyone found the watermelons, the boys followed their normal routine of working at McMillan’s. At around noon the three would have a soda across from Anna-Ruth’s (that was mostly for Jesse). Then they would head over to the domino hall where, if he held to his normal schedule, they would find the chief, and Cliff would talk him into giving them a ride in his truck. Once they were out of town, the rest would be easy.

  “And as soon as Mr. McAlister notices that his crop is missing a couple of hundred watermelons, everybody in town will come after the three of us,” Jesse said, putting an ending on Cliff’s plan.

  “Don’t you get it?” Cliff argued, “Jefferson is our alibi. No one is going to accuse us of stealing watermelons when everybody at the domino hall knows we were with the police chief.”

  Of course, Jesse and Jewel knew full well that, chief or no chief, if Mr. McAlister notices those watermelons missing, those two boys would get the blame.

  When Jefferson stepped out of his truck and saw the enormous pile of watermelons, he almost blew his top, “What have you three done?” he said, almost yelling.

  “Jeez, Jefferson, do you want the whole town to hear us?” Cliff scolded.

  “You three are going to get me fired. Jeremiah McAlister will be in my office screaming to have you kids arrested.”

  “All we’re going to do is haul them down to the shantytown. Besides, he can’t blame us. Everybody in town saw us leaving with you,” Cliff reasoned.

  “That’s the part that’ll get me fired.”

  “Oh, come on, Jefferson,” Cliff went on as he and Jesse began picking up watermelons and handing them up to Jewel, “You said yourself that you’d help those people if you could.”

  “I didn’t say that I’d commit larceny, which is exactly what this is.”

  Jesse and Jewel began to laugh a little, knowing that the chief had lost this battle to Cliff before it even began.

  It became obvious to Chief Hightower as he watched that the kids had no intention of stopping. Realizing that he was involved whether he wanted to be or not he said, “Well, if we’re going to do this let’s make it quick. Cliff you get in the ditch and hand them up one at a time to Jesse. Jesse, you hand them to me and I’ll hand them up to Jewel.”

  In moments the four had the truck loaded. The kids covered the watermelons with the tarp and tied it down. Then, all four hopped into the cab and the chief drove the truck right down Main Street and out to the highway and then up the old dirt road to the shantytown.

  #

  The people of shantytown stayed back at first as the three kids pulled the tarp off the watermelons. Usually when they encountered a police uniform it was to beat them and drag them off to jail or beat them and run them out of town. Either way, it involved a beating.

  The boys seemed unaware of the situation, though the cop clearly understood. It was Jewel who caught on and broke the ice. She spotted a pregnant woman with two kids and picked out one of the biggest melons and took it over to the woman, broke it open, and began handing chunks to the two kids. The little ones scarfed the melon down like it was the best meal they had ever eaten. As the children finished it up, the girl went back to the truck and grabbed another melon and took it to the lady.

  “Have it for supper,” she said as she handed her the melon.

  By this point a few of the other homeless men and women began walking over to the truck, and the two boys handed out melons. The police officer simply stood next to his truck and lit a cigar.

  Soon three lines formed, one in front of Cliff, one in front of Jesse, and a third in front of Jewel. Shakes Blankenship was in Jesse’s line.

  When he stepped up to the boy, Jesse handed him a melon and turned to grab another. As Shakes started to walk away, Jesse said, “Hold on, take another one. We have plenty,” and handed the former stockbroker a second melon.

  Shakes looked at the boy who only the day before he had contemplated killing and said, “Thank you,” and turned and walked away.

  Jesse watched t
he man walk off into the woods as he continued to hand out melons to the hungry people.

  #

  MCALISTER’S FARM

  7:00 a.m. June 28, 1936

  Jesse, Cliff, and Jewel were all three standing in one of Jeremiah McAlister’s fields, each with a burlap sack of seed hanging off their shoulders and a hoe in hand working their way down a two acre stretch. When Mr. McAlister saw that his field had been raided, he didn’t bother to go to the police station. Instead he went directly to Cliff’s father. Ned Tidwell didn’t bother listening to any of Cliff’s claims of innocence; he simply searched out his son’s two accomplices and took them all to Mr. McAlister and worked out a deal.

  McAlister, in reality, wasn’t all that angry but would have preferred the kids asked rather than just stealing from him. If he had known they were taking the melons to the poor people down at the shantytown he would have given them all they wanted. It was Cliff’s dad who insisted that the kids work off the price of the watermelons. Had McAlister shown up at Jesse’s house, Murdock would have simply handed the old pig farmer twenty dollars and sent him on his way. But Ned didn’t have twenty dollars, and more importantly, he wanted the kids to know just how hard old Jeremiah McAlister worked to plant those melons. So for the next week or so the kids would, as Ned Tidwell put it, “become re-acquainted with the fine art of planting watermelon seeds.”

  Cliff was angry. He had a well-planned and, quite frankly, foolproof alibi that would prove there was no possible way the three were involved in the disappearance of old man McAlister’s crops. Unfortunately his own father refused to even hear his defense.

  Jewel was, in all honestly, pleased that her involvement in the caper was assumed, making her feel like a real part of the gang and not just a sidekick. She would have preferred that if she had to get caught it could have been for a less strenuous infraction, though.

  Jesse had no doubts that the three would get caught from the very beginning. Being friends with Cliff Tidwell, he had long-since learned, was often adventurous, but those adventures almost always had a price tag.

  “Jewel,” Jesse began, “have you noticed that every time we get into trouble it’s because of something Cliff got us into?”